Authors: Douglas Carlton Abrams
“If is all right with you, Liza,” Teo repeated.
“Okay, Teo, maybe a few more days.”
Teo left and Connie watched him go.
“Liza?”
“That’s what he used to call me.”
“You never told me about him.”
“It was a long time ago…before I met Frank.”
“He came all the way from the Caribbean? You sure there’s nothing boiling besides the soup?”
“I’m married.”
Connie’s raised eyebrows showed that she was surprised by the forcefulness of the response. “I didn’t say you weren’t.”
“What if Frank doesn’t come back?” Elizabeth asked Connie.
“He’ll come back. He’s just confused. Now eat something. It’ll be good for you,” Connie said, offering her the bowl.
Elizabeth smelled the fishy broth. “I can’t.” She got up to go to the bathroom.
“Well, if you don’t want the fish soup, I might taste it myself. I think I might like island cooking.”
“Help yourself,” Elizabeth said as she walked into the bathroom. She smiled at the thought of the whale activist and the whaler.
T
EO WALKED INTO
the kitchen to wash the smell of fish off his hands. Something glittered on the floor under the refrigerator.
He stooped down and fished it out. It was a diamond ring—Elizabeth’s. He picked it up carefully and was about to head upstairs. The ring would cheer Elizabeth up, he was sure of it, but then he thought again. Perhaps he might hold on to it a little longer, until it was clear that Frank really was coming back. Maybe there was still a chance for him.
T
HROUGH THE BATHROOM DOOR,
Elizabeth called to Connie, “I’ve got to get back to Apollo. I only have six days left, and he might not last much longer.” Elizabeth leaned on the sink. She looked at herself in the mirror…she was pale…her limbs felt heavy…and then everything went black.
FORTY-TWO
10:15
P.M.
Sacramento
W
HEN
E
LIZABETH
came around, she felt the rough white sheets under her hands and the plastic mattress beneath. Fluorescent lights filled the room with an unnatural white glow. She was tilted up in bed with an IV drip in her left arm. Hospital monitors flashed and beeped all around her, confirming the fact that she was alive. All she remembered was looking in the mirror and then being in Connie’s car, battling waves of nausea each time she tried to sit up.
What is wrong with me?
she wondered. She turned her head to the side and saw Connie sitting next to her.
“What happened?” Her own voice seemed distant and hollow in her throat.
“You passed out in your bathroom. You woke up, but you’ve been pretty out of it ever since. They’re doing some bloodwork.”
“Where are we?” Elizabeth asked anxiously.
“At the hospital.”
“Which hospital?”
“The Medical Center.”
“Get me out of here,” Elizabeth said, trying to get up.
“How are you feeling?” Frank stood by the curtain.
“I should go,” Connie said.
“Are you okay?” Frank asked again.
“Yeah, I guess I’m just working a little too hard. You remember, that was the problem you thought was incurable.”
Frank pretended to ignore her comment. “Did you get my call? You never—”
“What call?”
Frank touched Elizabeth’s wrist gently and then took her pulse. “You took off your ring.”
Before she could tell Frank that she had lost it in the house, David Chin, one of the ER doctors, and Tom Neumann walked into the room. Elizabeth knew both of them as colleagues and friends of Frank’s, and she felt uncomfortable being their patient.
“How is everyone doing?” asked Dr. Chin. Frank and Elizabeth looked at him blankly without speaking. “Well, okay then,” he said. “Let’s get down to it. It doesn’t seem like there is anything seriously wrong. Just dehydration.”
Elizabeth’s shoulders relaxed. Maybe she hadn’t been poisoned at the slough.
“The bloodwork also showed something else,” Tom said, unable to contain himself.
“Maybe we should leave you with the test results,” Dr. Chin said, handing the chart to Frank. Dr. Chin and Tom left the room, both unable to suppress their smiles.
Frank quickly flipped open the chart. “Oh, my God.”
“What’s wrong?” Elizabeth asked.
Frank handed her the chart. She scanned the page and she saw the words: “Pregnancy test: positive.”
“I’m pregnant?” Elizabeth said, not quite believing it. Thoughts flashed through her mind with staggering speed.
