Meg

by Steve Alten

  He exhaled an exasperated breath. “Thirty seconds.”

  “You don’t need nets or subs or crazy sub pilots, or a converted oil tanker to haul the captured creatures back to California. All we’d need is the shell of a Dragon Pod and a few basic design changes.”

  Reaching into the right pants pocket of her jumpsuit, she removed a folded sheet of paper and handed it to Dr. Hon. “This is what I thought you had created the Dragon Pods to do.”

  He unfolded a rough hand drawn blueprint of an empty, porous Dragon Pod shell. The end cap located along its south pole was sealed and completely clear while the north cap was anchored on hinges that allowed it to swing in.

  “What is this?”

  “It’s an animal trap. You bait it and lower it by cable down the access hole into the Panthalassa Sea. The predator smells the bait, swims inside and is trapped. The cable is reversed, the trap stays in the water beneath the boat’s keel and the next trap is lowered. Remote cameras can be used to target specific species―if you already have enough Helicoprion or Mosasaurs, you simply lock the cage. When you fill your allotment of traps you set sail for home. No nets, no special transport ships are required―all you need is a single Sting Ray to guide the trap down the Mariana Trench’s access hole and the pod does the rest.”

  Johnny Hon’s eyes widened. “Simple, inexpensive, minimal risks … genius. I had teams of engineers working on this for months. How long―”

  “About an hour. I was lying in bed, trying to figure out the function of the Dragon Pods; this was the only thing that made any sense.”

  “Incredible.”

  “It’s the breasts; they give me a super high I.Q. How long would it take your engineers to construct something like this?”

  “Not long. We have several empty shells at our plant in Chengdu. As for a surface ship, one of our science vessels returned two weeks ago from the Indian Ocean; it is in Hangzhou and could easily be refitted with cables long enough to reach the Panthalassa. Give me a week … ten days at the most; Dulce, this is very exciting.”

  “But you need my services now. Tell you what … have your assistant write up a simple agreement, we’ll both sign it, and I’ll give a copy to Jonas and email one to Mac back at the institute. That way, if anything should happen to me―”

  Dr. Hon shook her hand. “I will honor our arrangement, you have my word.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Point Bennett, San Miguel Island

  The Channel Islands

  THEY HAD BEEN CAMPED OUT on the island for more than seventy-two hours―twenty-four men, four helicopter pilots, two female cooks … and Jacqueline Buchwald. Extensive prep work during the first afternoon had hastened the night. From dusk to dawn the tanker’s sonar array had tracked the Liopleurodon as it entered the deeper waters to the south of San Miguel and Santa Rosa Islands, the bio-transmitter’s pulse flare-ups indicating when the nocturnal predator was hunting.

  For twelve hours the four teams had taken up positions behind sand hills positioned around the buried net, each man armed with a high-powered tranquilizer rifle and three injection darts holding twelve ounces of phenobarbital. As temperatures dipped and a thirty-knot wind chill dropped conditions to a frigid thirty-six degrees Fahrenheit, Jackie realized how ill-prepared they were for the “Lio stakeout.”

  By midnight, she was shaking so badly she could barely hold her radio; by 3 a.m. she was running a high fever.

  And still their quarry remained at sea.

  Sunrise marked the end of Day One’s futility―and the presence of the Mogamigawa on the western horizon a mere five miles from shore. Was the Lio aware of the tanker’s presence? Is that what had kept the creature from feasting upon the elephant seal rookery?

  Not wanting to take a chance, she ordered the captain to move the Mogamigawa fifteen nautical miles to the northeast into the Santa Barbara Channel. She knew there was risk in distancing the landing party from the ship―especially if they actually managed to net the beast. But with herself and her team already exhausted and weak with flu-like symptoms after only one night, she knew the clock was ticking.

  One of the helicopters was sent back to the tanker to bring more blankets and medicine. By midday, most of the elephant seals chased off by their arrival had returned. If the massive pinnipeds were aware of the buried net, they gave no indication.

