MEG: Nightstalkers by Steve Alten Read Free Book Online Page B

complete with padded lounge chairs and a fifty-two-inch screen.
    Tears clouded David’s vision. It was in this very cabin, six months earlier, that he had met the stunning blue-eyed woman who had captured his heart. She was a few years his senior, her brunette hair long and wavy and tinged with red highlights, her features resembling those of a young Stefanie Powers. She was wearing white shorts and a navy hooded sweatshirt, the name K. Szeifert embroidered in white beneath a Scripps Institute insignia. Her long tan legs bore the calf muscles of a sprinter. A pair of thongs dangled from her bare feet, which were propped up on the polished wood table top he was now staring at.
    “It’s pronounced ‘See-furt.’ Kaylie Szeifert.”
    “Hey … you okay?”
    David turned to his right to find an apple-pie American girl in her early twenties in the window seat, her tan complexion unusual considering her strawberry-blond hair. It was shoulder length and pulled into a conservative ponytail, her blue eyes framed behind reading glasses. Brown University Field Hockey was printed across her gray T-shirt. Her knees poked through holes in her worn jeans, her bare feet were propped on the duffle bag beneath the seat ahead of her.
    David casually wiped away the evidence of his tears. “Allergies. All this dry heat.”
    “Those looked like real tears to me.”
    “Shouldn’t you be upstairs auditioning for the show?”
    “Do I look like I just got plucked out of a harem, David?”
    “No, David’s upstairs. I’m Monty.”
    “And this Brown T-shirt came with my degree. You want to get your friend laid—go for it. But don’t spray your can of bullshit my way and try to call it a fragrance. Ignorance can be worked with, stupid is forever and I have zero tolerance for either.”
    The Fasten Your Seat Belt sign lit up. “Good morning. This is Captain Michael Schallhorn in the flight deck. As you can see, I’ve just turned on the seat belt sign in preparation for takeoff. Kindly refrain from moving about the cabin until we’ve reached our cruising altitude. That would include any unscheduled activities apparently going in the Crown Prince’s romp room.”
    The strawberry-blonde removed her backpack from the aisle seat and tossed it on the floor. “Sit.”
    Sit? What am I? A dog?
    The 747 lurched forward, causing David to fall into the aisle seat. “Thanks. So, um … who are you and what are you doing here?”
    She held out her hand. “Jacqueline Buchwald, my friends call me Jackie. My degree is in marine biology with certificates in shark awareness, SCUBA, underwater photography, and advanced open water diving. I was recruited for the hell’s aquarium gig by Barbara Becker and promoted from associate to assistant director after she was transferred to a DOD facility in Miami. I’ve personally overseen the diets and care of every aquatic animal in the exhibit. Dr. Al Hashemi felt my expertise was needed in the field, where the mortality rates of captured specimens have been so high. You net ’em; I’ll vet ’em.”
    “And how do you intend on vetting a hundred-ton monster nearly half the size of a football field?”
    “The Lio is the Tonga ’s mission, not ours. Focus on the task ahead and maybe we’ll end up together on the big hunt. For now, we’re after three pretty nasty prehistoric fish.”
    Jackie removed a manila folder from her backpack and handed David an artist’s rendition of a sea creature with a dolphin-shaped mouth, a whalelike torso, narrow front and rear flippers, and a double-pronged tail. “ Shonisaurus . A massive species of ichthyosaur or fish-lizard which dominated the late Triassic seas approximately two hundred and eight million years ago.”
    “I know. Kaylie and I barely escaped a pod of them.”
    “Those were Shonisaurus populari .… fifty-footers weighing about forty tons. The species we’re after is a seventy-five-foot version classified as Shonisaurus sikanniensis. After the Lio