Out of Time

by David Klass

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re not really my uncle?”

  “No.”

  “What’s happening?”

  “Don’t worry,” Arthur said. “It’s necessary and for the best. And it’ll be a real adventure.”

  Gus’s hands shook on the large steering wheel, and the older man put his own hands on top of them, to steady them.

  “Can you at least tell me where we’re going?” Gus asked softly. “My mom wouldn’t say.”

  Arthur hesitated and finally replied, “Canada.”

  FORTY-EIGHT

  The lagoon was surrounded by mangroves. The last families had swum with the dolphins, purchased their pricey photos, and departed, and the facility was technically closed. “Are you sure this is okay?” Tom asked, buckling on a life vest.

  “The other trainers bring in guests every once in a while,” Tracy told him. “It’s one of the perks of working here. I’ve never brought in anyone before, so they’re totally cool with it. How’s the knee?”

  “Healing up fast. The doctor said I got lucky.”

  “Yeah, super lucky, you only got shot twice,” she said sarcastically, and searched his face. “Why can’t you tell me what happened?”

  “I’m not supposed to talk about it. But the good news is I get some paid vacation time, so I can swim with the dolphins.”

  “No,” Tracy told him, “the good news is you’re gonna get a new job. This time, try being yourself and not someone we both hated and it might work out better.”

  For a moment, standing on the dock looking across the lagoon at the sinking sun, Tom recalled the previous evening in Boca. He had stood alone at his father’s grave. The inscription on the granite stone—chosen by his mother—was simply Warren Smith’s name, the dates of his birth and death, and “He served his country.” There was nothing about being a loving husband or a good father. Tom was not religious, but he’d said a prayer and wished his father goodbye, and just before he’d left, he’d touched the stone and—feeling foolish—whispered, “Rest in peace, Dad. I also did my best to serve. I couldn’t quite catch him, but I came damn close.”

  Tom looked out over the lagoon as he finished buckling the life vest and pulled the strap taut. “I already have two job interviews set up for next week,” he told Tracy. “And you’ll be glad to hear neither of them involve law enforcement.”

  “Silicon Valley, baby!” she said enthusiastically. “Take the money. I’m planning to retire to your guesthouse. Okay, ready to have your world rocked?”

  “Rock away,” Tom said, checking that the leggings of his wetsuit covered his knee bandage. “I have to warn you, I’m not planning to set any swimming records today.”

  “You won’t have to,” Tracy told him. “Lou and Ginny are going to take you for a ride.” She stepped off the dock into the lagoon, and Tom followed her. It was medium cold and three feet deep, and they waded out together till they were up to their shoulders.

  “Where exactly are Lou and Ginny?” Tom asked.

  “They hang out on the other side of the lagoon, but they’ll know I just stepped into the water and they’re coming.” A moment later two gray shapes darted toward Tom and leapt fifteen feet out of the water above him. He found himself grinning and clapping as the two dolphins splashed back down. In another second they were next to him, their beak-like rostrums nuzzling him.

  “Younger brother, meet Lou and Ginny, Atlantic bottlenose dolphins and my dear friends. You may kiss them back if you so choose.”

  Tom lightly kissed the dolphins back, and they both made a series of high-pitched squeaks that sounded like two rusty doors slowly being opened. “They’re saying hello and thanking you for not catching Green Man,” Tracy told him. “The earth has a chance now. Especially the seas that they love so much.”

  The two dolphins looked back at him with wise, sparkling dark eyes and smiling faces, as if they all shared a secret. “You really think they’re worried about climate change?” Tom asked. “Maybe they just want some fish for dinner.”

  “They know a lot more about what’s happening than you think,” Tracy said. “Lou was born at this facility, and even the water in this lagoon has had problems with plastic debris and algae blooms. Ginny is a rescue dolphin. She’s been out in the world and seen lots of bad stuff, and she worries for sure.”

