Monster: Tale Loch Ness

by Jeffrey Konvitz

  Several minutes after the trap's descent had started, it was gone.

  Chapter 38

  The time—eight P.M.

  The fog bank remained off the coast.

  The trap had been set at depth; the passive stage of the operation, a thorough recheck of the inactive instruments and connections, had begun.

  Scotty and Foster had already started the return to base. Whittenfeld had moved to the Urquhart Bay installation.

  Dog tired, Scotty reached Dores at 8:30, but he had things to do other than sleep.

  Pursuant to plan, Girard was to be in charge of Geminii base security during the trap operation. But he was unable to locate Girard; according to key security people and those in charge of entry documentation, Girard had apparently not been seen since the day before.

  Could Girard be with Houghton? Did Girard know anything about the gelatin dynamite?

  It seemed impossible that someone without formal access —Whittenfeld, Lefebre, himself, a nominee could have removed the dynamite from the heavily guarded area.

  His immediate suspicion was Whittenfeld and Lefebre. But why? To throw additional weight against the project's enemies? To keep the police off guard and away from the trap operation? Damn, he didn't know. But he was sure as hell Girard would. Besides, he needed Girard. Since Houghton had refused to come forward, he would have to forcibly make sure Girard, assuming Girard had been Houghton's source, made himself available.

  He drove to Travis House and sequestered himself in the den. He phoned the Cam Dearg Inn. No one answered. Was it closed? He tried the standard places. No luck. He'd tried several key spots in Edinburgh, notably the Scottish Office, during the day. If Mary MacKenzie had gone to Edinburgh, she was keeping a low profile.

  He'd never felt so helpless. He didn't know where the hell to look or what to do next, and he was fighting a terrible premonition that Mary MacKenzie would suddenly appear at the head of an assault team, beckoning for a bullet in the brain.

  He rubbed his temples. His head hurt. He was tired. But he couldn't fall asleep. There were too many things to do!

  The south side path along Loch Duntelchaig above Dores was narrow, overgrown. The area through which it ran was uninhabited and virtually unused.

  Girard guided his sedan past the widest beam of the loch and stopped beneath an outcropping of rock.

  A half hour later, a station wagon appeared with one man inside. Pierre Lefebre.

  Lefebre stopped the wagon and slid out. Girard climbed out of the sedan and joined him. The path was covered with stones and gravel.

  "Monsieur Girard," Lefebre declared, "you found the worst road in Scotland. Hell's road!"

  "Very inaccessible. Nobody ever comes here. She'll never be found."

  "Did you hear from Lennox?"

  "Yes, it's done."

  Lefebre looked above him. The mountaim rose high into the overbearing black sky.

  "Where is she?" he asked.

  Girard opened the trunk of the sedan. Mary MacKenzize was inside, bound and gagged.

  "A leader of the nation," Lefebre announced, laughing.

  He placed a wad of tobacco in his mouth, then pulled Mary MacKenzie out of the trunk. She fell to the gravel, face down. He dragged her some twenty feet by the hair, then turned her over. Her face was scraped and bleeding. He removed her gag and jerked her to her feet.

  "Are you afraid, Councilwoman MacKenzie?" he asked.

  "No," she said.

  "I'm going to kill you."

  "I know."

  "How do you know that?" Lefebre asked, his lips quivering, a thin film of perspiration covering his face.

  "I can see it in your face."

  "Do you know why you're going to die, madame?"

  "No. And it doesn't matter."

  "It matters to me! You see, we bugged Monsieur Bruce's phone. We heard you call Monsieur Droon. We did not like what you said or what you both intended to do. No, you will die. Then I will deal with Mr. Bruce, the fool with a conscience."

  Her expression blazed with defiance. "You're pathetic." She thought of Scotty; he'd tried to protect her from this. She forgave him under her breath.

  "I frighten you, don't I?" Lefebre asked.

  "It would take more than a slimy, foul-smelling animal like you to frighten me," she replied. "You, others like you, have descended on Scotland for years. But Scotland still breathes. Stronger than ever."

