Return to The Deep (From The Deep Book 2) (17 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The charcoal grey helicopter sliced through the air, keeping pace with the pod of twelve sperm whales as they moved through the crystal clear waters below. Ever since the banning of all whaling in the area, the Indian Ocean had become something of a sanctuary for the majestic animals.

Clara watched through binoculars as the creatures obliviously went on their way, occasionally breaking the surface to breathe. For the last three days, she had tracked more than five separate pods, all without any sight of the creature. She had expected to see something, perhaps diversionary tactics to avoid an encounter, and yet, there was nothing to report. The radio on her lap crackled, and she picked it up.

"This is Thompson."

"You see anything out there?" Andrews said, his voice distorted by static.

"I'm still tracking this pod of sperm whales."

"It’s been three days now. I would have expected to see something by now."

"Look, this isn’t an exact science. I’m doing my best."

"Just keep in mind, the batteries on the tracker probably only have a week or so left before they die. We need to do this now."

“A week? How did you change them back in the aquarium?”

“It wasn’t so hard. We had a harpoon that fired a small micro tracker. It was more than adequate.”

“You didn’t remove the old one?”

“There didn’t seem to be any need. We just implanted a replacement once the batteries had died.”

“That’s inhuman, and cruel.”

“Look, we can talk about the morals of the past later. Can we please just get on with things for now?”

"I hear you. We’ll need to head back in soon to refuel anyway. I'll meet you back at the dock."

"Copy that," Andrews said, and clicked off. Clara set the radio back on her knees and lifted the binoculars, finding the whales again.

She was about to ask the pilot how much fuel they had left when the whales veered off to the right and increased their speed.

Heart hammering in her chest, she lowered the binoculars and looked out of the domed glass of the helicopter, squinting against the sun. She could see no visible disturbance, nothing that would explain the sudden deviation. With her throat suddenly dry, she returned to the binoculars to get a closer look. The whales were obviously in a hurry, their previous leisurely progress replaced with an urgency, which was plain to see. She watched as the adults moved to the outside, sheltering the calves in the middle of the pod. She had seen this behaviour before. It was a classic defence mechanism against a potential predator.

Without looking away, she reached down and picked up the radio, lifting it to her mouth.

"Andrews, you there?"

She waited, listening to the static and watching the whales.

"Yeah, I’m here. What's happening?"

"Something’s going on with these whales. They just veered off course and went into defensive formation."

"Is it the creature?"

"Maybe, it could just as easily be another predator. I’m tracking them now. Do you have our location?"

"Got you on GPS. We're around ten miles out."

Start heading this way, just in case we're on the money. If this thing is nearby, the tracker should be readable easily enough."

"Got it, I’m on my way. Keep me posted."

Clara returned her attention to the Whales, watching the surrounding water for any disturbance. She turned to the pilot. "Can we get any lower? The glare of the sun is making it hard to see."

The pilot gave the thumbs up, and dropped to within two hundred feet of the water. Able to see better, she lowered the binoculars and scanned the water, searching for whatever was hunting the whales. She turned her attention back the giant mammals as they swam on at pace. Her heart froze for a second, and then began to beat at double tempo.

One of the whales was missing. Of the twelve she had been tracking, there were now only five adults’, three juveniles, and three calves. She counted again, forcing herself to take her time and ensure she didn’t miss any. There was no doubt. One of the calves was gone. She craned her neck, scanning the surrounding water, wondering if it had grown tired and been left behind. For miles in every direction, all she could see was the calm ocean. She turned back to the pod, just in time to see a second calf dragged under.

"Jesus, did you see that?" She said to the pilot, who either didn’t hear or chose not to answer. She estimated that the calf was around eight feet long, and had been dragged under by something that was obviously much larger, something she still couldn’t see due to the glare on the surface. She snatched up the radio.

"Andrews?"

"Yeah, I’m here," he replied almost instantly.

"I think we've found it."

"Visual confirmation?"

"No, not yet. Too much surface glare. Something just dragged two whale calves under though, and I can’t think of anything other than our creature that would be able to do that."

"We're inbound, will be there as soon as we can.”

"Hurry up. I’m not sure how long it will feed."

"Got it, we're at full speed."

"Roger that," she said, only half listening.

She stared at the water, her mind playing tricks on her. Through the glare, she imagined she could see it, slivers of movement under the waves. All she could do now was keep track of the whales and hope Andrews would arrive in time.