  As if on cue, Ginny flipped upside down, exposing her lighter-colored belly to him. “She wants you to pet her.” Tom tentatively stroked the dolphin’s skin. It was smooth and gently curved, like an eggplant with a heartbeat. For the first time, he understood his sister’s dolphin mania. There was definitely an unexpectedly strong connection, much more intimate than petting a cat or stroking a dog. This was a very smart mammal, and touching her, Tom sensed somehow that Ginny was capable not only of love but of a kind of mysterious wisdom. “What happened to her?”

  “Ginny was hit by a propeller. It penetrated to the bone. When we got her, she was in real bad shape and almost died. But as you can see, she’s made a complete recovery. They like you, Tom. Not as much as me, but they say you’re okay. They want to take you for a ride.”

  “Do I hold on to their dorsal fins?”

  “Nope. Just float on your back, and relax.”

  Tom turned over and floated on his back, hands at his sides. He tried to relax and clear his mind, but he couldn’t stop thinking about flying out to San Fran next week for one particular job interview that an old friend of his from Stanford had set up.

  A small startup had quickly become a large startup and gone public six months ago. Now it was rolling in cash, and the potential salary they had mentioned was more than four times what the FBI paid him. He could get a nice apartment and a car, and it would be challenging and fun to work with such a bright and gung ho crowd. Tracy was right. It was time to give up the Green Man chase and move to something that was for him and not for his father.

  Tom felt gentle pressure on the soles of his feet, and suddenly he was flying. The dolphins were pushing him through the lagoon at such speed that Tom actually started rising up and was soon half out of the water. He screamed in surprise, fear, and pleasure. Incredibly, they could steer him, so the ride seemed to go on for thirty seconds, and when they finally stopped and he sank back into the lagoon, he was exhilarated and laughing out loud.

  “That,” he told Tracy, “was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.”

  She beamed. “See, I told you it would rock your world,” she said, and then suddenly her demeanor totally changed and she warned, “Don’t do it, Tom.”

  “Don’t do what?”

  She half shouted, “This is private property. Get the hell out of here,” and she was looking not at Tom but behind him, where a tall, athletic black man in khakis and a blue jacket had walked down to the dock.

  It was Agent Grant, and he ignored Tracy and said, “Tom, sorry to intrude, but something’s happened that doesn’t make any sense.”

  FORTY-NINE

  They talked at the bar of the Fish House, a local hangout with eccentric decor and fresh seafood. “After your adventure on the Cape May ferry, Carnes did what you suggested and concentrated on finding out who Paul Sayers had become,” Grant told Tom. “They soon found out that he was now Mitch Farley of Glenwood, Michigan.”

  “I saw what happened when they went into the Farley house,” Tom said. “Not exactly a notable success.”

  “It was a total disaster,” Grant agreed with a rueful nod, “and I was there to experience it firsthand. Not only was Carnes spectacularly incompetent, but everything in the house that was of any possible use to us was destroyed.”

  “Have they picked up the trail of the wife and kids yet?”

  “Not that I know of. At least for now, they got away clean.”

  “Amazing,” Tom said. “He switched identities twenty years ago and he’s trying to do it again,
and not just for himself but for the people he loves. And he’s had lots of time to plan it. Is that why you’re here? To get my take on where they’ve gone?”

  “Nope,” Grant said, helping himself to a crabmeat-stuffed mushroom cap. “While DHS was trying to figure out who Paul Sayers had become, I was busy trying to learn more about who he had been, back in the day. I figured the things he’d done twenty years ago in the Bay Area, operationally, might give us a hint about what he plans to do next. We know about two of his environmental attacks—on the lumber plant and the gas company—but I ran his name through different databases just in case he’d done other things that might be useful for us to know about.”

  “Sounds like a good idea,” Tom said. “Anything interesting pop up?”

  “Nope,” Grant said. “We had everything there was to have on him back then. Then I got pulled into the SWAT incursion on the Farley house, and I didn’t come out of that too well with regards to my working relationship with Harris Carnes.”

  “You’ve been taken off the case?” Tom asked.