  "You're not Scotland, madame. You're flesh and blood."

  "And you're the droppings of a cow."

  He grabbed her by the hair. "Shut up!"

  "Never."

  "Frightened! Tell me you're frightened."

  "They died at Culloden for their country. I'II die here. They were proud to die, and I am proud to die! Their deaths inspired a nation. My death will somehow stop you, lead to your destruction!"

  "What a brave and noble speech!"

  He smacked her.

  She spat in his face.

  Enraged, he punched her.

  Blood poured from her nose and mouth.

  He trembled, gasped. He preferred to see fear. He preferred to hear his victims beg. It excited him. They had always feared and begged. In Algeria. The Congo. Biafra. Uganda.

  "You're afraid!" he screamed, beside himself.

  She spat on him.

  He stood erect, eyes wild, face flooded with sweat, a knife in his hand, feeling the thrill, strong, pulsating, blinding.

  William Whittenfeld sat in the corner of the Urquhart Bay installation operation's room, the lights on the desk turned down low. The office window was open; the blinds were up. He could see the Magellan's lights, feel a mild breeze whipping eastward across the loch, holding out the fog bank.

  He felt his cheeks. He needed a shave. He smoothed the lapels on his black suit. He liked the suit. It had been made in London by one of the city's best tailors. Very expensive. It made him feel good, look good, distinguished. Everything English made his sensations soar.

  He twisted his watch around and noted the time. Where in the hell was Lefebre? They did not have all night. If the explosives were to be set properly, the demolition team would have to begin their work at once. He would not tolerate any mistakes.

  He hated fuckups. But here, especially. The trap was going to be mined, and the thing in the loch was going to be executed. Yes, he preferred the word "executed." The thing had killed. Sitting as judge, he had examined the evidence and had sentenced the thing to death. He laughed to himself, thinking about Dr. Rubinstein's sense of mission. All crap. Nonsense. The only duties that mattered were his duty to find oil and his duty to himself and his child. The thing had threatened his dreams. Threatened his child. The thing would die.

  Of course, he'd told Scotty Bruce that if they caught the thing, removed it from the loch, and offered its existence to science, Geminii would receive the world's gratitude. But when the hell had mankind's gratitude ever really meant anything? When the hell had it ever run engines and cars or formed the base ingredients in plastics? The world's gratitude? Its accolade? Those were for megalomaniacs. The creature would die, and if the world wanted to squawk, it would have to do so after the fact.

  To hell with the creature. He'd heard the world squawk in Biafra. And what had the outrage caused? More deaths! Life had taught him to disregard mankind's guilt and conscience when it came to making important decisions. And behind this decision was the most critical fact of all. If they caught the creature and it lived, Geminii would no doubt be closed down. The British government would certainly order the creature returned to the loch and would place the loch off limits. He could not allow that to happen.

  A car pulled up to the building. Moments later, Lefebre entered the office.

  "Where is Mr. Girard?" Whittenfeld asked.

  "Back at the complex."

  "How is MacKenzie?"

  "She is indisposed."

  Whittenfeld sat at the desk. "Did you deal with the Droon problem?"

  "Yes. We convinced
both Monsieur Droon and Madame MacKenzize that their silence would be in the best interest of Scotland."

  "The trap?"

  "The chariot is in the water. The divers are ready."

  Whittenfeld stood again, turning off the light. "It's getting late," he said as he walked toward the door.

  "Yes" was Lefebre's reply.

  The station wagon stopped inside a grove of trees along the shore of the loch.

  Lefebre and Whittenfeld climbed out.

  Three security men were guarding a small submersible chariot that contained the primacord, explosives, and automatic timing detonation device. There were two divers, equipped with scuba gear and compressed air cannisters.

  The top of the trap was lying at one hundred feet below the surface. The explosives and primacord would be set on the trap at 140 feet. The timing device would be cut into the electrical cable from the command barge, which operated the trap clamp mechanism. Planned operation was one hour at depth. On the way up, the diver crew would stop the submersible chariot for decompression. The dive time would be just under two hours.

