“What about it? And, yes, I am Charles Boyd. That Charles Boyd.”
“I’m wondering if you keep track of seismic activity on La Palma.”
“Well,” Boyd said slowly, “I do have an ongoing interest in it.”
“But do you track the activity? Recent activity, in particular.”
“I have looked at recent data, yes.”
“Data in the Global Seismographic Network?”
“Data from a variety of sources. Do get to the point, please.”
Boyd was hedging. Dawtry pressed. “Are you familiar with recent data in the Global Seismographic Network pertaining to La Palma?”
There was a long pause before Boyd answered. “Yes, I am.”
“And in your opinion, sir, is that data accurate, or has that data been altered?”
This time there was no hesitation, and the tone was suspicious—accusatory, even. “Wherever did you get that idea?”
“I got it from a scientist at Johns Hopkins University, here in the States.”
“What scientist? What’s his name?”
“Her name, actually,” corrected Dawtry, wondering if Boyd was trying to trip him up with the pronoun. “Her name is Megan O’Malley. Has Professor O’Malley been in touch with you?”
“Listen here,” said Boyd. “You might very well be who you say you are, but I have no way of knowing that. And I’ve never heard of you, which makes me disinclined to continue this discussion.”
“I got your name from Professor O’Malley,” Dawtry persisted. “She put together a packet of information that came to me. Your article was part of it. So were the photos she took at the observatory in La Palma. And the GSN data. I haven’t been able to reach her, so she doesn’t know my name and doesn’t know I’m investigating this.” He cringed when he said the word “investigating,” as if Christenberry might somehow be listening in.
“I see,” said Boyd.
Another evasion, thought Dawtry.
“Tell me your name again?”
“Dawtry. Special Agent Chip Dawtry.”
“Quite so. Tell me, Special Agent Dawtry. This packet of information that ‘came to you’—where did it come from?”
“I told you. From Professor O’Malley.”
“Ah, forgive me. I should have framed the question more precisely. Where did Professor O’Malley take the information in the first place, before it came into your possession?”
He knows, thought Dawtry, his adrenaline spiking. He knows she went to the CIA. They’re in touch! But on the heels of his excitement came caution. But is he on her side? Or is he on the other side—whatever side that is? “Trust your instincts,” Benny had said. “Don’t second-guess yourself.” Dawtry winced and prayed and said slowly, “To be honest, Dr. Boyd, I don’t know all the places she might have sent similar packets. All I know is that she took this one—the one I have—to the Central Intelligence Agency. I was at CIA Headquarters Friday afternoon when she delivered it. She gave it to a guard at the gate. He thought she was crazy, and he fobbed it off on me. That’s the truth. You’ve got to believe me.”
“As a matter of fact, I do believe you.”
“Oh.” Dawtry was brought up short by Boyd’s sudden shift in tone. “And has Professor O’Malley indeed contacted you?”
“She has. Not long after she was turned away by the CIA.”
“And do you share her concerns?”
“If you’ve read a single academic journal article, Agent Dawtry—including mine—you are familiar with the academician’s mantra: ‘Further research is required.’ And to be honest, I was dubious and dismissive when she first called me—in fact, I hung up on her. But then I looked at the seismic data, and I found that she was right. The GSN database has been falsified. So I called her back. And, yes, in my opinion, Professor O’Malley makes a plausible and troubling case.”
The words electrified Dawtry. “Thank you, sir. Thank you for your candor. I have another important question.”
“And what would that be?” His tone had grown more guarded again.
“When did you last talk with her?”
“I told you—Friday. Night before last. Why?”
“Frankly, sir, I’m very concerned for her safety.”
“What makes you say that?” The guardedness was gone, replaced by alarm.
“Her apartment has been broken into and searched. The back door was forced open. Her files were strewn all over the floor. It didn’t appear to be a burglary—more like someone was looking for information. Or looking for her.”
“Dear Lord,” Boyd said. “When were you there?”
“I’m there right now. The place is a wreck. I don’t know when the break-in happened. And I don’t know where she is.”
“I do,” Boyd said. “She’s on her way back to La Palma.”
