Adventures of the Romeo Gang - “Deadly Harpoons”

Disclaimer: (The following story is pure fiction. All names, places and events are coincidental and are only used to embellish the story.)









Adventures of the Romeo Gang - “Deadly Harpoons”
by Mark Ryan © 2010

It was a great day for fishing. The sun was shining in a blue sky and I could see a few wispy clouds off in the distance. The Romeo gang had planned a fishing trip for mid August and Paul had made all the arrangements. The Romeos (Retired Old Men Eating Out) are retired school teachers who meet each month for lunch, camaraderie and laughs. We were all to meet at 7:30 AM at Solomon’s Pier along Gloucester Harbor near the Heritage Maritime Museum. Paul told us to just park near the museum around the circular driveway.

I was the first to arrive and parked my car at the end of the driveway. I got out of my car and walked around the area just looking at all the sights and enjoying the fresh air. Since I was the designated photographer, I began shooting a few photos. The harbor was coming alive as fishing boats moved out from their docks, men worked at the coast guard station and a rowing team paddled in unison to the calls of their crew captain.

Next to arrive was Joe Laprusso who parked his car a few spots up from mine. As he got out he said “Bongiorno Marco”. I repeated the greeting and said “Buongiorno, Signor Giuseppe”. “What a beautiful morning. I hope the fishing is just as good. Bella Fortuna to all of us”.

The other guys began arriving and parked around the driveway. We all greeted each other with the affection of a close knit Italian brotherhood. Although Paul had sent out an email about a month ago to the entire Romeo gang about a possible fishing trip, only five members responded positively. And here we all stood with great expectations to catch the big one. The small group consisted of Paul Giraldo, Joe Laprusso, Joe Pignato, Jim Terluccio and me Marco Greico.

We all grabbed our small duffle bags filled with needed items for the day. This consisted of a sweat shirt or jacket, sunscreen, bottled water, lunch, snacks and a small cooler for a fish or two. Carrying our bags we all walked down to the dock to await the fishing charter boat called the “Sandy T” and a half day of deep sea fishing.

The boat arrived a little late and we all got on board and introduced ourselves to the deck mate Pat and the captain who liked to be called Captain Blue. His real name was Ron Bernstein. The boat was a 37 foot Duffy Hull finished by Cape Island Boats and powered by a 715 HP Cummins electric diesel engine. With this engine, it was extremely fast but also comfortable as it skimmed across the water. The wheel house was also loaded with modern electronics for communication, navigation and fish finding.

Captain Blue said, “Sorry we are a little late, but we needed a jump start before we got here”. He explained, although the boat was new, they had to jump start the engine early this morning. Evidently, Captain Blue’s family was on board yesterday for a boat christening celebration party and someone left on some radio electronics that drained the battery. However, with some simple jumper cables and a spare battery charger the engine started right up. He then said, “It should be just fine now since the running engine will recharge the battery to full strength”. I could see the jumper cables hanging out of the stern storage locker.

After leaving the dock we quickly made our way out of Gloucester Harbor and saw other charter boats cruising along the rocky shore or small harbor islands looking for a good fishing spot. We pulled up close to a small rocky out cropping as the waves crashed against the rocks. There were flocks of sea birds, mostly cormorants, flying around the rocks and skimming the water looking for their morning breakfast.

We cast our baited lines toward the rocks and after a while didn’t have much luck, not even a single bite. However, we did sea a lot of jellyfish swimming near the surface. In fact it looked like some of the jellies had actually engulfed some small fish as they descended below the surface. As we got closer to the rocks we could see that some of the fish were being digested or dissolved inside the belly of some bigger jellies. As we reeled in our lines I snagged some jellies and pulled them aboard. One had a small cod fish incased in its translucent body.

The deck mate Pat tried to unhook the jelly from the line with a long fish knife. As his hand got closer, a jelly tentacle slapped him on the wrist and Pat yelled, “Boy that stings like a sonavabee”. Joe Pignato quickly held the jelly down with a fish net handle as the mate Pat cut it free and dropped it into a fish catch box to examine later. As we stared into the catch box we could see the small cod had been stung by the jelly and was now paralyzed. It was incased in a clear sack as it was slowly dissolving in digestive juices.

