“ Concede? I don’t have to concede a damned thing to you, Dr. Wainwright. In fact, you can pack your belongings and find the door. Your dubious services are no longer required.”
“ I’ll fight you on this, Lois.”
“ Goddamn you, Joel, do you really think that you can come in here and unseat me, a person of my standing, with my record and years?”
“ I don’t intend walking out of here without a fight, if that’s what you mean.
” She stared icily at Wainwright, a tall, imposing man with prematurely graying hair. She held her stare, as if hoping her eyes alone might destroy him.
Joel Wainwright looked back at Dr. Insley’s fleshy jowls and pink complexion, thinking again how unbecoming a woman she was, and how powerful she remained. Precisely why she had been given so much authority here was beyond Wainwright’s comprehension, but he had obviously won her wrath this time, regardless of how successful the Shark Research Fishing Tournament had been. It had been successful in large part thanks to him, but Dr. Insley didn’t wish to deal with reality, that they had twice the amount of specimens as last year; nor did she want to deal with the fact of the human body parts in the back freezer stacked like wrapped raw steaks from a deli-hands, arms, legs, shoulder bones, pieces of flesh that hadn’t yet been digested by the shark’s slow metabolic juices, they were that fresh. Neither had the body parts been properly categorized by the scientists on Islamorada, because everyone here majored in shark, not human, anatomy.
So Wainwright had begun to collect the human anatomical parts, after at first simply discarding the occasional piece as “expected remnants of shark attacks” which occurred up and down the coast of Florida every season. Dr. Insley had made inane assurances that most victims of shark aggression, while scarred for life, lived past such attacks, but then the number of body parts became too high- and the sheer size of those parts too large-to ignore a moment longer. Ignore it and it will go away seemed Lois Insley’s management style, her modus operandi. Meanwhile, an entire pelvic section dropped from one shark, and there were twenty-five more sharks now being dumped in the cold tanks, forty-seven in all, some ten thousand pounds. How many more human parts might they expect, he wondered and calculated, his prediction frightful.
As for the FBI, who else was he going to call? The frigging EPA? The coast guard? His phone call was put through to the FBI’s forensic laboratories the day before, and he found himself talking to a charming voice on the other end which turned out to be that of Dr. Jessica Coran, who was immediately curious and interested in what they had found. “Dr. Insley,” Wainwright began slowly now, deliberate in his every word, “you might well ignore this heinous, unpleasant side effect of our tournament if you wish; you may have no problem concentrating on the prize for Florida’s Abbott School of Marine and Atmospheric Science laboratory, on the plentiful specimens, more than we possibly know what to do with, but God bless it, woman, I’m a simple man with simple ethics, and I am not willing to ignore the obvious-at least not in this case.”
“ Show me what is so obvious, Doctor!
” He took firm hold of her and moved her to and through the freezer doors, where a vaporous cloud engulfed them, then fought past them to escape into the lab.
Inside the freezer, Wainwright pointed at shelves stacked with body parts and bones. “Look, look closely, Dr. Insley. Do you need the problem put on a string and tied about your neck? This is an uncommon phenomenon, an incredibly high incidence of human parts found in a relatively small, concentrated shark population. It’s neither incidental nor anything less than an abhorrent anomaly. Something had to be done about it. This information could not stay inside these walls. And that’s what I intend to put in my report to the board of governors.” The threat was clearly unveiled.
Checking his now frozen watch, he added, “So, I expect that something will be done when Dr. Coran of the FBI arrives, and I expect that will be soon now.”
“ I cannot believe that you invited FBI operatives into this facility.”
“ Just what’re you afraid of. Doctor? This is the U.S. Government, their official police arm.”
“ I’m afraid of nothing. I… I detest military and paramilitary types of any sort.”
“ They’re coming to see if there’s any connection between our discovery and those missing young women, that’s all.”
“ Suppose they want records? Copies of our work here?”
