The Black Silent (30 page)

He hurried. The first volume's content was obvious and shocking. They were calculating the volume of methane hydrates and trapped methane gas beneath a given area of ocean floor and the small temperature changes required to release about half the methane on the planet. Mostly natural causes. One author argued that placement of a nuclear device in the right deep-sea trench would trigger the methane release; that, in turn, would trigger a landslide that would cause a devastating tsunami.

Sam started to see that portions of this volume had been written for laymen, perhaps policy makers, and that was an interesting new wrinkle. In plain English they described how a chain release of methane might start in the Arctic.

Volume two, the Nobeltec bathyscaphic charts, depicted the seafloor off Cape Hatteras, on the eastern seaboard. Apparently the Arcs had been busy off Cape Hatteras; pock-marks and fissures were opening up off the cape, a clear indication of escaping methane.

According to Ben's notes, the most likely result of methane release would be massive underwater landslides, resulting giant tsunamis and catastrophic global warming, methane being a greenhouse gas. Other authors had postulated massive conflagrations in the atmosphere or simple asphyxiation near the coast.

Sam skimmed, always thinking about a hasty exit.

Hurriedly he looked for the fountain of youth. It was all too complicated. They were searching for some gene. Stranger yet was a notation penned in Ben's hand:
The answer
may be found in the Sargasso stew.

What the heck was that? He had to go. There was much more and it looked the most interesting—more fountain of youth-stuff. Human mitochondria.

The aging stuff fascinated Sam. He was tired of thinking about global catastrophes and the end of the world. He wondered, though, how much of this Ben had already shared with the U.S. government. Any of it? Sam would have Ernie look into the matter.

Anything that could become a new terrorist recipe would invoke federal jurisdiction over the entire matter. Probably a long shot.

In his excitement over all the new aging material, Sam decided to call Haley.

She answered, clearly out of breath. Quickly he explained what he had found.

"I couldn't tell, but I thought he might be saying there was some important similarity between Arcs and humans. Maybe in the mitochondria."

"That has me curious as hell," Haley said. Sam caught a set of headlights coming through the trees. Without a word he stepped out the back door and plunged into the pitch-black forest.

H
aley slipped inside the house, spooked out of her mind, sure that at any second the owner would materialize with a gun. Her body wanted to sweat despite the shivering cold of wet clothes and she caught herself breathing as if in a race.

"We haven't seen anybody," the lady of the house was saying to Frick's men.

The back door entered into a small vestibule, then into the kitchen. She could see through to the front door.

The man of the house stood with the woman.

"Is she dangerous?" he asked.

"She was with the guy who killed Crew Wentworth," said the officer. "She escaped with the killer. It would pay to be really careful."

"Should we evacuate the house?"

"I doubt that's necessary, ma'am. We'll be checking every inch around here. Keep your doors locked. Someone else thought they might have seen her just down the way, but she's probably not going to crash through a window. She's running."

Then Frick's men were asking about the neighborhood and who was away for the holidays and how they might get in the neighboring houses. Haley checked her watch and nearly choked. The goal was for her to pick Sam up in thirty minutes and she was stuck in a genteel country house. She resisted panic and the urge to run out the back. It would be suicide until Frick's men were finished with their search.

Quickly she glanced around and noticed two small wooden-slatted doors off the kitchen, probably a small pantry. There was another cubbyhole with a computer, where someone had been working. She had to move or be discovered. Haley proceeded from the vestibule into the kitchen. On the far side of a large counter was a spacious family room done in green leather and fabrics echoing forest themes. No place to hide there.

"Are the neighbors just through the trees there at home?" the officer asked the couple.

"No, they aren't," the husband said. "They went to the sunshine for the holidays."

"We need to get in."

"How about if we give you the key and you bring it back?" the wife offered.

Haley tried the small slatted doors.

Sure enough, it was a tiny pantry, just large enough to hold her and her bag of clothes.

The doors had an external latch, so she had to leave them slightly ajar.

The officers left, and Haley heard someone come back down the hall. She peeked to find the woman heading for the computer. Her heart sank. It seemed "Mr. and Mrs.

