Meg: Hell's Aquarium (17 page)

Moretti’s heart flutters as he grips the controls. “Base, she’s trying to ram the sub against the aquarium window! I can’t break free.”

Topside, Christopher Baird is closing in on panic mode. His computer screen is flashing red warning lights, his cab reverberating beneath him as if caught in a magnitude-7 earthquake—

—his left outrigger, a three-foot-wide, hydraulic stabilizer leg located along the side of the truck, threatening to collapse. If it goes, Baird knows there will be nothing preventing the truck from being dragged sideways into the Meg Pen.

“Crane to base. I’m losing the—”

With an ear-piercing
screech
of metal, the stabilizer closest to the tank bends then collapses beneath the right side of the truck with a bone-jarring
whump—

—the truck crane’s chassis, which had been elevated above the concrete pad by its pair of stabilizers, smashing hard into the ground.

“Dammit!” Baird falls sideways, the cab now tilting thirty degrees, the aqua-blue surface of the Meg Pen suddenly appearing six feet below.

Whump
!

Baird bites his tongue as the remaining stabilizer collapses, dropping the truck’s chassis on its eight wheels, jamming the drive axle and differential that he had been using to control the cables and telescopic crane. The former correctional officer reflexively presses both feet against the foot pedals controlling the boom as the massive truck, freed from its stability platform and devoid of brakes, jack-knifes sideways as it is dragged, inch by inch, closer to the edge of the tank.

Jonas is the first to reach Baird, who has unbuckled his harness to evacuate the cab. “Where are you going?!”

“Anywhere but here!”

“What about the
Jellyfish
?”

“Nothing I can do. We lost the outriggers. I need the wheels free to engage the crankshaft.”

“There’s no way to retract the sub?”

The truck lurches again, its right front bumper slamming into the aquarium’s guardrail. Two feet of concrete deck is all that separates the right front tire from the water.

Baird leaps off the back of the truck and races for the driver’s cab. He yanks open the door, retrieving a two-pound, single-edge axe from beneath the driver’s seat. “We’ve got about thirty seconds to sever two cables before your fish drags this entire truck into the water!”

Jonas follows Baird onto the back of the boom, which houses the ten spools of cable. He begins hacking at the two steel lines feeding out to the crane with the hand axe—

—as the truck is jerked forward once more, metal screaming as the guardrail is pried loose from its mounts and the right-front truck tire slides off the deck into the water, the front end of the chassis collapsing halfway onto its front axle.

Baird continues hacking at the unyielding cables—

—until the truck’s rear end begins raising off the deck. “She’s all yours!” He hands Jonas the axe then jumps down off the back of the teetering flatbed.

Jonas holds on as the truck’s reinforced front bumper tastes sea water and an immense dark shadow swims by. Belle’s dorsal fin is so close he could almost hit it with a swipe of the axe.

He hacks at the cables, desperate to prevent the seventy-ton truck from slipping over the edge. His mind leaps forward, imaging the suddenly submerged vehicle plummeting three stories through the water, its engine block crushing the aquarium’s concrete floor before falling backwards and bursting through the acrylic viewing window, flooding the gallery with 60 million gallons of sea water.

He strikes the cable again and again as the truck screeches beneath him, teetering between the deck and water.

“Jonas! Move!”

He looks up at the tall silhouette.

Mac guns the chain saw, waiting for his best friend to leap out of the way before he sets the whirring teeth to the cables. The whirring blade chews through the steel in seconds, snapping both lines.

The tension released, the truck’s elevated rear end drops back onto the concrete deck with a resounding
thud
—

—freeing the
Jellyfish,
which is instantly propelled forward by the 42,000-pound Megalodon.

Steven Moretti lets out a scream, shutting his eyes as the acrylic sphere is rammed against the aquarium window. A hairline fracture materializes in the submersible’s four-inch-thin hull, followed seconds later by a pencil-thin spray of chilly seawater.

The pilot opens his eyes. He looks up, his nerves trembling as two massive shadows pass overhead—

—the sisters circling their wounded prey . . . waiting . . . patiently.

10.

Dubai Land Central International Airport
Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Located in southern Dubai, only twenty-four miles from the original Dubai Airport, Jebel Ali International is an aerotropolis—the largest and most ambitious airport project ever conceived. Designed around six major runways, the $82 billion complex is home to hotels and shopping malls, sixteen cargo terminals, over 100,000 parking spaces, and a high-speed express rail designed to whisk upwards of 120 million passengers a year to their destinations within the UAE.

David Taylor stretches in his seat as the 747 taxis across one of the runways to a private hangar reserved for the royal family. For the twenty-year-old undergrad, the twelve-hour flight had been an invigorating, and exhausting first date. He and Kaylie had talked non-stop for the first four hours—he, hoping to impress her—she, wanting to know about his family, his experiences with the Megs, and especially his father’s dives to the Mariana Trench. David had been vague on this last topic. Information about Benedict Singer’s exploits in the Mariana Trench had never been made public, nor had the discovery of kronosaurs inhabiting the isolated gorge.

