Authors: Douglas Carlton Abrams
Pete had a map of Northern California up on his screen. It looked like a weather map, with concentric irregular shapes of color superimposed on satellite images. “While we wait for my software to read your data set, let me show you what we’re finding.”
“What are we seeing here?” Frank asked, pointing to the red area.
“The red zones are the hottest. That’s where the highest levels of toxic contamination are found.” Pete zoomed out to a satellite map of the whole planet. The red zones were much smaller, pockmarking the globe. “As you can see, there are hot zones in the arctic and other places of relatively low population, simply because of the way these persistent organic pollutants travel with the wind and ocean currents.”
“Are these all the chemicals we’ve mapped?”
“Oh no, that’s just one well-studied contaminant. But if you study one contaminant, you don’t see the bigger patterns. Let me show you the top fifty.” As Pete did so, the red began blending together increasingly and was harder to differentiate. “And here are the top two hundred that have been found in some measure in nearly everyone who’s been tested.” The world was awash in the color red. The whole globe was a hot zone.
“The data set has been geocoded,” Pete said. “Let’s see what we have.” He zoomed back in toward the surface of the planet as if fall
ing back to earth. Elizabeth noticed the distinct peninsular shape of the Bay Area, like two pincers separated by the thin expanse of the Golden Gate Bridge. To the west she could see the small dots of the Farallon Islands. The image moved east and zoomed in toward the area of the slough.
“These are the hot zones close to the local assets of the companies in the consortium,” Frank said, pointing to the screen; the factories, refineries, and fields of the companies could be seen from the aerial view. “They have a similar photo in one of the reports in the file.” The zones of contamination seemed to bleed out from the industrial sites, but what was surprising was that the slough was shaded red from three different directions.
“Now let me overlay your data,” Pete said. With a few keystrokes, a sparse collection of small diamonds appeared randomly on the map.
Frank’s shoulders dropped. It was not revealing what he’d thought it might. “Hey, wait a second,” he said, remembering the miscoding. “In the birth outcome column, try changing ‘undetermined’ to ‘defect.’” Pete did a find-and-replace in the data file and then hit “enter.”
Frank gasped audibly as he ran his finger over the screen. “Ever wish you weren’t right?” he said. On the screen were densely clustered blinking diamonds on the housing developments on the outskirts of Liberty Slough. The slough and Apollo were at the center of it all. No wonder the Environmental Stewardship Consortium wanted to get that whale out of there—before anyone started testing the water.
E
LIZABETH AND
F
RANK
thanked Pete and then headed out of the lab, taking the file and the hard drive with them. Elizabeth’s cell phone vibrated again. She flipped it open and said hello.
“It’s Bruce Wood from the
Sacramento Times.”
“You have some nerve, calling me after what you wrote.”
“You didn’t happen to notice that there was no byline, did you?” Wood said, not a hint of guilt or remorse in his voice. “I didn’t write the article. Comes over the wire practically ready to print—from a PR agency. That kind of crap is ruining my profession.”
“So why are you calling me?”
“I did some investigating about who was behind the article, and I’m thinking maybe there’s a story here after all. I thought you might have some leads for me.”
Elizabeth was walking toward the car.
Can I trust him?
she wondered, glancing over at Frank. He was always telling her to trust her instincts. Something deep in the pit of her stomach told her she could. “I think I might have a file full of them.”
SEVENTY-SEVEN
7:05
P.M.
“D
OCUMENTS WERE TAKEN
from the council.” Amanda Hanson’s usually calm voice sounded worried. “They were given to the husband of that marine biologist,” she continued. “They’ve both seen its contents, and she’s going to give it to a reporter.” The firmware patch downloaded into Elizabeth’s cell had turned it into a bug that was transmitting Elizabeth’s conversations even when she was not on the phone.
“What are you doing about it?”
“I’m calling you,” Hanson replied.
“Why me?”
“Your name is all over that file.”
“There must be someone who usually deals with this.”
