27
Northwestern Pacific Ocean
4 Nautical Miles Southeast of The Ulithi Atoll
Dusk
The helicopter follows the orange ball of fire as it begins its day-ending descent over the Pacific.
Michael Maren pilots the two-man airship. He is alone, his laptop balanced on his thighs, the monitor displaying a real-time cartography of the Northwestern Pacific.
Maren knows the eight tiny green dots sprinkled along the upper-right portion of the screen are the boats holding the Neptune 's shipwrecked crew. For the last fourteen hours his drone, represented by a blue dot, has been trailing the survivors, remaining within sonar range of the acoustical signatures being created by the lifeboats' surface disturbances.
The red dot trailing the blue is Scarface. Maren knows the Megalodon, trained to follow the drone's sensory lure, will remain in the darkness of the mid-waters until nightfall, when it will surface and attack.
Would have been a perfect plan, but Gelet's too suspicious.
Maren checks his watch. Less than an hour of daylight left, and then all hell breaks loose.
He contemplates the impending loss of life. If you can lure Scarface into attacking Taylor and Hollander first, then maybe you don't have to allow the others to die. You can tell the authorities you weren't abandoning the Neptune's crew, that you saw Taylor aim the cannon and got scared. Yes, that's why you veered off, to avoid being hit.
He grits his teeth. Fool. The crew witnessed Satoshi tossing Hollander overboard. Stupid, stupid, letting your ego get in the way of the bigger picture. Celeste always warned you never to react emotionally when it came to business. Premeditate each move, she said, calculate each worse-case scenario before it happens. Mistakes are made through smoke-screens of optimism created by the human ego.
Glancing down at his laptop, he rechecks the drone's coordinates, then adjusts his course.
If you had only taken the time to think things out, you could have at least made it look like you were rescuing the crew. No, that wouldn't have worked either. Taylor's escape forced the issue, and Hollander knew too much. The only solution would have been to put a bullet in Taylor's brain when you had the chance. But what fun would that have been?
The monitor's display changes, the swath of Pacific now showing the islands of the Ulithi Atoll.
To hell with it. Boats sink all the time, and the shipping industry never loses any sleep over it. It's the price of doing business, the risks associated with technology. The Neptune sank, case closed. What happens now will be based on the reality of perception. Create the perception that you're a hero, not a villain.
Better start the cameras.
Maren activates the onboard camera strapped to the helicopter's landing struts.
Stick with your story. The Megalodon sank the Neptune, then Taylor destroyed my yacht, and with it, the crew's chance at being rescued. All I need to do to exonerate myself is show the world that I tried, that I risked my own life to go back and find the survivors. As long as the effort's there, that's all that'll be remembered, not the results.
He checks his laptop again.
They should be just up ahead. Wait . . . don't fly right over them, that'll look too obvious. Fly past them, then circle back. Yes, that should get them cheering. Great psychological effect, too. A miracle I found them in all this ocean, an absolute miracle. If only the Coast Guard had arrived an hour earlier.
Hover over them a few minutes, then contact the Palau authorities. Be sure to sound real excited, like you just found a needle in a haystack. Give them the coordinates, then tell them you'll lead the survivors to the nearest island in the atoll. Be sure to use the loudspeaker to inform the survivors, that way the camera documents everything. Better give Scarface a few minutes before sending him in to mop up this mess. Wait until he takes out the fist boat, then start yelling out warnings.
Ninety-three people . . . what if Scarface doesn't go after all of them? Humans are too bony to be part of Megalodon's diet, he'll probably stop feeding after a half dozen or so. It's a two-mile swim to the atoll, a few of Robertson's crew could make it.
"Dammit!" He alters his course, delaying the rescue to think.
Perception . . . got to create the perception of being the hero. Okay, what if you actually rescued a few of the crew! Let Scarface take out the lead boat, then lead him away, send him after Taylor. Descend real fast and instruct a few of the survivors to grab hold of your struts—oh, this is perfect! Make a quick run to the nearest island in the atoll, then hurry off, like you're going back to rescue a few more. I can hear them now . . . "Undaunted, our hero never let up. If it wasn't for him, we'd have died too."
