“I’m a high school teacher,” Bray said. “You’ll have to do better than that if you’re trying to insult me.”
The pair stared at each other for a moment. Bennett looked like he was ready to say something and Hawkins knew Bray would already have thirty different one-liners lined up. He was about to say they didn’t have time to argue, but Bennett beat him to the punch.
“Just forget it, okay?” Bennett took a step back toward the door, looking wounded. Before anyone could apologize, he paused. “Have you found anything interesting? I mean, for why we’re out here. The Garbage Patch.”
“We’re getting there,” Joliet said.
Bennett backed toward the door. “Right. Okay. So yeah. Drake says to make it snappy.” He stopped at the door. “Hey, Kam—good luck with the turtle, buddy.” And with that, he stepped out of the room and closed the door.
“I knew he wouldn’t stay,” Bray said.
“Not sure pissing off the guy who controls the air-conditioning in our room is a good idea,” Hawkins said. “Could make our lives hell.”
Bray grunted, but didn’t argue the point.
“Didn’t know you two were friends,” Joliet said to Kam.
Kam shrugged, still looking queasy. “Neither did I.”
“Right.” With a reassuring smile, Joliet turned back to the turtle’s stomach and placed a scalpel against the organ. “I’m going to open the stomach now. Ready?”
Kam took a breath, swallowed, and nodded.
She made the cut as she spoke. “If the turtle ate anything—oh my God.”
Hawkins stepped closer, interest overriding revulsion. “What is it?”
“Get this,” she said to Bray, waving him closer. She finished the cut and spread the organ open. A rainbow of colors greeted them. She reached in and scooped out a handful of the undigested meal. “Plastic. It’s all plastic.”
She dug out two more handfuls. Most of the plastic chips were unidentifiable globs, stuck together by gelatinous goo and undigested fish parts, but Hawkins saw a bottle cap, a scissor handle, and what looked like a full spool’s worth of dental floss. The items seemed random, unconnected, but all had one thing in common: They were trash, either thrown into the ocean intentionally or lost by some sunken cargo ship.
“Likely cause of death is starvation,” Joliet said, reaching into the open cavity once more. “The stomach filled with debris over time and eventually became so packed with indigestible particles that food could no longer fit. The disfigured body was bad enough, but this is…” Joliet’s forehead scrunched up. “Hold on. Something’s stuck in here.” She tugged at something, but couldn’t pull it free. “Can I have the pliers?”
Hawkins picked up the tool and handed it to Joliet. He leaned in closer, sour stomach all but forgotten. This is what they’d been looking for. No one could deny the damage being done to the ocean once they saw this video. That the specimen was a relatively cute creature helped, too. If this were a shark, some people might actually cheer.
“Got it,” Joliet said. She pursed her lips and pulled. “It’s really stu—”
Whatever it was came free and Joliet spilled backward. Hawkins caught her with an arm under her back. But neither of them commented on the fall, or quick save. Both sets of eyes were on the object clutched in the pliers’ grip.
“What the hell is that?” Hawkins asked, standing Joliet back up.
The object looked like a plastic cube. On its base were four stainless-steel prongs, each tipped with a bit of torn stomach lining. A thin, five-inch-long, black wire emerged from one side. And what looked like a small LED light sat on top of the device.
“I think it’s a transmitter,” Bray said. “Radio tracker. Gives off a pulsing signal.”
“Inside a turtle?” Kam said. “Is that unusual?”
Joliet raised a single eyebrow at Kam. “Are you serious?”
The kid just shrugged.
“It looks like it was designed to be ingested,” Hawkins observed. “Those hooks kept it planted to the stomach wall. But the light’s not on. Must not be working.”
“I can open it up,” Kam said. “See how it works. Maybe find some clue about who made it on a circuit board or something?”
“That’s actually a really good idea,” Bray said.
They were right. Kam was the perfect man for the job.
“Just take off the—” Kam wiggled a finger at the bits of stomach lining clinging to the barbs.