The Last Olympian

that be?” Kronos’s golden eyes glittered. His face—Luke’s face—seemed like a mask, unnatural and lit from behind by some evil power. “Perhaps you are counting on your friend with the explosives?”
    He looked down at the pool and called, “Nakamura!”
    A teenage guy in full Greek armor pushed through the crowd. His left eye was covered with a black patch. I knew him, of course: Ethan Nakamura, the son of Nemesis. I’d saved his life in the Labyrinth last summer, and in return, the little punk had helped Kronos come back to life.
    “Success, my lord,” Ethan called. “We found him just as we were told.”
    He clapped his hands, and two giants lumbered forward, dragging Charles Beckendorf between them. My heart almost stopped. Beckendorf had a swollen eye and cuts all over his face and arms. His armor was gone and his shirt was nearly torn off.
    “No!” I yelled.
    Beckendorf met my eyes. He glanced at his hand like he was trying to tell me something. His watch. They hadn’t taken it yet, and that was the detonator. Was it possible the explosives were armed? Surely the monsters would’ve dismantled them right away.
    “We found him amidships,” one of the giants said, “trying to sneak to the engine room. Can we eat him now?”
    “Soon.” Kronos scowled at Ethan. “Are you sure he didn’t set the explosives?”
    “He was going toward the engine room, my lord.”
    “How do you know that?”
    “Er . . .” Ethan shifted uncomfortably. “He was heading in that direction. And he told us. His bag is still full of explosives.”
    Slowly, I began to understand. Beckendorf had fooled them. When he’d realized he was going to be captured, he turned to make it look like he was going the other way. He’d convinced them he hadn’t made it to the engine room yet. The Greek fire might still be primed! But that didn’t do us any good unless we could get off the ship and detonate it.
    Kronos hesitated.
    Buy the story , I prayed. The pain in my arm was so bad now I could barely stand.
    “Open his bag,” Kronos ordered.
    One of the giants ripped the explosives satchel from Beckendorf’s shoulders. He peered inside, grunted, and turned it upside down. Panicked monsters surged backward. If the bag really had been full of Greek fire jars, we would’ve all blown up. But what fell out were a dozen cans of peaches.
    I could hear Kronos breathing, trying to control his anger.
    “Did you, perhaps,” he said, “capture this demigod near the galley?”
    Ethan turned pale. “Um—”
    “And did you, perhaps, send someone to actually CHECK THE ENGINE ROOM?”
    Ethan scrambled back in terror, then turned on his heels and ran.
    I cursed silently. Now we had only minutes before the bombs were disarmed. I caught Beckendorf’s eyes again and asked a silent question, hoping he would understand: How long?
    He cupped his fingers and thumb, making a circle. ZERO. There was no delay on the timer at all. If he managed to press the detonator button, the ship would blow at once. We’d never be able to get far enough away before using it. The monsters would kill us first, or disarm the explosives, or both.
    Kronos turned toward me with a crooked smile. “You’ll have to excuse my incompetent help, Percy Jackson, but it doesn’t matter. We have you now. We’ve known you were coming for weeks.”
    He held out his hand and dangled a little silver bracelet with a scythe charm—the Titan lord’s symbol.
    The wound in my arm was sapping my ability to think, but I muttered, “Communication device . . . spy at camp.”
    Kronos chuckled. “You can’t count on friends. They will always let you down. Luke learned that lesson the hard way. Now drop your sword and surrender to me, or your friend dies.”
    I swallowed. One of the giants had his hand around Beckendorf’s neck. I was in no shape to rescue him, and even if I tried, he would die before I got there. We both would.
    Beckendorf mouthed one word: Go.
    I shook my head. I couldn’t just leave him.
    The second giant was still rummaging through the peach cans, which meant Beckendorf’s left arm was free. He raised it slowly—toward the watch on his right wrist.
    I wanted to scream, NO!
    Then down by the swimming pool, one of the dracaenae hissed, “What isss he doing? What isss that on hisss wrissst?”
    Beckendorf closed eyes tight and brought his hand up to his watch.
    I had no choice. I threw my sword like a javelin at Kronos. It bounced harmlessly off his