John studied the clean fossil. “So naturally you decided to illegally transport a highly unstable flammable on an airplane.”
“Don’t worry,” Mac said, shaking the jar. “As long as you keep it dry, this stuff is about as volatile as Hamburger Helper. It burns so fast that it won’t reach for oxygen. Without an internal source, it won’t even light.”
“Thus the water,” said Murphy.
“It literally sucks all the oxygen out of the water as fast as it can.”
John still looked skeptical. “That can’t take long.”
“About seventeen seconds with a good ratio. You wouldn’t want more than that anyway”
“And if it accidentally gets wet?”
“You still have to ignite it,” Murphy said. “A match or cigarette lighter won’t do it. It needs a pretty intense spark. We either use blasting caps or, if it’s wet enough and we don’t want to make any noise, an electrical shock can do it.”
“Spencer wanted a piece of it at first,” Mac said. “But when he found out about the legal implications he ran like a rabbit with its tail between its legs.”
John was still concerned. “Well, thanks for cleaning the jawbone. But let’s keep that stuff under wraps, shall we?”
“Relax, John. What could possibly happen?”
Chapter Fourteen
Seamus Watson walked out toward the sheep. They weren’t his sheep but he liked looking after them as though they were. The rancher up the hill often spoke to him as though they were fellow ranchers. They spoke of sheep and weather and dogs and meat prices. They almost never mentioned Seamus’ job as a groundskeeper. The school and bigger houses paid enough to keep him going independently and he never considered taking on help or expanding. He was content enough just to talk to successful businessmen as though he were one. The rancher who owned these sheep did that to such an extent that Seamus thought he was expected to keep a watchful eye out.
This mist-shrouded morning the sheep were unnaturally still and focused on something toward the loch. He couldn’t see it but it couldn’t be much, Seamus assumed, or the sheepdog would be barking. But he heard no dog and the sheep were frozen in their stance. He studied them for a long ten seconds. Then he walked in the direction of their gaze. In the morning mist wafting off the loch, his visibility was no more than fifty feet but there was nothing worrisome in those fifty feet. He walked toward the water’s edge. Something was frightening his flock. And where was that dog?
Inside the house, his wife placed his breakfast on the table and called out to him. When she got no response, she turned. Something in the silence triggered her defensive instinct. Something was wrong. Seamus didn’t always answer her by any means. But this time was different. She didn’t call again. Instead, she walked apprehensively outside.
The fog was still dense and she could only sense where to look. She turned right and walked toward the water. The fog parted like a spectral gauntlet to give her passage and she followed a growing sound. It was unusual, odd-sounding, like something struggling on or being dragged across the wet grass. Then she heard a sound like that of her cat eating the soft cat food it preferred. The fog separated and revealed the source of the hungry smacking. She stood petrified as she watched her husband’s legs disappear into the great mouth of the beast. Its jaw was stretched around the prey like a snake swallowing a rodent. It glanced at her only briefly before turning back toward the water. It dragged itself along on its belly. The sheep never bothered to run. They were still standing and watching as the beast vanished into the murky waters.
On the east bank and a safe way north, John and his team less Frank came down to breakfast. The NessView promised bed and breakfast provided you ate what they ate when they ate it. John, Kyle and Mac gathered around one of the three tables set in the dining area and studied the menu.
Mac rocked in one of the mismatched chairs. “I’m so hungry I could choke a horse.”
The waitress/cashier/chambermaid came over before they had much of a chance to decide.
“We’re serving the fry. Just let me know if there’s something on it you don’t want.”
Kyle looked up from the menu. “So we’re ordering by process of elimination?”
“We don’t like throwing food out. You ready to order?”
“Are you on the menu?” Kyle tried his most charming smile.
She responded with a look something between disdain and boredom. “This is a B and B, Yank. Neither one of them Bs stands for brothel.”
Kyle cringed at the sudden chill. “Umm. I’ll have the fry. No sausage.”
“I didn’t think so.”
John studied the ingredients of the basic fry to insure haggis wasn’t there. “I don’t need the tomatoes. The rest is fine. With coffee, please.”
“Same here,” Mac said, handing the menu to her. “May I get my eggs over easy?”
“You can have them any way you like.” She gathered the menus and turned toward the kitchen.
“Then I like them over easy. Thank you, miss,” Mac pleasantly replied as he turned over the coffee cup at his setting with anticipation. “So are we going out today or what, guys?”
“Not straight away,” John said. “We need to get some supplies and get the boat out of storage. It’s docked about an hour from here.”
“All the equipment on board?”
“I hope so. The guy watching it has been helping me out for years. With any luck, we’ll be able to map out a course in a day or two.”
“Good. I need to get familiar with your stuff. I can hook my laptop up to it but we should use what’s already there.”
The fourth, unmatched chair at their table was dragged back and Mike MacKenzie sat down with a broad smile. He held a brightly-polished Mossburg shotgun with a nickel-plated ribbed barrel. He leaned it against his inner thigh as he greeted his guests.
“You folks enjoying your stay?”
“Very nice,” John said.
Mike looked at John. “I take it you’re not from these parts. Are you?”
