Leviathan

by Jared Sandman

  “I don’t see why you need my help. The Institute hires only the best.”

  Hamilton fidgeted again in his chair. “It’s the Board of Trustees. They want an independent consultant on our next voyage. Kelly’s very bright, but the Trustees feel this discovery may be so vital to the scientific community that we need a second, impartial opinion.”

  Evan thought a moment. “Kelly Andrews. The name sounds familiar. I may have read an abstract of hers about the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef. Was that her, or am I thinking of Heather Maynard?”

  “That was Kelly,” Hamilton said. “She worked two years in Australia on that project.”

  Evan asked, “So where’s the tape?” Hamilton didn’t answer. “Tell me you have the animal on video?”

  “There was an incident with our gear.”

  “What type of incident?”

  “The creature ate it.”

  “I see. Then we’re talking about something larger than your average fish. What other evidence do you have for its existence?”

  “This is all she brought me.” Hamilton reached in his pocket and produced the tooth, which he’d procured over Kelly’s staunch objections. He placed it on the ranger’s desk. “She found it stuck in the equipment. I had the lab run some tests, and it appears legitimate. It’s definitely bone matrix, and it matches nothing in our records. I compared it against everything found in the Atlantic database, then moved to every other ocean when that yielded no results. What can you tell me about it?”

  “Well, it’s a premaxillary incisor. At least I think it is. I’ve never seen one this large. Jesus, this could blow everything else outta the water. It had to have come from something that weighs at least ten tons.”

  “Like some sort of cetacean?”

  “Funny you should bring that up. I’ll show you something.” Evan crossed the room to a specimen case on the far wall. He removed an object from the drawer and presented it to Hamilton. “This belongs to an odontocete, Orcinus orca.”

  “A killer whale?”

  Evan nodded. “This is one of its bottom teeth. They all look alike because orcas don’t have molars.” Evan held the two teeth side by side for comparison. “Both are from very powerful animals. Each is clearly for tearing and not cutting, standard for large predators. I’m unable to sketch a whole profile from one tooth, obviously. I can’t even tell the creature’s age. You can learn how old a whale is by counting the rings on the roots of its teeth, like you would a tree trunk.”

  “But you think this could be from a species of whale?”

  “Potentially,” Evan said. He replaced the orca tooth and handed Hamilton the other one.

  “Would you be interested in joining on?”

  “What kind of timeframe are we looking at?”

  “Kelly wants to get on the water as soon as possible,” Hamilton said. “Every day we wait erodes our chances of finding the creature. She’s looking to leave port Monday morning. Are you available on short notice?”

  “I have some vacation days coming my way,” Evan said. He consulted an appointment calendar hanging on the wall. There was nothing written on it. “I’m a very busy man, y’know. I’ll have to shift around several important meetings and cancel some other stuff.” When he turned to Hamilton, he wore a wide grin. “Of course I’m in. I can’t pass up an opportunity like this.”

  Hamilton clapped his hands together. “Beautiful. I’ll set up a get-together this weekend so you and Kelly can discuss the details. When will you be able to make it down to the Keys?”

  “Tomorrow evening at the earliest.”

  “That sounds great. I’ll make dinner reservations, and the Institute will put you up in a motel for the night.”

  “You’re coming along, aren’t you?”

  Hamilton shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I’m committed to speak at a symposium in Vancouver. I’d rather go on the expedition, except this has been planned for months. And I already spent the money they paid me.”

  “That’s too bad,” Evan said. “Maybe next time.”

  “Indeed,” Hamilton agreed. “You set sail on Monday. Bring whatever research materials you need. And I have to warn you about Kelly. She’s a bit of a firecracker. She’s resistant to the idea of bringing in an outside specialist, but I’m sure you’ll win her over.”

  Evan’s dimples flashed as he smiled. “Trust me, five minutes alone with that girl and she’ll be eating out of my hand.”

