THIRTY-TWO
7:00 A.M.
Next day
Monday, March 5
Davis
ELIZABETH WAS RIDING on Apollo’s back. The smooth motion was like flying, and she felt an indescribable sense of joy and freedom. But her father was standing on the bank of the slough, his hair parted into two braids, his copper face stern. He was pointing down. She didn’t want to look; she wanted to keep riding the whale forever. Her father glared at her, his finger motioning toward the ground.
Now standing on the bank, she could see what he saw. A frog was struggling to walk in the mud. When she knelt and turned it over with her finger, she saw that it was missing its hind legs.
The clock radio blared as Elizabeth tried to shake herself from the dream. She lay back against her pillow and then looked over at the time: 7:03 A.M. She had to get the dissertation to the department and meet Connie at the slough.
ELIZABETH HEARD THE BLOW and looked quickly for Apollo, who had surfaced not far from the shore. Even from the levee she could see that his skin was beginning to slough off. “Apollo’s skin is deteriorating,” she said, turning to Connie.
A crop duster buzzed overhead. “Maybe he’s sick from the spraying,” Connie said.
“They’re spreading it on food. How bad can it be?”
“I grew up in the Valley, remember? I’ve seen what it can do to people.”
Elizabeth felt a wave of nausea but breathed through it and told herself she was just overtired. “More likely he’s just sick because he’s in fresh water.”
As Apollo began to dive she could see the large cut on the whale’s back. In the slough it was likely to get infected. She walked quickly, knowing that time was short. If he became septic, he could die in a matter of days.
THIS PLACE is becoming a circus, Coast Guard Lieutenant Isaac James thought as he looked out at the hundreds of people who were walking and standing along the levee road trying to catch a glimpse of the whale. They were missing work and school just to see the show. It was his job to shut the show down as quickly as possible.
He stood at the door of the white portable that had been delivered to serve as the mobile command unit. Lieutenant James wore a blue baseball cap with the words COAST GUARD written in gold across the front. His winter uniform, with its navy blue shirt and trousers, kept out the morning chill as his tie fluttered in the wind. He wore a blue name badge above his right breast pocket, and over his left hung several multicolored rows of ribbons for extraordinary service. Even on his large chest, they hardly fit. Everyone had told him that he was commander material, maybe even admiral. But for now he was just a lieutenant. Maybe they had thought his farm-boy face and dimpled chin would appeal in front of the camera, or that his relaxed attitude would work well with other agencies. He recalled the words of his boss: This is your big break. Don’t screw it up.
Lieutenant James looked at his dive watch. He had five minutes until he was supposed to start the interagency briefing, but he had no idea where to begin. He had been sent over from Sector San Francisco to direct the rescue, but his commanding officer had neglected to tell them how exactly to help this whale. He smiled when he thought of the other order he had been given as he left home that morning. His twin six-year-old daughters had stood at the door in their dolphin pajamas, waving goodbye. “Go save the whale, Daddy!”
As if Lieutenant James was not under enough pressure, the lieutenant governor had made it his personal mission to make sure the whale rescue was successful. He had mobilized the ICS—Incident Command System—which was used in cases of natural disaster. They were treating the whale’s entrapment like an oil spill. There were representatives from the Office of Emergency Services, Fish and Game, and Highway Patrol, but everyone would look to him, because the Coast Guard was supposed to be responsible for the water. Boats, maybe, but not whales.
Lieutenant James needed someone who knew something about whales. NOAA had a stranding network for marine mammals, but the closest coordinator was down in southern California. He had called the Marine Mammal Center, but their veterinarian was out of the country. He still did not have an animal person he could rely on.
People claiming to be experts were calling in with all sorts of crazy ideas, and it was hard to know whom to take seriously. A big-shot biologist from the university named Richard Skilling had shown up. At first Lieutenant James was happy to have a biologist, since everyone else was from enforcement, but there was something about this man that he did not trust. Maybe it was just horse sense—growing up on a farm had given him an instinct about animals and people. Or maybe it was the fact that Skilling came across as arrogant. Or maybe it was because the professor thought the whale was sick and likely to die, an outcome he was not willing to accept.
Lieutenant James grabbed the small metal handle of the flimsy door, ready to close it and begin the meeting. His black handheld crackled. “Lieutenant, there’s a woman here says she’s a marine biologist, specializes in humpback whale something. I told her you already had advisers from the university.”
“It’s okay. You can let her through.”
From the doorway, he watched her walk toward him. Could she be the help I need? He looked down from the raised portable at her and introduced himself. “I’m Lieutenant James, incident commander. And you are?”
“Elizabeth McKay.”
“And what do you know about whales?”
“I specialize in humpback whale communication.”
“Communication, huh? You talk to whales?” His hopes for help were quickly disappearing.
“I study their songs and their social sounds.”
“Really? Can you tell him to leave, Professor?”
“Afraid not, but I discovered something that might help your rescue operation.”
“And what’s that?” Lieutenant James said, expecting to hear yet another well-meaning but totally useless suggestion on how to get a forty-ton whale back out to the ocean.
