MEG: Nightstalkers

by Steve Alten

Zach closed his eyes, deep in thought. “Enter the river.”

  “The river runs north, I told you we’re heading south.” Jonas banked hard to port, the gnashing jaws of the enraged whale forcing him into a thirty-degree turn, the sub reverberating behind the torque.

  “There, now we’re heading east.”

  “Stay on this course. When you reach the subglacial river, enter the current and head south.”

  “Into a sixteen-knot current? You’re crazy.”

  “Just listen. The sub’s far more hydrodynamic than the whale; the force of the current will not only cut its speed in half, it’ll wear it down. We can open up some distance, then double back when we can.”

  “Okay, that sounds semi-intelligent. Where’s the river?”

  “Less than a kilometer ahead.”

  Eying the charging whale in his aft camera, Jonas banked to starboard, resuming his trek to the south.

  “Jonas, I jist told ye tae stay on course.”

  “Let me do the driving, Mr. Peabody. If we enter that river from the east that current will tear us apart. I need to ease my way in.”

  “Okay, that sounds semi-intelligent—for a Penn State graduate. Jonas, watch out!”

  The Miocene whale suddenly lunged forward, its teeth biting down on the tail section of the Manta. For a brief second the sub reverberated and slowed until the radio antennae snapped off in the Livyatan melvillei’s mouth.

  A whoosh of current filled Jonas’s headphones. Edging his sub to port, he felt the current rippling along the wing. Continuously tapping the joystick, he managed to immerse the Manta into the subglacial river, its boundary as wide as a six-lane highway.

  A glance in the aft monitor revealed the whale had followed them in. Battered by the current, the aging bull had to fight twice as hard just to maintain its pace. As Jonas watched, the creature fell behind, eventually disappearing from view.

  Zach turned and punched Jonas on the right shoulder.

  “What was that for?”

  “That was for all us Ivy League student athletes who had tae put up with comments from dumb jocks like you.”

  “Hey, I graduated with a three-point … oh shit!” Jonas veered the Manta to port, slicing his way across the subglacial river as the left side of the whale’s enormous head suddenly appeared outside the current.

  Unable to reach the sub, the goliath beast was forced to reenter the river and was immediately pummeled by the intensity of the forty-meter-wide stream.

  Shooting out the other side of the current, Jonas maintained his southerly course, distancing the Manta from the still-immersed Livyatan melvillei. When the whale left the current to pursue, Jonas reentered, slicing his way back across the vortex, exiting out the opposite side. This repeated maneuver enraged the beast while wearing it down.

  After ten minutes the exhausted cetacean had had enough. Breaking free of the current, it disappeared from view.

  Zach continued pinging until the whale was beyond the range of sonar.

  Jonas kept the sub east of the river. The starfish were gone, the cockpit view revealing a noticeable narrowing of the gap between the bottom of the ice sheet and the sea floor.

  Without warning, the passage dead-ended at a wall of ice.

  Jonas eased up on the propulsors. The subglacial river had curved to the southwest, the cockpit’s night-vision glass revealing a narrowing passage that faded into darkness.

  “Zach?”

  “Looks like we’ve reached the end of the Ronne Ice Shelf. The passage must lead inland until it connects with Lake Ellsworth. I suggest we head east for a while longer jist tae make sure we don’t cross paths with Brutus before we exit tae the north.”

  “Fine by me. Is the tag working?”

  “The tag … I completely forgot.” Removing his laptop from a storage pouch, Zach powered up the unit and scrolled through the data being uploaded by the tag’s sensors.

  “Well?”

  “Good news. The trace minerals pumping out of the geothermal vents in Lake Vostok are absent from Brutus’s blood gases. The whale’s never been tae Vostok.”

  “So everything’s good?”

  Zach smiled. “Everything’s good.”

  The loud warning beep … beep … beep from sonar wiped the smile from the Scot’s face. “It’s coming at us from the east. Jonas, move!”

  Jonas stamped down on his right foot pedal while jamming the joystick hard to the left, sending the submersible into a tight turn to port as the Livyatan melvillei’s enormous head bloomed out of the olive-green darkness.

