Beast (21 page)

Meanwhile, Talley knew, his one chance, perhaps the only chance he would ever have, to see and study and film the animal that had obsessed him for thirty years, was fading with every passing day. Seasonal changes in currents and water temperature and the flow of the Gulf Stream might encourage Architeuthis to move on.

Their only hope, clearly, was Whip Darling. From what they had heard about him and learned from their conversation with him, they knew that he was the perfect man for the job: expert, ingenious, sensible, tough and determined. His boat was perfect, too. Talley and Manning had rented a punt and rowed across Mangrove Bay one evening, after seeing Darling and his wife leave their home in a taxi. They had boarded the boat in the long shadows of twilight, had studied its broad stern, which was obviously capable of holding huge reels of cable, its engine and the shelves of spare parts, had approved of the lifting gear and the hauling gear, even the rake of the bow and the cast of the bottom, which spoke of the boat’s ruggedness and stability.

They had debated trying to buy the boat from Darling, but from a few artificially casual conversations with the staff at Cambridge Beaches, and with workers at the boatyard, Talley had learned that boat and man were inseparable. Buying the boat was the same thing as buying the man, and the man had made it clear he was not for sale.

They had yet to discover a weakness in Darling that they could exploit, but Manning wasn’t about to give up. He insisted that, given enough time, he could find an Achilles’ heel in a saint. He still had a few more acquaintances to talk to, a few more favors to call in.

Talley, on the other hand, could think of no one else to question, nothing else to try. He had one other person to meet, this evening, but he assumed that the conversation would produce nothing but a request for money in exchange for a promise of juicy gossip about Darling. There had been a few of those, but Talley had declined to pay until he heard the information, and in no instance had the dirt been worth a dime.

Then he had gotten a phone call last night from someone who said his name was Carl Frith, and that he was a fisherman. He said he had heard that Talley was nosing around about Whip Darling, and maybe he could help. The only reason Talley hadn’t refused the meeting outright was that Frith had begun by saying he didn’t want any money. All he wanted was justice … whatever that meant.

“Set!” called a voice from the bow.

St. John said to the helmsman, “Are we in position?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How far are we from the charge?”

“About a hundred yards.”

“Get closer. I want to be sure the signal reaches.”

“But—”

“Get closer, damn it! You want it to work, don’t you? … Or don’t you?”

“Yes, sir.” As the helmsman put the boat in gear and gave it power, Talley moved as far aft as he could. He tapped the fiberglass and wondered if it had any flotation built into it.

Then St. John shouted, “Fire!” and the crewman turned the switch on the firing box.

For a moment nothing happened, there was only silence, and then there was a sound of rumbling and a sensation as if a giant hand had grabbed the boat and was trying to lift it into the sky. And then the water erupted around them.

Finally the boat fell back, and the spray dissipated, and St. John came aft and leaned over the side. Little fish—pink and red and gray and brown—floated to the surface.

“Deeper,” he said. “He must be down deeper. We’ll have to try to go deeper.”

The helmsman stepped out of the cabin and said, “Doctor. Ned says we’ve sprung a leak.”

“A leak? Where?”

“The glass cracked. In the viewing ports down below.”

“Why did you get us so close?”

“What? You told me—”

“The safety of this vessel is your responsibility. If you thought it was dangerous to get so close, you had an obligation to refuse.”

The helmsman just stared at him.

“Idiot!” St. John said, and he started forward. “How serious is the leak?”

“Maybe we should start home, just in case.”

“Nonsense. Fix it with epoxy,” St. John said, and he disappeared inside the cabin.

Talley thought, Great, now we’re going to sink, and I’ll probably drown out here in the middle of nowhere. He looked around in the cockpit, searching for something that might float. He saw a wooden hatch cover, and unhooked it so it would float free if the stern went underwater. He looked toward shore, estimating how far it was… . Three miles? Four? He couldn’t tell, but it seemed a long, long way.

Then, as he turned back, he saw a boat in the near distance. It wasn’t doing anything, it was just there, its bow pointed this way. It was a big boat.

Be thankful, he thought. At least maybe someone will come to save you.

He heard their engine drop into gear and felt the boat labor into a turn and begin to head for shore.

