The Swarm: A Novel

by Frank Schätzing

  But their instincts told them one thing unequivocally: the cloud was responsible for the change in the whales.

  All of this was duly recorded in the report, which vanished into a hole of impenetrable darkness. The Black Hole was what they called the emergency committee, which sucked everything in without trace. Initially the Canadian government had encouraged the scientists to work alongside them, but since the US-led allied committee had been set up, all that was required of them was the provision of information. Vancouver Aquarium, the lab in Nanaimo and even the University of British Columbia were just links in a one-way chain of knowledge. The only time the scientists ever heard anything was when the committee instructed them to submit their findings, hypotheses and frustrations as reports. Neither John Ford, Leon Anawak, Rod Palm, Sue Oliviera nor Ray Fenwick had any idea how their input was being used or whether the committee agreed with their findings. Comparing their work with that of other groups was a key element of their research, and now it was being denied them.

  ‘Things were fine,’ said Ford, ‘till Judith Li took the helm.’

  Anawak had Oliviera on the line. ‘We need to look at some more of those mussels,’ she said.

  ‘I can’t get hold of anyone from Inglewood,’ he told her. ‘They won’t talk to me, and Li’s insisting that it was all an accident, a blunder with the tow line. No one’s said anything about mussels.’

  ‘But you saw them with your own eyes! And we need another sample, plus some of that weird organic substance. Why won’t they co-operate? I thought they wanted our help.’

  ‘You could try contacting the committee directly.’

  ‘It all has to go via Ford. I don’t get it, Leon. What’s the point of an emergency committee, if this is what happens?’

  Perhaps it was the nature of crisis squads and emergency committees to work furtively, thought Anawak. When had an emergency committee ever faced the same problem twice? Its permanent members had to get to grips with terrorism, political and military crises, all of which had to be handled in confidence. But they also faced malfunctioning nuclear power stations, broken dams, forest fires, floods, earthquakes, volcanoes and famines. Did all that have to be handled in confidence? Probably not, but it usually was.

  ‘It’s not as though we don’t know what causes volcanic eruptions and earthquakes,’ said Shoemaker, when Anawak voiced his frustration. ‘Sure, you can be afraid of nature, but at least it never tries to catch you out or trip you up. Only people do that.’

  The three were having breakfast on Leon’s boat. The sun peeked out between the white clouds overhead and it was pleasantly mild, but no one was in the mood to appreciate it. Delaware was the only one with any appetite and she was demolishing a plateful of scrambled egg.

  ‘Did you hear about the gas tanker?’

  ‘The one that exploded near Japan?’ Shoemaker took a sip of his coffee. ‘That’s old hat.’

  Delaware shook her head. ‘No. Another went down yesterday. Burst into flames in Bangkok harbour.’

  ‘Has anyone said why?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Maybe it was technical failure,’ said Anawak. ‘We shouldn’t read too much into it.’

  ‘You’re beginning to sound like Judith Li.’ Shoemaker slammed his mug on the table. ‘You were right, by the way. There was practically nothing in the news about the Barrier Queen. They wrote mostly about the tug.’

  Anawak wasn’t surprised. The emergency committee seemed to like to keep them guessing. Maybe that was part of the game. Find your own answers. Well, he was on the case already. Straight after the plane crash Delaware had begun to scour the net. Had whales gone on the offensive anywhere else? As the taayii Hawi’lh had said: Maybe the whales aren’t the problem, Leon. They might be just part of the problem - the only part we can see.

  George Frank had hit the nail on the head, but Anawak didn’t feel any the wiser for it when he saw the results of Delaware’s foray. She’d browsed websites from South America, Germany, Scandinavia, France, Australia and Japan. Elsewhere the problem was jellyfish, not whales.

  ‘Jellyfish?’ Shoemaker burst out laughing. ‘What are they doing? Flinging themselves at boats?’

  At first Anawak hadn’t seen the connection either, but maybe aggressive whales and plagues of toxic stingers had something in common that wasn’t readily apparent - two symptoms of an underlying problem. Delaware had found a statement by a Costa Rican scientist who seemed to think that the jellyfish terrorising South America weren’t Portuguese men-of-war but a similar, as yet unidentified but infinitely more toxic species.

