He fell back as the boat turned sharply. The Slava was only five hundred feet away – they could make that. He sat up, spinning one way then the next. It was going on full dark now, and there was only a half moon rising. The water was still glass-smooth, and there was nothing on the surface to break its glimmering sheen.

He waited, his stomach roiling. The moon made the water a sea of mercury, and he bit his lip as they cut through it. Maybe it had gone, eaten enough and dived deep. As if in answer to his question, the tip of a fin rose in the water, then more and more of it, until the nine-foot triangle of dark flesh resembled a small sail, cutting the water, keeping pace and not a thousand feet out from them.

“Faster.” His command was high and shrill, though he knew they were already travelling as fast as the dinghy could go.

“Where?” Was all he heard his pilot could yell to him.

Olander squinted, seeing the rope mesh strung at the sides of the boat. “To the nets.”

They could make it. He turned, snatching a peek, and saw the monster shark had closed the gap and was coming impossibly fast. Now a wake had formed more than a dozen feet in front of it, as the ten-foot wide spade-shaped head was rising in the water, perhaps getting ready to lunge as it had with the Flying Bird-1, and take them the same way.

Olander felt a small whine escape his throat and hunched. Even though they skimmed across the flat-water at around thirty knots, the shark seemed to be toying with them, closing with little difficulty. He stepped a little closer to the bow, preparing to leap for the net the moment they were close enough.

“Easy, eeeas-ssssy.” He wouldn’t look back at it, he couldn’t.

The dinghy came in hard and fast, and though the pilot tried to swerve it in sideways, he still managed to come in at an angle of about sixty degrees, making the small craft hit and bounce.

“Abandon ship.” Olander was already leaping, his fingers hooking like claws to the net. He struggled, a long life of good food created a sagging belly that made his climb difficult. Beside him bodies thumped and scrabbled, the more youthful and lithe going up the nets like Capuchin monkeys.

There was some splashing and yelling from behind and below, and it told him not everyone had made a successful leap. The dinghy, now free of people began to float away. Olander was ten feet up, and hearing his name yelled, chanced a look back.

Annabel was flailing in the water, and she spluttered and thrashed as she struggled to get her hands wrapped around the rope netting. Above, people yelled encouragement, and helped the others over the side.

“Hurry, hurry,” he yelled back at her.

“I caan’t…” Her voice was a long scream.