St. John came out of the cabin, sweating, and his face had a purplish tinge to it, either from exertion or rage.

“There’s a boat over there,” Talley said. “Perhaps we should—”

“I see it.” St. John banged on the cabin bulkhead and shouted, “Hey!”

The helmsman stuck his head out the door, “Yes, sir?”

“You see that boat over there? Call them on the radio and tell them to follow us in.”

“Tell them, Doctor?”

“Yes, Rumsey … tell them. Tell them who we are and tell them to follow us in, in case we need help. They’ll do it. You can bet on it.”

“Yes, sir.” As the helmsman backed into the cabin, St. John said, “Do you recognize-them?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Who is it?”

“Privateer … it’s Whip Darling.”

“Oh,” St. John said, and he hesitated for a second before adding, “forget it.”

“Sir?”

“Forget it. Don’t call them. Just get us home.”

The helmsman frowned, then shrugged and went inside.

“Look how she’s riding,” Mike said.

“Low …” Darling said. “She’s holed herself.”

“Want to follow ‘em in?”

“They want help, they can call us,” Darling said. “I’d like that, but I don’t think Liam would.”

He put the wheel hard over, pushed the throttle forward and headed for the marker that signaled Western Blue Cut. He stayed in deep water, and for several minutes the bow of the boat shed the corpses of small fish.

Mike said, “He sure blowed everything to ratshit.”

“It’s a shame being dumb isn’t a crime,” Darling said, “or we could lock that man up for life.”

“What was he using?”

Darling shrugged. “I don’t imagine he knew. Long as it went bang, that’s all he cared. Water gel … C-4 … maybe plain old dynamite.”

“You don’t just buy that stuff at the grocery store.”

“Sure you do. Look at all the powder we’ve got. All you have to say is you need to blast for a dock or a foundation. The permit man never takes into account the asshole factor.”

“Still, makes you wonder… . Hey!” Mike had been looking to the north, and he was pointing at something shiny floating between two swells.

Darling swung the wheel, and the boat rocked as it took the waves on its port quarter.

“Be damned,” Darling said as they neared the floating thing. “More of that spawn … if that’s what it is.”

It was another of the gelatinous doughnuts, an oblong measuring six or eight feet by two or three feet, undulating, with a hole in its center.

Darling put the boat in neutral and leaned on the railing of the flying bridge and looked down.

“I’d say it was whale spew,” he said. “You know … ambergris … that is, if there were any whales left around.”

“It’s not dark enough,” Mike said. “And it doesn’t stink.”

“No … gotta be spawn, but spawn of what I’m damned if I know.” Darling paused. “We should take some back for that Dr. Talley to have a look at.”

“Want me to dip it up?”

“Why not?”

Mike went down the ladder, found the long-handled dip net and went aft, where the boat’s combing was low and he could reach the water easily.

Darling turned the boat in a tight circle and maneuvered it so that the mass of jelly slid close down its side.

Mike leaned overboard and scooped with the net. As he touched the jelly, it fragmented.

“Damn,” he said. “She come apart.”

“Get any of it?”

“Lemme try again.”

Darling backed down, and Mike held the handle of the net and stretched his arm out.

As the net touched water, something grabbed it, and pulled. Mike’s shins struck the low bulwark, and because too much of his weight was outboard, he started to fall.

“Hey!” he yelled, flailing with his free hand but finding only air.

“Let it go!” shouted Darling, but Mike didn’t. As if his hand were welded to it, he clutched the aluminum handle of the dip net, and was pulled overboard. His body turned half a somersault and he landed in the water on his back. Only then did he let go of the net.

Darling ran to the back of the flying bridge and half jumped, half slid down the ladder and hurried aft. The boat was already out of gear, so Mike was in no danger from the propeller, but Darling was worried he might panic and swallow water and drown himself.

And panicked Mike was. He forgot how to swim. He screamed incoherently and windmilled with his arms … not five feet from the stern of the boat.

Darling grabbed a rope, cleated one end and held up the other. “Michael!” he shouted.

But Mike didn’t hear him, he just kept thrashing and screaming.

