They were breaching off the starboard side of the sailboat. She could hear Percy’s voice in her ear, his excitement at witnessing a wonder of nature.

  “Right whales,” she said, channeling their dead guide, “or I guess they could be humpbacks.”

  “What about orca?” asked Kevin. There was trepidation in his voice. For much of the way out, the guy had kept a hand buried in his dry bag. He was probably clutching the THING, acting like he was some kind of bodyguard. Who was he kidding? Vadim was lifetimes ahead of them, soaring along in a separate boat, plus what could the Russian possibly do out there in the middle of nowhere to deserve a slug in the back? She really just needed Kevin to help paddle and stop playing rent-a-cop.

  By her count there were at least five funnels jetting in the air. “I don’t think orcas spout that high,” she said, remembering a clip she’d seen of killer whales zooming around their prison-like tanks at SeaWorld.

  “Da, spout too big for orca,” called Vadim over his shoulder. Thanks to the atmospherics, they could hear him despite the distance. “Is blue whale. Biggest beast to ever exist on planet.”

  It had been decided that the three of them would head out on what the Baron dubbed our little errand. Striker and Kevin would be in one of the tandems, Vadim in the other. They could use the extra space in the second boat to bring back supplies. While the three of them chased down the sailboat, the others would stay behind and build a fire, covering two bases at once. Though the three of them had been paddling for what felt like days, Striker still didn’t see any smoke staining the skies. Each time she turned to look, it was getting harder and harder to tell which speck of rock was theirs. She was just grateful for the smooth ride out. At times she found herself wondering if this was truly Antarctica. The deep blue water flat as a lake.

  Strangely, it was Sarah who had insisted that Kevin come along. “I did my residency on a psych ward,” she’d whispered. “He fits the profile.”

  “What profile?”

  “Of someone who’s got nothing to lose,” said Sarah. “That’s when people are at their most dangerous.”

  At this point didn’t they all have nothing left to lose? “So you think he’s better off in a tandem with me than here with you guys?”

  Sarah made a quizzical face. “There’ll only be four of us,” she said.

  “Don’t forget Hector.”

  “Precisely. We aren’t exactly the strongest bunch. I’d go,” she added, “but I have to stay and watch out for Anna. There’s a lot of healing going on in that one,” she murmured.

  Striker decided she didn’t need to know what Sarah was talking about. “Does Kevin even want to go?” she asked. The two women glanced over at him. He was windmilling his arms around like a swimmer limbering up for a race. Striker sighed but didn’t argue the point any further.

  Before heading out, the three of them each choked down a penguin egg.

  “There’ll be food aplenty onboard,” said the Baron. “Any yachtsman worth his weight in gold will have hordes of vittles.” He clapped Vadim on the back. Striker was surprised the Russian didn’t deck him one. “You’ll see. There’ll be cans of beluga from bow to stern.”

  “What’s he going on about?” asked Anders.

  “Caviar,” said Jane.

  For some reason, Striker imagined boarding the sailboat only to find the pantry stocked with cans of Ensure. The image made her laugh.

  “What?” said Kevin, but she shook her head.

  Up ahead Vadim was almost within striking distance. Kevin pulled his hand out of his dry bag and squirmed around in his seat, trying to scratch a spot on his back.

  “Hey there,” he called out. “At dinner, did I hear you say you spent time in Ukraine?” Vadim didn’t answer. Kevin tried again only louder. “Hey,” he yelled. “Were you in Ukraine?”

  Why bring that up now, Striker thought.

  The Russian merely turned his head in their direction. “Push,” he called, before taking off at a breakneck clip.

  Striker realized he hadn’t been exerting himself. The guy had energy for days.

  “Dude was totally in Ukraine,” said Kevin, as the two of them watched him burn rubber. “Bet he did some bad shit there.”

  “Like what?” said Striker. “It’s a fucking war.”

  “So?” said Kevin. “You can still break the law. They’re not called war crimes for nothing.”

  “How’s that compare to bashing someone’s head in with a rock?” Instantly she relaxed, safe in the knowledge that she hadn’t actually said it though if she had, so what? The guy had it coming.

