Something’s Down There

Chapter Eleven

The diving party reached the assigned area thirty minutes after leaving the Sentilla’s floating dock. The bottom was thirty-two feet below the surface, but every detail, every contour was clearly visible. The ocean itself was placid, barely undulating at all. Only fish jumping here and there made an impression in that great greenish-blue expanse. For a change there were no strands of sargassum floating about, buoyed up by the bubbles along their fronds.

When Kim gave the signal the divers began dropping off the inflatables at regular intervals, going to the bottom, where they fanned out to follow the grid pattern Kim had given them. As he had said he would, Mako stayed behind Chana, thirty feet to the right of Judy but in plain sight of her.

The task was simple enough, pushing the marker flags eighteen inches into the sand, making sure their plastic triangles were fully unfurled. At preselected points they angled westward about twenty degrees, sloping downward very gradually. Twice the team went up to the inflatables to take another bundle of markers, then dove back to their positions for the final placements.

Nature was a living thing, the ocean currents part of her fluid mobility. Their changes in course and pattern were slight, but each variation caused some other force to alter its way and conform to a new avenue that could possibly alter conditions and situations above. Even here, in the warm, placid waters where they placed the flags, the recordings would indicate movements and speed that Woods Hole personnel would be able to sense and interpret.

Mako looked at his watch. They had been down for almost two hours but in shallow waters. There was no need for decompression, but the work was monotonous and he was beginning to think of how nice an ice-cold Lite beer would be. He waved over toward Judy and got her eye.

He got the eye of something else too. Suddenly it came up out of the sand, huge and black, its initial movement clouding the waters so all he could see was something gaping, something wide and monstrous, a horribly big and long thing that had no name, dangerously alive and vital. Its movements had a thrashing motion, powerful enough to churn the water into momentary, sandy translucency, and when it swept past Chana the force of its movements flipped her upside down, her arms and legs waving wildly. Judy had spotted it as soon as Mako did and she dove into the sand, fingers clawed to anchor herself. Up ahead some of the others had felt the pressure of movement in the sea, looked back and kicked furiously to get out of the area.

Mako’s back brushed the bottom and he was looking upward, a dive knife a futile weapon in his hand. He watched the extremities of the thing whip past him, estimated the length at least two hundred feet, made a slash with the knife at the very trailing edge and flipped over as the thing passed and disappeared out of sight.

When he reached Judy he saw that she was all right, her eyes behind the glass of the mask devoid of fear, but looking at him with a questioning expression. Mako nodded and pointed to the surface. Ten feet from the top the water cleared and they could see legs being pulled in over the sides of the inflatables.

With a single lunge Mako pulled himself into the boat, then reached down to give Judy a lift in. “You okay?” he asked her.

“Ask me that when my heart stops pounding.” She took a deep breath and gave him a small grin. “Damn, I don’t like that kind of excitement.”

Chana had stripped off her gear. It was evident that her diving was finished for the day. “Did you see that? Did you see that!”

There was no answer. Everybody had seen it, all right.

“That was as big as a football field!” She glanced at Mako, who just sat there quietly. “You saw it, didn’t you?”

He looked at her hands. They were shaking. Chana could stare down a gun barrel or charge a tank, but out of her element she was one scared operative. “I saw it, Chana,” he told her blandly.

“Wasit... the eater?”

Deliberately he looked around at all the faces. “Well, nobody seems to be missing here and they got all their body parts.”

A flush started in Chana’s neck and Mako saw her torso stiffen. A touch of her inward fury at Mako’s nonchalance crept into her face and she almost hissed, “That was no joking matter, Mako.”

“Nobody’s laughing, lady.”

“Hell, we could all be dead.”

“But we’re not.”

Chana’s composure was coming back slowly. Finally she announced very coolly, “I’d like a written, personal observation from everyone here. If you can accurately sketch what you saw, please add that.” She caught Mako’s eyes, suddenly heavy-lidded. “Do you agree, Mr. Hooker?”

