Leviathan Read online

  Captain Jenkins waited his turn to leave the manmade breach, like planes queuing to share a runway. Soon the idle throttle was released and the gigayacht made its way into the open Atlantic.

  The air was tinged with ocean brine. Wright forgot how much he enjoyed spending time on the sea. It took him back to his time in the Navy. If he stayed in the office too long, it began to feel like a cramped jail cell. The old man stood on the stern and observed the mainland disappear into the hazy distance. Other ships were the first to vanish into the horizon, followed by the buildings and then the land itself. After twenty minutes it had faded completely, and Oscar Wright was able to convince himself that the Naglfar was the last refuge in the world, society’s sole citadel.

  He admired the expanse of waves for a length of time. A voice eventually told him, “We’re out of territorial waters now.”

  The old man turned to see the captain behind him. “I like the concept of mare liberum. A mere twelve miles from land there are no rules, no laws. Anyone can do as he pleases. It’s the only true freedom that remains,” Wright said. “Did you know if you discover something, say a shipwreck or buried treasure, you have the right to salvage it? No country can lay claim if it’s found in international waters. A single individual can defy entire nations. Think how many boats were destroyed over the centuries. From the conquering Spaniards to the European settlers headed to the New World, they all came through these very waters. How many ships rest beneath our feet, how much gold yet to be recovered?”

  “Is that what this trip is about, treasure hunting?”

  The billionaire shook his head. “I have something more important in mind. I’ve too much money as it is.”

  “No such thing as too much money,” the captain replied.

  “There is if it’s been paid in blood.”

  After a short silence Jenkins said, “Your friend wanted you, the safari hunter. I didn’t catch his name.”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “In the galley last I saw him.”

  Wright returned inside and went to the kitchen where he spotted the hunter hunched over a map.

  “Just the man I needed to see,” he told Wright. “I plotted a course that gives us the best opportunity to find our prey.”

  Laid out on the table was a diagram of the Atlantic. Mostly blue, it had green splashes of land representing the Bahamian and Caribbean islands; a solid portion of the Florida peninsula was also visible. Several spots were marked in red ink.

  “I analyzed the information you provided, the reports you gathered from your sources. When I outlined the incident locales, a pattern developed.”

  “What kind of pattern?”

  “A general chain of events. It took some time to weed out the misleading accounts. After all not every story of a sinking vessel or missing boater can be attributed to your . . . dragon, for lack of a better term. But I’ve found ample evidence to make a couple hypotheses.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Without knowing a lot about the creature, a few things can be ventured because they’re absolutes throughout the animal kingdom. Of course this is assuming it exists.”

  “Assuming it exists?”

  “We don’t have any corroboration such an animal is real. The thing you described — dragon, water serpent, whatever — doesn’t fit perfectly with any zoological records. Have you seen it yourself? Do you have any proof?”

  “I gave you a whole damn file of proof.”

  “What you gave me were sketchy reports and speculation about a sea monster with no clear identity or verification.”

  “You’re saying all those people lied?”

  “Not necessarily,” Thorpe said. “In stressful situations the mind can play tricks. The brain triggers optical illusions as a defense mechanism. I believe that they believe what they saw.”

  The old man folded his arms and glared at the seasoned hunter. “You don’t think there’s anything out here, do you? I’m just some paycheck, a crazy coot with more money than common sense.”

  “I don’t reckon that at all,” the hunter lied.

  “Fine then, tell me your theories.”

  Thorpe turned once more to the map. “The earliest stories I was able to authenticate surfaced about three weeks ago. Here.” His finger jabbed a spot on the chart. “This is Turks and Caicos, a group of small islands about fifty miles north of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. A couple fishermen disappeared outside Grand Turk while on a routine trip.

  “Another civilian went missing the following day to the west, off Mayaguana Island. Two days later three scuba divers failed to return from a wreck site on Dead Men’s Cay.”

  “It keeps moving west.”

