Below (24 page)

“
Ja.
Also, some of these guys get very large, if my interpretations are correct. I think I have seen many over two meters in length.”

“Jesus and Mary, did you say two meters?” The captain slammed his cup down. “Ain’t that six or seven feet?”

“Precisely, Captain. You know, Valerie, this species, it worries me. They prey on everything they encounter, it seems, and there is nothing to stop their progress northward. They are now establishing themselves up in British Columbia. Did you know this? I fear they will kill off other marine life in the North Pacific.”

Val frowned. She knew exactly what Karl was talking about, and knew his facts were straight. But she didn’t see eye to eye with him on the outcomes. “You make them sound villainous. I wouldn’t expect that sort of persecution from a scientist.”

“Ah, Valerie.” He assumed a wounded look. “This is not my emotions talking. I know that human beings probably cause this change, but I am thinking it is really a serious problem. Just like observable increases in jellyfish blooms, coral dying off around the world, the drop in marine arthropods due to increasing carbon levels dissolved in the water. I believe this is going to be a serious issue we will need to deal with someday.”

“You have a point. Maybe there will always be plenty of sea life, but the ocean makeup is certainly changing into one most people would find less favorable.”

“Bullshit,” the captain growled. “God’ll sort out what needs sorting. He always has.”

Val stared at him, a disheveled mess with a strand of brown spittle clinging to his whiskers. “Brilliant. That sort of thinking allows you to relinquish responsibility for the earth’s problems. It’s all in God’s hands, so we don’t need to make any changes to our way of life, right?”

“Exactly!”

She shook her head. Like Karl, she knew all too well the impacts of overfishing, warming seas, and higher carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere that eventually were absorbed by the ocean and converted to carbonic acid. The captain clearly was an old-school fisherman who didn’t care much about squid populations, as long as he kept a steady income. He had already made it clear he was fine with killing the entire shoal. It was, to him, simple compensation. A paycheck.

 

 

In the confines of the forecastle, the roiling sea was far more potent than up on deck. Joe leaned his hand against the angular metal frame of a bunk, taking a deep breath and steadying himself, focusing on the feel of the cold steel. Maybe he should have let Val get the pills for him after all.

On the messy bunks he saw an assortment of personal items that belonged to the crew. Joe preferred the tidiness found on a naval vessel, but he smiled at the photos of nude women taped to the walls. That was also something the Navy wouldn’t have allowed. He made a mental note not to touch the sheets the crew slept in.

In addition to soiled clothing, toiletry cases, magazines, and other litter on the unmade beds, he saw several bags, but no red duffel. He groaned as he lowered himself to his knees and peered under the bunk to his left.
Thank God.
He reached for the straps of Val’s heavy bag and slid it out from the cramped space, resting on its bulk for a moment as he mustered the will to stand. He doubted if taking another seasickness pill at this point would even have any effect, but it was worth a shot.

Just as he was about to stand, his eyes caught a small wooden box crammed far back in the dark recess under the bunk, where it had been concealed by Val’s duffel. It wasn’t the box itself that caught his attention, but a single word, printed in large capital letters, which stood out over the other text on the crate. He paused. The box was probably being reused for some other purpose—it couldn’t still contain its original contents. Could it?

He stretched his arm far back under the bed, trying not to breathe in the sweaty stink of the linens, and caught hold of a rope handle on the box. The small crate proved even heavier than Val’s duffel. When he had the box in front of him, he unclasped the lid and stared at the remaining contents.

He shook his head. “That dumb son of a bitch.”

When Joe stormed into the wheelhouse, Val was arguing with the captain, but they stopped when they saw his face—and the yellow stick of dynamite in his hand.

“Captain, you want to tell us what in the hell this is for?” Joe shouted loud enough to cause Karl to jump. The kneeling Swede, who had been fiddling with his instruments, struck the back of his head on the dash and swore.

The captain jumped out of his chair. “That’s my property, copper. Give it here!”

“Not until you tell me why it’s on board. Do you even have a permit for this?”

“You cops and your laws. A man needs a permit for everything, doesn’t he? This is my boat, and I’ll bring what I damn well please on her!”

“Not when we’re on board, you asshole! For Christ’s sake, you’ve got these stowed under the bunks of your own crew. Do any of them smoke?”

“All right, everybody take a deep breath.” Val stepped between the two men. “Captain, Joe’s right. We deserve an explanation.”

Captain MacDonald glared at Val, but after a moment he took a step back and looked out toward the sea. “I got it in Mexico. Cheap. My cousin’s doing some gold mining in Alaska. He’ll pay me top dollar for this.”

