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decks, unless you fancy getting soaked.”
    “Just get us to dry land, all right?”
    “I’ll do that.”  Jonas shook his head.  “Just don’t blame me if you go overboard in this storm.  You fall in, I’m not coming after you.  Not with that storm coming.” 
    “Don’t worry about it.”
    “You’re a hoot, Koso…Kuso.  Whatever.”
    “Yuri.”
    “Like I said, whatever.”  Jonas was a man who spent more time with dead fish than people.  And dead fish didn’t complain, nor did they vomit all over his deck.  They only bled.  
    Soon after Jonas left, the sea began tossing the boat.
    Yuri chose the path of prudence and went below decks to stay with the package while Jonas battled the storm.  One benefit of impending doom was that it distracted him from the waves of nausea that rose and fell with the ocean’s.  He wrapped his arms around the splintery crate that held the package and cursed the wind, the boat, her captain, and the buckets of dead fish who were his only company in this dark hour.
    I didn’t come this far to die like one of these stinking fish !
    Above the cargo hold, he heard Jonas preparing for the onslaught, swearing and laughing maniacally. 
    “Here it comes!”  The idiot knew nothing of the concept of healthy fear.  Or perhaps he dealt with it by mocking it, even as he went down with his ship. 
    Heavy blows rocked the boat—heavier, he’d be willing to bet, than if some great leviathan had attacked.  Then came the pitching, the falling, the leaping of the vessel.  The single light bulb dangling from the ceiling fizzled out. 
    Yuri cursed the darkness.
    Not until the frigid water seeped through his pants and engulfed his hands did he realize the truth: he was going to drown.
    Why had he agreed to this?  Shouldn’t it have bothered him that thousands would die?  No, he was just a courier, what his client did with the package was not his responsibility.  But what use would all that money do him and Irina now?  She would probably wait a month, maybe two, but even if his body weren’t eaten by sharks or returned to Kiev, she’d move on to the next man who made the same grandiose promises he had.  She was stunningly beautiful but shallow as they come.  And that had been fine with Yuri because like most young guys, he only thought with his loins. 
    Until death comes looking for you.
    Up above, the water smashing down onto the deck sounded thunderous.  Here below in the gloom, the water around Yuri rose.  If the boat took on any more, the package might begin to float.  Hard to maneuver in water—his head could get crushed between the crate and the hull. 
    “I’m not ready to go,” he muttered as tears began to sting his eyes.  He thought of Mommochka , who had always believed in him, sacrificed so he would become a “concert violinist like Oistrakh.”  How disappointed she would be to see him in the hereafter, having lived the life he’d chosen instead.  Not that he’d see her, where he was going.  She would be in heaven, not him.
    The boat lurched sideways at a dangerous pitch.
    Any minute now it would capsize.
    Never in his adult life had Yuri prayed, but now, what the hell?  It was worth a chance.  Mommochka always said there is no sin too big for God to forgive.  Shivering and curling up into a ball, Yuri folded his hands and thought of what he might say to the only one who could help him now.
    “If you’re...if you’re really there...”
    As if in reply, something heavy struck his head.
    A white flash ruptured the darkness.
    And then everything went black.
     

8
     
    PERCHED HIGH ABOVE GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL, Nick skimmed through the headlines of the newspaper.  Housing prices across the United States were back on the rise as was the price of petrol, major online retailers reported that ebook sales were steadily overtaking print books, and U.S. Navy Seals had issued a slightly fuller account about the killing of Osama Bin Laden