by John Yunker
“Whales,” she explained. “I think.”
“You think? I thought you were fluent.”
“I am. They speak a different Spanish here,” Lynda said. “The double el has a jha sound. Always throws me.”
Robert returned his eyes to the water just as the nose of a whale emerged, missile-like, off the right side of the ship. The gray marbled monster rose ten feet, twenty feet, angled, then fell sideways into the water.
“I was right!” Lynda reached into her backpack, pulling out a camera. Looking down, Robert counted five men in uniform doing the same, aiming their cell phones and pocket cameras.
“Five summers dragging my nephews through Boston Harbor,” Lynda said, “and we never saw so much as a fin. They’re not gonna believe this.”
After getting her fill of photographs, she began to flip through a travel guide. “Must be a southern right whale,” she said. “This is where they give birth and raise their young. And did you know there are penguin colonies along the shoreline? Along with elephant seals and blue-eyed shags. Maybe we can swing by there on our way back, hey, Bobby?”
“This isn’t a vacation,” he said.
She shrugged. “Might as well get something out of it besides frequent flyer miles.”
Suddenly the ship turned sharply left and coughed up a thick blast of smoke. Robert grabbed the railing to avoid losing his balance. The two officers standing next to them began talking rapidly.
“What are they saying?” Robert asked.
“Looks like we’ve got a runner.” Lynda stepped back into the bridge, Robert close behind. He could make out three small ships on the otherwise flat horizon. The one in the middle, a medium-sized fishing trawler, appeared a lighter shade, possibly painted white. It emitted clouds of smoke, evidence that it, too, was in a hurry.
As the Roca began to catch up, Robert watched the white ship expand in size until he could count the number of decks (three) and estimate the length (200 feet). Yet he did not recognize the ship itself.
“That’s it,” Lynda said. “That’s our ship.”
Robert looked again and realized that he had been searching for something much smaller, the boat he’d sailed on five years ago. The ship ahead was larger, probably a recycled commercial fishing trawler with ice-reinforced hulls. Robert thought of Aeneas using a former fishing vessel to attack fishermen, and how much Aeneas would relish the irony. He’d probably acquired the boat from the Russians or the Norwegians—the fishermen thrown out of work by declining cod stocks or some other overfished species. It’s time someone put this boat to a noble use, he would say.
The Tern ran for a few minutes more before slowing to a halt. Because Canada had pulled the Tern’s registration, it was now a ship with no country, meaning it could be boarded by any nation at any time. Not that Robert needed an excuse. They already had the warrant. Still, he realized, this was all too easy. Aeneas would not have stopped running.
The Argentine captain radioed the Tern but got no response, and he began speaking to his officers in rapid-fire Spanish. As Lynda listened in on the chatter, Robert stepped outside the bridge to call Gordon on the satellite phone.
Robert paced the deck until he got a clear signal, then wrestled with an unresponsive keypad before giving up and tossing the phone back into his backpack. If they were chasing real terrorists, Robert would have the latest-generation satphone, plus a backup. But not here. Everything down here was old and used. Second-hand. Including him.
By now, they had pulled within a football field’s distance of the Tern. The ship, painted white from mast to bow, looked like a U.S. Coast Guard cutter, with the exception of three large black letters painted on each side of the hull: CDA, for Cetacean Defense Alliance. The name R/V Arctic Tern was visible in smaller letters, the “R/V” indicating research. There was, of course, no research being done aboard the Tern, just as whaling ships claimed to be research vessels without ever publishing a single study. If the Japanese are going to play the research card, Aeneas always said, so will we. And on the side of the bridge were painted a dozen black checkmarks, one for each whaling vessel sunk or disabled by the CDA over the years. Robert had been a witness to one of those checkmarks.
Lynda and Robert stepped into a lowered Zodiac, and a crew member ferried them over the chop, followed by a dozen men in uniform. Lynda was the first up the ladder on the side of the Tern. Robert held back, watching as the uniforms pulled themselves aboard, one by one, until he was alone with the driver.
He’d tried to brace himself for this voyage into his past, for the opening of old wounds, mostly his own. But now he could feel his body tensing, his heart accelerating. What if someone up there recognized him; what if some fragment from his past did emerge? More important, he didn’t know how he would react once he came face-to-face with Aeneas after all this time, with all the history between them.
Robert heard a shout from above. Lynda, looking down at him, waved him up. He reached down and made sure his gun was holstered, safety off. Then he took a deep breath, slid on his sunglasses, and grabbed onto the ladder.
Assembled in front of him on the rear deck were about two dozen kids, dreadlocked and tattooed. A few wore white t-shirts with the CDA logo—a black silhouette of a whale fluke with the letters CDA superimposed in white. Most of the crew wore second-hand flannels and fleece, ripped jeans, flip-flops. As Robert reviewed the faces beneath the beards and piercings, he began to breathe more easily, thankful that the CDA did not pay a salary, ensuring a high rate of turnover. He did not recognize a single face, and he was growing optimistic that nobody recognized him—which was fortunate, as Lynda had apparently left the introductions to him.
