by Hunter Shea
“You know where that area code’s from?”
“907? No idea. Why?”
“Alaska,” Ann-Marie said, turning into the Waffle House parking lot.
When she noticed Rosario staring at her with a slightly open mouth, she added, “I worked for the phone company for five years. Some things you never forget, try as you might.”
Emerging from the car, Chet felt the sun warming the top of his head. “You guys go inside. I just need to make a quick call.”
“Should I order you anything?” Rosario asked.
“Coffee and a waffle with bananas.”
“No hash browns?”
“You’ll learn the difference between famous and infamous after you’ve had yours.”
She waved him off and followed Ann-Marie inside. The girl had a cast iron stomach.
Chet found Jamel’s last call and hit dial. The Alaskan answered on the second ring.
“Who is this?” he said, sounding less than inviting.
Uh-oh, you should have just left well enough alone, Chet thought, second guessing himself and ready to end the call.
“You…you left me a message. Well, actually, a bunch of them.”
“Chet Clarke!” Jamel’s tone shifted dramatically, now sounding like a long lost friend. “Wow, man, I’m so glad you called. I was afraid I might have scared you off.”
“You still might.”
“I hear you. And I apologize. Can I call you right back?”
Chet rolled his eyes. The guy leaves him a ton of messages, and when he finally gets the call back he’s been asking for, he gives Chet the brush off. What the hell was his game?
“I need to call you on a more secure line is all,” Jamel said. “I’ll call you in like five seconds.”
The call disconnected before Chet could reply. True to Jamel’s word, his phone rang a few seconds later.
“Are you sitting down?” Jamel asked.
Chet looked at Rosario and Ann-Marie sipping coffee in the air-conditioned restaurant. He very much wanted to be sitting down.
“I’m fine standing.”
“Okay. My next question: have you ever heard of HAARP?”
“As in the instrument?”
“No, it’s an acronym for a public yet top secret government program. It stands for the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program.”
Chet pulled the phone away from his ear. How had this lunatic gotten his number?
“That doesn’t help,” Chet said. “Look, thank you for your concern. We have some very good people looking into this…”
Jamel cut him off. “I worked at HAARP in Alaska for one year. Numerous countries have their own HAARP programs. I know exactly what it’s capable of doing, and I know when each array is turned on. Prior to each of the last three killer whale attacks, there’s been a spike in output from Russia’s installation.”
Auroral Research? Arrays? Russians?
It was all too much.
“I’ve had a long night and people are waiting on me.”
“Mr. Clarke? I can tell you when the next killer whale incident is going to happen. I just can’t say where. If I give you that, will you at least believe me and talk?”
He almost laughed. After all of the horror and tension of the past few days, a conversation with some government conspiracy nut was an amusing distraction. But he’d had his fill.
“Why not? So, Mr. Abrams, when can we expect the next one?”
He heard the sound of fingers racing across a computer keyboard.
“Shit,” Jamel muttered. “You’re not even going to need to write this down to remember later. If what I’m seeing is correct, the next one will happen in six to ten hours.”
Chapter Sixteen
While Chet drew blood from a sedated Naala, he asked Rosario to keep an eye on the news on her phone.
“What am I supposed to be on the lookout for?” she asked.
He swept his arms around the medical pool. “The same insanity we’ve been trapped in all week.”
“You don’t think…”
“With the way things have been going, anything’s possible.”
Including Naala suddenly waking up and killing everyone in the pool with her. Ann-Marie had called in ten of her staff to assist Chet with the beloved orca. Chet worked as fast as he could, knowing he still wanted to get over to Ocean World before the day was out.
Exhaustion seemed to be his constant companion lately. Only this time, he wasn’t so much worn out from running around than his brain being stuck in overdrive.
All during breakfast, he’d had his head in his phone, researching HAARP. When Rosario asked him what had his attention, he’d told a white lie and said he was checking for any more news coming out of Spain and Portugal.
He learned that HAARP was an atmospheric research facility, the most famous, or infamous if he was to take Jamel Abrams at his word, located in Gakona, Alaska. He’d never heard of Gakona, but he imagined it to be a very remote place, all the better to operate far from prying eyes.
Though approval for HAARP came about in the early nineties, construction wasn’t completed until 2007.
Never one to be suckered in by conspiracy theories, he was nevertheless fascinated by the science behind the program. Basically, the HAARP facility contained almost two hundred antennas that were linked to one another and could be rotated. The antennas would push extremely low frequency, or ELF, waves into the ionosphere in order to study their effects. The stated purpose to charging the ionosphere was to find ways to improve communications and navigation systems. As the ionosphere is constantly bombarded by rays from the sun, understanding its greater workings would help scientists build better systems that rely on radio waves bouncing through the atmosphere. At least that was how Chet was able to bottom line it in his non-physicist way.
Chet was surprised to see so much ‘grounded’ information available about the program. The project directors for HAARP appeared to work very hard to be transparent to the public, even offering up their records and tests to anyone who desired to see them.
