by Peter Riva
Ruis interrupted, they were speaking over each other, totally excited, “And it can move laterally, Heep, laterally for God’s sake. No noise, silent as a bunny, a few bubbles, that’s all. It has an external mike, Heep, an external mike!”
“And when we moved into the reef to check the macro? It adjusted automatically. The coral anemones stayed out. The machine isn’t alive, so they didn’t sense it, they didn’t duck in . . .”
“And then suddenly, I’m standing in three feet of water with the remote control panel . . .”
“Which is totally waterproof. Even to a hundred feet. So you can swim with the thing. If you want to.”
“Yeah, anyway, I’m zoomed in on a clownfish doing his anemone dance when the camera, which I had set to auto, suddenly zooms out and refocuses on a passing nurse shark, and as soon as she went by, it pulled zoom and went back to the clownfish. It was perfect, Heep, perfect.”
“And the best part? Heep, the damn thing picked up the swish. The actual noise of the nurse shark’s tale. And never moved. Stable as a rock. Wanna see?”
Heep sat there, aware of the contrast of moods: the remnants of the tale of Arusha compared to these two professionals with their new toy and made a decision. Although a serious person, always the professional, but still Heep had a deep-rooted sense of fun, so he used a professional tone, shaking his head as if disappointed, “What do you think Pero, should we confiscate their toy now, or later?”
Pero joined in on the game, all serious, springing to their defense. “Oh, I don’t know Heep, come on, they’ve been a pretty reliable crew up to now, maybe we should indulge them . . .”
Ruis raised his hands in surrender, “Ah. Come on, Heep and Pero. Don’t be old farts. Come ‘n see.” He was so desperate, like a child. They all started laughing.
Heep smiled, “We will, we will. Let’s finish breakfast and get our trunks on.”
Priit’s excitement wouldn’t die down either, “But you got to see this thing work.”
Pero and Heep told them they would, just to try and relax, as they just wanted to finish breakfast. But Heep wasn’t completely through joking, yet. “Okay Priit, I will be right there, but, really, don’t you think Mary should have a little more time to eat? After all, she’s the one on camera, and those croc scenes in the nude take stamina.”
With that, Mary spat a fresh mouthful of coffee across the table that landed on Pero’s shirt and eggs. Everyone laughed, even Mary. Pero liked the smell of coffee in the morning, although preferably not on his food. The waitress hurried over with fresh napkins just as the Commissioner entered the hut. And, indeed, even the Commissioner couldn’t dampen spirits and so he simply joined in. By the time they were loading up the Land Rovers, he seemed more like his roly-poly brother Virgi than the officious cop of the day before. Of course, Mary was still having a warming effect on him.
Leaving the dining room, Pero asked Mbuno, who was making a honey sandwich to go, if he had any problems with his accommodation. Mbuno guessed Pero meant if he had privacy, away from the extra guards the Commissioner had brought. So he explained he was sharing a hut with the other driver who kept pretty much to himself. Turning to face Pero, he put his hand on Pero’s sleeve and asked, “Bwana, did you get another special box? One that also may need burying?”
Damn, does he know everything? Pero shot him a glance and caught him smiling slyly, so he smiled back and nodded, then added. “But remember, Mbuno, I know you have a weakness for that honey and I’ll make sure there’s none for breakfast or tea if you are not a whole lot more respectful.”
With forced subservience, Mbuno dropped his chin, “Ah, bwana, Mr. Pero, Sir, I will do as you say, yes mzee, bwana, Sir.”
“Oh, get lost.” It should be one of those carefree days—Pero could sense it.
Back at his tent, Pero dialed Tom’s office number on the satellite phone and sent another message: “Pero Baltazar, Pangani Camp. Yesterday Arusha attempt on Mary Lever, niece of Reverend Jimmy Threte, known as JT. Knife wielder was killed by Nigerian soldier, UN detail, name of Kweno Usman. The same assassin killed Jikuru, a Judge. I recommend Jimmy Threte be advised soonest that Mary Lever requests presence of Kweno Usman urgent. Also recommend your protection Kweno Usman soonest and most urgent.” Here Pero needed a little white lie to make sure they did something this morning. “I think maybe that Kweno Usman knows information on Gurreh encampment. End.” As Pero heard the double click, for message received, he thought his message should be sufficiently cryptic and yet make them grab and protect, well, okay he thought, arrest, Kweno without delay.
