Far From The Sea We Know (25 page)

“I’m not surprised,” Penny said. “It seems a
little vague from what I’m reading.”

“Well, that’s how the one piece they did on
it went over with most viewers, fortunately. They never saw the
video, of course.”

“What video?” Penny asked.

“Thought I mentioned that.”

“No,” she said, “but it would have helped if
you had.”

“My apologies. A ‘guest’ of the guys on the
Honey Pot
took some.” He patted his breast pocket. “Got it
right here. Not a lot, but it is spectacular.”

“Then why didn’t they broadcast it?”

“The TV station never got to see it. The
Honey Pot
crew was holding it back as a bargaining chip, and
we got there in time to wall it up before it got out. They told the
people at the station we took it, but without the evidence in hand,
the editor decided to distance the station from the story. It
became more about the craziness of the crew rather than what they
swore they had seen.”

“And I suppose now this video you
confiscated will never see the light of day,” Penny said.

“You really want to have TV and media crews
camped outside your homes twenty-four seven when you get back?
People looking up everything they can about you, every detail of
your life they can find going back to birth, using any means
available, legal or otherwise, and the same for your family,
friends, your old girl and boyfriends?”

“We’re not going to become celebrities over
this,” she said.

“If what we have so far got out, you
certainly would, all of you. Absolutely, and if there are any dark
areas in your life, they’ll be lit up with flares in print, online,
and everywhere else, over and over and over, and it will never go
away. Your lives would become an industry. Maybe you’d like that.
Could get a sizable book offer, I imagine.”

“I hope you’re not expecting thanks.” Penny
said, looking intently at Chiffrey. “And I hope you’re not going to
tell us that
you
didn’t look into our backgrounds.”

“Of course we did!” He said and laughed,
shaking his head. “The difference is we’re not going to scream it
all over the cover of some cheesy tabloid you’ll find staring back
at you at the supermarket checkout.”

“Keeping this from becoming a sideshow is a
common mooring point,” Andrew said. “Agreed?”

It did make sense, but Penny still didn’t
trust Chiffrey.

“All right,” she said.

Chiffrey smiled. “My old Grampy always used
to say, ‘get the devil behind you to push.’ So, I guess that’s
me.”

She ignored his attempt to lighten the mood.
“I’d like to ask you a few things. The ‘similar interference’ you
spoke of when you first got here, a radar anomaly at your Air Force
installation.”

“You’re right on target, sugar. It was at
the
exact
time as the
Honey Pot
incident and that’s
really the money shot.” He looked at Andrew then back at her.
“That’s why we were so interested, although we couldn’t then see
how this could be connected to a whale. Still can’t, really.”

“It would have been helpful to know about
the
Honey Pot
and the video when you first arrived,” Penny
said. “You’ve had this information the whole time you’ve been on
the
Valentina
and just strung us along with your good ol’
boy act, and you wonder why we don’t trust you.”

“Yeah, but this is now, and the Captain’s
right. We need to work together.”

“Then let’s have the rest,” Andrew said.
“All of it.”

Chiffrey let out his breath and slumped just
a little. He leaned on the gunwale and patted his breast pocket.
“Time for the picture show, looks like. Who’s got the popcorn?”

After waiting for Andrew to check in on the
bridge, they made their way to one of the smaller labs and sat
down. Computers, monitors, sound equipment, and cameras of all
kinds were stuffed into every available rack. Chiffrey struggled to
slot the disc in the drive, which was upright, finally turned it
around and it went in. He checked a few notes, and looked up.

“A preamble is in order. I’ll keep it short.
When the folks on the
Honey Pot
brought in their story, the
editor at the TV station called someone at the Coast Guard to see
if they knew anything. As it turned out—luck, I guess—the ensign
the TV editor talked to had been on the phone a few days earlier
with someone from our Air Force base. Yup, because of their radar
problems.”

She glanced at Andrew. “Okay, what
else?”

“So, the Coast Guard ensign told the TV
editor that it might be a good idea to call us. Not a bad fellow,
really. I mean the TV flack. He helped us with a PR disaster when
that F-16 went down in the suburbs last year. You remember?”

“Vaguely,” Penny said.