II

Andrews increased speed, pushing the boat towards Clara's location. He checked her position on the GPS and adjusted his course, making sure he stayed with her as she tracked the whales. He glanced at the tracker, which was set up on the instrument panel, hoping to see the screen flicker to life as they locked onto the signal from the creature. He was within range now, with less than five miles between him and Clara. If she was right, he should be seeing a signal anytime soon. The boat bounced over a particularly choppy series of waves, electing a grunt from Clara's camera crew who were playing cards at the table.

He could see her helicopter now in the distance, a black speck on the horizon. He made a slight adjustment, vaulting over another wave and slamming the bow of the boat into the water hard enough to send a great wall of spray into the air. It was then that Andrews heard it, a steady and monotonous beeping sound. Glancing at the tracker, he couldn’t help but smile as he saw the green sound wave on the screen. He snatched the radio out of its housing, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

"Clara, come in."

He waited for what felt like an eternity for a response. "Go ahead."

"I owe you a drink. I have a signal, repeat, I have a signal. Do you have visual confirmation yet?"

"Not yet. This damn glare is making it impossible. "

"Okay, standby, you should be able to see me coming in."

"Yeah, got eyes on you now. Come in steady."

"Why? You afraid I might spook the whales?" Andrews said.

"No, I’m worried our creature might decide you're its dessert," she fired back.

"Thanks," Andrews grumbled.

"Do you have a strong enough signal to track it now?"

"Yeah, no problem."

"Alright, in that case I’m coming back to the boat."

"Don’t you mean to the dock?"

"No, I mean the boat."

"How the hell do you expect to get from the helicopter to here? Swim?"

"Not exactly."

"Then what?"

"Tell the crew to get the cameras ready and stand by on deck."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Tom stood at the rear of the Lady of the Mist, looking out at the ocean. He could no longer see land in any direction, which increased his feeling of complete isolation. Three days had passed at sea, and with each one, the tension seemed to increase. Joanne was acting strangely, and had withdrawn into herself almost as much as Marie had. Jim and Fernando were also subdued, although he thought that could be due to how intimidating the Russev brothers were. On more than one occasion, Tom had tried to make conversation with Pavel and was greeted with monotone answers and an icy stare.

He got the impression that their presence wasn’t exactly welcomed by Greg either, who spent his hours skulking about the ship as they headed towards Madagascar. He looked like a man who had the weight of the world on his shoulders, and wasn’t quite sure how to deal with it.

"Peaceful out here, isn’t it?"

Startled, and slightly spooked by the way that Greg had appeared as he was thinking about him, Tom nodded.

"Yeah, it’s nice," he said as Greg joined him at the stern, looking out at the frothy wake thrown out by the boat, as it inched towards its destination.

"You know, this used to be my life, spending my time out here, before this," Greg said, raising his stump. "Those are years I’ll never get back."

"It's not the end of the world you know," Tom said. "With prosthetics you can-"

"It's not the injury."

"Then what is it?"

Greg didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he sighed and looked at the sun as it crept towards the horizon line, casting the ocean into glorious reds and oranges. "The guy's name was Paul Milla."

"Who?"

"The guy who died back when I last encountered this monster."

"From what you said at the motel, it was an accident. There's no way you could have known," Tom said.

"No, I get that. I've been diving, or at least I had been for more than ten years before that day. I thought I knew the ocean. I took it for granted until that thing swam out of the dark and changed my life forever."

Tom didn’t answer. He didn’t feel it was appropriate. Instead, he waited until Greg was ready to go on.

"You know what the worst part of it was?" Greg said, turning towards Tom.

"Go on."

"When we were down there, when I was pinned to the top of the cage with my air tanks running low, I wanted that man to die so I could save my own skin. I remember seeing him on the floor of the cage, hoping to see the air bubbles stop coming from his regulator so I could take it for myself. Even when I'd cut myself free, even through the fire that burned through my arm, I still considered leaving him for dead. I think I would have too if not for needing his wife to help get the cage out of the water. It wasn’t until we were on deck and he'd actually died that I started to feel guilty about it."

"So why are you doing this? Why are you out here and risking putting yourself back in front of this thing?"

"I could give you a million answers you would expect me to give. Revenge. Closure. The truth is, I really don’t know. All I can tell you is it’s burning me up inside, and has been eating away at me ever since."

"Have you tried to talk to someone? Therapy maybe?"

