Holy Night

by Colleen Coble

  The music from the CD player she’d brought echoed on the wind. Amy Hanaiali`i Gilliom sang “Palehua,” a song about the way Hawai’i’s mountains call to the soul. Today Kaia felt that pull strongly. She swam to the boat and slipped off her fins, then climbed into the Porpoise II. The Hawaiian trade winds brought more than mere salt-laden breezes today, a sure sign that the perfect day with her two brothers was about to end.

  Bane sat in the bow with his fishing pole over the side. He saw Kaia and nodded toward the clouds. “Auê! You didn’t check the weather again, did you?” Her brother’s tone was gentle and held only a hint of reproach. Mano looked up at the sky and then into the fish bucket, which held only a couple of small snapper.

  Kaia grabbed a towel and grinned at her brothers. “Why check? It hardly ever changes.” She would relish this time with them. They were so often separated these days.

  Nani rose on her tail and moved backward through the water. The dolphin gave a chirp, then sank beneath the waves and chased brightly colored fish beneath Kaia’s boat. Two other dolphins, eager to play with Nani, jumped in front of the boat in perfect unison then swam away.

  They gave their pod’s characteristic “call,” a signature whistle that had been imprinted by their mother in the hours after birth. Nani had been only a few months old when Kaia found her as an orphaned calf, but when Kaia released her into the wild, she’d quickly joined this pod of six bottle-nosed dolphins. Nani never forgot Kaia was her “mother,” though, and the two had formed a bond that had fueled Kaia’s obsession with dolphin research.

  Kaia laughed at their contagious joy, then noticed a man along the shore staring out to sea through binoculars. A tourist probably. She watched him a bit longer. There was a curious intent in the way he stood, and a touch of unease stirred in her stomach. Her smile faded. She shook her head. Her imagination had a tendency to run wild.

  She turned to watch the dolphins again, never tiring of their grace. Nani chattered and swam to the boat. She pushed her nose against Kaia, and Kaia ran her hand over the dolphin’s sleek head. It felt like a warm inner tube. Nani butted her again, and Kaia laid her head against the dolphin. Nani seemed to sense her moods with an almost uncanny ability.

  Several warm drops of rain pattered onto the sea. Kaia lifted her face into the mist and watched the clouds swoop lower. Her brothers would want to get in, but she loved to be part of the elements, to smell the moisture and to experience the boat rolling along the waves.

  “Storm’s coming pretty quick now,” Mano said, putting away his gear.

  Kaia glanced at the sky. “We’d better get to shore.” She yanked on the boat’s anchor. As she bent over the boat and tugged at the rope, a vibration seemed to come out of nowhere. Kaia looked up and saw something pass overhead with a shriek that caused her to clap her hands to her ears.

  “Look out!” Mano shouted. He grabbed Kaia’s arm and forced her to sit down.

  The high-pitched sound surrounded Kaia and made her want to scream herself. The vibration intensified, then rocked their vessel. She dropped her hands from her ears and grabbed the side of the boat. The vibration grew from a steady hum into thunder, ending in an explosion that seemed to fill the world. Bane reached over and steadied her or she would have toppled off her seat and into the water.

  Still holding her brother’s hand, Kaia stared in the direction of the blast. Thick black smoke roiled up from the water to her east, nearer to shore. The echoes of shouts and screams rose above the sound of the waves and wind. She tore her gaze from the sight and turned to find Nani. Only the dolphin’s nostrum protruded from the water like a beak as she quivered at the commotion. She rolled to the side, exposing one eye that blinked with concern.

  “I think it’s a tourist boat!” Mano leaned forward with a pair of binoculars.

  Dread coiled in the pit of Kaia’s stomach. She squinted. “Can you see the boat’s name?”

  “Yeah, it’s the Squid.”

  “Laban’s boat!” She stared at her brothers and saw the same stricken expression she knew must be on her own face. Their cousin had only operated the tourist sightseeing catamaran a little over a year.

  New urgency fueled them. Bane pulled in the anchor. Mano started the motor.