As long as Taylor and Hollander die, it's just your word against the survivors, and they'll be kissing your ass, thanking you for saving them. It's not a perfect plan, but it's damn good, and it'll keep you out of prison.
Maren checks his location once more, then adjusts his course for the fly-by.
Celeste would be proud.
* * * * *
Hours of rowing in the relentless sun and heat without fresh water have left Jonas Taylor a physical wreck. His lower back is out, and his shoulders and arms ache from muscular exhaustion. His skin, exposed to the unrelenting sun, is fried to the point of blistering. His broken nose aches, his ribs are swollen. A thick white spittle has dried around his lips, and his parched throat is so tight he can barely swallow.
Andrew Fox moans next to him as he manages another stroke. The underwater photographer, twenty years his junior, is nearing physical exhaustion.
Danielle Taylor stirs from her feverish catnap, her hands covered in open blisters from having rowed hours earlier. Turning to face the bow, she sees they have fallen behind the pack once more. A lifeboat and the Zodiac are visible some sixty yards ahead, the rest of the boats out of visual range.
The end of daylight is coming fast, the heat replaced by a cool evening breeze that sends shivers across her sunburned skin.
We're going to die out here . . .
She thinks back to Fergie's death and shudders.
The helicopter roars overhead out of nowhere, its clapping thunder jump-starting her pulse.
"Hey . . . stop," she rasps, her voice so hoarse it is barely audible. "Dad, splash or something."
With great effort, Jonas manages to lift the oar from its socket and slip it twice against the surface.
Andrew reaches for the binoculars. With quivering hands, he lifts them to his face, focusing on the aircraft, now hovering a quarter mile ahead. "It's Maren," he whispers.
A wave of adrenaline shoots through Jonas's body. He looks at Andrew, their thought patterns synchronizing.
Gripping their oars, they begin stroking, this time with vigor.
* * * * *
Maren hovers his chopper sixty feet above the lead lifeboat. "Palau Coast Guard, this is Michael Maren aboard the Coelacanth helicopter. Bravo-niner-two-five-zero. Have spotted the survivors of the Neptune. Seven lifeboats and a Zodiac, located approximately two nautical miles southwest of the Ulithi Atoll. I am going to attempt to lead them to the nearest island. Please send a rescue ship immediately, these poor people need assistance."
"Roger, Bravo-niner-two-five-zero. We'll dispatch the first vessel available. Well done."
"Roger that. Maren out."
Maren flips the radio's toggle switch, changing to the loudspeaker. "Attention, this is Michael Maren. I've just alerted the Palau Coast Guard that I have located you. A rescue ship is on the way."
He pauses to allow the video camera to record the cheers.
"The Ulithi Atoll is approximately two miles to the northeast. It is imperative I lead you to one of the islands before the Meg returns."
He turns his airship and heads north, maintaining a crawl-like speed.
Okay, give it about five minutes, then send in your fish.
* * * * *
Erik Hollander stares at Susan Ferraris, a sickening feeling gurgling in his stomach. "Maren? What's that bastard doing here?"
"What difference does it make, as long as we're safe and I can see my daughter again."
Hollander swallows hard, struggling to find enough moisture to speak. "We're not safe, not as long as he controls that drone. I think . . . I think he means to kill us."
* * * * *
Maren focuses his night-vision binoculars on the sea, jumping from one lifeboat to the next. He pauses at the Zodiac. Sees Hollander and the woman suddenly double-time it with their paddles. Sorry, Hollander, you can run but you can't hide.
As he watches, the last lifeboat pulls alongside the raft.
Maren smiles as he focuses on Jonas Taylor.
Patience. First we play the hero, then we have some fun . . .
* * * * *
"Hollander, come aboard." Jonas's voice cracks in the wind as he maneuvers his lifeboat alongside the powerless Zodiac.
Andrew steadies the raft as Susan and Erik climb aboard with their paddles. "Taylor, it's Maren. He means to kill us."
Jonas nods. "The atoll. Our only hope."
Susan and Erik stroke from the bow, Jonas and Andrew rowing from the stern.
* * * * *
Michael Maren's right hand quivers with a sudden rush of adrenaline as he types in a command on the laptop keyboard, deactivating the barracuda's automated sonar tracker. Switching to manual controls, he works the laptop's joystick, sending the drone to the surface.
