Island 731

Bennett looked unsure, but walked closer. Kam stepped aside as Bennett got closer, revealing the opened turtle and its mottled organs. Bennett stopped at the sight. He winced. “That’s… gross.”

“Sure you don’t want to lend a hand?” Bray asked.

“I think I prefer engines, but it’s really not that different, I guess,” Bennett said.

“How do you figure?” Bray asked.

Bennett stepped closer, eyeing the carved, open body. “Well, for starters, the Magellan has an inner steel framework and hull—the bones and skin. The bridge is like the head.” He wandered around the table and tapped the turtle’s head with his finger. Then suddenly, as though realizing what he’d just done, he winced and wiped the finger on his oil-stained pants. “The bridge contains the high-tech computer system, which is really like a brain. It can perceive the outside world through radar, satellite data, and an array of on-board sensors that measure temperature, wind speed, and even the visual spectrum. The computers are also connected to every area of the ship. The engine, the doors, the hull, air-conditioning, the boiler, everything. It’s really a fairly complex nervous system. The ship can’t technically feel pain, but when something goes wrong, and those alarms go off, it sure sounds like a scream.”

Bennett wandered around the turtle, looking at the insides with less disgust.

Is he really looking at it like it’s just a machine now? Hawkins wondered.

“This turtle and the Magellan both need chemical fuel to operate. The fuel gets processed and turned into kinetic energy. Both need a continuous supply of oxygen. When the engines are used, they get hot and are cooled with liquid.”

He looked down at the array of organs on display. “It’s really nothing more than an open car hood.” He pointed to one organ at a time, naming them. “Gas tank. Carburetor. Air pump. Exhaust.” He pointed to the heart. “Just one piston, though.”

The look on his face had changed from repulsion to full-on interest.

“That’s kind of messed-up thinking,” Bray said, snapping Bennett’s attention back up. “Historically speaking, it’s when people start seeing each other as nonhuman, or machinelike that the worst atrocities are committed.”

“It’s a turtle,” Bennett said. “Not a person.”

Bray rolled his eyes. “Flesh and blood is flesh and blood. The same logic applies.”

“Actually,” Joliet said, “everything he said is correct and fairly insightful.”

“For a mechanic?” Bennett said, sounding a little defensive now.

“For anyone,” she said.

Bennett shrugged like it was nothing. “I’m interested in engines of all kinds.”

“All kinds,” Bray said. “All kinds.”

Hawkins knew that Bray was just messing with Bennett, but he wasn’t sure the kid knew that. Actually, he was sure of it when Bennett grew suddenly serious.

“My father died of a heart attack when he was forty,” Bennett said. “My mother and I had to move in with her parents. Heart disease is genetic. Figured I better know how my engine works so I can service it right and not join him in fifteen years.” He dipped his head toward Bray’s stomach. “You should probably start thinking about that, too.”

“I’m a high school teacher,” Bray said. “You’ll have to do better than that if you’re trying to insult me.”

The pair stared at each other for a moment. Bennett looked like he was ready to say something and Hawkins knew Bray would already have thirty different one-liners lined up. He was about to say they didn’t have time to argue, but Bennett beat him to the punch.

“Just forget it, okay?” Bennett took a step back toward the door, looking wounded. Before anyone could apologize, he paused. “Have you found anything interesting? I mean, for why we’re out here. The Garbage Patch.”

“We’re getting there,” Joliet said.

Bennett backed toward the door. “Right. Okay. So yeah. Drake says to make it snappy.” He stopped at the door. “Hey, Kam—good luck with the turtle, buddy.” And with that, he stepped out of the room and closed the door.

“I knew he wouldn’t stay,” Bray said.

“Not sure pissing off the guy who controls the air-conditioning in our room is a good idea,” Hawkins said. “Could make our lives hell.”

Bray grunted, but didn’t argue the point.

“Didn’t know you two were friends,” Joliet said to Kam.

Kam shrugged, still looking queasy. “Neither did I.”

“Right.” With a reassuring smile, Joliet turned back to the turtle’s stomach and placed a scalpel against the organ. “I’m going to open the stomach now. Ready?”

Kam took a breath, swallowed, and nodded.

She made the cut as she spoke. “If the turtle ate anything—oh my God.”

Hawkins stepped closer, interest overriding revulsion. “What is it?”

“Get this,” she said to Bray, waving him closer. She finished the cut and spread the organ open. A rainbow of colors greeted them. She reached in and scooped out a handful of the undigested meal. “Plastic. It’s all plastic.”

She dug out two more handfuls. Most of the plastic chips were unidentifiable globs, stuck together by gelatinous goo and undigested fish parts, but Hawkins saw a bottle cap, a scissor handle, and what looked like a full spool’s worth of dental floss. The items seemed random, unconnected, but all had one thing in common: They were trash, either thrown into the ocean intentionally or lost by some sunken cargo ship.

“Likely cause of death is starvation,” Joliet said, reaching into the open cavity once more. “The stomach filled with debris over time and eventually became so packed with indigestible particles that food could no longer fit. The disfigured body was bad enough, but this is…” Joliet’s forehead scrunched up. “Hold on. Something’s stuck in here.” She tugged at something, but couldn’t pull it free. “Can I have the pliers?”

Hawkins picked up the tool and handed it to Joliet. He leaned in closer, sour stomach all but forgotten. This is what they’d been looking for. No one could deny the damage being done to the ocean once they saw this video. That the specimen was a relatively cute creature helped, too. If this were a shark, some people might actually cheer.

“Got it,” Joliet said. She pursed her lips and pulled. “It’s really stu—”

Whatever it was came free and Joliet spilled backward. Hawkins caught her with an arm under her back. But neither of them commented on the fall, or quick save. Both sets of eyes were on the object clutched in the pliers’ grip.

“What the hell is that?” Hawkins asked, standing Joliet back up.

The object looked like a plastic cube. On its base were four stainless-steel prongs, each tipped with a bit of torn stomach lining. A thin, five-inch-long, black wire emerged from one side. And what looked like a small LED light sat on top of the device.

“I think it’s a transmitter,” Bray said. “Radio tracker. Gives off a pulsing signal.”

“Inside a turtle?” Kam said. “Is that unusual?”

Joliet raised a single eyebrow at Kam. “Are you serious?”

The kid just shrugged.

“It looks like it was designed to be ingested,” Hawkins observed. “Those hooks kept it planted to the stomach wall. But the light’s not on. Must not be working.”

“I can open it up,” Kam said. “See how it works. Maybe find some clue about who made it on a circuit board or something?”

“That’s actually a really good idea,” Bray said.

They were right. Kam was the perfect man for the job.

“Just take off the—” Kam wiggled a finger at the bits of stomach lining clinging to the barbs.

“I think Kam is asking the right thing. Who would have done this to an endangered species? Or really any species?” Joliet asked. “And why?”

“I think I know,” Hawkins said. With all eyes, and the camera, on him, he picked up the red plastic band. “Whoever put the tracker in the turtle wanted to be able find it again. For some reason, the tracker failed and the