'Summer of the Shark' Chapters 86-89

Chapter 86

Piccolo and Tillitson relieved the two deputies that were scheduled to patrol the lake on the morning run. They left from the Arrowhead Lake Authority dock at the north end and headed south toward Arrowhead Shores. Since the shark hadn’t been spotted in weeks now, both deputies had been reluctant to give up the patrol which was a cushy assignment on a beautiful summer day. Piccolo assured them it wasn’t permanent. He and Tillitson simply wanted to reexamine a few small coves where the shark could be hiding.

Their real objective was to check out and photograph the waterfront side of eighty-two North Lakeshore Drive.

It was a summer day when normally pleasure boats would be skimming over the water stirring up the lake so that waves lapped along the shoreline. But today it was calm as glass.  Any boater who didn’t know Arrowhead was closed because of the shark, had been turned away by signs issuing a warning.

Piccolo was at the wheel of the Lake Authority’s twenty-foot Boston Whaler equipped with a two hundred horsepower outboard engine. Tillitson sat in the passenger seat with a digital camera at the ready, a twelve guage shotgun at his side. As they entered Brookdale Bay, Piccolo slowed the boat to five miles an hour. Arrowhead Shores was on their left now, with Pine Island off to the right. North Lakeshore Drive at this point had houses beneath the level of the street, the garages on top with steps leading up to them. But as the street continued south toward the point, it sloped down to the water so the houses were on level property from front to back. Eighty-two North Lakeshore was such a piece of property.

Piccolo stayed about fifty yards offshore where the boat would be on a normal patrol.

“That’s it right up ahead,” he told Tillitson. “The white two story with the yellow umbrella on the patio.”

Pasternaks’s house had large windows that ran the height of two floors affording him a beautiful view of the lake. There was a deck off what might be the living room and a second one on the upper floor. The grounds were in impeccable shape, the lawn mowed close with shrubs lining the top of a stone sea wall.

Unlike many of the houses which were originally small cottages built when the lake was created and then added to, this one was newer, probably ten years old. For that reason it was odd that it had a boathouse. Boat houses were a thing of the past. Now people had canopied shelters built on their docks with hydraulic lifts that raised the boat out of the water for winter storage. Since their boats were made of fiberglass rather than wood, they were impervious to the weather.

“Get some good shots of that boathouse,” Piccolo said.

Tillitson was crouched on the starboard side of the boat behind the center console of the Whaler. From that vantage point he appeared to anyone in the house to be taking something from the floor lockers. He stayed low, focusing his telephoto lens over the gunnel. The boat house was attached directly to the lower level of the house, which surprisingly had no windows. Most waterfront homes had as much glass as possible on walls facing the view. He clicked off five shots.

Tillitson worked quickly. They wanted to keep the boat moving as if it were on normal patrol. He took shots of the dock. A Crist Craft powerboat was tied up with flexible fiberglass stand off poles used to keep it from chafing against the dock. He shot the dock along with each of the three floors of the house in closeup.

Sunlight reflected off the glass on the main level, but he was able to shoot partially into the room.

“Our friend Pasternak has a high powered telescope in the living room,” Tillitson said while still clicking away.

“I’m not surprised,” Piccolo said looking straight ahead and not at the house. “that’s how he saw everything coming up or down the lake.”

Tillitson continued to click away getting more pictures of the dock, the stone sea wall and the side of the boathouse. Outside of the closeups, he had shot everything so the prints could be assembled into one panoramic picture of the property.

“That’s it, I got it all,” he said. They were out of view of the house now so he stood up with the camera.

Piccolo still headed south to complete the patrol run in a normal manner. Who knew if Pasternak had seen them or not?

“Why do you think he’s still threatening the lake with the shark?” Tillitson asked sliding into the passenger seat. “He’s got what he wanted. Dolan and Norton are bankrupt. He’s gotten his revenge. What’s left?”

“I don’t know,” Piccolo said. “But I think it’s a game with him now. With us and the Feds. He knows the Feds are monitoring his house looking for a signal. That’s why he brought the shark to the town beach with a laptop. It must have completely fooled the FBI. And as far as he knows we’re still patrolling the lake looking for a real shark.”

“An ego trip then. Right?”

“Yeah. I think just like his Predator planes are designed to outsmart the enemy, he’s trying to do the same thing to us with his shark.”

Tillitson looked back toward the house. “Do you think it’s in that boathouse?”

“Probably,” Piccolo replied. “But he could be launching it from somewhere else on the lake remotely.”

“Christ we’ll never find it then.”

“I know. So there’s only one thing we can do.”

“What’s that?”

“Make him bring the shark to us.”

*

Pasternak sat in the shark control room in the basement of his house. He had seen the Lake Authority patrol boat pass by for the morning run. They were still out every day looking for a shark that was less than fifty feet away from them, beneath his Chris Craft in the boathouse.