  “Not yet, but he’s trying. I’ve been demoted and frozen out of the action till they figure out how to get me reassigned.”

  “Sorry to hear it.”

  “And I’m sorry I came down on your ass,” Grant said. “To be honest, maybe I was a little jealous. I was Brennan’s golden boy till you came along with your sixth sense about Green Man. It pissed me off. Sorry.”

  Tom looked down and saw that Grant was holding out his hand, and Tom took it.

  “Sounds like we’re both in Siberia when it comes to this investigation,” Tom said. “They want to bump me back down to computer analyst and reassign me, but—between the two of us—I’m interviewing in Silicon Valley.”

  “And I am looking into a few new career tracks myself,” Grant admitted. “High-end private security pays a lot more than Uncle Sam.”

  “So, what brought you to the World of Dolphins?”

  Grant glanced around, but no one was paying them any attention. The other folks at the bar were watching a golf tournament as they sipped tropical drinks and dug into sumptuous fish dinners. “Two days ago, I got a call from one of the computer analysts I’d used. Just the kind of nerdy and frustrated bottom dweller you would have been if Brennan hadn’t yanked you onto the taskforce because of nepotism.”

  Tom grinned at the good-natured insult. “Have some respect for nerdy computer analysts. I take it something unexpected popped up on one of your searches?”

  “Yup. And this analyst was so low on the food chain that he didn’t know I was practically out the door, so he only told it to me.”

  “Let me guess. Paul Sayers did something twenty years ago that we didn’t know about, that might give us a clue about Green Man’s next attack?”

  “Not twenty years ago,” Grant said. “Try two weeks ago.”

  Tom looked back at him. “What’re you talking about? For all intents and purposes, Paul Sayers has been dead for twenty years. He’s changed everything about himself, from his name to the way he looks. Don’t you mean that Mitch Farley did something to show his hand?”

  “A security guard in Texas filed an active report on Paul Sayers two weeks ago.”

  “What kind of a report?”

  “Just a routine sighting. No crime was committed. There wasn’t even a suspicious action. It was so low priority that it’s remarkable it got picked up by my search.”

  Tom was quiet for a few seconds. “How did this security guy in Texas even know it was Paul Sayers?”

  “No idea.”

  “Why was he on the lookout for someone who died twenty years ago?”

  “That’s one of the things I’m going to ask him tomorrow.”

  “So you haven’t talked to him yet? And I take it you also haven’t shared this with your former pals at DHS?”

  Grant looked uneasy. “I don’t know anything definite, so I’m not ready to make a report yet. Look, Carnes couldn’t be more incompetent. Also, something happened last week to make me decide to go talk to the guy myself. I’m afraid this is bad news.”

  Tom tensed and waited, watching the small colored lights that hung from the ceiling of the restaurant.

  “Brennan had a full-on heart attack,” Grant said. “He’s in George Washington University Hospital. I went to see him. He’s expected to pull through. But I decided to follow this up myself, for his sake. And seeing him reminded me of you. Every time there was something on this case that I didn’t understand, you seemed to have a handle on it. And I don’t pretend to understand this new wrinkle. So I’m here, and tomorrow afternoon I fly to Texas. Want to come? It’s kind of on your way to Silicon Valley.”

  “Neither of us is supposed to do this,” Tom said.

  “Nope.”

  “Did Brennan tell you to reach out to me?”

  “Jim Brennan is not able to talk right now.”

  Tom took a sip of beer, rolled it around in his mouth, and swallowed. “Okay,” he said. “Texas.”

  FIFTY

  Green Man skirted the Hanson Oil Field and drove his van to a bank of the Kildeer River. It was a warm and moonless night, and he was sweating in his lightweight black neoprene drysuit. A wetsuit would have been heavier and made it too hard to maneuver, but even this thinner drysuit clung to him like an unwanted second skin. The oil field was lit up and throbbing, just the way he remembered from his scouting trip. The flares that burned natural gas from the tops of the rigs were orange fires dancing in the night sky. He parked close to the riverbank and checked his watch. There were two hours till midnight, and he had much to do.

