30.

San Francisco, California

Virgil Wade Carmen leans back on the uncomfortable couch, staring at the Free Willy poster.

Make them put up cash. Sara’s okay, but I don’t trust that other woman as far as I can throw her. Anyone who dyes their hair purple can’t be—

He stops fidgeting as the two women reenter the loft.

Sara forces a smile. “Virgil, you’re not telling us everything, are you?”

“I told you what I know. Angel’s gone. Jonas and Mac released her and—”

“—released her where?” The veins in Jean Thompson’s neck are bulging, the woman’s face a mask of rage. “Taylor wouldn’t have just released her, not into the Monterey Sanctuary.”

“No one knows. Terry’s keeping it all hush-hush, but I found out. I found out how they did it, where they’re taking her, and all sorts of other information you’ll want to know. But it’ll cost you.”

Sara looks at Jean, then back to Virgil. “How much?”

“A hundred grand. In cash. And don’t tell me you can’t afford it. I know you just landed two more sponsors, and it was all because of my footage. Face it, ladies, I’m the one who got you the media, the YouTube videos, the sponsors. Hell, I even got you Lana Wood. Now, I want a taste.”

Jean is ready to spew a string of expletives, but Sara cuts her off. “Virgil, we appreciate you coming to us with this information, but this isn’t exactly something the Institute can keep a secret very long. Of what possible value—”

“—Jonas beat you to the punch, Sara. He’s releasing Angel at a remote place far away from humans—essentially stealing your thunder. And just for good measure, he’s documenting everything, which means he’ll be putting it right in your faces. I can tell you  their present location, where they’re headed, and—”

“Christ, he’s taking her back to the Mariana Trench.”

“How?” Jean asks.

“Boat, no doubt.” Sara swears, “Son of a bitch. There was a hopper dredger docked outside the canal during the debate.”

Sweat breaks out across Virgil’s face.

“Sneaky bastards. With Angel gone, Taylor can seal up the lagoon. He’ll put Lizzy in one aquarium, Bela in the other—”

“—and we’re out of business!” Jean kicks her ergo-metric chair across the loft. “Sara, I just signed a contract with the YouTube Channel. We promised them footage of Bela and Lizzy’s release. Do you have any idea how much money’s at stake?”

“I can do that,” Virgil states.

Sara ignores him. “Maybe we can still get Angel on tape. What’s the status of our sister organization in Japan?”

“Forget it. They’re strictly out to protect the whales.”

“That could work. With Angel in the Western Pacific—”

“Are you deaf?” Virgil tosses a throw pillow at Sara. “I said I can free Belle and Lizzy!”

“How?”

“The canal’s stuck in the open position. The doors must have jammed when they moved Angel. Terry’s not bothering to fix it since they’re sealing up the lagoon, anyway. Construction starts in three days, which gives you plenty of time to set up a film crew outside the canal entrance while I release the sisters.”

Sara looks at Jean, her eyebrows raised. She sits next to Virgil. “How do we do that, Virge?”

“We? We don’t do anything. I’m the only one who can open the channel.”

“What channel?”

“The channel that connects the lagoon to the Meg Pen—it’s situated below the main deck about fifty feet beneath the bridge. There are two doors, one on either side, with a foot of free board allowing for pressure differentials between the two aquariums. The engineer designed it that way, just in case we ever needed to move the pups into the lagoon. Only time we ever used it was when Angel gave birth.”

Jean sits on the sofa’s arm rest on the other side Virgil. “And you have access to the channel’s controls?”

Virgil nods. “A hundred grand in cash delivers the two sisters to your film crews while beating Jonas Taylor to the punch. My offer’s good until midnight tonight. After that, I’m off to interview at the Miami Sea Aquarium.”

“A hundred grand, my ass,” Jean shoots back. “I’d rather go belly-up than pay you that.”

“No worries, then.” Virgil stands to leave. “I’m sure the two of you can always land jobs with PETA, tossing buckets of blood at celebrities wearing mink coats.”

