Born Predators - Chapter 7
A book about sharks and people by Anthony Palumbi and Stephen Palumbi
Teenagers
The seal accelerated away from Hennessey. The young, agile prey could turn and twist as fast as any shark could follow. From undersea canyon to waving forests of kelp, Hennessey and her prey shot through the cold green gloom. The chase lengthened, the seal porpoising out of the water for frantic speed. Each massive stroke of Hennessey’s scimitar tail and her massive envelope of muscle tensed and twisted and pushed in coordinated power to send her closer to the fleeing prey. One strong push closed the gap and finalized her attack. Her eyes rolled up, mouth beginning to open, teeth stretching as if to jump the last few inches towards her prey all by themselves.
Hurtling in from the shallows came two new, grey torpedoes, two smaller sharks of her kind, carelessly elbowing between her and the prey. But the juvenile amateurs only flailed and spun and snapped at the seal, ruining Hennessey’s attack. The pregnant shark twisted uselessly to lunge at her prey as it miraculously shot toward the safety of the beach.
As fast as she had accelerated, Hennessey turned and threw herself back at the small sharks, scattering them into the murky water. She hadn’t expected to catch the juveniles, just teach them a lesson about etiquette and power.
Spinning away, the mother shark turned frustratedly downward, powering toward the rocky canyon of the shallow sea bed. She had competition for these seals: a dense collection of immature and inexperienced sharks.
Interference by teenagers.
She was hungrier than before.
Chapter 7
Chaos erupted across the press room. Half the reporters immediately sent blogs or
tweets. The other half frantically dictated instant reports on camera or into microphones or telephones.
DiStepano stepped up to the podium to wrench control of the microphone. But too many questions were being shouted directly at Kinney, all mixed up and insistently drowning each other out.
“Which shark didn’t do it how do you know what about the bites can you say that again into this microphone…” came the clamor.
Cutting through it all came a deep voice from the back. Will had been quiet so far. He still had Maxi practically pinned to his shoulder, watching the adults scramble and shout. But now his voice cut across the room. “Then what did kill Jamie Brinson?”
The room stilled. Even DiStepano stopped reaching for the microphone.
“He has water in his lungs,” Kinney repeated, taking a breath and mentally reviewing what she had seen. “Looks to me like he drowned, but the coroner would have to say for sure. Both the shark bites came later, when his body had floated out of the Bay on the tide. A shark didn't kill him.”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” erupted the burly fellow at side of the stage. He’d been increasingly agitated during the whole of Kinney’s performance and now stepped to the front, booming his voice over the room without a microphone. “What are you doing, girl? Being the shark alibi? You want to share the ocean with this monster? I don’t!”
Tim Leach stepped up and leaned over Kinney’s shoulder to help out the press. “Captain James Peterson of the fishing yacht, Rose and Honey.”
“Thank you, Mister Leach,” Peterson said, his face beginning to flush red. “Now. Now, you people have a monster animal ravaging your shoreline. It comes from far away to wreck the homes you’ve built, the families you care about, and the lives you hope for. I’m telling you that me and my crew, and a dozen of other boats, are here. Not to yak about the problem and analyze it scientifically. But to take action. Action to protect this community from this monster.”
He stepped away from the podium as if expecting applause.
“Can you find this shark, Captain Peterson?” came a question from the crowd.
“Easy. Doin’ it my whole life. Find it. Hook it. Hoist it above the dock. That’s my promise to your town. Don’t leave this to the locals. No offense! Strength in numbers, here.”
“How many will your strength in numbers kill? How many sharks will you murder?” Kinney asked.
“Well, there is always some collateral damage to other sharks when you’re fishing as hard as we will. Just makes us all safer, darlin’,” he winked.
“That’s Dr. Darlin’ to you, Captain Honeypie,” Kinney answered steelily, instantly reacting to the Peterson’s familiarity. “Shark carnage has never made the ocean safe from sharks. Never. They have the ocean to run away to, and then they come back.”
“Well, we’ll be the first to succeed, then, darlin’!”
“No, Honeypie,” Kinney plunged in. “You won’t be making anything safer because this shark didn’t do it!”
“Says you,” he sneered. “But you also said ‘Test bite’. That sounds dangerous to me.”
“Different shark, different place.”
“That shark will be back. It got a taste for blood.”
“Nonsense, a large shark doesn’t stay this close to shore unless she’s a pregnant mother,” Kinney said carefully. “Though, maybe Hennessey’s looking for a place to give birth.”
Peterson grinned hugely. “Can’t see that it matters, we’ll just have to get them all! Big ones! Little ones! It’s just practical.”
“I’ll beat you to this shark. I’ll get to her first, and save her from you.”
“Can’t see how, Dr. Darlin’. You have a boat?”
“Chuck Fossi is looking for a charter for his fishing boat,” Will called from the back.
Kinney turned to look at the Mayor, Leach whispered something to him. DiStepano said, “Best in the business, I’ll arrange it for you, Dr. Austin.”
“Won’t help!” Peterson gloated. “I’ll get to that monster before you.”
Kinney turned on him, “It’s revenge! For something that never happened!”
“You know Dr. Darlin’, that’s the first thing you said I agree with. It’s revenge. And I am good at it.”