Chiffrey cocked his head and looked away for
a moment. “Five people died. Maybe you ought to get out more.”

“You mentioned it in the context of a PR
disaster, not in lost lives. You forfeited any claim to the high
ground.”

“Focus, both of you,” Andrew said. “Not
going to say it again.”

“Okay, what do you guess?” Chiffrey said. “A
major at the Air Force base the TV editor talked to had been
looking at the report of the interference at the station that
morning. He noticed that the dates of the
Honey Pot
incident
and our radar problems were the same, and after we got it, we
compared the video time stamp with our incident.”

“And they matched,” Penny said.

“Right on the nose. To the minute, maybe the
second. Plus, the yacht was dead center in the radar interference
at the exact time it happened.”

“This yacht,” Penny said, “was it a sail
boat?”

“No, one of those huge sea pigs, like the
Captain mentioned. Over powered, very fast. Wouldn’t want to ride
out a storm on it, although I suppose in an emergency, they could
have used Doris Glister’s hairdo as a sail.”

“Who?”

“She’s the woman who shot the video. Big
hair and gold lamé deck shoes. Their ‘guest,’ get it? She’s
probably why they wanted to be out so far from land: less chance of
running into anyone. However, she also gave the most detailed
account of what happened. The others had trouble remembering and
kept coming out with all kinds of other weirdness. In spite of her
appearance, she was pretty sharp, truth to tell.”

“Someone who’s been around the block a few
times would be.” Penny sighed and shook her head. “It’s not what’s
on that tape that led you to us. It’s how the people on the
Honey Pot
were affected.”

“Yes. By then we were looking and listening
for anyone else who had run into something strange on that part of
the sea. Heard about the
Eva Shay
and talked to some of
Matthew’s crew in Victoria. They had the same vibe as the
Honey
Pot
folks, and Matthew’s name came up. Found out he had
suddenly joined the crew here. I followed my hunch and followed
you. Ready to see this now?”

“Let’s have look,” Andrew said.

Chiffrey started the video and the screen
became full of a light so blinding that at first there was no
detail.

It descended slowly, an immense pulsating
formless mass of swirling light and color, shrieking like a wind
howling through a million bells. Brighter and brighter, it touched
the water, then white hissing light and widening waves rolled
toward them, but as the steam drifted away, there was nothing.

“Did you see? Did you? It just…where’d it
go? Sunk, it’s…did you…” Ritzik was jabbering like an ape. “Big as
a tanker! Where’d it go?”

He gripped the railing of
the
Honey Pot
, the veins in his
forearms bulging out. The boat engine had slowed to an idle. The
setting sun cast a cutting glare in his flickering eyes.

“That’s what it was, dumb ass, a tanker!”
Measey said, tossing the remaining ice from his drink over the
stern. The glass slipped from his hand as well and sank beneath the
slowly receding wake of the boat, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“The glare on the water,” he said again, in an exaggerated matter
of fact way. “Couldn’t see, but it had to be a tanker. Fuel or
something must have exploded. Maybe a bomb. What else could—”

“Tanker? That was no tanker! I’ve seen
tankers. They don’t look like…It was round!” Ritzik was
increasingly agitated, his breath pumping and puffing in his
chest.

“Shut up,” Measey said.
“Take it easy, will you?” His hands were rubbing each other as if
trying to rid themselves of some unwanted stain. He brushed his
forehead and slid a hand back across his hair, seemingly oblivious
that he had knocked his hat off. It, too, fell into the wake of
the
Honey Pot
.

“It was no tanker!” Ritzik whimpered. “It
wasn’t!”

“Stop your whining!” Measey yelled, his
thickening neck arching out and turning red.

“Don’t scream like that! Are you crazy?”
Ritzik’s eyes darted around in his head like tiny fish trying to
escape, and he began to yell. “Doris! Where’s Doris? Honey, where
are you?”

“Okay, okay, let’s all cool
it. That’s enough.” This came from Braswell, up in the pilothouse.
“There may be survivors and we’ve got to help them.” He gunned the
engine to full throttle and the
Honey Pot
spun around, almost dumping Measey
overboard.

