The Trench

by Steve Alten

Genres: Thrillers

Synopsis

Master of suspense Steve Alten always takes listeners to the edge with his non-stop, adrenaline-charged novels. Now, in The Trench, Alten shows just how deep fear can run when you don't know what lurks beneath the surface.…

Its appetite is ravenous. Its teeth, scalpel-sharp. For the first time, the captive twenty-ton Megalodon shark has tasted human blood, and it wants more.…

On the other side of the world, in the silent depths of the ocean, lies the Marianas Trench, where the Megalodon has spawned since the dawn of time. Paleobiologist Jonas Taylor once dared to enter this perilous cavern. He alone faced a Megalodon shark and cut its heart out. Now, as the body count rises and the horror of a monster's attack grips the California coast, Jonas must begin the hunt again, and return to the waking nightmare of…The Trench.

Release date: April 2, 2019

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 496

Sample

March 22, 2001

Retired Navy deep-sea pilot Barry Leace wiped the sweat from his palms as he checked the depth indicator of the Proteus. Thirty-four thousand, seven hundred and eighteen feet. Nearly seven miles of water above their heads, sixteen thousand pounds per square inch of water pressure surrounding them.

Just stop thinking about it . . .

Barry glanced around the tight quarters of the four-man submersible. Racks of computer monitors, electronics, and a bewildering jungle of wires filled the pressurized hull. The watertight coffin barely had room for its crew.

Below the navigation console, team leader Ellis Richards and his assistant, Linda Heron, stared out through tiny portholes in the floor of the Proteus’s bow.

“See those animals with the furry green pelt?” Linda asked. “Those are Pompeii worms, capable of withstanding temperature variations from twenty-two degrees all the way to eighty-one degrees Celsius. The hydrothermal vents supply sulfur for bacteria to live off, which in turn are digested by the tube worms—”

“Linda—”

“—which are a source of food to all sorts of bizarre-looking life-forms.”

“Linda, enough with the goddamn biology lesson,” Ellis said.

“Sorry.” Embarrassed, the petite geologist turned back to the porthole, cupping her hands around her eyes to eliminate glare.

Smiling to himself, the sub’s fourth crewman, Khali Habash, looked down from his control console at Linda. The girl loved to talk, especially when she was nervous, a quality the Arab never hesitated to exploit.

Khali’s real name was Arie Levy, a Jew born and raised in Syria. It had been nearly ten years since the day Arie had been recruited by MOSSAD, Israel’s covert intelligence agency. Since that time he had led a double life, spending half his time in Israel with his wife and three children, traveling around the Arab world and Russia the rest of the time, posing as a plasma physicist. It had taken four hard years of sacrifice for the agent to infiltrate Benedict Singer’s organization, but here he was, seven miles beneath the Pacific, about to learn secrets that could change humanity forever.

Arie checked the external temperature gauge. “Hey, Linda, can you believe the water’s seventy-eight degrees?”

The girl perked up again. “Incredible, isn’t it? We call it hydrothermal megaplumes. The hot mineral water pumping out of these black smokers is seven hundred degrees. As it rises, it warms the freezing seawater column until it reaches neutral buoyancy at about twelve hundred feet above the floor of the Trench. Ocean currents then spread the plume laterally. The floating layer of soot from the minerals creates a ceiling that acts like insulation, sealing a tropical layer of water along the bottom of the gorge.”

“The layer never cools?”

“Never. These hydrothermal vents are ‘chronic’ plumes. They’ve been active since the Cretaceous period.”

Ellis Richards checked his watch again. As the project’s team leader, he was perpetually worried about falling behind schedule. “Christ, three hours and it seems like we’ve barely made any headway. Linda, is it just me, or does it seem like this pilot has no idea what he’s doing?”

Barry Leace ignored the insult. He checked his sonar and cursed under his breath. They had moved too far ahead of the Benthos, Geo-Tech Industries’ (GTI) mobile deep-sea lab community and submarine docking station. The billion-dollar mother ship resembled a domed sports arena, with a false flat surface for an underbelly, dangling three mammoth shock absorbers for legs. Hovering just above the turbulent seafloor in neutral buoyancy, the 46,000-square-foot titanium structure reminded Leace of a monstrous man-o’-war as it followed them north through the most hostile environment on the planet.

Barry Leace had served on three different submarines during his tenure in the Navy. He had long ago become accustomed to living in claustrophobic quarters beneath the waves. Not everyone could make it as a submariner. One had to be in tip-top mental and psychological shape, able to perform while knowing that drowning in darkness within a steel ship hundreds of fathoms below the surface was just an accident away.

