by Greig Beck
“Jesus,” Jack breathed as the hulking man came towards them.
He stopped and nodded to each of them. “Good morning, Ms Granger and Mr Monroe. I’m Drago Andovich, Head of Security for Mironov Enterprises. Please follow me.”
Jack went to hold out his hand, but the man had already turned away. Cate nudged him in the ribs.
Once again she found herself in the small wood-paneled elevator speeding to the 110th floor. Cate inhaled the scent of lavender, and this time, an aftershave that was strong enough to repel insects.
They both stood behind the huge shoulders of Drago, and Cate turned to Jack, and held her nose, sticking out her tongue in case he didn’t get it. Jack grinned, raised his eyebrows and motioned with his eyes to above the elevator doors. She followed his gaze to a small slide of silver metal, and she could just make out Drago’s eyes, watching them in the reflection. She lowered her head, groaning softly.
Jack leaned in close to her ear. “Do you need a sip of my moonshine?”
In another few seconds the elevator slowed, stopped and the doors slid soundlessly open. Drago led them to the familiar set of double doors, with ‘AKM’ in calligraphic style crest on a band of gold across the panels.
He knocked and stood aside. If he had seen Cate making fun of him, he gave no sign.
Jack pushed the door and held it open for Cate to go through. Once again she was knocked out by the size of the room. It was still as dimly lit as she remembered – it seemed Sonya had changed nothing. There were the sparse decorations, huge antique desk, and dark burgundy leather couch, now hidden in shadows.
“Wow.” Jack held up his arms toward the wall of glass holding a shimmering blue Olympic pool size fish tank. He rushed to it and crouched; Cate could tell he was trying to take it all in at once – the swaying sea grass, weed-covered boulders, and the two ancient fish that sinuously approached him.
He grinned, pointing at the strange fish. “What the hell are they?”
“Some of Valery’s pets – Polypterus Senegalus, dinosaur eels – very rare, very ancient transitional species.” The last time she had seen the prehistoric-looking creatures she had been mesmerized. This time, she was strangely revolted.
The click of heels drew their heads around, and Sonya powered towards them smiling broadly. “Cate, Jack, welcome.” She stuck out a hand.
The first thing that struck Cate as odd was the way Sonya beamed. No more the sullen woman who had rescued them. Could she have gotten over her grief so quickly?
They each shook her hand, and then let her lead them to the couch. A figure rose to meet them.
Cate stopped dead and Jack bumped into her back.
“Valery? Valery? What the hell?” Cate walked forward slowly, her mouth hanging open.
Jack grinned, but his brow was furrowed. “But you… we saw… how?”
Cate managed to close her mouth. “What happened to you? How did you escape? Where’s Dmitry?” She went to him and embraced his slim figure, but he quickly disengaged himself and pointed to the couch.
Cate sank into the soft leather, Jack beside her. “I have so many questions that I feel my head is going to explode.”
Mironov sat back down, but Sonya remained standing. He nodded to her.
“Dmitry Anatol Kuchina was an agent working for Brogidan Yusoff, one of Valery’s business and political adversaries,” she said, her eyes unblinking.
“Bastard,” Jack said. “Will he ever be brought to justice?”
“The rubbish has already been taken out, so to speak.” Mironov looked up at Sonya, whose mouth lifted slightly at the corners. “Sorry for the cloak and dagger pantomime, but until we knew the full extent of the parties involved, it was best for me to remain… dead.” He turned back to them. “As for Dmitry, he and his family are now living safely in Albuquerque, with different names.”
“What? He killed Yegor, and stranded us; we could have all been killed! As it was, we lost our friend, Greg Jamison, because of him.” Jack said, his brows snapping together. “He should be in jail, or worse.”
Mironov watched them for a moment, and eased back into the chair. “Perhaps. But he was being blackmailed. I know he did what he thought was necessary to save his family.” He looked from Cate to Jack. “What would you do for the ones you love? Lie, cheat, kill?” He shrugged. “I know I would.”
“It’s not right,” Cate said.
Mironov tilted his head as he regarded them. “Nothing ever is.”