By late 2015, the US Air Force had abandoned HAARP, giving the keys to the whole operation to the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
In just a short amount of time, HAARP had managed to birth a considerable number of conspiracies. The most prominent was that it was being used to heat the ionosphere and control weather patterns. This sort of weather weapon could be used against warring nations to plunge them into drought, deluge them in rains and superstorms and basically break their infrastructure. HAARP had been blamed for just about every natural disaster of the past ten years, including earthquakes and tsunamis. Worries about the militarization of the technology abounded. Even Congressmen went on the record to voice their concerns about the potential dangers and hidden agenda of those who ran it.
Aside from weather modification, HAARP was also purported to be able to change the Earth’s magnetic poles, be responsible for low, incessant hums heard around the globe, alter dimensional reality and last but not least, exert mind control over targeted areas.
That last one was what had Jamel worked into a lather.
Even though the US HAARP array was basically shut down, other countries had developed their own. The one that caused the most concern amongst Jamel’s cohorts was located in Russia. Jamel claimed to be able to detect when the Russian HAARP was being powered up. After a year of silence, it had become very, very active over the past few weeks.
Chet’s head hurt, the sun not helping as it seared his cheeks.
“You okay?” Rosario asked as he took a seat in the main theater under the shade.
“Just hot. You know what time it is?”
She checked her phone. “It’s almost one. You getting hungry?”
“Nah, I think I’ll be digesting that waffle until tomorrow.”
Rosario patted his arm. “And here I thought I’d hitched my wagon to a real live hero.”
“Superman has kryptonite, I have the Waffle
House.”
They shared a rare laugh, but deep down, he couldn’t stop counting the minutes. He desperately wanted Jamel to be wrong. He’d said another orca attack would occur in six to ten hours. That left five more hours until Chet could dismiss the man as a well meaning crackpot.
“I think we’ve done all we can here,” Rosario said. “Even Ann-Marie went home. You want to head over to Ocean World?”
Both parks were closed to the public pending an investigation into the strange string of ‘killer whale violence’ that was all over the news. Chet knew that several prominent marine biologists were scheduled to arrive at The Dolphin Experience later in the day, as well as Ocean World. None of them knew the orcas personally as Chet had, but they would be lending their expertise to find the driving force behind the rash of attacks.
Word had also gotten out that Chet and Rosario had been present at the two attacks in Europe and were now on the scene in Florida. They’d put their phones on mute after they blew up from interview requests.
All Chet wanted to do was meet with Rob at Marine World, observe the orcas and be in bed by seven, one hour after he’d be secure that Jamel Abrams was dead wrong.
He smiled at Rosario, who looked as radiant as ever. She wasn’t sweating, even though she’d been bouncing around the marine park since they got back from the Waffle House.
He’d like to try his best to get her to sweat before his early night.
“Yep, let’s hit the road,” he said.
He watched Naala as she came more and more to life, giving her a wave before he left. She swam happily, unaware that he wasn’t coming back today.
“I wonder if she remembers what she did,” Rosario said.
“Barring something that’s affecting her brain and blocking her memory, I’m sure she does. The question is, do orcas carry their guilt? I sure as shit hope not. I’d prefer to think that Naala can live the rest of her life without this hanging over her head.”
“And free,” Rosario added. “More important than anything, that she’ll be free to live her life.”
Chet slipped his arm around her waist as they walked to the car, wondering if there really could be a future where all of the captive orcas and dolphins were released from their captivity.
He seriously doubted it.
To do so would be an admission that man had been wrong, and as a species, accountability was a dirty word.
They never made it to Ocean World.
Rosario turned the radio on in the rental car, subjecting Chet to the latest Justin Bieber tune. She jiggled in her seat, which lessened some of the pain, then burst into laughter.
“What, you don’t like the Beebs?” she said.
“Not in any way, shape or form.”
“Good, because neither do I.”
She hit the Seek button. The next station that popped up was an all news station. Before she could cruise on past it, the announcer said, “The Navy has been sent to the scene of yet another killer whale attack, this time on a cargo ship making its return voyage from Panama. No word yet on the number of casualties, but the ship has been sending out a distress signal for the past hour and is said to be taking on water. We’ll keep you up to date with this latest tragedy on the high seas and interview Professor William Lund, an expert on killer whale behavior.”
Chet had to pull over.
“No fucking way.”
Rosario had paled. “Why does this keep happening?”
“You don’t understand. Back at the Waffle House, I called a man who said he knew why the orcas were lashing out.”
“You what? Why didn’t you tell me?”
He turned the radio down, angling the air vents toward his face. “Because I thought…no, I hoped he was crazy. He told me that there would be another incident today and that it would happen before six o’clock.” Chet pointed at the digital clock in the dashboard. “Looks like he was right.”
