Chapter 6

By late morning Alec sat crammed on the U-shaped bench in the salon—Missy on his left, Frank and Tony on his right—a notebook on the table before him partially filled with preliminary commentary about the expedition. He had one for every trip. Initially it contained information about gear, supplies, and backup apparatus. He also sketched a storyboard for the doc. As the trip unfolded, he would record a diary of daily activity, which could be used as a reference during the editing phase. It also helped in packing for future trips. He always jotted down what he wished he’d brought with him, along with items that had been totally useless and should be left behind for the next job.

Double D had a camera recording on a tripod in the far corner, and Stephie periodically snapped photos from a spot on the opposite side.

The deckhands—dark-haired Pete and wiry Erik—crowded into the salon, along with Chris, the cook, who was sporting a serious collection of ocean-themed tattoos along his exposed arms. Everyone was present for the meeting called by Brad, Grace, and Captain Bellamy. Alec considered it fortuitous that he’d gotten a seat at the table.

“We’ll be stopping shortly in Ensenada for our Mexican check-in, so have your passports handy,” Captain Bellamy said. “Then it’s full steam ahead. We should arrive at Guadalupe Island tomorrow morning. We’ll anchor in Discovery Bay, which is on the northeast and lee side of the island. It’ll offer calmer waters, and there’s a seal colony nearby. It’s a good spot to set up the sonar array, so long as there’s not too many additional boats. We’re required to maintain a distance of 450 meters with other vessels.”

“The array consists of three buoys that will be deployed over one nautical mile,” Brad said. “That will be the first priority. After that’s complete, then we’ll move forward with Grace, Missy, and Tony getting in the water.”

“How long to deploy the buoys?” Erik asked.

“Hopefully just one day,” Grace answered. “But at the most, two.”

“And then what happens with the array?” Pete asked. “Do we have to do something?”

Brad shook his head. “No. We’ll monitor it from the boat. Every few days we might want to do a check on the apparatus and make sure nothing is amiss. Sharks have been known to attack equipment. Since we have a special permit to dive outside the cages, this shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Who’s gonna check it?” Pete asked, humor mixed with a bit of terror on his face.

Nervous laughter filled the room.

“Me, Missy, or Tony will do it,” Grace said, her voice calm and reassuring.

“Or I’ll do it,” Alec added.

Grace gifted him with a clipped nod. She and Brad were playing nice, but Alec guessed that was only because Double D had them on film.

Brad uncrossed his arms. “I’ll help, too. Don’t worry. No one has to get in the water with the sharks if they don’t want to.”

“How does the sonar array work?” Alec asked.

Grace started to speak, but Brad interrupted her. “The array will identify creatures inside the grid space by using a convolutional neural network that will narrow down whether they’re a fish, a seal, a turtle, etc., or a shark. Once a shark is identified, then further neural networks will compute type of shark, its mass, its speed, and its depth.”

“Holy shit,” Frank blurted. “What kind of computer program do you have?”

Alec tried to hide his frustration. Thanks to Frank’s expletive, he and Donovan would need to edit around it since the goal was to make a PG-rated documentary.

Brad beamed with pride. “It’s an ambitious undertaking, but we’re committed to making it work.”

Grace directed her gaze toward a point on the table only she could see, as if she were listening intently to Michaels, perfectly fine with his answers. But Alec didn’t count himself a casual observer of Dr. Mann. Her rigid stance, her whitened knuckles as she leaned back and gripped the edge of the countertop near the door, and the vaguely dismissive look in her eyes told a different story.

Fowler pressed on. “Are you processing all this data real-time?”

“We are,” Brad replied.

Frank glanced around at the handful of computers present along the edge of the salon. “Wouldn’t you need a massive amount of computing power?”

Grace cut off Brad. “The algorithm is very efficient. The desktops we have will do the job.”

“But we’ll no doubt have bugs to work out,” Brad interjected, his tone impatient, almost verging on bellyaching.

Grace turned to him and smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I’m sure you can handle it.”

Brad didn’t respond to her and instead switched to a new topic. “We also have shark tags on hand.”

“But no tagging around the boat,” Grace said. With her hair now pulled back into a loose bun, the slight sunburn she sported on her nose was more noticeable.

Brad’s chest puffed out as he inhaled a deep breath. He threw a glance in Grace’s direction. “Once the tracking system is in place, there’s no time to waste.”

