by Alten-Steve
"Nice suite. Where's Bud?"
Maggie curled up on the far sofa opposite Adashek. "He left about two hours ago. You did a nice job of harassing Jonas at the lecture."
"Is all this necessary, Maggie? He seems like a decent enough guy—"
"So you marry him. After almost ten years, I've had enough."
"Why not just divorce him and get it over with?"
"It's not that simple. Now that I'm in the media's eye, my agent says we have to be very careful about what the public's perception will be. Jonas still has a lot of friends in this town. He has to come off as a lunatic. People have to believe that his actions brought this divorce on. Last night was a good start."
"So what's next?"
"Where's Jonas now?"
Adashek pulled out his notes. "He went home with the Tanaka woman—"
"Jonas? With another woman?" Maggie laughed hysterically.
"It was innocent. Just a ride home from the awards. I followed him to the commuter airport earlier this morning. They're headed to Monterey. My guess is to that new whale lagoon the Tanaka Oceanographic Institute is constructing.
"Okay, stay with him, and keep me informed. By the end of next week, I want you to go public with the Navy story, emphasizing the fact that two of the crew were killed. Once the story hits, you'll do a follow-up interview with me, then I'll push for the divorce, public humiliation and all."
"You're the boss. Listen, if I'm going to be following Jonas, I'll need some more cash."
Terry pulled a thick envelope out of her robe pocket. "Bud says to save the receipts."
Yeah, thought Adashek, I'm sure he needs the write-off.
LAGOON
"There it is." Terry pointed to the shoreline as they descended toward the sparkling Monterey Bay.
Jonas sipped the warm soda, his stomach still jumpy from Terry's little air show. His head pounded, and he had already made up his mind to leave immediately after meeting with Masao. As far as he was concerned, Terry Tanaka was the last person Jonas would ever recommend to Masao to descend to the bottom of the Challenger Deep.
Jonas looked down and to his right at the empty man-made lagoon situated on a ten-mile-square parcel of beachfront real estate just south of Moss Landing. From the air it looked like a giant oval-shaped swimming pool. Lying parallel to the ocean, the structure was just over three-quarters of a mile in length and a quarter mile wide. It was eighty feet deep at its center, with walls two stories high and enormous acrylic windows at each end. A concrete canal at the midpoint of the lagoon's oceanside wall connected it with the deep waters of the Pacific.
The lagoon held no water yet. Construction workers crawled like ants over the walls and scaffolding. If the schedule held, in less than a month the massive doors of the canal entrance would be opened and the lagoon would fill with seawater. It would be the largest man-made aquarium in the world.
"If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it," Jonas said as they prepared to land.
Terry smiled proudly. Masao Tanaka had made building of the aquarium his life's work. Designed as a living laboratory, the lagoon would serve as a natural yet protective environment for its future inhabitants, the largest creatures ever known to exist on earth. Each winter tens of thousands of the mammals migrated through California's coastal waters to breed. When the aquarium was complete, its doors would open to welcome them, the giant cetaceans — the grays, the humpbacks, and perhaps even the endangered blues.
Masao's dream was becoming a reality.
* * * * *
Forty-five minutes later, Jonas found himself smiling into the eyes of the lagoon's founder.
"Jonas! My God, it's so good to see you." Masao Tanaka, a good foot shorter than Taylor, was positively beaming at the man. "Let me look at you. Ah, you look like shit. Smell like it too! Hah. What's the matter? You don't like flying with my daughter?"
"No, as a matter of fact, I don't." Jonas gave the girl a look to kill.
Masao looked at his daughter. "Terry?"
"His fault, Dad. It's not my problem if he can't handle the pressure. I'll see you in the projection room." She walked off the tarmac, heading toward the three-story building at the end of the lagoon.
"My apologies, Taylor-san. Terry is very headstrong, she is somewhat of a free spirit. Is that the term? It is difficult raising a daughter without a female role model."
"Forget it, I really came up to see you and your whale lagoon. Amazing."
