Tangled Threat ; Suspicious

by Heather Graham

  “Uh, uh, uh—back now,” Michael said, frowning at Lorena as if she might have forgotten to warn her group that the tour was hands-off. She shrugged innocently and grinned back with a combination of mischief and amusement. No doubt the boys had been a handful since they’d started their tour. Actually, Lorena wasn’t responsible for leading tours. She was a trouper, though. She seemed to like to be in the middle of things; when there were no injuries or sniffles to attend to, her work was probably boring. And it wasn’t as if there were a dozen malls or movie theaters in the area to keep her busy.

  “Back, boys,” he repeated. “Even hatchlings can be dangerous.”

  “Those little things? What can they do?” demanded the biggest boy as he stuck his hand into the tank with the week-old hatchlings.

  Michael grabbed his hand with a no-nonsense grip that seemed to surprise the boy.

  “They can bite,” Michael said firmly.

  “Mark Henson, stand back and behave, now,” the boy’s obviously stressed mother said, stepping forward to set a hand on Mark’s shoulders. “We’re guests here. The doctor has asked you—”

  “He ain’t no doctor—are you?” the boy demanded.

  The woman shot Michael an apologetic look. “I’m so sorry. Mark is my son Ben’s cousin, and I don’t think he gets out very often.”

  “It’s all right,” Michael said. He was lying. Mark was a brat. “Mark seems to be very curious. Yes, Mark, I am a doctor. I have a doctorate in marine science. Salt-and freshwater reptiles are my specialty. I also studied biochemistry, animal behavior and psychology, so trust me, hatchlings can give you a nasty bite. Especially these hatchlings.”

  “Why those hatchlings?” Mark demanded immediately.

  Because we breed them especially to chew up nasty little rugrats like you! he was tempted to say. But Lorena was already answering for him.

  “Because they’re tough little critters, survivors,” Lorena said flatly. “Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Preston is in charge of our selective-breeding department. He knows a tremendous amount about crocodilians, past and present. He’ll tell you all about his work now—for those interested in hearing,” she finished with just the slightest edge of warning in her voice for the boys. They stared at her as she spoke, surveying her intently. No wonder she was glad to let the group heckle him now. Lorena was an exceptionally attractive woman with lush hair, brilliant eyes, and a build that not even a lab coat could hide.

  The two older boys were at that age when they were just going into adolescence, a state when squeaky sopranos erupted every ten minutes, and sexual fantasies began. And they were obviously having a few of those over Lorena. She made a face at Michael, surprised him by slipping quickly from his lab. Well, she didn’t have to be here, he told himself. It wasn’t her job. But she’d seemed fascinated by everything here ever since she’d arrived.

  Even him.

  Not that he minded.

  Except that...

  She was bright. And really beautiful. So what was she doing out here?

  She was good with people, he would definitely give her that. The complete opposite of the way he felt. He hated having to deal with people.

  He gave the boys a sudden, ever-so-slightly malicious smile. “Well, gentlemen, let me introduce you more fully to these hatchlings. Alligators, as you might have heard already, date back to prehistoric times. They didn’t descend from the dinosaurs. They were actually cousins to them. They shared common ancestors known as thecodonts. And way back in the late Cretaceous period, there was a creature called Deinosuchus—a distant relative of these guys—with a head that was six feet in length. Imagine that fellow opening his jaws on you. True crocodilians have been around for about two million years. They’re fantastic survivors. They have no natural enemies—”

  “That’s not true!” Mark announced. “I saw a program on alligators and crocs. An anaconda can eat an alligator, I saw it. You could see the shape of the alligator in the snake. Man, it was cool—”

  “We don’t have anacondas in the Everglades,” Michael said, gritting his teeth hard before he could continue. “Birds, snakes and small mammals eat alligator eggs, and it’s easy for hatchlings to be picked off, but once it’s reached a certain size, an alligator really only has one enemy here. And that’s...?”

