Aisling ran from her car and jumped on board Esperanza carrying only the rock sack and her jacket. She ran to John immediately. “It wasn’t you, John. I know that.”
“Yeah. I know too. We’re about to set out. Will you be here when we get back?”
“Take me with you. There’s something we need to talk about.”
“Bad idea, boss,” Frank warned.
John believed him but for his life could not remember why. He only knew he was glad she was back. It felt good that she was no longer blaming him. He wanted her along; there was so much to say. Without diverting his eyes from hers, he said, “Full ahead, Frank. Get us out of here.”
The order came as no real surprise and Frank took the helm. He gunned the engines and the boat sped out into the mile-wide loch. “Got a bearing yet, Murph?”
“Working on it,” Kyle replied from the control room. “I haven’t got the satellite hook-up yet.”
“So we’ll look. I know the route they’re on. Follow it south and watch the instruments.”
“Oh for Pete’s sake,” Mac exclaimed. “Don’t be so homophobic. We have a map.” He opened the wide drawer full of rolled nautical maps. Finding the one he needed, he spread it out across the table and used Louisa’s coordinates to find the location. “There! There they are,” he said with his finger on the exact location.
John looked over his shoulder. “An overnighter. Mac. Get Frank on the right heading once we get into open sea. Kyle. Keep working on that satellite link. I want to see them if possible. Aisling. Aisling…?” He looked behind him but she was not in the room.
As he started off to look for her, she came in with two bottles of water. She handed one to John. “I was dying, sure I was. Anyone else need a drink?”
Mac looked up from the map. “Well, if you brought that for me.”
She handed him the plastic bottle. “Frank? Kyle? Anything for you?”
Kyle shook his head. Frank called down from the bridge. “I’ll take a coffee if someone wants to make it.”
Aisling agreed to make the coffee to be useful. She did anything to keep them at their stations and out of the refrigerator.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Louisa watched Spencer carefully. He was capable of immense levels of focus and she could see he had eyes for nothing other than the beast trailing them. She gambled a break by softly announcing she was going to the head. No one cared. Her stateroom had its own head and she used the excuse to lock herself in it with the cell phone. She knew the signal would interfere with Billikin’s instruments so she would have to send one thorough message and then turn it off. Trying to hold a conversation would surely draw unwanted attention. Even as she typed the message, she wrestled her thoughts to come up with a better plan.
John’s phone vibrated again and he looked at the new text.
“Thought Spencer was tracking animal but it was the other way around. He used your calls to lure animal back to Scotland. We’re not going to make it. This one is too big and fast. He thinks he can ground it in shallow water off Spanish coast. You thinking what I’m thinking? I know what you’re doing but if you can’t make it, send help. Love you.”
He felt a shudder at the last bit. Did she add that just to get him there faster? Did she realize she’d backed the wrong horse and was switching over?
Mac asked him first, though they all waited. “Good news, John?”
“Anything but. The animal is apparently a lot bigger than the one we found.”
“Could we have found a baby or adolescent?”
“Baby?” Aisling gasped. “That three-meter-long rowboat-eating turtle was a baby?”
Frank called down. “The teacher’s right. That was no young one.” He was at the hatch leading down from the bridge. The water ahead was open and the cruiser was set to the bearing they needed so he could afford to direct a portion of his attention elsewhere.
“So what’s tracking them?”
“Well, the fact that it followed them at all tells us it’s a different species,” Frank said.
“But Spencer lured it with my calls,” John said.
“Exactly. This animal has survived by avoidance. It instinctively stays away from people and predators and even its own kind unless it’s mating. If it heard the sound of another Plesiosaur, it would most likely go the other way or hide.”
“Even if it was defending itself or a nest?”
Frank looked forward to confirm they were safe to cruise before coming down another rung on the ladder. “It would defend its young. But that would be an attack to repel or kill. This thing just followed Spencer halfway around the fucking world. That’s not the act of a solitary beast.”
“So it’s another species?” Mac asked.
“Uh huh. This one’s a hunter. A smart one. One that instinctively hunts the sound Spencer is putting out.”
Kyle was getting it. “You said our ples would instinctively evade people or predators. Are you saying this thing followed Spencer looking for our ples?”
“Why wouldn’t it attack Spencer?” John asked. “If it believed the sound was authentic, wouldn’t it think Spencer was a worthy prey?”
“You of all people should give this animal more credit. What does a deep dweller hunt with more than sight or sound?”
“Smell,” John said. “It didn’t smell the ples so it’s trailing Spencer until it does.”
Aisling had been listening intently. The teacher was getting an education from the masters. “They can smell underwater? From how far?”
“We don’t know for sure. Some sharks can sense a drop of blood in the water from more than a mile. With currents and trailing motion, five wouldn’t be unreasonable.” Kyle opened a file on the computer and pulled up a list of species of Plesiosaur and known or believed predators. “So what do we think is stalking Spencer?”
Frank responded first. “If he’s luring it with the ples call, it’s likely the predator our ples comes up here to hide from while it’s laying eggs or hatching. That’s a vulnerable time and it wouldn’t want the eggs disturbed since it won’t be around to guard them. Uh huh. The predator. It all adds up.”
