Leviathan, p.7
Leviathan, page 7
“I see,” Jack finally said.
“What do you see?” Sonya asked.
It was the image of the massive shark’s maw as it was about to envelop the camera.
“It’s white,” Cate remarked. “Why is that?”
“Maybe it’s something else, something new. Or something old.” Sonya put the pictures side by side – the image of the torn shark’s tail, and the huge maw. She sighed, looking down on them.
“But this tells a story. Representative analysis of the shark tail infers that the remaining portion was around twenty feet. And something tore that fish in half.” She put a finger on the picture of the giant maw. “This, tore it in half.”
Cate opened her hands. “Well then, that problem’s solved, isn’t it?”
“Not quite.” Sonya kept her finger on the maw. “This thing also attacked and ate the submersible. Swallowed it whole. There were two pilots onboard.”
“Jesus,” Jack whispered and looked at Cate, who had visibly blanched.
“Then it came after the support vessel, and sunk it. Everyone aboard, everyone, was lost. Thirty-two good men and women all went to the bottom.”
“No. Nope.” Cate shook her head. “Not a chance, Sonya. I know where this is going. We are not diving to the bottom of the ocean to seek out this thing, or another Megalodon, or anything else you might have seen or heard of. We are out of the game. Period.”
Jack was intrigued, but the growing knot in his stomach told him his own nerves probably couldn’t deal with it again either. They’d seen things in the ocean that would bring most people to madness. He’d witnessed bodies crushed, shredded, and eaten whole. He was not inclined to see any of that ever again.
“She’s right, Sonya. We can’t be doing that anymore. We’re too old and too sane now.”
Sonya nodded, and then turned to face Cate. “I understand. But your papers tell me otherwise. Surely you must be intrigued, and you know the threat these species pose – the Megalodons, or whatever the hell this thing is. These monsters kill people, have killed people. I know in your heart you want to help.”
Jack leaned forward to pick up the image of the massive, toothed mouth. He stared as though mesmerized.
Cate began to shake her head again. “Intriguing, sure, but still no. There’s no way in hell I’m going to the bottom of the ocean again. I just can’t.”
“You wouldn’t have to. I’m preparing a mission to investigate the Antarctic. No diving involved.” Sonya smiled. “Aren’t you a little interested?”
“Of course we are, but –” Jack began.
“But no.” Cate glared up at him.
“No,” Jack quickly agreed.
Sonya didn’t move. “A week’s work, ten million dollars. Each.”
“Not for fifty million,” Cate said quickly.
Sonya shrugged. “Okay, fifty-one million. Each.”
Jack coughed and looked away.
“No.” Cate got to her feet. “I’m sorry that you came all the way out here for nothing, Sonya. But we are not interested in any amount of money. You can’t put a price on our lives now.”
Sonya also rose. Cate was a tall woman, but at five foot eleven Sonya looked down on her. “I need you, Cate. You and Jack. No one else on Earth has seen and faced what you two have.” She sighed. “I’ve got a team of experts that will be better and safer having you two with them.”
Cate shook her head. “We’d be of no use. That type of stuff already burned us out.” She held out a hand. “Just talking about it makes me feel ill.”
Sonya turned to Jack, who was looking down at the ground.
“Jack?”
Cate stood in front of him. “He says no as well.” She folded her arms.
Sonya held her arms wide. “Okay, okay. You can’t blame me for trying.” She scooped up the images, but then changed her mind, and left the folder where it was.
Sonya stood looking at each of them, the tension still hanging in the air.
Jack cleared his throat. “Okay. Good luck Sonya.” He pulled out his phone. “One for the road.” And moved next to Cate and took a picture of the three of them.
As he looked at it, Sonya held out her hand. “No hard feelings.”
Cate smiled tightly and shook the offered hand.
“Of course not.” Cate continued to hold onto the Russian woman’s hand. “Personally, I hope you don’t go. Because if the Megalodons are down there, in there, you know what they’re like. They’re the devil made flesh, and your luck will run out one day.” Her expression soured. “Like Valery’s.”
Sonya’s face dropped at the name of her lost love. She let go of Cate’s hand and turned to Jack. She nodded mechanically. “Jack, good to see you again.”
She was about to leave but paused. “And you’re right, Jack, Megalodons do not like cold water. So once they’re out of that cavern the first thing they’ll do is try to get somewhere warmer.” Her gaze was level. “Somewhere like here.”
With that she leaped onto the gunwale and then stepped up onto the wharf. She walked down the weather-beaten planking without once looking back. They heard a helicopter start up.
“Well, that was intense,” Jack said.
Cate sat back down and dragged in a deep breath. She held up one of her hands; it was shaking. “You said you had bourbon?”
Jack nodded.
She exhaled. “Make mine a double.”
***
Sonya climbed into the helicopter and placed the headphones over her head. The pilot lifted off and at about a hundred feet began to veer away from the picturesque little fishing village.
Sonya connected through to her security team. “Initiate plan B.”
She sat back and watched the Heceta at the end of the dock get smaller and smaller.
She sighed. Looks like we do it the hard way. She closed her eyes.