“We’re with the FBI,” he said. “I’m Agent Porter and this is Agent Madigan. We’re here to execute an arrest warrant for Neil Patrick Cameron.”
“Who?” asked a gangly, unshaven man standing in front.
“Aeneas,” Robert said.
“Are you in charge of this vessel?” Lynda asked.
“In a manner of speaking.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lynda said.
“I’m the chef.”
Muted laughter emanated from the crowd. For a ship that was on the run, these people appeared awfully relaxed. Perhaps they were bluffing; perhaps Aeneas was hiding somewhere below. But Robert had a feeling that he was long gone, that Aeneas again had managed to stay a few steps ahead. The only times he ever got captured were times he chose to be captured. Like in Iceland, during CDA’s first year. Aeneas sunk three whaling ships and eluded a fleet of naval and coast guard ships for six months. Then, one afternoon in October, he sailed into Reykjavík harbor and turned himself in. He’d wanted a high-profile trial. Iceland, fearful of negative publicity, stuck him on a plane to London and barred him from ever returning.
Aeneas was an expert in the game of cat and mouse, a trait Robert envied when he’d been on the side of the mouse. Now that he was the predator, he felt predictable and slow. Yet he had little choice but to continue along this preordained path, to go through the motions, search the ship, ask pointed questions, ignore the laughter.
Robert looked at Lynda. “You want to do the honors?”
“My pleasure.” She said something in Spanish as she led the way into the ship, a few of the Argentines following her, a few heading for the bridge.
“You all stay right here,” Robert told the crew on the deck. He knew that the faces staring back at him knew where Aeneas was, and he knew just as well that they would not give up their leader. As Robert paced the deck, he envisioned the uniforms below, opening doors, lockers, anything that might contain a heavyset man of just over six feet. They would, he realized, come up empty handed.
The chef stepped forward. “About how long do you expect this open house to last?”
“Until we find him.”
“I’ve got food on the cooke
r,” he said.
“It can wait.”
“I am quite serious,” the chef said. “We could have a fire in the galley if I don’t get down there.”
“Tell me where Aeneas is, and I’ll let you go.”
“I don’t know where he is.”
“Then tell me where you dropped him off.”
“I work all the way down there. I don’t know what goes on up here.”
“Then tell me who does.”
“I do.” A tall woman in a red fleece jacket and wraparound sunglasses emerged from behind the crowd.
“Who are you?” Robert asked.
“I’m the captain,”
“Aeneas is the captain.”
“Aeneas isn’t here.”
The woman—somewhere in her thirties—had the hardened look of a triathlete, with close-cropped blond hair and dark skin blushed red from the wind and sun. Robert considered telling her to remove her sunglasses. He wanted to see her eyes, to know if she was hiding anything. But doing so would have only made him look desperate, which he wasn’t, not yet.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Lauren Davis.”
“Very well, Captain Davis, tell me why you’re headed south via Argentina instead your usual route via New Zealand?”
“You should already know that.”
“Indulge me.”
“So you can pass it along to the Japanese?”
“I don’t work for the Japanese.”
“You might as well.”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“If you want to catch a fish, go where the fish are; if you want to catch a whaler, go where the whalers are.”
Robert felt blood rush to his face, not just because he recognized the line—one of Aeneas’s many adages—but because of the way she delivered it. Knowingly. He lowered his sunglasses. He wanted her to see his eyes, to see that she was mistaken, that she did not, in fact, recognize him.
“Have the whalers moved to a different location?”
“Not yet. But they will,” she said. “The Aussies are sending two naval ships to protect their waters. This will force the Japanese into the Amundsen Sea.”
“Which is where you are headed.”
“If you’ll let us.”
“All I want is Aeneas. Show me where you dropped him, and you’ll be free to continue on, save all the whales. I’m not here for the ship. I’m here for him. But if I can’t get him, I’ll settle for the ship.”
She removed her sunglasses. Her eyes, bright green in the sunlight, stared defiantly at him.
“Unlike you,” she said, “we don’t leave people behind.”
She knew. Robert could see it in her eyes. She knew who he was, and she probably knew everything. Aeneas must have told her. Maybe he told everyone.
Robert turned and walked to the rear of the deck and leaned over the railing as if checking a possible hiding spot. He looked back at the Argentine ship, anxious to return to it, angry with Gordon for sending him here, angrier with himself for coming. He dug his fingernails into the railing, as if he could bore through layers of paint, peel away the history of the ship. He should have known better than to think he’d been forgotten just because a few years had gone by. A fresh set of faces didn’t save him from the same collective memory. Now Robert had their ship, but they had—and always would have—his past.
Lynda emerged from below, followed by her Argentine escorts. When she saw Robert, she stopped and shook her head before joining him at the railing.
“You don’t look surprised,” she said.
“They dropped him off somewhere, not far from here. That’s why they didn’t run far when we chased them.”
“They tell you that?”
“No,” he said, “I just know.”
“In case you’re wrong, Sherlock, we should take the ship back to port and do another sweep. Get the dogs on here.”
