Steve Alten - Vostok

Reports of new sightings and photos purportedly taken by locals drove the story like a social media tsunami. Within weeks every hotel and bed-and-breakfast in the Great Glen was sold out for the season, led by Nessie’s Lair.

It was all great theater, except that now the public demanded to hear from the marine biologist who had not only identified the real Nessie two years earlier but had tracked it down and killed it. I was hounded twenty-four/seven, which made my life miserable and drew mixed reactions from the normally conservative administrators at Cambridge University.

Brandy, William, and I had been at Cambridge barely a week, living in a two-bedroom rented flat. Having arrived mid-semester, I was relegated to guest-speaking spots, rotating between undergraduate and graduate courses in oceanography and the marine sciences. The experience allowed me to re-acclimate to the academic environment, but the attention coming from my father’s escapades was affecting the student body’s perception of my role at the university— was Dr. Zachary Wallace a teacher or an entertainer?

And then a week before the Nessie’s Lair event, a serious-looking fellow entered my lecture hall, marched up to my lectern, and ceremoniously presented me with an envelope. Baffled, I opened it, my students bearing witness to the publicly staged event.

It was a subpoena.

“State your name for the record.”

“Angus William Wallace.”

The preliminary hearing was being held behind closed doors at the Sherrifs’ Court in Inverness. Present in the chamber was the judge, a court stenographer, my family, and a school of circling sharks in three-piece suits hailing from a law firm rated by England’s Legal Business magazine as the fifth most successful in all the United Kingdom. Judging from their number, it appeared as if they had summoned every attorney from their offices in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

If my father was intimidated by their full court press, he wasn’t showing it, but his barrister, my stepbrother, Maxie Rael, would need to change his underwear before the morning was through.

The lead litigator representing Dr. Ming Liao was a half-Italian, half-Ukranian man named Sam Mannino, who wasted no time going after Angus’s jugular. “Do you understand the reason for this preliminary hearing, Mr. Wallace? The purpose of our convening this morning is to share the strength of our case with your barrister, so he knows the extent of the shit-storm you created for my client and the lengths we’re prepared to go to make your life a living hell. For starters, we’ll be moving your very public trial from this cozy Sheriff’s Court in Inverness to the High Court in Glasgow in order to eliminate the biases of the plaid when we select a fifteen-person jury.

“On day one of the trial we will introduce evidence that shows you and your Highland Council cronies purposely deceived the public by concocting your little fairy tale about a second Loch Ness Monster. We will cross-examine the members of the Highland Council, effectually ending any future they might have had in holding an elected office, and then we’ll introduce Exhibit A — the tool your EMT used on the carcass of an elk — I believe it’s called a Jaws of Life — to make it appear as if the animal had been eaten. Then we will parade a day’s worth of experts before the jury to demonstrate how your antics and false promises regarding your son’s involvement in my client’s upcoming venture in Antarctica ruined her expedition, costing her millions of dollars in investment capital.

“And finally, after the jury reaches the verdict of your guilt in this little civil matter, we will take every asset you own, including the resort on Loch Ness — which Dr. Liao will personally burn to the ground. Worst of all, your fellow Highlanders will curse you and your clan until the end of days for the financial ruin your lies will deliver unto the Great Glen. And then, Mr. Wallace, then I’m going to push for criminal charges that will consume every waking moment of your barrister’s miserable life.

“How’s that sound to you, laddie ?”

“Sounds as if yer skat momma’s still mad at me for defecating in her mouth the day ye was born.”

That didn’t go over well with the judge, but my father knew a dog-and-pony show when he saw one. I guess he figured there was no harm in stepping in more shit before they presented their backroom offer to Maxie.

“They want you, Zachary. They want your signed commitment to copilot the submersible into Lake Vostok. In exchange, they will drop all charges, and there will be no press conferences to derail the symposium. Oh yeah — and your pay will be reduced by five thousand dollars to cover the money wired to Angus. As your barrister I strongly urge you to sign the papers so we can get the hell out of here.”

“You’re not my attorney, Maxie, you’re his.” I turned to Brandy and saw disgust in her eyes.

My father looked into my eyes and saw fear. “Oh, come on. It’s a bloody lake. Not like yer goin’ down in yer birthday suit.”

“Why does it seem like every time you’re in a courtroom, I get it up the ass?”

“Maybe ye like it there?”

“He’s all yours, Max. Come on, Brandy.”

“Come on where? Ye heard tha’ barrister. By the time they’re through humiliating yer father, no tourist in their right mind will come tae the villages. I’m none too happy aboot this, Zachary, but Angus is right — ye got tae go.”

“Listen tae yer wife,” the old man gloated.

“Shut yer pie hole, ye old bampot,” Brandy snapped. “Before my husband signs his name tae anything, I’ve a few conditions myself. First off, ye’ll be moving Alban intae the hotel immediately, so’s True can take proper care of him over the next five months.”

“The Crabbit… in my resort… the resort he cursed when we broke ground?” Angus was about to lose it when he saw the look in Brandy’s eyes. “Aye, whitever.”

“Second, when September comes ’round and it’s time for Zachary to go to Antarctica, True goes with him.”

Now it was my best friend who protested. “Me? In tha’ icebox for six months wit’ a bunch of boring old men? Are ye tryin’ tae neuter me, Brandy girl?”

“I’m trying tae neuter that Chinese vixen. Yer there tae prevent any alone time between Zachary and Dr. Liao before they descend intae that lake. So help me God, True MacDonald, if I hear my man so much as sits next tae her at breakfast, I’ll skin the two of ye alive — starting with yer short and curlies.”

For five months Vostok hung over my existence like a death sentence handed down by an oncologist. It greeted me every morning when I awoke, and it haunted my last thoughts before I succumbed to sleep.

What exactly was I afraid of? Being the anal-retentive left-brained thinker that I was, I mentally cataloged my fears into more easily digestible categories for self-analysis.

Fear of Separation: Six months would be a long time to be separated from my family. William was rapidly passing through infancy into the terrible twos, and each day seemed to introduce us to another facet of his burgeoning personality. I simply couldn’t get enough of him and arranged for my sabbatical from Cambridge to begin in June so I could spend the summer with him and Brandy back in Drumnadrochit.

I had read that Antarctic missions were especially hard on marriages, and mine was already strained. Though we had reconciled, it was painfully obvious that Brandy felt threatened by Ming’s combination of looks and intelligence. Not that my wife wasn’t smart or pretty — she was both. But she lacked a formal education and never had the opportunity to go to college, something Ming and I shared. As spring bled into summer, Brandy grew increasingly more temperamental, actually believing that my father and I had conspired to get her to accept my excursion to Antarctica by using the “infamous Wallace cunning.”