Randy White - Twelve Mile Limit

“At one point, when the strobe flashed, it was close enough that I’m pretty sure it had those steel booms you see on a certain kind of boat. Just the silhouette. That’s all I saw.”

I said, “Do you mean the kind of booms found on shrimp boats?”

She nodded. “Yes, I think so, the kind they use for dragging nets. The booms were up, folded like wings. Only I can’t say for sure it was a shrimp boat. It was pretty good size, though. Not moving fast but pushing a lot of water. No lights at all, not in the cabin, none on the deck. No navigational lights, either. It went sliding by in the night like a ghost ship or something, that big strobe light showing me nothing but shadows and angles way out there on the edge of a white circle. It seemed like the boat was coming right at me. Then, all of a sudden, it turned away. Headed north, running parallel to the coast.”

I asked, “What time was that?”

She touched a hand to the stainless dive watch on her left wrist. “It was 5:50 A.M. That’s when the boat was real close and I checked my watch.”

“Was the Coast Guard helicopter still on station? Were they still searching, I mean?”

She shook her head. “No. They hadn’t been out there for a couple of hours. I found out later that the Coast Guard suspended the air search between 2 A.M. and sunrise, and the cutter they sent wasn’t even close yet. Which means it was just me out there. And the others-me on the tower, them in the water, and that boat. Which is why the Coast Guard didn’t see it. Never knew it was there.”

So far, I didn’t doubt the woman’s story. By law, between dusk and dawn, all vessels are mandated to show running lights, but it’s common for skippers to ignore the law and run dark. On black nights, white anchor lights, even red and green bow lights, interfere with night vision. It’s easier to see random waves without them. As to other boat traffic, there’s usually not much at night, particularly in stretches of seldom-traveled wilderness water, and the water space off the Ten Thousand Islands is about as wilderness as it gets.

Even so, something was missing from the story. Had to be. By my judgment, Amelia was a rational, logical person, and thus far, her story contained a major omission. I said, “Okay, you saw a boat. The boat wasn’t showing lights. Trust me, it’s not unusual. It slipped through a little hole in the Coast Guard search schedule. I don’t doubt that, either. So the question is obvious: What makes you think that boat may have found Janet, Michael, and Grace? It was dark. There was no way for people aboard to see three people floating in the water.”

Amelia took a sip of her water, turned her head, and looked at me. She had eyes the color of spring grass, a lucent green, and they seemed to be set slightly deeper into her face, as if having retreated from the emotional beating she’d taken over the last several weeks. “The boat stopped, that’s why. About twenty minutes later, the sky had changed from charcoal to a kind of pearly gray. It was way to the northeast, but it was out there. I could see it. Out there, floating, but not moving forward.”

“Could you hear its engines?”

“No. It was too far away by then. I’m sure you’ve seen the tower I was on. It has two platforms. One just over the waves, and the other about twenty feet above that. I climbed up to the highest platform to get a better look. It was cold up there, windy. Doc, I’m telling you now exactly what I told the Coast Guard. There was a boat out there. I’ll swear to it. And it stopped. For the first time, it showed lights. I saw it flashing a spotlight around. Then it started moving again toward shore and was gone. It’d stopped for five minutes, maybe ten.”

She paused for a moment, building her case, letting me think about it before she added, “All three of them were wearing inflated vests. If all those search boats and helicopters didn’t find Janet, Grace, and Michael in six solid days and nights of searching, doesn’t it make sense that someone else did? Someone picked them up. My God, someone had to. That’s the only reasonable explanation. We didn’t find them because they weren’t there!”

I said, “I’d like to believe that-and so would you. So would we all. But it’s a big ocean, Amelia. You know that better than most people will ever know it. Drop the average adult diver into the Gulf of Mexico, and he or she is proportionally reduced to the size of about one molecule in the atomic structure of a very large animal. Easy to miss, and sometimes almost impossible to find.”

She was nodding, anticipating my response, way ahead of me. “I agree. But it should be easy enough to prove there was another boat out there. At least that there is a possibility they were picked up. It’s like I told your friend at St. Pete Coast Guard, Commander Dorsey.

“I told him that everyone knows the government has all kinds of satellites flying around the sky, up there to monitor weather and drug trafficking and who knows what else. Maybe a satellite flew over that night and there’s a photo of the boat somewhere, a way to identify it.”

“What did Dalton think about that idea?”

“He thought it was great, but he said the Coast Guard couldn’t help me. No access to that kind of classified information. Not officially anyway. It had something to do with them not being a branch of the military, which was news to me.” She seemed to make it a point not to look in my direction when she added, “Commander Dorsey suggested that I mention the satellite idea to you. When I asked why, he didn’t say. Just sort of ignored the question. Like there was something he knew but wasn’t going to tell me. Does that make any sense to you, Doc?”

I was thinking: Satellite images. Good idea. But I said, “Nope. I have no idea why Dalton would say such a thing. But look… well, what we should decide here, as far as me helping you, Amelia-of course I will. Count on it. What I’m not clear on is what you want me to do.”

Now she turned to look at me. “I want you to question every detail of my story. This is the lawyer in me talking. Trying to prove me wrong is the only way I can be proven right. Come to some conclusions, write them out, and Commander Dalton said he would attach it to the Coast Guard file, which will make it public record. What I really want? I told you before. I want you to help all four of us get our reputations back.”

I listened to my old friend, colleague, and confidant, Bernard Yeager, Ph. D., say to me over long-distance telephone, “Satellites? So why should I know a satellite from a submarine? Tell me that if you don’t mind very much.”

Patiently, I replied, “Bernie, this is me at the other end. If you can’t talk, just say so. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. Surveillance satellites: I need some general information, and maybe a little piece or two of specific information-if it’s available.”

“Trust me, it’s not available. Even if I had access to that kind of data, it’s not available. Which I don’t.”

I sighed and stared at the shelf of aquaria along the wall of my lab. It was feeding time, and eight football-sized octopi stared back at me from their individual tanks, while aerators in each created the sweet molecular odor of ozone and a soothing chorus of bubbles. I said, “Won’t you at least listen?”

“I’ll listen, I’ll listen, already! But first things first. You say you are Marion Ford. I know your voice well. You are my old friend. But these are dangerous times. Did you know that there are certain computer magicians who can record another person’s voice, download it, and then use microphone active software to make their own voice sound very similar to the one they’ve recorded?”