Gabriel Hunt - Hunt at World's End

Gabriel didn’t know what to say. He’d never set out to be anyone’s role model, least of all Joyce Wingard’s. But that didn’t absolve him of responsibility if that’s what had happened. He remembered her comment to him back in Merpati’s place: “You don’t know how I used to dream about hearing those words come out of your mouth…The great Gabriel Hunt, impressed.”

And he remembered the touch of her lips.

“I’m not blaming you,” Daniel went on. “She’s an adult now. She makes her own decisions. But I thought it was important for you to know. And if you were to talk to her, I think she’d listen.”

Gabriel shifted uncomfortably. “What do you mean?”

“You might be able to talk her out of this life, Gabriel. When this is all over, convince her she’d be better off with a university job where the only attacks she’ll ever have to fend off will be to her funding, or her tenure application. Where she’ll be safe. She’s like a daughter to me, Gabriel. I couldn’t stand it if something happened to her.”

“I doubt she’d listen to me,” he said. “I don’t think she’s one for taking advice from anyone.”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d try,” Daniel said.

Gabriel stood on the wooden planks of the aft deck, leaning against the steel railing with the sun beating down on his shoulders. In the distance, the Turkish skyline retreated toward the horizon until it was little more than a dark band at the far end of a field of rippling turquoise. The waters were calm. The nearest boat, a massive cruise ship anchored some miles away, looked like a bathtub toy. He felt the engine cut out before he heard it, the vibrations below his feet slowing to a stop. He’d left Daniel to steer and keep an eye on the coordinates; the man wasn’t a seasoned sailor, but he knew more about all the machinery in the pilothouse than Gabriel did.

As the Ashina Tuwu bobbed gently in the waves of its own wake, Daniel emerged from the flybridge and climbed down the steps to the deck. “This is the spot,” he announced.

“You’re sure?’ Gabriel asked.

“Have you seen the computers up there? This boat could find Amelia Earhart if you plugged in enough numbers.”

Gabriel nodded and turned back to the water. According to Arnuwanda’s ancient map, the second of the Three Eyes of Teshub waited somewhere below the undulating blue waves. He only hoped Grissom hadn’t beaten them to it.

Below the flybridge, the door to the cabin opened. Joyce stepped down the shallow steps to the deck, her hair tied back in a tight ponytail. She’d changed into a black bikini while she’d been below, and the sunlight glistened off her bronzed skin. She held an oxygen tank in each hand and planted them before Gabriel on the deck.

“I take it we’re here?” she asked.

“The exact coordinates,” Daniel said. “Assuming the map was correct to begin with and nothing has changed in the centuries since it was drawn, the Eye should be right below us.” He ducked into the cabin and came back a moment later with the rest of the equipment.

Gabriel and Joyce put on their scuba masks, fins and gloves. They hooked dive lights and small knives to their weight belts. Gabriel unzipped the nylon backpack he’d brought with him, pulled out the Death’s Head Key and hung it around his neck in case they needed it to deal with whatever was waiting for them down there. As he zipped the backpack again, the Star of Arnuwanda caught the sunlight, glittering at him from inside. Joyce had insisted on bringing it with them when they left the hotel. After all they’d been through, she didn’t want to let it out of her sight. Gabriel felt the same way about his Colt, which rested at the bottom of the backpack. Old habits died hard.

Daniel checked the tanks and regulators to make sure they were working properly, then brought them over to where Gabriel and Joyce sat at the edge of the deck. There was no railing behind them, only a short drop to the water below.

“There are deep trenches in the seafloor all along this part of the Mediterranean,” Daniel said. “If the structure housing the second Eye hasn’t been found in all this time, it’s a safe bet it’s at the bottom of one of them. I don’t know how deep you’ll have to go, but if the pressure gets too much for you, if you get lightheaded or sick, come back to the boat right away. Please—” He caught Joyce’s eye. “Don’t put yourself in any more danger than necessary. Worse comes to worst, we can always come back tomorrow and try again.”

“We won’t get a second chance,” Joyce said. She slipped her arms through the straps of an oxygen tank and straightened it on her back. “If we don’t get the Eye, Grissom will. Tomorrow’s not an option.”

Gabriel strapped on his tank too. “Keep the boat here,” he told Daniel. “And turn on the dive lights on the bottom so we can find you again.”

“Already done,” Daniel said. He turned to Joyce as she fit the regulator into her mouth. “Be careful,” he said. Joyce gave him the thumbs-up, then tipped backward into the water with a loud splash.

Daniel shook his head. “You see what I’m dealing with? She’s completely reckless.”

“I’ll try to bring her back in one piece,” Gabriel said.

“Yes,” Daniel said, “do that, please.”

Gabriel slipped the regulator into his mouth. He took a couple of breaths to test the action, then dropped backward off the deck and followed Joyce into the sun-warmed water. Though the salinity levels were low in this part of the Mediterranean, his scars stung as the water washed over them. A moment later the stinging subsided, or at least he got used to it, and he kicked his way deeper. Above him, bright red lights ran along the bottom of the ship’s hull, a beacon to guide them back. He spotted Joyce ahead of him, her body tipped downward, coursing lower into the depths where the shimmering columns of sunlight that broke through the surface grew diffuse. He hurried to follow her, angling his body and kicking his fins. The Death’s Head Key swung on the strap around his neck and floated behind him as he swam. Roughly four hundred feet below, he could make out swaying masses of seaweed at the bottom, and a dark, jagged crack cutting across the sand and stone of the sea floor. A trench.

Schools of fish darted around him as he descended, gray bullet tuna and long, thin silver garpikes parting to either side in undulating sheets. Joyce was still ahead of him, kicking her fins hard, not waiting for him to catch up, not even looking back to see if he was still there. At that moment, it was hard to imagine her giving a damn about anything he or anyone else had to say about her career choices.

He had to admit, there was a dichotomy to her he found intriguing. Sometimes she was funny, tender, even affectionate, and other times she was stubborn, single-minded, even hostile. It was almost as if she became a different person when they were in the field, like she was trying to compete with him, desperate to prove her mettle. It fascinated and frustrated him at the same time. He didn’t want to see her risk her neck again and again taking foolish chances, but it was when she was like this, barreling full steam ahead into the unknown, that he felt more drawn to her than ever. It was foolish, he knew. And a little uncomfortable—his family and hers had been so close she felt almost like a relative. Yet the more he was around her, the more he realized there was something about her he couldn’t shake. And didn’t want to.

Joyce continued toward the trench in the seafloor, her slender form gliding gracefully through the water. Gabriel followed, closing the distance between them. The water grew colder the farther they got from the surface and the reach of the sun. Ahead, Joyce passed into the shadows of the trench, disappearing from view. A moment later, her dive light went on, a bright shaft that cut through the darkness and illuminated her body in silhouette. Gabriel approached the mouth of the trench, pulling his own dive light from his weight belt and switching it on. A fat spotted eel dove into the sand to hide as he passed, descending into the trench, the darkness and cold closing in around him.