“You really think he’s the kind of person who would do that?”
“No, not really. I am starting to think he’s a douche though.”
Maria suppressed a laugh. Kevin finally lowered the binoculars and flashed her a smile, but it disappeared quickly.
“What?” she asked.
“I can fight my own battles, Maria. I don’t need you assaulting everyone who talks insensitively about me because I’m transgender.”
“I… I’m sorry. He made me see red.”
Kevin looked away. “Thank you, though.”
Maria nodded.
After several seconds of awkward silence he offered her the binoculars. “Want one more look?”
“Nah, we’re probably not going to see anything that answers the mystery on this trip. Wait…” Something on the horizon caught her eye, a small and distinctly unnatural shape. She took the binoculars before he could see it himself and used them to look.
It was a ship, and even at this distance she could identify it as one she had definitely seen before: the Tetsuo Maru. “There it is.” She handed the binoculars back and then headed for the stairs below deck.
“Everyone get to your stations,” she called out. “It’s showtime.”
6
The Tetsuo Maru was hardly the largest Japanese shark fishing vessel Maria had ever seen. In fact, given how much smaller it was than its brethren, she wouldn’t have thought it was any danger at all to the shark population. But Kevin had shown her aerial pictures snapped of it after it had taken its share, and those images were brutal. Every available space on the deck of the ship had been occupied by bloody shark fins drying in the sun, the deck beneath them running completely red. The Tetsuo Maru could probably hold over a thousand fins in this manner and frequently did. Considering most of the largest shark groups Maria had ever heard of were in the hundreds, that was a lot of shark communities wiped out in just one voyage.
No matter its size compared to others like it, the Tetsuo Maru still looked intimidatingly large compared to the Cameron. It was twice as high and three times as long, and if Captain Ito had wanted to he probably could have rammed the Cameron easily and not experience anything more than minor damage to its hull. The Tetsuo Maru had been designed for long distance heavy-duty work, after all, while the Cameron had originally been designed for rich white men to compensate for small penises.
It was lucky for them, then, that Captain Ito didn’t want to do any such thing. While Kevin might have been content to think the worst of the man, Maria had taken the time and effort to find out more about him. First off, he didn’t strike her as the kind of person willing to risk the major international incident that would be caused by blatantly running over a world-famous marine biologist. Furthermore, he probably would have found any possible loss of human life appalling. Maria had found numerous references to him giving his time and money to charity. While the lives of endangered animals might have meant nothing to him, he didn’t seem to have the same disregard for people.
“Okay, you guys know the drill!” Maria yelled. She noticed that, despite Vandergraf’s threat earlier, Gary was making sure to record her every movement as she commanded the volunteers. “Exactly like we planned and everything will be smooth, got it?”
There were cries of “Yes” and “Got it” and even an “Aye aye,” from one of the women. They all waited at the back of the Cameron, right at that spot where they would have launched a submersible if this had been a deep sea operation, as she inflated the first Zodiac. The volunteers all put on life vests. The Gutsdorfs even had wetsuits. She didn’t anticipate anyone ending up in the water but she knew from experience that it could get cold in civilian clothes while out on one of the rafts. The spray from the ocean as the Zodiacs sped over the water could drop a person’s body temperature fast, no matter how hot the sun might feel above. It probably would have been a good idea if Murphy and Mercer were wearing wetsuits as well. It was too late to tell them to change, though. The Tetsuo Maru was quicker than it looked, and they had to get into position now if they didn’t want the ship to get past them.
Once the Zodiac was ready, she turned to look at the others. Boleau and Gutierrez were taking care of the boat while everyone else was on the deck watching her. Even Kevin had ceded control for the moment. He was all about the science. According to him he’d never been comfortable ordering people about.