My marriage may be over. I’ve just been kicked out of graduate school. I have no way to support a child.
“You’re pregnant,” Frank said again, perhaps trying to convince himself.
“What are we going to do?” Elizabeth said, biting her lip. Staring into Frank’s face, she felt a vulnerability she had never before experienced.
Frank moved toward Elizabeth, put down the metal railing of the hospital bed, and sat beside her. His loving smile made her eyes water. “What do you want to do?” he said.
Tears spilled over from Elizabeth’s eyes. She quickly tried to wipe them away. “I want this baby…but I want to have it with you.”
Frank took Elizabeth’s hand and squeezed it.
“Will you come home?” Elizabeth asked.
FORTY-THREE
Liberty Slough
T
HE TINTED WINDOW
lowered silently into the rear door of the black town car, revealing a woman whom he had talked to only on the telephone. By the light inside the car, he could see that Amanda Hanson was older than he had imagined from her smooth, youthful voice. He could tell that her auburn hair was dyed to hide the gray, and even a face-lift or two could not hide fifty or more years of gravity.
“It’s an honor,” she said, looking up at him.
“Ms. Hanson, the honor is mine.” His hands were buried in the pockets of his field coat to keep them warm, and his raised shoulders shielded his neck against the wind that encircled them.
“This whole thing,” the woman said, waving to the slough where Apollo still lingered, “is getting very awkward. Having all this attention here is making my clients very uncomfortable.”
“I have the situation under control. This will be over within a week or sooner.”
“Ms. McKay,” the woman continued, “has the entire world waiting for her to talk with that whale.”
“You don’t have to worry about her, and this whale will be put out of its misery very soon. My friends have arranged for the necessary equipment. It should be here within a few days.”
“I’m glad to hear it. We’ve had our people inside speak to the
lieutenant governor about the situation, and I think he understands our concerns.”
“Good, this will all be over shortly.”
“Don’t disappoint us, and we won’t disappoint you.”
The window rose smoothly. Then the car drove off, and he was left in the empty field, dust devils spinning around him.
FORTY-FOUR
10:35
P.M.
Sacramento
“W
HAT’S GOING ON?”
Connie asked as she stepped back into the room.
“I’m pregnant,” Elizabeth said. “And Frank’s coming home.”
“You’re pregnant? You’re pregnant!” Connie shouted.
Elizabeth was surprised by Connie’s enthusiasm. She was the last person on the planet Elizabeth thought would get excited about a baby.
“How have you been feeling so far?” Tom asked, wheeling an ultrasound over.
“Just some nausea…and vomiting.” Elizabeth smiled at Connie.
“I’m afraid that’s normal. Any bleeding?”
“I guess a little, about a week ago. I don’t have regular periods.”
“I don’t want to be overprotective,” Frank cut in, “but don’t you think it’s probably not the best idea to swim with a forty-ton whale at the moment?”
“I want to keep you overnight, but I’m not overly worried,” Tom said as Frank’s eyes narrowed and his lips pursed. “Since the bleeding has stopped, it’s probably fine. Besides, you have a whale to save.”
Frank let out a sigh in exasperation.
Tom pretended to ignore him. “Now, let’s have a look at little Frank or little Elizabeth.”
On the 3-D ultrasound, the nine-week-old fetus looked like a whole person, only in miniature. She could see its rapidly beating heart. As they rubbed the sonogram wand through the gel on her belly to get a better look, the baby’s face turned and seemed to gaze at them through the ghost eyes in its skull. Elizabeth was not prepared for the flood of affection she felt for this person she had not even known she was carrying. She stared at the screen, in awe of the new life floating inside her, this tiny and most precious of sea creatures.
FORTY-FIVE
Two hours later
Rush hour
Tokyo, Japan
T
HE
H
ACHIKO
C
ROSSING
in the famously crowded Shibuya center had been chosen strategically. The NHK Broadcasting Center, Japan’s public broadcaster, was not far away, and with a little luck, the action would be broadcast by satellite all over Japan and on Japanese-language television around the world.
