MEG: Nightstalkers (8 page)

“The Megs were after orca; the attack occurred in the deep waters off the west coast of San Juan Island. We’re shooting in the shallows. Are you familiar with Obstruction Pass?”

“Are you kidding? I could practically spit there from here. Still, it’s too risky.”

Donna removed an envelope of bills from her jacket pocket. “Here’s five hundred dollars for about an hour of work. You’ll receive another thousand when we get back to port.”

She handed the envelope to the former movie producer, who thumbed through the cash. “An hour, huh? These hour shoots tend to be more like three. Where’s your gear?”

Lucas pointed in the direction of the parking lot. “There’s two crates on wheels in my pickup truck. We can be loaded in twenty minutes.”

Donna rubbed the captain’s arm. “I’d love to have a
peek
at your film. Maybe you can show it to me while Lucas is fetching his gear?”

Steven Lebowitz removed his cap to wipe sweat beads from his receding forehead. “Sure, I can do that. Grab your gear, Lucas. And make sure you don’t have any open wounds.”

*   *   *

The MH-65C Coast Guard helicopter cruised at a pedestrian thirty knots over the placid green waters of Haro Strait, its bright orange skin glistening in the late afternoon sun. Instead of a tail rotor, the search and rescue craft possessed a fenestron—ten blades spinning inside a circular housing at the base of its tail fin.

Two pilots manned the cockpit. The flight mechanic sat behind the 7.62mm M240B/H machine gun mounted by the open bay door. A spotter was harnessed next to him, his binoculars trained upon the surface glistening a hundred and sixty feet below. The chopper’s rescue swimmer was assigned the 7.62mm shoulder-fired precision weapon which rested on his lap.

Captain Michael Royston, the U.S. Coast Guard sector commander out of Port Angeles tapped Jonas on the shoulder, then pointed to Mac, who was dozing in his seat. “War vet?”

Jonas nodded. “And a new father. His wife has him pulling three a.m. feedings.”

“Poor bastard.”

Jonas shrugged off the attempt at conversation, struggling to shift his weight in the jump seat. They had been circling the western coastal waters of San Juan Island for three straight hours. He was tired and hungry; his lower back ached and his knees were cramped.
This is a waste of time.… an exercise in futility aimed solely at appeasing the public. Bela and Lizzy could be a hundred miles from here or be swimming two hundred feet directly below us—either way we’d never know it. And shooting at them with a machine gun …

The co-pilot signaled to starboard. “Sir, we sighted another pod of gray whales. Should we stay with them?”

Captain Royston glanced at Jonas, reading his pained expression. “How are we on fuel?”

“We can remain on this course and speed another twenty minutes before … stand by, Captain. We’re receiving a report from one of the auxiliary units. A sighting … a white dorsal fin … three miles southwest of Obstruction Island.”

Obstruction Pass

The
Lebofilms
cut a V-shaped wake of white water across the glassy emerald green surface, its captain maintaining a southern heading through the narrows of East Sound. On their port side was Obstruction State Park, its public boat launch closed. The channel ended up ahead, emptying into open water.

Steven Lebowitz called down from the helm to the lanky man in the dry suit. “Hey, shark bait, see those whitecaps? That’s your destination.”

Lucas Heitman waved, his eyes focused on his iPhone and the GPS map.

Obstruction Island came into view on their left, its forest-covered landmass concealing a private residential community. Donna Johnston observed the landmass from the bow, just as she had four days earlier in her lover’s yacht. Alexi Alexandrovich Lundgard owned one of the island’s seaside properties. She had met the Russian immigrant two years earlier in the United Kingdom where he ran a black market import-export company. One of Alexi’s hottest commodities was pinto abalone, a San Juan Island seafood delicacy contained in a six-inch-flat, ear-shaped shell, the interior of which was an iridescent pearl coating set in swirling patterns of color that shifted with the light. Commercial demand for abalone was high, the polished shell pieces used in guitar inlays and saxophone keys as well as women’s jewelry.