“Bloody foreigners,” Kyle said in an exaggerated version of his own Russian accent.
“Tell me about it,” Mac added. “I came to this country to get away from them.”
MacKenzie ignored the attempt at humor. “Planning on doing any hunting while you’re here?”
“Not really,” Mac said. “We think there’s enough people destroying the planet.”
“Shooting a few birds or hares ain’t likely to stop the world spinning.”
“It’s not really our thing,” John said.
“Going looking for the beastie then, are ye?”
“No need,” said Mac. “You already caught him.”
“Yeah. Is that what you shot him with?” Kyle asked, pointing to the shotgun.
“You talking about that skeleton out in the lobby? Ach. That’s not the monster. But you fellas already figured that out.”
“So why have it out there?”
“Because people look at it and ask me if it’s really the Loch Ness Monster and I look at them like this.” He lowered his brows to give a suspicious look. “Then I tells them ‘Noooooo. That’s not the monster at all’ and they look at me with no more clue than they came in with but a whole lot more suspicion.”
“And a whole lot of free word-of-mouth advertising for your place here,” Kyle surmised.
MacKenzie spoke openly at this point, but with a trace of embarrassment. “It’s a tough world. Lot of B&Bs around here make their way by the beastie. It’s hard to stand out without it and hard to compete with it. That’s why I throw the leg story in. Adds a personal touch to the legend.”
John smiled politely. “In truth, it’s one of the better tales I’ve heard. Few people ever claimed to have had any contact with it. Mind if I ask…?”
MacKenzie adjusted in his seat. “I was ten. That part was true enough. And bringin’ home dinner was surely on my mind. I was poachin’ hares on some private property. I set my shotgun down. N
ot this one; that one over there on the wall, the old one. I leaned it against the fence and then I climbed over. Got my stupid foot caught at the top and fell over. The gun fell and went off and blooey! Off comes my knee. That’s why I changed the story, lads. Stupidity doesn’t draw tourists. If it did, Disneyland would be in Kansas.”
“So none of the other B&Bs around claim to have had a run-in with Nessie?”
“Well, most claim they’ve seen her at least once. They all have that damned picture.”
“But they all don’t have a baby in their lobby,” Mac said.
“Yeah,” John said. “As long as we’re baring our marketing strategies, what exactly is that out there?”
Mike took a cautious glance around to ensure they were still alone before leaning in over the table. The scientists joined him, leaning in for the big secret. “I got a brother-in-law lays cement in Perth. Not Scotland. Down on the west coast of Australia. He was working in a zoo down there and one of the boyos gave him some bones from a saltwater croc. Big one. Sixteen-footer maybe. He brought them up here for me and dared me to guess what it was. Kinda like what you boys do.”
“Kinda like. So…?”
“So I figured it out by choking it out of him. Then it occurred to me. Even whilst I was choking the truth out of him, part of me was hoping it was a piece of the monster. Just maybe someone found it. I liked that glimmer of hope. Thought I might use that. So I had him get me all the bones he could and I started piecing it together.
“That’s no crocodile out there,” Frank stated.
“And sure wouldn’t you spot that a mile away? Actually the body is a croc but the fins are from a loggerhead sea tortoise. We got a bunch of neck bones. That’s easy since they love chopping their heads off. I lined thirty-two of them up by weight and strung them together. Then I capped it off with the skull of… anybody?”
“An anaconda,” Frank guessed. “No! Some kind of bird?”
“No sir. I needed a big ass lizard.”
“A Komodo Dragon,” John said.
MacKenzie grinned. “That’s dead on. That there’s the skull of an Indonesian monitor lizard. The largest lizard in the world.”
“Excellent job,” Kyle marveled. “You left off the tail and made sure there were the right number of vertebrae in the neck. No glaring mistakes and no proof that is anything but a fake. Brilliant.”
“That’s why I’ve never heard of it. You never boasted it. Four years, on and off, of cruising right past you and never once coming in to see the skeleton of the beast.”
Kyle leaned back as the waitress set his plate in front of him. “You know, sooner or later someone’s going to find out what that is.”
“It’ll be later. Won’t hurt me a wee bit.”
“How do you know?”
“Because nobody’s looking all that hard. C’ept maybe you fellas.”
“Wouldn’t that help your business?”
“Nah. People don’t work that way. It’s the mystery that’s the draw. As long as it’s a secret, people want to know. But if you boys find it, give it some stupid name like ‘Highland crocodile’ or something, the secret is out and no one will care at all.”
“Is that what you’re worried about?”
“I’m not worried the tiniest wee bit about that.”
“Because…?”
MacKenzie looked coldly at Kyle. “Because you’ll not find it.”
“How can you be so certain?” John asked.
“Because it’s not out there. I’ve been here all my life. My father was never farther than a stone’s throw from the edge of that water and we none of us ever once saw anything that was anywhere close to being this thingy. I’ve watched eggheads like you all come and go and never once come away with anything that would change anyone’s mind.”
“And yet people keep seeing it.”
“Because you keep telling them it’s out there.” MacKenzie laughed and slapped Frank on the shoulder as he stood up from the table. “So you keep doing what you do and I’ll keep serving eggs to the ones what believe you.”
