Exodus 2022 (27 page)

“Delay her departure to where?”

“To where the tunnels lead.”

“Which is where?”

“Unknown.”

Beck muttered a stream of profane words, but Ring paid no attention.

“We may know soon enough, though,” said Ring, studying his smartphone. “Stanton’s final thought capture just finished downloading.”

THE BELL 412 WAITED
on the tarmac beyond the terminal, its engines already screaming.

“Restroom,” said Beck, as he veered toward the building. “You go ahead.”

The door to the restroom stood open, and a yellow plastic sandwich board sat on the threshold, Caution, Wet Floors printed on both sides.

Beck made for the nearest urinal. He saw a cleaning lady standing in the open door of the far toilet stall, back to the room, mopping the floor.

Beck didn’t care. He needed to take a leak. Bad. He peed and peed, relishing the sensation of relief.

Mind full of thoughts, Beck was barely aware of his environment: the buzz of the fluorescents, the juicy slosh of the cleaning lady’s mop as it slid across the tile floor.

But then another sound brought him out of his daydream. An out-of-place sound. A sound that prickled the hair on the back of his neck and sent a tiny instantaneous jolt of adrenaline down his spine.

The sound was a low grunt, followed by a fleshy wheeze.

Feet still planted firmly before the urinal, Beck turned his head and caught a whiff of a gag-inducing stench. A horrible, breathtaking stink. The unmistakable odor of moldering, gangrenous flesh.

Beck twisted his upper body further and looked in the mirror.

The cleaning lady was still in the far stall, her sturdy back still to the room. He watched her dunk her mop robotically into her bucket. Draw it back out.

There was no one else around.

Then the cleaning lady pivoted, and Beck forgot where he was and what he was doing. A gurgling moan escaped his throat.

It wasn’t a cleaning lady. It was Navarro. The nurse from the
Northern Mercy
, the nurse who’d tried to warn Stanton.

She was dead. Obviously.

Yet she was here, standing in the stall, ribbons of flesh hanging loosely from her skull, yellow pus oozing from great cavernous black holes in her face and neck.

Her eyes were shut—the lids pallid and sagging.

Beck’s combat-trained mind attempted a split-second analysis of the situation. An assessment. An explanation.

There was no explanation. So his brain froze. Stuttered. Lurched and locked up.

Already taken care of
, Collins had told him.

Beck hadn’t followed up on Navarro’s fate. No need.

Already taken care of
meant that Collins or one of his men had killed her aboard the
Northern Mercy
: most likely in the middle of the night. Most likely by knocking her unconscious, handcuffing weights to her hands and feet, and throwing her overboard. No muss, no fuss. No evidence. If coworkers asked questions, they’d say she’d gone back to the Philippines—or wherever the hell she’d come from.

Already taken care of.

And yet here she was.

What was left of her.

Navarro’s eyes opened, and Beck screamed.

IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON,
but the sun was still high and the massive flight deck of the
Nimitz
still full of tourists. In a few hours’ time, many of the visitors would be watching fireworks, gasping in amazement as Elliott Bay and downtown Seattle shimmered under a massive barrage launched from nearby Myrtle Edwards Park.

Agent Sandra Timmons had her laptop open and a new folder titled Joseph Stanton on-screen. The folder was filling fast with information about Joe and Ella.

“Bremerton Police are saying the fire at Stanton’s house was intentionally set,” Timmons told her colleague. “And a neighbor saw him leaving the scene with his girlfriend.”

Agent Roger Chen shook his head. “Starts his house on fire and then comes straight here and asks about a secret sonar installation.”

Pedersen said, “He didn’t just ask about it. He demanded we shut it down to allow ‘critical cetacean communication.’”

“Which is what?”

Pedersen shrugged. “Whale talk? Cetaceans are whales. I guess he’s worried the whales can’t talk to one another.”

Agent Timmons laughed. “Sounds like somebody’s off their meds.”

Across the bridge, Admiral Houghton sat at a table, back straight, hands folded, with a faraway look in his eyes. Houghton’s junior officers knew their admiral as a vigorous leader constantly in motion—not just keeping up but setting the pace. They were not accustomed to seeing him idle—frozen—as he appeared now.

