Meg: Hell's Aquarium, page 24
“And how about a little treat for Angel . . . the Angel of Death!”
Teddy fires the catapult, launching the 150-pound side of beef high into the air, falling gracefully into the center of the lagoon—
—where its perturbed diner snaps its jaws around the offering in one tremendous bite.
Teddy’s team uses the distraction to quickly lower Bobby Baitman to the deck, where the lifelike doll is loaded onto an awaiting Gurney, still waving as he’s wheeled away.
Dani waits until Angel has returned to the canal before addressing the crowd. “And that’s our show for this afternoon! Thank you for coming. Please exit the arena carefully using the nearest gate, and be sure to visit the Meg Pen gallery. Belle and Lizzy’s next feeding is at three p.m.”
Jonas slips his arm around his daughter’s waist as they cross the soaked deck to the staff corridor, listening to comments from the bleachers.
“That Baitman guy’s crazy. Whatever they’re paying him, it ain’t enough.”
“For a million bucks, I’d do it.”
“Sure you would.”
“When that fin started circling, my heart was beating so fast, I thought I was having a heart attack.”
Jonas winks at Dani. “You were great. How do you feel?”
“A dull headache, nothing too bad. Dad, this new show . . . it’s brilliant. It puts the audience right there, like they’re in the water with Bobby.”
Looking up, Jonas sees Tom Cubit waiting for them inside the corridor. The attorney is shaking his head, grimacing.
“Tommy. What? Nobody died, did they?”
“Not yet. The paramedics are still treating half a dozen fainting-related injuries and a potential heart attack, which I think may have been your insurance agent. At this rate, I’ll never see the outside of a courtroom.”
They gaze at the inert figure covered in a sheet on the Gurney, its groin bulging beneath the wetsuit. “Smile, Tom. Things can always be worse. Look at Bobby . . . he’s happy.”
Dubai Aquarium
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
The enormous man-made lake, more than three miles in circumference, harbors the concrete foundations supporting the twelve two-hundred-foot shark fins.
The setting sun at their backs, David and Monty stand on one of the six acrylic glass and steel walkways overlooking the lake. Staring below at the turtles, they estimate there are now several hundred of them—the bigger specimens green sea turtles, the smaller ones hawksbills—all having been transplanted from the Persian Gulf into the thirty-foot-deep, acrylic bowl.
David watches one of the reptiles’ heads poke through the surface of the water bathed in reflecting golden hues. “Think they’re happy?”
“The turtles? Hell, yes. They probably have a turtle orgy every night. Of course, only humans and dolphins actually do it for fun, or so I’ve heard. I once read a pig’s orgasm lasts thirty minutes. In my next life, I want to be a pig.”
David grins. “What do you mean, in your next life?”
“That’s the first time I’ve seen you smile in weeks.”
“What’s to smile about? We went from living in a five-star hotel with round-the-clock room service and cable TV to sharing a single-wide trailer with an old Sanyo that only gets local stations in Arabic. And no offense, but having lived with you these last few weeks, calling you a pig is an insult to the pig. Plus the fact that I have to practically drag your smelly ass out of bed every morning—”
“I’m bi-polar. Some days are good, some are bad. You knew the deal when you adopted me.” Monty hocks up mucus from the back of his throat and spits it into the turtle pond, tempting up a hawksbill. “It’s not too late, you know.”
“What’s not too late?”
“To go and find your woman. They’d still fly you out if you asked.”
“How do you know that?”
“I heard one of bin Rashidi’s goons talking to Dr. Becker about you. It was all in Arabic, but I picked it up well enough. Things aren’t going well on their little hunting expedition. I’m surprised they didn’t mention it to you.”
David slams his palms on the aluminum rail. “They won’t tell me anything. Not where they went or how she’s doing . . . or what she’s doing?”
“Want to find out?”
“How?”
“The tank the Arabs labeled ‘bad fish.’ Let’s see what kind of bad fish they captured.”
