The Spy Who Spoke Porpoise

by Philip Wylie

  He earned that nickname in prep school by his attack on studies and his performance (and loud abjurations) on teams, especially trailing teams. His Air Force record substantiated the nickname fully. And now his business enterprise and the swift expansion of “Abbott Associates” confirmed it, in a different area.

  Tack’s attacks, however, were not ruthless or necessarily frontal. He was a very subtle operator and his ends were as creative as lucrative. A graduate scientist and a passionate conservationist he was a man, obviously, to whom Grove could confide his mission, or part of it, his worries, or those centered on a continuing vigil. For, in spite of additional illumination, there remained routes from the Kalan to points in the park of utter dark where any number of persons could gather and be hidden. Police patrolling could be evaded, too.

  But Grove had set aside the thought of speaking to Tack, for the time being. His story, even if he told it all, was very thin. He needed more facts to persuade a man as keen as young Abbott that Sea Life Park should have clandestine watching every night by trusted people.

  Project Neptune, the strange code phrase that still appeared as occasional rumor in Eaper’s shop, remained ghostly. Grove had tried to imagine what it could be and found his mind boggling over nuclear and other fantasies of vast magnitude, and at least possible in design, yet not of calm credibility. The project was probably sea-related—and that was all; even that was perhaps wrong.

  So he had decided he must contrive a mechanical means for park survey by night. He had hit on an idea in February and gone to work. Now, in early March, one step remained.

  Sapphire Abbott had assisted him in that—without knowing his aim to be anything other than what he claimed, one which Sapphire considered typical of their eccentric but delightful friend.

  Grove drove a new station wagon into the non-public area and parked at a careless angle. It was early morning, sunny and hot.

  The car was a Brigand Mark VII, conspicuously modified. On its dash (and an extension) were some two dozen extra knobs, dials, levers and buttons of several colors—not one of them standard instrumentation. Its windows, which he left open, and also the flooring of the rear area, were not of a stock sort, either. Its extra seat had been removed and the new, over-all floor was a foot higher than that of the regular model. A more than casual examiner could also discover that the windows, electrically operated, were not glass but something opaque: steel, in fact. The double flooring, which came flush with the tailgate, appeared to be of a firm material. It was carpeted, with steel beneath.

  There were other differences. The ignition lock was custom-built. A second and unusual lock protected the gasoline tank and a third made it impossible for anyone but an expert at burgling even to attempt to raise the hood. Before switching off the engine—which murmured in a manner any car buff would recognize as not that of the original power plant—Grove grinned at the elaborate dashboard. It had reminded him of what the operational side of Eaper’s desk would surely look like. He got out, walked back, reached in and removed two baskets filled with plants. These he carried, one in each arm, toward a park gate marked Authorized Personnel Only.

  It was five minutes past eight and the park would not open till ten—a glittering morning with the trade winds tirelessly at work. Some people could not long tolerate the windward side of Oahu because of those trades. Day after day and week after week they poured in from the sea and once a person began to be irritated by their incessant flow they became as maddening as a non-stop dental drill. The last owners of Grove’s house had suffered that state, luckily for him.

  Grove took his baskets to Whaler’s Cove and on around the deep-water section where the whales were impounded between shows. He stepped over a low hedge that bordered an asphalt path. Pushing through some sea grape trees and avoiding a clump of thorny kiawes, he reached a weedy area seaward of the Essex at a point near the islet in the cove and opposite the amphitheater.

  He had, weeks ago, asked Mrs. Abbott if she knew that a certain species of orchid, with fairly showy white blossoms, grew naturally at the edge of the sea, in its salty spray. Sapphire had not known. Grove had then offered to obtain and plant some on this lake edge where they would add decoration and make a novel conversation piece. Mrs. Abbott had eagerly accepted.

  Now, with care, Grove began to set out a number of these salt-defiant exotics, many of which were in bloom. The performing whales and porpoises would insure ample dousing in calm weather—if, indeed, these plants constantly required salt-water bathing, which seemed the case, as they were never found in any other habitat. The site, left untouched by park landscaping and skirted by all paths, would not be invaded by tourists or molested by park gardeners.

