by Greig Beck
“Yup, but by then we’ll have burned through most of our tank. We’ll have to head back in and refuel,” Vincent responded.
“Then we’ll have to… whoa.” Regina slowed the craft in the air. “Hey Vince, check that out. I have never, ever seen one of those big boys – a blue whale.”
Vincent’s mouth curved into a smile and he leaned forward, raising the glasses. “Hold the phone; you’re close, but no cigar, Ginny. That’s a fin whale; they’re darker and see the prominent fin on its back? Still big though, grow to eighty feet, and this guy must be near that.” He lowered the glasses. “Way off course, and shouldn’t be here this time of year. Take her down lower, there looks to be something wrong with it, and it’s not moving. If it’s a floating corpse, the last thing we want is ninety tons of whale meat rotting on some Californian shoreline somewhere.”
“No problem.” Regina’s voice held a note of excitement, and Vince knew she wanted to take a closer look, the missing Brad and Cindy momentarily forgotten.
She took the helicopter down to hover about fifty feet above the stricken cetacean. It lolled in the water, its long snout gently opening and closing. Vince knew an immobile whale might not be a sign of trouble, as the huge mammals sometimes slept on the surface. It only became a problem when they decided to do it in popular shipping routes. Running into one of these giants could sink a boat.
“This could have been what happened to the Bella Donna,” Vincent observed.
“See there, I think its been speared,” Regina said. “There’s something sticking out of its back.” She moved the helicopter a little closer and tilted it forward so the cockpit was angled downwards. She flicked on the spot light, and in the pre-dawn light, the massive creature was lit up like on a stage.
“Holy shit, that’s no spear. That’s its backbone, busted clean through its skin. That big guy has been broken in two.” Vince leaned forward, frowning. “Maybe it was hit by a boat – a big one.”
The huge creature bobbed on the downward surge from the chopper blades, and rolled slightly in the water. Regina recoiled. “Where the hell is the rest of it?”
The giant whale’s entire gut section was missing, and it looked as though someone had buzz-sawed it cleanly from the body.
“Got to be five tons of meat missing.” Vincent eased back, feeling troubled.
“Shark attack?” Regina asked.
“To take that much meat, I’d say a pack of orcas more like it.” He lifted the glasses, scanning the dark water. “And where are they?”
“Looks like a single bite to me,” Regina said, and shrugged. “All quiet. Seems the party’s over for now.”
“Take her down a bit; I want to get some photos.” Vincent turned to her. “While I’m doing it, radio base and let them know what we’ve found. They might want to come out and drag it back over the shelf and detonate it.”
Vincent switched on the undercarriage camera, loading two types of film to capture standard images, and also some hydrological film to give them some depth in the water for an almost 3D image of the mutilated creature.
Regina first hovered at fifty feet, and Vincent swiveled the undercarriage camera from tail to snout. He spoke while keeping his eyes on the small view screen. “Take her lower, so I can get a shot of the wound.”
“You got it.” Regina dropped them to within a dozen feet of the water, and then skillfully hovered just over the floating island of blubber and flesh.
Vincent magnified the image and then frowned. He stopped shooting, and lifted his head from the viewfinder to stare down at the massive creature. His brows came together and he squinted, before reaching up to swivel the spot light. “Okay, Ginny, keep her tight, I’m going to step out.”
“Seriously?” Regina stared hard at him.
“Sure am; the thing will be like a floating island. I just want to check something out, so take me in as close as you can get.” He grinned at her scowling face. “Don’t sweat it, Mommy, I’ll harness up first.”
Vincent threw off his seatbelt, climbed into the back, pulled a harness from a compartment, and then threw it over his shoulders to begin buckling it from under and between his legs. He then grabbed a tool belt, wrapping it around his waist and finally attached himself to the cable, taking a control pad and hooking it to his chest.
The Coast Guard officer eased himself towards the door, grabbed the solid handle and yanked the door back. Immediately the sound and fury of the churned spray and wind from the rotors rushed in at him. He held an arm up over his face, and waited as Regina maneuvered them down another dozen feet to hover directly over the carcass.
