Wired Kingdom

by Rick Chesler

  The pair of SWAT operators entered the holding room. Trevor remained still as they entered.

  “Have anything to say for yourself?” one agent repeated, kicking the table leg.

  Trevor tilted his head to one side, looking up, but said nothing.

  The other agent jerked the table away from Trevor, forcing him to sit up in his chair. “So I hear you’re a real genius, stealing national defense technology to sell to some game show. Proud of yourself, dickhead?”

  Trevor only hung his head.

  “Like shooting at FBI agents, huh?”

  As she watched the questioning begin, Tara thought about the computer programmer’s role in the case. He said that he was being blackmailed. He perceived the threat to his own safety as real enough to kill for. But was that connected to the murder victim? Was the dead woman somehow involved in the theft of the engineering designs that led to Trevor’s development of the whale-cam?

  In the room, Trevor grunted in pain as one of the SWAT team slugged him in the gut. She went to join the interrogation. “Thank you, gentlemen,” she said, “I’ll take it from here.”

  “I want to speak to a lawyer,” Trevor said as soon as he could breathe again. A tear rolled down his cheek. She pitied him at this point, but reminded herself that he had tried to kill her.

  “Trevor, your cooperation here could determine whether any of the charges against you are reduced or dropped. If there’s someone else involved in this with you, now’s the time to give us their names. You’re looking at an attempted murder charge for starters, and that’s before we talk to Martin-Northstar and get your involvement in any design theft ironed out.”

  He sniffled and wiped snot on his sleeve before answering. “Anything I could tell you is only related to these guys who were blackmailing me.”

  “Could the murdered girl be someone who found out what was going on at Martin-Northstar, maybe a whistle-blower who threatened to expose your blackmailers?”

  He stared blankly into space. One of the SWAT agents grabbed his mangled finger, now in a brace. “The lady asked you a question.”

  “Okay, okay, let me think.” But he only shook his head and vomited a little down the front of his shirt.

  Then the door to the interrogation room burst open. A man Tara recognized from newspaper photos as a prominent L.A. trial lawyer was escorted inside by a uniformed police officer.

  “Trevor Lane, I’m Lance Wozniak, attorney.” He started to thrust a hand out before seeing that Trevor’s wrists were handcuffed behind the chair. He motioned irritably to the police officer to unlock him. The officer nodded to the FBI agents.

  “Mr. Lane,” Wozniak said as Trevor’s hands were freed, “I’ve been retained by Wired Kingdom to take your case. Your bail has been paid. Let’s go.”

  “Wait a minute,” one of the SWAT officers protested. “This guy’s up for attempted murder of a federal agent and he makes bail?”

  “That’s alleged attempted murder. His employer paid the four hundred grand. No priors,” Wozniak said, motioning for Trevor to get up.

  Tara took a step toward Trevor, who was staggering up from the chair. “Was she a whistleblower?”

  The lawyer held out a hand, palm first. “That’s enough, Agent Shores. Mr. Lane, as your attorney I advise you to say nothing further.”

  He turned to the agents. “Look at the condition this man is in. This treatment is nothing short of criminal.”

  Trevor averted his eyes from Tara’s as he was led from the room by his attorney. On the way out, Tara could hear the lawyer asking Trevor how long he’d been talking.

  33° 36’ 25.2” N AND 119° 69’ 78.9”

  Mountains of rock rose from the seafloor to within two hundred feet of the surface. Currents ran strong here, and an array of information tickled the wired whale’s senses. A complex, high-energy environment, this place was cold and murky, and of interest to myriad marine creatures. The unusual geology of the area stood apart from the featureless desert of the deep seafloor far below. Large pelagic predators, including great white sharks, frequented the perimeter of this zone, while the rocky crags, caves and shelves of the seamount itself were home to invertebrates such as lobster, sea stars and octopi. The upper reaches of the undersea mountain were festooned with billowing strands of kelp and varieties of colorful algae.