Philippine Sea
Western Pacific

The Sikorsky S61N helicopter soars high over the Pacific, cruising southwest at 120 knots. The two pilots converse in the cockpit—

—while their lone passenger stretches out in the cargo area next to a twelve-foot-long shipping crate marked: T.O.I. ABYSS GLIDER III HANDLE WITH CARE.

Jonas is lying on an old Army mattress and blanket, his body desperate for sleep, his mind in turmoil. There is no worse feeling for a parent than knowing their child is in danger; nor is there any greater anxiety than having to wait to learn of their son or daughter’s fate. In Jonas’s case, he has had to endure two torturous days of flying from the hopper dredger’s helicopter flight pad back to San Francisco, to the flight from California to Hawaii, followed by another long connecting flight taking him to Guam. And now this, the final leg of his five-thousand-mile journey, a chopper ride across the Philippine Sea in search of the supertanker, Tonga. Only it is not the final leg—

—it’s only the beginning. The final leg is a six-mile journey into the abyss—an endurance test he last accomplished twenty-three years ago—its success already jeopardized by his age, his anxiety, and his overwhelming physical and mental fatigue.

Must sleep . . . for David’s sake.

He adjusts his head on the make-shift pillow and closes his eyes again, his mind refusing to give in to reason.

Mac’s inside guy said David had succeeded in deep-water docking the Manta Ray. That means he either left the lab and got lost, he left the lab and became trapped, or the deepwater dock imploded and he’s trapped inside the lab . . .

His bloodshot eyes pool with tears as darker thoughts once more attempt to pierce his resolve.

No! Don’t go there! Focus on the other options. Orga nize your rescue efforts.

If he’s trapped in the lab then you’ll need enough cable to reach bottom, plus at least an extra mile of slack. Figure 37,000 feet, just to be safe. The lab weighs forty-seven tons, which means you’ll need an industrial winch powerful enough to haul the lab top-side. The tanker should have something like that on board.

But if he’s lost down there, or his sub is crippled, it won’t be easy to find him. Best strategy is to ping an expanding radius along the bottom. Of course, there’s a danger in doing that, too.

Memories of his encounters with Carcharodon megalodon in the Mariana Trench slip through his defenses.

Screw it! It doesn’t matter what’s down there. Besides, if David’s sub was damaged, he would have ejected the escape pod. The pod floats free, but the chances of hitting that access hole are a million to one, which means he could be pinned to the Panthalassa ceiling . . . that’s probably where you need to begin your search.

He rolls over again.

No, Jonas, first you need to sleep . . . for David’s sake.

Panthalassa Sea

The creature is standing upright along the bottom, towering five hundred feet above a sea floor long since decimated by its arrival. Weighing upwards of ten thousand tons, the monstrosity of rusted steel is buried bow-first, surrounded by a debris field highlighted by the remains of its raised upper deck and tripod mainmast, eight boilers and four sets of turbines that had once powered its four out-turning propellers.

David activates the sub’s exterior lights as he maneuvers the Manta Ray slowly around the Portland Class heavy cruiser’s ancient keel. The silenced propellers are caked with barnacles, the steel plates rusted but intact—

—save for two massive holes located aft of midship, created by the impact of the two Japanese torpedoes that sank the American warship more than six decades earlier.

David guides the Manta Ray around the starboard flank, circling the destroyer’s sixty-six-foot-wide beam where he is confronted by the three main battery turrets, now aimed at the sea floor. Encrusted almost beyond recognition by barnacles, the weapons have become a refuge for some of the smaller inhabitants of the abyss.

The Manta Ray’s lights settle on an insignia: CA-35.

“Jesus, Kaylie . . . it’s the Indianapolis!”

Commissioned in November of 1932, the USS Indianapolis saw its first combat in the South Pacific two months after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. As the flag ship for the 5^th Fleet, the destroyer earned ten battle stars for combat in Iwo Jima, the U.S. assault on the Mariana Islands, and the pre-invasion bombardment of Okinawa.

In July of 1945, the cruiser returned to the Mare Island Navy Yard in California to transport a top-secret cargo to the South Pacific—the uranium needed to complete the atomic bombs designated for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On July 16, the ship arrived at Tinian Island in the Marianas to deliver its payload.