Gentleman Farmer" were going to hang around the kitchen.

"I'm tired," the man said. He was tall and slender, sandy-haired, square-jawed, and had a confident face.

Haley did a double take. The man had caught up with the woman before she reached the computer. Now it seemed as if he were rubbing her backside with his pelvis.

Haley watched, looking for any advantage or opportunity this bit of romance might offer. The woman, trim and blond, wore an elegant, pale green dress with a judicious application of makeup. Perhaps she'd had something in mind at the start of the evening.

"You're a voyeur, dear," she said.

"What do you mean?" He kept hugging her from behind.

"You were watching me in the shower."

Ugh. Haley wished they would take their growing passion to bed.

"I love you. . ." Then the man whispered something more.

Haley imagined it was dark and sexy. Then he began planting little kisses on her neck.

Maybe he did have some understanding of females. Then he started gently rubbing her shoulder. Prince Charming was obviously working hard at it.

Haley cursed her bad luck.

"Why can't you do this when you haven't been spying on me?" the woman asked, giggling as he kissed her ears.

"I was hardly spying." He tried a kiss on the lips.

Time was crawling. It occurred to Haley that she was carrying her dry clothes. It was risky to change now, but the clammy clothes were making her shiver. Carefully, Haley began undressing. It took less than two minutes, every second more nerve-racking than the last. As fast as she could, she pulled on the dry clothes. She was desperate to leave and get to Sam.

She heard faint rustling sounds.

"Maybe we should wait until bed," Mrs. Gentleman Farmer said. But the woman didn't really sound at all interested in waiting.

Haley glanced back through the crack, unable to deny herself the next installment.

"I guess not." The woman answered her own question.

Haley bit her lip to keep from laughing.

Now they were French-kissing and the man had his wife's dress unbuttoned. As the soft light played over their bodies, Haley felt the red moving up her neck. For just a second she watched them delving into tender intimacy. When she closed her eyes, images came back to her from thirteen years previous. She was nineteen. It was the Fourth of July. On each day of his three-day visit, she and Sam went to a dock off Brown Island, a friend's pier. They would lie in the sun and talk for hours, and watch the water—the sleek grace of the sailboats, the noisy grind of the powerboats. On the third and final day of his visit, Sam covered her back with suntan lotion. His light touch had given her pleasure. She hadn't known what to think or do, but he was reaching much more than her body.

From his fingers came a longing, almost more than she could bear. Haley recalled his whispers and his promise and the pain of it all. He said he would love her forever. Sam was not a man of idle words. Then came the days of waiting. She switched channels and was back in the closet.

More movements of a chair and the sound of the man's zipper. Heavy fabric hit the floor. His jeans.

"I love you," he whispered over and over.

"You are so good," she said. "So damn good."

It wasn't an original thought, but Haley could tell that Mrs. Gentleman Farmer meant every word. Through some slight miscalculation of her peripheral vision, Haley saw what was happening and made herself look away.

The last time Haley had spied on someone, she'd been watching Sam. They were adults then. It had happened nine months ago, not long after his return to San Juan Island to convalesce. Sam was on a weight bench, his enormous chest expanded, sweat covering his body, his breathing rough, like an old train.

Sam's face looked more intense than Haley had ever seen it. Here, apparently, he let the demon out of him, in the sweat and in the great blasts of air. Fighting the iron, he showed no good manners or signs of culture, he wore no disguise to keep the guttural aspects of the mind from rising to the countenance. At the weight bench Sam was something different.

Back in the closet Haley caught a glimpse of the woman's head flung back as she sat astride the man, her body and soul seemingly in perfect harmony with his. Haley put her fingers in her ears to stop the sounds of their lovemaking.

In her mind Sam's body gleamed, his long, flowing hair tousled. The sweat sheen traced the exquisite contours of muscle and sinew free of fat. He had the proportionality of a ripped gymnast. All her senses had been captive to the image of Sam: the steady rhythm of his breath, the deep groans near the finish, the quivering of muscle as he forced the weights, his arms like spring steel, his chest a beautiful smooth landscape of powerful curves, and the lower abdomen rippled like the rolling tan sands of the Sahara.