“Oh, sure,” he said, but his tone told her that he wasn’t going to stand for anyone running in front of him. He smiled. Chana smiled back. There was no friendliness in either smile at all.

A news flash had already announced the possibility of the eater having been photographed by a camera plane from the Lotusland, promising viewers that the results would be seen on the evening news. Chana realized immediately what had happened and told Mako, “That original print is going to be on the movie ship. What we get will be a copy.”

“And there’s nothing you can do about it. Legally, that is.”

“This is still a U.S. operation.”

“Not out here, lady. We’re in foreign territory right now. This event you play with diplomacy, not guns.”

“So?”

“So we see the original print. They can show it for us on the Lotusland.”

“How do we get aboard?” she demanded.

Mako shrugged and grinned. “Just ask Judy. It’s her boat.”

“Damn you, Mako...”

“Hey... I’m only a bystander,” he said.

The projection room on Lotusland had been set up for a limited number of viewers. There were two rows of three seats and standing room for about six more behind them. Chana and Lee Colbert took the front seats and Lee said to Mako, “You want to sit up here with us?”

“I feel better back here,” Mako told him. He looked back toward the photographer and motioned with his hand. “Why don’t you get up here and give us your summary.”

The young guy nodded and edged forward. “Not much to tell. This was one quick shot, that’s all. We didn’t have a monitor in the plane and I don’t know what the hell we’re going to see. I know what I saw through the viewfinder... I think.”

Somebody switched the overhead lights off and the camera motor began to hum. There were half a dozen separate shots taken of the ocean’s surface from various altitudes. One showed a family of porpoises playing in the waves and another a million tiny bait fish turning the placid ocean top into a rolling scene of activity. Three fish leaped and dove into the mass, filling their bellies, then a cloud of seagulls dove into the feast, ate, took off, then dove again.

The cameraman said, “Here it comes.”

Everybody leaned forward. Only the camera motor made a sound. Nobody even breathed hard.

The plane was in a mild bank, the camera pointed down at a forty-five-degree angle, panning slowly as if it were looking for something. Then at the top of the frame the water suddenly stilled, became darker, not because it itself changed color, but because something below was making itself known.

Had the plane continued in its turn the camera would have caught it, but now it was sweeping away from the deadly thing below. Before anybody could say anything the cameraman put in, “I was the only one who saw it. I kept yelling for Al to go back and he finally heard me.”

The camera was still focused on the blackness below. The plane banked to the right now, hard in the turn, skidding enough to throw the camera a little off, then there it was, the dark thing again, its shape indeterminate, but for one second you got the impression that you weren’t looking at its length, but down onto it, and it was looking up at the camera, knowing what was happening. And it just dissolved. The darkness wasn’t there any longer.

Lee said, “Could it have been a shadow of the plane?”

“The sun was in front of us,” the pilot said.

“Bait fish?”

“Nothing. There was nothing there, that’s why I was turning away. We were looking for some action on the surface.”

They ran the scene four more times, but all they could see was what their imaginations told them to see. “You’re going to put this on national TV?” Chana asked flatly.

“You bet,” the cameraman told her.

“There’s nothing there.”

“Oh, there’s something there, all right. With the right music and our guy with the beautiful throat doing the voice-over, the entire viewing audience will see their own picture. The eater is suddenly going to be famous.”

“We might have even had a better view,” Chana said quietly.

She knew all the eyes were watching her and the moment belonged to her. A factual eyewitness account from a team of divers who experienced something they could recount and draw pictures of and tell about would carry more weight than a dubious strip of film. But backing up the film would add to the importance of the actual photography, enough to make the operation extremely newsworthy. Played right, political funding could be enhanced and upgrades in rank considered.

Chana smiled silently. She might even get to outrank Mako Hooker no matter where he stood in the Company. It would be her turn to lean on him next time.

The suddenly inquisitive murmur of voices stopped abruptly when a voice from the door said, “What did you people see?”

