Meg_A Novel of Deep Terror Read online

  MEG

  REVISED AND EXPANDED EDITION

  Steve Alten

  Dedicated to my father

  LAWRENCE ALTEN

  A kinder soul never lived…

  &

  WADE MALLER

  A friend to all who left us far too soon…

  Preface

  Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror is the first in a series of four (soon to be five) thrillers about Carcharodon megalodon, the 70-foot, 70,000 pound prehistoric cousin of the Great White shark. Imagine a shark as big as two Greyhound buses, with a jaw wide enough to eat an African elephant in two gi-normous bites, and you have Meg.

  Yes, these monsters were quite real. Their existence is proven by their fossilized teeth—which can reach more than seven inches in length. I own several teeth and have held in my hand the largest tooth ever found—a seven-and-a-half-inch whopper owned by a friend, the late Vito Bertucci, who drowned tragically while searching for Meg teeth in a Georgia river.

  Could Megalodon still be alive, inhabiting the deep waters of the abyss, as Jonas Taylor claims?

  In answering this frequently-asked question, I turn to the facts.

  Fact: Fossilized Megalodon teeth indicate the monster was around as little as 100,000 years ago and perhaps as little as 10,000 years ago (read the prologue in the prequel, Meg: Origins, an excerpt for which you'll find at the back of this book). This means that at least some Megalodons escaped the severe oceanic climate changes brought about by the last Ice Age.

  Fact: Anyone who insists Megs don’t exist because we haven’t seen one confuses their limited concept of reality with real science. Sharks, being fish, have no need to surface to show any humans who happen to be conveniently passing by in a boat (how many ships frequent the deep waters away from land?) their telltale dorsal fins.

  Fact: Dead sharks don’t wash ashore or float, they sink—their carcasses eaten, their skeletons (cartilage) dissolving, leaving behind only teeth.

  Fact: We know less about our own ocean’s deepwater than distant galaxies. Oceans cover 70 percent of our planet. Less than 5 percent of the world’s oceans have been explored, and less than 1 percent of the abyss has been accessed. In fact, prior to 1977, scientists were convinced life couldn’t exist at the bottom of the ocean because there was no daylight—ergo no photosynthesis. How wrong they were! When we actually went down (in the Alvin submersible), lo and behold! There was life.

  Several months after Meg was published, two important discoveries related to my Meg “theories” came to light.

  The first took place in the deep waters of the Atlantic Ocean, where scientists discovered a warm ceiling or plume hovering over a vent field.

  The second took place in the Sea of Japan, not far from the Mariana Trench. Scientists lowered a bait box and video camera down to six thousand feet and discovered a new species of shark. It was twenty-four feet long!

  The biggest news broke in 2002 when hydrothermal vents were discovered in the Mariana Trench. It was five years after Meg hit stores.

  Where there are vents, there is sea life.

  So enjoy Meg for what is—fiction flavored with fact. But remember—one day if you are watching the news and see a seven-foot dorsal fin caught on camera…

  I told you so!

  With heartfelt thanks,

  —Steve Alten, Ed.D.

  July 2011

  Acknowledgments

  In August of 1995, inspired by a TIME article on the Mariana Trench and a photo of six nerdy scientists seated in a giant shark jaw, I began working on the manuscript that would eventually become MEG: A Novel of Deep Terror. Thirteen months later, having lost my job as GM of a wholesale meat company (on Friday 13th, 1996… my lucky day) the manuscript became part of a bidding war and I had my first publishing deal. It’s been a rollercoaster ride ever since—MEG alone having been optioned three times as a movie. As I write this acknowledgment Warner Bros. is casting a summer 2017 release.

  This is not the book published by Bantam/Doubleday in the summer of 1997. Having written an ebook prequel several years ago called MEG: ORIGINS, I wanted to combine that story with MEG, only the quality of writing simply didn’t mesh—twenty years having matured me as an author. And so I rewrote the entire novel, extending scenes and developing characters while including artwork which enhances the reading experience. I’m excited to present this “new & improved” version of MEG to you, while acknowledging those who contributed to the novel, my career, and (fingers crossed) the upcoming movie.