Barry had that fortitude, that mental toughness, proving it time and again during his twenty-six years of service. That’s why he was so surprised at how easily his psyche was unraveling within the Mariana Trench. Confidence that had been nurtured through thousands of hours of submarine duty had suddenly dissipated the moment the Proteus cleared its abyssal docking bay aboard the Benthos.

Truth be known, it wasn’t the depths that unnerved him. Four years earlier, through man’s intervention, Carcharodon megalodon, a prehistoric sixty-foot species of Great White shark, had risen from this very trench to wreak havoc. Although the albino nightmare had eventually been destroyed, and its surviving offspring captured, at least a dozen people had died within its seven-foot jaws. Where there was one creature, there might be more. Despite all of Geo-Tech’s precautions and technical innovations, the submersible pilot was still a bundle of nerves.

Barry pulled back on the throttle controls, slowing the main propulsion engine. He had no desire to get too far ahead of their abyssal escort.

“What is it now, Captain?” Ellis asked. “Why are we slowing?”

“Temperature’s rising again. We must be approaching another series of hydrothermal vents. The last thing I want is to collide with one of those black smokers.”

The team leader squeezed his eyes shut in frustration. “Goddamn it—”

Barry pressed his face against the porthole, eluding Ellis’s tirade.

The submersible’s lights illuminated a petrified forest of sulfur and mineral deposits, the towering stacks rising thirty feet or more from the bottom. Dark billowing clouds of superheated, mineral-rich water gushed from the mouths of the bizarre chimneys.

Arie watched Ellis Richards move menacingly toward the pilot’s navigational console. “Captain, let’s get something straight. I’m in charge of this mission, not you. My orders are for us to cover no less than twenty miles a day, something we’ll never come close to at this snail’s pace.”

“Better safe than sorry, Mr. Richards. I don’t want to get too far ahead of the Benthos, at least not until I get a feel for this sub.”

“A feel for . . . I thought you were an experienced pilot?”

“I am,” Barry said. “That’s why I’m slowing down.”

Linda looked up from her porthole. “Exactly how far ahead of the Benthos are we, Captain?”

“Just over six kilometers.”

“Six kilometers, that’s all? Benedict Singer’s going to flip.” Ellis Richards looked like he was about to have an aneurysm. “Look, Captain, the Prometheus and Epimetheus are expected to arrive topside early next week. Neither submersible can even begin its work until we complete ours.”

“I know that.”

“You should. GTI’s paying you a king’s ransom to pilot the Proteus. We can’t keep waiting for the Benthos to play catch-up every time we go out. We’ll add another thirty days or more to our timetable, which is completely unacceptable.”

“So is dying, Mr. Richards. My job is to keep us alive in this hellhole, not take chances so you can earn your bonus for coming in ahead of schedule.”

The team leader stared at him. “You’re scared, aren’t you, Captain?”

“Ellis—”

“No, Linda, I’m right.”

Arie watched the dynamics unfold. In the few weeks he had been in the abyss, the MOSSAD agent had observed Ellis Richards to be an obstinate man who preferred the use of bully tactics rather than concede he might be wrong. Though mankind knew more about distant galaxies than about the Mariana Trench, Richards proclaimed himself an expert on the abyss, somehow knowing everything from its hidden geology to its mysterious life-forms.

To Arie Levy, Ellis Richards’s pompous attitude made him a dangerous man.

Captain Leace glared back at Ellis. “I have a healthy dose of fear inside me, if that’s what you mean. It’s obvious that neither one of you fully appreciates the dangers of working in thirty-five thousand feet of water. Try to understand, if something should go wrong, if we should accidentally hit something . . . or if something hits us, there are no watertight doors to seal and no standard operating procedures to follow. In the event of a hull breach, you won’t even have time to bend over and kiss your ass good-bye.”

“Sounds to me like you’ve lost your nerve,” Ellis said.

“What did you say?”

“What do you think, Habash? Has our captain lost his nerve?”

“Considering that the surviving descendants of Carcharodon megalodon are living somewhere within this gorge, I must respect the captain’s opinion,” Arie said. “At the same time, we have more than sixty thousand square miles of seafloor to search. Our surface ship’s towed sonar array was designed to alert us to any approaching life-forms in plenty of time to retreat back to the safety of the Benthos.”

“Plenty of time?” Barry shook his head in amazement. “How the hell do we know the speed at which a life-form might approach? Besides, the Goliath’s in the midst of gale-force seas. Topside interference is disrupting communications.”