  The problems didn’t stop there.

  ‘Around the same time that we were starting to have trouble with the whales, boats started to disappear in South America and South Africa,’ Delaware said. ‘Motorboats and cutters. All they found was the odd piece of debris. But when you put two and two together—’

  ‘You get a pack of vicious whales,’ said Shoemaker. ‘So how come we didn’t hear about it earlier?’

  ‘Well, most of the time we don’t take an interest,’ said Anawak. ‘No one’s usually bothered about what’s happening in other parts of the world.’

  ‘Either way, there’ve been far more shipping accidents than we’ve been told,’ said Delaware. ‘Collisions, explosions, freighters sinking…And there’s the epidemic in France. It started with algae lurking in the lobster, and now a pathogen’s sweeping the country. Other nations have been affected too, I think. But the more you look into it, the hazier it gets.’

  From time to time Anawak felt sure they were making fools of themselves. Of course they wouldn’t be the first to fall for America’s favourite invention, the conspiracy theory. Every fourth US citizen harboured some kind of paranoid suspicion. According to some, Clinton had worked for the Russian secret service, and plenty of people believed in UFOs. But why would a government be interested in trying to hide events that were affecting thousands of people? Especially since keeping them secret seemed impossible in the fist place.

  Shoemaker was sceptical too: ‘This isn’t Roswell, you know. There aren’t any little green men falling from the sky, or flying saucers hidden in bushes. All that conspiracy stuff - it doesn’t happen in real life. I bet if a whale attacked today, the whole world would know tomorrow. And we’d know too, if something happened elsewhere.’

  ‘OK, consider this, then,’ said Delaware. ‘Tofino has twelve hundred inhabitants and only three main streets. But people here don’t know all there is to know about each other all of the time.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘If one small town’s too big to keep track of, what does that make the planet?’

  ‘Oh, please!’

  ‘What I’m trying to say is that the government can’t always withhold news, but it can play things down. You just rein in the reporting. I bet most of what I fished out from the Internet was in the media here - we just didn’t notice.’

  Shoemaker squinted at her. ‘Right…’ he said uncertainly.

  ‘We need more information.’ said Anawak. He prodded his scrambled egg. ‘Although, strictly speaking, we’ve got it. Or Li has.’

  ‘So ask her for it,’ said Shoemaker.

  Anawak raised his eyebrows.

  ‘If there’s something you want to know, you should ask. What’s the worst that could happen? A straight refusal and a kick in the teeth.’

  Anawak fell silent. Li wouldn’t tell him anything - Ford hadn’t and he’d asked till he was blue in the face. On the other hand, Shoemaker had a point. There was a way of asking questions without anyone noticing.

  Later on, when Shoemaker had left, Delaware placed a copy of the Vancouver Sun on the table in front of him. ‘I didn’t want to show you while Tom was around,’ she said.

  Anawak glanced at the front page. It was the previous day’s edition. ‘I’ve read it.’

  ‘Cover to cover?’

  ‘No, just the important bits.’

  Delaware smiled. ‘So read the unimport
ant bits.’

  Anawak immediately spotted what she meant. It was a short article, only a few lines long. A photo was printed next to it, showing a family - father, mother, and a young boy, who was looking gratefully at the tall man next to him.

  ‘Unbelievable,’ murmured Anawak.

  ‘Say what you like,’ said Delaware, and glared at him. Today she was wearing yellow-tinted glasses with rhinestone crosses on the frames. ‘But he’s not that big an asshole.’

  Little Bill Sheckley (5), the last person to be saved from the Lady Wexham, the passenger boat that sank on 11 April, can finally smile again. Today he was able to return home with his grateful parents, after spending weeks in Victoria Hospital where he was being kept for observation. After the rescue mission Bill had suffered a dangerous case of hypothermia, which developed into full-blown pneumonia. Now fighting fit again, Bill has evidently recovered from the shock. Today his parents expressed their gratitude to his rescuers, in particular Jack ‘Greywolf’ O’Bannon, a committed conservationist from Vancouver Island, who led the rescue mission and showed touching concern for little Bill’s recovery. This young boy isn’t the only one indebted to the ‘hero of Tofino’, as O’Bannon has been called.

