Sam looked at Haley. She was actually caressing the flask. If they succeeded with Glaucus and Frick, then they could decide what to do about the Arcs.
CHAPTER 43
As they approached the dock surrounding Glaucus's pen, they saw two men bent over the edge of the dock.
'That's McStott,' Ben said. 'Probably wants a hunk of Glaucus.'
McStott and the other man stood and stared at them as they approached. Neither Sam nor Ben made any attempt to disguise himself, and McStott ran back up the dock toward the Oaks Building. Sam could see McStott going for his cell phone.
'Quick,' Ben said. 'Let me out.'
Ben hopped off the Whaler and onto the dock. He tried to lift a wooden section that spanned the main concrete sections.
Haley tied a line to a cleat as Sam crawled off the boat to help Ben. They lifted up the section of dock, exposing the cable that held fast the top of the net over the pen.
'I'll get some squid,' Haley said, running for the small house that held Glaucus's food.
She returned with a large bucket and a strange-looking megaphone and set them down.
Then, stopping to think for a moment, she changed directions and ran down the dock to a large aluminum workboat. Its main feature was a large circulating-saltwater tank amidships. The huge tank took up most of the boat's interior. It had to measure six feet across, ten feet long, and five feet deep. Because the boat, known as the Venture Too, was lined with ventilated wooden stripping over a thick layer of Styrofoam, with all the benches along the gunnels made of wood, cored with Styrofoam, the boat was unsinkable. But for the huge cost and some upkeep requirements, it was pure pragmatism for a biologist.
It was a roomy and open vessel with an eleven-foot beam and benches running along most of its length, even beside the tank. If needed, it could accommodate easily twenty students or visiting biologists.
'Give me the whooper,' Ben said.
Sam presumed he meant the megaphone and bait. He complied.
'They obviously didn't know to use it.' Ben ruffled the water with his hand, dumped over a few squid, and put the metal horn of the whooper in the water.
Sam looked over the edge and observed what could only be described as a giant creature coming up the sidewall of the net. The head of the creature was enormous-the size of a garbage can-and coming out of it were eight tentacles, larger than a big man's thighs. They were long and graceful and the span of the creature was too large to determine, with suctioned arms going in every direction. An orange brown color was apparent.
The whooper made a low sound, something like the bass pedal on an organ. As the creature came inexorably upward, Sam was in awe of its smooth grace and obvious strength. He told himself that the creature's mass was 25 percent smaller than it appeared in the water because of the water's lense effect. In about a minute a tentacle came up and Ben ran the food up and down the creature's suction cups, teasing him, then let a tentacle tip slop around in the bucket.
Sam marveled at the length of Glaucus's arms, at least fifteen feet; the span of him now appeared over thirty.
'He can taste with his suction cups,' Ben murmured.
Soon the mammoth octopus hovered just below the surface and Ben could see the large gills blowing the water in through the creature's huge mantle. Ben talked with the creature as though it could understand Ben's voice, and he kept rubbing up and down his suction cups. At Haley's instruction Sam retrieved more buckets of food and put them along the inside of the workboat. With the circulating-saltwater tank pumps turned on, Haley pulled the boat across the opening and parallel to the dock.
'I've done this before on the dock and with this boat,' Ben said. 'He'll be pissed, but he'll probably let us coax him in. These guys can stay out of the water for thirty minutes or so. Glaucus doesn't like it much, although one time he walked across the dock and tried to get in the shed. After that, we built the overhang.'
'We've only got minutes,' Sam said, thinking about Frick and the boat that would be coming behind them. Sam and Haley stood along the side of the boat and began gently pulling the creature, while Ben continued to encourage him by rubbing the squid along his suction cups.
Sam was watching the dock when he saw McStott creeping around with a gun in his hand. Sam fired two shots just over his head. McStott turned and ran as fast as his considerable girth would allow.
Slowly they raised the unruly creature until they managed to get a tentacle into the saltwater tank, now baited with hundreds of squid. Sam hoped Glaucus would like what he tasted. Haley grabbed a hose hooked to a saltwater pump and began spraying the parts of Glaucus that were exposed. Finally they had his massive brown- looking head up to the gunnel. His eyes were the size of half-dollars. Ben got a large tarp from the dock, put it under Glaucus, and they used it like a hammock. With several back-wrenching lifts, which to the creature were just good nudges, they got Glaucus over the edge and he eagerly joined the food in the tank. Glaucus used his tentacles to move the food to his beak, but only for a few moments. Glaucus quickly became unhappy, flashed red, and tried to climb out of the tank.
'Get the tarp over him,' Ben said.
Ben and Haley jumped on Glaucus, while Sam got the tarp over the tank. Sam threw off the dock lines, started the motors, and gave the boat full throttle.
Glaucus put a tentacle out from under the tarp, still flashing red in a pulsating rhythm.
Ben spoke gently and Haley climbed on top of the giant lump under the tarp, trying to hold the seven- hundred-pound mass of muscle in his cage.
'This is not a happy octopus,' Ben shouted. 'He'll be leaving when he really wants to.'
Frick had the throttles of the thirty-two-foot Donzi wide open before he was out of Deer Harbor. The use of the boat for a day had cost San Juan County $5,000, but he wouldn't be around to pay it. Powered by three 250-hp Mercury out-boards, it was a fast boat designed to get rich fishermen to the fishing grounds in a hurry.
As they passed out of the harbor, McStott called. His voice shook in panic. 'They're here. I tried to call you. They've about got the octopus in the workboat.'
'Shoot the bastards.'
'Chase just shot at me,' McStott said, breathless. 'I've never shot a gun and don't want to.'
'You little prick. It has a trigger. Point and pull.'
'I can't.'
'Get the guards,' Frick shouted into the phone.
'They saw Ranken, man,' McStott said, almost crying. 'They're long gone.'
'Do something, McStott,' Frick said, 'or you're gonna end up like Ranken.'
Frick hung up. 'It's useless,' he said to Khan. 'It won't matter. We'll catch them. That boat is slower than hell. I'll take them all out with this.' He patted the antitank rocket.
Khan just nodded, but looked grim.
They were past Wasp Islands in minutes, traveling at forty-five knots.
As they neared Friday Harbor, just north of the point of San Juan, McStott called again.
'They have Glaucus and they've gone.'
'Which way?' Frick asked.
'Toward the Straits of Juan de Fuca. Glaucus is in a tank under a blue tarp.'
Frick stopped the boat in San Juan Channel and looked with glasses. He sighted the workboat moving down San Juan channel, ahead of them, toward the straits.
'We got 'em now,' he said to Khan. 'Get the rocket launcher ready.'
'Head toward the straits, but stay in the middle of the channel,' Ben said. Sam flipped on the bilge pump because Glaucus was sloshing gallons of water out of his tank as he struggled.
Haley's phone rang.
'Answer it,' Sam said, thinking it might be a cop.