  There was no other option. A gauntlet of ice lay before them, with the Miocene whale bearing down on them from the east, its angle and speed cutting off any chance of escaping to the north.

  Pressing both pump-jet propulsion pedals to the floor, Jonas aimed the Manta down the throat of the subglacial river … into oblivion.

  26

  Vancouver Island, British Columbia

  Salish Sea

  Tim Rehm turned off Route 19 onto Route 19A, an extension of highway that hugged the eastern coastline of Vancouver Island. The thirty-seven year-old strength and conditioning coach at New Jersey’s Monmouth College felt his adrenaline pumping as the deep blue waters of the Strait of Georgia appeared on his right. He fought the urge to lose himself in the incredible view—the islands of Texada and Lasqueti looming on the horizon, Hornby and Denman Islands still ahead but far closer to shore.

  Approaching the town of Parksville, he debated whether to make a quick stop at the grocery store. Checking the time, he decided against it. Dusk was only four hours away and he needed to catch a few hours of sleep before tonight’s festivities began. He hoped Tania had stocked the refrigerator in his rental cabin.

  Continuing north, he passed Qualicum Beach and a sign that read Bowser: 4 km. Another ten minutes and he turned into the gravel driveway of the Shady Shores Beach Resort and Vacation Home Rental, a little known slice of paradise managed during the winter months by his former assistant in the Monmouth College athletic department. The oceanside property consisted of a two-story, A-frame log home featuring a matching gazebo complete with a hot tub, and seven two-bedroom private cottages. Living on a teacher’s salary, Tim couldn’t afford to stay in the “big house,” but Tania had offered him full use of one of the cottages for the rest of the week, plus air fare to fly him out.

  Sixty-three-year-old Tania Cruz was sweeping off the front porch of the log A-frame when the rental car turned in from the main road. The Cuban-born American limped over to greet her former boss, her slightly deformed right foot—a result of childhood polio—swollen from having been on it all day.

  Tim gave her a big hug. “Tania, how are you?”

  “The foot’s a bit sore, but I can’t complain. What about you? You look tired.”

  “I am tired; I’ve been traveling almost non-stop since last night. But, if what you told me on the phone is true, then it’ll be well worth it. So, uh … is it true?”

  “Come on, I’ll show you.” Tania took his arm and escorted him down a private path to the rock-strewn shoreline. The sun was strong in a cloud-free sky, neutralizing the winter’s chill. The Salish Sea was calm, its surface as glassy as a lake. An unusually large tide pool occupied a huge swath of beach, separated from the Georgia Strait by a sandbar. To Tim’s amazement, large salmon were leaping out of the water, attempting to escape.

  “Can you believe the size of this tide pool? It’s been like this for two weeks. Yesterday I waded in and caught three salmon using only a bucket. Morning’s the best time to fish, before the sea lions invade the beach.”

  “Tania—”

  “The high tide brings them in—the fish, not the sea lions. We get crabs and bull heads, and quite a few octopuses. Or is that octopi?”

  “Tania, show me where you saw them.”

  “Everything happened out on the jetty.” She pointed up the beach where a wooden pier stretched sixty yards off shore. “We’re early, but there’s somethin
g you need to see; then you’ll believe me.”

  They followed the shoreline past a fire pit and wooden chairs to the eight-foot-wide boardwalk. Tim’s heart raced as he followed her out, the water lapping along the pilings beneath their feet.

  She pointed to the wooden bench at the far end of the jetty. “I sit out there almost every sunset. You’ll see why in a few hours … it’s so peaceful.”

  “When was the first time you saw them?”

  “Last Wednesday. At first I only saw the white one, Lizzy. Her dorsal fin passed within twenty feet of where I was sitting.”

  “Did you freak out?”

  “Please. I’m a single mother from Havana. I put one daughter through med school, the other through law school. I doubt they even knew I was there. The second night I got a little bolder. I brought a salmon out with me. When I saw the fin I stomped on the deck. The albino submerged, then a minute later her head rose out of the sea maybe ten feet from the jetty—Tim, it was so incredible. I cooed to her, ‘Hey beautiful, are you hungry?’ Reaching in my bucket, I tossed her a hunk of salmon, only it was a bad throw and it landed behind her. That’s when I saw the other one—the one with the white head and dark back. It came out of nowhere and ate Lizzy’s fish.”

