Meg: Hell's Aquarium, page 10
“You’re not going to put the kibosh on my whole trip by giving me the old ‘bad karma’ deal, are you? You’ve been pulling that shit on me and Dani for years.”
For a moment he thought she was laughing, until he realized she was crying.
That freaked him out.
But his mother could be like that, conjuring up her Asian harbingers of doom whenever her family stepped out of her comfort zone. In many ways David knew she was right, that by working at the Institute he would always be “Jonas Taylor’s kid” no matter what he developed in the lab or came up with in the field. Dubai represented a fresh start, a place he could earn his oats.
In the end, she relented, preferring to send him off with positive energy.
For his father, there would be hell to pay.
“Take this.” Jonas hands his son a thick envelope.
“Dad, it’s okay. I have plenty of money. Plus, all my expenses are covered.”
“Just do your old man a favor and take it.”
“Thanks.” David hugs his father. “I’ll call you from Dubai. Make sure you check your e-mail; I’ll be downloading photos of the aquarium.”
“Have a good time. Just remember our deal.”
“I know, I know. And sorry about Mom. Guess you won’t be getting any tonight, huh?”
Jonas smiles. “Get your ass on the plane.”
David boards the jet, an Arabic woman leading him down a circular staircase to the lower level. “His Royal Highness occupies the upper level, but I think we can make you quite comfortable. Can I get you something to eat or drink?”
“No, I’m fine.”
Six rows of first-class seats are located up front, followed by a cherry-wood conference table, several private work stations, bathrooms, a dining area, and, in back, a home theater complete with padded lounge chairs and a fifty-two-inch screen.
“Nice.”
“You got that, brother. All we need now are some babes.” A leather recliner spins around, revealing a big chested, broad shouldered man in his late twenties with a shaved head and six-inch devil’s goatee. He’s wearing cargo shorts and a Chicago Cubs baseball jersey, his thick forearms covered in tattoos—Spider-Man, the Marine Corps eagle, the United States flag and the University of Arizona mascot—the words “pain don’t hurt” inked around his neck.
“Jonas Junior. Name’s Jason Montgomery, but you can call me Monty. All my buds do.” He never stops to take a breath. “So, dude, how’s it feel to work with monsters? Must be pretty cool, huh? Ever get nightmares?”
“Sometimes. And it’s David, not Jonas Junior. David Taylor.”
“Hey, David Taylor, did you know Coca Cola was originally green?”
“I’m sorry?”
“I wouldn’t have drank it. Hey . . . do you have dogs? I read the cost of raising a medium-size dog is sixty-five hundred dollars a year. Glad I have two pipsqueaks. Of course, two small dogs probably equals a medium-size dog. What do you think?”
“I think you’d better lay off the caffeine or the coke. Seriously, dude, are you amped?”
“Amped? No way, not me. On my mother’s life, I don’t do drugs. Well, actually, I do do drugs, just not that kind of drugs, you know . . . narcotics, space blasting, free-basing, on the pine, doin’ the line—”
“Dude, you’re mental.”
“Yes. Exactly. Thank you, Sigmund. I am mental, only I wasn’t born that way. Served in the Marine Recons as a corpsman combat medic. Got hit with a grenade in Baghdad. Almost blew off my right shoulder. Funny, I don’t remember seeing that part in the recruitment DVD. After the doctors put me back together again, the shrinks told me I had post-traumatic stress and bi-polarism. Double the pleasure, double the flavor, right? Ah, it’s all good.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to learn from you, brother. I used to be a pretty damn good pilot.”
“You piloted submersibles?”
“Choppers. That was before my brain got bounced. My uncle-in-law . . . he works for a guy who knows a guy who does business with some company in Dubai City. You know the deal. Next thing you know, I get a call at 2 a.m. telling me to pack a bag. What the hell, right? If I make the cut, I’m set for the next ten years. If not, it still beats disability.”
“What cut? What are you talking about?”
“Six submersible pilots.” David turns as two more men enter the cabin: the first, a tall athlete with a military crew cut and Thai complexion; the second, a short Canadian built more like a wrestler.
