The Swarm (23 page)

Johanson rubbed his eyes and glanced at his watch again. It was gone ten. ‘Tina, I have to go. I'll ring you later.'

‘Can I tell Skaugen you'll do it?'

‘No.'

There was silence. ‘OK,' she said finally, in a small voice.

Johanson took a deep breath. ‘Will you at least give me time to consider it?'

‘You're a sweetheart.'

‘I know. That's my problem.'

He gathered up his papers and hurried to the lecture-hall.

Roanne, France

Jean Jérôme was looking critically at twelve Brittany lobsters. He looked critically at most things. He owed his scepticism to the establishment for which he worked. Troisgros prided itself on being the only French restaurant to have kept its three Michelin stars for over thirty consecutive years. Jérôme had no desire to go down in history as the man who broke that tradition. He was responsible for seafood, Troisgros's lord of the fish, so to speak, and he'd been on his feet since dawn.

His wholesaler had been up even longer - his day began at three in the morning in Rungis, an otherwise unremarkable suburban town fourteen kilometres outside Paris that had transformed itself almost overnight into a mecca of
haute cuisine
. Spread over four square kilometres and fully lit, it was the place for wholesalers, restaurateurs and anyone else who spent their life in a kitchen to purchase their ingredients. Produce from all over France could be found there: milk, cream, butter and cheese from Normandy, high-quality vegetables from Brittany, and aromatic fruits from the south. Oyster farmers from Belon, Marennes, the Arcachon basin, and tuna fishermen from St Jean-de-Luz would thunder down the
autoroutes
to deliver their freight on time. Refrigerated lorries laden with shellfish jostled with vans and cars on the
roads. Top-quality produce was on sale in Rungis before anywhere else in France.

But not all top-quality produce was the same. The lobsters, like the vegetables, came from Brittany, but some specimens were more enticing than the rest. Jean Jérôme picked them up one by one and studied them from every angle. There were six in each of the large polystyrene crates lined with seaweed. They were alive, of course, but barely moving, which was only natural, since their pincers had been tied.

‘They're good,' said Jérôme.

That was praise indeed, coming from his lips. In fact he was exceptionally pleased with the lobsters. They were on the small side, but fairly heavy to make up for it, and their shells were a shiny dark blue.

Then he came to the last pair. ‘Too light,' he said.

The wholesaler frowned. With one hand he picked up a lobster that had met with Jérôme's approval, and in the other he held one of the rejects. He weighed them against each other.

‘You're right, Monsieur,' he said, in consternation. ‘I do apologise. But there's not much in it.'

‘True,' said Jérôme. ‘A little difference like that wouldn't be noticed in a seaside café - but this is Troisgros.'

‘Please accept my apologies. I can go back and—'

‘That won't be necessary. We'll see which of our guests has the smallest appetite.'

The wholesaler apologised again.

A short while later Jérôme was in Troisgros's magnificent kitchens, getting to grips with the evening menu. He had put the lobsters in a tub.

When it was time to blanch them, he asked for a large pan of water to be heated. Speed was of the essence when dealing with lobster - as soon as it was caught, its flesh began to lose flavour. Blanching stabilised it, and killed them. Later, when it was almost time to serve them, they would be cooked through. Jérôme waited until the water reached boiling point, then dropped a lobster head-first into the pan. The air inside its body cavity escaped in a high-pitched scream. Then he drew it out and put it aside. One by one he repeated the process…nine, ten…He reached for the eleventh, lighter than the others, and lowered it into the steaming water.

He pulled it out, and swore under his breath.

What on earth had happened to the creature? Its shell had been ripped
open and a claw had fallen off. Jérôme snorted with rage. He put it down on the work surface and nudged it gently on to its back. The underside was damaged, and a slimy white substance filled the shell where the meat should have been. He turned to the pan and stared into it. Blobs of something that bore no resemblance to lobster flesh were floating in the water.

There was nothing he could do about it, and besides he only needed ten. Jérôme never risked buying too little - he had a reputation for getting the balance just right. It was important to know precisely how much of everything would be needed - in the interests of economy, of course, but also to have sufficient in reserve. Once again, the strategy had paid off.

But it was annoying all the same.

The tub caught his eye. There was one lobster left, the second of the pair he hadn't liked. But there was no time to worry about that now -into the pan with it.

Wait! He hadn't cleaned the water.

