David Dun - The Black Silent

"My boss wants me to call the Washington State attorney general first thing this morning. He probably won't be home. I don't know what to tell you."

"We have got to get some independent law enforcement in here," Sam began. "You would be good."

"With no official jurisdiction and against orders?"

"Uh-huh. This is so egregious, somebody is bound to do something. You might as well be here, Ernie, and get the glory. We are talking big things, Ernie, very big."

"Like what?" asked Ernie.

"Like terrorists blowing up the ocean."

"Are you out of your mind? It sounds hokey."

"Maybe."

Sam proceeded to give Ernie a breakdown of all Ben's discoveries, with an emphasis on the methane angle.

There was a very long pause.

Sam could imagine Ernie with his chin in his hand, squeezing it so tight his knuckles were turning white.

"This is serious."

"This involves the most important secrets to overcoming aging. And it's not just the future we're concerned about. We have people killing for Ben Anderson's knowledge,"

Sam said.

"All right. Hell. I'll probably get fired. Actually, I'm already in San Francisco. It automatically rings through to my cell. I hope my career survives this. Friday Harbor on San Juan Island, is that where I go?"

"Come there and I'll call you on the cell and tell you where we are. But if something goes wrong, we're going to Orcas Island, around Lime Kiln Road, or the Sawmill Road.

Somewhere in there is an unmarked road. It has a couple branches. Follow the biggest No Trespassing signs."

"What I don't do for you." Ernie sighed. "Out of my jurisdiction, out of my mind-I tell you."

"Well, there is one more thing."

"Of course. There always is."

Sam knew he wouldn't like the next part.

"I'm on the Internet with a laptop through a satellite uplink. I need Grogg, wherever he is, to remote control Big Brain and then use Big Brain to remote control this PC and download the contents of this PC and break into some files."

"Are you kidding me? They'll have my ass."

"Don't go through channels; just call Grogg. It'll be on us."

"I'll tell Grogg what you need," Ernie said. "And let's be clear: I am not authorizing it."

"Perfect; that will insure Grogg's full commitment to the job," Sam joked. Another pause followed; then Sam explained how to get to the files and Ernie took notes.

Sam set up the computer online through the ship's satellite network so that it would be ready for a Grogg job.

From the resort on Lopez, Khan launched Sheriff's Boats 1 and 2 with sixteen of the hired men and made for Orcas. Others took vehicles on the morning interisland ferry.

Frick sent Khan ahead without him, wanting to stay at a command center until somebody found something.

Orcas already had four deputies and five patrol cars. The sergeant remained drugged in a basement. They would keep the real deputies on the roads and checking leads. They'd use the special deputies for assaults on suspicious properties.

The cold air chilled Frick's skin as he stood on the back deck of the resort, sipping coffee, anxious for the caffeine to take hold. On the eastern horizon the black night sky was giving way to morning and he could see the first signs of light off in the west.

His radio crackled. Delia had McStott for him.

Frick tried not to sigh audibly.

"What is it?"

"I still don't know what Anderson's been making here in the lab, but I'm beginning to think I know what he's using it on."

"Yeah?"

"People." McStott let that sink in.

Big surprise. Frick almost laughed. "Is that so?"

McStott missed the sarcasm. "I think so. I mean, I'm pretty sure."

"If it turns out it's true and this stuff works, you'll be a rich man, McStott. If not, you may be a dead one."

Frick let McStott think on that. Once an egghead, always an egghead. McStott still didn't understand that he was dead meat either way.

The motors made an even slick hum as the boat rode over the flat obsidian smooth sea.

The Boston Whaler was like a thoroughbred whose owner had fitted it to a plow.

Mechanically, it was excellent transportation, traveling comfortably along at twenty-five knots at a little over half-throttle.

They pulled into Brown Island at Friday Harbor before daylight. There were some people that lived there year-round-the Milfords-but they were traveling in Europe.

The dock was old but serviceable. They had dressed Sarah's neck wounds and various other abrasions left courtesy of Rafe Black. Her muscles were giving her trouble left over from Frick's tight bindings, but she was tough.

They went to the back door of the Milford place, a lovely well-maintained cottage, and Sarah found the key in its place.

"Are you sure you're okay by yourself?" Haley asked.

"I'm sure," Sarah said. With big hugs they parted.

"God, I hope she's safe," Haley said as they climbed back in the Boston Whaler.

Without more words they shoved off and headed for Orcas.

They were in a hurry but had almost been killed enough times for one night so that they kept the boat at a reasonable speed. It was twilight Monday morning and using the spotlight was perhaps a little risky from the detection standpoint. They snapped it on occasionally through the tide rips, where wood collected. By the time they were well into Upright Channel, it was approaching sunrise and they could see well enough without the artificial light. As the gray morning painted the sky, they increased the speed to forty knots.

On the gunnels and the floorboards the evening dew vibrated in a soft glistening and that, together with the spray, made it a very wet place outside the fiberglass and canvas enclosure. For the Pacific Northwest's fall and winter, the boat had a hard fiberglass top.

Inside, a vigorous diesel heater blew hot air, a hypothermic's dream.

Sam could not remember when he had been so tired. As he sat in the captain's chair and sagged, Haley watched him. In three or four more hours it would be about twenty-four hours since the nightmare had begun.

"Sleep," she said, and put her hand on his arm and took the wheel.

"Why don't you sleep," he said. "I've got to end this thing before I sleep."

"Me too," she said. "Me too."

They skimmed along in silence, dislodging the occasional seabird, a gull, a marbled murrelet, and a spoonbill duck. The usual tangles of kelp, driftwood, and sea grasses floated along, like small islands, sometimes a resting place for the sandpipers. They were going too fast to see the jellyfish, but the jumping bait fish were visible as a wrinkling on the surface and occasional miniature splashes. Sam spied plumes of white mist from a pod of orcas, followed by their black humps and large dorsals as they traveled San Juan Channel, past Shaw.

Sam glanced at Haley as she smoothed her hair back the way women tend to do when they know that a certain man is watching. He could not help enjoying the look of her and the angles of her face, and the look of the eyes that even now did not completely hide some mirth and tender guile.

In the end he couldn't stand the waiting. Frick was coming in from West Sound, having decided to take Sheriff's Boat 3, when Rolf finally got more specific in his clues. He relayed them to Khan and expected at any moment to hear Khan call in from a big, lodgelike place out in the forest on a bluff overlooking the water. Just as he was growing impatient, the call came through.

"It's right on President Channel."

Frick listened as Khan described what he and his men had found. "It's high up on the rocks. I'm down the road here, where the reception's better."

"What did you see?"

"The place looks like it was occupied very recently. We found a pipe burning in an ashtray. Hot coffee in a big multi-gallon dispenser. Suitcases in the rooms, shaving gear and toiletries out. It looks like they all just ran out of the house, but where-I don't know. They don't seem to be hiding in the bushes."