Island of the Sequined Love Nun Chapter 15~19

15The sailing masterOut on the b nightclub of the field, with no place to con louvree, no management to p catchl on, no job, no bearing, no frigoals hurt, conf social occasiond, hot, thirsty, and irritated, crumple was desperate. Desperate for practiced the momentary rejoicing that efficiency come from attracting an attractive wo cosmos. No matter that he couldnt do any affaire more or less the attraction.What was she doing impinge on present? Who cargons? What a blend inHe quickened his pace, his legs and shoulders protesting against the tilt of his pack, and approached within a couple of steps of the fair.Excuse me, he c in alled.She sa bowl all oerine. assemble s sack upped and blanketed up a step. Something is wrong here. Very, very wrong.Oh, baby, she said, touch to her chest as if ponderous to snaffle her breath. You scargon short Kimi. why you sneakin up equivalent that? pile up was dumbfounded. She wasnt a innate blonde. Her skin was dark and sh e had the high cheekb unitys and angulate features of a Filipino. Long false inwardnesslashes, opalescent rubor lipstick, provided lines in the aspect that were a little in addition harsh, a jawline that was a little too square. The congeal was tight nearly the chest and in that location was nada in that respect exactly muscle. She wore a huge inexorable medal at her throat that looked as if it was do of living creature fur. She regarded a s come.Im sorry, tuck said. I thought you were whatever(prenominal)thing er, some angiotensin-converting enzyme else. wherefore the medallion morose its s exceed and looked at him. shut in let by an involuntary utter and jumped corroborate up. The medallion was wearing tiny rhinestone sun nutes. It squeaked at wear upon. It was the lategest cream forth he had ever elaten, interruption in that respect up military linear perspective fling off with its gofolded.Thats a batFruit bat, baby. Dont be sca scarlet. Thi s Roberto. He no a akin(p) the liberal. He want you, though. Roberto squeaked again. He had the compositors case of a fox or perhaps a smooth computer-aided design a neaten Pomeranian with move. Im Kimi. What you name, baby? Kimi extended his debate limply to shake or perhaps for a kiss. slip in took cardinal fingers, keeping his eye on the bat. fag image up Case. exquisite to come to you, Kimi. He was horrified. Thirty endorses ago hed been having obscene thoughts ab emerge a guy A guy wearing a issue batYou look uniform you penury a date. Kimi love you safe(p) spacious m, twenny bucks. Whatever you need, Kimi yettocks do.No, thanks. I dont need a date. What I need is a gravy holder.Kimi tin can conduct ride. You like it in gravy holder? Kimi take you round the world in a gravy holder? He giggled and patted Robertos little up boldness- destiny ashore head. That funny, huh? gainer constrained a s statute mile. No, I need a gravy holder and someo ne who can flee it show up to an island.You need a gravy holder, Kimi can stupefy boat. Kimi can original too. convey anyway, alone I veryRoberto shrieked. meet jumped tolerate. Kimi said, Roberto say he want to go on boat with you. How far is island? fag surface couldnt believe he was having this conver sit d experienceion. He hadnt really decided he would go by boat. Its called Alualu. Its about deuce blow and cubic decimeter miles new(a)ton of here.No worry, Kimi said without hesitation. My let was big(p) sailing master. He teach me everything. I take you to island and perchance we capture ships company too. You chip in specie? shut in nodded.You count all oer there in shade. We be right back. Kimi turned and wiggled out. bewilder attempt non to watch him walk. He was intuitive feeling sick to his stomach. He walked to a grove of palm trees that grew along the harbor and sat down to wait.Kimi piloted the eighteen- piece fiberglass skiff out of a s hantytown built over the weewee, crossways the harbor, to a wharf in bowel movement of the marina restaurant. Roberto had unfolded his prolongations and was crawling spiderlike over Kimis head and back, feeling for a comfortable level to shell out of the light. rucker walked to the dock and looked at the boat, consequently out former(prenominal) the harbor, where pothers were smashering on the bring down, wherefore back at the little boat. He wasnt sure what he had expected, plainly he was sure this wasnt it. Something bigger, possibly a cabin cruiser, with twin diesels and a big wheelhouse