“ I can’t believe the level of your paranoia, Doctor.” She clenched her teeth and glared up at him. “Our work here must remain secret. Do you know how many others are desperate for our research?” Insley spat her words at him, and as she stormed from the cooler, Wainwright thought he sensed in the cold gloom of the place a warming trend. And rightly so, he thought, the place having rid itself of the woman. He wondered how he might rid himself and the institute of her. She was right to feel a threat, but not from the outside.
Jessica Coran stared out through the thick bubble of the helicopter at a world so far removed from D.C.-and civilization as she knew it-that the place emerged in her sifting mind as a primordial playground set in a time warp. The chopper was generally following the Overseas Highway, built to connect the string of Florida Keys that snaked out into the Gulf on the one side, the Atlantic on the other. The gleaming white strip of sand, concrete and steel that marked bridges and roadways looked, from up here, to be a string of spaghetti, a tenuous connection of palm- sprouting island hideaways without K marts and superstores, only the sporadic shell shop for unique Florida collectibles might be found alongside Texaco signs and near-deserted strip malls at which the bare necessities-bait and beer, tackle and bread, buckets and bologna-could be bought.
There was no want of traffic, however, along the single lanes going north and south, and the sheer expanse of the bridges over the greenest, purest-looking water she’d ever seen was in itself amazing. The bridges were thin connective tissue between the islands, long and narrow and sizzling beneath an unmercifully hot sun.
For as far as Jessica could see, there were dozens upon dozens of low mangrove islands floating on the luminous green mirror of the sea. Above and around the islands, ancient gulls and egrets, pelicans and white-winged ibises played, cart wheeling through the primitive sky-the same birds as had flown here a thousand years before, she imagined. The endless blue-green panorama conspired to make the beating helicopter and the pulsing cars on the highway below seem like just so many reverse anachronisms, things out of sync, out of time and out of place.
By some uncanny miracle, the development wars had left the land here between Key Largo and Key West virtually untouched; there were no Hiltons, Marriott’s, Holiday Inns or other resorts, not a single gleaming monument to man save the occasional house, shack, marina and dive shop.
The pilot called it the “backcountry” and nailed his estimation of the place with a few choice phrases: “devoid of fresh water”; “not suitable for housing”; “a breeding ground for mosquitoes the size of my mother-in-law”; “a dumping ground for gator-baiters and drunken fishermen.”
“ Says on the map it’s a protected wilderness,” she replied into her headphone set.
“ That’s right. Great fishing and bird-watching, but most casual boaters wouldn’t risk it. Waters are extremely shallow and channels are narrower’n Heaven’s Gate. Only the locals can safely navigate here.”
“ Good fishing, though, you say?” asked Eriq Santiva, who sat opposite Jessica and only occasionally looked down over their destination.
“ The best, but a man’s got to be solemn quiet. I mean it’s so quiet here, the fish can hear you breathing from ten feet off.”
Jessica lifted her polarized sunglasses so that nothing rested between her naked eye and the natural beauty. “I can almost imagine dinosaurs roaming here,” she commented.
“ Well, they did once, according to the experts, especially sloths. I’d say a few sloths still exist, but now they’re called bubbas. I tell you, the area is so s
wamp-ridden, you couldn’t even get a good paramilitary group together down here.”
Jake Sloane, the helicopter pilot, was something of a character. He was a born Floridian, a “rarity” in these parts, he’d said. And since he was a native, he felt comfortable running down the area and the other natives.
As the helicopter dipped and moved in closer, Jessica made out an oyster bar hidden below vegetation at the terminus of a dirt road, beside which were a handful of broken-down skimmers-lightweight boats with outboard motors used by local fishermen. “I suppose Jimmy Buffet passes for Christ here,” she muttered to Sloane, garnering a laugh from Santiva and the pilot, a man who preferred the name of Spider Sloane. The Miami Police Department had guaranteed the FBI agents that not only was Spider certified as one of the best charter pilots to this area, but he’d flown in Desert Storm.
“ There it is, folks! W-e-i-r-d place. Locals got a name for it; call it Frankenstein’s Castle,” said Spider, a mock grin playing about his bearded jowls. Spider flew small jets as well as helicopters in and out of the Keys and to the Bahamas, daring the Bermuda Triangle to someday swallow him up.
