Taggart looked at the Navy captain once, then sat behind the port-side wheel. "Frankly, I wasn't expecting you until tomorrow. What gives?"
'Mike' seemed a little confused by that reaction. "You told me you were headed to Norderney and yet here you are. And you're asking me 'what gives?'"
"My fault. This boat draws to much. I'd have never been able to get into the marina there, and I want to pull shore power during the transmission."
"Yeah? Well, Henry - sorry, but I'm not buyin' it. We've been watching you long enough to know you're a more careful navigator than that."
"How's Eva?" Taggart replied, looking to the south.
"Fine. Right where you left her. Now, what are you up to?"
Taggart swung around and set his left arm in motion, making an arcing sweep of the northern sky. "See that? Pure, unobstructed sky, and zero RFI. Any questions?"
"Who's the woman?" 'Mike' asked, pointing down below.
"Local nurse. She's going in for a possible mastectomy in the morning. I'll be watching her daughter while she recuperates."
'Mike' shook his head. "Sorry. We have nothing on her, so I can't let you do that."
"And you plan on stopping me how?"
"With this," 'Mike' said, pulling the Sig out into the open.
"I see. Frankly, Mike, you didn't strike me as such a stupid person." Taggart then sat cross-legged - Indian style - and closed his eyes.
"What the fuck are you doing...?"
"Sh-h-h-h...now pay attention, Mikey." Taggart spread his arms wide and tilted his head back, and Mike's face expressed a total 'what the fuck' reaction as he watched...
Then the Sig pistol slipped from Mike's grasp and drifted slowly away from the boat, then, when it was about ten feet away and hovering over the water, gravity to over and it fell into the water - making a simple little plonk sound before it disappeared.
Mike was more than a little interested now, but when he turned back to Taggart his eyes went wide. Because Taggart was hovering about five feet above the deck - still sitting Indian-style, still with his arms out and head tilted back, only now there was a reddish-gold orb about the size of a golf ball just above Taggart's left hand.
Mike took a deep breath, then smiled. "That's right. You worked in Seattle, didn't you? So, you were working with the Phantom Works group?"
But Taggart was engrossed with the red orb now, but the plasma-like material had almost encased his left arm. Moments later Mike lifted from the deck and drifted out over the water - but Taggart - or the red plasma - simply left the captain suspended there, about ten feet above the water.
"Are you having fun now?"
Taggart moved his arm up and Mike began slowly rising into the sky.
"Whoa...alright, alright...you win..."
The red plasma separated and drifted over to Mike - then hovered in front of his face, now about the size of a tennis ball...then it began rotating faster and faster...until it simply winked out of sight.
Mike then fell straight into the water...from fifty feet up. By the time he surfaced Taggart was standing at the aft rail, lowering the swim deck and boarding ladder for a sputtering, cursing Navy captain. Taggart handed the man a towel as he climbed back up on deck.
"Don't you dare ever do that to me again," Mike said as he toweled off, obviously furious.
"Don't make me do it again," Taggart replied, "or next time you'll fall from a few miles up."
"I've heard about you guys. What, you call yourself the Jedi Order?"
Taggart laughed. "I've heard that one too, but no, nothing quite so, what is the word - prosaic? And I think you're going to need some dry clothes, Mike. Bring any?"
"Well, not with me, asshole."
"I'm sorry," Taggart said, trying to stifle a laugh, "but you really should've seen the expression on your face..."
"I'd like to see yours under similar circumstances."
"Oh, been there, done that. Up in the San Juans, near Friday Harbor."
"Oh?"
"One of 'em took me and a Killer Whale for a spin around Vancouver Island one night about five years ago. Took maybe a minute. You ain't seen scared, Amigo, until you've been with a freaked out Killer Whale shitting all over himself."
"That the whale you ran into in Norway?"
"Yup," Taggart said, nodding. "I don't know the how or the why of things like this, but ever since I got the boat a year ago he and his family have always been nearby."
"That's gotta be kind of weird."
"Ya know, not really. Nothing seems weird anymore, nothing at all. About the only difference it's made is I rarely pee over the rail now. Somehow doing that just seems disrespectful."
"You do know that this is kinda off the rails, right? I mean, what if people were watching while you did that shit?"
Taggart shrugged. "It won't matter soon."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Nothing, really. That cat's been out of the bag for a while now. Just a matter of time." Taggart looked at his watch, then back at Mike. "You got some place to stay, or do you want to bunk-out here tonight?"
"Here, if that's okay with you."
"The woman and her daughter are up front. You can stay in the bunk just aft of that tonight. Eva will use that one when I'm done here, so stay here 'til then if you like."
"You know, I was really expecting more anger, or maybe something more like suspicion from you."