  Having pulled an all-nighter, Jackie and the crew had slept most of the day, some preferring the helicopters’ cramped cargo spaces while others dragged their sleeping bags out onto the rise away from the seals. Latrines were initially set up twenty paces behind each airship, but by sunset of Day Two, the crew was digging holes anywhere they could find a vacant stretch of sand.

  By sunset the teams were back in place―fed, armed, and ready.

  The Lio was moving with the night, circling in the shallows off Cardwell Point, an elephant seal rookery located on the east side of the island. At 1:13 a.m. the creature came ashore, the guttural screeches of the pinnipeds heard miles away by their brethren at Point Bennett.

  Several of Jackie’s men wanted to go after the Lio, but she ordered them to stay. “Even if you managed to drug Junior, what good would that do? It will take all four helicopters to lift her and she has to be secured in the net which means she has to come to us.”

  The sounds of the slaughter mercifully ended forty minutes later, the Liopleurodon returning to the sea just before the eastern horizon turned gray.

  Exhausted, but needing to inspect the carnage for herself, Jackie led an armed patrol by foot along the island’s southern shoreline. They arrived at Cardwell Point just after sunrise, the golden hue of a new day bathing the bloody scene in its most gruesome detail.

  The Lio had not maimed to eat, it had bitten and crushed and bled the elephant seals to immobilize them in order to prevent their escape … then it had feasted. The carnage began in the crimson-stained shallows where partially-chewed mounds of gushing blubber bobbed in the surf. It continued onto the wet sand where the creature had come ashore. Its immense girth had flattened its victims, splattering their remains in a twenty-foot-wide, three-foot-deep impression that ran up the beach like the imprints of a squadron of tanks.

  It had gorged in the dry sand, its immense jaws snatching the slow-moving mammals, which had no choice but to flee inland. Half eaten carcasses skewered from deep puncture wounds left by the Lio’s stiletto-sharp fangs carpeted the beach.

  Not all the elephant seals had been eaten. Those that merely had bones crushed grunted in agony as they waited to die, their remains picked at by cormorants and other sea birds.

  Jackie attempted to estimate the Lio’s size and weight by the imprints left in the sand while trying her best not to vomit. Hearing her name being called, she looked up to see two of the men waving at her fifty yards inland along the periphery of the carnage.

  She did not recognize the remains as human until she was nearly upon it.

  The victim was a Caucasian male, approximately five feet, ten inches tall and weighing just under two hundred pounds. From his salt and pepper hair he looked to be in his mid-forties. An expensive Nikon camera with a night vision lens hung from a strap around his neck.

  Jackie did not realize he had been bitten in half until she raised his parka to check his pants pocket for a wallet and identification, finding instead a pile of fly-infested entrails.

  “Oh my God―” She turned away, stumbled toward the man’s camouflaged tent and vomited.

  One of her crew located the victim’s lower body in the tall grass. In his wallet was a New Hampshire driver’s license which identified him as Rob Shur. A family photo tucked inside his wallet showed Rob posing with his wife and their teenage daughter and younger son at a Star Wars convention.

  Jackie wiped the photo clear of any fingerprints and carefully returned it to the wallet.

  The victim’s presence at the rookery was a major problem. Had Rob Shur traveled to San Miguel alone? If not, where were the other members of his pa
rty? Were they still alive? Were they in hiding? If alone, how had he arrived? Either way, others certainly knew of his whereabouts, which meant at some point Rob Shur would be reported missing.

  That would bring the Coast Guard.

  Keeping the Farallon Islands attack a secret was one thing; the death of an American civilian on an island so close to the California mainland was something else entirely. If Jackie could capture the beast before word got out, then there would be no problem; if she reported Rob Shur’s death, then the Coast Guard would take over.

  Would they allow her to remain on San Miguel to spring the trap or would they force her to leave?

  “Damaris, have your crew cover both sections of this man’s corpse with seal remains. We’re heading back to camp in three minutes―make sure we leave no evidence that shows we were ever here.”

  Aboard the Yellow Dragon

  Western Pacific

  Catherine Ying stared at the rough sketch Dr. Hon had handed her, incredulous. “The female pilot created this?”

