The sun began to melt into the ocean and the sand on the beach slowly changed colour from pale gold to a washed-out pink, as if it were soaking up blood. The weathered dune grass swayed in the swells of wind that blew in from the cold Atlantic and rustled constantly, sounding out a symphony of wildness. Coll watched from the window of the cabin and felt the stirring of something deep within him. It didn’t show physically. He didn’t smile or relax his shoulders. He simply let out a long-harboured sigh that echoed the sadness that enveloped him. He had come here looking for hope, but now, as the light slowly died, it seemed intangible and gone from him.
Coll had holidayed on the Isle of Mull as a boy. In his youth he had fallen in love with the magical scenery, the wildlife and the people of the island. Now, he had returned to it, the last glimmer of love in his life. He had sought it out as a refuge, daring to hope he could feel love again, even if it was for a place rather than a person. The small rundown croft he had acquired sat on the cliffs above Calgary bay, two miles from the small village of the same name. An overgrown coastal path led up to the croft, where it split into a fork down onto the beach. It was as remote and as westerly as it was possible to be on Mull. Even the islanders referred to it as the wilderness.
He had taken a tiny salary to watch over the rare salt meadows that lay behind the dunes of the beach. He hadn’t been able to put a word to a page for over a year and he knew his readers, not to mention his publishers, were growing anxious. They would have to wait. As he watched the final glimmer of light retreat beyond the horizon, he gave up on the idea of writing again and settled for the pleasure of reading the words of others. Reading had become his second refuge. As he buried himself in the worlds he encountered within the pages, the hurts of his own were numbed. Tonight, he sat with his favourite, White Fang by Jack London. The light blue cloth of the first edition glinted in the first silvery rays of the newly-emerged moon as he settled down on the leather chair, its weathered golden hide and softened, torn arms taking him in as if an old friend. He brought the paraffin lamp closer to the chair and turned slightly towards the wood burning stove, where two logs crackled together as the room grew dark. He looked out through the window across the bay. The light of a ship far out to sea flickered in the distance. As he lowered his eyes to the first page, the howl of the winter wind helped transport him to the Alaskan wilderness of London’s story.
Many hours later, he turned the last page over and set the book down on the table next to the lamp. The table was a beautiful old cast iron sewing table with a wooden top. The table, the chair and the oak framed bed in one corner represented the sum total of the furniture in the croft. The stove sat inside a wide and tall chimney breast, above which hung a collection of heavy iron pans. The stove not only served as the heat source for the croft, but also fed into the hot water system, and for that modern touch, Coll was grateful. The claw-footed bath that sat in the only other room of the croft, along with a basin and plumbed in toilet, were necessary luxuries. The croft also had electricity, but he had yet to buy light bulbs or lights for that matter. The main town on Mull, Tobermory, had an ironmongers and general shop that he planned to visit in the morning. It would be his first venture out since his arrival two days ago and he needed fresh supplies to start the work on the croft. He would also stock up on food whilst he was there. He padded across the stone clad floor and sat down on the bed, stripping socks and shoes and snuggling into the blankets in the remainder of his clothes. He waited for the lamp to burn itself out as he fixed his gaze on the ceiling above him, listening to the night and waiting for morning to come.
He slept as he had come to do so in the past year, a little at a time as exhaustion took him. At first he thought the mournful cry he heard was in his dreams, but as he watched the ceiling come back into focus, he realised that the sound rose up from the beach below the croft. As he lay there, he tried to place the sound. He first considered it to be the moaning of a whale out to sea, but as he awakened further, he realised the sound was close by. It eventually came to him what it was. Somewhere on the beach, a seal was crying. As the voice rose up over the wind that rattled the windows and the rain that spat against the glass, Lucas became agitated. He sat up on the bed, looking out towards the beach, where he could make out the white of the surf. The cry came again and he could not help but feel the sorrow it spoke of in his heart. The sadness it invoked gripped him, as if threatening the fragile peace he clung to in the croft. He knew then that he would have to go to it. He stuffed his sockless feet into his shoes and picked his coat up off the peg on the door. He bent down to his duffle bag and grabbed his torch before opening the door and stepping out into the night.
The cry stopped as soon as he stepped outside and as it did, the storm ebbed and moonlight broke from behind the clouds. The sand sparkled in the light as Lucas walked down the path to the beach. As he neared the first dunes the crying started again, more insistently than before and he began to sweep the dunes with his torchlight. Each step took him closer until he noticed a dark form lying between two dunes a little way up the beach. As he approached, the crying became almost riotous then suddenly, it stopped. He then heard great sniffs coming from the animal. He took another step and as he did so, the sniffs became quieter. They seemed almost humanlike to him, as if a woman were trying not to cry. As he rounded the next dune his torch beam fell upon two large and magnificent eyes peering up at him from a pale, mottled, dog-like face. It was a female grey seal and it did indeed seem that she had been crying, as great watery tears ran down her cheeks. She made no sound as Lucas approached, but watched him intently. When he was a few feet away, he saw the cause of her torment. A strange harpoon-shaped hook had imbedded itself in one of her hind limbs and had dragged with it a tangle of netting that had wrapped itself around her hind quarters, making it very difficult for her to swim. Lucas imagined her struggling onto the beach from sheer exhaustion and he pitied the animal. He knelt down and considered how he could free her.
The seal was about five and a half feet long and he was familiar enough with them to know that they had impressive teeth and strength. He didn’t want to approach the seal as he feared she would attack him, but as he looked into the eyes of the animal he felt even more urged to help it. The dark, moist eyes looked back into his and for a moment he thought he recognised something of a pleading look. As if to press this, the seal whined weakly and let its head fall to the sand. Lucas sighed. Then he spoke to her in a gentle voice.
“It’s okay girl. I promise I won’t hurt you. I’m going to help you if you’ll let me. And I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t bite me”.
Staying crouched, he crept around the seal to her tail end, where the hook and net were. The seal raised her head and twisted round to look at him. Lucas could see that the hook had gone right through and was caught by its barb on the other side of the seal’s hind flipper. He looked back at the seal, knowing what he had to do and how she would probably react. His eyes met hers again and he spoke in the same gentle tone.
“I’m going to break the barb so I can pull the hook out. You’re not going to like it, but I don’t know what else to do”.
The seal whined again but didn’t look away. Lucas bent down and took the barb in his hand. He noticed it was made from some kind of bone, and where he had first thought that it had become entangled in the net, he now saw that it was attached to it. The net itself was strange too and felt like tough, dry seaweed. As he pulled it up and away from the flesh, the seal yelped and snapped round. She moved too quickly for him and before Lucas could let go and move back, her jaws clamped round his wrist. Lucas had closed his eyes, not wanting to see his hand mauled, but although he felt the pressure on his wrist, he felt no further pain. Slowly, he opened his eyes.
Once more, he was met with the beautiful unblinking eyes of the seal. She held his wrist tight within her jaws but she had not broken the skin. As he knelt beside her, his body touching her own and their gaze unbroken, he seemed to realise her meaning.
“You’re not taking any chances are you? If I hurt you, you’ll hurt me?”
There seemed to be a flicker in the seals eyes. For a second he felt as if she had smiled at him. Lucas slowly and deliberately took the barb in his free hand and brought the point up and gripped it between the thumb and forefinger of the hand that rested within the seals jaws. With one quick movement he snapped it in half and threw the barbed end away. He then pulled at the rod of bone that was left with his free hand, sliding it back through the flesh until it fell out on the other side. The seal whimpered once as he did this and exerted a little more pressure on his wrist as if in reflex, but still did not break the skin. As Lucas pulled the netting away from her flank, he did not break his gaze with the seal. As soon as she was free, she released his wrist and reared up on her stomach. Again, their eyes met and Lucas took an involuntary breath as he revelled in her expressive eyes. She dropped her face close to his and let out a gentle salty breath from her nostrils, so close that he felt the warm air on his own. Then she fell to the sand again and lumbered awkwardly back towards the sea. She slid effortlessly into the water and disappeared beneath the inky surface. Lucas stood up and watched her head reappear a little further out. Her moist eyes met his, and this time he was sure he saw the warm joy of a smile in them. He didn’t know why, but he held up his hand as if to wave at the seal as he walked back up the path. As his head hit the pillow for the second time that night, he drifted off into deep and comfortable sleep for the first time in months.
Inky blackness consumed the night sky. Indigo streaks and green flares broke up the smog-clad clouds, reminding Jordan Knight of swamp gas. She knew it was pollution from the near six and a half million vehicles that trudged along Los Angeles streets and highways every day, but she still thought it looked pretty. But, just like the soft yellow light of the flickering streetlamps, the illumination was unnatural. The downtown street she was walking along, and the city itself, never saw a pitch-black night. From up in the Hollywood hills or the Santa Monica mountains, the fragmented L.A skyline gave off a ghostly pale glow that seeped into everything surrounding it.
Like any city though, there was darkness here. It waited in the alleyways and parking lots. It stalked the city parks and roadsides. And it always found prey. On average, three hundred people were murdered every year within city limits. Another two and a half thousand were victims of rape. Eight thousand citizens would be robbed in the coming twelve months, and sixteen thousand would be assaulted. The statistics, which Jordan knew off by heart, made her habit of walking the streets of her downtown neighbourhood in the early hours look unwise. Strangely, it was the veiled threat and uncertainty that made Jordan enjoy it. Confidence also came in the form of a neatly holstered Sig Sauer P320 XCOMPACT pistol, and a bronze-plated badge in her jacket pocket with the numbers 8306 and letters L A P D stamped into it.
She crossed the street, taking a left as she passed under a streetlight. It was habit by now, a good place to see if she had picked up any unwanted interest. But no shadows were catching up with her own, and the only footsteps she could hear were hers, as the soft echo of her sneakers sounded out on the hard concrete of the sidewalk. At the end of the street she could see lights, and she wondered if Lorenzo’s would still be open. It was unlikely, being the wrong side of 3am, but Anthony – or “Little Tony” as everyone seemed to call him, often let the hours slide by if everyone was having a good time. She was glad to have found a decent jazz club only a few blocks away from her apartment. Especially one where they didn’t water down the drinks and served decent food.
She slowed as she approached, trying to gauge if the lights were indeed coming from Lorenzo’s. As she got closer, she heard the lonely notes of a piano seemingly chiming along with the rhythm of her heartbeat. She paused by the steps that led down to the entrance. It was dark. Officially closed. She decided to try her luck. She stepped as heavily as she could on the stone stairway, as if to give Tony warning of her arrival. She pushed down on the handle of the dark red door and smiled as it swung open. Instantly, the piano music stopped.
“Had a feeling you’d be coming around. Why is it always when I don’t see you, I know I’m going to see you?” came a smooth, deep and booming voice out of the darkness.
“Come on Tony, you know I can’t sit in here when you’re open. Otherwise, I’d have to pay,” Jordan replied, walking forwards.
“And?” the voice challenged.
“And… I wouldn’t get private performances from LA’s most underrated pianist. You don’t take to the stage unless you’re closed.”
Tony responded with an amused grunt. As she walked forwards, she could see his huge form sat at the piano. The instrument itself was one of the things that had first indicated that Lorenzo’s was a special place. It was a Stuart & Sons grand, of which there were only about eighty in the world. It boasted an extended keyboard, which meant a musician with enough talent could play things on it that would be impossible on other pianos. It was also eye-catchingly finished in blackheart sassafras timber, with long strips of dark brown set against pale yellow grain.
For a man that must have weighed well over 300lbs, Little Tony was light on his feet. The heavyset African-American wore a tailored charcoal pinstripe suit and a blood-red shirt, the colour of which she caught as he walked underneath one of the few spotlights still turned on. He was headed to the bar. She smiled.
Tony picked out a cocktail glass and placed it on the counter. Now nearer, Jordan could hear the strain of the air as is battled past his stuffy, partially-closed nostrils. A generous pouring of vodka went into an ice-stuffed stainless-steel shaker, followed by Cointreau and cranberry juice. Jordan watched as his large left hand roughly squeezed a ripe lime until it burst, allowing the juice to join the rest of the contents. He slapped the lid on without ceremony, then, using both hands, he shook the container violently. He poured the cosmopolitan expertly into the spotlessly clean glass and stood back.
“What would I do without you, Tony?” Jordan laughed.
“You’d god-damn go someplace else and flutter your eyelids at them until you got what you wanted,” Tony challenged.
