Chapter 1

Present Day. Key Largo.

The timer on the front of the bomb counted down, paying no attention to the man trying to stop it. It paid no attention to the water pressure exerted on it by 25 feet of water above and around it. And it certainly didn't care about the millions of lives that would forever change the moment the timer reached zero and the bomb did its job.

Like the bomb, Mike Scott only had one job on his mind at that moment, too. He had to stop the bomb and save Hollywood from imminent destruction. Religious fanatics were bent on destroying the city in a flood and Mike was going to stop them. Or die trying. The bomb was secured to the inside of the dam that created the Hollywood Reservoir, a freshwater lake, in the hills above the city. If it went off, millions of gallons of water would be released onto the city in the space of a heartbeat flooding Hollywood before anyone would have a chance to evacuate.

Out of nowhere, a diver grabbed Mike from behind, pulling him away from his job. The terrorists were back. And Mike knew it would be a fight to the death.

The two men struggled together, locked in a death grip. The zealot was prepared to die for his cause. He knew he only had to delay Mike long enough to let the timer run down to zero. They would die; he would achieve his goal. Mike was fighting a war on two fronts. He had to stop the terrorist and disable the bomb. But how? Their struggle pulled him farther away from the bomb with every second.

Mike grabbed the terrorist diver's mask and pulled it loose with one hand while he jerked the man's regulator from his mouth with the other. He punched the diver in the stomach, forcing the air from the man's lungs. Free for a moment, Mike turned to race back to the bomb. He knew he would only have a few seconds to stop the bomb and catastrophe. Suddenly a shark passed directly in front of him, nearly knocking his own mask loose.

"Cut!" a disembodied voice called out, filling the water. "Cut! What's that shark doing in there? Everyone back to one. And someone get the shark off the set! Where are my safety divers?" In between each sentence, the water was filled with a piercing feedback squeal.

The real Mike Scott hovered just behind Frazier Nivens, the underwater cinematographer, watching the scene unfold. He had been lost in his own thoughts, remembering the time he had fought a terrorist bent on flooding Hollywood by destroying the reservoir in the hills above Los Angeles. He was surprised as everyone else when the shark entered the scene. The producer had invited him to the set for the day to watch, purely out of courtesy. He had no role there other than to blow bubbles. They hadn't even let him bring his camera along. The director floated above them on the Coral Princess VI, a glass-bottomed dive boat from Captain Slate's Dive Center, watching everything through the monitor tied to the cameras below. The crew could watch the action through the glass bottom, but the director was looking at the action being recorded by the camera, via a fiber-optic cable attached directly to the underwater camera housing. The director communicated with actors and crew using an underwater speaker called a hydrophone. The speaker kept putting out feedback as the director, unused to doing his job remotely, kept positioning his microphone in front of the smaller audio monitor on the boat. It had become a running joke for the crew. They were all squealing in between sentences when they spoke to each other between dives.

The director and crew had elected to shoot the underwater scenes of their film in the Florida Keys, purely out of convenience. They wanted clear, warm water to shoot in. A real mountain lake would have limited visibility and a green cast they couldn't shoot around. They had created the set in a sandy area away from the coral reef to avoid colorful fish swimming through the scene, but no one anticipated a shark.

Mike looked all around him to see where the Caribbean reef shark went. Back in reality, he was on full alert. He had made many dives with sharks in his career and it didn't make sense for one of them to swim directly into the middle of a scene with that many people. Divers are big and noisy and there was no food in the water. Something wasn't right.

The film crew prepared to stage the fight scene again, racing against the time pressure caused by filming underwater. They were limited by the air in their tanks so they didn't have time to dally on set. If they didn't complete the scene before the divers in the water ran low on air, they would have to surface, rest and reset, costing them valuable time and money. Mike, on the other hand, backed away to survey the entire scene and suddenly got a chill despite the warm Florida water surrounding them. There wasn't just one shark in the water, but five. And they weren't swimming away. They were circling the set off camera. No one else noticed them. The production crew was too intent on shooting the film and making sure the actors had what they needed to do their jobs.

The sharks cruised slowly through the water, seemingly indifferent to the people in the water. Mike guessed they measured between six and nine feet in length, with sleek gray bodies and sharp teeth. As the actors began the fight scene again, Mike focused on the sharks. They were predators, but Caribbean reef sharks didn't hunt in packs. And they were opportunistic feeders. They went after weak and dying fish. It didn't make sense. Why were they staying close? Why weren't they leaving the area?

In a flash, the first shark closed in on the action again, going from barely moving to accelerating to full speed in a fraction of a second. No one else was watching the sharks; they were too focused on the action in front of them, worried about realism and getting the scene right. The shark was heading directly for the two fighting actors in the water. Mike acted without a thought. He lurched forward, grabbing a plastic slate from one of the production assistants in the water as he passed by. They were using the slate to identify scenes and takes, erasing the magnetic screen on the one-foot square slate with each new shot. It wasn't going to do much, but Mike hoped it would be enough.