Pero suited up in beach attire, shorts, sandals with socks and a T-shirt, grabbed walkie-talkies, and made his way to the Land Rovers. The crew was waiting anxiously to hit the beach, the mood still upbeat.
Tropical Africa, especially there, just south of the equator, on the shore of the Indian Ocean evokes all that is primordial, serene, and vital in the evolution of man. The sands of Pangani beach, south of the delta, are clean, wide, fringed with palm trees and as close to movie paradise as you’ll ever find. Pero loved it there and, were it not for the pressures of work, would live here, year round. There are just three things that mar this Eden. One is the insects, which attack, without remorse, both newcomers and locals with equal ferocity. The second is the remoteness should anything go wrong, and medical attention becomes vital—you are at the mercy of the Flying Doctors, which, in Tanzania has not got quite the same access as in Kenya. But the last is a truly frightening bit of Nature that will, if you make a mistake, bring an end to your idyll in a hurry.
The Pangani delta sub-species of Nile crocodile.
Mary started to explain it all to them as they sat out in the open under palm trees at the edge of the beach. They were all admiring the morning sun glistening off the water. Pero nodded to Priit and he gently rotated the camera he was cleaning on the hood of one Land Rover towards her. He put his hand over the red telltale light and pressed record. The framing was Mary, stripped to her swimsuit, sexy but not provocative, palm tree over her right shoulder, early mid-morning sun illuminating her face, the gentle breeze whipping her hair. The other safari Land Rover, very much Africana, was behind her, and the seemingly endless coast and blue water completed the scene.
“A hundred and fifty million years ago when great dinosaurs roamed the earth, the vegetation was more plentiful from the greenhouse effect of all the burgeoning life above and below the water as well as from the still-cooling planet and global volcanic activity. The dinosaurs, as we have been taught to call them, were the peak of evolution, perfectly adapted to their surroundings. There were herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores. They raised their young, they also laid eggs and deserted them to fend for themselves, and—we’re not sure about this yet—even carried some eggs and hatched them internally, much like marsupials today.
“Nothing that is alive on the planet, then and now, is unrelated. To say something is extinct is a misnomer, for everything has evolved, passed on traits, shares traits with what once was and what will be. Our human brains have, at their core, a reptilian brain center that is a clear and present extension of who we once were, where we came from. And remember that dinosaurs came from amoeba, so there are traces there too.
“Back to one hundred fifty million years ago . . . how did these behemoths get around? The mass of their muscle, which we measure based on mud imprint as well as bone structure and density, was simply too heavy to allow for anything more than sluggish movement. And, indeed for years everyone has assumed that’s how mammals (who have blood cooling and heating physiology) won the day, they could move faster and simply ran circles around the slower lizards. Then someone found out that dinosaurs had elaborate cooling techniques. The perfect example of this is the Stegosaurus with those huge plates sticking up. Amour? Yes they were, but they also had blood channels all through them, which bone doesn’t need, to act as cooling radiators. Now they had a cooling system, why would nature evolve muscles too large to move?
”
While she watched to see if any of them could possibly answer her question, she fingered strands of hair behind her ear and smiled at their silence.
“There could only be one answer: chemistry. Their baseline for chemical analysis was wrong. There had to be more oxygen. They excavated amber from the late Jurassic period—one hundred fifty million years ago approximately. Amber is the perfect canning process. The sap oozed from trees, much as sap oozes from fir tree wounds today. It caught water, insects, debris, and if they are lucky, air bubbles before it set. One hundred fifty million years later, they analyzed those air bubbles and found there was sixteen percent more oxygen in the air.
“So much oxygen would burn our lungs, kill us quickly. But, add that sixteen percent more oxygen to the chemical formula for those massive dinosaur muscles and you have a different animal indeed: a reptile, three times the bulk of today’s elephant moving at thirty to forty miles per hour. Add in teeth and you can see why T. Rex was so formidable.