Darling coiled the loose rope and aimed it at Mike’s head and threw it. It hit him in the face, but Mike ignored it, until his hands found it and, in reflex, fastened on. Then Darling pulled him to the dive step at the stern of the boat, bent down and grabbed him by the collar and hauled him up onto the step.

Mike lay there, whimpering and spitting water. Then he coughed and gasped and rose to his knees and said, “Fuck this.”

“Why, Michael,” Darling said, smiling. “It was just a big old turtle, that’s all. I saw him … must’ve decided to fight you for the spawn.”

“Fuck him. Fuck you. Fuck everything. Forever.”

Darling laughed. “You okay?”

“I’m gonna go be a taxi driver.”

When Mike had wrung out his clothes and wrapped a towel around himself, Darling returned to the wheel and circled around to where the dip net was floating on the surface. He put the boat in neutral and let its momentum carry it over to the net. He snagged it with the boat hook and brought it aboard.

The turtle had torn a hole in the netting, but a few globs of jelly clung to some of it. Darling held one of the globs to the sunlight and looked closely. There were little things inside, too small to make out. He debated scraping it off the netting and storing it in a jar, but there probably wasn’t enough of it to be worthwhile. So he washed the jelly away in the water, dropped the net on the deck and went up to the flying bridge.

A few minutes later, when Darling had turned into the mouth of Western Blue Cut, Mike appeared on the flying bridge with two cups of tea.

“I don’t like this,” Mike said, handing Darling one of the cups.

“Falling overboard can mess up your day.”

“No, I mean everything. Everything’s making me go apeshit. I’ve been overboard before and I’ve never gone apeshit.”

“Don’t let it get to you. Everybody has a bad day.”

“Everybody doesn’t go apeshit, though. Friggin’ critter’s got me spooked. I half wish Liam would blow the bugger up. Who’d have thought a fuckin’ squid could make me mental?”

“Stop it, or you will make yourself mental … talk yourself right into it.”

“Can’t do what’s already done.”

Darling looked at Mike, huddled in a towel, his hands shaking, and he thought: This thing has opened a dark door inside this young man. It’s weird how things we don’t understand can arouse demons we don’t even know we have.

They were well up in the shallows, with the fortress of Dockyard looming to the left and the pink cottages of Cambridge Beaches peeking through the casuarinas to the right, when Mike, who was leaning on the railing and facing aft, said, “Never seen that fella before.”

Darling looked back. To the north, at least three miles away, approaching the entrance to the deep North Channel, was a small ship, no more than 120 to 150 feet long, with a white hull and a single black stack.

“He’s not local,” said Mike.

“Not hardly.”

“Not navy neither. It looks like one of those private research vessels.”

Darling picked up the binoculars, braced his elbows on the railing and focused on the ship. He could see a lifeboat suspended from davits on the starboard side, and, aft of the cabin, a huge steel crane. On a cradle beneath the crane was something oval, something with portholes in it.

“I’ll be damned, Michael,” Darling said. “Whoever he is, he’s got a submersible, one of those little submarines, mounted on his stern.”

CAPTAIN WALLINGFORD WAS hunched over his desk, signing requisition forms, when Marcus Sharp arrived, rapped twice on the doorjamb and said, “Captain?”

“Sharp. What is it?” Wallingford spoke without looking up. “No, wait, don’t tell me. You’ve heard the scuttlebutt that there’s a research vessel here, loaded with space-age search gear, including a state-of-the-art, two-million-dollar submersible, and they’ve come to look for the giant squid. You’ve heard that we’re going to put a navy man on that ship and in the submersible when they go down, and you’ve come to volunteer. You think you’re the best man for the job.” Wallingford looked up and smiled. “Well?”

“I … yes. Sir.” Sharp stepped into the office and stood before the captain’s desk.

“Why you, Sharp? You’re a chopper jockey, not a submariner. And why should I send an officer, why not just a seaman? All I need down there is a pair of eyes, somebody to make sure these turkeys don’t poke around where they shouldn’t, or screw up one of the navy’s acoustical cables by accident.”

“I’m a diver, sir,” Sharp said. “I know what the underwater looks like. I know what all that sensitive equipment of ours looks like down there. I might be able to see things other people wouldn’t.” He paused. “I’ve had UDT training.”