Rogue Justice (45 page)

And today she was coming home.

For Zora it was the second solemn occasion in three days. Forty-eight hours earlier, she'd laid her beloved mother to rest on family-owned property near the Idaho ranch that had been
her
home for so many years. The quiet site was shaded by a stately oak tree that stood tall on a rolling hill overlooking the Snake River. A long-time family acquaintance—a grizzly-bearded river-runner turned Holy Man—had presided over a private memorial service attended by close friends and neighbors.

Now Zora had come to say farewell to a dear friend, perhaps offer a bit of comfort to her grieving brother. "What about your parents?" she asked.

Mickey sighed and said, "I finally reached them, two or three days ago now. I've lost track of time. Anyway, they got back as soon as they could. It's been really hard on them, hard on all of us. They couldn't handle coming out here, so I went over to the house early this morning. They said their goodbyes then."

"I understand," Zora said. "Give them my best."

"I will, thanks."

Mickey took a deep breath, and punched play on a portable DVD player. He then picked up a brass urn sitting on the deck. After several long moments of contemplation, he emptied the contents in a slow, deliberate sweeping motion. A light wind carried Katrina's ashes over calm seas to whispered prayers and a haunting Celtic melody from her favorite artist: Loreena McKennitt. Blinking away tears, Mickey turned to Zora and Houdini and whispered, "Thanks, both of you. This really means a lot to me. It's what Kat would have wanted."

"We're all going to miss her," Zora said, fighting her own tears, but with no more success than Mickey.

The song soon ended, followed by a long silence. The wind sweeping softly over the waves was now the only sound. Moments later, fifty yards off the port bow, the dorsal fin of a resident orca cut the surface. Then, in a gesture so subtle it might have been imagined, the whale lifted out of the water, seeming to offer a prayer of its own. It was an image none of them would ever forget.

For a long time no one spoke, listening to the lapping water in quiet reflection.

Then... Katrina's cat, Vera, appeared at the top of the cabin stairs. She stretched regally, moseyed over to Houdini, and with great fanfare hopped onto his lap. A second or two later, she was curled up in a tight ball, purring contentedly.

Her presence immediately lightened the mood.

Zora leaned over, scratched Vera's ears. "So glad you found her, Mickey. Where was she?"

"Ah, just hangin' out," he said. "She knows something's up with Kat for sure... but good to see she's found a new friend."

Houdini gently stroked the cat's neck, staring off into the bay, seemingly lost in thought.

"What is it?" Zora asked.

There was a long pause, then he whispered, "The rogue whales. I know why they've come."

"You do?" Zora exclaimed, shooting a curious glance at Mickey.

Houdini nodded, shifted in his seat, and began to talk. Like pages ripped from a diary, he walked them through his recent conversations with the Old One. He described the Old One's friendship with Chief Raven Claw and their previous encounters with the mighty blackfish. In spare, halting words he went on to explain about the violent, disturbing visions he'd experienced before the rogue whales surfaced at North Beach—and the incredible sense of calm he'd then felt in their presence.

As the story unfolded, Zora and Mickey listened with a growing sense of awe, but neither of them spoke.

Continuing, Houdini said, "I didn't say anything because it was all a big blur, everything scattered and disjointed. Then the images slowly started coming together. They morphed into a series of three short
films
I guess you'd call them. The first included flashes of melting icebergs, blazing forests, raging rivers, warring armies, starving children, and the like."

"Global warming," Zora said matter-of-factly. She remembered something Katrina had once told her. Research, she'd said, indicated that hundred-year climate events were now happening every five to ten years. Events that were real, one way, and directly caused by humans.

Houdini nodded his agreement, adding, "And if I'm right, the oceans are in much worse shape than anyone thought. So is the rest of the planet. What that means is, many of the cataclysmic events scientists are predicting forty, fifty years from now are coming at us a whole lot sooner."

"How
much
sooner?" Zora asked.

"I had no idea at first. So many of the pieces just didn't fit. So I went online, did some research, ran a bunch of numbers. First I looked at Chief Raven Claw's encounter with the rogue whales. It happened a few years before he died, which meant sometime in the late 1920s. The visions I had from that period were made up of angry speeches, screaming crowds, death squads."

"The rise of the Nazi party," Mickey said. "Has to be."

"Yup. Hitler became Chancellor in '33. The Gestapo began their assault on the Jews six years later. Then came the horrors of the concentration camps and death chambers. All of that suffering could have been stopped,
should
have been stopped. And Chief Raven Claw tried, but no one listened."

"What about the Old One's encounter?" Zora asked.

"It happened over six decades later. He too was an old man by then. And the visions that came to me from that era were much different than the others—secret hideouts, hooded gunmen, exploding buildings, those kinds of things."

"Terrorists."
Zora and Mickey said it together.

Houdini nodded again. He explained that the real trouble had started in the early 90s following Desert Storm. It was then that Osama bin Laden had fled from Saudi Arabia, hid out in Sudan, and began building his terror network. Then in '98 he issued a public fatwa declaring holy war, or jihad, against the West and Israel. "He signed it as head of al Qaeda," Houdini added. "Three years later, we got sucker-punched."

A long pause, then Zora said, "Okay, so you're saying the rogue whales warned us about Hitler and bin Laden. I get that, or at least I think I do. But how does
Mitchell Chandler
fit into all this. He's hardly in their league."

