by David Dun
The motors made an even slick hum as the boat rode over the flat obsidian smooth sea.
The Boston Whaler was like a thoroughbred whose owner had fitted it to a plow.
Mechanically, it was excellent transportation, traveling comfortably along at twenty-five knots at a little over half-throttle.
They pulled into Brown Island at Friday Harbor before daylight. There were some people that lived there year-round-the Milfords-but they were traveling in Europe.
The dock was old but serviceable. They had dressed Sarah's neck wounds and various other abrasions left courtesy of Rafe Black. Her muscles were giving her trouble left over from Frick's tight bindings, but she was tough.
They went to the back door of the Milford place, a lovely well-maintained cottage, and Sarah found the key in its place.
"Are you sure you're okay by yourself?" Haley asked.
"I'm sure," Sarah said. With big hugs they parted.
"God, I hope she's safe," Haley said as they climbed back in the Boston Whaler.
Without more words they shoved off and headed for Orcas.
They were in a hurry but had almost been killed enough times for one night so that they kept the boat at a reasonable speed. It was twilight Monday morning and using the spotlight was perhaps a little risky from the detection standpoint. They snapped it on occasionally through the tide rips, where wood collected. By the time they were well into Upright Channel, it was approaching sunrise and they could see well enough without the artificial light. As the gray morning painted the sky, they increased the speed to forty knots.
On the gunnels and the floorboards the evening dew vibrated in a soft glistening and that, together with the spray, made it a very wet place outside the fiberglass and canvas enclosure. For the Pacific Northwest's fall and winter, the boat had a hard fiberglass top.
Inside, a vigorous diesel heater blew hot air, a hypothermic's dream.
Sam could not remember when he had been so tired. As he sat in the captain's chair and sagged, Haley watched him. In three or four more hours it would be about twenty-four hours since the nightmare had begun.
"Sleep," she said, and put her hand on his arm and took the wheel.
"Why don't you sleep," he said. "I've got to end this thing before I sleep."
"Me too," she said. "Me too."
They skimmed along in silence, dislodging the occasional seabird, a gull, a marbled murrelet, and a spoonbill duck. The usual tangles of kelp, driftwood, and sea grasses floated along, like small islands, sometimes a resting place for the sandpipers. They were going too fast to see the jellyfish, but the jumping bait fish were visible as a wrinkling on the surface and occasional miniature splashes. Sam spied plumes of white mist from a pod of orcas, followed by their black humps and large dorsals as they traveled San Juan Channel, past Shaw.
Sam glanced at Haley as she smoothed her hair back the way women tend to do when they know that a certain man is watching. He could not help enjoying the look of her and the angles of her face, and the look of the eyes that even now did not completely hide some mirth and tender guile.
In the end he couldn't stand the waiting. Frick was coming in from West Sound, having decided to take Sheriff's Boat 3, when Rolf finally got more specific in his clues. He relayed them to Khan and expected at any moment to hear Khan call in from a big, lodgelike place out in the forest on a bluff overlooking the water. Just as he was growing impatient, the call came through.
"It's right on President Channel."
Frick listened as Khan described what he and his men had found. "It's high up on the rocks. I'm down the road here, where the reception's better."
"What did you see?"
"The place looks like it was occupied very recently. We found a pipe burning in an ashtray. Hot coffee in a big multi-gallon dispenser. Suitcases in the rooms, shaving gear and toiletries out. It looks like they all just ran out of the house, but where-I don't know. They don't seem to be hiding in the bushes."
"Tell your guys to tear the place apart," Frick said.
"Give me credit," Khan replied. "I already did. They'll call me the minute they find something. Just so you know, the sign outside is for an Astrology Research Center. A local told us that several different astrology groups come here regularly. In theory, we could be breaking in on a bunch of zodiac buffs."
"Suddenly disappearing astrology buffs. That sound likely to you?"
"I hear you."
"Look, Khan, we're way too far gone to worry about who gets hurt. Keep all your men inside, unless they find something to chase outside. First sign of anything, call me and I'm there."
If anything went wrong, he didn't want to be there. The feebies had been asking a lot of questions of dispatch; it was hard enough just dodging them.
"You said we would leave by seven-thirty; that was half an hour ago," Rachael told the people around the table.
Lew put his hand on hers, obviously trying to calm her and keep her cooperating with the authorities. It was very Republican of him; she would have to explain the virtues of rebellion as the Founding Fathers understood it.
"We are going to leave in just a few minutes," good old Melrose said for the benefit of the FBI and Homeland Security people around the table.
"First we want your personal assessment of Ben Anderson," the Special Agent in Charge, a woman who had told Rachael to call her Gayle, asked Rachael. "Is he honorable? Does he have a plan? Is he stable?"
The dozen-plus other people listened with very serious faces. Gayle Killingsworth was the Special Agent in Charge of the downtown Seattle field office. Apparently she was married to a federal judge, if the banter at the coffee urn was to be believed. It disgusted Rachael that on this morning there was a coffee urn and that there was banter. People could be dying.
"I've answered all of these questions" was Rachael's response.
