by John J. Rust
He turned to her and grinned.
That’s when Raleigh Pilka entered the salon. The marine biologist slowed his pace as he neared the table.
“Doctor Pilka.” Geek nodded to him.
Pilka didn’t respond. His face muscles tightened as he stared at Karen’s hand on top of Rastun’s. She met his harsh gaze with one of her own.
Rastun felt Karen squeeze his hand tighter.
Pilka stormed past the table and exited the salon.
“He’s in a cheery mood today,” Geek commented.
Rastun turned to Karen. Her eyes shifted from the door Pilka had exited to him, then to the table.
What the hell is going on between those two? He certainly couldn’t ask Karen now, with Geek and Hernandez around. He’d have to wait till later. Part of him wondered if he should even bring it up. Things were great between him and Karen. Why rock the boat?
No. Something major had happened between her and Pilka. So far it hadn’t interfered with their mission, but could it interfere with their relationship?
He would have to confront Karen about this. She needed to be forthcoming with him.
Like you’ve been forthcoming about why you and Marie broke up?
After lunch, Rastun retrieved his Aster 7 from the weapons locker. He tried to force his concerns about Karen and Pilka to the back of his mind. Time to focus on the mission.
He paced up and down the deck of Bold Fortune, scanning the Atlantic with his binoculars every few minutes. He saw nothing but waves.
As Rastun made his way aft, he saw Geek looking out his binoculars. “This is some gig, Cap’n. Putter around the ocean in a nice boat and just soak up the sun.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“Hey, I came here expecting to see an actual sea monster.”
“Then go online,” said Rastun. “There are videos of the boardwalk attack all over the internet.”
“I mean I want to see it with my own eyes.”
“I have. Trust me, the experience is overrated.”
“Maybe you should go back to being a zoo security guard,” said Geek. “A lot less dangerous.”
“And a lot more boring,” replied Rastun. “Nah. Even after getting chased all over Point Pleasant by a sea monster, this is the right job for me.”
“That’s good to hear. Angela’s been worried about you adjusting to civilian life.”
“Your wife has enough on her plate with you and three kids. She doesn't need to waste any worry on me.”
“Angela's worry well will never run dry. Especially with you. You were her favorite officer.”
A smile spread across Rastun's face. He'd always had a soft spot in his heart for Geek's wife. Angela was so down to earth, a welcome change from the wives of some of his fellow officers who based their social status on their husband's rank. Angela Hewitt just wanted to be a good wife, a good mother and treated the men in Rastun’s unit like extended family. He’d always pictured Marie becoming just like Geek's wife.
Of course, that’ll never happen.
“Smile, guys.”
Rastun and Geek turned. Karen stood by the railing, camera up. She snapped a picture of them.
“Don’t you get bored taking pictures of us?” asked Rastun.
“I never get bored taking pictures of you.” Karen gave him a playful smile.
“And suddenly I feel like a third wheel,” said Geek.
Before Rastun could say anything, the door to the bridge slid open. Pilka stepped out. The marine biologist didn’t glare at Karen like usual. In fact, he barely paid any attention to her.
“Montebello just got a hit on sonar. He thinks it might be the Point Pleasant Monster.”
“Where?” Rastun unslung his Aster 7.
“Twenty-five hundred meters east of us.”
Rastun headed to the bow, Geek and Karen behind him. He scanned the ocean with his binoculars.
“I got nothing. What about you guys?”
“Negative,” replied Geek, who also looked through binoculars.
“I don’t see anything, either,” said Karen.
Rastun heard more footsteps behind him. Ehrenberg, Malakov and Hernandez hurried out onto the deck.
Montebello’s voice burst from Rastun’s walkie-talkie. “Um, hey, everyone. It’s Charlie. Can you hear me?”
“Rastun here. I read you five-by-five.”
“Huh?”
“That means I can hear you fine.”
“Oh. Okay.”
The others also confirmed they could hear Montebello over their walkies.
“The contact’s two thousand meters east of us,” Montebello reported.
