The Wreck Emerged

by Joseph Webers

  “Yes, it is. I dearly want to help you, and I’ll do anything I can to help you find what’s in that soul. Remember this is God’s question, not mine. I believe what he means is that you would be dead, and your death would mean you would never see her again in this life. He would watch over her, protect her, and raise her. Not himself, but someone who loves him, whom he can trust.”

  Maggie closed her eyes again, and images of Jenny came back. So did the longing. Abruptly, the image of Jenny evaporated, as if pushed out of the way by an unseen hand. Jenny came back, arms outstretched, reaching for her. The unseen hand swirled her away again. Something else wanted her attention. She struggled, wrestling against the unseen, desperate to understand. The only thing she treasured, now gone. No, a thought whispered, the only thing you controlled, now gone. She felt pinned to the mat, and longed for a way out. The dull ache was showing no signs of leaving as she opened her eyes.

  “Matt, I know I’ve been self-seeking. I see there is no time for that anymore. I know I was wrong when I got pregnant, and now she is in heaven where she will be safe and whole forever. But it wasn’t her fault she died, it wasn’t her fault she’s missing a foot, and anyway she never had a shot at living. I had my shot at it, and I blew it completely. I want her to live, and maybe I could just go take my lumps and be done.”

  Matt wanted to make sure she understood the options. “Maggie, if you choose to live, God would give you a fresh start. He does that, you know.”

  She was still wrestling, searching out all the possibilities. “Yes, but Jenny would never have a fresh start, or any start at all. Isn’t there a way we both could live?”

  “That wasn’t the question.”

  She was anxious for her daughter. “If I chose heaven now, would I be able to watch Jenny from there?”

  “I don’t know what we’ll do in heaven, or if that’s even possible. If you cannot watch Jenny from heaven, it’s because God has something more wonderful for you. But why do you assume you will go to heaven, if your choice is to die so Jenny can live?”

  “Is there another place to go? I thought everyone went to heaven when they died?”

  “There is another place, and some do go there. And you do know of that place, way down deep, although you may have thought of it as a myth. Our societies don’t talk very much of hell anymore, yours and mine, but it is a very real place.”

  “Do you think I’d go to heaven?”

  “Do you think you would? Think about your life, and tell me what would qualify you. One of the things about being a human is that every single one of us knows deep down that the standards are very high, and that we don’t measure up.”

  Maggie thought about it, putting aside the wrestling for a moment. “No, I don’t,” she said, then she brightened. “If I said yes, so Jenny could live, do you think I might go to heaven, you know, as a reward?”

  “No. God won’t negotiate on that. It’s his heaven, and he sets the standards.”

  “Would it be possible for me to live for a while, and then give a yes answer sometime in the future?”

  “No. You would always come back to this, and never say yes. And it wouldn’t take you long at all to forget all about Jenny.”

  Eventually Maggie ran out of possible scenarios and questions. She looked pleadingly at Matt, who was patiently and lovingly waiting for her to decide.

  Behind his comforting façade, however, Matt understood the dilemma she found herself in. Her daughter was alive in heaven. If Jenny were to come back to live on earth because of her mother’s sacrifice, Maggie wouldn’t end up in heaven, and he knew she was now aware of that. He knew there would be no solace until she decided, and maybe not even then.

  She paused, agonizing, comprehending the dilemma just as clearly as Matt. “I don’t know what to say.”

  She closed her eyes again, as if to seek the comfort of her daughter’s presence once more. However, there was no Jenny, just a dark black void. Why, then, did he promise me I would suckle Jenny? And why is he asking me this? This last question reverberated, echoing louder and louder. And somewhere, way deep down inside her, where the scream had come from, the faintest flicker of a light began to glow.

  A moment passed. She snapped her eyes open, and resolutely said, “Wait, yes, I do. I say, yes, I am willing to die so that Jenny might live.”

  “Are you sure? Is that your final answer?”

  She thought again. “Yes.”

