Undercurrents

by Pamela Beason

  “Thank you.” Sam smiled. “Where are you from?”

  “Norway. You are American?”

  “Yes,” Sam said. “Welcome to the Galápagos.”

  The tourist returned to her friends. After pushing the glasses back onto her head, Sam hefted the heavy gear bags again and lugged them to her room. On previous field assignments, her accommodations had been tiny tents in rocky canyons or dense forests. The small hotel was quirky but charming: the entrance was hidden down a side street, but a few of the rooms peeked out over the roof of a restaurant below, revealing a view of Academy Bay. The coral-painted walls, white lace curtains, and heavily lacquered wooden furniture seemed like a luxury. Her laptop looked at home on the little table under the window, which overlooked the curve of the waterfront. Damn it! Who knew what sort of accommodations they’d find in Puerto Baquerizo Moreno?

  She headed for the shower. When she emerged from the tepid water, her body felt refreshed and her brain slightly less foggy. She pulled on shorts and a T-shirt, and sat down at her computer. After connecting to the hotel’s wireless network, she downloaded her email, then checked the current page at Out There.

  The featured stories on Out There’s home page were an immunization project in India funded by Key Corporation, and an article about skiing in Kashmir, which was conveniently linked to bargain ski vacations available on Key’s travel site and skis and snowboards for sale on Key’s catalog site. The byline for the immunization story belonged to Kat Monroe, a tall slender woman dressed in a sari, while the skiing article was attributed to Bomber Bryant. According to the accompanying photo, he seemed to be a downhiller built like The Incredible Hulk, who tackled monster moguls without the least concern for the precarious shelf of snow hanging above him. Given that she was now Out There’s dynamic duo in the Galápagos, Sam suspected that Kat Monroe was also Bomber Bryant.

  Assuming a different online personality made Sam feel like a character in a video game. It didn’t seem quite kosher to pretend to be someone else. It’s just another pseudonym, Wyatt argued. So here she was, sworn to nondisclosure about her split personality.

  In a corner of the home page, a window showed an aerial view of the Galápagos. She watched as that photo transitioned into another, a group of marine iguanas silhouetted against the sunset, then to an orange background with the words Launching Tomorrow! Our intrepid women reporters—Wilderness Westin and Zing—team with the Natural Planet Foundation for Galápagos adventure!

  Her new alter-ego was Zing? Sounded like a name for mouthwash. What would her cybercharacter look like? Out There was so influenced by young focus groups, Zing would probably have spiked black hair and pouty lips and a bustline as impressive as the Rocky Mountains. Intrepid women reporters? Sam picked up her hairbrush. “Day One, Galápagos adventure,” she murmured breathily into the bristles. “Our intrepid team barely survives their first dive, and then finds themselves homeless.”

  She was still in the Galápagos, and she was still earning a thousand dollars a day, she reminded herself. All expenses paid. She was wearing shorts and sandals in February. Already she’d seen an amazing collection of undersea creatures. She still had the famous island fauna to look forward to.

  She threw the hairbrush onto the bed and checked her watch. Fifty minutes had passed. Shouldn’t Dan be back by now? She paced across the room to look out the window. Same bay and hills, a few different people on the street. She couldn’t even call Dan; he said his cell phone had been stolen in Guayaquil. She should never have let them get separated like this.

  She chewed her thumbnail as she watched boats jockey for position in the bay. Don’t sweat it, Dan had said. The town wasn’t big; he couldn’t have gone far. She could find the dive shop if she needed to. He was probably making other boat arrangements. She decided not to panic for another half hour, and went back to the computer to download her email.

  Five minutes later, Dan knocked at the door, a bottle of dark beer clutched in each hand. She gestured him in. He perched on the edge of her bed and then held out one bottle to her.

  “Don’t look so happy.” She took the bottle from him. “We’ve just been thrown out of the hotel.”

  He nodded. “I thought that might happen.”

  “You did? What the hell is going on, Dan?”

  He cocked his head the same way Simon did when the cat was trying to telecommunicate his feline exasperation. “They told you about the political situation down here, right?”

