Meg: Hell's Aquarium (18 page)

“Quite the sprawl,” Monty says. “Capitalism meets the Roman Empire in the ultimate tourist trap.”

Carree flashes a false smile. “The UAE is a progressive country, Mr. Montgomery, with rulers who care.”

“Rulers who care . . . but far from a democracy, and barely an ally. Tell me, Caree Crossman, do the grandiose buildings and primped golf courses make it easier to forget that you’re simply a tolerated guest to a bunch of chauvinistic autocrats who cater to the nouveau riche while censoring their own people? Do you ever lose sleep over the reality that the only reason you, a woman, got this tasty little job is because your hubby’s probably some oil V.P. who plays polo with one of the royal tribe?”

Caree’s smile fades.

David turns to face Monty. “Dude, what is your problem?”

“My problem, Junior, is how easily barrels of oil trump human rights, how we’re willing to look the other way as long as we get our taste.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about those shipping containers lining the docks we just passed, the ones marked for the Islamic Republic of Iran. Guess it’s okay for the White House to send me and my buds over to Iraq four times in five years to get our brains blown out by Islamic radicals, but when it comes to money, they’re ready to sign our port security over to the UAE—the devil’s own well-paid advocate.”

“Dubai’s government’s different,” Caree retorts, her enthusiasm waning.

Monty rolls his eyes. “Sure they are. And you know this because they sign your paycheck with Happy Faces?”

“If you have such a problem, why are you even here?”

“Rock and a hard place, Caree Crossman. See, while my government gleefully subsidizes your hubby’s oil business, it draws a line in the sand when it comes to covering veteran’s medical expenses. By their definition, I’m too able to be disabled, even though I’m too disabled to work. So much for supporting the troops, huh? Wish I could work for Parker Brothers. Did you know they print more money for Monopoly than the U.S. Treasury?”

“Just ignore him, Caree,” Sean advises. “Our tattooed friend will be going home in a few weeks anyway.”

“That’s not your decision!” David snaps. He takes a deep breath of cold air blowing out the vent, the long travel suddenly wearing on his nerves. “It’s been a long day. Think we could just skip the rest of the tour? I’d just as soon get to the hotel and sleep.”

Kaylie and the others nod in agreement.

Leaving the coastline, the limousine heads south, passing Zabeel Palace—residence of the ruling Al Maktoum family. Entering Dubai Land, they detour through Dubai Sports City, a complex set on a 50-million-square-foot spread. Four stadiums are under construction, along with The Dunes, an 18-hole championship golf course designed by Ernie Els.

Ten minutes later, they turn onto a six-lane highway bordered by palm trees and “Jurassic” lakes and arrive at the grand entrance of Dubai Land’s new aquarium.

It is a city unto itself, though still very much under construction. A heavy lifting crane swings a prefabricated section of monorail track into place. Earth movers level ground across from a visitor’s center. A dozen hotels rise along the periphery of the complex, connected by monorail, each skyscraper exceeding fifty stories. Temporary signs written in Arabic and English direct deliveries to the main attractions, hotels, and a luxury golf residential community called Monster’s Cove.

At the very center of the resort is the aquarium complex—a glass and steel structure that looks like it was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. A dozen two-hundred-foot-high, gold-plated “shark fins” surround the facility, set in place like hours on a watch face, each dorsal fin aligned in turn with a hotel towering along the periphery.

Kaylie and David look at one another, beyond impressed.

Monty whistles. “Gotta hand it to the A-rabs . . . they sure do gluttony good.”

Careee ignores the comment. “Besides the aquarium and hotels, there are three monorail systems, twenty-two five-star restaurants, a residential complex, an international school, a world-class medical facility, a well-being and lifestyle country club, and a retail mall with aquatic-life themes. And everything should be up and running for opening day in thirteen months.”

The limo follows a brick-paved winding road that leads to a sixty-story Hyatt. The hotel’s fifth-story atrium is shaped like the bony jaws of
Dunkleosteus
. The monorail track runs through the ancient marine predator’s open fangs along the outer face of the building.

