His other officer’s fingers were flying over buttons and he placed some headphones over his ears. He spoke after a few seconds. “No whale song . . . and not multiple signatures but a single mass, a big mass. Very, very big.” He typed some more commands into the computer. “Solid contact, but non-metallic. High-density materials present, but they aren’t metal or any ferrous materials, more biological.” His brow was furrowed.

“Three thousand feet, speed increasing. Now at fifty knots.” The first officer’s eyes widened as though trying to take in all the screens and images at once.

Olaf now came out of his chair. “Fifty knots, that’s bullshit. Nothing travels at that speed.” Olaf knew his naval armaments and even the most sophisticated U.S. aquatic missiles, such as the Mark-50 advanced lightweight torpedo, could only muster forty-seven knots.

Olaf’s thoughts were that there must be an error in the system and it was probably nothing more than a giant school of deep-water mackerel. However, he had been at sea long enough to know that there were many things that could never be explained away, things that only ever got whispered over a few drinks.

“Increase speed to full ahead. Sound general alarm and rig for impact.”

The collision alarm continued wailing as the crew braced themselves at their stations. Everyone held their breath . . . waited . . . nothing. Two of the forward cameras went black.

“We’re slowing.” It was true, the mighty ship that measured its stopping distance in nautical miles was easing down as though they had been caught in a gigantic fishing net. “Are we tangled?” Olaf asked. He turned to his first officer. “I’m going up on the foredeck to get a visual.”

Olaf jogged up to the foredeck. After the warmth of the bridge, the raw cold made his ears redden and cheeks sting, and a numbing rain was heavy enough to create a fog-like effect that made any visual difficult. An acrid, burning smell assaulted his nostrils. Through the rain sheets he thought he could see a figure by the rail.

“Hello?” he called.

The figure moved towards him. He could see her clearly now.

His last conscious thought was to wonder how a young woman holding her baby had come to be on his tanker.

Read on for an excerpt from
Greig Beck’s next book

Dark Rising

Coming soon from St. Martin’s Paperbacks

Red winds, the disfiguration of faces and people being swallowed into the ground. The moon is buried in darkness and the world is folded.

Signs of the Yawm al-Qiyamah,

the Day of Judgment,

Mohammed ibn Ismail al-Bukhari (810–870)

One

Beneath the ruins of Persepolis, modern Iran