"He did not. I've never read anything about that."

"Of course you didn't. Nobody writes about research assistants." Nate grinned again, celebration for a small victory. He realized he wasn't working up to standards on managing this research assistant. His partner, Clay, had hired her almost two weeks ago, and by now he should have had her terrorized. Instead she was working him like a Starbucks froth slave.

"Ten minutes," Amy said, checking the timer on her watch. "You going to shoot him?"

"Unless you want to?" Nate notched the arrow into the crossbow. He tucked the windbreaker they used to «dress» the crossbow under the console. It was very politically incorrect to carry a weapon for shooting whales through the crowded Lahaina harbor, so they carried it inside the windbreaker, making it appear that they had a jacket on a hanger.

Amy shook her head violently. "I'll drive the boat."

"You should learn to do it."

"I'll drive the boat," Amy said.

"No one drives the boat." No one but Nate drove the boat. Granted, the Constantly Baffled was only a twenty-three-foot Mako speedboat, and an agile four-year-old could pilot it on a calm day like today. Still, no one else drove the boat. It was a man thing, being inherently uncomfortable with the thought of a woman operating a boat or a television remote control.

"Up sounds," Nate said. They had a recording of the full sixteen-minute cycle of the song now — all the way through twice, in fact. He stopped the recorder and pulled up the hydrophone, then started the engine.

"There," Amy said, pointing to the white fins and flukes moving under the water. The whale blew only twenty yards off the bow. Nate buried the throttle. Amy was wrenched off her feet and just caught herself on the railing next to the wheel console as the boat shot forward. Nate pulled up on the right side of the whale, no more than ten yards away as the whale came up for the second time. He steadied the wheel with his hip, pulled up the crossbow, and fired. The bolt bounced off the whale's rubbery back, the hollow surgical steel arrowhead taking out a cookie-cutter plug of skin and blubber the size of a pencil eraser before the wide plastic tip stopped the penetration.