Eye of the Whale (15 page)

Gates got up to leave.

“And don’t forget the Chinese investors. They will be at the Rio Vista plant at four o’clock.”

“We’ve got the executive committee meeting until three. Can’t someone else take them around?”

“I don’t trust anyone else with this one. We need their money, and we need it in this quarter. You know that plant better than anyone.” Heizer smiled. “You can take my helicopter.”

For a moment Gates forgot the pressures he was under. He walked over to the window where his boss was pointing and saw a shiny royal blue helicopter perched on a white rooftop helipad.

“I thought the neighbors had gotten the heliport closed.”

“We were able to work with our friends in the city to overcome their concerns. Have a good ride.”

G
ATES FELT
the smooth, black leather of his seat. Beside him was a little tray with snacks, water, and orange juice. The soundproofed walls kept out most of the noise, so all Gates could hear was the light fluttering of the rotor outside.

When the helicopter took off, he felt his stomach drop and tried hard to stop himself from giggling. He felt like a dumb kid again, but the ride was more fun than anything he could remember. Out the window he saw the fan of gray streets and gray rooftops. Ahead he could see a patch of green around Coit Tower, the prison island of Alcatraz floating off in the bay, and behind it the brown-green hills that surrounded the Bay Area. Out to the left, he could even see the Golden Gate Bridge. When the helicopter pulled over the aquamarine water of the bay, he sighed and started to relax.

Before long the helicopter was flying over his old neighborhood of North Richmond, where the small urban houses and apartment buildings were packed tightly together. He remembered, as a kid, hearing the sounds of drive-bys and gang shoot-outs, and was grateful that his daughter would have a different life. He looked at his black titanium watch, its face smiling success at him. It was only 3:10; perhaps there was time for a quick flyover.

He opened the window to the cockpit. “How far out of our way is Blackhawk? I just bought a house there.”

“No time at all. There’s not much traffic up here,” the pilot said, accustomed to accommodating any requests his executive passengers made. Gates gave the pilot his address to put into the GPS, and the helicopter started to bank to the right. Below, Gates could see where the blue-green water of the bay turned into the muddy brown water of the delta formed by the drainage of the Sacramento and other rivers.

As they headed southeast, they flew over large unpopulated tracts
of land just outside the Bay Area. The brown hills looked almost like the back of a living animal. He wished he could show his wife and daughter how beautiful it was.

Then they were back over civilization, the cul-de-sac suburban developments of Martinez and Walnut Creek, where the houses seemed so crammed together. He was pleased that he could afford something better. They were approaching Blackhawk, and he could see the golf course surrounding the homes like a large interconnected lawn.

“There it is,” the pilot said, pointing to one of numerous gray roofs.

Gates’s heart sank. From up here, the homes looked no different from the countless other homes they had flown over. The roofs were a little larger and the address more exclusive, but in truth, they were houses packed together by a developer who was trying to make as much money as possible.

“Thanks,” Gates said, sorry he had come. The pilot banked to the left and headed north to the chemical plant.

They flew back along the delta and up the Sacramento River. The farmland on the outskirts of Sacramento was a patchwork of green and brown fields.

He saw a crowd of people on a bridge below, and a flotilla of fishing boats. “What’s going on?” he asked, opening the window to the cockpit again.

“Haven’t you heard? A whale swam up the Sacramento.”

“You’re kidding. All the way up here?”

“Amazing, isn’t it? Just like Humphrey and those other two whales. Must be something the whales like up here.”

Gates looked for the whale in the muddy brown water. Today whales were simply curiosities, giants from another world, but at one time they had been a vital part of the global economy. Cities like San Francisco had grown up around whale fisheries and had relied on their oil to fuel industry. Gates thought of the historical plaque he
passed every day on his way into the office; it announced that the hull of a whaling ship, the
Niantic,
was buried directly beneath the skyscraper. Gates loved history and knew that the future belonged to those who understood that some things, including the thirst for vital resources, never change.

The helicopter was arriving at the chemical plant. It was strange to see it for the first time from above. It looked like a maze of pipelines, whole building-sized towers made entirely out of tubes transporting chemicals to large circular holding tanks. Several smokestacks pumped out large gray clouds. As a child, he had called the stacks from the Richmond refinery “the cloud-makers.”

After landing, Gates was introduced to the group of Chinese investors, who were all wearing yellow hard hats. He put one on his head and welcomed the group to the plant. After the translator had interpreted, they smiled and greeted one another awkwardly. All around them, workers were dressed in gray coveralls and wore the required yellow hard hats. Gates always thought the hard hats were a little silly, since there was really nothing to fall on your head. The place was not dangerous, like a construction site.

He led the group into one of the testing chambers and explained, “Here we are making a compound called Bisphenol A, a vital ingredient in polycarbonate plastic and epoxy resins.” He tapped on a plastic water bottle that had been left there for tours. “It makes plastic clear and shatterproof, very useful. Global production is over two million metric tons a year, and our factories around the world make over 20 percent of the world supply. It can also be made into flame retardants and has been used as a fungicide.” Next to him, one of the workers was checking gauges and writing numbers down on a clipboard. After the translator was finished, Gates encouraged her to lead the visitors on to the next stop.

“How’s the baby, Reggie?”

Gates did a double take.

The worker raised her safety glasses. “It’s Janice.”

“Oh, Janice, how are you?” Gates said, out of politeness, but he felt embarrassed by her familiarity. He glanced toward where the Chinese investors were getting into what looked like an oversized golf cart.

“How’s it going up there? You taking care of everyone?”

“You know I am. Good to see you, Janice.”

