The Loch Ness Legacy (38 page)
Staring at the ceiling from his bed, he didn’t know how long such entertaining reflection would stave off the boredom that he was sure would eventually drive him insane. Returned to California, Zim had been denied any kind of entertainment except for one hour a day when he was allowed to watch television. There would be no trips to the exercise yard, and he was allowed no visitors other than his court-appointed lawyer. No trial was forthcoming; it hadn’t been deemed necessary since he could still be incarcerated under his original sentence. He longed for his last cellmate at Pleasant Valley, a crass plumber who’d murdered his wife but had amusing stories about his four exes before the one he killed.
At times Zim was filled with rage at his situation, but it was primarily the depression that consumed him. Although he did have a window, all he could see was the sky. It was probably the only outdoor view he’d ever see again, since they’d never let him go. But even if they did, his life was over.
A nurse entered his room and adjusted his arms and legs to prevent bedsores. She might as well have been adjusting couch cushions for all he could feel. He looked down and saw that the muscle tone in his limbs was already drastically reduced. In another few weeks, his arms and legs would look like toothpicks.
When Zim had awoken in an Inverness hospital, he’d been told that the fall at Urquhart Castle had crushed his third cervical vertebra, instantly turning him into a quadriplegic. His situation was irreversible, paralyzing him from the neck down.
Without saying a word, the nurse finished her job and left.
He was as helpless as a baby, suffering every indignity to which a newborn was oblivious. And there was nothing he could do about it. Even if the nurse had left a loaded Glock on the bed, he wouldn’t have been able to put himself out of his misery. He’d tried to kill himself by refusing to eat, but they’d put a disgusting feeding tube down his nose.
He looked back at the featureless sky outside the window, and tears rolled down his cheeks as he thought about the reality of the next forty years being confined to the worst prison he could imagine.
* * *
Tyler climbed up to the top deck of the
Nessie Seeker II
with two glasses of scotch and took a seat next to Brielle, who was dressed only in a long-sleeved shirt and light pants made possible by the unusually warm breeze blowing across Loch Ness. She took her tumbler and they clinked them together.
“To Nessie,” she said.
Tyler smiled. “May her legend live on.”
Tyler took a sip and savored the peaty scotch, which went down oh so smoothly. A little liquid anesthetic would help ease the ache in his shoulder, which had come out of its sling the day before. It would take a few months to get back to ninety percent, but the doctors didn’t know if he’d ever regain a full range of motion. Still, it was a small price to pay for Grant’s return to health.
They quietly watched the sun descending over Urquhart Castle, the azure sky broken by a few wisps of white cloud. Tyler had to admit that the view from Greg Sinclair’s new boat was much better than it had been from the cramped submarine.
After his original boat sank, Sinclair told Tyler that he’d been in the process of searching for a replacement anyway, and the insurance money allowed him to buy the boat he’d had his eye on, a beautiful forty-two-footer. When Tyler had left him at the helm, Sinclair was still playing with the new gadgets that came installed in the control panel.
The leisurely cruise went on for a while without conversation until Brielle turned to Tyler.
“Do you like blintzes?” she asked.
Tyler thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know if I’ve ever had blintzes.”
“Then I think you should try them.”
“Okay. Do you know a good place?”
She nodded. “In London. My mum makes the best cheese blintzes you’ll ever taste.”
Tyler was genuinely surprised. And pleased. He was beginning to think they might be taking this beyond a fling. “Are you asking me over to your parents’ house?”
“It’s not an audition or anything like that. I just think they might like you, even if you aren’t one of the chosen people. What do you say?”
“I’d be honored.” They clinked again.
“Has Grant met your father?” Brielle asked.
“Oh, yeah.”
“But not since he started seeing Alexa.”
Tyler shook his head and grinned. “They don’t even think that
I
know.”
“You’re going to let them sweat it out?”
“I don’t know how serious it is, but they’ll tell me when they’re ready.” All he wanted was for them both to be happy, and if they found happiness together, that would be great as far as he was concerned.
Another few minutes of silence went by before Brielle spoke again.
“Are you ready to tell me why we’re here?”
“A romantic boat ride isn’t enough? We
are
his first passengers.”
“I know you well enough now to realize you brought us back up here for another reason.”
She really did know him well. “You’re right. I promised Mr. Sinclair that we’d help him get a photograph to promote his business.”
“A photo of what?”
Tyler pulled a tablet computer from his bag, drawing a quizzical look from Brielle. He opened the cover and tapped on the screen to bring up an app specially designed by Gordian. The app showed a satellite map of Loch Ness. There were three dots on the map—red, yellow, and blue.
“That’s us right there,” he said, pointing at the blue dot. He zoomed in, and the dot moved steadily toward the south. The stationary yellow dot was only a few hundred yards off their port bow.
“What does that represent?” Brielle asked.
“That’s the wreckage of the
Aegir
. When Gordian did its survey last week with the unmanned submersible, they marked the location with a submerged buoy, far enough beneath the surface that no boat would ever hit it.”
“It’s a shame they couldn’t find Nessie down there. From what Alexa told me, the animal’s carcass could have provided scientists with valuable insight into preventing cell decay.”
“They have enough of a sample for now. I hear they’re already making progress.”
“They found the harpoon and nothing else?”
“The official story is that the creature must be buried in the muck, irretrievable without a serious dredging effort.”
“What do you mean, official?”
“I haven’t told Alexa any of this yet because I didn’t want to get her hopes up until I’d confirmed it, but the part of the story you haven’t heard is that they found the tail with the harpoon still buried in it. Remember when Alexa was telling us about lizards shedding their tails to get away from predators?”
