by Hunter Shea
“Looks like you and I came crashing into the same wall.”
“However, I was able to find a Jamel Abrams who lived in Stamford, Connecticut until five years ago. This guy did spend some time in Juneau, Alaska, where he worked at the University of Alaska Southeast. It appears he was there for one year, living in a rented apartment, and then he went poof.”
“Poof?” Chet drained the rest of the beer.
“Vanished.”
A chill ran down Chet’s spine.
“You mean as in a missing person?”
Rosario took the tiny tequila bottle and polished off the rest, sans glass. “Well, not official as in a police report was opened. It’s just that all record of him stops there.”
Chet considered his tequila bottle but went to the fridge for some Jack Daniels instead. “Was he a teacher or something?”
“Good question. Let me see.”
He watched in amazement as she found the faculty roster of the University of Alaska Southeast, going back several years. “I don’t see him listed anywhere. But I did find out that he graduated from Caltech ten years ago. So if this is our guy, he’s smart. I would think if a University in Alaska got their hands on a Caltech grad to teach, they would have done some crowing about it.”
“So what the hell was he doing up there?”
“Get me another beer and I’ll find out.”
One hand she used to sip her beer while she used the other to peruse the web, the tablet balanced on her raised thighs. Chet felt a buzz coming on.
While Rosario searched in silence, he dared to look at his phone. He couldn’t believe the number of voicemails that had been left in one afternoon. The TV was on with the sound off, locked on a 24-hour news channel. There hadn’t been a report about the orcas attacking the freighter for the past thirty minutes. He used to think no news was good news, but he got the feeling that wasn’t the case in this instance.
No news could mean the powers that be were blocking anything from coming out. They did say the Navy had dispatched a ship to assist the freighter. If the military told you to keep quiet, you kept quiet, even in this day and age of seemingly unfettered access to news.
“Found him!” Rosario exclaimed. Chet nearly choked on his beer.
He settled next to her on the bed. Her brows were creased with confusion.
“Where did you find him?” he asked.
“I was going through the archives of the college’s newspaper. He’s mentioned in an article.”
“What does it say?”
The light streaming into the room made it hard for him to see anything on the shiny screen.
She angled it towards him. “It appears this Jamel Abrams, who could be your Jamel Abrams, is a custodian.”
“A custodian?”
“That whole Caltech thing seems less likely now, doesn’t it?”
He scanned the brief article. It was about a rash of vandalism of the school cafeteria. Jamel Abrams was quoted as saying he was going to keep a close eye on it at night to hopefully catch the person or people responsible. There was no accompanying picture.
“What are the odds a janitor has the scoop on top secret Russian ionosphere weapons and how it relates to a high-tech US military facility?” Rosario said.
Chet’s stomach clenched. That article blew the theory of Jamel being a scientist right out of the water.
“Slim to goddamn none,” he said, dejected.
Rosario tossed the tablet aside. Her eyes were getting glassy from the liquor. “At least you don’t have to worry about him anymore.”
“Yep, and it only took half a day to realize it.”
She straddled his lap, pulling her shirt over her head and slipping off her bra. His hands immediately went to her breasts. “I say we don’t waste this little break from insanity,” she whispered in his ear. He nibbled on her plump lobe.
When they kissed, he could taste the faint remnants of tequila on her tongue. It tasted a whole lot better this time around.
She had just started working on his belt when someone knocked heavily on the door.
“Mr. Chet Clarke,” the voice boomed. “I need to speak with you right away.”
Chet thought his ability to be surprised had been burned to the quick, but the sight of two military men outside his hotel room door proved that to be wrong.
He cast a quick look downward to make sure he wasn’t sporting a visible bulge in his pants.
“Can I help you?” he said, sounding more confident than he felt.
“Are you Chet Clarke?” one of the men asked. He was in his service dress blues with a white cap. One of Chet’s closest friends had been in the Navy. He looked down at the man’s sleeve and saw the two stripes and star denoting he was a lieutenant.
“I am.”
“We need you to come with us.”
Chet gripped the edge of the door.
“Just like that?”
The man’s cold green eyes didn’t blink. “It’s vitally important that you follow me. A car is waiting for us.”
There was no sense pretending he didn’t know what this was all about. Instead, Chet said, “What’s happened with the freighter?”
The man and his companion remained resolute. “We can discuss that in the car.”
Chet felt Rosario come up behind him, a light hand on his shoulder.
“How do we know you’re who you say you are?” she asked.
“I’d advise you ma’am to look out the window and see for yourself.”
Joining her at the window, Chet spotted the black sedan parked in the front of the building. A tan joint light tactical vehicle was idling behind it. The squat but massive jeep on steroids looked like it could plow through a cinderblock wall.
“I don’t think they’re going to take no for an answer,” he whispered.
“They can’t kidnap us.”
He looked back at the men waiting patiently in the doorway, hands clasped behind their backs.
“To be honest, if they’re sending a little entourage, it has to be worse than we’ve seen so far. I kind of want to know what the hell is going on.”
Rosario’s eyes narrowed as she peeked around Chet’s shoulder. “Okay, but you’re not going alone.”