“In that case, I suggest we collect our first samples here and give the Benthos a chance to catch up. Once the weather calms, I’m sure you can find a way to make up for lost time.”

Barry shot Linda an exasperated look before returning to his control console. He double-checked the acoustic transponders, took another quick glance out his view port, then engaged the lateral thrusters. Maneuvering between several black smokers, the Proteus descended slowly, establishing neutral buoyancy just above a cluster of glowing tube worms. The entanglement of mouthless, fourteen-foot life-forms writhed in the current like the serpents on Medusa’s head.

“I’m initiating our gas chromatography detectors,” Arie said. “We could cut our mission time in half if we can detect helium isotopes leaking from these hydrothermal vents.”

“Fine, fine, just do it,” Ellis said, struggling with the laptop controls that operated the sub’s robotic arms. Using the sub’s underwater camera to see, Ellis began manipulating the two central control knobs, causing the twin robotic arms to extend from beneath the sub. Gingerly he directed the pincers of the left arms, snagging the isotherm sampling basket from its storage area.

Captain Leace watched the robotic arms extend toward the seabed, their movements stirring the bottom into clouds of mud. He closed his eyes and tried to relax, listening to the hydraulic whine of the pincers.

“Move to your left,” Linda said, directing Ellis from her view port. “Just beyond that tubeworm cluster.”

Loud warning blips from the sonar caused the pilot’s heart to skip a beat. He grabbed the acoustical printout, then checked the sonar screen in disbelief.

A tight cluster of objects had materialized. Large objects.

The captain felt his throat tighten. The others continued working, not even bothering to look up.

“Habash, we’ve got company.”

Arie turned. “What is it?”

“Sonar reports three unidentified objects, bearing zero-one-five. Range seven-point-four kilometers. Speed, fifteen knots and closing. Heading directly for us.”

“Any word from the surface?”

“I’m trying now. No response. We’re on our own.”

“What do you suggest?” Arie suddenly felt a bit claustrophobic himself.

Barry stared at the sonar console. “I say we get the hell out of here. Richards, retract the robotic arms, we’re returning immediately to the Benthos.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Captain, are you certain?” Linda registered a knot of fear in her stomach.

“Look for yourself. Whatever these creatures are, they’re accelerating through the Trench in our direction. Richards, I said retract those mechanical arms.”

“And I’m saying, fuck you. It’s taken me twenty minutes to collect these samples and I’ll be damned if we’re going anywhere before I secure the bucket back on board.”

Arie moved to the sonar console, staring at the three images. He thought back to his training sessions. Were Megalodons pack hunters?

“Maybe it’s just a school of fish,” Linda suggested. “Try to stay calm—”

“A school of fish? Stick to geology, Linda. Sonar indicates that these things are more than forty feet long. Out of my way—”

Barry ignited the lateral thrusters. Steady. Not too fast. Don’t hit anything, or you’ll rupture the hull. The sub spun counterclockwise. A bone-rattling jolt shook the Proteus.

“Goddamn it, Leace,” Ellis yelled. “You nearly tore the mechanical arm off. I just lost every sample.”

“I told you to retract the arms.” Barry accelerated the Proteus to its top speed of 1.8 knots. He knew the Benthos was moving toward them, somewhere out there in the darkness.

The blips grew stronger.

ETA thirty-two minutes, Arie thought. We’re too far out....

“Captain, listen to me,” Linda said, grabbing his arm. “They’re not sharks.”

Barry stared ahead. “So, you’re a biologist now?”

“I think Linda is right,” Arie said, trying to reason with his own fear.

“Listen, Habash, whatever these things are, they’re a helluva lot bigger and a helluva lot faster than the Proteus.”

The blips grew faster; Arie’s heart raced to keep pace.

“This is absurd,” Ellis said.

Barry ignored him and leaned forward, staring through the porthole into the abyss. The smoke rising from the hydrothermal vents made it difficult to see beyond the perimeter. He shielded his eyes and strained to focus.

Long minutes passed in silence.

A darting movement ahead. Another to starboard. Very swift. Very large.

“They’re here,” the captain whispered, a lump in his throat. Fast fuckers . . .

For a long moment, no one said a word, the only sounds coming from the Proteus’s propeller.

With a sudden jolt, the sub pitched to starboard. Barry crashed face first into his console.

“What’s happening?” Ellis asked. “What did you hit?”

