“My dear?” Cate held her breath as she looked at the man, and then to his crewmembers. Some were scared shitless, but many still looked defensive, disdainful, as if they were occupying an executive’s office during some sort of protest. She let the breath out and turned away, feeling for the first time in her life she could actually murder someone. Above her the lights flickered.

She looked up at them, feeling her stomach sink. “See that?” Cate looked from the light back to Olander. “That’s the engine room flooding. Soon well lose our lights. We’ve already lost our ability to pump water. Once the power goes, then even if we manage to defoul the propeller, we won’t be able to restart the engines.”

She placed a hand against one of the windows, keeping her eyes on the group. “Now take a look out there.” She waited. “See where the waterline is? It’s nearly at deck level. Not long after that, we’ll either be in it, or on it, in a few tiny dinghies.” She pointed her arm out to where Regina had gone down. “Regina, our friend, and the helicopter have gone into the ocean. That was the decoy leading the Megalodon shark away from us. So now, it’ll have no reason to keep heading away.”

“But if it ate the whale, then maybe it won’t be interested,” Milo said, his voice small.

Cate walked to the opposite window, and saw Jack holding a flashlight down into water that was far too close to him. She sighed. “It’s not about food anymore.” She turned back to the group. “This is no big doe-eyed whale. This is a Megalodon shark, like the Great White but about sixty-five feet long and a hundred times more aggressive. It’s territorial, meaning it will attack and kill anything in its domain.” She found and held Olander’s eyes. “And right now, thanks to you, that’s us.”

*   *   *

Vincent went down for what he hoped was the last time. He had to go deep this time – twenty-five feet, as the Slava props were now at the lowest point on the sinking ship. His single waterproof flashlight didn’t give him much illumination, but he was grateful for it for keeping the stygian dark back just a dozen feet.

The elasticized rope, was woven through with steel fibers – this allowed it to stretch, but gave it a tensile strength well beyond normal rope. It also stopped it being sliced by the propeller blades, and doubly so by a puny human’s attempts to hack at it.

He swam back to his work area and picked up the coil of rope he was working on. It had been wrapped tight around the shaft. If he could just cut through this section then the others should be unwound fairly easily.