MEG: Nightstalkers

by Steve Alten

“And you’re selling me a facility in desperate need of repair. The canal doors need to be permanently sealed, the Meg Pen Lexan glass has to be replaced. It would be cheaper for me to convert the Wild Coast exhibit over at the Vancouver aquarium—the animal rights groups are demanding the release of their Pacific white-sided dolphins—but I like California. Plus there are three new hotels under construction in Monterey that are desperate to get the institute up and running again—I’m sure I can get them to assist with my up-front costs.”

  “A hundred and fifty million with twenty million down, and you handle all liabilities, lawsuits, and settlements arising from the sisters’ escape.”

  “Make it fifteen million down and eight year terms on the balance and I’ll have my lawyers draw up the papers.” Paul smiled. “You think I’m crazy.”

  “Certifiable.”

  “Maybe I am. Money … it means nothing to me; I inherited more than I can spend. Sure, the venture needs to be profitable, and it will be, but I’ve been wanting this since the day my research vessel accidentally led that Megalodon into your path.”

  Jonas gave him a hard stare. “What are you talking about?”

  “Seven years before you led Tanaka’s kid into the Mariana Trench. You were piloting those dives for the U.S. Navy into the Mariana Trench. My father’s research vessel, the Tallman, was in the Philippine Sea at the time; my team was collecting water samples from a twelve-story-high underwater volcano using a deepsea drone called a Sea Bat. We were just completing a three-month gig when our drone’s sonar detected a fifty-foot biologic circling beneath the hydrothermal ceiling.”

  “It could have been a whale shark.”

  “Whale sharks are docile; this thing was a predator. It went after the Sea Bat.”

  Paul poured himself a cup of coffee. “I knew it had to be a Meg. We tried to bait it with the drone—lead it out of the trench where we could net it. Instead, we ended up crossing paths with some rusty scow-bucket … the Maxine D.”

  Jonas felt the blood draining from his face. “The Maxine D was our surface ship; its A-frame was used to launch our three-man bathyscaph, the Sea Cliff. Everything was covert; only the scientists on board knew why we were there. I was piloting the sub; it was my third dive in eight days. My job was to keep the sub above the hyrdrothermal plume while they used a remote drone to vacuum manganese nodules off the trench floor. At one point our sonar detected a school of fish, followed by this massive predator—a fifty-footer. We shut down everything until it passed by. Only it returned—you assholes led it right to us!”

  “Jonas, we didn’t know—”

  “The scientists died—did you know that? The navy blamed me; it cost me my career … a dishonorable discharge.”

  “I know.”

  “You know?”

  “I read your story. It should have been my story … my career. I was the one who discovered Megalodons living in the Mariana Trench, I still have the sonar records to prove it, only my father forbade me to come forward after we learned the Maxine D was a black ops vessel. Seven years later you returned with Masao Tanaka and his kids and I had to suffer through your fame and fortune.”

  “And death. D.J. died in that hell hole. Several dozen people have lost their lives because of these monsters.”

  “Oh, please. Dozens are killed every day in auto accidents but you don’t see people giving up driving. Bees take far more human lives every year than sharks. Face it Jonas, you’ve lost the stomach for dealing with these creatures. Let me take over the reins while you drive off into the sunset in a Lamborghini.”

  “And how do you expect to capture Bela and Lizzy? Rod and reel?”

  “When you moved Angel last summer, you used a hopper-dredge, yes? Agricola Industries owns two hopper-dredges even bigger than the McFarland; we lease them to the city of Vancouver. My crew will convert one of our hoppers into a transportation pen just like you did, only we’ll keep the bin drained. When one of the sisters passes beneath the keel, we open up the doors and—”

  “And the suction will vacuum the sea and the Megalodon right up into the hopper—that’s actually quite brilliant.”

  “I thought so. And here’s the real beauty of the plan—even if we only manage to capture one sister the other will follow the ship straight into the Tanaka Lagoon. The key is to bait the ship’s keel doors with something that will bring the sisters in real close.”

  “One of the Meg pups. Do you know where the nursery is?”

  “I have a pretty good idea. So? Are you in or out?”

