Read Online Hotel Megalodon: A Deep Sea Thriller by Rick Chesler - Free Book Online Page B

canyon—it goes way down deep, right?”
    Coco nodded. “To the abyss.”
    “So is it possible a giant prehistoric shark could have survived in the deep ocean all this time? What would it eat? And why would it come up now, after so long?”
    “You’re just full of questions aren’t you? I like that.”
    Mick smiled sheepishly. Coco went on.
    “First question first. Is it possible? Nobody knows for sure, but to me it’s not im possible. Riddle me this: what happens to whales when they die?”
    Mick looked at the ceiling while he made a show of pondering this. “Unless they wash up on a beach somewhere, I guess they usually sink to the bottom of the ocean.”
    “Exactly! That’s a heck of a lot of calories raining down from above.”
    “But megalodons are like Great Whites—they’re hunters, not scavengers.”
    Coco shrugged, staring at the tooth in her hand. “Maybe they’ve adapted, evolved over time to a new environment. Perhaps climate change rendered the shallow seas uninhabitable for them—too warm, too salty, too something —so they went deep.”
    “Okay, but again, if they did, why would they come to the surface now?”
    Coco tugged at her lower lip while she thought. At length, she said, “I know that the construction of the underwater hotel had quite an impact on the local marine environment. A negative one, some say. Dynamiting the reef to blast channels and post holes to place the building supports, dredging to create deeper water passages for bigger boats, tons of SONAR surveys that ping down into the ocean...”
    Mick’s eyes widened. “All that commotion could have disturbed the megalodon way down there!”
    Coco tilted her head while she stared at the laptop screen. “It’s just a thought. I don’t have any way of knowing for sure.”
    The knock on the wooden door of the shack came about two seconds before it opened. James White poked his head inside.
    “Coco. Come with me, please. I’m going down to the hotel, and want you to come with me to do an eco-lecture. Just from inside the main lobby or maybe the restaurant. Something to keep the guests happy down there while we work on the air conditioning issue.”
    Coco flipped her laptop shut. She tried to shove the tooth into the pocket of her shorts but it wouldn’t fit, and actually tore through the fabric. She looked up to see White frowning at her, and so she handed the tooth to Mick.
    “Mick, make absolutely sure that sub’s ready to go at a moment’s notice, okay? Everything charged, air topped off, all that. Clear?”
    “As a bell, sir.”
    Coco trailed after White as he left the shack. She turned around to close the door, and looked back at Mick, who made a comical stabbing motion in White’s direction with the tooth.

 
     
     
    Chapter 12
     
    Coco stepped into the tram along with James White and four newly arrived guests—a couple of investment bankers from New York City and their wives. In the reception bure he started to tell them about the air conditioning problem, but then stopped when a reporter drew near. In front of him, when the new guests asked if they could be shown down to their suites right away, White said of course, and so now here they were, rolling down the tunnel through the sea to the hotel.
    As expected, the bankers were loving the ride, marveling at the sheer novelty of it. The reporter had been denied entrance to the hotel, which White put down to “capacity issues,” but he knew there was already one reporter in the hotel, and didn’t want to add more with the developing situation. When the train entered the hotel, more people were waiting to be taken back to shore than there were seats on the tram. They feigned politeness as the new passengers disembarked, and they got on.
    “How is it? Leaving so soon?” the bankers inquired.
    “Too damn hot,” someone said point blank. “Ready to lay on the beach and catch the breezes for a while,” said another. They were cordial, but Coco could see