Chapter 12

Wearing maintenance uniforms, the NUMA crew snuck out through the back of the admin building and past the throngs of press without being seen. They were driven to Saint-Paul, where they set themselves up at one of the island’s hotels.

After checking into a pair of rooms and tossing their gear in various corners, they reconvened to discuss their next steps.

Gamay, however, wasn’t quite done discussing the events of the afternoon. “You traded our freedom of speech for a boat,” she began, laying into Kurt. “We’re only a worldwide nautical organization with hundreds of them at our disposal.”

Kurt had to grin. Gamay was a stickler for doing things a certain way. “Our nearest research vessel is five days’ sailing from here. I’d rather slip out of here by nightfall than sit around for the better part of the week.”

A moment of quiet suggested she found this to be logical. “And once we get this boat, where do we go and what do we look for?”

“We backtrack along the path of the stranded animals.”

“It’s the ocean, Kurt, it’s not a dusty trail covered in footprints.”

Kurt laughed, which only seemed to make Gamay madder. He was exhausted, dirty, and starving. He’d barely eaten for two days. “Joe will give you the answer to that,” he said, opening the minibar and breaking into a container of cashews that would set him back half a day’s pay.

Joe was setting up shop at the small desk against the wall. He’d opened his laptop, logged in to the Wi-Fi, and was now tapping away at the keys. “We keep calling this a stranding,” he began, “but strandings are almost always done by a single species of whale, a single pod or family. Not a bunch of different animals, half of which don’t tend to get along.”

“True,” Gamay said.

“Which made me think this was more like a stampede,” Joe added. “More like the animals of the forest running from a wildfire. Only, these animals ran smack-dab into the island along the way.”

“They could have gone around it,” Paul suggested.

“Not if they were being hemmed in on the sides,” Kurt said. “Attacked and bitten by whatever left those marks.”

Gamay seemed open to this theory. “Possible.”

Joe continued typing, trying to log in to NUMA’s database. The internet was slow. He turned to look at Gamay. “The first animals on the beach were the larger and faster species. The sperm whale in particular would have been able to keep up the highest pace over the longest distances. It was the first animal to strand itself. The people who saw it come in said it charged into the bay and surged up onto the sand as if it was trying to get out of the water.”

“Assuming you can trust that report,” Paul said. “Interested bystanders are notorious for inaccurate reporting.”

“Either way,” Joe said, “the larger, faster animals hit the beach first. And they were unmarked by the bites and the infection. The slower animals came in later. Most of them suffering from some kind of infestation.”

“You think the faster animals got away from whatever caused those bites,” Gamay guessed.

“By stampeding in whatever direction seemed safe,” Joe replied.

“Even if that’s true. It doesn’t tell us where they came from.”

“That’s where the sharks come in,” Kurt said. “Joe and I have been here for a month, trying to tag sharks and track them. The dead bull shark we found had a tracker on it. And when Kurt and I were releasing the first whale—and getting swarmed by sharks—I saw a transmitter on one of them as well. All I have to do is download the data from the tracking beacons and it should give us an idea where this aquatic stampede began.”

“Nice,” Paul said.

Gamay shot her husband a look that said, You’re supposed to be on my side , and then yielded to the logic. “That does sound like a good idea.”

At this point Joe had finally logged in to the NUMA server. After typing in his data request, he sat back, watching as a map of the ocean appeared on the screen, with thin lines depicting the various paths the tagged sharks had taken.

The shark data appeared random at first, with various animals moving haphazardly out in deeper waters. Then, at nearly the same moment, eleven distinct tracks turned south and began to pick up speed. All of them heading directly for the beach on the north side of the island.

One by one the tracks vanished, as if the transponders had failed. Only two of them reached the bay. The bull shark’s track ended on the beach, where the animal had died. The other tracker, which belonged to a thresher shark, circled the bay and then went off to the east at about the time they released the first whale. Joe wondered if it was fleeing the scene or perhaps following the injured sperm whale.

“This is extremely odd behavior,” Gamay admitted.

“Any idea what might cause it?” Kurt asked.

Gamay found herself grasping at straws. “Seismic activity, chemical pollutants, or toxins in the water. Whales are certainly known to be sensitive to man-made noise like sonar pulses and ultra-low-frequency radio transmissions. But without more data, I couldn’t really guess.”

“That’s why we’re going out there,” Kurt said. “To learn more.”

He finished the cashews, tossed the can aside, and picked up the house phone. “First, we’re going to order room service. As a wise man once said to me, ‘Never pass up the chance for a decent meal . ’”

Gamay laughed and looked at Joe. They all knew who had the biggest appetite of the bunch.

As Kurt waited for the hotel kitchen to pick up, he felt the cell phone vibrating in his pocket. He pulled it out and glanced at the screen. Another cryptic message had appeared. It looked like the first one. No phone number attached. No name. A long string of numbers and letters scribbled across the bottom. It read simply:

I Sent Them to You. Have You Found Them?

Tired of the one-way conversation, Kurt typed a quick response. Found who?

He waited as the answer appeared one letter at a time: The children.