Mako recognized the voice. It was Anthony Pell, and though his tone was seemingly one of polite curiosity, there was an edge to it.

Chana wasn’t going to leave herself open to any interrogation from a civilian, so she simply said over her shoulder, “Tell him, Mako. You seemed to have had the best look at it.”

He decided to really spruce up the episode enough to rattle Chana for putting him on the spot. He said, “Well, I’m no paleontologist but it was nothing like I ever saw before. It was big, damn big. It came up out of the sand like a pure burst of energy and went right over our heads. Visibility went from a hundred feet to a few yards from the violent disturbance of the sand and it moved fast. The whole thing took a good ten seconds to pass us and get out of sight.”

“And nobody even got nipped,” a voice said sarcastically.

Mako couldn’t see who it was, but the voice wasn’t new to him. He had heard it before, and he was running the sound and the inflection through his mind trying to identify the speaker. He couldn’t get an immediate make on it, but he kept the impression fresh and knew that the next time he heard it, the name would be there.

When the light came on he saw that more personnel from the ship had crowded into the screening room. It was their ship and their project too, so they had a right. He reached out and took Judy’s hand. “You got a bar on this boat?”

“Of course. This is Hollywood afloat.”

“Then let’s get Mr. Pell up for a drink. Think you can do that?”

“For me Mr. Pell would do anything.”

“Who made that smart remark about not getting nipped?”

Judy frowned, then said, “I think that was Gary Foster. At least I think I recognized his voice.”

“What’s he do?”

“He’s the assistant prop boy,” Judy told him. “Why?”

Without answering her question, Mako said, “Who does the hiring for the company?”

For a moment she was silent, thinking, then: “If I’m not mistaken, the heads of the departments notify Mr. Pell. He contacts agents or unions for proper help.” Her eyes drifted up to his. “What are you looking for?”

Mako shook his head. “Nothing special at the moment.”

“Yes you are,” Judy stated.

“Like what?”

“This inquiry about Gary Foster.”

He let another few moments pass, then asked her, “Can you find out just what he does?”

“I can tell you now. When the prop boy goes over the scripts to pick out things they’ll need on the set, principally for the actors, his assistant will get the items out of our own inventory, or if they’re not in our stock, he will locate and purchase them. All items will be okayed by the head prop boy and paid for by Mr. Pell.”

“How big is your inventory?”

“Beats me,” she told him, “but I think it will handle most details. Lotusland doesn’t make Gone with the Wind pictures. The main projects have been TV documentaries that seem to have gotten ahead of the motion picture end.”

“But all economically successful?”

“Very.” She gave him one of her impish grins. “Want to buy some stock?”

“Nope.”

“You just want to be a fisherman all your life?”

“If I’m lucky,” he said. “At least I’ll always be able to eat.”

“And live in a funny house on a sandy beach?”

“You forgot my army surplus dinnerware.”

Judy gave him a light punch on the arm. “I’m only kidding,” she said softly. “If Daddy thought I was pulling any rich-kid stuff on you, he’d turn over in his grave.”

“He knew his way around, didn’t he?”

“With the money he made, he’d have to.” Her eyes got a momentary misty film on them and she said, “I wish I had known him better.”

“You ever find out what he was doing in Miami the night he got killed?”

Judy pursed her lips. Her eyes squinted a little and she shook her head. “It was business, that’s all.”

“In that part of Miami? That wasn’t any part of a business district.”

“Then why would he be there?”

“How about a woman?”

She wasn’t offended by the suggestion at all. It had been put to her before. “My father was no kid,” she said. “He didn’t have women on his mind at all. If he really wanted somebody she’d be only one phone call away, if you know what I mean. Besides, the section where he was mugged was not a place where prostitutes hung out. It was a seedy, small industrial area. Garages, used auto parts places, junkyards, things like that.”

“And he was mugged.”

Judy nodded. “He was well dressed. He was a perfect target.”

