Steve Alten - Vostok

“It’s a suicide mission. You’d be lucky to make it a mile before getting lost down there.”

“I’m not just going to let my son die.”

“Agreed. But how will getting you to Vostok save your son? Explain that part to me, and I’ll take you there myself.”

A text message flashed on both our monitors: MOVE!

My eyes darted to the sonar where dozens of blips were converging upon us. “Jesus, what is that?”

“Whales. And we’re in their path. Shift controls back to my console—”

A forty-five-foot humpback whale shot past us out of the ether, its thrusting gray fluke barely missing the sub.

Two more bulls followed, and suddenly there were whales everywhere. They were not just humpbacks. I saw minkes and fins, and a pygmy sperm whale struck our portside wing, spinning us about.

Jonas attempted to accelerate out of the roll, only to have the Manta sideswiped by another fleeing dark gray body.

It was a cetacean stampede, and we were swept up in it.

Jonas ignited the Valkyries, attempting to fend off the swarm. “Zach, start pinging. Find that monster before it finds us.”

“What monster? You mean the Liopleurodon ? ”

“What the hell else would be causing these whales to panic? Ain’t no Megs in these waters.”

Manning the sonar, I attempted to switch from passive to active, only nothing was working. The monitor blinked off and on. The radio turned to static in my headphones.

I tossed them aside. “The Tortuga ’s jamming our electronics.”

Having managed to point our bow east, Jonas accelerated, maneuvering ahead of the panic-stricken behemoths before banking hard to port, momentarily freeing us from the frenzy of moving goliaths.

Then I saw the cause of the cetacean disturbance, and fear suddenly took on a whole new meaning.

In Loch Ness, I had confronted a legendary beast. In Vostok, I had been attacked by giant crocs and Miocene whales. Years later in Monterey, I had watched a captive megalodon feed and thought I had seen the definition of true terror.

Nothing could have prepared me for the monster racing at us out of that olive-green sea.

Its jawline alone had to be thirty feet long, its mouth filled with ten- to twelve-inch dagger-like teeth, the largest of which jutted outside of its mouth. Big ? It seemed as long as a city block, propelled by thirty-foot flippers — all wrapped around a lead-gray-and-white hide that partially blended into the backdrop of ice.

Most frightening, it seemed to be hyperactive, its movements on overdrive. Its head turned on a swivel as its crocodilian jaws snapped at the fleeing whales, its mind unable to single out the most vulnerable member of the herd until it saw our twin lasers blazing in the darkness like two vermillion eyes.

“Oh, geez. Jonas, hard to port!”

Jonas tried to get us out of its way, but the creature was far quicker and cut us off. My eyes bugged out as the left side of the pliosaur’s mouth suddenly bloomed into view, its jaws agape.

The back of my head slammed against the seat as the Manta leaped forward, Jonas attempting to escape by passing between those hideous rows of curved teeth like a car trying to beat a train across railroad tracks.

I squeezed my eyes shut—

— and we were through, only the creature was right behind us, snapping at our tail.

We were dead.

And then it was gone.

I took a moment to catch my breath before I relocated it, the dark blotches of its back and tail blending in with the sea. It was up ahead chasing another Manta, this one far quicker than ours.

“David?” Jonas switched his headphones to the radio setting. “Mac, contact the Tonga . Have them put me through to my kid. Damn this static!” He slammed his fist against the dome above his head, then accelerated after the monster, now chasing his son’s submersible.

“Zach, there’s a communication panel by your right foot. Pop it open.”

“Got it.”

“You’ll see a series of toggle switches set in the OFF position. Is there one with a blinking blue light?”

“Yes.”

“That’ll be David’s sub. Flip it on. Hopefully he’s turned on his inter-sub comm link.

“David?”

“Dad? What took you so long? I’ve been hailing you since the Lio went after those whale pods.”

“I didn’t know you were in the water. Thanks for saving our arses.”

“Consider us even. But, Dad, seriously — stay back. I’ve been playing cat-and-mouse with this pregnant bitch for weeks. This time she won’t escape.”

Escape? The crazy kid was trying to capture it!

Our sonar array flickered back on as we continued to distance ourselves from the Tortuga . The monitor revealed the presence of two surface ships that were entering the bay from the north, and David was leading the Liopleurodon right for them.

The two Dubai ships had converged upon the bay’s entrance the moment the creature had entered the shallows. Deck hands aboard the Tonga hustled to lower an immense trawl net over the tanker’s starboard side, while their counterparts on the Dubai-Land retrieved it from below, attaching cables to one side of the net’s loop. When everything was ready, the trawler gradually separated from the tanker, stretching the trap in place.

From the bridge of the Dubai-Land , Fiesal bin Rashidi, first cousin to the crown prince of Dubai, ordered the two ships under his command to shut down their engines.

Now it was up to the American daredevil.

David Taylor was out in front of the creature, making his way toward the net. He knew the pregnant behemoth was nearing exhaustion. Every time she seemed ready to quit the chase, the twenty-one-year-old pilot would slow down and bank hard from side to side, succeeding in keeping the tiring pliosaur interested, while taking some of the fight out of her.

Our sub surfaced south of the tanker. We watched on sonar as David led the Liopleurodon east toward the two motionless vessels.

Jonas was tense, counting down the distance. “Two hundred yards… one fifty… a hundred yards. Come on, kid, you’re moving way too slow to jump that net. Throttle up!”

Sweat poured down David Taylor’s face. Cruising at only eighteen knots, he knew the Manta could not generate enough lift to leap out of the sea to clear the net. Yet he also had to keep the creature close. He knew she was tiring, knew that if she sensed the net, she’d turn on a dime and flee.

So he took a chance.

Throttling back, he dropped his speed to thirteen knots, allowing the Liopleurodon to move in close enough for her nostrils to inhale his sub’s jet-pump propulsor bubbles.

Reinvigorated, the creature opened its jaws to devour its prey as David slammed both feet to the floor and pulled back on his joystick, easing up on his starboard engine a few precious seconds before he reached the surface.

Instead of attempting to clear the net, David launched the Manta sideways out of the sea. The submersible cleared the steel cables running from the trawler to the left side of the net—

— And smashed nose-first into the Dubai - Land ’s portside bow.

Unaware that its prey was gone, the Liopleurodon swam into the trawl net, stopping only after its fore-flippers struck the unseen object. It attempted to turn and run, but the crew manning the Tonga ’s starboard winch was already tightening the noose upon the unnerved colossus, whose reflexive maneuver only succeeded in gathering its lower torso into the closing net.