Phantom Prospect - Alex Archer [47]
“Handy.”
“And quite unlike Garin, who had me create an entire fictitious account of my life just so I could hold up under scrutiny.”
Annja laughed. “Would have worked if you hadn’t moved the way you do.”
“Yeah.”
Annja let the sword drop. “There, now don’t you feel better having told me all of that? No sense bothering Garin at all. We’ll keep it just between us.”
“If you say so.”
Annja stood, sending the sword back to otherwhere. “I’m still not sure how you think I can take out that shark. The idea of me fighting it—”
“You don’t have to fight it, Annja. Just stab it with your sword or chop off its tail or something like that.”
“That shark is forty feet long at least. That’s big.”
“I know.”
“And that mouth. Did you see the mouth?”
“I wasn’t on deck when you were.”
“Miles of teeth. The thing’s an eating machine. I mean, I’ve seen sharks close up, but this thing is beyond unreal.”
Sheila nodded. “I’m not pretending that it’s going to be easy.”
“It will be for you. You’re not going to be in the water. I will. It’s my life on the line if something goes wrong.”
“Nothing’s going to go wrong, Annja. You just get in the water. When the shark approaches, you kill it. Very simple.”
“You think so, huh? In that case, I’ll lend you my sword and you can do the business yourself. How does that sound?”
“It won’t work,” Sheila said. “You know as well as I do that your sword won’t transfer to anyone else. Like it or not, you’ve got to do this thing because there’s really no one else who can.”
“Maybe Hunter’s got some guns on board. Maybe we can just shoot it and watch it sink to the bottom.”
“The most powerful thing on this boat is a 9 mm pistol. That’s not going to do squat against a forty-foot shark. Except maybe piss it off some,” Sheila said.
“That’s the last thing we need,” Annja replied.
“All we’ve got to do is lure it to the cage where you’ll be. Once it gets close, you can plunge your sword into its belly. Cut deep and fast and that should be a mortal wound. Once you do that, you can dispatch it at your leisure.”
“Like when my heart calms down.”
“Sure.”
Annja sat back on her bed. “The whole idea sounds insane. There’s got to be a better way, but damned if I can think of one.”
“The problem is the size of the shark,” Sheila said. “If it was smaller, we could try fishing for it. But with it being half the size of the boat, it will simply weigh far too much for us to try something like that. It has to be destroyed.”
“Cole’s going to love that,” Annja said sadly.
“I can appreciate his sentiments on this. I’m not one to encourage wanton slaughter of animals, but there’s no way around this. The shark is obviously interested in the boat since it’s made a repeat appearance, even in the wake of Jock’s death.”
“So it’s a rogue shark?”
“Could be.”
Annja frowned. She knew a rogue shark was one that didn’t behave like others of its kind. Its behavior was unpredictable and, because of that, trying to discourage it from staying around would most likely not work. Destroying the beast would be their only option.
“Okay,” Annja said slowly. “You kept your word and told me about Henderson. I appreciate that. You didn’t have to.”
“Well, you did have a sword up against my throat.”
Annja smiled. “I simply encouraged you to help me out with my distinct lack of information.”
“Convincingly, I might add,” Sheila said. “But Garin will kill me if he ever finds out, so you can’t tell him about this, okay?”
“Sure. No problem.” Annja leaned back and tried to relax. “When do you want to start?”
“It has to be soon. And it would be better if we can do it without anyone else knowing.”
“Yeah, sure, that will be easy. We’ll just wait until midnight so I can winch the cage into the ocean without anyone hearing me. Of course, it will be totally dark and I won’t be able to see a damned thing.” She glared at Sheila. “You’re nuts. Of course people are going to have to know.”
“The more people who know, the more difficult it will be to convince them that what we’re doing is the right approach.”
“Maybe we could just show them pictures