  “They who? Key Corporation?”

  He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and sighed. “I forgot you’re not working for NPF.”

  NPF will handle the research, she remembered Wyatt explaining. Your job is entertainment.

  “I like to think I’m working with NPF,” she told Dan. “I have worked for conservation organizations in the past.” She fingered the three parallel scars on her thigh that were a constant reminder.

  His hazel eyes lingered on the faint pink cougar scratches on her leg. “Mementos from a previous assignment?”

  “Yes.” An unwelcome blush flooded her face. It seemed an eternity since a man had gazed at her body like that. She and Chase had left messages for each other, but she hadn’t actually talked to him since Christmas. She called him her lover, but they were not exactly having a torrid love affair. She wasn’t quite sure what they were having. Or where it would go.

  Meanwhile, Dr. Daniel Kazaki was sitting on her bed. He was a handsome man. An interesting man. Tanned, fit, muscular. Japanese-Irish-American. Intellectual and athletic. Her brain rested there a long minute before it added “and married.” She gave herself a mental slap.

  Dan’s gaze returned to her face, and she prayed her thoughts didn’t show on the surface. He took a sip of his beer before saying, “You know about the conflict between the conservation community and the fishermen.”

  “Of course.” The information she could find in English about the conflict had been scarce, but she’d gleaned a few interesting facts. More than 90 percent of the Galápagos Islands were within the National Park boundaries. International conservationists were determined to keep the Galápagos park waters pristine, while fishermen naturally wanted to exploit them. “I know that Sea Shepherd has chased down illegal fishing boats, and I read about a couple of ugly incidents with the fishermen’s union, one in the nineties and another in 2004, when they took the scientists hostage at Darwin Station. And I saw another article about an illegal shark catching incident.”

  “You found reports of only a few incidents?” He rolled his eyes again.

  She bristled at his tone. She’d done her research before leaving Bellingham. “I read the Darwin Foundation’s latest strategy document,” she told him. “It’s all about cooperation between the local population and the scientists. And the new Constitution of Ecuador states that nature has the legal right to be protected, doesn’t it?”

  His gaze bored into hers. After a few seconds, he raised one eyebrow.

  “Rose-colored glasses?” she guessed.

  “It’s not your fault. The tourism industry, not to mention the local government, is skilled at burying these incidents under an avalanche of hopeful-sounding news.” He took a swallow of beer before continuing. “Here’s the truth as I know it: In 2007 alone, outside environmental groups uncovered over ninety thousand illegal shark fins here. And twenty thousand illegal sea cucumbers. Nobody was punished. A boat with almost four hundred shark carcasses on board was caught in 2011. The case has never gone to trial. And the poaching is still going on.”

  Sam’s brain had gotten stuck on Dan’s first fact. Ninety thousand shark fins? Did that mean ninety thousand sharks? Even counting multiple fins per shark . . . Yeesh, how many sharks were left? Her head filled with frightening visions of dense hordes of sharp-toothed predators even as her heart sank at the thought of so many wild creatures killed here. Twenty thousand illegal sea cucumbers?

  Her imagination couldn’t even envision such huge numbers of any sort of creature
s. And nobody was punished? She took another sip of beer. As her brain fit the pieces together, the muscles between her shoulder blades tightened. Commercial fishing was illegal within the park and marine reserve. Dan was here to do a survey of marine life. He’d be documenting the effects of activities that the locals wanted to keep secret. “So it’s no surprise to you that we’ve been tossed out of the hotel.”

  “I couldn’t reserve another boat, either. Nobody will take us out diving.”

  Damnation! Day One, Galápagos adventure. Our intrepid team is homeless and out of business. How could her dream assignment go bust before it even got started? She hadn’t even had the chance to see Charles Darwin Research Station or any of the islands. “And now you’re telling me that we can’t charter a boat because the boat owners are in sympathy with the fishermen?”

  Dan snorted. “Most boat owners are fishermen.”

