Chapter 9 - The Devil’s Reef
By the final stretch, the race was down to two boats. The Apex and The Phantom.
They were neck and neck, tearing through the treacherous, narrow channel of the Mangrove Atolls at ninety miles an hour in pitch darkness. The only light came from the moon reflecting off the churning wake.
Viper Cross, piloting Thorne’s boat, looked over at the black monstrosity keeping pace with him and panicked. He received a direct radio transmission from Thorne.
“Ram him into the reef, Cross! Do not let him cross that finish line!” Thorne screamed.
Cross jerked the wheel of The Apex, aggressively swerving into The Phantom’s lane, trying to force Elias into the jagged coral reef looming on their port side.
The two boats violently slammed against each other. Sparks flew as aluminum ground against carbon fiber.
"He's trying to sink us!" Sarah screamed in terror, the boat violently pitching sideways.
Elias’s arms strained, his muscles burning as he fought the wheel. His ribs screamed in agony, but his face was set in stone. He knew these waters better than anyone alive. He had smuggled through this exact channel blindfolded twenty years ago.
He knew about the sandbar.
"Hold on!" Elias roared.
Instead of turning away from the reef, Elias suddenly slammed the brakes, throwing both throttles into hard reverse.
The Phantom’s nose violently dipped, throwing a massive wall of water forward, and the boat skidded backward. Cross, expecting resistance, had overcompensated on his steering. With The Phantom suddenly gone from his side, The Apex violently jerked out of control.
Cross realized his mistake a second too late. He was heading straight for a submerged sandbar. He tried to turn, but the lightweight turbine boat couldn't correct in time. The Apex hit the sandbar at ninety miles an hour, launching into the air like a skipped stone, before violently crashing into the mangrove swamp in a tangle of broken carbon fiber and hissing steam. Cross was alive, but the billion-dollar boat was destroyed.
Elias slammed the gears back into drive. The twin V8s roared, and The Phantom shot forward, alone in the dark.
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Two miles later, they crossed the finish line—two red flares marking the end of the run.
The radio channel was dead silent. The impossible had happened. The ghost had beaten the machine.
