MEG: Nightstalkers (40 page)

“I’m going to die today. March third. Today’s the day I die.”

“It was a dream, David.”

“No, it was real. Kaylie was in the Manta with me. She was pale as a ghost, her eyes lifeless. She told me today’s the day.”

Jackie climbed out of bed, dressed only in David’s T-shirt. She walked to the porthole and pulled back the worn curtains to reveal the predawn sky. “Let’s get dressed and eat some breakfast, you’ll feel better.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Then let’s hit the gym, a workout will do us both some good.”

“No.”

She moved to his side of the bed, removed the T-shirt, and straddled him.

“Jackie, what are you doing?”

“Keeping the man I love warm.” She hugged him, her bare flesh on his chest generating body heat.

He hugged her back, the warmth chasing away the coldness of death.

Aboard the Hopper-Dredge
McFarland
Amundsen Sea, Antarctica

Zachary Wallace leaned over the chart table, studying the map of Pine Island Bay. Surrounded by glaciers and ice shelves, the waterway vaguely resembled the coastline of the Amery Ice Shelf—the access point to Lake Vostok he had relived a thousand times in a recurring dream.

He looked up as Terry entered the bridge, limping noticeably.

“Are ye all right?”

“Stress and Parkinson’s don’t mix very well. We need to talk.”

He followed her one flight down to the officer’s deck, entering a deserted break room.

Terry sat on bench, stretching out her right leg. “Today is March third, your big déjà vu day. The last time you experienced this, where was Jonas?”

“With me, piloting one of the Mantas.”

“Where was my son?”

“Piloting another Manta, playing a game of cat and mouse with the
Liopleurodon
. He led it away from us and back tae the tanker where it was netted.”

“And that’s where David died?”

“Terry, it never happened. Everything is different this time around.”

“What happened to the Lio after it was netted?”

“The creature was too big and too active. The trawler flipped, the tanker was swaying dangerously. We had no choice but tae kill it.”

“And how did you manage that?”

“Jonas struck it in the chest with both lasers. It was a mortal wound.”

“So, Jonas saved both crews?”

“Yes.”

“And this time around, Jonas is in sickbay, unable to pilot the Manta. Even if my son survives, what’s to prevent the Lio from going berserk and sinking both vessels? Who’s going to kill this monster with my husband out of commission?”

Zachary felt the blood drain from his face. “I hadn’t considered that.”

“Of course not. You were too busy with your own agenda to think things through.”

“Is there anyone else on board who can pilot the Manta?”

“You’re looking at her. Our ETA at Pine Island Bay is sixteen hundred hours. Make sure you’re wearing a compression suit, I’d hate for you to die from a blood clot.”

She stood, limping toward the door. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to wake up Cyel Reed and inform my engineer he has eight hours to attach those two lasers to Manta number three.”

Pine Island Bay, Amundsen Sea

The Thwaites Glacier has been heavily studied by geologists because of the rapid flow rate in which it is melting into Pine Island Bay. Researchers at the University of Texas in Austin recently discovered the cause of this alarming phenomenon—magma and related volcanic activity arising from the rifting of the Earth’s crust beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. This geothermal dynamic distributes heat across the bottom of the ice like a pancake griddle, threatening to collapse the glacier and raise ocean levels.

The
Liopleurodon
could sense the geothermal activity, the neuromastic cells located along its lateral lines registering the grinding of the ice upon a 2,296-foot-tall ridge located beneath the glacier along the sea floor. It could also detect several pods of minke whales feeding on fish attracted to a stream of warm water flowing out from beneath the glacier into Pine Island Bay.

With its newborn held in tow within the current created by its own water displacement, the Lio entered a narrow channel leading to the glacier. Remaining deep, it waited for darkness, its primordial senses homing in on the pod of whales feeding along the surface.

Aboard the
Dubai Land-I
Trawler

David Taylor pulled the compression suit into place over his arms and legs, zipping it over his chest.

Monty handed him the matching boots. “It was just another night terror, kid. Don’t let it phase you.”

“Easy for you to say, you didn’t see her.”

“What’d she look like? Did she look like a zombie?”

“No.”

“Did she look regurgitated?”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Then how did she look?”

“She looked dead … scary dead. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

Commander Molony entered the staging area. “Our luck just turned; the Lio entered a channel that dead ends at the Thwaites Glacier. We’ll be in position at the mouth of the inlet in twenty minutes. Are you ready to do this?”

“Yeah … sure.”

Molony heard the inflection of doubt. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

“His dead girlfriend visited him in a dream.”

“Shut up, Monty.”

“You dreamt Jackie was dead?”

“Kaylie Szeifert. It was just a stupid dream.”

Jackie entered, dressed in a compression suit. “Are you ready? Bin Rashidi wants us in the water the moment we arrive at the glacier’s inlet.”

“Molony, if she goes, I’m staying.”

“Sorry, kid, that’s not your call.”

“The fuck it’s not. It’s either my call or you can pilot the damn sub yourself.”

“David, I can handle it. We’re in the shallows; it’s daylight.”

“Not for long.”

“Shut up, Monty.”

David sat on a bench by his locker stall, pulling off his compression boots.

“Okay, hold on,” Molony said. “Jackie, David’s going solo on this one.”

“Or you could go with him,” suggested Monty. “Think about it; if you’re in the co-pilot’s chair, his dead girlfriend won’t have anywhere to sit.”