***
Kinney stalked away from the collapsing conference, incandescently angry at DiStepano and Leach. And especially Peterson. The story of Jamie Brinson’s death had been written by the fear mongers of sharks in movies and books and video, and telegraphed by the online and media worlds. Hennessey was guilty in everyone’s mind, and that is what counted.
But the truth seemed so clear to Kinney. Wrong bites, wrong place, wrong time: it couldn’t have been a bite by Hennessey in the harbor at 2AM. But these folks had been convinced by zero evidence on social media, and they weren’t listening to evidence now.
Worse, they were acting as if they had evidence, that the story was valid. That’s the problem with social media, Kinney thought as she paced the back corridors. When a million people believe something unbelievable then you feel you have to believe it too.
And boats had come to kill sharks because of that belief.
She found a bench in a side corridor, away from the continued tumult of the press conference, and sat to regroup. It was a hard wooden surface, pock marked and graffitied over the decades with boy-scout knife marks. She looked up and down at the faded paint on the walls, and the scuffed pine flooring. She could imagine that the frenetic world of social media didn’t penetrate here, that the wireless signal in the building was purposefully leaving this old-style corridor of solid, civic purpose alone. She smiled at the silliness of that thought. Of course, she could haul out her phone and even here connect with anybody she wanted. Or see any shark that had a tag from her phone. Even from this stained wooden bench.
As her eyes took in the comfort of the old corridor, her ears heard a shuffling, and then a fast patter of feet. She turned when Maxi was only ten feet away, barely enough time to turn and hold out her arms as the child came barreling into her.
“Miss Kinney,” Maxi cheered, “That was so cool!’
Will came up more slowly, watching his daughter twist to sit comfortably in Kinney’s lap, and continue, “You were there and everybody was looking right at you and asking questions and getting so excited! You were, like, the star!”
Kinney smiled, “Sometimes I didn’t feel like the star, Maxi, but I sure tried! What did you think about it?”
Maxi thought a second, “There was a lot of shouting. People were interrupting. Not taking turns.”
“Not polite,” Will offered from the side.
Maxi shook her head, “My teacher would have said, ‘Be respect! Take your turn!’”
“How about that guy at the end?” Kinney asked, instantly regretting it.
“Mom would say, Asshole!” Maxi said slyly, watching her father for his reaction.
“Well, she’s usually right,” Will allowed.
“Yes, he was an asshole, Maxi,” Kinney agreed, “but I didn’t let him get away with it.”
“You called him Honeypie!” Maxi giggled, and then got serious. “Are sharks really mothers?”
“Some are, Maxi. When they get big enough.”
“And they have puppies?”
“We call them pups, but yes they go somewhere safe and warm and give birth to their pups.”
“And that guy wants to kill a mother shark?” Maxi was wide eyed, looking right at Kinney, as if Kinney would please deny that something as horrible as that was going to happen.
“That’s what he said, Maxi. But we’re going to stop him.”
“You have to warn her!”
Kinney smiled, “That would be good Maxi, but I don’t know how to warn her, she’s a shark! I don’t even know where she is.”
But then Kinney stopped talking and looked at Will excitedly. “Will! I do know where she is! She still has the tag! We can find her.”
The Kinney’s expression changed from excitement to worry, “And Oh my God, Honeypie will think of that too!”
“You’ve got to warn her, “ Maxi said again. “That mother needs to know she’s in danger.”
Kinney hugged her fiercely. “You are right my little scientist, and now I know how.”
Kinney’s thoughts circled that idea. Even now, Hennessey would be sending a signal about where she was. Calling revenge down on her head, calling the revenge fleet.
Well then, she should find the damn signal. Kinney’s field biology brain started thinking about how to do this. Her first priority would be getting it out of the ocean: not the shark, but the tag it wore. While it continued to broadcast, that tag was a beacon for violence. She’d need a boat, but Leach just gave her one.
That’s the way to pull the plug on the revenge fleet.
What else would she need…? She rocked Maxi on the bench and thought.
***
DiStepano and Leach had escaped out the back door as pandemonium continued in the press room.
“Don’t you know the difference between a press conference and a public relations disaster?” Leach nearly yelled at the Mayor, an unheard of lapse of decorum for someone usually so reserved.
DiStepano looked at him, “I’ll tell you disaster! People going miles away and spending their vacation on the beach in some other town. And eat at their restaurants, stay at their hotels, buy their condos. One! Two! Three! Ghost Town!”
Leach continued in his sharp tone. “Dr. Austin and I agree on one thing. Neither of us knows why you brought her here.”
“We needed help. That girl could really help us out,” was DiStepano’s distracted answer as he gathered papers.
“That ‘girl’ is one of the top five shark scientists in the world. You should look into people a little more deeply before you involve them.”
“What’s the problem?”
“You want things to calm down. She wants to find out everything and explain it. Sometimes those don't go together.”
“And you want them to calm down? Honestly, Leach, youshouln’ta done that. Bringing that fishing guy in.”
“I told you we needed to be proactive. Besides, there is a certain amount of opportunity in disruption, remember?”
DiStepano raised an eyebrow. “You sure? The last thing we need is a second mess. From Dr. Austin, or that fishing guy.”
“It won’t come to that. He’s reliable. And she can’t cause trouble out on Fossi’s boat. That’s why I told you to arrange it. And on land, my boys can be watching her.”
“Careful. Gentle. Subtle,” DiStepano warned.
“Sure,” Leach replied dismissively.