Robert knew she was right but was too weary to say anything, the jet lag catching up with him, the feeling that this short mission would not be so short, after all.
“Hand me the phone,” she said. “I’ll call Gordon.”
Angela
Zero four two two nine.
Angela had tagged him during her tenth season at Verde.
At the time, the penguin had taken a liking to the old Toyota pickup that the researchers used to travel to town. He would belly up to one of the worn Goodyears and paddle it with his wings—the flipper dance. It was a mating ritual, one normally reserved for females of the same species. Clearly, he was not the brightest of penguins, but he was young still.
They named him Diesel.
Sometimes Diesel would offer up a flipper dance to a seated human. That’s how Angela got to know him. She used to read in the early mornings, seated outside the cinder block cueva that she shared with six other researchers, sneaking in a few moments of peace before the day ahead.
Diesel mostly spent his days on his stomach under the rear of the truck, watching the humans pass. But one morning he cautiously approached Angela and began to poke at her shoes with his beak. She put her book down on a cinder block and he pecked at that as well, then he stepped forward and began to flap his wings against her right leg.
“It’s nice to get attention from a male once in awhile,” she later told Shelly, her boss. “I won’t bicker over species.”
Over time, Diesel spent more time around humans than with his peers, loitering around the camp, trying to push his way into the cueva or the office. They soon discovered that he wouldn’t bite if touched, and he became more of a pet than a penguin, always nearby as researchers prepped for a day’s census or as they walked among trailers and tents and the bathrooms. None of them thought Diesel was likely ever to find a mate.
He followed Angela into the public toilet one evening after the tourists were gone. She had to pick him up to get him out and was surprised that he didn’t struggle at all and made no attempt to bite her. From then on, during her morning rituals, she would skip the book altogether and lift Diesel onto her lap, staring at him, eye to eye, his head turned so that he could see her more clearly.
What a sight they must have been to anyone who woke early—but Angela didn’t care. Diesel was uninterested in his own species, and she was uninterested in hers. Two loners, sharing their mornings.
Then just when the humans were sure Diesel was far too domesticated to take a mate, he found one. Or one found him, as was usually the case. One morning, Angela discovered Diesel under the Toyota with a partner on her belly next to him.
Angela felt somewhat abandoned when she first saw them together, but the naturalist within her quickly took over, and she spent the next two weeks deliberating with the others on how to remove the truck without disturbing this fragile relationship. They had to move quickly—once an egg was laid, any disruption could cause the penguins to retreat to the water, sacrificing the next generation. If Angela had had her way, the truck would never have been moved at all.
They spent a week constructing an artificial undercarriage out of leftover plywood, brass pipes, duct tape, two spare tires, and cinder blocks—such an odd contraption that the tourists actually began taking snapshots.
The switch occurred during the morning hours when the birds were standing beside their nest, crowing to each other.
Stacy, a rookie researcher who was good with a stick shift, piloted the pickup; the rest followed closely behind with the contraption. The penguins watched this bizarre parade with interest, but did not seemed terribly alarmed. When the humans left, they returned to their counterfeit nest. The true indication of success came in the form of two eggs, which Shelly noticed three weeks later. The eggs were smaller than normal but still viable. Sometimes it took a year or two for young penguins to become successful breeding pairs. Diesel was just getting
started.
Angela had already selected names for the chicks.
* * *
The sky was darkening when Angela entered the dining room. She was too nervous to eat, with thoughts of a man off in the darkness, shivering and hungry. But she needed to make an appearance for the sake of continuity—humans being creatures of habit, too—and she needed supplies. The dining room had been a storage shed in its first life. Now it consisted of two long tables, a propane stove, and four small windows covered in plastic. There were no overhead lights, but candles and portable fluorescents created a warm environment for the nine researchers—three men and six women, including Angela.
Shelly, a tall, trim woman in her late forties with long black hair, had always said that you could tell what month of the breeding season it was by the length of her roots. She dyed her hair before she arrived at Punta Verde in late August and not again until the last of the penguins had traded in their old feather coats for new and returned to sea. We molt together, she’d say.
Shelly could never resist making light of the scabs and stitches and torn gloves that no naturalist escaped, and that evening she invited Angela to show off her new wound during the meal. Angela stood and waved her swollen hand like the Queen, which was met by cheers from the junior researchers who had long since forgotten that she, too, was human.
Angela caught Doug’s eyes and glanced at the floor. She was avoiding him now. He had followed orders earlier and stayed close to the nest, but when she told him to fetch the first aid kit for her hand, he was incredulous. Why don’t we return to camp together? he asked. One sharp glare from Angela had been all it took to send him off on his one-hour round trip. She got a secret thrill from putting him back in his place.
While Doug was gone, Angela had deposited her castaway in the northern reaches of Back Bay (Shelly had named parts of Verde after neighborhoods of Boston, her hometown). Angela assembled the man’s waterlogged tent between bulbous lyceum bushes. He had a pronounced limp and was shivering.
“I need to get you dry clothes,” she told him.
