The Eighty Eighth Key Ch 65

Chapter 65

Three hundred miles from the Cape Flattery light and not a breath of air. The sea is a cerulean mirror, and in early January the outside air temperature is almost sixty degrees Fahrenheit, the sea temp a frosty forty-seven. Henry Taggart had plotted a northerly course, hoping to ride the east setting North Pacific current until they could hitch a ride on the northeast setting sub-Arctic gyre, and hopefully all the way to the entrance to Puget Sound. So far, the passage from Hilo had been under 'bluebird' skies, but two days ago the winds had fallen off to zero. They were riding the current now but only making a few knots over the ground.

The General's Swan 65 still had plenty of fuel, but Debra's aquaTarkus had seen a lot of generator time and she might possibly be 'running the tanks dry' if Henry chose to motor-sail into stronger winds, and if she chose to follow him. So, the night before they'd rafted up, tied the two boats together so Henry and the General could have a little strategy session at sea -- and besides, Daisy-Jane needed a good ear rubbing from Henry.

But soon enough, Henry and the General knew they had more questions to face than answers on hand.

Such as: what if Ted Sorensen had a 'new crew' waiting for her?

And, of course, Dan Wingren wouldn't know anything about that, would he?

And would such a team assume Henry was taking his rag-tag convoy to Seattle? And if so, how quickly would they detect and arrange an intercept of aquaTarkus if they went to Canada instead of Seattle, or even up to Alaska? Or...would this unknown adversary even try to stop her?

"Henry?" the General mumbled, thinking out loud now. "Why don't you switch places with me, come on board aquaTarkus and take Debra to Vancouver, and I'll take the Swan into Victoria. I can arrange to fly her out from there."

"You have both forgotten something," little Dana said next, interrupting Henry's potential response.

"And what might that be...?" Henry said, smiling at her.

"The ship, that UAV, the one came for Debra once before has returned to the present. They are actively looking for her, and us, even now."

"Do you know where it is?"

"The ship?"

"Yes."

She closed her eyes and turned away, and she seemed to connect to the same external source she often did when Henry asked her difficult questions that required complex answers, but in a matter of seconds, she came back to them. "It is near the Channel Islands off the Southern California coast. There are several US Navy jets in pursuit of the craft at this time."

"Henry," the General said, his face suddenly scrunched up in thought, "could you establish a link with our ship out at the base?"

"From here?" Henry asked, flabbergasted. "That's close to seven hundred miles away!"

"It's worth a try, isn't it?" the General added.

"I can try, but then what? Bring it out here? In front of everyone?"

"That's the least of our worries, Henry. We're sitting ducks out here -- unless Dana wants to intervene again?"

"I don't think they will come this far north," Dana said.

"Why?" Henry asked.

"I think the people in that ship grew very concerned after our first encounter. I sense they may not want to chance a second such event."

"Do they have any weapons on board their ship?" the General asked.

Again, Dana turned away, and again she made her queries. "The ship is unarmed," she eventually said, "however the crew may possess individual weapons."

"Can you control their ship?" Henry asked.

"I'm not familiar with the technology, so no, I cannot."

"What about our ship?" the General asked. "Could you...?"

"No, I cannot."

Henry looked at her long and hard, then he decided he had to ask just one more question: "Can you see what's going to happen to us?"

Her eyes fluttered and she turned away again, but this time she walked down the companionway steps and disappeared.

"Well," Henry sighed, "that answers that. She already knows the outcome and she's not going to interfere with our decision-making process."

"So, she won't try to stop a negative outcome? But, wait...she already has, right? When she sent that ship away off Oahu...?"

"Sir, we're trying to guess what her agenda is, and I don't think either one of us is smart enough to come up with the answer to that one."

The General smiled, then he nodded his head in momentary defeat. "So, we make up our mind and hope we don't throw snake eyes. Or...you try to summon the ship."

"Then what?"

"Get Miss Sorensen out of here, get her to safety."

"Sir, I'm not sure that's going to work, at least not in the long term. No matter what we do, or where we take her, they're not going to stop trying..."

"But...who, Henry? Who's trying to take her? And why?"

"I have to assume her father, sir. And...I would say because she has...abilities, sir."

