Vostok (43 page)

It was a cetacean stampede, and we were swept up in it.

Jonas ignited the Valkyries, attempting to fend off the swarm. “Zach, start pinging. Find that monster before it finds us.”

“What monster? You mean the
Liopleurodon
? ”

“What the hell else would be causing these whales to panic? Ain’t no Megs in these waters.”

Manning the sonar, I attempted to switch from passive to active, only nothing was working. The monitor blinked off and on. The radio turned to static in my headphones.

I tossed them aside. “The
Tortuga
’s jamming our electronics.”

Having managed to point our bow east, Jonas accelerated, maneuvering ahead of the panic-stricken behemoths before banking hard to port, momentarily freeing us from the frenzy of moving goliaths.

Then I saw the cause of the cetacean disturbance, and fear suddenly took on a whole new meaning.

In Loch Ness, I had confronted a legendary beast. In Vostok, I had been attacked by giant crocs and Miocene whales. Years later in Monterey, I had watched a captive megalodon feed and thought I had seen the definition of true terror.

Nothing could have prepared me for the monster racing at us out of that olive-green sea.

Its jawline alone had to be thirty feet long, its mouth filled with ten- to twelve-inch dagger-like teeth, the largest of which jutted outside of its mouth.
Big
? It seemed as long as a city block, propelled by thirty-foot flippers—all wrapped around a lead-gray-and-white hide that partially blended into the backdrop of ice.

Most frightening, it seemed to be hyperactive, its movements on overdrive. Its head turned on a swivel as its crocodilian jaws snapped at the fleeing whales, its mind unable to single out the most vulnerable member of the herd until it saw our twin lasers blazing in the darkness like two vermillion eyes.

“Oh, geez. Jonas, hard to port!”

Jonas tried to get us out of its way, but the creature was far quicker and cut us off. My eyes bugged out as the left side of the pliosaur’s mouth suddenly bloomed into view, its jaws agape.

The back of my head slammed against the seat as the Manta leaped forward, Jonas attempting to escape by passing between those hideous rows of curved teeth like a car trying to beat a train across railroad tracks.

I squeezed my eyes shut—

—and we were through, only the creature was right behind us, snapping at our tail.

We were dead.

And then it was gone.

I took a moment to catch my breath before I relocated it, the dark blotches of its back and tail blending in with the sea. It was up ahead chasing another Manta, this one far quicker than ours.

“David?” Jonas switched his headphones to the radio setting. “Mac, contact the
Tonga
. Have them put me through to my kid. Damn this static!” He slammed his fist against the dome above his head, then accelerated after the monster, now chasing his son’s submersible.

“Zach, there’s a communication panel by your right foot. Pop it open.”

“Got it.”

“You’ll see a series of toggle switches set in the OFF position. Is there one with a blinking blue light?”

“Yes.”

“That’ll be David’s sub. Flip it on. Hopefully he’s turned on his inter-sub comm link.

“David?”

“Dad? What took you so long? I’ve been hailing you since the Lio went after those whale pods.”

“I didn’t know you were in the water. Thanks for saving our arses.”

“Consider us even. But, Dad, seriously—stay back. I’ve been playing cat-and-mouse with this pregnant bitch for weeks. This time she won’t escape.”

Escape? The crazy kid was trying to
capture
it!

Our sonar array flickered back on as we continued to distance ourselves from the
Tortuga
. The monitor revealed the presence of two surface ships that were entering the bay from the north, and David was leading the
Liopleurodon
right for them.

The two Dubai ships had converged upon the bay’s entrance the moment the creature had entered the shallows. Deck hands aboard the
Tonga
hustled to lower an immense trawl net over the tanker’s starboard side, while their counterparts on the
Dubai-Land
retrieved it from below, attaching cables to one side of the net’s loop. When everything was ready, the trawler gradually separated from the tanker, stretching the trap in place.

From the bridge of the
Dubai-Land
, Fiesal bin Rashidi, first cousin to the crown prince of Dubai, ordered the two ships under his command to shut down their engines.

Now it was up to the American daredevil.

David Taylor was out in front of the creature, making his way toward the net. He knew the pregnant behemoth was nearing exhaustion. Every time she seemed ready to quit the chase, the twenty-one-year-old pilot would slow down and bank hard from side to side, succeeding in keeping the tiring pliosaur interested, while taking some of the fight out of her.

Our sub surfaced south of the tanker. We watched on sonar as David led the
Liopleurodon
east toward the two motionless vessels.