Cate licked lips that had suddenly gone dry. “But what happened? How did you escape? The last we saw of you, Dmitry submerged, and then you were both gone.”
“Dmitry piloted the submersible to a location under the Bering Sea. Somehow, they planned to extract us. But the roof of the cavern collapsed, but not down. It blew upwards, sucking us up and out.”
Jack slapped a hand on his thigh. “The warm water surge in the freezing Bering Sea.”
“Yes, we were thrown out, rising from the ancient sea to the modern one. We floated for miles, resting on the bottom that was thankfully only a few hundred feet deep, as our hull had been compromised. It took days for the Prusalka’s batteries to recharge. We came to shore at Port Hardy, north of Vancouver. We sank the submersible, and Sonya came and picked us up.” He smiled. “And now here I am.”
Valery Mironov sat forward, his face growing serious. “But I don’t think we alone were drawn from that primordial world. I have been following events along the west coast. I think we have a problem, and that’s why I called for you.”
Jack nodded. “Yes, we believe one of the Megalodon sharks was released into our seas. It’s made its way down to the coast of California, guided by some sort of genetically stored memory, and is now hunting… us. So far, over a dozen boats have been lost, with men, women, and children taken. We need to do something about it.”
Mironov sat stone still, watching them. Sonya looked briefly at an expensive gold watch on her wrist. “And you would like Valery to donate some money to assist in catching this big fish?”
“Catch it?” Cate’s mind took her back to a presentation she gave her students; it felt, a lifetime ago. She remembered telling them that there were some creatures that don’t deserve to exist – they’re aliens, deadly invaders, she had told them. And if they can’t be moved on, then eradication was the only solution. “No, not catch it…” Cate’s eyes welled up as she saw Greg Jamison’s face as he swam for his life, just before he was eaten alive. “I want it dead.”
Mironov looked towards his huge fish tank. “It is a species unlike any other.”
Cate launched herself forward. “It’s a fucking monster.”
Sonya stepped in front of Valery Mironov, her eyes suddenly going flint hard.
Jack pulled Cate back onto the couch. She grimaced, and continued to lean towards Mironov, who still watched the dinosaur eels snake around the blue tank.
“Valery, when I first met you, right here in this room, you said something that now rings true more than ever. You said sometimes evolution tries things out. Sometimes they don’t work out, and then even God himself realizes he has made a mistake.”
Valery turned to her then, and Cate went on. “And you said, when a mistake is realized, then these things get cancelled out. Well, this Megalodon monster was cancelled out over one and a half million years ago, for a damned good reason. It’s a killer, and it will either keep on killing until they day it dies, or we retreat from the waterways.”
Valery’s eyes were unblinking, and Cate wondered whether he was even listening now. After another moment, he sighed. “In the submersible, Dmitry and I were attacked. We only just survived. But in that few minutes, I looked into the maw of the devil himself.” He began to nod slowly. “I agree, this creature was cancelled to make way for others. It has no right to be here now.”
Cate reached out and placed a hand on his forearm. “I want it dead. If not for my friend, Greg, then for all the others it has already killed, and those it certainl
y will in the future.”
Valery placed a hand over hers. “Yes.” He stared into her eyes. “What is it you want? Another submarine?”
Jack shook his head. “Unless we have an Ohio Class, then I wouldn’t recommend going below the surface with that thing down there.” His eyebrows flicked up. “But there might be something we can use. Modern whaling ships are fast and equipped with enough technology to bring it to the surface. They also have harpoon cannon with explosive tip projectiles. We need the best there is.”
Sonya frowned. “A whaling ship?”
“That’s not all. We need it within a few days. There’s a tracking device in the Megalodon’s gut that will be excreted in a week.”
“Now I’m interested.” Mironov began to smile and he stood. “Leave it to me. And be ready to leave immediately.”
CHAPTER 35
Cate and Jack sat next to Regina on one side of the cavernous helicopter. Valery Mironov, the statuesque Sonya, and a besotted Vincent on the other. Regina shot Vince hard glances from time to time, but for the most part, everyone sat in silence – or as much silence as you could conjure inside the yawning interior of the Russian built Mi-8T Helicopter.
