The Emissary

by Patricia Cori

  As a man, he knew he was needed. And as a marine biologist, he was certain that the most profound experience of his life might very well be waiting out there, back at the Orca sanctuary, where he just knew—in his gut—that Jimbo was heading. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” he said.

  Jimbo, a man who always had a story, or a joke, or some words of wisdom to share, found himself struggling to find the words. He was deeply moved, knowing what they might be facing ahead. He took time, reflecting, before he spoke. “I have had cause to question people in my life,” he said. “People have come and gone—good people, bad people. People have pulled the wool over on me. People have let me down. Just like everybody else. I don’t hold nothin’ against nobody—people do what they gotta do. But you’re here. I don’t know quite what to say. In the old days, they called this kind of dedication ‘valor.’ I’m grateful to you. And I know you trust me. You have my word: I won’t let anything happen to you. I won’t let you down.” He started to get choked up. As exhausted as he was, he felt like he could break down and cry, but that was not going to happen, especially not in that moment. “Now let’s get this Lady out of this raging sea, and take her to the dawn.”

  They thought he was talking about the ship herself, but it was Jamie he was delivering to the light.

  17

  Tsunami!

  The unmistakable sound of his master’s footsteps coming down the hall sent Fin into ecstasy. He thought he’d lost both of them: first Jamie disappeared, without goodbyes, and then Jimbo abandoned him. That is all he could understand. Alberto shut him out in the mess hall when Jamie lay waiting to be taken away, and then Bobby locked him up on the bridge when Jimbo left the ship without him. Since the time he was a pup and wandered aboard, that had never happened. Where Jimbo went, he went. Usually that was only as far as the Crow’s Nest, where he would wait, outside the bar, until Jimbo was ready to come home—back to the ship, or over to Lorna’s place, where he sometimes spent the night.

  “Hey, boy, they locked you up all alone up here?” Jimbo roughed him up a bit, playfully, and they celebrated the bond between them, each in his own way, reconnecting. Fin wanted to climb all over him, he kept jumping up and licking Jimbo’s face, but the captain had a ship to sail, and the urgency to get out of harm’s way as fast as he could take her out. He got out of his chair and walked with Fin to his bed, where Jimbo stood over him, commanding him to lie down and be still. He knew when Jimbo meant “stay!” and he curled up, knowing this was one of those times, and stayed still—never taking his eyes off his master.

  Jimbo went back to his chair, making preparations to start up the engines, running cross-checks with Bobby and with Mike, down in the engine room. “This is the last time we’ll be listening to the news, for a while, Bobby—let’s see what we can find out.”

  Bobby tuned in the radio. By now, every station was talking about the weather and the great California quake: the long-dreaded “big one” that had finally toppled San Francisco. They got the local weather-channel report just as it was providing an up-to-the-minute situation report.

  The announcer’s voice was grave, as he read the staggering news.

  A tsunami warning is in effect for the next two hours for the entire West Coast of North America, including the coastal areas of British Columbia and Alaska, from Vancouver Island to Cape Decision, Alaska, due to a severe underwater quake five miles out of San Francisco. Preliminary readings indicate this has been a magnitude 9.3 on the Richter scale, hitting just west of San Francisco Bay. Tsunami with significant widespread flooding is expected. Warnings are particularly alarming due to co-existing storm conditions in British Columbia, with flooding in coastal areas. Exceptionally hard-hit: Vancouver Island. Major cities and populated areas along the California coast have already been inundated, warnings for the entire Northwest Coast now in full alarm. Widespread, dangerous coastal flooding, accompanied by powerful currents, is anticipated and may continue for several hours after the initial wave hits. Residents are warned to evacuate the coastal areas and move to higher ground. This is a public emergency broadcast.

  Jimbo told Bobby to turn off the radio. “We’re moving out.”

  In sickbay, Doc prepared for a rough ride out of harbor, locking down everything breakable. He strapped Jamie to the bed—all she needed now was a bad fall to finish her off—and he removed the drip, which he knew would only end up crashing to the floor. Everyone took the necessary precautions at their own stations. The Deepwater’s engines began to rumble as the captain backed out of her berth in the harbor, with nothing to guide him out—no radar, no tracking devices, no radio.

  He was defying so many rules and regulations that any number of authorities would easily have had cause to arrest him, but no one was anywhere around to watch him sneak out of harbor. He was well aware of what could happen in the morning, once they discovered that Jamie had been busted out of the facility, but for now no one, not even Mat, could possibly have imagined that Jimbo was crazy enough to take the ship out in such a dramatic storm.

  Deftly, Jimbo navigated out of the harbor, squeezing the ship out, past the pier, where smaller boats in the harbor rocked furiously in their moorings, crashing into each other and smashing up against the dock. He knew they wouldn’t survive the storm, and he could already imagine what the devastation would look like out there, the day after.

  What little information Bobby had managed to get out of the mariners’ meteorological service indicated that the wind was not that violent, and that wave swells were high, but still manageable for a ship the size of The Deepwater. The storm hugged the coastline, and Jimbo was right—it wasn’t as bad farther out. If they could just get through the tide rip, and the current, and move out quickly, they’d be far safer than all the ships in port. If a tsunami were going to hit the coast, the yachts and fishing boats in Vancouver harbor would be torn apart and strewn about the city before the wave was done with them. The best chance for The Deepwater was, indeed, to outrun it.