  Jonas shook Paul Agricola’s thick, calloused palm, ignoring Zachary Wallace’s warning. “Let’s do this. Let’s bring the sisters home.”

  14

  Aboard the Tonga

  17 Miles Off the Coastline of Brisbane, Australia

  Southwestern Pacific

  David awoke to Jacqueline Buchwald’s naked torso curled around him from behind, her lips working their way down his neck as her left hand stroked his groin.

  He rolled out of bed. “Sorry, I gotta pee.”

  “And here I thought you were enjoying my company.”

  “I was … don’t move.” He hustled into the water closet and closed the door.

  The private head was small but a luxury afforded to only a few. Standing over the toilet, David relieved himself, gazing at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. What are you doing? You came here to kill that monster and here you are, falling for another chick. What are you going to do when she wants to co-pilot the Manta with you? Act all chivalrous like you did with Kaylie? How’d that end up?

  “David, did you fall in?”

  “Coming!” He washed off, rinsed his mouth with a dab of toothpaste, and then exited the bathroom.

  Jackie pushed past him, squatting on the toilet. “What’s wrong? Haven’t you ever seen a woman pee before?”

  “How’s this going to work?”

  She smiled. “I thought I’d wash up and then we’d screw each other’s brains out.”

  “Do you talk like that because you think it turns me on or because it keeps you from connecting emotionally with me?”

  “Wow. Where’s all this coming from?”

  “Just answer the question.”

  “I thought I was clear about this. Love isn’t on my agenda; it’s a commitment that steals focus and time from my career. Sex is sex; it gives me something to look forward to. But if you can’t handle it—”

  “I can handle it. But what if I start caring about you? What if I’m not ready to walk away after this hunt is over?”

  “I don’t know.” She flushed, then washed up. “I work in Dubai, David; I’m vying for a huge promotion. I’m sure bin Rashidi would hire you full-time if you wanted to stay. But don’t do that for me. You have to find your own path.”

  He watched her brush her teeth with his toothbrush. “Maybe. Or maybe you’d want to work at the institute?”

  “Doing what? Overseeing your jellyfish exhibit?”

  “What if the sisters returned? Angel came back.”

  She approached, nuzzling his neck while her hands explored his groin. “Megs are great, David, but we already have one. I want the Lio. Get me that monster and I’ll make you a very happy man.”

  * * *

  The setting sun hung like a burning orange ember over the western horizon, its blinding brilliance forcing the captain to draw the shades over the bridge’s starboard bay windows.

  The Tonga’s command center was identical to her sister ship, the Mogamigawa, with the exception of an oval Formica table and eight matching chairs, which occupied the aft half of the mostly empty room. Fiesal bin Rashidi occupied the seat at the head of the table, David on his right, Jacqueline Buchwald on his left. In the chair at the opposite end of the table, his back to a wall chart tracing the Liopleurodon’s movements, was Liam Molony, the mission commander. In his late thirties, the red-haired former submariner could be identified by the Ocean City baseball cap he wore every day to protect his fair complexi
on from the sun.

  The other four chairs were occupied by the Tonga’s submersible pilots.

  Rick Frazier was half Lebanese, half German-Scottish. In his early forties, the pilot had dark, wavy hair and a ring-shaped scar under his lower lip. His co-pilot was an Alabama boy named Gregg Hendley who seemed enraptured by Jackie.

  Jacqueline was more threatened by Captain Tina Chester. The lone female pilot in the group had blond hair, intense green eyes, and the self-confidence that comes from being a trained U.S. Air Force fighter pilot. She was paired with a sonar operator whose lack of discipline openly grated on her nerves. Kevin Michael Pulaski possessed surfer-boy looks and a keen sense of hearing, but suffered from Tourette’s Syndrome. Every few minutes the sonar specialist would blurt out, “Taco,” which drove Tina Chester insane and added an absurd, humorous element to Fiesal bin Rashidi’s heavy-handed attempt to impress his guests.

  “David, you were able to get a good night’s sleep in my first officer’s cabin?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “Good. We need you at your best. And our chef’s buffet was to your liking?”

  “I couldn’t eat another bite.”

