The Black Silent

CHAPTER 12

Sam directed Haley to turn the motor scooter right onto Bailer Hill Road and then back to the southeast to a gravel drive that meandered past a house and led to an old barn.

"Why are we going to Rachael's?" Haley said over her shoulder, obviously surprised at their destination.

They dismounted and Sam pushed the motor scooter into the barn. Inside, he closed the doors and flipped on a set of fluorescent lights. As Haley watched, he pulled the tarp off his 1967 Corvette. Even without natural light it had a sheen that appeared three-dimensional, like the deep blue of the ocean.

"That's yours?"

Sam smiled. He put both piles of Ben's papers on the car hood.

"Oh, I get it," Haley said. "You didn't say anything because that would actually give us information about you. I'd have died thinking you drove a two-year-old Taurus. And Rachael was a perfect choice for you. She is one of the few people I know that can really keep a secret. How did you figure that out?"

"Ben told me. We discussed where to hide my car."

"Ben told you?" she asked.

Again the surprise was evident. More like shock, Sam thought.

"I feel a little left out," Haley said. "She's my best friend."

"Believe me, you weren't left out of much. Most of the time I've spent with Rachael was because you invited her to dinner at Ben's. Now let's talk about Ben's message in the National Geographic. Deadly sighs?"

"I have no idea what that means," Haley said, her face still fallen. "The rest I think I understand. You've heard that the rain forests are the lungs of the earth? Well, plankton use photosynthesis and they're equal to all the forests of the world as a major source of oxygen. Given that Ben's talking about the sea, I'd call plankton the lungs of the earth.

Some scientists have even suggested fertilizing the ocean to create more plankton to reduce CO and slow global warming. But it sounds like Ben's saying that's dangerous, 2 that if we make more plankton, we could have a big problem. I don't get that part."

"Are you sure Ben was familiar with this plankton-feeding idea?"

"For sure. He and his friend Lattimer Gibbons argued about the effectiveness of the idea all the time."

"He seems to be leading us somewhere. Where do you think?" Sam asked.

"Three possibilities: Lattimer Gibbons's place, Ben's office, or his beach house on Lopez."

Sam nodded and signaled for her to continue.

"Ben was part of a joint invertebrate project with the University of Washington lab. The committee he was on published a series of articles that used the subtitle: 'The Ocean Breathes for the Earth.' So I'd look for his copies of those articles. He used to have them all in a bunch of binders in his office. We can't get back in there."

"Maybe we can, maybe we can't. Tell me more about Lattimer," Sam said. "The few times I met him, he seemed odd. Anxious maybe, sort of fussy, but thoroughly devoted to Ben. Ben has always been patient."

"You know what I know. He's a retired engineer. He and Ben used to argue about fertilizing the ocean. I don't know if you were around for any of those arguments.

Lattimer loved the idea and used to torture Ben with articles from other scientists who were touting it."

"Could Lattimer have the binders? Or copies?"

"Yeah," she said, "he definitely could have some of it. Maybe some copies. He could have a lot of things."

"And the same for Ben's old family beach house on Lopez?"

"There's deep-ocean stuff there, but that's actually related to the plankton because they die and rain down on the bottom."

"So back to the sigh and everybody dies," he said.

"I'm not following that part. At least not in relation to the plankton thing. But maybe Ben figured something out about that."

"Lattimer strikes me as the type that might hide things for Ben," he said.

"Yeah. And since his association with Ben is totally informal, I don't think anyone would think to look there. I could definitely see Ben hiding his real research with Lattimer. You know that nonconformist streak of his."

"Or hiding with Lattimer himself," Sam said. "Let's go see Mr. Gibbons."

Haley moved back toward the scooter, but Sam wasn't following her. Instead, he opened the trunk of the Corvette and removed and opened a small suitcase full of makeup.

Haley raised her eyebrows at the sight.

"This is pretty much what's left of my old life."

"I wish you'd tell me about your old life."

Inside the case was foundation makeup, skin-whitening cream, blush, prosthetic plastic, spirit gum, fake hair, and a host of other fillers and toners that you'd find on a typical movie set. Sam began placing the items on the hood of the Vette.

Next he removed a heavy lockbox. It contained documents that he rifled through carefully. He found a car registration form that said Frederick Raimes and pulled out the corresponding license plates.