"I'll give you a tour later. Come, we'll get you a fresh shirt. Then I want you to meet my chief engineer, Alphonse DeMarco. He is reviewing the video D.J. took in the trench. Jonas, I really need your input."
Jonas followed Masao to the projection room. They entered the dark room where the video was already being viewed. Jonas took a seat next to Terry as DeMarco greeted Masao.
The video showed a spotlight cutting a beam through the clear, dark water. The wreckage of the UNIS loomed into view. It was lying on its side at the bottom of a canyon wall, wedged in between boulders and mud.
Alphonse DeMarco stared at the monitor in the video-editing suite. "D.J. found it a hundred yards down from its initial position."
Jonas rose from his seat and approached the monitor. "What do you think happened?"
DeMarco stared at the screen as the spotlight roamed over the scarred metal surface of the broken submersible. "The simplest explanation is it got caught in a landslide."
"A landslide?"
"I'm sure you know they're a frequent occurrence down there. Just look at all of those rocks."
Jonas walked to the table behind them. The retrieved half-shell of the sonar plate lay there like a severed piece of abstract sculpture. Jonas touched the torn edge of the metal dish. "It's titanium casing over four-inch steel supports. I've seen the stress-test data—"
"The shell may have developed a crack on impact. The currents are incredibly strong."
"Is there any evidence—?"
"The UNIS recorded an increase in turbulence almost two minutes before we lost contact."
Jonas paused, then looked back at DeMarco. "What about the others?"
"Two of the other missing UNIS systems recorded similar changes in turbulence. If a landslide got this one, we can probably assume the same thing happened to the others."
Jonas turned toward the monitor. "You've lost four units," he said. "Isn't it pushing the limits of probability to say they've all been destroyed in landslides?"
DeMarco removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He'd had this argument with Masao more than once. "We knew the trenches were seismically active. Cables that cross other canyons are broken by landslides all the time. All this means is the Mariana Trench is even more unstable than we'd expected."
"Changes in deep-sea currents often precede landslide activity," chimed in Terry.
"Jonas," said Masao, "this entire project depends on our ability to determine what happened to these robots and correct the situation immediately. I have decided that we must retrieve this UNIS. My son cannot do the job alone. The job requires two subs working together; one to clear the debris and steady the UNIS while the second sub attaches the cable—"
"Dad!" Terry suddenly realized why her father had insisted on locating Jonas.
"Stop the tape." Jonas had seen something on the monitor. "Go back a little," he said to the editor.
"That's good. Let it play."
They stared at the shifting image on the screen. The spotlight circled to the opposite side of the UNIS sphere, partially submerged in boulders and mud. The light shone into the debris near its base.
"There!" Jonas said. The editor froze the frame. Jonas pointed to a tiny white fragment wedged under the submersible. "Can you blow that up?"
The man punched some buttons and a square outline appeared on the monitor. Moving a joystick, he positioned the square around the object, then pulled it out to fill the screen.
The triangular object was larger, but fuzzy and unclear. Jona
s stared at the screen. "It's a tooth," he stated.
DeMarco moved closer, scrutinizing the image. "You're nuts, Taylor."
"DeMarco," commanded Masao in an authoritative voice. "Show the proper respect to our guest."
"I'm sorry, Masao, but what our professor here is saying is impossible. You see that?" He pointed to a bolt dangling from a steel strut. "That's a bolt for a girder beam," he said. "It's three inches long." He pointed to the fuzzy white object below it. "That would mean that... thing — whatever it is — is at least seven, eight inches long."
He looked at Masao. "There's no creature on earth with teeth that big."
* * * * *
Jonas held a photograph of the blown-up video frame in his hand as he and Terry followed Masao down the corridor which led to the giant aquarium lagoon. Terry had located a staff T-shirt for the professor.
"If it is a tooth, how do we know it wasn't just uncovered in the landslide?" Terry asked.
"We don't. But it looks white, Terry. Every fossilized Megalodon tooth we've found has been gray or black, denoting its age. A white tooth would indicate that its owner had only recently perished, or perhaps could still be alive."