"I agree," Houdini said. "But it's not about any one individual, Zora. It's about the perverse movements they lead. In Chandler's case, it's about pure greed—and the hell with the environment or anything else. Think of what's happened over the years, the loss of all those lives, the human suffering, trillions of dollars up in smoke." He then filled them in on the Old One's trip to Washington, D.C., and his meeting with a senior government official there. The Old One, he said, had warned them about 9/11, but he was ignored by higher ups. "They weren't listening
then
, they're not listening
now
. So this isn't about thousands or even millions of lives being on the line. It's about
billions
of lives."

Zora nodded. It made sense to her now. And the symbolism gave her chills, mostly because of something else Katrina had said, that the largest predator known to mankind had shown up amid wild weather patterns occurring with increasing frequency all over the globe.
Dirty
weather as it was being called in some circles.

Zora's voice pulled tight, ready to crack. "So, what's the verdict?"

"Actually it's not that tough to figure out," Houdini said. "The Holocaust happened less than ten years after Chief Raven Claw's encounter with the rogue whales. There's a similar timeline in play with the Old One and 9/11."

Mickey interjected, "So, if that pattern holds true, we're looking at major seismic events happening all over the world, what, sometime during the next decade?"

"Jesus," Zora said. "That's really frightening."

"Damn right it is," Mickey added.

Houdini shook his head. "Problem is, I don't see anyone listening to me
either
. I mean, what exactly do I say? My name is Houdini. I'm a shaman. And guess what folks, those colossal creatures you saw on TV spoke to me in a vision. They told me the planet was headed for oblivion. Sounds crazier than the nut jobs who claim the sky is falling every twenty years or so. I can hear the howls of laughter now."

Just then, the cat stood up, stretched languorously, jumped back onto the deck, and disappeared down the hatch.

"See," Houdini said, a smile creeping across his face. "Even Vera doesn't buy it."

The mood shifted again.

Mickey said, "Look, I agree. It
does
sound crazy. You're implying that these rogue whales not only foretell the future, they communicate it too."

Houdini nodded. "I'm not
implying
anything, Mickey. I'm saying it's going to happen, just like the Holocaust and 9/11 happened. Look, some truths can never be proven true. The mystical connection that exists between the Great Spirit and the animal world is one of them. This connection is very powerful, especially with the eagle, the wolf, and the great orca." Houdini paused, lowered his head. "We Indians know it is so. But that won't help us here. If anything, it hurts our case. "

"Hold on a sec," Zora said. "It's different this time."

"
What's
different?" Houdini asked.

"The rogue whales. People have
seen
them, know they really exist. They've witnessed their intelligence firsthand. How else do you explain what happened to that family on the speedboat, or the reporter from Seattle? The whales knew they were
all
in trouble and saved their lives."

"The reporter," Mickey added. "Of course. Who better to..."

"Exactly," Zora interjected, smiling her first genuine smile in what seemed like a very long time. "I'll call her as soon as we get back."

Chapter 49

10 April, 1:15 PM PDT

Port Townsend, Washington

The next day, Mickey, Houdini, and Zora gathered around the lone picnic table in the tidy little park at North Beach, scene of the explosive fireworks just six days earlier. Other than an elderly woman walking her Lab along the shore, the area was deserted. The sky rumbled and the air smelled like rain, but so far the showers had stayed away. A mile offshore, three Navy cruisers steamed into view, a sleek black submarine wedged between the second and third ships.

Mickey explained that the convoy was headed to a major munitions handling facility located on Indian Island across Port Townsend Bay. "Makes you wonder, though, doesn't it?" he said.

"What's that?" Houdini asked.

"The Trident's a nuclear-powered gunslinger, carries enough ballistic missiles to wipe out a small country. So, why the escort?"

"Yeah, good question," Zora said. She leaned back, glancing over her shoulder at a late model Volvo that had just pulled in to the parking lot.

Jia-li Han stepped out of the vehicle, a resolute look on her face. She walked over, introduced herself, and sat down. After a few moments of small talk, she removed a notepad and pen from her bag. Smiling, she said, "Thank you for confiding in me, all of you. I promise to do your stories justice."

Zora nodded. "We're counting on that." She had called the reporter immediately after stepping ashore the previous afternoon. They had agreed there would be no camera crews or recordings here today, but that Jia-li was free to take notes.

"Listen," Jia-li said, looking at Zora. "I just got word that the two-hour special I mentioned to you on the phone airs next week... on NBC... with a global feed. Network execs assigned a team of senior producers, writers, and researchers to help me pull everything together." She wrote down the date and time on her notepad, ripped off the page, and handed it to Zora. "Now," she added. "I can't wait to hear your stories."

And over the next hour, she did.

Zora and Mickey went first, tag-teaming as they walked Jia-li through the brazen blackmail scheme involving Samson and the captured whale. Then, piece-by-piece, they presented the evidence they'd uncovered in the deaths of Zora's mother and Mickey's sister. When asked about the demise of Preston Tradd, Zora expressed her regrets, especially for his family. Even someone as deeply flawed as him, she said, deserved some measure of sympathy. She conveyed none of the same sentiments for Mitchell Chandler, whose fate had already been well documented in the media, even if the reports weren't entirely accurate.