A Thousand Suns Read Online Free PDF

for an answer.
    Mark watched him go. ‘Enough and then some, eh?’ he muttered, and then he found himself grinding his teeth. Chris could be an annoyingly cocky punk sometimes.
    ‘Come on, mate,’ Chris called back.
    Chris approached the trawler’s stern. ‘What time do you make it?’
    Mark pushed up a sleeve, revealing a Rolex nesting in a luxuriant bed of dark forearm hair. ‘Seven-thirty.’
    Chris leaned over and rapped his knuckles against the hull. ‘Hello? Anyone home?’ he shouted. They heard some movement from inside the boat.
    ‘Jeeeez, Chris! You know how rude that is?’ Mark said.
    ‘What? . . . knocking on the boat? It’s not as if it’s got a doorbell.’
    ‘She’s a “she” not an “it”. All sea-going vessels are “shes”, okay? You don’t want to get the owner pissed before you start your shmoozing, huh?’
    They heard the clunk of a bolt sliding, and a crack of light appeared on the foredeck as a hatch lifted a few inches. They could just make out the shine of a balding head framed by a thatch of grey whiskers.
    ‘Yes?’
    Chris absent-mindedly swung the torch on him.
    ‘Hey! Get that goddamn thing out of my eyes!’
    ‘Sorry,’ he said sheepishly. He flicked it off.
    ‘Whad’ya want?’
    ‘Hi, we’re looking to hire a boat for a day, maybe two days. Yours looks like it won’t sink if we untie it.’
    Chris’s laugh quickly died in his throat as the old man stared at him in silence.
    Mark shook his head in the dark. Not the best start, Chris ol’ buddy .
    The old man scowled and finally said something. ‘Are you Canadian? ’Cause if you are, you can get the fuck away from my boat.’
    ‘What? No! I’m English . . . I just -’
    ‘Shine that torch of yours on yourself, so I can see you.’
    Chris fumbled with the switch, and then turned it on himself and Mark.
    The man studied them for a few seconds. ‘Yeah, you look English,’ he said, pushing the hatch fully open and pulling himself with surprising agility out onto the foredeck.
    Chris turned back to Mark. ‘I look English? How the hell is an Englishman meant to look?’ he muttered.
    ‘You lack American cool,’ Mark smirked.
    ‘You boys want to hire this boat for a couple of days?’ the old man interrupted, scratching his chin.
    They both nodded.
    ‘Of course we’ll pay top dollar,’ added Chris.
    ‘You’d have to. This is a workin’ boat. If she’s busy takin’ you boys out on a pleasure cruise, then she ain’t workin’, and that’s gonna cost.’
    Chris nodded gravely. ‘I understand.’
    The old man looked them over again. ‘This’ll be about the wreck out there, won’t it?’
    ‘The plane wreck, yeah,’ Chris admitted reluctantly. He had hoped the story would still be relatively unknown, but, it seemed, Port Lawrence was a small town.
    ‘So . . . you boys don’t look like tourists. Where you from?’
    Chris pulled out a business card and handed it to the old man. ‘I work for a magazine. I want to photograph the plane. I’m doing a story on it. The name’s Chris by the way.’ He gestured at Mark. ‘This guy’s Mark. He’s a diving instructor and he’s here to hold my hand when we go underwater.’
    For a moment he wasn’t sure whether the old man was going to take that literally.
    The old man appeared mildly impressed with the press card. ‘What magazine? Not the Enquirer , I hope. I can’t stand that kind of rubbish.’
    ‘God, no! . . . I work for News Fortnite , it’s a bit like the National Geo —’
    The old man snapped his fingers. ‘I know it. I got some of those.’ He looked at Chris for the first time with an expression one step up from contempt. ‘Do the pictures, huh?’
    ‘Some of them.’
    ‘Good pictures in the Fortnite .’
    ‘Thanks.’
    ‘The name’s Will by the way.’
    Mark and Chris nodded. ‘Hi, Will.’
    The old man studied Chris silently. The tall, thin English guy with the toothbrush hair seemed good for easy money. His type always seemed to