Sheriff Piccolo was the least of his worries. He was still looking for a real shark in “his lake.”

He hated it when he heard Piccolo in news conferences referring to Arrowhead as “his lake.” It wasn’t his or anybody else’s. Much of it had been taken from his father who had died resisting its creation. Taken so that a power company could profit from it.

He hated every drop of water in the lake. When he rode over it in the Chris Craft, it was as if he were floating over dirt roads, pastures, streams, farmhouses, barns, ponds and two small villages beneath him. It was as if a terrible flood had rushed through that valley and destroyed it.

But now he controlled the lake. Controlled it with his cunning and inventiveness.

Every day he resisted what had been his original plan; to drive Dolan and Norton out, then recoup his investment by selling lakeshore properties back at a profit. He knew it was time to do that now. But he couldn’t resist keeping his power over the lake. And he couldn’t resist using his creative genius in a cat and mouse game with the government and Piccolo.

He looked at the control panel for the shark in front of him. Manipulating all of the controls he became the shark. He embodied it.

He couldn’t give that up yet. The shark wasn’t ready to leave.

Not yet.

But in order for it to still be a threat to the lake, he had to be free to launch it with full attack capabilities. The laptop remote enabled him to escape FBI monitoring, but left him with a benign shark. There was only one solution.

He had to find a way to fully control the shark on a different radio band than what the FBI was monitoring. It would be difficult, but not impossible. After all, the government considered him a genius. And they were right.

Chapter 87
Piccolo and Tillitson sat in the “shark den” looking at the pictures they had taken of Pasternak’s house. Tillitson taped together the sequence of shots he had taken that showed one end of the property to the other. Piccolo had a nautical chart of the lake spread out beside them.

“That boathouse is weird being there,” Piccolo said leaning over the shots. “It’s just out of place.”

“Unless you have to hide a shark in it,” Tillitson said.

Piccolo turned to the chart and located where Pasternak’s house would be on it.

“There’s about ten feet of water under that boathouse,” he said pointing out the area on the chart. “Arrowhead Shores is deep around that end, not like the end of Lakeshore Drive where the community beach is.”

Tillitson leaned in closer. “So there’s plenty of water to keep the shark in the boathouse.”

“There’s probably enough to keep it hidden under the Crist Craft when that’s in there too.”

“No wonder the Orion plane didn’t see it.”

Piccolo looked closer at the shots. He picked up the one showing the telescope in the living room and then referred to the large map of the lake on the wall where each of the attacks were marked with red pins.

“He can see every one of the attacks through that telescope,” Piccolo said.

“But like you said, the shark could have been launched from somewhere else.”

“I don’t know where.” Piccolo traced the perimeter of the Shores on the map.

“There’s houses all along the shoreline here and the park is on the other side. I doubt it. The thing has got to be in that boathouse.”

“Well then we just have to go in there and nail Pasternak before the Feds do it.”

Piccolo shook his head. “And if for some reason the shark isn’t there, we’ll have blown it and the Feds will have Pasternak all to themselves. And you know what that’ll mean; a slap on the wrist.” He thought for a minute and said, “what we have to do is get that shark out for one more attack when we can be waiting for it.”

“How are we going to do that?”

Piccolo didn’t answer right away. A plan that was bold and daring was forming in his head. If it worked, it would enable him to snatch Pasternak out of the hands of the Feds and yet leave him in a bargaining position so he would be punished for what he did.

But for it to work, he would have to beat Pasternak at his own game.

His first move was to call marine biologist Frank McClosky who he had first spoken to about sharks surviving in fresh water. He hoped McClosky would be able to direct him to someone who could provide him with what he needed. Because the FBI could be looking for the same thing.

Chapter 88

Off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, Florida

A small fishing boat bobbed in the water fifteen miles out to sea. It was the third day out for divers Tim and Chuck Haskell, two of the most experienced shark hunters on the Florida coast. Aquariums in the east used their services to capture sharks for their exhibits. The problem was always keeping them alive to be shipped, but this assignment was highly unusual. Frank McCloskey had told them his client (who remained anonymous) wanted the shark dead but preserved in ice. The method of killing it was also specified. It was to be shot with a twelve gauge Winchester shotgun, two bullets to the head.

The shark also had to be a Bull Nose, fourteen feet in length.

Chum was spread over a quarter mile area and also placed inside a cage lowered from the boat. An underwater remote camera over the cage monitored anything approaching it from three-hundred-and sixty degrees.

Tim was up in the flying bridge scanning the water for sharks. It was a tedious job that required long hours of concentration, sometimes rewarded sometimes not. Yesterday four sharks had been lured into the cage, but none of them a Bull Nose. Just before sundown they had seen one, but it was much too small. Hopefully today they would get luckier.

Around noon Tim spotted several sharks from the bridge. They swam toward the chum. Chuck, operating the underwater camera saw them swimming toward the cage.