“Nice try. Now—why do you really have it?” Joe leaned out of the wheelhouse and tossed the explosive into the passing waves.

“Damn you and your laws! You owe me for that!”

“We’ll see about that. When we head in, I’m taking that crate with me. If you’re smart, you’ll just leave it at that.”

The captain swore and advanced toward Joe.

Karl bellowed, “Stop!”

They all looked at him.

He said, “I think I may have found them.”

T
he two European women were hardly awake when Sturman politely ushered them off his boat. As they hailed the water taxi cruising by in the morning fog, he explained that he had business to attend to. It wasn’t a total lie. He really would be leaving Gull Harbor for the day. Just not by sea.

He guzzled a quart of orange juice with several aspirin and forced down a big bowl of hot oatmeal with cinnamon to settle his stomach. After Sturman packed two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and some water into a daypack, he and Bud hailed the water taxi for a ride to shore. The thick damp in the air muffled the sound of the approaching boat. The driver asked about the hungover women he had ferried off the boat earlier, but Sturman didn’t answer.

Once the taxi reached the dock, Sturman and his dog set out immediately. Sturman knew where they needed to go. Up. He had developed an incredible urge to climb, to go to the highest point he could find. A place he had been to once before.

They followed a rocky trail snaking west out of the harbor, up the island’s steep seaward flank, and ascended through a wet mist that began to dampen Sturman’s face and clothes. He huffed his way up the open hillside along a series of switchbacks, the wet air cooling him. The trail alternated through thick chaparral and rocky outcrops, with few taller trees to obscure the view. Not that it mattered. He could see very little of the beauty that spread out from the island, the thick fog blinding him to the rest of the world.

His head still pounded from the night before, but the exertion was therapeutic. It felt good to push himself, to focus on the pain in his legs and chest, to feel his labored breathing. He climbed for a long time. The day brightened as the sun rose high in the sky and fought to burn through the fog. As he picked his way through the Mediterranean landscape along the narrow trail, his dog exploring the steep hillside before him, he kept thinking of the messages on his cell phone. More than anything, he wanted to talk to Val. But his shame wouldn’t allow him to return her calls. He needed to sort some things out.

A few hours into the hike, the thick fog finally broke. In the short span of just a few hundred vertical feet, the path carried Sturman and his dog out of it and into full sunlight. At the same time, they crested an exposed hilltop that Sturman had once climbed, years ago, with Maria. It was a rocky knoll surrounded by low chaparral, many shades of green but no trees in sight. This high point wasn’t much to look at in itself, but on a clear day the view was unsurpassed. There was silence. Sturman sat against the rocks, Bud at his side.

He looked down on a white quilt of fog spreading to the eastern horizon. Viewed from a thousand feet above sea level, the thick blanket of clouds disguised any turmoil on the surface of the ocean below. Turmoil that was so often there.

When Sturman and his wife had climbed this peak in the past, while on a weekend excursion to Catalina Island, there had been a long stick jammed vertically into a cairn of rocks piled to mark the summit. A white T-shirt had dangled from the end. They had waved the makeshift flag in victory when they arrived, then made love on the exposed summit before anyone else might arrive to discover them. The rock cairn was still there. But the flag was gone.

Sturman scratched Bud’s ears and looked at the blue skies above, the fog bank below, feeling the warm sunlight on his shoulders. Although Maria was gone, sometimes he thought he could feel her. He could feel her now.

“I miss you, babe. I need you.”

Then he closed his eyes and bowed his head. Bud nuzzled under his arm and Sturman scratched the dog behind his ears. He smiled. Then he stood up and began the long walk down.

“W
e found the shoal.”

“You found
what
?”

Joe Montoya realized his wife didn’t understand the terminology he had picked up over the last few weeks. He shifted the cell phone to his other ear. “The squid, hon. We found the school of monster squid.”

“That’s great. So are you coming home now? The girls miss you. I miss you.” Joe could hear his daughters arguing in the background and smiled, forgetting how seasick he felt for a moment.

“I can’t leave yet, Elena. All we’ve done is find the squid on sonar. They’re not even sure it’s the right shoal, actually, but I guess it’s at least a group of squid. We’re going to try and net them soon. With any luck, maybe this whole thing will be over tonight and I can come home.” At the moment, Joe missed dry land even more than his family, but he wasn’t going to tell his wife that.