"I really don't get this bit with the license plates," Haley said.

"It's okay. All legal."

It took him a minute or two to change the plates.

"I'm going to call for a tow truck," he said.

"Why?" Haley asked.

Sam took out his cell phone and dialed 411.

"State of Washington. San Juan Towing, on San Juan Island, please."

The operator rang him through.

"Hi," Sam told the mechanic. "My name is Fred Raimes. I'm a Triple A member. I was here visiting and I need to get my car back to Anacortes. What would you charge to take my car on the eight p.m. ferry tonight?"

"Is it broke down?"

"Yes. Blown head gasket."

"You could have it fixed on the island."

"Yeah, but I'm a mechanic and I want to get it home."

A pause. "Uh, it comes out to be about two hundred fifty bucks, including the cost of the ferry."

"Great." Sam read him the number off the AAA card in the name of Fred Raimes.

They confirmed a time and place, and Sam hung up.

"Frick's gonna be disappointed," Haley said. "You said you were Robert Chase."

Sam put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. "Now you're catching on."

"It's none of my business, but is Raimes the name you used in your life away from the islands?"

"Sometimes. Now I go only by Sam Wintripp. I was born Samuel H. Browning."

"The name we knew," Haley said.

"You know about Helen's ancestry?"

"Helen and your father were originally descended from the Scottish Highlanders,"

Haley said. "Originally they were named Broun. Then their ancestors emigrated to England and changed it to Browning, right?"

"Right."

She stopped. He could tell she wanted to ask more, but there was a quiet reserve about her-a stubborn resolve. Sam nodded. He was pretty certain he knew what was really on her mind. The summer of 1994 still hung in the air between them. Instinctively, though, he felt now was not the time to break open the old scab and try to clean out the underneath.

"I took the name Wintripp when I discovered that Mother was alive and not what my father claimed-a dead mestizo woman with a bad history."

"I'm sorry about that. Everyone in the family was told the same story about your mother. Maybe that's why I identified with you. God knows my mother had her own problems." She was quiet again. "You would show up now and then, to visit, like an apparition out of the mist, saying nothing about yourself or your life. You were in the

'export business'? Give me a break. Even now," she said, "today, I wonder who you were back then, I mean as a person. Around 1992 they said you went into the computer business and then as a person with a life, you mostly disappeared." There was a hint of frustration in her voice and he knew she was getting nearer the source of her feelings.

Sam began shaving his beard away with a portable electric razor, using a mirror to watch his progress. There were things he had to work out in himself and they needed more time to talk if he were ever to bring up the past.

"People who knew me, and there weren't many of those, called me Sam back then. No last name."

"When did you find out that your mother was a Tilok Indian?" Haley asked.

"When I was twenty-one."

"I think I was eleven when you told us. Your father hid it from you then, as long as he lived?"

"Yes. He was a shrill, bigoted, stubborn, macho Englishman-or actually Scotsman, if you will — emphasis on the macho. He was dead for a year when you came to live with Ben and Helen in '81. When I found my mother's family in '83, the Tiloks, I was given a new name: Kalok. Kids called me Kai and I liked it better. Anyway, fast-forward to nearly a year ago. After some tough circumstances-all these injuries and some worse things- I chose a new path in life. I decided, though, that Kai was too unusual for most folks and I was used to Sam; so outside the Tiloks, I'm still Sam."

"We've always known you as Sam. Who picked Sam?"

"Actually, my mother, before they told her I died. She liked Samuel Clemens. That's the story, or as much of it as I can tell you right now." He looked away from his small mirror and into her eyes. "I'm trusting you to tell no one."

She nodded, perhaps slightly happier now.

"Were you a spy?"

Sam thought for a moment.

"I was chasing the worst form of sophisticated criminals and terrorists, and there were plenty of them to chase. For now, that's all I can tell you."

She seemed, reluctantly, to accept this and went back to reading Ben's documents while Sam finished shaving. Sam liked to face things fair and square, but his relationship with Haley was not like most things.

"I'm always amazed at how fast you read," he said, glancing at her while he began applying makeup.

"Uh-huh," she said, oblivious now to everything but what was in front of her. The intense look of concentration heightened his curiosity.

When she was done, she put down the papers and looked up. She took a long look at his disguise-in-progress and gave him a thumbs-up. "Ready to hear about the papers?"