“What? Why?”
“She’s determined to get to the bottom of the blasting.”
“Christ,” Dawtry muttered. “Do you know where she’s staying?”
“Hotel San Telmo.”
Dawtry heard a sudden gasp on the other end of the line, followed by a low groan. He went on high alert—was Boyd at risk, too? “Professor Boyd? Is something wrong?”
Boyd grunted. “Just . . . nnnhh . . . some discomfort. I had my appendix taken out a few days ago. The incision is still causing a bit of pain.”
“I hope you feel better soon. Meanwhile, if you’re in touch with Professor O’Malley, please tell her to be very careful.”
“I will.”
“And tell her I’m on my way.”
“On your way where?”
“To La Palma.” His words astonished him. How the hell could he go to La Palma, when his boss had ordered him, in no uncertain terms, to have nothing to do with O’Malley? But then he remembered what had happened when he’d ignored his instincts the morning of the marathon. He’d probably be fired if he went—but given his CIA screwup, he might be fired anyhow, or at the very least marginalized, relegated to the Bureau’s most bureaucratic bush leagues. So what did he have to lose by going? Why the hell not? he thought, unconsciously echoing his parting exchange with Benny.
“When is your flight?” said Boyd.
“I have no idea,” said Dawtry. “But not soon enough.”
II: THE MURDEROUS INNOCENCE OF THE SEA
CHAPTER 10
La Palma
O’Malley froze, straining beneath the weight of the seismometer and the heavy car battery. Fifty feet down the slope, the mountainside sheered off into a fourteen-hundred-foot cliff. Fifty feet up the slope stood the man with the gun, its laser sight marking her chest with a bright dot of red light.
Twenty-four hours earlier
“Ladies and gentlemen.” The pilot had already made the announcement in Spanish, and O’Malley had caught one worrisome word that required no translation: turbulencia. “We are beginning our descent to Tenerife,” he continued. “Please tighten your seat belt, as we are expecting a little bit of turbulence on the way down.”
The words still hanging in the air, the plane made a stomach-churning drop, and several passengers shrieked. And so it began, a thudding, thumping roller-coaster ride down, the likes of which O’Malley had never experienced before. A “little bit of turbulence” my ass, she thought, her knuckles white from the force of her grip on the armrests. Like the Pope is “a little bit Catholic.” The plane was shrouded in clouds now, and threads of rain raced horizontally across her window.
Just as she was sure she would need to release her grip and make a grab for the barf bag that was tucked into the seat back, the turbulence slackened and the clouds thinned. She looked out the window and gasped: a mountain peak—sharp and forested and no more than a few hundred feet off the wingtip—ghosted past. A moment later the plane whumped onto the runway, eliciting a chorus of screams. Then, when it was clear that they had survived and would all live to tell the tale, the screams turned to whoops, whistles, and applause.
Tenerife, alas, was
not O’Malley’s final destination. Rather, Tenerife was the place where she would board yet another plane, this one a twin-engine puddle jumper, for a thirty-minute hop to La Palma. Inside the terminal, checking a bank of monitors, she saw her flight number flashing ominously, accompanied by the word retrasado: “delayed.” In fact, every outbound flight was flashing, and while several others were also retrasado, most were cancelado. Looking out through the airport’s rain-lashed windows, seeing the palm trees thrash in the wind, she didn’t know whether to pity those whose flights were cancelado or to envy them with every fiber of her fearful being.
For the next six hours, as scheduled departure times came and went with no improvement in the weather, she alternated between pity and envy as flight after flight was canceled. Soon, only one flight remained—O’Malley’s. By 9:00 p.m., airport ticket agents and baggage handlers were leaving. Shops and car rental counters were going dark. Cleaning crews began mopping the floors.
Then—against all odds—came an announcement, followed by a flurry of activity. Through the wall of sodden windows in the boarding area, O’Malley saw a green-and-white shuttle bus labeled with the island-hopping airline’s name—Binter Canarias—pull to the curb and open its doors. All around her, bleary-eyed passengers clambered out of chairs and off the floor where they had taken up residence, packing knapsacks and scooping up carry-ons. She cast a disbelieving glance at the monitor and saw that the flight number had ceased to blink. It glowed serenely, as if there had never really been any doubt. “Embarque,” the status now read.