  To my partners at VIPER PRESS—my close friend, Mark Maller, manager Tim Schulte, marketing guru Michelle Colon-Johnson, and our tireless, never-say-die lead producer of MEG, Belle Avery. A very special thanks to attorney John Jessee.

  To my personal team: Barbara Becker for editing my work and for her dedication over the last ten years as a volunteer and supervisor in the Adopt-An-Author program and to my webmaster Doug McEntyre at Millennium Technology Resources for his excellence in preparing my monthly newsletters and maintaining the Steve Alten website. To Erik Hollander, my gifted graphic artist who has been creating my cover art for years and James Gelet, for all of his amazing book trailers. Thanks as well to artists Bill McDonald, Tan Ngo, and underwater photographer Malcolm Nobbs for their contributions.

  My heartfelt appreciation to my literary agent Danny Baror and Heather Baror-Shapiro at Baror International, my attorneys Joel McKuin and Rob Goldman and my former manager Ken Atchity at AEI, to whom I owe so much of my early success. And to the publishers, editors, and individuals who have contributed to the MEG franchise—Nick Nunziata, Ed Davidson, Tom Doherty, Bob Gleason, John Scognamiglio, Eric Raab, Whitney Ross, Scott Gere and Mike Donovan at Gere Donovan Press, Trish Stevens at Ascot Media Group, and the staffs at Bantam/Doubleday, Kensington/Pinnacle, Tor/Forge, Rebel Press, and Cedar Fort Books… my gratitude.

  Finally, to my wife and soul mate, Kim, our children, my parents, and especially to the MEGheads: Thank you for your correspondence and contributions. Your comments are always a welcome treat, your input means so much, and you remain this author’s greatest asset.

  Steve Alten, Ed.D.

  To personally contact the author or learn more about his novels, go to www.SteveAlten.com

  The MEG series is part of ADOPT-AN-AUTHOR, a free nationwide program for Secondary School students and teachers. For more information, go to www.AdoptAnAuthor.com

  Meg: Origins

  By Steve Alten

  Prologue

  Aboard the H.M.S. Challenger

  Philippine Sea

  October 5, 1874

  CAPTAIN GEORGE NARES stood defiantly on the heaving gun deck, his weight giving at the knees as the broiling Pacific tossed his command within the valleys of its fifteen foot swells. Each rolling crest of blue levitated the British warship’s bow, each rise ended with the crash of copper keel meeting ocean. For the Scot, the spray of sea and the flap of canvas from the three mainsails defined the mantra of the past seven hundred-odd days; despite the danger, he much preferred the ocean’s fury to the mission’s incessant ports of call.

  He knew from day one that this command would be far different from his others. Once the flagship of the Royal Navy’s Australia Station, the Pearl-class corvette had been stripped of all but two of her guns and her spars reduced. The extra space had been converted to laboratories brimming with microscopes and chemical apparatus, water sampling bottles and specimen jars filled with alcohol—and not the kind her captain much preferred. In addition to the equipment and labs, the main deck had been altered to accommodate dredging platforms. These stations projected outward along either side of the ship like scaffolds, so that their occupants could work without fear of running afoul of the fore
and main yards. The men who worked on these platforms were scientists, their crew skilled in troweling and dredging the bottom. To accomplish this feat required netting and containers rigged to great lengths of hemp, the coils of rope exceeding 140 miles, with an additional twelve and a half miles of piano wire reserved for sounding gear. Motorized winches released and gathered these lines—a chore that still took most of each work day to accomplish.

  Science was the mission of the H.M.S. Challenger, a voyage of discovery for the two-hundred and forty-three men aboard—a mission that would take four years while trekking nearly 69,000 nautical miles.

  Popular among his men, Nares led with an even temperament; what he lacked in physical stature he more than made up for with his cunning. Standing by the mainsail, he watched with a mixture of trepidation and amusement as a heavily bearded professor warily made his way aft along the swaying deck. “Professor Moseley. What is it to be then?”