  Diving for the first time since the Orca attack, the Blue neared the seamount. In the wake of her narrow escape, her movements were tentative, restrained. Still, she had a caloric intake to sustain. Her echo-location depicted a pinched, M-shaped summit that dropped into an abyss. She hovered above the “M.” The smell of food was intoxicating. The locale was rich in the zooplankton that comprised her diet, but this was something more. A rich beacon of nutrients called to the animal’s most primal instincts.

  She moved in. No fewer than sixteen pinpoint sources of high-quality sustenance assailed her senses.

  Sixteen perforated 55-gallon drums, each oozing a protein-rich cocktail of krill, copepods and anchovies, suspended in a massive monofilament net invisible to sight and sonar.

  CHAPTER 13

  AVALON, CATALINA ISLAND

  While the northern Channel Islands made up a remote marine sanctuary, Catalina to the south was L.A.’s aquatic playground. The island lay twenty-two miles off the coast, with regular high-speed ferry service bringing thousands of passengers each day. Private boat traffic brought still more. And then there were chartered helicopter and small plane flights.

  The tourist-oriented city of Avalon was home to about three thousand permanent residents. But behind the waterfront tourist area with its harbor and pier, crowded beach, quaint cobblestone walkways and carefully decorated establishments, there was a quieter part of town. A few blocks inland, before the chaparral-covered hills began their march up to form the island’s spine, a local business district clung to the island like the barnacles covering the rocks of its shores. Stripped-down stores with unpretentious signs sold fishing and diving gear, offered outboard motor repairs, carried general hardware and—for those with the patience or connections to beat the ten-year waiting list to bring a car or truck onto the island—auto repair. Most people drove golf carts, which were more suited to the island’s narrow roads. Presently one of those carts, driven by a man who, in a town with more than its fair share of drunks, was known as “the town drunk,” wound its way down from the hills.

  Ernie Hollister remembered to turn the cart's headlights on when he passed under a thick stand of eucalyptus trees that filtered the moonlight. Beyond his inebriated condition, his lack of attention to the road was particularly dangerous because of the animals that roamed Catalina's hillsides. Buffalo, left behind from a 1920s movie shoot, were not unknown to venture into the upper reaches of town at night, and wild boar or feral goats could emerge just about anywhere en route to a food source.

  A long-time Avalon resident, if anything Ernie was a little too familiar a sight on the island roads for his own good. His near-silent electric vehicle allowed him to enjoy the sound of leaves crunching under the cart's wheels as he made his way into town, catching unsuspecting victims unawares. Reaching for the cup holder, he lifted a can of beer and finished it off with one hand on the wheel. He crumpled the can and tossed it into a stand of ironwood trees before reaching the level, street-lit avenue marking the edge of the business district.

  Most of the lights were off inside the weathered one- and two-story facades lining the street. Drifting up the island on a sea breeze from the beachfront were the faraway sounds of weekend revelers escaping the mainland metropolis. The waterfront was not Ernie's destination, although he was looking for drink and company. As usual, he knew where to find it.

  The Pelican’s Nest was the hub of Ernie's social life. The Nest, as it was affectionately known around town, was a dive bar favored by old salts. When he saw the flood of smoky light coming from the open doorway Ernie angled his cart toward the miniature parking lot and hit the brake, as was his habit. Only
this time the brake pedal gave no resistance.

  Ernie approached the building at top speed as he pumped the brake. When it became apparent he would not be able to stop in time, he bailed out of the cart, leaving it to ramp over the curbstone and smash into The Nest as his stout body thudded onto the sidewalk. He lay there for a moment, listening to the clatter of an errant beer can that had shaken loose from somewhere in the cart.

  A figure took up the entranceway. “Oh c'mon, Ernie, not again,” said a wiry, aged man with silver hair. He stepped through the doorway to inspect the damage, absently drying a beer glass with a white dishtowel as he did so. The bartender was also the sole proprietor, and he knew Ernie well, as he did most of the patrons who frequented his establishment. Small towns and islands were places where folks knew each other’s business, and Catalina was both.

