Electra

Chapter 9

“Go! Get in the boat!” Maddock yelled at Bones, who was right next to him in the water, one hand on the boat’s pontoon. Through his mask, he saw Bones wince at the loud voice coming out of his earpiece.

“What’s up?” Bones looked around and saw nothing. He started to look into the water.

“Don’t look. Just go!” Maddock reached a hand out to a diver in the boat whose eyes widened at the sight of whatever was coming at them from below. He reached a strong arm out and began to haul Maddock in while another diver reached out to Bones. Maddock’s chest was up on the boat’s pontoon when they felt the impact.

They heard shouts of “Whale!” at the same time the Zodiac lifted partially into the air, tipping up on one side before splashing back down. They heard a sharp hissing of air.

“Did you see that? He punctured the tube!” a diver said.

“Patch it up with duct tape!” Watanabe instructed.

Meanwhile, Maddock and Bones had slid off the boat back into the water, where they now stared into the depths.

“I see it.” Maddock’s voice was low and steady. “Pilot whale. It’s got a blade strapped to its snout.”

“Slashed our boat!” Watanabe said.

“Here he comes again,” Bones warned. He didn’t try getting back into the boat again. “We’re sitting ducks up here.” He jerked his thumb downward to indicate they should drop down to the bottom. Maddock nodded in agreement and they vented the air from their buoyancy vests, sinking back below the waves while the boat crew struggled to patch the inflatable boat before it flooded and sank.

Maddock sized up the animal on their way back down to the reef. It was a small whale, about as long as two of the dolphins they’d just finished training with, but with a lot more girth. So it was much bigger overall, but at least there was only one of them. Regardless of the whale’s size, the knife on its rostrum left no doubt as to the purpose of the beast’s training. This was no exercise where they would be “tagged.” It had been sent to deal out some serious damage, perhaps even kill.

Bones held a finger from each hand together, repeating the signal Maddock had used in the training exercise. Dane agreed. If the two of them separated, the whale could attack them individually and the other wouldn’t be of much help. They moved into the back-to-back formation, assuming a standing position on the bottom. The whale slowed and cruised around them in a circle, sunlight dancing off its blade.

“Looks like a bayonet,” Maddock said. There was no need for radio silence now. The entire team was battling the pilot whale, and the conversation would stick to that. He cautioned himself not to reference any of their dolphin training experiences aloud, though.

Bones spoke into his facemask. “How’s that boat repair going?”

“We’re pumping air back into it now to see if it holds. You guys okay?” Watanabe sounded stressed.

Maddock kept a sharp eye on the whale as he spoke. “We’re on the bottom. The whale is keeping its distance for now, but circling around us. When you get the boat ready let us know and we’ll make a beeline for it.”

“Will do. Stand by.”

Maddock glimpsed a flash of metal in his peripheral vision, even though the whale was in front of him. He looked back and saw Bones holding his dive knife at the ready. He hoped Boens could strike swiftly enough, should the whale try and ram them. When he bent down to release his own blade from its sheath, he saw the mesh bag on his belt and got an idea.

The lobsters! When it came time to swim to the surface, they would be very exposed to a hit by the whale. Right now at least they had the bottom under their feet, so they couldn’t be attacked from that direction. He knew that small toothed whales were fond of eating crustaceans, including lobsters. So perhaps if he let the bugs go they might provide a distraction long enough for him and Bones to get into the boat.

“I’ve got an idea,” he announced to Bones, and of course, the team who were monitoring the comm channel.

“Uh-oh.” In spite of the situation, Bones grinned behind his facemask.

“What is it?” Watanabe wanted to know. “Boat’s holding air. We’re ready when you are. I’ll have the engine running in neutral.”

They heard the outboard motor crank to life, its whiny rumble clearly audible down on the reef. In response, the whale emitted a series of clicks that increased in pitch and cadence.

“Copy that. I caught a couple of lobsters down here on the reef during our deco stop.”

He heard a couple of the divers burst into laughter. Watanabe returned, “We were wondering what you guys were doing swimming around down there.”

“What can I say? I love my seafood. Anyway, I can let these bugs go, and hopefully the whale will chase after them. From what I hear, this breed of whale won’t turn its nose down at a free snack.”

“We’re ready up here. Just tell us when you’re coming up. We’ll have you in the boat faster than a fat kid grabbing a cookie.”

“Hey, I resent that,” Bones said. “I was a fat kid before I discovered girls and got all studly.”

Watanabe came back. “You guys ever worry about anything? Catching lobsters, cracking jokes…there’s a whale trying to kill us. And you’re the ones in the water.”

“It’s called denial,” Maddock replied. He watched the pilot whale reach the outer arc of its circle. He opened his bag and pulled out both of the lobsters, one in each hand, while making sure the bag was securely closed, lest the artifacts drop out. That would not sit well with anyone, especially Spinney.

“Keith.” He gave Bones a light elbow to the back. “I need you to close my bag. My hands are full.” He waved the pair of lobsters. Bones reached around and did the clasp on Maddock’s bag.

“You’re good to go.”

“Let’s do it.” He saw Bones turn his head to watch him. “On three…”

The whale gradually closed the distance between them as it circled around.