“Again, how? They keep the T-1 gallery locked at all times. A guard is posted outside when Becker enters to make sure no one else follows her in.”
“Main ventilation shaft. It connects with every eighth floor deck.”
“How do you know that?”
“I spend six hours a day cutting raw fish. On my breaks I sit in my director’s office, playing with his computer. Everything’s touch-screen. The aquarium schematics were right there.”
“How do we access the shaft?”
“We enter through the air conditioning intake on the deck of T-3. From there, it’s a short crawl into T-1.”
David checks his watch. “Night shift clocks in at eight. That gives us forty minutes. Let’s go!”
They jog over the bridge to the third floor entrance, David using his magnetic access card to gain entry into the facility. The main lobby is deserted, the day shift having left twenty minutes earlier. They follow the east alcove to aquarium’s T-1, T-3, and T-5, then use the access card to enter the door marked T-3: restricted. The interior corridor leads them to a stairwell, which they ascend five flights to Level 8. Passing through another set of security doors marked T-3, they step out onto the upper deck of the empty aquarium.
The pond-size surface and work deck is deserted, the tank void of sea life, the filtration systems running. Low level ultraviolet lights illuminate patches of coral formations growing seventy feet below.
“Here.” Monty pushes a mobile gantry toward the air conditioning intake, situated fifteen feet above the deck along one wall. “Standard bolts. A drill would be nice.”
David searches through a tool cabinet. He locates a drill, verifies it’s charged, and attaches a flathead screwdriver bit. He passes the drill up to Monty, who sets to work on the four-foot by four-foot aluminum grid.
The bolts unscrew easily. “Butter. Let’s go.”
David climbs up the wheeled scaffolding, following Monty inside the aluminum shaft.
It’s cold inside, at least thirty degrees cooler, the air rushing at their faces, howling through the dark tunnel. They creep forward on all fours, the palms of their hands taking the brunt of the work.
“A flashlight would have helped,” David whispers.
“Just follow me.” Reaching the main junction, Monty turns left, crawling another ninety feet before coming to another short stretch of shaft on their left that dead-ends in a dull patch of light. “See there? That’s T-1’s intake.”
David follows him to the grid then peeks through the grill out to the deck of aquarium T-1. “Looks clear. How do we pop the grill from the inside?”
“I dunno. Did you bring a pair of needle-nose pliers?”
“Did you ask me to bring pliers?”
“I assumed you’d know.”
“You assumed? Who am I? Freakin’ Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible? Wait here!” David hustles back out the vent to the main junction, follows it out to T-3’s vent, climbs down the scaffolding, grabs two pairs of needle-nose pliers from the tool cabinet, then hurries back through the air conditioning ducts to Monty—
—who has already managed to loosen three of the four bolts with his fingers. “Guess we didn’t need the pliers after all.”
“Get out of the way.” David unscrews the last bolt and they pop open the intake grill.
It’s a fifteen-foot drop to the concrete deck below, the area dark, save for the glowing red exit signs.
“Should I jump?” Monty asks.
“And shatter your ankles so I have to take care of your ass for another eight weeks? Move over!” Backing out feet-first, David shimmies down the wall as far as he can then drops the last eight feet, rolling with the fall. He finds a ladder and sets it in place for Monty, who reattaches the grid, then joins him by the edge of the dark tank.
“I can’t see a thing,” Monty whispers. “Should I turn on the lights?”
“No. They’re keeping it dark for a reason. Could be a nocturnal species.” Leaving the edge of the enormous pool, he locates the main fuse box and the switches for the aquarium’s red nocturnal lights. He flicks the entire row on—
—blood-red patches of light blooming in the tank.
Monty scans the hour glass-shaped pool. A dark shadow circles along the bottom. “Something’s in there.”
“What is it?”
“Dunno. Could be the Loch Ness Monster.”
“Let’s get down to the gallery. We’ll be able to see it better from there.”
They head for the exit, following the concrete stairwell five flights down to Level 3. Opening the metal fire door, they step out into the vast public gallery, the empty hall dark except for the red glow coming from the aquarium’s towering wall of acrylic glass.
