Meg

by Steve Alten

  “Gonna be a lot of floaters,” Monty said. “You’d better shut the canal doors, or the tide’ll bring them right into the lagoon. Am I right, Cyel, or am I right?”

  “Don’t get used to it, Cuckoo’s Nest. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.” The engineer stepped down into the cockpit, trailing a long power cord. He opened a compartment on the center console and connected the charger to the fuel cell outlet. “Why’s the damn carpet all wet? And who hurled all over my sonar? I’m sure as shit not cleaning this up.”

  “Relax, old man, I’ll do it tomorrow.”

  “It’s my fault,” Jackie said. “I drowned. David brought me back … he saved my life.” She turned to him, her hair entangled, her clothing still wet. “Is there someplace we can talk in private?”

  “Sure.” He led her through the work area and grabbed an old hooded sweatshirt hanging on a hook, handing it to Jackie, who was shivering.

  “Thanks.” She removed her wet top and handed it to him, leaving on her bra. He admired her body as she pulled the sweatshirt over her head, recalling their first night together aboard the Mogamigawa.

  He had been in the throes of a night terror when she had knocked on his cabin door, wearing only a loose-fitting gray sleeping shirt offering tantalizing hints of her naked breasts pressing beneath the thin cotton fabric.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “My cabin’s next door; you were screaming.”

  “Bad dream.” He sat on the edge of the bed, shivering.

  She searched through a pile of clothing, pulling out a clean shirt. “Put this on.”

  He pulled off the wet T-shirt, revealing an athlete’s muscular upper torso … and the thick three-inch red scars embedded along the palm-side of each wrist. He redressed quickly, covering the evidence of his attempted suicide with the wet T-shirt.

  “David, there’s no need to be embarrassed. It’s just a scar.”

  “It’s a little more than a scar, don’t you think?”

  “Only if you continue to dwell upon it. Give yourself a break.”

  “You sound like my shrink.”

  “Been there, done that. Antidepressants … alcohol therapy. You’d be amazed how normal you are compared to the rest of us. Back at Brown, all I cared about was filling out my resume―scared to death I wouldn’t be able to find a job after graduating. I spent three years as a professional dancer while I was an undergrad, just in case the whole marine biology deal fell through. I think the crown prince chose me more for my legs than my grade point average.” She stood on her toes, her leg muscles flexing as she assumed a ballet pose, her raised arms causing her shirt to ride up her hips, revealing a flash of her shaved vagina.

  David’s heart pounded in his chest, the blood rushing to his groin.

  “So, what was it about?”

  “What was what about?”

  “The nightmare. Do you get them often?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I know a cure; guaranteed to get you seven hours of sleep a night.”

  “I don’t like sleeping pills, they make me feel weird.”

  “Who said anything about a pill? I was talking about sex.” In one motion, she pulled the gray shirt over her head, revealing her naked body.

  “We work in a stress-filled environment, David, filled with very real scary monsters. At the end of a long day I need to let loose. I’m not interested in love; this is purely about preventing nightmares.”

  “By having sex?”

  “No. By fucking each other’s brains out before we go to sleep. Think you can handle that? Or would you rather take an Ambien?”

  Jackie glanced at the University of Florida decal on the sweatshirt. “U of F―is this where you graduated from?”

  “I came up one or two semesters short.”

  “You should go back and finish.”

  “When the time’s right.”

  “Let’s talk outside.” She led him out the main entrance onto the pier.

  Dark waves rolled beneath the dock. In the distance were two Coast Guard cutters, their powerful search lights cutting white swaths across the sea, directing smaller vessels.

  “David … when the whale went berserk … everything happened so quickly. But when I was trapped along the framework beneath the hold’s ceiling, watching the water rise … I had time to think. I thought about my life … what would I change if I could. I thought about us.”

  “When the water rose higher, I had my face pressed to the ceiling … I was so scared. I took my last breath―realizing it was my last breath―and that’s when I saw the Manta’s lights and swam toward them … not because I expected to be rescued―I honestly didn’t know you could do what you did. I swam to you because I wanted you to be the last person I saw before I died.”