“And he should have known better.”

“Yes,” she answered sadly.

“I was just thinking.”

“Thinking what?”

“Somebody else might have known better.”

Very gradually a frown began to crease Judy’s forehead. She folded her lower lip between her teeth a moment before she asked, “What are you telling me, Mako?”

“Could your father have been lured there, Judy?”

“No.” Her statement was emphatic. “He’d be too smart for that. Under unusual circumstances he’d always be well protected.”

“He carry a gun?”

“He didn’t have to. He had professional guards who did.” She let her breath out with a small hiss. “I’ve wondered about that too... his being alone, that is. It was as if... he were going to meet somebody... but he certainly wouldn’t have picked that sort of a place to conduct business.” She paused, her mind wandering back to that night. “I contacted his security offices and he had not asked for any protection at all. His business in Miami was with reputable people and conducted in an office. When it had been completed, Daddy shook hands with everyone and went down to his car.”

“He drive himself?”

“No, he always rented a small town car and driver.”

“And where did the driver take him?”

“He didn’t. He said Daddy told him he was going to walk and dismissed him right there. In fact he even signed the trip ticket so the driver wouldn’t get into trouble. He was one of the Mariel Cubans trying to make a go of it in Miami, but he couldn’t speak good English yet.”

“The cops checked all of this out, then?”

“Every detail.”

“They missed one,” Mako told her.

“What’s that?”

“Why it happened.”

“Mako... he was mugged. He just decided to walk and went in the wrong direction.”

“But he didn’t do things like that, did he?”

“I don’t know. Everybody else says it was unusual and not very smart, but Daddy did things that were unusual too.”

“But smart,” Mako added.

“Yes.”

“Was his business meeting successful?”

“Yes. The police checked that out too.” She stopped then, turned and looked up at Mako thoughtfully. “What are you getting to?” she demanded.

Again he shook his head. “It’s like not getting the punch line on a joke. It’s not supposed to happen that way.”

“The Miami police suggested that too. Then they found out that Daddy was a walker. He frequently took long strolls wherever he was.”

“With somebody?”

“Yes. He always... or nearly always, had a companion or two. But there were enough times that he walked alone to satisfy the investigators.”

“In places like where he was mugged?”

Judy didn’t answer. The logic was all scrambled. It was evident that the same thoughts had run through her mind too. Now her father was dead, nothing could bring him back, his death hadn’t caused her any loss except an emotional one and nothing had erupted in business to make his demise seem suspicious at all.

“Can I ask you something?” Judy suddenly said.

“Sure. Shoot.”

“When we were underwater... that thing that came at us... was that the eater?”

Mako let a few long moments go by before he said solemnly, “Not the one we’re looking for.”

Anthony Pell was in an exuberant mood this night. Having twice photographed evidence of the surreal thing that was wreaking such havoc among the boats, then having an agent of the federal government report an encounter by something huge and unidentifiable, backed up by other witnesses, was making this side trip of Lotusland Productions an economically satisfying one. Bids from the networks had been coming in steadily and the home office was preparing for a gigantic motion picture effort. What they needed was an ending. It had to be so sensational that nothing would ever touch it. The photography had to be exceptional and no expense was to be spared to get the desired result.

The home office had already assigned writers to prepare the script and plot out an ending. It was evident that they thought the whole affair was all wind and no substance, but that’s what made people buy tickets and no matter what, the studio would give it all the substance it needed. How many books had been written about the Bermuda Triangle and how many movies made and how many incidents distorted to make it all look real?

And look what Jaws did for the great white shark.

Smelling big money was what Anthony Pell did best, and he smelled it now. His was only a small percentage of the whole, but it was worth millions and Anthony Pell knew his cut was sufficient for him. He could buy anything he wanted, go where he desired and do what he pleased. As long as he did not get greedy and did his job to his bosses’ satisfaction. For a moment he thought of Tony Pallatzo and grimaced. He didn’t like himself very well then.