He leapt out, swung in space for a moment and then used the controls to lower himself onto the huge body. It was like setting foot on slippery rubber, as the surface had both give and rigidity in its texture. It was still a fresh kill, he guessed, as there was no smell of rot, or the sensation of either slimy putrefaction, or stiffness.
“Take it easy down there.” Regina’s voice came in over his helmet’s headset and he turned briefly to give her the thumbs up.
“Just keep her steady, Gin; I’ll be done in a minute.”
He used the controls to release more slack and moved to the edge of whale’s gut to investigate the enormous wound. Vincent crouched, and ran one hand along the edge of the flesh – fairly clean cut, as though someone had taken a very sharp knife to it. A portion of rib was showing, the gleaming white bone was a massive plank thicker than his waist. It, too, was cleanly sheared off, but at its edge what he hadn’t seen from the helicopter’s cabin, something that didn’t belong was wedged in the edge of the bone.
Vincent drew forth a pair of pliers from his tool belt, and leaned out. He grunted; short a few inches. He leaned out farther, his boots beginning to slip towards the dark water, and just got the tip of the thing in the pliers. He gripped the object, tugging, twisting, and straining.
“Come o-oon, let fucking go.” He braced and tugged again. The object popped free, and he fell back on his ass. Beneath him he felt the rumble of a deep moan, and he looked back alarmed. “Jesus Christ.”
“You okay down there, boss?” Regina’s voice held a degree of concern.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay. It’s just… this guy, he’s still alive.” Vincent knew the damage the huge leviathan had sustained meant it was doomed to die slowly, and there was nothing he could do for it. If he had dynamite, he would have rigged a charge against its head, and put it out of its misery.
He looked down at the object in his hand, lit up by the helicopter’s spotlight. “Is this what did it to you, big guy?” He held a fragment of a tooth, broken off some-ways, but still several inches long. He had no idea how big it might have been if fully intact.
“So, looks like shark attack it is then.” Vincent looked down again at the wound. He could see clearly now that the cutting he imagined was actually sawing done by something serrated – exactly like the razor-sharp serrations he felt on the shard of tooth. It would have been perfect for making the cut. But the wound size… it was way too big for a single animal to make.
He remained crouched, his forearms resting on his knees, and let his eyes travel to the dark water. It was impenetrable, and about two hundred feet deep in this area. But he also knew that just a few miles away, the edge of the continental shelf dropped away to cold, dark fathomless depths of an abyssal plain. He suddenly felt the hairs on his neck stand on end. He looked around at the whale, and then back to the water. The helicopter’s spotlight made him and the whale glare brightly, a glowing beacon for miles in every direction, above and below the water. But his ability to see anything ended at a few feet below the surface.
Down there, he could not see, but something could sure as hell could see him. Vincent Kelly slowly got to his feet, and backed up, feeling a sensation of impending danger he hadn’t felt in years.
Vincent kept backing away, keeping his eyes on the water. He’d known this area all his life, and had seen sharks, moray eels as thick as
your waist, and even giant pacific octopus that had attacked and drowned divers. Nothing scared him, and pretty much nothing surprised him anymore. But today, there was a feeling in his gut, a trembling and horrible anticipation that made him suddenly want to be off the whale and up in the air – way up.
He punched to the controls and lifted off. It was only twenty feet to the helicopter, its wide bottom hovering over the water – it felt too close.
“Take her up, Regina, now.”
“Huh? Vince, you’re not in yet.” Regina sounded confused.
“Take her up, fast; I’ll climb in as you go. That’s an order.” He never pulled rank on her, but today, he wanted no hesitation from his pilot.
Vincent felt the drag on his body as the huge helicopter climbed and added additional G-force to his own ascent from the winch. At the door, he grabbed on, gritted his teeth and struggled to pull himself back in. Once finally done, he quickly spun to look back down at the water.
