With These Eyes (20 page)

The wave that had obscured the submarine had
moved on. Isabelle hit the water with all her ballast tanks open to
flood. She was sinking to the ground like a rock. The bearer of
light had been prepared to send air into the tanks and her left
hand came down quickly on the valve that connected to stern and
aft. While the submarine's descent was slowing, Isabelle had
managed to upright the craft and stabilize its travel. She turned
towards the artificial island in the center of the bay.

On the surface, Tasha was getting restless
with anticipation. She had spent the last couple of days doing
little more than sit in the Commander's seat in her surveillance
room and spy on the daily activities aboard the icebreaker ahead.
Tasha had no interest in the nature around her. The endless ice had
little appeal to the woman who grew up in the desert of Africa. She
missed her family but she didn't miss the lack of technology or
democracy that so defined her homeland. The long journey had given
her time to think about what it had been like, growing up in
Eritrea. Tasha wasn't much one for living in memories. She was a
woman of action in the present. The time had come. She keyed the
microphone for the craft's public address system. Tasha's orders
were booming across bridge and crew quarters. "Skipper make way for
the Danish port. I want the platoon assembled in the briefing room
in thirty seconds." Tasha exited the room and turned back towards
the Troopers who had gotten used to the quiet of an Arctic journey.
"What are you waiting for? She's not going anywhere.
Double-Time!"

The Troopers sprang to the attention position
and hastily exited the room behind her. On her way to the briefing
room, Tasha had an important order for a member of her platoon
walking next to her. "Trooper, notify the port authority that a
kidnapper is stowed away on the icebreaker. Make sure you report to
the briefing room on time." Tasha walked on swiftly while the
Trooper was making the phone call Tasha had ordered.

Once again, Isabelle had managed to do what
Tasha wasn't used to. She had slipped away. The massive presence
Tasha presented played a big role in her hunts. Most individuals
would be so intimidated by the manpower, hardware and detailed
knowledge of their lives that their fear did much of the work for
Tasha. No one had ever noticed her radioactive tag or outrun her
supersonic jet. This was new territory for Tasha and the past few
days at sea let fear work its way into her own mind in the most
subtle ways. Tasha would never consciously allow herself to
entertain a weak emotion such as fear. It was the mark of the
hunted, not of the hunter. Tasha's mind gave her arrogance to mask
the more primal emotion of fear. It was Tasha's arrogance that had
allowed Isabelle to get away. She had grown accustomed to the power
her technology provided. She felt no threat leaving the transmitter
range when the two ships sailed into Öresund bay. Tasha's logic had
dictated the most effective cause of action was to have Isabelle
detained by the authorities upon landing in Denmark.

Isabelle's intuition had guided her onto
another path. That path had lead her to the small cargo port at the
bridge’s island. Two Apophis freight ships were moored inside the
small harbor. A fire ship and a tug boat laid docked on the other
side of the port. There was little traffic, each nation operated
separate harbor master's stations on their shorelines. Few even
used the island; it offered little but sea walls, the port, and the
transition from bridge to tunnel.

Isabelle skillfully maneuvered the
submersible into a berth between the tug boat and the fire ship.
Through the huge fishbowl-shaped window, Isabelle saw a tie-off
line hat had slumped into the water next to one of the ships. A
thick layer of barnacles had encrusted the thick loop of rope, much
like the ones that covered the hull of both ships. It was pretty
clear that neither of these vessels had been taken out in some
time. Isabelle thought the two ships to be safe cover. She surfaced
in between the much larger boats, separated by the wooden docks
that lead down the length of the ships. Isabelle looked in all
directions through the glass bubble that surrounded her. The docks
around the ships were deserted. She equalized the boat's pressure
and felt her ears pop. She hadn't gone deep enough where she'd have
to wait before she could do so, a necessity that would have trapped
her in the submersible for half an hour, had she gone to the bottom
of the bay. Isabelle picked up a tie-off line from the stowage
compartment by the side of the ladder and slung it over her
shoulder. She climbed the ladder and a few turns of the hatch's
metal wheel later, the seal was broken. Isabelle pushed the hatch
open and climbed up. The sound of seagulls and the crashing waves
of the Baltic Sea had replaced the ringing in her ears from the
pressure shift. The brisk wind smelled salty and a lot less fishy
than the oceans in warmer climates like the beaches of Southern
California, to which she had grown accustomed. The fire ship's
water cannon and its wheelhouse were under their protective winter
covers, a layer of icicles ran along every rope and rail on the
ship.