“Double check to make sure everyone has their equipment.” For this particular assignment, the equipment was minimal. Each raft would have two walkie-talkies and two non-lethal prods to use against the sharks if they absolutely had to. If they’d been dealing with something smaller, they would have also had bullhorns to talk to the ship. Instead the bullhorns were stored below and all attempts at communicating with the Tetsuo Maru would be from the bridge. Cindy took the two walkies for her Zodiac and double-checked the batteries. “I’m having problems with one of these.”
“Here, let me see,” Maria said. She walked over to Cindy and fiddled with the walkie. Everyone else watched, or at least she thought they all were until she heard something hit the water and a motor start up. She turned back to look at the Zodiac.
“Oh you’ve got to be kidding me,” she said. Both Mercer and Murphy had jumped in and they were even now speeding away.
“Hey, get the hell back here!” Kevin yelled, but they either didn’t hear him or didn’t care.
“What are they even doing?” Simon asked.
“I have no idea,” Maria said. She fumbled around until she found the binoculars.
“They didn’t even take their gear,” Cindy said, pointing at the deck. She was right. There were still four prods and two walkies on the deck.
“Stupid fucking idiots!” Maria mumbled. She looked at them through the binoculars and saw something she hadn’t noticed in the previous couple minutes. They might not have the gear that had been assigned to them, but Mercer did have a backpack hanging from her shoulders. Whatever was in it, the pack looked stuffed to the point of almost busting its zippers.
“Well, they have equipment of some kind,” she said to the others as she lowered the binoculars.
“So what are we going to do?” Cindy asked. Maria looked to Kevin, hoping he might have some insight. He looked completely bewildered himself. The only people who didn’t appear to be confused by this turn of events were Gary and Vandergraf, Gary because she couldn’t see his face from behind the camera and Vandergraf because he was desperately trying not to smile.
“Why would they do this?” Kevin asked.
“They wanted to be on a Zodiac together even when I said no,” Maria said. “I have no idea why.”
“Will they still do what we told them to do?”
Maria shrugged before looking at the Zodiac again through the binoculars. To her surprise, Murphy was piloting the raft with no problem. They looked like they were taking up one of the positions she’d ordered during the briefing.
“They look like they intend to,” Maria said. “But without walkie-talkies we won’t be able to give them orders if we have to change positions.”
“We can go out to them and give them their equipment before we get into our position,” Cindy said.
Maria looked at the Tetsuo Maru, getting ever closer with each second they spent trying to get their act together. No more volunteers, Maria thought to herself. I’ve got to convince Kevin to hire professionals from now on.
Kevin was the one who said what she was thinking. “There’s no time. We have to do this now or they’ll just zoom right past us and take up a spot over El Bajo.”
Maria nodded in the direction of the Gutsdorfs. “You heard the man. Inflate the other Zodiac and get into position immediately. We’re just going to have to cross our fingers that those two don’t do anything else stupid.”
Kevin walked briskly off in the direction of the bridge. His was the name Ito would recognize when Kevin called him over the radio, so he had to be the one to do all the talking. He even spoke a little Japa
nese. He wasn’t fluent enough to hold a complete conversation but he knew at least how to get the captain’s attention. He’d done it before after all. Kevin would also be the one directing Gutierrez to the most optimal positions.
While Kevin did that, Maria finished supervising the inflation of the remaining Zodiac, then stayed on the deck once the Gutsdorfs were off. Her job here was to keep an eye on the two rafts and act as the coordinator between them and the Cameron. She was happy to note that she finally had the deck all to herself. Gary and Vandergraf had followed Kevin, believing that would be where they would get the most interesting footage. If they had stayed here with her, Maria wasn’t sure she’d be able to keep her temper if Vandergraf did or said something disrespectful again.
“Maria, this is Kevin checking in,” her walkie-talkie squawked.
“I’m hearing you. Cindy and Simon, you hearing all this as well?”
“We’re hearing you both just fine. Almost into position. How are we looking?”