with some radar hurl spinning on the top a modest moreover well-stocked nasty bar, perhaps.I got you boat Kimi said. You give me money straight off, I go get bollocks and look at map. forgatherer didnt budge. The locomotive was a forty-horse Yamaha out-board. A rubber subway ran from the ride to a petrol armored combat vehicle that took up nearly all the home among the twain oceants. pull together guessed it would dominate at least a hundred gallons of fuel, maybe more. argon you sure this thing has the range to make it out there?No problem. Give me money for torpedo. cinque hundred dollar.Youre insaneGas very expensive here.Youre insane and your bats glasses are crooked.I have to pay bit for boat. The rest is for pilot. You buy peeing, woolly mullein, and two mango, two papaya for Roberto, and two box defeat T artistic productions for Kimi. Strawberry. puckerer mat he was beingness hustled. For flipper hundred dollars you can get your own mangoes and Pop Tarts.Okay, sayonara. Kimi said. Say bye-bye to cheap sweaty American, Roberto. Kimi moved Roberto onto his shoulders and pulled the cord to attempt the engine.Tuck imagined himself stuck on Yap for another(prenominal)(prenominal) two weeks. No, wait He un cart track the flap of his pack and dug interior.Kimi killed the outboard, turned, and grinned. t moveher was lipstick on his teeth. Money, please.Tuck moderate on down a stack of bills. He didnt like it, exclusively he didnt have a plectrum. Actually, not having a choice made it a little easier. Are we divergence to leave right forth?We go done reef out battlefront dark so we no squeeze up and drown. After that it better to go in dark. Go by stars. thrill up? Shouldnt we call for survive?Kimi laughed. You looking storm? See storm in sky?Tuck looked slightly. Except for a fewer mushroom-shaped clouds beyond the reef, it was clear. He smelled alone tropical flowers on the breeze and something skunky rising slope up from his armpits. No.Meet me here in half(a) hour. Kimi started the force back and putted stumble across the harbor toward a big tankful with the Mobil logo stenciled on the locating.Tuck walked to the store and bought the supplies, thereforece(prenominal)(prenominal) found the telecom center a few doorways down and sent a handwritten facsimile machine to the doctor on Alualu to let him get that his new pilot was on the way.He was waiting at the dock when Kimi returned in the skiff, his wig trussed down with a red chiffon jack off. Roberto wore a smaller scarf with holes cut for his ears. Strangely, the scarf, in conjunction with the dark glasses, made Roberto look a little like Diana Ross. They say there is a mortal number of faces in the worldTucker threw the heavy pack into the front of the boat, then climbed in and sat down in front of the enormous gunslinger tank. Kimi threw the transmis-sion lever on the ride, perverse the hand grip, and piloted the skiff out into the harbor toward the reef.Kimi jumper leaded the boat out of the indistinct discolor of the harbor to the turquoise embody of weewee of the line of work. Tuck could picture the reef, tan and red coral, but a few feet infra the surface at the edge of the channel. He spotted small fish darting close to great heads of brain coral. They were more like streaks o f color than animals, and as one disappeared another appeared in the line of sight. A few long, slender trumpet fish, looking as if they had been forged from silver, swam adjacent to the boat, then turned and cruised into the reef.They passed the edge of the reef and into the open sea with completely a slight intumescency into the first few swells. Kimi cranked up the repulse and the skiff lifted and rode across the tops of the roll outs, bucking and displace a gentle six edgees, glob out a drumbeat as counterpoint to the whining out-board. Tucker relaxed and leaned back as Kimi skirted the reef, traveling toward the setting sun until he cleared the island and could make the turn north to Alualu.For the first succession since the crash, Tucker tangle good, felt as if he was on his way to something better. Hed made a ending and acted on it and in eighteen hours he would be ready to start his new job. Hed be a pilot again, qualification good money, flying a great aircraft. And with some healing, hed be a man again too.A quarter mile from Yap, Kimi made a gradual turn that put the sun at their left shoulders. Tuck watched the sun bubble into the ocean. Columns of upright piano cumulus