MEG: Nightstalkers

by Steve Alten

  Monty flirted and cracked inane jokes like a bad game show host, then led the procession of women up the stairs and onto the jumbo jet. The ten contestants dutifully followed him and a protesting Amanda Silvernail onto the upper level where they took seats outside the Prince’s bedroom suite; a stewardess directed David down a circular staircase to the lower level.

  Six rows of first-class seats were situated up front, followed by a cherrywood conference table, several private work stations, bathrooms, a dining area, and in back, a home theater, complete with padded lounge chairs and a fifty-two-inch screen.

  Tears clouded David’s vision. It was in this very cabin, six months earlier, that he had met the stunning blue-eyed woman who had captured his heart. She was a few years his senior, her brunette hair long and wavy and tinged with red highlights, her features resembling those of a young Stefanie Powers. She was wearing white shorts and a navy hooded sweatshirt, the name K. Szeifert embroidered in white beneath a Scripps Institute insignia. Her long tan legs bore the calf muscles of a sprinter. A pair of thongs dangled from her bare feet, which were propped up on the polished wood table top he was now staring at.

  “It’s pronounced ‘See-furt.’ Kaylie Szeifert.”

  “Hey … you okay?”

  David turned to his right to find an apple-pie American girl in her early twenties in the window seat, her tan complexion unusual considering her strawberry-blond hair. It was shoulder length and pulled into a conservative ponytail, her blue eyes framed behind reading glasses. Brown University Field Hockey was printed across her gray T-shirt. Her knees poked through holes in her worn jeans, her bare feet were propped on the duffle bag beneath the seat ahead of her.

  David casually wiped away the evidence of his tears. “Allergies. All this dry heat.”

  “Those looked like real tears to me.”

  “Shouldn’t you be upstairs auditioning for the show?”

  “Do I look like I just got plucked out of a harem, David?”

  “No, David’s upstairs. I’m Monty.”

  “And this Brown T-shirt came with my degree. You want to get your friend laid—go for it. But don’t spray your can of bullshit my way and try to call it a fragrance. Ignorance can be worked with, stupid is forever and I have zero tolerance for either.”

  The Fasten Your Seat Belt sign lit up. “Good morning. This is Captain Michael Schallhorn in the flight deck. As you can see, I’ve just turned on the seat belt sign in preparation for takeoff. Kindly refrain from moving about the cabin until we’ve reached our cruising altitude. That would include any unscheduled activities apparently going in the Crown Prince’s romp room.”

  The strawberry-blonde removed her backpack from the aisle seat and tossed it on the floor. “Sit.”

  Sit? What am I? A dog?

  The 747 lurched forward, causing David to fall into the aisle seat. “Thanks. So, um … who are you and what are you doing here?”

  She held out her hand. “Jacqueline Buchwald, my friends call me Jackie. My degree is in marine biology with certificates in shark awareness, SCUBA, underwater photography, and advanced open water diving. I was recruited for the hell’s aquarium gig by Barbara Becker and promoted from associate to assistant director after she was transferred to a DOD facility in Miami. I’ve personally overseen the diets and care of every aquatic animal in the exhibit. Dr. Al Hashemi felt my expertise was needed in the field, where the mortality rates of captured specimens have been so high. You net ’em; I’ll vet ’em.”

  “And how do you intend on vetting a hundred-ton monster nearly half the size of a football field?”

  “The Lio is the Tonga’s mission, not ours. Focus on the task ahead and maybe we’ll end up together on the big hunt. For now, we’re after three pretty nasty prehistoric fish.”

  Jackie removed a manila folder from her backpack and handed David an artist’s rendition of a sea creature with a dolphin-shaped mouth, a whalelike torso, narrow front and rear flippers, and a double-pronged tail. “Shonisaurus. A massive species of ichthyosaur or fish-lizard which dominated the late Triassic seas approximately two hundred and eight million years ago.”

  “I know. Kaylie and I barely escaped a pod of them.”

  “Those were Shonisaurus populari.… fifty-footers weighing about forty tons. The species we’re after is a seventy-five-foot version classified as Shonisaurus sikanniensis. After the Lio followed Angel up through the borehole into our surface waters, three Shonis escaped from the Panthalassa Sea. Unfortunately, the two supertankers couldn’t get their nets in place fast enough to capture these amazing creatures.”