  An hour passed.

  From beneath the last few, stiff-leaved orchid plants Grove withdrew a small apparatus. With great caution he installed it at a point where overhanging branches touched the cove’s surface. The instrument was thereby hidden from all frontal angles. A few people might leave the blacktop paths for a close look at the orchids but his gadget was not visible from the shore, either.

  Grove had made it in his basement shops. A float of balsa wood, painted with dappled greens to match the concealing leaves, was connected by an arm to a pen which traced movements of the float on a roll of graph paper, turned on a battery-powered drum.

  A daytime record would be useless because of the shows, the acrobatics of porpoises and teamed leaps of whales. But it would run for ten days and nights without attention and he had marked the moment of twilight and of first dawn on the rolls of paper. It was a simple thing, much like a seismograph: it made a record of the waves that came ashore at Whaler’s Cove. To protect it from the cove’s inhabitants, especially the porpoises—who had watched the installation with built-in grins and amiable curiosity—Grove added a fence of steel rods, firmly anchored in the rocks on shore.

  His “aquagraph,” as he’d privately named it, was to represent himself. Its record of the waves in Whaler’s Cove, with the record of another instrument at his residence, a recording anemometer that showed the approximate wind velocity at the not distant cove, would chart the nightlong size of waves in both regions. Of course, the porpoises would, at times, become playful, even without an audience—leaping in ones and twos, whacking their tails and landing flat, just for the hell of it. Such antics would leave traces on the aquagraph. But the now-trained response to any person passing the area at night would make a far more conspicuous set of waves; and these would be identifiable on the graph. He still encouraged that exhibition when he made visits, as usual, and Jerry now reinforced the porpoise “hello” by throwing fish to the cove inhabitants at least once a night, when he was alone. An innocent amusement, the watchman presumably thought.

  Any night’s evidence of human presence in the area would now be known to Grove. When he appeared, or Jerry, the aquagraph would record a sudden and special series of spikes, as the ocean dervishes came out, twirling, soared high, and arced back with a majestic splash. They did that over and over, hopefully to earn a treat.

  In the absence of Grove, or other legitimate night visitors, Jerry’s rounds were regular; these produced the telltale spiking but Grove could attribute it to the watchman by the time factor. Visitors, on night tours conducted by park officials, or passing scientists in the park for research, would also set the spinners and spotted porpoises flying. But Grove could quite easily learn from Jerry about such not-frequent events—and ignore their recordings. For Jerry usually offered, as chitchat and without questioning, news of those pleasant breaks in his solitary rounds.

  If, however, the aquagraph should record the newly learned reaction of the porpoises at any time that did not match Jerry’s rounds and if Grove learned that no other person had been seen by Jerry at the time, it would signify that somebody had entered unnoticed.

  Any furtive intruder would, of course, come through the park while Jerry was touring the institute and Makai Range areas. The least illuminated route would be us
ed, which meant avoiding the paved roads and paths, so passing Whaler’s Cove. Who such persons might be, or on what errand, he still would have no idea, if he ever had a record at all.

  Even when summer arrived and the park would be open several nights a week, Grove’s instrument would serve on closed nights; and those were the likely ones for further park intrusion. He finished his installation and watched the pen trace waves caused by the trade winds and the added, miscellaneous signs of porpoise activity—random and easily identified. Then he straightened his back, aching a little from long squatting. He had already spread word, casually, that the salt-spray orchids would need his occasional attention. That was to explain later trips to change rolls of graph paper and, in time, batteries.

  Eaper, he thought, with a grin, might like his gadget. But Eaper—the grin became a chuckle—would never think of teaching porpoises to make reports. Instead, Eaper would set up heat-sensors, people-smellers, sound-gatherers, or some other ultramodern apparatus. For the spotting of which, Grove reflected contentedly, Eaper’s “playboy” foes would probably have equally sophisticated detection gear. Such people would note the leaping porpoises too; but not read what the animals were entering on the minutes.