The massive and powerful helicopter could fit twenty-four people inside. And with a sixty-nine-foot rotor being whipped madly by two Klimov TV3-117Mt turbo shafts, it was like sitting inside a combination of flying tank and metal tornado.
They travelled at the maximum speed of one hundred and fifty miles per hour, and their destination was somewhere in the Northern Pacific. Mironov had obtained their whaling ship – a Russian-built whaler, whose designation was research, but had a ninety millimeter harpoon cannon built by Kongsberg Våpenfabrikk mounted on its foredeck. Plus it had a full armament of whale grenades in a variety of flavors – explosive tip, tranq-dart, and percussion heads.
The ship, the Slava, was rented for the year at a fee that made Jack’s eyes water. There was no crew required as Drago and four of his team had already left to take over the controls. As there was no actual whaling work to be done, they only needed a pilot, engineers, and deck hands. Vincent would take over the ship when they arrived.
There was only one Russian crewmember that Mironov negotiated into the transaction – and that was Alexi, the harpooner.
Jack nudged Cate, and motioned to one of the tiny windows in the helicopter. Below them the boat was moving at full speed. And the chopper circled it, coming up from behind. The Slava wasn’t a huge ship, at only one hundred and seventy-one feet, and with a displacement of eight hundred tons. But it had a three thousand horse-power diesel engine and could crank itself up to eighteen knots, which it seemed to be doing now.
The powerful chopper hovered over the deck, and each of them was harnessed in, and then lowered, usually in twos – Jack and Cate, Vincent and Regina and then Valery and Sonya. Drago and some of his men were there to receive them, and also take another cable the chopper had dropped. This they then attached to the bow of the ship. The Mi8T helicopter slowly lifted away, adding its forward lift power, and an extra kick of speed. Together, boat and chopper, now cut the cold sea at around twenty-five knots – unbelievable for a ship of its size.
In the control room, Vincent immediately set about familiarizing himself with bridge room, with Drago assisting with the key controls he would need and their Russian-English translations. Jack and Cate did their best to stay out of the way.
“Got it.” Vincent turned to Sonya. “It’ll be two days until we’re in warmer water. That is, as long as we don’t run into any weather.”
“Good.” She seemed in no mood for conversation, and left to speak to Mironov and Drago.
Jack and Cate joined Vincent at the wheel. Vincent raised his eyebrows. “Two days to get there, and we have two or maybe three max after that until your shark will shit out the tracker. We’re cutting it fine.”
“And then what happens if we get there, and find its about three thousand feet down, and we can’t get it to come to the surface?” Cate leant her hands on the sill and looked from the window. “This is where we pray for luck.”
She lifted a hand from the sill edge, looking at her greasy fingers and grimacing. “Ugh, Jack, this place is an abomination.”
Regina slid the heavy door open, and entered, rubbing one of Vincent’s shoulders.
Jack grinned. “I hear you. I guess a few decades of fletching and butchering whales hasn’t exactly left this place a bed of roses.”
“You can say that again,” Regina said. “Below, it stinks to high heaven. Oh yeah, and the mattresses look like a cat peed on them.”
Vincent grinned at her. “Jezuz, and we took a week’s leave for this?”
“Paradise,” she responded, smiling.
Mironov rejoined the group, and introduced them to Alexi, their gunner. The stocky, young man shook hands all-round, and Cate noticed the incongruity of youthful eyes in a weathered face, and palms that were as tough and calloused as old leather.
Mironov put a fatherly hand on his shoulder. “Alexi is not very good with English, but he came with the ship… at great expense.”
He said something in rapid Russian, and the young man nodded. “I not cheap.”
Mironov grinned. “And let’s hope we get our money’s worth. He tells me he can hit a bullseye every time.”
“Good,” Jack said, his eyes on Alexi. “Because I’m not sure we’ll get that many shots. This is no whale that needs to come to the surface. If we fire and miss, it’s liable to dive deep and stay deep, and then stay down for days. And once that tracker is out, it’ll be damned near impossible to find again… unless it wants to find us.”
