MEG: Nightstalkers (17 page)

The crowd reacted—and so did Terry, who stared at her husband, aghast. “You lied to me. All this time you intended to recapture the sisters.”

“The lagoon’s empty, Terry. Think about it—we can permanently seal the canal doors and prevent this catastrophe from ever—”

The slap across his face stung, but it was not nearly as painful as having to watch his wife struggle to exit the gym.

Aboard the
Mogamigawa

Jacqueline Buchwald entered the tanker’s command center at eleven-thirty a.m. still wearing her overalls and safety harness. “Captain, I was told there’s a call scheduled with the Crown Prince.”

Steven Beltzer handed her a key on a rope. “Communication Suite-B. Lock up when you’re done. You look tired.”

“You try putting in a thirty-six-hour shift and see how your mascara holds up.” Taking the key, she exited the bridge, descending one flight to the deck holding the officer’s quarters.

The three communication suites were located at the end of the corridor.

She keyed into Suite-B, her nostrils immediately assaulted by the scent of old pipe tobacco. Tossing the entire ashtray into the garbage, she situated herself at the Wi-Fi station and entered her password on Skype.

The host was already logged in.

The Crown Prince flashed a smile. “Ms. Buchwald, so good to see you. Excellent work today … excellent. When can we expect the new arrivals?”

“The captain says eight days.”

“Give me the status of the captured creatures. Are they in good condition? Will they survive the journey?”

“The juvenile ichthyosaur was in shock but made it through the night and should recover. Same for the adult male, which suffered surface lacerations from its extended time in the trowel. I placed the two shonisaurs in the bow pen, the mosasaur in the stern and drained the central pen between them to prevent the animals from detecting the other species’ presence.”

“And the mosasaur—how big is it?”

“Fifteen and a half meters; just under fifty-two feet. It’s very aggressive; it’ll definitely be one of the most popular exhibits. And yes, it’s a female, so we can freeze its eggs to breed its successors. Same with the shonisaur runt. We got lucky there.”

“I believe preparation and patience fosters luck. Isn’t that right, cousin?”

Another caller’s face appeared on the screen’s left border—a stout man with a thick black goatee and unibrow, his eyes cold and black.

Fiesal bin Rashidi grimaced at his first cousin, the Crown Prince. “I am sorry, Your Highness, I missed the comment.”

“I was just telling Ms. Buchwald that preparation and patience fosters luck.”

“And this comment you now direct at me for my failure to capture the
Liopleurodon
?”

“It has been six months, Fiesal.”

“And it may be six years unless you send me a pilot who has the
baydati
to engage the creature. Bait doesn’t work; the monster surfaces only at night and keeps its distance from the
Tonga
.”

“Then just use the trawler.”

“We tried. Five months ago we managed to entangle the creature’s hind quarters in one of the trawl nets. The Lio nearly dragged the trawler underwater with it. You have no idea how large and powerful this beast is. It is almost twice the size of the adult shonisaur your pilot managed to capture.”

“Fiesal, the pilot was David Taylor.”

Bin Rashidi’s dark eyes widened. “David is aboard the
Mogamigawa
? Why wasn’t I told?”

“I needed to know if he could be trusted, if he was enlisting on our voyage simply to seek revenge on the Lio for killing his girlfriend.”

“And your verdict?”

The Crown Prince hesitated. “Ms. Buchwald, you’ve observed David’s behavior—what do you think?”

“He knows he’s the most skilled Manta pilot around, which is why he bucks authority.”

Bin Rashidi snorted a sarcastic laugh. “He bucks authority because he is a cocky little shit like his father.”

“Easy, Fiesal. Ms. Buchwald, has he moved on from Kaylie Szeifert or not?”

Jackie saw the look in the Crown Prince’s eyes and felt queasy. “If you’re asking me if I slept with David, the answer is yes. But it was just sex—more recreational than emotional. My role on this voyage is not to be a surrogate love interest for David Taylor.”