"So you've said, but on the first point, I'm not so sure that's a fair assumption. Frankly, we can't fight an unknown enemy -- if only because we'll always be reacting to their moves. Somehow we've got to get out ahead of this thing, take the initiative away from whoever we're up against."

"Well, the easiest thing to do right now would be to clear customs in Victoria and hole up there, right in the middle of the city. No one is likely to pull off anything with a ship like that, not in the heart of a major city. That'd be just plain nuts, sir."

"Yeah? Or just desperate enough to try something that nutty."

"Well," Taggart sighed, "maybe we'd finally get acquainted with whoever, or whatever we're up against."

The General nodded in agreement. "Be careful what you wish for, Henry, if you know what I mean."

"Oh, I think we've still got a couple of aces up the sleeve, sir."

The General nodded. "Now all we need is about fifty gallons of diesel."

"Or a nice wind out of the south."

As it happened, neither was in the offing.

+++++

Harry Callahan didn't know what to say. He wasn't even sure how he felt.

About the only sure thing was that his boy had apparently NOT murdered Todd Bright, which meant the two of them had staged the murder in the fairway behind the house in Davos. And the only reason he could come up with was that somehow Lloyd had decided to cooperate with the Mossad, because after their little charade the local authorities had come and supposedly taken his passport, and right after that he had been spirited away to Tel Aviv. But then DD had advised him that there never really was an issue with his passport, so that was all a ruse to get him to Tel Aviv.

And while all of these mental images flashed through Callahan's mind he in effect stood there in mute shock, unsure what to say...

Yet Brendan Geddes was staring at the boys, then his fingers were dancing in the air, peeling back layers, and soon enough he walked forward to poked at the image of Lloyd Callahan...

...and the image of the boys simply disappeared.

Brendan didn't seem in the least surprised, but both Harry and Deborah were shocked.

"They looked so real," Deborah sighed, "I felt like I could reach out and touch them."

Harry was still struggling to speak. His hands were shaking, then he realized his son wasn't simply gone -- he'd never been there.

Again.

"I saw him in a dream," Harry sighed. "He was smiling just like that?"

And then Brendan turned to face Callahan: "Tell me, when is a dream not a dream?"

"What?" Deborah asked. "Brendan, what are you saying?"

"What if," Brendan said slowly, grinning now as he spoke, "some dreams are real? What if dreams are an open window into another dimension? And what if those other dimensions are fractals, and not just simple permutations of this dimension?"

"Are you saying," Eisenstadt said, "that Harry saw these boys as they are in another dimension?"

Brendan beamed. "Yes!"

Then Harry spoke. "Are you saying time is another dimension?"

"YES!" Brendan cried. "And guess what, Harry? You know how to open all the windows!"

+++++

She had been hiding in the shadows all night, and she had seen it all. Every last detail, from an alien family visiting Callahan to this latest revelation, and now Didi Goodman had a decision to make.

Part 2

Henry Taggart was at the wheel on aquaTarkus, with Daisy-Jane hugging his side, as they passed West Race Rock just ten miles out of Victoria, British Columbia. Debra was down below with 'not-so-little Dana' just now, packing duffels and getting ready for a quick getaway. The latest plan the General had cooked up had Debra and Dana leaving with Ralph and Dana Richardson, then heading to one of Boeing's less well known facilities outside of Everett, Washington. Once the boats were secured Henry would head to Seattle and Sumner Bacon to Palo Alto, California, and Daniel Wingren could go to Hell -- at least as far as Taggart was concerned, anyway.

The General had another plan, of course.

And that one involved Tracy Abernathy and Ralph Richardson -- and of course, Dana.

And still Henry didn't know how he felt about all that. He was conflicted. Dana still claimed she was his daughter yet what on earth was she? She wasn't human, yet machines didn't physically grow -- at least not the way she had during the course of these two ocean crossings. So what did that leave? A genetically manipulated human variant, or a human-machine hybrid of some sort...? Something as yet unknown? Yet Henry could hardly believe the General's overall plan was on morally sound footing.

For if Dana was indeed human, or even partially human, the kinds of deconstruction Abernathy had in mind were nothing short of torture.

