The Tourist Trail (18 page)

Despite the thrill of catching one of the FBI's more elusive suspects, now that Robert had applied the handcuffs and read Aeneas his rights, he found himself plagued with second thoughts. Once the angst had been released from his body, the feelings buried much deeper began working their way to the top. For a brief moment, after pointing his gun at him, Robert wanted to fall to his knees and beg forgiveness. For so many years he'd craved the opportunity, hoping that the very act of asking for it would ease the pain.

The crew assembled around the deck. Aeneas looked at his troops and nodded agreeably as he scanned their faces. “Remember, you still have a job to do. You are here for the whales. I do not need rescuing. Forget about me. But don't forget about them.”

With his own Zodiac damaged beyond repair, Robert pointed Aeneas into one of the
Tern's
Zodiacs, and they were lowered into the water. The boat had been prepped for battle, with a mass of barbed wire in the bow. Aeneas sat to one side; Robert stood holding the engine tiller. Above them on the main deck, the crew members watched silently, as well as Lynda. She would stay with the
Tern
as Robert transferred Aeneas to the
Roca
. From there, they would transport him by helicopter to the research base at McMurdo.

As they bounced across the waves, Aeneas gestured toward the
Takanami
Maru
in the distance. “What is wrong with this picture?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Tell me why they haven't run? The goddamned Argentine navy is here, and they're still hanging around, business as usual.”

Robert could imagine what was going through Aeneas's mind, but he didn't want to get lured into looking at the world through his eyes. Empathy was a risk at times like these. It made you indecisive, compassionate, weak. And in those weak moments, you were most vulnerable to your enemy.

“Let's go after it,” Aeneas said, with a grin on his face. “You drive, and I'll toss the prop fouler. Like old times. You can't tell me you don't miss this, at least a little bit.”

Robert resisted the bait and kept his eyes straight ahead.

“Fair enough,” Aeneas said. A moment later, he added, “But you can't tell me you don't miss Noa. For what it's worth, she misses you too.”

“Noa's dead.”

“Denial isn't healthy, Jake. But if it's closure you seek, that is certainly one way to go about it.”

Robert ignored him, ignored the old name, telling himself that he was being baited, tricked. Aeneas always knew his opponents' weaknesses, and he knew Robert's well.

“You don't believe me? Then how about this,” Aeneas said. “I tell you where she is, and you let me have one last shot at the Japanese.”

Robert eased up on the throttle. “Give me one good reason why I should believe you.”

“She's still single.”

“I'm serious.”

“So am I,” Aeneas said. “I found Noa on the ice that day. It was a miracle that we both didn't fall through. Turned out she had a radio on her after all. So we survived. As did you.”

Robert stared at him, wanting to believe him but at the same time knowing he shouldn't.

“Perhaps you still feel regret,” Aeneas continued. “Perhaps you're looking for redemption. The least you could do is find a cause worth defending, something more important than a flag.”

“By this you mean a whale?”

“Nature tolerates us like one tolerates a headache. But it will not miss us when we're gone. Didn't you learn anything on my ship?”

“I learned how to fight a losing battle.”

“Who said anything about losing? Nature is on
our
side, and she's patient.”

Robert sighed. “Don't make me regret this,” he said.

Aeneas looked back at the Japanese ship, now diminishing on the horizon, then held up his handcuffed wrists, awaiting the key.

Robert shook his head. “First you tell me where she is.”

“There is plenty of time for talk. They're getting away.”

Robert unlocked the handcuffs, then cut off a length of thick plastic line from the prop fouler and tossed it at Aeneas's feet.

“What's this for?”

“Tie one end to your right ankle and the other end to that hook on the floor.”

“Do you honestly think I'm going to try to swim away?”

“Just a little insurance. To make sure you don't get too carried away out there.”

Aeneas sat on the edge of the boat and fastened one end to his ankle.

“You can do better than that,” Robert said.

Aeneas glanced up, then cinched the rope tight. He leaned over and fastened the other end to the floor. A shiny metal necklace dangled below his collarbone.

“What's that?” Robert asked.

“It's a penguin tag. Supposed to bring me luck.”

“Doesn't seem to be working all that well.”

“Better to be an optimist who fails than a pessimist who succeeds,” Aeneas said, then grabbed a length of wire. “Into the breach.”

Robert opened the throttle, and they leapt over the waves toward the Japanese ship. Robert felt a vague rush of adrenaline as they chased the five-story monster, remembering piloting the boat with Noa, watching her hair fly as she held the prop fouler, determined and patient.

Everything was in motion: the waves, the factory ship in the distance, the clouds above, the icebergs they navigated. Aeneas was right about the Japanese vessel—it demonstrated no fear of confrontation. As they got closer, Robert glimpsed men looking down at them over a railing.

As they drew alongside and began to approach the bow, sharp blasts of water sprayed down from above, the fire hoses at work. Then a popping noise.

“They're firing on us,” Aeneas said.

Robert followed the noise to a man with a rifle, leaning over the railing. Robert pulled his gun and quickly released three rounds. The man slumped backwards, and Robert could not tell whether it was by fear or by force.