  “All I’m saying is he’s a bad hombre, as in bad to women,” he said. “It’s written all over his face. But whatever,” he concluded. “We need him.” Kevin hugged the dry bag a little tighter in his lap. “Until we don’t,” he added under his breath.

  Vadim was nearing the sailboat. It was still on the move but slowing, the keel gliding along as if drawn by a magnet. It looked to be headed for a circular island up ahead with tall black cliffs rising dramatically up out of the water. There was a narrow break in the rock face, an opening like a gap between two teeth where the ocean entered. The space looked barely big enough for a kayak let alone a sixty-foot sailboat. Striker couldn’t tell what the opening even led to. It could be a small inlet leading nowhere, a sore spot where the ocean had worn away the rock. Entering would be a leap of faith. If the entryway narrowed, you might not be able to maneuver your way back out.

  She thought of the journal she’d been gifted for Christmas. How badly would you have to love someone to follow them into hell? A hundred years ago there was no way back from here, no turning yourself around and simply sailing for home.

  Suddenly the boat slowed. Its main sail began to fall slack. She could hear loose ropes flapping wildly. Sarah had said that on these fancy boats, an onboard computer was likely running the show. It seemed like something had pretty seriously malfunctioned. The top sail sagged like an empty bedsheet. Then Striker realized what was happening.

  The sails were coming down, retracting as the vessel decelerated, the canvas folding up on itself.

  “Da iti ta!” shouted Vadim.

  He had reached the boat and tied his kayak to it. Now he was scrambling up the back ladder. Striker watched as he strode to the front, seemingly unconcerned with making noise and rousing anyone. Boldly he stood at the helm peering out toward the gap in the rock face. Was it even going to fit? A pale blue light settled on his skin. It looked like the glow from a computer screen, but then it deepened and grew more otherworldly, Vadim on the edge of transitioning into another realm.

  “Come come,” he yelled, his voice growing faint as the boat nosed into the gap. Striker could see there was no room for error, the fit like a hand in a glove. “Hurry,” Vadim called. “Water—” but then the sailboat slipped into the breach and disappeared.

  “You can let go of your manhood now.” Striker wondered how much of that she’d said. Either way, it did the trick. Sheepishly Kevin pulled his hand out of his dry bag and started paddling.

  Up ahead the island loomed like a fortress. She pictured their kayak slipping inside the rock face and finding themselves in a land of the lost where giant pterodactyls soared through the clouds, the waters studded with prehistoric fish. Or maybe the island was more like South Pacific, home to women in grass skirts balancing baskets of breadfruit on their heads, their long black hair rippling in the sea breeze.

  As they drifted closer she began to notice the eeriness of the spot. The waters around the island were glassine, the air unmoving. Kevin pointed out another oddity.

  “Where’s the white stuff?” he asked.

  It was true. Not a single iceberg could be seen bumbling along. Nothing about this spot screamed Antarctica. An emptiness clung to the landscape as if life had turned its back on this island.

  Just minutes before, Vadim had been standing on the sailboat peering into the breach, his face aglow. Now there was no sign of him or the boat, only the electric blue light pouring out of the opening in the rock face.

  “That ain’t natural,” whispered Kevin.

  “Man has a very narrow sense of nature,” said Striker.

  She had been on plenty of movie sets. If you set up the kliegs in a certain way, you could create an impenetrable wall of light. The same thing happened in live theater. Actors standing on stage unable to see beyond the footlights. Most of them preferred it that way. It made them less nervous. Striker took a deep breath as their kayak slipped into the fissure.

  Inside, the rocky corridor was a gamut of blue. She could feel her teeth instantly whiten, bones shining through her skin. It was hard to gauge where it was coming from. It seemed to be pouring up from the water itself, the ocean as if electrified. The further in they paddled, the worse the visibility became until it was down to mere inches. She was having trouble seeing her own hands.

  “Say something,” she called out.

  “It’s like I’m being erased,” said Kevin.

  She was no longer sure they were still moving. Now and then she could see the sheerness of the cliff walls. Each time the rock face broke through the blue, the cliffs seemed closer, narrowing. She was surprised the sailboat had fit.

