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from the bridge, and the boat turned eastward. Karmann stared after it, his chest congealed with terror and rage. When he could no longer hear the gunboat's diesel engines, he came up out of the water and heaved himself onto his piece of plastic flotsam. He floated in a sea strewn with wreckage and bodies. The Pravda was releasing her crew. Here and there were pieces of men. The Cubans and their assault rifles had been savage. |
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Even as he watched, more sharks gathered. Three. Five. Ten. Too many to count. They thrashed themselves into a feeding frenzy. They attacked the corpses and one another. Karmann spewed up his last meal from the Pravda's galley and closed his eyes. But he could still hear the splashes the sharks made as they fed. |
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He lost his grip on time. The sun was low when he caught sight of the raft Krasny had put over the side from the Pravda's sail. It had been hit by gunfire, but it floated and could be repaired if the patching kit were still aboard. |
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He hauled himself onto the raft and found the repair packet. Ignoring the noises made by the feeding sharks, he set about repairing the slender grip on survival willed him by the Pravda. |
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The surface of the sea was like a mirrora glassy brilliance reflecting a high, pitiless white overcast through which the January sun burned down on Arkady Karmann, who lay half-conscious on the slowly deflating rubber raft. |
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The still intended to convert seawater to fresh was gone. It had been lost two days ago when a questing shark struck the raft and overturned it. Karmann might have welcomed death then, but his terror and his rage kept him alive. The terror remained because the shark was still with him. His rage faded in the heat of the barely visible tropic sun. The last of the emergency rations were gone, lost with the still. The repair kit and the pump were gone as well, and the raft was losing buoyancy, gradually sinking into the sea under Karmann's weight. |
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