A thought struck him. The diseased lobster had been lighter than the others. This live lobster felt lighter too. Maybe it was infected with a virus or a parasite. Jérôme took the twelfth lobster out of the tub and laid it on the work surface. Its long antennae slanted back along its body twitching constantly, while its bound claws moved feebly. When lobsters were removed from their natural habitat, they tended towards lethargy. Jérôme prodded it gently and bent down to it. A transparent substance was oozing from the joint where the carapace met the segmented tail.

What the hell was that?

Jérôme crouched close to it.

The lobster raised its upper body and its black eyes seemed to fix on him.

Then it burst.

 

The apprentice whom Jérôme had put to work scaling fish was only three metres away from the scene, but a narrow wall unit stacked with utensils obscured his view of the stove. The first he heard was a bloodcurdling scream. Then Jérôme staggered backwards, clutching his face. The apprentice darted towards him, and both men lurched into the cupboard behind them. Saucepans jangled and something crashed to the floor, shattering.

‘What is it?' the apprentice asked, panicking. ‘What happened?'

The other chefs came running. The kitchen was like a well-organised factory in which each worker carried out a particular task. One was responsible for game, another for sauces, a third for pâtés, a fourth for salads, a fifth for pâtisserie and so on. For a moment everything was thrown into confusion. Then Jérôme lowered his hands and pointed a trembling finger towards the work surface next to the stove. A thick transparent substance was dripping from his hair. Blobs covered his face and a stream ran down his neck. ‘It - it exploded at me,' he gasped.

His apprentice took a step forward and looked with revulsion at the lobster fragments. Only the legs were still intact. A claw lay on the floor and the jagged edges of the shell gaped open. ‘What did you do to it?' he whispered.

Jérôme's face was distorted with disgust. ‘I didn't do anything!' he yelled. ‘It just burst!'

They fetched towels for him to wipe himself clean. The apprentice touched the substance with his fingertips. It felt taut and rubbery, but it disintegrated easily, dispersing over the worktop. Without stopping to think, he took a jar from the shelf and spooned in clumps of the jelly. Then he swept some of the liquid over the top and twisted on the lid tightly.

Pacifying Jérôme posed more of a problem. In the end someone poured him a glass of champagne, and eventually he recovered some of his poise. ‘Clean up that mess,' he commanded. ‘I'm going to wash.'

Immediately the kitchen staff started putting his workplace back to rights. They scrubbed the stove and the surrounding area, disposed of the lobster remnants, cleaned the pan and threw away the water in which the lobsters had spent the last hour of their lives. It went the way of all waste water - down the drain and into the sewers where it mingled with the other fluids that the town had flushed away.

The apprentice took charge of the jar with the jelly. He hadn't thought what to do with it so he asked Jérôme, who had returned to the kitchens in clean chef's whites.

‘Good idea to save some,' Jérôme said. ‘God knows what it could be. Send it somewhere where they test that kind of thing. But don't mention the incident. It never happened. Not at Troisgros.'

 

The story never left the kitchens, which was just as well as it would have shown the restaurant in an unjustly negative light. Troisgros wasn't to
blame, but nothing was worse for a top-class restaurant than whisperings about its hygiene.

The apprentice kept a close eye on the substance in the jar. When it started to disintegrate, he added more water because it seemed the right thing to do.

It looked like pieces of jellyfish, he thought, and jellyfish needed water–in fact that was pretty much all they were made of. In any case it seemed to do the trick. For the time being the substance remained stable. Troisgros made some discreet telephone enquiries, and the jar was immediately sent for analysis at the nearby university in Lyons.

Two hours later, it landed on the desk of Bernard Roche, a professor of molecular biology. Even with the extra water in the jar, the jelly was disintegrating again. Only a few small clumps remained. Roche began to test it straight away, but the last blob dispersed before he could examine it in detail. He'd seen enough, though to identify some molecular compounds, whose presence surprised and bewildered him. One was a highly potent neurotoxin, but he couldn't be certain whether it came from the jelly or the water in the jar.

The liquid, he discovered, was saturated with organic matter and all kinds of chemicals. Since he didn't have time to analyse it immediately, he decided to return to it in a few days' time. He put the jar in the fridge.

 

That evening Jérôme fell ill. At first he felt nauseous. The restaurant was full, so he tried to forget about it and carried on as usual. The ten intact lobsters were exquisite, and there was no call for any more. In spite of the unpleasant incident that morning, everything went smoothly - as was expected at Troisgros.