A jigsaw puzzle is a box full of unrelated pieces, but if you can separate out the parts that make four ninety-degree angles, you have the corners and everything else fits inside them. They were the easiest parts. The real work is sorting out the bits and pieces that make up the body of the picture. Mako could mentally visualize the corners, now he had to start arranging all the loose parts into reasonable order.

And he didn’t like that word, “reasonable.”

Anthony Pell was beyond reason. He was a piece from another puzzle, another time. He was out of place in this one, but why and how, Mako couldn’t quite fathom. But it would come. It would need some prodding and some urging, but it would come.

Mako gave a single sharp rap on the door to the stateroom and heard footsteps, and there was the new face of an old streetwise punk he had known a long time; he decided to play along in the game, and he gave Judy’s hand a soft squeeze under his arm.

Hooker shook Anthony Pell’s hand and felt the hardness in his grip. The clasp was stronger than it had to be for an ordinary greeting. It was like a warning, Hooker thought, that Anthony Pell was a very determined man, a hard man, one who let nothing get in his way. You knew it in the strength of his hand, even though his smile was affable and his eyes laughing.

Hooker played the same game too. Nothing gave in his fingers and he was smiling too. For the briefest of a second, Pell looked surprised, then reconsidered any ideas he might have had that they were simply two physically fit men meeting again.

“You certainly have brought good fortune to this trip, Mr. Hooker. The film we have... with reenactments and additional coverage, is going to make a great movie.”

“You missed the big show on the island,” Hooker told him.

“Oh, not at all. We had somebody covering the boat that caught the eater in its nets... all that activity looking at the tooth mark. Hell, you are even in some of the film, Mr. Hooker.”

“I’ll have to get a SAG card,” Mako said.

Pell went on as if he hadn’t heard him at all. “Even the natives were great. The stories they had to tell! They probably exaggerated them, but there’s no doubt that they were completely unrehearsed. And what actors they were, the way they agreed to everything we said.”

“How’d you get them to hold still for a camera? I didn’t see any equipment on the beach.”

“Technology, Mr. Hooker. We have the latest miniaturized equipment made. Film sensitive beyond belief. It can be carried in a woman’s purse, a lunch box, practically anything that makes it unseen. You’d never even suspect that a movie with sound, in full color, was shot.”

Caustically, Mako asked him, “How is it powered?”

“That, my friend,” Pell told him, “is our secret.”

As though he had never heard of the new use of handheld digital cameras, Mako simply said a quiet, “Oh?”

The way Mako said that made Pell’s eyebrows come together. Then he smiled and said, “It’s not solar power, Mr. Hooker.”

Very offhandedly, Hooker said, “No, of course not.” Then he smiled too.

“It’s a bit of a secret,” Pell explained, for a moment unsettled by Hooker’s tone.

“You think you’ll have enough material for a movie?”

Pell laughed softly. “Hollywood, Mr. Hooker. If we don’t have enough, we’ll invent it. No trouble at all.”

Hooker asked, “What do you think this eater thing is?”

“Does it really matter? Even if it’s only a figment of some islander’s imagination, it will make a great story. Besides, whatever it is, we can come up with something better.”

Judy stepped forward and held up her hand. “Just supposing, though, that this... this eater is real...”

“Look, you know...”

“We don’t know, Mr. Pell. We just know that something is there and something is doing all these things. We’re not in an international conspiracy or a political squabble... we’re in the middle of something that has never happened before, something...”

“Extraterrestrial?” Pell interrupted.

“Who can tell,” Judy blurted, her face turning red.

Changing the subject, Mako said, “Could be better than The Lost King or Mineshaft.”

“Oh, you saw them?”

“Enjoyed them too. Pretty damn exciting. I know how the demolition company took down those old hotels, but how’d you get those close-ups?”

“The new technology, Mr. Hooker. We had already planted cameras that gave almost on-scene photography. No special lens work... just our new equipment. Great stuff, hey?”

