“On the evening of June 21, everything changed. Hours earlier, a small ferry had left the wharf located here at the Clansman Hotel. Returning from Fort Augustus loaded with thirty-seven passengers and three crewmen, the boat was passing Urquhart Castle when it was rammed from below with what many eyewitnesses described as the force of a locomotive. Though the boat took on water, the engines remained intact and the ship’s captain managed to make it back to the dock. Then, as shaken passengers disembarked, Plessie surfaced half a kilometer to the north of where I’m standing. Hungry from her long months of hibernation, the creature went after the fleeing tourists.

“The first victim was Magdalena Hicklen of New York. The South Bronx native, who had survived drive-by shootings and a counter-culture of drugs and crime, was vacationing in Scotland with her husband, Nate, and their young son, Spencer. When she saw the giant caiman coming down the A-82 highway, Magdalena yelled to her spouse to get the boy inside the hotel. Witnesses say the woman distracted the thirty-five-ton crocodile, ducking between parked cars before hurrying inside the Clansman’s lobby herself. The enraged animal smashed through the entrance and emerged from the wreckage with Magdalena dangling from its mouth by her left leg. The woman thrashed and kicked the creature with her other leg but was unable to free herself as the giant caiman returned to the water and submerged with its meal, leaving behind a decimated hotel and locals fearing for their lives.

“Two more attacks have occurred since the Clansman feeding, all around dusk and at four- to five-day intervals. Lorey Schmidt was taken as she walked along the shoreline in Foyers, texting her girlfriend back home. Ernest Lazano was reported missing from Invermoriston, where he was staying at a bed-and-breakfast. His severed right arm was found thirty meters upstream from Loch Ness in the River Moriston.

“While members of Parliament continue to debate over whether to capture or kill the Purussaurus, the man who discovered the egg has decided to take matters into his own hands.”

I followed True as he and Jim wheeled their bait back down the wharf to his boat. Jim clipped the end of a steel cable around the dead cow’s neck collar while True used a hose to wash the animal’s blood from his hands.

He grabbed my arm in a wet, vice-like grip when I tried to board the vessel. “Sorry, lad. You and Jimmy are stayin’ here.”

“True, there’s no way I’m letting you do this alone.”

“Yeah, there is. It’s my fault all this happened, an’ we both ken it. But before I go, there’s one thing I need tae hear from yer lips: how did ye do it, Zach? How did ye escape from Vostok seven years ago?”

“I told you. I found the subglacial river and followed it all the way back to the Amery Ice Shelf.”