“If you start chumming, we won’t get what we need from our dives. Give me at least a week. You can take the outboard and go somewhere else to tag.”

“And who’s gonna keep an eye on the buoys?”

“I will,” she said. “I won’t be in the water the whole time.”

A fleeting look of annoyance crossed Brad’s face. “I’ll hang back a few days to monitor everything, then I’m tagging.”

Without a doubt, Alec would need to interview the two of them separately.

Grace faced everyone. “Just so we’re clear—I don’t want any chum in the water. It’ll change the behavior of the sharks.”

“What’s the harm in waiting?” Fowler asked.

Alec suppressed an eye-roll over the man’s blatant attempt to bolster his street cred with Grace.

“Tagging whites isn’t easy,” Brad said. “You can’t catch them on a fishing line and reel them in. They’re far too big. They need to be lured close to the boat.” He shook his head. “Three weeks may sound like a long time, but sometimes you get no sharks interested in you, even with the chum. I hate to blow an entire seven days.”

“I might be able to tag a few,” Grace said.

Alec frowned at the image of Grace swimming up to one of the beasts with a spear and stabbing the dorsal fin. Odds were high it could end badly. “Let’s cross that bridge if and when we get there,” Alec said. “You don’t want to annoy a great white when one is so close to you.”

Her eyes darted to him, but to her credit she tamed the flash of irritation quickly. “You, Dan, and Stephie will be in the submersible cage,” she said.

“We’ll have two,” Captain Bellamy said, “so you should be able to get decent footage from one or both of them.”

Stephie stepped closer and snapped a photo of Grace. “I may occasionally go in the surface cage to get a different angle.”

Grace nodded.

“Who are your safety divers?” Alec asked, still watching Grace.

Grace folded her arms across her t-shirt. “Missy, Tony, and I will remain together with a 360-degree view of our surroundings at all times.”

“What about Erik or Pete as backup?” Alec asked, glancing at the two young men.

“No offense,” Pete answered, “but I have no desire to get in the water unless I’m in a cage.”

Erik sighed. “Yeah, we can help in an emergency, but I have to agree. We’re gonna be near the sea lion and elephant seal colonies. That makes the sharks more unpredictable.”

“We were assured that you had a team with you for the dives,” Captain Bellamy said.

“We do,” Grace said, then looked at Erik and Pete. “Don’t worry. You won’t have to get in the water.” Her voice held a steely edge.

“We’ll make sure everything is working with the cages from up top,” Pete said.

“The submersibles will have backup air tanks and scuba gear for Dr. Mann, Dr. Rembert, and Tony,” Captain Bellamy said. “Hopefully with the cage away from the boat, you’ll all be able to see any shark coming from a distance, but you’ll still need to watch each other’s backs while you’re down there.”

“What happens if one of you is bitten?” Fowler asked.

“Get back to the boat as soon as possible,” Grace said. “Missy has EMT training.”

“And so does Erik,” Bellamy said, “but the Mexican coast guard is probably three hours away, give or take, so we’d do best to make sure no one requires serious medical treatment.”

“Sharks aren’t as aggressive as they’re made out to be,” Grace said to Frank.

“Has anyone ever met a mako?” Double D asked. “I like to call them rocket ships.”

Missy bumped against Alec. “Grace knows all about makos.”

Unsure whether the dark-haired woman was still attempting to flirt with him, he took the route of no encouragement and remained focused on Grace. “What happened?” he asked.

She wasn’t doing a great job of hiding her displeasure about the meeting, and Alec suspected that he was as much on her shit list as Michaels.

Appearing to resign herself to the change of topic, she replied, “A group of us were diving offshore from Monterey, and I got clipped by one.”

“You’re being modest, Gracie,” Missy said. “He sliced her open on the shoulder. You lost a lot of blood, from what I heard. You were lucky on that one.”

Grace shrugged and took a sip from a white mug, a teabag string hanging over the side. She had a bite on her neck from a white and now one on her shoulder from a mako. Alec wondered how many more close calls she’d had over the years.

“If we’re about to compare scars,” Donovan interjected, “then I’ve got a doozy on my ass I’d love to share.”

Alec turned around to glare at him.

Double D laughed. “Don’t worry, I stopped filming. And if you want a shark attack story, then Alec’s your guy. He’s got one of the best.”

Alec closed his notebook, thinking of Elliott. But that one had been in a class all its own. The one to which Donovan referred hadn’t been so traumatic. “It wasn’t exactly an attack.”

