Meg: Hell's Aquarium (57 page)

The opening chords of a Metallica’s
To Live Is To Die
reverberate from his pants pocket. He pulls out his cell phone. “I’m on the catwalk, Sara. Start rolling your cameras.”

Virgil drags Bobby Baitman to its feet by the doll’s life vest. He feels beneath its pants along its left pelvis, activating the power switch. The doll’s chest pulsates rapidly, simulating a human heart beat.

“Okay, Bobby, this is for the down payment on a house.” Leaning out over the catwalk, he releases the doll, which belly flops into the canal, floating face-down.

“What are you doing?”

Virgil spins around, his pulse racing as the woman’s flashlight blinds him. “Dani? That you? Can you lower the light so I can see?”

“Answer my question.”

“What am I doing? What does it look like I’m doing? I’m working.”

Dani shines her light on Bobby then sees the yacht, poised at the end of the canal. “You bastard. You’re the one who’s been feeding R.A.W. our footage.”

“Now, hold on. Just hold on, Dani. You’re jumping to conclusions.”

“Tell it to the judge.” She reaches for her walkie-talkie. “Security, western bleachers—”

Virgil lunges for her, grabbing the radio. Dani fights him off, kneeing him in the groin—

—as the rusty, twenty-eight-year-old catwalk heaves upward beneath their feet, the steel grating ripped free from its support beam as Bela strikes it from below!

Dani and Virgil flail in mid-air, tumbling sideways down the dark back of the juvenile Megalodon before plunging six feet into the frigid waters of the canal.

Panthalassa Sea

Fourteen . . . fifteen . . . sixteen thousand feet . . .

Beads of perspiration pour down Jonas’s face, dripping onto the control console beneath him like rain.

Eighteen thousand feet.

The active sonar continues pinging the sea, providing him with precise readings on Angel’s position. With every passing minute his Megalodon escort continues to lose interest, forcing Jonas to slow, and on one occasion to circle back and bait her again.

A loud
hissing
sound builds in his headphones as he approaches the deep sea current. This is the moment of truth, the moment he has dreaded. He slows the sub’s descent, allowing Angel to close the gap between them once more, knowing it’s the only way to entice the Meg to follow him through the hydrothermal plume.

The bow of the
AG III
pierces the current. Jonas zigs and zags against the heavy easterly flow, hoping the floundering movements will keep Angel interested.

At 21,000 feet he loses her acoustic signature.

The first nothosaur appears five hundred feet later, swooping past his port-side beam before the bright light turns the ancient predator away. Two more of the creatures cross his path moments later, one of the thirteen-footers slamming him sideways. The current catches the starboard wing like a foil, tossing the Abyss Glider into its stream. Jonas fights to regain control, riding the flow a quarter mile to the east before he can angle his descent and emerge from the raging torrent.

The blips appear on his sonar monitor within seconds, the hunters drawn to his sub’s high pitched acoustics. Jonas debates whether to shut down the pings, but fears being blind more than he fears being bait.

A solitary blip separates itself from the dizzying swirl of bogeys on his screen, rising from the depths to meet him. The female hainosaur is well over fifty feet long, her snake-like movements propelling her thickly muscled body gracefully through the sea. The giant mosasaur is not alone, her two hunting partners, also females, are circling below, waiting in ambush.

One hundred feet and still he cannot shake her.
Hit the hydrogen burn, it’s your only chance.
Jonas feels for the joystick, but refuses to hit the afterburner, knowing the sudden jolt of speed will most likely tear loose the rescue cable from his robotic claw, dooming his son.

Seventy feet . . . sixty.

He veers to the west, altering the angle of his descent, praying he can shoot past the first creature and make his way through the rest of the gauntlet to reach David.

The giant mosasaur locks in on its prey—thirty-six tons of horror charging up from the depths. The massive triangular mouth suddenly appears in the sub’s twin beams, the enraged monster intent on swallowing the Abyss Glider whole!

