He checked to see that his loot bag, in which he'd stow the transmitter, was clipped to his weight belt. He reached for the panel and twisted the submarine's rheostat—which acted as his throttle—a quarter turn counterclockwise. The whine of his propeller dropped an octave.

He pulled the mask from his face and let it fill, to clear it of fog. He replaced it, full of water, on his eyes and exhaled into it through his nose, expelling the water through the side of the mask. With his faceplate window washed and wiped, the wreck seemed closer.

He had glided almost to a landing when he noticed that the conch were moving, heading for the torpedo hole. Perhaps they'd heard him and were taking cover. From him, or something else?

He was suddenly uncomfortable. Three feet above the sand, he hovered. He looked to port and starboard but saw nothing. He was reluctant to ground the sub, hesitant, for the first time, to leave the hated cockpit.

Abruptly the sound of the motor stopped and the Whine Bottle jerked aloft like an airplane in an air current. His stomach dropped away. His head banged backward, bouncing off the padded headrest.

He half rose from his seat, twisting backward. An enormous black pupil, as flat as a pan, stared at him from six feet away. A huge, curved tooth was spiraling toward the bottom, and the shark's own blood was swirling in the water.

The shark had attacked from the starboard quarter. It had crunched the tiny submarine's stern, propeller and all, in its enormous jaws.

The submarine was hurtling toward the freighter. It crashed against the hull again and again and again. He heard the rending of metal, a hideous screech of teeth grinding the sub's fiberglass hull and aluminum ribs.

She listed violently, first to starboard, then to port. Her bow swept upward, almost tossing him from his seat. In an instant he was hurled down again, crashing against the panel. His face mask filled with water, his regulator smashed his lips, and his tank valve slammed him in the back of his neck.

This, then, was it. Good-bye, Carla, Thea, Mom...

All at once he found himself pitched free of the cockpit and spiraling toward the sand. In an instant he was squirming toward the wreck, face mask still filled, vision blurred, regulator full of water, which he had no time to clear.

He heard the submarine settle to the sand. The monster had abandoned it—for him.

Fighting the current, he swam with all his might toward the blurred green-brown outline of the wreck.

He groped along the hull plates. He felt jagged metal with his gloved hands and jerked himself closer. It was the torpedo hole, half uncovered in the current. He squirmed halfway through and stuck, his double-tank bank jamming against the half-inch, war-torn steel.