  “In a couple of days we were supposed to visit Deception Island,” said Kevin. “Maybe this is it.”

  “The prospectus didn’t mention anything about being blinded.”

  The itinerary had described Deception Island as a sunken caldera where the volcanic cone had collapsed enough to let the ocean in. The collapse had left the island shaped like an atoll with a rocky outer ring and an inner harbor heated by geothermal vents. She recalled flipping through pictures of happy tourists in bathing suits shrouded by wisps of steam curling off the surface of the ocean. In none of the photos were the people obscured by so much blue they couldn’t see their neighbors let alone their own hands.

  Slowly the color of the air softened. The day regained its normalcy. The blue was indeed radiating from the water. Striker thought of an afternoon she’d spent floating in the Blue Grotto in Capri, the gondolier singing “O Sole Mio.” Even there, it was only the ocean shining a blue bright as heaven. The cave itself had remained as it was, dark and craggy.

  Finally the tandem floated into a wide harbor.

  The sailboat was anchored in the middle, Vadim’s kayak tied up to the back. Striker dipped her hand in, watched as it instantly disappeared. There are so many ways to be erased, she thought. On this trip I’ve encountered practically all of them.

  Then something burst out of the water right next to the kayak. Kevin jumped out of his skin. Instinctually his hand shot deep into his dry bag as if whatever was in there could save him.

  He was floating on his back. Just a pale white face, the rest of him effaced in the blue water. “Is maybe twenty-three, twenty-four degrees.”

  “Celsius?” asked Kevin.

  “Go tie up,” said Vadim, ignoring the question. “Take off everything. No worries. Peeksies not possible here.” Quickly she and Kevin crawled up on deck.

  The Baron was full of shit. Sarah had called it, the sailboat about sixty feet in length though its opulence was stunning. No one appeared onboard to greet them or challenge their right to be standing on this multi-million-dollar craft. For the moment Striker didn’t dwell on the oddness of this ghost ship navigating pilotless through the waters of the Southern Ocean. Instead, she stood gazing out over the bay, soaking in the wonder of the mesmerizing color.

  Where was Percy when you needed him? Oh, that’s right. He was dead. They would have to do their best without him.

  “It’s an algae bloom,” said Kevin. “You know, like red tide.”

  “Where is red?” said Vadim from the water. “Show me red.”

  “I meant it’s the same principle in action,” retorted Kevin.

  Striker knew if it were wintertime and the skies were dark, it would be so beautiful you would never want to leave. “Bioluminescence,” she whispered.

  “Da,” said Vadim. “Plankton. One trip last year we find big patch. Marine biologist says very rare. Largest feeding ground on planet earth.”

  Striker unzipped her dry suit. She went around to the other side of the boat and peeled off most of her clothes. A few minutes later the two men heard a splash.

  Kevin remained onboard. “Have fun getting out, dipshits,” he said, as he disappeared down a hatchway. “Don’t come crying to me if you end up a frozen popsicle like Nicholson in The Shining.”

  That’s not how the book ends, Striker thought, but whatever. She knew it wasn’t fear of the cold that was keeping Kevin out of the bluest water on earth. Striker had known guys like him. It was the doughiness of his body, his belly pale and bloodless like a dolphin’s. She wondered how long it had been since his innermost flesh had seen the sun. Why let shame keep you from having a good time? On Zinnia Trace she had seen white humanity’s bottomless hatred of their own bodies up close and personal. Women holding themselves back from a dip in the pool because it required the shedding of their everyday armor called clothes.

  “Any masks up there, maybe some goggles?” she called.

  He didn’t answer. He was probably rifling through the owner’s belongings, pawing through their medicine cabinet, their underwear drawer, practicing a little unfettered voyeurism in his search for the truly useless, like new needles for a 1908 Victrola.

