Fathomless

by Greig Beck

  Jack shook his head slowly. “You’d be wasting your time. Your boat is fast, but the Megalodon will move at twice that speed. Added to that, how are you going to shoot something that won’t come to the surface? It’s probably down in the trenches, and only comes up to feed at night.” He grimaced, seeing the blood rising in his friends face. “Look, Vince, just issue a stay-clear order for the waterways. Just for a week while we check some things out. It might move out to open waters, and then we can—”

  “A stay-clear order. For the entire Californian coast? And how do we police that?” Vincent scoffed. “And what do I say – steer clear of jellyfish? Come on, man, help me here. Have you got any serious suggestions?”

  “I am trying to help.” Jack felt his own frustration rising.

  “Time’s up; people are dead.” Vincent spun to the wharf and leapt up in a single bound. Regina jumped up beside him, standing with her hands on her hips. Her green eyes flashed for a moment, and then they were both gone.

  Jack rubbed his forehead as he watched them head back to their helicopter.

  Cate came and put her arm around his waist. “So, that was a friend of yours? Hate to meet an enemy.”

  Jack laughed softly. “Yeah, Vince can get a little… spirited.” He looked at her. “I was about ten seconds away from sicking my dog on him.”

  Cate looked down at Ozzy. The dog’s brown button eyes lit up at the sound of his name and he cocked his head to the side, listening intently now.

  Cate laughed, but Jack’s expression quickly clouded. “But… he’s right. I think we’ve got work to do.”

  Cate nodded, looking out at the setting sun. “Yeah, but can we please do it in there?” She nodded towards the restaurant. “Always wanted to try it, and I think I’d like to be off a small boat right now.”

  CHAPTER 30

  On the edge of the shelf, fifty miles out from Mendocino

  The yacht glided over the dark blue water with barely a ripple. The gentle breeze was enough to just tilt the magnificent boat and push it along at about five knots. William Harris had the wheel of Sulacco, and by now could have put it on autopilot if he chose, but there was something about standing, legs braced, holding the wheel, and in total control that he really loved.

  Maggie, his wife, was below. It was her turn at kitchen duty, and hopefully something close to edible would be served soon. He looked over his shoulder; his two sons were out in the dingy being dragged a few dozen feet behind. Though they were around fifty miles out from Mendocino, the kids still managed to pick up enough reception to keep their noses buried in their phones or iboxes, or whatever they called them.

  Even now in the dinghy, he saw they were crowded around a small flat screen, faces lit by the blue glow of something or other that was riveting them. He hated to think what.

  Maggie had demanded the boys be in by six, and he’d tried to talk them into coming back onboard with the setting sun. But the looks they had thrown him bordered on disbelief and downright disdain. Gotta love teenagers.

  Anyway, the tether line was inch-thick marine rope, and he guessed they could tow Neptune himself before it would break. Besides, there was barely a ripple right now, and he didn’t really want the grief.

  “Ten more minutes, boys,” he yelled over his shoulder. He decided he didn’t want grief from Maggie either. He turned back to the wheel. They had miles yet before they reached San Francisco Harbor, but he guessed they’d be in before midnight. Waking up in San Fran would be the real start of their holidays.

  The sun was now a huge orange, wavering ball on the horizon. Harris leant down to towards the galley. “How’s that dinner going, Maggie? Something sure smells good.”

  He straightened, grinning. No it didn’t, not at all. But he’d do his bit for solidarity, and eat whatever she managed to put together for them.

  “Nearly done… I think.” Her voice sounded frustrated – not a good sign. He grimaced and smacked his lips. He’d love a beer, but he wouldn’t dare ask her for one.

  The sun went down and the dark settled over them as suddenly as if someone flicked a switch. Almost immediately, his fish finder started to ping at him.

  “Huh?” Harris looked down at the small screen. It was supposed to show him a rough approximation of the sea bottom, and anything that moved above it – schools of fish showed up as green smudges, the bottom black, and snags as red blobs, or at least that what he was told. He had never used it before, as he’d never been fishing in his life, let alone on the boat.

