"Oh, please! Like you're so innocent. I needed the job, an' ye've never hesitated paradin' me around in skimpy outfits, usin' me as Highland arm candy. Business is business."

"If that's the way you want to play it, fine. Just so you know, I met with a very wealthy woman earlier today who offered me use of her boat. It's about three times the size of this piece of driftwood, and the press'll eat her up just as much as they do you."

"Ye're lyin'."

"Her name's Theresa Cialino."

"Johnny C.'s widow?"

"You got it. So you'd better start making nice again or …"

Michael Newman stumbled back into the pilothouse, his face pale. "Caldwell, I can't handle much more of this. We either do this now, or you drop me off somewhere."

"Relax, I just spoke with Hoagland. The buoy with the bait's in the water. You can reset the array from active to passive."

"Thank Christ." Using the mouse, Newman clicked on a command, then typed in PASSIVE.

Across Loch Ness, thirty-four pinging sonar buoys went silent.

Calum Forrest's Croft

I opened my eyes, enveloped by darkness. Thunder echoed in the distance, and for a frightening moment, I'd forgotten where I was.

The barn.

I must've dozed off, but something had woken me.

The storm?

The wind?

No, it was a beeping sound, coming from my laptop.

I fumbled for the machine and opened the monitor, its luminescent screen bathing my surroundings in blue light. The GPS real-time image of Loch Ness gradually came into focus, highlighted by thirty- four green dots representing the sonar buoys.

The word ACTIVE had changed to PASSIVE in the upper-right corner of the screen.

The beeping sound was coming from a sonar alert. Heart pounding, I typed in a command, isolating the object's location.

The screen changed, focusing in on the middle third of the array. A tiny red blip was moving south, following Loch Ness's eastern shoreline.

I typed in IDENTIFY OBJECT and pressed ENTER. BIOLOGIC. Length: 15.75 meters.

Speed: 13 knots.

Direction: South by southwest.

Location: 2.48 kilometers south of Foyers.

Almost sixteen meters? That made it over fifty feet long!

As I watched the screen, the red blip suddenly altered its course and crossed the Loch, heading toward the opposite shore.

Jesus… It's moving in this direction.

I pushed open the barn door, shocked at what I was now seeing.

It was night, a nasty one, the dark shoreline directly behind the perimeter fence bathed in an artificial white light. Calum's boat was docked at the pier. Two sheep were baaing in a small clearing outside of the fence, the animals tied off to stakes located close to the water. The patch of grass was made visible in the darkness by a red light coming from a lamp post situated atop the perimeter fencing.