The Romanov Cross: A Novel by Robert Masello Read Free Book Online Page A

Island. It was big as a mountain now, and through the spray and the waves Harley could see the jutting rocks sticking up like spikes and barricades all around its shoreline.
    Another flare rocketed into the sky, this one leaving a phosphorescent green trail, and in its light Harley saw the lifeboat spinning around and around in a whirlpool, before it suddenly broke free and was dashed against the rocks. The crew spilled out like jelly beans from a jar, and the splintered timbers of the boat flew in every direction. Before the green light had dissipated, Harley saw the bobbing vests of his deckhands caught in the eddies and the swirls, each one of them being sucked under and lost beneath the angry black tide.
    As he looked up at the wheelhouse, a blue computer screen came crashing through a window, and the lights went black. The deck lurched under his feet, and he was sent sprawling into the crab pots. The cages were still full; when the boat went down with the cages still sealed, the captured crabs would have to eat each other until they died.
    Harley’s mind was racing, wondering whether to stick with the wreckage of the boat or try making it to the crew cabin to retrieve a raft, when a wave crashed over the bulwarks on the port side and carried him, head over heels, into the ocean. He plunged in an instant into the icy water, the breath nearly knocked from his lungs, the salt stinging his blinded eyes. He was struggling to regain the surface, but the water was churning so hard, he couldn’t tell which way was up.He tried to stay calm enough to let the oxygen in his chest, and the air in his life vest, right him and send him upward again, but it didn’t seem to be working. He panicked and kicked out, pumping his arms. He collided with something, a rocky outcropping, and used it to push himself away. Gasping, he broke the surface of the water, and reaching out in the darkness, clutched something floating nearby. It was wood, and as he grappled it more tightly in his arms, he could feel its rough carvings. And he knew it was the coffin lid.
    He managed to pull himself halfway on top of it, then wrapped his arms around its sides. The waves lifted him up and threw him down, over and over again, eventually pushing him through a narrow passageway between the jagged rocks, with the sea boiling all around him. He could barely see where he was going, and his arms were so numb he wondered how much longer he could hang on. But when he felt his knees scraping on the rocks and shells of the shoreline, he somehow managed to stagger to his feet, then struggle through the pounding surf until he reached the beach. There, he collapsed in a shivering heap, with the cross, still lodged in his pocket, poking him in the ribs.
    The coffin lid, gleaming in the moonlight, skimmed to a stop on the pebbles and sand.
    How long he lay there he didn’t know. Cold and hard as the ground was, it felt like a warm blanket compared to the icy sea. He took deep breaths, coughing out the salt water and the gravel that now clung to his lips, but he knew that if he lay there much longer, he’d die of exposure. Rolling onto his back, he gazed up at the night sky, where even behind the banks of angry, scudding clouds, he could see the dazzling pinpricks of the distant stars. Shaking himself from head to foot like a dog throwing off water, he sat up and stared out at the sea. There was no sign of the
Neptune II
, or any of the other crewmen. Even their flares had long since disappeared from the sky. Harley prayed that the Coast Guard was on its way.
    Fumbling at the straps of the life vest, he yanked its straps off, then groped for the flare he’d stuck in its pocket. He didn’t want to use it too soon, but he didn’t know how long he could survive in the state hewas in, either. He searched the length of the beach for any kind of shelter, but there was nothing. Not even a rock large enough to huddle behind.
    The only alternative was to scale the cliff