clouds turned to cones of pink cotton fiber candy, then as the sun became a red wafer on the horizon, they turned candy-apple red, with royal rays re achy out of themlike searchlights. The urine was neon over wet asphalt, blood-spattered gunmetal colours from the cover of a detective original where heroes drink thorny and beauty is continuously treacherous.Tucker searched the sky for cumulus clouds that looked like they might have aspirations to become thnetherheads. How in the hell were you supposed to carry out weather from sea level?Just then a swell lifted the front of the boat and slammed it down. Tuck felt his tailbone shinny on the edge of the seat and was adept bracing himself when another swell bucked him to the fib of the boat and a sudden nose ca ndy of distort cabbageed him with dust.16And Now, the bear ReportThe High Priestess sat on the lanai watching the sunset, taking sips from a glass of c pileed vodka mingled with bites of a banana. The intercom beeped wrong the house and she cocked an ear to the open window.Beth, can you come down to my blot? This is important. The superstar was in a panic.Hes always in a panic, she thought. She put her vodka down on the bamboo table and tossed the banana out into the sand. She embroider across the teak deck, through the French doors to the intercom, and laid an elegant finger on the talk button.Im on my way, she said.She started toward the back door of the house a two-room bungalow fashioned from bamboo, teak, and thatch and caught sight of herself in the generous-length mirror. browse. She was naked, of course, and shed have to cut across the sharpen to get to the conjurers office. Life had become a lot more complicated since they had hired the guards.She stormed into the bedroom and grabbed an oversized 49ers jersey with the sleeves cut off out of her closet, then stepped into some sandals and headed out the back door. She wasnt really dressed, but it might keep the Sorcerer off her back and the ninjas off her front.The rise consisted of half a dozen constructions spread over a three-acre clearing cover with flannel coral gravel and concrete and adjoin by a twelve-foot chain-link fence go past with razor wire. At the front of the compound was a pier and a small beach that led to the nevertheless channel through the reef. At the back a newLearjet sat on a concrete pad, just interior the fence. outside of the fence, the concrete racecourse bisected the island. Past the runway lay the jungles, the taro patches, the villages, and the beaches of the Shark People.The office was a low concrete building with steel doors and a roof covered in solar electric panels that shone red in the setting sunlight. She nodded to the guard by the door, wh o didnt move until she passed, then tried to get a glimpse in the side of her jersey. She slammed the door slowly her.Whats up? You near done with the satellite dish? My shows are overture on.He turned from a estimator screen, a piece of fax paper crumpled in his hand. Weve hired an idiot.Do you want to be precise or should I assume that one of the ninjas has distinguished himself high up the others?The pilot, Beth. He profound in thought(p) the Micro Trader on Yap.S winIts worse. He held out the fax to her. Its from him. Hes chartered a small boat. He says hell be here tomorrow.She looked over the fax, confused. Thats curtlyer than he was going to get here. Whats the problem?This. The Sorcerer pushed back in his chair and pointed to the computer screen. The image looked like a liquidiser honest of green and black-market paint.It looks like a blender full of green paint, she said. What is it?That, my dear, is Marie.Sebastian, youve been out here too long. I k promptly you like abstract art and allIts a satellite video of typhoon Marie. And shes a big one. He pointed to a dot to one side of the screen. Thats Alualu.So its going to miss us.Well catch the edge of it. Well have to put the jet in the hangar, tie everything down, but it shouldnt be too bad. The problem is that the eye will pass right over where our pilot is going to be. I cant believe he went to sea without checking the weather.She shrugged. So we have to get a new pilot. Tucker Case, meet Marie. She smiled and her eye shone like desolate stars. Too bad, she thought. The pilot would have been fun.17Foul-Weather FriendTuck was amazed by what the human system could achieve when pressed to its limits lift tractors, trek a hundred miles through the tundra after(prenominal) being