Grace waited, her interest palpable. Shit list or not, he’d at least retained enough of her regard to get her attention.

“What happened?” she asked.

“We were off the New Jersey coast. We’d chummed the waters and had attracted several sharks, and had gotten some good shots. But then they got tired of us and left. It was a very hot day, so I decided to get back in the water without the cage. The threat wasn’t high, and I had scuba gear on. Once I was in, one of the deckhands must’ve decided to go fishing off the front of the boat.”

“Uh-oh,” Grace murmured under her breath.

Although the incident had threatened his life, the memory no longer caused pangs of panic in Alec’s chest. “Yeah. A longfin mako caught the line, and before I could react, he’d wrapped it around my ankle.”

“How much blood?” Missy asked.

“Longfins are a rare sight,” Grace said at the same time.

Alec responded to Grace first. “I know. It was a shame I didn’t have a chance to film him.” Then he said to Missy, “There was definitely enough blood to drive the shark crazy. He severed the line but the bait was still in his mouth and my ankle was still caught, so down I went. I honestly don’t know how far he dragged me, and I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to safely rise without getting the bends. He plowed through the water for what felt like forever, but during one brief lull, I managed to get my knife free and cut the line that was wrapped around my ankle. And in the blink of an eye, he was gone.”

“Did you fire that deckhand?” Missy asked.

Alec gave a slight shake of his head. He hadn’t wanted the man to lose his job, despite how easily it could have been a fatal lapse in judgment. “No, but I did try to instruct him about sharks, fishing, and diving, and why never to mix the three.”

“You were lucky.” Grace set her mug on a nearby counter.

“I like to carry a sawed-off broomstick. Why don’t you take it when you dive with the whites?”

“Unfortunately, it’s illegal to carry any type of weapon down in Guadalupe,” Brad interjected.

“How’s your right hook, then?” Double D asked Grace.

“I hardly think a great white would register a punch from a little woman like Grace,” Missy said.

“Then go for the eyes,” Alec said flatly.

“I don’t anticipate them being aggressive,” Grace said. “And I don’t anticipate being close enough to reach an eye. And,” she raised her voice so that everyone in the room would hear, “there’s to be no fishing during the expedition. At all. Is that clear?”

“Aye-aye, Boss,” Double D responded.

Captain Bellamy stepped forward. “I can assure you that we will follow all standard protocols and will take everyone’s safety very seriously. If anyone breaks a rule, besides getting a tongue-lashing from me, a citation, and a fine, you’ll be forbidden from getting in the water any further. Now, I need to get back to the bridge. Let me know if anyone needs anything.”

Grace sat on a bench on the upper deck of the boat while Alec secured a video camera to a tripod. The stop in Ensenada had been brief and uneventful, and now the Mercado raced along the Mexican coastline.

She took a deep breath of the salty breeze blowing against her face.

Alec wanted to film a preliminary interview with her, and damn if she wasn’t a little nervous. She tucked strands of hair behind her ear that had escaped the clip and cleared her throat, then sat ramrod straight. The fleece she had worn earlier was now replaced with a navy windbreaker. Maybe she should change back. What if the material crinkled and made noise that could be picked up by the microphone clipped on her jacket lapel?

Alec glanced up at her. “Ready?”

“Do you think I should change?” she asked.

He looked through the viewfinder. “No. Try to relax, Grace. It’s not any different than the talk you gave onstage.”

She nodded and pressed her lips together, dispersing the lip balm more evenly. She’d wanted to apply a bit of makeup to cover her rosy nose, but Alec had stopped her, saying she looked fine, emphasizing how her blue eyes would really pop on film.

Was that good?

She’d have to trust that he knew what he was doing.

“I’ll give you prompts,” he said, “and you answer. If you flub, just keep going. I can edit it down later.”

She swallowed, her tongue suddenly two sizes too big. “Got it.” She sounded like a toad. She cleared her throat one more time.

He held up his hand. “And we’re filming. State your name and title.”

“I’m Dr. Grace Mann. I’m an associate shark researcher at the California Marine Institute.”

“Where did you grow up?”

“I grew up near San Francisco. My father was a shark researcher and devoted his life to studying the great white. I suppose his love of sharks rubbed off on me.”

“What was your father’s name?”

“Dr. Eddie Mann.”

“What about your mom? How does she feel about you studying sharks like your dad?”

