by Bobby Akart
These two types of whales enjoy feeding off mackerel. The greatest concentration of mackerel was generally found from Cape Cod Bay northward up the coast to Maine and Canada. It was only on rare occasion that the mackerel made their way into the warmer waters of Vineyard and Nantucket Sounds. Also, mackerel were mostly found in forty to seventy feet of water. While parts of Nantucket Sound reached eighty feet, most of the depths were less than forty.
Nonetheless, an abundance of mackerel had invaded the main channel of Nantucket Sound, and with food came predators—the finback and humpback whales.
Cape Cod Eco-Tours operated three vessels out of Hyannis Port in Barnstable. Ordinarily, they circled the end of the cape and took their passengers north up the coast toward the waters more frequented by the whales. With the unusual influx of mackerel that summer, the whales ventured into Nantucket Sound, to the joy and delight of onlookers.
The company tasked their two larger vessels with ferrying passengers northward for the longer ride along the coast. They added a twenty-six-foot glass-bottom pontoon boat to handle the shorter, two-hour cruises in Nantucket Sound.
That afternoon, a group of a dozen teenagers were on board the pontoon boat as part of a high school science class assignment. The kids had been given the option of taking a written test or writing an essay on the whales and their unusual presence in the sound.
Half the class opted for the whale tour, namely the ones who looked for any excuse to get out of the classroom. In the van on the way over to the dock in Barnstable, they all agreed to share their notes and collaborate on their essays, changing them just enough to pass muster with their teacher.
Their focus was to make sure they could smuggle four pints of vodka on board to be mixed with the Gatorade provided by the tour. Glass was prohibited on the boat, so methods of smuggling the liquor were discussed and agreed upon. They intended to turn the eco-tour into a party boat.
After the group was loaded onto the pontoon boat, the sole operator fired the twin Yamaha outboard engines, and they slowly made their way into the main channel. While the employee focused on the other boats in the area and his appointed destination, the teens passed the bottle, alternating swigs of vodka with the Gatorade chaser.
Once the pontoon boat had reached the main channel where the water was the deepest, the operator slowed and began to brief the students on what they could expect to see. A few of them paid attention, or at least those who were tasked with remembering what they saw. The rest focused on getting drunk and making out at the back of the boat.
The tour guide began. “Nantucket Sound has been home to several pods of humpback and finback whales this summer as they feed on massive schools of mackerel that have taken up residency here for some reason. They’ve become a big boom to our local economy as tourists have flocked here from around the world to see them.”
“I don’t see any,” mumbled one of the teenage boys loud enough for the operator to hear. “Are you sure we’re in the right place?” He laughed at himself, and several of his friends gave him high fives for his sarcasm.
The man was not amused, but continued nonetheless. He saw that one of the girls was recording his presentation, and he didn’t want to get in trouble with his boss.
“Look!” exclaimed one of the girls. “I see a fin about a hundred feet ahead of you.”
The boat operator fell for the ruse and turned around to search for the sighting. He grabbed his binoculars and began to scan the slightly choppy waters. While he did so, the teens quickly passed the bottles of vodka around, which were rapidly emptying into their young bellies.
He turned and scowled before continuing. “We’ve had equal numbers of humpback and finback whales. The humpbacks range from thirty-five to fifty-five feet long. The finbacks range from forty-five to seventy feet long. The finbacks are much faster, which is why we call them the greyhounds of the sea.”
One of the boys interrupted him and adopted a Boris Karlov, Dracula-sounding voice. “Do they enjoy the taste of human flesh?”
The group of teens burst into laughter. The alcohol had taken the desired effect. Many of them were drunk or in such a giddy mood that they exaggerated their reaction.
The boat operator rolled his eyes and considered saying yes, followed by inadvertently throwing the insolent teenager overboard to gauge his reaction, but he pursed his lips and bit his tongue.