Caree hands out envelopes with room keys inside. “Everyone gets a suite on the thirty-sixth floor. The staff will bring up your belongings. Exercise and fitness center is on Level Three, outdoor pool and tennis on Two. The monorail is on Level Five. Be at the station tomorrow morning at ten o’clock; a car will arrive to take you to the aquarium for your orientation.”

David and his entourage exit the limousine, blasted immediately by the dry desert heat.

They enter the hotel, the interior’s thermostat set forty degrees cooler than outdoors. The lobby is magnificent, the room floors situated around an open atrium that rises clear up to its tinted glass roof. Tropical plants, palm trees, and waterfalls mix with painted murals of a prehistoric ocean. A neon blue sign reads: WELCOME TO THE DEVONIAN . . . MANAGED BY HYATT. Poised one hundred feet above their heads, spanning the fifth floor, is a clear acrylic skywalk that runs through a reproduction skeleton of a giant
Dunkleosteus.
The creature’s bony body surrounds the bridge, ending at its armored head, which empties out to the monorail station along the exterior of the hotel.

Glass elevators running along the inside of the atrium whisk them up to the thirty-sixth floor. David takes out his room card key: 3605. He turns to his left. Kaylie is keying in the suite next door.

She waves. “See you in the morning.”

“Yeah. Maybe we could—” She enters her suite and shuts the door, cutting him off.

David has to slide his room key several times before the magnetic strip turns the light panel green and unlocks his door, letting him inside.

“Wow.”

The suite is enormous, the floors polished marble, the furnishings luxurious. Floor to ceiling bay windows reveal a breathtaking view of Dubai, clear to a golden sunset setting over the Persian Gulf. A wraparound, sectional leather sofa faces a sixty-five-inch, plasma-screen TV. A small conference table and matching chairs occupy the dining area, the kitchen equipped with a sub-zero, built-in refrigerator.

A marble landing and double doors lead into the master bedroom. The bathroom done in onyx marble, with a double shower and whirl pool tub. A balcony looks out to the Persian Gulf.

Kicking off his shoes, David grabs the room service menu and lies back on the king-size bed.

“Yeah, I suppose I could force myself to get used to this . . .”

Tanaka Oceanographic Institute
Monterey, California

Steven Moretti releases the safety harnesses keeping him strapped in his command chair as water rises up to his waist. His body shivers from the cold. His fingers tug strands of his brown curly hair in an attempt to awaken him from the madness.

The
Jellyfish
is stranded at the bottom of the Meg Pen’s aquarium seventy feet from the surface. The radio is dead, the sphere is taking on water at the rate of an inch a minute . . . but it is not drowning that the pilot fears most.

Glancing up, he sees the sinister silhouette still circling just below the surface, refusing to allow him to abandon the sub.

What the hell are those guys doing up there? They have to know I’ve lost power. Maybe they don’t know about the leak.

Moretti stares at the steady flow of water pushing its way through the crack in the acrylic hull. Each breath becomes more labored, each thought more frantic. He forces himself to focus on his wife, Mary, and the light of his life, their beautiful daughter, Annie. Memories flash before his mind’s eye: the trips with Annie to the fossil sites in New England . . . fishing with family and friends in Cape Cod
. . . catch and release . . . catch and release . . . no need to keep ‘em, Annie. Just reel ‘em in and let ‘em go.

Moretti turns, his eyes drawn to movement as Bela the Dark Queen circles along the bottom, her snakelike movements becoming rigid, her back arching as she suddenly veers toward the
Jellyfish
and attacks!

Whump
.

The forty-foot juvenile strikes the acrylic sphere like a sports utility vehicle plowing into a Volkswagen Beetle, the collision chipping the points off two of Belle’s lower teeth while flinging Moretti out of his chair, face-first into the control panel. The
Jellyfish
rolls awkwardly along the bottom and resettles.

Moretti blows blood from his nostrils, the impact with the console having broken his nose. He watches tiny droplets of blood disperse in the water by his sternum.

