Sea Raptor: A Deep Sea Thriller

by John J. Rust

  Ehrenberg looked around at the tall grass around him as he continued to walk. Again Rastun observed the man’s expression. The fear and worry were obvious. Eventually, they gave way to acceptance, even some resolve. The process took way too long for Rastun, but Ehrenberg was a civilian. They didn’t have that switch that put them into instant action mode.

  “Okay. Let’s do it.”

  Ehrenberg veered right. The rest of the expedition followed. Rastun glanced over his shoulder every so often. A couple of times he saw grass rustling despite the lack of a breeze.

  When they reached the trees, Ehrenberg called for a break. The others sat down, taking draws from their CamelBaks.

  “Everyone listen up,” Ehrenberg spoke in a rare, serious tone. “Jack says we’re being followed. We don’t know by who, and we don’t know what they want.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Pilka.

  Malakov snorted. “What kind of bullshit is this?”

  “It’s not bullshit,” said Rastun. “They’re out there, and if they’re trying not to be seen, I doubt they’re up to any good.”

  “So what do we do?” asked Karen.

  “We neutralize them.”

  Rastun scanned the faces of the expedition members. Karen looked concerned. Malakov looked annoyed. Ehrenberg still wore that determined leader face.

  Pilka appeared worried. Very worried. Though it seemed like the typical worry a civilian would have in this type of situation.

  “Neutralize?” blurted Malakov. “You mean you’re going to murder them.”

  “We will defend ourselves, and killing will be a last resort.”

  Malakov looked liked she didn’t believe him. Rastun wondered if she might know the people following them.

  If she does, they’ll tell us. I’ll make damn sure of that.

  Rastun directed everyone to get behind a thicket of trees. He then pointed Geek to a tree on the right. The ex-sergeant hurried behind it. Rastun took cover behind another tree. He slung the Aster 7 over his shoulder and drew his Glock. Rastun crouched and did what he’d done plenty of times in the Rangers.

  He waited.

  The wait, it turned out, wasn’t very long.

  Barely ten minutes after they’d taken cover, two figures rose from the tall grass, about 50 yards from the trees. Both looked male, wore camouflage and had their faces covered by balaclavas.

  They also carried submachine guns.

  Rastun’s grip on his pistol tightened. He peered as far around the tree as he dared.

  The two looked to one another, then marched forward, submachine guns up.

  Rastun eased himself around the tree, remaining unseen as the two passed by. He peeked from behind the trunk. Both men had their backs to him.

  Now!

  He sprang to his feet and leaned around the tree, pistol up.

  “Drop your weapons!”

  Both men jumped and spun around.

  Geek emerged from behind his tree, his USAS-12 shotgun aimed at the pair.

  “Drop your weapons!”

  The two gunmen whipped their heads from Rastun to Geek, eyes wide with fear.

  They still held their submachine guns.

  “Drop your weapons or you’re dead!” Rastun aimed his Glock at the head of the gunman on the left.

  “Holy shit, don’t shoot!”

  “Chill, dude! Chill!”

  The pair dropped their weapons.

  Rastun rushed forward. “Hands on your head! Get on your knees!”

  The two did as ordered.

  Rastun kicked the submachine guns across the ground. He then yanked the balaclava off one man’s head.

  “Don’t kill me, dude!”

  The guy looked to be in his late teens or early twenties, with a scruffy brown beard and a piercing on his lip.

  Rastun’s brow furrowed. He removed the balaclava from the other man. He was about the same age, but with no beard and blond hair instead.

  “Who are you?” Rastun demanded, while Geek covered them with his shotgun.

  “Dude, dude,” the bearded guy stammered. “I’m-I’m Mike, and that’s Dave. P-Please don’t kill us.”

  “Why were you following us?”

  “We-We wanted to make sure you didn’t kill the Point Pleasant Monster.”

  “Who sent you?”

  “Lexi. Lexi Campbell.”

  “Who’s that?” asked Rastun.

  “She’s our President,” Mike answered.

  “President of what?”

