“Unless it goes on land,” the suit said, thinking he’d scored a point.
“If it does that, then it really has no chance against our weapons.”
The room fell silent. Someone coughed and sniffled.
“As you all know, the weather is going to be a challenge. Dan is passing to the east, and we expect seventy mile-per-hour winds and wave heights of five feet on the inner bay. So be careful, go slow, and stay in contact. Now if there are no more questions…” Halphron looked at the inquisitive suit. “I’ll turn the briefing over to Agent Silva, who personally grappled with the first scorpion along with members of the Suffolk County PD and Coast Guard. At the close of the briefing, please see Ensign Peters in the back there. He’ll give you assignments for your boats. Any vessel outside its assigned area will be removed from service. There will be no warnings and no excuses will be accepted. Agent Silva will describe the creature for you, just in case you have to engage the beast, which I hope won’t be necessary. Agent Silva.” The commander stepped away from the podium.
Silva gave Tanner a sly smirk as he pushed to his feet and made his way to a folding table with a light projector on it. Silva turned the machine on, and a rectangle of white light fell on the front wall. A moment later, a picture of the sea scorpion’s corpse appeared. There were several gasps and intakes of breath.
“Yeah, you should be concerned,” Silva said. “It’s thirty-feet long and its curved spike tail stabs randomly when it’s threatened, and the two front claws move with amazing speed and accuracy.” He stepped forward and pointed at the creature’s back. “The carapace is hard shell plating that even armor-piercing bullets had trouble getting through, thus making small arms almost useless against it.”
Silva hit a button, and the picture changed to a police artist’s hand-drawn diagram showing the topside of the creature. “We think its antennas play a major role in the creature’s sensory perception so if you can sever these, do so. The creature’s eyes are also an area of vulnerability, as Lt. Tanner will tell you. He threw a harpoon into the first creature’s eye and significantly hampered the beast.”
Tanner felt all eyes on him again and he started to sweat, big drops of perspiration sliding down his back and across his forehead.
“The creature’s mouth is filled with razor-sharp teeth and two fangs we believe deliver a toxin that incapacitates its prey. I made many direct shots into the creature’s mouth with a heavy duty Browning fifty-caliber machine gun and the thing just kept coming on.”
The room fell silent again. It was a desperate kind of silence. Everyone looked around at each other with glazed eyes, their faces full of questions. Tanner smiled. Silva sure knew how to command a room. All the agent was waiting for now was for someone to ask the question Tanner knew would be asked. Probably by some dumbass in a suit.
“So what can we do? Sounds like this thing can’t be killed. How was the first one beaten?” It was the alleged congressman in the suit.
“Glad you asked,” Silva said, smiling. Tanner knew he was mocking the man by the way Silva was smiling, but he and Randy were probably the only ones who recognized it. The picture on the wall changed and this time it showed a diagram of the underside of the beast.
“Aside from fire, this is where our greatest opportunity lies,” Silva said. He pointed to the sea scorpion’s belly. “The plating is thinner here, and it tapers off as it reaches the head. There is a gap there, by the creature’s neck, for lack of a better term.”
“How are we supposed to hit under there?” a Navy man asked. “Is the beast just going to roll over for us?”
“The creature breaches from the water like a whale when it attacks. That’s your opportunity.” Silva looked at Tanner. “Lt. Tanner, do you have anything to add?”
“Just that a strange hum and clicking sound precedes the creature, and it may be your only warning,” Tanner said.
Silva nodded. “OK. If you have mission specific questions, I’ll be available. Please get your assignments from Ensign Peters. Good luck and God speed to all.”
34
The operation, dubbed Scorpion Strike, commenced at the end of the briefing, and as the brass received their orders, they scuttled off to put them into motion. Dan rolled in and wind tore at Long Island and the bay churned in a turbulent mess. Tanner and Randy were assigned to the vanguard that would push the creature into the breach, and a seaman was stationed on Randy’s SAFE boat to operate the sonic weapon and coordinate their attack with naval command aboard the Gridley. The chain of command wasn’t clear, as Tanner was captain of the boat, but the twenty-two-year-old skin-and-bones kid from landlocked Kansas reported to captain of the Gridley, Alveo Sampson. Tanner’s father used to say if you have two bosses, you have none, and Tanner couldn’t shake the feeling this would be a problem if things went to shit.