Captain Blue said, “The jellies have become quite a problem lately as the water has gotten warmer this summer; the fish catch has also decreased. I hope the jellies you see out there isn’t a sign of a poor catch today. Gloucester Harbor seemed to be particularly affected by the jelly swarm”. We decided to leave the area and try another one closer to shore to hopefully catch some fish rather than jellies. As we got closer, the boat eased in to an out cropping of rocks and the captain used engine power to help keep us steady. This was a bit difficult since the waves kept pushing us closer.

After steadying the boat we cast our baited lines toward the rocks and saw even more jellies floating at the surface. Jim Terluccio was on another fishing rig and snagged another jelly. As he started to reel him in, we noticed that a mass of jellies around the boat began to glow in unison with a blue-green bioluminescence. It was like they were signaling each other. Suddenly the individual jellies seemed to all connect together into a large jelly colony around the boat.

The jelly mass started to creep up the sides of the gunwales like a giant amoeba, tipping the boat to leeward. The Captain yelled “If this keeps up, we will definitely capsize”. The boat paint under the jelly mass started to peel and dissolve. It was like the jelly was trying to digest the boat. We needed to do something fast before the amorphous jelly mass engulfed us all.

As the jellies continued up the sides of the boat, they all glowed with brilliant blue-green luminescence. This made me think that they must have an internal electrical network. At that instant I saw the jumper cables, that were used earlier today, stuffed in the stern utility locker. I said, “We may be able to shock the jelly network with some electric battery juice”. I then yelled to the mate Pat to attach jumper cables to the boat battery and then touch the free ends to the jelly mass on the gunwale. In a split second Pat told the captain to rev the engine for extra juice and he zap the jelly mass.

In an instant, there was a flash of blue light across the water for a hundred feet around. At the same time we all heard a loud sound like the jelly giant had screamed. Immediately the jelly ooze encasing the boat started to dissolve and ran off in watery streams into the ocean. Evidently the electric shock fried the jelly mass and it burst like a water balloon.

The captain threw the throttle in gear and we were out of there in seconds. We radioed an SOS to the coast guard and warned other boats in the area to stay clear of Gloucester Harbor. In the meantime we saw other boats in distress and radioed our defense method to them. All the beaches around Gloucester were quarantined by the authorities until the threat passed. Later, a change in wind direction caused the jellies to move out of the harbor into deeper waters reducing the local threat.

As we hurried back to the dock, I told the captain that we needed to bring the sample jellyfish to a marine research lab for analysis and suggested Cat Cove in Salem, MA.. I said that I knew the director there and could call him for advice. Using the marine radio phone I called the Cat Cove Marine Research Station and spoke to my friend Dr. Joe Barenson. He told me to bring the sample in today and he would ID it.

After getting to the dock we safely transferred the jelly to a Styrofoam cooler and put it in the back of my car. We all left in a caravan of individual cars and got to Cat Cove in about an hour while fighting all the traffic. Dr. Joe met us at the door and took the cooler containing the jelly into his lab. He then carefully put the jelly in a specimen bowl filled with salt water and examined it under a stereo microscope while taking several photos.

After consulting several books and comparing all the characteristics of color, luminescence, size, number of tentacles and nematocysts and other markers, he came to his conclusion. Excitedly, Dr. Joe said “I can’t believe it but it looks like an Irukandji “!
We all said, “What?” Dr. Joe continued, “However, this must be a mutation because the known species are only 2 cm across and live off the coast of Australia and this species is 20 cm across”. “The Irukandji jellies have a bell shaped doom with only 4 tentacles extending 10 times their diameter and covered with nematocysts. These nematocysts are like little cannons that shoot out deadly harpoons containing toxic venom”.