“Get down here,” he shouted up to Tim, “one of them is a Bull. A big one.”

Tim scrambled down the bridge ladder. Maybe they were going to get lucky after two disappointing days.

Two Bull sharks saw the chum, pig intestines, tied to the back of the cage. The smaller one moved closer to the opening.

“C’mon, c’mon, get out of the way,” Chuck said turning the remote for a better view, “let the big guy get in.”

The smaller shark turned away and Chuck thought the other one would follow, but it didn’t. Ever so slowly it cautiously entered the cage. First the head, and then more of the body.

“Just a little bit more. Get inside there dammit.”

Tim held the remote switch that would release the cage trap door.

“Now!”

Tim hit the switch and the door dropped downward, the twenty pound weight attached to its bottom giving it momentum in the water. The shark tried to turn and escape, but didn’t have enough room inside the cage. It was trapped.

Tim started the hoist that would bring the caged shark above the surface. As it came above the water it turned violently trying to escape.

“Get the shotgun!” Chuck yelled, “before it splits itself open on the bars!”

Tim grabbed the Winchester twelve-guage and fired two shots into the head. The shark slumped in the cage.

They let the initial surge of blood escape from the head wound then lowered the dead animal over a large ice chest in the stern of the boat. The two of them struggled to slide it out of the cage into the ice. When they finished, they stepped back to look at their prize.

“Well this is exactly what McClosky ordered for his “client.” Chuck said spreading ice over the dead animal.

“Yeah as if where this thing is going is any big secret,” Tim said.

“The question is what happened to the real shark?”

Tim shook his head. “That’s not for us to think about little brother. Somebody is paying us a lot of money to keep our mouths shut.”

Chapter 89
The day was clear with a light breeze, an ideal day to be out on the lake if it wasn’t threatened by the shark. But it was also a perfect day for flying.

Piccolo and Tillitson were at a small grass strip next to Marbury airport used by model airplane enthusiasts to fly their planes. Piccolo had purchased an assembled replica of a Cessna 140, the same plane Lee Hanrahan had lost to the shark on Arrowhead. Now they had to learn to fly it.

Since it was a weekday there wasn’t anybody else on the strip. (They wouldn’t draw attention to themselves wearing civilian clothes.) Tillitson read from the instruction manual while Piccolo looked over the engine. The plane came with it premounted in the fuselage and was ready to fly. The hard part would be getting it up in the sky and making a landing without smashing it to pieces.

After a few tries adjusting the carburetor, they got the motor running. Piccolo held the remote controller while Tillitson continued to read from the manual.

“It says here to pull back on the throttle lever easy and the plane will move forward. When the nose drops a little and the plane is running level, give it full throttle. With your thumb pull back on the joystick controller. The plane will take off.”

They weren’t totally unfamiliar with the remote having gotten a rudimentary explanation from Hanrahan after he lost his plane to the shark. Piccolo moved the throttle forward.

“Not too much yet until it gets going,” Tillitson warned.

“How’s that?”

“Looks good.”

The plane moved down the grass runway gathering speed.

“Pull back on the joystick now,” Tillitson said excitedly.

The plane lifted off the grass into the air. Piccolo used his thumb to pull the joystick back farther and the plane gained altitude.

“Better make a turn before it flies off into the sunset,” Tillitson said shading his eyes to track the plane. “Tilt the joystick left just a little.

Piccolo moved it and the plane went into a gentle turn. He straightened it again and then made another turn in the opposite direction. For the next five minutes Tillitson read instructions while he executed turns along with up and down movements. Piccolo was getting the hang of it. He didn’t try any of the fancy stuff the manual described like loops, stalls or flying upside down. What he needed the plane for didn’t require that.

“What’s it say about landing this thing?” Piccolo said trying to get the crick out of his neck from looking up.

Tillitson read him the instructions. He turned the plane into the wind and began his landing approach. The Cessna wobbled left to right as it descended nose down.

“Not too steep for christ sake,” Tillitson warned. “We don’t want to have to buy another one of these.”

“All right, all right, what’s next?”

“Level it out a little. Decrease power.”

The plane dropped closer to the ground.”

“Pull up! Pull up!”

“Aw shit!”

The plane hit the grass and rolled forward, flopping from side to side. Finally it stopped and they both went over to it. The motor was still running. Piccolo hit the kill switch. He picked it up and examined the underside.

“Not any damage from a pretty sloppy landing Captain Kirk,” Tillitson said smiling.

“Good enough for what we need.”

“Let’s hope so.”

They walked back to Piccolo’s truck and laid the plane upside down on the tailgate.

“Let’s put the pontoons on it,” Piccolo said taking them out of the box, “ then let’s hope this plan of ours works.”

_______________________________________

Other books by Bob Neidhardt include Kill The Author, Mr. Best Selling Author, and Tarnished Bronze, all available on Amazon.com.