“I didn’t hit anything. They hit us.” Barry struggled with the navigational controls. “She’s not responding. . . something’s wrong.”

“Shhh. Listen,” Linda whispered.

From above their heads they heard a faint sound—metal groaning.

“Oh, Christ, one of them is on top.”

Arie listened at sonar, studying the screen.

“Leace, do something,” Ellis ordered.

“Hold on.” The pilot swung the submersible hard to port, then back to starboard, trying to shake the creature off.

“Captain, stop,” screamed Linda. “That plate’s loosening!”

The sound of grinding metal screeched along the top of the hull. The pilot reached up and touched one of the titanium rivets welded into the plate above his head. He felt moisture and tasted his fingers. “Seawater,” he moaned. He leaned forward, praying for the Benthos to appear in his view port.

The sound of shearing metal grated in their ears as the Proteus dipped sideways.

“Son of a bitch.” The captain wiped the sweat from his face. “They’re tearing the fucking tail fin loose.”

Linda pushed her face against her view port. “Where’s the Benthos?”

Something huge broadsided the sub, hurtling stacks of recording equipment against the far wall.

“Captain, I think I know what they’re doing,” Arie shouted. “The two smaller ones are driving us to their larger companion.”

“These things are intelligent?”

“Look!” Linda yelled, pointing out the porthole.

Barry could just make out an ominous shape moving toward them. “It’s the Benthos—”

“You don’t have time to dock,” Arie warned. “Signal the Benthos to open the hangar doors!”

“It takes five minutes to flood the chamber,” Linda shouted.

The pilot grabbed the radio. ‘Mayday . . . Mayday . . . Benthos, this is Proteus, request you open hangar doors immediately—”

“Proceed to docking area, Proteus—”

“Goddamn it, open the fucking hangar doors, now—”

Standing beneath the loosening rivets, arms above his head, Arie Levy felt the titanium plate reverberate against his sweating palms. “Whatever these things are, they’re tearing this entire section loose—”

A whistling sound infiltrated the cabin.

“What’s that?” the team leader whispered.

Barry Leace looked up. “We’re losing integrity of the plates.”

“Captain,” Arie yelled, “the third creature—”

A tremendous force struck the sub’s bow, flinging Linda and Ellis to the floor. Barry Leace plunged over his navigation console, his head striking the view-port glass. Blood flowed from his brow. He wiped it clear, staring in horror.

A luminous crimson eye peered in through the glass.

Arie pushed his palm futilely against the titanium plate reverberating above his head. He thought about the information he had fought so long to acquire but had not been able to report. He thought about his wife and children, whom he had forsaken in the line of duty.

The whistling sound above his head ceased. A pair of twisted rivets spit into the cabin like five-caliber machine-gun slugs.

The MOSSAD agent’s head imploded before the rivets hit the floor.

Flickering sunlight penetrated the gray-green depths. Jonas Taylor plunged nose cone first into the void, struggling to draw breaths, his chest constricted, his throat burning. He opened his eyes wide, pressing his hands against the LEXAN pod.

The ocean turned black. He continued descending, spiraling downward into the gorge, all the while searching the darkness below.

A swirling vortex of soot appeared in the sub’s headlights. An object rose out of the muddied current, another LEXAN pod. His light revealed a woman’s body lying inside. Her face was obscured in shadows, but Jonas could make out her long black hair flowing like silk. For a brief moment he caught a glimpse of her dark almond eyes—vacant eyes staring through him.

Terry . . .

He accelerated toward her, the sub barely moving, struggling against a strong current. He screamed her name again, a feeling of dread washing over him.

From the swirling current of debris behind her, a luminescent glow appeared. The unearthly light turned Terry’s features to gray silhouette.

Jonas stopped breathing as Angel’s monstrous head appeared. The demonic grin cracked open, a cavernous mouth revealing a stretch of pink gums and rows of serrated triangular teeth.

Jonas tried to scream, but had no mouth.

Her eyes flashed open in recognition—and fear.

“Jonas,” she whispered—as the beast took the entire pod into its mouth.

“Jonas.”

“No!” Jonas shot upright in bed, his chest heaving, his hands shaking uncontrollably.

“Honey, it’s okay, it’s okay.” Terry sat up, stroking his hair, her own heart racing following her husband’s sudden screams.

Morning sunlight streamed through the wooden shutters, illuminating the familiar bedroom as Jonas came out of the night terror. He turned and kissed Terry’s hand.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He nodded, struggling to find his voice.

“Was it the same dream? The one where you’re back in the Trench?”