  “Taco!”

  Bin Rashidi’s dark eyes sought out Kevin Pulaski. “Mr. Pulaski, is that really necessary?”

  “Taco! Sorry.”

  “It’s reflexive,” Commander Molony interjected. “We’re all excited to have the Manta sub’s best pilot joining us on the hunt to capture the Lio.”

  “Taco … yes.”

  David covered up his grin as Tina balled her fists. “Damn it, Pulaski, did you forget to take your meds again?”

  “They make me drowsy.”

  Fiesal bin Rashidi turned to David, exasperated. “We interviewed over seventy qualified applicants, trained twenty pilots and ten sonar operators—and no one has ventured within a kilometer of the creature.”

  Gregg Hendley snapped. “Ya’ll can sit in your bunker all day and brood, Mr. bin Rashidi, but I didn’t sign on to this crazy venture to be eaten. Your subs are fine machines, kid, but that monster’s twice as fast and feisty to boot. Damn near bit off our starboard wing before we could figure out where the hell she was—ain’t that right, Fraz?”

  Rick Frazier nodded. “The active sonar irritates her. The passive sonar … it doesn’t give us a reliable bearing. She’s so fast. And she can maneuver like a seal. Three hundred meters is the threshold. You need that cushion to get away.”

  “Taco!”

  Tina Chester closed her eyes, summoning more patience. “David, you’ll need a co-pilot—I’m volunteering. I flew twenty-two missions in Afghanistan and finished with the highest marks in our submersible training exercises back in Dubai. I’m like you—fear is not a factor with me.”

  David noted Jackie’s irritation aimed at the retired Air Force pilot. “I appreciate that, but I’m confused. I was told Mr. bin Rashidi nailed this bitch with a tracking device. Passive sonar should be all you need to lead her to the trawl net.”

  Fiesal nodded. “I did this, yes. Now all I hear is excuses.”

  Liam Molony stood. “With all due respect to Mr. bin Rashidi, the tracking device’s batteries have been petering out for months. Range is limited to within sixty meters of the surface. Each evening before dusk we send out helicopters to deploy sonar buoys in a 360-degree pattern at a ten-mile radius around the Tonga. We then activate the tracker and pray we get lucky. The Lio’s a night stalker; she’ll only surface after dark to feed, usually closer to midnight when the deep dwellers rise to bask in the moonlight. That’s another thing that irritates her. She won’t feed two days before or after a full moon, which leaves us blind for the better part of a week. Back in October, we lost her for damn near two weeks; fortunately she left a trail of dead humpbacks and we were able to reestablish contact.”

  The redhead paused as a heavy airship rotor beat the air. “There goes the first chopper.”

  “When’s the last time the Lio fed?” David asked.

  “We came out of a full moon cycle two nights ago but haven’t picked up her trail. Assuming she didn’t surface … five days, maybe a week.”

  “Contact your chopper pilots. Have them deploy sonar buoys only on southern bearings; skip everything to the north of zero-nine-zero through two-seven-zero. That will allow you to double up on the buoys and save deployment time.”

  Commander Molony’s expression soured. “And if she heads north, then we’ve lost her forever. I’m not willing to take that risk.”

  “Which is why you’ll never catch her. When I crossed paths with this monster she was inhabiting near-freezing waters.”

  “I thought the Panthalassa Sea was heated by hydrothermal vents.”

  “Not all of it. Some areas were warm water habitats, others were nourished by cold seeps, the water near-freezing. The variations in temperature combine with the minerals in the water to form a circular current; warm leads to cold, cold feeds to warm. The Lio and her Panthalassa lineage have spent the last sixty-five million years living in sub-freezing temperatures. If you were trapped in our tepid surface waters and you needed to cool your hot-blooded, over-oxygenated, bigger-than-a-blue whale mass down, what would you do?”

  The commander and his submersible pilots looked at one another, perplexed.

  David shook his head. “Look at the chart. She’s been following the warmer currents to the south, which will eventually lead her to…”

  “Taco!”

  Tina turned on her sonar operator and punched him in the arm.

  Jackie looked at David as if seeing him for the first time. “Antarctica?”