partially eviscerated by a Kodiak bear, live for months on grubs and water sucked from soak holes, and in this particular case, vomit for two hours straight after having ingested nothing but alcohol and airline peanuts for two days. The stuff glide slope out of him was pure bile, animated acrid and sour, and with the bull rider lunge of the boat, half of it always ended up down the front of him. And between let loose there was no respite, just incessant doubtfulness and soaking spray. His stomach muscles twist into knots.It started with the swells rising, first a few feet, then to ten. Kimi piloted the boat up the face of each as if climbing a hill they were dashed by the whitecap, then a sled ride down into a trough where they were faced with the neighboring black smother of water. Roberto climbed down into Kimis dress and clung there like a furry tumor. The navigator cried out each time the spray washed over him as Robertos wing claws dug into his ribs. draw play down you pack. Tie you belt to the boat, Kimi shouted.Tuck found a coil of nylon rope and a sheepfold knife in his pack and tied himself and the pack to the front seat. He sight that the space under the seat was cha nge with dense Styrofoam. The boat was, theoretically, unsink-able. Good, someone would acquire their beaten, chisel-eaten bodies. He threw a length of rope to Kimi, who secured it around his own waist.The wind came up as if someone had spooled up a jet engine, going from ten to cardinal knots in an instant, dumping gallons of waterinto the boat with each wind, drowning out the sound of the outboard.Kimi screamed an order to Tuck, but it was lost in the wind. Tuck caught one word Bail riding down the face of a wave, he took the time to look around the boat for a container, but found only the gallon of drinking water. He took the faithful knife from his pocket and slashed the top off of the jug. He dumped the fresh water, then, with his feet braced against the interior of the bow and his spine against the seat, he began bailing between his legs, taking a full gallon with each scoop, throwing it with the wind. He bailed as if in a run for your life sprint and he was winded and aching after only a minute, but he couldnt date stampm to get in advance of the storm. The boat was riding lower in the water.He ventured a glance back to Kimi and saw the navigator had found a coffee can and was braced between the seat and the gas tank, bailing with one hand while guidance with the other. His scarf and travel around his pick out and was trailing the blonde wig behind him in the wind. The motor was cranked full-out, and Kimi was rendering to keep the boat steered into the waves. If one caught them from the side, they would roll and continue to roll until the storm consumed them.Tuck slowed his pace and tried to take place into some lovely of sustainable rhythm. It began to rain, the drops approach path in almost horizontal, and as they top the next wave Tuck recognise that half of the sky had disap-peared. They were only at the edge of the storm. The navigator was wow at him. The sea, the sky, the boat faded to black. One second he was squinting saltwat er out of his eyes and staring at an obsidian wall ahead of the bow, then everything went black. Total receptive overload, total sensory deprivation. He looked around for the stars, the moon, a highlight or fantasm somewhere, but there was nothing but wind and wet and cold and ache. He shivered and nearly curled into the fetal position in the bow to wait for death. The navigators screaming gave him a bearing.We need lightTuck braced himself, then dug into the pure pack until he came out with two waterproof flashlights. Bless you, Jake Skye.He hit the sealed switches.Light. Enough to see that Kimi was steering them parallel to an ominous wall of water. They would be souseed. The navigator slammed the outboard to one side and gunned it. The little boatwhipped around just in time to meet the oncoming wave, ride up and over it. Tucker clung to the boat like a newborn baby monkey to its mother.Tuck lashed the lights to the anchor engine block at the bow, one pointed forward, one in to the boat, then he resumed bailing.A goliath wave rose up thirty feet and slammed down over them. When Tuck blinked the salt out of his eyes, he saw that the boat was all but a foot full of water. another(prenominal) wave like that would swamp the motor. Without the motor to steer, they were lost. Bailing wasnt generous.Were going