It was getting on for ten o'clock when the nausea worsened and was coupled with a headache. Then Jérôme noticed he was losing concentration. He had omitted to put the finishing touches to one of the dishes, and had forgotten to tell his apprentice what to do next.

Jean Jérôme was enough of a professional to know when to pull the plug. He was feeling truly awful. He handed responsibility to his deputy, an ambitious and talented chef who'd learned her trade in Paris under Ducasse. He was just popping outside, he told her. The kitchens backed on to the garden: when the weather was good, diners were taken there on arrival and served their apéritif with canapés. Later they were led into the restaurant through the kitchens, catching a glimpse of the proceed
ings and sometimes a demonstration by a chef. Right now the discreetly lit garden was deserted.

For a few minutes Jérôme paced up and down. Through the large windows he could still see the bustle of the kitchens, but he was having trouble focusing for more than a few seconds at a time. He couldn't get enough air, and there was a weight on his chest. His legs felt like jelly. He sat down at one of the wooden tables. His thoughts returned to the events of that morning. His hair and face had been splattered with the lobster's insides. He was sure he must have inhaled a bit or swallowed some fluid. He'd probably caught a drop on his tongue when he licked his lips.

Perhaps it was the thought of the lobster, but before he knew it, he was vomiting violently over the plants. As he sat there, bent double, retching and choking, he thought it was probably for the best. At least he'd got rid of it. Now all he needed was a glass of water, and he'd feel much better.

He dragged himself to his feet. His head spun. His forehead was burning and he was gazing into a spiral. He sat down again. You've got to get up, he told himself. You need to check that things are all right in the kitchen. It was vital that nothing went wrong. This was Troisgros, after all.

He managed to stand up and take a few dragging steps, then darkness overwhelmed him.

Vancouver Island, Canada

Anawak could feel his eyes reddening and swelling, while the skin round them creased. Struggling to keep his head upright, he stared at the monitor. Ever since Canada's west coast had been plunged into chaos, his eyes had barely left the screen, yet he'd sifted only a fraction of the data - electronic evidence that owed its existence to one of the most groundbreaking inventions in animal behavioural science. Telemetry.

In the late 1970s, scientists had come up with a revolutionary new method for monitoring animals. Until then there had been no accurate means of collecting data on a species' distribution or its patterns of migration. How animals lived, hunted and mated, what they needed or wanted were all matters of speculation. Of course, thousands of animals were being watched around the clock - but almost always under circumstances that made it impossible to predict how they would normally behave. Monitoring an animal in captivity was like observing a man behind bars: there was no way of telling how it lived when it was free.

But attempts to observe animals in their natural habitat were similarly unsuccessful. The creatures either took flight or failed to show up in the first place. Animals tended to see more of the scientists than the scientists did of them. Some of the less timid species - chimpanzees or dolphins, for example - put on shows for their observers, displaying aggression or curiosity, and sometimes even flirting or striking a pose, making objective conclusions all but impossible to reach. Once they'd tired of performing, they'd disappear into the jungle, take off into the sky or dive into the depths, where they'd resume their natural behaviour - except no one could see them.

It was the mystery that biologists from Darwin onwards had been longing to solve. How could we understand the ability of fish and seals to survive in the cold dark waters of the Antarctic? How could humans see
inside a biotope that was sealed with layers of ice? What would the Earth look like from the sky, if we crossed the Mediterranean on the back of a goose? How did it feel to be a bee? How could we measure the speed of an insect's wings and its heartbeat, or monitor its blood pressure and eating patterns? What was the impact of human activities, like shipping noise or subsea explosions, on mammals in the depths? How could we follow animals to places where no human could venture?

The answer came in the form of a technology that allowed haulage companies to locate each of their lorries, and helped drivers to pinpoint streets in towns they'd never seen. It was a modern invention that everyone knew and used, without realising that it would revolutionise zoology: telemetry.

In the late 1950s, US scientists had already started to develop ways of electronically tagging animals. Not long afterwards the US Navy was using the technology on trained dolphins, but the experiment failed because the tags were too heavy: it was no good hoping to gain accurate information on dolphins' natural behaviour from tags that affected their movements. The initiative ground to a halt, but the invention of the microchip heralded a breakthrough. In no time ultra-light cameras and tags the size of chocolate bars were being used to transmit relevant data from the wild. The animals carried on as normal, roaming through the rainforests or swimming through the pack-ice in McMurdo Sound, unaware of the fifteen grams of equipment they were carrying. At long last grizzly bears, dingoes, foxes and caribous were divulging their secrets. Scientists were initiated into their ways of life, mating rituals, hunting habits and migration patterns. They could even fly across the world in the company of white-tailed eagles, albatrosses, swans, geese and crows. At the cutting edge of technology, insects were fitted with miniature devices that weighed a thousandth of a gram and were powered by radar waves. They could send back their signal at double the frequency, allowing the data to be received from distances of more than seven hundred metres.