Agent Chen asked Pedersen, “So
is
the Kanaga array affecting cetacean health?”

The lieutenant shrugged. “Maybe. Who knows? Environmentalists say all our sonar is hazardous to whales. Other marine life. They’ve been complaining about it for years. But their complaints are general. This Stanton character cited a specific install. A
classified
install. And he asked that it be turned off at a specific time.”

Timmons asked, “Why, do you suppose? What good would that do? Who would it help?”

“Beats the hell out of us,” Pedersen replied. “Kanaga’s a test site where different ships operate towed arrays. It’s not like shutting it down would affect national security. It’s possible a foreign government is looking to analyze our capabilities, but my hunch is Stanton’s a greenie wingnut. He and the girl are part of some fringe animal-rights group, probably. Sea Shepherd or one of those. Some of ’em are violent. Whether Stanton is or not, we’d like to know how he came by the classified intel.”

Agent Chen nodded, began collecting his things.

“We’re on it. Seattle Police, State Patrol, and NCIS are already in the loop. Kinda crazy with the holiday, but I expect we’ll know something soon.”

He handed Pedersen a card. “This has our contact info. Call if anything new comes up.”

The agents and Pedersen passed Admiral Houghton on their way out. Walked in front of the big man sitting at his table. Ramrod straight, eyes fixed on the window and Elliott Bay beyond, he looked like a statue of a war hero.

Timmons said, “Thank you for your time, sir,” as she crossed his line of sight.

The big man breathed. Blinked. Like he was waking from a dream. He looked at Timmons. “Hell of a grip for a priest,” he whispered. “Hell of a grip, you know?”

“Yes, sir,” she replied.

Pedersen escorted Chen and Timmons to the quarterdeck, and the two agents made their way off the ship. Timmons stared at her smartphone as they walked.

“Bremerton Police are saying the St. Anthony’s church van is missing. Someone from the church went to use it this morning and it was gone.”

“Stanton have a key?” Chen asked.

Timmons nodded. “One of three people at the church.”

Chen said, “Check with the ferries—should be video of the van boarding a Bremerton or Bainbridge boat this morning. Maybe a shot of Stanton behind the wheel, if we’re lucky.”

“On it,” said Timmons.

“And add it to the profile. I want every DOT camera in the state watching for that van.”

JOE AND ELLA CLIMBED
the broad stairs leading into the heart of the Pike Place Market.

Progress was brutally slow, the stairs jammed with sweaty, noisy, sunburned tourists from every corner of the globe.

Joe took Ella’s hand and focused his thoughts on Dieturlund, trying to glean more information from the new “memories” Mia had placed in his head.

He thought and contemplated and analyzed and climbed on, part of the sea of humanity, but also separate from it. In his own little world.

He could see Dieturlund shuffling around his tiny apartment. Bent, bearded, frail. In pain.

Lonely.

Dieturlund: Tenured professor. Department chair. Beloved mentor. Recipient of countless grants and awards.

Dieturlund: Cetacean researcher—one of the finest and most respected in the country—until—

Until he went off the deep end.

Until the embarrassing theories and nonsensical white papers. Until the personality shifts and volatile mood swings.

Dieturlund: Alone now. Subject of pity. A wasted old man suffering from what ex-colleagues whispered was early-onset dementia.

Joe could
see
Dieturlund’s room.
Feel
its stale, stagnant air. Depressing.

He focused harder. Tried to see more.

Then his heart skipped a beat, and he had a sudden, terrifying epiphany. The hair on the back of his neck prickled. He squeezed Ella’s hand, and if he could’ve stopped walking he would have, but the crowd enveloping them—surging up behind them—had a life of its own.

“Don’t let go of me,” he whispered.

Ella nodded.

They climbed on, Joe’s heart thrumming in his chest.

Someone’s watching.

He’d experienced a similar feeling, from time to time in his life, believing he was alone in a room and then suddenly realizing someone else was there.