  “Absolutely,” the hunter said. “That holds true for the rest of the attacks too. Through the Exumas to Grand Bahama Island, and over to Cuba.”

  “And now in Florida.”

  “More than a dozen victims in all, natives and tourists alike.”

  “What kind of creature would have an appetite that voracious?”

  “Something large and very dangerous. The average carnivore eats one-third of its body mass in protein each day, depending on many factors: the environment, whether it hibernates or its general level of activity. Something with a hunger this ravenous has to weigh several tons.”

  “But why here and now? Where could such a thing have been hiding all this time?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. I’m sure it originated someplace east of the Bahamas, in the westernmost tip of the Bermuda Triangle.”

  “The Devil’s Triangle,” the old man said. The notion stimulated his imagination. “Do you suppose the Leviathan’s responsible for the rumors about the Triangle, sunken ships and the like?”

  “That’s maritime myth,” Thorpe said, “pure sailing superstition. There’s no validity to crackpot claims of secret government installations or the lost city of Atlantis. I’ve been through the Triangle many times before and never encountered anything stranger than spotty radio reception. Besides, the legends purport vanishing airplanes too. Unless your sea serpent can also fly, I’m certain there’s no connection.”

  “So why’s it on the move?”

  “Again, could be a number of reasons. Might be searching for a fresh food supply. Polar bears have been known to swim miles in frigid waters to reach areas where their prey hasn’t been depleted.”

  “And humans are its food source.”

  “Not on purpose,” Thorpe noted. “This dragon is merely an animal operating on instinct. People may be mistaken for the creature’s regular diet, but it isn’t specifically hunting people. It’s after whatever it can catch. If it’s as massive as I think, it should have no problem pursuing other large predators.”

  “What else could have forced it into our world?”

  “It might be mating season, and it’s on the prowl for a partner. Most animals in heat will be uncharacteristically aggressive, especially females.

  “Or maybe man encroached on its natural environment, and it’s fled to a better habitat. Hell, it may even be wounded and lashing out. Until I’ve seen your Leviathan for myself, I don’t feel comfortable speculating too much.”

  “Do you have any notion where it’s headed?”

  “I’ve an idea.”

  “Well, where are we going?”

  The hunter leaned over the table, stabbed his finger at a spot on the map circled in marker. “Straight to the middle of its feeding grounds.”

  * * * * *

  The Aurora left Longboat Harbor half an hour after the Naglfar. When the gigayacht had become a faraway speck, Captain Bart piloted the vessel out of the shallow bay. Neither Kelly nor Evan was on deck to witness the departure, as both were sequestered in the photo lab.

  The only source of illumination in the darkroom came from a television monitor. The scientists were huddled in front of the screen to watch the video feed from Kelly’s previous expedition.

  “So the camera did work?” E
van asked.

  “Until that creature came along. I’ll speed it up a bit.” Kelly fast-forwarded the footage, and Evan paused the tape when something caught his attention.

  He said, “What’s that?”

  “I thought you might be interested in that. We think it’s a new species of eel.”

  “Look at those prehensile legs. That’s amazing,” he remarked.

  “That’s not even the good part.” They sat for several minutes, neither speaking as the tape progressed. Kelly eventually told him, “Watch close.”

  The camera panned to the left . . . any . . . second . . . now . . . There.

  “Holy shit,” Evan said.

  The animal glided into frame, the camera glimpsing its enormous mass as it swam by. It wasn’t in a hurry, floating gracefully along. The shot captured its form from mid-thorax to the lower appendages and tail.

  “Pause it,” Evan said. “See how muscular the legs are.” There was a giddy quality to his tone. Kelly too shared his enthusiasm. “Do you realize what that means?”

  “It can walk on land.”

  The marine biologist replayed the same moment from both the infrared and thermal imaging equipment.

  “Without seeing the entire body, I’d deduce it’s a quadruped.”

  “Take a look at this,” Kelly said.