Chet smiled. “How did I know you’d say that?”
“Should we pack?’ he asked the lieutenant.
“That would be advisable,” was his curt reply.
“She’s coming with me. I’m not taking no for an answer.”
The man didn’t even bat an eye. “As you wish. This isn’t a shanghai. We just need your help.”
They packed quickly. Carrying their bags, Chet had a hard time keeping up with the men. The bags were taken from him and stowed in the trunk of the black Lincoln. The all wheel military vehicle had garnered a lot of attention. Hotel guests lingered outside and in the lobby to see why it was there in the first place. Chet felt uneasy being the center of attention.
“I bet they think we’re being pulled in for some sort of interrogation. Or for voting for Trump,” he said to Rosario.
“They may not be far off.”
The lieutenant held the back door of the Lincoln open for them. Cold air wafted from the dark confines.
“Ladies first,” Chet said.
A man was already in the back seat. He was older, his face grave as a funeral director.
“Lieutenant Commander Thomas Wolf,” he said, extending his hand to them. “We have a hell of a predicament boiling in the Atlantic. I sure hope you can help.”
The man’s grip was like a vice. The bones in Chet’s hands ground together.
“I hope so, too. This is my, ah…” he looked to Rosario. He’d been calling her his assistant all this time, but she was so much more than that. She looked at him with a curious smile. “This is my girlfriend Rosario. She’s an orca trainer as well and has been alongside me here, as well as in Spain and Portugal at the site of the previous orca attacks.” He squeezed her hand. “I’d be lost without her.”
Lieutenant Commander Wolf nodded. “I’m well aware. Maybe she can get us un-lost as well.”
Chapter Eighteen
Jamel’s calls and texts were being met with dead silence.
Hadn’t he proved to Chet Clarke that he knew what he was talking about?
The latest killer whale assault had been all over the news within the timeframe that Jamel had said it would. Well, at least it had been on the news. Just like Chet, all of the news outlets had gone silent on the matter. It wasn’t like there were reporters or bloggers just bobbing around the ocean eager to broadcast what was happening with the freighter.
Just like the various HAARP facilities around the globe, what was happening out there was far from civilization.
He dialed again and got a message that Chet’s voicemail was full.
“Come on, man.” Jamel flicked the phone onto his desk and twirled in his chair. He stopped himself by poking out his foot until it came in contact with a leg of the desk.
Jumping on his computer, he tapped into a secret satellite feed that tracked energy fluctuations within the ionosphere. The satellite had been launched in 2005, designed to keep a watchful eye on other countries and their own versions of HAARP. Whenever one of them powered up, the satellite could read the supercharging of particles in the ionosphere and backtrack to the source.
He’d noticed the burst of energy coming from Russia’s Kalach facility earlier that morning. Over the past several years, he’d learned that it took several hours for the after effects to take place, whether it be a drastic change in temperature, pop up storm or now, scrambling of the brains of killer whales.
Just thinking about it made Jamel feel like the president of the tin foil hat club. No wonder his calls weren’t being returned. Offering proof that there would be another killer whale event at a time when they were happening with regularity wasn’t enough.
Why killer whales? That one had bothered him for a long time. On the one hand, it made sense because they were the true masters of the world’s waterways. No sea beast could stand up to them, especially when they concentrated their efforts. On the other hand, they were also adored by millions. Turning a childhood thrill into an instrument of shock and dread was a page right out of the terrorist playbook.
But there was another reason Jamel suspected they had turned their attention to the killer whales. The mammals had exceedingly acute auditory senses. Part of any HAARP program involved experimentation with audio waves. They were projected on unsuspecting towns and villages to irritate, disorient, fatigue, and yes, control. Now, Jamel had never been privy to any actual lab results on mind control, but it was talked about in hushed tones at the facility. For that alone, he knew it was something they were working on.
Killer whale speech had been studied for decades. Jamel would bet his life some Russian scientist had dedicated his life to finding a way to get inside their heads. It looked like he or she had been successful. And if they could do it to a complex mammal like a killer whale, people were sure to be next.
He’d love to jump on a plane and see Chet face to face, but he had no idea where the man even was at this moment. There was so much to tell him.
A heavy storm rumbled overhead, sheets of rain banging against his windows.
All was quiet on the HAARP front – for now.
He rummaged in the back of his refrigerator for a cold bottle of a double IPA he’d picked up last week. The bitterness felt good as the cold beer passed his lips.
“Time for plan B,” he said to his cat, Fort, who was making a rare appearance out from under his bed.
He was always going to enact Plan B, but he’d hoped to have someone with credentials like Chet Clarke on board first.
It looked like that wasn’t going to happen now.
The past few hours had been a whirlwind of activity.
Lieutenant Commander Wolf debriefed them on the ride to the Navy base, filling them in on what was really going on. The commercial freighter from Panama had been lost. So far, there were no survivors. News of the tragedy had been suppressed, at least until the military had more answers.