“Everything looks okay so far.” Indeed, at the moment everything looked like it was going exactly according to plan despite the hiccup regarding Murphy and Mercer. The Cameron stopped in a position directly between the Tetsuo Maru and the boundary marking El Bajo Marine Protected Zone. The Japanese ship also looked like it was slowly coming to a stop. On the bridge, Kevin would currently be going through his typical spiel, addressing a message to Captain Ito that his ship was currently in violation of local laws and blah, blah, blah. There might be some back and forth between Ito and Kevin, and there would almost certainly be a point where the Tetsuo Maru would test their resolve and play chicken with them. In the end they would go on their way before the Mexican Navy could arrive, though, and the Cameron would be the winner for this round. It was dance Maria had seen before. Okay, so it wasn’t really piracy in any true sense, but she still enjoyed the feel like maybe there was at least a little danger involved.
Maria clipped the walkie-talkie to her belt and raised the binoculars. All the watercraft were exactly where she’d expected them to be, so she instead let her attention slip back to the sharks. There seemed to be even more dorsal fins than before, and although they all kept their distance from the Cameron and the Zodiacs, she couldn’t help to think their movements were getting increasingly agitated. Something was spooking them, but she wasn’t sure that it was the presence of the Cameron and Tetsuo Maru. All the activity seemed to be centered around a specific location, and that location was not, in fact, El Bajo like it should have been. Instead the center of the frothing mass of sharks appeared to be moving. Was it heading for one of the Zodiacs or was that just her imagination? She was just about to get on the walkie and warn them when she remembered that wouldn’t do any good. The raft the sharks seemed to be inching toward was Murphy and Mercer’s.
“Crap,” she muttered. She pointed the binoculars in the direction of their Zodiac, hoping that one of them might be facing her direction so she could possibly flag them down or point out the bizarre shark behavior headed right for them. They probably weren’t in any danger, but given how little they all knew about the behavior to begin with, she figured it was important they were at least aware. Neither of them were looking in her direction, however. Instead, both of them were staring intently at something on the floor of the raft with them. The pack was no longer on Mercer’s back, so maybe it was something she’d been carrying. It was hard to tell from this distance, but they even looked like they might be having an argument over it.
“None of this feels right,” she muttered to herself, then unclipped the walkie-talkie. “Kevin, how’s it going in there?”
He didn’t answer for about twenty seconds. “Ito is talking his usual smack about how we don’t have right to do this and so forth and so on. Why? Is there something the matter?”
“Maybe. I want permission to move around the Zodiacs.”
“If you think it can be done quickly. I don’t want Ito to think we’re leaving a hole open that he can get through.”
“Roger that. Cindy, did you get that?”
“Yeah, but I’m not sure what it is you want us to do.”
“I think Murphy and Mercer might be about to need your help. Wait. Hold on a second.” Maria looked through the binoculars again at the young couple. Murphy was at the back of the raft again looking like he was about to move the Zodiac. She thought for a second that he had seen the sharks, except not once did he look behind him as the dorsal fins sliced ever closer. Mercer was still messing around with whatever was in the bottom of the raft. As Murphy started their motor going and pointed them in the direction of the Tetsuo Maru, Mercer finally sat back up with something in her hand. Maria tried to zoom in closer to get a look at it, but what she saw was so improbable that her mind didn’t recognize it at first. She saw the silver color and the knobs at either end. There was also something strapped to it that might have been a cell phone.
Finally, Maria’s mind caught up to her eyes. She hadn’t understood at first because she’d never seen one in the real world, but she’d seen enough movies that she could recognize it for what it was meant to be.
Mercer was carrying a pipe bomb.
7
“A what?” Kevin yelled it loud enough that Maria wouldn’t have needed the walkie-talkie. She could hear him on the bridge from here.
“A pipe bomb! Or something similar, I don’t know. You’ve got to warn the Tetsuo Maru!”