In a sudden déjà vu, Jonas knows he is dead, that he has failed his son, that his life has been rendered meaningless. He closes his eyes, never seeing the white blur streak in from the west.

Angel’s hyperextended jaws catch the stunned hainosaur mid-chest. The punishing blow drives the giant mosasaur’s rib cage through its internal organs even as the Megalodon sinks its teeth deeper.

Jonas opens his eyes, once more amazed to find himself alive.

Angel swims around him in a slow, sweeping figure-eight pattern, her back arched, her pelvic fins rigid and turned down. The mosasaur is held sideways in her open jaws, still twitching in death. The Meg shakes her prize like a dog tearing up a ragged towel, stifling the convulsions.

The remaining blips on his sonar screen have scattered along the periphery, giving him a clear path to the sea floor. Re-plotting his course, Jonas accelerates into the depths, his fatigued heart racing.

Tanaka Oceanographic Institute
Monterey, California

Virgil Carmen surfaces in a state of fear, his frenzied mind unable to rein in his greatest nightmare.
Where’s Bela? Where’s Lizzy? Get the hell out of the water. Find the canal wall. Climb to safety.

He never sees the soft white glow rising majestically beneath him, Lizzy’s outstretched jaws plucking him from the surface, dragging him under.

Virgil’s shouts become a groan of air bubbles as he thrashes back and forth, the flesh along his right ankle—caught between two serrated teeth—being stripped down to the bone. He pulls loose, his last rational thought:
It’s okay. it’s okay. Lose the foot and swim to safety.

He never sees Lizzy’s darker sibling sweep in from behind, mercifully engulfing him in one savage bite.

Danielle Taylor has grasped onto Bobby Baitman. Despite the danger, her mind is calm. Feeling her way beneath the sex doll’s clothing, she deactivates the battery pack, then hoists herself atop the dummy’s broad back, sitting on top of it like a surfboard. Her rationale is simple:
Remove all vibrations and electrical impulses from the water and the sisters can’t find me.

Dani remains perfectly still, barely breathing. Incoming swells push her toward the collapsed section of catwalk, but she makes no effort to paddle.

The white dorsal fin slices slowly past her, so close she could reach out and touch it. For a heart-stopping moment, the powerful current created by the two sisters’ moving girths tugs on Bobby Baitman, spinning the dummy sideways into a swell. Nearly tossed into the sea, she manages to maintain her balance.

She waits until the dorsal fin moves off. Then, very carefully, she stands atop the floating doll and grabs onto a section of bent steel frame above her head. She hoists herself out of the water and makes her way along a narrow steel beam that only moments ago had held the catwalk.

Exhilarated, she climbs to safety on an intact section of walkway.

Dani turns, catching sight of Lizzy’s albino dorsal fin as it heads for open water. Somewhere below is Belle, moving in formation, riding in her wake.

The sisters leave the canal, heading straight for the yacht . . . and open water.

Panthalassa Sea

They are huddled on the floor together next to a solitary air vent, their bodies enveloped beneath a plastic tarp, the radio receiver close by.

“Kaylie, are you sure you don’t have to pee?”

“You asked me that ten minutes ago. I promise, I’ll urinate in the water tank the moment I feel the urge.” She squeezes his hand. “Don’t worry. He’ll be here soon. He made it down safely the first time; he’ll make it down again.”

He kisses her hand then lays his head back, trying to slow his breathing. When he last checked, there was less than a gallon of water remaining in the tank, equating to no more than thirty minutes of air. Even at an accelerated rate of ascent, he can’t imagine the lab being towed to the surface in under an hour.

“Kaylie, what day is it?”

“I don’t know. Thursday?”

“I meant the date.”

“August fifth, I think. Why?”

He smiles sadly. “It’s my birthday.”

She leans over him, kissing him softly on the lips. “Happy birthday. So, David Taylor, now that you’re officially of age, what can I do to make your day a little better?”

“Marry me.”

She chokes on a nervous laugh, tears welling in her eyes. “That’s kind of sudden, don’t you think?”