“But you’ll continue to …
recreate
with our young pilot if it means capturing the
Liopleurodon
and taking over the aquarium as our new director?”

And there it was—the offer that every female desiring to succeed in the business world feared—the enticement to spread her legs in order to move up in the company hierarchy. Only the Crown Prince wasn’t asking her to sleep with him, he simply wanted her to continue to be with David.

Was that so wrong? After all, she was attracted to David and the sex was a welcome diversion they both looked forward to. Only now the Prince had made it a morality issue. But if she would have continued sleeping with him anyway, then what difference would it make in the scheme of things? She was already a candidate for the directorship, if continuing her midnight rendezvous with David helped him heal his broken heart, while solidifying her rightful place in the company, then it seemed a win-win.

“I’m committed to the best interests of the Dubai Land Aquarium, Your Highness. Whether David and I spend time together after hours is no one’s business but our own.”

“Then I assume you have no problem accompanying him and his associate, Mr. Montgomery aboard the
Tonga
to pursue the
Liopleurodon
?”

“As your most qualified marine biologist, it’s where I expected to be.”

The Crown Prince’s smile did not match the harsh look in his eyes. “Shouldn’t your first priority be to the three captured sea creatures aboard the
Mogamigawa
?”

Jackie’s heart raced. “Of course, Your Highness. What I should have said is that I’ll join David and his friend aboard the
Tonga
once the three sea creatures arrive safely in Dubai and have been stabilized in their new habitats.”

“Fiesal, who is the marine biologist assigned to the
Tonga
?”

“Alexander Hardie; a competent scientist who is certainly capable of caring for the animals aboard the
Mogamigawa.
I sincerely doubt he is David Taylor’s type.”

Jackie felt her cheeks flush.
Assholes. They’re playing mind games with me.

The Crown Prince feigned weighing a difficult decision. “Fiesal, I think it best to have one of your helicopters transport Mr. Hardie aboard the
Mogamigawa,
and then fly Ms. Buchwald, David, and his friend back to the
Tonga.
Does that work for you, Ms. Buchwald?”

Jackie gritted her teeth against the fatigue and frustration, tears of indignity welling in her eyes. “Wherever Your Highness needs me.”

P
ART
T
WO

THE

LIO

12

14 Miles Off the Coastline of Brisbane, Australia
Southwestern Pacific

The creature moved effortlessly through depth’s darkness, its 200,000-pound frame leaving barely a ripple as it glided above the silt-covered sea floor. Its crocodilian jaws, thirty feet long from snout to mandible, remained open as it swam, channeling water into its gills past a gauntlet of ten- to twelve-inch dagger-shaped teeth, the largest of which jutted outside of its mouth. Every so often its massive fore flippers would sweep the sea, stirring the bottom into swirling eddies.

Liopleurodon panthalassa
—the largest and most vicious animal ever to inhabit the planet—was a hybrid of nature, having evolved from a short-necked carnivorous marine reptile into a 122-foot-long gill-breather more than twice the size of its long-dead ancestors.

Pliosaurs first dominated the seas during the Callovian stage of the Middle Jurassic Period approximately 155 million years ago. After a long reign these amphibious air-breathers eventually died off, succumbing to plunging ocean temperatures generated by the ice age—an aftereffect of the seven-mile-in-diameter asteroid which struck Earth sixty-five million years ago.

The geological anomaly that saved and eventually trapped these monsters, along with a thriving food chain of ancient sea creatures, had formed in the depths of the Western Pacific 180 million years ago. Wedged between massive continental plates, the tiny Philippine Sea Plate was driven beneath its neighbors, its boundaries becoming volcanically-active rift zones which eventually forged the world’s deepest trenches. Over tens of millions of years the erupting magma cooled into a ceiling above the nine-mile-deep sea floor which spanned hundreds of miles across the southern region of the Philippine Sea. Beneath this false bottom lay an isolated habitat nourished by hydrothermal vents and cold seeps. Stable temperate zones and an abundance of prey lured thousands of warm and cold water species into the abyss. Over tens of millions of years these prehistoric species adapted to life in the perpetual darkness. Marine reptiles like the pliosaurs evolved gills; other predators developed scent and vibration-based sensory systems.