  He hugged her, feeling her sob against his chest. “It’s okay. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  She choked out a laugh. “You’re so young.”

  “Hey, I’m only three years younger than you.”

  “I didn’t mean your chronological age. You’re still so young in that the world hasn’t shit on you yet. I’ve been on my own since I was fourteen. I’ve seen the ugly side of life. Believe me, with what happened today … things are going to get ugly.”

  “Whatever. We’ll deal with it a day at a time. First thing we have to do is get you some clothes. We can go to my parents’ house and borrow some of my sister’s stuff.”

  She pulled his face to hers and they kissed briefly―David pulling away.

  “Sorry, I forgot my breath still smells.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Carmel, California

  THE RIDE FROM THE TANAKA INSTITUTE’S parking lot to the home of Jonas and Terry Taylor took twenty minutes, the last two miles through a private neighborhood that hugged the cliffs overlooking one of the most breathtaking coastlines in the world.

  A gated driveway wound around to a series of garages and the second story entrance of the Taylors’ 4,600-square-foot, four-bed-room, five-bath home. David parked his Jeep off to the side, then led Jackie to the solid oak front door.

  He had a key, but he knocked anyway, not wanting to disturb his parents.

  His mother answered, wearing a red kimono bathrobe and sadness in her almond eyes.

  Her face lit up when she saw her son. “David, thank God. Where have you been? I’ve been calling you for the last five hours.”

  “My phone got a little wet. You remember Jackie.”

  “Hi, Mrs. Taylor. As you can see, everything got a little wet.”

  “Leave your shoes outside and come in. Your father and I have been worried sick. Did you hear about the Tonga?”

  Jackie nodded as she untied her shoes. “I was on board when it went down. Your son saved my life.”

  “Did he now?”

  “I happened to be in the neighborhood.” David tossed his wet running shoes and socks by the stoop and entered his parent’s home.

  Terry watched the strawberry-blond squeeze the water out of her son’s socks and then set both pairs of shoes neatly by the stoop.

  The Taylors’ home was a U-shaped glass-and-stone-walled structure perched on a bluff overlooking Otter Cove. The house was split into two wings with nearly half its foundation built within the cliff, divided by a courtyard and a long connecting curved-glass hall which looked out onto the crashing Pacific.

  The upper floor of the estate was decorated in polished marble, the main hall divided by a grand staircase. To the left were three bedrooms and two full bathrooms, to the right a master suite and gym.

  David turned as his father made his way up the stairs. “Hey, Dad. Don’t hug me, I’m all wet.”

  “I don’t care.” Jonas embraced his son, kissing him on the cheek. “Are you kids hungry? We just ate, but there’s plenty left over.”

  “Thanks, absolutely. We’ll shower and come down.”

  Terry took over. “Jonas, go change your shirt, you’re all wet. Jackie, come with me, we’ll find s
omething of Dani’s for you to wear.”

  She led Jackie down the hall to the left and inside the first bedroom on the right.

  “Oh, wow.” A queen-size bed faced French doors leading out to a balcony―she could hear the waves crashing twenty feet below. To the right was a sitting area with a stone fireplace; to the left a walk-in closet and a large bathroom which connected with a guest room.

  “You look to be about my daughter’s size … help yourself. I’ll put out some fresh towels; come downstairs when you are ready.”

  “Thank you.”

  Terry removed several body towels from a linen closet and left them on the double marble sink, exiting through the guest bedroom. Heading back down the hall, she entered the master suite.

  The entire west wall of the Taylor’s bedroom was made of glass which looked out to a cove. Jonas was sitting on the edge of the king-size bed, talking to his son, who was seated on the polished wood floor across from the stone fireplace. He looked up as Terry entered. “I told him.”

  “Mom …” David’s eyes were flush with tears.

  “It’s okay. We’ll find a course of action that works, and that will be that.”

  “Are you guys still moving to Boca?”

  “Once your mother is well.”