At the next stop Gates continued the tour and showed the Chinese investors where they were making other chemicals, including very profitable flame retardants. He pulled on the sleeve of his suit coat to explain that these compounds stopped fabric and other materials from burning. “Here in California, all bedding and furniture must use flame retardants. We are the third-largest supplier in this annual market of 2.4 billion dollars.”

His cell phone rang. It was his wife.
Oh, Christ, I forgot to call.

“Are there any more questions?” Gates asked, hoping he could end the tour quickly and answer his wife’s call. The investors all got very excited. “They only have one question,” the translator said. “Where’s the whale?”

TWENTY-FOUR

4:15
P.M.
Liberty Slough, California

A
POLLO WAS SWIMMING QUICKLY
—still unsure if he had really escaped—

He heard only the constant droning of boat engines—but he had long ago stopped hearing the sounds of the killers
—

He was trailing blood from the bite on his back—chunks of his flippers and tail were missing—but that was all—

Was it the shallow waters that the killers were unwilling to enter or the harbor seals that had distracted them with an easier meal—

Apollo did not know at what point he would be safe and swam onward—as their clicking sounds became increasingly distant—

He finally slowed as the water was ever more murky—he tilted his massive forty-foot body downward—his tail floating up and his rostrum pointing down
—

Apollo sang the song once again and then continued upstream—the currents of brackish water washing over his body—the thin water less buoyant—the noise of the boats assaulting from all sides—the brownish channel an echo chamber of sound—

But he swam on against the current—far from the ocean—

At last he squeezed through the narrow pilings—the waters ending in land—and he began to sing once again—

The waters had grown stale and bland as he left the living seas—now far from where all life had been born—

TWENTY-FIVE

5:00
P.M
.

T
HE SUN WAS THREATENING
to set as Elizabeth sped past rows and rows of cornfields and endless expanses of bright green grass that would be rolled up and sent to landscape lawns and golf courses around the country. She saw large factory farms of cows and lambs that were being fattened up for the slaughter. Silver-feathered vultures circled overhead.

Elizabeth glanced down at the map spread out on her steering wheel as she tried to navigate the back roads. The wood-paneled Country Squire was barreling too fast. She slammed on the brakes and just missed sliding into an irrigation ditch. The screech of her tires sent a clutch of red-winged blackbirds darting overhead, their red epaulets like bloody badges on otherwise jet-black wings. A snowy egret that had been hunting nearby sailed away to safer ground.

This was pristine and remote delta farmland. Although it was only two hours from downtown San Francisco and an hour from Sacramento, the area still looked wild and desolate. The only sign of modernity was the electrical cables, held up by what looked like long-legged steel giants that grasped the wires in their hands and marched in an endless row. In the distance, Elizabeth saw some factories belching smoke, but they were quite far away.

Unlike humpbacks that had entered the river in years past, this whale had not meandered but had sped up the Sacramento River in a
day, entrapping himself in a muddy dead-end slough only a half hour from the university.

Elizabeth had called Connie on the cell phone, and Connie had been able to get her the location of the whale. Elizabeth had not bothered to ask whether Connie had gotten the information from the police radio, which she said she had listened to avidly since she was a child, or from Skilling, who apparently had been called in as a local expert.
He knows nothing about humpbacks,
Elizabeth thought, but if there were television cameras, she had a feeling Skilling would be there.

As Elizabeth turned on to the levee road, she saw a sign warning her that she was entering private property. Although surrounded by fallow brown fields, the slough itself was lined with green trees and grass, an oasis of water in the dry agricultural land. The oaks, cypress, and native grasses around the slough were all bent by the wind that blew constantly across the flat delta. The muddy brown water rippled and shimmered in the low afternoon sun. It was hard to imagine that a whale could be swimming in the small and no doubt shallow slough, which was no more than five hundred feet long and two hundred feet across. The whale would be lucky if it was fifty feet deep.

A black-and-white California Highway Patrol car blocked the road, and behind it she could see white news vans with tall transmitting antennas spiraling toward the orange sky. A helicopter circled above, trying to get close-up footage of the whale. The constant drumming of its rotors and its downdraft were probably frightening the whale and keeping it submerged.

Elizabeth pulled over and got out. The gray gravel crunched under her sneakers. Up ahead was a concrete bridge. How, she wondered, had the whale squeezed through the narrowly spaced pilings? Across the slough, the land opened up into a brown grassy expanse,
like the Okavango Delta in southern Africa, which she had visited as a biology student in college to study lions and elephants. On the opposite bank, she also saw a burned-out, overturned car that had been stripped of its parts. As the helicopter took off, she saw the whale start to lobtail, beating its tail against the surface. She scrambled to get the lens cap off her digital camera and pointed it at the whale’s flukes.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” said an officer, dressed in a beige uniform with a six-pointed star on his chest, like some old-fashioned sheriff in a lawless town.

“I’m a marine biologist at the University of California, Davis. I’m here for the whale.”

“Let me call Incident Command and see if we can get you clearance. What is your name?”

Incident Command, what is that?
Elizabeth wondered after having been allowed to pass.
Who authorized my entry? Was it Skilling?
she wondered as she saw him being interviewed by half a dozen television reporters.

“Why do you think the whale swam here?” she heard one of the reporters ask.

“There are three possibilities we’re exploring,” Skilling replied. “It could be confused. Whales swim against the northern currents, and it could have been confused by the outgoing tide from the bay. It also appears to have fresh wounds and could have been fleeing killer whales.”

“But why would it swim so far upriver?” another reporter asked.

“The third and most likely possibility is that the whale is simply sick. My hunch is that it has some kind of parasitic infection of the inner ear or of the brain that has caused it to become confused and disoriented.”

“Do you think you can save it?” another interviewer asked.

“Probably not.” Skilling paused to let the full force of his conclusion sink in. “Our main concern is that it might run aground, and then we’re going to have a big smelly carcass to deal with.”