Tentacles Read online

  “How long before it hatches?” Grace asked.

  Wolfe shook his head. “I have no idea. It could be hours or days. That’s out of my area of expertise.”

  “I’d say that’s out of everyone’s area of expertise,” Luther said.

  The egg shuddered and something from inside pushed against the tiny opening.

  “I think the hole just got bigger,” Marty said.

  Wolfe bent down for closer look. “Maybe,” he said.

  “Can’t we help it out of the shell?” Luther asked.

  “Not yet,” Wolfe answered. “It’s best to let nature take its course. The hatchling is still adhered to the inside of the egg. It’s feeding off of it. If we remove it prematurely, we might kill it.”

  “What do we do?” Grace asked.

  “We watch,” Wolfe said. “Let me see your Gizmo.”

  Marty handed it to him.

  “I’ve noticed you’ve gotten pretty good with the bot.”

  “I haven’t crashed it,” Marty said.

  Wolfe laughed. “You’ve done better than that. Like yesterday, when you made a perfect six-legged landing and eavesdropped on Al’s and my conversation about pulling the cameras and the sabotage.”

  “You pulled the cameras?” Luther said.

  “Sabotage?” Grace asked.

  “I’ll tell you later,” Marty said. “You knew the bot was there?”

  “Kind of hard to miss a gold dragonfly hanging on a ceiling pipe.”

  “Did Al see it?”

  “I don’t think so,” Wolfe said, typing something on the Gizmo. “Okay, your Gizmo is now fully operational.” He showed them the screen. There was a live video of the eggs. “As you can see, I didn’t have all the cameras removed. This one has been recording the incubation 24/7 since we brought the eggs to Cryptos. You can zoom in by hitting this button.” He demonstrated. “I think we’ll keep it right there for now.” He gave the Gizmo back to Marty.

  “What do you mean by fully operational?” Luther asked.

  “It means that Marty’s Gizmo will now do everything my Gizmo does.”

  “Including turning tracking tags on and off?” Marty asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And opening electronic locks?” Luther asked.

  Wolfe nodded.

  “Bluetooth, right?” Luther said.

  Wolfe gave another nod.

  “I knew it!” Luther said.

  “All you have to do is type in the number or name of the room and hit the SEND button,” Wolfe explained. “But I don’t want you to abuse this ability — meaning I don’t want you to go into any unauthorized areas without permission. The only reason I unlocked your Gizmo is that I’m going to need your help with the eggs now that they’re hatching. I’m going to be busy trying to capture a giant squid, and we’re the only ones who know about the eggs.”

  “We’re not exactly the only people who know about the eggs,” Marty said.

  “What do you mean?”

  Marty told him about his conversation with Theo.

  “What did you tell him?” Wolfe asked.

  “I told him he was crazy,” Marty said. “Which I think he is. And if I were you I would get him off the ship.”

  “Theo is fine,” Wolfe said. “He was just messing with you. I’ll talk to him.”

  “But —”

  “Don’t worry about Theo Sonborn,” Wolfe interrupted. “We have procedures to discuss. I’m going to need one of you in here twenty-four hours a day on four-hour shifts. We’ll add Phil to the rotation when he comes on board and maybe some other trusted people as well, but it’s going to be a short list. We’ll need to keep this quiet. If word gets out that we have a couple of dinosaurs aboard, the media will be all over us. They’ll surround the Coelacanth with anything that floats or flies and that’ll compromise our capture of a giant squid.” He looked at Marty. “You’re going to be the gatekeeper. The only way into this lab is with the new Gizmo. That means if someone needs to be let in, they’ll have to call you. It shouldn’t happen very often because someone should always be inside to open the door. But you are the gatekeeper.”

  Marty liked the sound of that.

  “I’ve switched your tags off. Blackwood and the people he has on board aren’t the only ones we need to worry about. I trust the crew, but if one of them gets wind of this, the temptation to leak it to the media might be too much. The press would pay a lot of money to know there are dinosaurs still on earth.”

  “What are you going to tell Al about our tags being off?”