  “Bela.”

  “I don’t like Bela. When the albino looks at you, you can see she’s thinking things through. When the dark one looks at you, she looks right through you. Got to watch out for that one. Fortunately, Lizzy runs the show.”

  “How would you know that?”

  “Two daughters, Tim. A mother knows which child’s the boss. These sharks, they swim in tandem, did you know that? Lizzy’s on top. The boss is always on top.”

  “Tania, the tandem swimming deal—it’s been reported in every newspaper.”

  “I don’t read the newspaper, I observe things for myself.”

  They reached the bench at the end of the jetty and sat. A gust of wind had them adjusting their coat collars, the late afternoon chill accompanied by a strong fish odor.

  “Tania, how deep is it out here?”

  “I don’t know. Pretty deep, I suppose. The tankers come by here every morning. Do you want to hear the rest of my story or not?”

  “Please.”

  Tania took in a deep breath. “The third evening I brought two buckets of salmon with me. I was hoping to get the white one, Lizzy, to catch a salmon in her mouth only she never surfaced, she just circled the jetty a few times with her sister in tow. So I tossed the salmon close by and watched them feed. That was Friday. Saturday I waited until nine o’clock but they never showed up. About an hour later I was taking out the garbage when I heard a haunting sound far out into the strait. It sounded like a humpback, only like it was in distress.

  “Sunday morning I came out to fish the tide pool when I noticed blue herons flocking around my bench, a few eagles circling over head. When I came out here, I found something caught beneath the jetty. Take a look.”

  She knelt down by the edge of dock.

  Tim hesitated, then laid down on his chest next to her and leaned out over the edge—gagging at the stench.

  The tide had jammed it against one of the pier’s cross beams. The remains of a telltale flipper indicated the dead whale had been a juvenile humpback. The head, rostrum, mouth, and throat grooves were intact; everything situated from the small dorsal fin to the fluke was gone, presumably eaten.

  “Ugh, it’s disgusting. Why are you keeping it around?”

  “I’m not; the flipper’s wedged between the dock and a support strut. Such a nice gift.”

  “Tania, you don’t actually believe they left this for you?”

  “Who’s to say? I had a german shepherd years ago that used to leave dead possums on our back porch. Sometimes they weren’t dead, they were just playing possum. The point is the dog would bring them to me as a sign of respect.”

  “This isn’t the family pet. These are big, prehistoric sharks.”

  “Prehistoric sharks raised in captivity. I’m not saying they can be domesticated, Tim, I just don’t think they should be slaughtered.”

  “On that we agree.” Tim helped her to her feet and back to the bench. “Tania, be honest; this isn’t just about us selling footage of the Megs to the networks, is it?”

  “No. I want to free-dive with the sisters.”

  “Free-dive? With Bela and Lizzy? You’re insane.”

  “Tim, you grew up near water, I grew up on an island. My father taught me how to spear fish when I was six. He taught me to respect the ecosystem and the creatures we share it with. Sharks are not the oceans’ bad guys, humans are. I’ve free-dived with great whites twice in the Farallon Islands and three times in South Africa. We both went cage diving together in Guadalupe. You know me; I’m not a thrill-seeker or an adrenaline junkie. This is purely about teaching people that Megalodons, like great whites, are not simply giant killing machines and that humans are not part of their diet.”

  “Except that they have eaten humans, and there are two of them. Maybe you think you’ve charmed Lizzy but Bela has a completely different personality.”

  “Accidents happen; people end up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Car accidents claim more lives every year than shark attacks. Tim, I can read a shark’s body language; I can interpret every twitch and movement. A few swim-bys recorded on your pole-mounted video camera will allow us to gauge their demeanor and whether they just fed. If we both agree it’s safe then I’ll slip into the water with a snorkel and mask and hang by the jetty. If Bela gets aggressive, all I have to do is duck behind the pilings—they’re spaced too narrow for the Megs to slip through.”

  “Fine—as long as we agree you won’t attempt anything certifiably crazy—like hitching a ride on Lizzy’s dorsal fin.”

