Mironov put a fatherly hand on his shoulder. “Alexi is not very good with English, but he came with the ship… at great expense.”

He said something in rapid Russian, and the young man nodded. “I not cheap.”

Mironov grinned. “And let’s hope we get our money’s worth. He tells me he can hit a bullseye every time.”

“Good,” Jack said, his eyes on Alexi. “Because I’m not sure we’ll get that many shots. This is no whale that needs to come to the surface. If we fire and miss, it’s liable to dive deep and stay deep, and then stay down for days. And once that tracker is out, it’ll be damned near impossible to find again… unless it wants to find us.”

Mironov translated, and Alexi nodded his understanding.

“If it comes to the surface, it will be dead,” Alexi said, his chin out. “Speak slow please.”

“Have you ever shot a shark before?” Cate asked. “And for that matter, we think this thing is around sixty or more feet long, and can move at about thirty knots. Oh yeah, you’ll need to make it a head-shot, as there is no blubber, just a skin like rough armor plating, and under that, several feet of solid muscle.”

Alexi shrugged. “I don’t care how big. If it comes to surface, I have enough explosive harpoons to turn it to cat food.”

Cate’s lips compressed into a flat smile. “Well, that’s the trick isn’t it; getting it to come to the surface.” She turned away, to lean on the sill and look out over the iron-gray swells parting before the Slava’s bow. There was a small part of her that hoped the Megalodon didn’t rise up, and vanished to the dark depths never to be seen again. She still had nightmares of the monster shark emerging like a black mountain behind Greg. She imagined the monstrous jaws closing over him. God, she hoped it was quick. She lifted her arm, and grimaced at the streak of black grease she’d picked up from the sill. Fuck it; she ignored it.

Sonya strode in to the center of the group. “Confidence is a good thing. And now we can add competence.” She looked at each of them. “We have the best skills and equipment available. This ship is old, but it has everything we need to do the job.”

Regina nodded, and her eyes found Vincent again. “And it’s built like a freakin’ tank. Do whales ram them or something?”