Most of the tracking was done by satellite. The system was as simple as it was ingenious. The signal from the transmitter was sent into space, where it was received by ARGOS, a satellite-based system run by the French space agency CNES. From there it was transmitted to headquarters in Toulouse and on to a terrestrial station in Fairbanks, USA, for forwarding to other institutions worldwide. The data reached the end-user in less than ninety minutes.

Research into whales, seals, penguins and turtles soon developed into a distinct field of telemetry. The planet's least-known and most fascinating habitat was opened up to view. Data could be recorded at considerable depth on ultra-light transmitters, which registered temperature, length of dive, distance from the surface, location, direction of travel and speed. Frustratingly the signals could only be received from the water's surface, which meant that ARGOS was blind where the depths were concerned. Humpbacks spent a good deal of their lives within a few kilometres of the Californian coast, but surfaced for an hour a day at most. While ornithologists could see and monitor a stork in flight, marine scientists were cut off from their subjects while they were under water. For a complete understanding of marine mammals, they needed cameras that kept rolling at all times - but the Pacific was too deep for any diver, and submersibles lacked the necessary agility and speed.

Eventually the solution came from scientists at the University of California in Santa Cruz, who invented a tiny, pressure-resistant underwater camera. They tried the device on an elephant seal and some Weddell seals and finally a dolphin. In no time they came across the most amazing phenomena. Within a few weeks their understanding of marine mammals was transformed. If only whales and dolphins had proven as easy to tag as other animals, everything would have been perfect. Instead it was virtually impossible. So Anawak was left with far less data than he would have liked - yet at the same time he had more than he could handle. Since no one knew what was important, every piece of information was significant - and that meant evaluating thousands of hours of images, audio recordings, readings, analyses and stats.

‘Project Sisyphus' was what Ford had called it.

But at least Anawak had plenty of time to devote to it. The station's reputation had been restored, and yet Davie's was closed. The waters off the west coast of Canada and North America were restricted to large vessels only. The disaster that had hit Vancouver Island had been repeated along the coast from San Francisco to Alaska. During the first wave of attacks, over a hundred smaller craft had been sunk or severely damaged. The number of casualties had fallen over the weekend, but only because no one was prepared to set sail unless they owned a freighter or a ferry. The media was awash with conflicting reports. Even
the death toll was uncertain. Various government-appointed emergency-response teams had been brought in to deal with the situation, which meant that the skies were filled with helicopters whirring up and down the coast, laden with soldiers, scientists and politicians peering down at the ocean, each more helpless and bewildered than the next.

It was standard procedure for emergency committees to draw on outside advisers, and that was what the Canadian authorities had done. Vancouver Aquarium was co-opted as the hub of all science-based operations under the leadership of John Ford. Almost every marine-science or research institute was placed under his control. For Ford it was a weighty burden: he was leading a mission without knowing what it was. There was a protocol for everything from catastrophic earthquakes to terrorist nuclear attacks, but no one had prepared a brief for
this
. Ford lost no time in proposing Anawak as an additional adviser. If anyone in North America or Canada could understand what was going on inside a whale's head, it was him. And surely that was where they'd find their explanation. Whales were supposed to be intelligent, so had the creatures all gone mad? Or was something else affecting their behaviour?

Yet even Anawak, of whom so much was expected, was unable to help. He'd begun by assembling all of that year's telemetric data from the Pacific coast. Twenty-four hours ago he and Alicia Delaware had started to analyse the material, helped by staff at the aquarium. They'd pored over positioning data and listened intently to hydrophone recordings but they still had nothing to show for it. None of the whales had been carrying tags when they set out from Hawaii and Baja California towards the Arctic - with the sole exception of two humpbacks, who'd lost their transmitters almost as soon as they'd started migrating. The video shot by the woman on the
Blue Shark
seemed to be their only piece of evidence. They'd studied it at the Station with the help of some skippers who were adept at recognising flukes. After replaying the footage and magnifying the images, they'd identified some of the attackers: two humpbacks, a grey and several orcas.