O’Malley watched as her fellow travelers rushed the glass doors. “Holy crap, we’re boarding,” she said out loud. “We’re actually boarding. Thank you, Jesus.” Hoisting her bag and staggering toward the scrum, she added, “God help us.”
They boarded the bus beneath a large, protective awning, but as the bus trundled toward the waiting plane, the vehicle was buffeted by wind and driving rain. And by the time O’Malley staggered up the exposed staircase to the plane’s boarding door, she—like every other passenger—was soaked to the skin. This is insane, she thought. What the hell are you doing here?
She almost turned and got off—did turn, in fact, but she didn’t get off, because the flight attendant had just wrestled the aircraft door shut, and when she saw O’Malley standing there, preparing to bolt, she shook her head and flashed a tight smile that conveyed a clear warning: Don’t even think about it.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the aircraft door has been closed,” the flight attendant announced over the howling wind and roaring propellers. “Please take your seats, fasten your seat belts, and enjoy our brief, thirty-minute flight.”
Enjoy? thought O’Malley. Yeah, right. She sank into her seat, water pooling at her feet and elbows, and prepared to die.
But somewhere between the plane’s slewing takeoff from Tenerife and its quick landing in La Palma, a meteorological miracle occurred. The sky opened, the wind calmed, and O’Malley stepped off the plane and into a soft, clear night. The temperature must have been nearly seventy; overhead, the Milky Way splashed the sky from horizon to horizon. In spite of her exhaustion, and perhaps also because of it, O’Malley—the last passenger, from the last seat, of the last flight of the night—stared up at the stars and laughed.
She awakened slowly. At first she thought it might be night still, but then she noticed narrow streaks of light slipping past the edges of heavy drapes.
She had arrived at the Hotel San Telmo at 11:00 p.m., just as the proprietor—a thirtysomething man with a German accent (or Danish or Dutch, definitely not Spanish)—was locking up for the night. “Oh, you made it,” he said. “I thought you do not come.”
After checking her in and giving her a key, he had pointed to a stairwell off the lobby, then to a mini fridge, its top doubling as a table for bags of chips, apples, and bananas. “Please to help yourself.”
“Thank God. I’m starving.”
“Well, good night,” he’d said, eager to be done. “Welcome, and have a good sleep.”
O’Malley had thanked him and headed downstairs, snagging a bottle of white wine and a bag of potato chips on the way. She descended three flights of stairs before she found her room. Christ, I’m in the subbasement, she grumbled inwardly, but when she entered her room, she noticed a patio outside, complete with an arbor, flowering vines, and a large fountain, all artfully notched into what was clearly a steeply sloping site.
After plopping down in a chair beneath the arbor, she had wolfed the chips, washing them down with two glasses of wine. Then she tumbled into bed and slept dreamlessly.
Seeing the light spilling around the curtains now, she checked her watch and was astonished to discover that she had slept for nearly ten hours.
She dressed and raced upstairs, arriving just as her host—Gerhardt?—was gathering up the remnants of the breakfast buffet. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I just woke up. Am I too late to eat?”
She detected a flicker of annoyance in his eyes, but he shrugged. “No, it’s okay.” He set down the granola and yogurt, and O’Malley snagged the one clean bowl that remained.
“Thank you,” she said. “I don’t suppose a package has arrived for me yet? I’m expecting one today by air express.”
“No, it’s too early for that. It will come late this afternoon—if the weather doesn’t turn bad.”
She was disappointed by this news. Her hands were tied until the shipment of instruments arrived: three portable seismometers, powered by batteries and equipped with a satellite data uplink. The gear had been ordered by Charles Boyd, the British geologist, who—after his initial skepticism and curt hang-up—had completely changed his tone. When he’d called her back, to say that she was absolutely right about the faked GSN data, he’d promised to help in any way he could. She had asked him—begged him—to travel to La Palma and set up the seismometers himself, but Boyd was recovering from an appendectomy and wouldn’t be able to travel for weeks. So, instead, he’d arranged to overnight the seismometers to her, along with instructions for positioning them at three distant points on the island, to optimize their ability to triangulate any seismic activity, natural or man-made.