  David hurriedly secured his seat belt as the 747-300 jumbo jet suddenly accelerated along the runway, its Pratt & Whitney engines providing 54,000 pounds of thrust until its massive wings gained lift, freeing the 300,000-ton aircraft from the Earth.

  “It wasn’t a borehole, Jacqueline. The gap was created by the USS Indianapolis. When she sunk back in 1945 her bow must have struck the sea floor like an anvil. Ten thousand tons of cruiser punched a hole straight down through the Philippine Sea Plate into the Panthalassa Sea—I know because I saw the wreckage. But the shaft was fairly narrow; how can you be so sure anything else besides the Liopleurodon escaped?”

  She passed him the rest of the file. Inside were a series of satellite images taken at night, the ocean appearing dark green. A red circle highlighted three distinct florescent-olive images moving beneath the surface. In the next photo the circle was enlarged, revealing the three Shonisaurus—two larger adults sandwiching an offspring a third their size.

  “These thermal images were taken two days after you were rescued. Like the Lio, the Shonisaurus are night stalkers, their eyes being nocturnal and sensitive to the light. Their cardiovascular systems aren’t used to the higher oxygen content of our surface waters, rendering them a bit hyperkinetic. It’s made it a bit of a challenge tracking them.”

  “What are they feeding on? Whales?”

  “We’re not sure. They only possess teeth in the front end of their jaw, which are used primarily for snatching prey, so whales are probably not on the menu.”

  “Where are they headed?”

  “We think north, toward the Sea of Japan.”

  David handed her back the file. “It’s a big ocean. How the heck are we supposed to find them?”

  “Don’t worry Junior, Mama has a plan.” She pointed to his wrist bands. “Do you sweat a lot or are you just making a fashion statement?”

  David’s pulse pounded in his neck, his face flushing. “I don’t like head games, Jacqueline.”

  “Who’s playing head games?”

  “You are, right now. You’ve obviously been briefed about me, which means you know all about the track marks on my wrists. Since you’re neither ignorant nor stupid, that means you’re testing me. Don’t. I spent three days in the Panthalassa with these monsters—”

  “And netted nothing. Don’t confuse activity with accomplishment. I’m sorry about what happened to Kaylie Szeifert, but my job is to keep these animals alive, not to allow you to play Captain Ahab.”

  Jackie Buchwald cringed as David punched the overhead bin before storming up the spiral staircase, his tirade chasing off the Arabian beauties seated inside the Crown Prince’s private lounge.

  Opening her laptop, she composed an email.

  TO: Dr. Al Hashemi

  FR: Jacqueline Buchwald

  RE: First encounter with subject.

  Anger issues remain unresolved; temper easily provoked. Whether the subject’s emotional instability will impact his performance is yet to be determined, however pairing him with a co-pilot at this time is not recommended.

  5

  Dead Man’s Cove, San Juan Island

  For over a century, the Lime Kiln Lighthouse has guided ships across the waterways at the entrance to Haro Strait, a major shipping route that links Puget Sound to the Gulf of Georgia. Built atop solid rock, the lighthouse towered twenty feet above high tide, its lantern room enci
rcled by a concrete observation deck. The only other buildings in the area were two original keeper’s dwellings located at the edge of a wood behind the lighthouse, now used by park personnel.

  The lighthouse overlooked waters that had been designated a whale sanctuary. Under the direction of the Whale Museum in Friday Harbor, scientists had equipped the lighthouse with webcams and hydrophones designed to track the movements and behaviors of the resident orca pods.

  Jonas Taylor stood on the lookout deck of the lighthouse, staring at a tranquil sea. The remains of an early morning fog obscured the view of the Olympic Mountain range and the shores of Vancouver Island. There were no boats visible on the horizon.

  Below, a team of marine biologists continued the Herculean task of photographing, measuring, and tagging each killer whale carcass. Park officials had already hauled four of the beached mammals onto flatbed trucks using a winch and chain, now they turned their attention to the bloated, bleeding corpses floating in the shallows of Dead Man’s Cove.