"You certainly seem excited about this," said Terry, trying to keep up with her father.
Jonas stopped. "Terry, I need to recover that tooth; it's very important to me."
She looked up at him, almond eyes blazing. "No way. If anyone accompanies my brother into the trench, it will be me! Why is this so important to you anyway, Jonas?" Before he could answer, Masao called out.
"Hey, I'm not babysitting here. You wanna see my lagoon, you keep up!"
Terry glared at him. "This discussion isn't over, Jonas."
They reached a doorway through the towering wall of the aquarium and entered the giant lagoon. Jonas stopped, awestruck by its enormity.
Masao Tanaka stood in front of them proudly, a tight smile etched across his face. "We do nice work, eh, my friend?"
Jonas could only nod in agreement.
Masao turned his back to Jonas and Terry. "This lagoon has been my dream since I was six years old. Forty million dollars, almost seven years of planning, four years of construction, Jonas. I did all I could, gave it everything I had."
He turned and faced them again, tears in his eyes. "It's too bad she is never gonna open."
MASAO
Jonas sat in the bamboo chair and gazed upon the setting sun as it kissed the Pacific horizon. Masao Tanaka's home had been built into the Santa Lucia Mountains in California's Big Sur Valley. The cool ocean breeze and magnificent view were intoxicating, relaxing Jonas for the first time in as long as he could remember.
The Tanakas had invited Jonas to spend the night. Terry was in the kitchen at her father's request, preparing a plate of jumbo shrimp for the barbecue. Masao emerged from the house, checked on the gas grill, then walked around the pool and took a seat next to Jonas.
"Terry says dinner will be ready soon. I hope you're hungry, Jonas. My daughter is a very good cook." He smiled.
Jonas looked at his friend. "I'm sure she is. Now, tell me about the lagoon, Masao. What made you build it in the first place? And why did you say it may never be completed?"
Masao shut his eyes and breathed deeply. "Jonas, you smell that sweet ocean air? It makes you appreciate nature, eh?"
"Yes."
"You know, my father was a fisherman. Back in Japan, he would take me out almost every morning. I guess he had to. My mother died when I was only four, so there was no one else to take care of me but my father.
"When I was six, we moved to America to live with relatives in San Francisco. Four months later, the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. All Orientals are locked in detention camps. Jonas, my father was a very proud man. He could never accept the fact that he was in a prison, unable to fish, unable to live his life. One morning, my father just decided to die. Left me all alone, locked up in a foreign land, unable to speak or understand a word of English."
"You were all alone?"
Masao smiled. "Yes, Jonas, until I saw my first whale. From the prison gates, I could see them leap. The humpbacks, they sang to me, kept me company, occupied my mind. My only friends." He closed his eyes for a moment, deep in thought.
"You know, Jonas, Americans are funny people. One minute, you can feel hated by them, the next loved. After eighteen months, I was released and adopted by my American family, David and Kiku Gordon. I was very lucky. They loved me, supported me, put me through school. But when I felt depressed, it was my whales that kept me going."
"Now I understand why this project means so much to you," said Jonas.
"Learning about whales is very important. In many ways they are superior to man. But capturing and imprisoning them in small tanks, forcing them to perform stupid human tricks so they can receive their rations of food, is very cruel. This lagoon, will remain open so the whales can enter and exit of their own free will. No more small tanks. Having been locked up myself, I could never do that. Never." Masao closed his eyes again. "You know, Jonas, humans could learn a lot from whales."
"So why won't your lagoon ever open?"
Masao shook his head. "For three years I searched for financing for the project. No bank in the United States would support my dreams. Finally, I met with JAMSTEC. They don't care about building lagoons, they just want to buy my UNIS systems to monitor earthquakes. It seemed like a good deal. They agreed to underwrite my lagoon and the Tanaka Institute agreed to work on the Mariana Trench/UNIS project. But when the UNIS systems began breaking down, JAMSTEC froze all our funding."
"You'll finish the lagoon, Masao. We'll figure out what happened."
