His cameraman, Philippe, held the streamlined Nexus model camera loosely in one hand. He would take streaming video and stills from the moment they entered the water, and then continually from when Big Betty came up from the depths.

Finishing with Philippe, Jackson went to check Arthur ‘Big Arty’ Freeman. The man, shivering in the pre-dawn coolness despite his bulk, was here for his wallet alone. Jackson groaned, imagining how uncomfortable he must have felt in the wetsuit. It was the largest they had, but his stomach was still threatening to explode from within the black neoprene. Extra weights were added to keep him down, as his natural buoyancy would be extremely high.

Big Arty had paid twenty-five thousand dollars to dive with them, but the condition was, they get him and the shark together in at least two photographs. Considering Big Betty was as regular as clockwork these days, it was money for old rope.

Seeing Big Betty up close was a rare and privileged event, and normal tourists were discouraged from the area. Jackson, a marine biologist, was one of the few allowed to dive and monitor the huge shark’s wellbeing. The fees they collected from the likes of Arty, paid for their research.

Betty was a pregnant Great White, twenty-one feet from nose to tail, and the largest specimen ever captured on film in the wild. She had moved into the area a few months back, where she had been tagged with a small receiver just behind her dorsal fin. They could track her every movement, and they were excited by the prospect of witnessing her giving birth any day now.

“Ready?” Jackson waited for his dive companions to nod. He then quickly ran through some dive hand-signals. Philippe knew them by heart, but still paid more attention than Arty, who looked disinterested and a little bored.

Jackson guessed he just wanted his pictures, and then hoped to be back home, showing the girls in the office how fearless he was by midday. Jackson wondered how much the creep would have paid to take the shark’s head home as well.

The forty-foot cruiser bobbed on the dark swells, and Jackson leaned over to flip open the cage door. Dawn wasn’t far away, and though his signal locater told him Big Betty was close, she only ever made an appearance near the surface around dawn. She’d grab her snack, and then vanish back down to the depths. She was becoming so accustomed to the tiny creatures in the dive cage; they even devised a way to call her, using a child’s party clicker.

“Okay, Philippe you’re up.” His cameraman nodded, threw a leg over the side, and expertly slid in through the cage’s trap door. For now the cage was suspended at the water line, but once all in, Jackson would take control and winch them down to meet their giant friend.