They were now drawing even with the bow of the ship. Aeneas held the prop fouler in both hands, waiting for Robert to cut across. Robert knew they had to be close enough to the ship so that the line would be consumed by the ship's natural currents, sliding under the hull and into the propellers. If they deployed too far ahead of the ship, the line could get pushed aside or too far below. Robert pulled ahead, eyes on the ship, preparing to veer across the bow. “You ready?” he asked.

But as he glanced at Aeneas, he saw that Aeneas was looking at something else, and Robert followed his eyes to see a Zodiac appearing out of nowhere, bearing down on them. Robert pulled on the tiller, but not in time. The deck beneath him heaved up, and he was in the air, then in the water, freezing water seeping through the cracks of his poorly sealed immersion suit.

The sky went black, or maybe it was the water and the fact that the hull of the
Maru
was passing by, blocking the sun. Robert couldn't think, he could only kick and paddle and pull his body back to the surface. He began to fear blacking out from the shock of the cold and the lack of air.

The sun returned, and he could see the sky through the water. He struggled for it, broke the surface, and heard himself panting, sucking in the air, then coughing up the water he ingested along the way. The ship? He looked to his left and could see the
Maru
moving away. Aeneas? He didn't see anyone else in the water, but he saw the rubbery outline of a Zodiac bobbing in and out of his line of vision, about a dozen yards away. He began swimming toward it, remembering how he'd leashed Aeneas to the boat, hoping now that he wasn't trapped beneath it.

But as he neared the Zodiac, he saw that it was upright and empty. He grabbed the outer handle and hung on for a few moments, gathering strength before pulling himself inside. He knelt on his knees and scanned the iceberg-strewn horizon, squinting into the patches of fog that had just begun to pockmark the landscape. He watched the
Maru
, pursuing another whale, nearly disappear into the mist. Robert could not see the all-white
Tern
at all. And Aeneas? The other Zodiac? He looked at the water for signs of shredded rubber floating, but amid the high waves and clouds of fog, he detected nothing.

Then the
Maru
emerged from the fog, having turned and headed back in Robert's direction, still in pursuit of its prey. Robert was tempted to fire off a couple more shots—perhaps he could save the whale, if nothing else about this mission—but when he reached for his gun, he realized it was gone, sunk to the bottom of the ocean.

Then the high-pitched sound of a small engine filled his ears, and a Zodiac emerged from behind an iceberg, moving full speed. And there was Aeneas, alone at the controls in his bright yellow jacket, his hood down tight against the wind and sea spray. Robert fumbled to start up the engine of his Zodiac to give chase, to catch Aeneas before he boarded the
Tern
. But just as the engine came to life and Robert began to gain momentum, he realized that Aeneas was not headed for the
Tern
.

His destination was the
Maru,
and he went at it headfirst. He did not stop, did not turn. He picked up the prop fouler and held it up, and as Robert watched, in one horrifying and sickening moment, both man and boat were consumed under the bow of the
Maru
.

The
Maru
lurched to a halt as if it had struck an iceberg. Alarms sounded on the top deck. Robert frantically began searching for any sign of life, but he already knew the outcome: Like Noa, Aeneas would rather die than go to prison.

And, once again, Aeneas had taken Noa with him.

Even after disembarking at Ushuaia, Angela could still feel the waves under her feet, the phantom ocean not yet releasing its grip on her body. Along with most of the
Narwhal
's passengers, she boarded a plane to Buenos Aires. From there, she headed south again, catching a flight to Trelew. While those around her chatted and read from books and magazines, she kept her eyes out the window.

In Trelew, she stopped into an Internet café and prepaid an hour. It had been ten hours since she'd last tracked Aeneas, and she felt nervous as she logged into the satellite portal and entered the transmitter number. The blue pixels assembled themselves, and she waited for the red dot to appear. It never did.

Angela stared at the screen, thinking that maybe her eyes were tired, the screen failing. She reentered the number. She refreshed the browser window. She switched from map view to chart view, scanning a long list of coordinates and dates and times.

According to the log, Aeneas's transmitter was last heard from eight hours and twenty minutes ago. Angela forced a deep breath and began to talk herself away from the precipice of fatal thoughts. The satellite simply hadn't detected the signal. Perhaps Aeneas was working down below in the engine room. Or maybe he'd finally put his yellow jacket into a washing machine; it would be just like him to leave everything in the pockets.

Angela felt her heart pounding. She stood and paced the room, then refreshed the map one more time, still hoping. But the red dot was gone, yet another in a long string of red dots gone missing from her life. Her computer time expired, and she stood and exited the café. She started toward the bus station but then reversed herself.

Back in the café, she purchased another hour.

She brought up the CDA web site and was redirected to a black screen with nothing but a photo of Aeneas in the middle. Under it were the words
Rest in Peace
.

“Oh no,” she heard herself saying. “Please, no.”