“Right here, where they’re standing, they know of four important species unique to this area, and remember the whole world was full of unique areas—there was no population movement back then to homogenize species: The Barosaurus at eighty-eight feet long—all neck and tail, capable of eating a ton of vegetation a day. Then there’s the Ceratosaurus who chased Barosaurus—Ceratosaurus walked on two legs, and looked like a smaller T. Rex, but he was still only twenty feet tall!”
She paused for effect. No one was moving. They were getting a free lecture from the world’s expert.
“And there was Dicraeosaurus, forty-five feet long, on all fours, a plant eater with a split tail that could lash out to defend itself. And, not least, Dryosaurus, a tree dwelling lizard, the size of the Komodo dragon today, who was fast and an insect eater. Remember, the dragonfly had already been around for two hundred million years, dinosaurs were only newcomers.
“But let’s not forget the ocean, it’s what we’re here to look at. Out there,” she pointed out to sea. Pero glanced at Priit and he nodded imperceptibly, still filming . . . “was the king of the sea, the Cryptoclidus, all forty-five feet of him. He was an impressive predator, with grabbing teeth at the end of an eel-like neck. He was an excellent swimmer, maybe as fast as today’s tuna—which was already around back then—literally flying through the water like a huge sea lion, but with bigger, much bigger, fins, powered by all that oxygen, see?”
The wind wisped her hair forward again and she shook it back in place, the way models do. Pero looked at Heep. This was excellent television. Mary’s voice suddenly became dramatic, the way camp counselors do around a campfire deep in the woods.
“And there was another, an older dinosaur who had evolved during the period preceding the Jurassic. He was cunning, large enough to tackle anything he could catch, including Cryptocleidus and very large sea turtles. He’s still with us, even if he is a bit smaller and slower without all that oxygen: the Marine Crocodile. The only difference between the Marine Crocodile dinosaur and today’s Nile crocodile is flippers and a thousand pounds or so. The Nile crocodile has evolved claws, all the better to get on land and feed there as well. It isn’t extinction, it’s evolution, and a better, more capable beast—still eating mammals.
“The largest marine crocodiles today are off Darwin, on the north coast of Australia. They regularly get to thirty feet, a dinosaur indeed. These here, at Pangani, have never been filmed in the sea and never filmed under water. It’s just too damn dangerous. They see you? They eat you. Oh, and although the Pangani crocs are four feet shorter than the Darwin crocs, they are not smaller, they weigh five hundred pounds more. The Pangani Nile croc is a fat, deadly, powerful dinosaur.” Mary looked around, perhaps waiting for questions. Pero nodded to Priit and he flipped the camera to off.
Heep jumped up. “Let’s see that Priit.” Waiting until Priit rewound, he grabbed the earphones and held one to one ear.
“Set,” said Priit and rolled the tape and Heep lowered his eye to the viewer.
“Perfect, just perfect, this is perfect.” Heep was happy. Mary was looking puzzled. Heep stood and told Priit to unload the take, log it, and bag it, waterproof. “Mary, that’s the hard part of the show segment. The intro, the voice-over, the talking head, everything. Well done!”
Pero laughed, Mary had no idea, just kept saying, “You’re kidding, oh no, come on, you have got to be kidding, you weren’t . . .” They were. They knew good dialogue when they heard it. And Mary had looked perfect—relaxed, professional and, above all, totally passionate about . . . what else? Dinosaurs.
“What do you say, Ruis, Priit, should we try out your new toy before we go over to Rudolf’s?” The eager duo jumped, pulled the sled off the rear seat of Mbuno’s Land Rover, and ran, scampered, towards the water, calling over their shoulders “Come on!”
Heep, Mary, and Pero looked at each other smiling and started across the sand, trailing in their wake. Pero called for the Commissioner to follow. Why not? He might as well enjoy the show. He wasn’t dressed for the beach, but at least he had his shoes off, had rolled up his suit trousers, and unbuttoned his collar. The jacket he carried over his arm. Pero could see the weight in the pocket, probably a small automatic.
As they neared the water’s edge, they could see Ruis standing in about three feet of water and Priit about ten feet in front of him, water lapping his chin, releasing the SeaSled, playing out the umbilical that would hang below. He turned back and shouted to them, “You have to initiate the bladder manually, pump it up, charge it, and then it’s automatic, controlled by the onboard computer.” He was pumping something with his thumb on the wing that jutted out either side. As he released the SeaSled, Ruis said, “I have got it,” and Priit did that high stepping run in deep water, trying to get some speed, back to Ruis. They were just like kids, ecstatic with their new marvel.
