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           While
he knew enough about the Chinese military to identify the planes’ units and air
bases if he cared to, Stoner was much too busy to do so. With an immense leap,
he threw himself overboard and into the water, just as the aircraft began
firing.
                 It
took approximately ten minutes for Samsara to sink.
It would have taken considerably longer had Stoner not began flooding it by
removing the bolts. He spent much of the time well below the surface of the
water; what he lacked in negative buoyancy, he more than made up for in
motivation.
                 When
the aircraft were gone, Stoner bobbed to the surface, floating with as little
effort as possible. It was at least an hour before sunset; if he were to
survive the night he had to conserve his energy. And of course he knew he would
survive. It was his job. It was what he always did.
                 Samsara’s life raft had been shot to pieces by the attack.
Nothing else came off the boat after it went down—a matter of design, not
accident. And so it was inevitable that Stoner resorted to the wreckage of the
Chinese freighter—or what he strongly suspected was a Chinese freighter—to stay
afloat. It was inevitable that the half-man he had poked before would float
toward him. Stoner wrapped his arms around the torso without emotion. He kicked
slowly, just enough to stay afloat and awake: Despite the warm day, the water
cramped his muscles with its cold, and maybe made his teeth chatter.
                 The
sun turned the sky pink as it set. Stoner waited in the water with his dead
companion. Night crept up with an immense, bright moon. In the distance, he
thought he saw the shadow of a shark’s fin. The wreckage of the freighter was
drifting closer; paper with Chinese characters drifted near his nose. He moved
to grab it, but found his arms frozen in place. He let go of the man’s head and
sunk down in the water, trying to shake his limbs back to flexibility. When he
reached the surface, the paper was gone and so was the head.
                 For
the next hour he treaded slowly, faceup in the brine,
cold and salt sandpapering his lips and nose. Then, suddenly, the water began
to churn. He felt it coming for him now, the shark, drawn by his fatigue like a
radio beacon in the night. It broke water fifty yards to his right, a massive
thing of blackness.
                 Stoner
waited. He had no weapon.
                 There
was a sound behind him, an eerie cry not unlike the death rattle of a man at
the end.
                 “Here!”
Stoner yelled. “Here!”
                 A Seachlight played across the surface of the water.
Two SEALs in diving gear paddled a rubber boat toward him.
                 “Here!”
he yelled again.
                 “Mr.
Stoner?” said one of the men.
                 “You’re
not expecting someone else, I hope,” said Stoner as the raft crept up. His
muscles were so stiff he had to be helped into the boat. But he managed to
climb onto the deck of the waiting submarine and go below without further assistance.
                 “Stoner,
I’m Captain Waldum ,” said the skipper. “Glad we found
you. Your signal’s getting weak.”
                 “Yeah,”
said Stoner. “Let’s retrieve the bow pod from my boat and get back. About a
dozen people are trying to have their underwater in knots about now.”

  Chapter
2
  An excellent coffin
                 Dreamland
                 August
21, 1997, 0700 local
                 Captain
Breanna Stockard shifted her left leg for the five hundredth time since getting
into the cockpit, trying to make herself comfortable. Her seat, which canted
back at a twenty-degree angle, had ostensibly been form-fitted to her anatomy
and designed for a maximum comfort on a long mission. Its inventor joked it
would be