  “Come, Nani!” Kaia shouted over the roar of the engine as the boat picked up speed. Mano turned the boat toward the disaster. Kaia leaned into the wind, frantically scanning the sea for people. The fresh scent of salt water mixed with an oily odor that clung to her nose and throat.

  The dolphin kept up with the Porpoise II as it slammed against the waves, the swells building now from the impending storm. As they drew nearer, she could see a sixty-foot catamaran on fire with at least a dozen people in the water.

  “I’ll call it in!” Mano turned and grabbed the radio mic.

  “Help me!” a woman screamed as she caught sight of Kaia.

  Kaia turned to seize a flotation cushion, but Bane beat her to it and tossed the cushion to the woman. A boy of about fourteen, his face blackened by smoke, swam toward the boat and reached out his hand. Bane hauled him in.

  The boy landed on the deck. “My mom!” he panted. He scrambled to all fours and pointed to another woman floating facedown in the water.

  The woman wasn’t moving. Kaia dove overboard. The mounting waves tossed her about as she swam to the woman. She rolled the boy’s mother over. The woman’s eyes were closed, and she didn’t appear to be breathing. Kaia fought the whitecaps and towed the woman to the boat, then pushed her into Bane’s arms. He pulled the limp figure over the edge.

  “I know CPR,” the boy panted. “Please find my sister. She’s out there somewhere.” He bent over his mother.

  Bane hesitated, then nodded and jumped in the water with Kaia.

  Kaia wanted to search for Laban, but victims bobbed all around her. She struck out toward a man ten feet away, but the dolphin got there first. Nani nudged him until he grabbed hold of her dorsal fin, then she towed him toward the Porpoise II.

  Mano soon joined them. He struck off toward the burning catamaran. Kaia propelled herself through the waves toward another victim. The thick, oily smoke hung low over the choppy seas and burned her eyes and throat. Her muscles ached, and she lost count of how many people she and her brothers hauled to her boat. At least ten, she was sure.

  Looking around her craft, she saw people lying on the small deck. The boat rode low in the water, and she knew they’d have to stop soon or the rough seas would swamp the small craft. But not yet. Laban was still out here somewhere.

  Praying for strength, she plunged back into the mounting waves.

  The black smoke told Lieutenant Commander Jesse Matthews where to aim his boat. He stood in the bow of his vessel as it sped toward the catastrophe. For catastrophe it surely was. He felt physically sick. What could have caused the missile to veer off course that way? Every stage of the new missile defense system tests had gone perfectly up to now.

  This new missile defense system was capable of distinguishing between decoys and true incoming missiles, a feature no previous missile defense system had possessed. The navy had a lot of money riding on it, and even more pressure from Washington. Tests so far had been promising: the exoatmospheric kill vehicle had managed to separate from the interceptor and the booster rocket, the interceptor had worked, and the infrared signals had performed flawlessly.

  Until today. For no explainable reason, the test missile had turned north five miles off course and then plunged. He prayed no one had been killed.

  Another long night lay ahead. He’d already been on the job nearly eighteen hours, investigating a security breach at the base that had resulted in a fatality. But an adrenaline surge now pushed away his earlier fatigue. The boat’s bow slammed against the waves, and the salt spray drenched him. Jesse put binoculars to his eyes. The horrific scene jumped into focus: bodies everywhere in the water, and what remained of a tourist catamaran was quickly being swamped by the swells. Another boat loaded with victims
rode precariously low in the water. He lowered the binoculars as he drew near. The vessel slowed, and the engines throbbed as the craft fought the seas to maintain its position alongside the sinking boat.

  For a moment, the horror of knowing people had been hurt paralyzed him. Would he ever be able to avoid this kind of loss? He got control of himself and began to bark out orders. The crew scurried to rescue as many as possible.

  Jesse blinked the salty spray from his eyes and then blinked again at the sight of a young woman battling the high seas. Her exhausted face was surrounded by long black hair that floated behind her. The girl seized a dolphin’s dorsal fin with one hand and grasped a female victim with the other. The dolphin nimbly managed the waves and had the women alongside Jesse’s boat in moments.