  Anawak folded the paper and flung it back on the table. ‘Shoemaker would have gone mad,’ he said.

  For a while neither said anything. Anawak watched the clouds moving slowly overhead and tried to feel angry, but the only people he was angry with were General Li and himself.

  In fact, mainly himself.

  ‘Why does everyone have a problem with Greywolf?’ asked Delaware.

  ‘He can’t stop causing trouble.’ Anawak ran a hand over his eyes. Even though it was first thing in the morning he already felt tired.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ Delaware said cautiously, ‘but he did pull me out of the water, just as I was thinking I was done for. I went looking for him two days ago. I found him sitting at the bar in a pub in Ucluelet, so I went up and thanked him.’

  ‘And?’ said Anawak wearily.

  ‘He was surprised.’

  Anawak looked at her.

  ‘He wasn’t expecting to be thanked. He was pleased. Then he asked how you were.’

  ‘Me?’

  She crossed her arms and leaned forward on the table. ‘I don’t think he’s got many friends.’

  ‘He needs to ask himself why.’

  ‘And I think he’s fond of you.’

  ‘Come off it, Licia.’

  ‘Tell me something about him.’

  What was the point? thought Anawak. Why can’t we talk about something more pleasant?

  He thought for a moment. Nothing occurred to him.

  ‘We used to be friends,’ he said curtly.

  He waited for Delaware to leap up in the air, yelling, ‘I knew it!’ Instead, she just nodded.

  ‘His name is Jack O’Bannon and he comes from Port Townsend in Washington State. His father’s an Irishman who married a half-Indian, from the Suquamish, I think. In the States Jack tried all kinds of jobs - he was a bouncer, a graphic designer, a bodyguard and finally a diver with the US Navy SEALs. That’s when he found his calling - dolphin-handling. He was good at it, until they diagnosed his heart defect. Nothing serious, but they’re a tough lot, the SEALs. Jack did well there - he’s got more distinctions than you can count - but it was the end of his time in the navy.’

  ‘How did he wind up here?’

  ‘He always had a soft spot for Canada. At first he tried his luck in Vancouver’s film business. He thought that with his build and looks he might become an actor, but he didn’t have any talent. And things have never worked out for him because he can’t keep his cool. He once put a guy in hospital.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Delaware.

  Anawak flashed his teeth at her. ‘Sorry to tarnish your image of him.’

  ‘Never mind. What happened next?’

  Anawak poured himself some orange juice. ‘He was locked up. While he was in prison he read up on conservation and whales, and when he got out he decided that that’s what he had to do. He went to see Davie, whom he knew from a visit to Ucluelet, and asked him if he could use an extra skipper. “Be my guest,” said Davie, “just keep out of trouble.” You know, Jack can be very charming when it suits him.’

  Delaware nodded. ‘But this time he wasn’t charming.’

  ‘Oh, he was fine for a while. We had a sudden rush of female tourists. Everything was perfect - until he punched a guy.’

  ‘A passenger?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Oh, Jeez.’

  ‘Yeah. Davie wanted to fire him, but I begged for him to have another chance. But three weeks later he pulled the same trick again. So Davie had to fire him. Wouldn’t you have done the same?’

  ‘I’d have thrown him out the first time,’ said Delaware, softly.

  ‘Well, at least you know how to look after yourself,’ Anawak said cuttingly. ‘Anyway, if you stick up for someone and that’s how they thank you, sooner or later your patience runs out.’

  He gulped his orange juice, choked and coughed. Delaware reached over and thumped him on the back.