Jessica Coran leaned into the bubble window to stare down over the well-masked, camouflaged-from-the-world buildings belonging to the University of Florida. It was neither easy to see the facility nor simple to determine its size, as all the angles blended in with surrounding flora and white sand. The place could easily be missed, created as it was to be a part of its natural surroundings, and this gave it an illusory effect, both disturbing and interesting at once, for it had a kind of otherworldly, alien appearance to it; a space station in a mangrove field-like the bizarre photographs of modern photographer Jerry Uelsmann.
The grounds all round were neatly kept and cultivated, the building high-tech and eco-conscious, making the awkward yellow pachyderm of a made-over Ryder truck appear out of place, like a brightly painted elephant squatting at a baby shower.
Beside Jessica, Chief Eriq Santiva, anxious for a landing, leaned over to see what the other two were gazing at. He was not a good flyer, and this showed only too grimly now on his jaundiced face.
“ There’s a helipad for their regular deliveries from the university,” explained the pilot through the headphones. Jessica pointed out the pad to Santiva, adding, “There now, see? Not long now.”
Spider piped in with, “Yeah, we’ll be on the ground in a few minutes, Mr. Santa-va, so just remain calm, okay?”
“ San-T-va; the name’s Santiva,” Eriq corrected the burly, gray-bearded pilot, a stand-in for Papa Hemingway. “Sorry, sir.” Jessica stifled a laugh.
As the chopper rounded the research facility, someone at the Ryder truck waved at them. Jessica pointed, but saw that Eriq was preoccupied with his knotted stomach. She watched Eriq swallow hard, struggling to hold back the natural want, recalling just how awful the plane ride to Miami had been. This was the last leg of their shared journey.
“ This better be all that this Dr. Wayne-”
“ Wainwright,” she corrected Eriq.
“- Wainwright, right… better be all that he’s cracked it up to be. That’s all I’ve got to say, and it better have something to do with matters other than fish.”
“ We’ll know that soon enough. And, Chief…”
“ What?”
“ Sharks are not fish.”
“ They look like fish, swim like fish, and it’s a damn sure bet they taste and smell like fish.” He was instantly sorry about conjuring up the aromas. Jessica felt compassion for Santiva. He had, truth be known, gone through hell to get this far.
The helicopter was putting down, sending up a storm cloud of white rain-sand pellets which created a milky veil all around the scientific laboratory buildings.
Jessica saw the two figures at the rear of the yellow truck, each in protective gear but one a full-figured young woman and the other a tall, broad-shouldered young man. It took her a moment to make out the cargo they were unloading onto a conveyor belt-a truckload of dead sharks-that then efficiently lowered the bodies into some subterranean chamber. The young people were sweltering in the tropical heat, as was a bored driver, who-smoking and hacking away-stood nearby. The three of them were far enough from the helicopter that they received only a cool, probably well-wished-for breeze from its noisy rotor blades. The trio at the truck all now halted their lives and watched the chopper’s descent in rapt attention, as if here were the event of the year on Islamorada Key. And, under usual circumstances, it probably would have been.
Santiva was the first to de board the chopper. Jessica thought he was going to kneel and kiss the ground, but instead he stumbled toward the front entry doors to the research facility, anxiously wondering if there might be a lavatory within the laboratory. Jessica grabbed her black medical valise and followed, automatically ducking below the rotor blades, which were still grinding overhead.
The chopper pilot had cut his engines, but the blades continued to circle like unruly children, slow to wind down, until Jessica reached the building, where she and Santiva were met by a stern-eyed woman and a younger man with a toothy but pleasant smile, both in white lab coats. The man’s lab coat was filthy with blood and secretions, giving him the appearance of a butcher, while the woman’s coat was spotless. The man quickly extended a hand to Santiva and introduced himself.
“ Dr. Coran, Chief Santiva? Joel Wainwright. I’m the one who made the call to you people.”