“Yes.” Jonas lay back in bed, allowing his wife to use his chest as a pillow. He stroked her long silky black hair, then let his hand drift down the small of her back to her smooth bare behind.

“It isn’t getting better,” she said. “You should see Dr. Wishnov before you give me a heart attack.”

“Posttraumatic stress disorder—I already know what he’ll tell me. He’ll tell me to quit the Institute.”

“Maybe you should. Four years studying that monster is enough to give anyone nightmares, especially after all you’ve been through.”

The ring of the phone made them both jump. They smiled at each other. “Guess we’re both a little on edge,” Jonas said.

She rolled over and snuggled naked against him. “Don’t answer it.”

Jonas pulled her close, nuzzling her neck as he ran his hands across her breasts.

The phone continued ringing.

“Goddamn it.” Jonas grabbed the receiver. “Yes?”

“Doc, it’s Manny. Sorry to bother you, but I think you ought to get back to the lagoon.”

The tone of his assistant’s voice caused Jonas to sit up. “What’s the problem?”

“It’s Angel. Something’s wrong with her. You’d better get down here.”

Jonas felt his heart pounding in his throat. “Give me twenty minutes.” He hung up, then slipped out of bed to get dressed.

“Jonas, what is it?”

He turned to his wife. “Manny says something’s wrong with the female. I have to go—”

“Hon, take it easy. Maybe you should eat something, you look as pale as a ghost.” To her surprise, he stopped getting dressed and sat down on the edge of the bed to hug her.

“I love you,” he whispered.

“I love you, too. Jonas, tell me what’s wrong? I can feel your arms trembling.”

“I don’t know. I think I just had déjà vu, like my absolute worst nightmare is about to become real.”

It had been eleven years since Jonas Taylor had first encountered Carcharodon megalodon, the fiercest predator ever to have lived. He had been nearly seven miles down in the Mariana Trench, the deepest and most unexplored location on the planet, piloting the Navy’s three-man submersible, the Seacliff. On the last of the top-secret dives, the exhausted argonaut had been staring into the pitch-black waters below when the unearthly white glow had appeared. Mesmerized by what he first took to be an aberration, he quickly found his thoughts turning to fear as the sixty-foot Great White shark’s luminescent torpedo-shaped head began rising at them from the depths, the demonic smile opening to reveal seven-inch teeth.

A primordial panic had seized him, changing his life forever. Disregarding protocol, he had jettisoned the vessel’s ballast and raced the sub back to the surface, the rapid rise causing a malfunction in the pressurization system. Both scientists aboard the sub had died, and Jonas’s career as an argonaut was over. Or so he had thought.

Over the next seven years, Jonas became obsessed with proving to the world that the creature really existed. Returning to school, he earned advanced degrees in paleo-biology while his first wife supported them. Research over the mysterious disappearance of the Megalodon species soon led to a controversial theory and several publications. Jonas surmised that many of the prehistoric Great White sharks had migrated to the warmer abyssal waters of the Mariana Trench in order to avoid the cold surface temperatures brought about by the last Ice Age. Despite the scientific basis for his conclusions, his research was dismissed by colleagues as utter fantasy, his papers banned from many institutions.

Four years later, the opportunity to return to the Mariana Trench was offered by Masao Tanaka, an old friend and mentor. The founder of the Tanaka Oceanographic Institute had not been interested in Megalodons or Jonas’s theories about the creature’s possible existence. Masao was building an artificial lagoon off the Monterey coast, a man-made habitat in which to study whales. To finance the project, he had entered into a joint-venture agreement with the Japanese government to deploy an array of seismic detection robots, called Unmanned Nautical Information Submersibles (UNIS), along the floor of the Mariana Trench. Something had gone wrong with several of the devices, and Masao needed Jonas’s assistance in order to retrieve one of the instruments. At first, the former deep-sea pilot had refused, unable to face his fear. But with his first marriage falling apart and his career in disarray, the thought of redemption became too seductive to pass up.

And then there was Terry.

Masao Tanaka’s only daughter was as beautiful as she was rebellious. If Jonas would not accompany her brother on the mission, she would go in his place. And so Jonas had returned to the gorge, this time descending in a one-man submersible. Once more, fate would deem that he cross paths with one of nature’s most prolific killing machines. Tanaka’s son died within one of the creatures’ jaws, while another, a huge pregnant female, managed to rise from its purgatory in the depths. In the end, Jonas had been forced to kill the very creature he had wanted to save, his heroics becoming the stuff of legend. Once the target of ridicule and scorn among his peers, the paleontologist suddenly had his career vindicated, and literally overnight became an international celebrity: The man who cut the Meg’s heart out. Talk shows, television specials, reporters—it seemed everyone wanted a piece of him—as well as a peek at the female Megalodon pup that had been captured within the Tanaka lagoon.

