Rogue Justice (34 page)

"Shouldn't be a problem, sir," Freeman said, with all the confidence he could muster. He'd spent the past few hours crafting a press release intended to squeeze out at least
two
more weeks.

After that all bets were off.

"Very well then," Chandler said, glancing at his watch. "Now before I go, Ms. Bucaro, let's be clear on one other thing. It is absolutely essential that you work alone here. Colby can provide all the tools you'll need,
except
additional people. Do you understand?"

"I do. I could use the help of at least one animal behaviorist, but I'll get it done."

Chandler stood, clamped his left hand firmly on Leanne's shoulder. "Good to have you on board. You'll find a sizeable bonus added to your next check. And another in three weeks, assuming our new whale is ready for prime time, of course."

"I appreciate that, sir. But this isn't about the money. It's—"

"
Everything
is about the money, young lady. Right, Colby?"

Freeman felt his blood freeze. "Yes, sir, I suppose it is."

Chapter 36

3 April, 8:35 PM PDT

Penn Cove, Washington

As darkness descended over the
Northern Star,
Houdini and Zora stepped out of the wheelhouse. They stood quietly side by side, listening to the sounds of night. Off the port bow, two seagulls announced their presence, dipping and slicing through the moist night air. Down below, a sea otter rushed by, checked out the vessel, and quickly moved on. The heavy patches of fog had begun to lift, giving way to a yellow-red sky that quickly faded to purple.

Soon it would be black.

And still, there was no sign of the whales.

It had been a long wait, more than fifteen hours now, and the tension was palpable. More time passed in silence, then Houdini cocked his head to one side, nodded to Zora. "Listen," he whispered. "Did you hear that? They're out there, they're coming. It's time."

An instant later, Houdini clambered down the steel ladder to the deck, alerted Lapenda, Cassidy, and McCabe to get busy in the hold. The men dragged Houdini's kayak on deck, lowered it carefully over the starboard side. He slipped inside, pushed off, and paddled effortlessly, moving body and boat through calm waters with smooth, easy strokes. It wasn't long before he lifted the oars and drifted to a stop. The sober stillness of night closed in around him, the only sound coming from water lapping against the hull of his boat. The air soon became thick again, a chilling patchwork of rain and mist. Somewhere, off in the distance, a foghorn blasted.

The wait was excruciating.

He wanted this over.

The thought of sentencing one more magnificent creature to a life of endless monotony tore at Houdini's gut. He lowered his head to his chin, drifted into a deep, meditative state, then began murmuring a prayer. "Oh Great Spirit, I humbly ask your forgiveness for what I am about to do, this unspeakable act of deception. May you grant me strength to see it through and, in your infinite wisdom, the courage to right this terrible wrong."

The great tribes of the Arctic and Northwest coast had many names for the mighty killer whale. Names the whales understood. Names the Old One had taught him to recite. Houdini repeated them now in a slow, rhythmic chant: "
Axlot... Agliuk... Polossatik... Skana... Mahk e-nuk... Qaqawun.
" As his words drifted across the still night air, two bald eagles swooped in from the north. They hovered directly above him, floating effortlessly on the wind, hardly a motion in their wings. Eagles, like wolves and orcas, were revered in Indian country.

It was a sign,
Houdini thought.
Yes, a sign.

The sacred chant went on for some time with little sound or movement. Then the waters became dead calm. The stirrings were faint at first, one animal, somewhere distant, vocalizing in two-or three-second riffs. Then, a second call, followed by a chorus of loud clicks, rising and falling in hypnotic patterns that were almost humanlike. Steady and repetitive.

Orcas!

The shaman caught a glimpse of what looked like a shadow in the mist. Moments later, a massive current of water rolled in. In its wake, no more than twenty yards away, a big black body emerged like a surfacing submarine. The whale spouted three times, floating there, watching him with penetrating dark eyes.

Houdini took a deep breath, allowing his mind to slip back through that familiar cottage door, if only for an instant, back to one of his most memorable encounters with the Old One. The great sage had spoken of fate and destiny that day, how they often appeared in the coincidences that weren't coincidental, how one thing could turn into another in order to reveal the wonder and mystery of life.

And what could possibly hold greater mystery than this?

The extraordinary encounter had barely registered when a second orca broke the surface, followed by a third, and then a fourth. Houdini soon found himself surrounded by the entire pod, whales everywhere, too many to count. Thirty? Forty? He couldn't tell for sure.

Yet, something was wrong.
Very
wrong!

Houdini could feel it, sense it. He should have known the whales would instinctively recognize they'd been lured into a trap. Within seconds, the kayak became a roller coaster. It was all he could do to hold on, his heart pounding so hard he could feel it in his throat. Houdini began paddling feverishly toward the big seiner. "
Light
," he shouted to Zora. "Throw me some light." She didn't hear him at first. He repeated the request, screaming louder this time.

"Hold on," she hollered back, reaching for the pistol-grip spotlight on the roof. Zora flipped the switch and flashed the beam on the boiling waters. The orcas were now circling the kayak in a synchronized ballet—breathing together, vocalizing together, their giant flukes moving rhythmically in a mesmerizing display of power and fury.

Houdini then shouted to McCabe. "Luke, haul out the net."