  Mac joined Jonas out on the deck. “There are two head honchos we need to deal with. Captain Michael Royston is the U.S. Coast Guard sector commander; he’s en route aboard an MH-65C helicopter. You’re on the top of his shit list being that he had to shut down all whale watching and sport fishing tours over the last thirty-six hours. Then there’s Nick Van Sicklen, head of the Whale Museum in Friday Harbor. As bad as Royston has it for us, Van Sicklen has it worse. Apparently this Whale Museum has an Adopt-an-Orca program, and the sisters decimated the equivalent of an entire orphanage. Van Sicklen is organizing a flotilla to protect the other resident orca pods, only he can’t kill Bela and Lizzy as they’re protected under the same marine sanctuary rules as the orca. Of course, if a bigger predator feeds on another predator, who’s to say—”

  “They weren’t feeding, Mac. I’ve examined the wounds. The sisters bled them but these are not big bites, they took out the flukes and pectoral fins but left the meat. Orcas aren’t even high on the Meg’s diet; they lack the fat content of a baleen whale. No, I think this was more of a territorial dispute and the kayakers found themselves in the middle of it.”

  “The sisters are territorializing these waters?”

  Jonas and Mac turned, confronted by an angry man in his mid-twenties, his short-cropped brown hair poking out beneath a University of Florida baseball cap.

  Mac stepped between them. “Jonas, meet Nick Van Sicklen, head of the Whale Museum and director of the Sea-Sound Remote Sensing Network program. Nick’s group has hydrophones anchored throughout the San Juan Island channels; he’s fluent in orca.”

  Van Sicklen ignored the compliment, along with the offered handshake. “Your sharks butchered my whales.”

  “And a woman,” Mac reminded him. “I’m just saying.”

  “Look, kid … if you want to blame me for what happened, get in line behind the victim’s lawyers. For the record, and the story was in every paper, the animal rights wackos freed Bela and Lizzy, not us. Having said that, we’re here to prevent any more attacks.”

  “How?”

  “Yeah, how?” Mac asked.

  Jonas shot his friend a glare. “We’re going to help the Coast Guard track down the Megs and kill them.”

  “You can’t kill them; the Salish Sea is a protected marine sanctuary.”

  “Why don’t you let us worry about that. I saw the hydrophone setup inside; maybe you can give us an idea where the other orca pods are located.”

  Van Sicklen led them inside to three listening stations, each equipped with a computer hard drive, monitor, speakers, and headphones. “We can identify pods and their activities by the types of sounds we hear. Orcas are able to generate a wide variety of sounds by forcing air in and out of a complex network of passages and cavities located in their foreheads, or melons. Clicks are generally used to echolocate food and other underwater objects. Squealing sounds are what orca use to communicate with one another.

  “The Salish Sea has three distinct groups of orca: resident, transient, and offshore killer whales. These groups are genetically quite different from one another and they possess unique vocabularies, which may be one reason why they don’t interact socially. They also have different diets. Resident orca, better known as Southern Resident Killer Whales, or SRKW, are all derived from J-clan, then subdivided into three matriarchal lines. SRKWs are fish eaters with a preference for salmon. They use sonar clicks to locate their prey and communicate frequently to other resident orca. Your sharks attacked members of K-pod. There are still eleven members unaccounted for.

  “Transient killer whales feed on other sea mammals—seals, sea lions, dolphins, porpoises, and the occasional gray whale; as a result they’re much quieter when they’re hunting. As far as we can tell, West Coast—or what we call offshore orca—are fish eaters like our residents. They usually hunt just outside the Juan de Fuca strait.”

  “Other than their vocabularies, how can you tell the three groups apart?”

  “We’ve documented subtle differences in the shape of their dorsal fins, especially among the females. Resident dorsal fins have a rounded tip that ends in a sharp corner. Transient fins are more pointed, like that of a shark. Offshore orca have dorsal fins that are rounded on both ends of the tip. Pod sizes and locations among the three groups also vary. Offshore killer whales prefer the open ocean and travel in the largest pods—upward of forty to sixty individuals. Transient pods are the smallest with no more than half a dozen members moving in close proximity. Transients will swim anywhere, making their movements the most challenging to predict. Resident orcas are subdivided into genetically related clans which travel through established territories in pods numbering up to several dozen.”

