Ocean: War of Independence

by Brian Herbert

  Jimmy had a strong moral tradition behind him, in which a reporter never revealed his sources, no matter the pressure put on him by authorities, no matter the threats. Throughout American history, many brave journalists had gone to jail for taking this stance, and it was always a tense standoff between a newsman’s legal rights and moral beliefs, on the one hand, and the needs of the society to obtain certain information on the other.

  In such conflicts, the government was supposed to protect the integrity of society by arresting and prosecuting criminals, but American governments also were whipped around by the will of the people—and in this case, most of the citizens were not agreeing with their own leadership. More than fifty-five percent of the people polled were siding with the Sea Warriors. That gave Jimmy additional strength, and thus far the persistent government investigator had only issued subdued threats against him for not cooperating, threats that did not intimidate the veteran newsman in the least. He was deeply troubled, however, that the Sea Warriors had been formally declared a terrorist organization, and an enemy of the United States. That made his own activities more dangerous.

  And now, the stakes had been raised even more.

  The President of the United States had summoned Jimmy to Washington, D.C., along with eleven other people who knew Kimo Pohaku, both before he began his public campaign for the ocean, and afterward. The list of people knowing him afterward was limited to his own companions in the Sea Warriors and to a handful of people he’d remained in contact with on the land—such as Jimmy Waimea, Fuji Namoto, Jiddy Rahim, and his adoptive mother, Ealani Pohaku. All eleven had been summoned to the White House, including Jimmy, and now they waited in the East Sitting Hall.

  Sunlight entering through a web-shaped window gave the room a cheerful cast, accentuating the ochres and yellows of the décor. Yet, Jimmy did not feel cheerful. One by one, the President was seeing each of them, having them escorted individually into the Oval Office. So far, everyone had been seen with the exception of Jimmy, and now it was his turn, as an aide in a dark suit escorted him through the historic building to the legendary presidential office.

  Jimmy felt so nervous that his stomach roiled, and he could see his hands shaking slightly. His mouth had gone dry, and he knew from his own investigations that it was from fear. Though he wore a suit and a colorful Hawaiian tie, and would be quite well-dressed by the standards of his home town, he felt under-dressed here, and very much out of his element.

  As Jimmy was escorted into the Oval Office, he saw the President sitting on one of two sofas that faced each other, not far from the immense Presidential Seal on the deep blue carpet. He motioned for Jimmy to take a seat on the other sofa, which he did.

  The President looked younger in person than the news images of him. He had jet-black hair, combed straight back, a muscular jaw and a prominent nose. The eyes were small and blue, with a probing, penetrating intensity to them. Although Jimmy’s politics were the polar opposite of the President’s right-wing policies, he didn’t find his demeanor particularly threatening.

  “This is an informal talk,” the President said, “but your very presence here places an immense responsibility on you to tell the truth. You do understand that, don’t you?”

  “Sir, I realize that I am not formally under oath, and that I am not testifying before Congress, but I understand the gravity of what you are saying, and I consider myself a loyal American citizen. However, as a journalist I have other obligations as well.”

  The dark eyebrows arched. “Higher obligations than the security of this nation?”

  “Sir, you must know what I’m talking about. A newsman cannot discuss certain details of his sources. It is a matter of journalistic honor.”

  “The Sea Warriors are a terrorist organization.”

  “I don’t agree with that designation, sir. And I’m not alone. I’m sure you’ve seen the public opinion polls, how much support there is for the Sea Warriors.”

  With a scowl, the President asked, “What is it you don’t want to tell me? What do you know about that tattooed Hawaiian, that Lawrence of the Ocean?”

  Jimmy smiled, just a little. “Sir, I realize you brought me here to discuss my cousin, Kimo Pohaku, and I will be happy to do so—subject to my moral constraints. Of course, you realize he is not technically my cousin, because he was adopted by Tiny and Ealani Pohaku when he was very young.”

  “Who were his birthmother and natural father?”

  “I’m not sure if Kimo even knows that, or Ealani. You have already spoken with her of this, and she knows more about it than I do. But it is common knowledge that the boy-child was discovered in the sea by a fisherman, Tiny Pohaku, and brought home. When Kimo was a teenager, he began having the tattoos of sea creatures inked onto his body. Truly, Mr. President, he loves the ocean and all the things that live in it.”

  “Such an interesting, strange background,” President Vanness said. He leaned forward. “I am informed that Kimo came to your home, accompanied by Alicia Ellsworth?”

  The question surprised Jimmy, because he didn’t recall revealing that to anyone. Had he mentioned it to Fuji, or to Ealani? He wasn’t sure, but didn’t want to be caught in a lie. “That is true, Mr. President. They wanted me to publicize their message, describing the plight of the sea and the creatures that live in it.”

  “And a worthy cause that is.”

  “Yes it is, Mr. President.”

  “But, you see, I have my own priorities. While I can see that more needs to be done to help the ocean—a great deal more, I will admit—we can’t have the Sea Warriors interfering with national security. And they have been doing exactly that, blockading both Pearl Harbor and San Francisco Bay and all the naval installations in them—interfering with military operations, as well as commercial shipping, and pleasure boats. That oil derrick incident is another direct attack on American security interests, adversely affecting our oil supply, which is a strategic resource with military implications. We cannot allow any of that, don’t you see?”