  “Freedom for Animals.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “I’m not lying, dude!” The blood drained from Mike’s face. “We’re not a big group, okay? Maybe, like, twenty people. We just wanted to make a name for ourselves.”

  “By shooting all of us?” said Geek.

  “Yeah… No, I mean, not with bullets.”

  “Then what’s in the guns?” asked Rastun.

  “Red food dye. They’re not real guns, they’re just water pistols.”

  Rastun backed away, angling himself toward one of the submachine guns. Glock still trained on Mike and Dave, he bent down and grabbed the weapon. It looked like an Uzi, with one big difference.

  It was made of plastic, not metal.

  He pointed it at the ground and squeezed the trigger. A stream of red liquid shot out of it.

  “You stupid shits!” Rastun slammed the fake Uzi on the ground. “We could have killed you!”

  “W-Well you shouldn’t be killing animals,” Dave muttered.

  Rastun glared at him. Dave swallowed and lowered his gaze.

  “How did you know we were coming here?” asked Geek.

  “We followed you from your hotel,” Mike answered. “Lexi saw some of you guys there the other day, so we, like, staked it out.”

  “How did you know we were with the FUBI?” asked Rastun.

  “From your web page. The photo gallery’s loaded with pics of you guys.”

  Rastun groaned. Whoever put a mole in their expedition, sabotaged their weapons and covered their tracks had to be smart and organized. They’d never hire these two dipshits.

  Rastun lowered his Glock and motioned for Geek to do the same. He went over to one of the water pistols and brought his boot down on it. It shattered.

  “You can’t do that,” said Dave. “Those are ours.”

  Rastun swung around and glared at him.

  Dave shrank back. “Um, never mind.”

  Rastun stomped on the other Uzi and walked back to Mike and Dave. “Get up.”

  They obeyed.

  “You two go back to your little clubhouse and tell your pals I don’t want to see any of you in the same zip code as us, otherwise I’ll go to the police and file harassment charges. Got it?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, dude.”

  “Get out of here.”

  The two hurried out of the little knot of trees. Ehrenberg and the others had already emerged from hiding. They all looked relieved. Except Malakov. As usual, she looked pissed. She probably thought he’d been too harsh on those poor, wayward miscreants.

  I could have been a hell of a lot harsher.

  “Well,” Geek sidled up next to him. “At least we had some excitement today.”

  That proved to be the only exciting thing that happened. The rest of the day passed without any sign of the Point Pleasant Monster. They had similar success the next day when they explored other salt marshes north of Atlantic City. When they returned to their hotel in Barnegat that evening, they checked in with Montebello.

  “Anything from the Coast Guard?” asked Ehrenberg.

  “They thought they saw the monster a couple hours ago and shot at it. It turned out to be a shark.”

  “Stupid bastards!” Malakov barked. “How many more animals are they going to kill by mistake?”

  Rastun hated to admit it, but Malakov had a valid point. After the attack on the motor lifeboat, there would be a lot of jumpy Coast Guard personnel with shotguns, automatic rifles and mac
hine guns. Any of them who saw a hump in the water might be quicker on the trigger than normal. There could be a lot of dead sharks, whales and seals all along the Jersey Shore.

  Oh yeah, and the press would rake them over the coals for it.

  Can’t just one thing go our way?

  When they got back to their room, Karen showered while Rastun turned on the TV to the channel that usually carried Phillies games. It was well after seven. They ought to be playing by now.

  In the top of the second, the Phillies trailed the Cubs 3-0.

  Absolutely nothing was going his way.

  Karen stepped out of the bathroom in a fresh t-shirt and shorts, toweling her wet hair. Rastun then showered, staying under the warm water longer than usual, letting it relax him.

  When he finished, he exited the bathroom to find Karen at the table with her laptop, most likely updating the photo gallery.

  “Oh, Jack. Your phone rang while you were in the shower.”

  “Thanks.”

  Rastun went over to the nightstand, picked up his cell and checked the last call.

  It had come from Sherlock.

  “It’s from Geek,” he lied. “Eh, he’s just a few doors down. Might as well go see what he wants.”