“Copy that,” said Ehrenberg. “Captain, put us on a direct course with the contact.”
“Aye aye, Doctor,” Keller answered.
Rastun brought up his Aster 7 and turned to Geek, who had his USAS-12 shotgun. “You know the drill. If the tranqs don’t put it down, you take it out.”
“Hu-ah.” Geek used the Ranger slang for, “Heard, Understood, Acknowledged.”
“Don’t you dare kill this creature!” Malakov hollered at them.
“Uh-huh,” they both muttered.
“I mean it. If you kill this creature, you will both regret it.”
“Uh-huh.” Rastun and Geek kept their weapons trained on the water.
“Fifteen hundred meters and closing,” Montebello announced.
Rastun’s eyes swept over the waves, looking for any dark shape, anything out of the ordinary.
He only saw water and whitecaps.
C’mon, show yourself.
“Does anyone see it?” Pilka demanded.
Everyone answered, “No.”
“One thousand meters and closing.”
Rastun held his breath. The damn thing was still underwater. Would it try to attack Bold Fortune? Dr. Malakov had said the Point Pleasant Monster might associate boats with food.
There was a lot of food on this boat.
“Hey, guys!” Montebello blurted. “There’s another large contact. Two thousand meters to the south.”
“What?” Surprise blazed across Ehrenberg’s bearded face.
Pilka headed toward the stern, staring southward.
“I have another contact,” Montebello reported. “Another.”
“What the hell is this?” Geek’s head swept left to right. “A full-scale assault?”
“This can’t be.” Ehrenberg shook his head.
Rastun’s eyes darted from one section of the ocean to another. His finger wrapped around the trigger.
“Um, hey, guys,” Montebello said in a subdued tone. “I’ve got a positive ID on our contacts. It’s a pod of pilot whales.”
Rastun lowered his Aster 7 and groaned. “Another false alarm.”
“Unless pilot whales eat people.” Geek tacked on a half-smile.
“Pilot whales eat squid, you dolt,” snapped Malakov.
“Jeez, lady, get a sense of humor,” Geek muttered under his breath.
Rastun saw a stocky form with a bulbous forehead break the surface. Farther away, another pilot whale poked its head out of the water.
Karen snapped a picture of the first whale, looked to him and shrugged.
“At least it’s something.”
***
They spent two more days at sea without success. Night had long since fallen by the time Bold Fortune docked at the Point Pleasant Marina. Once Hernandez secured the boat to the pier, Rastun and Geek headed down to the storeroom. They sat cross-legged on the floor, with Rastun opening the black plastic case that contained his gun cleaning kit. The pair stripped and cleaned their handguns, the Aster 7 and the USAS-12. They started putting their weapons back together when Dr. Malakov entered the storeroom, followed by Hernandez.
“Must you do that in here?” Malakov sneered, her eyes fixed on Geek’s big shotgun.
Geek looked around the room. “Why not? This is such a nice storeroom.”
Rastun barely suppressed
a laugh.
“Do it somewhere else! I hate guns. They’re evil.”
“A gun is an inanimate object, Doctor,” said Rastun. “It has no feelings, no consciousness. It takes a person to decide whether to use it for good or evil.”
“But don’t worry,” Geek beamed at Malakov. “We’ll use it for good, because, well, we’re the good guys.”
“If I were in charge of this expedition, there wouldn’t be one damn gun on this boat.”
“If you were in charge of this expedition, Doctor,” Rastun reconnected the barrel to the Aster 7, “I’d ask for a transfer.”
Malakov stomped the short distance across the room to Rastun. He barely looked up at her.
“Maybe I’ll find a way to transfer you out of here. Maybe I’ll find a way to get you out of the FUBI period! This is a group dedicated to finding and studying cryptids, not killing them. You and your pet ogre have no place here.”
“Uh-huh.” Rastun ran a cloth over his Aster 7. “Well, you’re certainly entitled to your opinion, whether it’s right or wrong.”
Malakov’s entire body shook in fury. She spun around and stalked off. “Just get those damn guns out of my sight.”
