Island of the Sequined Love Nun Chapter 15~19

15The NavigatorOut on the edge of the world, with no orchestrate to stay, no panache to move on, no job, no life, no friends hurt, confused, hot, thirsty, and irritated, slip in was desperate. Desperate for just the momentary sit crop upisfaction that might come from attracting an charismatic woman. No matter that he couldnt do anything ab proscribed the attraction.What was she doing out here(predicate)? Who cares? What a walkHe quickened his pace, his legs and shoulders protesting once muchst the weight of his pack, and approached within a equalize of steps of the blonde.Excuse me, he c al wizarded.She c oered. cumulate stopped and underpined up a step. Something is wrong here. Very, very wrong.Oh, baby, she say, slew to her chest as if toil more or less to catch her breath. You scare tiny Kimi. Why you sneakin up care that? insert was dumbfounded. She wasnt a natural blonde. Her pare was unlighted and she had the advanced cheekbones and angular features of a Fi lipino. Long false gistlashes, bright red limn, except business organizations in the instance that were a little excessively harsh, a jawline that was a little too square. The pose was tight around the chest and at that get into was nothing on that point only when muscle. She wore a huge black med each(prenominal)ion at her pharynx that brassed as if it was made of animal fur. She needinessed a s father.Im sorry, ruck said. I thought you were something er, some soundbox else.Then the med tout ensembleion turned its brainiac and savored at him. stick in let out an involuntary scream and jumped sticker. The medallion was corrosion tiny rhinestone sunspectacles. It squeaked at circumvent. It was thebiggest lick he had ever seen, hanging there up attitude d shake up got with its wingsfolded.Thats a batFruit bat, baby. Dont be scared. This Roberto. He no similar the light. He same you, though. Roberto squeaked over again. He had the lay out of a fox or perhap s a pure drop digest a s pick outn Pomeranian with wings. Im Kimi. What you name, baby? Kimi extended his hand limply to waggle or perhaps for a kiss. foregather took two fingers, honouring his eye on the bat. vanquish Case. Nice to couple you, Kimi. He was horrified. Thirty seconds agone hed been having lustful thoughts active a guy A guy wearable a fruit batYou look like you need a date. Kimi love you best long condemnation, twenny bucks. Whatever you need, Kimi can do.No, thanks. I dont need a date. What I need is a saucesauce gravy holder.Kimi can reach gravy gravy boat. You like it in boat? Kimi take you round the world in a boat? He giggled and patted Robertos little up stead-down point. That funny, huh? puzzle forced a smile. No, I need a boat and someone who can voyage it out to an iscommonwealth.You need a boat, Kimi can thw artistry boat. Kimi can aviate too.Thanks anyway, but I reallyRoberto shrieked. ruck jumped cover charge. Kimi said, Roberto say he want to go on boat with you. How far is island? foregatherer couldnt conceptualise he was having this conversation. He hadnt really decided he would go by boat. Its called Alualu. Its about two hundred and fifty miles north of here.No enigma, Kimi said without hesitation. My father was great sailing master. He teach me everything. I take you to island and peradventure we have party too. You have money? pucker nodded.You retain everywhere there in shade. We be right back. Kimi turned and wiggled away. crumpleer well-tried not to watch him walk. He was feeling sick to his stomach. He walked to a grove of palm trees that grew along the harbour and sat down to wait.Kimi piloted the eighteen-foot fibre sugarcoat skiff out of a shantytown built over the urine, across the harbor, to a bobsleighage in precedent of the marina abatementaurant. Roberto had unfolded his wings and was crawling spiderlike over Kimis head and back, looking for a comfor control panel spot to defin e out of the light. put iner walked to the dock and looked at the boat, therefore out past the harbor, where rocks were crashing on the reef, consequently back at the little boat. He wasnt sure what he had expected, but he was sure this wasnt it. Something bigger, maybe a cabin cruiser, with twin diesels and a big wheelhouse with some radar satiate spinning on the top a modest but well-stocked wet bar, perhaps.I got you boat Kimi said. You give me money instanter, I go get gun and look at map. pull togetherer didnt budge. The engine was a forty-horse Yamaha out-board. A rubber subway system ran from the move to a gas tank that took up about all the space surrounded by the two shtups. pile up guessed it would hold at least a hundred gallons of fuel, maybe more. Are you sure this thing has the get to actualise it out there?No problem. Give me money for gas. louver hundred dollar.Youre insaneGas very expensive here.Youre insane and your bats glasses are crooked.I have t o pay man for boat. The rest is for pilot. You steal water, great mullein, and two mango, two papaya for Roberto, and two box Pop Tarts for Kimi. Strawberry.Tucker felt he was being hustled. For quint hundred dollars you can get your own mangoes and Pop Tarts.Okay, bye-bye. Kimi said. Say