  “I’ll tell him the truth. Al knows about the eggs and so do Joe and Roy. You don’t have to worry about them. They have been keeping secrets their whole lives.”

  The engines rumbled and they felt the ship slow. Wolfe looked at his watch. “Right on time,” he said. “Phil and Bertha are here.”

  “Who are the third and fourth passengers?” Marty asked.

  “Another scientist and a journalist,” Wolfe answered, looking at Grace. “Do you want to take the first shift?”

  “Sure,” Grace said. “But I’d like to get my Moleskine and maybe a book to read.”

  “Go ahead,” Wolfe said. “But hurry. We need to get topside and meet the sailboat.”

  Grace rushed out of the lab and was back a few minutes later with a book, her Moleskine, and her fountain pen.

  Wolfe, Marty, and Luther left her to meet the sailboat.

  * * *

  The sailboat looked like a rowboat next to the giant Coelacanth.

  By the time Marty, Luther, and Wolfe reached the deck, the sailboat’s crew had disembarked. Phil and Bertha Bishop were talking to Al Ikes. With them were a man, a woman, a boy and a girl a few years older than Marty and Luther, and a very old dog.

  Marty was disappointed to see that crazy Theo Sonborn was not waiting with his gear to leave the Coelacanth and undergo a cavity search by Al Ikes. In fact, none of the crew members had lined up to abandon ship. Al’s disposable gloves would have to wait for another day.

  Bertha walked over and gave Marty a bone-crunching hug and Luther’s weird hair a pat. “Are you boys staying out of trouble?”

  “More or less,” Marty said.

  “Less, I suspect,” Phil said, joining them. “Come on over and meet our ride.”

  Al walked away without a word as Marty and Luther joined the group. Wolfe was talking to the foursome and appeared to be excited about something the boy was telling him.

  “… as the toucan flies,” the boy was saying. “I think that’s pretty close to the preserve.”

  “This is my nephew, Marty,” Wolfe said. “And his friend, Luther.”

  “Rand McKenzie,” the man said with an Australian accent. “But you can call me Mac. This is my wife, Sandra, my daughter, Nicole, and this —” He pointed to the dark-haired boy who had been talking. “— is Jake Lansa, the son of a friend of mine, Dr. Robert Lansa, who just happens to be establishing a jaguar preserve in Brazil not far from where your parents’ helicopter went down.”

  “Sorry to hear about the accident,” Jake said with an American accent.

  “Thanks,” Marty said. “Have you been to the preserve?”

  “I was there a few months ago,” Jake said. “And I’m going back to help my father as soon as we get the sailboat to Australia.” He looked at Wolfe. “The preserve is in the middle of nowhere, and communication is slow, but if I can use your radio room, I can start the process of getting word to my father about the crash.”

  “That would be great,” Wolfe said. “We need all the help we can get.”

  “What’s it like there?” Marty asked, excited to talk to someone who knew the area.

  “It’s an unexplored rain forest,” Jake answered. “But if your parents survived the crash, which it sounds like they did, they could live there indefinitely. There’s plenty of food and water if they know what they’re doing.”

  “They know what they’re doing,” Wolfe affirmed. He looked at Marty and L
uther. “Do you two want to take Jake up to the radio room?”

  “Sure,” Marty said.

  “I’ll go, too,” Nicole said. “It’d be nice to stretch my legs on something bigger than our little sailboat.”

  “I bet it would,” Marty said. The sailboat looked like a bathtub toy compared to the Coelacanth. “Come on.”

  “You’ll have to make it quick,” Mac warned. “There’s a storm coming up behind us and I’d like to stay in front of it if I can.”

  Wolfe nodded and looked at Marty. “Give Jake all of our contact information, including the Gizmo numbers and email.” Then he looked at Jake. “Does your dad have a satellite phone?”

  “Yeah,” Jake said. “But it’s a little hard to get a signal through the canopy.”

  “Give the number to our radio operator. We’ll have him try to reach your dad at regular intervals.”

  “Will do,” Jake said.

  * * *

  Marty and Luther led Jake and Nicole up to the bridge, where the radio room was located. The dog followed.

  “What’s the dog’s name?” Luther asked.

