So Wainwright had begun to collect the human anatomical parts, after at first simply discarding the occasional piece as “expected remnants of shark attacks” which occurred up and down the coast of Florida every season. Dr. Insley had made inane assurances that most victims of shark aggression, while scarred for life, lived past such attacks, but then the number of body parts became too high- and the sheer size of those parts too large-to ignore a moment longer. Ignore it and it will go away seemed Lois Insley’s management style, her modus operandi. Meanwhile, an entire pelvic section dropped from one shark, and there were twenty-five more sharks now being dumped in the cold tanks, forty-seven in all, some ten thousand pounds. How many more human parts might they expect, he wondered and calculated, his prediction frightful.
As for the FBI, who else was he going to call? The frigging EPA? The coast guard? His phone call was put through to the FBI’s forensic laboratories the day before, and he found himself talking to a charming voice on the other end which turned out to be that of Dr. Jessica Coran, who was immediately curious and interested in what they had found. “Dr. Insley,” Wainwright began slowly now, deliberate in his every word, “you might well ignore this heinous, unpleasant side effect of our tournament if you wish; you may have no problem concentrating on the prize for Florida’s Abbott School of Marine and Atmospheric Science laboratory, on the plentiful specimens, more than we possibly know what to do with, but God bless it, woman, I’m a simple man with simple ethics, and I am not willing to ignore the obvious-at least not in this case.”
“ Show me what is so obvious, Doctor!
” He took firm hold of her and moved her to and through the freezer doors, where a vaporous cloud engulfed them, then fought past them to escape into the lab.
Inside the freezer, Wainwright pointed at shelves stacked with body parts and bones. “Look, look closely, Dr. Insley. Do you need the problem put on a string and tied about your neck? This is an uncommon phenomenon, an incredibly high incidence of human parts found in a relatively small, concentrated shark population. It’s neither incidental nor anything less than an abhorrent anomaly. Something had to be done about it. This information could not stay inside these walls. And that’s what I intend to put in my report to the board of governors.” The threat was clearly unveiled.
Checking his now frozen watch, he added, “So, I expect that something will be done when Dr. Coran of the FBI arrives, and I expect that will be soon now.”
“ I cannot believe that you invited FBI operatives into this facility.”
“ Just what’re you afraid of. Doctor? This is the U.S. Government, their official police arm.”
“ I’m afraid of nothing. I… I detest military and paramilitary types of any sort.”
“ They’re coming to see if there’s any connection between our discovery and those missing young women, that’s all.”
“ Suppose they want records? Copies of our work here?”
“ I can’t believe the level of your paranoia, Doctor.” She clenched her teeth and glared up at him. “Our work here must remain secret. Do you know how many others are desperate for our research?” Insley spat her words at him, and as she stormed from the cooler, Wainwright thought he sensed in the cold gloom of the place a warming trend. And rightly so, he thought, the place having rid itself of the woman. He wondered how he might rid himself and the institute of her. She was right to feel a threat, but not from the outside.
Jessica Coran stared out through the thick bubble of the helicopter at a world so far removed from D.C.-and civilization as she knew it-that the place emerged in her sifting mind as a primordial playground set in a time warp. The chopper was generally following the Overseas Highway, built to connect the string of Florida Keys that snaked out into the Gulf on the one side, the Atlantic on the other. The gleaming white strip of sand, concrete and steel that marked bridges and roadways looked, from up here, to be a string of spaghetti, a tenuous connection of palm- sprouting island hideaways without K marts and superstores, only the sporadic shell shop for unique Florida collectibles might be found alongside Texaco signs and near-deserted strip malls at which the bare necessities-bait and beer, tackle and bread, buckets and bologna-could be bought.
There was no want of traffic, however, along the single lanes going north and south, and the sheer expanse of the bridges over the greenest, purest-looking water she’d ever seen was in itself amazing. The bridges were thin connective tissue between the islands, long and narrow and sizzling beneath an unmercifully hot sun.
For as far as Jessica could see, there were dozens upon dozens of low mangrove islands floating on the luminous green mirror of the sea. Above and around the islands, ancient gulls and egrets, pelicans and white-winged ibises played, cart wheeling through the primitive sky-the same birds as had flown here a thousand years before, she imagined. The endless blue-green panorama conspired to make the beating helicopter and the pulsing cars on the highway below seem like just so many reverse anachronisms, things out of sync, out of time and out of place.
By some uncanny miracle, the development wars had left the land here between Key Largo and Key West virtually untouched; there were no Hiltons, Marriott’s, Holiday Inns or other resorts, not a single gleaming monument to man save the occasional house, shack, marina and dive shop.
The pilot called it the “backcountry” and nailed his estimation of the place with a few choice phrases: “devoid of fresh water”; “not suitable for housing”; “a breeding ground for mosquitoes the size of my mother-in-law”; “a dumping ground for gator-baiters and drunken fishermen.”
“ Says on the map it’s a protected wilderness,” she replied into her headphone set.
“ That’s right. Great fishing and bird-watching, but most casual boaters wouldn’t risk it. Waters are extremely shallow and channels are narrower’n Heaven’s Gate. Only the locals can safely navigate here.”
“ Good fishing, though, you say?” asked Eriq Santiva, who sat opposite Jessica and only occasionally looked down over their destination.
“ The best, but a man’s got to be solemn quiet. I mean it’s so quiet here, the fish can hear you breathing from ten feet off.”
Jessica lifted her polarized sunglasses so that nothing rested between her naked eye and the natural beauty. “I can almost imagine dinosaurs roaming here,” she commented.
“ Well, they did once, according to the experts, especially sloths. I’d say a few sloths still exist, but now they’re called bubbas. I tell you, the area is so swamp-ridden, you couldn’t even get a good paramilitary group together down here.”
Jake Sloane, the helicopter pilot, was something of a character. He was a born Floridian, a “rarity” in these parts, he’d said. And since he was a native, he felt comfortable running down the area and the other natives.
As the helicopter dipped and moved in closer, Jessica made out an oyster bar hidden below vegetation at the terminus of a dirt road, beside which were a handful of broken-down skimmers-lightweight boats with outboard motors used by local fishermen. “I suppose Jimmy Buffet passes for Christ here,” she muttered to Sloane, garnering a laugh from Santiva and the pilot, a man who preferred the name of Spider Sloane. The Miami Police Department had guaranteed the FBI agents that not only was Spider certified as one of the best charter pilots to this area, but he’d flown in Desert Storm.