CHAPTER 09
Thwaites Glacier, Antarctica
Yuri was in the lead boat and Chekov in the second. Each inflatable had six men, mostly fishermen although some had military backgrounds. Even though Yuri had opened the weapons cabinet, few were permitted to be armed with guns. But all the men carried long knives, and one man brought an old speargun.
The men knew how to fight and had been called upon to do so many times. When they fished in northern waters near Africa, pirates sometimes made the bad decision to try to storm their ship. Yuri never called for help, or took prisoners, he simply shot every raider that stepped onboard his vessel and then dumped the bodies back over the side. Then he chased and raided their boats and took all their belongings. He was always surprised at how much money, weapons, and drugs, they carried – it seemed pirating paid better than fishing.
As their boats approached the ice shelf he turned off the outboard motors and had the men take to the oars. They gently rowed underneath the thick shelf of ice, which dripped freezing water down on them. Looking up, he saw the ice was a dark blue indicating it was old. Very old.
He reached out to put a hand over the side. The water felt cold, but he had a feeling in his bones that they were heading toward something unique. Something no one had ever seen before. For the first time in Yuri’s life he felt an almost boyish excitement at the promise of something big coming to him.
The thicker the ice, the darker it got inside the ice cavern, and he had his men switch on lanterns. It took them another ten minutes to find the huge cave in the rock. Yuri stopped his oarsmen and turned to shine his flashlight on the other boat.
“What say you now, Mr. Chekov?”
“I say I am still nervous,” his second in command replied.
Yuri scoffed. “Let me know if you need me to hold your hand.” He motioned for them to proceed. But slowly.
They entered the cave, and he felt a rush of warm air on his face. The Russian captain inhaled. “Do you smell that?”
The crewmen looked about, and a few who had flashlights shone them on the walls and water.
Only Chekov responded. “I do,” he whispered. “Land.”
CHAPTER 10
Nick’s Cove, Marin County, California
It was a beautiful warm evening, and Jack had bought a large lobster that afternoon at the markets. He hummed as he grilled, dribbling melted butter over the plump white meat in the split tail, and then moving the lobster around on the heat.
Cate was on deck, waiting. When he detected the char smell of the flesh, telling him it was done, he drew the crustacean out and inhaled the magnificent fragrance.
“Oh yeah.”
He placed half on each plate, added a little of the salad he’d made, and then finished by dribbling more melted butter over the tails, a sprinkle of salt, a grind of black pepper, and he was done.
“Not bad if I do say so myself.” His mouth watered in anticipation.
Upstairs he had a cooler of beer, and with the sun just on the horizon, the warm still evening was going to be perfect.
“Here it comes.” He pushed open the galley doors and saw Cate in her chair. “Hope you’re hungry.”
“Always.” She reached forward to the cooler and pulled out a beer and popped the cap for him.
He slid the plate in front of her, and saw that she had lit a candle.
“Is it my birthday?” He grinned and placed his own plate down.
“Every day is your birthday.” She laughed and then leaned forward to look over every inch of his cooking. “This looks magnificent.”
He had to admit it looked and smelled delicious, and as it was freshly caught he knew it would taste as good as it presented.
They ate, making small talk, enjoying the food and each other’s company. Afterward they sat back, now side by side with their feet up on the table. They sipped beers and looked up at the black velvet sky with stars so bright they seemed to twinkle in metallic shades of silver, gold, and titian red.
Cate let out a big sigh, and he turned to her. “Sonya?”
“Yeah.” She leaned forward. “What if what she said was true, and the monsters are out there again? She’s right – people will die.”
He reached out and took her hand, letting her talk it out.
“I mean, could there be a hidden place where these creatures have been living undisturbed for millions of years? Another place?” She tilted her head back against the cushions.
“You know what they say . . .” He began. “We know more about the surface of the moon than we do about the bottom of the oceans. But inside some sort of hidden cave? I don’t know about that.” He faced her. “I’m sure she can deal with it without us.”
“Maybe. But she was right, we are the experts. The only experts.” Cate groaned. “I think we should have taken her up on her offer. I mean, she came all the way out here and I blew her off like she was nothing.” She turned to him. “She saved our lives.”
He nodded. “Fifty million bucks apiece would have been handy as well.” He shrugged. “So, what do you want to do?”
Cate looked out over the dark water. “Monsters are real. And all we have to do is face them again.” Her eyes were dull as she stared out over the smooth bay. “We know they exist. There could be one below us right now, looking up at us, and we’d never know it until . . .”
He snorted. “Those sort of sharks don’t need to be under the water to stare up at us. They have eyes that allow them to see just as well above the water as below it.”
She turned to him, frowning, and he took that as a sign of interest.
“A shark’s retinas have a unique reflective layer. It’s the same thing that makes cats’ eyes appear to glow in the dark. It allows them to see in murky water or the dimness of the deep ocean. Plus, the great white species, and their relatives . . .” He looked meaningfully at her. “The Megalodon.”
“Shut up, Mr. Boring Scientist. Just shut up.” She smiled at him. “Bottom line, you’re telling me that if one of those big bastards was out there, it could be above the water? Maybe, even looking down on us.”