He and Terry had wed. Masao Tanaka made his new son-in-law a partner at the Institute, and a year later, the most popular live exhibit in the world had opened for business in Monterey.

But fame is fleeting, and celebrity, with all its perks, also makes one an easy target. Eight months after the lagoon had opened, Jonas and the Tanaka Institute found themselves defendants in a $200-million class-action lawsuit, filed by grieving relatives of those who had perished within the jaws of the Megalodon. Terry was four months pregnant when the trial began, a media frenzy rivaling that of the O.J. Simpson hearings:


In the end, the jury had awarded damages exceeding everyone’s expectations. When the courts refused their appeals, the Tanaka Institute had been forced into bankruptcy. Then, out of the blue, the Japanese Marine Science Technology Center (JAMSTEC), which had first lured Masao Tanaka into the Mariana Trench, offered the Institute a way out of their financial fix. Concerned about the rise in seismic activity along the Philippine and Pacific tectonic plates, the Japanese once again gave the Tanaka Institute an opportunity to deploy an entire array of UNIS robots along the Mariana Trench floor. The contract was lucrative, but the dangers of returning to the abyss forced Masao Tanaka to seek the help of billionaire energy mogul Benedict Singer, who was in the midst of constructing his own fleet of deep-sea submersibles to explore the world’s trenches. A partnership was formed and Masao was forced to give up controlling interest of his beloved Institute in order to fulfill the JAMSTEC contract and keep the doors of his attraction open.

Jonas drove past the giant billboard advertisement of the Meg: “SEE ANGEL—NATURE’S MOST PROLIFIC KILLING MACHINE. THREE SHOWS DAILY.” He turned down the employee access road, waved to the guard, then pulled into his parking spot.

The haunting sound of baritone drums began pounding from the loudspeakers of the outdoor arena. He checked his watch and saw that the ten o’clock show was moments away from starting.

Viewed from above, the man-made Tanaka lagoon appeared as an oval lake surrounded by a concrete arena, which ran along the shoreline of the Pacific ocean. Connecting this enormous aquarium to the sea was an eighty-foot-deep, thousand-foot-long channel at the midpoint of the lagoon’s western wall. Consisting of two concrete seawalls running parallel to each other, the canal was cut off from the ocean by a set of mammoth double doors of reinforced steel, which prevented the lagoon’s star attraction from escaping.

As Jonas entered the ten-thousand-seat stadium, a hush fell over the impatient capacity crowd. All eyes, all camera lenses, turned to focus on the south side of the aquarium where a five-hundred-pound headless carcass of beef was now being attached to a thick chain dangling from an enormous A-frame. Somewhere deep within the three-quarter-mile lagoon, still remaining out of sight, lurked Angel, the monster they had paid theater-ticket money to catch a glimpse of. The moment they had waited for would soon be upon them. Breakfast was being served.

Jonas followed the arena’s circular walkway until he came to the concrete platform supporting the steel winch. He glanced up to see his assistant, Manny Vazquez, swing the raw carcass carefully into position above the tranquil blue water.

Below the concrete platform was a steel door marked “AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.” Jonas noticed that the steel safeguard protecting the locking mechanism had been partially pried back. Damn kids . . . He made a mental note to have it repaired, then unlocked the door and entered the dank stairwell, slamming the door closed behind him.

Jonas inhaled the familiar cool dampness, taking a moment to allow his eyes to adjust to the dim light. He descended the two flights of stairs slowly, the voodoolike drumbeats growing fainter as he moved deeper into the bowels of the facility.

The stairwell emptied into a subterranean semicircular corridor that ran along the southern circumference of the enormous tank. Eerie reflections of blue-green light illuminated an otherwise dark passage. Jonas moved slowly to the source of the light, turning to face the fifteen-foot-high, six-inch-thick LEXAN bay aquarium windows.

He was now thirty feet below the surface, staring into the crystal-blue waters of the man-made lagoon. Jonas looked up, reading a newly erected sign above his head: “DANGER. NO MOVEMENT WHILE MEGALODON IS PRESENT.”

He pressed his palm against the LEXAN glass. Its cold surface reverberated from the underwater acoustics being pumped into the tank, calling the beast to its meal. D