“We’re not the mob. I’ve taken care of the one who gave them the documents, but you need to get the documents back and make sure they don’t tell anyone what they’ve seen—ever.”
R
EGGIE
G
ATES STOOD
across the street, watching silently as his three-car garage burned. The bright orange and yellow flames had consumed most of his sprawling gray neocolonial house, and the garage was the last to burn. The fire had spread fast, unnaturally fast. He heard something explode inside as firemen rushed around him,
trying desperately to keep the fire from igniting the trees and the neighboring houses.
Gates didn’t notice his wife walk up to him until she was standing right beside him, Justine in her arms. The fire fascinated the girl, and her delicate mouth hung open.
Gates took Justine into his arms and hugged her as his wife rested her head on his broad shoulder.
F
RANK HELD
E
LIZABETH TIGHT
as they stood outside the lab. Neither one wanted to separate. Amid all the shocking events of the day, Elizabeth felt a deep sense of relief and calm in his arms.
Frank’s beeper squawked at his waist.
“Oh, Christ, it’s the ER,” Frank said as he looked at the number. His voice was weary and disappointed. “I’m supposed to be off, but I’m at the top of the ‘go-to’ list, and Bill is home throwing up.”
Elizabeth’s shoulders dropped in familiar resignation.
“Let me walk you to your car,” Frank said.
“You don’t have to,” Elizabeth said, not wanting to have to explain her accident. Frank would just worry.
“I want to,” Frank insisted, and put his arm around her shoulder protectively. The sky was overcast. The forecast had said a storm was coming, but so far, there had only been on-and-off light rain.
Elizabeth’s stomach clenched as they walked under the bright fluorescent streetlights. Parking lots always seemed to be menacing at night with no one around. She was glad that Frank was there after all.
“Oh my God, what happened?” he exclaimed.
“Just a little fender bender.”
“Fender bender? There’s no longer a fender to bend. Were you hurt?”
“It was nothing, really. A little scare.” Elizabeth opened the door, which squeaked even more than before. As she stuffed the file into
her already overstuffed bag, the newspaper picture fell out and into an oily puddle.
Frank crouched to take a closer look. “Who did this?”
Elizabeth shivered as she looked down at the burned-out eyes floating in the water. “I don’t know,” she said.
“I’m going to call the hospital and tell them I can’t come.”
“Don’t be silly. They’re just trying to scare us.”
“They succeeded.”
“I’ll be fine until you come back.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Frank, who’s the hospital going to call? Who’s going to take care of those mothers and their babies?”
“What about this mother and her baby?”
“We’ll be fine until you come home.”
“I don’t want you going home,” Frank said. “Go to Connie’s.”
“Frank, I just—”
“Elizabeth, I love you. I need to know that you’re safe.”
“But—”
“Did you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me what I said. I need to know that you heard me.”
“You love me. You need me to be safe.”
“That’s right.”
“I love you, too, Frank.” She curled in close, and Frank held her tight.
“I almost forgot,” Frank said, pulling a ring box out of his pocket. “I found your ring.”
“Where did you find it?”
“Uh…around,” Frank said. “Look, I traded it in.”
Elizabeth opened the ring box. Her jaw dropped. Inside the box was a white gold ring with small diamonds set into the band. It was beautiful, practical, and unostentatious.
He said, “My father was wrong. A man doesn’t show his love to a woman by—”
Elizabeth’s lips were pressed against Frank’s. He clenched her hard to his chest, and they kissed passionately. It had been a long time since they had shared a kiss like this, a kiss that could cut away their loneliness, like a scalpel wielded with exquisite skill.
SEVENTY-EIGHT
7:30
P.M.
Davis
“L
IEUTENANT
J
AMES
has been ordered to kill Apollo.”
Elizabeth started to panic and almost dropped her cell phone. Her heart was pounding so hard she could feel it in her throat. “Connie, where are you?”
“I’m at the slough with Teo. Lieutenant James says he’s out of time. They’re going to harpoon Apollo by 6:00
A.M.
tomorrow.”