“Sean Dustman, United States Navy.”
“David Taylor.” David shakes the taller man’s hand. “Sorry, I’m a little lost. Did you say six pilots were recruited?”
“Actually, I heard fourteen were recruited to fill six positions—plus two alternates. Each of us gets ten grand to complete your training and a hundred large, plus bonuses, if we make the grade.”
“The grade? What exactly is the mission?”
“No one knows.” The Canadian steps in between them offering a thick paw of a hand, his piercing gray-blue eyes reminding David of Angel’s cold eyes. “Hugo Boutin, Garde côtière canadienne. Canadian Coast Guard. No offense, eh, but you seem too young to be a submersible pilot, let alone a trainer.”
Monty slaps David across his shoulder blades. “Hey, frenchy, a little respect. This here’s Jonas Taylor’s kid. The Jonas Taylor. I’ll bet our boy here was practically weaned in subs. Hell, he’s probably more comfortable with a joystick in his hand than his own pecker.”
“Is that true? Are you more comfortable with a joystick in your hand?”
The three men turn in unison, staring at the stunning, blue-eyed woman seated at the conference table. She’s in her mid-twenties, her brunette hair long and wavy, tinged with red highlights, her features resembling those of a young Stefanie Powers. She’s wearing white shorts and a navy hooded sweatshirt, the name K. Szeifert embroidered in white beneath a Scripps Aquarium insignia. Her long, tan legs reveal the calves of a sprinter. A pair of flip flops dangle from her bare feet, which are propped up on the polished wood table top.
Monty squints his eyes to read her sweatshirt. “K. Szeif . . . Szerf?”
“It’s pronounced ‘See-furt.’ Kaylie Szeifert.”
Monty grins. “I never met a female sub pilot, at least none that looked like you.”
“Yeah, well, maybe there’s a reason for that, scruffy.”
Sean Dustman circles the conference table, eyeing her like a hawk. “U-Cal, San Diego, right?”
“Good memory.”
“We met at the Birch Aquarium. You were interning at Scripps. Did we . . . you know?”
“Honey, if you have to ask, it didn’t happen.”
Monty bellows a Santa Claus laugh. “I’m in love.”
“Get over it. I’m here to make the cut, and I don’t take prisoners. And before any of you start prejudging me because of my ‘X’ chromosomes, I spent the last two summers working at Hawkes Ocean Technologies helping them test their new Deep Rover submersibles. So I’m pretty comfortable with a joystick in my hand, too.”
“I bet you are,” Monty mumbles.
The stewardess reenters the cabin. “The captain has received clearance to proceed to the runway. For takeoff and landing we ask that you find a seat in one of these first six rows. Once we’re airborne the captain will give the signal that it’s okay to move around the cabin.”
Kaylie heads forward, selecting a window seat on the left side of the cabin. Sean points to the aisle seat next to him, but she waves him off. “You had your chance, sailor boy.”
“Easy, girl. Before you crucify me, you should know that I rated one of the top three sub pilots in the Navy. If you really want to make the cut, I could show you a few pointers.”
“In that case, I’d rather speak to the teacher.” She pats the seat for David. “Join me?”
David’s pulse pounds in his neck. As he slides into the leather chair, he casually cups his hand over his mouth, doing a quick breath check. “I’m David.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Monty ducks into the window seat directly behind Kaylie. He leans in between David and the girl, offering an air sickness bag. “Feeling queasy? I know I am.”
David’s eyes flash a warning. “Behave yourself, or you won’t make it through orientation.”
“Ouch.” He sits back, staring out the window.
A genuine smile creases Kaylie’s face, accentuating her high cheekbones. “Feeling your oats. I like that. Let them step on you once and soon they’ll be using you like a doormat.”
“Are you speaking from experience?”
“Hell, yes. My mom and dad . . . they worked double shifts at Walmart for as long as I can remember just to save money for my college fund. Me? I wanted to join the Armed Forces and would have gladly gone Navy had the recruiting officer given me any sign of hope that one day I could pilot a sub. ‘Subs are not for women,’ he said. Can you believe that? Damn old boys network. Thank God Graham Hawkes’s people didn’t think like that.”