Delaware had been right: the video was a valuable clue.

Anawak's aversion to her had soon evaporated. Delaware had a big mouth and seldom stopped to think before she spoke, but beneath her brash manner was an intelligent, analytical mind. Besides, she had time to help. Her parents lived in the British Properties, an exclusive district for Vancouver's élite. They gave her anything she wanted, but were
hardly ever there. Anawak suspected that their financial generosity was an attempt to make up for their lack of interest, but their daughter didn't seem to care - she could spend their fortune and do as she pleased. Things had worked out perfectly: Delaware saw working with Anawak as an opportunity to back up her studies with practical experience, and he needed an assistant now that Stringer was dead.

Susan Stringer…

Every time he thought of her he was overcome with guilt for having failed to save her. He had told himself that nothing he or anyone else could have done would have freed her from the orca's jaws, but the uncertainty remained. What good were all his papers and articles about intelligence in marine mammals if he couldn't understand a whale's thought processes? Was it possible to convince an orca to let go of its prey?

He reminded himself continually that orcas were animals - highly intelligent ones, but animals all the same. And prey was prey.

But orcas didn't prey on humans. Had the whales eaten the people drifting in the water or just killed them?

Anawak sighed. He wasn't making any progress. The burning in his eyes was getting worse. Half-heartedly he picked up another disk of digital images, then put it back. He couldn't concentrate. He'd spent the whole day at the aquarium, discussing findings or calling people, and now he felt drained. Wearily he switched off his computer. It was gone seven. He got up and went in search of John Ford. The director was in a meeting, so he called in on Delaware, who was studying satellite data.

‘Fancy a juicy whale steak?' he asked glumly.

She looked up with a smile in her eyes. She'd swapped her blue glasses for contact lenses, but her irises were still suspiciously violet. Apart from the buck teeth, she was actually very attractive. ‘Sure. Where do you want to go?'

‘The snack bar on the corner's not bad.'

‘Snack bar?' she said in amusement. ‘I don't think so. Come on, I'll treat you.'

‘There's no need.'

‘Let's go to Cardero's.'

‘Christ!'

‘They do great food.'

‘I know, but firstly, I can pay for myself, and secondly, Cardero's is…well, it's…'

‘It's
fabulous
!'

Cardero's was situated amid the yachts of Vancouver's Coal Harbour. It was a big place with large windows and high ceilings - one of the trendiest outfits in town. The restaurant offered stunning views and good west-coast cuisine, while the adjoining bar was filled with the young and chic, laughing and sipping drinks. In his frayed jeans and faded sweater Anawak could hardly have been less appropriately dressed, but he always felt uncomfortable and out of place in smart restaurants. He couldn't deny that Delaware belonged there, though.

So, Cardero's it was.

They took his old car and drove to the harbour. They were in luck. It was usually necessary to book at Cardero's, but one table was empty. It was a little removed from the bustle of the main restaurant, which was perfect for Anawak. They ordered the house speciality - salmon baked with soy, brown sugar and lemon on a cedar plank.

‘OK,' said Anawak, once their order had been taken. ‘What have we got?'

‘Nothing,' said Delaware. ‘I'm baffled.'

Anawak rubbed his chin. ‘Well, maybe I've found something. The video footage put me on to it.'

‘
My
video footage, you mean.'

‘Yes,' he admitted, and added ironically, ‘We're all very grateful.'

‘Well, you should be, if it's given you a lead.'

‘It's the whales we identified. Only transient orcas were involved in the attacks, not a single resident.'

‘You're right.' She wrinkled her nose. ‘We haven't heard anything bad about residents.'

‘The Johnstone Strait was clear of attacks - even though it was full of kayaks at the time.'

‘So the threat's being posed by the newcomers.'

‘By transients, and maybe offshore orcas too. The grey and the two humpbacks on the video were all transients. All three whales spent the winter in Baja California - we've got it all on file. We emailed pictures of their flukes to the institute in Seattle, who confirmed that the whales have been seen there several times in recent years.'

‘So what's the big deal? Everyone knows that greys and humpbacks migrate.'

‘Not all of them.'

‘I thought…'

‘Something weird happened the second time we went out that day. I'd practically forgotten about it after everything else. We were desperate to get the people off the
Lady Wexham
, but the boat was sinking and a group of greys was trying to ram us. I couldn't see any of us getting out of there alive, let alone saving anyone. Then two more greys appeared alongside us, and lay there in the water until the others backed off.'