“Nah. Too shallow here.” He sipped again. “Nothing’s out there, we’re safe.”
“And that’s why I like it here. No more monsters.” She put the bottle to her lips, but then her eyes went wide and she froze.
The bottle fell from her hand and her head slumped back against the chair.
Jack turned to her. Was this some sort of joke?
“Very funny.” He leaned across her.
He drew in a breath. Her eyes were rolled back in her head and her mouth open – she was out cold.
“What the fuck?”
Another small hypodermic dart then struck him in the neck. There had been no sound, and it was like the sting of a bee. He reached up to the dart, his teeth bared as his jaws automatically clamped shut.
Then everything went black.
***
“Two down. Recovery inbound.” The man dressed in black with the long rifle stood from where he had been lying on the wharf. He waved and another team dressed in black ran down the wharf as a boat sped toward them.
In under a minute both Cate and Jack’s unconscious bodies were handed over the side. The food and even the plates went into the water. And then they were gone.
CHAPTER 11
Whittle Rock, False Bay, South Africa
The huge bay near Cape Town at the extreme tip of South Africa had been prized by divers, sailors, and fishing enthusiasts for over a century.
There were several golden sandy beaches and the shallows were a gently sloping sea bottom to about 200 feet for the rest of the bay. For shipping and sailors, there were hazards to watch for in the form of multiple small rocky islands, with many only just breaking the surface at high tide.
These rocky upthrustings were home to seal colonies numbering in the many hundreds. And where there were seals, there were predators. Big predators.
This day, the sun beat down with its usual midday ferocity, and the steel blue water tempted the seals with an offer of cooling comfort and, potentially, food.
Few went in as the older animals knew that a strongly lit sky meant anything on the surface became an easy-to-spot target for the giant razor-lined mouths that lurked in the dark depths.
Most heeded the warning. But not all. One cape fur seal pup was only eight months old, large enough to free swim now, but still inexperienced in all the bay’s potential dangers.
Wheeling gulls not more than a quarter mile away suggested baitfish on the surface, and the cool water also promised soothing relief against the harsh sunlight that the pup’s skin had not yet toughened up against.
The pup glanced briefly at its kin, who either dozed or watched with large, doe-like eyes. It hesitated only for a moment, but hunger and the heat forced it in.
The pup dived and swam straight and fast toward the gulls. It knew that if there were larger fish below they would chop up the smaller fish and he might be able to grab a free meal of sweet fish bits floating on the surface.
Halfway to its goal, the pup swerved around a small wave, causing it to thread a fraction off its course – and at that second the sea exploded from beneath it.
The eighteen-foot, 3800-pound shark rose in the air, massive tooth-lined maw gaped open.
The pup screamed in fright, but because it was fractionally off its course the shark’s charge had been misjudged by bare inches, and instead of taking the seal all the way into its mouth, the pup bounced off the jaws and tumbled through the air.
The shark landed in an explosion of water. The pup came down, and immediately headed like a dark bullet back to the safety of the rocks.
It knew that the killer would be coming again. The big tooth was unlikely to miss a second time.
As the seal pup skipped along the top of the water, threading itself in and out of the waves, it saw its kin on the rocks in the distance. All now had their heads up and were watching.
The great white shark came up again. And the pup screamed its terror. But this time when the shark breached it wasn’t underneath the small pup, but beside it. And the nearly two-ton beast was in the mouth of something even bigger.
The colossus had the eighteen-foot shark around its mid-section, and the seal pup glanced back, hearing the cartilage crackle and be crushed with a noise that bounced right across the bay.
When this huge creature hit the water, it created a towering wave that the pup surfed all the way back to its small rocky island.
Like a dark spear it shot from the sea and didn’t stop until it was at the center of the colony. Only then did it drop, panting, on the rocks.
The other seals continued to stare, not at the pup, but back out at the water. Something ominous had arrived in their bay.
CHAPTER 12
Aboard the Sea Princess, 50 miles north of Thwaites Glacier, Antarctica
“Ooh.” Cate sat up and immediately put a hand to her throbbing head.
She blinked open crusted eyes and looked about. Thankfully she saw Jack lying on the bunk next to her, mouth open and snoring.
“What happened?” She slid forward on the bunk bed and put her feet down. Her shoes were missing, and her eyes widened as she felt the gentle movement of the floor that told her they were at sea.
“Jack.” She stood and crossed to shake him. “Wake up.”
He groaned.
“Wake. Up.” She tugged on his arm, and he opened his eyes.
“What time is it?” he said sleepily.
“Time to get up.” She dragged him now. “We’re at sea.”
“I know, I know.” He sat up. “The Heceta . .”
“No, not on the Heceta. Somewhere else.” She continued to drag him. “And I don’t know where,” she said. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
“Eating . . .” He frowned. “. . . lobster.” He grimaced. “And I’m starving.”
She looked at him incredulously, but then realized she was hungry as well. And then she noticed that he had a two- or three-day stubble coming in. No wonder they were both hungry.
“How long have we been out?” she asked.
Jack rubbed his face and then turned about. “No idea. But all our belongings are gone.” He looked down at the pajamas he was wearing. “Who stripped us?”