  “David, go shower. You’re leaving wet marks all over my floor. When you’re done, bring all of your wet clothes to the laundry room and I’ll wash them. Will your girlfriend be spending the night?”

  “Yes, only she’s not my girlfriend.”

  “But I thought―”

  “It’s complicated, Mom. Jackie could have stayed here in California and worked with me; instead she decided to go back to Dubai to care for the Lio. I’m not sure the tanker sinking really changes anything.”

  Terry turned to Jonas. “David saved her life.”

  “And the Lio escaped … oh, boy.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Mom, don’t start in with the karma stuff. Jackie’s really upset; a lot of people died today and she’s blaming herself.”

  “Why, David? What happened on board the Tonga?”

  “Brutus went berserk, Mom … that’s all I know.”

  Jonas glanced out the floor-to-ceiling windows as the waning three-quarter moon rose above a cluster of clouds, revealing dark swells rolling into Otter Cove. “Go shower, kid. We’ll figure things out in the morning.”

  * * *

  Shadows danced in the lunar light, causing a striped shore crab to scurry sideways on its hind legs and seek refuge beneath an outcropping of rock.

  The seagull circled twice before landing on the wood rail of a narrow footpath. Steps led from a patch of lawn behind the Taylors home, down the cliff face, to an oasis of beach nestled amidst jagged formations of rock.

  The bird stood vigil, waiting for the algae carried by the incoming tide to lure its meal out of hiding.

  Well aware of its precarious place on the food chain, the crab fed as it waited for the incoming tide to wash ashore and conceal its getaway.

  Ebb and flow … risk and reward … life and death―such was the balance of nature.

  A mile to the north and 4,000 feet below the surface, the members of a different food chain gathered to feast upon an unexpected bounty.

  The Monterey Bay Submarine Canyon is an anomaly of geology. Fanning out over sixty miles of seafloor and extending as far west as the Farallon Islands, the trench runs deeper than the Grand Canyon and possesses twisting chasms more than a mile deep that slice through the shallows like the gnarled fingers of a groping hand.

  One of these jagged channels stretches southeast across the subduction zone of the North American Plate and ends a mere 187 feet short of the entrance to the Tanaka Lagoon’s canal. Follow the chasm’s sheer vertical walls nearly two miles down and you’ll arrive at a seafloor buried in sediment that dates back 1.8 million years to the Pleistocene Era.

  * * *

  The Tonga had plunged 9,152 feet before her stern had struck bottom. The impact had collapsed her superstructure, leaving the tanker leaning bow-up against the chasm wall.

  Spread out around the site of the wreck were the bodies of two dozen members of the supertanker’s crew and another sixteen civilians. Unable to escape the sinking ship’s weight displacement, they had been dragged underwater and drowned, their lungs filling with water, the depth’s crushing embrace squeezing the air from their sinus passages.

  For twelve hours, the Tonga’s dead had rested on the bottom, the corpses undergoing chemical changes from within.

  Anaerobic bacteria originating from the large intestines decomposed protein and sugars within the tissues, releasing carbon and sulfur dioxide. These gases inflated the faces and abdomens of the dead, as well as the men’s genitalia and the women’s breasts.

  By 6 a.m., the bodies began dancing off the bottom as if they were marionettes on a string.

  The movement did not go unnoticed.

  Since its capture a month before, the Liopleurodon had been fed daily at 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. To keep the creature “feisty” for his potential investors, the crown prince had instructed Jacqueline Buchwald to skip the prior day’s feeding and provide its next meal at 4 p.m. when his guests were scheduled to be on board.

  Daylight had chased the pliosaur and its sensitive nocturnal eyes into the depths; hunger forced it to feed. Having never hunted on its own, the twelve-foot-long, thousand-pound juvenile simply bull rushed every life form in its path―a strategy easily detected by its prey.

  Fourteen hours after escaping captivity, the Lio barely had enough energy to propel itself along the canyon floor in order to breathe.

  Instinct had led it back to the tanker, its senses homing in on electrical discharges generated by the shifting metal. It had been circling the wreck when the first body lifted away from the bottom.