  “Yeah. And we’d better flush her to the surface soon, because it’s gonna be a bitch netting that monster if she’s under the ice floe. Fortunately, it’s late spring in Antarctica so the sea ice is melting. Still—”

  Fiesal bin Rashidi stood, pointing at David. “You see? This is what we’ve been missing. Mr. Molony, who do you have teaming with Mr. Taylor this evening?”

  “Tina’s our most experienced pilot—”

  “He needs a sonar operator,” Jackie interjected, “not another adrenaline junkie. You need to be focused on the Lio’s whereabouts, not trying to impress David with your piloting skills.”

  “You don’t need to remind any of us of that,” Gregg stated. “We’ve been at this a lot longer than you have.”

  “David and I are here to bag that Lio.”

  “You’re wrong,” Tina spat back. “Our job is to net the creature, yours is to keep it alive.”

  “Enough.” Commander Molony said. “I’ll set up a rotation so that everyone will have a chance to work with David. Tonight is Tina’s turn—assuming we get a hit on the sonar array. As for this new sonar buoy alignment, Mr. bin Rashidi, that’s your call. But if we lose the Lio—”

  “Contact the helicopters, Mr. Molony. I trust David’s instincts.”

  15

  Port Metro Vancouver

  Vancouver, British Columbia

  Located in the Salish Sea where the Fraser River empties into Vancouver Harbor, Port Metro Vancouver is the largest and busiest port in Canada. Each spring when the snowpack melts, millions of tons of water, sand, and silt drain into the lower Fraser, rendering the riverbed shallow. To maintain the deepwater shipping channels for commercial vessels, the excess silt must be removed through the process of dredging.

  A hopper-dredge is a large ship which incorporates two suction drag arms to inhale slurry—a water and sand mixture—off the river bed. The slurry passes through pipelines where it is collected in a massive hold known as a hopper, which runs through the middle of the ship like a giant Olympic-size pool. Once the ship reaches its designated dump site, the slurry is released through giant steel doors located along the bottom of the keel that open outward to the sea.

  The hopper-dredge Marieke was a 5,005 ton steel behemoth with a white superstructure and a hull painted bright green. The lip of her hopper rose ten feet higher than the main deck
like an above-ground swimming pool, the empty tank almost two hundred feet long and five stories deep.

  Under the direction of Chief Engineer Michael Tvrdik, the slurry pipes were now angled horizontally at the level where the silt line stain had left its mark. The inward flow would be used to forcibly channel seawater and a mixture of animal sedatives into the tank once one or both of the two sisters were captured.

  Jonas stood by the hopper rail, gazing into the empty tub. Almost seven months had passed since he and Mac had used the institute’s dredge to transport Angel to the Philippine Sea. That voyage seemed to bring with it a dark cloud over his life. His son had attempted suicide, his marriage had fallen apart, and the sisters were loose, responsible for three more deaths.

  The stress was taking a toll on his health. As bad as he had it, he knew it was worse on Terry.

  Call her. Tell her you accepted an offer to sell the institute. No more liabilities, no more stress, with enough money to take care of our future grandkids.

  The iPhone in his jacket pocket rang, beating him to the punch.

  He checked the caller ID, recognizing the United Kingdom country code. “Zach? Do you have an update on David?”

  “He’s aboard the Tonga. Yer son believes the Lio is heading fer Antarctica, and his instincts are correct.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “The Panthalassa pliosaurs prefer colder waters—now jist listen. You need tae contact Mac and have him pick up a set of Valkyrie laser units from Bill Stone over at Stone Aerospace before he sets sail fer Antarctica in the McFarland. The lasers were fitted fer yer Manta sub; I ordered them two weeks ago.”

  “Whoa, slow down. Why would you order a pair of lasers for our Mantas?”

  “Are ye going after David?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is there ice in Antarctica?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Butts are for crapping, J.T.; no more dumb questions. Mac needs tae be under way by tomorrow night in order tae be in Antarctica in time tae rendezvous with the Tonga.”

  “Why would we need the dredge to bring back my son?”

  “Ye don’t. Ye need the McFarland tae capture the Lio.”