  “Sink lines, followed by more dredging. The crew’s been rigging longer lines, the depths seem to have no end in this area of the archipelago.”

  The captain glanced to starboard. For weeks they had been following a course that took them past the Mariana Islands, each mountainous mass carpeted in green jungle. “I would have thought the depths around these islands far more shallow.”

  “As it turns out, these volcanic islands sit in the deepest waters we have yet come upon. The sea bed is ancient, yielding a treasure-trove of fossils and manganese nodules. This morning’s sink line exceeded thirty-five hundred fathoms and still there is no sign of bottom. We had to splice in another…”

  The captain grabbed the teetering scientist and held fast as the bow lifted again, then crashed back into the Pacific. “How soon until a new length of cable can be made ready?”

  “I’m told another twenty minutes.”

  “Very well. Helm, come hard to starboard. Mr. Lauterbach, lower the mainsails; prepare to engage steam engines.”

  “Aye, captain.” The first officer rang his copper bell, the signal mobilizing two dozen crewmen as the Challenger leaned onto its starboard flank to shed the wind within the valley of a swell.

  Captain Nares waited until the scientist disappeared safely down a hold, then returned his gaze to the Pacific, staring hard at the heaving waters.

  Thirty-five hundred fathoms… more than six kilometers of ocean. How deep could these waters run? What strange life forms could they be concealing?

  The depths surrounding this strange archipelago had certainly offered a bounty of clues, from cetacean vertebrae and whale ear bones to thousands of shark teeth, more than a hundred of these manganese-encrusted fragments as large as his hand. Moseley had identified these larger specimens as the genus, Carcharodon, those teeth exceeding four centimeters belonging to the species Megalodon, a true ancient sea monster.

  The spectacular size of the creature’s teeth led to nightly debates in the galley as to whether these sharks might still be alive. The dark lead-gray serrated triangles were fossilized to be sure; only a white specimen would bear proof of the Megalodon’s continued existence. For his part Professor Moseley carefully inspected each haul, hoping to find one ivory treasure among the fragments—so far, to no avail.

  “Some of these fossils are not that old, Captain,” the scientist had cooed the night before last, draining his third brandy. “This tells me the creatures might still be around, prowling the deeper fathoms.”

  “Exactly how big would these mega-sharks of yours be?”

  “Some say thirteen meters, but these fragments tell me different. I’ve held an eighteen centimeter tooth in my hand; its owner had to measure twenty meters from snout to tail.”

  “Good God, man! That’s more than half the length of the Challenger. A creature that size… we’d need a bigger boat. Has any man ever spotted such a beast?”

  “There have been rumors, whalers mostly. Lots of blood in the sea attracts all kinds of sharks.”

  “Attracts them? How so?”

  “Unknown. Perhaps they can taste the blood. Sharks are not my specialty, but a devil like this Megalodon… I'll confess, captain, each time we retrieve the nets I find myself watching the sea, secretly wishing our cast would lure one of these monsters up from the depths, if only so I could lay eyes on such a magnificent animal, surely nature’s most feared creation of all time.”

  Staring at the foam-covered swells, Captain Nares shook his head, trying to imagine a shark that could consume four of his men in one bite, wondering if such a fish could still be alive, inhabiting the unexplored realm harbored by these ungodly depths.

  1

  Aboard the U.S. NAVY DSV-4 support ship: Maxine D

  Philippine Sea

  Present Day

  CAPTAIN RICHARD DANIELSON stood defiantly on the main deck, his ears assaulted by the thirty knot winds swirling southeast across the broiling Pacific. Each gust disturbed the twenty-nine ton beast held aloft above the stern, each sway threatening to tear harness from machinery and cast the “white whale” from its perch.