“I’m serious. I want to be with you for the rest of my life.”

“Baby, be careful what you wish for.”

“We’re getting out of this alive, Kaylie. I promise. And after all we’ve been through, I don’t think a weekend visit at the University of Florida is going to suffice. Somehow, I’m guessing you won’t be diving the Panthalassa anytime soon.”

“True enough. But marriage . . . that’s a big step. We’re both kind of young.”

“So we’ll make it a long engagement. At least think about it.”

“Shh. We’re wasting air.” She lays her head on his chest, hugging him tightly.

“David? Son, can you hear me?”

“Dad!” David rolls out from beneath Kaylie and grabs the radio. “Dad, where are you?”

“Outside the lab.” Slipping his hand inside a glove-like control device, Jonas extends the telescopic appendage from beneath the Abyss Glider’s bow, praying the collision with the chute’s wall has not damaged the mechanical claw.

The claw appears, still clenching the titanium hook and steel cable. Locating an eye-bolt along the benthic lab’s outer casing, Jonas threads the hook into place, the eye bolt barely large enough to accommodate the thick clasp.

“Okay, the line’s connected. Stand by while I signal the
Tonga
.” Activating the claw, Jonas releases the hook and clamps the grappling device onto the steel cable. Twisting in his seat, he reaches behind him to a series of car batteries powering the mechanical appendage. Slipping on a pair of heavy rubber insulated gloves, he connects a black wire running from the claw’s hydraulic system to one of the battery’s negative terminal, then strikes the red wire to the positive terminal over and over—

—sending an electrical signal through the claw and up the steel cable to the
Tonga’s
engineer.

Long, excruciating minutes pass. And then, slowly, the slack tightens on the rescue cable, the taut line straining to lift the forty-seven-ton lab away from the sea floor.

Come on . . . come on!
Jonas’s eyes move from the cable to the bottom of the lab, which refuses to budge.
Christ, it’s too heavy, the line’s going to snap!

Retracting his claw and appendage, he circles the
AG III
behind the lab. His lights reveal the flesh-stripped carcass of the giant mosasaur, along with the crushed remains of the titanium docking station.

The docking station . . . it’s still attached. Looks like its legs are welded to the sea floor by a dozen years of mineral growth.

Maneuvering the Abyss Glider so that the outer front edge of the cockpit is pressing beneath the lab’s spherical hull, he attempts to provide thrust from behind the massive object, hoping to help free it from the bottom.

Gently, Jonas presses down on both propeller pedals, gradually increasing the torque. He hears the screech of titanium against his windshield, imagining the water pressure squeezing against his escape pod’s thick acrylic surface. Still, he continues on, the pressure building. Clouds of sand and mosasaur remains billow out from behind his sub as he revs both propellers to their maximum RPMs.

The lab refuses to budge.

Reaching for the hydrogen tank’s controls, he ignites the fuel in a powerful blast. Titanium bolts along the crushed docking station squeal in protest, twisting and snapping, the
AG III
’s exhaust scorching the ancient sea floor.

With a final jolt, the lab wrenches free from the docking station and begins to rise!

36.

Tanaka Oceanographic Institute
Monterey, California

Master dive instructor and underwater videographer Scott Jenkins has been collecting Megalodon teeth for the last thirty-five years, ever since he opened Poseidon Adventures, his four-thousand-square-foot PADI 5-star diving training center in Wilmington, Delaware. Each year, the former officer in the U.S. Army Signal Corp leads deep sea diving expeditions along the continental shelf—an area that served as the United States coastline during the last ice age. In this secret diving spot, Jenkins and his clients haul up thousands of fossilized Megalodon teeth, many over six and a half inches from root to tip. While most fossil-tooth collectors prefer to search the river beds in South Carolina and Georgia for Meg teeth, it is Jenkins’s contention that the largest teeth lie in the deeper waters because that is where the mature Megalodons, like Angel, were more likely to hunt.