“Sensational. What really got me was blowing up those bridges. Somebody is great at making miniature sets and...”

“Ah, no. No miniaturization at all. Those were real bridges.”

“How did you arrange for that?” Judy asked in a tone that was unbelieving.

Anthony Pell took on a subtle air of superiority. “Very simple. There still are several old unused bridges built by the railroads early in this century. There were two more in South America we used for covering shots too. We did a public service by taking them down; they were in such bad disrepair. Made a fine movie sequence, didn’t it?”

“Who handled the charges? You get some of the old army pros from World War Two?”

Pell gave his smug laugh again. “No, we simply hired a genius right out of the ranks of the experts that took down those condemned buildings.”

“Great,” Hooker said.

“Cost a pretty penny,” Pell added.

Hooker thought, And what is he making being an assistant prop boy and making snide remarks without getting his behind kicked? And what kind of a cussing-out did he get for not blowing up Hooker’s boat like he was supposed to? The slob might have known explosives, but he was a loser when it came to the intricacies of magnetic compasses. That son of a bitch had tried to take him out, but the order had come from somewhere else and for some good reason. Why?

The bartender came over and took their empty glasses. “Another?” he asked. All three held up their hands in a “had enough” sign.

Judy explained that they were going to the Midnight Cruise ship for a visit and invited Anthony Pell, but he declined, saying he had work to do on board Lotusland.

When they got to the boarding ladder Chana and Lee Colbert were there and Lee wanted to go back to the Tellig, but Kim accepted Judy’s invitation to join them on the cruise ship for a while. When Chana and Lee stepped into one inflatable, they slid into the other. The sailor handling the big Johnson outboard touched the ignition button and the engine came alive; and when he put it in gear, it started skimming its way toward the porthole lights and the bunting-and-flag-decorated decks of the great vessel.

It was a quiet night, the ocean flat again, a warm breeze churning up a delicious salty smell in the night air. This time there were no luminous streaks trailing behind fast-moving night predators in the water. Nothing flapped on the surface. Behind the inflatable the trail of the propeller made a bubbly path barely visible in the light of the rising moon.

Had anyone been looking, they would have seen a sudden break in the propeller track. It was wide and momentary. It was moving. It wiped out the track, then it was gone. But something had been there.

They were approaching the cruise ship from the starboard side; the sailor listened to a voice from his handheld radio, received an order and acknowledged it, then turned toward the stern, cleared it nicely and came up on the port side of the ship. As they skirted alongside, Mako’s eyes roamed the steel sides, scanning the portholes, taking in the large cargo doors that opened at dockside to take on supplies. Another smaller one was closer to the waterline and just before they reached the loading platform there was another, its sliding door slowly coming down, several sailors inside the ship guiding it, apparently repairing a malfunction.

When the outboard was cut off, muted music flowed down from the deck above, and over it were the squeals of delighted women and the louder voices of the men. Uniformed sailors helped them out of the inflatable, most of them recognizing Judy and saying hello to her. She treated them like they were friends, not hired hands in her business.

Mako said, “You have a lot of admirers here, kiddo.”

“Oh, they all worked for my father in the old days.”

“The young ones too?”

Judy laughed pleasantly. “They’ve just heard about me.”

“You leave quite an impression, lady.”

When they reached the deck Marcus Grey was waiting for them. He took Judy’s hand as if she were the queen, helped Kim onto the deck, then jokingly said to Mako, “I assume you’re much too vigorous to need any help from me, young man.”

“Oh, I could use a little push now and then,” Mako told him.

“Not from what I hear, sir. You seem to have quite a reputation of your own.”

“And what would that be, Marcus?” Judy inquired.

“For one thing, that business on the dive today. You seem to have come up something of a hero.”

“I don’t remember doing anything special except getting out of there.”

Marcus Grey smiled a little bit, creases forming around his mouth. “One of the divers saw you with a knife in your hand taking a big swipe at whatever it was attacking you.”