  With nothing but his wits and the experience of a lifetime on the sea to guide him, Jimbo drove the ship out of harbor, feeling the full breadth of the tides and currents as The Deepwater pushed through the tide rip, rushing through the channel. He steered boldly into the open waters of the mighty Pacific, facing the waves head-on, always holding the bow perpendicular to the waves. The biggest threat to the ship was getting caught broadside—every captain’s nightmare. As long as he could hold that forward momentum, and not get caught broadside to a big wave, he was sure he could make it out without incident.

  Of concern was the North Pacific Current, which runs into Vancouver Island as it hits up against the continent. It is considered a “transition zone” for ocean currents, and that is no fun for sailors, who have to contend with its unpredictability—and the sheer moods of the Pacific Ocean, which are anything but “pacific” in that part of the world. Without all his navigational equipment to rely on, all Jimbo knew for sure was what he had to go on when they had sailed back in, earlier that evening. Not that it mattered much now. The ocean was alive, constantly changing—always throwing new challenges at those who dared to challenge her. She could lull you to sleep in her gentle waves, or thrust you into your worst nightmare, in an instant.

  Jimbo was running on pure instinct and adrenaline. He was well aware that, in the end, no matter how fine a ship you’re sailing—no matter how sleek … how powerful … how sophisticated—it all comes down to that one split-second moment, when your life is in the balance, and how you react behind the wheel. When the sea is ready to spit you up and turn you upside down, bashing you up in her high swells and drowning you in those deep troughs, what matters most is how well a captain commands his vessel, yes, but most of all, how he respects the sea.

  And he did. Heart and soul.

  In the pitch-blackness of that starless night, with only printed navigational charts to guide him, Jimbo pushed the ship, expertly, through the stormy waters, taking the great waves straigh
t on—never losing direction, never really risking rolling the ship over. Within an hour of their escape from the harbor, the skies began to clear and the rain stopped. Jimbo’s gamble had paid off—they were moving away from the storm and would soon be out of the high-risk zone of the impending tsunami. The farther they headed away from the land, the easier the ocean rode.

  Fortunately for Jamie, she was still out cold from the medication, so she managed to miss the very worst of it. No saltines and beer would have put her back together after a ride like they’d just been through, and they were still far from the calm. Some color had returned to her cheeks, thanks to the heat in the room, and Doc was just holding his breath that she would wait to return to full consciousness until they were out of the tempest. With what Jamie had been through, he couldn’t see how she could survive being thrown around on a raging ship, laced out on so many medications—and god knows what danger still lurked inside the soft folds of her brain.

  Back on land, torrential rains flooded the streets around ports and the harbor with more than a foot of dirty water, filled with garbage and debris, and the sewers were backing up, flooded out below. Parked cars started to slide out freely into the rivers of water washing through the streets, unable to hold ground. Ground-floor shops and offices were inundated, and the electricity was out in several districts of the city. And foolish or simply distracted people, who had neither heeded the warnings nor paid attention to what was happening around them, were trapped in their houses, sitting ducks for the imminent catastrophe that was about to slam into their imperiled lives.

  Thanks to her lover, Lorna made it to safety just in time. The taxi drove her to a decent motel up in the mountains, a place to wait out the storm for a few days. When she went to pay the driver, she found a thousand dollars in one-hundred-dollar bills stashed in her wallet. Jimbo. He never let her down. With nothing but a grocery bag of clean clothes and a few framed memories, she checked in and got a room with a view over the ocean—but all she could see was darkness.

  She hung her clothes over the dinette chairs, pushing them up close to the heater to dry, and then jumped into a boiling hot shower. Tired and lonely, afraid of what would come, she slipped into bed and turned on the TV, but the satellite connection was out. She looked for something to read: all she could find in the room was a tourist magazine: What’s On in Vancouver. With nothing to read and no television to distract her, she turned off the lights and waited for sleep to come, knowing it was anyone’s guess what she’d be looking down upon when morning came.

  All at once, the sea level at the piers and harbor fronts dropped more than three feet, the tide retreating out, far into the ocean. Within seconds, the sea level dropped again, bringing the boats and ships anchored out in the harbor crashing up against each other, bashing up violently against the pier. Some broke their moorings and went spinning out in the tide, flung out into the ocean like buoys, but with no rope to tether them home.

  As the tide receded out into the deep, stretches of the seafloor around the island’s beaches revealed old tires, kitchen sinks, and all manner of human debris … everywhere. A great booming sound rumbled, dark and menacing, from the sea, while thunderous explosions from the raging storm echoed nature’s fury as they swept over the land.

  And then it came.

  Rising monstrous from the ocean, a gigantic wall of water slammed unmercifully into Vancouver Island. Almost two thousand feet high, it devoured the waterfront, crushing the harbor in an instant, carrying away everything man had dared place at the very gates of nature’s force with so little regard for the unpredictability of the ocean. The pier that Jimbo had escaped was now nothing but a river of sticks; nothing of the structure remained. The Crow’s Nest exploded from the force of the wave—gone in an instant. The entire waterfront and the earth beneath it crumbled and broke apart in seconds, leaving nothing behind.