“I don’t do that to you,” she huffed. “And I can’t get what I want anywhere else, they’re all closed,” she said softly.
“Imagine,” Tony replied with mock surprise. “You know I only do this because you told me it helps you sleep.”
“It does, but not as much as…”
Tony let out a sigh and turned his back to Jordan and took a key out of his right suit pocket. He unlocked a cabinet at the rear of the bar and reached in. Jordan couldn’t see past his mass, but she could hear him at work. When he returned, he was carrying a small plate. On it, thinly-sliced Ibérico bellota ham sat beside Cornish Kern cheese.
“You have New York taste and L.A. attitude Ms Knight. That’s a dangerous combination,” Tony scoffed. “And cheese before bedtime is meant to give you nightmares”.
“Don’t forget my English education,” Jordan replied, upgrading her colloquial British accent to something more aristocratic. “But nothing gives me nightmares,” she added, much more softly.
An hour later, Jordan slipped back into her apartment. She silently walked past the kitchen, quickly checking on the sleeping white and tan pit-bull terrier stretched out in front of the refrigerator. World’s greatest guard dog she thought, smiling. She walked into the bedroom and took off her sneakers. She placed the pair of black Bottega Veneta shoes in their empty slot inside the wardrobe, then lay down on the bed. She closed her eyes.
~
Three hours and thirty-seven minutes later, the ringing of her cell phone dragged her from the recesses of sleep. She studied the lit-up screen for a second, seeing it was her partner, Lucas Christian.
“You awake boss?” came his tentative query.
“Who on Earth do you think’s answering the phone, genius,” she replied, trying to vail the croak in her voice.
“I honestly don’t know sometimes, but whoever she is, she’s needed at the launderette on East 3rd Street, you know, the one opposite the Korean BBQ?”
“What have we got?”
“It’s best you just come see for yourself. Let’s just say if you weren’t you, they’d be thinking about calling the Feds.”
Jordan put down the phone and sat up, swinging her legs out of the bed. She stripped off the sweat pants and T-Shirt she’d been wearing as she headed for the shower. Three minutes later, she finished towelling herself down in front of the wardrobe. She picked out a charcoal coloured suit and a white shirt as she refreshed her underwear. Dressing quickly, she slid the gun holster back on, covering it with the suit jacket, which in turn covered her slim frame, bulking it out slightly. After grabbing a pre-packed blue leather wallet bag that would fit into the suit’s inner pocket, she popped her feet back into the black designer sneakers and checked herself in the mirror. The gun and the bag equalled out the pull on the jacket as she’d hoped. She pulled her long dark hair up into a ponytail. Her green eyes flashed in the darkness of the bedroom, where she hadn’t bothered to turn on the lights. She felt tired, but she knew she looked better than she felt, and that was all that would matter. Her male colleagues, although their own grooming habits were questionable and nowhere near as fine-tuned as hers, would see weakness instead of the toll of the job they all suffered from.
Lucas’ comment about the Feds had sparked her interest. Something significant had happened. As she walked out, she passed the framed doctorate in Criminal Psychology from Stanford that hung above a small bookshelf. Beside the collector’s edition of Sherlock Holmes stories, were three books she herself had written. One put the spotlight on unsolved murder cases, three of which no longer fit that category, thanks to her. The second focused on the social motives behind violent crime. The third was by far her “best-seller”, giving a blow-by-blow account of her part in taking down a cunning and sadistic serial killer known as “The Fox”.
A further nod to her obsession and career trotted up to greet her in the hall. “Watson” was a handsome dog, mainly white, with a tan eye patch and saddle. She had rescued him from a dog-fighting ring discovered in the 7th precinct. As a homicide detective, she hadn’t been involved directly, but she had seen the pups brought in. His brothers and sisters had gone to the shelter. Watson came home with her, and she had named him after the famous companion of Sherlock Holmes. So far, it was the only long-term relationship she’d had in L.A. She made a fuss of the dog and kissed him on top of his muzzle.
~
Lucas looked up as he heard the distinct rumble of Jordan’s car. The black 1977 Jaguar XJC coupé had a V12 engine and he could only imagine it was hell to drive in L.A. traffic. With lowered suspension and a custom set up, it wasn’t quite as out of place in the city as it seemed, but it was still an unusual sight. He watched, bemused, as the comparatively small Jordan appeared beside the enormous car. She wandered over to him. He reached inside the unmarked Dodge he had driven from the precinct and took the reinforced cardboard cup from the holder. He handed her the black tea as soon as she crossed the street to join him.
“Do you know how hard it is to find a coffee shop that serves tea you approve of, in a recyclable cup?” he complained.
“You wanted to be my partner, partner,” she chastised. “I work better alone.”
“You’re about to get your chance,” Lucas hinted, nodding towards the door of the launderette, crowded with uniformed officers. “Shall we?”
Jordan walked through the door and stopped. Her eyes scanned the shop front. Everything looked normal. Nothing broken, upturned, or out of place. A residual layer of dust suggested the floor hadn’t been cleaned in a couple of days. She noticed the imprints of the heavy-footed officers leading beyond the counter and followed them.
“Forensics are on their way, but you’ve got the place to yourself until then,” Lucas added.
Jordan knew that was unusual. Captain Ramirez would have had to make the call to break protocol. It was a rare privilege for detectives to access the crime scene before forensics. She sipped her tea as she made her way further back into the store. She froze as what was waiting for her came into view. The round, glass-fronted door to one of the stainless-steel industrial dry-cleaning machines was open, and she could see smears of pink smudged across it. She took a sip of her tea and walked forward. Inside the machine was the crumpled body of a man. The corpse sagged to its left. Jordan guessed part of the shoulder was crushed, and the collar bone and sternum were both certainly broken. Apart from a pair of shredded boxer shorts, he was naked. His skin had turned the colour of a boiled lobster. Bluish purple bruises and ruptured contusions covered the body, and what remained of his skin looked like it had been through a cheese grater. The left eye was missing completely. The thumb of his left hand was also gone. The rest of his fingers were grotesquely twisted backwards, all broken. But despite the mess the body was in, she already knew exactly who she was looking at.
Vincent Bianchi – known in certain circles as the Great White. A known money mover for a syndicate based on the West Coast, he was a big hitter. Or at least, he had been. Her eyes had swept the floor as she walked in. Blessed with an eidetic, or “photographic” memory as it was popularly and incorrectly known as, she retraced her steps in her mind and knew the crime scene was spotless. Yet somehow, a heavyset, six-foot three-inch man had been stuffed into a dry-cleaning machine. Presumably against his will. As a lover of Italian food, it had always been a gripe of Jordan’s that Bianchi owned three of the best restaurants in the area, and a decent nightclub. She never visited them out of principle. She looked at the dials of the machine. They were still on.
“Someone has a well-developed sense of irony,” she stated, looking closer.
“What’s that boss?” Lucas asked.
“A well-known money launderer who’s been laundered? I can imagine the headlines already. See the froth around the mouth and nostrils? He drowned in the solvent. His skin is bleached from the heat of the drying process, and he’s been torn and busted up pretty badly by the sieve. But he was already dead by then, so the blood is only on the surface, see?”
“Guess we don’t need forensics after all,” Lucas shrugged.
“Oh, we do.”
Lucas looked at her for an explanation.
“Look around, Detective,” Jordan prompted. “No signs of a struggle. Nothing out of place. But there is something missing, at least from our vic. Two things actually.”
“Okay, so, I saw his eye was out. Wasn’t that just the machine?”
“Far too neat. As was whatever took his thumb off.”
“Oh yeah,” declared Lucas, peering closer.
“Some detective,” Jordan smirked. “The point is. Vincent Bianchi was subject to extreme violence, and his substantial frame was loaded into that machine whilst he was still alive. But this place looks like it’s business as usual. That’s anything but usual, and I’d gander too subtle for his syndicate friends. I’d like to take a look at the office.”
“Back there, to the left,” Lucas indicated.
Jordan walked to the office, sure of what she would find. She pushed open the door and saw it straight away. The electronic safe, which she guessed required a thumb print and iris scan, was open and empty. Except it wasn’t. Inside was a single hundred-dollar bill, weighted down at both ends by Bianchi’s missing body parts. The eye in particular seemed to have been turned slightly upward, as if to meet the gaze of anyone looking in. As she peered closer, she noticed something else. A series of small, printed letters across the top of the bill.
“Rinsed the laundry. Will keep an eye on you J. X.”
CHAPTER TWO
The big Jaguar’s engine growled as it worked its way through the downtown traffic. Bianchi owned a condo on the 20th floor of “The Quillon”, one of the newer high rises on the north side of Wilshire Boulevard, at the far west of what was known as the Wilshire Corridor. The drive wasn’t going to be quick. Lucas had ditched the pool car, and they had both left the launderette as it was being processed by the forensics team. Lucas sat in uncomfortable silence in the passenger seat, finally bringing up what had been on his mind all morning.
“So…other than the guy’s thumb, what did I miss back there?” Lucas asked.
“Meaning?” Jordan shot back sharply.
“The note. Kind of seemed that might have been meant for you?”
“That’s quite a leap,” Jordan dismissed, not taking her eyes from the traffic ahead. “You can’t make those kinds of assumptions if you want to solve cases Lucas. The significance of the letter J could mean anything – we don’t have enough to go on yet. We need more parameters to establish any kind of link or motive, based on evidence. And we don’t have a lot of that yet.”
“Sorry Doc, my bad,” Lucas nodded, amused. “So, what’s your take so far?”
“Break it down for me, what are the facts – you’re meant to be a detective too remember,” she teased, shaking her head.
Lucas sensed he’d gotten off lightly.
“The crime scene was clean. For all intents and purposes, indications are that Bianchi entered the machine whilst alive, without force. It’s also indicated that the thumb and eye were removed post-mortem. Robbery appears to be the motive, and whoever did it, knows Bianchi’s connection to the syndicates. That’s why we think only Bianchi’s personal money was taken. The business holdings were untouched, and in a separate safe.”
“Good, glad you were listening when I was talking to forensics,” Jordan mused. “What can you conclude about our suspect?”
“They’re clearly persuasive – and don’t rely on brute force to get the job done. They also know what they’re doing – no trace evidence, fingerprints, or otherwise immediately identifiable. So, this is unlikely to be their first rodeo. And, the note, the sense of humour – suggests intelligence and a need to be in the spotlight.”
“Not bad Lucas,” Jordan replied genuinely. “You’re dangerously close to crossing the line from a rookie gumshoe to some fairly decent behavioural analysis there.”
“Learnt from the best, boss,” Lucas chuffed.
“Now all I need to do is get you to work on your dress sense,” Jordan laughed, noting his sand-coloured suit and off-white shirt that was noticeably missing a tie.
Lucas was literally head and shoulders taller than Jordan, much to the amusement of their precinct colleagues. It had often been said that they looked like a father and daughter when they walked down a corridor together, at least height wise. Lucas looked every bit the Californian stereotype. Blonde hair, blue eyes, tan skin. He even surfed. It was a stark contrast to Jordan’s slimline stature, straight dark hair and pinkish white skin, often reminding Lucas of the stereotypical English rose.
It was another thirty minutes before they pulled into the underground parking levels of The Quillon. As they walked towards the private elevator that would lead them to the 20th floor and Bianchi’s condo, Jordan noted the three reserved parking spaces for the apartment. Two were occupied by expensive looking Cadillacs – an enormous black SUV, and an equally large black sedan. The third space was empty, but a small oil stain on the floor and a narrow tyre track showed it had maybe only recently been vacated. Jordan pressed the intercom button for the elevator. It was answered immediately.
“Bianchi residence,” came a deep, but well-spoken voice.
“Detectives Knight and Christian, L.A.P.D, we’re investigating the murder of Vincent Bianchi. I believe you were made aware of our request to see Mr. Bianchi’s home and personal affects?”
“Why do you think we’re here, sweetheart,” the voice replied. Jordan caught the muffled laughter from whoever else was already upstairs. “Hit the button for the 20th floor, it’s the only stop on that level.”
Jordan and Lucas stepped into the elevator. When the doors opened, it was onto a wide, white-painted corridor. More doors on each side led off to what Jordan presumed were bedrooms and bathrooms. She could see the corridor culminated in a living area. A well-built man in a turtle-neck and blazer greeted them. Jordan noted two more men stepped into view from either side of the doors opening onto the lounge. One, wearing a dark brown leather jacket narrowed his eyes as she approached.