The entire facade of the twenty-story building was covered with 1.5 million computer-controlled LED screens. As Jake and Tano pulled up, the screens were displaying a video advertisement of a blond model dressed in black, strutting down a fashion runway. This image dissolved into a pristine grove of blooming
sakura,
Japanese flowering cherry trees, which was then replaced by the logo of the Environmental Stewardship Consortium and the words in both Japanese and English:
OUR RESOURCES, OUR FUTURE.
Jake noticed that his breathing was shallow. He tried to deepen his breath to relax, to stay in the present moment.
The building also was not far from the Meiji Shrine in Yoyogi Park, where Jake had spent many days trying to meditate under a ginkgo tree. Jake loved Shinto shrines and had admired Japanese culture ever since he had studied aikido as a short and much-picked-on high school student. He had become fascinated with the figure of the samurai and the code of Bushido, which demanded that one face one’s
death with honor. Jake had tried to face the world without fear, as a samurai would. In college, he had majored in Japanese and had tried to condition his mind as rigorously as the Zen masters demanded. Yet he was never very successful at meditating. Eventually, he had discovered a shortcut to enlightenment that allowed him to face and conquer all of his fears. Tonight he hoped to revisit his enlightenment.
In their impossibly small car, Jake and Tano pulled into the garage. Disguised in white janitorial jumpsuits, they made their way from the parking garage to the very heart of this building-turned-billboard.
They knew where the screens’ control room was located, thanks to the blueprint of the building they’d gotten from the archives of the city-planning department. Yoshi, the organization’s computer genius, had interviewed for a job there and discovered that the room was unmanned after 6:00
P.M
.
Yoshi had also hacked into the system, found a master list of the building’s entrance codes, and written the program they would need to control the massive screen display. But Yoshi could not get the program past the firewall. Jake and Tano needed to get into the room itself to install the program.
Inside the room, Jake and Tano unzipped their white jumpsuits, revealing cold-weather jackets and pants. Tano was right—they looked more like mountain climbers than eco-activists. Jake opened a small laptop and connected the cable using the diagram Yoshi had prepared. He glanced at the door, where they had placed a bundle of thin red cylinders wrapped with black duct tape.
“Jake, you afraid?” Tano asked from over his shoulder.
Jake glanced up to see sweat running down Tano’s face. He knew it was not from the heat. Tano’s black glasses were fogging up. “I’m never afraid when I know I’m doing the right thing,” Jake said, his fingers hovering over the keyboard. “We’re ready. Are you?”
Tano nodded.
Jake pressed “enter.”
On the monitors, they could see the advertisement go black as an image of humpback whales replaced it. A mother, her baby, and a male escort swam together underwater, a video clip that Connie had “borrowed” from her friend Elizabeth. The film switched to footage of the Japanese whaling fleet, exploding harpoons, and Japanese whale meat products. The film ended with footage of Elizabeth on Apollo’s stomach and the words in Japanese and English:
CAN WE SAVE THEM? CAN WE SAVE OURSELVES?
Tano placed the call to the television station. As the clip played again, they knew they should go. It would not be long now.
They locked the door and then squeezed epoxy glue into the keyhole. They fastened the red-and-black bundle to the door handle and then lit the fuses. Although they were harmless flares, the noise and light they gave off might scare away the guards for an additional thirty minutes. Plan A required them to get back to the car and leave before they were discovered. Down the hall, Jake saw a small group of guards racing toward them.
“In here,” Jake said, trying to retrace their steps back down the stairs, but there were more police coming up the stairwell—these were officers from the
koban
police boxes. There was no choice but to head up: Plan B. This was the moment that Jake had hoped for and Tano had dreaded.
Jake pushed open the door to the roof, Tano not far behind, and the police not far behind him. Sweat made Jake’s shirt stick to his back as he and Tano raced for the corner ledge. As they pulled themselves up onto the foot-wide barrier, Jake could see the neon lights of Shibuya center all around him, even above him, eerily reflecting off the low-hanging clouds.
The police stopped when they saw Jake and Tano balancing on the ledge. They were probably worried that the “terrorists” might be content to take their own lives.