  Ernie staggered up from the ground. He pried the cart’s fender out of the doorjamb and gave it an angry shove. It landed on the ground again with a thud. Ernie dusted off his pants with great care, as if they weren’t tattered, oil-stained work clothes, while a smattering of applause came from the regulars inside the bar.

  “Sorry ‘bout that, Bill,” Ernie said, removing a baseball cap from his bald head to give an exaggerated stage bow. The hat had a logo patch sewn on the bill. It was too soiled with grime to be readable, but Bill knew that in years past it had read The Pelican’s Nest.

  Bill traced his fingers along the impact crater left by the cart’s fender.

  “Damn rinky-dink cart,” Ernie said. “This year better be my year to get my truck out to this blasted rock.” Ernie’s name had been on the waiting list for twelve years already, and he’d been making a louder stink each time the list was read in the town hall meetings and his wasn’t on it.

  Behind closed doors, though, most of the locals were all too glad that he wasn’t driving a real car through their tourist-filled streets and winding mountain roads. There were even rumors that the sheriff had seen to it that Ernie’s name would somehow drop a little farther down the list with each passing year.

  Ernie staggered into The Nest. On his way to the bar, he passed under a large Japanese glass fishing float, which dangled from the ceiling. The “disco ball,” Ernie called it. The watering hole was filled with older blue-collar men, but there were a few women in the back around a pool table. The rest of California had a no-smoking-indoors policy, and the tourist establishments of Catalina followed it, but someone forgot to tell the Pelican’s Nest.

  Ernie took a rusty stool at the bar and accepted the mug of brew passed to him by another regular. Mounted on a wall over the bar was a television set tuned to that day's Wired Kingdom studio broadcast, from which the OLF disturbance had been edited out. On screen, Anastasia was about to announce the contest winner.

  Watching a clip, courtesy of the Blue's camera, reminded Ernie that he couldn't remember the last time he'd had his fishing boat out. It had once been his livelihood, but had fallen into disrepair over the years as his drinking increased, as did the cost of fuel. At first the repairs kept him dry-docked for a few days, then a few weeks and months, until he'd been living from one odd job to another on land. Ernie's boat still sat in dry dock. He'd even been offered a token sum for it, but he had refused because the boat, even though it was no longer seaworthy, was still a boat. And he knew he'd never be able to afford another one. He wasn't even able to maintain his golf cart.

  Looking up at the TV now, at the clean, blue water the whale swam through, Ernie wondered if he'd ever be his own captain again. Then he was invited to a game of eight-ball by a guy he'd beaten before, and he turned his back on the tube.

  CHAPTER 14

  THE CALIFORNIA CHANNEL ISLANDS

  “There are only four more aspirin, Guillermo,” Héctor González said to his diver. “Perhaps you should save them—you may need to thin your blood later.”

  “I need them now!” Guillermo countered, slamming his fist against the plane’s backseat. He lay in the cramped cargo space sweating, crippled with acute pain in his joints.

  “Let’s give you more oxygen.” Héctor retrieved a portable 02 bottle and placed a respirator over Guillermo’s face. Tears traced the edges of the mask as the man’s body was racked with agony again. Five minutes of oxygen appeared to improve the diver’s condition slightly, and the mask was removed.

  “Oxygen is almost out too,” Héctor said.

  “Please. The aspirin. Let me have them now, I beg you.”

  The pilot considered the near-empty pill bottle. Reluctantly, he opened it and pressed the four remaining tablets into his diver’s good hand. He noted with mounting unease that the fingers of the other were curled into a gnarled, useless claw.

  “How deep did you go?”

  “Not sure.” Guillermo grunted in pain as he brought the aspirin to his mouth.

  “Where is your dive computer?”

  The diver indicated his gear bag under the seat. He chugged down a bottle of water while Héctor consulted the profile of the most recent dive. He crossed himself after reading the numbers.

  “Ay, Guillermo. Over two hundred feet? Are you crazy? One fifty was supposed to be the maximum. And what happened to your decompression schedule? The planned stops?”