  Matt waited a moment for her to change her mind. “God says, ‘Yes, so it shall be done.’ ”

  Maggie breathed a deep sigh, then gave a slight smile. “I don’t know what will happen next, but I know I’ve made the right choice.”

  She noticed the ache was gone, and so was the desperate longing. She looked down at the burnt coffin top and began to cry.

  “Maggie!”

  She looked up. Matt was beaming! Her mouth said “Huh?” but there was no voice with it.

  “Maggie, that was so much the right answer. All of heaven was waiting for you to decide, and when you said yes, they all shouted for joy, because they knew God was pleased with your answer.”

  “I don’t understand. Why was it such a big deal to them?”

  “Here are the words God impressed on me to tell you. ‘Tell her I did the same for her, and she is totally worth it.’ ”

  “He did, for me? What do you mean?”

  “He died so that you might live.”

  “But he’s God! How could he die?”

  “In order to die, he had to become a human being, one like he created, like you and me. Once he lived in a human body, then he could die. So he did. That human being that was God was named Jesus, and God called him his son. He died so you could live. He also died so I could live, and Helene, and Jenny, and Louis Moore.”

  “I just said I would die so Jenny could live. How will that work for me?”

  “That depends, Maggie, on your answer to the second question.”

  She had forgotten about the second question. “Oh, no!” she groaned.

  “Do you want to take a breather?”

  “No. Whew! That was an easy one.”

  Matt grinned at her. “That wasn’t the question.”

  “Yes, I knew that. That was just my breather.”

  “Here it is. Are you willing to live so that Jenny might live?”

  “Huh? … Yes!”

  “I know that sounds contradictory, and so it is. First God asks you if you would die so Jenny can live, and when you say yes, he asks if you would live so she can live. Let’s rest a few minutes, and then I’ll explain. By the way, the real test was not so much that you said yes to the first question. While that certainly was important, it was much more telling how you responded when he said, ‘Yes, let it be so.’ You submitted to his sovereignty, not knowing what would happen, instead of reacting against him.”

  They changed places and rested. Maggie noticed the burn marks on the covers to the coffins kept them from slipping on the otherwise slick and polished surfaces. She would have said something about it, but found she didn’t have any words left. That would soon change.

  The dolphins, which had been lazily playing all around their little craft since they arrived, suddenly became very active. In perfect unison, they were bounding out of the water and back in, circling the pair of humans as if in anxious curiosity, as if to form a barrier against an as-yet-unseen foe. Maggie saw it first—a great triangle rising up out of the water with a greater triangle about ten feet behind. “Look! Shark!”

  Matt looked. She had said that about the dolphins, but this time she was right.

  37

  JC Smalley was on the phone with Jack Smith at the FAA, who had gotten him the entry into Air World’s flight data. “Jack, I need you to call Air World back, if you don’t mind. Someone hacked into their database using what appears to be their real IP address. It seems odd to me they wouldn’t try to hide inside a virtual private network or a spoofed IP address. Can you ask them about that?�
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  “Is this about flight 94? We’re starting to hear that there’s some issue with that flight.”

  “Yes. There’s no easy way to say this, but flight 94 has ceased to exist. Please don’t quote me. You’ll be hearing officially soon enough, and the whole world will know shortly. Please find out soon. Air World’s security folks will have their hands full, maybe already.”

  “Okay. I can’t see your number. All I see is you’re calling on a secure line. I’ll call your cell and you can call me back.”

  While he waited, he washed up, unpacked his luggage, and thought about Penny. She owed him, she said. He wondered what other area she wanted to show him. He thought he had detected some excitement in her voice when she had said that. He almost wished he had gotten the male assistant, Luke, for Nicki’s sake. It gave him some reassurance, though, that Penny was acting in a thoroughly professional manner. In the end, he decided to trust his judgment of eight years ago, when he had recommended her for a promotion based on his observation of her loyalty and professionalism. Still, he would be careful.