  A watchdog, in Grove’s view, could always beat an electric eye. Mice, even, might be more useful than a mortar; and a scorpion superior to that gadget the director of CIA had mentioned. What the devil had Axe called it? Mergator—a thing Grove had never heard of before.

  He stepped back and looked at the orchids. Sapphire would like them. And the spectators now filling the amphitheater would, too, if they happened to be people who noticed flowers, a diminishing breed. But some park visitors, some of the gardeners, sundry scientists and the Abbotts would, surely, come around the pond for a close look. Not able, however, to see the device a few yards away.

  Satisfied, he walked away, noting the time. Saturday a week, he’d have to shift the tape and, that same night, check its spiky traces against Jerry’s offered or extracted report of night callers if the “aquagraph” indicated the need.

  He went over to the restaurant, nodding to several employees who recognized him, and drank coffee while buses roared into the parking areas and people in hundreds streamed through the turnstiles. He sat where his station wagon could be seen and afterward he attended the Whaler’s Cove show, taking a seat on the topmost row of the amphitheater.

  His purpose was to continue watching his station wagon, beyond the paved road that separated public from all other areas. These included the offices, laboratories, underwater-viewing rooms, miscellaneous gear and odd-shaped holding pools of the Oceanic Institute. Cars of officials, of secretaries and skilled workers, of scientists and their visitors, had accumulated in rows around the station wagon. Now and then an arriving individual would take a second look at Grove’s vehicle and some would walk over to stare at the dashboard and its multiplicity of controls, for which the purposes could not possibly be guessed.

  The distance was too great to enable Grove’s recognition of faces. And the station wagon received more attention than Grove had expected. Most people were far too interested in things, these days, he believed; technology was becoming less blessing than a curse. Eaper himself was only a special variety of gadget-crazed contemporary man.

  Sitting atop the amphitheater, his brown and silver hair teased by the trades that came from beyond Rabbit and Red islands, he occasionally but somewhat cautiously turned from the water show to scrutinize the distant parking area. The drama reached the point where whale leaps were about to start and Grove was ready to admit he’d wasted his time, when a man drove up in a tired and battered car, one with the fins of long-gone years. He parked and walked over to the refitted Brigand Mark VII to give it a very thorough going-over. A haole, a Caucasian, but Grove could see only that sort of thing: the medium size of the real or pretending car buff, his gaudy, Truman-type aloha shirt-perfect tourist camouflage—with a broad-brimmed straw hat that would hide his face, but, again, was common enough as local headgear. Grove could see, also, that the man moved in a swift, athletic manner.

  Not enough. He, like many others, could be a tourist who entered the park by the wrong road, not noting the markers, and left his car in the wrong area, as many did. However, the man spent more time than any of the others examining the station wagon. He went clear around it twice and even, Grove thought, swiftly tried to raise the engine hood. If that was so, the withdrawal was quick, and the full attempt was partly hidden by the hood itself. However, the man apparently did discover the windows were not glass, since he peered at length into their slots. But when he’d finished he yawned, walked lightly over the rutted ground, made a less lengthy tour of a Toronado (not the brown one the FBI owned), sauntered to the road, crossed it and strolled toward the proper park entrance.

  Grove loitered after the show ended and the crowd dispersed. He studied a wall of gigantic lava boulders beside the amphitheater, and next several immobile sea turtles; then he took a rest on a shady bench. The man didn’t return and drive off—which still meant nothing, or meant, if anything, that he was making the full park tour, a matter requiring at least a couple of hours for catching all the shows, making a Reef Tank circuit, devoting a period to the Polynesian Village and a side trip, as well as a look at various exhibits and displays.

  A tourist, probably. Grove felt restless.

  He drove home.

  Jenny had one of his favorite lunches ready: creamed chipped beef on toast and prune whip.