Brielle’s mouth fell open. “You mean…”
Tyler nodded and scrolled the screen to the southern portion of the loch, where the red dot representing the Loch Ness monster was located, a three-digit number next to the dot indicating depth in meters. It currently read 045.
“That’s her.”
Brielle gasped when she saw the dot change position.
Nessie was moving.
--The End--
I’m thrilled that you chose to spend your valuable time venturing into The Loch Ness Legacy, and I hope you had as much fun reading it as I had writing it. If you liked it, I’d appreciate you sharing your thoughts with friends and family. And if you’d feel comfortable returning to the online retailer where you purchased this book to leave a review, it’s a great way to help spread the word about the book and convince others to give it a try.
I love to hear from readers, so please drop by my website, where you can find links to my Facebook page and Twitter feeds, or simply send me an email and let me know what you think.
Finally, if you enjoyed the read, you might like some of my other books as well, which are listed below.
Thanks and happy adventures!
Boyd Morrison
Tyler Locke’s other adventures:
Book 1:
THE ARK
("Mach-speed mayhem" – Steve Berry)
Book 2:
THE VAULT
("An electrifying blend of history, myth, and science" – Publishers Weekly starred review)
Book 3:
THE ROSWELL CONSPIRACY
(“A masterful thriller” – James Rollins)
Standalone thrillers:
ROGUE WAVE
("Top-notch suspense" – Douglas Preston)
THE CATALYST
("Frighteningly smart" – Jason Frost, RubiconReader)
One of the things I enjoy about writing Tyler Locke thrillers is researching all the cool technology, history, and settings that I use in the book. As you were reading this, you probably came across a few things that surely seemed made up, but it’s likely they’re actually real or at least based on reality.
I will admit that the DeadEye targeting system and Mayfly drone are my creations, but quadcopters are absolutely real. In fact, you can buy one for yourself for a very reasonable price and control it using your smartphone. It even does flips, but I don’t know of any equipped with a Taser.
Harris Ranch (dubbed Cowschwitz) is a real cattle stockyard in California. I’ve experienced the smell myself. Pity the poor employees of Pleasant Valley State Prison, which is located just to the south.
If you’re one of the lucky buyers of an actual Icon A5 sport plane, I highly recommend checking the option box for the Ballistic Recovery Systems Complete Plane Parachute. Their system has already saved over 225 lives.
Pike Place Market is one of my favorite destinations in Seattle. Be sure to stop by and watch the fishmongers throw gigantic salmon to each other.
The shadow sculptures of Tim Noble and Sue Webster are really quite remarkable. I’d get one for my own house if I had anywhere to put it.
The remodeled Salle Gustave Eiffel should now be open for parties so make your reservation right away.
If you haven’t been to Versailles, it’s hard to convey the sheer ostentation of the palace and gardens. I had the good fortune to visit it for the purposes of researching this novel, and serendipity from my tour appears in the closure of the
Bains d’Apollon
, which was shut down for renovation while I was there, and in the surprise appearance of a cat while I was wandering through the gardens.
Although Altwaffe is a fabrication, the rare disease its effects are based on is depressingly real. The poor children afflicted with progeria usually don’t live far into their teens, and the genetic disease has no known cure.
Fuel-cell cars are beginning to make an appearance on the roads, but I don’t know of any go-karts featuring that powerplant.
John Edmonstone, a freed Guyana slave who lived in Edinburgh, was a friend of Charles Darwin during his time in medical college at the University of Edinburgh and may indeed have trained him in taxidermy.
While Darwin did visit Glen Roy in the Scottish Highlands, there’s no record of him ever visiting Loch Ness. I prefer to think he kept that trip a secret.
The interiors of Holyroodhouse Palace and Edinburgh Castle are as I’ve described them, including the castle’s Great Hall lined with hundreds of old weapons.
Urquhart Castle is also described faithfully, down to the glass door in the gatehouse. The Grant Tower really is the bastion’s name, and I was lucky to view the loch from its top floor platform (on the coldest May day I’ve ever experienced).
I was surprised to learn that hunting of minke whales continues to this day in Norway, and the whalers use explosive-tipped harpoons to kill their prey.
The GhostManta sub, designed by Caan Yaylali, hasn’t put to sea, but you can find renderings of it on the Internet. I would love to fly under the ocean in such a submarine if anyone ever constructs one.
Many theories have been put forth about the Loch Ness monster, first and foremost that it’s nothing more than a hoax or wishful thinking. However, coelacanths, axolotls, sturgeons, and Chinese giant salamanders are all real creatures that have characteristics in common with Nessie’s alleged behavior.
While I was at Loch Ness, I took a boat tour of the loch guided by George Edwards, captain of the
Nessie Hunter IV
. Although we didn’t spot Nessie that day, several months later Mr. Edwards snapped a photo of a mysterious shape in the water, and it made worldwide headlines. Few people consider the photograph to be definitive proof of the creature’s existence, but it certainly adds more intrigue to the legend. Now that more people than ever are armed with cell-phone cameras, maybe one day we’ll get irrefutable evidence that something lives in the depths of Loch Ness.
Boyd Morrison is an author, actor, engineer, and Jeopardy! champion. He started his career working on NASA's space station project at Johnson Space Center, where he got the opportunity to fly on the Vomit Comet, the same plane used to train astronauts for zero gravity. After earning a PhD in engineering from Virginia Tech, he used his training to develop thirteen US patents at Thomson/RCA. Boyd then managed a video game testing group in Microsoft's Xbox division before becoming a full-time writer. For non-fiction thrills, he enjoys white water rafting, skiing, scuba diving, and bungee jumping. Boyd is also a professional actor, appearing in films, commercials, and stage plays. In 2003 he fulfilled a lifelong dream and became a Jeopardy! champion. He currently lives in Seattle with his wife.
Thanks are due to the many people who helped make this book a reality: