Leap - 02 (3 page)

5

Dulce sat on the ground, across from DeeAnn, studying the large board in front of her.  Her small brown legs bowed in front of her as she reached down with her thick fingers and spun the wooden dial on the board.  It was a game that DeeAnn had built to teach colors and shapes.

The oversized dial stopped turning above a large red triangle, which made Dulce clap her hands.  She loved the triangles.  Excitedly, Dulce stood up and swung her arm over the board.  She grasped her piece in her dark hands and moved it to the next red triangle spot.  She immediately raised her head and grinned happily from ear to ear. 

“Very good, Dulce,” DeeAnn clapped along with her.

Still standing, Dulce examined the board again and then pointed at DeeAnn. 

You turn you turn
.  The words emanated from the built-in speaker on the vest.

DeeAnn laughed and leaned forward.  “I know.  I know.”  She reached down and brushed the dial with her hand.  When it landed on a black circle, Dulce suddenly stopped and shook her head.

Not good.

DeeAnn opened her mouth, pretending to be offended, causing Dulce to promptly begin laughing with another toothy grin.  When DeeAnn could no longer hold her smile in, Dulce jumped over the board and into her lap.

Dulce squealed and wrapped her arms around her. 
Me love Mommy.

DeeAnn hugged her back and gently touched her forehead to Dulce’s.  “I love you too.”

Dulce was, of course, smart enough to understand she wasn’t human, but DeeAnn was the only mother figure Dulce had ever known.  Or at least remembered. 

DeeAnn was already caring for Dulce when they traveled to Puerto Rico to join Alison and her team.  In fact, Dulce was just under a year and one-half old when DeeAnn had found her.  Now almost two years later, they were as close as ever.  It seemed as though Dulce had forgotten the terrible trauma before DeeAnn came along and had managed to become trusting again, as proven through her physical affection.  Most gorillas were much less affectionate, or downright dangerous, if they got too close.  But Dulce was different.  She was naturally strong for her size, but she also had a soft side which made her more human than DeeAnn had ever seen.

DeeAnn Draper would know.  She had spent several years working with the famed female gorilla Koko, in southern California, whose ability to learn sign language had made news around the world in the mid-1990s.  Koko was an exciting step forward when it came to communication between primates.  But if Koko was a step forward, then Dulce was a giant leap
.

Sign language was an amazing accomplishment, but IMIS changed all that.  DeeAnn came to the research center to prove the Koko skeptics wrong.  Yet even after witnessing a real exchange between Alison and Sally, she never imagined that IMIS would ultimately be able to reinvent how she communicated with Dulce.

But it did.  It took several months, but when IMIS broke the language barrier, it did so in a big way.

DeeAnn let her go and watched Dulce scramble back to the other side of the board and point at the wooden pointer again. 
Me turn me turn.

“I know,” she conceded.  “It’s your turn.”

Kelly Carlson arrived less than an hour later, carrying a large box containing several pounds of lettuce, celery, and kale, for Dulce’s lunch.  She punched her code into the console on the opposite wall and waited for the large glass door of the habitat to click open behind her.  She then backed up, pushing it open with her backside, and wiggled through, letting the door close hard behind her.

Of all the staff Alison had hired, Kelly was one of the most dynamic.  Attractive, with a slender figure and long blonde hair, Carlson was, among other things, a former scuba instructor, boat captain, private chef, and tour guide.  She’d grown up in the tropics of the Caribbean and unlike many people who eventually got island fever, she showed no signs of wanting to leave.  She was a sunshine addict and as sharp as a whip.

Kelly winked at DeeAnn as she approached and then turned to Dulce, who was already on her feet rocking back and forth excitedly.  She seized the top of the box and nearly tore it from Kelly’s hands by accident. 

“Easy, honey.”  Kelly smiled and dropped the box gently onto the ground.  She watched Dulce tear into it, before turning to DeeAnn.  “Ali said you were ready to do some more group play.”

“Thanks, yes.  Maybe in thirty minutes?”

“Sure,” Kelly nodded.  “I’ll be back in a few.  I’ve got to check a few things on the boat.”

DeeAnn propped herself up onto her knees in the soft dirt, watching Dulce eat her lunch.  With a sudden, playful push, she forced Dulce’s small forty-pound frame off her feet, causing her to roll onto her hindquarters.  Behind her, DeeAnn quickly snuck a piece of celery from the box and took a bite.   Dulce pulled her own stalk from her mouth and stared back questioningly until she watched DeeAnn take another bite and make a funny face.  Dulce snorted at her and laughed.

Not far away, inside the lab, Lee was watching them on his monitor.  He and Juan had completed the diagnostics on the new vest and were now waiting for the data to finish uploading.

He wasn’t watching DeeAnn and Dulce live.  Instead Lee was studying previous video segments that IMIS had recorded.  But Lee had a problem.  A big one.

Along with the current video segment, the right side of his screen displayed a window with detailed system log information.  As he clicked on various log entries, the corresponding video and set of changing pixels would be highlighted, showing the area IMIS had zoomed in on while recording.

Lee put his hand over his mouth and tapped his cheek, struggling to understand what was causing the problem.  Some of the logs and video sequences appeared to be out of sync, and he couldn’t find a reason for it.  In other words, it was happening so infrequently that he was unable to predict it, let alone recreate it, which meant troubleshooting was extraordinarily difficult.  And if he couldn’t isolate the cause or at least a reliable pointer, he could not even begin to fix it.

Because of this, his anxiety was silently growing.  It was looking more and more likely that something was seriously wrong with the new computer code on IMIS.  Like the original system, IBM had helped program the code for the entire system, including the artificial intelligence based algorithms.  However, when they added the complication of studying a primate, in addition to dolphins, part of the system needed to be reprogrammed.

Primates were much more expressive and the vast majority of their communication happened on a much more subtle level.  Facial expressions alone were something IMIS never had to track with Dirk and Sally.  Dolphins simply didn’t have the myriad muscles in their faces as humans and primates did.  Instead, IMIS tracked everything else such as whistles, clicks, and even physical movements.  And even those took years to record and process. Yet in the end, from a technological standpoint, the original efforts to translate the dolphin language were in some ways
simpler
than primates.

But now all of the progress IMIS had made with Dulce was suspect, and Lee knew it.  If the accuracy was compromised, even as little as ten percentage points, it meant that many more words may be misinterpreted due to their cross-relationships.  Scientific methods were very strict, and, in this case, the size of the possible breach seemed to be growing. 

Lee watched another red error scroll by in the log file and leaned back in his chair, shaking his head nervously. 

6

The flight to Belem in Para, Brazil took five and a half hours.  The late day sun had just under two hours before its final descent behind the lush but distant mountains far to the west.

Founded in 1616 as the first European colony on the Amazon River, the multicolored buildings of Belem glowed brightly below as the jet banked to the right and prepared its approach.  From his seat, Clay gazed out across the dense, green tropical landscape, extending as far as he could see.  It was so lush it was almost glowing.  Somewhere in his memory, Clay remembered reading that the forests of South America were responsible for creating more than twenty percent of the world’s oxygen.  From the incredible view through his side window, he believed it.

The fourth largest continent by landmass, South America was home to some of the most exotic life and incredible features on the planet, including both the world’s largest rainforest and the tallest waterfall in the world. It was a vast and mystical place, remaining almost entirely unexplored until well into the early twentieth century.  Legends claimed that many of its hidden mysteries were still waiting to be discovered.  The one that Clay and Caesare had come to see was man-made.  Floating silently in the
Val-de-Cães
naval yard, it rested just several hundred feet below them.

The sub had been under heavy guard since being escorted into port, where the Russian crew was quickly isolated for questioning.  And according to Langford, they weren’t very talkative.

Next to Clay, Caesare’s snoring was interrupted by a loud snort as he startled himself awake.  Caesare blinked and rubbed his eyes with his hands, then remained still for a moment feeling the descent of the aircraft.  “Well, that was quick.”

Clay smirked, finally turning away from the window, and gathered his papers from the small table.  He stood the papers on end to straighten them before sliding them back into the folder, tucking the stack neatly into his pack.

With a yawn, Caesare leaned forward, letting the back of his leather seat follow him up into its upright position.  He glanced at his watch.  “Four-thirty.  We’d better hustle.”

“You know, this report doesn’t have much on the capture of this boat.”

“Yeah, I noticed that.”

“We don’t know who was involved, what was used, or whether there was any communication established.”

“Right,” Caesare answered.  “My guess is sonobuoys, but knowing whether they were active or passive would be a big help.”

“And whose buoys they were,” Clay added.

Caesare raised an eyebrow.  “You don’t think they were Brazilian?”

“I don’t know.  Brazil uses a lot of
the older MADs.  The buoys could be theirs, but it also seems like our boats got here awfully fast.”

“As in…they were already here.”