“You’re a cop?” he barked as he approached.
“That’s right, they even let us girls join the force now,” Jordan replied, pulling her badge. Lucas was still showing his to the guy in the turtleneck. “Wow, looks like we already have a detective here, could have saved us the drive over,” she quipped.
“You look familiar. You investigated Bianchi before?” the man questioned.
“He might have crossed my path, why, how many’d he kill?” Jordan shot back.
There was no reply, but the man seemed to continue to scrutinise her.
“Okay boys,” Jordan declared, as if tired. “Let’s cut to the chase. My name is Detective Knight. This is my partner, Detective Lucas. You don’t want us to be here and you want this to all go away. So, show us some ID and answer our questions, and we’ll leave quicker and quieter than if you don’t. I take it you are all employees of Mr. Bianchi?”
“We work together, put it that way,” the man in the turtleneck replied, opening his wallet to show them a California driving license. The name printed on it was Ivan Miller.
“In what capacity?” Lucas demanded, stepping forward to check the second man’s ID, revealing him to be a Levi Jones.
“Protection mostly,” the big guy in the leather jacket stated, holding his ground at the end of the corridor and still staring hard at Jordan.
“Might want to update those resumés,” Lucas whispered under his breath.
“We’re more about protecting certain assets Mr. Bianchi has in play. And they ain’t been affected, in fact…” Ivan replied, only to be cut off by a murderous look from the man in the leather jacket.
Jordan walked up the corridor, ignoring Bianchi’s muscle as she made her way across the room to a large, glass-topped desk that sat in a corner of the expansive lounge. His gaze followed her. Wall-to-wall windows flanked the desk on both sides, giving breath-taking views from the city skyscrapers to the ocean.
“Go ahead Ivan, finish that sentence, unless you’re chicken?” Jordan taunted.
“It’s nothing,” the heavy in the leather jacket cut in. “Syndicate business. As we said, we ain’t here as Mr. Bianchi’s protection.”
“You think he had his hand in the till?” Jordan enquired, looking over the desk and not meeting his gaze, although she caught the inflection that indicated she was right. “How’d you find out?”
“Something you cops like, an anonymous tip. Complete with returned monies,” the heavy replied.
Jordan flicked through the papers that were on the desk, checking the drawers. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, then her eye caught the indent on a pad she had brushed aside. It was extremely faint – made from the press of a pen or pencil on the sheet above, which was now missing. Jordan reached into her suit jacket, retrieving the pink leather wallet bag and unfastening the silver skull catch.
“Being a cop must pay well,” the leather-jacketed goon huffed. “That’s designer. My girlfriend has the same one, but black. I bought it, so I know what it cost lady.”
“Alexander McQueen,” Jordan remarked, as she fished out a sophisticated looking eyebrow pen and gently began to sweep it back and forth across the paper pad. “And, I imagine legitimately-obtained gains are something you’re less of an expert on.”
Jordan stared down at the paper. The imprint and lettering were much clearer now.
Meet her at the shop. Midnight.
“Do you know who he was meeting at the shop?” Jordan asked, looking up at the room. “I presume the shop is the dry-cleaning business?”
“Yep, that’s what he called it,” Ivan replied.
Jordan decided to focus on him, as he seemed to be more amenable and inclined to talk.
“Who was she?”
“We don’t know, he told us it was a date. We presumed it was a girl, you know, a…”
“Hooker?” Jordan answered for him, recognising his discomfort.
The man nodded.
“Tell me what you know,” Jordan chirped, confidently.
“Not much to tell. We’re not permanently attached to Mr. Bianchi. We only know he had a date, because he called Joey to tell him,” he nodded towards the man in the leather jacket.
“I thought Mr. Bianchi was married?” Jordan declared with mock surprise.
‘Yeah, well, he’s also Italian,” Joey laughed, heartlessly.
“Okay gents, a couple of things, then we’ll be out of your hair. First, I need to know what the Great White was wearing yesterday, and I need to know where the other car is.”
“How did you know a car was missing?” Joey challenged.
“Because I can read, and I can count,” Jordan sighed. Despite her flippancy, her hand tensed, ready to break to the holster hidden underneath her suit jacket. She could feel the tension, and her every instinct was reading the room. Even though the hostility seemed to only come from Joey, it was beginning to infect the other two. She could sense the agitation growing in all of them.
“Err, boss, I think I might know what he was wearing yesterday,” Lucas stated, looking through a door into the nearest bedroom.
Jordan crossed the lounge and peered in. A dark-coloured suit, a powder blue shirt, and pink and blue polka dot tie were laid out on the bed, sheathed in plastic. The white logo for Bianchi Dry Cleaning stood out against the clothing. As she took a step closer, she spotted the fine cotton pink socks neatly folded into the breast pocket of the suit.
“This is what he was wearing?” Jordan asked Ivan.
“We think so,” he nodded.
“The suspect dry-cleaned his clothes, then brought them back here?” Lucas asked out loud.
“As well as the syndicate stuff?” Jordan added. “This all happened this morning?”
The silence that met the question confirmed it.
“Sorry boys, we’re not getting out of here as quickly as you thought,” Jordan remarked. “Lucas, we’ll need forensics, and security logs for the building, camera footage from every store, hotel, and apartment block that has a view of the building entrance or parking level.”
“So, Joey, how much do you think they took altogether? I’m guessing anyone who took the time to come back here perhaps gave the place a once-over to make it worth their while?”
“We were trying to figure that out when you got here,” Joey shrugged.
“You mean someone beat you to the loot?” Jordan challenged.
“Want my help or not lady?” Joey grunted.
“My apologies, what do you know was taken, as you carefully and meticulously tried to account for Mr. Bianchi’s personal affects?”
“We figure about $4 million in cash,” Joey replied. “About a mill from here, and there would have been two to three at the office, easy. His watches are missing too, and some jewellery. They left the small stuff but took anything with big stones. Most of it isn’t traceable, except that car you mentioned.”
“Everything they took is easy collateral – they can shift it and sell it with little or no trouble,” Jordan mused. “So, the car?”
“A 1963, light blue Jaguar E-Type convertible with a red leather interior. Guy thought he was James Bond or something.”
“Know the license number?”
“I’m surprised you don’t yourself. Now I seen you up close, I got a feeling I know where I seen you befores,” Joey grinned.
“Oh really?” Jordan challenged.
“Couple of days ago, we were driving in. I only caught a glimpse, but you were stood by that very car, like you’d been looking at it. You walked to the lobby elevator, and you were wearing sunglasses, but it sure looked like you now I think about it.”
“I can assure you, unless Mr. Bianchi was upgrading from low-level money movement, he wouldn’t have been on my radar,” Jordan rebutted.
Jordan and Lucas waited until the forensics team and uniformed officers arrived to take over. As they left, they saw Joey and the other two confiding together. Even as the elevator doors closed, Joey didn’t take his eyes from Jordan, still talking to the others until they were blocked from sight.
“So, you been looking into Bianchi?” Lucas asked, quietly, as they walked back to the car. “Best I know now, or this gets ugly fast.”
“I don’t even eat in his restaurants, which is more devastating than it sounds,” Jordan replied. “That enforcer, Joey, he didn’t see me. But he definitely saw someone we need to talk to. I think we can safely say our leading suspect is currently female.”
“And looks like you,” Lucas grinned, regretting the remark instantly as he met Jordan’s angered stare.
A shuddering, violent exhale of breath burst from the blow hole of the bull, as his great back breached the surface and rolled under again. Close to exhaustion, he drifted a few yards and stilled his tired body. The water around him was colder, darker, and much shallower than his usual paths and harbours. The pain in his head had driven him far beyond his familiar haunts, into dark lonely seas.
The sound of the small boats above and behind him stirred him into laboured movement again. He slowly arched his back and raised his tail into the air, smashing it down onto the water’s surface to vent his frustration at their presence and efforts. Although the pulse in his head was much more subdued in these colder, eastern waters, he still had to fight the aggressive urges that swept over him. In the sixty-five years he had lived, he had been lucky to have never been hunted, although he had witnessed the pursuit once as a calf. His memories of the water turning red, his father’s screams as his side had exploded, and the thrashing slaps of his flippers as he writhed in agony had long been buried. But recently, they had surfaced again, tearing through his consciousness with renewed intensity and purpose.
Since the death of his father, whenever he had heard the mournful, grieving song his mother and aunts had sung that day, he had known to turn away and seek new seas. His new memories of humans had been good ones. They were of small boats like the ones surrounding him now, filled with people that coaxed him closer with gentle sounds, or divers drifting with him in warm blue water. He bore them no grudge.
The bull rolled onto his side, letting his flipper tower out of the water. Residual streams ran down its surface before it splashed back down. He righted himself and moved off again with deliberate flicks of his flukes. He ignored the purr from the boat motors, his echolocation telling him he was unable to go much further now. Although invisible to him in the dark murky water, he could sense the banks of the river rising out of the bed of the estuary and closing in on him. He could taste the mixture of salt and fresh water, the salinity dwindling with every move forward. The physical toll of his journey, and the extra effort needed to keep his mass buoyant in the waters of the river was draining the last of his strength. He knew he wouldn’t live much longer. He hadn’t fed during his lonely swim to the east and south.
~
Sergeant John Mitchell of the Metropolitan River Policing Unit circled the immense whale again, frustrated by its stubborn passage along the Thames. The small boats he had commandeered to try and force the animal back were not having the desired effect, and as he looked up, he saw that several recognisable silhouettes of the London skyline were coming into view. Largest and closest was the London Eye, the giant Catherine-wheeled tourist attraction whose elevated pods gave views stretching across the capital. But today, all eyes were looking down.
The tide was at its highest right now, but in five hours’ time, the mighty Thames would be at its lowest point. The whale would be in serious danger of becoming stranded in the shallows or even on the banks.
He glanced at the helicopters beginning to gather in the sky. The stubborn cetacean was the only news story for Londoners today. Humpback whales followed strict migration routes between the polar seas and the Caribbean. Although they were known to spend several months off the coast of southern Ireland and even western Scotland, it was a very rare and strange occurrence to see them in the North Sea or English Channel. One had never been reported in the Thames before.
The whole spectacle sickened Mitchell. If the whale was to die, which he now suspected was its reason for wandering into the estuary in the first place, the city would be able to watch it on the breakfast news, just another momentary spectacle in an otherwise boring and stagnant world. He grabbed the radio.
“Is the net ready? Over.” He spoke so quietly it was as if he was asking only himself.
There was only a second’s pause before the crackled reply came.
“Yes sir, it won’t get beyond Waterloo Bridge. We’re all set here. Over”
He replaced the radio back on the wheel column of the Targa 31 Fast Patrol Vessel he was piloting. He wondered what the whale would do when it reached the dead end. He knew his commanders were talking to authorities around the world as to why this creature was even here, in his river. Some were saying climate change. Others were saying illegal whalers had chased him there. The only thing that seemed clear was that nobody really knew.
~
The bull now knew his purpose. At first, it had been to simply keep moving, hoping the pain in his head would dull. His enormous brain, the size of a small car, had recognised the link between his aggressive desires and the pulsing agony. It was as he had prepared to attack and sink a small vessel in sheltered waters that he had noticed the sudden subduing of the pain. He had turned away from the boat in angry confusion, driving himself away. He was used to parasites – the crustaceans that clung to his flippers and flukes, or the remoras that sucked onto his belly. He now recognised the violent urges that swelled up in him as the alien intrusions of such organisms. He fought the unnatural desires with his wavering will-power, seeking out and trying to communicate to the animals he felt compelled to destroy. Now stripped of his strength, there was little more he could do. It was then that he began to sense the net.
~
Sergeant Mitchell felt the swell underneath as the whale’s giant tail rose out of the water in front of the boat. The animal was putting on a sudden burst of speed, heading straight down the middle of the river. Waterloo Bridge was in full view to the small boats following in its wake, and as Mitchell looked to his left, he could see large crowds gathering on the embankment.
The enormous rippled spine broke the surface of the water. There were cheers and shouts from both sides of the river. The great black head surged through the froth, creating a bow wave as the whale put on more speed. Whistles and camera flashes began to ripple along the banks of the river on both sides. Fathers held their children on their shoulders, pointing and smiling. The cheer rose as one, as an enormous snort thundered out of the blowhole, followed by a jet of mist that rose seven feet into the air. Then it disappeared below the water’s surface.