Two weeks later, on July 30, 1945, at 12:14 a.m., the Indianapolis was torpedoed in the Philippine Sea by a Japanese submarine. The ship sank in twelve minutes, taking with it three hundred of its crew. The remaining nine hundred men would spend four harrowing days at sea without food or water, floating in shark-infested waters, devoured from below while waiting to be rescued.

Of the 1,196 men who were on board the Indianapolis that fateful morning, only three hundred and sixteen would survive.

David stares in awe at the ghostly wreck. “I read about the Indianapolis back in high school. The survivors say she went down bow-first. She probably weighed twenty million pounds when she struck the Philippine Sea floor doing thirty to forty knots. Her bow must have punched a hole right through the bottom like a giant anvil, only she kept on going . . . straight through to the Panthalassa Sea until she finally struck bottom one last time. No wonder they never found her.”

“Maren obviously did,” Kaylie says. “Maybe he was searching for the wreckage when he stumbled across that hole. His discovery of the Panthalassa was probably just an accident.”

“Makes sense.”

The blood rushes from Kaylie’s face as she presses the headphones tighter to her ears. “The mosasaur, it’s heading straight for us!”

David stamps both feet down on the propeller pedals—

—the starboard shaft long gone, the port-side propeller sending them hurtling toward the Indianapolis’s upright deck—

—and a dark passage that once served as the ship’s aircraft hangar.

David regains control, but instead of veering away he slips the Manta Ray inside the barnacle-encrusted rectangular opening.

Wa—boom!

Just missing the sub, the mosasaur’s massive skull collides with the steel housing, sending thunderous sound waves reverberating through the hull. Too large to follow, the predator swims back and forth in front of the opening as it waits impatiently for its quarry to emerge.

From inside the hangar, David and Kaylie watch their would-be killer standing sentry.

“David, if we make a run for it—”

“We’ll never make it. The starboard prop is shot, and the wings are no longer hydrodynamic. Best speed we could muster . . . maybe fifteen knots.”

“What about the escape pod?”

“Bad idea. There’s too many things out there that want to eat us. Even if we managed to make it to the access hole alive, there’s no way to steer the pod. We could pin ourselves against the Panthalassa’s rocky ceiling and be stuck there until our air ran out, a commodity that’s already getting thin.” He points to a CO₂ gauge. “The scrubbers are shot.”

She stares at the gauge, her limbs trembling. “How long?”

“Maybe twenty minutes, another ten if you add the pony bottles.” He forces a teary-eyed smile. “I didn’t want to say anything. I just thought we’d sort of fall asleep.”

“No! This isn’t over yet.” She fumbles for Maren’s charts and scans the map. “If the hole’s directly above this ship, then wouldn’t Maren’s lab be close by as well?”

“I suppose. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“You could use the deepwater dock to repair the prop. Maybe we can load up on air, or clean out the scrubbers!”

“Give me that map.” David checks their coordinates against the highlighted insignia that marks the lab’s location. “It’s close . . . about two hundred yards to the north.” He looks up as the dark shadow swims by the narrow aircraft hangar opening. “Next problem: How do we get past our hungry friend?”

“Let’s look around. Maybe there’s another way we can slip out?”

David rotates the Manta Ray, using its exterior lights to explore the interior of the Indianapolis.

The chamber is dark, its rusted confines covered in mineral rock, teeming with colonies of albino mussels and ghostly-white, foot-long clams, blind eelpout fish, spindly sea scorpions, and an uncountable number of crustaceans and trilobites. All feeding off a sheer vertical face of steel, coated in three generations of hardened minerals spewed from hydrothermal vents.

Rising up from the ship’s buried bow is a perpetual stream of heated mineral water, clouded with heavy doses of methane and salt.

“Kaylie, this is a brine pool.”

“How do you know?”

He releases his hands from the joysticks, the Manta Ray rising. “See? The water’s so salty it’s floating the sub.”

“David—” She points to something massive, moving along one of the far walls.

He turns the sub, aiming its lights.

It’s a turtle—the biggest turtle he has ever seen! Sixteen feet from its small, narrow head to its pointy tail, with a shell as large as a Volkswagen Beetle, the creature easily weighs over twelve thousand pounds. Moving along the wall, it is casually plucking lobsters from their rocky perches using its sharp, hooked beak.