"What do you think happened?" Masao's eyes blazed into Taylor's, searching for answers.
"Honestly, Masao, I don't know. DeMarco may be right. The UNIS robots could have anchored themselves too close to the canyon wall. But I can't imagine a boulder being able to crush titanium like that."
"Jonas, you and I are friends."
Jonas looked at the older man. "Of course—"
"Good. I tell you my story, now you tell your old friend Tanaka the truth. What happened to you in the Mariana Trench?"
"What makes you think I was in the Mariana?"
Masao smiled knowingly. "We've known each other... what? Ten years? You lectured at my Institute at least a half dozen times. Now you underestimate me? I have contacts in the Navy too, you know. I know what the Navy says happened. Now I want to hear your side."
Jonas rubbed his eyes. "Okay, Masao, for some reason it seems that the story is being leaked anyway. There were three of us on board a new Navy deep-sea submersible, the Seacliff. I was the pilot, the other two crewmen were scientists with the Navy. We were measuring deep-sea currents in the trench to determine if plutonium rods from nuclear power plants could be safely buried within the Challenger Deep."
Jonas closed his eyes. "I guess we were hovering about four thousand feet from the bottom. It was my third descent in eight days, too much really, but I was the only qualified pilot. The scientists were busy conducting tests. I was just looking out the porthole, staring down into the black abyss, when I thought I saw something circling below."
"What can you see in the darkness, Jonas?"
"I'm not sure, but it appeared to be glowing, totally white, and very big. At first I thought it could be a whale, but I knew that was impossible. Then it just disappeared. I figured I had to be hallucinating."
"So what happened next?"
"I... to tell you the truth, Masao, I'm not sure. I remember seeing this huge head, or at least I thought I did."
"A head?"
"Triangular, Masao. Monstrous, as big as a truck, all white with huge teeth. They say I panicked, dropped every weight plate the sub had and rocketed toward the surface. Never decompressed... just panicked."
"Jonas, this head, it was this Megalodon you lecture about?"
"I guess that's been my theory all of these years."
"Did the creat
ure pursue you?"
"No, apparently not. I blacked out with the others..."
"Two men died."
"Yes."
"What happened to you?"
Jonas rubbed his eyes again. "I spent three weeks in a hospital, then went through months of psychoanalysis. Not a fun time."
"You think this creature crushed our UNIS robot?"
Jonas looked at the horizon. "I don't know. The truth is, I've begun to doubt my own memories of the event. If it was a Megalodon I saw, how did it simply disappear? I was looking straight down at it, then poof, gone."
Masao sat back in his chair. "Jonas, I believe you saw something, but I don't think it was a monster. You know, D.J. tells me there are giant patches of tubeworms all along the bottom. Thousands in a single growth. D.J. says these worms glow in the dark, all white. You never did make it to the very bottom of the trench, did you, Jonas?"
"No, Masao."
"D.J. made it. That boy loves deep-sea diving, says it's like being in outer space. Jonas, I think what you saw was a patch of tubeworms. I think the currents pushed them out of your sight line. That's why they seemed to disappear. You were exhausted, staring into the darkness. The Navy worked you too hard, three dives in eight days is not safe. And now you've spent seven years of your life hypothesizing how these monsters may still be alive."
Jonas sat in silence.
Masao placed his hand on Jonas's shoulder. "My friend, I need your help. And I think maybe it's time to face your fears. I want you to return to the Mariana Trench with D.J., but this time you'll make it all the way to the bottom. You'll see those patches of giant tubeworms for yourself. You were once a great pilot, and I know in my heart you still are. You can't live in fear your whole life."
Tears began forming in Jonas's eyes. "Okay... okay, Masao, I'll go back." He choked back a laugh. "Boy, your daughter is going to be very pissed off. She wants to be the second pilot, you know?"
Masao smiled grimly. "I know. D.J. says she's good, too, but she's very emotional. One must be extra cautious seven miles below the surface, eh? My daughter will get her opportunities on other dives, but not in this hellhole."