~
The bull spread out its flippers wide as it tilted its body and glided into a graceful turn. He sang a last and pitiful song knowing there would be no answer. The very edge of one fin gently stroked against the muddy bottom of the river as he propelled himself upwards with powerful thrusts of his tail. With a final and well-timed flick of his flukes, he shot into the air. His head burst from the water, his body rigid and working hard to gain height and momentum. Then gravity turned against him and his mass, slowing his ascent to the point he seemed to hang in mid-air. He began to twist and fall backwards.
~
The crowd had little time to react to the enormous creature as its shadow fell across them. They hadn’t expected it to breach so close to the embankment. They watched, unable to move as its great eye moved over the crowd. Those closest felt a wave of sadness sweep over them as they understood its action. The whale crashed down over the concrete rail, rolling forward through the snack and souvenir stand at the entrance to the London Eye. Water streamed down the sides of its body. Its own weight was already killing it, crushing the heart and lungs that would usually be protected from its bulk suspended in water.
~
As Sergeant Mitchell circled close to the bank, children on the shoulders of their fathers cried. The crowd surged backwards as wonder turned to horror. They turned away from the spectacle they had turned out to see, hurt and embittered by an event they could have never imagined. As families comforted each other, little did they know it would be a poignant yet unheeded warning.
CHAPTER TWO
From his booth at the beachhead’s car park, Tory had an almost perfect view of the girls as they stretched out on their beach towels. The small town of Binalong Bay was one of Tasmania’s most beautiful stretches of coastline, with crystal blue waters and diamond white sand, but even he got bored of that view after a while. That was not the case today. He had let them park for free, their flirtatious smiles and pleadings not lost on him for long. A blonde, brunette and a redhead all in one jeep, it was as if his fantasies were all coming true. And now he was getting his reward. The sand was hot and it hadn’t taken them long to get uncomfortable. The good thing about the hard, quartz crystals was that it really did get everywhere. The coarse granules quickly became unwelcome distractions to the warm sunshine and the sound of breakers. The bikini tops had soon be loosened and then finally discarded one by one. He was fairly sure the redhead was giving him a show as she leaned her head back, her frizzy hair falling over her shoulders. Now whenever she laughed or moved, the white flesh of her chest flashed pleasingly in his direction. The salty air had made her nipples hard and erect. This was definitely more his idea of a view.
If only the damn seal would shut up, he thought. At its eastern-most peninsula, the beach ended in a rocky outcrop. It went some way out to sea, but it met both the beach and the car park along its perimeter. The day before, a lone bull southern elephant seal had hauled itself out onto the shore and was now bellowing regularly and very loudly, much to his annoyance. There was a breeding colony on Macquarie Island, but they were rare visitors here. And the bull was an unwelcome one as far as Tory was concerned. He returned to watching the girls.
~
The elephant seal stopped his bellows, rising up onto his rear. As he flopped down, he swivelled back towards the water, his gaze fixed on its surface with a quiet focus. The bull shuffled forward, dragging its bulk over the rocks with a blubbery wriggle. It dipped its head again towards the water, as if listening. The seal let his weight pull him forward and plunged head first into the cool water. The transformation from unbalanced, lumbering land animal to lithe and graceful sea creature was instantaneous with the mere touch of the waves. The bull eased forward with a few flicks of his hind flipper-like feet, propelling his 7,300lb bulk through the water with lazy ease. He drifted motionless with the current as he focused on the dark silhouette approaching out of the deeper water.
The great white shark was a female, just less than twenty feet in length. She was cruising sedately and made her way past the motionless elephant seal in a slow sweep. Her great mouth was open as she swam, her gleaming and deadly dentition on show. Each triangular tooth was just over two inches long and had several replacements growing within the jaw behind them. She sank deeper, hugging the reef line and seeking the darkness where her svelte shape wouldn’t be seen.
~
Tory smiled as the girls threw back their towels and playfully kicked sand at each other as they made their way into the breakers. They touched the water with joyful, gentle caresses of their fingertips, rubbing it over their skin to free them of the gritty residue of the sand and the scorching kisses of the sun. Soon they stood in water up to their midriffs, laughing together and enjoying the coolness.
The redhead was the first to break away, pushing herself off into deeper water. Tory’s disappointment at the girl’s bare chest slipping beneath the surface was made up for as he caught a momentary glimpse of her curved behind, porpoising above the waves as she kicked and thrashed her way through the water. The others were soon chasing after her. Tory leaned back in his chair, putting his feet up onto the narrow counter of the booth as he waited for their glorious return from the water, and the slow, inevitable walk back up the beach to their towels. It would be worth the wait. He didn’t notice the absent bellows of the elephant seal now.
~
The great white turned in the water in an arc that seemed benign but was cloaked in speed and purpose. Her powerful tail moved her out from the sheltered corridors of the reef with a few quick beats that thrust her forward into open water. She dipped her snout and curved her spine as her powerful senses became flooded by the electrical impulses resonating towards her through the water. Miniscule elements of blood and urine teased at her olfactory tract and the static discharge of three pumping hearts sounded out both the path and distance to her prey. She accelerated, her dorsal fin just cutting a fine spray above the water as she swam towards the source.
~
Tory noticed the streak of greenish black as the triangular fin momentarily rose above the surface from the corner of his eye. He sat bolt upright, watching the water for a further sign of movement or for a shape to take form. He lifted his binoculars to his eyes and scanned back and forth over the water. He stopped when he came to the girls, who were looking curiously towards where he thought he’d seen the movement too. They were obviously bothered by it, as they seemed to be making their way back out of the water. He focused his gaze on the surf, holding his breath as he did. Something in his gut told him something just wasn’t right. Suddenly, the redhead jerked sideways and disappeared beneath the water. As Tory watched in horror, a red slick began to colour the churning waves to a pinkish hue. He grabbed the first aid pack from the shelf and sprang out of the door in a sprint towards the beach.
~
The great fish rolled onto her side as she swallowed the leg, cut through just below the knee and circled round again towards the girl it had just attacked. The redhead resurfaced, screaming in terror at her friends as they swam away in panic. As adrenalin flooded into her system, she became silent as her body went into shock. She felt no pain as her trembling fingers searched for the wound beneath the red veil of her own blood clouding the water. She screamed again as she tried to kick out with her left leg, only to find her hand brushing against the soft stump and trailing, tattered flesh the shark had left behind. She closed her eyes as the three foot high conical fin surfaced beside her and cruised past. When she opened them again, she watched it streak away as it headed for the other two girls.
~
Tory stopped in his tracks as he watched the blonde rise up out of the ocean, the shark hitting her from beneath, so her legs straddled either side of its open mouth. She writhed, opening her mouth to release a horrible and unnatural high-pitched scream. The sound stopped abruptly as the fish closed its terrible jaws, severing the girl’s legs and midriff from her torso, as its shot-glass sized teeth came together like scissor blades. A thrash of its tail propelled it beneath the waves again as it took the blonde’s upper half into its maw, gulping in quick muscular spasms to coax the remains down its throat. As its eyes rolled back from their protective sheaths, it accelerated forward again, closing on the brunette with vicious and devastating speed.
~
Tory was knee deep in the surf as his arms stretched out for the brunette as he began to wade towards her. His fingertips just touched hers for a brief moment, before she was jerked backwards with such force that she fell across the green-tipped snout of the shark, its jaws closed on her flailing right leg just above the ankle. As the fish caught the scent of the blood in the water, it was spurred instinctively into action, its throat muscles working hard to compress and suck the prey into its mouth. The girl had already stopped screaming before she disappeared below the surf.
Tory stumbled backwards, falling out of the water onto the moist sand. He glanced to his left further down the beach where he saw something in the water. As he realised what it was, he pulled himself up again, fighting off the wave of panic that threatened to consume him. He half-stumbled, half ran, as he splashed through the breakers to drag the unconscious redhead from the water. He trembled as he stepped back onto the beach, watching the greenish grey fin cut back and forth through the waves only ten feet or so from the sand. He quickly pulled the pale girl further up the beach. Without hesitating he flung open the first aid pack and grabbed a cravat bandage, folding it into a bandana-like strip. He quickly tied it in an overhand knot above the severed leg and fished out a marker pen, securing it with another loop. He began to twist it in ever tightening turns to make a tourniquet. As the bleeding began to slow and finally stop, he grabbed more bandages and wrapped them round the makeshift dressing to hold it in place. It was then that he saw movement out of the corner of his eye.
Tory spun round to see the lumbering, flopping form of the bull elephant seal coming out of the sea straight towards him and the unconscious girl. It bellowed furiously and rose up on its hindquarters in a defensive posture. Tory scooped up the girl in his arms and stumbled his way towards the sloping path that led to the car park and his booth. He could hear the shuffling and surprisingly fast progress of the seal as it followed him. He made it to the top of the path panting and out of breath, and he almost fell through the open doorway of the booth as he reached it. His strength stayed with him long enough to put the girl down in the seat and lift what was left of her left leg onto the narrow counter. He picked up the phone on the wall and punched in 000 for the emergency services. Then he heard it.
The blubbery slap of the elephant seal’s stomach against the hard concrete was almost comical, as was the gargled, flatulent sounding grunts it made as it covered the ground. Tory instinctively slammed the door to the booth shut and bolted it, just as the whole structure quivered as it received a glancing blow from the animal. Tory peered out of the window, only to find himself meeting the maddened gaze of the bull through the glass. Its bloodshot eyes shone like large black marbles, and in them he saw its rage and fury. It slammed its chest and muzzle against the glass, shattering it and showering Tory with the shards. But although the seal could just about lift its head up and over the window frame lip, Tory had retreated far enough inside to be out of reach.
The bull made a huffing sound as it turned away and fell back onto its stomach. It shuffled away, only to stop beside the open top jeep the girls had arrived in. A low growl rumbled in its throat as it rose up and slammed itself down onto the bonnet of the car. It slithered off, revealing the dents and welts its 7,300lb bulk had left. Another slam smashed the headlight, followed by another that buckled the radiator. Tory watched mystified as the bull used its bulk like a sledgehammer against the car, not even pausing when blood began to pour from open wounds on its bulbous trunk. As the front suspension gave way, the seal at last seemed satisfied and shuffled off back down the path. As Tory heard the sirens of the nearing ambulance, he watched the bull slip back into the surf and disappear into the waves. He had no knowledge of the whale that had breached the banks of the Thames the day before, and he had no idea of what was yet to come.
CHAPTER THREE
The U.S.S Desperado glided silently through the dark waters, maintaining a depth of 650 feet. On the surface above rolled waves of clear blue and turquoise. The tourists lining the beaches of nearby Bermuda had no idea that one of the newest submarines in the U.S Navy was navigating its way past the island chain. At 377 feet, the Virginia class vessel’s stealthy and silent manoeuvring was even more impressive than its simple presence, a shadow in the depths that blended into its watery surroundings perfectly.
~
Lieutenant Cross sat in the Captain’s chair of the Wellcraft 340 Coastal sports fishing boat, casually glancing at the numerous screens fitted to the console on the deck and linked to the surveillance and communications gear that filled the holds, normally reserved for hauls of fish. He caught the sound of a slapping splash coming from the port side. He stood up and leaned over, smiling at what greeted him. The bronze coloured skin of Orion, a three-year old Californian sea lion, flashed in the turquoise water. Her snout broke the surface again and she flipped effortlessly onto her back, gazing at him expectantly and letting out a short bark in anticipation. Cross chuckled and took a fish from the bucket and threw it to her. She caught it easily and dived beneath the surface with her prize.
Cross used the opportunity to check the camera and harness. The view was perfect and the camera was still in position, on the centre of her back and facing her head. Everything Orion saw, he would be able to see too. Colour and focus were sharp, despite the complicated series of turns the sea lion was now performing. Orion was his favourite of the group and despite her disability, also the smartest in his opinion. He leaned over and banged the side of the boat loudly. He knew she wouldn’t be able to hear him, but she would be able to pick up on the vibrations as they echoed out through the water. A few moments later, her snout broke the surface again close to the boat and he found himself smiling as she barked excitedly and looked up at him with dark brown eyes full of mischief and anticipation. Cross straightened up and gave her a thumbs up with both hands, then moved his left fist in a series of circles until it touched the right. Orion barked and dived beneath the surface, recognising the command to follow.
