The Spy Who Spoke Porpoise

by Philip Wylie

  What had been months of daytime activity now proceeded under floodlights: new tunnels were being excavated under the Kalan and a bridge high above it was being built to carry cables, tubes and traffic pierward; jack-hammers resounded. Much of the clamor, however, rose from efforts to shift and fix the talus slope above so there could be no slip that might damage other rising structures. This involved digging a deep trench and erection in it of a barrier of ferro-concrete.

  Pumps drummed, rocks dropped from cranes, heavy gear moved with the noise of tanks and blasting was sporadic. The world shook.

  “What did you ask?” Jerry’s voice was raised only a little.

  Grove changed his question. “Is this—uproar—on schedule? I mean, was it planned for now?”

  “What building ever is on time?” Jerry laughed. “In Hawaii?”

  “You don’t happen to know the original starting date?”

  “Sure. Some steel company couldn’t make the first date. Then plans had to be done over. The starting time was moved up again.”

  “And it was originally supposed to be?”

  “January, you know, before they got going—daytimes. Way late. So—the night work.”

  “January,” Grove mused. “I see.”

  Jerry frowned: what did he see? Because he was so much more than a watchman, Jerry guessed. “They planned to start—whatever it is—in January? The murder and all?” He rubbed his forehead with the back of his meaty hand. “But why?” Then he went on, quickly. “Because the noise would be a cover?”

  Grove nodded. “Know anything about seismology?”

  “Not much.”

  “Most people don’t realize it, but Oahu has some hundreds of tremors a day. None sharp enough to feel. They register on delicate instruments, though. Five thousand years ago the island was actively volcanic; dying shudders of that are still going on. Suppose you wanted to do something that would make a pretty fair commotion but you didn’t want anybody to learn of?”

  “Something, in that case, not on shore?”

  “Of course! Under water where it wouldn’t be visible. Suppose it required running heavy machinery, blasting—don’t ask me what for. All local seismographs detect tiny tremors constantly. The Navy, with all sorts of hydrophones, is listening for what goes on at sea. So you need some way to conceal the fact you’re there, and operating, right?”

  “Right,” Jerry said softly.

  “What would be better than this work at the Makai Range?”

  “You checked?”

  “No. I’m merely assuming the fancier seismographs won’t work properly now—and the hydrophones must be deafened. Probably, all such gadgets are shut off or ignored while the Makai job is this loud—this earth-shaking.”

  “If we could guess where—”

  “We can guess some probable things. First, that it’s around here. The uproar wouldn’t likely affect gadgets at—say—Pearl Harbor. Or the anti-submarine hydrophones at Kauai.”

  “Sure. And so?”

  “What I was trying to ask that was drowned out: how could we scout the likely area?”

  “In boats.”

  “Out where I think we should look, first, is just beyond the barrier reef. But wherever it may be, I think a hunt has to seem anything but that.”

  “Why couldn’t you take to sailing? Rent a boat. Or go fishing—troll for marlin?”

  “Think it over, Jerry. Old man Grove takes up boating, all of a sudden and after nearly two years. Assume, next, my hobby gets me near the action. Won’t the site be watched for any such event, deliberate or merely accidental?”

  “Disguise? I hear you’re good at that.”

  “Not that good! The job could be pretty far out. A scuba diver could come up, board me—and find the mustache was false, so to speak. Who’d see the ‘accident’?”

  “Perhaps—” Jerry began, and was silent.

  “Perhaps what?”

  “I was thinking of some open-sea work with porpoises; Mrs. Abbott mentioned it when she brought guests up, a few nights ago.”

  “We can’t put others on the spot.”

  “Ever see them do it—let porpoises out in open water?”

  “No.”

  Jerry leaned against a thick glass window, oblivious to a shark that came over to inspect his back. “It’s quite an operation. They take the porpoises out in big wells. Put them in slings and use a derrick to get them overboard; then let ’em go to do whatever they’ve been trained for. Sound—for one thing—and bring up something to prove they reached bottom. One or more other ships are always around. And a big, iron-barred cage is lowered—which the porpoises come back to, and enter, on signal. You could get out there with a dozen people or two dozen—and not be conspicuous.”