But then Dana had gotten involved in the discussion, and she had her own ideas how to proceed, ideas that had at once proven unimaginably ambitious and financially lucrative beyond anyone's wildest imaginings.

And that was when all the pieces of the puzzle began to fall in place, at least as far as Henry Taggart was concerned. Dana might not be lying, he told himself, when she said he was her father, yet she was on a mission. And now this much was very clear to him; he would not be allowed to stand in her way. She was guiding the discussion now, she was declaring what the nature of her confinement would be like, and what the end purpose was, and right then and there Henry let go. He turned loose, cut himself free from the notion that he was somehow responsible for her well-being. That he was her father.

Because he wasn't. It had been a ruse all along and now he felt used.

Or...was it?

Her parents, if the word had any meaning at all in her case, resided somewhere else. The place where the spheres reigned. Who or whatever controlled the spheres was controlling her destiny now.

Even Debra felt it now, this feeling of being used, and over the course of the last week even she had pulled back from Dana. Slowly at first then it was like a rapid decompression took hold and staying away became an act of self-preservation. As Dana grew, both physically and intellectually -- let alone emotionally -- the more obscene the idea of parentage became.

Yet Dana hadn't been in the least upset by these changes. Like everything else, this unwinding seemed to be just another part of some grand plan that only she knew about, and in that one regard her growing attachment to Ralph Richardson seemed only too natural. This too had left Debra feeling used, bereft and used.

Perhaps Henry and Debra might have consoled one another, yet the opposite seemed destined to occur now -- and only Daisy-Jane remained to bridge the growing chasm between them. Despite that bridge, Debra had remained in her cabin unless needed for watch standing, and Henry hadn't objected. Between Dana's and Debra's aura and mind reading abilities, he no longer felt comfortable around either and was content to finish the voyage in comparative isolation...

+++++

Didi Goodman's instructions were clear and to the point: continue to observe and report, and be prepared to help Callahan defend the premises if an unknown but presumed hostile force approached and tried to apprehend Brendan Geddes. If that appeared impossible, she was to take Brendan by any means possible to SFO for transfer to Israel, and if possible get Callahan and Eisenstadt to join them.

"But I think Brendan and Harry are working together now," she told her father. "In fact, I'm not sure Brendan can do much of anything without him."

"Are you sure?" Colonel Goodman asked his daughter.

"At this point, I think I am. The boy may learn how to enter the shift on his own at some point, but as of right now I think he's dependent on Harry."

"Then getting Callahan back to Israel may become a higher priority."

"I don't think he'll come, father. Not voluntarily, anyway."

The colonel grumbled on hearing that. "What about his assets? Any leverage there?"

"No, none. His assistant has secreted all his fungibles beyond my reach. The only assets I might be able to manipulate are his properties in Switzerland, and I doubt he'll be using those again anytime soon."

"Well, I'm sending Ida to you. She'll remain undercover for now, but she will be nearby should the need arise."

"Understood."

"And keep working on Harry. His life may depend on his relocating here."

"I will."

+++++

"Where's the kid?" Harry asked Deborah Eisenstadt.

"Down on the beach, with Miss IDF."

"You really don't like her, do you?" Harry sighed.

"No, but then again, neither do you."

"True," Callahan said, grinning. He was making smoked chicken salad, adding finely diced pecans and cranberries as well as a dash of garam masala to his usual mix of mayonnaise, green onions, and celery, and he was taking his time today, glad to be back in the kitchen and doing mundane chores like this. "What are they up to today?"

"Somersaults again, and she's teaching him him to body surf, I think."

"Too many sharks out there. She ought to cut out that crap."

"Do you know what happened to her face?"

"No. Last time I saw her she hadn't had all those reconstructive surgeries."

"She won't tell you what happened?"

"I haven't asked, and I don't plan to, either."

"Do you think she's been spying on us? Like...last night, when Jim was here?"

"That's her job, Deborah. And she's good at it, so I doubt we'd know if she did. She's not the type to make mistakes."

"Why do you think she's here?"

"To take the kid."

"Where? To Israel?"

"Yup."

"You don't seem too concerned about that, Harry."

"I'm not."

Which meant, Deborah knew, that Harry had been making a few explorations on his own. So, at least he was trying to stay a couple of moves ahead on the board.