"But we keep learning things every time you explain," Gayle said with a Good Morning America smile.
"I have been at parties and social gatherings with Ben Anderson probably more than twenty times. I have dined with him more than a dozen times…," she started again.
After five more minutes of how she knew what she knew, and questions about Haley and her near lifelong relationship with Haley-and her utter conviction that Haley had stolen nothing, Rachael slammed her hand on the table without warning.
Lew winced; she regretted his discomfort. Dating him after this was going to be difficult.
"I cannot sit here and answer the same questions while the lives of my friends are at stake," she said.
Gayle leaned forward and brushed back her short, well-coiffed hair.
"As we speak, we have agents moving into the area. We are on the phones. We have not located Garth Frick or the men you describe. It will do us no good to start flying around the San Juans."
"Actually, it might. I know the islands. Your people know nothing." Rachael's voice was intense, and Lew winced again. "Now let's get off our butts and talk while we travel."
Gayle sat back. "Get me Agent Willinsky."
A young male agent nodded and dialed a phone.
"How are we doing?" she asked when the phone was handed to her. "I don't understand why it isn't a simple matter of asking the dispatcher." There was another pause. "If the dispatcher refers us to Frick and says they're moving about, I want to talk with Officer Frick then. I want to know where they are so that we can render assistance." Another long pause. "Insist that you speak with him. Do you understand?" She hung up, disgusted, but tried to show a more hopeful demeanor. "I've changed my mind. We go now. I don't like what I'm hearing. At Port Angeles we can use a coast guard helicopter.
From the reports Lopez is the latest hot spot. We'll go there. It's civil rights and potential terrorist activity." She trained her eyes on Rachael. "Satisfied?"
"Thank you so much," Rachael said, Lew's hand death-gripped in her own.
At last they were leaving; now maybe they could do some good.
CHAPTER
38
Sam and Haley came ashore at Deer Harbor, on an expansive modern dock attached to a substantial pier. It was nearly as close to Lime Quarry Road as the town of West Sound, but less traveled and less populated. Sarah's best memory had been that the mystery structure was on an unmarked access road, near Lime Stone Quarry, that rounded Turtle Mountain on a lower shoulder. Once they landed, they had no vehicle and there were none for rent this time of year, except at Rosario Resort, which was some distance away and risked alerting Flick's people.
Modern condos stood around the harbor proper; real estate here came at a premium. It was overcast and felt like temperatures were in the high forties, and Sam could feel the drizzle coming on. Even in the gray, the greens still managed to be vivid. The feathery tree needles had a translucence to them that lightened their color and made them seem more ethereal and at home in the ghostlike shrouds of floating mist that were not all that common even in winter. The lower foliage glistened with moisture like a well-tended grocer's aisle.
With Sam in the lead, they hurried past more than one set of prying eyes and hoped that none of them would be connected to Garth Frick. Once up the short hill and away from the harbor, they faded into the forest-covered hills and avoided the neighborhoods. The landscape was spacious and unencumbered with the trappings of high-density living; in the fall and winter quiet patches of morning fog hanging in the trees swallowed the sound before it could find a listening ear.
The invigorating chill made walking easy and gave an escape from sleepy lethargy.
With the daylight it was not difficult traveling in the mostly open forest. Finally they crossed Saw Mill Road, then Lime Quarry Road, and turned parallel to an unnamed road. They remained in the forest, keeping Turtle Mountain to their right and heading toward President Channel.
The turnoff for the private road with the signs came very close to the end of the larger private road, and a little farther along than Sarah had remembered. They crept across the larger, more traveled road and followed along the private drive that took them ever closer to the inland sea and the channel. With the trees limbed up, the forest was especially open and they would be readily visible. As Sam motioned to slow their pace, they saw the lodgelike structure some distance away. From the water's edge a thick layer of fog climbed the hillside, looking like a giant wool carpet that had been pulled over the edge of the island.
Closer to the bluff, the cedar structure looked imposing. Sam estimated that it covered at least five thousand square feet on the footprint alone. It was two stories high, and the side closest the access drive appeared much more open because of the large parking area, circular drive, and covered entry.
Evidently the building site had been carved right out of the hillside and the forest, and a portion of the back side of the structure fell within fifty feet of the forest edge. As they got a better view of the high, rocky bluff, Sam guessed that the building stood some 150 feet above the water.
A closer glimpse revealed their worst fears. There were a number of cars, four of them deputy sheriffs' vehicles, parked in the large circular drive. A sign said ARC Foundation and in smaller letters beneath: Astrology Research Center.
Sam chuckled, knowing that someone must have thought long and hard to disguise Arc as an acronym rather than an abbreviation.
"What do we do now?" Haley said.
Sam's cell phone beeped and he answered.
"Hey," shouted one of the most irreverent and welcome voices Sam knew. "How goes it in the island paradise?"
"It's a little tough at the moment, Grogg."
"Ernie tells me you're back doing a job when you're supposed to be chasing babes or fishing or something."
"That seems to be what I'm doing, although there is a babe here." That got a sidelong glance from Haley.