  Regardless, there was a big school of something down there. “Mackerel, I bet,” he said, naming the first fish that came to mind.

  He watched as the big green blip moved quick, staying deep and shooting past them. The hair on his scalp prickled. He looked in at the coastline, now showing as pinpoints of light on a dark landmass. On instinct he eased the wheel around, heading them in closer.

  “Jimmy, Daniel,” he yelled. “Time to come in, boys… now.”

  He turned to where their small dingy was being dragged on the end of the fifty feet of rope, and instead of just seeing the glow from their screen, he could also make out what he thought looked like a dark mountain rising up. Immediately the rope went insanely tight, and the Sulacco stopped dead in the water.

  Harris was thrown forward into the wheel, and below deck Maggie screamed, worryingly, it was the howl of someone in pain – burned, he bet. He guessed whatever she was cooking she was now wearing.

  “Fucking snagged.” Harris climbed to his feet. The boat was dead in the water, with only the sound of stretching rope fibers. He dragged open a hatch and pulled out one of the large spotlights and spun to shine it behind them. There was no dingy anymore, the tether rope was still there, but so tight it looked solid, and the worst thing was, it vanished into the dark sea.

  “Fuck!” he raced to the stern, holding the light high. “Jimmy, Daniel!” He moved the light one way then the other. There were no bobbing heads or spluttering curses, or cries for help. There was nothing but the wire-tight rope, angled back into the black water.

  The Sulacco groaned like a living thing, and then began to move backwards, but only for a second or two. The rope’s tension suddenly eased, and Harris stood, eyes wide and mouth open, and heard Maggie sobbing then. Before he could even think what to do next, the rope snapped tight against the stern gunwale. This time, the angle was down, hard.

  “No, please, no.” The boat started to tip as the rope was being pulled by something that far outweighed the buoyancy of the yacht.

  Maggie came up, unsteadily with a towel wrapped around her arm. “Did you run into something?”

  He turned to her, his mouth working, but no words coming. The boat tilted some more, and equipment started to slide towards the rear of the deck.

  “William, where’s Jimmy and Daniel?” She grabbed at him, with eyes wider than he had ever seen.

  Harris held onto a railing with one arm, and pulled Maggie close to him. The rope started to make its way around the boat, popping off brass fixtures as the thick cord came towards them. The toughened mix of natural and synthetic fibers made short work of anything in its way.

  It reached the cabin wall, and stopped its forward movement. It was then they began to be pulled over. Maggie started to scream, and whatever she had been cooking, was now on fire as an orange glow appeared from the galley doors. Harris smelled oily smoke.

  “We’re going to be sunk.” William Harris held his wife tight as water poured over the gunwale and began to flood the deck.

  “Cut it,” Maggie screamed.

  He felt shocked at the blinding obvious suggestion and that he had never even thought of it. He dived for the tackle cabinet and fiddled with the catch. Inside there was a new knife, silver sharp, and serrated on one side. He grabbed it and leapt to the rope sawing and hacking, the tight fibers resisting every slice.

  The Sulacco moaned again as she was pulled onto her side, and the gunwale went level with the water. A waterfall commen
ced pouring over the side. He wrapped his hand around the rope, and realized it had gone slack. He drew it in a few feet, and saw his spotlight bobbing beside him. Harris snatched at it, and shone it down into the water.

  The devil himself stared back.

  The thing rose from the black water, and his light shook in his hand as it followed the mountain higher. The rope was still trailing from its mouth that was lined with teeth as big as his head. There looked to be ragged portions of meat and what could have been shreds of clothing caught between them. The monster then surged towards him.

  William Harris was still alive when the massive jaws extended to take him and a good portion of Sulacco's wooden railing. He was alive for mere seconds more as they closed on his soft body, the ten-inch serrated blades cutting all the way through him, before it took him down to the darkness below.

  He wasn’t alive when the fire in the galley made it to the fuel tank, and blew Maggie and the ship to smithereens.