Mike angled directly toward the divers in the water. As he crossed in front of the primary camera, he heard the topside director begin shouting about the interruption, but he didn't have time to worry about that. The sharks were not behaving normally and he didn't want to see a disaster unfold in front of him and on camera. Mike arrived just as the shark did. The shark was in its element. Mike wasn't. He knew there wasn't much he could do to deter the shark, but he had to try.

The shark snapped its jaws on the closest actor's arm. Mike realized distantly it was the one playing him in the film. Rather than trying to stop the bite, Mike slashed at the shark's eye with the plastic slate. The shark's natural defenses kicked in, closing the nictitating membrane that protected its eye when it was feeding. Mike knew he didn't do any damage to the animal, but the blow was enough to make the shark release its bite and dart away as quickly as it approached. The shark bumped into Mike as it passed and he felt its raspy, rough skin and the solid muscle underneath.
His instincts told him this wasn't over.

Mike turned in the water to find the camera and he signaled to the cinematographer, and the director on the surface, that they needed to get out of the water. They were all in danger. It took the director a moment to realize what was going on and tell everyone to get to the surface and return to the boats. To their credit, no one seemed to panic. Despite the scary scene, the crew began surfacing, aiding the injured actor to the surface first. Mike hung back from the exit and watched the blue waters beyond the set. The sharks were still out there and they seemed agitated. The animals began darting toward the film crew, making feints toward the divers as they waited to climb out of the water. It wasn't much, but there was blood in the water from the actor who was bitten. Mike knew sharks could sense a few drops of fresh blood, so that wasn't going to help. The ladders on the boats formed a bottleneck, only allowing one diver at a time to escape the water. They were using two boats, but it still wasn't moving fast enough. There was going to be more trouble.

Lessons for Life: Diver Panics After Seeing Shark

The safety divers for the film were mostly made up of local dive instructors. Their primary job was to keep an eye on the crew and make sure no one ran out of air on the dive. It never crossed their minds that they would have to protect anyone from sharks. They knew sharks didn't attack without being provoked. Most of them were excited about seeing a shark a few minutes before when the animal swam through the scene.

Most of the film crew had surfaced, leaving only their legs and the lower halves of their bodies in the water. This left them especially vulnerable. They couldn't see what was going on below them. Mike hovered 15 feet underwater, close to one of the two boats. He kept an eye on the sharks and the people on the surface.

The sharks turned as a pack and began swimming directly at the boats. Mike acted, swimming directly at the sharks. He began screaming through his regulator and flailing in the water with the plastic slate. Three of the sharks veered away from Mike toward the other boat. The remaining two continued on course, heading straight toward Mike.

Chapter 2

Mike began to wonder about his choice to distract the sharks. They seemed to be bent on a mission, not just hunting. They should have veered away when Mike confronted them. Caribbean reef sharks weren't known to be terribly aggressive under the best of circumstances and this was anything but that.

Unconsciously, he assessed the situation, like a driver heading off a cliff wondering where he made a wrong turn, but his conscious thought was entirely devoted to the here and now. At least 1000 pounds of shark headed directly for him and the defenseless divers in the water trying to board the boat. And he didn't have so much as a rock to throw at them. He continued his charge, flailing his arms and shouting as the sharks got closer.

Out of the corner of his eye, Mike saw something he couldn't believe. A freediver came bolting past him, holding a brightly-colored five-foot-long shark stick. The diver swam right at the two sharks from above, encountering the charging animals at a perfect angle. He used the plastic PVC pipe to smack one shark on the nose and then jabbed the other animal in the side as it passed. Whatever urge caused the two sharks to charge the divers, it wasn't stronger than the instinct of self-preservation. The two sharks peeled off, accelerating away from the scene with jaw-dropping speed.

Mike didn't know if they were gone for good, but he hoped they would stay away at least long enough to get the film crew out of the water. And then he saw exactly what he didn't want to see. The five sharks had regrouped 100 feet from the boats. Mike couldn't believe it, but he realized they were going to come back for another pass. There were still several divers in the water. He saw blood in the water, too, but he couldn't tell what had happened. He needed something to scare the sharks away and he needed it now. The shark stick wasn't going to be enough.

And then Mike saw the answer. At least he hoped it would work. The director's hydrophone was still hanging in the water. Mike swam toward it and then looked up at the freediver on the surface. Mike pointed at the hydrophone, then he pointed at his ear. Then he gestured up and down with his thumb. The man looked at Mike puzzled for a moment so Mike repeated the gestures over and over, his movements becoming choppier and more frantic with each repetition. The man finally realized what Mike wanted and swam toward the boat.