  “The currents made it impossible to stay at twenty feet. The upwelling . . . it was like being in a whirlpool. I was too tired to fight. And after Carlos . . . I could not do the work of two men.”

  Héctor winced at the reminder of his other diver’s death. His hopes of snatching the device from the whale upon first sighting had been ripped from him. The mission would not be only one day. He fought for control of his fears.

  “You should have told me when you came back to the plane. You could have gone immediately back down to do your decompression on a fresh tank.”

  “I didn’t think—I couldn’t—I would have been okay if you hadn’t flown so high.” Scuba divers were not supposed to fly within twenty-four hours after diving because the reduced-pressure at altitude could lead to “the bends”—a condition resulting from nitrogen bubbles in the bloodstream, with painful and potentially deadly complications.

  “We had to reach the cloud layer to conceal ourselves. Do not blame me for that.”

  “I need a recompression chamber!”

  “Guillermo, you know that is . . . Just wait. Get some sleep. And if your condition does not improve by morning, I’ll take you then.”

  The diver shifted on the seat, seeking a resting posture that his screaming joints would tolerate. “I do not like this whale, señor. It has been made . . . unnatural. I fear it will kill us all.”

  An electronic warbling sounded from the front seat. Héctor grabbed an Iridium satellite phone and stepped from the plane. His head emerged from a stand of trees and brush that obscured their aircraft at the rear of a secluded cove. The inlet was so small as to be almost claustrophobic. Even to a boater cruising the shore of this barren outcropping of rock thirty miles from the mainland, the isolated beach could only be seen from a certain angle of approach. It had not been easy to drag the seaplane up onto the beach, but with the aid of high tide they had managed it.

  Héctor's eyes swept the cobblestone beach and out over the water while his ears probed for aberrant sound. Satisfied that he and his surviving partner were the only people within earshot, he answered the phone.

  “Bueno.”

  The voice on the other end was demanding. “Are you on the island? Are you safe?”

  The pilot glanced out at the empty sea. A small animal rustled somewhere nearby. Winged creatures he thought might be bats dashed overhead. An anguished cry emanated from within the plane.

  “For the moment, we are the only ones here. But jefe, listen, circumstances have become very complex. The job is more than what I am comfortable with. It is too dangerous to continue.”

  “Had you not failed today, you’d already be collecting your fortune instead of hiding on that godforsaken rock. Were you able to set the trap?”
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  “Yes, but it was not easy—my remaining diver has the bends. He needs a recompression chamber. He will not be able to dive tomorrow.”

  “No recompression chambers. If your man can no longer work, you get rid of him. Perhaps you should consider the consequences of not completing the job. That could be costly, too.”

  “I do not unders—”

  “I know that Rosa is on hold to go to Mexico City. I might be able to help.”

  Héctor suppressed a gasp. He hadn't thought his boss would know that much about him. “Alright, but I must emphasize that it is risky to continue now. One man is dead, another crippled and likely to die without medical attention. We haven’t had enough time to prepare.”

  “So get another man.”

  “The authorities will be looking for my plane, and trying to identify Javier. His death was filmed on the Internet—”

  “In dive gear that made him totally unrecognizable. Have your new recruits bring you another plane. It’s not like you can’t afford it with what you’re being paid. Work it out. I’ll triple your fee, and will wire you a bonus today that will allow Rosa's treatment to begin.”

  Héctor didn't know what else to say. He thought of Rosa spending another night in the hospital, and then there was only one thing to say. “Okay, jefe, thank you. We leave at dawn, before any boats arrive.”

  “Good. You are aware of the FBI agent after the whale’s tag?”

  “Yes, from the helicopter. It is good she could not swim so well, no?”

  “Let me just add that were she to meet with some kind of accident, your bank account would benefit even more handsomely.”

  Silence.

  “One more thing. I had a package shipped to your office. It will arrive today. I want it available as a last resort.”

  “What is its purpose?”

  “You’ll know when you see it.”

  “Very well, jefe.”