"No. I knew by the looks on people's faces when I told them what happened that they didn’t believe me. I'll never forget the surgeon who was looking after me post op for my arm. He seemed like a nice guy, a straight shooter. So he asks me what happened. Hell, maybe his colleagues put him up to it, I don’t know, but as I said, he seemed sincere, so I told him all about the creature, all about what it did to the sharks. You know what happened?"

"What?"

"He laughed at me. Right there in my face. Man, I wanted to kill that prick. Would have done it too if I had the strength. Even now when I feel like giving up and letting this whole thing slide, I think about the way he laughed at me. This fish ruined me; that much is true, but I was the one who let it. This is my chance for a little payback."

"So why do you need us?"

Greg held up his amputated limb. "As stubborn a bastard as I am, there's only so much I can do without help."

"I don’t get it," Tom said. "Isn’t that why those Russian's are here?"

Greg grimaced, and glanced over his shoulder. "Let's just say they weren’t supposed to be part of the deal."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah, go ahead."

"That night you came to the motel. You didn’t have someone outside watching us did you?"

"No, of course not. I had to tell you that though so you'd help me. I know you saw this monster, but trust me, that’s just a baby compared to one that's fully grown."

"It was big enough."

"The point is, it's not even half its full length. You have a responsibility to put it right."

"This isn’t my fault," Tom snapped.

"Bullshit it isn’t. Like it or not, you and those friends of yours set it free. Are you telling me you won’t feel guilty when it starts chewing people up whenever they decide to go in the water? I saw this thing cut through a whole army of sharks like they were nothing. I feel guilty over the death of just one man. Do you really think you can handle the guilt of the death of hundreds? Maybe thousands?"

“Thousands? Come on, that’s a bit dramatic. It’s just a fish," Tom mumbled.

"Just a fish? What happens when this fish destroys local fishing populations and disrupts migratory patterns of countless species? What about when fishing grounds used for years are suddenly barren because your fish has driven them away? What about people who rely on those fish to survive and make a living? True enough, maybe you won’t see that death like you would like when they show the footage of wars and disasters on TV, but you would be responsible all the same. Believe me, you might not think so now, but you might just eventually thank me for dragging you out here."

"That all depends if we survive the trip," Tom muttered.

Inside the boat, Jim watched Greg and Tom in conversation, trying to keep control of his anger and paranoia, which were bubbling under the surface. Fernando joined him, sipping a bottle of water.

"How you doing, Jim?" he asked.

"What do you suppose they're talking about out there?"

"Small talk probably. My brother could talk the ears off a donkey."

"What if it's about us?"

Fernando glanced at his friend, frowning as he took another sip of water. "You okay, man?"

"Why would they just go out there on their own?" Jim said, ignoring the question.

From the table, Joanne looked at them, her stomach plunging into her shoes. Jim was using the same voice he had threatened her with back at the motel. Her eyes shifted to the knife on the table beside the plate of food she had barely touched.

"You sound paranoid," Fernando said, breaking into a nervous grin.

"Why shouldn’t I be?" Jim said, glaring at Fernando. "We should have run when we had the chance. Now we're stuck here on this damn boat."

"Look, I don’t think this guy intends to hurt us."

"What about them?" Jim said, rolling his eyes.

"The Russians?"

"Yeah."

"What about them?"

"Look at them. Shit, did you see the guy who they work for? The one who owns the boat? Don't tell me you didn’t think he was a shifty guy. He looked like someone who would kill a man and not lose any sleep over it.

Just like me.

He almost added it, but cleared his throat instead as he stared out onto the deck at Greg and Tom.

“Hey, what's wrong with you?" Fernando said, frowning at Jim. "Where the hell did all this come from?"

Realising he'd gone too far, Jim forced a shrug and a grin which felt elastic on his face, as if his skin was loose and hiding the real him underneath. "I don’t know, just stressed I suppose. Forget about it."

"Just relax," Fernando said, clapping Jim on the shoulder. "This will all be over soon enough."

Jim nodded and walked with Fernando back to the table to sit with the girls. Neither of them noticed that the fork from Joanne’s plate was missing. As the two slid into the booth, Pavel came up from below deck.

“Where is Australian?" he said, giving them all a cold stare.

"Outside," Fernando said, pointing to the glass door leading onto the rear deck.

"Spasibo," Pavel said as he strode across deck and slid the door aside. Tom and Greg turned as one.

"We have a signal. Time to get device ready," he said.

Greg felt the tempo of his heart increase in anticipation. "Alright, let’s do this," he said, following Pavel inside. "Come on, you two," he called over his shoulder, "and bring those two mates of yours."