* * * * *
Jonas Taylor's shoulder muscles ache with each pull, his sun-scorched skin tightening like a vise with every movement. He focuses on the sea to his left and behind him, making sure each stroke of the oar is placed at its optimal point in the sea before he pulls with all his might.
A glitter of metal in the water catches his eye.
The silver drone streaks past his oar, leaving a trail of bubbles in its wake.
* * * * *
Maren selects one of the two lead lifeboats, circling it with the barracuda. Okay, get the passengers in the water, the send Scarface after Taylor while you play the hero for the camera.
Typing in another command, Maren changes the drone's acoustical signal, overlapping it with a chaotic electrical impulse.
* * * * *
Twelve hundred and seventy feet below the surface, the male Megalodon known as Scarface glides through the pitch black depths, cruising on autopilot, its ampullae of Lorenzini mesmerized by the acoustical stimulus pulsating above its head.
Now, as the last rays of light diminish in the shallows, the signal abruptly changes, jolting the male's sensory array, causing its pulse to quicken. The pattern increases in voracity, agitating the Meg, stimulating a primal response within the predator's physiology.
The Megalodon's back stiffens and arches, its half-moon-shaped tail lashing at the sea.
The signal mimics that of a dying whale.
The 57,000-pound fish rises to feed.
* * * * *
Michael Coffey and Mia Durante work the oars in the second lifeboat, which is overloaded with camera equipment, eight shivering sunburned Candy Girls, two cameramen, and three production assistants.
"Mich-ael . . ." Mia chokes out a warning as she spots the tall, mangled ivory dorsal fin break the surface thirty yards behind their boat.
The Megalodon plows through the sea, chasing their wake.
The passengers scream.
Mia and Michael stroke faster.
The monster's broad back rolls under the hull of the overloaded vessel, spilling its occupants into the water.
Mia Durante plunges facefirst into the water, the rim of the lifeboat cracking against the back of her skull as it escorts her underwater. Echoes of ocean fill her ears as she sinks, followed by a bizarre metallic buzzing sound that snaps her awake.
Mia opens her eyes and sees what she believes is a heavenly light.
The Megalodon's snout continues rising, driving the wind from her lungs as it lifts her straight out of the sea, her back colliding painfully against the inside of the overturned lifeboat.
Daredevil and vessel rise fifteen feet above the wave tops, the pinned girl thrashing wildly against the creature's upper jawbone, rows of triangular teeth searching for her flesh.
Hyperventilating, Mia punches at the receding upper gum until she loses her balance and falls into the widening mouth.
* * * * *
"My God, it . . . it just devoured that poor girl. Oh, God, oh my God—"
Michael Maren casually checks the sound levels of his voice as he continues maneuvering his drone. "Mayday, mayday, Coast Guard, this is Maren again. The Megalodon's returned, the Neptune 's crew under attack. One boat's already down, I . . . I have to do something!"
Maren flips the toggle switch back to loudspeaker. "Hold on, people, I'm coming! Try to grab onto my landing struts!"
Maneuvering the laptop's joystick, he sends the barracuda back in the direction of Jonas Taylor's lifeboat, then shifts out of autopilot and descends the helicopter toward the pack of thrashing passengers.
* * * * *
Jonas and Andrew pause, staring in horror as, one hundred yards away, the breaching monster drives the lifeboat and one of its passengers clear out of the water. Damn you, Maren . . .
Staring at the surface, he notices a line of streaking foam heading in their direction.
The barracuda!
Jonas stands, his arthritic knees popping as he steadies himself in the boat.
"Dad, what are you doing?"
"Jonas, don't—"
Jonas dives overboard, then swims into the path of the oncoming drone.
"Dad!"
Coome on . . . come on . . . "Owfff!"
The barracuda's nose cone strikes him in the gut, driving him backward through the sea.
Jonas holds on, draping his upper body around the cylindrical object, his right hand clenching the drone by its dorsal fin-shaped antenna, his knees wrapping around the propeller shaft as the slender torpedo hauls him along the surface at twenty knots.
The barracuda zigzags wildly, slows, then descends at a sixty-degree angle.
Refusing to let go, Jonas kicks at the propeller, then drives his shoulder against the head of the drone, angling it back toward the surface.