The tug boat moored on the other side of her
sub was in similar condition. Both ships were lacking the
appearance of any recent human contact. Isabelle cleared the hatch.
She walked to the aft section of the sub and popped the cover off a
utility panel. Isabelle placed the craft's keys inside the
compartment and replaced the water-tight seal. This was where Lars
would find them before he’d leave port. Isabelle revered the trust
Lars extended towards her simply based on the fact that she was her
mother’s daughter. The woman onboard said Isabelle could keep the
Arctic gear. She had found it suited Isabelle well. She looked
indeed like Gemma in some of the pictures that decorated the ship's
mess hall. Although she was south of the Arctic circle, the breeze
that came in constantly from the sea was that of a Nordic winter.
Isabelle stood across from a small rail yard that was connected to
the bride-tunnel's tracks and lead the length of the small harbor.
A parking lot between two sections of track was occupied by a few
tractor-trailer combos, a bulldozer and a road/rail work truck that
had the ability to travel on tracks or with regular street traffic.
It was a large all-wheel drive utility truck with the
Apophis
Rail and Toll-Roads
logo on its doors. The bright yellow emblem
showed an old-fashioned steam engine with rays emanating from its
wheels like the beams in the Apophis sun-logo. The trademark's
bright color stood out against the truck's shiny, dark-blue finish.
Across the second set of rails was an empty auto parking lot. At
the far end of the harbor from where Isabelle had landed was a
young freight train engineer, Ralf Müller. The man was loading
shipping containers from one of the cargo ships onto the flatbed
cars of his train. Isabelle saw no one else on the inhospitable
island, the crews of the two cargo ships stayed below deck to avoid
the ice-cold wind that was whipping across the concrete structure
in the middle of the bay. Isabelle had reached the train. The man
stood on the crane's operating platform a few steps up from
Isabelle. She waited until he placed a crate down on the train car
and waived to gain his attention.

"Excuse me!"

The man took his hands off the crane's
controls. "Yes?" he asked. A visitor here, let alone a young woman,
was very unusual. Isabelle took down her jacket's fluffy hood that
was obscuring her face. The man's expression of surprise gave way
to a friendly smile.
"Ach du liebe Zeit!" he
burst out in German. "Isabelle de Fleur?"
The man climbed
down the short metal ladder from the crane. "I used to watch your
news off the satellite feed, back when that was still possible. You
had the most amazing reports. Because of your story on the Alaskan
Railroad, the feds created a whole set of new safety standards.

A welcome much nicer than Isabelle had
expected. "Wow, thank you," she responded. Despite the fact that an
enormous threat was pursuing her, Isabelle found encouragement in
the fact that she continued to run into people who were on her
side. She felt the sincerity in the man's compliment and extended
her hand, which he shook in greeting.

"The name is Ralf Müller. It's a pleasure to
meet you in person, Ms. de Fleur."

A friendly handshake in the middle of nowhere
was a welcome gesture for Isabelle on her quest for the truth.

"Isabelle. The pleasure is all mine,
Ralf."

"What brings you out here into the cold? You
working on one of your stories?" Ralf was still perplexed why
someone would chose to come to this island that offered little
besides freezing-cold wind.

Streaks of fog formed from Isabelle's breath
as she gave her answer. "In a way. I seem to have gotten myself
stuck here, though."

Ralf asked, "Where's your ride?"

Isabelle pointed to Lars' icebreaker as it
steamed away.