  “Did your hydrophone system record the attack?” Jonas asked.

  Van Sicklen typed in a command, causing a menu of recorded data to appear on screen. He selected one using the mouse and clicked on it. “You’ll hear the warning cries from the bulls first, followed by the actual attack.”

  A duet of long, deep haunting chirps played out over the speakers, followed by intermittent clicks … and then the attack—a high-pitched, rapid, chaotic chorus of desperate squeals.

  Nick waited two more minutes then shut it off, unable to listen. “It goes on for nineteen torturous minutes. Your damn Megs wiped out the entire Haro Strait clan.”

  East Sound, Orcas Island

  Named after the viceroy of Mexico (and not the killer whales that inhabit its waterways), Orcas Island is a landmass of lush woodlands and country roads disrupted by snowcapped mountains. There are no major population centers on Orcas, just quaint villages.

  Two waterways split the horseshoe-shaped island, each sound harboring boat-filled marinas and seaside marketplaces run by local artisans and farmers that catered to tourists looking for a bit of solitude on their summer vacations.

  In the wake of the Megalodon attack, all kayak adventures and whale-watching excursions in the Salish Sea had been cancelled by order of the U.S. Coast Guard. Sports fishing charters were limited to boats with lengths exceeding thirty feet, with a sunset curfew in effect.

  Restrictions proved unnecessary. Well aware of the horrors Bela and Lizzy could inflict, tourists kept to land-based activities or cut their vacations short. Charter boat captains refused to leave their moorings.

  * * *

  Retired independent film producer Steven Lebowitz stood at the helm of the Lebofilms, a forty-one-foot Albermarle game fishing boat, the down payment for which had come from the profits of his last movie, entitled “She.” The craft had a yacht-like feel with its oversized cockpit and galley, spacious forward stateroom, two heads with separate showers, and sleeping accommodations for three. Unfortunately, Lebowitz had taken a loss on the sequel, forcing him to part with either his Palm Beach condominium or the boat.

  He had made the choice eight years ago and had never looked back.

  Bottom fishing wasn’t just one of Steven Lebowitz’s passions, it also earned him a decent
income. He had learned the island hotspots for flounder, halibut, cabazon, and greenling and made a few extra bucks on the side supplying red rock crab and shrimp to the local eateries. The outdoors agreed with him, but last winter had been harsh. This year he planned to head south to San Diego sometime in late September.

  For the last twenty minutes, Lebowitz had been watching a tall, athletic man and his short brown-haired girlfriend work their way across the docks, receiving turn down after turn down from the other charter boat captains. When it became clear he was their next stop, Lebowitz covered what remained of his thinning salt-and-pepper hair with a Lebofilms baseball cap, and then stepped out on deck, busying himself with one of the rigging stations.

  Thirty-year-old professional diver Lucas Heitman paused at the edge of the dock to speak with his business associate, Donna Johnston. “This is the guy I told you about. Do it just like we rehearsed.”

  The twenty-seven-year-old native of Edinburgh, Scotland, twirled a blue-dyed strand of hair while her eyes focused on Steven Lebowitz. “You’d better convince the ole bampot. My dealer’s leaving for Frisco tomorrow afternoon and wants everything crated tonight.”

  They headed down the pier, Lucas waving as Steven turned to face him. “Morning, captain. Beautiful boat.”

  “She’ll look even better when she’s paid for.”

  “Maybe we can help. I’m Lucas. This is my boss, Donna Johnston. Donna flew in last week all the way from Scotland to hire me to film B-roll for her documentary.”

  “No kidding? I used to be in the business … Lebofilms.” He pointed to the transom. “What kind of B-roll do you need?”

  “Underwater footage,” said Donna. “Kelp forests, a few shots along the bottom. Lucas found the perfect spot, only no one has the bollocks to go out.”

  “Who can blame them; did you see the news coverage? Just out of curiosity, were you going to shoot using a drone or a reach pole?”