Tanner had considered trying to get Randy to stay behind, but had decided against it. He needed his best friend and partner by his side and it would be an insult to suggest otherwise. Plus, he didn’t think Randy would listen if he was ordered to stay back. The only person who could give that order and have it followed was Tina, and she loved and respected Randy too much to ever give him that ultimatum. She’d say it was part of being a cop’s wife. Worry was part of the job, and that’s what she’d signed up for. She was one of the toughest people Tanner knew.
The Navy seaman was at the boat when they arrived, and he was tinkering with his toy when Tanner and Randy hopped aboard, rain pelting them and wind tearing at their rain slickers.
“Seaman Second Class Fernandez reporting for duty, sir,” the spindly kid said over the roar of the wind. He wore the blue work uniform of the Navy’s lowest ranks and a skinny black inflatable PFD. Two ribbons hung above his breast pocket. He looked like a Cub Scout ready to go sailing.
Tanner smiled, and worries about the chain of command faded. “Nice to meet you. What do they call you on ship?”
The kid looked at his feet.
“Can’t be that bad,” Randy said.
The seaman looked up. “String Bean.”
Tanner and Randy laughed. “What’s your first name?”
“Leonard.”
“Let’s go with Leo,” Tanner said.
The kid’s smile split his head.
Tanner stowed his gear, a container of ammo, and some food and water. Leo went back to preparing the sonic weapon, and Randy started the motors, pulled their covers, and did a thorough inspection. Last thing they needed was a breakdown when they could least afford it.
Sonic canon and gear secured, Randy piloted the SAFE boat out of the PD marina into the Great South Bay. Leo stood on the bow, his face stuck into the breeze like a bird.
“Eager beaver,” Randy said.
Tanner slid open the pilothouse door and went to join Leo. The wind picked up as they entered the bay and the coastline slid behind them. When Tanner got to the bow, Leo said, “You have a wonderful home. This is an amazing body of water.”
Tanner had never considered the stinky green mud-bottomed lagoon to be amazing, but he also knew familiarity bred contempt, and that he rarely saw the good things even though they were right in front of him. “Yes, it is,” Tanner said. “It once supported a vibrant fishing community, but most of the sea life is gone.”
The kid looked at him with the innocence of a babe. “Why was that allowed to happen?”
“That’s a fantastic question I don’t have a satisfactory answer to. I do, however, have a question for you. What drew a kid from the landlocked state of Kansas to the sea?”
Leo laughed. “You sound like Ma. I couldn’t even swim when I signed up. She told me I was crazy.”
“Why then?”
Leo gazed out across the Great South Bay. “Because of that,” he said.
The motors kicked up as Randy swung the boat southeast and headed for the breach. Boats already searched the inner waterways, and several vessels of various sizes clustered together in the center of the bay. Randy ad
justed course and headed for the cluster of boats. The bay pitched and heaved, and heavy wind pounded the SAFE boat.
Silva was on one of the Navy patrol boats, and he’d be at the front of the vanguard along with Coast Guard SAFE boats, Navy patrol boats, and tactical combat Zodiacs. Most of the vessels were equipped with sonic cannons, along with a myriad of small munitions.
Randy powered down as they came within a quarter mile of the cluster of ships. No sooner had his hand left the throttle than the comm channel crackled to life. “Lt. Tanner, do you copy? This is Commander Tel.”
“Copy, Commander Tel, over,” Tanner said.
“Do your thing then head over to Carey Beach.”
“That’s a 10-4. Tanner out.” Randy brought the boat back up to speed.
Another reason the big boys needed Tanner and Randy was the chum slick, even though Silva had handled that chore on Carmans River. They knew what worked, what the beast liked, and could get the stuff fast, so it had been left to Tanner and Randy to create the slick that would help lure the monster into the breach.