“Spencer just gave away the hiding place.”
“Not yet,” John said. “He’s not here yet.” He tried to call Louisa but her cell phone was turned off. “Are we loaded yet? Can we send emails?”
“We can,” Kyle responded. “You sure you want to send one to Spencer’s computer? That’s how we got dumped on in the first place.”
“We’ll have to risk it.” John sat at the terminal and started typing. “I’ll send Louisa an email. You see if you can hail him on the radio.”
“I’ll try,” Mac said. “But he’s likely at radio silence.”
“Radio silence? He can’t do that at sea.”
“He can and does. Been doing it since the penguins.”
“But that’s illegal.”
“It’s also Spencer. Where his project—”
“Money,” Frank interjected.
“Right. Money is concerned, the only law is the law of survival. I’m surprised Billikin didn’t tell you about any of that.”
John was surprised. “How would Billikin know?”
Mac filled in. “He was with Spencer for years. They both worked with, who was it, Maury Halverson out of Oxford. Beau left him because he got tired of giving all his research away. He thought they should be capitalizing on their efforts a little more so he stole a few grants and started his own team. Davis naturally went with the side that seemed to be winning. Cal Johannes went along at first. That’s another gem.”
“Spencer built a team of environmental mercenaries. They give the impression that they’re acting in the name of scientific advancement but in truth their only loyalty is to the almighty buck.”
“There’s your scientists for you,” Aisling said.
John merely nodded. “I wish I had an argument.”
“I’ve got one,” Mac said. “Spencer is the embodiment of ever
ything you hate about science. This fellow here is the other side of the coin.” He pointed his thumb at John as he spoke. “He’s the reason most people think scientists are a pretty good thing to have around. Don’t go painting them both with the same brush, lassie.”
Kyle turned to her. “You hate scientists?”
“I have my reasons.”
“Which would be?”
“Personal.”
John looked at the floor to avoid the attempted eye contact from everyone. He was relieved when Frank looked at the console on the bridge and called down to him.
“Hey, Doc. We’re using fuel at an insane rate. Think I should ease off a bit?”
“Not the least bit, Frank. Keep it wide open. Seconds count!”
“Well, at this rate we should just about get there but we’ll never make it back.”
“Just get us there. We’ll worry about getting back later.”
“This must be a pretty special… friend… you’re off to help,” Aisling observed aloud.
John believed he took her meaning but attempted to sidestep. “They’re all pretty good people in their own way.”
“Not buying that. You don’t risk yourself, your pretty boat and all your friends for pretty good people. It’s herself. Isn’t it?”
John tried not to look directly at her until he was sure he knew the answer himself.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I just didn’t think the knight in shining armor charging to the rescue bit was your style.”
Kyle broke into a chorus of “Frankie and Johnnie.” “She was his gal…”
Mac joined in with harmony. “But sheee done him wrong.”
John was not amused. “Do you guys have any idea how funny you aren’t?”
“It’s all right, you know,” Aisling said. “I didn’t think you were brand new when I found you. So you’ve got a two-faced, lying, backstabbing skeleton in your closet. No big deal. It’s not as though I told you all my secrets. Oh wait. I did.”
“Now that’s not fair. I told you about her.”
“But you told me it was all over.”
“It is. Was. Well, I mean I can’t just let her…”
Kyle grinned. “She’s one smart teacher, this one.”
Mac agreed. “Yeah. Why don’t you ask her about that thing you were looking up the other night?”
John seemed noticeably alarmed at the sudden turn. “Um… you know I wish we’d dumped the mini-sub before we took off. We’d make better time without the weight.”
“What thing might that be, doctor?” Aisling demanded in a tone so clear as to be nothing short of accusatory. “This thing you were looking up. More genealogy, then?”
“Lupus disease. Wasn’t it?” Mac asked, seemingly oblivious to John’s threatening glances.
With that, she looked at John as if death would be his mercy. “I told you to leave it be.”
“And I did. I was just trying to—”
“I don’t care what you were doing! Your type caused it in the first place with your meddling. Just leave it alone before you kill somebody else!”
Kyle looked at John. “You killed somebody?”
John looked at him in total exasperation and turned back to Aisling. “I was just looking at the current treatments.”
Mac looked at Aisling. “Is it you? You have lupus?”
“Which type?” Kyle asked bluntly before she had a chance to respond to Mac.
She looked at them as they gathered around her. Frank came down from the bridge to listen. There was no pity in them. No sense of distancing. They seemed genuinely interested in her and listened in a manner not unlike her students waiting to hear if Perseus rose to face the Kraken again. She felt a sense of worth with these men. They listened, like her students, with open minds and caring hearts. She relaxed and found part of a pained smile. “Systemic Lupus Erythematosus. SLP. I inherited it from my mother.”
Kyle was surprised. “That form isn’t usually passed on. It’s not genetic. Was there some trauma at birth?”
“Yeah,” Mac said. “Did something happen at birth?”