  But Green Man was weary, and for a few precious minutes he sat in the van and did absolutely nothing. With the lights off, he watched the thirty-foot-wide Kildeer flow downhill to the fence and cut a gleaming path across the oil field. It was warm in the van, but he didn’t dare doze off for even a few seconds. It was a real danger because he hadn’t slept in the past three nights worrying about Sharon and the kids. He had seen footage on the news of their house blowing up and photos taken the next morning of the smoldering ruins.

  If all had gone well, they should be in Ontario Province now, on a large private farm fifty miles from the Ojibwe township of Manitouwadge. The property was lovely, with a twenty-acre spruce forest and a lake stocked with bass. But he could only imagine the conversations when Sharon had tried to explain to Gus and Kim why they were there and that they would never return to Michigan.

  Green Man imagined himself with them, fishing with his kids in the lake. It had been more than two years since his first strike, and weary wasn’t a strong enough word to describe his total exhaustion. He had done what he could, and it was time to stop. The moment had come to pass the struggle to save the earth to the next generation, and for him to make his way to Canada and be with his family.

  But sitting in the silent van, battling the temptation to shut his eyes for a few seconds, he knew he had one more thing to accomplish—one final necessary strike—and there could be no more delaying. He took a pill to give himself energy and stepped out of the van onto the gravel bank of the Kildeer. First came the demolition equipment, which he had carefully packed into two waterproof drybox containers. He lifted one box out of the van and laid it down gently on the bank and was pleased to see that the color of the heavy plastic exactly matched the basalt river stones.

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  A powerfully built African American man burst into the small security office on the run, and Tom and Grant stood. “Jesus, I’m sorry. How long’ve they kept you waiting?”

  “More than an hour,” Grant said. “They said you’d be back in twenty minutes.”

  “Hell, I was just over in Baines—that’s a town right nearby. I was eating dinner at the bar and it was loud, so I didn’t hear my pager. They should’ve just sent somebody to get me. But didn’t
we expect you seven hours ago?”

  “Our flight to Midland was canceled. We finally got one to Lubbock and drove like hell. Sorry for the mishaps on both sides, but we’re here.”

  “And you’re with the FBI?”

  Grant showed him his ID. Tom figured the more low profile he stayed, the better, so he kept his own badge in his wallet.

  “Ray Mathis,” the security officer said, offering handshakes to both of them. “Deputy chief of security at Hanson. What brings you gentlemen here?”

  “Two weeks ago, you filed a report that you saw a man named Paul Sayers.”

  “That’s right. I saw him by the fence, when I was out on a night patrol. We said a few words. He turned and walked off.”

  “How did you know that it was Paul Sayers?” Grant asked.

  “I recognized his face from a wanted poster.”

  “His face hasn’t been on a wanted poster,” Grant pointed out, “because everyone has thought Paul Sayers was long dead.”

  “It was a poster from twenty years ago. Back then I was working security at a mill. He had hit a lumber plant nearby.”

  “So you were guarding a mill in Northern California?” Tom asked.

  “That’s right. Up near Ukiah. That wanted poster was hanging on a bulletin board in our security office. It was on the bottom right corner of the bulletin board. Just above it was a pinup of Elle Macpherson in a red bikini. I have a good memory.”

  “So you remembered his face all this time?” Grant asked dubiously. “From a mill in Ukiah to this oil field in Texas?”

  “And you spotted him here at night, in complete darkness?” Tom chimed in with his own doubts. “But you were still able to recognize him from that two-decade-old wanted poster?”

  Mathis looked from Grant to Tom and shrugged. “I never forget a face,” he said. “When I spotted him by the fence, I shined a flashlight on him and saw his face clearly. It took me a while to put a name to that face and figure out where I had seen him before, but I got it. That was Paul Sayers, right out by our fence. So how did you guys know I filed that report, and why do you care so much?”