  “Just how,” Grove replied uneasily, “do I persuade Sapphire to make her animals perform where I’d want?”

  Jerry pondered, then said, “Well, maybe, like this. You tell her you know of the free-porpoise experiments coming up. And you point out that diving animals usually retrieve the handiest item on bottom—a lost and sunken shoe, a cardboard box, a tool—rather than a stone, or anything heavy. They can bring up stones or a hunk of iron, but they’d rather scout around for some proof they went clear down that’s easy to fetch.”

  “Logical.”

  “So—what? You lost something out there, wherever you’d like her to send porpoises down—on the wild chance they’d find it. Something valuable. Your wallet? With several hundred dollars? Sapphire would gladly go for that. After all, it’s not a matter of any particular location, really. Where’d you think of looking?”

  Grove reflected, “I happen to have one idea—a spot beyond the outer reefs but not too far beyond, where charts show twenty to twenty-five fathoms.”

  “Easy—for porpoises.”

  “I’ll speak to her,” Grove finally said. “Maybe. My hunch is mighty thin.”

  It was easier than he had expected, although it took somewhat longer.

  Grove invited the Abbotts to dinner in town. They accepted—and twice postponed the engagement. Once because an unexpected group of VIP scientists had to be entertained, and a second time when Tack had to fly to California for a luncheon and back the same day, for him a common event. However, the three finally dined at Canlis’ in Waikiki Beach.

  During the meal Sapphire brought up the current, freedporpoise work. “I have three that I’m letting go at once. And they actually compete with each other to see who can get down and back first.” Trainers, Grove knew, and Sapphire, who trained trainers, often call their porpoises “who”—and not without reason.

  Grove said he’d enjoy watching an experiment.

  She said the day after tomorrow.

  They ate steak. Remnants were duly put in a doggy bag for the Abbotts’ dogs, cats and kittens. Then Grove asked where the work was conducted.

  “Oh, out beyond the reef, around Rabbit Island.”

  “Could you do it, up my way?”

  “Of course.” Sapphire realized there was some reason for that inquiry. Grove was glad to explain.

  His embarrassment wasn’t wholly feigned because the tale he’d prepared was slightly absurd. He’d been trying to learn to sail one of the little craft so popular in the area: Sunfish and Sailfish. He said he went out early when nobody would be around to observe his clumsiness. He’d gotten too sure of himself and ventured well beyond the barrier reef one calm morning but it was not so calm on the other side.

  “I flipped,” he said with regret. “Well, I always wear a money belt.” He was wearing one, now. “My business takes me abroad—and in a hurry, sometimes—I keep foreign currency in it, including gold coins—useful, abroad, for a traveler in a rush. Well, as we flipped, the belt caught in something—tiller, I guess. And it broke, so of course it sank like a rock. I got pretty good bearings, righted the boat, and came in.”

  “That,” his pretty guest smiled, “is exactly the sort of thing they like to find and fetch up. A money belt!”<
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  “Even though,” Tack noted, “the chances of their finding it aren’t great. Your bearings will probably be accurate only to—say, ten acres—and the bottom, out there, is very rugged: coral ridges and some deep holes.”

  “The belt probably weighs three pounds,” Grove added, sounding dubious.

  “They could bring that up, easily.” Sapphire defended her porpoises. It was she, in fact, who’d first released and recovered a porpoise in the open sea. It was she, too, who’d first discovered that porpoises are capable of “original thought”—the only creatures on earth with that ability, except man, of course.

  “Worth a try.” Tack nodded as they rose.

  That was how Grove came to be at sea, beyond the protective reefs, some days later. He and Sapphire with two girl trainers were in an open work boat. A much larger vessel stood by. A third, fast motorboat served the scuba divers who would be checking the porpoises. The iron-barred “return cage” was in position, held by cables let out from the big vessel.