  Jesse shook off his shock at the unusual rescue and reached down to help. He tried to pull the injured woman onto the deck, and a medic rushed to care for her. But the young woman clung to the dolphin, and her gaze met Jesse’s. He saw exhaustion in her eyes.

  “I think you’re done for,” he said. “We’ll take over now.” He held out his hand to help her aboard.

  Her face was strained with fatigue, but she gave a stubborn shake of her head. “There are still people out there. My cousin—” Her eyes filled with tears, and she turned to paddle back out. A wave rolled over her head, and she came up sputtering.

  “It will do them no good if you drown in the process of trying to get them. My men will haul in all they can find.” He wished he could reassure her about her cousin, but the death count today was likely to be high. He set his lips in a determined line. “Give me your hand,” he told the young woman.

  Another man surfaced next to the woman. Hawaiian like her, he flung his wet hair back from his face. “Kaia needs to get out of the water,” he gasped. He grabbed the young woman’s arm and pushed her toward Jesse.

  The mermaid—for that’s what she looked like—shook her head and started to push away from the boat again. There was no time to argue with her. Her olive skin was paler now. Jesse reached down and grabbed her arm. The man in the water pushed her toward him, and Jesse easily lifted her into the boat.

  She struggled briefly, then sagged. “I’ll just rest a minute,” she muttered. “Bane and Mano need to rest too. They’ve been in the water as long as I have.”

  “I’ll get them too,” Jesse promised her. He helped her sit on the deck and went back to grab the man in the water, but one of the boat’s crew had already helped him aboard.

  Dressed in dripping shorts and a T-shirt, the man squeezed water out of his thick black hair. “Lucky for us you got here. I don’t think I would have been able to get Kaia out of the water until we’d gotten all the victims out.” He turned and looked across the water. “Stay there, Mano!”

  Kaia. Pronounced the Hawaiian way as “kigh-yah,” meaning “the sea.” How appropriate of this Hawaiian who had thrown herself into the sea with no thought for her own safety. The island spirit of aloha meant uninhibited love and affection freely given. She’d certainly shown that today, as had the two men.

  Jesse heard a shout and turned back to the ocean. A man in the boat loaded with victims waved toward the one who’d insisted Kaia get out of the water. Jesse wondered if one of them was her husband. He ordered some of his own men to go help the overloaded boat.

  He crouched beside the water nymph. “You okay?”

  Kaia struggled to sit up. “Bane, what about Laban . . .” she began.

  “No sign of him,” Bane said. He turned and scanned the water. “Your dolphin is having a fit. She’s not letting this boat out of her sight. Whistle to her so she knows you’re all right.”

  Obviously still shaky, Kaia wobbled to the port side of the boat. Nani chattered from the storm swells. Kaia pulled the whistle dangling from a chain around her neck up to her mouth and blew a series of short and long blasts. The dolphin chattered again, then turned to slowly circle the boat in a calmer manner.

  “You can talk to them?” Jesse asked, pulling a chair forward for her.

  Kaia sank into it. “I’m working on it. I’m studying mammal intelligence at Seaworthy Labs. Nani is the best I’ve ever worked with.”

  “She’s phenomenal,” Bane put in. “I’ve never seen anything like the bond between Nani and my sister. They’re soul mates. Kaia found Nani as an orphaned calf. She doesn’t belong to Seaworthy.”

  So these two were related, not married. Jesse turned and checked the progress of his men. Most of the victims were now out of the water. “We’ll have everyone to shore soon,” he said.

  As the boat rode the waves to Barking Sands Naval Base, Jesse’s gaze wandered to the dolphin that followed them. He’d never seen a dolphin act that way.

  Maybe it was his fatigue or maybe it was truly inspired, but a thought began to take shape in Jesse’s head. This missile system was important to national security. They had to get it right. With one man already dead from the security breach last night, he couldn’t afford another problem.

  He knew the navy sometimes used dolphins and sea lions to patrol offshore for divers who were threatening national security. Sea lions were trained to carry a clamp in their mouths. They would approach an intruder from behind and attach the clamp, which was connected to a rope, to the swimmer’s leg. With the person restrained and tagged, sailors aboard ships could pull the swimmer out of the water. Would something like that work here with Nani?