Lizzy’s shadow passes overhead.

Moretti shivers as his mind fights against being pushed over the precipice of sanity.
Five minutes, ten tops. Assume the worst, assume they can’t get to you in time . . . what are your options? Unseal the hatch . . . wait until Bela makes her next pass, then swim to the surface like a bat out of hell. Ten second ascent, another five to make it to the side—

He glances up again at the albino’s circling silhouette.
Look at her. She’s waiting for me . . . like she knows there’s only one way out. Think you’re so clever, do you fish? Well, screw you, bitch! I’d rather stay inside and drown than let you eat me!

His limbs convulse in fear as the water rises to his throat . . .

Jonas Taylor’s hands tremble as he fastens the clasps of the bulky smell suit—a porous wetsuit filled with a network of pressurized tubing. Virgil hands him the bottle of putrescene—a red chemical dye developed by the Navy that contains a powerful scent, which, once jettisoned, reeks like rotting fish. Pull the chord and the putrescene shoots out of the wetsuit’s pores.

The hoist crane’s steel expanse beam rolls into place above the Meg Pen and the disabled
Jellyfish
submersible. Fran Rizzuto is working by the crane’s steel staircase, releasing cable from the spool of a portable hydraulic winch.

Virgil clips the free end of the cable to the back of Jonas’s canvass harness. “Doc, no kidding around, but this is the most fucked up thing I’ve ever seen anyone attempt.”

“Not a whole lot of choices.” Jonas struggles to seal the suit’s pump over the open bottle of putrescene. “Is Mac ready?”

“There.” Virgil points across the tank to another Manta Ray dangling in its harness from the truck crane. Ted Badault and his crew have just replaced the sub’s damaged starboard propulsion unit. The Frenchman calls over Virgil’s walkie-talkie, “We’re ready here.”

Virgil struggles to secure an eighty-pound weight belt around Jonas’s waist, while Fran hands him a pony bottle of air connected to a face mask with a built-in radio transmitter.

“Okay, darlin’, here’s the drill: Belle’s circling the
Jellyfish
every forty seconds, but she’s not the problem . . . it’s Lizzy. She refuses to stray from the surface. Steven’s only got a few more minutes of air, so we have to be quick. As you make your way out to the jump-off spot, you’ll see the pulley we attached to an eye-bolt beneath the beam. I’ll follow you out and detach your cable and loop it through the pulley. As soon as Mac gets the sisters’ attention, you jump.

“Dr. Stelzer’s in the gallery; he’ll be in your ear the whole time. You’re not wearing an air tank and you’re loaded with weights, so you’ll go down like an anchor, figure five seconds tops. You need to locate one of the free ends of the truck crane’s two cables. As soon as you have one, yell out, purge the smell suit, drop the weight belt, and I’ll hoist you out of the water like you had a jet pack strapped to your ass. I’m leaving you one hundred and thirty feet of slack, that’s fifty to the water, seventy to get to the sub, and ten feet just in case.”

“Is that enough?”

“Trust me, darlin,’ you’ll wish it was less once you’re in the tank. Seriously, J.T., you’ve only got one shot at this. So, whatever you do, do not drop the cable.”

“Understood.” Jonas ascends the steps leading up to the crane’s expansion beam, Fran pushing him from behind. His muscles feel like lead, his body trembling from adrenaline and fear and the additional hundred pounds of equipment he’s shouldering. He straps the mask and pony bottle of air to his face then speaks into its communicator. “Jon, can you hear me?”

“Loud and clear,” says Dr. Stelzer, who is positioned in the main gallery, three stories below. “Tell me when you’re in position.”

Reaching the top of the fifty-foot-high crane, Jonas carefully steps out onto its four-foot-wide steel expanse beam, refusing to look down at the albino creature circling below.
Move slow, stay low, don’t let Lizzy see you.
He breathes in slowly, his mask fogging . . . then clearing, fogging . . . then clearing, his jumbled nerves causing his limbs to shake. Thirty feet out, he reaches the jump-off point marked with a gray duct taped X.