Extinct (26 page)

*   *   *

The
Intuitive
passed under the Highway 90 bridge. Ahead was the old abandoned bridge that once served the traffic between Biloxi and Ocean Springs. Beyond the abandoned bridge was the third bridge crossing the bay, the railway bridge with its open span angling up toward the sky. Ahead of the bridges the moonlight cast the water in an almost daylike brilliance. Alan looked over his shoulder at the running lights of a Bertram entering the bay and cruising past the Education Center.

Carolyn lifted the mike to her mouth. “Kevin.”

The voice came back almost immediately.
“Yeah, Carolyn.”

“Did you see the flotsam?”

“Yeah, what happened?”

“Our friends with the dynamite on the river today—looks like they finally had enough beer. I’m pulling up the channel toward the river.”

“Roger, Carolyn, I’ll pull straight across toward Ocean Springs.”

The
Intuitive
passed underneath the railway bridge.

Ahead of them on the shore off to the left, the big double doors at the rear of the building housing American Aquaculture, Inc. stood open. Bright light from inside the spacious rear half of the building shone out toward the water.

*   *   *

Ho, his long hair hanging down his back, his hands in the pockets of his lab coat, grinned as he stared at the half-dozen mature redfish females circling the sides of the fingerling tank. Flown by private jet into the Gulfport/Biloxi Regional Airport two hours before, the fish were obviously no worse for the long trip from Los Angeles, having taken quickly to their new surroundings and eagerly gone after the food pellets he had dropped into the tank. “Chang know beauties when he see them,” Ho said, speaking to himself. Then he directed his words to the fish. “You see soon that you have good job here—all benefits free. And…”—he held up a slim finger to make his point—“you never be eaten here.”

He turned and walked toward a narrow three-foot-long aquarium sitting in a wheelbarrow by the wide, double doors leading out to the bay. In the water behind the glass a thin rubber hose bubbled oxygen to an eighteen-inch red-fish slowly moving its fins.

“You have been good, fruitful mother,” Ho said. “Now you go back to your life.” Stepping around to the rear of the wheelbarrow, he lifted the hose from the aquarium, then caught the wheelbarrow’s long wooden handles and tilted its legs up from the floor.

A moment later he passed out the doors toward the waters of the bay glistening in the bright moonlight.

He stood a few seconds at the edge of the shore staring at the charter boat moving along the channel toward the Biloxi River. Then he lifted a square piece of foam rubber from out of the wheelbarrow and dipped the piece into the bay water at his feet. Next he slipped the section into the aquarium, slid it under the fish, gently wrapped the soft rubber around the fish’s body, and lifted the water-soaked section and the fish out of the aquarium to his chest. The fish wiggled, twisted.…

“Now, now. Be good woman for moment longer.” The fish wiggled again. Water running down the front of his lab coat from the lively bundle, Ho stepped into the bay and waded out from the shore. “Now, now,” he was saying as he went farther and farther, the water climbing up his legs.

Soon, he was up to his thighs in the warm water. He took two more steps and, up to his hips now, gently lowered the foam rubber into the water and opened it.

The redfish moved a few inches. Its fins fanned slowly.

“Go ahead,” Ho said. “Find friends, and have good life.”

With a sudden swipe of its tail, the fish shot forward a couple of feet in the water, slowed a moment, then dove out of sight.

Ho grinned.

The sudden great splash off to his left was as loud as a truckload of lumber falling into the water. He jerked his head toward the sound.

The great shark’s back was above the surface, the water line running along under its dark eyes. Ho screamed and stumbled backward, sitting into the water and flailing his arms to regain his feet. The shark shot forward, ground to a sudden stop, twisted its body, swiped its tail hard to the side, and moved forward again. Ho regained his footing and moved backward rapidly. His heel caught on a pipe lying on the bottom and again he sprawled backward, fought his way up, and came to his feet.

More than half of the shark’s thick body was now above the waterline. The charred section of its wide head contrasted vividly with the rest of its gray color. Dark red blood seeped from a hole in its nose. The pectoral fins, sticking rigidly out into the water, splashed like giant boat paddles as the creature rocked from side to side—and scooted forward again.

