Ocean's Hammer

by D. J. Goodman

  “That’s what I said, and I got a bit of an ass-chewing by one of their higher ups. Apparently not everyone thinks protecting an endangered marine animal sanctuary is worthy of military intervention.”

  “And beached whales are?”

  “No, I think someone just diverted them because they think we meddle too much and wanted to teach us a lesson. They were as shocked as us that this has resulted in the Tetsuo Maru’s sinking.”

  “So how long will it be before any of their ships can reach us?”

  “An hour and a half at the earliest.”

  “An hour and a half,” Maria said, looking out over the currently calm waters. There were still plenty of shadows moving just below the surface, though. “A whole hell of a lot can happen in an hour and a half. What about the engines?”

  Gutierrez made a rude noise. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do. They’re so shot that we’d have a better chance of moving if we slapped the outboard motors from the Zodiacs onto the back.”

  As ideas went, it might have sounded stupid, but the tiny bit of push they’d get that way might be better than nothing. However, if Maria’s theory about Teddy Bear (and she hated that she was now thinking of the shark by that name) was correct, then any attempt at all at them leaving wouldn’t result in them getting far.

  Maria glanced around at the crew of the Tetsuo Maru. A few of the less injured ones were talking quietly to each other in Japanese, but on the whole they were subdued. Maria couldn’t blame them, given what they had just been through. “Is Captain Ito here?” she asked.

  Kevin said nothing for several seconds, only staring down at his feet. Without looking up he said, “A couple of people on the crew say he went down with the ship. He’s certainly not here, at least. I’ve cursed his picture enough that I would recognize him.”

  Maria could tell that his emotions were complex right now. On the one hand the two of them had been nemeses, yet Kevin was not the kind to ever wish death on a person. There might even be a part of Kevin that blamed himself for this. The time for considering that would have to be later, though. Right now they needed to confront the one person in their company who was most responsible.

  Mercer was sitting on the deck near the back, although Maria noticed that she had scooted a healthy distance from the water. Maybe she thought a shark could still jump up and snatch her if she got too close. While a number of the Tetsuo Maru crew members had emergency blankets wrapped around them, Mercer was forced to make do with just her own wet clothing. She shivered furiously and her lips might have been a slight shade of blue. It was almost enough for Maria to feel sorry for her. Almost.

  “Mercer,” Maria called. “Come with us. We’re going to the bridge.”

  “W-w-w-why?” she asked. “I d-d-don’t think I c-c-c-can move.”

  Maria got close enough that only Mercer would be able to hear her. “Because you’re about to tell us everything we want to know. And if you don’t, well, there are a large number of Japanese sailors around us right now who are probably too shell-shocked to realize you’re the one who tried to kill them.”

  “What? That wasn’t what we were trying…”

  “It doesn’t fucking matter what you were trying to do. All that matters is what you actually did. And how much revenge they might want if they find out you’re the reason a bunch of their friends died.”

  Diane Mercer stared at her for several seconds as though she couldn’t believe that anyone would talk to her like that. Then she slowly stood, her legs shaking so bad they could barely keep her up, and silently followed Maria and Kevin to the bridge. Vandergraf and Gary tried to follow them, Gary with the camera once again on his shoulder, but Kevin told them in no uncertain terms that recording was over. Maria was sure they would take that as more of a general suggestion than an order. For now, though, they at least relented. Gary even went up to the Gutsdorfs and asked them if there was anything he could do for the Japanese crewman, but Maria followed Kevin and Mercer to the bridge before she could see if Vandergraf followed his example and acted like a halfway decent person. Simon directed them while Cindy followed everyone else to the bridge.

  Given the excitement and chaos of the last half hour the silence currently hanging over the bridge felt eerie, a reminder that something beyond their normal experience was out there and following some natural animal agenda they didn’t yet understand. They let Mercer sit on a stool near the helm, but that was the only comfort they afforded her. It was still probably more than she deserved.