Cross used hand signals based on sign language with all the animals, but Orion absolutely depended on it. He had first come across her in San Diego Bay as he conducted exercises with the Marine Mammal Program. She just started showing up, often coming right alongside the zodiac whenever he was performing open water exercises with the team animals. It got to the point that whenever he saw the red and white frontage of the Hotel del Coronado, made famous for its role in the movie ‘some like it hot’, he would start looking for the ambitious yet emaciated sea lion. It wasn’t unusual for some of the wild residents of the bay to take an interest in the exercises, especially if they were working close to the wildlife refuge to the south, but she seemed more driven than the others. She’d harass the animals he was working with so they’d give up their fish, or bark incessantly until he fed her. Her condition and behaviour had eventually led him to acquiring permission to capture her and bring her into the program. When he did, it didn’t take long for him to realise that the sea lion was profoundly deaf. That should have been the end of it, and her career with the Marine Mammal Program, but he had seen something in her from the start and he decided to make her a special project. And to a certain extent, his hard work had paid off. She couldn’t take part in some of the more complex operations that relied on underwater sound commands, but she had a place on the team.
Her role on the current task was to help observe its execution from close quarters. Orion was speeding through the water now and as Cross monitored the screen and her progress, he saw the three other sea lions ahead of her. Each was wearing a neck harness that held a camera to one side of their head, and a listening device on the other. The harness and the listening device were both new items of equipment, being trialled during the operation. They looked a little like one side of a set of earmuffs from afar. Soft, coral coloured tendrils cushioned the Buckhannon Marine-Mic over the left ear of the sea lions. Attached to the keel of the Wellcraft was a transmitter that would send out Cross’s instructions through the water. Cross brought up the individual displays on the Panasonic FZ-G1 Toughpad he was holding. The feed was filtered into four streams, one for each sea lion. By tapping on an individual column, he could send separate instructions to each sea lion, or send group commands, at least to the three that could hear and respond to them. It was a real breakthrough for their long range open water missions.
The Navy had been using animals as part of their Marine Mammal Program for almost seven decades. Despite popular conspiracy theories, the animals had never been used in acts of aggression. Their primary role had always been detection and rescue operations, as well as various research roles. From the streamlined design of vessels to the ongoing development of acoustic detection systems, the Marine Mammal Program had contributed to many breakthroughs in such research. But today, they were trying something new.
The Desperado was using her state-of-the-art sonar equipment to search for a wreck that had never been found, despite the rumours that it had been there for nearly eighty years. The story went that the Japanese frigate Wokou had appeared out of the mist one stormy night during World War II, only noticed by a few of the islanders. By dawn she was gone, all but some of her debris that washed up on shore with the morning tide. Popular belief had always claimed that she had simply become another victim of the infamous Bermuda Triangle.
Navy records showed otherwise. Commandos based on the island, who were part of a transition team turning a British Army munitions fort into a new Atlantic submarine base, had spotted the Wokou, despite the heavy fog. It had been suspected she had travelled through the Panama Canal with assistance from the axis-friendly President Arias. The attack at Pearl Harbor was still fresh in the American memory and the Wokou’s mission was unknown. Using a small inflatable craft, the commandos had approached the frigate and used the deep fog bank to their advantage, attaching limpet mines and scuttling the ship before most of its crew had even time to stir in their bunks.
Once the wreck was detected, the sea lions were going to be directed to search for unexploded mines and anti-submarine weapons that might be a danger. If anything, it was a good training exercise for both the crew of the Desperado and for the animals. It was the second part of the exercise that Cross didn’t like. If mines or other explosive devices were found, two dolphins were going to be sent to the wreck with their own limpet mines to destroy what remained of the wreck in a controlled setting. Although this was still classed as a defensive exercise, he had already considered how easy it would be for the animals to apply their training to a more aggressive setting. Too easily, he thought.
~
Captain Marcus Brody gave the order to stop engines. The heavy reverberations ceased almost immediately as a final ripple of energy echoed down the length of the U.S.S Desperado, and she drifted to a silent halt in the water.
“Confirm report,” Brody snapped at the radar station.
“Report confirmed, sir,” came the reply, “she’s 500 yards off the starboard bow.”
“Okay,” nodded Brody as he relaxed a little, “time to let the circus come to town.”
The lieutenant smiled and picked up the radio.
~
Cross sighed and tapped the access codes into the tablet. The four feeds on the display blipped to the live streams, each providing footage from the back of a different sea lion. Cross quickly checked the bearings of the four animals and entered an individual code for the three ‘active’ members of the team. As Cross used the modified directional arrows and specialist command buttons for the app, a series of clicks and buzzes were transmitted to the sea lions via the Marine-Mic. Once he had them all together, he could send directions to them in unison, all except Orion, who knew only to follow until she returned to the surface. He punched in a set of commands and then looked up over the starboard side in time to see all four break the surface in perfect symmetry. He tapped the directional arrows again and the sea lions dived one after the other into deeper water.
It didn’t take long for them to find the wreck. Within a few minutes, the blurred edges of the ship were coming into view on Orion’s camera. 600 feet was well within the sea lions normal diving range, but the light at that depth was on the cusp of the twilight zone and diminished further the deeper they went. Cross clicked a bulb-shaped symbol on the software’s control panel, and small spotlights on each of the harnesses blinked on simultaneously. Hannah, a still relatively young and playful character, was taken by surprise by her sudden illumination, and she cart-wheeled a few times before she returned to the others. Cross smiled to himself and shook his head. Hannah was fun, but not all that bright, so he decided to use Holly for the search inside the ship.
Holly had experience wreck diving, and wouldn’t be startled by the confined spaces and shadows. Cross sent a signal to the other sea lions to hold the position whilst he directed Holly forward. Orion started after her, but then slowed and drifted again when she realised the others weren’t following. Cross was impressed with the initiative she showed sometimes. Holly flicked her hindquarters effortlessly, propelling her over the crippled bow of the Wokou. She drifted momentarily along the port side, pausing at the truck-sized hole that had been torn in the ship’s side by the explosives. Cross watched the monitor as he tapped more instructions into the pad. Holly hesitated for a second, but then propelled herself forward into the ship’s interior.
Now, the spotlight on the harness was the only source of light. The explosives had opened a hole into one of the storage holds of the frigate, and it became immediately apparent why the ship had sunk so quickly and why so much damage had been done. The storage hold was part of the ship’s magazine, containing at least twenty contact mines. Cross guessed at least two had gone off as a result of the explosion, noticing the warped metal on the floor, in two distinct blast zones close to what remained of the wall. All Holly would have to do is touch one of the protruding rods on any of the intact mines to trigger a similar explosion. Cross quickly punched the recall command into the touch screen and Holly glided out into open ocean again.
Suddenly, the monitors all crackled and lost their picture momentarily. A slight hum emanated from the radio for a second or two, before it and the monitors all came back on. Cross checked everything, baffled. He put it down to a power surge and checked the equipment over to be sure. All four feeds showed the distant image of the U.S.S Desperado as she began to ascend towards the surface, and away from the Wokou’s explosive cargo. He wondered why the sea lions were suddenly so interested in it. They had seen the sub and many others like it before. Orion was the only one who seemed unbothered, turning away and looking back towards the surface. Cross checked his watch. Their dive time was close to six minutes now, and although Californian sea lions could stay under for as long as twenty, they rarely took dives longer than five. Cross had always exercised great care in not over-extending dive times, keeping them as regular and as natural as operations allowed. He was beginning to get concerned.
Cross got up and walked to the back of the boat. He picked up the red, white and blue barred Charlie signal flag and waved it at the second boat behind his, a Scarab 35 Offshore Tournament. He watched through binoculars as the signal was returned and he went back to the monitors. Priest and Monk, a pair of male bottle-nosed dolphins streaked past Orion, showing up on her camera for a brief moment. Their speed was remarkable. They wore similar harnesses to the sea lions, but also carried rods in their mouths with a limpet mine suspended from each end. That made four mines in total.
Cross continued to watch the monitors. The sea lions were beginning to get bored it seemed. Orion was heading to the surface, whilst Holly was drifting up towards his boat. Lee, the other sea lion seemed to be heading towards the other craft in a similar lazy ascent. He was beginning to get bored himself and he tapped the general recall command into the tablet. The sea lions showed no response to the command, but before he could worry about that, something else made him sit bolt upright with shock.
Monk and Priest were flicking back and forth over the bow of the U.S.S Desperado, spiralling around the submarine’s circumference with ease and gradually getting closer and closer. Cross watched in horror as Monk suddenly darted forward and attached both of his limpet mines to the hull of the submarine. One of Cross’s first objections to the exercise was becoming a reality before his very eyes. The main reason why the Navy had never used the Marine Mammal Program for aggressive operations was because the animals could not tell the difference between enemy and friendly craft. He reached for the radio, about to demand a weapons-hold status, when he was distracted again by Priest as he rocketed up to Holly and Lee, drifting alongside them upside down. He watched with disbelief as the sea lions snapped into action, each taking a mine in their mouths, breaking them away from the rod and shooting up towards the surface.
It didn’t seem to register as he watched the sea lions attach a mine to the bottom of each boat on the tablet. Cross had trained each animal himself and written the program from start to finish. This wasn’t learnt behaviour, it was something new. He had never seen the like of it before. The levels of organisation they were showing were unprecedented. Cross came to his senses fractionally too late, registering the tiny countdown clock in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen. 4…3…2…he closed his eyes.
~
The mines exploded simultaneously. The Wellcraft and Scarab sports boats were blown apart instantly by the 8lbs of explosive in the devices attached to their hulls. Cross and the small crew on the support boat were all killed instantly. The mines on the U.S.S Desperado cracked open her hull, instantly flooding the bridge and letting seawater into numerous compartments at once, on several decks. There had been no warning, so they had been unable to take any preventative measures. No call for help was made; no order was given to blow the emergency ballast tanks to take them to the surface. Instead, the crippled submarine spun in a slow arc towards the seabed, spewing debris and bodies as it went.
Watching from above, Orion saw the other sea lions join the dolphins as the submarine passed out of view. She lingered for a few moments more, but then turned and headed in the opposite direction towards the open ocean.
CHAPTER FOUR
Le Renard rose and fell with each gentle caress of the swells within her private harbour. Over the years, Stede had come to know the subtle sounds she made as her cedar and teak timbers called out for the ocean they longed for. He often imagined the yacht singing the sad lonely song of a captive to its partner the free and raging ocean on the other side of the harbour wall. She served as his floating laboratory faithfully, but a boat was meant to go to sea and it had been a long time since she had raised a sail in anger.
He rolled over on the king-sized bed and tenderly caressed the other woman in his life with a stroke of his fingers. Hailey was beautiful. He knew it at a level that he couldn’t recognise. He let his hand glide over the smooth caramel coloured skin along her arm. Her hair fell in natural curls down to her shoulders, and always reminded him of the deep, dark colour of a redwood tree, like dark chocolate with a tinge of cherry. Somehow it always smelled of cinnamon. She opened her eyes, which were almost a perfect match to the rich colour of her hair. She smiled as she straightened out a little under the sheets, but closed her eyes again as she clung to the snug remnants of sleep.
“Have we earned a day off yet?” she asked, creeping closer to him under the sheets as her hands explored and found his waist.
Stede paused, knowing how he’d like to answer. “Not this month,” he smiled sympathetically, as reality began to tug away at his desire to stay put.
He kissed her again, and then pulled the sheets from underneath her, spinning her over to the other side of the bed. She threw a pair of her discarded panties at him in mock annoyance. He stood up, pulling on a pair of sand coloured shorts as he did so.
“You look like Robert Shaw in From Russia with Love,” Hailey exclaimed with a giggle.
“So who does that make you, the old woman with the knife in her shoe?”
“Hah, I’m definitely more Jinx Johnson wouldn’t you say?” She folded her leg over the sheets and turned on her side, revealing the curves of her bare waist and breasts.
Stede raised an eyebrow as he lingered once more.
“And that was pure Roger Moore,” Hailey called after him.
“When you’re quite finished Miss Moneypenny,” he replied sarcastically, finally heading aft to the galley.