What had been termed a mega pod of several hundred orcas had banded together to take down the ship, sacrificing their bodies in order to bring it to a watery grave. Wolf showed them an aerial view of the wreckage. The ship was on its side and sinking fast. Loose cargo intermingled with orca bodies both alive and dead in the cold water.
The pictures made Chet sick to his stomach. Rosario stared at them in cold silence, her green eyes flicking back and forth across the glossy pages. He was almost afraid to ask her what she was thinking.
What really scared him was the fact that what happened to the freighter wasn’t the real reason the Navy had come for him.
If things didn’t change, the freighter was just going to be the first in a calamitous chain of events.
After an even more intense debriefing at the base with a host of officers in a small conference room, Chet and Rosario were whisked away to a waiting helicopter. Chet was no fan of helicopters, and after their trip, he hoped never to step inside another one again. The green tint to Rosario’s face told him she was of the same mind.
They landed aboard the Nimitz class supercarrier somewhere in the Atlantic. The John Adams was a nuclear powered aircraft carrier that looked to Chet to be bigger than Delaware and Rhode Island put together. He marveled at how something so unbelievably massive could even stay afloat.
Lieutenant Commander Wolf was to be their escort for their entire trip. He was the first to leave the helicopter, a harsh, cold wind there to greet them. Several men in Navy whites saluted the Lieutenant Commander. They were escorted across the massive deck and taken to the bridge, salutes being snapped off in quick succession.
Rosario gripped Chet’s hand the entire time. She’d been very quiet ever since they’d stepped into the black sedan at the hotel. Chet was damn sure she was feeling as overwhelmed as he was.
The bridge looked like something out of a sci-fi movie. Men and women sat at various stations, others purposefully walking about the bridge, all of them, as Chet’s father would say, serious as a heart attack.
After watching so many war movies chock full of macho men, it was pleasantly surprising to see so many enlisted women here. It actually made him feel a bit easier. Chet fully appreciated the levelheadedness women brought to the table.
Remembering how Spartan the deck of the Enterprise looked in Star Trek, Chet had to stifle a laugh.
“What would Captain Kirk do with all of this?” he said low and to himself.
To his surprise, Rosario answered, “Find more ways to locate sexy blue aliens to share his bed.”
A tall, broad shouldered man with a thick scar bisecting the corner of his upper lip introduced himself as Captain Mitt Stanson. Chet almost saluted until he noticed the man’s proffered hand.
“Impressive ship,” Chet said, feeling like a school kid on a dream class trip. He’d once taken a tour of a submarine at the Submarine Force Library and Museum in Groton, Connecticut. Cramped and confined were the two words that came to mind, the smell of grease and age omnipresent in the retired sub.
Not so with the John Adams. Everything about it was oversized. The bridge looked like it could accommodate fifty people.
“Thank you,” Captain Stanson said. “She’s a decent tug.” He shook hands with Rosario and even gave a slight bow.
“How close are we to the mega pod?” Lieutenant Commander Wolf asked.
The Captain’s jaw clenched. “We should be within shouting distance in an hour.”
Chet asked, “Can you tell if any additional whales have joined the mega pod?”
Captain Stanson consulted a tablet. “Yes, from what we can gather, another dozen met up with the mega pod forty minutes ago.”
“How many does that make in total?” Rosario said.
Chet tensed, already knowing the ballpark number. Hearing it said out loud, knowing they were in the middle of the ocean h
eading for the maelstrom, made him queasy.
“We estimate there are about a thousand at this time.”
“A thousand,” Chet muttered. When they left the base, they’d been told there could be as many as eight hundred. The mega pod was growing at an exponential rate. What could possibly be bringing them all together like this?
Somehow, the Navy thought he’d be the one to tell them. Would they throw him overboard once they realized he was as clueless as everyone else?
“We have extensive video of the mega pod taken from above,” Captain Stanson said. “I’ll have someone show you to a conference room so you can review it. Maybe there’s something you can see there that we’re not. It would be good to know how it compares to what you’ve experienced in Europe and Florida.”
“I wished I’d never see something like it again,” Chet said. “There are a couple of people I’ll need to talk to who were also there in Europe. In fact, I’m waiting on some lab results from an autopsy taken of the orcas in Barcelona.”
The Captain nodded. “Not a problem. I’ll make sure you get a clear line to them.” He checked his watch. “Time’s running out until our rendezvous. Let me know if you find anything we can use.”
They were summarily dismissed. Lieutenant Commander Wolf asked them to follow him as they made their way to a nearby wood paneled conference room chock full of some top of the line audio-video equipment. No time was wasted. As soon as Chet and Rosario had taken their seats at the round table, bottles of cold water, pads, and pencils were provided by an ensign, the lights were dimmed, and high quality video of the mega pod appeared on a flat screen that ran the length of the opposite wall.
What they saw took their breath away.
To see a thousand imposing orcas rising and falling in the rough water, geysers of mist expelling into the air, creating an unnatural fog around their swelling ranks, was like watching death itself sailing upon the ocean.
“Jesus Christ,” Rosario muttered.
Luckily, when the video was taken, there were no other ships in the mega pod’s path. Chet couldn’t imagine anything surviving such an onslaught.