  He watched the thermal tape over her shoulder. The water appeared light blue, while the animal itself was nearly the same color, slightly warmer green on its underside.

  “Check the water temperature,” she said. “It’s sixty-one degrees. The animal’s body heat is about sixty-three.”

  “It’s cold-blooded,” Evan said. “And the way it moves is reptilian. Having seen this, I know now my whale theory is off the mark. This actually reminds me of a Komodo lizard.”

  “The ones found in the Galapagos? Are those even marine creatures?”

  “You’d be surprised,” Evan said. “I studied them for six months as part of my graduate work. I would capture one, tag it and release it back in the wild to chart its movements. Turns out several I caught on the main island I’d trap again two weeks later on one of the smaller islets. They traveled from one cay to the next for food, and there was a sizeable distance between some of the places.”

  “But something that size — ”

  “ — has to be at least thirty feet, if not more. The longest Komodos I tracked were half that length.”

  “It gets better,” Kelly told him as the tape resumed. The creature went out of frame for several seconds before it sped from the darkness straight toward the camera. Its giant mouth opened to reveal a gaping jaw; an instant later the screen turned red and the footage died.

  “What do you think?”

  Evan continued staring at the TV after the picture went blank. He didn’t know how to process what he just witnessed. “It’s cold-blooded yet is able to manufacture a tremendous amount of heat.”

  “Did we find a fire-breathing dragon or what?”

  “No such thing.”

  “Maybe not,” Kelly said. “At least it got our attention.”

  “I’d like a better view of the skull,” he said. “The front-end angle doesn’t offer a lot of clues. Go back a few frames and pause it.”

  She replayed the footage backward frame by frame until Evan stopped her. He inspected every inch of the monitor, searching for any hint of the creature’s anatomy.

  “This isn’t a Komodo,” he said at last.

  “How do you know?”

  “This has a snout. Komodo dragons have a different facial structure, more like an iguana. And look at the eyes.” He pointed to the black sockets peering over the teeth. “They’re positioned high atop the cranium so the creature can see both ahead and to the sides with equal vision. No wonder it’s an expert predator.”

  Kelly ejected the tapes and stored them in a safe place. She didn’t want anything happening to them. Knowing the Institute had a mole on board didn’t calm her anxieties either. If the footage were copied or stolen, she wouldn’t be able to keep the news story from the press. And whosoever controlled the media controlled the masses.

  “Now the hard part begins. How do we find it?” Evan asked.

  “Shouldn’t be as difficult as you think. Check this out,” she said. Kelly rooted through a stack of navigational maps, spread one out smooth on the table. The edges were curled so she used a coffee cup to hold them in place. “The Caribbean Sea,” she said, although that was self-evident to Evan. “My friends at the Coast Guard fed me all the information they had on animal attacks or missing persons over the last six weeks. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary ‘til late last month. There were assaults here, here and here.” She scored three Xs on the map with a pencil. “Clearly it’s moving in a northwestern direction. Because I figured it was cold-blooded, I checked ocean temperatures for this season.”

  She grabbed a clear plastic chart, and overlaid it atop the first map. “Normally a reptile can’t survive average ocean waters because it’s too cold. But this year el Niňo in the Pacific has warmed the Atlantic basin four degrees higher than normal. I expect we’ll also have a volatile hurricane season because of that.” The colorful diagram showed the ocean temperature as mostly green, lower seventies in the north and a dark red patch of almost ninety in the Gulf. A single path of warmer water stretched from the Caribbean to outside the South Carolina coast. “The Gulf Stream typically brings moist air and a heated current from the equator,” Kelly said. Evan noticed the attacks coincided directly with the Gulf Stream. “This stretch is ninety miles wide at its thickest point. I don’t think the creature will wander outside this area, so that narrows our search field. It should stay on a northerly route too, and based on the general rate of speed between the prior attacks” — she traced her finger along the map — “I’d say it’s probably in this area.” Kelly pointed to a spot east of the Florida Keys.

  “I hope you’re right,” Evan said.