  “Okay, time to talk,” Maria said to her.

  “Talk about what?” Mercer said sheepishly, quietly, almost as though she wasn’t sure at all what trouble she could possibly be in. Maria remembered the way she had been acting that morning and compared it to the coldly calculating way her and Murphy had blown up a ship full of people. The time to believe her dumb and innocent act was over.

  “Is Diane Mercer even your real name?” Maria asked.

  “Of course it is,” Mercer said. “Why would I have given you a different name?”

  “If Mercer is your real name then you’re an idiot,” Maria said. “Because you can be damned sure that we would have reported your name to the authorities, and you even said it on camera where it was supposed to air throughout all of the U.S. But I don’t think you’re an idiot. Well, I still do, but not that big of an idiot. So let’s try again. What’s your name?”

  For a second, Mercer looked like she was going to continue with the confused blonde act. Then it slipped away. Her eyes went cold and her mouth tightened into a grim line. “I’m not telling you my real name.”

  “Well, at least we’ve got that much out of you,” Maria said. “So fine, we don’t really even need your real name right now. When you’re arrested, the cops will eventually figure it out for themselves. How about this then: who were you working with? Other than shark food out there?”

  Mercer’s grim look temporarily turned to one of horror, and out of the corner of her eye Maria thought she could even see Kevin grimace. The last thing Maria wanted to be was flippant about the death of another human being, but she needed to get past Mercer’s defenses. And no matter how much of everything else they had done was an act, Maria was still sure that Mercer and Murphy had really been lovers.

  “Are you sure he’s not still out there?” Mercer asked. “Maybe he got away at the last second. If you send another boat out—”

  “Maybe you missed it while you were being flung in the air, but I saw it very clearly. Murphy’s dead.” She paused, judging whether her next words were sincere, and decided they were. “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh God,” Mercer said, putting her face in her hands and suppressing a sob. “This wasn’t the way this was supposed to go. None of this. We were told it would be different.”

  Kevin and Maria both exchanged a glance. She supposed it was possible she was still acting, but the girl seemed legitimately torn up and confused. Maria nodded, indicating to Kevin that it was time for him to take over with a good cop side to their act. “Who, Diane?” Kevin asked. “Who was giving you orders?”

  “Uh, I’m not sure if it was really anyone giving orders,” Mercer said. “More like they were giving us a strong suggestion. And then making sure we had everything we needed. They said the bomb wouldn’t be powerful enough to hurt anyone. It was just supposed to send a message.”

  “But who, Diane?”

  “One Planet, of course.”

  Maria frowned. “No one in One Planet would ever condone this kind of action. No one. One Planet was specifically formed to be an alternative to environmental groups that were getting a little too drastic in their techniques.”

  “Well, that’s who the guy said he was with. He said he was a representative of what One Planet really meant.”

  “No, Mercer,” Maria said. “No one on this ship or with the One Planet organization would ever condone terrorism as a means to an end.”

  “Whoever he was, he sounded convincing
enough to us. We both wanted to do something more than just stand in the way as another asshole raped the planet. This guy gave us the instructions on how to make the bomb and what to do with it.”

  “Did he ever give you a name?” Kevin asked.

  “No. He said it would be better that way. He was wearing a suit when he came to us, though. An expensive one.”

  “And that wasn’t your first clue that something was out of the ordinary?” Maria asked. “I’ve never in my life met a One Planet volunteer who would be caught dead in a suit. They tend to prefer Birkenstocks and tie-dyed shirts.”

  Mercer looked at her as though this was the first time this had occurred to her. “I suppose.”

  “Any other details you can give us?” Kevin asked. “The more cooperative you are at getting us out of this mess, the more likely that the authorities will give you some leeway.”

  “You think so?” Mercer asked. Maria didn’t think so at all, but Mercer wasn’t the only one who could lie.

  “Yeah, I do,” Maria said. “Any other details at all.”