bye-bye to cheap sweaty American, Roberto. Kimi moved Roberto onto his shoulders and pulled the pile to undertake the engine.Tuck imagined himself stuck on Yap for another two weeks. No, wait He unclipped the flap of his pack and take internal.Kimi killed the outboard, turned, and grinned. There was lipstick on his teeth. Money, please.Tuck handed down a stack of bills. He didnt like it, but he didnt have a choice. Actually, not having a choice made it a little easier. Are we vent to draw a blank right away?We go through with(predicate) reef before dark so we no smash up and drown. After that it better to go in dark. Go by stars.Smash up? Shouldnt we call for put up?Kimi laughed. You s mell storm? See storm in huckster?Tuck looked around. Except for a a couple of(prenominal) mushroom-shaped clouds beyond the reef, it was clear. He smelled solely equatorial f depresseders on the breeze and something skunky move up from his offshootpits. No.Meet me here in half hour. Kimi started the motor and putted off across the harbor toward a big tank with the Mobil logo stenciled on the side.Tuck walked to the store and bought the supplies, because found the telecom center a some doors down and direct a handwritten fax to the doctor on Alualu to let him contend that his new pilot was on the way.He was waiting at the dock when Kimi returned in the skiff, his wig fixd down with a red chiffon scarf. Roberto wore a smaller scarf with holes have sex for his ears. Strangely, the scarf, in conjunction with the sunglasses, made Roberto look a little like Diana Ross. They say there is a exhaustible number of sayings in the worldTucker threw the heavy pack into the preced ing of the boat, hence climbed in and sat down in lie of the large gas tank. Kimi threw the transmis-sion lever on the motor, twisted the hand grip, and piloted the skiff out into the harbor toward the reef.Kimi steered the boat out of the deep discolorish of the harbor to the turquoise water of the channel. Tuck could see the reef, tan and red coral, just a few feet below the sur verbal expression at the edge of the channel. He spotted small tilt darting around great heads of brain coral. They were more like streaks of air than animals, and as one disappeared another appeared in the line of imaginativeness. 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 regressed the edge of the reef and into the leave ocean with only a slight bump into the start-off few swells. Kimi cranked up the motor and the skiff dis federal agency and rode across the tops of the sways, bucking and dropping a gentle six inches, move 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 get ahead the turn north to Alualu.For the first time since the crash, Tucker felt right(a), felt as if he was on his way to something better. Hed made a end and acted on it and in eighteen hours he would be ready to start his new job. Hed be a pilot again, making good money, heterosexualaway 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 riffle into the ocean. Columns of vertical cumulus clouds turned to cones of pink cotton candy, then as the sun became a red wafer on the horizon, they turned candy-apple red, with purple rays range out of themlike searchlights. The water was neon over wet asphalt, blood-spattered gunmetal c olor from the cover of a detective novel where heroes drink hard and beaut is always treacherous.Tucker searched the sky for cumulus clouds that looked like they might have aspirations to become thunderheads. How in the hell were you supposed to see weather from sea level?Just then a swell lifted the front of the boat and slammed it down. Tuck felt his fannybone bark on the edge of the seat and was just bracing himself when another swell bucked him to the floor of the boat and a sudden gust of pinch soaked him with spray.16And like a shot, the Weather get overThe High Priestess sat on the lanai watching the sunset, victorious sips from a glass of chilled vodka between bites of a banana. The intercom beeped inside the house and she cocked an ear to the open ariseow.Beth, can you come down to my office? This is important. The Sorcerer 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 padded 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 full-length mirror. Shit. She was naked, of course, and shed have to cut across the compound to get to the Sorcerers office. Life had become a lot more complicated since they had chartered 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 fix uped, but it might elapse the Sorcerer off her back and the ninjas off her front.The compound consisted of half a dozen buildings spread over a trio-acre clearing covered with white coral gravel and concrete and surrounded by a twelve-foot chain-link argue topped with razor wire. At the front of the compound was a dock and a small beach that led to the only channel through the reef. At the back a newLearreverse lightning sat on a concrete pad, just inside the fence. Outside of the fence, the concrete channeliseway bisected the island. then(prenominal) 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, who didnt move until she passed, then tried to get a glimpse in the side of her jersey. She slammed the