Abalone diving in the Salish Sea had been banned since 1994.

An avid SCUBA diver, Alexi had come across a large patch of abalone a week earlier while investigating a twelve-foot ridge hidden among a kelp forest along the bottom. While Donna kept vigil topside, he and Lucas had collected over two hundred live specimens, but could not risk hauling the heavy burlap bags on board as a Coast Guard chopper had been circling overhead. Instead they tied the bags and hid them beneath a shelf of rock in Obstruction Pass.

Alexi’s movements were being watched. That left it up to Donna to secure the haul.

Lucas signaled the captain to stop. The boat listed beneath its own wake, its engines chortling blue-gray exhaust fumes. Lebowitz checked the depth gauge and dropped anchor, the line going taught in the currents.

Donna intercepted him as he climbed down from the helm. “You have a winch, yes?”

“A winch? Yeah, I have a winch. What do you need a winch for?”

She led him to the five-foot-long, four-foot-wide rectangular wooden crate Lucas had hauled onboard. Through gaps in the wooden slates Lebowitz could see a burlap sack held shut by a padlock. “What’s in the bag? A dead body?”

“You are a funny man. These are props we need in the shot. One is a bust of Poseidon; the other is a statue of his rival, Hades. Best to leave them in the crate; Lucas will position them along the bottom.”

Lebowitz tested the crate’s weight, estimating it to be about a hundred and thirty pounds. With Donna’s help, he rolled it across the deck to the starboard pulley. Clipping the end of the line onto the crate’s O-ring, he reversed the winch, lifting the load off the deck. The Scottish woman swung it beyond the aluminum rail and the captain lowered it until it came to rest along the bottom.

Now it was up to Lucas.

The diver stood on the rocking transom, gazing at the churning water. Conditions were poor, the tide swift. He could see the tops of the bull kelp quivering just beneath the surface, his mind rationalizing the simplicity of the task before him against his own undercurrent of fear.

For the umpteenth time his eyes scanned the horizon. No orca, no giant six-foot white dorsal fins.

Donna nudged him from behind, jump-starting his already rapid heartbeat. “Forgetting something, lad?” She handed him the underwater video camera.

“Right … thanks.”

Rubbing saliva inside his dive mask, he sealed it to his face, then held the camera to his chest and stepped forward off the listing boat, falling feetfirst into the sea.

The inflated buoyancy control vest prevented him from sinking. Bobbing along the surface, he reached for the valve and released air, sending himself plunging into an emerald green world entangled by towering strands of kelp.

He paddled into a clearing and continued his controlled descent, following the steel cable to the bottom. He felt the pressure building in his eardrums as he passed thirty feet and paused to equalize, pinching his nose while blowing out his cheeks. When the squeezing sensation eased he continued, his eyes wide as they focused on the curtains of deep green kelp and what they might conceal.

So engaged was Lucas with his surroundings that he was startled when his flippers struck the top of the crate, sending him tumbling backward. His air tank struck the rocky bottom with a loud
crunch
.

In a frenzy of movement he righted himself.
Which way was the ridge? The GPS had pointed southeast … which way was that?
He checked his dive watch, collecting his bearings.

First things first—empty the crate.

Flipping open the metal latches, he opened the crate and dragged out the burlap sack. Inside were two cheap plaster busts Donna had purchased at a farmer’s market. Dumping them on the sea floor, he pushed away from the bottom, setting off at a brisk pace to collect the bag of abalone.

Lucas bypassed the denser sections of kelp, swimming over a reef. Large anemone and sea cucumbers bloomed into view, along with coon-striped shrimp, ten-armed sunflower starfish, and other colorful clusters of invertebrates.

The ridge was in a clearing up ahead—a slanted shelf of rock, twelve feet high at its apex and eight feet deep, serving as the local hangout for a variety of fish.