The whale was gone.
* * *
Vincent sat slowly at his desk, his long shift finally over for the day. They’d made six trips overall, and had seen no sign of the Bella Donna, or for that matter, any trace of the whale. He guessed it sunk, and had noted it in his report – a potential biological hazard just waiting to resurface.
He flicked on his computer, still troubled by the feeling he’d had when standing on the floating giant’s back. His gut told him danger was imminent – he’d only ever had that sort of feeling once before, and that was a few years back when he was on the deck of a ship minutes before it exploded under their feet. He was in hospital for a week, where they had to rebuild his leg, and pull a three-foot section of cedar railing from his gut. He swore he’d never ignore that type of warning again.
Vincent shook it away, and held up the fragment of tooth. It was big – three inches long, but broken, maybe at the dental matrix end, maybe in half, or just maybe they only got the tip. Impossible.
He recognized it, sort of. It was a big shark, and by the shape and serrations he thought probably a Great White. Not something they wanted in these waters, but it was exactly the sort of predators that would be attracted by the dying whale, and would undoubtedly have come in from the open ocean. After all, they had that big girl down of Guadalupe Island, called Big Blue or Big Betty, or some cutesy name that tried to make you forget it would tear you to bits if it got the chance. And that big bitch was over twenty feet long with several inch-long teeth.
Regina came over to his desk and plonked herself down next to him. “Long night.” Her mouth curved into a smile and she pushed a fresh coffee towards him.
“Bless you.” He took the cup, lifted it and toasted her. “Salud… and you got that right, girl. A veeery long night. My back needs to stretched out, or walked on by one of those qualified foot masseuses.”
She grinned. “Just say the word, and I’ll walk all over you.” She sat back sipping her coffee, her eyes still on him.
He laughed softly, but knew one word from him, and she’d be his. He liked her, a lot, but reckoned the twelve-year age difference would probably kill him. Still, he looked back at her, returning the smile.
She nodded to the tooth on his desk. “So, anything from that, or on the pictures we took?” she asked.
“Carcharodon Carcharias, also known as the Great White, White Pointer, or White Death, and a damned big one by the look of that. But I don’t know if this was one of its largest teeth, or we only got the tip of one of its smallest.” He shrugged. “I’m no expert.”
“Holy shit,” Regina said, picking up the tooth. She held it against her chest. “Make a cool pendant.” She looked at the broken end. “Can’t you tell how big it is from its growth rings or something?”
He took it back, grinning. “What, it’s a redwood tree now?” he turned in his chair to his computer. “Forgot all about the pictures; let’s have a look.”
He’d sent the pictures back to the Coast Guard image database, where they’d be cleaned up and forwarded on back to him. No sending things out to be processed and wait hours or even days anymore. “I love modern technology,” Vince said as he opened the directory.
He’d taken dozens of shots, and Regina had kept shooting when he was down on the whale. He flicked through the first tranche. There was nothing conclusive on them other than some damned interesting size-difference pictures of him on the huge floating cetacean. The hydrological film was in a separate library and he opened that next. Once again, good pictures of the wound that’d he’d get checked out, and he was about to shut them down when the next to last made him sit upright.
“Jesus Christ, Vince.” Regina put her cup down on his desk with a bang. “How big did you say that whale was?”
“What?” He spoke without being able to drag his eyes away from the picture. “About, eighty feet, I guess.”
“Well that fucking thing underneath it is nearly as big.” Regina crowded in beside him.
Vincent sat back, licking lips that had suddenly gone dry. No wonder his gut had told him to get the hell off that whale. The almost 3D hydrological image showed the whale, with him crouching at its edge, as it had with the previous shots. But this one showed something passing underneath, a shadow that was nearly as big as the whale itself.
“I hope that’s another damned whale,” Regina said.
Vincent couldn’t speak; only stare. He felt the hair on his neck prickle, and he had that funny feeling inside, the one his old granma used to say was death walking over your grave. He knew the shape was all wrong for a whale, and he looked back at the tooth. He suddenly had the feeling it was just the tip after all.