Monty paces before the window, looking in. “I still don’t see anything. Here, Nessie! Come on, girl.”
A shiver crawls down David’s spine. “Monty, freeze.”
“Why?”
“Just don’t move, it sees you.”
“What sees me?” Monty turns—
—as the creature slowly circles back toward the gallery window, its bulbous nocturnal eyes glowing green in the red light.
“Jesus . . . what in the holy hell is that?”
The ocean’s first true predator moves majestically past the bay window, the placoderm’s thick hide appearing dark brown, a silvery hue along its belly. Its body is as long and wide as a bus, tapering back from its brutish, armor-plated skull to a massive upper-lobed tail fin. The hinged mouth is open, revealing bony plated teeth—cusped and deeply serrated from the shearing action generated by the double upper fangs constantly sliding past the lower incisors.
David’s throat tightens as the hunter moves off into the shadows then circles back again, stalking the gallery window. “It’s a Dunk,” David whispers, his voice cracking.
“What’s a Dunk?”
Monty’s sudden movements alert the creature. Changing course, it charges the window—
—the glass igniting seconds before the impact in searing purple bolts of electricity, the voltage chasing the beast back into the shadows.
Monty collapses to his knees, sweat pouring down his face. “What just happened?”
David approaches the tank, pointing to the small octagon-shaped devices, each the size of a man’s fist, spaced at ten-foot intervals along the inside of the aquarium’s bay windows. “They’re impact sensors. Designed to keep the Dunk from shattering the glass.”
“The Dunk? You mean that prehistoric fish on display back at the hotel?”
“Dunkleosteus. King of the Devonian seas.”
“I thought those things went extinct?”
“They did . . . about 300 million years ago.”
“Three hundred fifty-five million years, to be exact.” The crown prince enters the viewing gallery, followed by Barbara Becker and two security guards, the bulges beneath their dark suits revealing automatic weapons. “Mr. Montgomery, when you were reviewing the aquarium’s schematics, didn’t you notice the array of security cameras hidden in every ceiling?”
“You know, I may have missed that. I speak Arabic; I don’t read it all that well.”
“I admire resourcefulness, but breaking and entering is still a punishable crime in my country. David, it’s good to see you again. What do you think of our first resident species?”
“Honestly, I’m blown away.”
“I’m glad you like it. What I enjoy most . . . is watching it hunt live prey. So? Which one of you would like to go for a swim?”
The two security guards step forward, causing beads of sweat to burst out across David’s flesh.
The crown prince smiles. “Just having some fun. Dr. Becker, if you would?”
Barbara Becker speaks into her radio. “Feed T-1.”
A few moments pass, allowing David’s pulse to settle. The Dunkleosteus lurks in the shadows, moving slowly along the bottom like a caged tiger—
—until something splashes down into the tank, directly above their heads.
The six-hundred-pound green sea turtle rights itself then splays itself against the bay window, the claws of its flipper-like legs scratching the acrylic surface as it paddles along the face of the tank in a panic.
The disturbance alerts the Dunk. Its back arches, its smallish pectoral fins going rigid, pointing downward as it swims in a tight figure-eight pattern.
Monty whispers to David, “So much for saving the turtles.”
“Shh.”
The Dunk rises away from the bottom and circles past the bay window, offering its human guests a close up view of its armored plating and gill slits. Conditioned by the electrical shock, it does not attack, using its approach to coax the turtle away from the window.
Fearful of the large predator, the turtle darts for a cluster of rocks looming in the shadows along the bottom.
The monster races in from behind its prey, snatching the turtle within its powerful jaws—
—craaaaaack !
Even underwater and behind the thick acrylic glass, the sound is unmistakable. The Dunkleosteus’s bony blades crush the turtle’s thick shell like a nutcracker popping open a walnut. David watches, breathless, as the monster gulps down the dead turtle’s remains, its silver belly quivering with the effort.
