Frank Schatzing - The Swarm

'Cover to cover?'

'No, just the important bits.'

Delaware smiled. 'So read the unimportant bits.'

Anawak immediately spotted what she meant. It was a short article, only a few lines long. A photo was printed next to it, showing a family – father, mother, and a young boy, who was looking gratefully at the tall man next to him.

'Unbelievable,' murmured Anawak.

'Say what you like,' said Delaware, and glared at him. Today she was wearing yellow-tinted glasses with rhinestone crosses on the frames. 'But he's not that big an asshole.'

Little Bill Sheckley (5), the last person to be saved from the Lady Wexham , the passenger boat that sank on 11 April, can finally smile again. Today he was able to return home with his grateful parents, after spending weeks in Victoria Hospital where he was being kept for observation. After the rescue mission Bill had suffered a dangerous case of hypothermia, which developed into full-blown pneumonia. Now fighting fit again, Bill has evidently recovered from the shock. Today his parents expressed their gratitude to his rescuers, in particular Jack 'Greywolf' O'Bannon, a committed conservationist from Vancouver Island, who led the rescue mission and showed touching concern for little Bill's recovery. This young boy isn't the only one indebted to the 'hero of Tofino', as O'Bannon has been called.

Anawak folded the paper and flung it back on the table. 'Shoemaker would have gone mad,' he said.

For a while neither said anything. Anawak watched the clouds moving slowly overhead and tried to feel angry, but the only people he was angry with were General Li and himself.

In fact, mainly himself.

'Why does everyone have a problem with Greywolf?' asked Delaware.

'He can't stop causing trouble.' Anawak ran a hand over his eyes. Even though it was first thing in the morning he already felt tired.

'Don't get me wrong,' Delaware said cautiously, 'but he did pull me out of the water, just as I was thinking I was done for. I went looking for him two days ago. I found him sitting at the bar in a pub in Ucluelet, so I went up and thanked him.'

'And?' said Anawak wearily.

'He was surprised.'

Anawak looked at her.

'He wasn't expecting to be thanked. He was pleased. Then he asked how you were.'

'Me?'

She crossed her arms and leaned forward on the table. 'I don't think he's got many friends.'

'He needs to ask himself why.'

'And I think he's fond of you.'

'Come off it, Licia.'

'Tell me something about him.'

What was the point? thought Anawak. Why can't we talk about something more pleasant?

He thought for a moment. Nothing occurred to him.

'We used to he friends,' he said curtly.

He waited for Delaware to leap up in the air, yelling, 'I knew it!' Instead, she just nodded.

'His name is Jack O'Bannon and he comes from Port Townsend in Washington State. His father's an Irishman who married a half-Indian, from the Suquamish, I think. In the States Jack tried all kinds of jobs – he was a bouncer, a graphic designer, a bodyguard and finally a diver with the US Navy SEALs. That's when he found his calling – dolphin-handling. He was good at it, until they diagnosed his heart defect. Nothing serious, but they're a tough lot, the SEALs. Jack did well there – he's got more distinctions than you can count – but it was the end of his time in the navy.'

'How did he wind up here?'

'He always had a soft spot for Canada. At first he tried his luck in Vancouver's film business. He thought that with his build and looks he might become an actor, but he didn't have any talent. And things have never worked out for him because he can't keep his cool. He once put a guy in hospital.'

'Oh,' said Delaware.

Anawak flashed his teeth at her. 'Sorry to tarnish your image of him.'

'Never mind. What happened next?'

Anawak poured himself some orange juice. 'He was locked up. While he was in prison he read up on conservation and whales, and when he got out he decided that that's what he had to do. He went to see Davie, whom he knew from a visit to Ucluelet, and asked him if he could use an extra skipper. "Be my guest," said Davie, "just keep out of trouble." You know, Jack can be very charming when it suits him.'

Delaware nodded. 'But this time he wasn't charming.'

'Oh, he was fine for a while. We had a sudden rush of female tourists. Everything was perfect – until he punched a guy.'

'A passenger?'

'Right.'

'Oh, Jeez.'

'Yeah. Davie wanted to fire him, but I begged for him to have another chance. But three weeks later he pulled the same trick again. So Davie had to fire him. Wouldn't you have done the same?'

'I'd have thrown him out the first time,' said Delaware, softly.

'Well, at least you know how to look after yourself,' Anawak said cuttingly. 'Anyway, if you stick up for someone and that's how they thank you, sooner or later your patience runs out.'

He gulped his orange juice, choked and coughed. Delaware reached over and thumped him on the back.

'Then he totally lost it,' he wheezed. 'Jack's other little problem is that he doesn't know what's real. At some point during his frustration the Spirit of Manitou came upon him and told him; "From now on, let your name be Greywolf, protector of the whales, defender of all living things. Go forth and fight for them." Well, obviously he was mad with us, so he convinced himself that he had to fight against us. On top of every thing else he still thinks I'm on the wrong side and I just haven't noticed.' Anawak was seething with rage now. 'He doesn't know anything about conservation or the Indians. They think he's hysterical – except the ones whose lives are washed up too: kids with nothing to do, guys who can't be bothered to work, drunks, people looking for trouble… They think he's great, and so do the grey-haired hippies and surfers who want to get rid of the tourists so they can laze around in peace. He attracts the scum of both cultures – anarchists, losers, dropouts, militants, extremists chucked out by Greenpeace for sullying its name, Indians whose clans have disowned them and crooks. Most of them don't give a shit about the whales. They just want to run riot. But Jack doesn't see any of that, and seriously believes that the Seaguards are an environmental pressure group. He even finances them. He earns the money as a lumberjack and a bear guide, and lives in a hovel not fit for a dog. He's such a screw-up. How does someone like him wind up as such a goddamn failure?' He paused for breath.

A seagull was shrieking in the sky above them.

Delaware spread a slice of bread with butter, dribbled some jam on the top and took a bite. 'Good,' she said. 'I can tell you still like him.'

THE NAME UCLUELET came from the Nootka, meaning 'safe harbour'. Like Tofino, the picturesque town was situated in a natural harbour and had grown from a fishing village into a favourite spot for whale-watchers. Greywolf lived in one of the less presentable parts of town. If you turned off the main road and ventured a few hundred metres down a root-ridden track just wide enough for a car, the centuries-old forest opened into a clearing with a shack in the middle. No one was more aware of its lack of comfort than its sole inhabitant. When the weather was good – and Greywolf's definition of bad weather came somewhere between a tornado and the end of the world – he spent his time outside, wandering through the forest, taking tourists to see the black bears and doing odd jobs. The probability of finding him at home was practically nil, even at night. He either slept in the open or in the bed of an adventure-hungry tourist, who never doubted for a second that she'd bagged herself a noble savage.

It was early afternoon when Anawak got to Ucluelet. He'd made up his mind to drive with Shoemaker to Nanaimo and get the ferry to Vancouver. He had his reasons for not taking the helicopter. The official reason for stopping in Ucluelet was so Shoemaker could talk business with Davie – the station was preparing to branch out into land-based adventure tours – but Anawak had excused himself from the discussions. Whatever the future held, he sensed that his time on Vancouver Island was coming to an end. If he was honest with himself, there was nothing to keep him there. Now the whale-watching was over, what did he have left?