"You bet." Sam continued working while he listened.

"The papers from the whale are in Ben's miserable shorthand, which I can barely read. I think he's making four peptide hormones with different protein expressions, using genetically altered bacteria at least for three of them. But I can't tell more than that.

They're working notes-notes he wouldn't even type up."

After a few minutes she spoke again. "This is pretty interesting."

"What?"

"Ben started with about two hundred eighty genes of the twenty-five thousand or so found in humans and other higher mammals."

"Okay…"

"To get down to six genes or so," Haley said, "is a major step. He clearly was onto something, but I can't see what that something was. Nothing here tells me that he was on the verge of solving the problem of aging."

"Could six genes really solve a problem like aging?" Sam asked. "To get youth retention would be tough, like you said."

"Exactly. Aging is a diffuse process. It's brain, it's body… it's widespread. How are you supposed to fix that with six genes? Add to this that when your body's cells divide to replenish themselves, they have a built-in clock… Well, you read Nature, you know about telomeres. You're stuck with old cells when you get old."

"You still don't believe in this discovery, do you?" Sam asked.

"Do I really believe that Ben has something that will allow people to live decades longer or hundreds of years? I haven't changed my mind. That would be hard to swallow."

Sam had finished with the skin whitener and had gone on to the foundation. "You're a good teacher. Keep going, but hurry." He now applied the foundation makeup in layers of slightly different colors to give the mottled appearance of real skin. Because of time constraints he had opted for only a small bit of prosthetic plastic, so he had to do some contouring with nothing more than heavy makeup.

"Oh, my God," Haley said.

"What?"

"Listen to this." She read aloud:

"Microbial life in the deep seafloor is widespread, to depths of at least eight hundred meters into the bottom sediments. Samples indicate that methanogenesis occurs at the deepest sediment layers where carbon dioxide and hydrogen are converted to methane. The depth limit of anaerobic life in deep-sea sediments is not known. Most striking we have discovered that methane-producing Archaea divide every few thousand years, maybe one hundred thousand years. Their life span, if we could call it that, is unparalleled, indicating a DNA stability unknown in terrestrial life. Notably we have discovered a gene isolate in one species of methanogenic Archaea that differs by twenty-four percent from its nearest relative.

"Then he goes on," and Haley continued to read:

"Popular magazines have picked up on the longevity of Arcs and put it in much more poetic terms describing them as living in time with the slowest rhythms of the earth or as living in

'geologic time’. Interesting that the basic truth is not obscure.

"He actually mentions Discover magazine instead of a science journal. There's a little tongue in cheek there."

Sam was silent a moment. "Archaea, it says?"

"Ben wrote his own comment on the article. 'Archaea are the longest-lived life-forms on the earth. And they are closer to humans, DNA-wise, than are bacteria. The truth is under our nose in popular magazines and in numerous more serious journal articles.

'"They live in geologic time,'" she quoted again. "That would mean these microbes are thousands and thousands of years old. At least. Geologic time implies millions of years old."

Sam could see Haley's mind was spinning. She was determined not to be overly dramatic, but she knew better than anyone that Ben Anderson always chose his words carefully.

"What is it?" Sam asked.

"I think I get the concept of what Ben was doing, if not the details."

"Tell me."

"If a gene releases a protein that, say, translates to a pep-tide hormone that performs a vital function, and we can duplicate the protein or its function in medication, then maybe we affect aging. But how do you use a gene from a deep-sea microbe to help a human being?"

Sam shrugged.

"Here. We need to give you a wig, make you blonde, and put some age on you," Sam said.

Haley was still concentrating on her discovery.

"The answer is you don't use the gene. But Ben seems to be replicating gene functions with organic molecule products. In Ben's case he's allowing bacteria infused with the gene of interest to make the organic molecules that become the medicine. Yet he's still talking about a microbe and you would think its gene would not produce human-compatible proteins."

"So," Sam said, "to know what Ben's doing, we'd have to know something about how certain of the microbe's genes function?"

"To understand it, we would. I suspect what he is doing is letting genes express their products, which would be proteins and then using them as medicine with the caveat that the proteins may ultimately be broken down into pro-hormones, hormones, enzymes, or the like." She explained how that worked.

Then Haley referred back to the notes while Sam splotched her face. "He calls these microbes 'Archaea.' He does have these two hundred eighty other genes he was studying.

