MEG 01 - MEG

by Alten-Steve

  Maggie felt ill.

  "Maggie, you still there?"

  "Shit, this could be the story of the decade. Jonas is a major player, and I missed the whole thing."

  "True, but you are Jonas's wife, right? Maybe he can tell you about the other shark."

  Maggie's heart skipped a beat. "What other shark?"

  "The one that devoured the monster that killed the Tanaka kid. Everybody's talking about it, but the Tanaka Institute's people are in denial. Maybe Jonas would talk to you."

  Maggie's mind raced. "Okay, okay, I'm coming to Guam, but I want you to stay on the story. Try to find out what the authorities are going to do to locate this other shark."

  "Maggie, they don't even know if it surfaced. The crew of the Kiku are swearing that it never left the trench, claiming the thing's still trapped down there."

  "Just do as I say. There's an extra thousand in it for you if you can get me some inside information from any reliable source about this second shark. I'll call you as soon as I land in Guam."

  "You're the boss."

  Maggie hung up. Bud was standing next to her. "What's going on, Maggs?"

  "Bud, I need your help. Who do you now in Guam?"

  RECOVERY

  The Navy MP on duty outside Jonas's room at the Aura naval hospital rose to attention as Terry approached the door.

  "Sorry, ma'am. No press allowed."

  "I'm not with the press."

  The MP eyed her suspiciously. "You sure don't look like family."

  "My name is Terry Tanaka. I was with—"

  "Oh... excuse me." The MP stepped aside. "My apologies, Ma'am. And... my condolences." He averted his eyes.

  "Thank you," she said softly, and entered Jonas's room.

  Jonas lay near the window, a gauze bandage wrapped around his forehead. His face looked exhausted, pale and scarred.

  "I'm sorry..." he said, his voice still weak.

  Terry nodded silently. "I'm glad you're all right."

  "Have you talked to your father?"

  "Yes... He'll be here in the morning."

  Jonas turned toward the white light of the window, unsure of what to say. "Terry, this is my fault—"

  "No, you tried to warn all of us. We just ridiculed you."

  "I shouldn't have let D.J. go. I should have—"

  "Just stop it, Jonas," Terry snapped. "I can't deal with my own guilt, let alone yours. D.J. was an adult, and he certainly wasn't about to listen to you. Let's face facts. He wanted to go, despite your warnings. We're all devastated... in shock. I don't know what's going to happen next. I can't think that far ahead—" Tears flowed from her almond eyes.

  "Take it easy, Terry. Come here." She sat down on his bed, hugging him while she cried on his chest. Jonas smoothed her hair, trying to comfort her.

  After a few minutes, she sat up, turned away from Jonas to wipe her eyes. "You're seeing me in rare form. I never cry."

  "You don't always have to be so tough."

  She smiled. "Yeah, I do. Mom died when I was very young. I've had to take care of Dad and D.J. all these years by myself."

  "How's your dad doing?"

  "He's a wreck. I need to get him through this. I don't even know what to do... Do you have a funeral? There's no body..." The tears clouded in her eyes.

  "Speak to DeMarco. Have him arrange a service."

  "Okay. I just want this to be over. I want to get back to California."

  Jonas looked at her a moment. "Terry, this shark business isn't over yet either. You need to know something. There were two Megs in the trench. The one that the Kiku hauled up, it was attacked by a larger female. She was rising with the carcass..."

  "Jonas, it's okay. Everyone on board was watching. Nothing else surfaced. Heller says the other creature, this female, couldn't survive the journey through the icy waters. You told us that yourself—"

  "Terry, listen to me." He tried to sit up. The pain forced him down again. 'The male's carcass, there was a lot of blood. Megalodons are like great whites. They're not warm0blooded like mammals, but they are warm-bodied. Some scientists call it gigantothermy, the ability of large body size, low metabolic rates, and peripheral tissues as insulation—"

  "Jonas, stop lecturing. You're losing me."

  "The Megalodon is able to maintain high internal temperatures. Its blood is warmed internally as a result of the movement of its muscles. We're talking seven to twelve degrees warmer than its external environment, and the tropical currents in the trench were quite warm."