  “Her name is Dulce.”

  “Could something so simple actually work?”

  “My father taught me long ago that the simpler the design, the better the results. Contact Dr. Li at our assembly plant in Chengdu. Tell him I want a prototype loaded aboard the Kexue by next week.”

  “Sir, if this trap actually works and we catch something, what are you going do with it?”

  “Let me worry about that, Catherine. Scan the paper and make the calls. If you need me I’ll be in my office watching the DP-2 launch.”

  “Yes, sir.” Laying the sketch flat, she snapped a photo of it with her iPhone, registering the gust of air at her back as Dr. Hon exited the Command Center.

  Pocketing her iPhone, she crossed the chamber to the unisex bathroom and locked herself inside. She entered a stall and sat down, then scrolled her phone for Stefanie Smith’s contact information.

  “It’s Catherine. Are you still working for the crown prince?”

  “Yes. What have you got?”

  “A means to stock every tank in Dubai-Land with little risk and at a fraction of the cost.”

  Quatsino Sound

  Vancouver Island, B.C.

  The 28-foot fishing boat bobbed gently against the starboard bow of the Marieke, the hopper-dredge’s bright lime-green hull dwarfing the tiny vessel. The Carolina Classic was powered with twin Volvo KAMD-300 horsepower diesel engines. David had selected it from half a dozen other craft offered to him by Sabrina Agricola because it possessed an inboard engine.

  He watched as Dawn Hurtienne, a rugged woman with long reddish-brown hair, finished threading a heavy-duty nylon strap through the take-up spool of a ratchet anchored to the transom. The civil engineer had been highly recommended by the British Columbia Environmental Assessment Office to assist David with his plan on capturing Belladonna. She had convinced him it was a two-man job and would be driving the boat.

  Dawn cranked up the slack on the ratchet, causing a three-foot plastic tubular object to rise out of the water behind the transom, its back end attached to a thick net.

  Satisfied, she locked down the ratchet. “Okay kid, we’re all set. Essentially, our boat will be hauling the trawl backwards by its cod, or pointy end. The net’s two drag lines will trail behind us for about a thousand meters where they’ll feed up through the open hopper to the Marieke’s winches. Once we start moving, the current will catch the trawl boards located along either side of the drag lines and the bridles will open the net like an umbrella. When Belladonna goes after us―and she will―you’ll need to wait until she’s right behind us before you pull up on this ratchet. That will release the strap holding the trawl net and we’ve got her. The winches aboard the Marieke will literally drag that bitch right up into the open hopper.”

  “This is a big fish. How strong are the Marieke’s winches?”

  “Strong enough.”

  David scanned the horizon. The closest shoreline was a good three miles to the south. “You sure this is the area where she’s been attacking fishing boats?”

  “It’s where she got me.”

  David’s eyes widened behind his sunglasses. “You were attacked?”

  “Scariest moment of my life. I guess it happened about six weeks ago. We were fly fishing in Koskimo Bay―just me and Emily Blosser, an old friend. We knew about the warnings, but we were well within the waterway―hell, the shoreline was no farther than we are from the Marieke’s stern. Anyway, the salmon had stopped biting and it was getting late―pink sky at night, sailor’s delight. We had already landed three or four nice size chinook, but Emily insisted we try one more spot, so I took the helm and followed the shoreline when WHAM!”

  “It was such a jarring impact that I thought I had hit a rock. The rudder shaft started grinding and then it snapped. So now we’re dead in the water but no big deal―we’re close to shore, maybe fifty meters. All of a sudden, Em starts screaming.”

  “It was watching us … this massive white shark, its head as big as the ass-end of a cement truck, and it’s just protruding out of the water―so close I could see the pink sky reflecting in its left eye like a devil. After a scary few moments it slipped underwater and was gone.”

  “It just left?”

  “Thank our Lord and Savior.”

  “How’d you get to shore?”

  “We waited a bit longer, then I convinced Emily that we had to swim for it.” She checked her watch. “We’ve got a few more hours until dusk; I’m going below to catch a few Z’s. Make sure I’m up by sunset, will ya darlin’.”