“There have been recorded instances of whales preying on usually terrestrial species, such as a moose swimming between the small islands off the coast of Maine, but to my knowledge, there have been no fatal attacks on humans in the wild. Accidents have happened with whales in captivity, but it was simply a matter of the handler being in the way of a whale—”
The operator never finished his sentence. On each side of the pontoon boat, two massive finbacks sprang out of the water in unison, an extremely rare event, as fin whales rarely breach the surface.
The teens were in awe, momentarily, until they felt the impact of the finbacks falling back to the water. The waves created by their eighty-ton bodies roared toward the pontoon boat, which was no match for the impact. They struck the port and starboard sides at nearly the same moment, propelling the boat upward and out of the water. When it came crashing back down, two of the kids at the rear fell overboard into the sound.
The group recovered from the unusual activity, and the two teens were fished back on board. After a few minutes, the operator insisted that the kids secure their life jackets tightly, and he suggested they move to another area. He started the engines again and then looked ahead.
Directly in his path, an enormous humpback, the size of a school bus, breached the water with an awe-inspiring acrobatic move. He kicked his tail to lift himself a little higher, defying gravity as he held himself high in the air.
The humpback was inspecting the pontoon boat. He was a big bull, probably the leader of the pod. His broad and rounded head was covered with knobs called tubercles, each one containing stiff hair that was thought to be used as motion detectors.
His massive underbelly was marked with spots of black and white, and it came into extremely close view as the humpback found its way back into the water with an incredible splash. This time the wave created by the massive beast was far more devastating to the pontoon boat.
The water forced the bow upward into the sky to the point it was almost standing on its own. The suddenness caught everyone on board unprepared, and they were thrown off the back end toward the water being churned by the propellers.
The water turned red as several of the teens got their limbs caught in the props, severing arms, legs, and cutting open one boy’s scalp.
And this was just the beginning.
Completely out of character, the finbacks reemerged and charged toward the passengers, who were flailing in the water. Finbacks or humpback whales are considered baleen, meaning they don’t have teeth. Rather they have hundreds of fringed, overlapping plates made of keratin hanging down from their upper jaws, the same thing human nails are made of.
Unlike sharks, they don’t bite. They consume. The two finbacks and the bull humpback began to consume their prey—the frantic teenagers and the boat operator.
The kids scattered about, most opting to swim back toward shore while others tried to make their way to the pontoon boat, which was now idling away from them. Several took off their shoes and the life vest to enable them to swim faster, but it didn’t matter.
The whales eat prey by taking in large gulps of water. Just below their mouth, two to three dozen throat grooves expand to hold the water, which is later expelled through their blowholes. Their prey remains in their mouth until it’s swallowed whole.
One by one, the three whales began to devour the teens. They were soon joined by others, who created a frenzy that would put a Shark Week video to shame. When the feeding was done, all that remained was the pontoon boat heading out to sea and a myriad of unidentifiable body parts that were too small for the massive whales to tri
fle with.
The seagulls, however, were more than delighted to pick at the leftovers.
Chapter 21
Icelandair Flight
Seattle, Washington, To Nuuk, Greenland
The next night, after a couple of follow-up reports on the weather conditions that gave rise to the two waterspouts, Chapman boarded an Icelandair flight for a seven-hour nonstop to Reykjavik, Iceland where he would catch a connecting flight to Nuuk, Greenland. His executive producers at TWC in Atlanta offered to give him a few days off before he went to Greenland to report on the extraordinary ice melt that had taken place, but Chapman insisted he was fine.
He was, in fact, just fine. Better than fine. He felt an exhilaration that he hadn’t experienced since his days of chasing tornados or flying into the eyes of hurricanes. Those days had passed after he made a name for himself and became a more valuable commodity for the network.
He’d arrived at the airport early for the international flight and just as another severe thunderstorm warning had been issued for SeaTac, the Seattle-Tacoma airport located equidistant between the two cities.