“I’ve deciphered a distress call, one that I’ve recorded in other parts of the world. Perhaps if we understood why he’s in distress, we could get him to leave.”
Lieutenant James decided he liked this woman and her confidence, but most of all, she had said the magic word. The Coast Guard was all about responding to distress calls.
“Professor McKay, why don’t you come inside?”
THIRTY-THREE
AT ONE END of the portable, representatives from what looked to Elizabeth like different law enforcement agencies crowded around a table. In the corner, black sunglasses pushed back on his head, was Skilling, whose slight scowl revealed that he was not particularly pleased to see her. “Shouldn’t you be working on your dissertation?” he said.
“It’s on your desk.”
Skilling looked taken aback, as if he had not really expected Elizabeth to be able to finish. He nodded, and the corners of his mouth turned down like those of a grouper.
“So,” Lieutenant James asked, “what are we going to do to get this whale out?”
Skilling was the first to speak. “Officers, this whale is sick and liable to die any day. After careful deliberation with my colleagues, we have come to the conclusion that most probably this whale has eaten sardines and anchovies with a high concentration of domoic acid. This happens from HABs—harmful algae blooms—and has most likely damaged its hippocampus. The navigational system in its brain is no longer functioning, and the condition is probably incurable. Once my team and I dissect the whale, we will be able to confirm this finding, but the only humane decision is to euthanize it.”
Kill it? Elizabeth thought, shocked at the idea. How could Skilling be so sure about his diagnosis, not to mention his prognosis that the whale could not be saved? Other whales had been rescued from the Sacramento River before. This was not the first whale to have lost its way and become entrapped in the delta. What was behind Skilling’s eagerness to kill Apollo? But before she could say anything, a large man in a khaki shirt and green pants spoke
.
“Well, if it’s sick, we should put it out of its misery. At Fish and Game we often have to shoot deer and even bears that are wounded.”
“This is not a deer or a bear,” Elizabeth said, unable to stop herself.
A highway patrolman was clearly entertained by the whole discussion. “You’re going to kill this whale in front of that crowd? You want a riot on your hands?”
“Gentlemen, I don’t think we are in a position to make that decision,” Lieutenant James said. “The lieutenant governor is going to be here in a few hours, and he wants to know how we are going to save this whale, not kill it. Whale experts, what are our options?”
“In 1985,” Elizabeth said, “Humphrey, another humpback, was lured out of a slough like this one by playing feeding calls.”
“It’s not clear whether it was the feeding calls that made any difference,” Skilling said. “I’d recommend playing the sounds of killer whales. That might scare the whale, but I think you’re wasting your time.”
“Feeding calls and killer whale sounds?” Lieutenant James said. “Any objections? Good, I’ll inform the lieutenant governor—” The sound of one of the television helicopters rattled overhead. “And then we need to brief the media. Can we begin the operation at 1300, Professors?” Skilling looked slightly surprised at Elizabeth’s being addressed as a professor. Elizabeth was also embarrassed by this jump in rank, but she said nothing, knowing that this new status might give her the credibility she needed to help save Apollo. “1300?” Lieutenant James repeated eagerly.
Both Skilling and Elizabeth nodded, although neither of them knew how they were going to get the equipment and the sound files there in time.
THIRTY-FOUR
1:00 P.M.
ELIZABETH AND LIEUTENANT JAMES stood in the bow of the rigid-hulled inflatable boat. On the side of the bright orange buoyancy tube, U.S. COAST GUARD was written in large white letters. The low winter sun glinted off the steel cabin and the black machine gun mounted in the bow. The presence of the weapon made Elizabeth uncomfortable, but Lieutenant James acted like it was not even there. The late-winter wind was blowing cold across the delta, sneaking up the legs of her jeans and under her fleece jacket.
Skilling had returned to the office to read her dissertation and attend the department meeting, but he had e-mailed the killer whale sound files to her. Elizabeth broke out in a sweat, realizing that they were reading her work. She took comfort in the fact that it could be weeks before they voted on whether to approve it.
The cold breeze caught the sweat on her neck and made her shiver. She tried to focus on the equipment in front of her. Two strong Coast Guard seamen were lowering a heavy steel navy loudspeaker into the water. The skeletal frame, like a box with no sides, surrounded the speaker that hung suspended in the center. Once it was tied off and floating a few feet below the surface, everything was in place. Elizabeth held the DAT machine in her hand.
Apollo surfaced twenty feet from the boat, allowing Elizabeth to see the wound on his back more closely. The skin was ripped open, exposing white blubber and the pink muscle beneath. It was a deep cut, and the laceration looked serrated, perhaps from the teeth of a killer whale or a boat strike. Seeing the injury up close renewed her sense of urgency to help this whale get back to the ocean.
“Ready?” Lieutenant James asked.
“I guess so,” Elizabeth said as she played the tape.
“Steer us toward the bridge,” the lieutenant commanded the coxswain standing at the wheel in the cabin.