Jonas was tense, counting down the distance. “Two hundred
yards… one fifty… a hundred yards. Come on, kid, you’re moving way too slow to jump that net. Throttle up!”

Sweat poured down David Taylor’s face. Cruising at only eighteen knots, he knew the Manta could not generate enough lift to leap out of the sea to clear the net. Yet he also had to keep the creature close. He knew she was tiring, knew that if she sensed the net, she’d turn on a dime and flee.

So he took a chance.

Throttling back, he dropped his speed to thirteen knots, allowing the
Liopleurodon
to move in close enough for her nostrils to inhale his sub’s jet-pump propulsor bubbles.

Reinvigorated, the creature opened its jaws to devour its prey as David slammed both feet to the floor and pulled back on his joystick, easing up on his starboard engine a few precious seconds before he reached the surface.

Instead of attempting to clear the net, David launched the Manta sideways out of the sea. The submersible cleared the steel cables running from the trawler to the left side of the net—

—And smashed nose-first into the
Dubai
-
Land
’s portside bow.

Unaware that its prey was gone, the
Liopleurodon
swam into the trawl net, stopping only after its fore-flippers struck the unseen object. It attempted to turn and run, but the crew manning the
Tonga
’s starboard winch was already tightening the noose upon the unnerved colossus, whose reflexive maneuver only succeeded in gathering its lower torso into the closing net.

And that’s when all hell broke loose.

Before the hunters stationed behind their deck-mounted harpoon guns could aim their drug-filled steel lances below, the enraged pliosaur twisted its one hundred tons of fury beneath the starboard keel of the tanker.

Having been refitted as a mobile aquarium, the
Tonga
lacked
the ballast of an ocean-bound tanker filled with crude. The unstable ship was pulled hard to starboard, flinging its harpooners and winch crew seven stories into the bay. Anything not bolted down—equipment, crates, and humans—was hurtled across the tanker’s plunging deck.

Aboard the
Dubai-Land
, the winch that had been holding the net open was bent sideways, making it impossible for the trawler’s crew to release control of the captured pliosaur over to the
Tonga
. Instead of being hauled out of the water, the
Liopleurodon
was left to twist and turn in the net, caught in a tug-of-war between both ships.

Jonas tried to reach his son by our sub-comm link, but David didn’t reply. Accelerating to thirty knots, he raced for the tanker. “Zachary, start pinging. Find me David’s Manta.”

I switched my headphones to sonar, my ears assaulted by a cacophony of sound.

A minute later we arrived on the scene.

Jonas slowed our approach, in order to sort through the chaos. On our right was the
Tonga
, its towering superstructure surreally swaying east to west and back again like a giant steel buoy. On our left was the trawler—at least what was left of it. The vessel had been flipped completely over, its barnacle-encrusted keel now an island of survival for its crew, who were hanging on for dear life, the inverted boat dropping and rising beneath them.

Ahead of us was the center of the maelstrom.

One hundred sixty million years ago,
Liopleurodon
had ruled the ocean as a carnivorous marine reptile, all except for the subspecies that had evolved gills to inhabit the Panthalassa Sea. Caught in the net, the creature before us couldn’t swim. And if it couldn’t swim, it couldn’t breathe.

By swaying the two ships, the monster managed to channel just enough water into its mouth to keep from drowning. It had flipped the
Dubai-Land
, but the steel cables connecting the trawler to the net had remained in place, keeping the trap sealed.

“Zach, where’s David’s sub?”

“There… by the trawler’s bow. Those crewmen are using it as a flotation device.”

The water was a frigid thirty-three degrees Fahrenheit. The paralyzing temperatures had already claimed at least a dozen lives. I was about to radio Mac to send the hopper-dredge when we heard the unmistakable
snap
of steel.

It was the last cable connecting the trawler to the net.

The
Liopleurodon
felt its bonds loosen. With renewed vigor, the trapped beast began to worm itself free.

“Zach, it’s getting free!”

“Kill it.”

“How?”

“Use the Valkyries. Aim for its neck.”

Jonas dove the sub to avoid a swirl of lifeless bodies, moving us steadily toward the opening net, the lasers heating up. The inverted trawler appeared on our left, along with David’s Manta. The disabled vessel bobbed upright along the surface, surrounded by seven pairs of kicking legs.

Jonas would not allow the creature to escape.

“Its head is free. Here it comes!”

The monster lurched forward, catching its left hind flipper in the net.