  “How many dolphins do you work with?” he asked slowly.

  “Three,” Kaia said. “But only Nani is this responsive.” She pushed her wet hair out of her eyes.

  Bane put his hand on her shoulder. Jesse could tell they were both done in. His aide, Ensign Will Masters, motioned to him, and Jesse went to join him. “What’s the death toll so far, Ensign?”

  Masters grimaced. “Five dead so far, sir. I don’t know about missing yet. But we’ve got another problem, Commander.”

  “What is it?”

  “Headquarters just radioed. Television news cameras are waiting for us.”

  Great, just great. As if he didn’t have enough to worry about, now the media would be swarming the base gate and trying to point a finger at what went wrong. “I’ll take care of it.” It was all he could do to suppress a sigh.

  “One of the survivors is asking to talk to you, sir.”

  “Which one?”

  The ensign pointed out a white-haired man leaning against the railing. Jesse made his way through the survivors. He paused frequently to offer reassurance to those crowding together before he finally reached the man. “Ensign Masters said you needed to talk to me?”

  The elderly man blinked bleary hazel eyes and straightened. “Been years since I was on a navy ship,” he said. “This is the first time I’ve been to the islands since World War II, and I get fired on again. That missile came right at us like it was aimed, my boy. I think the navy has a big problem.”

  Jesse pressed his lips together. Could the missile have been tampered with? Security was already so tight a crab couldn’t scuttle across the sand, though an approach by sea was still a possibility. He wasn’t sure how to tighten it, but he was going to have to find a way before the next test.

  By the time they arrived at the base, the storm had passed. When Jesse got to shore, he headed off to talk to Captain Lawton, who was in charge of the testing. He found the captain pacing his office. Nearly sixty, Captain Jim Lawton had the vigor and drive of a thirty-year-old.

  Lawton stopped wearing a path through his carpet. “How many dead?”

  “Five.”

  Lawton’s expression didn’t change. “The next trial is in two weeks. I don’t want to miss that date.”

  Jesse nodded. “Sir, one witness, a World War II veteran, said it looked like the missile had targeted the catamaran.”

  The captain scowled. “That’s not possible, Jesse. I was right there watching the trial. It was a computer malfunction. The guidance system, most likely.”

  “I don’
t think we should do any more trials until we investigate. What if it was more than the malfunction it seems?”

  Lawton jabbed his finger in Jesse’s chest. “Security is your baby, Commander, not missile design. I’ve waited my whole life for this moment. Nothing is going to stop this test. I’ll get my engineers on it. It was a simple computer problem and I’ll fix it. You just do your part and make sure the public doesn’t panic. There’s nothing to fear.”

  “What about the possibility of terrorist interference?”

  The captain stared hard at Jesse. “Are you saying you suspect a terrorist plot?” His lips lifted in a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Don’t mention such a harebrained idea to the press. You just keep everyone off my back until I get the real problem corrected.”

  “Sir, last night’s security breach. It could be related.” Jesse could hear the captain’s teeth grinding. Sometimes he wondered if Captain Lawton had it all together.

  Lawton’s teeth grinding grew louder before he spoke again. “I’m not going to stop our military exercises on a vague feeling from an old man. It’s not going to happen. We have this under control. You’re dismissed.”

  Jesse didn’t understand the captain’s stubborn position. The World War II veteran wasn’t some crackpot. This was more serious than the captain wanted to admit. Jesse had to figure it out somehow. But first he had to deal with the media.

  He could hear the buzz of voices as he approached the gate to the base. A young man with a shock of red hair was the first to reach Jesse.

  “What happened, Commander? A terrorist attack?”

  Other reporters joined him, and Jesse took a reflexive step back from the mics reaching toward him. He held up his hand. “A computer malfunction is suspected at this time. We’re conducting a full investigation, but we don’t believe the accident was terrorist related.” He just hoped the captain was right.

  “What about more live testing? We don’t want a missile coming down on our heads because the navy can’t get their computer to work.” The young woman asking the question thrust a mic into his face.