David started to say something, then thought about it. “That’s true.”

Jackie looked at the commander, her eyebrows raised. “Well?”

Molony’s face flushed, matching his red hair. “Goddam it. Everyone out while I change.”

Before they could move, Fiesal bin Rashidi’s voice blasted over the intercom. “Commander Molony, report to the bridge at once.”

Granted a momentary reprieve, Molony left the room.

Monty shook his head. “Saved by the yell.”

*   *   *

Bin Rashidi passed the binoculars to the commander, pointing out the bridge’s starboard bay windows.

Molony peered through the glasses at the large ship in the distance, a name emblazoned across her stern. “The
McFarland
.”

“It’s Jonas Taylor’s vessel; the hopper-dredge he used to transport Angel.”

“What’s it doing in Antarctica?”

“Fool! Taylor’s after the Lio.”

Aboard
Manta-Three

Terry eased the sub into the crystal-green waters of the bay, the late afternoon sun fading quickly. “Anything on sonar?”

Zachary listened intently on his headphones. “The Crown Prince’s ships are entering the bay. David’s sub should be in the water soon.”

“Where’s the Lio?”

“I dinnae ken; it’s not showing up on my screen. Should I go active?”

“And reveal ourselves? No, thank you. With these two lasers weighing us down I doubt we could outrun a sea elephant, much less a one-hundred-and-twenty-foot pliosaur. What we’re going to do is lie along the bottom and wait until David makes his move.”

Pushing down on the joystick, she descended two hundred and thirty feet before leveling out over the sea floor. Keeping her speed below seven knots, she trekked east, moving toward the glacier.

After another minute a series of objects appeared on Zach’s sonar screen, his headphones chirping with acoustics.

“Terry—”

“I hear them. They sound like minke whales. Zachary, there’s a communication panel by your right foot. Open it, please. You’ll see a series of toggle switches set in the OFF position. Is there one with a blinking blue light?”

“No.”

“Keep an eye on it. If a light starts blinking that means David’s sub is in the area. Flip the switch and we’ll be able to speak with him over an inter-sub comm-link.”

Zach’s gaze shifted from the panel to his sonar monitor, the pod of whales materializing as blips on the edge of his screen.

*   *   *

The Antarctic minke is small for a baleen whale. Twenty to thirty feet in length and weighing between seven and eleven tons, the mammal resembles a stocky porpoise with two long flippers and a hook-shaped dorsal fin. Dark backed and white bellied, minke feed on plankton and krill, filtering the small fish through their baleen as they sieve the frigid polar waters.

Seventeen minke whales and three adult humpbacks had gathered within a hundred yards of the Thwaites Glacier to feast on a school of sardines. The cetaceans took turns diving through the swirling maelstrom of fish, their
chuffing
exhalations echoing across the bay, the setting sun reflecting gold off the sheer white cliffs of ice.

As the sun bled into shades of red and magenta the mammals’ auras changed. Becoming agitated, the whales stopped feeding. As darkness fell they segregated into two pods, the adults pushing their young into the center.

An immense predator had entered the channel, circling the sea floor directly beneath the panicked herd.

With a thrust of its powerful forelimbs the
Liopleurodon
rose, its hideous mouth opening as it launched itself straight up through the gyrating islands of blubber. The surface exploded in bloody froth as a five-ton female minke was hoisted out of the sea within the breaching monster’s jaws, the Lio’s dagger-like teeth nearly severing the whale in half.

The pods dispersed—the cetacean stampede fleeing the channel.

*   *   *

A bizarre sensation of déjà vu washed over Zachary Wallace as a wall of sonar blips appeared on his screen, converging upon the Manta. “Terry, the whales are fleeing the channel—we’re in their path!”

A forty-five-foot humpback materialized out of the olive-green ether, its thrusting gray fluke barely missing the sub.

Two more appeared, followed by a chaotic rush of minke whales.

Terry tried to dive free of the stampede but the cetaceans were everywhere. Powering up the
Valkyries
, she faced the swarm head-on, the lasers’ intense heat forcing the whales to give the Manta a wide berth.

“Zach, start pinging. We need to find the Lio before it finds us.”

His mind overwhelmed with yet another bad déjà vu, Zachary went active on sonar, sending out multiple bursts of sound.

An immense object appeared on his screen a kilometer to the east, close to the glacier.

And then a second object approached from the southwest. Passing beneath the
Tonga
and the
McFarland
, it was clearly homing in on the Manta’s sonar pings.

Zzzzzzzzzzt. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzt.

Zachary’s heart raced, the familiar burst of echolocation paralyzing his limbs.

“Zach, what was that?”

He tried to speak, only the muscles in his throat had constricted in fear.

A blue light illuminated inside the panel by his foot. Reaching down, he flipped the toggle switch on the comm-link.

“Dad, is that you?”

“David!”

“Mom? What are you doing in Antarctica?”

Zachary grabbed Terry’s right wrist. “It’s Brutus—he followed us here! Ye’ve got tae move!”

“Huh?” She glanced at her sonar screen, then accelerated the Manta into a tight loop, nearly losing both
Valkyries
as the eighty-foot, hundred-ton Miocene sperm whale shot past the sub.

“Mom, was that a sperm whale?”

“Terry, the whale’s too fast for us; ye need tae confront it with the lasers. David, this is Zach Wallace. The whale is a
Livyatan melvillei
, it’s a big-jawed—”