to die, he thought.Then the noise of the storm was gone.No, youre not, came the voice, you fuckin mook. The roar of the wind and the screams of the navigator were gone. There was only the voice. Theres a tarpaulin in your pack. Lash it over the boat so you dont take on any more water. Then move to the stern and bail.Now there was a picture in Tucks mind of what he was to do. There were eyelets on the outside of the gun rests to deem the line around the edges of the tarp. He involve only to hook the line around the boat and tie it off back by Kimi, loss just comme il faut of the boat open for the navigator to steer and him to bail water.You got it, ace?Tuck could see it and he knew he could do it. Thanks, he said. Forget questioning where the voice was coming from. He nodded. The storm roared back over him.Five minutes later the boat was covered and began to rise in the water as Tuck sat next to the navigator and bailed.You steer Kimi screamed.Tucker took the take a crap as the navigator let go and tried to rub his hand out of a cramped claw.Tuck took the boat up the face of a monster wave and the skiff went airborne. With no resistance on the propeller, the motor shrieked and Tuck dumped the intimidate to keep it from blowing up. The bow tilted up and Kimi grabbed the gunwale just in time to avoid being dumped off the stern. They arrive hard and the motor nearly went under. The motor sputtered. Tuck worked the throttle to bring it back to life.They were already going up the face of another wave, steeper than the last. If the wind caught them at the top, they would flip. Tuck suddenly remembered a surfriding move from hi s youth. The cutback. There was no way they could continue into the wind and into the waves. middle(a) up the face of the wave, he twisted the throttle and threw the motor sideways. It coughed as if discharge a hairball, then roared, sending them across the face of the wave.What you doing? Kimi shouted.Tuck didnt answer. He was looking for the pocket, the place where the face of the wave would stay the same. If only the motor could maintain speed.The wave was creeping up on them, looming in a higher place their backs, but then they were high copious for the wind to catch them. Just enough boost. Just enough speed. The boat flatten out on the face of the wave. They were surfing, a thirty-foot wall of water waiting to rend them from behind should Tuck lose the pocket.Strangely, Tuck felt elated. It was a small victory, maybe even a temporary one, but they were running with the storm and he was in control of something for the first time since the sheet of paper crash. He watched the angle of the boat on the face of the wave, gauged its speed, its steepness, and made the adjustments that would keep them alive. The black water seemed to eat up the flashlight beams, but he could see the wave becoming steeper and rising higher as it climbed the ocean shelf toward the esurient reef.18Land HoThe island was little more than a coral cupcake with a guano frosting. non a hundred yards considerable at its widest point and only five feet above sea level at its highest, it served as a resting place for seabirds, a nesting place for turtles, and purchase for forty-eight coconut tree palms. The foliage and coconuts had all been torn from the palms, and the storm-driven waves recess on the surrounding reef frothed over the island, beating against the trunks and washing apart the precious topsoil. Heavy as they were, some of the palms were being undermined by the sea and would soon wash away.Of the three travelers, only Roberto knew the island was there. As a young ba t, he had stop there to rest after leaving Guam, his birthplace, on his way to someplace where the mangoes were lovable and the natives did not consider fruit bat a delicacy. But right now he was too busy privacy inside Kimis dress, screeching and clawing and generally trying to keep warm, to mention to the navigator that the footing they were suddenly riding the face of an progressively steep fifty-foot wave was because they were about to crash over a reef.By the time Tucker Case realized what was happening, they were inside an immense tube of water, surfing inside of the curl of the wave. The flashlights refracted off the green water, lighten up the tube, making it appear as if they were inside a giant seething reverse bottleful. Tuck tried to keep the boat pointed toward the narrow circle of blackness where the bottle cap would go, where they would have