Joe Laprusso then said, “Dr. Joe, can I use this desktop computer to do a Google search on Irukandji?” Dr. Joe said, “Go right ahead, it’s already on, just hit the space bar to activate the screen.” Joe then Googled the keywords and in a second several citations came on the screen describing info about Irukadji. Clicking on several, Joe Laprusso said, “The initial sting is not bad but some severe debilitating affects take place about an hour later.” “These affects cause paralysis, vomiting, rash and can even be lethal if not treated. The normal treatment for jellyfish stings is with intravenous antihistamines”. “However, there is a new treatment recently discovered for these jellyfish stings involving intravenous infusions of Magnesium”.

After hearing this, Paul Giraldi said he would call Captain Bernstein and tell him to get his deck mate Pat to the local hospital immediately. Dr. Joe said he would call the hospital and tell them about the jellyfish species he identified and the possible treatment.

Afterwards, Dr. Joe said, “I know a little about jellyfish because one of my grad students is breeding various jellies here at Cat Cove in several small aquaculture tanks in one of our labs.” “I think he is still here, so let’s go talk with him”.

In a few minutes we had walked through a labyrinth of corridors and small labs and then came to the Jellyfish Lab. Dr. Joe walked in and saw his student there working at a microscope. The student was startled and jumped back. Dr. Joe said, “Sorry to startle you, but these friends of mine are interested in your work on jellyfish”. “First, let me introduce you to our guests. Mohamed Abdul this is Joe, Joe, Jim, Paul and Mark”.

Mohamed was cordial and then said, “Glad to meet you all and I would be happy to show you around”. He then said that he was cross breeding various jellies and studying them as food sources for various marine predators like the Bluefin Tuna, Swordfish and Sea Turtles.

He said that, “The fish and jellyfish have a reverse predator-prey relationship. The adult fish feed on jellyfish and then the jellyfish feed on small fish and their larvae. The populations continue to go up and down. When fish populations increase the jellies decease and vice versa. Most often there is a balance, except recently climate changes and warm water currents and global warming have upset the balance. Over fishing has also decreased fish populations and increased jellyfish ones”.

He also said he was interested in certain chemicals used in medical research related to nerve diseases and was experimenting with the neurotoxins produced in jellyfish stingers. He then pointed to his aquaculture tanks and said he was breeding species of the Portuguese man-o-war (from Spain), Moon jellies (from the U.S.), Pelagia (from Italy) and Irukadji (from Australia).

He continued to say that he recently had made progress with a cross between the Australian and Portuguese jellies to produce an intermediate jelly that produces a biochemical to help with Parkinson’s disease. I then thought to myself that this new species must be the ones we saw early out in the harbor.

Dr. Joe then asked Mohamed if any of his populations have escaped from their tanks or somehow got into the local sea water? This surprised Mohamed and he stumble with his answer. He then said, “Absolutely not. The jellies are under strict experimental controls to prevent cross contamination.” I thought his answer was too abrupt and he was hiding something.

We then thanked Mohamed for the tour and left. Later, Dr. Joe said he would keep a closer watch on what was happening in the jelly lab and probe further to see if it was associated with the recent jellyfish blooms along the local seashores. We then thanked him for the visit and left the lab. As we approached our cars in the parking lot, we saw Mohamed go out a side door carrying a sealed five gallon white bucket to his car. Was this a brazen act of defiance or part of an ongoing secret project?

We all looked at each other with suspicion. Jim Terluccio then said, “We have come this far today, maybe we should follow him just to see where he goes”. We all got in my car and drove after Mohamed trying to stay back a few cars so as not to be seen. He drove to a local marina just a few miles away and parked his car. We watched from a safe distance and called Dr. Joe to tell him what we observed. Dr. Joe said he knew the marina and would use the lab research boat at Cat Cove and be there in a few minutes.