“Hey watch it, for cripes sake!” bellowed
Measey. “This isn’t even the right direction! It was more over that
way.”

“Not a tanker, no way,” Ritzik muttered.
“Wasn’t it over there?”

“Measey!” yelled Braswell. “There’s a line
with a float down in the cabin. Move it!”

“Well, who does he think he is, Captain Bly?
I’ve had enough,” Measey said, pushing past Ritzik.

“Not going to…find
nothing,” Ritzik gasped. He crouched on the deck as far as he
could, hanging on as if the boat was going to fly. The
Honey Pot
slowed again. Braswell had
binoculars and was scanning slowly counterclockwise.

“Bad luck!” yelled Measey. “That’s bad
luck!”

“There’s nothing,” Braswell said. “I don’t
see a single thing.” He brought the binoculars down. “I don’t see
how any ship that size could explode and sink so fast, there’s no
debris.”

“Because it wasn’t a ship, you idiots!”
Ritzik had gotten to his feet. “It wasn’t anything like that! It
was, it was…Didn’t you see?”

The camera moved in closer to them and
footsteps clicked behind it, sharp as glass.

Doris Glister spoke in a giddy voice. “It
came down from the sky, and while you guys were leaping and howling
like apes, I got it all on the camcorder!” She turned the camera
toward herself. Her lipsticked mouth framed a sly smirk that seemed
totally out of place.

“Want to take a look?” she purred and raised
her eyebrows.

Then she started a laugh that got
progressively more out of control. The camera waved around,
catching the incredulous faces of two of the men, then hit the deck
along with, by the sound of it, Doris Glister.

“That’s all, folks,” Chiffrey said. “She
lost it in the end like the men, but when we met her, she was in
better shape than they were. Pity she didn’t get the real
beginning. I mean, the event had already begun when Doris pushed
the record button so, in spite of her claim, we don’t really know
where that thing came from. Up or down or wherever.”

“They all seemed so crazy,” Penny said,
“except the man behind the wheel.

Chiffrey nodded. “Harvey Braswell. It’s his
boat. He seemed relatively steady, but recently he left the
megachurch where he was a deacon for years and declared himself to
be some kind of pagan. Checked it out. Guy’s wearing antlers,
incantations, that sort of thing. The Ritzik fellow left his
house—and apparently his wife—with a real estate agent after a big
garage sale where he rid himself of everything he couldn’t fit in
his Escalade. Then he headed down to Sonora. They all seem to have
lost all interest in telling their story, and their behavior does
seem reminiscent of what happened on the
Valentina
when the
whales did whatever they did.”

Penny shot a glance at Andrew, who took over
as if he had been expecting this hand-off. He eased a little closer
to Chiffrey and said, “Maybe. That didn’t look anything like
something blowing up.”

“I agree. Experts examined the video and
they told me it doesn’t fit the signature of any kind of explosion.
You noticed it was moving down?”

“Yes,” Andrew said. “You searched the
area?”

“Sure did, up and down. Used the best
side-scan sonar in existence for the bottom, everything we have.
The Navy has some hot stuff. Can spot your toothbrush a thousand
fathoms deep. I asked, so I finally know what a fathom is, by the
way. Also some other gear that would have located any reasonably
sized object even if it was buried in sand. Found not a thing.”

“Would like to see the printouts,” Andrew
said.

“All that will be in digital files. I wasn’t
there when they were searching, by the way.”

Andrew seemed to ponder this for a moment,
then said to Chiffrey, “Like to have a look soon. That
possible?”

“Now it is, sure thing. Just about anything
you want.”

Andrew shifted back against the bulkhead and
turned his gaze at them one by one. Penny couldn’t help noticing
that he looked at her in particular. “Chiffrey has told us some of
what he knows. Considering that he gave us his information without
any preconditions, I think we should reciprocate. I expect he’s
guessed much of it.” He said nothing more and folded his hands
around his belly.

Matthew was going to have to open up and
tell Chiffrey everything that happened on the
Eva Shay
and
maybe after. She knew their ways and means would inevitably clash
at some point, but there was no point in making an issue of it now.
Andrew was right, at least in principle, yet Chiffrey would always
hold something back, no matter what he claimed. And so would
they.