Meg: Origins (8 page)

Reaching the plume she plunged into the river of soot, swallowing water laden with sulfur and minerals. The combination of toxins unleashed a spasmodic regurgitation reflex that shocked her system, forcing her gills to flutter.

Reentering the warmth of the
Challenger Deep
, she sank another two thousand feet before the heat reached her bloodstream, stimulating her half-frozen fins to move.

Pectoral fins unfurled, catching the sea.

The female descended in a steadily widening spiral, her muscles slowly thawing.

Sensing the current, the
Megalodon
merged with it, leveling out a thousand feet above the sea floor, allowing the river of warm water to carry her through the canyon.

· · ·

Aboard the
Maxine D

Dick Danielson entered the radio room, his complexion jaundiced, his head pounding from the unrelenting seas. He took a headset from the radio operator and positioned it over his ears, his empty stomach curled in knots.

“Danielson. This better be important, Mr. Lebowitz.”

“Sir, we had… an incident. I’m not sure quite how to explain it.”

“Damn it, Lebowitz, just tell me what happened!”

“It involves Rear Admiral Quercio and Commander Mackreides.”

Danielson closed his eyes. “Go on.”

“Mac… he took the admiral and his party down to Marizo aboard one of the Sea Kings.”

“In the middle of a typhoon?”

“The admiral was insistent. Anyway, a service was being rendered aboard the chopper at five hundred feet between the admiral and two local girls. Apparently there was a disagreement over monies owed for services rendered. The admiral refused to rectify the matter, so the women tossed the admiral’s clothing out the cargo door.”

“Oh, sweet Jesus.”

“It gets worse. Mac landed the chopper at Andersen Air Force Base… in the middle of a ceremony honoring the governor. The admiral… well, he was buck naked at the time, sir.”

“Oh my God.”

“Unfortunately, one of the local television crews reporting weather conditions at the airfield got a few choice shots before MPs cleared the area. It’s a shit-storm, sir. Admiral Gordon is flying in personally to oversee the investigation as soon as the weather clears.”

“Where’s Mackreides?”

“He’s being held at Andersen for questioning. Fortunately, the bad weather has kept the media away.”

“Listen carefully, Lebowitz. I want you to go through Mackreides’ personal belongings. Remove anything that might implicate any officer and stow it in my office.”

“Sir, isn’t that considered tampering with evidence?”

“That’s why I’m having you confiscate everything, so no one tampers with it! Danielson out.”

· · ·

Aboard the
Sea Cliff

His eyelids were heavy, his brain zapping in and out of consciousness. The voices of the two scientists became dull rhythmic chants, the swaying submersible a hammock.

Jonas laid his head back, slipping into yet another two-to-three minute catnap—each a torturous tease of rest rendering him edgier, his body demanding REM sleep.

Without warning, a rogue undersea wave of turbid water broadsided the
Sea Cliff
without warning, levitating it fifty feet as it rolled the submersible onto its port side.

Jonas snapped awake, his limbs pumping furiously at the controls even as the two scientists collided in a heap atop the sonar monitor. Sparks greeted the sudden darkness, until the back-up batteries powered on and the sub again found its equilibrium.

“Damn it, Jonas, stay awake!”

“Tell it to my brain, Richard.”

Dr. Shaffer examined the damaged sonar monitor. “Looks like the
Flying Squirrel
’s flying blind. Now what?”

Dr. Prestis checked his controls, zooming in on the sea floor using the ROV’s forward camera. “We’ve loaded seventy-two pounds of manganese nodules. I say we finish with this patch and call it a day.”

His colleague looked worried. “Washington wants samples from at least three patches.”

“What am I supposed to do, Michael? Without sonar, we could smash the ROV head-first into a black smoker. No, I’m vacuuming up everything I can see, then we’re retrieving the
Squirrel
… assuming our pilot can stay awake.”

“Jonas!” Shaffer shook him.

Jonas opened his eyes, the geologist’s face blurry. “Where’s Maggie?”

“Who?”

“My wife. I left her on the beach with Bud, just before the wave hit.”

Shaffer glanced at Prestis, shaking his head. “He’s cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Maybe we ought to bring the
Squirrel
back now.”

Jonas leaned out of his seat, supported by his harness, so that his face was inches from the bottom viewport. The
Sea Cliff
’s exterior lights were focused on the hydrothermal plume, illuminating the swirling layer of soot like a full moon obscured behind clouds. Every so often a break in the murky water appeared, allowing the beacon to illuminate the inky depths of the
Devil’s Purgatory.

Jonas followed the ray of light through the parting plume cloud, his eyes detecting movement. There was something circling in the warm layer a hundred and thirty feet below the
Sea Cliff
—and it appeared to be glowing.

· · ·

Challenger Deep

As it had hours earlier, the current had swept the
Megalodon
through the trench, guiding it to its prey.

These reverberations were different from the school of cuttlefish, but the light that flickered down from the hydrothermal plume glowed just as brightly, confusing the juvenile predator. Locking onto the
Sea Cliff
’s churning propeller, the predator abandoned the current and rose, circling just below the plume, her senses gauging the strange creature hovering above the warm layer.

The female hesitated. She needed to feed, but the last foray into the cold had nearly killed her.

The cloud of soot thickened, cloaking the light.

Instinct took over—the creature was escaping.

The
Megalodon
rose to attack.

8

Aboard the
Sea Cliff

JONAS RUBBED HIS EYES,
unable to fathom the circling creature—if it was a creature—if he was even awake. He slapped himself across his face, then watched in fascination as the glow rose higher.

His heart pounded as the white haze morphed into a triangular head, and, impossibly large, the widening jaws as big as the door of his garage.

It was a Great White, ghostly pale and twice the size of the
Sea Cliff
!