“Hey, Ruis, why are you standing in the water, I thought Priit said you could be back in bed.”
“Okay Pero, ha-ha, but I’m just not used to the capabilities of this thing, I don’t want to lose signal. Magnetic transmission, it’s really cool, but it’s new for me. Anyway, what’s the baud rate?”
Pero shook his head, “Who knows? It works, right? You can enjoy and read the manual, the one Sony sends to the purchaser, not the simple manual you have. It’s like a phone book—I’ll send it to you, after.”
“Cool.” Ruis was a geek at heart. It’s why Heep always hired him on locations, he knew how every piece of equipment worked, and often could fix them in the field.
They all crowded around Ruis, Heep on his right, Pero over his shoulder. The LCD was difficult to read in the bright sun, but Pero could see enough to be amazed. The SeaSled was already down to thirty feet, according to the readout, and beneath the surf. The reef was just a hundred feet offshore, and the SeaSled was heading that way. Ruis asked Heep he wanted “a go-see on the reef.”
Heep, the shoot’s director, took charge and nodded. “It’s not very fast, but it is stable. Can you pan left for me?” It panned the lens thirty degrees. “That only the lens panning?” Ruis nodded. “Okay, how about a yaw then?” The Sea Sled yawed, no movement, up or down, no judder, solid as a rock. “Damn, that’s better than I can shoot underwater.”
Pero needed to explain something to them. “Guys, remember that this thing works that way because it is part of the water, in synch with the ocean. If it gets into a current, it will go with the current, you can only make it break up or down. If you get it on the surface, you can retrieve it. You must be careful not to get into currents or something compromising . . .”
“Like?”
“Well, I don’t know, a cenote in the Yucatan. The weird thermals there and changes in buoyancy due to changes in salination may defeat its mechanism. And, see that meter there?” Pero pointed to the top left corner of the screen showing eighty-five percent capacity left.
Ruis answered, “Yeah, below thirty percent and we surface. It’s the bladder capability. G
ot it?”
Heep was all business, “Okay, guys, I want to see it with a swimmer. Mary, feel like getting wet? I need a shot of you entering the water and then plunging beneath.” She nodded and went back for her flippers, snorkel, and mask. “Ruis, can it come in close enough?”
“No problemmo boss, watch this . . .” He yawed until the lens was pointing at the beach, small surf showing as a water dust cloud. A school of sardines swam by. He zoomed in as they all waited.
Flippers on, “Ready?” Mary asked.
Heep waved her on and told Ruis “Action.”
Mary walked into the surf and, on the screen, her feet and then legs appeared, Heep ordered “zoom out” and as her torso entered the water, a silver shoal of sardines made a return pass, thousands of them, all around her legs and waist, as she dropped below the water and they scattered, frightened away. “Keep rolling, Ruis.” Ruis nodded. Mary swam straight at the SeaSled. It was magic on screen, perfect framing, absolutely stable, Pero knew Heep would edit this as his opening shot for the segment. “Cut! Log that, Priit. Man, what a wonderful machine. Pero, it’s Emmy time!” Pero knew he was right. Now all they had to do was capture the big brute on camera, preferably with Mary in the shot, but in no danger. Time to get over to Rudolf’s.
But where was Mary? “Hey, Heep, she’s still swimming. How can we tell her to stop?”
Priit had the answer “Yaw the sled. Back and forth. See if she sees that.” She did, they saw her turn around. “We’ll have to work out signals Heep. Or she could be in trouble. And not know it.” Heep nodded, looking very worried. “It’s okay, Heep. Ruis and I will work it out with Mary. On the way to Rudolf’s.” And they did. Yaw side to side was cut. Up and down was surface. Both together were danger.
As they piled into the Land Rovers, the Commissioner asked if he could see what they had been shooting. Heep asked Ruis to playback for him. The Commissioner was amazed, “It would be very useful for my brother to have a copy of this! It is so beautiful, the beach, the water . . .”