“Archelon ischyros . . . breathing like a fish. Look, there’s two more.” Pushing the left foot pedal down, he maneuvers the submersible forward, aiming for the nearest turtle—

—bumping into it, chasing it across the chamber.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Offering the mosasaur an alternative meal.” David swerves after the turtle, prodding it toward the exit.

Spooked by the sub’s bright lights, the turtle swims toward the hangar opening—

—only to execute a quick about-face as it detects the mosasaur.

David rams the turtle again along its soft, leather-like underbelly, driving it back outside the aircraft hangar.

The mosasaur snaps at the turtle, which paddles away quickly, escaping into the darkness.

The mosasaur swims after it.

David waits thirty seconds before guiding the crippled submersible out of the Indianapolis, keeping it close to the sea floor as he heads north.

“One hundred fifty yards . . . one hundred . . . David, slow down or you’ll pass it.”

“I haven’t passed anything! Are you activating the docking doors?”

“Do you see me pushing this thing?” She listens on sonar. “It’s working. I can hear the doors opening.”

“Are you sure? Where’s the hangar lights?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Maren’s saving on bulbs. Come about! Make your course one-seven-zero, and slow down!”

David whips the submersible around, heading south—

—the silhouette of the spherical lab situated between several hydrothermal chimneys thirty yards ahead.

The cockpit spins in his head, the carbon dioxide levels approaching critical levels. Shaking off the dizzy spell, he guides the Manta Ray beneath the lab and up into the dark recesses of its open deepwater dock.

Kaylie activates the controls once more, closing the doors—

—as something else shoots up inside the chamber  with them, bashing the tiny submersible sideways!

The cockpit spins, the chamber walls shaking, the sub’s exterior lights spinning—

—the twin beams catching glimpses of the giant archelon turtle, the beast in panic mode as it attempts to swim within the tight confines of the deepwater dock!

The titanium doors seal beneath them.

The generators kick in, slowly draining the chamber.

Trapped, the prehistoric turtle goes berserk, flipping the Manta Ray onto its side, bashing its head against the spherical bottom of the sealed lab. Clawing at the walls, it slashes deep gashes across the polished titanium alloy—

—alerting the mosasaur, the enraged creature now circling outside the lab!

WHOMP!

The ovoid chamber dents inward as the monster strikes the docking station’s elevated flat bottom.

Seawater continues to drain, the interior pressure equalizing, causing the turtle’s limbs and head to swell—

—until they burst like ripe melons! Innards splatter across the oval walls. The docking station rumbles, the intense water pressure threatening its structural integrity.

Wasting no time, David activates the cockpit, starting the excruciating process of unsealing the dome. He and Kaylie gather up pony bottles of air, bottled water, and food, shoving the supplies inside a canvass backpack. The cockpit pops open. The pressure throttles their ear drums and sinus passages, causing their noses to bleed—an ironic defense against the assault waged by the dead turtle’s overwhelming stench.

Kaylie rolls out of the cockpit, sliding down the damaged starboard wing. Sliding in turtle slime, she drags herself up the titanium ladder, David right behind her. His eyes are bulging, the walls wobbling in and out as if he’s on a bad acid trip, the pressure in his head threatening to implode his skull. Climbing the ladder behind Kaylie, he reaches up and helps her crank open the hatch’s rusted hand wheel as the entire chamber shakes.

With every last ounce of strength, David bears down on the hatch, wrenching it open. The pressure differential inside vacuums Kaylie head-first into the lab, David grabbing hold of her ankle with one hand, the inside of the hatch with the other, slamming the titanium lid shut behind them milliseconds before the screeching titanium walls buckle and bow inward beneath fourteen thousand pounds per square inch of water pressure—

Wa . . . BOOM!

The air space inside the docking station is inhaled in an instantaneous, voluminous gulp, collapsing the chamber’s thick titanium shell.

No longer supported from below, the 94,000-pound spherical laboratory drops through the wreckage—

—crushing the mosasaur’s skull, pinning the dead monster against the sea floor like a bowling ball dropped on the head of a python.