Instead, David had changed the subject to his own piloting experiences aboard the Manta Rays. This last topic had drawn a crowd, causing Kaylie to excuse herself to enjoy the buffet spread. David had forced himself to continue on without her for another five minutes before abruptly ending the conversation.

He was hopelessly smitten, but swimming upstream. In his mind, Kaylie was clearly out of his league: a grad student with far more experience, an intoxicating beauty who could have anyone she wanted, her interest in him purely professional.

He didn’t care.

The 747 slows to a halt, the stewardess instructing the five submersible pilots to wait until the crown prince has de-planed. Ten minutes later, they follow her up the stairs and out the main exit of the jumbo jet where two stretch limousines are waiting—one flying the royal flag and the other loaded down with their luggage.

Fiesal bin Rashidi exits the jet and joins them. “So? I trust your flight was enjoyable? As you will soon learn, Dubai is a land that caters to its guests. You will be staying in one of the five-star luxury hotels inside the new theme park. Room service is open twenty-four hours; order anything and everything you wish. By tomorrow morning the rest of your party will arrive, and we will begin your training. David will be instructing you on how to operate the Manta Rays, but there are other things to learn as well, with other instructors. Besides, we will need David to tend to Afra’ and Zahra’ when they arrive.”

David looks confused. “Who’re they?”

“The Meg juveniles. Afra’ and Zahra’ are Arabic for ‘white.’ You didn’t think we would continue to call them Mary Kate and Ashley?”

“No, of course not. I never liked those names anyway. It was sort of an Internet gag.”

“Your initial training will last two weeks, at which time a team of eight will be selected from the twenty-three pilot candidates we have invited. David will remain at the aquarium for the rest of the summer, while those selected will proceed with the mission at hand.”

“And exactly what is that mission?” Sean Dustman asks.

“The mission is to capture aquatic specimens for the aquarium.”

“Yes, but what kind of aquatic specimens?”

“Earn your place on the team, and you will know. Have an enjoyable night, but try to get some rest. Orientation begins tomorrow morning.”

A chauffeur opens the rear door of the limousine bearing the royal flag. Bin Rashidi climbs in and the vehicle drives off.

“I suppose we’re on our own.” Hugo climbs in the backseat of the second limo, followed by Sean and Monty.

David holds the door open for Kaylie. “Thanks, but you go ahead. I like the window.”

“It’s yours.” He squeezes in beside Monty, giving her plenty of room.

Monty places a tattooed hand on David’s inner thigh. “You didn’t hold the door open for me, Junior. I’m getting jealous.”

“Shut up.”

“Hugo, are you jealous? How about you, Sean?”

“It doesn’t bother me, as long as all of us get treated fairly in the end.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of . . . getting it in the end. Right up the old dirt road. The Bunghole Express. Hey, Kaylie, did you know the first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time TV were Fred and Wilma Flintstone? Makes you wonder why they sing, ‘we’ll have a gay old time.’ You think Fred was a transvestite?”

“I think you need to take your Lithium.”

The limo proceeds down a private road, past a security checkpoint, and out one of the main avenues to a gleaming, tinted-glass terminal, the street lined with Canary date palms. The vehicle stops to take on a passenger: a strawberry-blonde woman in her forties, dressed in an ivory business suit. She climbs in the front seat then lowers the glass partition separating the driver from the five passengers.

“Hi, I’m Caree Crossman. I’ll be your chaperone during your stay in Dubai City. Let’s see . . . you’re obviously Kaylie, and you must be David . . . tattoos is Monty, Sean’s our sailor . . . and wait, don’t tell me . . . huge . . . Hugh? Wait, Hugo! How’d I do?”

Monty applauds. “Better’n a trained seal.”

For the next ninety minutes they take a driving tour of Dubai City, Caree pointing out unique places of interest, from the massive indoor skiing center to the towering high-rise office buildings and impressive luxury hotels—tinted-glass structures whose gargantuan steel frames twist into the cloudless, blue heavens—their pavements granite, their lobbies adorned in white marble.

The limousine heads east on Jumeirah Road, the sparkling azure waters of the Persian Gulf on their left. Caree points ahead. “In the distance you can see our famous landmark hotel, the Burj al-Arab, which translates to the Tower of the Arabs. Considered by many to be the world’s first seven-star hotel, the Burj al-Arab is the second tallest building in Dubai and rests on an artificial island constructed of sand and silt laid over two hundred thirty, forty-meter-long concrete pilings. The hotel was built to resemble the sail of a
dhow
, which is a type of Arabian vessel. Two wings spread in a V to create a giant mast, while the space between them serves as a massive atrium. I’d be happy to take you over when we have more time. It really is a must-see attraction.”

They continue following the coastline, past man-made islands laid out like giant mosaic tiles, to the Dubai Marina. “The marina is Dubai’s version of the French Riviera. The complex was developed by Emaar Properties, the same firm building our new aquarium. When completed, it will feature several hundred high-rise buildings as well as a dozen super-tall skyscrapers with heights that exceed one thousand feet.”