  To which Hamilton replied, “I somehow doubt that.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS of Wright Enterprises was located in Manhattan at the corner of Columbus Avenue and West Fifty-Seventh Street. The company’s CEO sat in a near-empty boardroom on the thirtieth floor. An oaken table stretched the length of the room, all the chairs vacant except for three.

  Jeremy Anderson squirmed under Oscar Wright’s piercing stare. The accountant had a portfolio spread before him, various papers categorized into separate piles.

  Wright said, “I’m waiting.”

  Jeremy’s dry throat clicked as he swallowed hard. “Is it possible to get a drink?” he asked.

  “Of course,” Wright said. An attractive redhead sat at his side, a personal assistant. She’d worked for him a week now, after his previous aide abruptly resigned. He couldn’t remember her name, had a notion it started with A. “Vodka on the rocks.” As she stood, he touched her wrist. “Three fingers’ worth.”

  The woman had one specific finger in mind for the billionaire. Instead of telling him off, she smiled politely and went to the wet bar to pour the stiff drink.

  “About last quarter,” Wright pressed.

  The accountant didn’t want to upset his boss. The news he bore wouldn’t bode well for anyone, least of all someone with an infamous temper like Oscar Wright. Jeremy cleared his throat again. “The economy’s taken a downturn in the last nine months. Companies across the board have posted losses.”

  “And this is when you tell me Wright Enterprises has bucked that trend.”

  Jeremy’s face flushed hot. “Global markets are depressed at the moment. The Fed Chairman is predicted to cut interest rates again next week, so that should send the Dow rallying.”

  “I’m a bottom line guy,” Wright said. His assistant handed him the drink, which he swallowed in two gulps. “Refill.”

  “Bottom line, the last quarter wasn’t kind to us. We need to gain two hundred million dollars to justify operations.”

  “Two hundred million,” Wright repeated. He rolled the words around his tongue, contemplating the number. Two followed by eight zeros. “That’s, what, roughly seven thousand jobs?”

  “Cutbacks are inevitable,” Jeremy said. “If we buckle down in all sectors, we may be able to salvage half that amount in a year’s time.”

  “No need,” Wright said. His gaze wandered to the window. The morning fog hadn’t yet dissipated, and a dense cloud blanketed the area below. From this high perch Wright couldn’t see the streets, a wall of gray at the twentieth story. Other skyscrapers in the city panorama stabbed through the fog like architectural daggers. “How many employees do we have at the factory in Trenton?”

  The accountant consulted his files while the woman brought Wright another drink. This one the old man sipped. “Eight thousand.”

  Wright nodded, still staring out the window. “Shut it down,” he said. “It’s a drag on the books anyway. Ship those jobs overseas.”

  “Just like that?”

  “It’s not my fault someone in Indonesia’s willing to do the same job for one-tenth the pay.”

  “At least two thousand of those hardworking folks don’t have to lose their positions. If we implement a series of stringent policies, we can — ”

  “What’s next on the agenda?” Wright interrupted. He was already bored with the accountant’s petitions.

  Jeremy loosened his tie a bit. The room seemed very hot. It wouldn’t surprise him to learn that Wright had ordered the room’s t
hermostat be increased for the appointment. The old man himself wore shorts and a Georgetown t-shirt, as opposed to Jeremy’s six-hundred-dollar suit. “Wright Enterprises is prepared to dole out forty million dollars over the next twelve months for employee pensions. We have five thousand people poised to retire during the next fiscal year.”

  Wright’s steel gaze returned to the accountant. “Freeze the accounts and convert them to stock options.”

  “But our stock’s lost nearly half its value since the last shareholder meeting.”

  “It’ll bounce back,” Wright justified. “The investors will come around.”

  The woman poured Jeremy a glass of water and placed it next to him. “Thank you,” he told her. Wright appeared perturbed by the gesture but said nothing.

  She took her seat next to the billionaire. Jeremy couldn’t bring himself to look in the old man’s hateful eyes, so he focused on Wright’s splotchy red nose instead. A few of the braver employees called the billionaire Rudolph behind his back, yet even the most fearless dare not deride him in person.

