The Tourist Trail (19 page)

When Robert entered the windowless conference room at FBI headquarters, Gordon and Lynda were already seated around a table with three others.

“Sorry I'm late,” Robert said.

“I thought you were on vacation,” Gordon said.

“Not yet.”

Robert took a seat next to a rotund man that he recognized from the Pentagon. Across from him was a woman who had the look of some sort of analyst, bookish and cold. The overhead lights were dimmed, and a video was projected onto the wall.

“Is this the Greenpeace footage?” the woman asked.

“Yes,” Gordon said. “They were the only ones filming and the quality is for shit. You're going to see several versions of the clip. The first is original footage, followed by a close-up, and then another close-up in which we ran a sharpening filter.”

Robert looked up at the screen, watching a man in a yellow jacket standing alone in a Zodiac approaching the bow of the Japanese ship. The man, with his back to the camera, held aloft the prop fouler with one hand, the steering bar of the Zodiac with the other. It was rather cinematic, Robert had to admit, and it was just like Aeneas, as if he'd known a camera was on him the whole time. The camera began to shudder, and wisps of fog blurred the scene. The yellow jacket disappeared into the water, and the bow consumed the Zodiac without pause.

“No body was recovered,” Gordon said. As the scene iterated, the ending remained the same.

“Probably wrapped around the propeller along with the barbed wire,” the large man said.

“I'd expect them to find nothing, given the circumstances,” someone added.

“Body or no body, we're confident this was Aeneas,” Gordon said. “We had documented every crew member of the
Tern
in Puerto Madryn, and we did so again after this incident. Everyone was accounted for. Only Aeneas was missing.”

“Looks more like he jumped in than fell,” the large man said.

“What's the difference?” Lynda said. “The result's the same.”

“An interesting case study,” the woman said. “He had come to view the human race as some sort of invasive species, like weeds.”

“That just goes to show that we can't overlook the potential of the homegrown ecoterror movement in this country,” the large man said. “This is no different than a suicide bombing.”

The meeting droned on, and Robert tuned them out until lights came up and the room emptied. Robert felt Gordon looking at him as Gordon walked past on his way out, but Robert didn't acknowledge him. Although the wall at the front of the room was blank again, Robert continued to stare at it, then noticed Lynda standing over him.

“You know, you're not getting any overtime for being here,” she said.

“Do you really think Aeneas jumped?”

“Somebody jumped,” she said. “Aeneas is the only one missing. So, yeah, I think he jumped.”

“He would never have done that.”

“Then who did, Sherlock?”

Robert wanted to suggest someone else, anyone else, but who else was there? So he kept his silence. If he were to start asking questions, he would only disrupt her life along with his.

“How's your husband?” Robert asked. “Glad to have you back?”

“You have no idea,” she said. “He was so bored and lonely he actually fixed the leak in the bathroom. Another week and he might have actually painted the garage.”

Lynda reached into her purse and removed a manila envelope.

“Here. Since you didn't bring a camera, I made extra copies. Something to remember me by.”

After she left, Robert opened the envelope. Inside was a photo of him staring over the railing of the
Roca
, looking terse, before everything fell apart. A photo of a whale—a small dot on the horizon, and photos of penguins in Punta Verde, icebergs, the Japanese ships. A photo from the
Tern
when they first boarded her, with Lauren standing defiantly in the background. A picture of the crew, taken after Aeneas had disappeared, faces vacant, shoulders slumped.

“Case closed.”

Robert turned. It was Gordon. He stood and looked his boss in the eyes. “It doesn't feel closed.”

“It never really is.” Gordon leaned against the table and folded his arms. “There is something we picked up on the wire taps that I didn't share with the group. Care to speculate who the new leader of CDA is?”

“Lauren Davis.”

“How'd you know?”

“Lucky guess.”

“It's just a matter of time before you'll be arresting her.”

“What makes you think I'll have to?”

“Aeneas's death has been a boom for fundraising and volunteers. They're going to purchase a second ship.”

***

Later, Robert left his musty apartment and went for a jog. The air was warmer than usual, and he found himself running for more than an hour, his mind circling the events of the past two weeks.