Twelve million years ago volcanic activity sealed the Panthalassa’s access points beneath the Philippine Sea. Among the last creatures to seek refuge in this abyssal purgatory was
Carcharodon megalodon
.

The arrival of another apex predator into its habitat had a profound effect on
Liopleurodon ferox
. To combat its new, better equipped rival, the pliosaurs grew enormous.

*   *   *

The female
Liopleurodon
continued its southeasterly trek, shadowing the pod of orca moving along the surface three thousand feet overhead. The killer whales were stalking their own quarry—a mother gray and her calf.

Ordinarily, the
Liopleurodon
would have taken the juvenile from below, but the orca posed a threat and the big female was still recovering from wounds sustained from its encounter months earlier with
Carcharodon megalodon
.

The clash of the titans had occurred in the Panthalassa Sea, ending in the surface waters of the Western Pacific Ocean. The
Liopleurodon
found itself trapped in an alien sea with a higher oxygen content and prey rich in blubber. These two variables combined to increase the creature’s metabolism, sending it into a hyperkinetic state which forced it to feed more often. It also affected the animal’s reproductive system, inducing the internal fertilization of one of its own eggs.

The
Liopleurodon
was entering its last trimester of pregnancy—the supertanker,
Tonga
shadowing its every move.

Aboard the
Tonga

Fiesal bin Rashidi was a prisoner of his own ambition.

It didn’t have to be this way. There were fifty-three cousins who nursed at the teats of the Crown Prince. Most were useless scoundrels who behaved as if it were their birthright to waste the kingdom’s riches.

Not Fiesal. His father, a civil engineer, had sent him to live abroad at the age of twelve, enrolling him at a private prep school in England. With Dubai committed to tourism, Abdul bin Rashidi knew his eldest son would need a western education to stake his claim in the expanding Arab emirate.

Dubai had forged its own path in the Arab world when the Maktoum family had taken power in 1830. Under the leadership of Sheikh Maktoum bin Hasher Al Maktoum, foreign traders were exempted from taxes, paving the way for the United Arab Emirates to become the leading commerce center in the region. Unlike most of the other autocratic nations, the UAE invested its oil riches back into its economy, transforming the desert into a metropolitan oasis.

Fiesal was a second-year student studying engineering at Cambridge University when al Qaeda terrorists hijacked four American commercial airliners on September 11, 2001. The event ushered in a tide of hatred aimed at all Arabs, the undercurrent of which had always existed. Never mind that al Qaeda had been conceived by the Afghani Mujahideen freedom fighters armed by the United States and supported by Saudi Arabia, in the eyes of most westerners a Muslim was a Muslim and not to be trusted.

Fiesal could register the lingering eyes of his fellow students. Strangers grew bold, questioning his presence at public events. Airport security nodded at him and whispered.

Things grew worse in 2005 after the July 7 bombings in London. Having graduated with degrees in civil and naval engineering, Fiesal could not find an employer willing to hire a Muslim, no matter what his qualifications. A month later Fiesal’s girlfriend, Jourdan Coker, under pressure from her parents, broke off their engagement.

Fiesal had sublet his apartment and intended on returning to Dubai, when a friend introduced him to a marine biologist in need of an engineer. Dr. Michael Maren was as paranoid as he was brilliant—an odd chap who avoided eye contact when he spoke and trusted no one. His mother had died recently, leaving him an abundance of wealth to pursue his scientific endeavors. Maren was interested in exploring the deepest ocean trenches in the world and was looking to hire a naval engineer who could design an abyssal habitat and lab possessing a submersible docking station capable of withstanding water pressures in excess of 23,000 pounds per square inch.