He looked up at the stars, seeing a particularly bright one, and wishing it was the searchlight of the Coast Guard. A held-breath type of calm settled over them as they drifted. Then a brassy, clanging alarm shattered the silence.

“What the fuck is that?” Vincent sat bolt upright. Everyone scrambled, looking firstly at each other, and then searching for the din. Cate snatched up the clothing bundle Olander had given them, quickly unwrapping it. The still ringing alarm clock fell to the bottom of the raft.

Jack snatched it up, and tossed it as far from the raft as he could manage. It hit the water, but he was sure he could still hear the damned thing ringing as it sank.

“That sonofabitch.” Cate’s eyes were wild, with fury. “He set it to go off, and then gave it to us.”

The shark exploded up from underneath them, throwing the raft in the air and scattering bodies in every direction. They hit the water, dozens of feet apart, and when they surfaced, not all of Sonya’s men came back up.

“Stay still,” Jack yelled. He didn’t know now if this would work, as the Megalodon would see them clearly in the low-light water, much better than they could see it. But one thing he was sure of; if they began to thrash or even swim, they’d be dead.

Off in the darkness there was a Russian voice, yelling, and Sonya hissed something back at the man. He ignored her, continuing to curse and yell, until they heard the sound of surging water, like a wave breaking, and then the screaming was gone.

In the distance Jack could make out the bow of the Slava, now angling at about forty degrees. The intermittent, soft red glow of a cigarette told him Alexi was still at his post. Further out on the glass-like surface, he could see another floating shape that might have been the other raft.

Valery Mironov was off somewhere in the darkness, and Vincent bobbed up beside him. Sonya and Cate had linked up. Even though this created a bigger mass that might be sensed by the shark, he knew the need for human contact now was always going to override logic.

Jack’s mind raced – sooner or later the Megalodon would find them. They needed more options. He tried to think, but fear shut down any good ideas that tried to enter his chaotic mind. There would be few options anyway – after all, what else was there?

He looked up at the sky, and then to the luminous dots on his wristwatch. He knew it all came down to one thing, one magic ingredient they all desperately needed now – time.

Jack could just make out the bobbing head of Cate. He had promised her everything would be all right. Fuck it. There was only one thing he could think to do.

“I got a plan,” he whispered to Vincent.