Grace’s lips stretched into a smile, and she was glad she’d applied the lip balm, if only to avoid a painful crack in the skin. “She tolerates it. She loves the ocean—in fact she designs beautiful fused glass pieces with water themes—but she generally doesn’t ask about any close encounters I’ve had with sharks.”

“What’s your background?”

Grace made a concerted effort to keep her gaze on the camera and not on Alec’s unflinching eyes. “My Ph.D. is in Computer Science from the University of Miami, but I also earned a Bachelor’s degree in Marine Biology at the same time.”

“What’s so special about Guadalupe Island in Baja California?”

“When it comes to the Pacific great white shark population, there are two major gathering areas starting in September. One is the Farallon Islands near San Francisco, and the other is Guadalupe Island, located off the coast of Baja California Sur. Because the conditions in Mexico are generally better than in Northern California, Guadalupe offers an excellent location for studying white sharks. It’s here that the largest adults come, offering unprecedented opportunities for observation and tagging before they head back out to sea for several months.”

“Tell me about the imaging system you and Brad Michaels are developing.”

“For the past year, Dr. Michaels and I have been working to create a 3-D imaging system that can be placed along heavily-used beaches to track the position of sharks in the area. Employing a buoy system of multiple sonar devices, it will take thousands of data points and run them through a deep learning program, outputting not only whether a shark is a shark, as opposed to some other marine creature, but also the type. As we know, certain species are more aggressive to humans, such as great white, bull, and tiger sharks.

“The goal of our program is to present real-time data to local lifeguard and police stations so that swimmers and surfers can enjoy the water safely. These buoys will use no nets or lines that could entangle wildlife. It’s a win-win for beachgoers and marine life. The shark isn’t an enemy, but attacks on humans often lead to vigilante hunts that rarely solve the problem. Sharks are disappearing from our oceans at an alarming rate, and if something isn’t done to stop it, one day there will be no more sharks. This would have devastating consequences on the ocean ecosystem, since sharks are apex predators and keep much of the other marine creatures in check.”

“Tell me about your famous photo of freediving with a great white shark.”

“Freediving offers a way to enter an underwater environment with little disruption. Scuba gear produces sounds and bubbles that often frighten wildlife, especially sharks. While my freedive with a male great white shark in the waters off Oahu wasn’t planned, I’d been working with various shark species for years and knew what behaviors to watch for. This particular shark was quiet and confident and inquisitive. I was never afraid. He came near me at one point, and I carefully took hold of his dorsal fin. It was a moment I’ll never forget.”

“What would you say to someone who might want to attempt this?”

“I’ve been around sharks my entire life. My father used to take me on his research trips when I was young. So, first, I would say to get a lot of experience with their behaviors before ever getting in the water with one. I’ve done a fair amount of cage diving in addition to freediving. Great white sharks are wild animals, and it’s important to understand their posturing actions. If they’re annoyed by your presence, they’ll let you know before making a move, with behaviors such as deliberate lowering of the pectoral fins, shaking of the head with an open mouth, or arching of the back. A particularly important gesture is known as gaping; they approach with an open mouth and show their teeth. This is considered aggressive, and you should exit the water immediately. I make sure I pay attention to such cues, and I take them seriously.

“Cage dive first and learn from someone who knows about the behaviors of sharks. Then freedive with other species—reef sharks and lemons are a good place to begin. There are dive spots in the Bahamas and Florida where you can interact with bull and tiger sharks. Once you’re comfortable with that, then proceed to the great whites.”

Her nose itched, but she fought the impulse to scratch. “It’s a humbling experience to be so close to such an ancient and extraordinary species,” she continued. “There’s so much we don’t know about them: Why do they migrate thousands of miles? What do they eat during these migrations that occur in very deep water? Where do they mate? Do they adhere to any type of social structure? And, while we have some idea of where the pupping nurseries are located based on sightings of baby sharks known as young of the year, no one has ever witnessed or recorded a live birth.

“We know they’re solitary creatures, and yet, in places like Guadalupe Island they will congregate together. Do they hunt as a group? How do they communicate? There are so many questions, but before we answer them, we must first protect the whites—and all shark species—from unethical and detrimental fishing activities. Each year over one hundred million sharks are slaughtered. That’s an unsustainable number, especially for great white sharks who don’t reach sexual maturity until they’re ten to twelve years old. We estimate the females to have an eleven-month gestation period, giving birth every other year. The species can’t possibly recover with these numbers.”