  When Grove said, “Right about here,” the party had halted and the big ship had anchored. Three porpoises, Lani, Koko and Mahalo, were taken from the ship’s well on stretchers, gently released, and given a signal to swim to bottom.

  Now and again one then came to Sapphire’s boat with a trophy. Some dives were fruitful, some not. She collected a variety of finds—a girl’s bra, a waterlogged section of a life belt, two pieces of coraline rock and a plastic bag.

  What interested Grove, however, was not the sudden appearances of animals with their trophies, but the bottom and the near surface. The water was very clear. With a glass-bottomed “scope”—an elongated box fitted with handles—he could watch the porpoises swim down and discern in blue-to-brownish shadows the dim contour. Since they were close to the place where he’d observed the glinting or flashing, from his house, he also kept an eye out for its source.

  What he did spot was unexpected: a sudden drop-off of the bottom, a wide, blue nothingness which, as far as he could discern, continued out toward the open ocean as a valley. When he first saw the feature it meant nothing; but Sapphire sighted it with her scope too.

  She’d been explaining things as they happened. Now her talk was more general. “Tack built the Makai Range here because of the clear water, and the fact that the bottom slopes steadily to more than a hundred fathoms—in three miles. The weather, and the relative calm, are important too. It’s a miniature continental shelf, really, though not an actual one; with no dirt or pollution, too! And you can work here year round. No mainland water offers all that.”

  Grove had kept looking but he understood: “Mainland’s east coast is stormy and foggy, a lot of the year; both coasts have dirty water. Winters, you can’t work, much of the time. Here, though, with any depth handy—and few poor days—”

  “Some years,” Sapphire agreed, “not any.” Then she said, “Oh-oh!”

  “What?”

  “See the deep blue trench down there?”

  “Yes. Drops off like a cliff and continues on out.”

  They gazed; the work boat drifted about on its anchor. “Must be where that lava tube broke down,” she said.

  “Lava tube?” His voice sounded casual. But he then remembered one of the first books he’d read, on coming to Hawaii: a book about local geology.

  Sapphire went on. “You know, Ring. You’ve been in one: the Thurston Tube at Volcanos National Park.”

  “This one must be a lot bigger.…”

  “A lot.” She peered again. “Comes halfway to the surface. It must have collapsed, here, because there’s only that blue, deep gulch, from here out. Well have a look at it someday. Jack Himberson told me the biggest lava tube so far known has a diameter of a hundred feet. This looks easily that size.” She forgot the formation as Mahalo reappeared, with a find.

  Grove was no longer able to see the supposed lava tube owing to the drift of the boat. But he was thinking hard. A lava tube was formed when hot, molten rock flowed downhill and began cooling, on the outside first, of course. The moving mass formed a crust that hardened and ceased flowing while its molasses-like inner contents kept running down until, not infrequently, they drained their outer crust. What remained was a hollow, rock-walled tunnel, like the Thurston Tube, which tourists could enter. It was some ten to fifteen feet in diameter, as he recalled. He had never heard of one a hundred feet in diameter. But he knew some were many miles in length. This one could therefore extend through, or under, the reef; not above it—or the fact would have been seen, long since, and charted.

  Oahu was volcanic in origin, like all Hawaiian islands. The Big Island, Hawaii, was still being extended by volcanic activity. And the islands had been lifted and lowered repeatedly in geological time. There was nothing surprising, then, in this tube—except its size, perhaps.

  Assuming, Grove assumed, the tube continues from this open end toward land, under the reefs and under the beach on shore, it would be more than a mile long. Lava tubes meander like river beds. This one might angle off toward Waimanalo Beach or Makapuu Point: a long, huge cavern, in that event, with a thick roof, buried by later lava flows and by the sea to this just-found, open terminus.