“Pure reflex, Mr. Grey. I was in the rear and had more time to size the situation up.”

“And what did you see?” Plain curiosity edged his voice.

“Frankly, nothing identifiable,” Mako told him. “It was simply big. The sand cloud obscured everything.”

“The diver said you stabbed at it...”

“Come on, Mr. Grey. What good would a six-inch blade be against something that huge? Everybody saw that much anyway. The damn thing came right toward us so fast, the current made us tumble around like driftwood. Hell, that was about all any of us felt.”

Strangely enough, just that much seemed to please the old man. There was a real future to be made in the unknown. It could be given teeth and direction and with the right promotion a mystic quality, a “something” that lurked. A “something” that was always there, ready to have a new story built around it, a new moneymaking prospect.

“Well,” Grey said, “the whole episode has really given the passengers something to talk about. This has been the most exciting part of the entire trip for them.” He paused and tilted his head to a listening position. “And what have you for them tomorrow?”

Before he could answer, Kim said, “We’re going on another dive. Why don’t you have the old folks ride on top of us in the inflatables? The weather is supposed to be clear and the seas calm.”

“Miss Sebring...”

“Oh, come on. Because they’re still dancing waltzes doesn’t mean they’re out of action. I bet plenty of them are experienced small boaters. They may not see anything, but just thinking about it ought to give them a kick.”

“Yes, quite. I see what you mean. Well, I certainly will suggest it and see what happens. I just hope they don’t want to take up deep-sea diving as a sport. It would be a rather strange bit to advertise, don’t you think?”

“Whatever they can afford, give them,” Kim told him.

“My dear Miss Sebring,” Grey said, with his accent showing, “these people can afford anything they want. Anything at all. Money is merely a toy to them.”

“Toys can break,” Kim said.

“And they can be repaired or new ones bought. Theirs is another world, young lady.”

“Fine, Kim, fine. Let him see what he’s missing. Unfortunately, all the ships are completely sold out for the next three months, but after we get the new ports opened and built, we’ll be adding two more vessels to the line.”

Just going to the main ballroom, Mako was amazed at the brazen effrontery of luxury. There were the rich and the rich rich, but this group was in a class by itself. The jewels on the ladies were so big that they seemed artificial, but the men’s finery was nearly the opposite. The clothes they wore were made by the most expensive tailors in the world, yet worn with casual indifference. Here and there would be a man in knee breeches and another in Bermuda shorts, but the mark of the money was there in every detail. A simple nod would bring them a drink and one word was enough to send the wife or mistress away while they had a business conference in a corner somewhere.

Silently Mako took it all in. At the casino he looked at bored faces winning or losing millions, not caring one way or another. Well-built waitresses made them smile and the liveried stewards took care of the women’s needs.

There were six gambling casinos on board, all well filled, and Mako said, “Vegas should do this good.”

“Now you know why the Midnight Cruise lines were set up.”

“How long do the passengers ship out for?”

“Oh, they can leave anytime,” Judy said. “Generally they take the full cruise for three months, but they always come back. I’d say that nearly everybody on this trip has been on two others. They like the excitement, you know.”

“Baloney. They should be home in bed.”

“Try telling them that.” Judy glanced at her watch. “Let’s go down a deck and you can see what makes this ship tick.”

It wasn’t the first time Hooker had been in the bowels of a ship. This was one of the new breed, well constructed, designed for comfort and speed, the first to benefit the clients, the second to outrace storm systems. No expense had been spared in its construction, including a completely equipped hospital operating room and a helicopter kept below deck on a lift ready to be hoisted to the deck for emergency action. They walked past the still-opened cargo hatch doors, where the off duty crew gathered to have a beer and talk about girls. Judy knew some of them too. A little farther down a door was built into the bulkhead unlike any other doors. This one was of solid steel, hung on extra large but practically concealed hinges.

“Captain’s lounge?” Mako joked.