  "What's your point?"

  "When Kiku began hauling up the remains of D.J.'s sub, the male Megalodon became caught in the steel cable. I saw the larger Meg, the female rising with the carcass, rising within the warm-blood stream. I watched her disappear above the warm layer into colder waters."

  "How hot would a Megalodon's blood be?"

  Jonas closed his eyes, calculating. "Living in the trench, blood temperature could be well above ninety degrees. If the female remained within her dead mate's blood stream, she could have made it to the thermocline. She's very big, maybe sixty feet or more. A shark that size could probably cover the distance from the trench to the warmer surface waters in twenty minutes."

  Terry looked at him a long moment. "I have to go. I want you to get some rest."

  She squeezed his hand, then left the room.

  SHARKS

  Jonas awoke and stared at his hand. It was covered with dried blood. He was in the Abyss Glider capsule, bobbing on the surface of the ocean. Sunlight glared through the Plexiglas sphere, half in water, half in air.

  I've been dreaming, he thought. I've been dreaming...

  He crawled to the window, peered out at the sky. The horizon was empty.

  How long have I been out? Hours? Days?

  The water beneath him rippled with sunlight. He stared down into it, waiting for the shark. He knew she was down there.

  Out of the gray depths, the Megalodon appeared, rising up toward him like a rocket, jaws wide, teeth bared, her mouth a black abyss—

  * * * * *

  Jonas woke up in a sweat, gasping for breath. He was alone in his hospital room. The digital clock read 12:06 a.m.

  He fell back on the damp sheets and stared at the moonlit ceiling. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

  The fear was gone. Suddenly he realized he felt better. The fever, the drugs — something had worn off. I'm hungry, he thought.

  He got out of bed, put on a robe, and walked into the hall. It was empty. He heard the sound of a TV down the corridor.

  At the nursing station he found the MP sitting alone with his feet on a desk, his shirt open, downing a submarine sandwich while he watched the late news. The boy jumped when he sense Jonas standing behind him.

  "Mr. Taylor... you're up."

  Jonas looked around. "Where's the nurse?"

  "She's stepped out a minute, sir. I told her I'd... I'd cover for her." He stared at the bandage on Jonas's head. "You sure you ought to be out of bed, sir?"

  "Where can I find something to eat?"

  Cafeteria's closed till six."

  Jonas looked desperate.

  "Y'all can have some of this." He picked up another half of the bulging sandwich, held it out for Jonas.

  Jonas stared at it. "No, that's all right—"

  "Please. Go ahead and have as much as you'd like."

  "All right, sure, thanks." Jonas took the sandwich and began to eat. He felt like he hadn't tasted food in days. "This is great," he said between bites.

  "Salami and cheese sub is hard to come by out here," the young man said. "Only place I know is halfway around the island. Me and my buddies, we make the trip once a week, just to kind of remind us of being back home. I don't know why they don't open something closer to the base. Seems to me..."

  The kid continued talking, but Jonas wasn't listening. Something had caught his eye on the television. Fishermen at a dock were unloading a great quantity of sharks from their boats.

&nb
sp; "Excuse me," Jonas said. "Can you turn that up?"

  The MP stopped talking. "Sure." He raised the volume.

  "...over one hundred sharks were caught off Zamora Bay. Local fishermen apparently have found an expanse of ocean off Saipan that has yeilded the largest catches this century. They're hoping their luck will hold out through tomorrow. In a related story, twelve pilot whales and two dozen dolphins beached themselves along Saipan's northern shore. Unfortunately, most of the mammals died before rescuers could push them back out to sea.

  In other news..."

  Jonas turned off the volume on the TV. "Saipan. That's in the middle of the northern Marianas, isn't it?"

  "That's right, sir. Third island up the chain."

  Jonas looked away, thinking.

  "What is it, sir?" the MP asked.

  Jonas looked at him. "Nothing," he said. He turned and headed back down the hall. Then he stopped, came back, handed the boy the rest of his sandwich. "Thanks."

  The MP watched Jonas hurry back to his room. "Sir," he called after him, "you sure you're all right?"