"I opened one of the files," Grogg said. "One's a bitch and I haven't been able to open it yet, even with all the horsepower of the Brain and all her links. But I'll tell you what I did open."
"Let's hear it."
"According to this document, Ben Anderson is giving the magic antiaging stuff to a bunch of people. I could read you certain portions of the introduction to this report and you'd get the idea."
"Go ahead."
Sam motioned for Haley to hunker down with him; she brought her ear close enough to the phone to hear what Grogg said.
"Okay," Grogg began, "it starts with a bunch of letters to the government. They all address at least three different parties: Homeland Security, the FBI, and Health and Human Resources. A few are copied to NOAA. Anderson lays out a program called ARCLES, and then he refers to certain meetings they've had and conference calls… okay… and then he says that he'll deliver the information-ARCLES, the secrets of the Archaea-that the government wants if the government agrees to do certain things in certain different, um, arenas. Anderson wants promises, commitments, even legislation.
Oh, and funding. It goes on for pages-antiaging, undersea mining, climate programs, energy programs, protection from terrorism and natural disasters. Not surprisingly, it costs a hell of a lot of money. He wants the government to spend megabillions."
"Is there a government response?" Sam asked.
"Lots of them. But I don't see anywhere that the government says they'll do what he wants. I just went to the most recent correspondence and they aren't saying they'll comply. And he says that he won't cooperate until they reach an agreement on every item."
"The disasters? They involve methane?"
"Yeah. But the climate-change thing seems to be Anderson's main focus."
"And the mining is for methane?"
"Yeah."
"And what about the aging treatment?" asked Sam.
"There's a ton on that," said Grogg. "Here, let me read you something.
"The government must commit to a set of immutable principles regarding allocation of the
Arc regimen for aging before impaneling any commission. The goal of the commission would be to develop regulations based on the principles, and to interpret the principles in regard to particular situations, and to make specific allocation decisions. Scientific achievement and contributions to humanity are to be the seminal principles controlling allocation.
Wealth can neither be an allocation criterion nor a disqualifier."
Grogg snorted. "No wonder the government's not game." Then he went on reading:
"The second prerequisite for the release of all information is that the government agree to comply with the manifesto. There must be an honest, binding commitment and a commensurate dedicated budget to the following three endeavors: (1) implementing serious experimental methane recovery from the deep ocean and coal deposits and alternative-energy development with a plan to make the United States foreign-petroleum independent within two decades; (2) an honest evaluation of the risks of methane escapement either through natural means or terrorist acts and a commensurate public education program which we see as crucial to mustering the national will; and (3) research into controlling greenhouse gases by farming the ocean for plankton and related research into long-term climate control."
"God," Sam said. "Ben has been busy."
Haley just shook her head, still stunned at how little Ben had shared with her.
"Okay," Grogg resumed, "that's the last of what Ben says to the government." He then launched into the government reply:
"It is premature to set forth principles of allocation regarding your Arc regimen. Before anything is done, appropriate, FDA-monitored trials must be conducted first with animals, then with people. After trials the next step must be to undertake a study, incorporating the research trials, that can be provided to appropriate committees of the Congress so that they may formulate legislation, if appropriate.
"Obviously the government cannot authorize the immediate use of the Arc regimen on human subjects. Please know that any such subjects will run the risk of an interruption in the treatments.
"Though the government can make no assurances, the FDA would
be likely to expedite your application for experimental trials, providing you agree to a full and open disclosure of the science involved.
"As to the other matters, you will need to submit your impressive body of theoretical work for peer review; once that is complete, your suggestions regarding methane mining, energy policy, safety, and climate control can be presented to the legislature.
"Then the government drones on about constitutional democracies, the rule of law, and the like," Grogg said. "I'll take some time with this stuff and try to figure out what's really going on."
"Do that. In the meantime we'll try not to get shot."
"Please be careful," Grogg said in a moment of utter sobriety.
In his gut Sam dreaded the situation in the lodge. Frick had beaten him to the building, which, in all likelihood, housed the majority of Ben Anderson's secrets, if not Ben Anderson himself.
"I can't believe that all this was going on and I never knew it. I just don't get why he wouldn't tell me," Haley said. "I know I said he was trying to protect me, but this is so big… Who did he think would protect him?"
"I understand how you feel," Sam said, hoping he wouldn't sound too blunt. "Let's hope there's still time to get to Ben and talk it over with him."
"Still, though-"
Sam turned and took her gently by the shoulders. "Haley, I don't mean to dismiss your feelings, but I don't want you dead either. It would help me a great deal if you would go back a few hundred yards into the woods and sit down and not move." Before she could protest, he continued. "Call Grogg if I don't come back. He can try to call Ernie in transit."
She didn't blink. "Not a chance."
"You're going no matter what I say?"
"Absolutely. Unless you have something even more dangerous that needs doing."
Sam shook his head, wondering at this woman.
"Sam, this is my problem as much as yours."
He stood, and motioned for her to follow.
"If you don't stay right behind me," he said, "I'll tie you to a tree."
Sam picked the spot closest to the forest, which was the back of the lodge, and crept toward a window. Haley followed like she was his shadow.