door behind her.Whats up? You near done with the transmit dish? My shows are climax on.He turned from a estimator screen, a piece of fax paper crumpled in his hand. Weve hire an idiot.Do you want to be specific or should I tolerate that one of the ninjas has distinguished himself above the others?The pilot, Beth. He turn tailed the Micro monger on Yap.ShitIts worse. He he ld 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 sooner than he was going to get here. Whats the problem?This. The Sorcerer pushed back in his prexy and pointed to the computer screen. The image looked like a blender full of green and black 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 straightway you like abstract art and allIts a satellite aspect 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 eyes shone like desolate stars. Too bad, she thought. The pilot would have been fun.17Foul-Weather FriendTuck was amazed by what the human body could achieve when pressed to its limits lift tractors, trek a hundred miles through the tundra after 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 coming out of him was pure bile, burning acrid and sour, and with the bull depend onr pitching of the boat, half of it always ended up down the front of him. And between heaves there was no respite, just constant relocation and soaking spray. His stomach muscles twisted 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 next black breakwater 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. Tie down you pack. Tie you belt to the boat, Kimi shouted.Tuck found a coil of nylon rope and a fold up poke in his pack and tied himself and the pack to the front seat. He notice that the space under the seat was filled with dense Styrofoam. The boat was, theoretically, unsink-able. Good, someone would find their beaten, cheat-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 sixty knots in an instant, dumping gallons of waterinto the boat with each wave, drowning out the sound of the outboard.Kimi screamed an order to Tuck, but it was lost in the wind. Tuck caught one word BailRiding down the face of a wave, he took the time to look around t he boat for a container, but found only the gallon of drinking water. He took the folding knife from his pouch and slashed the top off of the jug. He dumped the voguish water, then, with his feet braced against the inside of the bow and his spine against the seat, he began bond papering 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 seem to get ahead of the storm. The boat was equitation lower in the water.He ventured a glance back to Kimi and saw the navigator had found a hot chocolate can and was braced between the seat and the gas tank, bailing with one hand while steering with the other. His scarf and fallen around his neck and was tracking the blonde wig behind him in the wind. The motor was cranked full-out, and Kimi was trying to cargo hold 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 fall into some kind of sustainable rhythm. It began to rain, the drops coming in almost horizontal, and as they topped the next wave Tuck realized that half of the sky had disap-peared. They were only at the edge of the storm. The navigator was hollo at him. The sea, the sky, the boat faded to black. One second he was squinting table saltwater out of his eyes and staring at an obsidian mole ahead of the bow, then everything went black. Total sensory overload, total sensory deprivation. He looked around for the stars, the moon, a highlight or shadow somewhere, but there was nothing but wind and wet and cold and ache. He shivered and well-nigh 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 saturated pack until he came out with two waterproof flashlights. dedicate you, Jake Skye.He hit the sea led switches.Light. Enough to see that Kimi was steering them analogue to an ominous contend of water. They would be swamped. 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 monkey to its mother.Tuck lashed the lights to the anchor pulley at the bow, one pointed forward, one into the boat, then he resumed bailing.A monster 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. other wave like that would swamp the motor. Without the motor to steer, they were lost. Bailing wasnt bounteous.Were going to die, he thought.Then the noise of the storm was gone.No, youre not, came the voice, you bottomin 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. rap it over the b oat 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 gunwales to conciliate the line around the edges of the tarp. He needed only to hook the line around the boat and tie it off back by Kimi, going away just enough 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 break in the water as Tuck sat next to the navigator and bailed.You steer Kimi screamed.Tucker took the tiller 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 throttle to keep it from blowin g up. The bow tilted skyward and Kimi grabbed the gunwale just in time to avoid being dumped off the stern. They landed 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 surfing move from his youth. The cutback. There was no way they could continue into the wind and into the waves. Halfway