James Tabor - The Deep Zone

Rathor had done a little upland hunting himself, so he knew that grouse had advantages in the field they did not enjoy here. Hunting without dogs once in Maine, he had walked within ten feet of a grouse and had not seen it, so perfectly did the bird blend with its surroundings. Then he took another step and the grouse flushed, bursting twenty feet straight up from cover, its wings drumming so loudly that he started and nearly fired his gun by accident. At the height of its rise the bird hurtled off into the darkness of the far woods and he did not have time even to raise his shotgun, let alone make a decent shot. It was very different here, but he said nothing about that to Adelheid. Rathor was curious about something, however. “What happens to the ones we miss?” he had asked.

“They fly until they cannot fly anymore. They fall into the ocean and die. Fish eat them.” He’d shrugged. “Better than polluting the sea with toxic ceramics, don’t you think?” he’d added, referring to clay pigeons.

Now Rathor stood holding a Purdey over-and-under that was the matching twin to Adelheid’s, who had said there must be no advantage to either gunner. The Purdey’s stock was Turkish walnut. Its gold side plates were the background for scenes of mounted knights carved from solid silver. Rathor was not a gun lover, but he knew the price of wealth’s trappings. Adelheid—or whoever owned this boat, which might or might not belong to Adelheid—would have paid $300,000 for this pair, maybe more.

The yacht was a 164-foot oceangoing Benetti, but the deck still moved beneath Rathor. He shouldered his gun, bent his knees, and braced his feet. Finger on the Purdey’s front trigger, he shouted, “Pull!”

The game cage went spang! and another grouse flew out, rising on a right-to-left trajectory. Rathor knew what he was supposed to do to hit the thing— don’t aim, just point and swing like you’re sweeping the sky . He tried to imitate Adelheid’s effortless technique, done so quickly that the leading and firing seemed to happen almost in the same instant.

Rathor pulled the gun’s brass trigger and its stock punched his shoulder. The grouse flew on, intact. Rathor found the rear trigger and discharged the gun’s lower barrel and missed with that one, too. Shooting like this was hard enough on steady dry land. Trying to hit a moving target from the rising and falling deck of a yacht—an impossible thing. Yet Adelheid had shot a dozen times and had hit each bird with the first barrel. Rathor had hit one bird and knew he had been lucky to do even that.

“Oh, my,” Adelheid said, though Rathor thought he detected more irritation at Rathor’s inept shooting than sympathy in the other’s voice. “Perhaps enough of this for now. Let us go forward.” An attendant materialized and took the shotguns. Another appeared with flutes of Dom Pérignon. Rathor followed Adelheid through the yacht’s interior to its foredeck, with white leather banquettes and mahogany tables. They had made a slow turn and were now heading for the mainland at a stately pace. They would not be back until after dark, but that suited Rathor quite well.

They stood at the bow, warm in sweaters and jackets, and drank the icy champagne without talking for a few moments. Then Adelheid said, “I am beginning to feel good about our venture. Cautiously so, but good.”

That surprised Rathor. In his experience, Adelheid was almost invariably gloomy. Rathor himself was not feeling so confident. “We’re a long way from the goal line, I’m afraid.”

Adelheid smiled thinly, shook his head. “The goal line. You Americans and your athletics. But, you see, I know something that you do not.”

“And what might that be?”

“Not long ago I heard from Gray. He believes that our team in Mexico has met with success.”

“He does? What happened?”

“I am not in possession of full details yet. Apparently the environment there is not secure for lengthy transmissions. But there was a prearranged signal that could be sent as a single data burst. Gray’s people received that signal.”

“I don’t know,” Rathor said. “I won’t be comfortable until we have that substance from the cave in our hands.”

“Gray’s people do not make mistakes,” Adelheid said, and Rathor detected another trace of irritation in his voice.

“I understand that. But all the same—”

Adelheid fixed Rathor in his stare. “With the other two problems accounted for, there is less cause for concern, would you not agree?”

Rathor wasn’t sure, but he did know that differing too often with Adelheid was unwise. “I suppose you’re right,” he said. “I can be overly pessimistic at times.” He tipped his flute and finished the champagne. In an instant a white-jacketed waiter appeared with a full glass. When Rathor turned halfway around to accept his new drink, he said, “Where did they come from?”

Seated on a banquette were two of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. They must have come out while he and Adelheid were facing forward, talking. Both looked to be in their mid-twenties. One had shining, shoulder-length red hair. The other was blond, her hair in a shorter blunt cut. Their faces were different in details but alike in the beauty those details combined to create. Adelheid turned around then.

“Magic,” he said.

“Magic indeed,” Rathor agreed. Both women wore silk blouses, one pale blue and the other lime green, and white linen walking shorts. They were barefoot, and Rathor noted that their perfect tans extended all the way to the tips of their toes. He was struck by how perfectly the tailored blouses revealed the contours of their breasts, neither hanging loose nor stretched lewdly tight. Rathor thought himself a connoisseur of women, and these two, he knew, were rare jewels. His heart quickened just looking at them. Taking his elbow, Adelheid guided him to the table, where the women sat drinking champagne and nibbling sashimi.

“Erika and Aimée, may I present our guest for the evening.”

“Hello,” Erika, the woman with red hair, said.

“Enchantée.” Aimée’s accent was heavily French.

The touch of their cool hands, one after the other, set off a buzzing in Rathor’s chest.

“Erika and Aimée will be joining us for dinner,” Adelheid said.

Nathan Rathor was not often at a loss for words, but just now he could not find the right ones. Finally he said, “You are a man of many surprises.”

“Indeed? It is good to be surprised, would you not agree? Otherwise life becomes”—he shrugged, appearing to search for just the right word—“unlivable.” He raised his glass in a toast. The women raised theirs, and so did Rathor. They settled deeper into the banquette’s cushions, sipping champagne, Adelheid doing most of the talking, the yacht rolling along with agreeable small swells that eased its landward passage.

Astern, the sun became a shimmering red globe sinking into the edge of the darkening ocean. The light began to go blue, and attendants placed candles in windproof crystal holders on the table. They were served oysters on beds of crushed ice with crescents of lemon. Rathor noted that Adelheid and the women ate noisily and with great relish.

Adelheid seemed to have no desire to talk more about their venture. Instead, he led them into discussions about medieval art, the planets, evolution. To Rathor’s surprise, Erika and Aimée held their own, and it must have shown on his face because Adelheid said, “Erika and Aimée are both graduates of excellent colleges.” He looked at Erika.

“Kiev University,” she said.

“Sorbonne,” Aimée said.

“Without intelligence, we do as the animals do,” Adelheid remarked. “For the greatest reward, we must bring intelligence to all in our lives. Including the taking of pleasure.”