"I don't have time for that anymore, Mike, so please, please, don't make me waste what time I do have, okay? I mean it. I just don't need that shit in my life now."
"Yeah. Got it."
"You remember how to use the shower?"
Mike nodded.
"Fresh towels on the rod."
"Thanks, Henry."
After Mike disappeared down below Taggart went down to the swim platform and dove into the icy water. He returned an hour later, still quite warm.
+++++
He showered and went to the chart table, opened his laptop and checked Messages first, then Mail. He opened the latest from Dina and read through her apologia and smiled. "She's nothing if not predictable," he muttered, then he opened the latest from Britt.
"I don't know what is going on with you," he read. "Rolf told me that Eva is with you, and I do not know how to process that. It feels like you love her most of all? Am I wrong? Please, tell me I'm wrong?"
He hit the reply button and watched the window open. Such a simple, direct thing. Nonstop, instant communication. What a gift. "Britt, there is no most of all. There is only love. I am bound to you as I am bound to Dina and to Eva. Maybe you don't want to hear that, but I will not deceive you, especially when our feelings are lost in questions of the heart. When you need my love I will be there to give you all I have."
He hit the send button and went to his inbox again, saw Rolf's latest and opened it.
"Henry, mother is depressed again. What should I tell her when she asks to see you?"
"Tell her to come when she feels it safe for all of us."
He hit send and felt someone looking at him. Looking up, he saw Rosa staring at him, and she was crying. He stood and went to her, held her in his arms.
"I'm sorry, but I am so afraid..."
"What are you most afraid of - right now?"
"Of not being here for Erika. That scares me most of all..."
"You're not alone, Rosa, and neither is Erika. Not now, not tomorrow. We'll be here, waiting for you."
"I know, and I thank you for opening your home to us..."
"Come with me now. There's someone I'd like you to meet."
"What? No, not now...I'm wearing just a robe, Henry, with nothing under..."
"Come, please," he said, and holding out his hand he led her up the companionway steps then to the aft deck. He let go of her hand long enough to walk down to the swim platform then held out his hand again. "Do you trust me?" he asked.
She nodded. "I guess, yes." She took his hand and stepped down onto the platform, then she watched as he climbed down the swim steps into the water. "Please, what are you doing, Henry?"
But he was facing the opening that led from the little sheltered marina to the open sea, and she gasped when she saw a huge black dorsal fin cutting through the water - coming right at Henry...
But he simply swam out to meet the animal -
Then they were together. His hand on the side of the whale's face.
"Come here now," he said gently.
"No..."
"Now, Rosa. Just slip off your robe and come to me."
She felt resistance to the moment drift away just like the robe slipping from her shoulders, and she stepped down into the water expecting ice cold pinpricks - only to feel briny warmth enveloping her as she swam out to Taggart. The whale was there, his head completely out of the water as she approached...
...and she went close, close enough to feel the warmth coming from his body, to feel the whale's exhaled air as his blow-hole snapped open, then she felt another body sliding by just behind her and she turned to see a tiny orca turning around and coming back to her.
"That's his daughter, Rosa. Say hello if you want..."
"Henry...she's so small! How old is she?"
"Just a few weeks."
She turned back to the large male and rubbed the side of his face again. "Thank you for this," she whispered - and then she watched as he slipped under the surface and disappeared, his little girl following along just under the surface.
"That's the first time I've met her," Henry said quietly.
"You know this, these whales?"
"I know this family, yes."
"How is this possible?"
Taggart shrugged. "I don't know, but I guess you've seen it so you can believe it."
"How long have you known him?"
"Him? Oh, about five years."
"What? Are you serious?"
Taggart chuckled. "About as serious as two naked people swimming in the ocean at three in the morning can be, I guess."
She looked down at her nakedness then swam back to the swim platform and climbed up and into her robe before she scurried belowdecks, leaving Taggart alone with his thoughts again.
"That went well," he sighed as he swam back to Time Bandits.
The damp night air was chilly now, so he ducked below and showered before changing, and then he waited for rosa. He walked her over to the hospital and she signed in, noting Henry as her emergency contact on the hospital's paperwork, then they found the pre-op waiting room and sat.
"I am not so sure what to think of what happened in the sea tonight," she began, "yet I feel at peace with myself now."
"I'm glad."
"I cannot tell, but I almost feel like he was trying to talk to me. Is that possible?"
Taggart shrugged. "Really, I have no idea. There have been a few times when I've looked in his eye and I seem to feel something like a connection, but the more probable answer to that question is I'm reading something into an encounter that's just not real. Still, all I can say with any assuredness is that I don't know, yet at the same time I think I understand what you're feeling, because I've experienced something like that as well."