He peered out of the mahogany-set windows towards the stylish beach house. Although slightly elevated, it was split over several levels, and its angular white walls to the front gave way to clear window panels, blue steel frames, and hardwood decking at the back that looked out to the sweeping sea views and the glass-walled swimming pool. He hesitated, not wanting to tarnish the spotless galley with an attempt at breakfast. They had only stayed on the boat after finishing late the night before. The bottle of rosé Veuve Clicquot Hailey had found had clinched the decision. He opened the fridge door and smiled as he peered inside. Several containers, each containing a different specimen made up the entire contents. Not a trace of food was evident. He sighed with relief. She might not get to sea much, but Le Renard was the tightest kept yacht in Bermuda and would remain so this morning. That was one thing he’d taken with him from the Navy.
“Hello bubblehead, hello sailor,” said a raspy voice from the other side of the galley.
“Morning Mojo,” Stede replied with a smile.
Hailey’s magnificent and full-sized great green macaw, Mojo, ruffled his feathers and raised the crest on top of his head a little, a behaviour that signified joy and contentment. Stede walked over to the perch and took a walnut from a bowl on the counter. Mojo shrieked with pleasure and took the nut from Stede with an outstretched claw, hooking it into his enormous black beak, where he crushed it with obvious glee.
Hailey appeared in the doorway, wearing one of his island-cotton white shirts, with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. She folded her arms as she leant against the frame. Other than the shirt and her reclaimed panties, the only other thing she was wearing was a smug smile.
“What?” Stede enquired with a laugh.
“Either your presents are getting kinkier, or you’re in serious trouble,” she explained.
Stede looked at her in confusion.
“There’s a man in uniform standing on the jetty. Navy I think,” she nodded towards the porthole.
Stede lowered his head and peered through it. Sure enough, an American Navy seaman was standing on the jetty. He seemed nervous and hesitant.
“Better put some clothes on then,” Stede shrugged, grabbing a dirty T-shirt from the floor.
Hailey was pulling on some shorts of her own and quickly buttoned up the shirt, eager to find out what their visitor wanted. Stede climbed the short set of steps that led to the deck and popped the hatch. They both scrambled out, and he glanced behind quickly at Hailey. She was smirking, clearly proud of their unkempt and sleep-stained appearance. Her mischievous side was something he had grown addicted to at Harvard, and it showed no signs of abatement, despite the years now in between.
“Professor Buckhannon?” the seaman asked.
“Yes!” Stede and Hailey chimed together, rather pleasurably.
“Err, Professor Stede Buckhannon,” the seaman added.
“If you need to be told which one of us that is, I think you’ve probably gone as far as you can in the Navy,” Stede smirked. “That’s me, what can I do for you?”
“To be frank sir, I don’t know. Your clearance is higher than mine. I’ve just been asked to escort you and your wife to a meeting. I like your boats though.”
Stede glanced at the black, red and silver livery of the Donzi 35 ZR powerboat that sat the other side of the jetty, across from the Le Renard.
“That one’s just a toy,” Stede grinned. “This is a real boat. A Spirit 74.”
“Both are toys compared to what I work with sir,” the seaman replied with a grin.
“We have clearance?” Hailey enquired, pinching Stede to get him out of her way.
“Yes ma’am,” the seaman nodded.
“Give us a few moments to scrub up a little,” Hailey smiled. “We’ll meet you round the front of the house. I presume you brought a car?”
“Yes ma’am. Admiral Reese said he’d give me $50 if I could get you into it.”
“Admiral Reese knows me too well, we’ll be following you down I’m afraid,” Stede said with a smirk.
“In case we need to make a fast getaway?” Hailey asked in a giggled whisper as they stepped onto the jetty and made their way towards the house.
~
Hailey laughed as they walked out of the house. It was the first time in as long as she could remember that they had both looked so official. She was wearing a soft, white linen full-length skirt with a matching short-sleeved jacket and a rust coloured cotton blouse. Stede had gone for a cream, three-quarter length suit and a white linen shirt. They both wore smart, brown leather sandals. They had both been in Bermuda long enough to have forgotten the last time they had worn socks.
Stede opened the windowless door of the car. The jet black Shelby Cobra 427 sat low to the ground compared to the Jeep the seaman was in, and Stede had to raise his hand high to let him know they were ready to go. Both men started their engines, but the big block V8 of the Cobra drowned out the diesel lump of the Navy runabout. Stede gave Hailey a knowing smile as he slipped on the tawny coloured sunglasses from his jacket pocket.
“Grow up Maverick,” she sighed.
From the remote beach house they made their way over the hill towards the town of Somerset. As they rolled down the road after the Jeep, they could see the mismatch of shanty huts of corrugated steel against the lemon walled, terracotta trimmed villas that rose above them, most of which were in private, gated communities. It reminded Stede why he had wanted to live out of town in the first place. Most of the villas were owned by rich, albeit tasteless couples and families. They had their own schools, stores, bars and restaurants. The irony was that if you wanted to eat well, it was the local markets and street stalls you headed for. The nightlife in that part of town almost always spilled over into the early hours of the morning too without any complaints, but you had to be an islander to know that. And nobody living behind steel gates was really an islander.
Hailey shot Stede an inquisitive glance from the passenger seat as they drove. She knew that the bravado and cocky mocking were all for show, but his quietness betrayed his distraction. He was mulling over the request for their attendance, just as she was. Strands of his thick, blonde hair were ruffled by the wind as it passed over their heads, and she knew that behind the dark lenses, his piercing blue eyes were searching for the sea. They darted to the horizon at every crest. He hated to be out of sight of it, and he became taught and tense whenever it dropped from view. It made sense that they lived on an island less than a mile wide at most points. When they had first moved here, his near lack of tan was illustrative of how much time he spent under the water and with his work. Even she couldn’t help laughing when she learnt the local children’s nickname for him, the paleface professor. She had quickly made it her goal to coax him into the sun long enough to make him look a little more native.
They were soon passing over the bridge that linked Somerset Island to the main island of Bermuda. The nice thing about any car journey on the islands was that it was always short. You could walk the entire length of the chain in four hours. Stede turned both his head and the car sharply as the Annex Naval Air Force Base came into view on the other side of the bridge.
They drew up to a security booth, where they were kept waiting. He sensed Hailey’s alarm when two armed guards walked over and stood in front of the car. He eyed them coolly. Both were young, and his own menacing gaze soon made the man nearest him look away. He leaned over and squeezed Hailey’s hand.
“Don’t worry, I’ve yet to come across a thousand-yard stare that can match the one I gained in the SBS.”
“This is why I hate government work,” she exclaimed. “All the pissing contests.”
The guard was called away to the booth, but quickly returned, brandishing photo I.D cards. Stede looked at them and handed Hailey hers with a knowing smile.
“That’s why we were made to wait,” he explained. Both cards bore their likenesses, clearly taken whilst they had been in the car. He noticed the barcode on the back, suggesting it was also a key-card as well as an I.D. He wondered where they’d need to use it.
They followed the jeep through the security gate and headed straight across the runway, approaching a hangar on the far side of the base. Hailey smirked as she noticed Stede relax and let out an unconscious breath as the ocean came into view again, this time as they overlooked Port Royal Bay. The Jeep stopped outside of the hangar and Stede pulled up alongside.
“If you use your entry card on that entry panel,” the seaman indicated, “you’ll gain access and be received. Good luck.”
“Good luck?” Hailey exclaimed, “why do we need luck?”
“Sorry ma’am,” the seaman exclaimed sheepishly, “I just meant I hope it goes well.”
Hailey shot Stede another glance as they both stepped out of the car. They approached the hangar as the Jeep and driver tore off again across the tarmac. Stede swiped the card through the access panel.
“Good luck professor,” Hailey whispered, as a hiss of gas escaped from a hydraulic hinge on the other side and the door slowly swung open and inwards.
The corridor they found themselves facing was dark, with the only source of light coming from a soft-glowing bulb lantern on the wall much further down. Stede walked quietly forward, with Hailey following behind a little more cautiously. He peered into the darkness, his eyes adapting quickly as they searched for doors and exits as a matter of course. The lingering echo of his footsteps told his ears the real situation just before they were drowned in glaring light from all around. They were in a large and empty hangar. Empty that is, except for a rectangular table where four men sat, all looking at them in silence. Two empty chairs suggested this was the reception they were looking for. Stede didn’t hesitate as he strode towards them and Hailey’s sandals clicked with confident steps from behind. They both knew from working with sharks that it was important not to show fear or hesitancy when in the presence of predators.
As they approached, the four men stood to greet them. Stede noticed that behind the table was a yellow railing that marked a stairway on the other side that led below ground. He knew it almost certainly went to the old WWII sub bays, and he began to ponder why they had been summoned.
“Good to see you Admiral,” Stede grinned with an outstretched hand.
Admiral Reese smiled back and shook his hand warmly, helping Stede feel slightly more at ease.
“Professors, thanks for coming at such short notice. May I introduce Commander Ryan of Naval Intelligence, Commander Gellar of the Marine Mammal Program and Sergeant Phoenix of the Submarine Corps.”
Stede stifled the grin that was about to spread across his face as he considered the similarity of the three men. Whereas the Admiral had short-cropped grey hair and his rather rotund form suggested it had been a while since he had seen anything resembling active duty, the other officers all had cropped black hair, and in their matching sand-coloured uniforms could have been mistaken for brothers. It was one of the reasons why after leaving Z squad of the Special Boat Service and starting Buckhannon Engineering, he had allowed his hair to grow a little long, and was now a little proud of his comparatively unkempt appearance. They all shook hands and took their seats. Commander Ryan was the first to break the silence.
“The famous Bucky Stede,” he grinned. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Admiral Reese shot him a warning glance.
“Apologies,” said Ryan, raising his hands in mock surrender. “But I’m sure the good Professor knows he’s somewhat infamous in the Navy world.”
Stede let the corner of his mouth twist into a soft smile. One that somehow bristled with quiet threat and menace.
“Approximately eighteen hours ago, the U.S.S Desperado, one of our premier subs, sank off the east coast of the island,” explained Sergeant Phoenix. “We need your help in the search and rescue operation. Although we have a team in San Diego en route, we don’t have any mini-subs or suitable craft based here.”
“You want to use the Manta-Wraith?” Hailey asked.
“I know better than to ask to use it,” chimed in the Admiral. “You’d be at the controls, not us.”
“It’s not just that,” added Commander Gellar, “we need both of your expertise.”
“How exactly does the expertise of marine biologists fit into the recovery of a Virginia class nuclear submarine? I presume the Marine Mammal Program isn’t in this room by accident.” Stede remarked coolly.
“You remember your boats,” Reese smiled. “Glad to see your years outside the Navy haven’t slowed you down.”
“Oh it has Admiral, but I’m still fast compared to you American boys,” Stede teased warmly.
“Perhaps we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves.” Ryan interjected. “Frankly, I’m also interested in how the use of some of your equipment, namely the so-called Marine-Mic, might have had a hand in what happened.”
“I see Naval Intelligence is still a contradiction in terms,” Stede stated dryly to the Admiral.
“What are the parameters of the Manta-Wraith’s operation?” Sergeant Phoenix asked.
“You mean beside whether we let it be used or not after that kind of accusation?” Hailey retorted bluntly.
There was an awkward silence or two. Then Admiral Reese sighed.
“My apologies for the lack of information, and our apparent five minute warning, but we only have so much time before this becomes public knowledge, and at the moment I have no answers to give.”
“You mean you don’t know why it sank,” Stede stated in realisation. “But somehow, the Marine Mammal Program was involved in what happened.”
“It’s probably easier if we just show you to be honest,” replied Commander Gellar. “Why don’t you follow me downstairs.”
They all stood up and followed Gellar as he led them to the yellow rail. As they followed it down, Stede and Hailey saw several windows into large enclosed tanks of water. Gellar stopped at the first portal window.
“These are the holding pens we use when we are working with the animals,” he explained. “Perhaps you’d like to take a look?”
Hailey stepped forward immediately and peered through the thick glass. The blue walls of the tank shone in the strong light from the surface above and at the far end she could see the gates that led to the ocean. She could just hear the gentle noise of moving water on the other side of the glass.
She caught the movement out of the corner of her eye, instinctively flinching as the white torpedo-like shape crashed heavily against the glass. The reverberations echoed along the corridor.