She could feel her insides crumbling, her lungs seizing. She braced herself at the table, then she tried a search engine. She refused to believe it. He had died before, he used to tell her. And he'd always risen from the dead. In the search window, she entered
Aeneas
and was handed back 21,459 results. She switched to news entries only and the list condensed to 137 entries. She found an article in
The New York Times,
dated the day before. The headline was
Whale Warrior
, with a quote from Aeneas: “We're doing what the rest of the world apparently does not have the stomach for—protecting its wildlife.”

Another article, with the headline:
Japanese Whalers Meet Resistance
, also featuring an Aeneas quote. Angela began to feel her mood rising. The CDA site was just a ruse, another device to throw off the authorities and nothing more.

Then she found a Reuters headline:
Tragedy in Antarctica
. She followed a link to a video clip credited to Greenpeace. She waited for the video to load, seconds that felt like forever, and then it was playing, the video screen shaky and hazy with mist. The scene was a familiar one—icebergs and low-lying clouds and Zodiacs skipping across the waves. Then, in the distance, an aging blue whaling vessel, a Zodiac headed for its bow. A man, alone, in a yellow jacket. She tried to make out the face, but the screen was too small, the video blurred.

She went to the Greenpeace web site, then to other news sites, other search engines. She played the clip again. She tried full screen. A man in a yellow jacket. A man in a yellow jacket heading for the bow of a whaling ship, then falling under.

The video was too bleary to be believed, or maybe it was her eyes. But she would not accept it. There was simply not enough data. She arrived at the home page of
The Sydney Morning Herald.
Angela saw only headlines about taxes, fires, cricket. She began to exhale, until she scrolled down the page and saw:
Anti-whaling Leader Confirmed Dead
.

In the article, Lauren Davis of the CDA confirmed his death by radio. Aeneas had been sucked underneath the Japanese whaling vessel
Takanami Maru
, she said. She credited Aeneas for saving the lives of three hundred whales by disabling the vessel. “The battle continues,” she was quoted as saying. “We have only just begun to fight.” Greenpeace reported hauling in the remnants of a Zodiac along with a shredded, blood-stained yellow jacket.

Angela closed her eyes. He was gone, truly gone—and this was how she had to learn about it: satellites and computer screens. A century ago, months would have passed before she learned the news, months spent going to sleep hopeful. Now the facts arrived too quickly. How she hated technology.

She opened her eyes and read his obituary, which, given the risks he liked to take, had probably been ready to go for years. He had tempted death long enough for every newspaper to have an obituary on hand.

Yet even in death, Aeneas managed to surprise her. Neil Patrick Cameron had been born in Port Townsend, Washington, inherited a fishing boat, spent a year in college before dropping out, was married and divorced three times—this she now knew. What she did not know was that Aeneas was survived by a son, Neil Jr., age eighteen, residing in Seattle. A son from his first marriage.

Her Internet time expired. She stared at the blank screen, until someone tapped her on the shoulder. A young tourist waiting in line.

* * *

Angela caught the last tour bus to Punta Verde, arriving in the evening. The research office was empty, her former colleagues most likely at dinner. She started toward the dining hall, then stopped. Her mind had gone blank. What story would she tell them? The narrative no longer made sense. She ran away with a man, like a schoolgirl, had her heart broken, and then ran away again. And now she was home, no more secure than when she'd left, haunted by indecision and not fully whole, a part of her still down there eluding ships, hiding behind icebergs.

She made her way to her trailer and stopped at a small wooden cross placed where Diesel used to live. On it was inscribed:

Diesel

Rest in Peace

Angela heard a noise and turned to see Shelly standing behind her. Her hair was streaked with emerging sparks of gray, a reminder of how long Angela had been away. Angela wasn't sure what to say, so she let Shelly speak first.

“Doug suggested
Molt in Peace
,” Shelly said. “I overruled him.”

“Thank you.”

“How was your leave of absence?”

Angela avoided Shelly's eyes and stared at the cross. “I'm sorry I lost the transmitter.”

“At least
you
returned.”

“You don't mind if I stay?”

“Mind? Of course not. I need you to take Doug off my hands. He's rather clingy.”

* * *

The next day, Angela took Doug to the Back Bay, a flat stretch of land near the water. She watched him remove a juvenile from its burrow with one fast-moving hand. He weighed and measured the bird before returning it to its agitated mother.

“Nicely done,” Angela said.

“I had a good teacher,” he said. “Listen, I'm sorry I pressured you about Aeneas.”

“That's okay,” she said. “It's natural to feel protective of this place.”

“Had I known who he was, I would have helped. We all would have. I should have just kept my mouth shut. Next time, I will.”

“Don't worry. There won't be a next time.”

They found a red-dot bird, and this time Angela let Doug do everything on his own.

“How old is this one?” he asked.

Angela did the math in her head, “Twenty-nine.”

Doug laughed. “Wow. He's older than I am.” He looked up at Angela and caught himself.

“No offense taken,” she said. She wanted to laugh along with him. She wanted to rejoice in the accomplishment of this small animal, surviving so long under such conditions, so many predators and risks. There was a time she would have. But not today.