When he’d opened his eyes he’d seen blue sky, a window in the clouds above him. He sat up, realizing that he had slept. The clouds still hung low, some scraping the water.
He heard an engine, a low throttled sound that he felt more than heard—a large ship, but that was all he knew. He started the Zodiac and headed toward the noise. The wind had begun to blow again and, with it, the clouds. Soon Ethan could make out icebergs all around him, then he saw the source of the noise: the Maru, only a half mile ahead.
His heartbeat quickened—it was time. Time to do what he’d planned to do before losing his way in the fog. Maybe it was meant to happen this way, he thought. Maybe he’d had to lose his way in order to find his way all along.
He accelerated, squinting into the wind, feeling the cold penetrate his jacket, yet not actually feeling cold. Instead he felt powerful, invincible, like a bullet fired true with nothing but gravity and inertia to stop it from reaching its target. He was that bullet as he neared the bow of the Maru. Water rained down on him from above. He squinted more, was now ahead of the bow, then he cut across and reached down for the prop fouler.
When he looked up, he glimpsed the other Zodiac, and then it was on top of him. He was in the air, then down again, caught in the wire. The sky darkened as the Maru’s hull passed by. But his Zodiac had, somehow, remained upright, and when he pulled himself to his knees, he saw Aeneas in the water next to the other Zodiac, now empty.
Ethan pulled him in and cut off the rope around his ankle. Aeneas, shivering, muttered, “FBI,” and motioned for Ethan to head back to the Tern, still off in the distance, mostly shrouded in fog. Ethan looked back and saw a man in the water, paddling his way to the empty Zodiac.
And as Ethan headed toward the Tern, he realized there would be others with the FBI, perhaps already on board, who would capture Aeneas all over again. If they returned to the ship now, Ethan would be delivering Aeneas straight to them.
He turned the Zodiac around and headed behind a group of icebergs. Aeneas said nothing; his eyes were glazed and he looked frozen nearly all the way through. Behind a towering berg, Ethan found a slab of pack ice, thick enough to walk on. He pulled alongside and helped Aeneas onto the ice.
“What?” Aeneas asked.
“Here, take my jacket. It’s dry.”
Ethan removed his jacket and waited for Aeneas to remove his. He was surprised when Aeneas did as instructed. As he pulled on Ethan’s jacket, Ethan boarded the Zodiac again, donning Aeneas’s dripping yellow jacket.
Then he tossed Aeneas the emergency flare. Aeneas would know when to use it. As Ethan pulled away, he heard Aeneas call his name, but he did not turn back.
The wind had strengthened, and the waves were so high that the Japanese ship briefly disappeared from view. One wave—a dark gray, white-tipped mountain—bore down on him, threatening failure, but then he pushed up and over the mountain and saw his target once again.
He kept the jacket’s hood drawn tight. As he passed the Tern, he turned his face away. He felt sorry for what they were about to witness.
Ethan looked ahead at the bow of the Maru, searching for men with guns aimed at him. He saw only one man stationed at the harpoon, which was aimed directly at him.
The bow of the ship was nearly above him now. He grabbed the prop fouler with both hands. Strangely, he wasn’t afraid, even knowing what was about to happen. That his boat would be cut in half. That he would be pulled under the bow. That his body, along with the nest of plastic, hemp, and barbed wire, would stop the propellers.
Before, he’d lived his life with the comfort of a nearby undo button. Now, there would be no more undos. As the ship began blaring its horns, wind narrowing his eyes, a mountain of blue steel rising up, there was nothing more to regret.
He remembered the lady walking into the river in St. Louis. Back then, and for most of his life, Ethan had been someone who’d stopped at the water’s edge, while others kept going. His father. Annie.
He could see the churning. Coming fast. The bow of the ship obstructed the sky, the water darkening. He held up his arms from side to side, prop fouler tight and ready.
It all made sense now. Finding Annie. Losing Annie. Finding Aeneas. Annie had been his perfect match. Aeneas’s jacket was a perfect fit.
He could feel motion under him, the ocean taking control. And he kept going.