  “Dyna,” Jake said. “Short for Dynamite.”

  “Without a fuse,” Nicole added.

  “I thought you were bringing two more people besides Bertha and Phil,” Marty said.

  “We did.” Jake pointed through the bridge window.

  Two women were walking very slowly up the gangway. One of them was someone Marty knew very well. “I’ll be right back!” He ran out and reached the deck just as the woman stepped on. “Laurel Lee!”

  “Hi, Marty!” Laurel gave him a big hug.

  “Grace is sure going to be happy to see you.”

  “I’ll be happy to see her, too. I’ve missed both of you.”

  Marty looked at the woman with her and saw that she wasn’t doing well.

  “This is Ana —”

  Before Laurel could get the last name out, Ana threw up on Marty’s sneakers.

  * * *

  Butch McCall was leaning on the upper deck railing with a dozen other crew members watching the transfer. He recognized both women, but at the moment he was more concerned about the kids’ tracking tags going offline than he was about Laurel Lee and her friend. Without the tags, it was going to be difficult to avoid bumping into them and impossible to track them. Why did Wolfe switch them off? And where was Grace? He thought for sure she would be with Marty and Luther to meet the sailboat.

  Wolfe swept Laurel Lee off her feet. When he put her down the tiny poodle jumped out of his pocket and into Laurel’s arms. She and Wolfe spoke for a few moments, then he showed her something on his Gizmo. Laurel stared at the Gizmo in wide-eyed surprise, gave Wolfe a quick kiss on the cheek, then hurried away.

  What’s the rush? Butch thought as he started to follow her. He didn’t get very far. A frantic Dr. Lepod intercepted him.

  “Dr. O’Connor, I’m glad I found you,” Lepod sputtered breathlessly. “I’m having another filtration problem in the lab. I need your help.”

  “Sure,” Butch said, watching Laurel rapidly increase her lead. “I’ll try to stop by later.”

  “I was hoping you could do it now,” Dr. Lepod persisted. “It’s serious.”

  At that point the real Butch McCall would have grabbed Dr. Lepod by his white lab coat and used the scientist to troll for sharks. But gentle Dr. Dirk O’Connor would never think of such a thing. Butch watched Laurel trot down a companionway to a lower deck and disappear, then turned to the squidlike scientist.

  “If it’s serious,” Butch said, “let’s take a hook.”

  “Hook?” Dr. Lepod asked.

  Butch smiled. “I meant look.”

  * * *

  The crack had not gotten any bigger, but Grace had seen the egg shudder a couple of times as the hatchling shifted inside its leathery shell. She was acutely aware of the miracle she was observing, but she couldn’t help remembering that one of the hatchling’s relatives had killed her mother and bitten off her father’s leg. She was dealing with these mixed feelings (as she did with all conflicts) by writing in her Moleskine when she heard a light tapping on the laboratory door. She got up, looked through the peephole, and nearly tore the door off the hinges opening it.

  “Laurel Lee!”

  With tears running down her face, Grace threw her arms around the small, birdlike scientist and pulled her into the laboratory.

  “Sorry I missed your birthday,” Laurel said, setting PD on the ground.

  “I didn’t even know you were coming at all!” Grace said. “Wolfe told me that you might stay in the Congo indefinitely.”

  “That was a fib,” Laurel said. “We wanted to surprise you for your birthday. But it took me a couple of days longer than I expected to get out of the Congo. By the time I got to Cryptos you had already left. I flew out with Bertha, Phil, and a journalist named Ana Mika to meet the sailboat.”

  “How’s Masalito?” Grace asked, smiling at the thought of the trusted friend who had helped save them at Lake Télé.

  “He’s fine,” Laurel answered. “I invited him to come with me, but when I told him that we would have to fly on an airplane and sail across an ocean, he turned around and headed back into the jungle.”

  “I’ll bet,” Grace said. “Did Wolfe tell you about the sterile room?”

  “He sure did.” Laurel looked down at PD. “Sorry, but your master said no dogs allowed.” She opened the lab door and scooted the tiny poodle into the hall.