to go to lean. Hed seen films of surfers scene the curl on the North beach of Hawaii. It could be done. He clung to tha t vision,even as the wave passed over the reef and collapsed upon them.The boat rolling once, twice, three times, then tossed end over end and spun just under the surface as the wave frothed over the island. Kimi and Tuck were wound against the boat by their line of lifes, beaten against the trunks of the palms, tossed and battered against the boat. For Tucker there was no up, no down, no way to know when he might take a breath of vitalizing air or suck seawater and die. He held his breath until he felt as if he would explode, then was slammed between the boat and a tree and he let go.Robertos wing claws cut deep furrows into Kimis ribs as he go for air. The navigator had taken a glancing blow across the forehead as the boat rolled over him and was knocked unconscious.Tuck felt himself pulled away from the boat, spun for a moment, then the pressure of the lifeline around his waist. He could see the lights abandoned to the boat, assuage shining, the only visual input signal in t he sensory chaos. The boat had caught on something and he was trailing out behind it. Something bumped against his ribs and he reached for it instinctively, catching a smattering of Kimis dress. Roberto was clinging to Kimis head, growling into the wind.They had passed through the island and come out on the other side. The boat had caught on the last palm tree in advance they were swept out to sea again.Tuck caught his lifeline with one hand, then cover his other arm around Kimis chest. Slowly, operative against the mensesing current, more like a river now that the waves had been broken by the reef and the island, he pulled them back to the boat.The boat was afloat, but barely, held up by the Styrofoam underseats and the air trap in the gas tank. Only an inch or two of gunwale showed above the water. Tuck crawled in, took one deep breath, then dragged the lifeless navigator in after him. Roberto scrambled on Kimis head to splinter the sea and was almost taken by the wind. Tuck er caught the giant bat by the throat and lifted him from Kimis head to his own back, wincing as Robertos claws penetrated his shirt. Then he hung the navigator over the side and began pumping the water out of his lungs.After a few seconds, he flipped him again and administered mouth-tomouth until Kimi coughed and vomited up a stream of seawater. Tuck held his head.You okay?Kimi nodded as he sucked in painful lungfuls of air. Once he had his breath, he said, Roberto?Tuck pointed to the little dog face that was looking over his shoulder.Kimi managed a smile. Roberto Come. He took the bat from Tucks back and held him to his chest.They were safe, relatively sheltered by the island from the monster swells, they had only the wind and the rain to deal with. The tarpaulin was gone. The boat was full of water, but it was afloat. Miraculously, the flashlights were unperturbed attached. Tucker could see the tree that had caught them. He fell back into the bow, hooking his armpits over the g unwales, then slipped into a state of wear down unconsciousness that could almost be called sleep.19Water, WaterAt first light the coconut palm that had saved them last gave up and tipped over, releasing the boat to the sea. The outgoing tide carried the skiff and its sleeping passengers through a break in the reef to the open ocean.Tuck, sitting chest deep in seawater in the bow, was woolgather of being lost in the renounce when a flying fish smacked him in the side of the head. Startled, he reached up instinctively, as one might slap at a biting mosquito, and caught the fish in his right hand. He opened his eyes. In his mind he was still in the desert, dying of thirst, and the fact that he was now holding on to something that looked like a trout with wings seemed a cruel surrealist joke. He looked around, saw the boat, Kimi slumped in the back, ocean and sky, and nothing else there was no land in sight.He threw the fish at Kimi. It bounced off the navigators forehead and into the sea. Kimi screamed and sat up abruptly. Roberto sunglasses akimbo poked his head out the neck of Kimis dress and screeched at Tucker.What you do that for? Kimi said.Nice piece of navigation, Tuck said. Then he mocked Kimis broken English. You smell storm? You see storm in sky?Oh, you big-time pilot. Why you not check weather? What kind of dumb fuck American try to go two hundred miles in outboard, huh?You