  He watched as she entered the cabin, the boat swaying gently beneath them.

  Point Bennett, San Miguel Island

  The Channel Islands

  A tapestry of stars greeted Jackie as she opened her eyes. With her clothes, boots, and jacket on, the sleeping bag had twisted into a tight cocoon, but she had been so exhausted it didn’t matter.

  They had become prisoners of the night, bound by the feeding habits of their quarry. And yet none of the crew that had accompanied her to the elephant seal slaughter at Cardwell Point believed the Lio would feed again any time soon. And so she had split the crew into shifts, assigning herself the 6 p.m. to midnight group, hoping to sleep late.

  Jackie checked her watch … 4:08 a.m. She felt the rumble and prayed it was not rain.

  Then she heard the braying.

  Unzipping her sleeping bag, she kicked her way out of it as the sounds from the panicked elephant seals grew louder and her team leader rushed to help her up.

  “Boss, the seals! Come and see―”

  Gaining her feet, she stole a glance below the rise at the beach.

  The rookery was in a full state of panic, the females high-tailing it up the beach, the males braying as they stood guard over the shoreline―

  ―the bulls chasing after the cows as the Liopleurodon emerged from the dark Pacific, its size startling Jackie. A juvenile no more, the eighty-foot crocodilian creature weighed in excess of 150,000 pounds. Slogging out of the water, it shook its head and gulped the night air multiple times, each wheezed gasp causing the muscles in its neck to squeeze water from its gills even as it inflated its collapsed set of lungs, expanding its chest.

  Jackie searched for her radio, locating it in her jacket pocket. “All units, check in!”

  “Charlie―green.”

  “Delta―green.”

  “Alpha―green.”

  She waited, her heart racing as the Lio advanced up the beach. “Tango, report!”

  “Sorry, Tango is green.”

  Using her night binoculars, she searched the rookery for the white flag they had staked dead-center of the cargo net. “On my mark, all units fire. Steady … steady―

  “―fire!”

  The pliosaur whipped its head to the right then back around to the left, its jaws hissing as twenty-four three-inch needles struck its thick hide like a swarm of angry wasps.

  “Reload and stand by.” She stared th
rough the night glasses, the creature showing no signs that the phenobarbital was working.

  Switching channels, she contacted the tanker. “Captain Blackwolf, report.”

  “We know you have company, Miss Jackie. The Mogamigawa is en route. ETA in seventeen minutes.”

  “Have your men add two more barrels of phenobarbital in the hold.”

  “Two more?”

  “She’s a big girl. Buchwald out.” She switched channels again, cursing over the radio as the Lio chased after three elephant seal cows, the event taking the creature beyond the buried net.

  “Charlie team only―on my mark I want you to fire and then get the hell out of there … Fire!”

  The creature spun around, its jaws dripping seal blood, its jaundiced eyes searching for the source of its pain. Spotting the fleeing men, it crossed back over the buried cargo net―

  ―and collapsed. Jackie held her breath, waiting for the Lio to move. When it didn’t, a collective cheer rose from the men.

  She stepped out onto the rise, thrusting her left fist into the air. “All choppers―start your engines; all crews pack up! Let’s put this baby in the bathwater.”

  The helicopters’ lights illuminated a flurry of activity as the men rushed to clear the camouflage from the four airships. One by one the rotors began spinning, whipping the sand into a blinding frenzy.

  Using the Lio as a shield, Jackie made her way across the beach to Chopper-2. She climbed into the co-pilot’s seat, nodding to the pilot. “Are we gonna be able to lift this monster?”

  “Hell if I know. It’s a lot bigger than you described.”

  Reaching for her headphones, she adjusted them over her ears and switched on the ship-to-ship radio. “All choppers report.”

  “Chopper-1 … green to go.”

  “Chopper-3 … go.”

  “Chopper-4 … we’re seeing a lot of elephant seals caught in the cargo net.”

  “Nothing we can do now. Are you green?”

  “Affirmative. Chopper-4 is green to go.”