Disappointed to learn that she couldn’t spend the day unpacking the instruments and familiarizing herself with them, O’Malley decided that the best use of her time would be to procure the batteries she needed—three large 12-volt batteries, the kind used in cars. She rose from the table and spotted whatshisname—Werner?—behind the counter, feeding a document into a copier. “Excuse me,” she said. “I’m wondering if you can tell me where to buy something.”
“Yes? What do you need to buy?”
“A car battery.”
His brows furrowed. “You rented a car at the airport, yes? From Cicar?”
“Yes.”
“Just call them. They will come fix it for you.”
O’Malley smiled sheepishly. “It’s not for the rental car. I need to buy a battery—actually, I need to buy three batteries for . . . something else.” He looked puzzled and possibly suspicious. “I’m a scientist. I need them to power some instruments for an experiment.”
“What kind of experiment?”
“I’m an astronomer,” she said. Technically, it was a true statement, but it looked like a lie, walked like a lie, and quacked like a lie. Still, he seemed to accept it.
“Let me make a few calls,” he said. He reached under the counter and took out a phone directory, then flipped to the back. After perusing the listings, he picked up the phone and dialed a call, then began speaking in rapid, German-accented Spanish. He listened, replied, listened again, then grunted. “Un momento,” he said into the phone, then covered the mouthpiece with his hand and caught O’Malley’s gaze. “He says they can have them here on Wednesday.”
“Wednesday?”
He nodded.
“That’s the day after tomorrow!”
“They have to make a special order.”
“But I need them tod
ay,” she said. “Tomorrow at the latest.”
He shrugged: not possible.
“Ask him if there’s any place else I can get them faster.”
He frowned, but he relayed the request. A lengthy discussion ensued. Finally, he covered the mouthpiece again. “He says any place you go will have to order, same as him, if you want new batteries.”
O’Malley frowned.
“But if used batteries are okay, he knows a place. A recycling place.”
“Recycling?”
He shrugged. “A junkyard.”
The junkyard, Reciclajes Pérez, was a few miles north of the city, perched atop the junction of a steep ravine and an even steeper sea cliff. The view seemed more suited to a five-star hotel than a chop shop.
The owner, Señor Pérez, met her in the office. He assured her that he had three batteries in excellent condition. “These cars were almost new when they wrecked,” he said. “The batteries are primo.”
He led her out of the building—a prefabricated warehouse–looking structure where curious workers wielding wrenches and cutting torches paused to stared at her—and toward the back of the salvage yard, where a dozen or so mangled cars waited to be dismantled. He pointed at three vehicles in quick succession, then led her to the first one. The battery was in plain view, the car lacking a hood; either the wreck had ripped it off or the part had already been sold. He nodded at the battery. “Is good,” he said. He reached into a large pocket of his cargo pants and took out a small instrument, which O’Malley recognized as an old-fashioned analog voltage meter. Setting the dial to “12V,” he pressed the metal tip of a red wire to one of the battery’s terminal posts—the one marked “+”—and the tip of a black wire to the “−” post. A needle on the meter jumped wildly, then steadied a hair above the “12.”
O’Malley flashed him a thumbs-up. “Great. I’ll take it.”
The second car had been T-boned, its right side pushed two feet in. O’Malley hoped no one had been riding in the passenger seat at the time, but she resisted the urge to look for blood. The hood was still attached, crumpled along the right edge and bulging upward at the center. Pérez popped the latch and pulled upward on the front, but the side snagged. He swore softy in Spanish, then climbed onto the car, placing one foot on the front bumper and one foot on the left quarter panel, above the wheel. He squatted, gripped the hood with both hands, and yanked hard, grunting with the effort. Metal rasped and shrieked, and Pérez nearly tumbled backward when it came free. He blew out a breath, wiped his hands, and checked the voltage. This one registered slightly less than twelve volts; not perfect, but good enough, O’Malley figured. Hoped, anyhow.
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