So maybe he found homologous genes in microbes, animals, and humans."

Sam nodded. His makeup job looked nearly completed. Hers had a ways to go. "It would be astonishing if we could use ancient microbes to lengthen our life spans." He applied a finishing touch. "People might kill for that."

"I just realized something else that makes sense," Haley said, trying to work on her makeup and talk at the same time. "Archaea microbes live in the bottom of the sea, down where the ocean cleanses itself. How about that?"

They hadn't shot him.

Ben didn't expect that they would until they got their information. They seemed unsure of themselves, which gave him the advantage, since he was completely sure of himself.

No one was going to get a whiff of ARCLES, unless and until proper safeguards for the public were in place.

They could try torture, but he had a glass capsule up beside his molars and it was filled with enough ricin to kill ten people almost instantly, and there was no known antidote.

Game, set, match-or checkmate, if one preferred chess to tennis.

Ben should have been grateful to be tied up in a chair and not tortured for what he knew. Instead, he sat there wondering why they weren't hurting him, or at least shouting questions at him.

There has to be a reason.

They already have the information? Impossible.

The drugs and torture were still to come? Most likely. And soon.

His heart beat faster and he could hear it and didn't like it. He listened for sounds but heard nothing except the faint blare of bluegrass music in the distance. It sounded obscene in the face of his impending doom.

He needed to urinate, and that bothered him as well. It had been many decades since he'd peed his britches and he was probably about due for diapers in another decade or two, but he hadn't been planning on it this weekend. Sons of bitches were being downright uncivilized.

His sole comfort was that old man Sanker would by now be hysterical with frustration.

Unless Sanker himself was behind Ben's current imprisonment. If so, it wouldn't take long to discover that Ben's secrets would not be easily won.

Despite the jocular thought of Sanker, Ben was seriously frightened. If Sanker weren't behind this abduction, then at least two well-resourced parties were after him and ARCLES. At this point he had lost control of his life except to end it, which was not the sort of choice he wanted.

For mental exercise he went through the possible identities of his captors: Sanker; Frick independently; federal agents, renegade or not; foreign oil interests or other nationals; even American Bayou, which could have gone around Nelson Gempshorn and taken him. Then the chilling thought occurred to him that Nelson could be in on it. Nelson was a bit of an odd man and never completely revealed himself, or so it seemed. The possibilities were nearly endless and there was no use speculating.

All the while, Ben had been working hard on the arm restraints and intermittent effort seemed to be loosening the duct tape. He began twisting an arm, and although it was painful, he continued in the effort, stripping the hair from his skin and no doubt turning them lobster red. He figured he was now stretching the tape and getting his arms a good half-inch from the leather of the chair. Now he rolled his arms and rocked them, to and fro.

The music grew suddenly louder, as if someone had opened a door. Ben heard someone fiddling with a lock. He wished he weren't wearing the damned blindfold.

"I don't understand why we have to move him," someone was saying. It sounded like Stu.

The door swung open.

"Okay, old man, we gotta go." Definitely Stu Farley.

"Before we go, I want you to listen to me." This was another voice entirely, with a heavy accent. Ben imagined an Arabic speaker. His gut tightened down as he realized he really did not want to die. "If you would answer the questions thoroughly"-the voice was measured and calm, but there was not the slightest hint of humanity in it-"we would not need to strap you to a table and jolt your body with electricity with large probes in your rectum and smaller probes in your bladder. And if that does not loosen your tongue, to inject you with a paralytic and slowly dissect you while you watch in mirrors and feel the pain. I do not need to dramatize this kind of agony. Consider what I've said while we move you. Consider whether you will talk."

Ben felt the glass capsule with his tongue.

A heavy hand grabbed his jaw and someone shoved rubber between his teeth. In a panic he tried to feel for the glass. Pliers grabbed his tongue and the pain was excruciating.

Fingers slipped inside his mouth and suddenly the glass capsule was gone.

The Arabic speaker grunted. "He thinks we're amateurs."

Ben realized why they had left him alone. They had been watching on video, noting the slight movements of his jaw and tongue as he played with the capsule. Now even that choice had been taken from him.