For the job, Randy produced a nasty concoction of fish blood and entrails, decayed squirrel corpses, and a mix of rotten blue mussels, all of which had been fermented in a barrel of brine that broke down the chunks of flesh and bone.
“Tides going out right about now, yes?” Randy said.
Tanner examined his watch. “Aye. We’re about a mile out. I say we start. You?”
“Do it,” Randy said. He pulled back on the throttle and the boat slowed and their wake crashed against the transom, threatening to boil over the gunnel. Tanner wrapped a cloth around his face, covering his nose, before he tore off the lid to the chum barrel. As soon as he opened the container, he coughed and dry heaved, and Leo threw his head over the side, puking. Tanner didn’t look in the barrel as he ladled out the liquid with a Polly-O ricotta cheese container and slowly dumped it into the bay as the SAFE boat crept north toward the mainland.
The smell spread like smoke, and the oily red-black slick floated on the surface of the bay and drifted with the current toward the breach. Pint by pint, Tanner dripped the chum into the water as the SAFE boat churned away from the breach and headed back toward the south shore of Long Island and Carey Beach. When the chum barrel was empty, Tanner washed it out and replaced the top. An oily sheen stretched across the bay and disappeared into the breach, which was now three miles off.
“That slick will attract sharks and other fishies from a hundred miles away,” Randy said.
“No joke. Great white sharks can smell a drop of blood in the water from a mile away,” Tanner said. “Time to head over to Carey. Make it fast.”
“Aye,” Randy said. “All forward,” he yelled to Leo, who stood beside the sonic cannon staring across the bay. “He didn’t hear me.” Randy slowly dropped the throttle, being careful not to unbalance the kid.
The SAFE boat came on plane and Randy pointed it northeast. The trip didn’t take long, and they ripped across the bay and were powering down before Tanner even had a chance to hit the head and take a nip of his flask. The boat came to a rocking stop a hundred yards off shore, and their wake caught up to them and crashed against the back of the boat, sending tiny rolling waves onto the beach.
A sonic cannon was set up on the concrete patio in front of the snack stand, and a chunk of rotting beef lay on the center of the beach, blood sprayed on the sand all around the carcass. Tanner sniffed the wind and caught the scent of rotting flesh. It was hard to tell if it was the rotting meat, or the slick, which seemed to stick in your nose and attach to clothing and hair like fungus despite the heavy wind. Marines assigned to the Gridley hid in the water reeds that separated the beach from the parking area and Svenson’s Marina. Tanner could barely see them as they lay prone, gun muzzles poking through the reeds.
“They’re not screwing around, are they?” Randy asked.
Tanner said nothing. The implication was clear whether Randy meant it to be or not. Would Sal and Jefferson and the others still be alive had Tanner pushed harder to get support rather than take on the beast himself? He soothed himself with the notion that it wouldn’t have mattered. He had requested help and the higher-ups hadn’t thought the crisis worthy of additional resources. Tristin had stretched all support services to the breaking point, and a giant prehistoric shrimp hadn’t rated.
“You agree it’ll come back this way?” Randy said as he settled into the bench at the rear of the pilothouse.
“Most animals return to areas where they’ve had success hunting in the past, and they also return to the same kill several times until they’re finished with it. I can’t imagine that when it gets hungry this won’t be its first stop.”
The pilothouse door slid open and Leo entered. “Here, take these please. Have them handy in case I need to fire up the weapon.” Tanner and Randy took the ear protectors, and the kid smiled, like he’d accomplished something he’d been ordered to do, and left the pilothouse.
Tanner and Randy looked at each other and smiled. Randy said, “Oh, to be young again.”
Two Navy UH-60 Blackhawks running side-by-side roared overhead, flying low as they tore across the Great South Bay. They were heading south toward the breach, and the rumble of their rotors faded as they disappeared into the raging storm clouds in the west. Soon darkness would descend.