  “Um, he had short brown hair. Very skinny. Fat chin. Oh, and I thought I saw a tattoo on his arm.”

  “What kind of tattoo?” Kevin asked.

  “I couldn’t really tell. It was mostly covered up by the sleeve of his suit, but a little bit of it was poking out near his wrist. Looked like it possibly could have been tribal.”

  Maria didn’t think any of that was going to be useful, but Mercer should still have had one more piece of information they needed. “What were you supposed to do after the bomb went off?”

  “There was a rendezvous point. Dave, uh, I mean Kirk had a GPS and we were supposed to meet them at specific coordinates not too far from here.”

  She gave them the coordinates and Kevin checked them against their current position. Unfortunately whoever was supposed to come pick them up would be just out of visual range for them.

  “Was there any other way you were able to communicate with them?” Maria asked. “A specific radio channel or something?”

  “No, we weren’t supposed to have any extra contact with them. Once we met with them, they were supposed to take us back to the U.S. and make sure we wouldn’t get into any trouble.”

  “And you believed them?” Kevin asked.

  “Of course we did. Why wouldn’t we?”

  Maria knew that Kevin was more than smart enough to come to the same conclusion she did. Murphy and Mercer hadn’t been anything more than patsies. They probably would have never showed back up in the United States. And One Planet would have taken all the blame for the attack, being labeled as ecoterrorists one and all of them.

  And Maria’s hope that they could use Mercer’s escape plan for their own rescue was futile. They weren’t going to get any help from that avenue. Instead, they were stranded here until the Mexican Navy arrived.

  11

  After much debate, they decided it wouldn’t do any good to lock Mercer up somewhere on the ship. Any damage she could do was already done, and there was nowhere she could escape to. They were now her only hope to survive, and they made sure to emphasize that when they directed her to help the others with whatever they might need. Once Cindy escorted Mercer away that left Maria and Kevin alone on the bridge to try to make scientific sense of everything they had seen today.

  “I’m not even sure where we should begin,” Maria said.

  “Let’s just start by figuring out what questions we even need answered, starting from the beginning,” Kevin said. “First one, how did all the hammerheads suddenly reappear at El Bajo when they should be all but gone?”

  “Second question,” Maria said. “Why are they so aggressive? Hammerheads don’t usually see people as food. They might attack if they feel threatened, but most of what we were doing today had nothing to do with them.”

  “Right. And then there’s the third question, literally the biggest and scariest one of all. Where did Teddy Bear come from and what does he or she have to do with everything else?”

  “Oh dear God, Kevin. Please tell me you’re not calling it Teddy Bear as well.”

  “It’s as good a name as any other.”

  “No, it’s really not.”

  “Look, that’s not important.”

  Maria sighed. “I guess it’s not. Here’s another question, and I have to wonder if it’s the most important one of all. Are the answers to all three of the previous questions the same?”

  “We can’t make that assumption,” Kevin said, but he paused before continuing. “Yet it does seem likely. There’s too many strange things at once for them to be unrelated.”

  “Did you get a good look at, uh, Teddy Bear at any point? Or the behavior of the other sharks?”

  “No, can’t say I did. I was a bit too busy trying to deal with the other crisis.”

  “Well I did. And I’ve got a hypothesis. It’s crazy, but it’s the only thing I can think of so far that matches the facts.”

  “And that is?”

  “We could always try to say that Teddy Bear is just one freakishly large hammerhead of some unknown sub-species that just so happened to come along for the ride when all the other sharks decided to come back, but I don’t think that’s the case. I think Teddy Bear is the one that’s causing this.”

  “You think she’s, what, the leader of the other hammerheads? Don’t you think that’s a little far-fetched?”

  “No, I think it’s very far-fetched. Almost but not quite as far-fetched as a giant, previously undetected version of an endangered species.”

  “Okay, I’ll take that point. But what proof do you have for your hypothesis?”