  “So do I.”

  * * * * *

  Four hours later Bart’s gruff voice blared over the intercom. “Kelly to the pilothouse at your convenience.”

  She took Evan and met the captain. “What’s up?” she asked.

  “Got a hit on the sonar.”

  “How fast have we been going?”

  “Fifteen knots, give or take.”

  “So we’re over the Gulf Stream.”

  “By all rights and accounts,” he said.

  BEEP. The sonar signaled again on the main console.

  Kelly watched the green screen. A transponder on the Aurora’s keel sent pulses to the ocean floor. They refracted off the bottom and returned to the research vessel, bouncing off any objects for acoustic location.

  “Things were calm ‘til a few minutes ago,” Bart said.

  “Do we know if it’s organic?” Evan asked.

  “Can’t tell from this. It’s at least twenty feet long though.”

  “And on the move?”

  “I don’t think so,” Kelly said. “It isn’t in motion at all.”

  “Maybe it’s asleep?” Bart offered.

  Evan wasn’t convinced. “Do you think this is our creature?”

  “We won’t know if we don’t put a camera down there.”

  Bart shut off the engines and let the ship drift.

  Evan asked, “How far down is it?”

  “About six hundred feet.” Kelly asked the captain, “Do you want to come with us?”

  Bart shook his head. “I’m good right where I am. Take Rafe if you need company.”

  “Suit yourself.” Over the intercom she said, “Rafe to the observation deck. Rafe to the observation deck, thank you.” Then she took Evan and exited the pilothouse, leaving the captain to peruse a magazine.

  “You wanted to see me?” Rafe said as the researchers appeared. The air was muggy and the sun no longer penetrated through thickening cloud cover. The wind had picked up too, since there were no natural landscapes or buildings out here to hinder its for
ce.

  “I have a job for you,” Kelly said.

  “As if I don’t already have enough on my plate.”

  “I need the rover. Evan will give you a hand with it.”

  “What are you photographing?” the Jamaican asked.

  “Not sure yet,” she said. And it wasn’t a lie.

  “How much chain do we need?”

  “At least seven hundred feet.”

  Rafe nodded and the men left to retrieve the equipment.

  Kelly walked to port, leaned over the rail to view the water. Somewhere down there was the creature she was after, a slumbering giant she intended to waken.

  CHAPTER TEN

  A MARINE ENTOURAGE accompanied the Naglfar. Half a dozen spinner dolphins kept at the yacht’s prow, riding lazily on the pressure waves the vessel pressed ahead of itself. A few dived into the water, only to emerge moments later twisting like corkscrews as they leapt from the sea.

  Thorpe mentioned their presence to the billionaire. Wright now watched the mammals from the deck. “They’re playful, sociable animals,” the hunter said. Then without a hint of irony or malice: “Would you like to kill one?”

  “They’re harmless.”

  “We need a large quantity of bait. Only fresh meat will do.”

  “Aren’t they endangered?” The old man held genuine concern for the dolphins. While he was filled with seething vengeance, his animosity extended to the Leviathan alone and not these gentle creatures.

  “We only need one.” He gestured to the harpoon cannon. “Care to test your new toy?”

  Wright thought a moment. It would be a good opportunity to try his latest gadget. His moral ambivalence vanished as he took a seat at the oversized spear gun.

  The hunter loaded a harpoon that was connected to a length of wire. “Have you fired a gun before?” he asked.

  “At a shooting range, never at a living thing.”

  “This is a lot like the shooting range. Line the end of the barrel with the sight here. When you have a good shot, take it. Then use the crank to reel in your catch.”

  Thorpe pointed to the mammals off port. “The key is patience. Pick a specific mark and go after it. You’ll have one chance to fire, maybe two, before they’re scared away.” The old man paid attention to his impromptu hunting lesson. “Be sure to shoot it through the heart. It’s located a third of the way down from the back of its head, that meaty area above the front flippers. Are you ready?”