Leviathan

Thirty minutes later, Jack slowly came around. The doctor was nowhere to be seen. Collins rubbed the gash in his head, which Trevor had cleaned, stitched with six very neat stitches, and dressed with a small bandage.

Jack looked around until his eyes fell on a man staring at him from one of the six beds in the clinic area. The pale blue eyes never blinked, never moved. Collins knew him immediately. Jack made sure he wasn't feeling any ill effects from the blow to his head, then sat up and slowly walked over to the occupied bed.

"Colonel," Jack said, sitting on the bed next to the Frenchman. "Sarah told me you had booked passage on this little cruise."

Farbeaux said nothing as he fought slowly to sit up in his bed. He was grimacing a little more than he actually had to.

"Look, I heard what you did for Sarah at the complex, and I--"

"Let us dispense with the pleasantries, Colonel," Farbeaux said as he looked at Jack. "Young Sarah had to have also told you why I was there in the first place. I was willing to let things go with the news of your supposed death, but now I see and feel that this can no longer be accomplished."

Jack smiled and shook his head.

"So, you want to kill me?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Because you lost Danielle in the Amazon?"

"No."

"Really? Then what is your reasoning?"

"I do not like myself, and you, Colonel, are the architect of that."

"Well, that puts us at cross-purposes, Henri, because I like myself a lot. I've been there, so I don't want to die again. If it makes you feel better, though, I don't like you, either. However, I still want to live and have no desire to kill you. Where does that leave us?"

"We all want what we cannot have. I will kill you and I will feel better for it." Farbeaux looked away and then back after completing a thought. "However, since we both find ourselves in a rather strange predicament here in fantasyland, I am willing to forgo my hostility toward you until such time as we are freed. Then I can kill you and Captain Everett at the same time, and at my leisure. So unless that can be accomplished during our escape from this vessel and without altering my own fortunes, we will call a truce until such a time as we can take up old habits."

Jack reached out and patted Farbeaux on the leg near his wounded hip, making the Frenchman jump in pain. This time he didn't have to act at all.

"Okay, Henri, once we're out of here, we can resume the game. Until then, I can definitely use your penchant for planning, cheating, lying, and being one sneaky bastard."

"It will do no good to flatter me, Colonel."

When the doctor left sickbay half an hour later, he escorted Collins back to his Group and then made his rounds of the departments, checking for deep submergence sickness amongst the crew. Henri Farbeaux eased himself out of his bed. He steadied himself, then slowly limped into Dr. Trevor's private office. He saw the file cabinet where he had watched the doctor place Jack Collins's file. It wasn't locked. Because of that, he wasn't interested enough to check it. He went down the three rows of drawers until he came to one cabinet secured by a built-in lock.

"Eureka," he said, smiling as he removed a small clip he had stolen from his own IV drip. He twisted and bent it until he had the shape he wanted, then inserted it into the lock. He raised his brows when he heard the click and the lock disengaged.

"A little too trusting, Doctor," he whispered as he pulled the drawer open.

There were at least three hundred thick files inside. He recognized some of the names as crewmen onboard

Leviathan. When he didn't find the one he wanted, he opened another cabinet. Then his eyes caught the one file he wanted. He pulled out the thick chart and then closed the drawer.

He looked at the name again--Captain Alexandria Olivia Heirthall.

Belowdecks, Samuels watched as reactor numbers three and four went offline. He maintained reactor one at 50 percent for pressure control, and took power down on reactor two to 60 percent, maintaining life support and their current speed at thirty-five knots.

"Mr. Samuels now has the conn," Alexandria said from her observation suite.

Commander Samuels took a deep breath as the sound of the four reactors started winding down, and Leviathanslowed as they went deeper into the trench.

Outside the pressure hull, Leviathancontinued on a journey to a spot in the earth's depths, where the hull would be taking on twenty-eight tons per square inch. The magic of the Heirthall science was the only thing keeping every man, woman, and child onboard from being crushed to the size of a microbe--and still she went deeper.

The final deep run of the magical Leviathan

had begun.

PART FOUR

FROM HELL'S HEART