Back home, after a shower and a meal, he eyed his luggage, still sitting in the corner, packed. Oddly, there was a part of him that didn't want the trip to end. As if he could go back and change things.

He emptied his bags onto the bed. Clothing and toiletries, passport and files. He noticed a photo that had slipped out of one of the files and picked it up.

It was a picture of Ethan Downes, from
Emperor of the Seas
. The cruise ship passenger gone missing. Robert sat on the bed, his heart suddenly pounding, and studied the photo. He had seen this face before, but where. He closed his eyes, picturing Ethan's face, searching for a match, for context.

His eyes flew open as he realized he'd seen the same face aboard the
Tern
. He was sure of it. Through his binoculars, watching the crew members throw bombs at the
Maru
, he'd seen Ethan Downes, somehow, among the deckhands. But it didn't make sense.

He opened the packet of photos from Lynda, removed the group picture of the
Tern
, taken after Aeneas had died, and focused on each and every person. Ethan was not among them.

But Robert knew he was right. At some point in time, Ethan had been on that boat.

Days passed, then weeks. She tried to forget him, but Aeneas was like Diesel: every day in the field triggered a memory. The way Aeneas would yank on his end of the rope, pulling her toward him so he could kiss her. The spontaneous whistling behind her as she hiked through the brush. The sound of his breathing, heavy as they climbed up the dried riverbeds. Now there was just the sound of wind.

On a drizzly morning, Angela set out to visit a crèche near the tourist trail. When penguin chicks reached a certain age, they congregated together in large flocks, still dependent upon their parents to emerge from the water and feed them, but only a few weeks removed from entering the water themselves.

When Angela arrived, two caracaras were fighting over the carcass of a chick and she waved them off. The safest part of the crèche was the middle, protected from predators, the weather, and the occasional aggressive adult. The chicks on the outer edges were the weaker birds, or the sick, or maybe just different.

It occurred to Angela, standing there watching them, that she too had been on the outer edge of the crèche when Aeneas washed ashore. Voluntarily, she had isolated herself from the group, living in a trailer instead of the cueva, eating alone, walking alone so many nights. By the time Aeneas had arrived, she was vulnerable, and perhaps she left too soon, without knowing fully how to swim.

Up over the hill, she heard the honking of horns. The gate had been lifted, the tourist trail opened. Dust and smoke clouds billowed. She turned and walked in the opposite direction. She decided that it was time she completed a few other circles that she and Aeneas had left unfinished.

She headed north. She passed guanacos on the hill, standing between her and the ocean, watching her with one eye as they nibbled on scrub grass. She angled toward the water, toward the place she'd first found Aeneas, the shells crunching underfoot. She stopped and looked out over the water, hoping for a vessel of any kind.

“What happened to you?” she asked aloud. She could still see Aeneas standing on the bridge, nose to the front window, hair falling over his ears, eyes focused on the icebergs ahead.

She finished the circles, then sat on a hill and nibbled on a peanut butter sandwich. This would be the last time she traveled this far north this season. The penguins would be gone soon, headed north themselves, following the food. She would worry about them but remind herself that they were exactly where they belonged, in their comfort zone. The land was always a temporary diversion for them, as the sea had been for her.

A glint caught her eye and she poked her head into a burrow in search of a band. Could this be a red dot? she wondered. She opened her notebook.

“Hello,
pingüina
.”

She turned and looked up, squinting against the light. Aeneas. She stood and took him in, blinking, unsure whether he was real.

He wore a faded camouflage jacket, torn in a few places. His beard had filled in and was grayer than she imagined it would be. He lost a few pounds. His face was weary.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the necklace she had given him. Her penguin tag.

“I promised to return it to you,” he said. He came closer and opened the clasp, then reached around her neck. Angela stood still as he attached the chain. She felt herself wanting to hug him, to wrap her arms around his shoulders and band herself to him forever. But she remembered the news articles. The video. If he didn't go under that ship, who did?

“Where's your jacket?” she asked.

Aeneas looked down as if to confirm that it was indeed missing, then looked evasively at the horizon, then, finally, returned his eyes to her.