Joe leaned against the cold, wet metal gunwale of the
Centaur
, holding the phone tightly to his ear. Apparently he was close enough to either Catalina Island or the mainland for a signal. They had given him yellow rubber bibs and boots to wear, so he wouldn’t get any more dirty or wet. He was glad to have the bibs on, since he needed to lean his hip against the low, filthy gunwale of the boat to maintain his balance. He figured the low height—which in some places was only as high as his knees—must be intentional, to allow the fishermen access to netting equipment over the sides or down in the water.

Off to the west, the last traces of sunlight were seeping into the Pacific and the first stars would soon begin to twinkle through the marine haze surrounding Catalina, several miles distant. The sky was finally clearing. They were close enough to the island to see it, a low black silhouette to the south, but in the darkening evening all he could see to the north and east was ocean. The seas were beginning to calm now, yet the boat still rose high out of the water on some of the passing swells.

Joe didn’t understand much about the Swedish scientist’s research or his fancy Fathometer, and didn’t really care how it worked. But he was grateful to have him on board, if their success had come because the guy was as good as Val said. Karl had proven his worth when at seven o’clock that night—it was hard to believe considering the way Joe felt, but it was still just their first day out—the Swede had located a shoal of Humboldt squid, less than four miles from where the yacht passengers had disappeared.

“So we sent down some sort of device to like five hundred feet, and used it to predict the prevailing underwater current,” Joe said. “Then we reeled that thing back in and Dr. Martell did some calculations before we started our search in the area where they predicted the shoal to be. Technical stuff. Way over my head.”

“And mine. Sounds like you’re with some pretty smart people.”

“They know their stuff. I was pretty disappointed when I looked at the screen of their depth finder, though. It was just noise. You know how when we’ve seen fish on a depth finder they look like pretty obvious dark spots? Well, when we found the squid, they looked to me like vomit. Just a bunch of scattered color. Actually, it made me run out and puke again.”

“I’m sorry, baby. You really shouldn’t be out there.”

“I know. Anyway, this Swedish guy seems certain we’re looking at Humboldt squid.”

All afternoon, the sea had taken advantage of the
Centaur
’s exposed flank as it tracked the shoal, pitching the boat wildly in all directions. Joe had been forced to remain outside to stare at the horizon and try to suppress his sickness. As the sea began to settle over the last few hours on the lee northeast side of the island, Val had come out after a while and given him the details. There was a large shoal, possibly the one they were seeking, eight hundred feet below the surface.

By eight o’clock at night, the shoal began to rise and everyone went into action. Except Joe, who had no role. So he’d called his wife.

“So how will you capture them?” Elena was almost certainly not interested in their methods, but Joe appreciated her efforts to pretend she was.

He laughed. “
I’m
not capturing anything, hon. These fishermen from Monterey Bay are using their net to catch ’em. Apparently Japanese and Kiwi fishermen both use these special jigging boats to catch bigger squid, but there’s nothing available like that around here. So we’re using a good old-fashioned net.”

“But how will they get the squid to go into the net?”

“Using lights. Our plan’s pretty simple, really, but apparently nobody has ever tried to catch Humboldt squid like this.”

“Like how?”

“We’ll use bright lights to lure in the shoal, then try to net as many squid as we can, the same way they gather up those little market squid in Monterey. They send out a skiff to wrap the net around the squid, and then they attach the end of the net to a motor and pull it in with the squid inside. They plan to just keep the squid in the net until they die from too much oxygen or something. I don’t understand all the science.”

“Market squid are my favorite. Do those fishermen have any on board now? Can you bring us home some calamari?”

He chuckled. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“So what’s your job, baby?”

“I’m just here to observe. The token cop. I feel like hell anyway, so I’ll just stay out of their way.”

“Is Will with you?”

“No, he . . . he had some things he needed to take care of. It’s just me, Dr. Martell, this other squid researcher, and the fishermen. The captain’s a real nut job.”

“Well, you be safe. When you get back, I’ll make you my paella.”

The thought of seafood roiled Joe’s stomach. “Yeah. That sounds great, baby. Tell the girls I love them. I’ll see you soon.”

As Joe zipped the phone into a pocket, Val walked out onto the deck.

“Was that your family?” she asked.

“Yeah. My wife. Didn’t get to talk to my girls, though.”

“You miss them?”

“All the time. Older one’s really becoming a woman, which isn’t easy on her mother . . . or me. And our fifteen-year-old is really having a hard time being a teenager. They’re so different.... Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I was just thinking that you seem to be feeling better. You look better, Joe.”

“Like hell I do. You’re smiling like a car salesman. What do you want?”

“We need you to do us a small favor.”

 

 

The sea had grown very dark. The dim light of the crescent moon did little to illuminate the ocean, in part because of the thickening marine layer that was trying to reform into a foggy mist off Southern California.

