Sharkman Read Online Free PDF Page B

kidding. Sarcasm is her second language.”
    “She seems pretty fluent.”
    They turned as a white passenger van pulled over to the curb. A royal blue logo was painted on the side door panel: ANGEL.
    Anya held out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Kwan Wilson.”
    “You remembered my name?”
    “She also remembered you pissed in your pants,” said Li-ling, “so don’t get too excited.”
    I watched the two girls climb into the back of the van—Anya offering me a wave that sent my heart fluttering.
    Rachel Solomon had challenged me to find happiness. Well, being around Anya Patel made me happy. She was smart and gorgeous and had an air about her that made me feel more alive inside . . . like life was worth living.
    Was there a future with Anya? Who could tell? We were both smart and science oriented . . . maybe we’d both get into the same university . . . major in the same field. And sex wasn’t necessarily out of the picture. Even if I couldn’t feel them, I had gotten spontaneous erections on occasion, and my body was still producing little Kwan juniors, so children weren’t out of the question either . . .
    Stop!
    I had spoken to the most beautiful girl in the world for three whole minutes and in my mind’s eye I was already marrying her. Ass-wipe . . . at least give her a chance to get to know you before you start picking out baby names . . .
    And then I had an idea!
    Retrieving my cell phone, I called the principal. “Dr. Lockhart, it’s Kwan. Sir, I changed my mind; I’d really love to be involved in that shark stem cell research program.”
    “Fantastic. I’ll call Dr. Becker this afternoon and get back with you tomorrow.”
    And so ended my first day back in the real world—an exhausting, emotional day that had begun eight months earlier when a momentary lapse in judgment had cast me down a path I could never have imagined.
    A path that was even now intersecting with yet another life-and-death moment taking place below the sea, nine hundred nautical miles to the east . . .

6
    The Atlantic Ocean, seventy-two miles northeast of Puerto Rico
    T he steel beast was as long as a football field and weighed six thousand tons. It had been moving at a steady thirty knots over the last twelve hours—a top speed usually reserved only for its younger siblings.
    The US Navy had inactivated the USS Philadelphia (SSN-690) on June 10, 2010, after thirty-three years of exceptional service, decommissioning the Los Angeles Class attack sub a short time later.
    How was it then that she was racing west across the Atlantic Ocean?
    Captain Matthew Cubit dwelled on this very thought for at least the hundredth time as he coughed into his handkerchief. For a long moment he stared at the Rorschach pattern of blood staining the linen before he continued his inventory of the crew.
    Pale, sweaty faces. Feverish eyes. Brave men who would never leave their posts, yet not a man among them who didn’t regret their decision to accept the covert mission and the raise in pay grade that came with it.
    The two-month Black Ops mission to the Persian Gulf had gone according to plan, culminating in the successful midnight extraction of six private militia commandos off the coast of Iran aboard a motorized raft. There had been a harrowing game of cat and mouse with an Iranian cutter, but in the end the Philadelphia had made it through the Strait of Hormuz and out of harm’s way to begin its twenty-three-day journey back to the United States.
    A week out from their rendezvous site, the Chief of the Boat fell ill. Soon other enlisted men began reporting to sickbay, all signs pointing to radiation sickness.
    The nuclear reactor had checked out. That left the mysterious object stowed in the crate in the torpedo room as the suspected cause—the contents of which were being protected around the clock by the six well-armed militia men.
    Rather than risk a confrontation, the captain had sent a transmission to Admiral Wilson that the Philadelphia would