  For the American naval officer, the spray of sea and the incessant rolling steel beneath his feet were a constant reminder that his scheduled twelve day mission was now entering its third week. A commander who commanded best from behind a desk, Danielson was clearly out of his element. Three years ago he had transferred to the U.S. naval base at Guam seeking a non-combat position where he could spend his days pushing papers until his retirement. Guam was exactly what the doctor ordered—a tropical island paradise brimming with pristine beaches, deep sea sport fishing, and world class golf courses. And the women—exotic islanders and Asian delights. True, the job was flavored with the occasional “readiness at sea” command, but these maritime exercises occupied no more than a few of his days every quarter.

  Danielson knew he was in trouble the day the Maxine D arrived in port. More research ship than naval vessel, the boat was essentially a steel camel designed to transport its charge—a Deep Submergence Vehicle. Unlike his other maritime exercises, his orders were being sent directly from the Defense Department. The DSV’s deployment site was prioritized as top-secret, its location—a six hour voyage from Guam in the Philippine Sea. The DoD had made it clear from the onset that while the Guam Naval Base commander was technically in charge of the tender, the eggheads on board would be running things.

  The problem was that up until last week, barely anything had been running. First it was the A-frame’s winch, then the primary generator, then the DSV’s sonar relay. The seemingly endless breakdown of equipment had rendered Danielson a prisoner to a mission he knew little about, and the eggheads on board only served to irritate him more. Compounding the repeated delays was the weather, which had grown uglier by the day. Danielson had puked-up his last solid meal ten days ago; even the most experienced sailor felt perpetually queasy and hung over.

  Ironically, it was Mother Nature that decreed an end to the mission. P.A.G.A.S.A., the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration, was tracking a powerful category 2 typhoon, dubbed Marian. The name was apropos; the storm’s predicted path would take it south from the Sea of Japan on a long sweeping arc that traced the Mariana Island chain before channeling it farther east away from land. Packing ninety-two-mile-an-hour winds, the typhoon’s eye wall would be upon them in twenty-six hours.

  Protocol should have sent the Maxine D on its way back to Guam, the southernmost island in the chain. At the urging of the scientists on-board, however, the Pentagon had insisted on one last dive on what would be their fourth venture into the Mariana Trench’s Challenger Deep.

  The Mariana Trench was the lowest point on Earth, a seven-mile-deep, 1,550 mile-long, forty mile-wide canyon formed by a volcanic subduction zone. Named after the British research vessel that had dredged its depths more than a century earlier, the Challenger Deep was its deepest section.

  Why the Navy would want to expend time and money to explore this hellhole was beyond Dick Danielson. At this p
oint his only concern was getting the scheduled seventeen hour dive underway as soon as possible, allowing him as large a window as he could get to recapture the DSV, secure it to the deck, and race back to the naval harbor at Guam before Typhoon Marian turned the surface of the Pacific into a watery version of the Himalayas.

  As the outer storm bands played havoc with the teetering Sea Cliff and the DSV’s pit crew struggled to ready its launch, one man was screwing up Captain’s Danielson’s plans.

  · · ·

  The late afternoon sun was hot, the beach crowded. Jonas Taylor rose off the blanket onto his knees, his lower back sore from lying on his stomach. He stretched, then turned his gaze to the model gorgeous blonde stretched out in the beach chair next to him, her tan, oiled breasts two swollen grapefruits in the skimpy red bikini.

  Jonas beckoned his wife to join him for a dip in the ocean.

  Maggie waved him off.

  Jonas jogged to the shoreline. The Pacific was calm, barely a ripple. He strode in up to his waist, joining a dozen other bathers.

  Turning to his right, he saw an Asian boy standing next to him, no more than ten years old. Piercing almond eyes matched an expression of deep concern.

  “Don’t go.”

  Jonas stared at the boy. He scanned the crowd for a potential parent.

  Curious—the other bathers were now gone.

  He turned back to the beach. Maggie was standing, ready to leave. She was no longer in her bikini. Instead she was wearing a topaz dress with stiletto heels. She walked away without so much as a glance.

  Bud Harris was there with her. His best-friend was decked-out in a tuxedo, his slicked back dark hair in a ponytail. Jonas waved at his friend.

  Bud waved back, then followed Maggie up the beach.