“So how did you get invited to this gig? I thought the Arabs weren’t exactly into the whole women’s lib deal.”
“Some bigwig—Fiesal bin Rashidi—contacted one of the engineers at Hawkes looking for their best available pilots. I wasn’t the best, but I was available. It didn’t hurt that I’ve been interning at the Scripps Aquarium.”
“And you have no idea what this mission is about?”
“They said it’s being sponsored by the firm building a new aquarium in Dubai. I’m guessing it has to do with netting species for their exhibits, which is very cool, don’t you think?”
“Sure.”
She smiles. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-four. How old are you?”
“About the same.”
“Liar. I bet you aren’t even twenty-one.”
“Yeah, I am . . . next month.”
She takes his hand in hers. “I need you, David. I need you to make me the best damn submersible pilot in the group. Life’s been kickin’ my butt for a long time, but I’m the kind of person who kicks it right back. Getting this job is very important to me. So I need you to do me a favor.”
“Yeah. Anything.”
“Don’t fall in love with me.”
She instinctively squeezes his hand tighter as the jumbo jet accelerates down the runway, then tilts into the sky, leaving San Francisco behind. Heading west, it banks over the ocean, then briefly follows the coastline south past Monterey before turning east.
David lays his head back in the cushioned leather seat, staring at Kaylie until she releases his hand.
“Sorry,” she says. “I’m a nervous flyer. But I’m totally at home in the water.”
“What’s the deepest you’ve ever been?”
“In a submersible? Twelve hundred feet. Twice.”
Monty pokes his head in between their seats. “Wow, that’s really deep. Still, I bet that’s not as deep as these Arabs want us to go. Am I right, Junior?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“You wouldn’t know?” Monty wiggles his index finger at David. “Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep—”
“What are you doing?”
“That’s my bullshit detector. Your old man did the Mariana Trench more than a few times. That’s thirty-six thousand feet, as deep as it gets. How deep have you gone, Junior? I mean, in a sub.”
“Close to twelve thousand.”
“Twelve hundred, meet twelve thousand. Good thing it’s a long flight, huh?”
“Ignore him, Kaylie. It’s not about how deep you go; it’s about keeping your head, controlling your fear. My first night dive freaked me out, and that was in two hundred feet of water. Piloting a submersible means maintaining your focus. Something you may want to work on, Monty.”
“Good advice, teach. I think we can see where your focus is being maintained. May I?” He plucks a stray hair from the back of David’s head.
“Ow! What the hell?”
“They say intelligent people have more copper and zinc in their hair than the rest of us non-achievers. I’ll get back to you.”
Monty leans back in his seat, reclines the chair to its maximum setting, and closes his eyes.
9.
Tanaka Oceanographic Institute
Monterey, California
From his vantage in the northern bleachers, Brent Nichols can see everything: the two pure-white runts now occupying the shallow medical pool, their much larger siblings circling in the Meg Pen, and, in the deepest part of the man-made channel, an occasional froth of water and thunder of pummeled steel marking the location of the juveniles’ temperamental parent.
For the last two hours, a team of marine biologists and Meg husbandry experts have been monitoring Mary Kate’s and Ashley’s vital signs, the two predators having been moved into the medical pool earlier in the day. Approximately the size of a baseball infield, the medical pool is only fifteen feet deep and has been divided into two rectangular sections barely twice the Megs’ girth. The tight quarters force the pair of twenty-five-foot sharks to swim against an artificially created current, conditioning them for their fifteen-hour trip to Dubai. To reduce the stress induced by having to swim in close quarters, the water in the tank is being filtered with moderate doses of Tricaine Methanesulfonate. Today’s session had been scheduled for three hours, at which time the two runts were to be returned to their half of the Meg Pen and observed.
Belle and Lizzy had forced those plans to be changed.
As a field scientist, Brent Nichols has spent hundreds of hours in the water observing sharks, including bull sharks, a species driven by high levels of testosterone. But even those killers couldn’t hold a candle to the ferocity of the two big Meg juveniles known as the sisters.