Ho screamed and kicked his knees toward the shore. The shark, now squirming frenetically, flicking its tail back and forth rapidly, could move forward no more. Blood pumped from the hole in its nose.

*   *   *

Alan and Carolyn had heard Ho’s high-pitched scream even over the loud hum of the
Intuitive
’s engines. Alan had quickly pulled in the line trailing behind them. Now, white waves rolling out to the sides of its bow, the boat sped toward the great shark writhing on the submerged mudflat forty feet from the bank. Carolyn opened the cabinetlike doors of the locker built into the bulkhead under the steering wheel. She pulled out a revolver wrapped in an oilcloth. Alan took it from her and unwrapped it—a thirty-eight-caliber Smith & Wesson with its lead slugs shaved flat at the end. Deadly to a man or a five-or six-foot shark, but next to useless against the twenty-five-foot monster ahead of them.
He remembered.
“Where are some matches?”

Carolyn looked at him.

“The dynamite, Carolyn—matches, where are they?”

“In the drawer by the stove.”

He turned, caught the top of the ladder, and swung down into the fishing cockpit. A moment later he lifted the heavy cardboard box up onto the sink in the cabin and ripped it open. Seconds later he was twisting the tip of an ice pick around inside the end of a stick of the explosive. He grabbed for the box of percussion caps.

*   *   *

Carolyn looked at the depth sounder, grabbed for the throttles, and jerked them back and put the engines out of gear. The
Intuitive
’s bow rose on its own wave and plowed into the soft mud, shuddering to a stop, throwing her into the wheel and Alan, coming around the cabin with a double handful of the sticks of dynamite, hard against the rail. He regained his balance and rushed around the Zodiac inflatable on the forward deck to the bow.

Fifty feet away, the shark, its wide head charred and blood pumping from its nose, began to slide backward into deeper water.

Alan quickly struck a match and touched it to the fuse protruding from one of the sticks. The fuse smoked. He drew his hand back over his shoulder and whipped his arm forward.

The stick tumbled slowly end over end as it arched through the air and splashed into the water a few feet out in front of the shark’s head.

Seconds passed.

The shark slid farther backward into the deeper water.

A muffled thump, the water boiled and foamed, and the shark reared its head and splashed back down into the water.

A second fuse smoked. Alan watched it as it slowly turned brown. He kept waiting.

“Alan.”

He suddenly raised his arm and whipped the stick forward. It flew across the water with less of an arch than the first one, hit the shark in front of the dorsal fin, bounced into the air and off to the far side of the thick body—and exploded in a ball of fire and a crescendo of noise.

The shark’s head jerked violently away from the explosion. Its mouth gaped wide. The wave of the blast slammed a hard wall of hot air back against Alan. He held the match to another fuse.

With a great shudder of its body, the shark slid backward fully into the deeper water and submerged except for its thick fin. The fin leaned sharply to the side, the great body flipped around in the water, throwing a wave out toward the
Intuitive,
and the creature raced away from the boat.

Alan stared helplessly, then threw the stick as far after the shark as he could. It hit in the water and went under.

The
Intuitive
’s engines roared in reverse. The water foamed around the props. Carolyn jerked the throttles back and jammed them forward again. The boat’s stern pulled down in the water. A great dark cloud of silt spread out to the sides of the boat.

A hundred feet behind the racing fin the dynamite exploded with a muffled thump and the water boiled.

Carolyn jerked the throttles back again and then forward once more. Smoke poured from behind the boat. There was a loud sucking sound. The bow moved backward a foot—and then broke loose from the mud’s grip.

The
Intuitive
shot backward, its blunt stern pushing a wall of water before it. A hundred yards away now, the fin began to drop lower and lower in the water—and disappeared.

CHAPTER 31

The
Intuitive
moved slowly, Carolyn keeping her eyes glued to the depth sounder as she weaved her way around the mudflats.

Ahead of them the fin had emerged above the surface once more, and now moved slowly as the shark angled toward the marked channel running in the direction of the Biloxi River.

