Steve Alten - Vostok

“As the creature grew larger, it became apparent that Plessie was not a Plesiosaurus at all, but a species of crocodile. Marine biologist Zachary Wallace added to the controversy by claiming the creature was a Purussaurus, an extremely dangerous predator that dated back to the Miocene era. Wallace warned residents that the pen would not be able to contain the animal, which now exceeded three meters in length and was predicted to grow five to six times that size. A larger containment area was cordoned off at Loch Dochfour, a narrow waterway at the head of Loch Ness, with a series of gates established to secure a seven-acre pen. An observation galley was erected in time for tourist season, providing visitors with a bird’s-eye view of the pen’s truck-sized occupant .

“For the next four years, Plessie made the Scottish Highlands the number one tourist destination in the world, the crocodile surpassing sixteen meters and weighing an estimated thirty tons, ten times the weight of a double-decker bus. During the warmer months, the croc spent its days sunning itself on the walled shoreline, to the delight of onlookers. At night and throughout the winter, she remained underwater in the muddy bog. When her handlers attempted to flush her back to the surface after a long winter’s hibernation, they discovered that the underwater gate separating Dochfour from Loch Ness had been ravaged .

“A massive search began in the Great Glen. During the investigation that followed, one handler told authorities that three months prior to Plessie’s escape, keepers had so feared the creature that they’d kept it on a steady diet of tranquilizers. As the weather turned cold, the croc, now a juvenile adult, spent more time underwater, gradually weaning its system off the drugs, affording it the opportunity to escape .

“Throughout March and into late spring, there were no sightings. Many believed Plessie was dead, poisoned by Loch Ness’s heavy peat content. Others claimed the crocodile was secretly being fed from Aldourie Castle’s subterranean caverns. Water bailiffs reported that the local deer population no longer crossed Loch Ness. When a reptile claw footprint measuring two meters was found on the shoreline near Foyers on May 29, residents grew worried .

“The first probable attack on a human being took place two weeks later, when the remains of a fishing boat piloted by Glasgow resident Martin McCandless washed up on the shores of Tor Point. Police painted a grim picture. The creature had bludgeoned the keel from below, sinking the vessel and taking its lone occupant. Still, with no overwhelming forensic evidence to indicate a change in the creature’s diet, Inverness officials waited to exercise boating restrictions on the loch .

“On the evening of June 21, everything changed. Hours earlier, a small ferry had left the wharf located here at the Clansman Hotel. Returning from Fort Augustus loaded with thirty-seven passengers and three crewmen, the boat was passing Urquhart Castle when it was rammed from below with what many eyewitnesses described as the force of a locomotive. Though the boat took on water, the engines remained intact and the ship’s captain managed to make it back to the dock. Then, as shaken passengers disembarked, Plessie surfaced half a kilometer to the north of where I’m standing. Hungry from her long months of hibernation, the creature went after the fleeing tourists .

“The first victim was Magdalena Hicklen of New York. The South Bronx native, who had survived drive-by shootings and a counter-culture of drugs and crime, was vacationing in Scotland with her husband, Nate, and their young son, Spencer. When she saw the giant caiman coming down the A-82 highway, Magdalena yelled to her spouse to get the boy inside the hotel. Witnesses say the woman distracted the thirty-five-ton crocodile, ducking between parked cars before hurrying inside the Clansman’s lobby herself. The enraged animal smashed through the entrance and emerged from the wreckage with Magdalena dangling from its mouth by her left leg. The woman thrashed and kicked the creature with her other leg but was unable to free herself as the giant caiman returned to the water and submerged with its meal, leaving behind a decimated hotel and locals fearing for their lives .

“Two more attacks have occurred since the Clansman feeding, all around dusk and at four- to five-day intervals. Lorey Schmidt was taken as she walked along the shoreline in Foyers, texting her girlfriend back home. Ernest Lazano was reported missing from Invermoriston, where he was staying at a bed-and-breakfast. His severed right arm was found thirty meters upstream from Loch Ness in the River Moriston .

“While members of Parliament continue to debate over whether to capture or kill the Purussaurus, the man who discovered the egg has decided to take matters into his own hands.”

I followed True as he and Jim wheeled their bait back down the wharf to his boat. Jim clipped the end of a steel cable around the dead cow’s neck collar while True used a hose to wash the animal’s blood from his hands .

He grabbed my arm in a wet, vice-like grip when I tried to board the vessel. “Sorry, lad. You and Jimmy are stayin’ here.”

“True, there’s no way I’m letting you do this alone.”

“Yeah, there is. It’s my fault all this happened, an’ we both ken it. But before I go, there’s one thing I need tae hear from yer lips: how did ye do it, Zach? How did ye escape from Vostok seven years ago?”

“I told you. I found the subglacial river and followed it all the way back to the Amery Ice Shelf.”

“Yer lyin’, lad. Even if ye had a GPS that would ’ave worked beneath all that ice, the Barracuda didnae have enough battery power left nor air tae breathe for ye tae complete the eight-hundred-mile journey. So how did ye do it?”

“Don’t get on that boat, and I’ll tell you everything.”

True smiled. “Ye don’t ken yerself, do ye lad?”

He tossed me aside, then climbed aboard the twenty-eight-foot boat and gunned the engines, sending the cow carcass flying into the water past a stunned Jim Clancy. The two of us watched as True motored half a mile out before circling the bait into a tight figure-eight pattern .

That’s when I knew…

There was one other craft tied off at the wharf — Brandy’s old tour boat. The engine was shot, but the radio worked. I climbed aboard, hurrying to the pilothouse—

— Waaa-boom!

The blast tossed me to the deck. Seconds later, a bloody stew of flesh and innards rained across the windshield, adding a lasting stain to the boat, wharf, and tarmac .

I emerged from the cabin in a daze, Brandy’s boat rocking violently beneath me. I heard the report of wood landing on the rock-strewn shoreline, so I didn’t need to look out upon those tea-colored waters now running crimson, or inventory the collection of floating debris, to know what had happened .

I already knew .

I already knew…

I already knew…

“What did you know, Zachary?”

“Sir, he’s still under the effects of the medication. It’ll be another—”

“Wake him.”

A rush of ice water blasted through my veins, forcing me to swim to the light.

“Huh?” I awoke, disoriented. I was inside a chamber, seated upright before a machine that resembled something an ophthalmologist might use to examine one’s eyes. My wrists and ankles were strapped to the chair.

Seated next to me was Colonel Stephen Vacendak.