  SAIPAN

  The two-passenger helicopter bounced twice upon the dirt runway before its weight settled down onto its supports. Retired Navy captain James "Mac" Mackreides glanced over at his passenger, who looked a bit shaken after the forty-five-minute flight.

  "You okay, Jonas?"

  "Fine." Jonas took a deep breath as the chopper's rotary blades gradually slowed to a stop. They had landed on the perimeter of a makeshift airfield. A faded wooden sign read: welcome to saipan.

  "Yeah, well, you look like hell."

  "Your flying hasn't improved any since you were discharged."

  "Hey, pal, I'm the only game in town, especially at three a.m. in the fucking morning. What's so damn important anyway that you needed to fly out to this godforsaken island now?"

  "You mentioned that your fisherman friend knows the location of a recent whale kill. I need to examine that carcass."

  "At this time of night? We need to get you laid, pal."

  "Seriously, Mac, this is important. Where's your friend? I thought he was supposed to meet us here."

  "See that path to the left? Follow that down to the beach and you'll see a half dozen fishing boats tied up. Philippe's will be the last boat down the beach. He said he'd wait for you there. I'll be at the tavern getting shit-faced. Find me when you're done playing. If I'm with a woman, wait ten minutes. If she's ugly, wait five."

  "If you're shit-faced, what difference does it make?"

  "This is true. As for my friend Philippe, just remember, you pay half now, half when you get back, or he might just leave you to swim back to shore."

  "Thanks for the advice," said Jonas. He watched his friend limp toward the rusty green building that Mac had referred to as a tavern. Jonas hefted his knapsack and headed in the other direction, to the beach. The stars were covered by the incoming clouds, but the Pacific Ocean was as smooth as glass.

  * * * * *

  Jonas Taylor had met James Mackreides seven years ago in what both men referred to as the Navy's "loony bin." Following the incident on board the Seacliff, Jonas had spent several weeks in a naval hospital, then had been ordered to spend ninety days in a psychiatric ward for evaluation. It was there that the Navy's team of psychiatrists attempted to convince the aquanaut that he had hallucinated the events in the Mariana Trench. After two months of "help," Jonas found himself in a state of deep depression, separated from Maggie, his career in ruins. Unable to leave the mental ward he felt alone and betrayed.

  Until he met Mac.

  James Mackreides lived to buck authority. Drafted and sent to fight in Vietnam when he was twenty-three, Mac had been made a captain in the 155th Assault Helicopter Corps, stationed in Cambodia, long before any U.S. armed forces were supposed to be in there. Trained by the Navy to fly Cobras, Mac survived the insanity of Vietnam by deciding himself when, where, and if it was time to wage war. If an assignment seemed ridiculous, he never questioned his orders, he just did something else. When ordered to bomb the Ho Chi Minh Trail, Mac would organize his troops for battle, then lead his squadron of choppers to a U.S. hospital, pick up a group of nurses, and spend the day on the beaches of Con Son Island. Later that night, he'd submit his report on the outstanding job his men did in "banging" the enemy. The Navy never knew any better. On one such adventure, Mac's team landed one of their two-million-dollar helicopters in a delta, shot it to pieces, then blew it up with a claymore mine. Mac reported to his superiors that his squadron had been under heavy fire, but his men had heroically managed to hold their own against superior forces. For their bravery, Mac and his men received Bronze Stars.

  This was not to say that LMac and his men did not see their fair share of combat. Mac simply refused to risk the lives of his men if he determined certain actions to be senseless. Of course, in the end, the whole Vietnam War became senseless.

  After the war, Mackreides continued flying for the Navy. An advocate of the free-enterprise system, he supplied small-time operators from Guam to Hawaii with everything under the sun, using Navy choppers to expedite deliveries. Another commanding officer finally got wise when he caught his enlisted men lining up for helicopter tours of the Hawaiian Islands. Mac was charging fifty dollars apiece, his package featuring a six-pack of beer and twenty minutes with a local whore.