  She frowned. Damn Key Corporation, anyway. According to her contract, half of her assignment was “to accompany NPF personnel on dives and report on their activities.” But odds were that Wyatt was even more clueless than she had been. It wasn’t as if the decision makers at Key kept their fingers on the pulse of the worldwide conservation movement.

  “Key told me this was going to be a vacation.” Her voice sounded whiny, even to her. She took another swallow of beer. “Shit.”

  “Treat it like a vacation, then.” Dan drained his beer, set the bottle on the floor beside his feet, and then raised both arms over his head, stretching. “Man, it feels so good to be doing something important again.” As he lowered his arms to his lap again, he noticed her expression. “Don’t look so worried. Nothing will happen; the last thing the locals want is bad press. We’ll lay low, we’ll do our jobs. We’ll be gone in a week.”

  Easy enough for him maybe, but she wasn’t getting paid to be invisible. Could she write mainly touristy stuff? And he wasn’t being completely honest. Something already had happened. “What did you find out about your air fill? Did somebody sabotage your tank?”

  He shrugged. “I just can’t be sure. Maybe a car’s exhaust pipe was too close to the compressor intake when the tank was filled.”

  She gave him a skeptical look.

  “Seriously, it can happen in careless shops anywhere,” he said. “That compressor was pretty much held together with baling wire and duct tape. The windows and doors are always open, so whatever’s in the parking lot ends up inside the shop, too. Was the contamination intentional?” He shrugged again. “I doubt it. After all, your tank was okay.”

  Good point. But all her gear was labeled Out There and she’d never set foot in Ecuador before, so they—whoever “they” were—might not have known who she was, whereas Dan had conducted surveys here in the past. The dive shop workers might know he worked for NPF.

  “We’ll check the oh-two percentage on every fill from here on, just in case,” he concluded.

  Great. Maybe the locals were out to kill them; maybe not. Paranoia in paradise.

  Dan smiled and pushed himself to his feet.

  “Why are you smiling?” Did he have some macho warrior fixation? Was he looking forward to butting heads with the enemy? “We don’t have a boat. We can’t do all the diving from shore, can we?”

  He shook his head. “We’ve got a huge area to cover.”

  “So what do we do now? We’re not stopping the survey, are we?” That was the last thing she wanted to do; she’d never bailed on an assignment before.

  “No way. We can’t put it off. We shift to Plan B.” He walked to the lace-curtained window. “I looked up an old buddy of mine—Eduardo Duarte. He’s a naturalist guide with the park system. The tour boat he’s assigned to this week has empty cabins, so he arranged for us to join them for a six-day tour of the islands. They’re Americans; we’re Americans—we’ll blend in. The captain is a diver, too; he carries a small compressor onboard. He agreed to refill our tanks, and Eduardo will take us to our dive sites.”

  Sam’s fog of discouragement lifted. Subterfuge. With allies. Definitely more her style than hand-to-hand combat. Obviously, Dan did know his way around down here.

  He tapped a finger on the windowpane, pointing to a large, sleek fiberglass vessel that rocked gently among smaller craft in the harbor. “That’s our yacht, Papagayo. See—they’re already tying up your kayak. Okay with you, partner?”

  So she’d lost the coral-colored walls, the patchwork quilt, her little computer table. So there might be a little animosity in this town. They’d be away from the locals on the tour boat. Key Corporation had supplied a satellite phone; she could send her posts from anywhere.

  Her assignment still included exotic wildlife, tropical islands, and a real live partner on the right side of the fight. “Plan B it is, then. Early dinner?” she asked. “I’m about ready to collapse from hunger.”

  “About that.” Dan stood up, hefted his gear bag from the floor, and headed for the door. “There’s just one little catch in this deal. Papagayo’s leaving at six thirty.”

  “Tonight?” Sam checked her watch. It was nearly five forty-five now.

  “Meet me at the back door in half an hour.” He closed the door behind him.

  Her stomach growled, and she put a hand on her belly. She checked the window again. Papagayo looked like a decent place to bunk for a week. She’d be on a luxury cruise instead of taking daily boat trips out from the islands. So they had to check their air fills. A little paranoia was probably a good thing in a diver.