  ‘Then he totally lost it,’ he wheezed. ‘Jack’s other little problem is that he doesn’t know what’s real. At some point during his frustration the Spirit of Manitou came upon him and told him; “From now on, let your name be Greywolf, protector of the whales, defender of all living things. Go forth and fight for them.” Well, obviously he was mad with us, so he convinced himself that he had to fight against us. On top of everything else he still thinks I’m on the wrong side and I just haven’t noticed.’ Anawak was seething with rage now. ‘He doesn’t know anything about conservation or the Indians. They think he’s hysterical - except the ones whose lives are washed up too: kids with nothing to do, guys who can’t be bothered to work, drunks, people looking for trouble…They think he’s great, and so do the grey-haired hippies and surfers who want to get rid of the tourists so they can laze around in peace. He attracts the scum of both cultures - anarchists, losers, dropouts, militants, extremists chucked out by Greenpeace for sullying its name, Indians whose clans have disowned them and crooks. Most of them don’t give a shit about the whales. They just want to run riot. But Jack doesn’t see any of that, and seriously believes that the Seaguards are an environmental pressure group. He even finances them. He earns the money as a lumberjack and a bear guide, and lives in a hovel not fit for a dog. He’s such a screw-up. How does someone like him wind up as such a goddamn failure?’ He paused for breath.

  A seagull was shrieking in the sky above them.

  Delaware spread a slice of bread with butter, dribbled some jam on the top and took a bite. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘I can tell you still like him.’

  The name Ucluelet came from the Nootka, meaning ‘safe harbour’. Like Tofino, the picturesque town was situated in a natural harbour and had grown from a fishing village into a favourite spot for whale-watchers.

  Greywolf lived in one of the less presentable parts of town. If you turned off the main road and ventured a few hundred metres down a root-ridden track just wide enough for a car, the centuries-old forest opened into a clearing with a shack in the middle. No one was more aware of its lack of comfort than its sole inhabitant. When the weather was good - and Greywolf’s definition of bad weather came somewhere between a tornado and the end of the world - he spent his time outside, wandering through the forest, taking tourists to see the black bears and doing odd jobs. The probability of finding him at home was practically nil, even at night. He either slept in the open or in the bed of an adventure-hungry tourist, who never doubted for a second that she’d bagged herself a noble savage.

  It was early afternoon when Anawak got to Ucluelet. He’d made up his mind to drive with Shoemaker to Nanaimo and get the ferry to Vancouver. He had his reasons for not taking the helicopter. The official reason for stopping in Ucluelet was so Shoemaker could talk business with Davie - the station was preparing to branch ou
t into land-based adventure tours - but Anawak had excused himself from the discussions. Whatever the future held, he sensed that his time on Vancouver Island was coming to an end. If he was honest with himself, there was nothing to keep him there. Now the whale-watching was over, what did he have left?

  He’d spent years trying to distract himself. OK, so he’d written his doctorate and become a respected scientist, but it was all wasted time. In the past few weeks he’d nearly died twice. Something had changed since the plane crash. He’d felt threatened on the inside, as though an enemy from the long-forgotten past had sensed his fear and was on his scent. He had one last chance to get a grip on his life. The message was clear: break the cycle.

  Anawak’s path had led him up the track strewn with tree roots and now he was standing in front of the shack, wondering what he was doing there. He took the few steps up to the shabby veranda and knocked.

  Greywolf wasn’t at home.

  He circled the shack a few times, feeling vaguely disappointed. He should have known it would be empty. His feet led him back to the door. He reached out and pushed the handle. The door swung open. Leaving it unlocked was nothing out of the ordinary here. He shivered with a memory. There were other places like that too, or at least, there used to be. Hesitantly he walked in.

  He hadn’t been here for ages, which made him all the more astonished by the sight that met his eyes. He’d always thought of Greywolf as living in dingy chaos, but although the room was plain it was cosily furnished, with Indian masks and rugs on the walls. Colourful raffia chairs surrounded a low wooden table. Indian throws adorned the sofa. Two shelves were packed with utensils and wooden rattles that the Nootka used in ceremonies and for traditional chants. He couldn’t see a television, but there were two hotplates and a sink. A narrow corridor led to a second room, Greywolf’s bedroom, as Anawak remembered.