Aisling realized that the most deeply coveted secret in her life had suddenly become the topic of a group discussion. Talking about it felt surprisingly comfortable. In fact, she felt some release by the open attention. “Nothing really happened. She got it from an experimental treatment during her first pregnancy.”
“For a weakened immune system?”
“Yes. They were afraid she’d pick something up and pass it on to the baby. How’d you know that?”
“Your age. Your mother was most likely treated with an early form of Hydralazine called Praceptecol Prodemtia.”
She was looking at him suspiciously. She turned her query to John. “I didn’t even tell you that.” John could only shrug in response and return his attention to Kyle.
Kyle continued. “When I was doing the study on immune systems, I saw a piece published about medical back steps. Unadmitted errors. It started with Thalidomide and worked forward. Once the arrogance of the medical profession was in check, they thought they were safe.”
“But it wasn’t the medical profession they had to watch,” Mac said.
“It was the pharmaceutical companies. Once the so-called medical experts were on a short leash, they turned to the biochemists. All they had to do was get a reaction from a chemical and they could submit it for research.”
“That’s what they did to your mother. They knew it did one thing, increase blood pressure, but they didn’t know what the side effects might be.”
Aisling was stunned. “So they bolstered her immune system and gave her a fatal disease in the process?”
Mac pointed a pistol-style finger at her. “Bimbo! The operation was a success but the patient died. Sorry. That was a bit insensitive.”
“So they told you that you inherited this from your mother?” Kyle asked. “Did they suggest to you it was reversible?”
“They said it wasn’t.”
“Which probably meant they didn’t know how or didn’t want to pay for the process. You would have had to take the treatment early on to purge yourself of it entirely. By puberty, your glands are finished adapting. Now about all you can do is take a treatment to keep your blood pressure down combined with a mild anti-rejection drug.”
“Take a what?”
“It’s a derivative of the drug organ transplant recipients take. It protects your organs from your own antibodies. If you keep your blood pressure low, it has a really good success rate.”
“So why haven’t I heard about this?”
“You need to ask.”
“Ask?”
Mac interjected. “They’re not always forthcoming about treating the adverse effects of their own cures.”
“So how do you know about this?”
Kyle looked at her with a modest smile. “Because I’m a genius.”
She looked at him as if awaiting the punch line. Receiving none, she looked at Mac who held a similar smile.
“He’s right, you know. He is.”
“Don’t you find that a wee bit intimidating? Working with a genius?”
“Why should I? He doesn’t.” Her eyebrows went up at Mac’s casual revelation. His expression, though relaxed, was clearly serious. “So is Frank, by the way.”
She looked up at the hatch where Frank grinned back at her and gave her a parade queen wave.
Kyle looked at Frank. “Can I drive now?”
“You’re too old.”
“Then maybe you should.”
“Oh shut up.” He withdrew to the controls.
Aisling was taken aback by the revelation but found no reason to doubt the trio. Finally looking back to Kyle. “So I’m curable?”
“Treatable. Maybe. I mean it’s still experimental.”
She looked at John. “Did you know?”
“I was still working on it but I didn’t want to say anything about an experimental process. Isn’t that how you got into this in
the first place? What’s your reaction going to be when they ask you to sign the same waiver your mother signed?”
Frank called down from the bridge. “Hey, can somebody get me a soda?”
“Want me to drive while you get it?” Kyle called.
Mac sat up. “I’ll get it.”
Aisling remembered seeing the canned sodas in the fridge right next to where she’d set the stolen egg. “Here! Let me get it!” she said, leaping to her feet. “Sure and I’m the only one not doing something here.”
“Go right ahead, lassie,” Mac said. “You don’t have to twist my leg.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Spencer checked with Kirkpatrick. “Are we coming shallow yet?”
“The bottom is not up, doctor. I’ll let you know.”
Spencer called to the pilot. “Easy, Jonesy. We don’t want to lose it. Just stay ahead of it.” At his instruction, Jones eased off the throttle.
Billikin was watching the monitor and the sonar scope. “That may be easier said than done, boss.”
Beau was taking nothing lightly. He came to Billikin’s station and studied the readings. “What? What have you got?”
Billikin pointed to the positioning scan. “He’s not following us. He broke to the right when we did and he’s coming around. See this is us and he’s coming around to this side. See?”
“I can read a scope,” Beau snapped. “But why? Why is he swimming off of us?”
“It’s cutting us off,” Louisa said. “It was happy enough to follow us until we broke for cover. This thing is a natural predator. It instinctively sensed we were trying for a hole and moved to stop us.”
Beau looked back at the monitor. It made sense. “It’s flanking us! The son-of-a-bitch is trying to get in front of us and cut us off.” He looked at the ceiling and screamed. “Jonesy! Floor it!”
The powerful inboard engines roared but the ship was heavily laden with equipment and worn out from the long run that had brought it here. Five hundred yards off their starboard side, the giant predator strained against the sea to match their speed. It was indeed intent upon keeping its chosen prey in open water. The sudden flight attempt triggered its instinctive pursuit mode. They were still in deep sea but the bottom was coming up. The cunning hunter knew it could not match this speed for long. The flight had to be stopped soon.
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