  “Aren’t you worried about the market’s volatility?”

  “They’ll still have Social Security as a safety net. Maybe.” Wright suppressed a grin.

  “When you hire someone, it’s in their contract that they’ll have a company pension upon retirement. You can’t switch the program for thousands of people and their families on a whim.”

  Wright kept his anger in check. “I’ll still have my fortune, correct?”

  “Your net worth can only grow.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “I think it’s unscrupulous to — ”

  “Next,” Wright barked.

  Jeremy took a moment to compose himself before speaking. “There is one more thing.” Since he didn’t know how to break the news gently, he was straightforward and hoped the old man would respect his forthrightness. “When my department tallied the books, they found some . . . discrepancies. I checked the figures myself.”

  “And?”

  “We’re missing one and a half million dollars. The numbers don’t add up.”

  Jeremy braced for the old man’s ire. It never came.

  “I know where every cent of that went. It’s up on the roof, if you’d like to see.”

  “See what?”

  “My helicopter, the new one. Haven’t decided what to do with the other one yet.”

  “You realize the Board of Directors needs to be consulted before making such a large purchase with company funds.”

  “The Board can blow me,” the old man spat. “I founded this company with my own two hands and ingenuity. Wright Enterprises started in my goddamned garage forty years ago. I’m not their kept pet.”

  Oscar Wright’s parents emigrated from Norway to the United States in 1925. Their only child was born fifteen years later. Oscar showed an early aptitude for machines, an interest that was fostered during a stint in the Navy. He was the first in his family to attend college: New York University, class of 1962.

  After graduating with an engineering degree, he worked for Chrysler for five years before saving enough to construct a prototype for one of his own inventions. It took a year to build and another six months to polish; when he finished he had the first working model of a portable desalination device. Another two years’ time brought capital from business partners to finance a full-scale version.

  The Wright Corporation was founded that same year. Oscar made a fortune selling the appliances to third-world nations where clean drinking water wasn’t readily available. His company lost money its maiden year, as well as the next one. The third year broke even, and the fourth posted a modest profit of forty thousand dollars.

  The entrepreneur had a knack for investing in the right market at the right time. In the early eighties Oscar sank twenty million dollars of his personal wealth into a fledgling computer software company and reaped a tenfold return. Eventually his interests turned elsewhere. Within ten years the business re-branded as Wright Enterprises and branched into areas of energy research, like solar power plants and alternative fuel sources.

  Wright Enterprises joined the pantheon of Fortune 500 companies in 1993 and grew into a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate that replaced General Motors on the DOW Jones Stock Index shortly into the twenty-first century.

  The accountant licked his lips. “I understand your thinking, Mister Wright. However, they still need to be notified in cases like this.”

  The old man sighed. “So fudge the numbers. It’s a couple million, a drop in the bucket. You’re good with money, free it up somewhere.”

  Jeremy went to take another sip and realized the glass was empty. He said, “I wouldn’t feel right doing that,” hastily adding, “with all due respect, sir.”

  “Then find someone who will and give him your job,” Wright said.

  The color drained from Jeremy’s face. “Am I fired?”

  “Not if there’s miraculously one-point-five million more in the corporate account by Monday morning.” The old man stood, handed his empty tumbler to the woman. “We’re done here.”

  Jeremy gathered his papers and slinked from the boardroom.

  Wright turned to his assistant once they were alone. “Make sure he follows up on that. The last thing I need is a whistleblower. And if the little shit doesn’t cooperate, freeze his assets and ruin his credit. If he doesn’t want to work for me, I’ll make it impossible for him to find employment anywhere.”

  The woman made a note in her day planner. “There’s one other thing,” she said as she followed Wright into the lobby.

  “Out with it.”

  “Your three o’clock is waiting for you. Sir Penfold’s here about your acquisition of Manchester United. Apparently the Brits are chaffed about an American buying up controlling interest in their soccer team.”