“No, the money room,” Judy said. “It’s right beneath the bank upstairs. Cash from the games comes down the chutes to be counted and wrapped.”

“And...?”

“Beats me. It’s only money.” She waved her thumb toward the overhead. “To them, play money.”

“The government ever check on this operation?”

“Not on the high seas,” Judy told him.

Mako nodded, thinking about that little door almost at the waterline. It would have been an entry to the money room. Or an exit. But what the hell for? He hoped it was mighty watertight.

“It is.” Judy laughed.

“What?”

“Watertight. That’s what you were thinking, weren’t you?”

“Yeah. You a mind reader?”

“No, but I’ll tell you what it’s for. When we go into different ports where we have our own landings, the passengers who want to gamble onshore have to use local currency. The funds are delivered through that lock. And believe me, it isn’t just a cargo door... it’s more like an airlock on a space orbiter.”

“Foolproof?”

“As much as possible. It can’t be assaulted by a team, it’s easily defended and has twenty-four-hour security. Money may be spent easily around here, but our passengers want good care taken of it.”

“Any attempts at robbery?”

“Don’t be silly. One government tried a bribery scam, but their head man had a fifteen-minute chat with one of the passengers and came away white as a sheet and shaking like a kid sent to the principal’s office.”

“Who was the passenger?”

“You wouldn’t want to know,” Judy told him. “He runs huge corporations, dictates to senators and congressmen and gets called for advice by the president.”

“Cute,” Mako said.

“Very,” she answered.

The storm came in just before midnight. It was one of those freakish upheavals of nature that in one hour can turn a flat sea into rolling waves with tops whipped into white froth by a screaming wind. The gale ripped and tore at anything movable, as if it had teeth and jaws, wrenching apart metal things and smashing whatever offered it resistance.

Mako had smelled it coming and got Judy into the cabin of the Clamdip while Billy Bright did a final check on the lines. There were three anchors out, the oversize ones Billy had suggested when Mako bought the boat. The chains were new and the bow of the boat headed into the wind, splitting the waves that charged down on it. The rain was a vicious, driving enemy that tried to smash the windows out, but they held in spite of the pressure.

Talking was almost impossible. The wild fury of the wind was a pounding symphony, pure almost deafening noise only a driver of a Sherman tank in a raging battle could understand.

Judy put her mouth to Mako’s ear. He couldn’t hear what she said, but he knew and nodded, made an okay sign with his fingers and gave her a big grin.

Billy Bright knew his boss was faking it, yet for some reason he felt secure. They all stood there bundled in their life jackets, each one equipped with an electronic beacon device that would alert air traffic to their positions if they got knocked overboard. He touched the throttles up a bit as the wind got stronger, letting the engines keep the strain off the anchor lines. He had a funny look on his dark face and when Mako looked at him he knew what it meant.

The Carib wasn’t frightened by the storm. He had lived with them enough during his lifetime to know them. He knew the boat, and although it was an old wooden one, it was maintained beautifully. It could take the beating the storm was giving it.

What bothered Billy was the night. And the eater. A surface storm could be enough to rouse that thing below and there would be no way at all to avoid it. They were held tightly to the bottom in seventy feet of water and if the eater could roam in that depth, they could be dead meat.

Mako and Judy were holding hands. With their free ones, they grasped the built-in handholds of another sort. Nobody heard Billy when he said, “Crazy ‘Mericans. Storm up here, eater down below. Pretty soon they be kissing!” He grinned at the thought and shut up.

A half mile away there was an awakening below. It was a subtle rolling motion, a mere disturbance. The storm had come in too quickly, spending its force with a single, paralyzing punch that might destroy an unprepared opponent but just stagger a real pro who was ready for it. The force of its might was on the surface only, never quite gravitating down to any appreciable depth. The disturbance was merely a nudge that didn’t awaken the sleeping giant at all. The gentle drift of the current kept it in constant movement and when it was ready it would find what it wanted.