Someone’s watching.

It was like that now, except…

Now the “someone” was in his head.

Not a thought or a message or a telepathic transmission—he was getting used to those.

Some one.

A foreign consciousness. Another mind. An individual, standing in the shadows. Waiting respectfully.

Waiting to be noticed.

The realization gave him the heebie-jeebies.

He squeezed Ella’s hand tighter, mastered his fear, and faced the other presence.

It was Mia.

On the deck of the
Nimitz
, Mia had arrived in Joe’s head unannounced. Without warning. At the last possible second.

Joe remembered. He’d been standing there, staring at the admiral, wondering what to say, when the lights flickered.

Neurons misfired. Thoughts stuttered. Ceased.

Like a massive solar flare blasting the power grid, Mia had entered his head—knocked the entity known as Joe Stanton momentarily off-line and slid into position behind his eyes, seizing control of his mind and body.

Through Joe’s eyes, Mia had peered out, perceiving Admiral Houghton, the issue of the Kanaga sonar, and the entire situation as if it were some sort of vast combination lock, with dials waiting to be turned just so.

Click
, and it was done: the name of the sonar array and precise coordinates placed front and center in Joe’s neo-cortex. Images of the proper chart. A specific demand for Joe’s mouth to speak.

“We respectfully request that the sonar be turned off between 2 a.m. and 2 p.m. Pacific standard time, tomorrow.”

Like some fantastical supercomputer, Mia had lifted the relevant information from Dieturlund’s head, placed it into Joe’s, and simultaneously delivered a request—a command—to the admiral, through Joe’s handshake.

Turn off the Kanaga sonar. The Kanaga sonar must be turned off.

She’d come and gone, in and out, arriving in the nick of time, and—having solved the emergency—departing an instant later.

That’s what Joe had thought. But now he realized the truth.

She was still here: With him. Inside him. Awake and aware and watching. Quietly. Respectfully.

Hello, Mia.

Hello, Stan-ton.

The crowd continued uphill, a river flowing against gravity, carrying Joe along. Joe continued climbing. Feet moving, knees bending, body on autopilot.

The feeling that there was another living, breathing consciousness in his head, observing him, was all he could think about.

Relax
, Mia told him.
We do this all the time.

Do what all the time?
Joe wondered to himself.
Inhabit another’s mind? Look out at the world through another’s eyes?

He posed a question:
How can you be here if your body is somewhere else? In the ocean, far away?

Joe heard laughter. Mia laughing. Not in a mocking way. This laughter was gentle. Benign. Full of joy.

I’m in both places at once. Do you see?

And then it was as if a small window opened in his mind.

Relax.

He was still on the stairs. Still climbing up to the Market. Still holding Ella’s hand. Part of the Fourth of July crowd. But now—out of the corner of his eye—he could see…

A mountain of blue. Vast. Endless, dark underneath. Shapes around him, huge and powerful. And reflections: sunlight splintering across a surface at once familiar and alien.

It was too much to process. It was sensory overload. He didn’t know what to look at. Didn’t know what he was seeing.

May we trade a moment?
she asked. A question posed in that same laughing, childlike voice.

And Joe understood. Or believed he did.

He turned to Ella. “She wants to trade places with me. Wants to see.”

Ella stared at him, confused.

“Mia wants to see this place. Just for a minute, she’ll be here, in my body, and I’ll be far away.”

Ella was shaking her head, eyes getting wider by the second. “What? No.”

“Hold on to me,” he said. “Guide me. Don’t let go of my hand. I’ll be right back.”

Ella tried to protest.

Too late.

“Humans live largely inside their heads, from which they tell the rest of their bodies what to do, except for occasional passionate moments when the tables are turned. Animals, on the other hand, do not seem compartmentalized that way. Everything they are is in every move they make.”

-Frederick Buechner

JOE BLINKED,
and when his eyes opened again, he screamed, or tried to. What became of the sound—if there was any sound—was a mystery he had no time to contemplate.

He was on top of a mountain—the mountain he had perceived moments before—moving now, diving, leaping headlong into space.