Bursting up through a swell, he gasps a quick breath of air—
—as the Megalodon's dorsal fin surfaces less than a hundred feet away.
* * * * *
Candy Girls and crewmen gasp and grope and shove one another as they tread water and fight for position beneath the descending helicopter and its life-saving landing struts.
Michael Maren hovers five feet above the mêlée, the desperate cries for help blotted out by the chopper's whirling rotors. "Easy now, I can only hold five or six at a time. Did you hear me? Hey—"
* * * * *
Jonas snaps off the fin-like antenna, overriding its remote signals, as he wraps his calves around the back of the torpedo-like object, freeing his feet to manipulate the barracuda's propeller. By pressing the soles of his shoes against either side of the shaft, he can steer the drone, by pushing against the nose cone, he can maintain his surface presence.
Pushing back with his feet, he loops the barracuda into a tight figure eight—
—sending the drone rocketing headfirst toward the opening jaws of the monster!
"Shit!"
Pressing down with his left foot, pulling up with his right toes, he executes a sharp ninety-degree turn.
The creature's right pectoral fin slices the sea beneath him like the wing of a 727 airbus.
Jonas lifts his head above the surf, regaining his bearings.
* * * * *
"Easy now, hey watch out!" Maren pulls back on the joystick as the airship wobbles beneath the additional weight of eleven panicked adults. "Some of you have to let go, do you hear me? I can't save all of you! Idiots, I said let go!"
Maren jerks the controls, pitching and yawing his aircraft, casting the desperate flock of humans back into the sea. Christ, you try to be a hero and look what happens. "Now listen to me, I can only take four people at a time, but I'll be back, okay?"
Steadying his airship, he descends again, stealing a quick glance at the laptop monitor.
"What?" The barracuda has changed course and is heading right for the downed boat.
Pausing his descent, Maren engages the autopilot once more, then grabs at the laptop's joystick. Something's wrong. The damn thing's jammed.
* * * * *
Jonas aims the barracuda toward the mob of thrashing people, then, rolling beneath the streaking cylinder, props the nose cone high out of the water and drives his legs down, sending the barracuda leaping out of the sea like a marlin.
Flying through the air, the drone's antenna secured in his right hand, Jonas manages to catch the helicopter's strut around the crook of his left arm. Dangling in midair, he curls his legs around the landing strut for support, then looks down at the swarm of passengers treading water six feet below him. Eyeballing Mike Coffey, he yells, "Move! Get them out of here!"
Coffey sees the drone. "Oh, shit. Everyone with me, the Meg's coming!" The Daredevil captain swims away, the others following his lead.
* * * * *
Maren breathes a sigh of relief as the laptop's joystick finally unjams. He checks the drone's position. "No . . . that's impossible."
Opening the cockpit door, he looks below. "Taylor?!"
"Tell Celeste I said hello." Mustering all his strength, Jonas heaves the forty-two-pound cylinder into the open cockpit, then kicks away from the landing struts and drops—
—as the male Megalodon's upper torso rises out of the sea.
Jonas bounces sideways against the Megalodon's right gill, then plummets into blackness, the sounds of the helicopter's beating rotors dulled by the density of the Pacific.
Scarface bites down on the landing strut, its clenching teeth splintering the aluminum.
Maren screams, fighting the joystick with both hands.
For a surreal moment, the chopper's thrust matches the Megalodon's extraordinary girth, and then gravity takes over and the outmatched airship is dragged from the sky, monster, man, and machine hurtling sideways into the sea.
Maren is blasted by a wall of water that fills the cabin within seconds. He fumbles desperately for the seat belt buckle, but the cabin is reeling end over end now, and it is all he can do to hold on. Pressure stabs at his ears, panic rises in his brain as he can no longer tell up from down.
The struggle wanes at eighty feet, his anger venting with the remains of his final breath.
At one hundred twenty feet, he loses consciousness.
At two hundred feet, his limbs cease twitching.
Cockpit glass shatters at seven hundred feet, the aluminum frame groaning as it buckles.
The barracuda, still wedged firmly under Maren's seat, continues transmitting.
The Megalodon escorts its prey into the depths, the prehistoric killer embraced by the primal waters of its birth.