When he'd opened his eyes he'd seen blue sky, a window in the clouds above him. He sat up, realizing that he had slept. The clouds still hung low, some scraping the water.

He heard an engine, a low throttled sound that he felt more than heard—a large ship, but that was all he knew. He started the Zodiac and headed toward the noise. The wind had begun to blow again and, with it, the clouds. Soon Ethan could make out icebergs all around him, then he saw the source of the noise: the
Maru
, only a half mile ahead.

His heartbeat quickened—it was time. Time to do what he'd planned to do before losing his way in the fog. Maybe it was meant to happen this way, he thought. Maybe he'd had to lose his way in order to find his way all along.

He accelerated, squinting into the wind, feeling the cold penetrate his jacket, yet not actually feeling cold. Instead he felt powerful, invincible, like a bullet fired true with nothing but gravity and inertia to stop it from reaching its target. He was that bullet as he neared the bow of the
Maru
. Water rained down on him from above. He squinted more, was now ahead of the bow, then he cut across and reached down for the prop fouler.

When he looked up, he glimpsed the other Zodiac, and then it was on top of him. He was in the air, then down again, caught in the wire. The sky darkened as the
Maru
's hull passed by. But his Zodiac had, somehow, remained upright, and when he pulled himself to his knees, he saw Aeneas in the water next to the other Zodiac, now empty.

Ethan pulled him in and cut off the rope around his ankle. Aeneas, shivering, muttered, “FBI,” and motioned for Ethan to head back to the
Tern
, still off in the distance, mostly shrouded in fog. Ethan looked back and saw a man in the water, paddling his way to the empty Zodiac.

And as Ethan headed toward the
Tern
, he realized there would be others with the FBI, perhaps already on board, who would capture Aeneas all over again. If they returned to the ship now, Ethan would be delivering Aeneas straight to them.

He turned the Zodiac around and headed behind a group of icebergs. Aeneas said nothing; his eyes were glazed and he looked frozen nearly all the way through. Behind a towering berg, Ethan found a slab of pack ice, thick enough to walk on. He pulled alongside and helped Aeneas onto the ice.

“What?” Aeneas asked.

“Here, take my jacket. It's dry.”

Ethan removed his jacket and waited for Aeneas to remove his. He was surprised when Aeneas did as instructed. As he pulled on Ethan's jacket, Ethan boarded the Zodiac again, donning Aeneas's dripping yellow jacket.

Then he tossed Aeneas the emergency flare. Aeneas would know when to use it. As Ethan pulled away, he heard Aeneas call his name, but he did not turn back.

The wind had strengthened, and the waves were so high that the Japanese ship briefly disappeared from view. One wave—a dark gray, white-tipped mountain—bore down on him, threatening failure, but then he pushed up and over the mountain and saw his target once again.

He kept the jacket's hood drawn tight. As he passed the
Tern
, he turned his face away. He felt sorry for what they were about to witness.

Ethan looked ahead at the bow of the
Maru
, searching for men with guns aimed at him. He saw only one man stationed at the harpoon, which was aimed directly at him.

The bow of the ship was nearly above him now. He grabbed the prop fouler with both hands. Strangely, he wasn't afraid, even knowing what was about to happen. That his boat would be cut in half. That he would be pulled under the bow. That his body, along with the nest of plastic, hemp, and barbed wire, would stop the propellers.

Before, he'd lived his life with the comfort of a nearby
undo
button. Now, there would be no more
undo
s. As the ship began blaring its horns, wind narrowing his eyes, a mountain of blue steel rising up, there was nothing more to regret.

He remembered the lady walking into the river in St. Louis. Back then, and for most of his life, Ethan had been someone who'd stopped at the water's edge, while others kept going. His father. Annie.

He could see the churning. Coming fast. The bow of the ship obstructed the sky, the water darkening. He held up his arms from side to side, prop fouler tight and ready.

It all made sense now. Finding Annie. Losing Annie. Finding Aeneas. Annie had been his perfect match. Aeneas's jacket was a perfect fit.

He could feel motion under him, the ocean taking control. And he kept going.