Haley removed her fingers from her ears for a moment. From the resonance in Mrs.

Gentleman Farmer's voice, she seemed to be in the homestretch. Their rhythm could be heard in the squeaks of the chair.

Sam was laboring under the weights. As she had watched him, something beyond the heat of the sexual wanting, mixed with nervous caution, had stirred inside Haley. It felt like some sort of spiritual event. Nothing massive, nothing like a rebirth or revelation, no burst of hope like spring flowers. It felt subtle and growing, a conviction, at one of the worst periods in her life, that things would start over for her.

The research-theft scandal had been in full bloom. Days before Haley had received a letter so terrible that it had sent her after Sam, desperate that he'd talk to her, reassure her. The letter had come from her dearest college friend and roommate, but it had a cold, distant tone and none of the warmth of their many months together. The worst part was the final line:

For whatever reason, you have chosen to betray a fellow scientist. You disdain
academic

pursuit. I'm afraid there is no place here for you at the present time. I don't know how,
but

there must be a way to redeem yourself. For the moment I cannot recommend you to the
director.

Her "friend" had signed it,
Trying to understand.

The letter had shaken her badly. Ben was in Seattle, with no way for her to contact him.

For a few moments she had been utterly despondent, but then, as was usually the case with Haley, her sorrow had turned to determination. It was the determination she'd learned as a child, to keep going, keep fighting the curse of her mother's heritage.

On this day she had been in such need of an ear to help keep her from a pit of depression that when she couldn't find Ben, she had gone to find Sam.

Haley had not been with a man in a year. Her mind still swirled with Sam on the weight bench. She opened her eyes and unplugged her ears and saw that her unwitting hosts were moving around. What if they came to the pantry? Now her heart thudded for a different reason. She opened her eyes as the woman stepped into her dress. Standing behind her, naked, her husband wrapped her in his arms as the dress remained draped around her waist. Her mostly nude body was enfolded in his, together a symphony of contours rolling the light.

Dear God, no.
Why couldn't they be a typical, bored married couple? For a few moments Mr. Gentleman Farmer looked like he might be interested in a rematch.

"I've got to do the books, honey. Really. If you need more, it's in bed tonight," she said.

Thank God,
Haley thought.

But hubby didn't give up, kissing her neck, running his hands over her bottom. Slowly she started to become pliable and the woman's resolve melted. The dress dropped to the floor.

Didn't they realize this was Friday Harbor? Not Paris. Not Hawaii.

Haley closed her eyes and returned to Sam. As she spied on him through the crack at the door hinges, she marveled at the expressions on his face. One of those expressions was most important. It was not the look as he lifted the weights— the look she found so sexy that it made her grind her legs together—she would never tell anyone that—it was the look of Sam at rest.

Sam had a spotter in the room—after all, the weights were on the order of three hundred pounds, and you didn't lift weights like that without a partner. It was amazing that a man with a bad back could bench-press that kind of weight. The spotter was Jeffrey, Haley's cousin, who worked at the small gym. When Sam rested, he would sit up on the bench and Jeffrey would sit beside him, unconsciously mimicking him.

Sitting there, they looked like two old friends—except that one of them had the mind of a ten-year-old. There was nothing about it that was extraordinary except the attention that Sam gave Jeffrey. To watch from afar, you'd think that everything Jeffrey said somehow fascinated Sam. Perhaps it was guile or perhaps in some strange way Sam was able to remain interested in mundane stories about the tourists, or in the latest tale about the barber's new chair.

Something about Sam's interest in Jeffrey turned Haley on even more than the sweat and muscle and the body.

Jeffrey did most of the talking. He wanted to know how to do certain things with the weights. Haley watched as Sam explained and invited Jeffrey to give it a try. She found it difficult to put what she witnessed into words. It wasn't enough to say that Sam was a nice guy or that he cared about other people. There was a sweetness to this mysterious, wounded man that caught hold of her, that seemed at odds with the great caution that she felt.