  “Cancel it,” Wright said. “Reschedule for next week. I feel like a swim and a nap right now.”

  “But he traveled from London.”

  “Are you deaf, woman? Reschedule it.” The old man spoke to her as though she were a Special Olympics entrant rather than a Harvard graduate.

  “Right, okay. There’s also a late addition here for an Ian Thorpe. Said you’d contacted him personally about something. He should be here within the next half hour.”

  “Send him up when he arrives.”

  “Yessir.”

  A young man at the reception desk waved at Wright, a telephone cradled in the crook of his shoulder. On the wall behind him was the trademarked company logo in gold stamping (Wright Enterprises: WE Take Care of YOU). “Lorne Michaels on line one. He wants to know if you’re free this Saturday night for a sketch cameo on SNL.”

  The old man bellowed across the room loud enough for Michaels to hear over the phone. “Tell him if he wants a shill for his show, I’m sure Trump’s available.”

  “That’s it,” the woman said. “I’ve stood by for the past week, watching you treat everyone like dog shit on your shoe. I’ve seen you screw over thousands of people so you can add a few digits to your precious bottom line.” She jabbed an accusatory finger at him. “Do you even have a heart?”

  “Not anymore” the billionaire admitted. He leaned in close enough that she smelled the vodka on his breath. “What’s your name again?”

  “Alice,” she said.

  “Alice. Where’s the one you replaced, the chick with the huge rack? I mean, look at you — you’re a flapjack.”

  He stormed across the foyer to a private elevator while Alice snapped at his heels like an angry Chihuahua. “I’ve never been treated with such disrespect, especially in the workplace. I’m going to file a lawsuit against this company for cultivating a hostile environment.”

  “Don’t forget sexual harassment.” Oscar pressed the UP button and the brass doors slid open. “Have you seen our legal department?” he asked. “If you wanna serve me with a subpoena, take a number and stand in line.” He stepped inside the lift.

  �
��This isn’t the last you’ve heard from me,” she warned.

  As the doors closed, he muttered one last comment. Wright made certain to have the last word of any conversation. He winked at Alice and said, “You got a great ass though.” Then he was gone.

  And for the first time that morning, Oscar Wright smiled.

  * * * * *

  The skyscraper’s penthouse suite served as one of the billionaire’s residences. He held deeds for a couple mansions in Los Angeles and Honolulu, as well as a château outside Paris. This was the one room in the building where he found a place of solitude in otherwise-hectic New York City.

  The top deck had a Jacuzzi and forty-thousand-gallon swimming pool. He handpicked a team of landscapers to construct brick dirt beds and plant a variety of flowers for color and aroma. A row of purple chrysanthemums was currently in bloom, and thick privacy bushes of verbena outlined the rooftop perimeter. A helipad overlooked the sundeck, Wright’s latest toy parked there: a McDonnell-Douglas 500.

  The temperature was a pleasant seventy-one degrees. Local meteorologists forecasted a peak high of eighty-seven before the day was through. The air was a bit chilly, but the thermometer in his pool always hovered at ninety. The outside floor tiles were heated too, so snowfall never accumulated in winter, and the pool had underwater lights installed for nighttime swimming.

  Wright changed into a pair of black swim trunks, placed his sandals and towel on a nearby deckchair. He didn’t bother using suntan lotion because it stung his eyes. Besides, he wasn’t scared of melanoma. There were worse ways to die.

  A diving board jutted from one end of the pool, four feet above the water. Wright climbed up and lingered on the tip for a moment to admire the panoramic view over the hedges. From here he glimpsed the southwest corner of Central Park. He bounced three times before taking a leap. In one breath he swam the length of the pool and stood up when he reached the stairs on the shallow end. He stepped out of the water when a buzzer rang him from an outside callbox. Wright pressed a button and said, “What?”

  A voice echoed over the intercom. “Ian Thorpe is here to see you. He’s a bit early.”