  Jimmy pursed his lips, didn’t respond.

  A female aide entered the room, whispered something in the President’s ear.

  He scowled, then smiled stiffly. “It seems that you have a cell phone call, Mr. Waimea. The caller identifies himself as Kimo Pohaku.”

  “Sorry, sir. I left my phone in the sitting hall, didn’t want to disturb our meeting with it.”

  “But you left it on.”

  “Yes, sir. Do you want me to take the call?”

  The President nodded, and the aide handed the phone to Jimmy. It was an exceedingly embarrassing situation. “Yes?” Jimmy said.

  “I’m using a calling card,” Kimo said, “so they’ll have trouble figuring out where I am. Only six hours remain on the latest deadline I gave. Is there anything new?”

  “I’m sitting with the President at this very moment.”

  There was a long silence on the line. Then: “The President?”

  “That’s right, President Fillmore Vanness. I’m with him in the Oval Office.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I wish I were.”

  “They must have all kinds of ways of locating me, so I need to get off this line. Well? Do you have a response from him?”

  “I’ll ask him. Can you call back in say, half an hour?”

  “Make it two hours. I’m going to change cards, and locations.” Kimo hung up quickly.

  Another aide entered, and handed a printed transcript to the President, which he read. “So, the Sea Warriors want my response?”

  “Yes, Mr. President. I make no pretenses, sir, but I seem to be in the position of intermediary.”

  “Or the representative of a dangerous terrorist organization. I’ll have an aide take you to the Map Room, where you will await my response.”

  Before the ocean crisis, President Vanness had been the most powerful man in the world, in charge of the largest economy and the strongest military force the Earth had ever seen. Now he
felt like a lot less than that, and that he’d been put in a no-win situation, with limited options. Pro-ocean demonstrators were marching in all of the major cities in the United States, and the actress, Monique Gatsby, seemed to be on every cable news channel with Professor Marcus Greco, asserting that the Sea Warriors were selfless and heroic, while the President was the reincarnation of Satan because he allegedly represented the greedy corporations who had fouled the seas in so many ways.

  As he paced the Oval Office, it irked him that Kimo Pohaku had issued another threat, while omitting details on the next target, and that he’d done it through a lowly news mouthpiece, the Honolulu Mercury News. A high school newspaper!

  The President didn’t want to blink in this confrontation, but didn’t see how he had any alternative. Multiple cordons of large-bodied sea creatures remained in place, blocking commercial shipping and military activity in the Hawaiian Islands and at the entrance to San Francisco Bay. An oil drilling rig had been destroyed off the California coast and driven up on the land, along with boat wrecks and other junk from the water. Three tidal waves had slammed into the Santa Barbara area, while in the North Pacific, a sea of floating garbage was being directed toward the west coast of the United States. And reports were coming in from the Pacific Ocean that pods of huge whales were forcing container ships to turn around, preventing them from delivering their cargoes.

  So far, the fanatical Kimo Pohaku had carried through on every one of his threats. What did he have in mind next? Vanness didn’t want to think about it, but he had to. He was on the hottest seat in the world, facing an enemy who used highly unconventional weapons—weapons that American military leaders didn’t know how to counter. To make matters even worse, the Sea Warriors kept producing new weapons and tactics—needlefish that impaled Navy frogmen, stingrays that shot poisonous barbs, squids that could rip humans apart, whales that beached a submarine, shorebirds that brought down a helicopter, and tidal waves. What else did they have in their extraordinary, dangerous arsenal? He sensed that they had a great deal more than he’d already seen. The ocean was full of mysteries, and so were the Sea Warriors who roamed it.

  Hybrid human beings, sea monsters, and a goddess holding dominion over the oceans of the world. The whole thing sounded like fantasy, not reality, something magical rather than anything explainable by science. He’d been reading the reports from government oceanographers and other experts, but the pages had been filled with questions, and there were hardly any answers. Was this ocean revolt the work of a sorcerer? Was it President Vanness’s misfortune to be brought down by witchcraft and incantations? He could hardly believe that might be true, and yet, the strangest events in history were actually occurring, and he had to deal with the crisis.

  This was beyond politics, way beyond it. This was about the fate of the United States of America, with a domino effect far beyond that.

  On one level, President Vanness could sympathize with the viewpoint of the radicals, their righteous anger about the abuses people had inflicted on the world‘s ocean. But the Sea Warriors were only targeting the United States, as if no other nation in the world was at fault. Yet the floating garbage that was being pushed toward the west coast was mostly plastics and other trash that other nations had dumped, not the United States. The Sea Warriors were completely ignoring the fact that years ago the U.S. outlawed the dumping of plastics in the ocean, a practice that other countries continued anyway, ignoring the environmental damage it caused.

  President Vanness felt victimized, didn’t see why his country was under attack like this, or why he was being smeared personally. He certainly didn’t visualize himself as Satan, and yet, his foes were successfully portraying him in that light. He needed to find a way out of this mess.