The sharks were coming back for another pass. Perfect swimming machines, they accelerated quickly, straight for the divers in the water.

Lessons for Life: Fail To Plan, Plan To Fail

Mike heard the hydrophone begin to hum as he reached for its cords. He grabbed the hydrophone and began swimming at the sharks, holding it in front of his body like a shield. Mike was rewarded with a piercing squeal from the speaker as the director created the all-too-familiar squeal of feedback. Mike hoped it would be enough to distract, or at least discourage, the sharks around them.

The sharks slowed their approach, suddenly unsure of what to do. Mike kept swimming directly toward the animals, praying someone on the boat realized they needed to let out more cable so he could take the hydrophone with him. Four of the sharks peeled off. But the fifth, the largest, continued its course directly at Mike. Mike had been bitten by a shark once before, when he was photographing a feeding frenzy in the Bahamas. He wasn't looking forward to repeating the experience, but there wasn't anything he could do about it right now. He cradled the hydrophone and ducked his head down, pulling his arms in close, in a fetal position and braced for the attack.

Turning at the last second, the shark slammed into Mike with its side, and then bolted away. As it disappeared off into the distance, Mike realized it didn't bite him.

He looked around and the sharks were gone. Looking towards the surface, he saw the last of the divers climbing out of the water. It was over. Time to get back on the boat.

Mike glanced around and found the freediver who helped him. The man was still floating on the surface, watching him. Mike gave the man an "Okay" signal and then a thumb up to indicate he was coming up. Finally, he gestured back to his ear and then gave a slashing motion. It was safe to turn the hydrophone off.

Surfacing through the last 10 feet of water behind the boat, Mike met the freediver at the ladder. Mike pulled off his gear while the other man climbed up. The boat crew grabbed Mike's gear, while free hands practically lifted him out of the water, as well.

"Captain Sky, what's the situation? How many are hurt?" Mike asked, using a voice that left no doubt he expected an answer. An international photojournalist, Mike had covered more than his fair share of war zones. He knew someone had to take charge and settle things down.

The boat captain replied immediately. "Just one on this boat. Two on the other boat. Nothing critical, but bleeding all the same. Bites on the feet and ankles. Their fins helped. I've called the Coast Guard to report our situation. Now that everyone is on board, we're ready to head for shore. My crew is administering first aid."

"Thank you, Captain. You're doing a great job. Let's get these people back to the dock. Watch for shock from blood loss and let's get everyone else settled down." Mike knew the young woman was well-trained and an experienced boat captain, well-versed in handling difficult situations.

Mike had training in combat medicine so he immediately checked on the diver aboard this boat who was hurt. The divemaster caring for her was maintaining direct pressure on the injury and doing his best to calm the woman down. Mike moved around to speak to several of the other divers making sure everyone was okay. Mike could tell the adrenaline and fear was starting to bleed off from the film crew. No one was laughing, but he could feel the mood lifting. There were even a couple comments about hitting the bar that evening, with replies questioning the need to wait until evening.

Once he had made his rounds, Mike found the freediver who helped him out. He was sitting near the stern with the cinematographer.

"Thank you," Mike said as he approached the two men, his hand outstretched.

"You're welcome, but I should be thanking you," the man said. "My name is Jeff."

Mike looked the man over for a moment. Jeff was tall and fit, about the same age as Mike. The skin on his face and hands showed a long life of working in and around the ocean.

"I'm guessing you're not part of the regular film crew."

"No, they hired me to help out with the filming. I work with one of the local universities, doing water quality sampling and reef research. They wanted me around to be a safety diver and give them some guidance on keeping the set clear."

"You sure earned your money today!"

"Mike, I got the whole thing on camera," the cinematographer nearly shouted.

"You're kidding. I didn't see you in the water during the attack, Frazier." Frazier Nivens was an award-winning underwater cinematographer that Mike knew from working together on many stories over the years. Frazier had, in fact, built a career filming sharks in the water.

"I got out as quickly as I could, once the rest of the crew was clear, but then I stayed on the swim step with the camera in the water to catch the end of it."

"Have you ever seen anything like that? They seemed to want to come after the divers. Definitely not typical shark behavior."

"That's what Jeff and I were just talking about. Definitely nothing I've ever seen before," Frazier agreed.

"What made you think of using the hydrophone?" Jeff asked.

"I honestly have no idea. It just came to me. I didn't know if it would work or not, but I had to try something or we would have lost someone. Those sharks were definitely coming in for the kill."

"Well, I'm glad you were there, Mike, or this could have turned out a lot worse than it did."

"Thanks, Frazier. The way those sharks were acting, I'm afraid we haven't seen the end of this. We need to alert the authorities to be on the lookout.”

"Do you think those sharks could attack again?" Jeff asked.

"I have no idea. Nothing about this makes sense to me."