“This is Pepper,” explained Commander Gellar. “He’s an eight-year old Beluga whale, whom I have hand fed since he was a calf. I’ve been in the field with him countless times over the last six years and have been involved in every aspect of his training. He’s more loyal to me than a hunting dog but I kid you not, I have no doubt that if I were to jump into the tank with him right now, he’d kill me.”
A second crash against the glass seemed to back up the statement. Admiral Reese stepped up to the glass to peer through, and then turned to look at Stede and Hailey.
“When the Desperado sank, she was taking part in an experimental program with the marine mammals. This behaviour has been evident since that time and we don’t know what to make of it.”
“What on Earth were you doing with them?” Stede exclaimed.
“Nothing that would explain this behaviour, they’re acting on their own instincts somehow. Nothing we’ve seen is anything like what we’ve trained them to do. Just their levels of organisation are staggering.” Gellar explained further.
Stede peered through the glass as he watched the twenty-foot long whale ram the glass again. As he came closer, he noticed the scuffmarks on the other side of the glass from the repeated blows of the animal’s powerful head. He realised the whale was going through this routine every time he saw movement on the other side of the glass.
“How are you feeding them if they’re like this?” Stede pondered aloud.
“That’s what I meant by organisation,” Gellar continued. “We don’t have to. The others are bringing them fish.”
“What?” Stede asked, snapping round.
“We think it’s the dolphins and sea lions that were involved with the Desperado operation. They’re still loose, but they appear to be bringing food to the animals still penned here.”
“That’s remarkable if true,” Hailey exclaimed, a little shocked.
In the next pen, Commander Gellar showed them two Californian sea lions that had struck the hatch door to their enclosure so often, dried blood still stained their muzzle and gums.
“Even they show method in their madness though,” he mused. “Each time, they attack a different part of the door or wall. They’re checking for weaknesses.”
“Let’s return upstairs, now you have more of an idea of the situation,” Reese suggested.
As they all took their places at the table again, Stede and Hailey looked at each other in stunned silence. Hailey was the first one to speak.
“If what you’re saying is true, the behaviour these animals are showing is completely unprecedented.”
“That’s why we need your help,” Reese replied. “We can’t risk one of the loose animals attacking a civilian. It could mean the premature end to the program. We want you to take part in a capture or kill operation with the missing dolphins and sea lions. That’s why we need you and your submersible. We don’t have anything that can match its speed and operation, if what I’m hearing from your father is true.”
“I wondered where you were getting your information from,” Stede realised. “At least he’s still talking to one of us. What did you have in mind?”
“The Desperado is lying in about eight-hundred feet of water,” Ryan stated, rejoining the conversation. “We know from our friends downstairs that the other animals are still in the area. I’m led to believe you have a very accurate dart gun that can be deployed from the Manta-Wraith?”
“That’s right,” Stede grimaced, “it’s an extremely expensive piece of equipment and unique to us.”
“I think our budget might cover it,” Ryan snapped sarcastically.
“Look,” interrupted the Admiral, silencing Ryan with a glance. “We have our own team coming in from San Diego as we say, but we don’t have the equipment or resources to deal with the animals, which is where you come in. Maybe at the same time you can shed some light on this strange behaviour, and reassure Commander Ryan here that none of your equipment could be to blame.”
“It’s a simple communication device, it can’t be,” Hailey replied defensively.
“I’m sure that’s the case, so find me the real answers. As for your compensation, name your price. We need you.”
Stede looked at Hailey for a brief moment, catching her smile.
“When do we start?”
“The San Diego team should be here by this afternoon. Get yourself shipshape,” Reese smiled.
~
After Stede and Hailey had left, Ryan marched over to the Admiral, a look of angry discontent all too evident on his face.
“I don’t know why you’re pandering to him. Why not take what we need and do it ourselves?”
“Because his father is a Vice-Admiral and Fleet Commander in the British Navy for a start,” explained Reese. “But also out of respect. You’d think twice about messing with a Navy Seal wouldn’t you. Think thrice before messing with Stede Buckhannon, and I’d advise knocking off the Bucky Stede shit if you enjoy breathing without the aid of a ventilator. He was one hell of an officer.” Reese dismissed Ryan and walked away.
“Yeah, which explains the dishonourable discharge and a rap-sheet that reads like a pirate’s résumé,” muttered Ryan to himself in disgust.
In my upcoming novel, Rogue, I reference one of my favourite books – The Hound of the Baskervilles. In my story, the protagonist’s father retires to the chair on his porch, to smoke a pipe and ponder the problem of a murderous animal on the loose. Famously, Holmes gauged the severity of his cases by how many pipes he smoked whilst considering their complexity. In ‘The ‘Red-Headed League’, we find the conundrum is a three-pipe problem – the most difficult. And in the 1959 film of ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’, Holmes declares it to be a two-pipe problem.
As my character is also on the hunt for a bloodthirsty beast, I thought it fitting that they too, could find a solution within two smokes!
A Murderous Squire
But did you know that Holmes’ creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, also took inspiration for his story (and one of the characters), from a real-life historical account?
In the late 1600s, a squire by the name of Richard Cabell, became notorious for his exploits and reputation. Described as a “monstrously evil man”, he lived for hunting with his pack of hounds and the good life. Rumours of immorality, and even having sold his soul to the devil, were whispered throughout the small parish of Buckfastleigh in Devon, where he lived in a manor named Brook Hall. Locals gave him the moniker of “Dirty Dick”, hinting at how he spent some of his free time when not on the hunt for wild game.
A further rumour is that he murdered his wife. After accusing her of adultery (if ever there was a case of the pot calling the kettle black), she escaped and tried to flee across the moor. After tracking her down and recapturing her, it is said he murdered her with his hunting knife. However, in reality, Cabell’s wife, Elizabeth Fowell, is believed to have outlived her husband by 14 years, after he died in July of 1677.
Yet death did nothing to put the parish gossip – or indeed Cabell himself, to rest. On the night of his burial, a pack of black hounds were seen on the hunt across Dartmoor, baying and howling mournfully as they came close to his tomb. From that night on, it is said that Cabell and his phantom hounds have haunted and hunted the moor, especially on anniversary nights of his death.
“It came with the wind through the silence of the night, a long, deep mutter, then a rising howl, and then the sad moan in which it died away. Again and again it sounded, the whole air throbbing with it, strident, wild, and menacing.”
The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Yeth and other Black Dog Legends
You may be wondering what all this has to do with Doyle’s story. Well, in the book, the Baskerville curse is linked back to a Hugo Baskerville, a rogue squire who kidnapped a maiden, and then hunted her down on the moor when she escaped. It was there that he met his end, in the jaws of a huge, spectral hound. Sounds a little familiar, doesn’t it? And Doyle himself admitted he heard about Cabell’s legend from a friend, whilst staying at the The Royal Duchy Hotel in Cornwall.
Devon, like many parts of England, has a ‘black dog’ legend too – similar to the Black Shuck of East Anglia, the Barghest of Yorkshire, and the Moddey Doo from the Isle of Man. The Yeth or Whist Hounds, are said to be the servants of the devil and true denizens of the wild hunt. They also share banshee-like folklore, as to hear their cry means death within a week. These spirit dogs were thought to be the lost souls of unbaptised, unwanted children – and they hunted for those like themselves, so they too would join the eternal, hellish hunt. Your only hope was to have been born at midnight, which would have granted you power over the supernatural and the ability to hear the hounds without going to your doom.
Serious Undertakings
And it would certainly appear that the people of Buckfastleigh took some of the legends seriously. The family tomb that holds Richard Cabell can still be seen today – and ‘hold’ is an appropriate word. The monument looks more jail cell than mortuary, complete with iron bars and thick walls. It would seem designed to keep something in, rather than anybody out. And it’s said the hounds can still be seen in and around the graveyard, as well as ghostly and unexplained sounds combing from the tomb itself.
So, just with Conan Doyle’s story, it seems unlikely that the legend will be forgotten any time soon!
September 23rd, 1954. PC Alex Deeprose of the Glasgow Police responds to a call of a disturbance at the Southern Necropolis – a cemetery in one of the city’s poorest areas. What he finds shocks and stuns him. As steelworks to the East and South bellow smoke and flame into the night air, they lace the breeze with a strong scent of sulphur. And before him, he watches gangs of children scour the graves and headstones. The youngest couldn’t have been older than four, whilst the leaders were in their early teens. Most were armed – with crude, homemade weapons including crosses, crucifixes, and more deadly knives, axes, and shivs.
In the dense fog and smoke-filled cemetery, they cast distorted, otherworldly shadows among the tombs and headstones. Yet they move with purpose, and as their gleeful cries and whoops reveal, they are on the hunt.
Cornering the nearest group, PC Deeprose discovers their intended target. The man with the iron teeth, also known as the Gorbals vampire. A seven-foot monster that has supposedly kidnapped and devoured two of their own.
Only the intervention of a local headmaster, and some timely Glaswegian weather, finally persuade the children to disperse. But they return for the next two nights, determined to catch the monster.
Parental Concerns
Soon after, parents and schoolteachers were asking police if there could be any truth to the tale. After all, how and why would so many children be motivated en masse to take the law into their own hands. For them, the stakes (if you’ll forgive the pun) couldn’t be higher. They had set off into the night to confront a metallic-fanged, seven-foot-tall, child-eating monster. Not the lightest of undertakings.
The story spread as quickly as the fear. It reached the National Press and even parliament. Ultimately, it impacted and changed British law.
But was there any truth to the Gorbals vampire? Its legacy, legend, and legal consequences have certainly lingered.
The Southern Necropolis, Glasgow.
Playground Rumours
It appears that the story of the vampire sprung up very quickly – on the day of the first hunt. Ronnie Sanderson was eight years old at the time and was informed of the simple plan in the playground.
“The word was, there was a vampire, and everyone was going to head out there after school. At three o’clock, the school emptied, and everyone made a beeline for it. We sat there for ages on the wall, waiting and waiting. I wouldn’t go in because it was a bit scary for me. I think someone saw somebody wandering about and the cry went up: the vampire was there!”
Kenny Hughes, another of the vampire hunters, said their terror built up quickly, to the point they would only move in on the cemetery together.
A third boy, Tommy Smith, suggested the fog, and fire from the steelworks, only added to the eeriness.
“The red light and smoke would flare up and make the shadows leap among the gravestones. You could see figures walking about at the back, all lined in red light.”
On seeing a bonfire burning brightly close to the cemetery, it even began to be feared that the monster was burning the remains of those it had already killed. Yet, two nights later, it was almost forgotten – at least in the minds of the children. But uproar was to come in the aftermath.
I’ve included a link to interviews with Tommy and other witnesses to the events below.
Fangless Facts and Other Iron-Fanged Monsters
The facts show no children were reported missing, and there are no child murder cases that line up with the period. However, the Gorbals vampire was not the first monster to haunt Glasgow, and it wasn’t even the first to sport iron teeth.
Tommy Smith – mentioned above, suggested tales of the ‘iron man’, were used by parents to keep children in line. This was no Marvel superhero, but a bad-tempered ogre inclined to snack on schoolchildren.
Before him, in the 1800s, ‘Jenny wi’ the Airn (iron) Teeth’, stalked Glasgow Green. This hideous hag shares her name with another folklore favourite – Jenny (or Ginny) Greenteeth, known for dragging children to a watery grave. Although undoubtedly based on this watery witch, especially living so close to the banks of the Clyde, Glasgow’s Jenny was differentiated by her mouth of metal. She also got her own poem.
Jenny wi’ the Airn Teeth
Come an tak’ the bairn
Tak’ him to your den
Where the bowgie bides
But first put baith your big teeth
In his wee plump sides
A bairn is a baby, and a bowgie is an old-fashioned spelling of another well-known British faerie – a bogie, or boggart.
It would appear, that Gorbals’ school-aged children had a few potential spurs to the imagination to choose from, if they wanted to think on iron-fanged monsters. But it’s still unclear why so many were suddenly motivated on one day, or how rumours spread from school to school in a matter of hours.
Iron and Steel
Two metallic monstrosities dominate the story. The first is the iron teeth of the vampire, and the second is the steel industry and its impact. The area was heavily laden with air, noise, and light pollution. The work itself was dangerous and those not in the factories, were still subject to their fumes and imposing presence. The foundries were active 24/7 and constantly backlit the night sky with hellish plumes of orange and billowing smoke. It wouldn’t take much to imagine a demonic denizen dwelled nearby.