“Maybe, maybe not.  Either they were already here or they took a couple days to get here.  Which makes me wonder…”

Caesare finished his thought.  “How long did they know about the Russian sub?”

The summer heat and humidity enveloped both men the moment they exited the craft, making it feel as though they were sweating.  Together, they walked briskly across the hot tarmac, each pulling a suitcase behind him with a pack slung over an outside shoulder. 

The airport was small by most U.S. standards, with an old metal-and-glass framed terminal building standing alone on the very far side of the tarmac.  As Clay and Caesare approached, a dark green Humvee suddenly rounded the corner of the building and sped toward them, almost skidding to a stop.

A young ensign jumped out and ran toward them with an apologetic look on his face. 

“Commanders,” he said, addressing them in a thick Portuguese accent, “I’m very sorry to be late now.”  He stopped abruptly in front of them with an awkward expression, wondering if he was supposed to salute.  Caesare was closest and smiled at him, extending his hand.  Relieved, the ensign relaxed and shook Caesare’s hand first, then Clay’s.  “I am Ensign Costa.  I’ve been sent to accept you.  May I assist you with your bags?”

“Pleased to meet you, Ensign Costa,” Caesare smiled and shook his head.  “Nah, we’re fine.” 

Costa nodded back and promptly turned to the car, trotting several steps ahead of them and opening the back tailgate.  The two men approached, tossing their bags and packs in without losing a beat.  Clay climbed into the front passenger seat and Caesare slid in behind him.  They were happy to find the air conditioning already on high.

Costa opened the driver’s door and reached in, handing each man a bottle of water.  Clay thanked him and Caesare whistled.  “Look at that.  It’s like we’re important.”

The ensign nodded and climbed in next to Clay.  He closed the door and immediately dropped the vehicle into drive.  “Your flight was good, yes?”  He turned them around, heading back past the old terminal.

“Fine, thank you,” Clay answered, peering out the windows.  The base looked older than he was expecting.  If not older, then certainly more run down.  Another jet was landing further away on another runway and looked to be a commercial flight.  The place was apparently still being used.  They bounced high in their seats as Costa crossed over a rough section of asphalt and out onto the main road.

“I’ll take you to the submarine first, yes?  Before the hotel.”

“How long has it been here?” Caesare asked, from the back seat.

“Uh…two days,” replied Costa, changing lanes.  He looked back through his rearview mirror.  “It is very secret.  You are the only Americans to come.”

“Why so secret?” Clay prodded.  He already knew the answer.  “What if people see it in the water?”

Costa grinned as they crested the top of a wide overpass, crossing above one of the wide tributaries feeding into the largest section of the Amazon River.  “Yes, people could see it very easy, and ask questions.  If it was still
here
.”

Clay glanced back over his shoulder to Caesare who raised his eyebrows curiously.  “So Costa,” he said, changing the subject.  “How long have you been in the Navy?”

“I am in the Navy nine years.  My father and grandfather were sailors too, both on battleships, and my great grandfather was a hero in the Revoltas da Armada.  We are...” he paused to think of the right phrase, “a military family.”

Clay nodded warmly.  “Your family must be proud of you.”

Costa nodded and almost chuckled.  “Yes, they are proud of their Enrique.”

The sub was not nearby.  It was now being held roughly thirty minutes north, up a smaller river, and tied up at a very old and seemingly abandoned cannery.  The place looked much worse than the base at which they’d just landed, and the rundown buildings along the cannery’s dock looked rusted through as if ready to fall down at any moment.

Costa drove over an old wooden bridge, which groaned as they passed over and was guarded by two armed soldiers.  Once on the other side, they came around past the dock and slowed near one of the last structures.  Here, Costa finally stopped the Humvee and pushed the transmission back into park.

As they climbed out, Caesare bumped Clay on the arm and motioned to the canopy of Brazil nut trees above them.  Dozens of the tall, dark green trees rose up well over a hundred feet with dense crowns of branches spreading out and surrounding both sides of the dock.  “Nice place for blocking satellite pictures.”

“Very convenient.”

They followed Costa down a crumbling concrete path between two buildings, opening up into a wide area where several military vehicles were parked.  Several soldiers in their Brazilian fatigues were milling around the Russian submarine, sitting motionless in the water.

When Clay and Caesare finally got a full view of the vessel, they stopped dead in their tracks.  Costa noticed their halt and turned with a quizzical expression.

Clay and Caesare looked at each other quietly.  After a long moment, Clay turned back to Costa.  “We need to make a phone call.”