Minutes turned into hours as they waited. Hurricane Dan tore up the bay, rolling waves coming at them from every direction, slapping the boat. It rained sideways as the swirling gale tossed and pulled at the SAFE boat. They ate sandwiches of white bread and ham, and they offered the kid one, who took it eagerly and ate it fast and insisted on heading back out to man the sonic cannon.
Tanner flipped off the exterior light switch and the deck and surrounding sea grew dark. He killed the pilothouse house light and leaned back in his command chair, trying to steady himself as the boat pitched and heaved. The glow of the equipment panel lit the room.
Tanner’s father had been a great fisherman, and to most people, he’d brag about the difficulties involved. How it required preparation, strength, smarts, and luck to catch a fish, even a simple rat like a sea robin. To Tanner, he’d been more truthful and confessed the key to fishing was simple and it only required that you have two things: good bait and patience.
Tanner already had the first one covered, and now it was time for patience.
35
Tanner dozed off, and when Randy woke him, shards of moonlight pierced the cloud cover and cast long shadows across the undulating black water. The storm still raged, but it was breaking apart as Dan’s largest spiral rain band cleared the island and gave the battered land a brief respite.
“Daybreak in an hour or so,” Randy said.
That meant the witching hour was approaching. Judging by the creature’s past patterns, the predawn hours would bring the monster from its hiding place in search of food, and with any luck, the chase would be on by sunup. With the storm easing, the monster would be eager to leave its hiding place. A light mist hung over the bay like a blanket, and visibility was limited to five hundred yards.
Leo leaned against the deck railing, all pretenses of his vigil gone. Tanner and Randy had slept in shifts, and nothing of significance had been reported. The beef slab still stunk up the beach, untouched, and marines still hid within the reeds that swayed in the wind. Tanner saw the lights of patrol boats combing Carey Creek, and across the bay ships of all shapes and sizes waited for the guest of honor.
“Not looking too good, are we?” Randy said.
“It’ll turn up. Give it time,” Tanner said.
“We’ve given it fifteen hours.”
“Then get ready to give fifteen more, or however long it takes. I’ll sit here until I’m old and gray if needs be.”
“That don’t mean much,” Randy said. “You’re already old. And gray.”
“Thanks, always good to have the support of a friend.”
Randy laughed. “No worries. I’m alw
ays here for you.”
The radio chimed, and Randy turned up the volume. Tanner slid open a pilothouse window and called out to Leo, “Kid, get in here.”
Leo snapped up like a light switch had been flipped, and the rail-thin young man shot to the wheelhouse, rubbing his eyes.
“In here, kiddie,” Tanner said. Leo nodded, but appeared reluctant to leave the sound cannon. Tanner sighed. “It won’t go nowhere, hurry.”
When Tanner returned to Randy’s side, his friend said, “A Navy drone found it inside Kistover’s boathouse. Right up the street from me.”
“…be cautious and maintain your current position until your vessel is specifically hailed. Maintain radio silence until further notice. We want the command channel clear. All boats designated as group B, fall back to your starting positions and await further instructions. Sound cannon units in group A converge at the mouth of Stony Creek off the coast of Stones Throw. Approach with caution and check in with command onsite for your instructions. No one is to engage the creature without a direct order.”
“Full speed,” Tanner instructed. “Get us there fast, Randy.”
Leo went back out on deck, but not before reminding Tanner and Randy to put on their ear protection. Randy dropped the hammer, and the SAFE boat leapt from the water and drove through the whitecaps. Stones Throw was only three miles east, and as Randy arced the boat toward the mouth of Stony Creek, several boats blocked their way.
Randy powered down and joined the throng blocking the canal entrance. When they got close, the lead Navy Zodiac hailed them. “Tanner, that you?” It was Silva.
“That’s a 10-4. Where do you want us?”
“With me. We’re going to head in and flush the thing out. You game?”
“Right as rain,” Tanner said. If rain felt like acid dripping on your face, he thought. His stomach gurgled like he’d eaten a dozen bad clams and sweat dripped into his eyes. Rubber squealed on rubber as Tanner’s SAFE boat rubbed against Silva’s Zodiac.
The Breach Page 18