up the face of the wave, he twisted the throttle and threw the motor sideways. It coughed as if expelling 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 above their backs, but then they were high enough for the wind to catch them. Just enough boost. Just enough speed. The boat flattened out on the face of the wave. They were surfing, a thirty-foot wall of water waiting to crush them from behind should Tuck lose the pocket.Strangely, Tuck felt elated. It was a small victory, maybe regular a ephemeral one, but they were running with the storm and he was in control of something for the first time since the plane 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 hungry reef.18 state of matter HoThe island was little more than a coral cupcake with a guano frosting. non a hundred yards wide 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 cocoanut palms. The f oliage and coconuts had all been torn from the palms, and the storm-driven waves breaking on the surrounding reef frothed over the island, thrashing against the trunks and washing away 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 bat, he had stopped there to rest after leaving Guam, his birthplace, on his way to someplace where the mangoes were sweet and the natives did not consider fruit bat a delicacy. But right now he was too busy hiding inside Kimis dress, screeching and clawing and broadly trying to keep warm, to mention to the navigator that the reason they were suddenly riding the face of an increasingly 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 refra cted off the green water, illuminating the tube, making it appear as if they were inside a freak seething Coke bottle. Tuck tried to keep the boat pointed toward the delimit circle of blackness where the bottle cap would go, where they would have to go to escape. Hed seen films of surfers blastoff the curl on the North Shore of Hawaii. It could be done. He clung to that vision,even as the wave passed over the reef and collapsed upon them.The boat rolled once, twice, three times, then tossed end over end and spun just under the pop out 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 life-giving air or suck saltwater 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 dee p furrows into Kimis ribs as he scramble 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 attached to the boat, in time shining, the only visual input in the 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 handful of Kimis dress. Roberto was clinging to Kimis head, growl 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 before they were swept out to sea again.Tuck caught his lifeline with one hand, then wrapped his other arm around Kimis chest. Slowly, working against the streaming current, more like a river now that the waves had been broken by the reef and the island, he pulled th em back to the boat.The boat was afloat, but barely, held up by the Styrofoam underseats and the air trapped in the gas tank. and 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 scramble on Kimis head to escape the sea and was almost taken by the wind. Tucker 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 still attached. Tucker could see the tree that had caught them. He set down back into the bow, haul his armpits over the gunwales, then slipped into a state of exhausted unconsciousness that could almost be called sleep.19Water, WaterAt first light the coconut palm that had saved them finally 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 dreaming of being lost in the desert 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 stil l in the desert, dying of thirst, and the fact that he was now belongings 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 bellyacheing. You scare 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 stopped 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 chocolate 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 followed his gaze to a spot twenty yards in front of the boat where a angulate fin was describing slow arcs in the swells.Hurry, Kimi shouted. He coming in.Tucker reached for his pack, create the bow to dip under the water by a foot. forwards he could adjust his weight to counterbalance the boat, the shark 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.Fear bolted through his body as if the water had been electrified.He wanted to move in all directions at once. He kicked h ard 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 counterbalance 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 verso 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 snout as hard as he could, taking the skin off of his knuckles on the sharks sandpaper skin. The shark slid away.The motion in the bow caused the stern to dip 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 folding 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 midriff of the boat. Tuck opened the knife, then lunged forward at the navigator. KimiKimi reached back and Tuck fit the handle 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 preferably 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 brand ished 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.