“One…” Maddock shifted the lobster in his right hand so that when he released it, it would scoot toward the whale. At least that was the plan.

“Two…” They heard Watanabe instructing the divers in the boat to get into position.

“Three!” Maddock released the lobster with a flick of his wrist. The beleaguered crustacean floated there for a second, then began a series of rapid tail flips, propelling itself away from Maddock and Bones and toward the whale.

Maddock and Bones pushed hard off the bottom, separating as they began to kick rapidly for the boat.

“Go!” Maddock doubted Bones really needed any encouragement, but it couldn’t hurt and it would let the boat crew know they were on the way. Looking over his shoulder, Maddock watched the pilot whale scoop up the lobster and crush it with its rows of widely-spaced serrated teeth. So much for that. Now the beast tilted upward, eyeing them momentarily before launching itself towards the fleeing divers. Maddock and Bones were about half way to the boat, another fifteen feet to go.

Maddock dropped his other lobster, grateful that it chose to zigzag crazily in the whale’s general direction, no doubt catching its attention. The whale abruptly changed direction, chasing after the second lobster while Maddock and Bones continued their beeline for the Zodiac. Once again, though, Maddock was shocked to see just how effective a hunter the pilot whale was, sucking the crustacean into its open maw before it even reached the bottom.

“He’s got the last bug. Go, go!” Maddock urged them on the final feet to the boat. He no longer looked down, but knew the whale would be coming for them as soon as the lobster slid down its gullet. He and Bones saw the blurry shapes of the divers leaning over the boat to help them in as they rushed up to the surface.

They burst from the water at the same time, both of them landing halfway in the boat. The pilot whale reached the boat at almost the same time. It slashed its bayonet across the back of Bones’ calf just as several pairs of hands hauled him into the boat. They pulled Maddock in the same way. Moments later, the two SEALs lay, breathing heavily, on the bottom of the Zodiac.

Watanabe put the motor in gear before the whale could make another pass, gunning it for the island. Maddock pushed himself up and looked over the side of the boat. The pilot whale followed in their wake for a bit, jumping the waves, but after a few minutes it fell back.

Maddock rose to his knees and made a quick inspection of Bones’ injury.

“What’s it look like?” Bones asked.

“Not deep at all. I’ll bandage it up and you should be healed in time for swimsuit season.” He cleaned the wound and wrapped it in clean gauze.

“Nice work. You should have been a nurse. The uniform would suit you.”

Watanabe laughed, but his mirth soon vanished. He pointed off to his left, where the white ship was visible, perhaps a mile away. “Mizuhi!” he called out over the whine of the outboard. The men spoke angrily about the Japanese conglomerate until they docked at the pier, where Spinney and Carlson were waiting, arms crossed.

“Trouble?” Spinney looked down on the general state of disarray the boat was in, including salt water mixed with Bones’ blood from the gash in his calf sluicing around the boat. He listened to the excited chatter of his divers as they offloaded the gear onto the pier.

Watanabe responded while he shut down the motor. “Mizuhi’s at it again.” He told him about the pilot whale and the ship.

Spinney shook his head as if in sympathy, but then quickly added, “How’d the dive go? Recover anything?”

Bugsy, his lead diver, stepped up onto the pier. “We searched the tunnel system but found no human remains, Mr. Spinney. We did recover artifacts from the plane.” He glanced back at Maddock and Bones, who were handing the gear up out of the boat to two other divers on the pier. Spinney whistled in their direction, waving an arm to come over.

Maddock looked up and gave him a hard stare. If he wasn’t undercover he would not put up with this kind of treatment, but to anger the man meant jeopardizing their mission, so he shoved the feelings aside.

“Let’s see what you got,” Spinney called. Maddock and Bones brought their artifact bags over to Spinney, Carlson and Bugsy.

“Mine looks like navigation equipment, from the cargo area,” Maddock said, handing the bag over to Spinney’s eager hands.

Carlson nodded. “That’s the space where Fred Noonan sat. Wasn’t enough room in the co-pilot seat for all his gear, so he rode back there.”

“And you?” Spinney eyed Bones’ bag, which he handed over without a word.

He took a cursory look at some of the stuff and closed the bags, holding onto them. He turned to Carlson and said, “Okay, so no bodies, but we’ve got more artifacts. Let’s get back to camp and catalog these. Hopefully there’s something definitively linked to Earhart in here, then we can make our press release.”

Carlson nodded.

“Big night!” Spinney enthused. He started to turn away and then spun back around. “Oh, Bugsy said you took photos? May I see?” He held out his meaty hand. Maddock called up the shots he’d taken on the device’s screen and handed it to him.

“Got several inside the cargo area this time.” Maddock watched him as he scrolled through the images, clearly fascinated. Then he looked up at Bones. “You too?”

Bones handed over his camera.

“You two mind if we take these back to camp and transfer the files to the field computer?”

Maddock and Bones both shook their heads. They had been careful not to take pictures that would compromise their mission. They would prefer Spinney didn’t scrutinize them too carefully, but it wasn’t worth creating a scene over.

“Rest of the day off,” Spinney said to Maddock and Bones as he and Carlson started up the path. The dive team would need a long topside rest in order to avoid the bends. The undercover SEALs fell back in with the dive team and carried the gear back into camp.