  CHAPTER 31

  National Security Cutter, Bertholf, waters off Mendocino

  Vincent Kelly stood in the bridge room of the National Security Cutter. Being aboard the huge Coast Guard vessel never failed to inspire him – modern, well maintained, and with enough firepower to keep the country’s borders secure from any attempt at crime or intrusion.

  He looked down at a screen showing an image of the rear deck and saw Reggie there securing their chopper – this time, it was a smaller HH-65 Dolphin, built more for speed and maneuverability than sea air rescue.

  Vincent straightened. He could feel Captain Loche’s eyes slide to him again as they had several times before. Every time he felt the man’s gaze fall on him, he wished he had of somehow forced Jack Monroe to come along. He could tell the senior officer wasn’t okay with a major chunk of their fleet hardware being used on a shark hunt – even if it was one supposedly to be sixty-five feet long and responsible for sinking a dozen boats.

  Allegedly, sinking a dozen boats. Vincent sighed. He’d had to call in so many markers to make this happen, but even after only a day, he was starting to doubt the logic of his own story. Jesus Christ, he should have just said, a big shark. But a Megalodon, an extinct dinosaur shark, a freaking monster that had somehow busted out of a cave in the freezing Bering Sea, and then swam a few a thousand miles down the coast to sink boats and kill some two-dozen people.

  Damn, he wished he’d made Monroe come with him to impart some of that scientific jargon and expert logic.

  Vince groaned as he felt the cold steel glance from the captain alight on him once again. He kept his eyes on the water, praying for something to show up on the surface, the sonar, the depth finders or anything, anywhere would do. At the moment, they were burning through twenty grand a day using the Bertholf, looking for something that was a shadow under the water, and he had nothing more conclusive than a shard of tooth.

  “We’ve got debris, sir.”

  “All stop.” Loche lifted some field glasses. “Get a dinghy out.”

  Vincent cleared his throat. “Sir, I strongly recommend you keep a small craft out of the water.”

  The senior officer held up a hand. “It’s all right, Senior Officer Kelly. I think we got this.” He smiled, a little too patronizingly, Vincent thought.

  “Boat One away, sir.”

  Loche lowered the glasses. “There’s nothing on sonar, radar, or hydrophone. Not even an inquisitive dolphin down there.”

  “Yes, sir.” Vincent gritted his teeth. “Permission to leave the bridge.”

  “Permission granted.” Loche didn’t bother to turn.

  Vincent jogged across the deck to where Reggie had her hands deep into the engine of the chopper. She saw him approach, and leaned on one elbow. “Hey boss, how’s it going in there with the brass?”

  “About as I expected – bad.” He nodded to the dinghy shooting away. “They’ve spotted a debris pattern on the water.” He walked to the railing, watching as the small inflatable boat’s powerful engine made it skip across the surface until it reached a darker patch of water, where it began to circle, before slowing.

  Vincent gripped the railing, his eyes now unblinking. He saw one of the men lean far out over the side – “stay clear of the water,” he whispered.

  The man grabbed a pike and reached out again. Vincent grimaced, imagining the dark water below him. Come on, son, hurry it up, he thought, barely able to watch.

  “They’ve found something.” Reggie’s voice made him jump. She was just behind him, a small pair of field glasses to her eyes. She lowered them, and reached out to grasp his forearm. “Hey, calm down, okay?”

  Vince felt her thigh against his. He nodded, but couldn’t settle until he saw the small boat speeding back to the Bertholf. They’d hook it back up and haul it aboard in a few seconds, and he jogged back towards the bridge to get an update.

  He saluted at the door and entered. Captain Loche graced him with a flat smile, and his 2IC, Lieutenant Mitch Andrews, also nodded to him.

  Andrews handed Loche a steaming mug of coffee from a tray held by a junior officer, and Loche sat in his chair, and folded one leg over the other.

  “Boat debris,” he said.