“I think we just found out what happened to those missing boats.” He rubbed a hand over his mouth and stubbled chin. “You know what? I think I need to speak to an expert.” He turned to her. “We may have a bigger problem than a hundred tons of rotting whale meat washing up somewhere.”
“An expert? Your friend?” Regina looked into his face.
He lifted his coffee cup, his hand shaking slightly. “Yeah, my old sparring partner, Jack Monroe.” He looked up at her. “Feel like taking a little trip?”
CHAPTER 29
Cate took the 101 north, and exited at Washington Street, Petaluma. Her GPS applauded her choice, and encouraged even more twists and turns on her way to Nick’s Cove in Marin County.
Jack had rented a cabin there for so long the landlord let him have it now for peppercorn rent, provided that was, he maintained the place, and stayed out of it over spring break so it could be rented to the high-value tourists. Whenever Jack had a boat to work on, which was most days of the year, he could be found on Miller’s Wharf, sanding, painting, or elbow deep in a marine engine.
She turned into Shoreline Drive and saw the cluster of beautifully painted cottages crowded around a long wharf. She slowed, taking it all in – the Cove settlement was one of the last remaining historic places on the Tomales Bay coastland. The few sailing boats anchored on the silky-smooth blue water, the green of the forest crowding in behind it, and the wheeling gulls made it seem a million miles away from the city or from modern life at all. She could see why Jack liked it.
She drove slowly past the famous restaurant – Nick’s Cove – named after one of the original owners, and had been here in some form since the 1930s. Out front, the little sea captain statue in his rain-slicker gave her a cheery grin with one arm raised and fist closed. Jack told her the story went he either used to hold a storm lantern, or he was carved punching a drunken local who’d got a bit too rowdy in the bar.
Lights were strung along the eaves and also the railing of the wharf. At night they would be lit in different colors, and gave the whole place a carnival feel. It all made her want to go in, sit down, and eat. Come to think of it, she was starving, but would first see what Jack had planned.
Cate stopped and looked towards the end of the wharf and saw the boat bobbing gently on the water. It was the only one tied in close, and its deck, f
ittings, and double masts gleamed in the afternoon sunshine. Jack had done a magnificent job. The sails were furled at the moment, but they were wrapped and ready to go. She pushed open the car door, stood, and immediately placed both hands on the center of her back to stretch it out.
She inhaled the smells of low tide, warm sea water, pine trees and a hint of old wood – it smelled like heaven.
“Hi ho, there!”
The voice drifting from the end of the wharf made her smile. That, and the accompanying manic bark of his dog, Ozzy.
Jack stood out on his deck in shorts, t-shirt and she bet, bare feet. He waved once, and then lifted the small dog to toss it up onto the wharf, and immediately leapt to follow. Ozzy didn’t wait and his tiny legs were a blur as excitement overtook the terrier as it motored down the wooden planks towards her.
Ozzy was first to her, and leapt, coming at her like a furred missile. She had to act quickly – drop her bag, brace her legs and then catch him. Once in her arms, he was a blur of cycling legs, wriggling body and tongue flicking madly for her chin and lips.
“Blerk.” She shut her mouth tight after the terrier scored a direct hit with his tongue to her lips and teeth.
“Hey, save those kisses for me.” Jack jogged towards her, and took the dog from her arms, lowering him to the ground where he circled them both yapping madly.
He hugged her, and then held her out. “I’d kiss you, but you know – your mouth – dog germs.”
She punched him in the stomach, and he relented, kissing her long and deep.
“That’s more like it.” She tilted her head. “But Ozzy is the better kisser.”
Jack bent to pick up her bag. “How was the drive?”
“Easy.” She looked around. “I can see why you love it here – so peaceful.”
Jack shushed his dog. “It would be if not for some people’s maniac pets.” He started down the wharf, and motioned towards his boat. “So, what do you think?”