At the airport, all the seats were taken in the departure area, filled to capacity with tourists hightailing it out of town. Nerves were still raw from yesterday’s carnage, and the new round of storms put everyone on edge. The air buzzed with fear and nervous apprehension. The travelers looked scared and even confused, as if they were unsure whether to postpone their trips.
As he was standing by the window at the gate, Chapman studied the skies and the various weather satellite apps installed on his iPhone. Looking out across the runway, he surveyed the orange and white windsocks, which indicated the orientation and strength of the wind. The wind’s direction was the opposite of the direction in which the windsock was pointing.
For SeaTac, the dominant wind tendencies were from the south. Therefore, the windsock should be pointed north. That was not the case today. The wind was considerable, probably twenty-five miles per hour, and it was coming from the northwest. Chapman recognized that the severe weather could have an impact on the wind’s velocity and direction, but this was a region normally devoid of the types of severe thunderstorms found in more southern climates.
He checked his watch and wandered over to the Icelandair podium, where last minute arrivals were checking in. The flight was still set for a 7:40 departure. There was some confusion at the check-in counter as a passenger was being told she was unable to bring her comfort animal on board the aircraft.
In recent years, the FAA had cracked down on the practice of allowing emotional support animals on flights, known as ESAs. By 2017, one million service animals were allowed to accompany travelers with disabilities on board a flight. As is often the case, people pushed the limits of laws to see what they could get away with.
Over time, the number of ESAs increased one hundred fifty percent and began to include pigs, small horses, and even chickens. Chapman had watched a report recently about a passenger attempting to bring a peacock on board, while another tried to claim a squirrel as an ESA. The practice had gotten out of hand, but today a new issue had been raised.
Chapman overheard the discussion, civil at first, but one that grew increasingly hostile as the Icelandair passenger began to realize he would not be allowed to bring his fifty-pound pit bull on board. The day before, a pit bull, designated an ESA, had attacked a German shepherd, which was a seeing-eye dog for a disabled veteran. The pit bull growled and barked at the other service animal. When a female flight attendant attempted to intervene, the pit bull bit off three of her fingers. The dog then turned on its owner and mauled him while he was trapped in a window seat. Fortunately, the attack took place while the flight was still on the tarmac.
The Icelandair passenger pitched a fit, agitated his dog, and that was the end of that. Airport security was quickly summoned to the gate, and the man was arrested. His dog was tranquilized, an act that surprised Chapman. He couldn’t imagine that airport security would keep animal tranquilizer guns in its arsenal.
He shrugged it off, and within an hour, they were wheels up and heading for Reykjavik. He settled into his first-class seat, an upgrade made possible courtesy of his executive producers.
He was pleased that the flight attendants were able to serve him his favorite adult beverage. Knob Creek was a Kentucky bourbon whiskey distilled in Clermont, Kentucky, about an hour east of Riverfront Farms. Knob Creek was a small distillery launched by Jim Beam thirty-some years prior. Its bourbon had a distinctive, nutty aroma with an almost fruity taste. It was a favorite of his dad’s on special occasions, and had been adopted by the two oldest Boone siblings when they went off to college.
He downed the bourbon and, when the flight attendant began servicing the first-class cabin, he requested another. The seven-hour flight enabled him to have a few drinks and then sleep them off before he started another day.
Chapman sat in silence, mindlessly staring into the sky as the flight lifted off and immediately banked left to adopt a flight path that took them over Canada toward Iceland. Things were changing right in front of his eyes. Whatever this phenomenon was that had created these unusual weather events, it was spreading. It was the same jittery feeling of an oncoming crisis, not dissimilar to how he felt when a hurricane was barreling toward the coast.
Amid the hottest month in recorded history, Chapman found certain records being set to be absolutely jaw dropping. According to data released by NOAA, in the month of July that had just ended three weeks ago, a weather station in Sweden located north of the Arctic Circle hit 94.6 degrees Fahrenheit.