  He gave Karen a quick kiss on the cheek and left. When he got to Geek’s room, he held up the phone. “Sherlock called.”

  “Please let it be good news.”

  “We’ll find out soon enough.” Rastun stepped inside and pressed the button for Sherlock’s number. Geek had just closed the door when the deputy marshal answered.

  “Tell us you’ve got something.” Rastun laid the phone on the dresser.

  “I do. You know that theory you said was the most unlikely?”

  “Animal pheromones in the toiletries? Yeah.” Rastun tensed. “You’re not serious.”

  “My man at the lab confirmed it. Karen’s sunscreen was laced with pheromones, pheromones that aren’t a match to any known species.”

  Rastun stared at the phone for several, silent seconds. He drew a breath before speaking. “Remember what I told you about pheromones?”

  “Yeah. They’ll only attract animals of the same species. My lab tech told me the same thing.”

  “Then you know what that means,” said Rastun. “Someone out there has another Point Pleasant Monster.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  “Are you shittin’ me?” Geek turned to Rastun with an incredulous look. “You really think someone got their hands on another Point Pleasant Monster?”

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “Well, I guess now we know why that thing chased you and Karen all over Point Pleasant, and why it tried to burrow through Bold Fortune’s deck to get at her. She must have been covered with those pheromones.”

  “Which means someone wants her dead.” Anger lines creased Rastun’s face. He thought of Karen, their date at Vargo’s, the first night they made love, the way he felt when he was around her.

  If anything happened to her, if he let anything happen to her…

  “So if Malakov’s our mole,” said Geek, “and that’s who I’ve got my money on, why would she want Karen dead?”

  “There’s also Raleigh Pilka,” Rastun pointed out. “He and Karen had an affair that ended his marriage. This might be his chance for revenge.”

  “I don’t know,” said Sherlock. “There are easier ways to kill people. Someone could have just hit her on the head and thrown her overboard, then write it off as an accident.”

  “Then why put those pheromones in her sunscreen?” asked Rastun.

  “I think it’s obvious. They wanted to lure out the monster. Whoever’s responsible might have just picked Karen’s sunscreen at random.”

  “I don’t care if it was random or not, she could’ve been killed.” Just saying that last word caused Rastun to shiver.

  “All right,” said Geek. “So our mole put pheromones in Karen’s suntan lotion to lure out the Point Pleasant Monster. Then what happens? We capture it. So what good does it do ‘im? They can’t make off with it by themselves.”

  “No, they can’t. But they can call for back-up and hijack your boat,” Sherlock explained.

  “And they’d still have to get past all the Coast Guard cutters and helicopters out there.” Geek shook his head. “What does it even matter how they plan to do it? We’re no longer trying to capture the monster. We’re trying to kill.”

  “They may try to capture it themselves,” said Rastun.

  “Sounds a little too risky on their part.”

  “They might think it worth the risk. Exotic animal smuggling nets anywhere between ten to twenty billion dollars a year.”

  “Billion?” blurted Geek. “Like with a ‘b’?”

  Rastun nodded. “I once heard that the hide of a Siberian Tiger can go for twenty thousand dollars on the black market. They’re one of the rarest animals on the planet. Imagine what the price would be for a live Point Pleasant Monster.”

  “I bet it’s a hell of a lot more than twenty grand.”

  “Try seven figures. Even eight wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “That kind of money would make a lot of people take big risks,” said Sherlock.

  Geek sighed. “We can stand here all night making SWAGs.” He used the slang for Scientific Wild Ass Guesses. “It won’t bring us any closer to finding out who our mole is or who sent ‘im here.”

  “We may be on the right track. Remember, someone out there has another Point Pleasant Monster.” Sherlock paused. “Captain, you’re the animal expert. What would you need to take care of a sea monster?”

  “A pool or an aquarium tank for starters.”

  “A pretty damn big tank,” Geek chimed in.

  “You got that right. But you also have to have special equipment. Filters and pumps to clean and circulate the water, heaters and chillers to maintain water temperature, water monitoring equipment.”