Megalodon
…

Adrenaline surged through Jonas’s body like a jolt of electric caffeine, igniting every neuron in a flight or fight response dating back to prehistoric man. Lunging for the red EMERGENCY handle, he nearly tore the device from its socket as the
Meg
’s head continued to rise above the plume, its nocturnal eyes nearly blinded by the
Sea Cliff
’s light.

Teeth, tongue and gill slits suddenly filled the viewport, the monster’s gullet consuming the brilliant white beacon of the sub’s exterior light—the momentary crunch of fiberglass rendered even more terrifying by the accompanying darkness.

Then they were rising, soaring away from the nightmarish jaws, as the 58,000 pound submersible jettisoned twelve percent of its weight. A dozen five-hundred-pound steel plates rained down on the
Megalodon
’s snout, glancing off the stunned shark’s pectoral fins before disappearing through the hot mineral clouds below.

Jonas tumbled sideways out of his harness amid voices cursing and alarms beeping and body parts colliding. A vise of purple haze clouded his vision and popped his eardrums.

Must have bit through the back-up battery… took out the pressurization system… that wobble in your ears is the titanium sphere… we’re losing internal pressure… drain every air tank… overcompensate the chamber with pressurized air before we implode!

Fumbling in the darkness, Jonas stood, his hands groping along the curved ceiling, orienting himself. A whimpering body tumbled across his feet as he located the valve. His thoughts were scattered.

Is this another nightmare or is it real?

He wrenched open the valve and cold air tinged with water blasted into the cabin.

Jonas screamed at death, but the implosion never arrived.

Just condensation… not seawater
.

The darkness groaned, splattering him with warm droplets of slime. Someone was hemorrhaging; someone else was calling out his name, cursing his existence.

· · ·

Aboard the
Tallman

Paul Agricola cursed as the blip fell away from the sonar screen. “What the hell just happened? We were so close, then it retreated.”

“Sir, I’ve got another object on sonar, rising fast.”

“It’s back! Doug, go active on
Sea Bat-I
. Luis–”

“Sir, it’s not the
Meg
.”

Heads turned.

“What do you mean it’s not the
Meg
? Is it another creature? How big is it?”

“Half the size, only it’s not a biologic, it’s a submersible. I can hear the engines. It’s at 28,550 feet and rising very fast.”

Paul Agricola glanced at his friend, Lucas Heitman. The
Tallman
’s skipper looked pale. “That’s why the Navy’s here. They’re diving the
Challenger Deep
.”

“Doug, retrieve the
Sea Bat
s. I think it’s time we headed south to flee the storm.”

· · ·

Aboard the
Sea Cliff

Eight thousand feet, and they were running out of air.

Jonas couldn’t see the sphere spinning but he felt the effects of the vertigo in his gut. He collapsed to his knees and retched, then gasped, unable to catch his breath. The sphere became his skull, the compressed weight crushing his brain, squeezing his lungs. As he gasped for air in a fetal position, a bottle rolled against him.

Too solid to be a bottle of water and attached to a piece of rubber… rubber mask?… pony bottle!

Strapping the gift of life to his face, Jonas popped the release and breathed.

· · ·

Aboard the
Maxine D

In the swaying fury of the storm, Captain Dick Danielson entered the command center, his mind gripped by the developing consequences of his actions. “What happened down there? Why the emergency ascent?”

“Sir, we don’t know. Commander Taylor hasn’t responded, but they’re coming up very fast… too fast, sir.”

“Alert Dr. Heller and make sure he has the recompression chamber ready. What’s the sub’s surface ETA?”

“Ten minutes.”

“Get a dive team standing by on deck.”

· · ·

Petty Officer Second Class Gustave Maren hooked his harness to the aft rail and held on as the twenty foot swells tossed the
Maxine D
like an amusement park ride. It had been six weeks since Maren’s secret rendezvous with Benedict Singer, five weeks since the billionaire’s money arrived by wire into his Swiss bank account. The ten thousand was only an advance of course, the real money would come when he delivered the rock.

Not rock. Manganese nodule.

Gustave Maren had little interest in rocks or manganese or anything to do with the ocean, but he took great pride in the fact that his fourteen-year-old son was an expert on all these things. First in his class and an I.Q. that could not be traced to any genetic branch on the Maren family tree.

Gus was doing this for Michael.

Thoughts of money danced in Gustave’s head. Yes, he was doing this for Michael, but the truth was that his son was already receiving offers to attend Ivy League schools. A scholarship meant Gus could save on his only child’s tuition, using the profits from this minor theft to pay off the mortgage, perhaps even buy a new car.

The divers in the wild sea beckoned. The sub was rising. A belch of bubbles and foam and there it was, swaying on the surface like a drunken whale, the divers fighting with Typhoon Marian to capture it.

Harnesses in place, the A frame kicked back, hoisting the
Sea Cliff
out of the Pacific just as the swirling gray storm clouds opened-up and the drenching began. Danielson appeared on deck, a fool playing to his men, his face ashen. The
Sea Cliff
’s pilot, Taylor, was well-liked. This accident—or whatever they were witnessing—had been foreseen by everyone.

The captured sub swayed in the grayness of an angry dusk, the ship’s converging deck lights revealing the rain… and one other item.

Trailing the dripping
Sea Cliff
was a cable, taut with a weight still submerged.

Danielson pounded on Gustave’s rain gear with his open palm. “Once the
Sea Cliff
is secure, I want your crew to retrieve that ROV! See to it, sailor.”

“Aye, sir.”

Gustave waited for the fiberglass hull to touch down, then he traced the ROV’s cable to its docking station situated in the bow of the
Sea Cliff
’s sled. Using his flashlight, he located the exterior controls and attempted to reverse the winch, but the power was out.