Sam kept a Kevlar vest in the Corvette and after a brief argument, convinced Haley to put it on. She thought he should wear it because, so far, he'd taken most of the physical risks. They climbed in the Corvette, ready to visit Lattimer Gibbons.

First, though, Sam intended to stop at Rachael's house.

"She'll freak," Haley said. "I thought the next stop was Lattimer Gibbons's."

"It is, but we have to remember that we're on a small island that Frick pretty much controls at the moment. We could use a convincing messenger to get to the state attorney general and the state police. Remember the FBI memo?"

"Okay. But what's Rachael going to do?"

"We need someone to go to a main state police office, like in Seattle. That's where Rachael can help. There is nothing like someone in the flesh pleading for justice.

Rachael's family is connected. The rich always know people."

"I can hardly wait to hear this," said Haley.

"You're about to," he said.

"Maybe you should call first. You know how she is. She doesn't always wear clothes,"

Haley said.

"No time."

It was 4:50 p.m. and Ben had been missing for over six hours.

Rachael answered her door in a somewhat sheer bathrobe, seemingly unself-conscious about her obvious nudity beneath.

Rachael was blond, beautiful, and fit. Her even teeth and Nordic face, with the astonishingly blue-green eyes, would normally leave an impression. Sam made it a point not to notice the slim threads or the natural beauty. For all the effect it had on his demeanor, she could have been a seventy-year-old farmer in overalls.

Naturally she didn't recognize Sam in the makeup, but she squinted at Haley and figured it out. Then she gestured for them to enter.

"Come in quick," she said, looking over their shoulders. "The news says you're wanted for the murder of a police officer and that you're armed and dangerous. They say you killed a lab tech-slit his throat. They say — Ben's missing too, in case you don't know."

"We know," Haley said. "We know."

"We also have some huge favors to ask of you," Sam said.

"Will I be an accessory to murder?"

"Eventually no. Initially maybe," Sam said. "You will be risking your life to do the right thing. But you'll be running to the police, not away from them-"

"Please believe me," Haley cut in. "A deputy named Frick is framing us. He's working for the Sanker Corporation, which is trying to steal Ben's work the way they stole mine."

Rachael looked from one to the other as the gravity of their request sank in.

Haley explained in short hand what they knew and suspected about Frick. She told Rachael about their fears for Ben and about the shooting of the second officer.

"That was the undersheriff," Rachael said. "They'll think you tried to murder him as well, won't they?"

"You mean he's not dead?" Haley asked.

Rachael explained that the news said that he had been taken by medivac helicopter to the Harborview trauma center on the mainland and was expected to recover.

"To answer your question, yes, that's Frick's plan," said Sam. "He's using my gun and covering his tracks."

Rachael nodded, still uncertain.

"This won't get sorted out quickly," he said.

Rachael put on a brave smile. "I suppose I always wanted to be a hero. What can I do?"

Sam explained his plan to use her as a messenger.

"This may help you." Sam held out the fax from Ernie. "It's an internal memo of the FBI. Parts of it have been excised, but you can see for yourself, they are suspicious that Mr. Frick has done bad things. When you get to the mainland, drive all the way to Seattle or Olympia. Find the highest-level state police officer you can find. Ask him to talk with someone from the attorney general's office. Show him this paper." Sam went on to explain what she should say and how to get Ernie on the phone. "But remember that Ernie could be bureaucratically castrated for this. There's only so much he can do."

"I got it. He's a bureaucrat."

"With big cojones, big heart, good brain, but yeah he's still a G-man."

"Okay, I'll try."

"I need some tools," Sam said. "And I need a dress for Haley, and a stocking cap."

"That's easy."

It took only a couple minutes to get the things together and put them in a large duffel bag that Sam put in the trunk of the car.

"I'm recalling that you have relatives on Orcas," Sam said to Rachael. "If we got you there, could you make it to Anacortes from there without the ferry?"

"Tonight?"

Sam nodded.

"Yeah. I believe I could. My uncle has a boat at a private dock."

"Where?"

"Near Poll Pass."

Sam thought for a minute.

"Is it a fast boat?"

"Yeah, the Inevitable. A custom express cruiser. But why not the ferry?"

"They may try to stop the ferry. You wait for our call. We'll figure how to get you to Orcas. It'll probably be an experience you won't forget."

"This will help you?" Rachael asked.

"Trust me," Haley said. "It's to save Ben's life. And ours."