Shadows at Predator Reef Read Online Free PDF Page A

asked. “You mean like people killing animals illegally?”
    â€œYup,” Murph said. “There’s a black market for everythingfrom rhino horns to tiger claws to turtle shells. Just the shell of a sea turtle as big as Captain Hook could sell for hundreds of thousands. And a lot of the organs are used for different cures and as exotic delicacies.”
    I really didn’t want to think about what that might mean for Captain Hook.
    â€œBut is that really a problem in the United States?” I asked. “The endangered species laws are so strict here that I thought most of the turtle poaching happened in foreign waters, where the laws aren’t enforced.”
    â€œExactly,” Murph said. “The rarer something is, the more people are willing to spend. So who knows how much a live specimen from the United States might go for if you found the right buyer?”
    Suddenly Mr. V’s million-dollar reward didn’t seem that outlandish. Someone might be willing to spend more than that just to add Captain Hook to their private collection . . . or much, much worse.
    â€œAnd that’s the other thing,” Murph said hesitantly. “There’s been chatter about something else. Word is there’s a cell of TCM poachers operating off the Bayport coast.”
    Murph began to get this queasy look. When he started talking again, I found out why.
    â€œThey’ve been cutting the fins off sharks to sell for shark-fin soup,” he said. “The mutilated bodies have been washing up on shore.”

THE BRITISH ARE COMING
5
JOE
    T HE NEWS JUST KEPT GETTING worse. It was bad enough that Captain Hook needed special medication and that someone could have jeopardized her life by stealing her for their private collection. But the possibility that poachers wanted her for parts made me feel ill. I wasn’t as emotionally attached to her as Frank or Mr. V, but Captain Hook was a beautiful living creature, and I was beyond bummed to think someone might want to chop her up and turn her into turtle tonic.
    Murph wished us luck and promised to keep an ear out for any more intel on Captain Hook, stolen fish, or the poachers. The crowd around the aquarium was starting to thin out as the news vans dispersed in search of someoneelse to interview. That’s when I saw a tall, slim man in a custom-tailored pinstripe suit hurrying along the pier away from the aquarium. Maybe it was the briefcase he was carrying, but something about him looked really familiar.
    â€œIs that . . . ?”
    â€œDirk Bishop?” Frank finished my question before I had a chance.
    â€œNo way, dude. It can’t be.”
    â€œI think it is.”
    â€œWell, let’s find out.”
    Dirk Bishop was the one who got away, a snooty British treasure hunter who’d tried to buy some stolen gold coins we’d found aboard a Revolutionary War ship. Last time we’d seen him, he’d been on his way to make the buy, carrying what we thought was a briefcase full of cash, but he’d gotten spooked and took off before we could nab him. No one had heard a peep from Bishop since.
    We’d figured he’d gone back to jolly old England. But here he was again, right back where we saw him last, rushing along the docks with a briefcase, looking all too sneaky. Bad juju followed Bishop around like an ugly puppy—all the people he’d done business with on our last case had ended up either dead, kidnapped, or in jail—so whatever had brought him back to Bayport was bound to be bad news.
    â€œIf it is him, he has real nerve showing his face in Bayport again,” Frank muttered as we trailed the man along the pier.“He must have known the police didn’t have anything on him to risk another trip back here.”
    â€œEither that or something gave him a good enough reason to take the chance anyway,” I said, wondering what kind of trouble he intended to stir up this