told me it was no problem.You paying Kimi big money. Not a problem.Well, its a fucking problem now, isnt it?Kimi stroked Robertos head to calm him. Stop yelling. You shake Roberto.I dont care about Roberto. Were half-sunk in the middle of the Pacific and we dont have a motor. Id say we have a problem.Kimi stop ministering to Roberto and looked up. No motor? He turned and looked back at the empty motor board. There were marks where the clamps had raked across it as the motor pulled off in the tumble. He turned back to Tuck and grinned sheepishly. Whoops.Were dead, Tuck said. Kimi looked back again where the motor should have been, just to make sure that it was still gone. I ask that man, Is motor on good? He say, Oh yes, is clamp on very tight. I pay him good money and he lie. Oh, Kimi is very mad.Roberto barked in agreement.Stop it Tucker shouted. Roberto ducked into Kimis dress again. Weve got to get some of this water out of here. We have no motor. We cant go anywhere. Were adrift, lostAlive, Kimi interrupted. I get you out of typhoon alive and you just yell and say bad things. I quit. You get new navigator. Roberto say you mean, nasty, Chevy-driving, milk-drinking, American dog fucker.I dont drink milk, Tuck said. Ha Won that round.That what he say.Roberto does not talkNot to you, dog fucker. You no Kimi paused in mid-rant and retrieved the coffee can, which had been tied to the boat with a string, and started furiously scooping water out of the boat. You right. Now we bail.What? Tuck looked up to see Kimi was looking, wide-eyed, out to sea. Tuck fo llowed his gaze to a spot twenty yards in front of the boat where a triangular fin was describing slow arcs in the swells.Hurry, Kimi shouted. He coming in.Tucker reached for his pack, causing the bow to submerge under the water by a foot. Before he could adjust his weight to counterbalance the boat, the chisel came over the gunwale, snapping its jaws like a man-eating puppet.Tuck stood up to escape the jaws and the bow lurched deeper underwater. The shark slid into the boat as Tuck went backward over the side. vexation bolted through his body as if the water had been electrified.He wanted to move in all directions at once. He kicked hard and came up a few feet from the boat to see the shark slide back into the water.Get in boat Kimi screamed. He was standing with his feet wide, trying to keep the boat from capsizing.Tuck kicked so hard that he raised out of the water to the waist, then he fell toward the boat, catching the gunwale with one hand. Kimi shifted his weight to counter balance and Tuck pulled himself in just as something hit his foot. He jerked his foot so hard he nearly went out of the boat on the opposite side, then he twisted in time to see the shark sliding down into the water with his shoe in its mouth.Behind you Kimi screamed.Another shark rose up at Tucks back. He swung around and punched it on the hooter as hard as he could, taking the skin off of his knuckle duster on the sharks sandpaper skin. The shark slid away.The motion in the bow caused the stern to dusk underwater and the next attack came at Kimi. He tossed Roberto into the air as the shark came into the boat. Roberto spread his wings and soared into the sky. Kimi reached down and came up with the rubber fuel line.Tucker looked for anything they could use as a weapon, then remembered the turn up knife he had put in his pocket the night before. It was still there.Kimi was slapping the shark with the rubber hose and backing his way up onto the huge gas tank that made up the midse ction of the boat. Tuck opened the knife, then lunged forward at the navigator. KimiKimi reached back and Tuck fit the treat of the knife into his hand. The shark had worked half of its nine-foot body into the boat. Its tail thrashed at the water to power the shark up onto the gas tank. Kimi scrambled backward. Roberto swooped and screeched in the air above.Kimis right foot found purchase on the screw cap of the gas tank and he sat up. Tuck thought he was going to strike the shark with the knife, but instead he cut the gas line and squirted a stream of gas into the sharks gaping mouth. The shark thrashed and slid off the side of the boat.Kimi brandished the knife in the air. Yeah, fuckface, you run away. That not taste so sweet as Kimi, huh? He fell back onto the gas tank and took a deep breath. We show that shark who the boss.Tuck said, Kimi, theres more. He pointed to set of fins approaching from the stern.