Dr. Joe left Cat Cove and quickly sped off in his boat toward the local inlet where the marina was located. From a distance he saw Mohamed speeding out of the inlet and headed for a small rock island out in Salem Harbor. It was now low tide and Mohamed maneuvered his boat around the rocks and poured out some water slurry from his white bucket. He continued to do this at several areas about one hundred feet apart. He then beached the boat and carried the bucket up to several tidal pools and poured more of the bucket contents into each tidal pool. Evidently, he was seeding the area with jellyfish larvae to incubate further in the natural surroundings.

Dr. Joe sped up close to where he saw Mohamed and yelled to him from a short distance. Mohamed was taken by surprise and knew he was caught red handed. He dropped the bucket and pulled out a gun from his pocket and started shooting at Dr. Joe. Dr. Joe ducked low in his boat and sped off in the opposite direction. Mohamed then got back in his boat and headed for the marina. Dr. Joe pulled a cell phone from his pocket and called the local police and told them about the incident and the gun shots.

In the meantime, we were still standing in the marina parking lot and heard the gun shots from out in the harbor. I then heard my cell phone ring and it was Dr. Joe who explained what happened and that he had called the police. At that instant we saw Mohamed tie up his boat to the dock and run to his car. As he got to the car, he saw us all standing at the end of the lot and began firing his gun in our direction. We all ducked and hid behind some parked cars. He quickly started his car and headed for the lot exit.

Several police cars sped down the exit road and screeched to a stop blocking the exit. Mohamed turned his car around and began heading toward us. He stopped along side our car and jumped out pointing his gun and corralled us all together. He then grabbed Paul by his arm and stuck a gun in his ribs telling him and everyone else not to make a wrong move or get shot. He shot his gun straight up in the air again to warn the police that he had hostages as the police held their position behind several parked cars.

Mohamed then pushed Paul into the open door of his car in an attempt to drive passed the police with his hostage. He then shot his gun in the air to call attention to what he was doing and yelled to the police to let him out or he would shoot Paul. He raised his gun again to shoot and it just made a clicking sound. The gun was empty and he would have to reload. At that instant Joe Pignato leaped at Mohamed knocking him to the ground with the gun falling free from his hand. Joe pinned Mohamed on the ground and they struggled back and forth. In a desperate effort, Mohamed tried to raise his head to squeeze free when Joe head butted him smack in the nose. Blood squirted everywhere and Mohamed was knocked out cold. In an instant the police took over and helped Joe up. The police then cuffed Mohamed on the ground as he still laid there unconscious from Joe’s head butt.

We all patted Joe on the back and congratulated him for his quick actions. Although we knew he was still athletic, he was also in his late 60s and we didn’t expect such a quick response. I then said to everyone, “From now on we will have to kid Joe about his quick action and remind him that he really used his “head” to save the day, no “butts” about it”. We all laughed with a sigh of relief and said thank God it’s over.

In the meantime, Dr. Joe had docked his boat and watched the whole incident from a distance. After it was all over, he approached us and didn’t know what to say except he was thankful that everyone was safe. He also thanked Joe Pignato for his quick action.

After the police took statements from all of us, it was now time to leave. After driving everyone back to Cat Cove in my car, we all got in our separate cars and said goodbye for a while. We were all exhausted from all the excitement of a very long day. We then said that if any of us heard anything we would call and tell each other. It was now time to go home and just unwind.

When I got home, all the local TV stations were broadcasting a breaking news story. “Gun shots fired at local marina. Disgruntled worker at Salem Research lab unsuccessfully tries to shoot boss as a result of work disagreement and is arrested”. Maybe that’s all the public had to know for now. However, there was more to this. Mohamed was hiding something. It will probably be a while before all the pieces are put together.

After several weeks, Dr. Joe called me and told me the whole story. I then called the Romeos to relate the news. Dr. Joe said that during the weeks after the incident the police began an investigation which started off as a simple attempted murder case until other information was found in Mohamed’s lab and apartment. When the new evidence showed connections to an international terrorist group, the FBI and Office of Homeland Security were brought into the investigation. After searching Mohamed’s home computer they found emails and information from other known terrorists located in the U.S. and the Mideast. In fact, many of them were on the FBI watch list.