“If you don’t like guns so much, you can wait outside until we’re done,” suggested Geek.
“I have to check on our supplies. Randy wants us to do another land search for the Point Pleasant Monster. I have to see what we need to get while we’re docked and I need to do it now.”
Malakov went through cabinets, drawers and boxes, barking out items they needed to Hernandez. He inputted them into an iPad.
When Geek finished putting together his shotgun, Rastun went to the weapons locker. It had a keypad with a six-digit code that he knew it by heart thanks to one of his favorite memorization tricks. He always used the uniform numbers of Philadelphia athletes. For this code, he went with former Flyers. 28 for Kjell Samuelsson. 15 for Bill Clement. 37 for Eric Desjardins. Rastun and Geek stowed their weapons inside the locker and shut it. Rastun then closed the gun cleaning kit and put it next to the locker.
When he returned to his cabin, he stripped out of his clothes and showered off the day’s accumulated sweat and suntan lotion. He put on a t-shirt and shorts and went into the corridor.
Karen’s door was halfway open. He peeked inside to find her sitting cross-legged on her bunk, typing on her laptop.
“Hey there.”
“Hey.” Karen looked up, smiling.
Rastun sat next to her. “Loading up the photo gallery again?”
“Yup.”
He put his hands on Karen’s shoulders and massaged them. “So how long before you’re done?”
“Soon.”
“How soon?”
“Soon,” she giggled.
“Well, are we talking five minutes? Ten? Twenty?”
“Oh my God, were you born without any patience?”
“Not when it comes to beautiful photographers.” Rastun kissed Karen on the cheek, then on her neck.
“You’re making it hard to concentrate.”
“That’s sort of the idea.” He gently kissed her neck again.
“Okay. Five minutes.”
“What?”
“Give me five minutes,” said Karen. “Updating the photo gallery is part of my job description. You wouldn’t want me to be in, what is it you soldiers say, um, dereliction of duty.”
Rastun let out an exaggerated sigh. “All right. Five minutes. But not one minute more.”
He kissed and left her cabin.
Someone stood in the corridor to his right. He turned to find Raleigh Pilka staring at him.
“Doctor.” He nodded to him.
Pilka said nothing. His gaze shifted between Rastun and Karen’s cabin.
Rastun stepped into his cabin, giving Pilka a parting glance. He slid his door closed.
What is up with those two? This tension between Pilka and Karen started to bother him more than he’d like to admit. Maybe it was time he –
“What do you want?” He heard Karen’s muffled voice through the door.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” Pilka asked in a demanding tone.
“What are you talking about?”
“Rubbing your soldier boy in my face.”
“Are you kidding me? You really think this is about you?”
“It’s what I’d expect from you.”
“Newsflash, Raleigh,” said Karen. “The world doesn’t revolve around you. Sure as hell my world doesn’t.”
“Do you think I’m stupid?” Pilka’s voice rose. “Do you expect me to believe you—”
Rastun slid his door open. Pilka turned around.
“Is there a problem?” Rastun gave the marine biologist a withering glare.
Pilka took a step back, avoiding eye contact with him. “No,” he muttered, then ambled toward the salon.
When Pilka disappeared, Rastun looked to Karen. “What was that all about?”
She stared at him in silence, then switched her gaze to her computer. “Nothing.”
“Bullcrap.”
Karen let out an annoyed sigh. “It’s just…don’t worry about it.”
“Not an option anymore. There’s been tension between you and Doctor Pilka from day one. I didn’t say anything because it didn’t become a detriment to this mission. But after this display, that’s changed.”
“For God’s sake.” Karen sprang off her bunk. “Do you have to act like a soldier every damn minute?”
“I have a responsibility to make sure personal problems do not jeopardize this crew’s ability to carry out its duty. Now, are you going to tell me what the problem is between you and Doctor Pilka?”
“You really want to know?”
“Yes, I do.”
“It’s none of your damn business!”
Karen slammed the door in his face.