Standing alone, Chapman might have considered the reading an aberration. But coupled with more data ranging from the melting of sea ice in Greenland and the extreme cold weather being experienced in Siberia, it put an exclamation point on the words something’s wrong!
The heat wave that hit the Arctic Circle had had a profound effect on Greenland, hence the reason for his assignment to Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, and then northward to a remote weather research facility. He was going to investigate the impact this warming trend had on the sea ice, and one of the scientists at the research facility was prepared to disclose to Chapman, exclusively, his hypothesis for what might be the root cause. And the scientist had promised in his email to Chapman, It’s not what you might think. Intrigued, Chapman pitched the story to the executive producers, and now he was on his way to the Land of the Greenlanders.
Chapter 22
Brookfield Zoo
Chicago, Illinois
Kristi Boone had an interesting day ahead of her. She was co-hosting, along with the other animal ambassadors at Brookfield Zoo, the annual Zoo Brew hosted by Blue Moon brewery. It was an event designed to create a partylike atmosphere while raising donations for the Chicago Zoological Society. A VIP beer garden was ground zero for the festivities, but many of the high-end donors would be given behind-the-scenes tours of the zoo. Kristi, who was a highly sought-after speaker around Chicago, would be working with the most generous of donors.
She patted the barstool with the palm of her hand, encouraging Knight to take a seat. Kristi had worked late into the evening the night before to get a handle on her regular duties, as she’d be occupied by the Zoo Brew event the entire day.
“Okay, Knight, this is your big day,” she began with a chuckle. “I’ll be exploiting you for financial gain and the greater good.”
EE-EEE-EEE! He moved his hands and gave Kristi a disapproving look. Sign, please.
She laughed and responded in sign language. I am sorry. Party today.
Knight understood party to mean something extra special other than the occasional apple or pear from the employee cafeteria. Parties meant cake and ice cream. He was all in. He jumped off the chair and began spinning around, waving his arms over his head like he was at a rock concert. He clapped his hands and then offered one for a high five, which Kristi promptly gave him.
Then she signed the bad news. Yes. A party. Adult pa
rty.
Knight frowned. He knew the difference. His kind of party involved laughing, tickling, wrestling, and sweet treats. Adult party meant he had to mind his manners. Not quite as fun. He provided a slight pout and returned to his barstool, where Kristi provided him a paper plate of fruit. Last night, after dinner, he’d surprisingly threw his cafeteria plate to the tile floor, breaking it into several pieces. Kristi hadn’t seen the actual act and assumed it was an accident. Knight knew what he’d done, sort of.
There was a gentle tapping at the half-open door to her office. It swung open slightly and a man in khaki pants and a white polo shirt appeared in her doorway. Knight assessed the newcomer with his eyes and sense of smell. Kristi studied him from head to toe. He was younger than her and not hard on the eyes. His arms bulged out of the polo shirt sleeves, and his tan gave away his love of the outdoors.
“Are you Dr. Charles?” he asked, pointing at the name plate on her door.
Kristi was immediately flustered by his presence, something she hadn’t felt in a long time. “Um, hang on,” she stuttered her reply. She pulled open several desk drawers and rummaged through their contents. She eventually found what she was looking for and hustled to the door where the man stood.
She ripped off a strip of masking tape and covered the word Charles, leaving only Dr. Kristi Boone exposed. She looked up at his chiseled jaw and then found his steely blue eyes. She gulped and finally found her voice. “There, that’s better. I’m Dr. Kristi Boone. Um, Charles is a thing of the past.”
The man laughed. “I get it, my apologies, Dr. Boone. But …” He hesitated and pointed at her chest. Her white lab coat still read Dr. Charles.
Frustrated, she tore off another piece of masking tape and slapped it hard against her jacket to obscure the old name. Then she reached into her coat pocket and retrieved a black Sharpie. She tried to scribble her name sideways, but it simply made a hot mess of chicken scratch.