Mironov translated, and Alexi nodded his understanding.
“If it comes to the surface, it will be dead,” Alexi said, his chin out. “Speak slow please.”
“Have you ever shot a shark before?” Cate asked. “And for that matter, we think this thing is around sixty or more feet long, and can move at about thirty knots. Oh yeah, you’ll need to make it a head-shot, as there is no blubber, just a skin like rough armor plating, and under that, several feet of solid muscle.”
Alexi shrugged. “I don’t care how big. If it comes to surface, I have enough explosive harpoons to turn it to cat food.”
Cate’s lips compressed into a flat smile. “Well, that’s the trick isn’t it; getting it to come to the surface.” She turned away, to lean on the sill and look out over the iron-gray swells parting before the Slava’s bow. There was a small part of her that hoped the Megalodon didn’t rise up, and vanished to the dark depths never to be seen again. She still had nightmares of the monster shark emerging like a black mountain behind Greg. She imagined the monstrous jaws closing over him. God, she hoped it was quick. She lifted her arm, and grimaced at the streak of black grease she’d picked up from the sill. Fuck it; she ignored it.
Sonya strode in to the center of the group. “Confidence is a good thing. And now we can add competence.” She looked at each of them. “We have the best skills and equipment available. This ship is old, but it has everything we need to do the job.”
Regina nodded, and her eyes found Vincent again. “And it’s built like a freakin’ tank. Do whales ram them or something?”
One corner of Vincent’s mouth hiked up. “No, but enviro-activists do. The whalers these days tend to have extra armor plating at the bow, and shielding over the prop-shafts to cut through cables dropped by protestors.” He tapped the iron of the wheel mounting. “These babies are the Mack trucks of the seas. Frankly, if you have to be on the water with a giant shark, then this thing is probably the safest place to be. Long as it comes to the surface, we have a chance.”
Sonya grunted her agreement. “It will come.” She turned to Regina. “And that magnificent odor you can smell is a twenty-foot minke whale carcass ripening down in the hold. Once we get into the waters we want, we’ll drop and drag it.”
Mironov raised an eyebrow. “What shark can resist a dead whale, hmm?”
Regina’s brow furrowed. “Is that legal?”
“I doubt it.” The Russian billionaire turned away.
CHAPTER 36
Annabel Van Horten bounced into the control room, computer table held aloft. “Oh my god. This is so unbelievable.” She slapped the tablet down, and used thumb and forefinger to enlarge the image. “Look, there’s a Russian whaler, the Slava, heading into our waters. It’s now just two hundred miles to our north.”
Captain Olander Blomgren’s brows went up, and he looked down over Annabel’s shoulder. Other young crewmembers crowded around, all wearing the matching red hooded jackets with the Earthpeace muscled penguin logo on its breast.
“What the hell is a fucking Russian whaler doing this far south, man?” A young man, barely old enough to shave, shouted while looking agitated.
Olander patted his shoulder. “Easy there, Nathanial. Maybe they’re illegally tracking a pod. These guys have a habit of not following anyone’s rules but their own. I think I know the Slava; it’s responsible for the murder of nearly a thousand cetacean beings. These guys are criminals, and now they’re trying to sneak into our jurisdiction.”
Olander stroked a perfectly manicured white beard, and turned away for a moment. From the bridge window the azure blue ocean stretched before him. On the foredeck a few of his crew sunbathed. They’d just come from the coast of Mexico and were heading back to Californian waters to engage net fishers who were competing with the native seal colonies for food. The Slava’s intrusion might be a useful diversion, and very newsworthy.
He smiled; his ship, the Gaia Warrior, was Earthpeace’s largest purpose-built electric sailing yacht on the water, and was a marvel of engineering. She was a one hundred and fifty-foot trimaran motor sail yacht with an A-frame mast and sails, and a full electric drive system that was silent as it was near emission free. Everything about her was kind to the planet. Her superstructure was made from recycled timber beams, and the hull was old PET plastic bottles pressed into shape. They even had biological treatment of sewage and an environmentally-friendly paint job. It made Olander and his young crew feel good just sitting inside it.