Gorbals was also an area stricken by poverty. As a home for heavy industry, it attracted significant numbers of immigrants, not just from the surrounding Highlands, but also Irish Catholics, Jewish, and Italian communities. A huge amount of people (up to an estimated 90,000 by the late 1930s), were crammed into a little over a square mile. Gorbals was known for a high crime rate, and its equally high infant mortality rate. Perhaps these factors made it the perfect place to inspire a story about a monster with iron teeth that killed children.
After all, it’s not hard to imagine this story was a personification of the hazards faced by the residents and workers crammed into Gorbals. And nearly a century before, in 1867, Karl Marx alluded to the similarities between industrial capitalism and vampires.
“Capitalism is dead labour, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labour…”
Karl Marx, Capital
To me, as an amateur with an interest in the strange and monsters especially, this makes sense. We now know that a cultural knee-jerk response to tragedy is to make monsters. Whether it’s Japan’s post-Hiroshima Godzilla, or America’s post 9/11 Cloverfield, they usually aren’t far behind disaster and difficulty.
But a scapegoat would help avoid the accountability implied by over industrialisation and the impoverishing of society.
A Comic Craze?
By the time the story reached parliament, a plausible yet convenient culprit was firmly in the sights of the outraged public. American horror comics, like Tales from the Crypt and Vault of Horror, were polluting young minds and driving them to such madness.
A 1953 issue of Dark Mysteries was especially cited, after featuring a story titled ‘The Vampire with the Iron Teeth’.
The labour MP for Gorbals, Alice Cullen, led a debate in the House of Commons, backed by a coalition of teachers, Christians, and communists – the latter joining the fight on terms of limiting the influence of American culture. For everyone else though, the accusation was that these stories inflamed imaginations with graphic images of monsters and mayhem. The result was the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act of 1955, which banned the sale of ‘repulsive or horrible’ reading matter to children. It is still in place today as ‘active’ legislation.
Monsters, Mass Hysteria, and ‘Magination
So, it was back to The Beano for Gorbals’ monster-hunting school kids. But in hindsight, there are several issues with placing the blame on the comics. First and foremost, it seems none of the children involved had access, or had even seen such American comics. Experts suggest they were more likely to have gotten hold of the Crown Jewels than one of these – which had very limited circulation and availability anywhere in the UK, let alone Gorbals.
As for that conveniently titled story in Dark Mysteries, research suggests this was published in December 1953, over three months after the events in Gorbals, and notably, also after the story had been heavily featured in the National Press.
As Bob Hamilton, and several of the monster hunters admitted, they had no idea what a vampire was. They were just swept up in the idea of a monster hunt and joined in with everyone else.
The Southern Necropolis is a graveyard for over 250,000 Glaswegians. But in the early 1950s, for the children of Gorbals, it was ‘the gravy’ – and a playground. Swapping trees for tombstones, and nursery rhymes for scary stories, it’s not hard to imagine their thoughts were haunted by the macabre.
It’s not the first time that mass hysteria among children has led to a monster hunt. It’s not even the first time it happened in Glasgow. In the 1870s, the Cowcaddens area saw a hunt for hobgoblins. In the early 20th century, spring-heeled jack became their quarry. In 1964, Liverpool saw a lively hunt for leprechauns. More recently, and with more tragic consequences, the slender man stabbing in 2014 showed the dire consequences of believing such stories, and the international reach of the phenomena.
I was first introduced to the Gorbals vampire when I visited Glasgow for a friend’s wedding and stayed in a hotel opposite the mural depicting the legend. In more recent times, the monster has been the subject of a locally staged play and many works of art and sculpture.
I am left with two thoughts. The first, that it’s not entirely implausible, despite the lack of record, that a dishevelled, down-and-out steelworker fabricated himself a pair of metal teeth and got his kicks by scaring children in the graveyard. The second is, seventy years on, the only slaying a teenager is likely to do is via Call of Duty. But back in the day, they heard about a monster, believed it, and made killing it their first order of business. One thing is clear; don’t mess with the kids from Gorbals.
I like to keep a lot of visual references and trinkets of inspiration around me when I write. Dotted around my workspace are various Schleich dinosaurs – Carnotaurus and T. Rex have prominent places (what can I say, I like predators!); and a selection of plush toys including a sabretooth, Nessie, and a black jaguar cub. Then, there are black jaguar and black leopard models, slightly overshadowed by the huge ‘stray cat’ Smilodon from Rebor.
On my desk is a selection of teeth and claws. Some are real, whilst others are museum replicas. I have megalodon, great white, and mako teeth that are all the genuine article, as well as two other fossil shark teeth I’ve never been able to identify 100% (found on a beach on the Isle of Sheppey). Incidentally, the great white tooth was found on a beach in La Jolla, California.
My desk collection of modern and prehistoric shark teeth.
Among the replicas is the tooth you see in the picture below. It’s a cast of a canine from Homotherium. Also known as the scimitar-toothed cat, this was one of the most widely distributed sabre-toothed predators to have existed, having roamed North and South America, Eurasia, and Africa.
Sabretooths are featured in my books, and I’m often asked why I didn’t choose Homotherium as the species that ultimately plays a major role in the ongoing storyline. There’s a couple of reasons, but first, did you know how many different sabretooths there are to (hypothetically) choose from?
Homotherium belonged to the Machairodontinae (meaning daggertooth) sub-family within the Felidae (true cat) family of mammalian carnivores. Like all in this sub-family, they are most known for their enlarged maxillary canines. In almost all cases, these protruded from the mouth on either side of the jaw and were visible even when the mouth was closed. But, in the case of Homotherium, it’s likely that despite having relatively large canines, they would have been hidden by the upper lips and lower gum tissues, just like in modern big cats. This was just one reason Homotherium didn’t make the cut. I needed a sabretooth that could be recognised for what it is – despite Homotherium’s convenient European fossil record.
A museum replica of Homotherium, alongside a skeletal reconstruction.
Don’t be fooled into thinking Homotherium didn’t pack a punch though. They were about the size of a male African lion. And not only were its teeth designed for slashing, but also a powerful gripping bite capable of delivering deep puncture wounds.
Joining Homotherium in the Machairodontinae is also Amphimachairodus (thought to be some of the earliest sabretooths to inhabit Europe); Lokotunjailurus (think a long-legged, more gracile lioness) was known from the Miocene epoch across Kenya and Chad; Nimravides – a tiger-sized sabretooth that appeared in the late Miocene and has been found exclusively in North America; and Xenosmilus.
If you’ve read my books, you’ll know why I’ve paused there. Xenosmilus was big, even for a sabretooth. In fact, only Smilodon (who’ll we’ll come to later) was noticeably larger in terms of mass. Yet it stands out among others in the sub-family for other reasons.
Before Xenosmilus was discovered, sabretooths fell relatively neatly into two categories. Scimitar-toothed cats, like Homotherium, had mildly elongated canines and long legs. Dirk toothed cats, like Smilodon, had long upper canines and stout legs. Xenosmilus broke the mould. It had short, muscular legs and a robust body – yet its canines weren’t as pronounced. And those teeth were different in other ways too. All of Xenosmilus’ teeth were serrated, and its top teeth aligned with the bottom in a way that enabled it to concentrate its bite force on two teeth at a time. This is where Xenosmilus gets its name – which means ‘strange smile’. The unique way that its canines and incisors operated together in biting, also led to the moniker, ‘the cookie-cutter cat’.
The skull of Xenosmilus also features a pronounced and significant sagittal crest compared to others in the family. This meant it had phenomenal jaw strength and bite force, thanks to the muscles that would have been attached here. Together, these features have led to the theory that Xenosmilus adopted a bite and retreat hunting strategy. It would use its formidable teeth to inflict a deep wound, then wait until the prey was incapacitated. The peccary bones found close to the two type specimens indicate not only a liking for pork, but also that the species may have hunted collaboratively.
It was these unique features that led to Xenosmilus playing the role it does in my stories. But we’re only halfway through the very top layers of the sabretooth family tree.
Xenosmilus skeletal reconstruction on display at the Florida Museum of Natural History.
A smaller, sub-group are the Machairodontini, made up of; Machairodus – meaning ‘knife tooth’ and who gives this little clan their name; Hemimachairodus – known from finds in Java and Indonesia; and Miomachairodus, known from finds in China and Turkey. They were large cats, similar in size to the smaller subspecies of modern-day tigers.
The Metailurini include Metailurus – a cat we know from only partial remains, but its elongated rear legs mean that it was probably an accomplished jumper. Others in the group include Adelphailurus, Stenailurus, and Yoshi – a species proposed to be quite cheetah like in behaviour. Because these species have only been identified from small finds, what we know about them is limited, but new details are being published regularly with study.
The exception in this group is one of my favourites – Dinofelis, whose name means ‘terrible cat’. There’s some argument that Dinofelis belongs to the Smilodon sub-family, but for now, they lie here. These jaguar-sized cats were powerfully built with prominent sabres and extremely robust front limbs. They were also widespread, with fossils found across the North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, from between 5 and 1.2 million years ago. It has also been proposed that Dinofelis preferred forest habitat and may have had a spotted or striped coat – like the modern day clouded leopard and ocelot.
Finally, we come to the best known of the sabretooths – the Smilodontini. These include the three sub-species of Smilodon, but also the family groups of Rhizosmilodon, Promegantereon, Paramachairodus, and another favourite – Megantereon. The latter may have been a direct ancestor of Smilodon and was jaguar-sized, but even heavier set with lion-like forelimbs. Despite this, they are thought to have been able to climb relatively well and take down prey as large as a horse. And unlike its relative Smilodon, who was limited to North America, Megantereon was found in Eurasia and Africa too.
Homotherium skull
Smilodon is not only one of the most well-known sabretooths, but also one of the most easily recognised prehistoric mammals ever discovered, thanks in part to hundreds of fossils retrieved from the La Brea tar pits. Its name means scalpel, or ‘two-edged knife tooth’. Its teeth are easily the most impressive of all sabres in terms of size and were tools used for precision kills. However, these formidable upper canines were relatively weak and fragile. They had stocky, bear-like bodies and are thought to have been ambush predators that preferred thick forest and vegetation as habitat. Again, we’re not sure if they were co-operative hunters – but it is thought likely that they lived in small family groups.
All the above sabretooths are part of the Felidae family – making them true cats. But they weren’t the only sabretooths out there. There are others, most of which fall under what are known as false sabre-toothed cats – including the nimravidae and barbourfelidae. These animals are part of the Feliformia sub-order. Again, if you’ve read my books, you’ll be familiar with that name in terms of hyenas and their fossil relatives. But it also includes animals like the Madagascan fossa, the binturong of Asia, as well as civets, mongoose, and meerkats. Cats too are part of this sub-order, and the false sabre-toothed cats are obviously more closely related than these others – but are still different from true cats.
As for sabretooths and their modern-day cat relatives, it’s thought that they shared a common ancestor from about 18 million years ago. But the family ties between the sabretooths themselves are quite strained too. For instance, Homotherium and Smilodon are probably more distantly related from each other than your typical house cat is to a tiger. But genetically, we can still forge that connection to modern day big cats like lions and tigers from studies carried out on fossil mitochondrial DNA. It’s more direct in species related to Homotherium, which is another reason Xenosmilus was a good fit on paper. It had the strength and size of Smilodon but benefited from being part of the larger sabretooth family, with more of a genetic tie (however slight) to modern big cats.
Xenosmilus skull – its name means “strange smile”.
As for would a modern-day big cat, like a jaguar, be able to breed with a sabretooth like Xenosmilus… we obviously don’t know. My conjecture is that as true cats, it’s technically possible and viable. There would no doubt be many unknown evolutionary and biological barriers to overcome, but, as a favourite fictional character facing similar concerns famously once said… “life finds a way”.
And whereas we’ll never be able to bring back a dinosaur from its DNA to find out what it might conveniently splice with, don’t be so sure when it comes to prehistoric cats. Their DNA – from cave lions to Smilodon, has been found and identified, and in some cases, even mapped. Maybe in the near future, just like in my books, we’ll be able to visit something akin to a Pleistocene Park!
If you can’t wait until then, you can discover how these cats and others play a role in my books here.
The blog of author Luke Phillips 