  He let the question trail off, arching a brow toward Mark. He looked like a jock. Probably played football or basketball, at the very least. He liked to talk, but he didn’t seem to have the answer to this one.

  “Man,” said one of the boys. He was thinner than his companion, with enormous dark eyes and long hair that fell over his forehead. Nice-looking kid. Shy, maybe, more of a bookish type than Mark. “Man is the only enemy of a grown alligator in the Everglades.”

  “That’s right,” Michael said, an honest smile curving his lips. He could tell that this kid had a real interest in learning. “You’re Ben?” Michael asked.

  The boy nodded. He pulled the third kid up beside him. “This is my other cousin, Josh.”

  “Josh, Ben and Mark.”

  “Do we get to see the alligators eat a deer or something?” Mark asked.

  “Sorry, you don’t get to see them eat any living creatures here, kid. The juveniles and adults out in the pools and pens are fed chicken.”

  “They’re so cool,” Ben said, his brown eyes wide on Michael.

  Michael nodded. “Yep, they’re incredible. Alligators were near extinction here when I was young, but then they became protected. The alligator has made one of the most incredible comebacks in the world, mainly because of farms like this, but also in the wild. They look ugly, and they certainly can be fearsome creatures, but they have their place in the scheme of life, as well, keeping down the populations of other animals, often weeding out the sick and injured because they’re easy prey.”

  “I think they’re horrible creatures,” Ben’s mother said with a shudder.

  “Some people hate spiders—but spiders keep down insect populations. And lots of people hate snakes, but snakes are largely responsible for controlling rodent populations,” Michael said.

  “What’s that mean?” Mark asked.

  “It means we’d be overrun by rats if it weren’t for snakes,” Ben answered, then flushed, staring at Michael.

  “That’s exactly what it means,” Michael said.

  “What do you do here, Dr. Preston?” the third kid, cousin Josh, asked.

  “That’s easy. He’s a baby doctor for the alligators,” Mark insisted.

  “I study the growth patterns of alligators,” Michael said. “We raise alligators here, but this is far from a petting zoo. We farm alligators just like some people farm beef cattle. We bring tourists in—and other scientists, by the way, to learn from the work we do here—but the owners are in this for the same reason other farmers work with animals. For the money. Alligators are valuable for their skins, and, more and more, for their meat.”

  “Tastes like chicken,” Mark said.

  “That’s what some people say,” Michael agreed, bristling inside at the boy’s know-it-all attitude. “They’re a good food source. The meat is nutritious, and little of the animal goes to waste. We’re always working on methods to make the skin more resilient, the meat tastier and even more nutritious. By selective breeding and using the scientific method, we can create skins that improve upon what nature made nearly perfect to begin with.”

  “Perfect?” Ben’s mother said with a shudder. Her husband slipped an arm around her.

  “They make great boots,” he said cheerfully.

  “Belts, purses and other stuff, too,” Ben supplied.

  “You’ll see more of that as your tour progresses,” Michael said. “I’ll tell you a bit more about what goes on in here, then you can watch them eat, Mark, and at the end, guess what?”

  “We can all buy boots, belts and purses made out o
f alligator skin?” one of the young women inquired with a pleasant smile.

  “That’s right,” Michael agreed.

  “And we really get to see them chomp on chickens?” Mark demanded, as if that were the only possible reason for coming on the tour.

  “Yeah, you can see them chomp on chickens,” Michael agreed. He pointed at Ben. “Come back here, Ben, and you can help me.” Michael looked up at the adults in the crowd. He never brought a kid back behind his workstation, but for some reason, it seemed important to let Ben lord it over Mark. He was sure that life usually went the other way around. “One of the most incredible things we’re able to do in working with crocodilians is studying the growth of the embryo in the egg. Ben, lift that tray, so they can see what I mean.”

  “Wow!” Mark gasped, stepping forward again. Even he was impressed.