Joe stood unsteadily on deck, looking through the viewfinder of the digital camcorder. The rusty metal of the well-worn seiner contrasted sharply with the smooth surface of the ocean. He leaned out over the side with the camera to get footage of the tiny, barnacle-encrusted skiff tied alongside, which the captain had just lowered from a huge metal boom into the water.

“Soon one of the deckhands will board this skiff to run out the lead end of an enormous purse net.” Joe couldn’t resist narrating when the camera was rolling.

He had reluctantly agreed to assist the researchers by documenting the entire netting operation using the small video camera after Val had explained to him that everyone else had jobs to do. The filming was important not only from a scientific standpoint but also from a PR standpoint, since the rare footage could likely be sold for use in nature documentaries. Joe didn’t want to do anything other than try to avoid being sick in the stern of the vessel, but at least the job they had assigned him would allow him to stay outside, with fresh air and plenty of room to get sick.

The captain had now fired up the boat’s assemblage of glaring halogen lights, intended to attract the squid underneath like moths to a flame. On the brightly lit deck, Joe turned to film the wiry Latino deckhand as he ran around checking the net rigging with the other, bigger fisherman. Joe didn’t narrate because he had no idea what the rigging was called. The net and its various yellow floats and lines were stacked in the stern below the boom, near something that looked kind of like a huge spool with a motor. Joe figured when the deckhand was done here it would really be showtime.

Apparently the guy was going to hop into the skiff and, towing the lead end of the gigantic net, trace a circle a few thousand feet in circumference around the squid gathered under the main vessel and its lights. Once the net had been run out, he would return to the
Centaur
to complete the loop. Joe would film the action as the net was deployed, creating an underwater curtain that extended two hundred feet down and then was cinched closed at the bottom like the drawstring on a cloth purse. At that point the fishermen would slowly draw the net in at the top and sides until their catch was condensed in a much smaller space near the vessel. Joe figured that the best footage would come later, when you could actually see the squid.

“Dr. Martell says that the purse seine net we’re using is normally deployed to encircle a school of small market squid. The fishermen suck the catch up out of the net using an enormous vacuum.” Joe laughed. “I want to see if they have a vacuum that can suck a hundred-pound squid up out of the water.” He didn’t think it was a good idea for the skinny young deckhand to be in a tiny, unstable boat floating over a net filled with angry squid. When he had expressed his concern to the captain, the man had just laughed.

Joe was a little concerned that the guy had spent too much time at sea, especially since he frequently hummed to himself. He stopped humming now as he approached Joe in the stern of the vessel.

“It’s time, copper. Your camera ready?”

“Already rolling.” Joe continued filming the captain while they talked. “You’re really going to vacuum up these squid after we catch them, huh?”

The captain laughed. “No way we’re getting these fuckers on board with a little suction.”

“You know I’m filming, right? They’ll be editing out cusswords. So how do you plan to get the squid on board?”

“I’ll be brailing these fucking devils, which will be interesting if they’re still alive.” He winked. “Your lady friend tells me if we keep the buggers in the net long enough, they’ll die. But whatever these here scientists want to do with the live ones, they’ll have to do it in the water. Or kill the lot before I’ll bring ’em onto the deck of my vessel.”

“What do you mean ‘brailing’?”

The captain sighed. “Not a fisherman, eh? We use a smaller net to scoop ’em out of the big net and into the hold.”

“Can you really bring the entire shoal on board?”

“We take on fifty tons of market squid on a good night. This group? No problem at all. Now quit asking so many fuckin’ questions.”

Joe paused the camera and repositioned himself to watch the skiff deployment. The smaller deckhand moved past him toward the smaller boat.

Joe said, “Good luck, pal.”

The man turned toward him and nodded.

“You’ve probably done this a thousand times though, huh?”

The deckhand merely nodded. When the swells died for a moment, he lowered himself over the side of the boat. The lightweight aluminum skiff looked unstable compared to the seiner, but the man didn’t appear concerned as Joe watched him through the camera’s viewfinder. Val stepped out of the cabin to watch the action. The deckhand pulled the cord of the sixty-horsepower outboard motor until it fired up on the fourth try. The other deckhand, a slow, Eastern European–looking fellow with a shock of brown hair and several days’ worth of whiskers, untied the skiff. He sent his smaller pal off with a laugh.

Joe felt sick again as he tried to keep the camera fixed on the tiny boat. It slowly motored away from the safety of the larger vessel, into the darkness, to capture several tons of sea monster.