  “No rides … for now. But Tim, imagine the impact that would have among the locals, not to mention the environmentalists and animal rights groups fighting to protect these amazing creatures.”

  “Tania, no. And there’s one other condition you need to take care of before I break out the underwater cameras … the dead whale. I don’t want it anywhere near you while you’re in the water. The last thing we need is a repeat of the Maggie Taylor incident.”

  Aboard the Tonga

  Ross Sea, Antarctica

  A week had passed since the Liopleurodon had crashed through the Ross Ice Shelf, wreaking havoc upon an international team of scientists before a viewership of thousands of high school students in New Zealand—who promptly sent it viral.

  While the event promoted the Crown Prince’s reality series, the inability of the Tonga’s team to track the creature beneath the ice shelf only served to add more gray hairs to Fiesal bin Rashidi’s beard. The engineer’s task was daunting—locate a mobile creature beneath a hundred and sixty foot thick frozen desert that was roughly the size of France.

  To accomplish this feat, bin Rashidi ordered his helicopters to deploy twenty-two sonar buoys along a three hundred and seventy mile boundary where the Ross Sea bordered the ice shelf, hoping to detect the Liopleurodon as it exited to open water. The engineer’s own experts doubted the plan would work. The array had far too many gaps; the creature could easily slip out in the depths or remain beneath the ice indefinitely—in the end it was all a matter of luck.

  Bin Rashidi had plenty of luck—all of it bad. Compounding his problem relocating the Lio was the health of his crew. Extended months at sea will wear the best sailor down; add eight days in the Antarctic Circle with no end in sight and the mental and physical toll can be steep.

  A wave of sickness spread throughout the ship; a third of bin Rashidi’s crew had the flu and were confined to quarters. Among the ill was Liam Molony, the mission commander who he was counting on to co-pilot the Manta sub with David Taylor.

  * * *

  The heavy scent of disinfectant escorted David Taylor through the deserted corridor. He stopped at the stateroom numbered ST-501 and knocked.

  Thirty seconds passed
before Fiesal bin Rashidi cracked open the door. “David … put this on before you come in, I don’t want you to get sick.”

  The door opened wide enough for bin Rashidi to pass a surgeon’s face mask through the crack.

  David unfolded it, secured it over his nose and mouth and entered.

  The Dubai engineer was dressed in a bathrobe, T-shirt, sweat pants and wool socks, a scarf wrapped around his neck. The heat was turned up to a stifling ninety degrees, the porthole cracked open, channeling a stream of frigid air into the suite.

  Bin Rashidi motioned for David to sit. “This fever … one minute I’m cold, the next I’m drenched in sweat. Keep the mask with you; we can’t afford our only pilot to get sick.”

  “What did you need to see me about?”

  “I spoke to my cousin this morning. He wants you to take the sub beneath the ice sheet and search for the Lio.”

  “Search for the Lio under a hundred and eighty thousand square miles of ice? I could search for a year and not find that thing.”

  “Agreed. But the reality show pays for the ongoing costs of our mission and we cannot afford another episode like the one that will air this week. A sick crew coughing on camera while we wait for a sonar buoy to beep does not make for riveting television. Once you launch I’ll order the men to prepare the trawl net in the new ready position. Commander Molony agrees we can use the practice, plus it’ll look good on camera.”

  “What am I supposed to do about a co-pilot?”

  “Molony has been training one of the crew. Get changed, grab your gear, and report to the trawler, your co-pilot is already onboard.”

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, dressed in his neoprene pilot’s jumpsuit, gloves, boots, and bundled in an extreme weather jacket, David followed one of the crewmen down an internal stairwell. A gantry dead-ended at a watertight door. The sailor wrenched it open, revealing an overcast day, their perch situated three stories above the waterline. The Arab, who apparently spoke no English, pointed to the rungs of a ladder permanently bolted to the starboard flank. The Dubai Land-I waited below.

  Securing the hood of his parka, David carefully made his descent, wary of the slippery layer of frost which coated the steel bars. His quadricep muscles were shaking by the time he was helped onto the trawler’s stern deck and escorted to the Manta.