"I see," he said, then paused to think of a
possible scenario that could explain Isabelle's situation before he
continued. "I think I...regardless, I would love nothing more than
to give a ride to the woman who probably saved more rail workers'
lives than anyone. I have one stop to make, drop these crates and
then I'm off to Berlin. You're welcome to ride, if you don't mind
waiting. Where are you going?"

"Berlin."

The two walked towards the train's
engine.

Ralf added, "We need to hurry a bit. Our
track opens to regular traffic in twenty minutes."

He motioned towards the engine's cab.
Isabelle climbed the ladder of the bright yellow locomotive. She
pulled the door's latch and entered an engine whose cockpit rivaled
that of any modern airplane. Isabelle walked to the engineer's
station and pushed a button that raised the train's pantograph
against the overhead power lines. The cab's main illumination came
on and a whining sound indicated the transformer's cooling fans
spinning up to their operating speed. The air smelled like
electricity, a bit like the back of Lionel's old tube radio. Ralf
entered the cab. This was a day of surprises for him.

Isabelle looked at him with a grin across her
face and remarked, "You said we should hurry."

Ralf knew from Isabelle's exposé on the
sub-standard safety of the American railroad that she was
proficient in the operation of trains. He had enjoyed seeing her
show how simple it was for a train to run a red signal on one of
her late-night feeds to the network.

Isabelle continued, "I had to get certified
for my report. I am licensed on diesel and high-speed
electric."

Ralf was speechless for a moment. Just as he
was reminiscing about Isabelle’s news reports, he heard the same
woman tell him she was licensed to operate his train. He found
something tremendously sexy about Isabelle's abilities, many of
which she had demonstrated in her news shows. She combined
intelligence and brawns in a way he had never seen in a person.
Most women in his past had managed to get by on their looks alone
and made little effort to contribute positive energy to the
universe. Ralf saw Isabelle's beauty simply as the appropriate
package for a brilliant spirit. He felt a strong attraction to this
woman who had just powered up his locomotive. He felt like he could
have trusted her with anything. Isabelle's sincerity was that
obvious. Ralf could see in her eyes how much she wanted to pilot
the train. Isabelle had no idea how much he wanted to see that.

"Would you like to take us out of the freight
yard?"

Isabelle's face lit up. She placed her hand
over the only lever in the otherwise touch-screen controlled
cockpit. It was the throttle. Isabelle pushed it to
maneuvering
speed
and the train departed the rail-yard. A switch guided it
onto the westbound track, which was closed just long enough to
allow Ralf to make his delivery and depart. Isabelle passed a
flashing green signal, she pushed the throttle to half speed. Ralf
watched, standing beside Isabelle as she skillfully brought his
train into the tunnel ahead.

The tunnel followed a steep grade from the
surface of the sea to its bed several hundred meters below. After a
speedy descent, the track leveled off and curved slightly to the
right across the bay. Isabelle remembered reading press releases
when the structure had originally opened. Officials touted the
bridge-tunnel as an engineering marvel and boasted its arched
design to be impervious to the strongest ocean currents. Isabelle
recalled when the story came over the wire very well. The day she
read it was the day the banks demanded their loans for her father's
television network paid in full. A day later it had been all
over.

"How is the news business in Alaska?"

Ralf's question strangely enough had brought
her daydream into reality. "I work in Los Angeles now."

The pain of her father's ruin was in her
eyes. Isabelle did not want to elaborate on the fact that she took
work from Gene after he destroyed Lionel’s livelihood. This
conflict had overshadowed all her decisions since it began. Had
Isabelle given heed to her father's advice and killed her story,
his network would still be in existence. She had remained steadfast
behind the principles of journalistic integrity that after all, she
had learned from her father. Isabelle noticed the train turning off
its main track at a switch and soon it slowed down on its own
behalf. Ralf who would have liked to talk to Isabelle more about
her history saw the questioning look. After all, the tunnel was
officially just a connection between the artificial island and
Copenhagen.

"We're almost there. This is the stop I have
to make. You know, I'm not supposed to bring anyone in here. I'm
not even allowed to talk about the fact that this place even
exists."