He manfully grabbed Eric’s hand and shook it, then took Jessica’s hand and shook it vigorously as well.
“ Lois, won’t you say hello to our guests?” he asked his associate, but the woman merely frowned like a mother angry with her child.
“ Aron will see to any bags you have, but there truly are no guest facilities here, I’m afraid,” she said, her voice stiff and cold. Neither the woman’ s hand nor her eyes were set on greeting Jessica; instead, she soundlessly ground both Jessica and a cigarette butt she’d snatched from Wainwright’s mouth into the white-sand dust before turning and entering the facility ahead of the others-as if hoping to tidy her room a bit before anyone should see it. Wainwright limply shrugged and pointed the way, ushering the two strangers into the building.
“ What is it precisely you do here?” Jessica asked him. “We cut sharks-open them up, study them intensely, you might say.”
“ So it’s primarily a shark research facility?”
“ Well, it didn’t start out that way, but yes… that’s what it’s become over the years, despite the lip service given other areas of study that go on here.” Entering the facility, Wainwright joked about its being a perfect setting for an X-Files episode since it was home to unspeakable experimentation on eels and other marine life. Inside, much of the light was natural, filtering in through broad overhead skylights. The place otherwise looked and felt like a large factory or hangar.
Dr. Insley stood in the downpour of light from one of the skylights. “Doctor Wainwright enjoys a bit of humor now and again,” she said, finally introducing herself. “I am the head of the institute, Dr. Lois Insley.”
“ Well, let’s have a look at what you’ve got here, Doctors,” said Santiva. “Just as soon, that is, as I can find a place to… to freshen up?” Wainwright showed Santiva to a nearby men’s room while Jessica was left alone with the frost lady, who, still flooded in light, looked made of ice.
After an uncomfortable silence, Insley said, “Dr. Wainwright’s action in calling you all the way here, I fear, will prove foolish.” She seemed to be speaking without moving a muscle.
“ Our understanding is that during your shark dissections here lately, you’ve found more of them to be holding human body parts than is normal. Is that correct, Dr. Insley?”
“ Dr. Wainwright would like nothing better than to be on Good Morning America.” She laughed nervously at her remark.
“ Are you saying he’s exaggerated the situation here, and that his motives are suspect?” Jessica moved about, examining photos hung on the
walls, realizing they were in a corridor, still being held at bay. “We’ve come an awful long way for fun and games, Dr. Insley.”
“ You may judge for yourself. Yes, there’s been a curious increase in the number of human body parts we see, but there’s nothing abnormal in that alone. Statistically speaking, we might not see another body part for months on end. It’s just that our sample was so large this year. The tournament was a big success.”
“ Dr. Insley, I’d like to see what you do have. Is that possible?” Is it? Jessica secretly wondered, glad that Santiva hadn’t heard Insley’s remarks.
“ Yes, of course. Dr. Wainwright has some specimens laid out for you.”
“ Chief Santiva and I are engaged in a manhunt for a serial killer whose victims have been held underwater for a period of time, and whose bodies have been partially eaten by sea life.”
“ I see your problem is great, most assuredly… Dr. Coran, is it? Still, my… our interests here are fairly specific, well-defined research areas, and we… study specifically what is in the sharks’ digestive tracts, you understand, and certainly, we aren’t in any sort of search for incriminating evidence in your… in a murder investigation.”
“ I understand that.” Jessica knew she had to put the woman at as much ease as possible, but this lady had some recoil factor. Their coming into her domain like this had obviously unsettled her. “Look, Dr. Insley, we’re going to be in and out of here, doing our job as discreetly and as quickly as possible, truly. We have the helicopter waiting outside. It’s just that several bodies that have washed ashore along the Florida coast in the past several months have had obvious shark injuries. And if we can pinpoint the geography of the sharks, this might well help us with the geography of the crimes.”
“ Geography of the crimes. My… I’ve never heard such a phrase before. But if a shark attacked and killed someone, then its pack would likely have eaten more or less the entire body,” she countered.
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