  Vadim popped up next to her. Already she had learned not to startle. The color of the water was so saturated it appeared solid, like a brick of blue clay. Striker lowered her face into it. Within seconds her heart began to pound, the feeling like being buried alive in the sky. With her luck she’d dive and hit something, her face colliding with an old pylon or worse. She wondered how Vadim managed it. How did he know how far away he was from the surface? Maybe days, weeks, in a windowless brig had taught him to navigate by landmarks other than sight, a kind of echolocation birthed from imprisonment.

  For now he lay on his back spitting water up out of his mouth. He turned to her and grinned. For a long time they held each other’s gaze.

  Striker knew what he was thinking. She was thinking it herself. You, me, this boat—get it? All this could be our bubble bath. And Kevin? It’s not like anyone back on Gilligan’s Island will miss him if he fell overboard with something industrial and heavy tied around his foot. What had Sarah said? The guy had nothing left to lose. Dudes like that were dangerous—just look at the culture. Maybe Sarah had really been saying she wanted him dead. Striker imagined the good doctor scribbling something out on her prescription pad. Take two slugs to the back of the head and call me in the morning.

  And what about the others? Did this endless blue even care about the group left behind on the volcano? It could be just the two of them, her and Vadim, riding out the season in mahogany luxury here on this rich man’s yacht, the sky and the ocean one seamless jewel.

  Vadim grinned harder. Yeah, he was definitely thinking it. He was a sailor and a strategist and a Russian who had either hightailed it out of the motherland or served in the festering pit that had become Ukraine. The guy knew better than anyone that a chess board is made solely for two. They could pull up anchor and sail whenever they wanted. If the winds were right, the next port of call might be Cape Town, somewhere the sun would kiss them all over.

  “You hear that?” she said, but Vadim had disappeared again. She gazed out across the bay. It was the sound of tools at work, a steadfast hammering. There was something weirdly musical in the noise. She decided it was probably just some lonely bird drilling into the stony walls for its own inscrutable reason.

  Eventually Vadim resurfaced. He held up a hand. “Wrinkly like elephant scrotum,” he called, wiggling his pruny fingers.

  The look that had passed between them remained suspended in the air. The day smelled of possibility and callousness, of putting yourself first. Striker had never had a problem with every man for himself. Every man for himself led to long nights in hot tubs with married men. All the same she wasn’t one to bite first. Besides, she’d developed a sore spot for the kid. You said sore. The phrase is “soft.” If Striker left the kid trapped on an island with their mom and a pair of serpentine geezers and crewed up to St. Barts, would she be able to face herself in the mirror every Christmas or would the holiday become that much worse?

  All these years you seem to be sleeping just fine.

  “Time to head in,” she agreed.

  Vadim yelled out, “Naked lady boarding!” Everywhere only the sound of water lapping against the boat’s hull.

  Striker takes a deep breath, the air filling her belly. What does she have to lose?

  She dives deep, her feet rising up out of the water like a tail, head face down in the solid blue, letting herself get lost in it.

  Down, down, down.

  Everything blue, her eyes filling with sky, lungs on the verge of bursting.

  Then some inner mechanism kicks in that won’t let her go any deeper. Her body is a buoy that will only take so much, heart beating in her neck.

  Involuntarily she breaks upward, airlessness drawing the body back up to what it needs. She feels herself split open the blue surface, gasping.

  Did she even want to go deeper, all the way down to the end?

  Maybe. It wouldn’t be the worst way to go.

  Two fluffy towels were lying by the ladder. One was white and blue and said mycenae on it, the other mint green, the towels plush as minks. Striker felt a greediness rise in her animal. She grabbed both, wrapping her twists in one and drying herself with the other.

  She was pulling on her fleece when Vadim came crawling up the ladder. He climbed on deck and let out a roar. It was primal and masculine and distinctly Slavic. Something bearlike about it. He didn’t ask for a towel. Just stood in his soaking wet boxers dripping in the summer sun, the water running down the ridges in his glistening muscles, thighs stippled with several unsophisticated tattoos. Striker could tell he had been his own artist. You had to have a lot of time on your hands to do that to yourself. You also needed a high pain threshold and a need to prove to yourself that you were still alive despite everything you’d been told. She imagined him sitting in the dark with a broken ballpoint pen, the results irregular and ugly.