  A man came to the door, still wet from salt spray and quickly saluted. He entered and stood rod-straight with his arms folded behind his back, and legs spread. He stared straight ahead.

  “At ease; report.” Loche blew on his coffee.

  “Thank you, sir.” The man relaxed, but his body remained straight. “After an examination of the area we sighted an engine-oil slick, and floating motor yacht debris – name and registration unknown. Most of the debris has signs of charring and explosive force. Looks like a fire and then explosion, sir.”

  “Bodies, or any sign of life jackets?” Loche asked slowly.

  “Nothing sir, no trace of any sea survival kit on the water. Everything else must have gone to the bottom.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant. Dismissed.” Loche turned in his chair towards Vincent. “Explosion.” He nodded slowly, his eyes on the senior chopper pilot. “Lieutenant Andrews…”

  “Sir.” Andrews stopped and listened.

  “One more sweep of the area to search for survivors, or bodies… and then we head in.” Loche looked away at last.

  “Yes, sir.” Andrews relayed the orders.

  Vincent began to protest, but knew he had nothing, and his mouth snapped shut.

  Andrews leaned closer as he passed by. “Hey, maybe your monster used an RPG.” He winked and continued on.

  “Asshole,” Vince whispered to his back, before heading for the door. There was no more he could do.

  CHAPTER 32

  Off the western coast of Mexico's Baja California, near Guadalupe Island

  Two of the three men stood in full wetsuits with goggles pushed up on foreheads, and tanks over their backs. The third, Jackson Biggs, moved around behind them, checking their equipment and making sure everything was hooked, strapped, and in tight to their bodies.

  Jackson was the dive captain, and his job was to ensure everything that went into the water came back out again – that was doubly true for his charges.

  His cameraman, Philippe, held the streamlined Nexus model camera loosely in one hand. He would take streaming video and stills from the moment they entered the water, and then continually from when Big Betty came up from the depths.

  Finishing with Philippe, Jackson went to check Arthur ‘Big Arty’ Freeman. The man, shivering in the pre-dawn coolness despite his bulk, was here for his wallet alone. Jackson groaned, imagining how uncomfortable he must have felt in the wetsuit. It was the largest they had, but his stomach was still threatening to explode from within the black neoprene. Extra weights were added to keep him down, as his natural buoyancy would be extremely high.

  Big Arty had paid twenty-five thousand dollars to dive with them, but the condition was, they get him and the shark together in at least two photographs. Considering Big Betty was as regular as clockwork these da
ys, it was money for old rope.

  Seeing Big Betty up close was a rare and privileged event, and normal tourists were discouraged from the area. Jackson, a marine biologist, was one of the few allowed to dive and monitor the huge shark’s wellbeing. The fees they collected from the likes of Arty, paid for their research.

  Betty was a pregnant Great White, twenty-one feet from nose to tail, and the largest specimen ever captured on film in the wild. She had moved into the area a few months back, where she had been tagged with a small receiver just behind her dorsal fin. They could track her every movement, and they were excited by the prospect of witnessing her giving birth any day now.

  “Ready?” Jackson waited for his dive companions to nod. He then quickly ran through some dive hand-signals. Philippe knew them by heart, but still paid more attention than Arty, who looked disinterested and a little bored.

  Jackson guessed he just wanted his pictures, and then hoped to be back home, showing the girls in the office how fearless he was by midday. Jackson wondered how much the creep would have paid to take the shark’s head home as well.

  The forty-foot cruiser bobbed on the dark swells, and Jackson leaned over to flip open the cage door. Dawn wasn’t far away, and though his signal locater told him Big Betty was close, she only ever made an appearance near the surface around dawn. She’d grab her snack, and then vanish back down to the depths. She was becoming so accustomed to the tiny creatures in the dive cage; they even devised a way to call her, using a child’s party clicker.

  “Okay, Philippe you’re up.” His cameraman nodded, threw a leg over the side, and expertly slid in through the cage’s trap door. For now the cage was suspended at the water line, but once all in, Jackson would take control and winch them down to meet their giant friend.