Dr. Becker grips David’s forearm. “Watch.”
The agitated Dunk swims back and forth several times then suddenly convulses, regurgitating the sharp fragments of turtle shell in a burst of cloudy brown vomit.
Dr. Becker leans in to David. “Incredible, isn’t it?”
“It that all it eats? Turtles?”
“We’ve tried other fish, but it prefers slower moving prey. Dunks are not the swiftest of hunters, and their senses are lacking compared to sharks. But they’ll eat anything that moves and regurgitate the bones later. We attached a force-plate to the underside of one of the turtle’s shells a few days ago; the Dunk’s jaws registered 8,560 pounds per square inch of force. Pound for pound, that’s greater than those of your Megalodon.”
“Pretty impressive. Just remember, to Angel, the Dunk’s still a single serving meal.” David turns back to the crown prince. “The Mariana Trench?”
“No. The Dunk was lured up from the depths at a specific location in the Philippine Sea. While I cannot go into details at this time, suffice it to say there are other sea monsters lurking down there as well—exotic creatures the likes of which man has never seen. Join us, David. Help us capture these amazing animals and I’ll make you rich beyond your wildest dreams.”
“You have your pilots, you don’t need me.”
“Our pilots are good, but they’ve had a few . . . challenges.”
The Dunkleosteus passes slowly before the glass, its lidless nocturnal eyeball cold and soulless, its mouth revealing shards of brown turtle meat caught between its hellish incisors.
David closes his eyes, trying to imagine what it would be like piloting one of the Manta Rays in an enclosed alien sea, surrounded by blackness, squeezed beneath sixteen thousand pounds per square inch of water pressure as he uses his sub to lure history’s most frightening creations out of their abyssal purgatory and into a net.
“My father was right. It’s a suicide mission.”
“Ms. Szeifert would disagree. She’s in the Philippine Sea, hunting these creatures even as we speak. I hear she misses you terribly, but is doing her best to persevere. You have good taste; that one is a pearl of great price, something to be treasured. If she’d have me, I’d make her one of my wives.”
David’s blood pressure soars, every muscle in his body trembling, saturated with adrenaline. “Are you baiting me?”
“I’m offering you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Ms. Szeifert seized the moment. When will you?”
“Alright, Your Highness. I’ll stock your aquarium. But you and your goons leave Kaylie alone. Is that clear? From now on, she works strictly with me.”
The crown prince smiles. “As you wish. I’ve taken the liberty of packing your belongings. My private jet leaves within the hour.”
“What about Monty?”
“Mr. Montgomery may accompany you as a deckhand. If he wishes to join you, he must pack his own things. And if he desires to remain on board the ship, he’ll learn to clean up his mess, or he’ll find himself sleeping in the fish chute.”
23.
Tanaka Oceanographic Institute
Monterey, California
The two juvenile Megalodons circle their rectangular habitat in tandem—Lizzy in the dominant top position, the darker Bela below, her head just behind her sibling’s pelvic girdle so that the trough created by her sister’s moving mass tows her around the tank effortlessly.
Peter Carlisle, the Institute’s twenty-six-year-old director of education, watches the two forty-six-foot hunters circle the tank from behind a concrete pillar in the Meg Pen gallery. Obsessed with sharks from the moment he was traumatized by the movie Jaws at the age of four, Peter has made a career of studying them. After completing his bachelor’s degree in marine biology, he went on to earn his master’s degree at nearby Moss Landing Marine labs while completing an exhaustive research project tracking Leopard Sharks in the Elkhorn Slough, one of the largest tracks of tidal salt marsh in California.
For the Berkeley grad student, his summer job at the Tanaka Institute serves as a summer job and part of his research. Peter’s dissertation deals with the trophic interactions of pelagic sharks like the great white—specifically, how the predators interact with other species in their respective food webs and chains.
Observing Belle and Lizzy has been an education unto itself. By virtue of cooperative behavior, the two sisters have eliminated the other three siblings within their food web, as well as any outside intruders entering their habitat.