  Afterward, the large Hawaiian lady reminded him of his three o’clock date with neighborhood kids for their trampoline lesson. The prospect brightened Grove and his regular, post-instruction exhibition left him sweat-soaked but happier, as the youngsters trooped away, chattering about their own progress, or regretted fluffs and his marvels.

  He showered and dressed again with his usual but unnoticeable care.

  Jenny cleaned up the bath, hung up his clothes and asked about dinner. “Be out again.” Grove smiled. “So go on home.”

  He’d sent her home early, before or right after dinner, for several weeks now.

  The big woman hesitated a moment. She knew Grove did not intend to go out, somehow. There was no mention of an evening engagement on the big kitchen calendar where he entered his social obligations, along with ideas for meals, notes about laundry and personal items needed, almost anything, including, sometimes, entries even a graduate of Kamehameha School couldn’t decipher. She’d often studied those notations and decided they were abbreviations, for one thing, and for another, abbreviations of words in what seemed a mixture of other languages.

  Jokes, maybe; on her; he made lots of jokes. So she’d never asked; that might be what he wanted.

  There were, Genevra-called-Jenny Oopani knew, other possibilities. Mr. Ring Grove was a strange man. A wonderful man, too. She nearly loved him—in the way a mother or older sister loves. He was so kind to people and generous. And, then, his kids!

  But he was eccentric. Sometimes he didn’t come home when he’d said he would. He went away for a week or more, once in a while. He slept all day, at times. And occasionally he’d leave suddenly, return unexpectedly, not saying where he’d been or why he’d gone; but there might be signs of travel on his luggage—the fragment of a torn-off sticker that meant he’d been abroad. He’d even called her once, from Paris; and once from some other foreign city she’d never heard of.

  “Business,” he always said, with a calm smile that seemed to mean anybody would behave as he did and nobody should think it odd. He had also, recently, bought the house next door and spent much time “fixing it up.” Yet he didn’t offer it for rent and still had a lot of “fixing” to do, he said. And he was sending her home early, now. But why?

  Once at a big luau she had tried to find out more about her employer. Jerry Gong had come up with a drink for her and asked how she liked her “boss.”

  “A lovely man! But somewhat strange.”

  In the middle di
stance, bamboo organ drums were playing and from the mat where they seated themselves they could watch the dancers, storytelling hands and arms, ti-leaf skirts swinging in the classic style.

  “Strange? How?”

  She’d told him a few things about Mr. Grove’s absences, trips, carefully hidden philanthropies, his love of kids and of flowers. She mentioned the next-door house and the endless hours he worked in it, doing what, she couldn’t say. Banging and sawing away, she told Jerry. “An alone kind of man,” she finished. “But always in happy moods, or almost always.”

  After a while she added, “Don’t you find him—well—different, Jerry?”

  “I don’t think so.” He was a little too casual, she decided. “Refill?”

  “Coke, this time.” She smiled.

  Jerry left. Steel guitars joined in the bamboo orchestration.

  And Jenny had thereafter contained her curiosity: it was the best job she’d ever had and the highest pay—keeping house for a quite wonderful, very rich, but peculiar man. She needed the money. It wasn’t her nature or tradition to pry. But she had noticed the news about the house next door made Jerry Gong’s eyes turn vacant the way Chinese eyes do when a surprise needs hiding.

  8

  Trap

  Grove had prepared his supper, left the dishes for Jenny in the morning and now occupied the red leather chair in his living room. His feet were in slippers and they rested on a once-charred area of the carpet. It had been mended with a rectangle of the same material which, however, was darker and so easily distinguished from the original.

  His book was the newest by the author of The Cadmium Caper which Grove had guessed Eaper had been reading. Grove did not hold all such fiction in Eaper’s low esteem. Some of the tales contained ingenious ideas, a few of which Grove wished he’d known about when he’d been in situations still clearly remembered. He assumed Eaper read these books with the same idea, that of adapting a writer’s invention to a real operation. That was doubtless why he belittled fictional espionage.