“This is Skilling. He’s convinced them that the whale is dying.”
“We’re doing everything we can to slow them down, but we need to convince Apollo we’ve heard his message and he can go.”
“Connie, I told you. It’s not like that. Apollo is not trying to communicate with us, he’s—Wait a second. He may not be communicating with us, but he is communicating.”
Hadn’t Frank just needed to know that I heard him?
Maybe whales were no different. There was no whale to respond to Apollo, but she could. Elizabeth made a loud, tire-scraping U-turn. “I have to get something at my house, but I’ll be right there.”
E
LIZABETH PULLED INTO
her reserved space in the parking lot closest to her house. The other seven spaces were empty. The wind
was blowing hard, swirling leaves into spirals that seemed to take shape as if they were scarecrows coming to life. Their town house was on a greenbelt, away from the rest of the development. She had always appreciated this seclusion, but tonight the lot felt dark and frightening.
We have legal and extralegal means to keep you quiet.
The anonymous woman’s voice echoed in her head.
The door of the station wagon creaked again as she opened it. After the accident, the car really was about ready to die.
Who will hear me if I scream?
Certainly not the crazy woman who lived in the one-bedroom next door and never left her house. Elizabeth had not met her or even heard her in all the time they had lived next to each other.
She walked quickly down the narrow path to her unit. The fluorescent lampposts glared down at her like glowing white eyes, but there were no lights in any of the windows she passed.
Elizabeth started to get the creeps, as if she were being watched, as if she were being stalked. She put the key in the lock and looked over her shoulder, then tucked the thick file under her arm, needing both hands to open the door. The hair on her neck was standing on end. She looked into the dark house and flipped on the light.
Just get in, get the audio disk, and get out.
She put the file down on the round butcher-block table and ran into the back room, where she rummaged through a box full of her backup field data. There it was. She grabbed it and took a deep breath as she opened the door.
A bolt of electricity flooded through her body, knocking her backward into the house. She felt like she had been struck by lightning. Severe pain shot down her spine and through her limbs as she collapsed to the ground, convulsing and shaking. She was being electrocuted. All the neurotransmitters in her muscles were being disrupted, and she lost any ability to move. Bursts of white light like
fireworks exploded in front of her eyes. She knew she must be dying. Her limbs were stiff, and she flopped on the floor like a caught fish. All she could manage to utter were the stifled words “Oh my God…Oh my God…”
As quickly as it had started, it stopped. Her eyes began to focus. She saw two barbed electrodes, like those from a Taser, still attached to her shirt. A sharp pain pierced her arm. Dr. Skilling was kneeling over her, injecting her with a large syringe.
She tried to resist, but Skilling held her down. A wave of terror filled her body as completely as the charge had.
What is he injecting me with? Please don’t let him kill my baby!
She struggled, but it only made the needle stick hurt more. Through the fog in her head, she groped for a plan.
Go for the eyes, go for the eyes…
Skilling grabbed her wrists and held them away from his face. His eyes looked black and disklike, predatory and empty. Elizabeth felt as if her brain and her body were separating, going in different directions, snapped apart by the grip of the drug. Her arms were useless, pinned above her head by his hands. She looked down and saw her legs flailing, lashing out instinctively, like those of a wild animal trying to fight him off.
Her knee hit its target, right between his legs. Skilling let go of her arms as he clutched himself. She rolled away and began scrambling toward the door on her hands and knees, feeling a sudden burst of hope. She was getting there.
Keep going. Don’t look back.
The door began to retreat, to move away from her. Desperately, she lunged for the door handle and felt its cold metal in her hand. She turned it. It opened.
I’m free. I’m safe.
The whole door began to turn. Like Alice in the rabbit hole, she fell down and down through the door.
E
LIZABETH’S CHEEK
hit the ground hard. Skilling turned her over. Her eyes were wide open, vibrating slightly, saliva dripping from her mouth, her breathing noisy but regular. She was completely immobilized. He could do what was, unfortunately, now necessary.
SEVENTY-NINE