  “It’s possible to crack and remove the top of the alligators’ eggs to study the growth of the embryos without killing them. It’s also possible to cause changes and mutations in the growing embryos by introducing different drugs, genetic materials or even stimuli such as heat or cold. Here...in this egg, you’ll see a naturally occurring mutation. This creature cannot survive even if it does reach the stage of hatching. You see, it’s missing a lower jaw. Can you imagine an alligator incapable of using its jaws? Everywhere in nature, there are mishaps and imperfections. Over here, in this egg, you have an albino alligator. They have tremendous difficulty surviving because—”

  “Because they sunburn!” Mark interrupted, laughing as if he’d made a joke.

  “Actually, that’s true. They have trouble coping with the intense sun that their relatives need to survive. They also lack the element of surprise in their attacks—they’re easily seen in greenish or muddy waters where their relatives are camouflaged by their surroundings.”

  “He’s a goner,” Mark said.

  “Well, not here,” Michael told him. “He’ll hatch and grow, and he’ll have a nice home at the farm, and we’ll feed him and take care of him—you know why?”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s unusual, and our visitors will like looking at him, that’s why,” Michael said, pleased with himself because he seemed to be growing a little more tolerant of Mark.

  “So that’s what you do—you try to make white alligators?” Mark asked.

  Michael shook his head. “Selective breeding...well, it’s what makes collies furry or Siamese cats Siamese. We find the alligators with the best skins and we breed them, and then we breed their offspring until we create a line of animals with incredibly hardy skins that make the very best boots and bags and purses. We also find the alligators that give the most meat with the most nutritional value—”

  “Because it’s a farm, and it’s out to make money,” Ben’s mother said, and she shuddered again. “Thank God!”

  “She thinks you should kill them all,” Ben’s father said.

  Michael shrugged. “Like I said—”

  “They should all be killed,” the attractive older woman said, speaking out at last. She had keen blue eyes, and she stared at Michael, somehow giving him the creeps. “They eat people.”

  “They do eat people, right?” Mark demanded with a morbid determination.

  “There have been instances, yes.”

  “A friend of mine was eaten!” the elderly woman said, and she kept staring at Michael, as if it was all his fault.

  “Anytime man cohabits with nature, there can be a certain danger,” he said gently. He looked at the others. “It’s dangerous to feed alligators. The alligators are repopulating Florida, and they do get into residential canals, especially during mating season. I know of one incident in particular when a woman was feeding the alligators...and, well, to the alligator, there is no distinction between food and a hand offering food.”

  “And children,” the woman said, growing shrill. “Children! It’s happened. It’s horrible, and they should all be destroyed. Little children, just walking by lakes, looking at flowers—these monsters need to be killed! All of them! How can you people do this, how can you!” Her voice had risen; she was shouting.

  There was a buzzer beneath his workstation; all Michael had to do was hit it and the security people would come. Sign of the times. But Michael didn’t touch the button; the older woman had stunned him by suddenly going so ballistic, and he just stared at her.

  She pointed a finger at him. “Tell them. Tell them the truth. Tell them about the attacks.”

  “Yes, there have been attacks, and of course that’s horrible. But we need to live sensibly with nature. In Africa, along the river, the Nile crocodiles are far more ferocious, but they’re a part of the environment. We can’t just eliminate animal populations because the animals are predators. We’re predators ourselves, ma’am.”

  She shook her finger at him, and her voice grew more strident. “They’re going to eat you. They’re going to eat you all. Rise up and tear you to pieces, rip you to shreds—that’s how they do it, you know, little boy!” she said, suddenly gripping Mark by the shoulders. She stared at him with her wild eyes. “They clamp down on your body, and they shake you, and they break you and rip you, and your bones crunch and your veins burst. Your blood streams into the water, and you’re dying already while they drown you.”

  “Oh, my God, please!” Ben’s mother cried, trying to pull Mark from the woman’s grip.