  He looked at his watch, an expensive gold timepiece, inset with diamonds. It made no sound as the second hand circled the dial. Even so, he heard a ticking noise in his head, growing louder and louder.

  He summoned Jimmy Waimea, and gave him an answer, the new position of the American government….

  Kimo had changed locations. He was on the same island where he’d made the earlier call, Kauai, but miles away in another town. A friend, Greg Layne, had driven him to the second location in a boxy old off-road vehicle, and now Kimo had another calling card. He used a public phone, on the side porch of a general store.

  He half-expected the President to answer instead of Jimmy, or to see federal agents roaring down the road to capture him, or flying overhead. He could see the ocean from here, only a hundred yards or so away, and he had a contingency plan to run for it if he had to.

  Jimmy answered. “I have the President’s response, Kimo. He’s offering a cease fire, but only if all the whales and other marine animals leave the blockades, if they go home and allow ships to get through again. He also wants you to recall the blue whales that are preventing container ships from crossing the Pacific.”

  “I sent out three pods of blue whales,” Kimo said, nodding to himself.

  “There are a lot more pods than that in the Pacific shipping lanes—more than twenty, from what I hear.”

  “Twenty pods! Blue whales communicate across long distances in the ocean, so they must have transmitted information on what I want to other pods.”

  “Anyway, if you do what the President wants, he promises to have the U.S. Congress deal with the valid points you’ve brought up about harm that’s been done to the ocean, harm that he admits is ongoing. It’s progress, Kimo.”

  “Maybe, but not enough. I don’t know why there are more than three pods of blue whales disrupting the shipping lanes, but I do know that none of us can break up the Hawaiian or San Francisco barricades. After putting them in place, we can’t get the whales and other animals to cooperate. They’re there, and won’t move until they want to move. The animals have even developed their own ‘work shift’ system, in which the ones in the cordons are regularly replaced by other animals, so that all of them can go about their feeding and other operations.”

  “I don’t think the President believes anything you say.”

  “Well, he needs to believe it, because it’s the truth. The U.S. doesn’t want another bloodbath of marine animals; public opinion won’t stand for it. If President Vanness keeps killing the species in the blockades and they keep replenishing themselves, they’ll eventually go extinct. Is that the legacy he wants for his presidency?”

  Jimmy did not answer.

  “All the U.S. can do,” Kimo said, “all any of us can do, is to wait for the whales and other animals to leave on their own. Tell the President we have the leverage against him, and tell him he needs to back off unilaterally, calling all warships back to available ports, taking no aggressive actions against the cordons at all. Either that, or we intend to take additional measures against American interests—both commercial and military.”

  “You should concede something, Kimo. Can’t you offer anything for me to take back to the President?”

  “Twenty-four more hours. That’s all I’m going to give him. Exactly one day from now, I’ll find a way to send you an e-mail from an untraceable account.”

  He ended the connection before Jimmy could say anything further.

  After making the call, Kimo declined another ride from his friend. Instead, he walked down to the sandy beach, and was about to dive in the water when he noticed that the beach to the north was littered with debris. This surprised him, because he’d been here only a few months ago, and the shoreline had been spotless, one of the prettiest he’d seen in the islands. He walked up the beach, and saw the hulks of wrecked fishing boats and pleasure craft, a large rusted ship’s hull, a rusted automobile, a bent bicycle frame, a motorcycle, torn fishing nets, chunks of dense foam, broken crab pots, and old appliances—all scattered on the shore.

  Examining the sand, he saw scrape marks where the old car body had been dragged ashore recently, before the tide could clean away the marks. A rusted emblem on the back read, “Hudson.” He paused.
Maybe it had been pushed ashore.

  But Kimo had not given any command to do this in the Hawaiian Islands.

  Perplexed, he waded into the water and broadcasted a molecular communication to the Sea Warriors in the islands, asking if they knew anything about this. In a few minutes, replies starting coming in. No one had any answers.

  Then, as Kimo swam just offshore, looking at the debris on the beach and trying to figure out what had occurred, he saw a pair of orca whales swimming toward shore, pushing a piece of a floating dock that had many of its planks missing and only part of its white-foam flotation system intact, as if the dock had been ripped loose in a storm. The animals shoved it up on the beach, and even after they swam back out, the dock kept moving forward on the sand, and up a slight slope.

  This piqued Kimo’s curiosity even more, so he swam closer, and saw dozens of green turtles under the dock, transporting it above the high tide line on their backs. When it was in place, the turtles scurried out from underneath, and reentered the water.

  Kimo tried to make molecular contact with the whales and turtles, but got no response. He saw the turtles gathered in shallow water, as if awaiting the next delivery of human-civilization’s garbage….

  ***

  Chapter 7

  Early that afternoon, Kimo organized a meeting at the volcanic isle, gathering his Sea Warriors to discuss the strange behavior of the whales and turtles at Kauai, as well as additional scattered reports of similar beachings of junk at other places in the Hawaiian Islands. No one seemed to have any idea why it was occurring.

  He also transmitted questions about this to Gwyneth, Alicia, Dirk, and the other Sea Warriors who were away on missions, but due to the distances involved there would be a delay hearing back from most of them.