“It’s twenty to thirty feet deep where the river connects to the bay,” Carolyn said. “If he gets there, it’ll be like trying to find him in the Pascagoula all over again.”

“Carolyn,”
the voice said over the radio.
“Where?”

She grabbed the mike. “Kevin, it’s a couple hundred yards ahead of us, south of the main channel, moving toward the river.”

Alan looked at the Bertram racing down the channel out to their side.

“I see it,”
Kevin said.
“I have a rifle if I can get to it before it reaches deeper water.”

*   *   *

The thick fin began to rise higher. It stopped, edged to one side, rippled backward in the water, and moved in another direction. It came to a halt again, and half of its upper body came up out of the water.

“It’s blocked off,” Alan said.

The spotlight from the Bertram illuminated the shark’s body in a bright, circular beam. The first shots were heard as only light cracks. Tiny sparks of flame jumped from the rifle barrel. The slugs hit in the water around the shark’s head and ricocheted toward the shore.

The next two rapid shots slammed into the shark’s side, and the thick body jerked sideways into the deeper water. The fin turned and came back the same way it had gone, slowing once, then gaining speed again.

“It’s trying to find where it came in,” Carolyn said.

The distance between them and the fin began to narrow. Alan stepped to the rear of the flying bridge, caught the rail and swung down into the fishing cockpit.

In the cabin he gathered the coil of fuse, the box of percussion caps, and several sticks of dynamite, and held them to his chest as he came back out the door, up onto the forward deck, and hurried to the bow. Dropping to his knees, he began to work on the end of a stick with the ice pick.

The shark turned toward shore.

Carolyn spun the wheel that way, then grabbed for the throttles and yanked them back. Alan had to press his hand against the deck to keep from toppling forward.

The
Intuitive
coasted forward, then jerked to a full stop as Carolyn threw it into reverse. The water bubbling up in a great, violent torrent out to the sides of the props, the boat began to back away from the mudflat it had approached.

A moment later, Carolyn angled the bow off to the side and eased the throttles forward again.

The shark neared the shore and swung back in the direction of the river.

Alan came to his feet. He held two sticks of dynamite crudely tied together with a length of fuse. Two other fuses projected from the ends of the sticks and were twisted together into one cord. He stared at the fin.

Carolyn watched the depth sounder as she eased the wheel to the right. The water beneath the keel began to deepen again and she slowly moved the throttles forward. The Bertram was working its way out of the marked channel ahead of them and slowly making its way in the direction of the fin.

Flashes jumped from the rifle barrel.

The fin suddenly swerved and, racing now, sprays of water beginning to build out to its sides once more, came directly at the
Intuitive.
Alan watched it narrowing the distance between them. He held two of the matches pressed together between his thumb and forefinger.

A hundred yards.

Ninety yards.

The fin continued straight toward the
Intuitive.

Eighty yards.

Seventy yards.

“It’s going to try to come by us!” Carolyn shouted. She looked at the depth sounder, moved her hand toward the throttles, then stopped it as the water began to deepen again.

Ahead of the
Intuitive
the fin began to sink lower as it sped toward them.

“This is the way it came in!” Carolyn shouted.

Fifty yards.

Alan cupped the small box of matches against his chest to shield it from the wind, held the heads of the two single matches close against the box, and raised the dynamite close to his hand.

Forty yards.

The fin suddenly cut sharply toward shore. It rose rapidly. The eyes came above the surface, the water streaming back under them. Carolyn cut the wheel toward the creature. Fully half of its body was exposed now—and it ground to a sudden stop.

The shark started thrashing, trying to move backward. It bucked violently. Alan struck the matches. They flared brightly and he touched the fire to the fuses.

The shark thrashed its head to the side, tried to turn its long body. Carolyn pulled back on the throttles. Alan lofted the doubled sticks of dynamite into the air.

They arched end over end, landed next to the head, splashing water up across the eye—and exploded in a ball of flame.

The shark’s pectoral fin rolled into the air. The head went over on its side into the water.