  “Hey now!” Michael said, and he came around his station, setting an arm around the woman’s shoulders to hold her while Ben’s mother, pale as a shadow, pulled Mark to her.

  “You!” the elderly woman said, turning on him again. “You! They’ll eat you. You made them, and they’ll eat you. They’ll tear you to bits, and your own mother won’t be able to find enough bloody pieces to bury you!”

  “Now, really, I didn’t invent alligators, ma’am—”

  “You’ll die!” she screeched.

  He reached for her again, aware that he had to take control of the situation before it became a monumental disaster. He could see her going completely insane and destroying his lab. Then the cops would be called in, and soon reporters would be crawling everywhere, and then...

  “Please, now—” he began.

  The door suddenly opened. Security hadn’t come; Lorena had, presumably drawn by the noise. She stared reproachfully at Michael.

  “What happened?”

  “That lady is telling Dr. Preston that the alligators should eat him!” Mark said excitedly.

  “We have a problem,” Michael agreed. “I think I should call Security—” he began.

  “No, no, we’re all right.” Lorena—who, he had been told, had a degree in psychology and another in public relations, as well as being an RN—assessed the situation quickly and took charge. “Mrs. Manning, right? Come along and tell me about it. We’ll get you something cold to drink. It can be so hot here, even with the air-conditioning on the heat can get to you and—”

  “Young woman, I am not suffering from the heat!” the elderly woman proclaimed. But her shoulders sank, and she suddenly seemed to deflate. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m not a lunatic, I don’t usually behave this way.... I shouldn’t have come. Yes, young woman, you may get me something cold to drink.”

  Lorena led her quickly toward the door, but once there, the woman stopped and turned back, staring at Michael. She pointed at him again. “I hope they don’t eat you, young man,” she said. Then she smiled, but it wasn’t a pleasant expression, and despite himself, he felt the strangest chill snake along his spine.

  Then she was gone, as Lorena whisked her out the door.

  Michael, with the nine remaining members of the tour group, was dead silent as seconds ticked by.

  He suddenly felt a small hand slipping into his. He looked down. Ben was staring up at him. “Don’t worry. She was just crazy. She probably had a friend who got eaten,
and she probably misses her. I’m sure you’re not going to get eaten, Dr. Preston.”

  Michael smiled; the chill dissipated.

  “All right, everyone. I have a question for you. What animal is most dangerous to Americans?”

  There was silence for a moment, then Mark cried out, “I know, I know! Bees!”

  “Bees are up there in the top ten, but they’re not in the number-one slot.”

  “I know what it is.” A young man, one of the two who looked like a newlywed, was speaking for the first time. He held his wife tightly against him, and seemed pale himself, probably shaken by the older woman’s display. “The deer.”

  “The deer?” Ben protested.

  “That’s right,” Michael said.

  “The deer? You mean like Bambi?” Josh asked.

  “More Americans are killed each year due to accidents involving deer than are killed by any rattler, spider, shark or reptile out there. So we have to remember to always be careful in any animal’s environment,” Michael said.

  His door opened again; Peggy Martin, one of the guides, stepped in. “Well, ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to move on to the pens, or straight into either the gift or coffee shop, if you’d rather,” she said cheerfully.

  “Mark, you get to see the gators eat chickens,” Josh said.

  Mark looked at Ben’s parents. “I’m really hungry. Maybe we could just get a hamburger. Please?” he said politely.

  “Sure, sure,” Ben’s father said. He looked at Michael. “Thank you for the information, Dr. Preston.”

  “Yeah, it was great,” one of the pretty young women Michael had pegged as a newlywed agreed.

  “Thanks,” Michael said. “Thanks very much, you were, er, a great group.”

  He leaned back against his workstation, strangely exhausted. The old woman had given him the creeps. He kept a false smile plastered to his face as the group filed out, the boys in the rear.