  His cell phone rang. It was Jack, and when he returned Jack’s call on the secure line, he thought he sensed some emotion in his voice.

  “You were right, JC. Their security was getting the call right before we hung up. Lost at sea, they said. I didn’t let on I knew something different. Two hundred seventy-eight passengers, plus a crew of fourteen and two pilots. They’re trying to figure out what happened. Anyway, their flight data system can detect if a user is using a virtual private network, and won’t let them log in. It also sends a query to the IP address the user claims, so it can detect a spoofed IP. It’s possible to reroute your traffic through a legitimate IP address, but that would be iffy and time-consuming. I also let them know to change their password.”

  When they hung up, JC took a moment to think this through. Both the California bank and Air World would be using sophisticated security systems. Yet, both were hacked using the same IP address. Could it be a coincidence? One hacker used a faked IP address which happened to match the real IP address hacking into Air World’s secure website? And a coincidence that the flight whose data was hacked was just shot down? No, he was certain there were connections between the three events. But what were they, by whom, and why?

  38

  The shark and the dolphins dove simultaneously. Matt grabbed Maggie and they held each other, watching the scene unfold, hoping the much smaller dolphins would somehow scare off the shark. The dolphins surfaced in seeming triumph, chattering wildly. Matt and Maggie cheered! If they had understood dolphinspeak, however, they would have known it wasn’t victory the dolphins were proclaiming.

  Halfway between their floating wood boxes and the dolphins, there was a roiling of the waters. A head shot out of the sea, followed by fifteen feet of fish. The mouth was unmistakable—a great white shark!

  Maggie saw Matt abruptly relax as the shark disappeared. The dolphins were gone too; the surface was undisturbed. What was up? He didn’t seem the least bit concerned with their predicament. On the other hand, her whole fight-or-flight instinct was on high alert. She felt like she might be safer inside the coffin. “Are they gone?”

  “Heavens no! But all three are exactly where they need to be.”

  He beckoned her to move up as high as she could comfortably get, by leaning against the top coffin, to see what he knew was about to happen. He turned to her as she cried out, shaking with fear and uncertainty. “Maggie, God didn’t make those promises to you so he could let you down. Relax, and know that he is God!”

  Maggie had yet to see one of the promises fulfilled. “Is this where I die, so Jenny can live?”

  She heard her travel companion of less than four hours, full of confidence, tell her, “He will not fail you or abandon you! Don’t be afraid! Watch carefully,” as he turned around to face the sea.

  The shark broke the surface about five feet from their craft—mouth wide open—rising in the water until about eight feet of it was showing. Maggie gasped. The giant fish was twice as big as their lifeboat!

  She saw Matt stand on the coffin and point at the shark. He declared in a loud voice, “Shark, in Jesus’s name, give it up!”

  The shark started to sink forward toward them. She hadn’t expected to see the dolphins again, but they simultaneously appeared from either side of their boat, crashing with great energy into the belly of the shark, level with its dorsal fin, knocking it back. Their work done, they swam away.

  What happened next was forever burned into Maggie’s memory. Hit by the dolphins and commanded by Matt, the shark did indeed give it up. The shark vomited. It was a tremendous stream of small, identical, silvery fish, about four or five five-gallon buckets worth, which sank immediately. Followed by thirty-one unopened and eight partially filled water bottles, which Matt fished out and threw in the space between two bottom coffins. Then a lot of various-sized fish in various states of digestion, a squid, half of a life preserver that said Y USS OKL on one side and CG 5 on the other, lots of seaweed, other plastic debris, a small harbor seal, and finally, a lot of white and green and brown opaque digestive fluid.

  “The shark must have mistaken those water bottles for fish,” Matt said, pulling the half life preserver out of the water. He glanced at the water bottles, meaning to put them in the top coffin when they had cleaned them off. “Some of those are really old. They don’t make caps like that anymore.”

  The shark disappeared. The digestive fluid was slowly dissipating. Matt gasped. “Maggie, come quick and look!”