  4

  Sam envied Dan’s calm confidence. Actually, now that she thought about it, she envied Dan’s life. He had a good job and a loving wife waiting for him, while she had only her usual uncertain employment, her housemate Blake, and her cat Simon at home. Chase was—well, who knew where Chase was at any given time? He was a hard man to track down.

  She pulled out the satellite phone Key had loaned her, called the FBI office in Salt Lake City, and asked for Agent Perez. Not there, even though it wasn’t quite 3 p.m. in that time zone. Typical. She declined to leave voicemail. Next, she tapped in Chase Perez’s home number. At least she could leave him another message to let him know she was thinking of him. She was trying to convince herself that this new awkwardness between them was all in her imagination.

  “Speak!” a deep voice barked.

  She was startled to hear the actual man instead of his voicemail recording. “Chase?”

  “Summer!” His tone softened. She heard sizzling in the background. “Sorry, I’m just . . . um . . . in the middle of doing a stir-fry for a late lunch, and you know how that goes.”

  “Um-hmmm.” Microwaved lasagna was about as involved as she got in the kitchen. One of Blake’s best qualities as a housemate was his love of cooking.

  “You know how you’ve got about five seconds between al dente and al disposal?” There was a clatter, a muttered “Damn it,” a louder crash, then he was shouting in a faraway voice.

  “Chase? Chase?” Had he been attacked?

  “Still there? Sorry about dropping you on the floor like that, but the wok was doing this Vesuvius thing.”

  “Vesuvius?” She pictured shooting flames.

  “It’s under control now. And this”—she could hear him chewing—“is delicious. I’ve discovered a new Korean recipe. I’ll make it for you when we get together next week. It’s an excellent antidote for dreary winter weather.”

  She inhaled the tropical night air seeping in through her open window, redolent of saltwater and grilled fish close up, with a slight tinge of burning garbage somewhere in the distance. Winter and her promised ski trip with Chase seemed a world away.

  “When did you get back?” she asked. She put him on speakerphone while she folded her laptop and stowed it in its padded case.

  “This is just a temporary layover. I called you this morning but all I got was voicemail. Whose phone are you using now?”

  “A client’s. You’ll never guess where I am.” She’d been waiting to surprise him with
this.

  “You do sound a little distant. The summit of Mount Rainier?”

  She snorted. “Hardly. Two hints—it’s seventy-five degrees outside right now and the national language is Spanish.”

  “Miami?”

  “Funny.” She moved to the bathroom and collected her sunscreen, moisturizer, and toothbrush. “I’m in the Galápagos.”

  “Ecuador?” He groaned loudly. “Oh, Summer. Why don’t you ask me before you do these things?”

  What? She’d expected an “I’m envious” or maybe a “Lucky you!” She returned to her bedside and tossed the items into her duffel bag. “Why should I ask you?”

  “Because I have insights into matters that you are not privy to,” he said. “I’m almost afraid to ask—what are you doing down there?”

  She told him.

  He groaned again. “Since when are you a diver?”

  She’d wanted to surprise him with that, too. His disparaging tone grated on her. “Chase, there are lots of things you don’t know about me. My life cannot be so easily condensed into a convenient FBI background report.” At least she liked to think that was true. Nowadays she wasn’t so sure.

  “Mi corazón, let me assure you that you are frequently a mystery to me.”

  She punched the speakerphone key off and put the phone back to her ear. “Chase, about what I said at Christmas—”

  “Let’s have that discussion face to face. You are still going to show up for our ski trip, right?”

  “Of course.” No matter what, they’d promised. If only she could get rid of the fear that their upcoming vacation would be a test she couldn’t pass.

  “How’s the Galápagos gig going so far?” he asked.

  “We’ve had a little trouble—”

  He was quick to interrupt again. “What kind of trouble?”

  She wanted to discuss Dan’s air-fill problem with someone, but Chase would have a million questions she couldn’t answer. “Maybe trouble’s too strong a word. Just sort of . . . noncooperation. Some of the locals don’t seem too happy that we’re working for the Natural Planet Foundation.”