  It was one o'clock. They would be finished by three if everything went well. The command barge was scheduled to reactivate its sonar and television systems at four-thirty. They had little time to lose. They could not allow Dr. Rubinstein, Dr. Fiammengo, or Scotty Bruce to discover the existence of the explosives. Of course, Captain Harrigan and his sonar tugs would normally have picked up the presence of the submersible chariot, but Lefebre had already seen to Harrigan's cooperation and discretion, the shutdown of the tugs' sonar systems during rigging and Harrigan's eventual total silence.

  Lefebre spoke to the divers. Everything was in order. The two divers mounted the saddles on the chariot. Lefebre and Whittenfeld returned to the car. The divers started the submersible's engine. The submersible moved out into the loch, then descended and disappeared.

  The station wagon departed.

  A rooster crowed. A car roamed by, its engine screaming. Scotty opened his eyes. Morning light invaded the den window. He looked at his watch: 7:30 A.M.

  Goddamn! He'd fallen asleep at the desk and had slept through the night.

  He raced into the bathroom, threw some water on his face, then returned to the desk and once more tried to locate Mary MacKenzie. After several calls, he became convinced she was not in Inverness.

  He called Edinburgh, the Scottish Office, and asked for Peter Droon. Droon's secretary answered the phone. He asked to speak to Droon. The secretary said that that was impossible. Droon was dead; he'd been killed in a hit and run accident in front of his home the day before. Shocked, Scotty asked the secretary if Mary MacKenzie was in Edinburgh. The secretary said that as far as she knew, MacKenzie was not.

  He hung up, shaken. Droon dead.

  It suddenly occurred to him that if Mary MacKenzie had phoned Droon from Travis House, using the bugged phones, she would have signed Droon's death warrant. And certainly her own.

  However, there was little he could do now.

  The safety of the drill ship and the men had primary importance. Even if he raced all over Scotland looking for Mary, there was no assurance he'd find her, alive or dead.

  He had to be out on the loch by nine to test the trap.

  The snatch was scheduled for one o'clock.

  He stood and looked out the den window. The fog was still there, lying off the coast.

  Chapter 39

  It was as if Scotty were looking at the world through a dream. The command barge cabin, the instruments, the faces, the anticipation—all of it seemed to be veiled in a haze of suspended time.

  They had been there before. But then the submersible operation had been no more than a dry run. This was the highpoint of ambition.

  The comand barge moved gently in the swells. All systems were functioning. The morning test had been perfect. It was five o'clock. They were four hours behind schedule. A post-test short in an electrical connection had caused the delay.

  Dr. Rubinstein, who had always been a waterfall of upbeat emotions, suddenly seemed introverted, almost paranoid. Though the doctor was still tearing at his nails and twitching relentlessly around the room, there was something stoic about his movements. Perhaps after all the anticipation, the reality had cauterized his explosive energies.

  Scotty had not escaped the tension, either, but his emotions were divided. This was not finality for him. It was only an intermediate stage. Once the preliminary drama had played itself out, the beast caught and removed from the loch, then the real end-run maneuverings would start.

  Though he was unsure of exactly what he would do beyond possibly securing Mary MacKenzie's safety, there was no way he was going to allow Whittenfeld and Lefebre to march like heroes into the sunset.

  Where was Mary? Why hadn't he heard from her? Or about her? The obvious answer was too terrible to consider; he had to focus on one thing at a time. First, the ship and the crew, then Mary.

  He joined Foster in the rear of the room.

  "This will be quite a story when it can be told," Foster said, his stomach protruding over the waistband of his red polyester pants.

  "Do you have it written yet?" Scotty asked, pulling an unlit cigar from his pocket.

  "The beginning and middle," Foster said. "I'm waiting for the end."

  "Where does it start?"

  "It starts with Kreibel, Reddington, and myself."