  The creature appeared to be injured; its movements slow and languished. Wasting no time, the Lio charged, its open jaws snatching the woman’s corpse around the waist, its teeth puncturing clear through the soft, rotting flesh. Zigging and zagging along the seafloor, the pliosaur shook its head as it fed, trailing clouds of blood and unraveling intestines.

  The sudden influx of fat and protein re-energized the Lio. Swooping back and forth through the debris, it snatched the severed lower torso by its left leg, gnawing its way through the buttocks and pelvic bone before it could swallow.

  So consumed was the Lio with its meal that it failed to detect the threat entering its kill zone.

  Moonlight had summoned the school of Humboldt squid up from the depths to feed upon krill. As large as an adult human, each cephalopod possessed eight lightning-quick tentacles, two longer sucker-equipped feeder arms, and a razor-sharp, parrot-like beak that could slash and devour its prey like a buzz saw. They were fast creatures, able to jettison either head or tentacles-first at speeds up to twenty-five knots. Highly intelligent, the squid were ferocious fighters―especially when hunting in schools.

  The arrival of dawn had chased the nocturnal creatures back into the canyon. Detecting the disturbance along the seafloor, they homed in on the source, their bioluminescent flesh flashing from red to white to startle their enemy.

  Sensing the swarming pack, the Liopleurodon secured the remains of its meal in its jaws and sped away, its forward limbs churning up the bottom with each powerful stroke.

  The squid were suddenly everywhere at once. Suctioned tentacles tugged at the human leg held tightly within the Lio’s clenched jowls, stripping it down to the bone. Sharp beaks tore into the pliosaur’s hide, causing it to snap at its attackers. It caught a six-foot Humboldt in its jaws and bit through the succulent flesh as the wounded creature released a burst of brown ink―a defense mechanism that chased off several attackers, which were quickly replaced by a dozen more.

  The Lio fled, hugging the seafloor to protect its soft underbelly from being ravaged. It could not see―its sensitive eyes blinded by the squids’ flashing bioluminescence and the silt it was stirri
ng up with each stroke of its forelimbs. Through the chaos, its senses detected an electrical discharge and it headed for that.

  It was the Tonga, the ship’s keel towering upright against the wall of the chasm. The pliosaur entered the tanker through the gap in its stern, the Humboldt squid in pursuit.

  The predators quickly broke off the attack, the metallic surroundings scrambling their senses. Unable to relocate the hold opening, they bashed their bodies against the steel plates in an attempt to escape.

  Banking in tight circles, the Lio charged through the swirling dervish of luminescent bodies, its stiletto-sharp fangs puncturing tentacles and crushing heads as the pliosaur gorged itself on squid.

  Smacking its crocodilian mouth, it swallowed the morsels of soft flesh caught between its teeth as it rose through the Tonga’s flooded hold, gauging its new surroundings. Reaching the summit, it stroked its forelimbs along the metal surface of the bow, searching for a way out. Eventually it gave up and descended, urinating inside the tanker to mark its territory before locating the patch of seafloor that designated the opening of its new habitat.

  CHAPTER 4

  Monterey, California

  THE LAW OFFICES OF CUBIT AND CUBIT had locations in Fort Lauderdale and San Francisco, but the firm’s founder and senior partner preferred to work out of a modest two-story stucco dwelling on Lighthouse Avenue in downtown Monterey. For the fifty-five-year-old attorney, convenience had always outweighed ego. His home was a seven-minute ride from his reserved parking spot. The high school gymnasium where his son, Matthew, played varsity basketball was a six-minute walk from his office. His daughter, Kamilla’s, dance studio was located next to his favorite Italian restaurant―and his biggest client’s aquarium remained a ten-minute drive from everything―depending, of course, if the facility was open.

  Open or not, with the Taylor family, it always seemed like there was legal work to be done.

  Thomas Mark Cubit waited patiently while his law clerk set up the four-way Skype call. “Hello? This is Heather Dugan with Cubit and Cubit.”