A rush of heat filled her, as it often did when speaking about the plight of sharks, and her nerves gave way to a steely resolve of purpose. “I encourage everyone to learn more about great white sharks, and all sharks, for that matter. While most people won’t ever eat shark fin soup, many products we buy are made from the skin of sharks, such as handbags, wallets, and belts. Hunters prize the jaws and teeth of whites, some of which sell for thousands of dollars. It’s a heartbreaking thing to kill an animal because you want a piece of it for yourself. That creature is worth more alive. Communities that poach sharks can shift their economies to tourism, and those sharks—alive—will bring unlimited income instead of a one-shot deal by dying.”

Grace ended her passionate plea and kept the camera in her sights.

“Cut,” Alec said.

Her shoulders sagged, and she shifted her gaze to the horizon, then glanced back at Alec. “Too much?”

Amusement danced in his eyes. “Yeah. But in a good way. If I were a shark, I’d be glad to have you in my corner.”

“I’m only doing this for the animals, the earth, and all of humankind,” she teased.

“Listen, about earlier during the meeting. I wasn’t trying to be difficult about your dives. I’m just concerned for your safety.”

“I know.” But it had chafed that Alec had joined forces with Brad to put the brakes on what she could and couldn’t do. She wasn’t a child to be told what to do and when. The most important man in her life—her father—had instilled in her a dogged tenacity. It’s the only way to live, he’d said. And she believed him.

Alec paused, resting a hand on the top of the camera, and watched her. “You don’t do anything small, do you?”

“What’s the point in living, if you don’t at least try to do something amazing?”

“Your determination reminds me of a—”

“I know. A bulldog.” She bit her lip, her tone harsher than she had intended.

To her surprise, Alec laughed, throwing his head back and showing lots of straight white teeth.

She stared at him, mesmerized by her effect on him. It triggered something warm and fuzzy deep in her abdomen, a tug that was definitely sexual. But there was more to it, and it was the more that scared her.

A vision of kissing the lanky, muscular filmmaker flashed in her head, and she worried that, at any moment, she might slide off the bench and become a puddle of goo on the boat deck.

Shit. I’m in trouble.

She scrambled to divert her attention from sex, and worse, attachment. “Maybe you should edit down my passionate speech. Too much lecturing and condemning causes people’s ears to close up. It’s better to try and reach them some other way.”

The sides of Alec’s eyes crinkled. “I can see I’ll have my work cut out in the editing room. Just give me all you’ve got, Grace. I promise I’ll make you look good.”

The itch on the side of her nose returned, and she indulged herself, scraping her fingernail along the skin, then stopped abruptly, not wanting to leave a noticeable mark. Being on camera was going to take some getting used to, as was trying to act professional while staring into Galloway’s blue-green eyes. She’d need the determined willpower she usually reserved for the whites.

She scrunched her mouth and shook her head. “You’ve got me all wrong. I’m not in this for me. I’m here to be an advocate among men for the sharks. Not to build myself up.”

“I know,” Alec replied, his voice quiet. The unmistakable resolution in his tone sent the tingling in her stomach straight up to her heart, to a place reserved for very few: her dad, her mom, Chloe, the sharks she studied. It was the only explanation for why she proceeded to open up in a way she normally kept hidden.

“I started cage diving when I was in grade school, and I immediately fell deeply in love with the shark interaction. Watching them swim by, looking into their eyes, coming to know them—it was all so unbelievably life-changing for me. They were so free and majestic, and it was so obvious what a clear intelligence they possessed. They saw me. I never doubted that.” She chewed on her lower lip and watched low-lying fluffy-white clouds hovering on the horizon.

“They’re quite aware of the humans who come into their world,” she continued. “When I’m with them, I can feel them. The connection is real, and profound.” She lowered her voice. “It’s sacred. And while I know that the wrong move could end my life—and yes, in a very gruesome way—it’s such a small fear that I hardly acknowledge it anymore. All I know is that I can’t wait to get in the water with them.”

She’d started crying. What the hell?

She swiped at her cheeks, then stood. “Please don’t include that. Everyone will think I’m a loon.”

“No. They’ll respect you because you have an authentic connection. That’s how you’ll reach people.”

She crossed her arms. “You filmed that, didn’t you?”

“I wouldn’t be good at my job if I missed gems like the speech you just gave. I found the altar at which you worship.”

“And at what altar do you worship?” she challenged.

“I’ll let you know when I find it.”