  The Psychiatric Facility was completely gone.

  The immense mountain of water washed over the entire city, sparing nothing in its path, and then it moved farther inland, topping the trees at higher ground. Had Lorna not left when she had, she would never have lived through it, but from her room at the Blue River Inn, she heard the booming sound of the tsunami before it came in, and realized that the world she knew had disappeared forever into the darkness of the deep. She prayed to god that Jimbo was on the ship, way out far enough from the coast to have escaped the tsunami—and that he would make it back to help her pick up the pieces, and to love her again.

  Down at the main harbor, whatever remained of Vancouver’s chic tourist district was completely submerged, including the world-famous aquarium, which housed countless sea creatures. Several Orcas, beluga whales, and dolphins had been kidnapped from those very waters, stolen from their pods, and held imprisoned in those cold cement tanks for so long they had all but forgotten the call of the wild.

  How remarkable it must have been for them to find themselves instantly submerged in open-ocean water, the walls of their holding tanks buried beneath the waves—free to simply swim over them and back out to sea. It was the world they never hoped or dreamed to see again. Rising with the force of the wave, they rode it back out, letting themselves be carried along with countless other sea creatures, all of them freed by the great mother, Earth, the miracle that had come to return them to the open ocean.

  Swept up in the fierce power of the wave, after having been held for so long in containment, they were at first disoriented and terrified, but then they heard the calls. They remembered their own music, songs that had gone forgotten long ago. Guided in streams of ancestral song, the Orcas and dolphins swam away from their human captors, through the turbid waters, and back to join their families, singing once again.

  They could hear the cries, the call to action. And through the music, they remembered what they had come to Earth to do.

  They headed straight in the direction of the sanctuary.

  This same scene had happened at different locations earlier—up and down the coast, where great urban areas had been submerged in the initial wave, and other waves that were still washing their way inland. Wave after wave, the shores were inundated, from San Francisco all the way up the West Coast. All the marine-mammal holding tanks and aquariums along the California coast, Washington, and Oregon were submerged, and the whales and dolphins, and countless other creatures of the sea, were free to go.

  They could hear again. They were free. And they were headed home.

  18

  The Triple Cross

  Jamie’s mother appeared at the head of the bed, hovering there, like an angel. She was so much younger than Jamie remembered, and never more beautiful. She was showing Jamie a place: was it a palace? A temple? She couldn’t tell, so bright was the light that shone around it. She held her mother’s hand for the longest time, but she knew the time had come to let go.

  “Don’t be afraid, Buddha baby. I’ll always be here for you, whenever you call. You know where to find me. Wake up, precious, you have work to do.”

  While Doc had his back to her, checking for damage in the supply cabinet, Jamie’s eyes opened at last. “Mama?”

  He turned to her, startled to hear her voice.

  “My mom’s dead,” she said, blankly, looking up at the ceiling.

  “Take it easy, Jamie. You’re coming out of sedation, that’s all.”

  “She’s passed over.”

  Doc held her hand. “Easy does it, Jamie.”

  “How did I get back here?”

  “Jimbo brought you back. We haven’t had the possibility to talk yet. We’ve just been in a race to get out of the harbor.”

  “It’s sweltering in here!” Jamie’s mind was overloaded, jumping from one realm to another, wading through the brain fog from more medication than she’d taken in her entire lifetime. She was trying to take everything in, piece by piece, struggling to remember what happened after the accident. She had only a vague recollection of being in the hospital … she remembered Liz was wi
th her. Other than that, she had no memory of it, from the time she cracked her head until now. All she knew was that darkness had enveloped her there, and now she was free of it, back in the light. She looked around, feasting on the familiar sight of the ship, aware enough to know that, somehow, she’d been rescued. The shadows had lifted.

  “Why have you got me tied down?” she asked.

  “I had to keep you from falling. We’ve been rocking and rolling out here. Let me free up your arms.” He lowered the blankets and then removed the protective band from around Jamie’s chest, but kept the one that crossed over her lower body still bound. She had to come out slowly—and safely.

  She tried to sit up, but could not. “I’m so glad to see you, Doc. Surprised, but glad.”

  He patted her on the back of the hand. “I wish it was in a little better circumstances, but thank god you made it back, milady.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “What hasn’t happened?” The ship rocked so hard Doc was having a hard time holding his footing. “I’m missing a lot of pieces, just like you. We wait for Jimbo—he’ll be able to tell us that whole story once he’s gotten us out of trouble out here.”

  “What trouble?”

  “The ‘big one’ finally hit San Francisco—in the ocean, off the bay. Last I heard it was a 9.3-magnitude earthquake.”

  Jamie was incredulous. “My mother lives in the Marina.”

  Doc looked grave. “We don’t have any radio for the time being, but there was a tsunami warning all the way up to Alaska. Jimbo got you and brought you back here. He’s running the ship out far enough to outrun a tsunami, if it hits, like they think it’s going to.”