The waitress set a plate in front of Mac and went around to serve John his breakfast. Mac looked down at two shimmering, unturned yokes and instantly summoned the waitress. “Excuse me. Speaking of eggs. I ordered mine over easy.”
“And so they are,” she replied without slowing her service.
“They look sunny-side up to me.”
“Yeah I know. All our eggs do. Will there be anything else?”
Chapter Fifteen
Aisling walked assertively into the office of Leighton Tucker, the superintendent of the primary school. She stood unfulfilled as the office was uncharacteristically empty. Leighton was a devoted administrator and was rarely away before five. But this afternoon the children were barely out and the teachers were mostly still in the building and he was nowhere to be found.
She studied his desk, typically clear and uncluttered, and saw no clue to his whereabouts. Reluctantly giving up, Aisling elected to spend the evening honing her argument to Tucker. As she started to turn, she glanced out the window which overlooked the main street. Even from a block away and a second story elevation, she clearly spotted Tucker’s ugly hound’s-tooth jacket and its wearer going into the pub in the town square.
She marched down to the pub, fuming that he was not as concerned as she was though she had no way of knowing if he had any idea what it was she was stalking him about. She meant to find out this day. As she came to the door, she came upon fellow teacher Averill Creswell coming out of the same pub.
“All right, Averill?” she said in greeting.
Averill seemed briefly surprised to see her, though not the least dismayed. “Aisling. I was just away. You going in?”
“I was looking for Mr. Tucker. Is he in there?”
“Sure he only just came around. In there talking to those American blokes he is.”
“Is he now?”
“Imagine him conferring with a team of scientists. Regular United Nations conference. I’d stay and have a chin wag with ye but I need to get into Iceland for a few things then home to make tea for them kids.”
“Maybe next time, Averill. All the best.”
“And yourself,” Averill said and left her in the doorway.
“United Nations indeed,” she muttered as she made her way into the crowded pub. “Bunch of eggheads talking about what they wish they were experts on.” She truly anticipated a pseudo-intellectual debate, which she was more than willing to break up in order to make her point heard. What she found instead was a boisterous contest of wagering, threatening and posturing with the Americans at the center. Kyle stood in the middle of the room with a dart in each hand. His back was toward the dartboard and he held the darts backward. Frank stood in front of him holding up a small, wood-framed mirror pried from the wall of the men’s room. Behind Kyle, Mac stood deathly rigid with his back against the dartboard. A pair of balloons joined by a short length of string was draped over his head to dangle on each side like giant ears. From the position of these three, Aisling surmised that the entire pub including her boss was betting Kyle could not burst these balloons behind him with the aid of a mirror.
Kyle continuously readjusted and aimed while Frank tried to hold the mirror in accordance with his instructions. As his problems became more and more evident to the inebriated onlookers, the betting increased and the one, five and ten pound notes piled up on the table next to Kyle.
Aisling went over to Leighton and shouted in his ear to be heard over the crowd noise. “I need to talk to you.”
“I’m a little busy here, Aisling. Can we do it in my office tomorrow?”
“Minnie Shaunessey pulled wee Daphne out of my class. Do you know why?”
“Yes. My office.”
“She didn’t move away. Isn’t sick.”
“Hey I’ve got a fiver on that! Tomorrow. My office.”
“Was it because of me?”
“It was because I told her to
.”
“Why?”
Leighton finally turned away from the pending spectacle to look her in the eye. “My office, Aisling. Please.” He relaxed his firm posture once he was certain his message had been received. “You can see I’m busy here.”
She realized there was more to her query than could be discussed in a pub and resolved to take his meeting tomorrow. “What is it you’re supposed to be doing here?”
“Winning on a sure bet.”
As Aisling backed away in frustration, she heard a remotely familiar voice in her ear.
“I wouldn’t bet against those guys.”
She turned to see John Nagle finish the thought.
“In case you were thinking about it.”
“So these are your friends, are they? And what is this game they’re playing?”
“I have no idea. I just know they’re not as stupid as they allow themselves to appear. With them, there’s no such thing as a sure thing.” He leaned past her, placing a familiar hand on her shoulder as he leaned in toward Frank. “What’s the bet?”
Kyle responded. “I said I could pop both at once with these darts using a mirror for aiming. One of them said it couldn’t be done and I asked him if he’d pay me a fiver if I couldn’t. He slapped his money down and the bets took off.” With that, he set to make the throw.
John rolled his eyes and turned away. As he came back alongside Aisling, he said just loud enough for her to hear, “I think I’m going to need a new team.”
Kyle shouted the terms to the crowd in confirmation. “Okay! So I said I could do this and you people are so confident you’ll pay all this money if I can’t. Right?” The crowd shouted in agreement and he took his stance. With a final look into the steady mirror, he let both darts fly over his shoulders. For a brief instant, the crowd watched with anticipation of a true feat of spectacular marksmanship. But the anticipation was immeasurably brief as the dart in his right hand fell impotently to the floor just behind him and the left deflected off the ceiling beam halfway between him and his target with greater force than the other dart. It bounced off the beam and stuck securely in the right leg of Mike MacKenzie.
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