SEVENTEEN
At the next morning’s briefing, Karen seated herself at the other end of the table from Rastun. He fought to keep his concentration on Ehrenberg as he talked about how the Point Pleasant Monster looked similar to the alleged sea monster carcass picked up by a Japanese trawler in 1977. But every once in a while, Rastun’s gaze shifted to an unsmiling Karen. Their argument the night before played through his mind.
He glanced at Pilka, who seemed determined not to look at Karen or him.
For reasons both professional and personal, he had to get to the bottom of this.
“These next three days might be our last chance to catch the monster.” Ehrenberg’s words brought Rastun back to the present.
“What do you mean?” Pilka leaned forward, a stunned look on his face.
“I talked with Director Lynch a little while ago. There’ve been no sightings of the monster since the boardwalk attack. Lynch, the Coast Guard, and many local government officials believe it’s moved on. If we can’t find it over the next few days, we’ll be recalled.”
“No!” Malakov slammed both hands on the table. “You have to convince Lynch we need more time.”
“I tried, but they can’t keep us out here indefinitely. Plus, the longer the beaches are closed, the more money the towns along the Jersey Shore lose.”
“Greedy bastards,” Malakov muttered.
“Sorry, Lauren.” Ehrenberg frowned. “We just have to do the best we can and hope we find the monster.”
He typed on the laptop in front of him. The plasma screen showed a map of The Shore. “We’re going to do another expedition on land, in the area around Manahawkin Bay. Lauren, Geek and I will check out the swamps and creeks inland.”
Malakov scowled while Geek shot her a friendly smile.
Ehrenberg continued. “Jack and Karen will take a Zodiac and explore some of the islands in the bay. The rest of you will stay with Bold Fortune and continue searching open water.”
Rastun looked over at Karen. She avoided eye contact.
This is going to be a fun day.
***
Rastun went down
to the storeroom to get his Aster 7 and flash/bang grenades from the weapons locker.
“Good morning, sir,” Hernandez greeted him while sweeping the deck.
“Hernandez, how are you?”
“Fine, sir. You?”
I’ve been better. “Same.” He punched in the code, then glanced at the deck. The gun-cleaning kit had been moved away from the weapons locker, probably by Hernandez while he was cleaning.
Rastun got his gear and headed up to the deck.
Bold Fortune sailed through the inlet separating Barnegat Light State Park and Island Beach State Park, then turned south toward Manahawkin Bay. After going a few miles, Hernandez and Tamburro helped lower the Zodiacs into the water. Geek, Ehrenberg and Malakov piloted one to the shoreline, while Rastun and Karen headed toward the small islands that dotted the bay.
“We’ll check out Sloop Sedge first.” Rastun looked at the map on his iPad. “Then Sandy Island, then Marsh Elder Island.”
“Fine,” Karen replied.
Rastun groaned to himself. So that’s how it’s going to be today.
There wasn’t much to Sloop Sedge. The little island was barely 500 feet long and 200 feet wide with lots of trees and three ponds. Rastun and Karen spent nearly an hour on the island, checking for footprints, broken branches, disturbed grass, even scat.
They found nothing.
They kept their conversations to a minimum. Strictly professional. None of the joking and flirting Rastun had become used to.
Next they headed to Sandy Island, much bigger than Sloop Sedge at more than 2,000 feet long and 1,500 feet wide. With the exception of a dock and a couple of buildings, the island consisted only of marshes and ponds. They slogged through the interior, again finding no sign of the Point Pleasant Monster.
Rastun decided to take a lunch break before returning to the Zodiac. He and Karen sat under a tree and pulled MREs from their packs.
“So, can we talk about what happened last night?”
Karen had her MRE opened halfway, then stopped. She looked up at him.
“You want me to say I’m sorry?” Rastun continued. “Fine. I’m sorry. I should have handled things better. But whatever is going on between you and Pilka is out there. So what is it?”
Karen put down her MRE and pulled her legs against her chest. “When I was in college, I took a summer job at the marine institute in Palm Beach.”