A school of kelp greenling hovered before the entrance like nervous deer, the males with their brown bodies and irregular blue patches seemingly a different species from their female counterparts with their reddish-brown spots and yellowish-orange fins.

A cluster of China rockfish darted out of his way, their dark blue bodies marked by a yellow stripe that extended around the third dorsal spine down to their lateral lines. As he neared the ridge opening he saw a lingcod hovering like a bulldog, its massive ninety pound girth spotted in shades of gray.

Avoiding the popular eating fish, he ducked inside the ridge, nearly stepping on a buffalo sculpin lying along the bottom, the bottom dweller no doubt attracted to the roiling abalone trapped inside the burlap bag.

Lifting the sack with both hands, he half-kicked, half-strode out of the crevasse of rock—only to be confronted by a ghost.

It was a great white, a six-foot, three-hundred-pound female, its hide as pure as the driven snow. The albino swam with frenetic movements, her back arched in an aggressive posture. Clearly agitated, she circled the area like a caged tiger, then abruptly darted into the curtain of kelp and disappeared.

Lucas remained beneath the ledge, his heart pounding in his chest, each breath panted. He checked his air gauge …
twenty-two minutes.

He searched the surface for the boat and located its keel a good fifty yards away. The seventy-seven-foot ascent added precious minutes; he’d have to pause at least once to avoid ending up with the bends.

Lucas removed the diving knife that was strapped to his right ankle, but found it too cumbersome to wield while holding the bulky sack.

He considered leaving the abalone behind, but realized he could use it as a shield in case the shark attacked.
Get back to the crate as fast as you can, then ascend nice and easy. If the shark attacks … stab the fucker right in its gray eye!

Adding just enough air to his vest to compensate for the sack’s weight he set off, the burlap bag pressed to his chest. Keeping his head on a swivel, he cut north across the coral bed, his eyes continuously checking the position of the boat’s keel.

That’s when he spotted the great white. It was circling the kelp forest high overhead like a bird of prey, its silhouette lead-gray against the ceiling of shimmering daylight.

As he watched, a second shark joined the first.

Before Lucas could think, a third shark made its presence known. Unlike the others this predator was stalking him through the dense kelp forest on his left, its white albino head partially concealed behind fluid strands of vegetation, its lead-gray flank revealing a bizarre two-tone pigment.

Lucas’s eyes caught movement and he turned—confronted by the shark’s identical twin—which was now bull-rushing him! A pink band of gums opened into an expanse of needle-sharp teeth a split second before the diver raised the burlap sack in self-defense—

Whomp!

The concussive impact stole Lucas’s breath, causing his regulator to pop out of his mouth as the burlap sack exploded into a gray oily cloud of shattered shells and raw abalone.

The shark shook its head like a pit bull in a game of tug-o-war, its head caught in the emptying sack, the burlap blinding the panicked creature.

Lucas fled, kicking and paddling across the sea bed until he ran out of air and was forced to shove the dangling regulator back inside his mouth. Kneeling by the open crate, he forgot to purge and sucked in a mouthful of seawater … puked it out, and gasped a breath of air.

He saw a flash of white and instinctively dove inside the crate, twisting around on his back into a fetal position in order to shut the heavy container’s lid. He closed his eyes to the terror, then felt the impact of wood crushing against his right shoulder. He moaned into his regulator and waited for the insanity of the predator’s fangs puncturing his flesh—only it never came.

Opening his eyes, he peered through a three inch slit separating the wooden slats. A swarm of moving bodies surrounded the crate, no less than four great whites positioning themselves for the anticipated feeding frenzy. Lucas saw a white-headed, gray-backed shark chase off one of the albinos—his body trembling in terror as another ghostly predator methodically moved through the chaos until its sea-snorting nostrils pushed between two wooden slats, homing in on Lucas’s pounding pulse.

Unable to reach the protruding snout with his fist, the diver slammed it with his elbow, the impact unleashing a wave of pain down his arm.