  "It starts with death. Let's hope the ending is better."

  "You don't sound optimistic."

  "I'm not optimistic. Or pessimistic. I'm realistic."

  "Do you know something I don't?"

  "No. I just appreciate the difficulties better. See me after the whole thing is over. Don't write the ending until you do."

  Foster smiled circumspectly. "I remember when you first arrived here. You were excited. You had great expectations. What happened?"

  "I told you. Reality."

  Foster cleared his throat, confused. "Someday you'll explain all the double talk to me."

  Dr. Rubinstein walked over. "We're going to turn on the monitors," he said.

  The techs activated the flotation-raft cameras and the trap cameras. The monitors checked in simultaneously.

  "As soon as we get a corroboration from the Magellan," Dr. Rubinstein said, "we can begin."

  Capt. Eamonn Harrigan stood on the bridge of the lead sonar tug examining several side-scan printouts. There were a series of bizarre traces of the underwater trap.

  He tried to control his discomfiture. He had a foreboding feeling, much of it attributable to the contradiction and secrecy. Just the day before, he'd been contacted by Pierre Lefebre, informed about the gelatin dynamite, warned to keep the information to himself.

  The level of intrigue was frightening. Bruce, Rubinstein, Fiammengo, the three individuals who had organized the operation, were being kept in the dark about its most critical stage. God knows what other Machiavellian maneuverings

  were underway.

  He could only wonder if Captain Olafsen had encountered similar difficulties. Did deception contribute to Olafserfs death?

  Did his sonar tugs and their crews face the same gruesome end? He could only go about his job and hope that that end was not inevitable.

  Dr. Fiammengo felt relieved as she looked around the Magellan's command room. Technicians were in place, as were Bill Nunn and Mike Grabowski. But it was Pierre Lefebre's absence—he'd left just moments before—that allowed her to breathe easily again.

  There was something about Lefebre that unnerved her; perhaps the constant facial twitches, the Antarctic-cold eyes, or the penetrating glare those eyes produced. She'd never seen anyone like him before and certainly had never felt so dissected by a man's attention. Lefebre reminded her of a rabid animal. She sensed that beneath his silence was a reservoir of hatred and malice, most of which was directed at Scotty Bruce.

  She looked up at the monitors. Finally, it was about to happen. They had drawn up plans for the trap three
years before. Though they had taken painstaking care to design the mechanism properly, the entire design team had doubted the effort would ever come to fruition.

  It had been a pipe dream. It was now reaching fulfillment. There was an incredible feeling of destiny about it.

  She picked up her comm-phone.

  She could report to the command barge that they were ready.

  William Whittenfeld walked along the main deck. The mud pumps were running. The drill crew was on the drill floor. Tony Spinelli was with them. The deck was ringed with security guards equipped with high-powered rifles and grenades. The ship was also outfitted with extra lifeboats. The depth-charge ejection racks were armed, primed for use to repel the creature in the event the trap failed.

  He was ready for the public reaction. But more important, he had already charted the moves toward the resumption of normal operations. After the creature's destruction, covert instructions would be given, and Dr. Fiammengo and Dr. Rubinstein would be escorted off the vessels, returned to shore, and prohibited from entering the Geminii complex. Anything they had to say or do would have to be done elsewhere. Press silence would be maintained until Jerry Foster had issued a brief but clear-cut official version of the exercise. Then he would channel his efforts toward official outrage, and, hopefully, they would be able to resume drilling within a matter of hours.

  Drilling. The loch. His child. The petroleum reservoir hidden beneath the surface. That was all that mattered. All that had ever mattered. The rest was a nightmare.

  Lefebre called his name. He turned.

  "Look," Lefebre said, handing Whittenfeld a pair of binoculars.

  Whittenfeld trained the glasses on Lochend; the fog had moved slightly inland.

  "The wind has shifted," he said.

  "Not the fog," Lefebre countered. "The launch."

  Whittenfeld tilted the glasses downward. There was a police launch headed directly toward them, throttled at full speed.