  The "flying bordello" incident earned Mackreides his discharge, a mandatory psychiatric evaluation, and an extended stay at the Navy's mental institution. It was either that or a military prison. Confined against his will, Mac found himself suffocating, with no outlet to express his disdain for authority. Then he met Jonas Taylor.

  In Mac's professional opinion, Jonas was yet another victim of the Navy's blame game, the refusal of higher-ups to take responsibility for their actions. This made Taylor a kindred spirit of sorts. Mackreides felt a moral obligation to help Jonas recover.

  Mac decided the best remedy for his newfound buddy's depression was a road trip. Stealing the Coast Guard's helicopter had been easy, landing in the parking lot of Candlestick Park a breeze. Getting into the 49ers-Cowboys game proved to be the toughest part. After partying all night, they returned to the hospital the next morning by cab, drunk, stupid, and happy. The Coast Guard located the chopper two days later, parked at a body shop, a naked woman painted on either side of the cabin.

  The two had remained close friends ever since.

  * * * * *

  The last boat anchored in the shallow water along the beach hardly looked seaworthy. A mere eighteen footer, the wooden vessel lay low in the water, its gray planks showing specks of red paint that had worn away over the years. On board, a large black man in a sweaty T-shirt and jeans was busy hauling in a crab trap.

  "Excuse me?" Jonas said as he approached. The man continued working. "Hey, excuse me... you Philippe?"

  "Who wants to know?"

  "My name's Dr. Jonas Taylor. I'm a friend of Mac's."

  "Mac owes me money. You got me money?"

  "No. I mean, I've got enough for you to take me out to the site of the whale kill, but I don't know anything about..."

  "Dead humpback floating about two miles out. Cost you fifty American."

  "Fine, half now, half when we get back." Jonas held up the bills for Philippe's approval.

  "Okay, let's go."

  Jonas held out twenty-five dollars, then pulled back. "Just one thing. No motor on the way out."

  "Whatchu speaking 'bout dere, Dr. Jonas? You want me to row us out two mile? Nah, you keep you money..."

  "Okay, double. Half now, half when we get back." The islander looked Jonas up and down for the first time.

  "Okay, Doc, one hundred. Now you tell my why you want no motor?"

  "Let's just say I don't want to disturb the fish."

  * * * * *

  Jonas knew he needed some kind of evidence to prove his theory that the female had surfaced. The large fishing hauls off the Saipan coast were a possible indicator that som
ething was disturbing the local shark population. The whale and dolphin beachings could also indicate the massive predator's presence. But neither events were the proof Jonas required. If the humpback that Philippe had located had been killed by the female, the oversized bite radius would be all the evidence Jonas needed. Paddling out to the site was simply a necessary precaution.

  Even with Jonas manning an oar, it took nearly an hour to reach the spot. Shirtless and sweaty, the two men let the boat drift against the black oozing carcass.

  "There she is, Doc. Looks like de sharks been eatin' at her all day. Not much left."

  The dorsal surface of the dead whale floated along the calm sea, its stench overpowering. Jonas used his paddle to manipulate the bloated carcass, bobbing it up and down along the surface. It was much too heavy to flip over.

  "Whatchu tryin' to do?" asked Philippe.

  "I need to see what killed this whale. Can we flip it over?"

  "Twenty-five dollar."

  "Twenty-five? You planning on getting in the water for that much?"

  "Nah. Too many sharks. Look dere."

  Jonas spotted the fin. "Is that a tiger shark?"

  "Yeah, dat's a tiger. Don't worry, Doc, it get too frisky and I kill 'em wit' me six-shooter!" Philippe pulled the pistol from his waistband.

  "Philippe, please... no noise!" Jonas shone his flashlight over the clear surface of the black water. Waves lapped against the ship's hull. Jonas suddenly realized they were an easy target.

  The small beam of light caught a large body moving rapidly beneath the surface, a flash of white disappearing quickly into the dark water. "Jesus, Doc, what de hell was dat?!"

  Jonas looked at Philippe. The big man had fear in his eyes. "What's wrong? What is it?"

  "Somet'ing below us, Doc. I can feel it vibrating under de water. Somet'ing very big..."