Evidently, Mohamed was part of a sleeper cell to commit acts of “Bioterrorism” and had ties to Al Qaeda. Although he had not traveled out of the country during the past year, his passport showed previous trips to Australia, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, spending several months in each location. During that time he was brain washed by Islamic extremists to believe in Islamic Jihad and death to the infidels.

He also had contacts with other scientist along the east coat of the U.S. working in marine labs similar to Cat Cove. All of these scientists were grad students from the Mideast with similar ties to Al Qaeda. They were all working on projects that involved local fisheries and jellyfish aquaculture to commit acts of bioterrorism.

Periodically, Mohamed would write encouraging reports and publish articles describing the positive results of his research efforts. These efforts described how jellyfish could be used as a food source for fish and increase the local fish populations. This meant that local fishermen would be able to catch more local fish like cod, stripers, and bluefin tuna. In addition, he wrote other articles that described how certain chemicals found in jelly stingers could be used to help the treatment of neurological conditions or diseases like Parkinson’s disease or mental illness or even Alzheimer’s. These claims gave people hope. However, they were only a cover up.

The published articles were only a ploy. Mohamed was actually cultivating aggressive jellyfish in his aquaculture tanks to attack the young larvae of developing fish and thus reduce future populations in the local fishing grounds. He was also developing aggressive stinger jellies to attack people swimming at local beaches. He had already used his aggressive jellies along the coast of Australia and Italy where hundreds of beach goers had been seriously injured or died. He was now concentrating his efforts along the eastern seaboard assisted by other terrorist strategically located in cities from Maine to Florida.

Over several weeks, the FBI had raided all the labs and apprehended over twenty other members of this sleeper cell, thus stopping any further damaging activities. However, serious damage had already been done to the delicate balance of this ocean ecosystem. It will take years to correct it. This will include a united effort to increase fish populations through methods of aquaculture, fish farming, reducing over fishing, monitoring foreign fishing fleets and also by climate controls that will keep everything in balance.

Lastly, more diligence would be necessary to watch our backs and prevent foreign invaders from inflicting harm right here in our own local neighborhoods. We all have to keep our eyes open. That includes the general public as well as the federal agencies formed to protect us. Although the acts of bioterrorism may happen slower than those of a suicide bomber, they are all just as deadly.

Comments: (always welcome). Email to markryan82@comcast.net

Acknowledgements:
I would like to thank my Romeo friends for their colorful backgrounds and giving me the inspiration for my stories.

References:
BG 12-14-09 Healthy Fish
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/food/articles/2009/12/14/conflicting_reports_raise_health_quandary_for_consumers_of_fish/?page=full
Monterey Bay – Fish List
http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/SeafoodWatch/web/sfw_factsheet.aspx?gid=39
Jelly Fish
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/green/articles/2009/11/27/jellyfish_thrive_as_waters_warm_threatening_fishing_industry_in_japan_and_elsewhere/ New England Jellies
http://wbztv.com/local/jellyfish.sea.jellies.2.1030577.html
New England Fish Industry
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLJ_enUS228US228&q=new+england+fish+industry
Foreign Fishing in New England
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1T4GGLJ_enUS228US228&q=new+england+fish+industry+and+foreign+ships&cts=1262714847976&aq=f&oq=&aqi= Portugeese Man o War
http://www.kensavage.com/archives/massachusetts-beaches-now-have-to-deal-with-jellyfish/
Jellies Off Italy – Pelagia noctiluca (Orange glow) – feeding on fish larvae – decline of predators like Blufin – Warmer water – Climate Change
http://my.lifeinitaly.com/blogs/justindemetri/165-when-jellyfish-attack.html
Facts on Irkanji jellyfish
http://www.timsaxon.co.uk/Irukandjifacts.html
More Facts on Irkanji jellyfish
http://www.irukandjijellyfish.com/
Jellyfish Photos
http://www.jellyfishfacts.net/jellyfish-pictures.html?jellyfish_picture=1