  What came to Grove’s mind was a man-made but similar thing: the submarine pens the Germans had built near Bordeaux, on the Bay of Biscay, a hide-out that bombers never did destroy entirely in the Second War. Charges set by the Resistance people (and some OSS men Grove had known) also failed to smash those pens. If his present surmise was correct—Grove suddenly went white. It would be no great feat to build locks! The biggest nuclear subs could vanish into it, by night, with a friendly watch ship on guard. A Soviet “fishing boat”? A swimmer? Water could be pumped from a large section and air pumped in—even, air at normal pressure, given locks!

  For what, then?

  Nuclear subs don’t need bases for refuelling. Conventional subs do, though. There could be a recreation center here for crews and even girls, since Soviet morality is less prissy than the official pose. Chinese don’t bother posing. That would be mere spin-off, though. You could launch nuclear missiles from here in hundreds. Or assemble the elements for an operation called Neptune. His heart paused and then lunged as he considered that idea. Any such secret base would be closer to USA from the USSR by half the width of the Pacific.

  Grove was almost sure, now. The Reds had found the tube with spy ships. They had explored it and decided to use it, years ago. How often had the Navy tagged—and lost-Soviet subs in the area? Submarines that were as often sighted beyond the legal limit—surfaced, their crews swimming, laundry on lines and all hands waving jovially? International law made such acts safe.

  Heavy machinery employed to alter the interior of the tube—and necessary blasting, rock-hewing or lock installation could be managed without detection if, and only if, some big construction job in the vicinity served as a mask.

  A huge undertaking at the Makai Range had been long set for January and put off till recently. January was the month mentioned when Grove had first learned of Project Neptune—from his tree perch; the date which had set in motion his own acts, ever since.

  January was the month in which the CIA’s man had been found dead in the Reef Tank at the park. The man had doubtless learned something which might have given away this operation. He’d been caught and held for a while, since he’d been unable to get his information to anyone else in the organization—and he’d been used for an eventual put-on, that Eaper was clever enough to see through, Eaper thought.

  The faster his imagination raced the more feasible its pictures—providing the lava tube had some such form and dimension as seemed at least possible. To refit a cavern of the sort envisaged might take a great deal of work. His ideas grew to a deluge.

  What would be easier than to replace a vast amount of water with air? The evacuated water, if pumped out at night, would be indistinguishable in the turbulence over the reef. Air could be pumped in at the same time, with precautions. A brief use of a
periscope, while daylight was strong, would insure that no vessel was near enough to see, in the approaching twilight, some snorkel-like gear that, when the coast was found clear, would then be elevated as an air intake. The hypothesized periscope at that critical time might glint as it circled and so be seen briefly from the distant shore.…

  Why, he next asked himself, the fantastic effort to get access to high-tension power for a limited term? That could also be answered, simply: for preliminary work enabling the installment of later types of machines. Electrically driven motors are quiet and they might be used for such purposes as pumping—with equally quiet turbines. But that setup would be safe only till Hawaiian Electric’s bills went out. All signs of that use must by then be erased or, minimally, lead nowhere. Once an air lock was ready, work could proceed—any kind—so long as constant heavy construction on shore would conceal it. Its present, nighttime continuation would help, too, and also serve notice that the Makai Range work would soon be finished, or at least this noisiest phase. The “January” plan had been postponed because of the Makai Range delays, surely.

  Sapphire interrupted that torrent of thought. “Are you okay?”

  “Am I—what? Oh!” Grove nodded. “Fine!”

  “You look pale. If you want to go in—”

  He realized he was pale, then. “It’s nothing,” he said. “I always get a touch of seasickness in small boats, but it never lasts long. I’ll be dandy in no time—”

  She seemed doubtful but decided it was possibly correct. She would keep an eye out, to be sure. With relief, he saw her turn back to management of the crews and the porpoises.

  The open boat drifted about on the swells and in the choppy backwash from the reef and its breakers. There was little wind and current; drift was unimportant, as the porpoises knew which vessel was which from their view of the hulls. He soon thought that perhaps he should accept the offer to run in or ask to be sent in. The location of Project Neptune had been found, he believed. What it was, others could determine; his duty would end when his idea was passed along and checked—rather, proven true.