McCabe dashed to the stern of the vessel and jumped into the skiff, a powerful flat-hulled boat used to pull out and position the heavy seine net. Lapenda and Cassidy worked the winches and pulleys, lowering the craft into the water. McCabe quickly settled in, easing away from the mother ship in a sweeping clockwise motion, stretching the net between the two boats. Houdini and the large pod of whales were now contained by a fenced-in half-circle some fifty yards in diameter formed by the buoyed and weighted sides of the net.

The orcas began hammering the surface with their tail flukes, creating a riotous noise. Houdini knew they could crash through the polypropylene nets with little effort, yet they seemed confused and made no attempt to escape. Plumes of mist exploded from every direction, accompanied by loud, piercing cries of distress. The sea foamed white as several orcas burst from the water, their backs impossibly arched, hanging in the hazy orange glow of the boat's spotlight. Seconds later, they crashed back to the surface in a series of thunderous claps that nearly swamped the kayak.

Now fearing for his life, Houdini paddled harder and quickly reached the perimeter of the net. He positioned the kayak parallel to the surface floats, then executed a tricky roll that propelled him out of the kayak and over the top of the net. The shock of icy water took his breath away. He felt like he'd been shot, a million raw nerve endings singing opera.
Swim!
Swim!
Swim!
Seconds later his head popped up just feet from the port bow of the boat. Cassidy and Lapenda hoisted him on board. He was shivering uncontrollably, his clothes as heavy as lead.

But there was no time to change. Not now.

"The gaff," Houdini shouted. "Where's the gaff?"

Lapenda pointed to the power block. "Over there."

Houdini grabbed the long wooden pole, adjusted the heavy nylon noose attached to the end, and leaned over the starboard gunwale. The water was now a boiling cauldron of fins and foam as the tightly bunched whales surfaced and dove in all directions. He cringed with every scream and click, wanted the madness to stop. "Zora," he shouted. "Bring the spot closer to the boat."

She adjusted the light.

Cassidy turned to Houdini. "How the hell do you tell them apart? They're like icebergs, right? Most of their bulk is underwater."

"It's not that tough, really. The males have much larger dorsal fins."

"Ten thousand cocksuckers!"

Houdini gazed stonily at him. "What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothin' man. This whole thing's a fucking crapshoot."

"Tell me something I don't know, Cassidy."

An instant later, one of whales broke away from the rest of the pod, pumping its tail up and down in an even, rhythmic pattern, propelling it closer to the stern of the boat.

"It's a bull," Houdini shouted. "A big one."

"Jesus," Lapenda gasped. "That tail's gotta be ten feet wide."

Houdini nodded and readied the gaff. The whale disappeared beneath the surface, but only for a moment. It then shot straight up next to the boat in a spectacular spyhop. For a long moment, the giant orca hung there, vertical in the water. Houdini lunged forward, slipping the lasso over the whale's rostrum. "Okay, boys, here we go. Give me everything you've got."

They pulled the rope taut, bracing for a violent reaction. Instead the orca dropped back to the surface and rolled onto its side, rocking slowly back and forth using its pectoral fins as stabilizers. Lapenda then made his move. He'd rigged the steel boom with two padded leather slings, each twenty-five feet long, "D" rings affixed to both ends. One end of each sling snapped into a hook supported by a heavy steel block. The other end of each sling hung loose. While Lapenda and Cassidy released the boom, Houdini signaled to McCabe.

He was still in the skiff.

McCabe revved up the boat's outboard engine, reversed direction, and gathered in the seine net. The other orcas, now released from their floating prison, slapped their tails mightily against the water and disappeared into the heavy mist. The whales had been trapped for less than ten minutes.

Back on the
Northern Star
Cassidy activated the power block. As he hauled in the seine net, Lapenda swung the heavy boom out over the starboard gunwale, lowering the dual slings into the choppy seas. Houdini handed off the gaff to Cassidy, then jumped overboard. He came up shivering, every muscle rigid, cold shooting through him again like tiny daggers.

"Where's the sling?" he shouted, shaking his head furiously. "I don't see it."

"Next to the whale," Lapenda yelled back. "Over this way."

Silence, then, "Okay, got it." Houdini clawed his way through the frigid black and grabbed hold of one of the slings. The animal was now floating motionless a few feet from the hull, puffing occasionally through its blowhole. Houdini dove beneath him, surfacing on the other side. He positioned the sling behind the whale's eye patch and just forward of its flippers. Even so, there was almost no movement. Next he pulled the hoisting block close, snapping the ring into the hook. He took a moment to catch his breath and yelled to Cassidy, "Okay, let him go."

Cassidy released the noose and lowered the gaff.

Houdini reached for the second sling and repeated the maneuver, this time wrapping it around the whale's mid-section just behind the dorsal fin. Again, he snapped the ring into the big hook.

Did I get it right? Were the lifting rings over the center of gravity? Would they hold?

Houdini then swam free of the big mammal, shouting to Lapenda. "Okay, bring him up slow... slow and easy. Try not to spook him."

Lapenda threw the winch in reverse wrenching the straps taut to the whale's body. Zora scrambled down the wheelhouse ladder and stepped in beside him, wrestling with the hoist cable to keep it from rubbing against the side of the boat and snapping. The twenty foot boom jerked and shuddered as they slowly lifted the orca from the inky waters. Its body had almost cleared the surface when the boom unexpectedly lurched hard to port.

"Jesus!" Zora shrieked.

Lapenda braced himself against the railing. "What the hell happened?"

Zora grabbed the line, looked closer. "The hoist," she shouted. "It's not spooling on the winch right. I don't know why... too dark to see."