  Grace waited happily for Laurel to get into her scrubs. They entered the incubator room together.

  “I don’t believe it!” Grace said.

  A small dinosaur head and neck were sticking out of the egg that had pipped.

  * * *

  “Thanks again for your help,” Marty said. He was walking Jake and Nicole back to the sailboat. Luther had taken Ana down to the infirmary after asking her if she liked to play chess.

  “No problem,” Jake said. “As soon as my dad gets the message, he’ll put the word out and start looking for your parents. And I meant what I said. They’re probably just lost. It’s easy to get disoriented down there. But there’s plenty of food up in the canopy and it sounds like they’ve had a lot of field experience. There’s a good chance that they’re holed up someplace, figuring out a way to get out.”

  Marty knew that Jake might be mistaken, but the other boy’s confident tone made him feel better. They stepped aboard the sailboat just as Wolfe and Mac were coming up the gangplank.

  “All set?” Wolfe asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Jake said. “Your radio man will probably make contact with my dad before I do, but I sent him a message anyway.”

  “Thanks.”

  “We better push off,” Mac said.

  Marty and Wolfe untied the lines. The little sailboat motored a safe distance away, then unfurled the sheets.

  “That was a good bit of luck running into Jake Lansa,” Wolfe said. “I met his father at a conference once. He’s one of the best field biologists in the world. If I’d known he was working in that area of the Amazon, I would have tried to get in touch with him when I was down there looking for your mom and dad.”

  “Doesn’t sound like it’s easy to get in touch with anybody down there,” Marty said.

  “That’s part of the problem.” Wolfe’s Gizmo buzzed. He put it to his ear and listened. “We’ll be right down!”

  “What’s up?” Marty said.

  “Looks like we have a couple of dinosaurs,” Wolfe said, grinning. “One’s almost all the way out and the other egg is pipping. We’ll pick up Luther from the infirmary on the way.”

  * * *

  Butch stepped out of Lepod’s lab just as Wolfe, Marty, and Luther rounded the corner with foolishly eager grins on their faces. He managed to dart back inside just as the ecstatic trio barreled past him.

  Dr. Lepod was surprised at his abrupt turnaround.

  “I need to check one more thing,” Butch told him. “We can’
t have your filter breaking down in the middle of the night when you’re not here.” And I can’t have Wolfe throwing me into the brig or dumping me on a deserted island if he recognizes me, he thought. He faked a tiny adjustment and turned to his colleague. “That does it. It should be good for the rest of the voyage.”

  “Dr. O’Connor, you’re a godsend,” Dr. Lepod said. “If you ever find yourself looking for another research position, I would be honored to have you join me.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” Butch said, peeking out the doorway. There was no sign of the Cryptos crew, which could mean only one thing: History was being made — or hatched — in Lab Nine.

  Having Wolfe and the kids off the grid was going to be a bigger challenge than Butch had anticipated. One thing he could not disguise was his size. Aside from Wolfe, he was the tallest person aboard the ship. And now there were even more people on board who might recognize him. The only solution was to eliminate a few of them.

  The only one among them who was safe was Grace.

  * * *

  “We can’t call them One and Two,” Grace said. “Those aren’t proper names for a miracle.”

  “Maybe not,” Wolfe said. “But the numbers will help us keep track of which one hatched first. And we don’t know their sex. We can’t give them proper names until after we figure that out.”

  They were all crowded around the incubator, unable to take their eyes off the baby dinosaurs. The hatchlings were miniatures of the adult Mokélé-mbembés, with the same smooth, dark purplish skin, long tails, snakelike necks, alert golden eyes, and rows of tiny, sharp white teeth in their mouths.

  “I think we should call them Marty and Grace,” Laurel suggested. “After all, they’re the ones who found the eggs.”

  “But which is which?” Wolfe said.

  “We can call the first one Marty,” Grace said. “He’s older than me.” She looked at Marty. “At least chronologically.”

  “Very funny,” Marty said. “But I see what Wolfe means. They’re virtually identical except One has a small dark spot on its head that Two doesn’t have. They could be a boy and a girl, two girls, or two boys.”