  She was already there and was already seeing what Matt saw. There, about a foot below the surface, was a little pink blob. “JENNY!” She screamed it again. “JENNY!”

  She took a deep breath and jumped in. She grabbed the pink blanket and Jenny’s outfit with one hand, then found she couldn’t swim any better than she could before. She opened her eyes to see where the lifeboat was, and immediately slammed them shut because of the burning. But Matt was watching from above. He grabbed her arm and pulled her onto the coffin. She was still clutching Jenny tightly.

  She couldn’t open her eyes. “My eyes are burning!”

  The triage didn’t take Matt two seconds. He took one look at Jenny, and realizing she was dead, immediately moved to help Maggie. He opened a water bottle. “Lie on your back here.” She complied, with his help. He knelt on the coffin at her head, to keep his feet out of the shark’s stomach fluid. “I’m going to pour water over your eyes one at a time. No, I can get them both together. When you feel the water, blink, blink, blink until I quit.”

  He doused the bridge of her nose, spreading the water from the whole bottle evenly to her eyes. And another bottle. “Keep blinking a little longer.”

  “Aah,” she replied.

  “I noticed your wrist was real slippery when I pulled you out. I think you got digestive juice all over you. Is your skin starting to itch or burn?”

  It was, but that was not her main concern. “Jenny?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yes, I was afraid to look, but I just knew she was gone.” She was remarkably peaceful about it. “While there was a chance she was still alive, I was frantic with worry. But now she is dead, and I cannot bring her back. When it sinks in, I will grieve deeply, I know, but until then we are still alive in the middle of the ocean, and my skin is starting to feel like it’s on fire!”

  Matt considered the options. “Quick, take off your sneakers and socks and your vest. That end of our raft looks to be clear of the fish fluid. Get in the water, take everything off, and rinse them and yourself thoroughly. Rub your skin and rinse your hair to get off any slickness. The bottom of the pallet is underwater. I’ll loop my belt through it and fasten it. You can hook your arm through the loop, so you won’t sink.”

  They jumped in together, Maggie holding onto the bottom of the pallet which they had used as a step when they first embarked. The water was already starting to soothe. Matt fastened his belt, then got
out. “Don’t drop anything or you’ll never see it again. After you put your pants back on, let me know and I’ll do your back.”

  A few minutes later, she called him. “Just lean forward and away from me,” he said. “I’ll grab the front of your neck for leverage, so don’t think I’m trying to choke you.” He descended off the pallet, took care of business, and climbed out. “When you’re dressed, let me know, but don’t get out yet.”

  She called again. He brought the pink bundle and handed it down to her. He joined her in the water. “We need to do this quickly. The water is still cold, and I imagine it’s our adrenaline that is keeping us warm. You bathe Jenny’s body like you did yours, and I’ll take care of the blanket and her outfit.”

  “I don’t think we need to keep this nappy. It looks rather, um, used. Can I just let it go?”

  “No, Maggie. Did you see how much plastic the shark threw up? Let’s not add any more. I’ll rinse it out and we’ll keep it with us until.”

  “Until what? Oh.”

  “Yes. Most of the untils are not mentionable or even to be considered. When we get rescued, we’ll take it with us.”

  They finished their chores, but Jenny needed one more thing. Matt outlined a plan to Maggie, and she agreed. He put the clothes and blanket on the coffin. “If fish fluid comes out, just wave it away from us.”

  With Jenny’s mouth and face below the surface, Matt applied pressure to the chest and stomach area. He felt the whole area compress, and some opaque fluid came out. Maggie swirled it away with her hand. Then he relaxed, allowing clean seawater to reenter. He did this several times until the water came out clean.

  Back on their craft, they realized they were both shivering. “We still need to rinse out your vest and footwear. Drink some water while I take care of that.”

  The shock to her psyche of seeing Jenny was quickly turning into numbness. “Thanks, Matt. You are being very kind to me. I’m, uh,” she remembered their earlier conversation, “a real basket case right now.”