  “Are there a lot of companies that sell those kinds of things?” asked Sherlock.

  “I couldn’t tell you how many companies there are,” Rastun replied. “My experience is with zoos, not aquariums. We only had a handful of aquatic animals at the Philadelphia Zoo.”

  “Well, it shouldn’t be too hard to find out. Unless they avoided dealing with legitimate companies.” Sherlock paused. “Captain, how difficult would it be to transport a sea creature, a large one, overland?”

  “Again, you’re going to need all sorts of special equipment and a good-sized trailer to haul it, or a plane.”

  “A plane?” blurted Geek. “Shit, that means, the other monster could be anywhere in the country.”

  “I don’t think they’d use a plane,” said Sherlock. “It’d be too hard to fly a large airplane over the U.S. without the FAA or Homeland Security knowing about it. They’d probably use a tractor trailer, and probably not go very far inland. The longer you stay on the road, the greater the risk for detection.”

  “Well, that narrows it down to most of the East Coast,” said Rastun.

  “Yeah, hundreds of miles of coastline.” Geek put on a sardonic smile. “That’s really narrowing it down.”

  “Captain, anything else you’d need to take care of a large sea creature?” asked Sherlock.

  “Yeah. Food. A lot of it.”

  “Define a lot.”

  “An example, one of the tigers at the Philadelphia Zoo eats, on average, thirteen pounds of meat a day. I’ll bet you the Point Pleasant Monster eats even more.”

  “Thirteen times three hundred sixty-five.” Sherlock paused for a moment. “That’s a little over forty-seven hundred pounds of meat a year.”

  Geek whistled in surprise. “That’ll put a dent in someone’s wallet.”

  “Which confirms we’re dealing with a person or group that has a lot of resources,” said Sherlock. “Where do zoos normally get food for their animals?”

  “A lot of it’s prepared in-house. Each animal has different nutritional needs. There are a
lso companies that specifically prepare food for carnivores. Most animal smugglers, however, don’t give a damn about proper feeding.”

  “Which means they might go to a local supermarket to get the monster’s food.”

  “And how many supermarkets are there along the East Coast?” asked Geek. “We’re talking a needle in a haystack.”

  “Geek’s right,” said Sherlock. “I may have to bring in some more people from the Marshals Service to help.”

  Concern flared within Rastun. “I don’t know, Sherlock. Colonel Lipeli wanted us to keep this investigation compartmentalized. Just like when we were in the Army, the more people who know about an operation, the harder it is to keep it a secret.”

  “I know, sir, but if we want to find out who has the other monster, and who our mole is, we may not have a choice. I’ll run it by Colonel Lipeli and see what he thinks.”

  “What about the weapons locker on Bold Fortune?” asked Rastun. “You said you found some fingerprints on it.”

  “Yeah, yours and Geek’s. No one else’s.”

  “Damn,” Rastun muttered.

  “I even dusted around the area of the weapons locker. The floors, walls, some boxes stacked nearby, on the off-chance the mole touched something inadvertently. Nothing.”

  Rastun pressed his palms on the dresser, his eyes narrowing. They were still no closer to finding the mole, the SOB who had put Karen’s life in danger.

  One damn slip up. Was that so much to ask for? Even the best can make mistakes. Why couldn’t the mole have put a hand on the floor to balance himself or herself while kneeling, or rest a hand on the wall while getting to their feet? Little things people do without thinking.

  Rastun’s head snapped up. He closed his eyes when the realization hit him. “Dammit.”

  “What is it, Cap’n?” asked Geek.

  “My gun cleaning kit.”

  “What about it?”

  “The day I confronted Karen and Doctor Pilka about their affair, I remember someone moved it away from the weapons locker. I left it right in front of the locker the night before. I thought Hernandez might have moved it when he was cleaning, but what if it was our mole who did?”

  “Do you still have your gun cleaning kit?” asked Sherlock.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Get it to me. I’ll take it to the lab and see if any other prints are on it besides yours.”