Moments after the second runt had been hoisted from its tank, the lead-backed sister, Belle, began ramming the fence that divided the Meg Pen. Fearsome, with no regard to injury, the creature seemed to attack the barrier with a pent-up rage that Brent Nichols had never witnessed in the wild. After fifteen minutes, the powerful blows began tearing the rubberized titanium barrier clear off its reinforced frame, forcing trainers and maintenance crews to hastily winch the fence out of the water or risk losing it altogether.
And yet as ferocious as Bela the Dark was, it was her albino sister, Lizzy, that really spooked Dr. Nichols. For every time Belle ceased her relentless attack on the fence, her counterpart would strike it herself with one solitary resounding blow, as if egging her sibling on. Having observed the ritual for several hours, Dr. Nichols was convinced it was Lizzy who wanted the barrier removed, and the clever predator knew how to get her brutish sibling to carry out the task.
A cooperative, well-defined relationship exists between the two sisters, Dr. Nichols wrote in his journal. The albino is the clear instigator, with the darker Meg functioning as her assassin. Even when they swim in formation, it is Lizzy on top, Belle riding below, being towed in her wake.
Dr. Nichols looks up from his notes in time to see Jonas Taylor approaching from the eastern pavilion. “So? Learn much?”
“Enough to fill two legal pads, but merely the tip of the iceberg. I’m disappointed Angel won’t leave the canal. But I’ve made some fascinating observations regarding the two litters of juveniles.”
“Two litters? Sorry, Doc, but these Megs were all birthed live from one litter.”
“They might have been birthed at the same moment in time, Taylor, but these juvenile Megs come from two different litters, fertilized by two different males.”
Jonas feels the blood rush from his face. “Different males? Christ, how many of these monsters are out there? Unless Scarface . . .”
“Scarface?”
“Another male I crossed paths with around the same time Angel returned to the lagoon with that big bull. The two males were Angel’s offspring from her first litter. A field sample taken from Scarface a few years ago matched the DNA of his deceased bigger brother.”
“Let’s be sure. If it wasn’t Scarface, then there could be another adult male out there somewhere. The runt that died last week, Angelica . . . did your biologist perform a necropsy?”
“Yes.”
“Perfect. We’ll compare Angelica’s DNA with the DNA of the two males from Angel’s first litter. If the samples match, the runt’s father was Scarface. If not, there may be another big male out there somewhere. I’ll also need tissue samples from one of the sisters.”
Jonas exhales a groan.
“Is that a problem?”
“Ever pull an alligator’s tooth while it was still conscious? That would be easy compared to this.”
Virgil Carmen brushes strands of black hair from his face as he steadies himself along the Meg Pen rail, his “spearing” arm slightly constricted by the fluorescent orange harness around his waist. Adjusting the ten-foot reach pole, the assistant director of animal husbandry stares at the water while Moretti continues to drag the seventy-five-pound morsel of beef along the surface, hoping to lure one of the sisters topside.
Belle and Lizzy remain wary, circling thirty feet below.
Moretti turns to Jonas and his heavyset companion. “No good, J.T. They’re on to this game. If you really want the sample, I’ll need the Jellyfish.”
Virgil screws the back end of a two-inch-diameter, eight-foot-long steel pipe to its mount along the outside of the Jellyfish submersible. The business end of the spear—a four-inch-long hollow point—is designed to puncture the Meg’s hide and quickly retract, slicing off and capturing a pencil-thin sample of tissue while simultaneously cauterizing the wound. Underwater camera’s rolling . . . if I can get a tight shot of Moretti jabbing one of the sisters with this spear . . . that would make Sara happy. Maybe she’d get me a job working for R.A.W. Anything’s better than this deal.
Virgil tests the spring-loaded assembly several times then signals to his boss, who is already inside the acrylic, sphere-shaped vessel.
Moretti returns the thumbs-up and adjusts his headset over his lucky turquoise baseball cap and speaks into his radio. “Ready here, Chris.”