Kevin didn’t immediately reply. Marie suspected that, even if it was just for a second, he was considering letting Mercer do whatever she was going to do. Captain Ito was violating international law, after all, and he wouldn’t have any grounds for protest if the Tetsuo Maru took any damage during such an action. There was even precedent elsewhere in the world, such as with the tactics of the Sea Shepherd organization and how they handled whaling vessels. But Sea Shepherd’s tactics, while ethically suspect, were never intended to actually kill or hurt another human. They just wanted to make their point.
And Sea Shepherd sure as hell never used bombs. If that was indeed what Diane Mercer had out there, she and Murphy had crossed a very major line.
“Okay, radioing the Tetsuo Maru with a warning,” Kevin finally said. “You get the Gutsdorfs to see if they can get to the other Zodiac and stop them. I’ll have Gutierrez see what he can do about getting between their Zodiac and the ship.”
Maria made sure the Gutsdorfs had heard all that, and as the Cameron turned and started toward the rogue Zodiac as fast as it could, Maria once more watched all that she could through the binoculars. Although the Cameron moved fast and could cut through the waves easily, there was a reason they used the Zodiacs to do most of the maneuvering between fishing ships and their targets. The rafts were quicker than the Cameron under most circumstances, and Mercer and Murphy’s Zodiac had a significant head start on them. The Gutsdorfs gunned their engine and made a beeline for Mercer and Murphy, but they must have noticed the other Zodiac coming for them and only went faster. Now that the Cameron was turned to face all three of the other vessels on the water, Maria ran to the bridge where she would still be able to see what was going on yet talk to Kevin at the same time.
Gutierrez didn’t seem to notice her presence, given how intent he was at pushing the Cameron to its limit, while Kevin was similarly occupied with the radio. Gary and Vandergraf certainly noticed her though. As soon as she entered, the camera swiveled onto her. She shoved past them, trying to forget they were even there, and joined Kevin.
Kevin yelled something Japanese into the receiver. He waited several seconds for a reply yet none came. Kevin yelled something else, then looked out the window at the approaching Tetsuo Maru with uncontrolled disgust.
“Well?” Maria asked.
“Ito’s not responding. I’m telling him he and all of his crew might be in danger, but I don’t think he’s taking any of it seriously. I mean, look.”
He pointed out the window. Even without the binoculars she could see that the ship had sta
rted moving again. Ito might not have understood what the Zodiacs were doing but he had perceived a hole opening up in their defenses. Unfortunately for him, that only put the ship closer to Mercer and Murphy.
“We’re close enough that Simon is trying to yell at them,” Cindy said from the walkie, “but either they can’t hear us over the wind and waves or else they’re just ignoring us.”
Kevin was the one who spoke to them this time. “Can you confirm what Maria said? Do they actually have a bomb?”
There was a long pause where Maria felt like her heart wanted to stop. Then finally Cindy answered. “Uh, confirmed. I think.”
“Well which is it?” Kevin asked. “Confirmed or not?”
Another pause, although much shorter this time. “Simon says confirmed. It sure as hell looks like a bomb to him.”
“Fuck!” Kevin said. Only then did he look like he remembered the camera recording his every word and movement. “Vandergraf, maybe you should turn the camera off. This isn’t exactly—”
Vandergraf barked a laugh. “You’re kidding, right? Gary, no matter what you do, do not stop recording.”
Kevin appeared to be about to lose what little cool he had left before Maria touched his arm and shook her head. This was certainly bad, and oh holy hell were they all in for a world of hurt if any of this footage got out, but now was not the time for that fight. People might be about to die, and all because Mercer and Murphy wanted to… well, Maria still wasn’t sure what their plan was here, although she could make a guess. Whether it was just the two of them working alone or they were doing this at the behest of some much more rogue environmentalist group, it was evident they intended to use the bomb to sink the Tetsuo Maru. Apparently they felt that when it came to between the lives of illegal fishermen and that of endangered sharks, the sharks were more important.
The sharks. During the last couple minutes Maria had completely forgotten about them. “Kevin, something weird is happening out there. With the hammerheads, I mean.”
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