Struggling to understand, Rosario kept pulling and releasing the seatbelt strap across her chest. Chet thought it must have hurt, but she didn’t even flinch.
“Wait, so this random guy calls you out of the blue…”
“Not so out of the blue. He saw that I was at the Barcelona and Portugal incidents and looked me up.”
She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “And out of everyone in the world, he’s the one person who knows what the hell is really going on and when it will happen next. How is this possible?”
Chet hesitated. “I know when I say it out loud, even I’m going to doubt it.”
“Try it anyway.”
He told her about HAARP and its possible connection to mind control and how the Russians had been heavily invested in that particular functionality. As the words tumbled from his lips, he expected men in big white nets to appear outside his door. He’d go willingly.
The look Rosario gave him didn’t make him feel much better about himself.
“How does this guy – you said his name was Jamel Abrams? – know all this?”
“He worked at HAARP, right up until the Navy pulled out.”
“Were you able to verify that?”
“Like I said, I thought he was full of crap. I figured nothing would happen today and I could forget all about him and this HAARP craziness.”
Rosario turned her body so her knees pressed against the gearshift and her hands were on his thigh.
“He could have just gotten lucky, you know,” she said. “It’s been happening pretty regularly.”
He’d been so caught up in waiting for the other shoe to drop before six that he’d failed to even consider the man had simply won the guessing game.
Chet’s phone started to go off, an unrecognized number lighting up on the screen. He swiped it to voicemail. As soon as he did, another call from another unknown number came through.
Rosario patted his thigh. “So, you can choose to ignore this wacko, or we find out if he ever worked at this HAARP thing. Are you going to take that?”
He muted the phone and chucked it in the backseat. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to avoid these people much longer. If they dug Professor Lund out of mothballs, reporters are getting desperate for someone who might have some answers.”
William Lund was best known for an orca documentary that he’d made thirty years ago, along with its companion book. It was actually a well-made doc that followed a pod of orcas as they traveled from southern California all the way up the North American west coast to Alaska. The man had retired from the University of Miami at least twenty years ago. He thought he’d heard Lund had died. Apparently, the rumors were far from true.
“So what do you want to do now?” Rosario said. Her look told him she was game for whatever path he chose. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her, both to taste her plump lips and ground himself in reality.
He put the car in drive and merged back onto the road. “First, look up Robert’s number at Marine World and call him from your phone. I want to make sure his orcas are still all right. Then, we’re going back to the hotel and firing up my laptop. Let’s find out who this Jamel Abrams really is.”
As they swerved onto the jug handle to take them back to their hotel, Rosario said, “I just thought of something. What if this guy knows so much because he’s the one behind it all? He could be like one of those serial killers who plays all kinds of games with the cops, getting off on leading them on a wild goose chase.”
Gripping the leather wheel, Chet said, “Despite everything, I have serious doubts this is a manmade issue. Raquel said she should have preliminary lab results by tomorrow. I’m still banking on it being some kind of toxin or new disease. Which then has me worried that it’s the start of an orca pandemic. And how far will it spread?”
Chapter Seventeen
Chet was no whiz on the computer, at least when it came to searching for someone’s history. He could watch videos and look up movie times, maybe download a coupon or two, but that was it. In a generation where computing technology was
second nature, Chet was a bit of a throwback. He preferred sticking his nose in nature rather than a digital device.
After a couple of hours of fruitless browsing, he wheeled the chair away from the work desk. Rosario was on the bed trying to find any trace of Jamel Abrams on her tablet.
“You thirsty?” he asked, getting up and stretching.
“Very,” she replied, not looking up from the screen.
He opened the hotel fridge and eyed the array of beer and small bottles of hard liquor. A laminated card had been placed on top of the fridge listing the price for each item. Knowing it would be five times more expensive than if he just bought the same things himself, he tossed the card aside.
“What’ll it be: beer, whiskey or both?”
“Do they have tequila?”
Chet arched an eyebrow. “Actually, they do. How does Patron suit you?”
“Just fine if you can bring me a beer chaser.”
Plucking out the two bottles of tequila, Chet carried them and two cans of Corona to the bed. He dashed to the bathroom and retrieved two glasses, pouring half the bottle of tequila in each.
“I think we’ve earned this,” he said, clinking glasses with Rosario.
“That and a whole lot more,” she said, downing the shot. She gingerly placed the glass on the night table, opened a can of Corona and took a deep sip. “That hit the spot.”
The peppery sharpness of the tequila made Chet cringe. He’d never been much of a tequila drinker. The cold Corona was a welcome relief.
“You find anything? I’ve got zilch,” he said.
Rosario’s finger danced over the screen, closing out several browser windows until she found the one she wanted to show him. It looked to be some kind of site where you could search for people for a fee.
“You said this guy’s in Alaska, right?”
“That’s what he told me.”
“I can’t find anyone named Jamel Abrams who is in any way related to the scientific community. And there’s no one under that name currently living in Alaska.”