  “The first is the fact that all the other hammerheads seem to go into a frenzy that only stops when Teddy Bear itself does something. The timing can’t be a coincidence.”

  “Okay, there’s that. What else?”

  “The hammerheads are more organized than they have any right to be. You’ve taught me practically everything you know about sharks by now. And as far as cetaceous creatures go sharks are fairly smart, but they shouldn’t be smart enough to coordinate attacks like that. Nothing we’ve been able to observe so far about any of the other sharks is out of the ordinary. Teddy Bear is the only x-factor.”

  “That we know of. There could always still be something below the surface here that we haven’t seen yet.”

  “Okay, I’ll give you that. There’s one other thing, though. Teddy’s Bears attacks so far haven’t followed the same patterns as those of the other sharks.”

  “There’s only been two that we’ve seen. That’s hardly a reliable data sample.”

  “True, but those two have both been remarkably similar. Think about it. When did Teddy Bear attack the first time?”

  “When Murphy and Mercer were just about to get away.”

  “And the second time?”

  Kevin looked like he was starting to be convinced. “When you and the others got close to the point where Murphy and Mercer were.”

  “It seems to me that Teddy Bear is corralling us. It doesn’t necessarily need to be the one doing that. It may be big and fast, but it would be more efficient if other sharks were keeping us from escaping.”

  “Okay, now you’re starting to get unrealistic again,” Kevin said. “You’re attributing motives to it that it can’t realistically have.”

  “How do we know what motives it can and can’t have? We’ve never seen anything like it before. We don’t actually have any real idea of what it’s capable of.”

  Kevin stood staring out the window and thought about that for a minute. “So let’s say for a moment that we go with everything you’re saying,” he finally said. “What would that mean if we put it all together?”

  “I think it means that Teddy Bear is somehow controlling all the other sharks. It may be smart enough to have specific reasons and maybe even a plan. And keeping us from leaving is part of that plan.”

  “You do realize that is the kind of leap in logic that
wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny in any scientific journal, right?”

  “Well, I’m not the scientist here, technically. Not yet. That would be you. Do your science. Poke holes in my theory.”

  Kevin nodded but said nothing. He went back to staring out the window where a few dorsal fins had resurfaced and appeared to once more be circling the Cameron. Maria waited for nearly a minute for him to reply, but he had gone off into his own little world. She’d seen him in this state before. He was taking all the data and examining it from every angle. He would stay that way for some time unless she interrupted his train of thought. For now, she thought that would be a mistake. Instead, she left him alone and went back out on the deck.

  The somber mood of before had given way to one of restlessness. Maria could hear it in the quiet but angry murmurs of the Japanese crew as she stepped out into the sun. As she walked past them, several of the men gave her the stink eye, and one or two even looked outright hostile.

  “Do I want to know what’s going on?” Maria asked Cindy, keeping her voice low in case any of the castaways could understand her.

  “My understanding of Japanese is spotty,” Cindy said, “but Simon thinks he’s watched enough anime that he thinks he understands the gist of it. They’re angry.”

  “Well, yes. That part I was able to figure out without knowing any Japanese myself. And they have the right to be.”

  “But Simon thinks they’re angry at us. No one has explained to them yet what happened.”

  “That’s because we’re only sort of starting to understand it ourselves.”

  “They do know that we’re the ones who usually keep them from fishing in these waters, though, so it makes sense that they would blame us. And I think a few of them have finally recognized Mercer as the one who put the bomb on their hull. No one has explained to them yet that she’s not really with us.”

  “Christ,” Maria muttered. She was going to have to go back to the bridge and get Kevin to come out here and give them some kind of explanation, or at least one that would keep them from doing anything rash until they could all get rescued. She was just about to go back when one of the men shouted and began pointing out over the sea. Maria didn’t need to speak his language to understand what had suddenly gotten him so excited. There was a speck on the horizon that was getting bigger. Even without the binoculars, Maria knew that it had to be a ship.