HARBOR

Frank Heller couldn't figure out how the news had spread so quickly.  It had taken less than twelve hours for the Kiku to reach the Aura Harbor naval base in Guam.  Two Japanese television crews and one from the local station were waiting for them on the dock, along with press reporters and photographers for the Navy, the Manila Times, and the local Guam Sentinel.  They surrounded Heller the moment he disembarked, bombarding him with questions about the giant shark, the dead pilot, and the surviving scientist who'd been airlifted ahead for medical treatment.

"Professor Taylor suffered a concussion and is being treated for hypothermia and blood loss, but I understand he is recovering well," Heller told them.

The cameramen trained their lenses on Heller, but when the carcass of the Megalodon was hoisted up on the crane, they scrambled for a shot.

An insistent young Japanese woman pressed her microphone at Heller.  "Where will you take the shark?"

"We'll be flying the remains back to the Tanaka Oceanographic Institute as soon as possible."

"What happened to the rest of it?"

"We're not certain at this point.  The shark might have been ripped apart by the cable that entangled it."

"It looks like it's been eaten," said the balding American with bushy eyebrows.  "Is it possible another shark attacked this one?"

"It's possible, but—"

"Are you saying there are more out there?"

"Did anyone see—"

"Do you think—"

Heller raised his hands.  "Please, please—one at a time."  He nodded to a heavyset man from the Guam paper with his pen raised in the air.

"I guess what we want to know, Doc, is whether it's safe to go in the water?"

Heller spoke confidently.  "Let me put your fears to rest.  If there are any more of these sharks in the Mariana Trench, six miles of near-freezing water stands between them and us.  Apparently, it's kept them trapped down there for at least two million years.  It'll probably keep 'em down there a few million more."

"Dr. Heller?"

Heller turned.  David Adashek stood before him.  "Isn't Professor Taylor a marine paleontologist?" Adashek asked innocently.

Heller glanced furtively at the crowd.  "Yes.  He has done some work—"

"More than some work.  I understand he has a theory about these . . . dinosaur sharks.  I believe they're called Megalodons?"

"Yes, well, I think I'll leave it to Dr. Taylor to explain his theories to you.  Now if—

"Is this a—?"

"If you don't mind, we've all got a lot of work to do."  Heller pushed off through the crowd, ignoring the flurry of questions that followed him.

"Gangway!" came a thundering voice from behind.  Leon Barre was supervising the transferal of the Megalodon carcass onto the dock.

A photographer pushed to the front and shouted, "Captain, could we get your picture with the monster?"

Barre waved his arm at the crane operator.  The Megalodon head came to a stop in midair, its spine and caudal fin dragging on the dock and its jaws open to the sky.  The cameramen scrambled for an angle, but the carcass was so long it would not fit into the frame.  The monstrous predator made the burly man look like a small child.

"Smile, Captain," someone shouted.

Barre continued staring grimly.  "I am," he grunted.