They could not see Apollo in the murky water and waited for him to surface. She put on her headphones and could hear through the hydrophone that the feeding call was pumping out into the water loudly. It sounded like the wailing siren from an emergency vehicle—AHhh-ooOO—first falling and then rising.
After several minutes, she raised the volume, but still nothing.
Ten very long minutes passed, and finally, Apollo surfaced at the other end of the slough. Elizabeth was disappointed but not surprised. When this rescue technique had been tried two decades earlier with Humphrey, he had come to the boat immediately. But the feeding sounds had had an opposite effect on a subsequent pair of whales, Dawn and Delta. Something in the pit of her stomach had told her that this time it was not going to work.
“Try the killer whale sounds,” Lieutenant James commanded. “Bring the boat back behind the whale, and let’s see if we can herd him down the slough.”
“Lieutenant, I really would not recommend playing predatory sounds to a forty-ton whale in an enclosed space,” Elizabeth said.
“Do we have another choice?”
Elizabeth paused. She wasn’t sure whether to say what she was thinking.
“Do we have another choice, Professor?”
She winced. “Just call me Elizabeth.”
“Okay, do we have a choice, Elizabeth?”
“Last night I recorded two social sounds in the song—”
“That was you last night?”
Elizabeth swallowed and continued, deciding not to address the various laws she had broken. “One sound for distress and the other a mother-calf contact call.”
“I thought this was a bull.”
“It is.”
“Unless a lot has changed in the animal world since I left the farm, bulls don’t have calves.”
“They don’t.”
“Then what are you suggesting?”
“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m exploring the possibility that this whale is trying to communica—”
“With us?”
“No, not with us, with other whales. We just happen to be lucky enough to overhear it.” The whale’s song started to vibrate the steel hull of the inflatable.
“Why would it come here to communicate with other whales?” Lieutenant James spoke slowly, trying to follow what she was saying.
“Perhaps it is lost, or it could have been chased into the bay by killer whales. We don’t really know.”
“You really believe this whale is saying something?”
“I’m a scientist, Lieutenant. I don’t believe anything. I formulate research questions, and then I test them.”
“Such as?”
“Why are whales all around the world repeating this same song? Why are social sounds embedded in the song? What do these social sounds mean?”
“These are all very interesting scientific questions, Professor, but what does this have to do with rescuing this whale?”
“Apollo.”
“Excuse me?”
“His name is Apollo. I found his tailprint in the fluke registry.”
Lieutenant James looked taken aback to be on a first-name basis with the whale. “Well, then, how does this help us to rescue Apollo?”
“If this whale is making some kind of a distress call, maybe we can find some way to calm it and get it to leave.”
Lieutenant James was shaking his head doubtfully.
Elizabeth urged, “Give me one week. Get me a letter of authorization so I don’t have to do my research in the middle of the night, and I’ll find you a way to get this whale out.” Or at least she hoped she would.
Lieutenant James’s cell phone rang. When he looked at the caller ID, he stood up straighter before answering. “Yes, sir…I understand perfectly, sir. We will have this resolved as quickly as possible. I will brief you within the hour.” He hung up and turned to Elizabeth. “Play the killer whales.”
Elizabeth shook her head and played the file. She listened through the hydrophone at the high-pitched screeches and gunshot-like popping sounds. She had heard that the concussion of these sounds was like being beaten with a club.
Apollo moved so quickly that the bow wave swamped the small orange boat and heaved it sideways. Elizabeth dropped the recorder and fell backward into the icy water.
She came to the surface and gasped for air as she saw Apollo slashing at the boat with his giant tail. It was crashing down like a mallet and sending white boiling spr
ay in all directions. She could hear the killer whale sounds, felt them hit against her body. If only she’d had a chance to turn off the player!
Then the sounds stopped, and so did Apollo’s attack against the boat. Lieutenant James must have hit the right button.
THIRTY-FIVE
THE SOUNDS OF FEEDING echoed through Apollo—his stomach rumbling with a season’s starvation—his blubber stores as thin as they had ever been—
Apollo remembered the feasting of the cold summer waters where the rustling of krill was calling with life—he and the others drawing bubbles around the shoal of tiny crustaceans—circling—circling—creating the net—closer and closer—and when all knew that the feast was ready—erupting upward as one—mouths wide open—an explosion of spray—filling—closing—straining—devouring—
But there were no krill in these narrows—their salty swarms were absent in this lifeless water—
The sounds changed—no longer of kin—they were now of killers! He could hear the sharp-edged pitch of their frenzied screams—the pulses like teeth once again striking his skin—
The wound was still fresh on his back—the raw edges of skin rubbing—
He charged toward the sound and began slashing his tail in defense—but there were no killers in the water—just the slow drone of a boat—
And then he saw it suspended in the water—struggling to reach the surface—he searched for an eye but could not find one—then drew the creature close with his flipper—tucking it against his body—then rolling to lift it onto his belly—
THIRTY-SIX
ELIZABETH FELT HER BODY pushed over and up. The slough was parting, and the brown water began to spill away from her. She couldn’t believe it. She was on all fours, crouching on the belly of the whale.
Eye of the Whale Page 14
