Steve Alten

vessel’s ballast and raced the sub back to the surface, the rapid rise causing a malfunction in the pressurization system. Both scientists aboard the sub had died, and Jonas’s career as an argonaut was over. Or so he had thought.

Over the next seven years, Jonas became obsessed with proving to the world that the creature really existed. Returning to school, he earned advanced degrees in paleobiology while his first wife supported them. Research over the mysterious disappearance of the megalodon species soon led to a controversial theory and several publications. Jonas surmised that many of the prehistoric Great White sharks had migrated to the warmer abyssal waters of the Mariana Trench in order to avoid the cold surface temperatures brought about by the last Ice Age. Despite the scientific basis for his conclusions, his research was dismissed by colleagues as utter fantasy, his papers banned from many institutions.

Four years later, the opportunity to return to the Mariana Trench was

offered by Masao Tanaka, an old friend and mentor. The founder of the Tanaka Oceanographic Institute had not been interested in megalodons or Jonas’s theories about the creature’s possible existence. Masao was building an artificial lagoon off the Monterey coast, a man-made habitat in which to study whales. To finance the project, he had entered into a joint-venture agreement with the Japanese government to deploy an array of seismic detection robots, called Unmanned Nautical Information Submersibles—UNIS—along the floor of the Mariana Trench. Something had gone wrong with several of the devices, and Masao needed Jonas’s assistance in order to retrieve one of the instruments. At first, the former deep-sea pilot had refused, unable to face his fear. But with his first marriage falling apart and his career in disarray, the thought of redemption became too seductive to pass up.

And then there was Terry.

Masao Tanaka’s only daughter was as beautiful as she was rebellious. If Jonas would not accompany

later, the most popular live exhibit in the world had opened for business in Monterey.

But fame is fleeting, and celebrity, with all its perks, also makes one an easy target. Eight months after the lagoon had opened, Jonas and the Tanaka Institute found themselves defendants in a $200 million class-action lawsuit, filed by grieving relatives of those who had perished within the jaws of the Megalodon. Terry was four months pregnant when the trial began, a media frenzy rivaling that of the O.J. Simpson hearings:

“Would you explain to the court, Professor Taylor, why you risked so much to capture a creature we’ve heard described as the most dangerous predator of all time?”

“We had the means to contain the Megalodon and study it.”

“Tell us, Professor, when you had actually succeeded in sedating and capturing the monster in your cargo net, did you ever consider killing it?”

“No. We had it under control. There was no reason—”