God Of Thunder

“Great. So what’s he to you?”

“Someone I knew a long time ago.” Annja dug out her camera and notebook computer, placing both on the table. “Did you talk to him?”

“A couple of times, yeah. Seems like a nice guy.”

“He is.” Was, Annja reminded herself. Whatever Mario was, he now had dangerous men after him. “What did he want?”

“To talk to you.”

“Did he offer any hints about what?”

“Not a word.”

Annja connected the camera to the computer by USB cable and uploaded the pictures to the hard drive. “And you didn’t press him for answers? That’s not like you.”

Doug, like Annja, had an insatiable curiosity, but he had no desire to go out into the world beyond New York in general and Manhattan in particular. He claimed that everything he needed was there in the city.

“This guy is good, Annja,” Doug said. “I questioned. He avoided. It’s like he had some fantastic mutant ability.”

Great. The Mario Annja had known hadn’t been secretive. Archaeology was all about getting information and spreading it around. Mario loved sharing theories. “Did he leave a message?”

“Yep.”

Annja flipped through the photos until she found the best shot of the two men she was following.

“I need to talk to you about your last story,” Doug said. “The phantom shark.”

“We can do the postmortem on that one tomorrow morning like we have scheduled.”

Doug hesitated, then cleared his throat. “We’re going to need more than a postmortem on that one. There are some problems.”

That temporarily took Annja’s mind off Mario Fellini and the gun-toting goons. The mystery she was currently tracking could take time to solve, but the piece submitted was going to be put into production in a couple of days. Once it was, she couldn’t touch it.

She was proud of the work she’d done on the Calusa Indians segment. Their history had been relatively new to her and she’d enjoyed exploring it.

“That was a good piece,” she said.

“Sure,” Doug agreed. “The Indian stuff was great. Really interesting. And your presentation was awesome.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

“The phantom shark looks fake.”

Annja sighed in exasperation. “The phantom shark was fake. That was mentioned in the piece.”

“I feel like maybe we need to fix the shark.”

“Fix the shark?”

“Yeah. You know. Make it look better. More—I don’t know—sharky?”

“That’s how the shark looked, Doug.” Annja couldn’t believe it. “The shark looked fake. It looked fake because it was fake,” she repeated.

“Fake’s not gonna cut it in the ratings.”

“Like I said in the piece, the phantom shark is a local legend. A lot of people treat it like a joke. It’s there to draw the tourists. The guy who built the shark told me he started pulling the shark around as a prank, and to give the tourists a little excitement. He said not even kids are scared. They know it’s fake, but it’s all done in fun.”

“Our show isn’t about fun,” Doug said. “It’s about creepy. The creepier the better. Marketing loves creepy. And scary is even better.”

“There’s nothing creepy or scary about a phantom shark carved out of driftwood and painted with airplane paint,” Annja said.

“You’re telling me.” Doug sighed. “Look, we can fix this.”

“It doesn’t need to be fixed.”

Doug ignored her and went on. “I talked to a friend of mine who does special effects for music videos and direct-to-DVD horror movies.”

“Terrific.” Annja sighed. “Just what I wanted to hear.”

“He tells me he can fix the shark. He says when he gets done with it, you’ll be afraid to go into the water all over again. According to him, Spielberg would love the shark he’s gonna do for us. Postproduction, it’ll look sixty or eighty feet long.”

“This was a dumb story, Doug.” Annja dug her heels in. “You gave me this story.”

“Marketing gave you this story. I just went along for the ride. They thought they were getting Jaws .”

“What did they think? That I was going to go down there and find a sixty-or eighty-foot shark no one has ever seen before?” Annja asked.

“I think maybe they were hoping. You have to admit, you’ve found some pretty weird stuff before. While you were looking for other weird stuff.” Doug tried to sound upbeat. “Everybody here knows that when it comes to finding weird stuff, nobody delivers like you do. You just naturally attract weirdness.”

Annja didn’t say anything.

“Okay,” Doug said. “Maybe that didn’t come out like I’d intended.”

“The story was stupid. The only reason I went was because of the work being done with the Calusa Indians.”

“I know. That stuff is awesome. We’re not going to touch it.” Doug paused. “Well, except we may have to edit it a little to add the extra shark footage.”

Annja imagined her piece shot through with sightings of the monstrous shark. She fought to keep her voice under control. She was tired from the flight and from being around too many people in the airports and the plane, from being herded through security like an especially stupid bovine.

Getting jumped by Agent Smith and his buddies might have been a lark on any other day. Maybe I am weird, Annja thought. Then she concentrated on defending her work.

“I already edited the piece,” Annja said. “We don’t need any more footage of the shark. It was just one little piece of the whole story I was telling.”

“Marketing thinks the shark is the story.”

“They’re wrong,” Annja said.

“Annja, look, without people buying commercial time on Chasing History’s Monsters, there is no Chasing History’s Monsters. You and I will be chasing unemployment checks.”