+++++

Henry backed aquaTarkus into a vacant slip in front of the Empress, then he and Debra tied her off and hosed the salt encrusted hardware down before heading below for their duffels. Henry never saw her leave, because a minute later Debra and Daisy-Jane literally stepped off the boat and into a waiting De Havilland Beaver seaplane and took off for parts unknown. Henry powered down systems and hooked the boat up to shore power, then he too stepped off the boat and into another Beaver, this one heading to Lake Union in downtown Seattle.

Then it hit him: Daisy-Jane had loved on him big time before she left, but Debra hadn't even said goodbye.

'So, that's that,' he sighed as he watched Vancouver Island recede into the mist. 'The end of the affair. Oh well, c'est la vie.'

The next part of the General's plan would see the Swan 65 heading into Vancouver, only now it seemed everyone was going to the secret lair outside of Everett before splitting up. That is, everyone but Daniel Wingren. The General, apparently, had something special in mind for Wingren, but when Henry asked about all Henry could make out was a few mumbled words concerning plausible deniability. Henry decided it was better not to ask.

After he returned to Seattle, Taggart withdrew into the world of work. He never saw Debra Sorensen, or Daisy-Jane, again.

Part 3

Didi Goodman continued insinuating herself into Brendan's daily routine, guiding a gentle transformation from the dependency of childhood into something more closely resembling manhood. She ran with him on the beach, helped him develop a more appropriate level of physical coordination for his age, and most importantly she listened to him. As he began to express more mature hopes and dreams for the first time in his life, yet he still turned these expressions into music.

Didi had a natural affinity for the ocean and loved to both Scuba dive and surf, and she began to pass those loves on to Brendan, as well. She had started by teaching him how to body surf, surfing by, in effect, holding your body in a rigid plane and surfing the crest of a breaking wave. She bought a couple of 'boogie-boards' next, short little surfboards that let you surf waves a little more gracefully -- though still not standing up.

Yet Sea Ranch was not an ideal place for these activities.

There was but one beach where surfing was somewhat practical, when conditions were ideal, anyway, and the rest of the shoreline was crenellated with small rocky headlands and tiny coves -- all lined with spires of spiny rocks. And the water was generally quite cold, year round. So, when the sun came out and the wind rushed onshore, Didi and Brendan could be seen slipping into nylon skins and rushing down to the beach, loaded down with beach towels and their boogie-boards.

Yet, as Harry had mentioned to Deborah, sharks roamed this shoreline, for their favorite food often basked on all those rocky points. Sea Lions, or fur seals, had at one point been hunted to near extinction, yet they had made a dramatic recovery since California had enacted strict environmental protections -- and all much to the delight of the local Great White population. The sharks typically roam about a quarter mile off the rocks and beaches of the Pacific coastline from Washington State to Baja California and their habits are generally well understood by locals, including surfers, who run into them from time to time. And yet, as Didi Goodman was anything but a local, she dismissed Harry's concerns about the predators.

So he watched Didi and Brendan traipse off to the beach with a kind of icy fear clutching at his throat every time they ran off, and he heaved a heavy sigh of relief every time they returned intact. Yet soon enough his fear was palpable enough that Deborah Eisenstadt questioned him. "Why don't you go along and see if they are taking enough precautions?" she asked.

"I don't want to be an overbearing old fart," he growled. "No one needs that bullshit."

"So you're going to sit up here and pick on your fingernails while they're gone?"

"I do not pick on my fingernails!"

"Oh, really?"

"Well, maybe I do just a little..."

Eisenstadt shook her head while she finished making lunch. "I thought you were working with Pat in the studio this afternoon?" she said as she put his plate down on the small dining table.

"No. His flight was canceled. He's stuck in Boston."

"Oh? That's nice. It's such a sunny day, perhaps we could go for a walk?"

"Yeah, that sounds good."

She smirked. Men were so predictable it was almost painful sometimes. "Why don't you bring your camera?"

"You must be reading my mind again," he grinned.

And so Deborah grinned too, much as she hated to gloat.

So they walked south along the coast trail until they came to the beach access trail beneath Black Point Reach -- and the first thing Harry noticed was how far offshore they were. Well beyond the quarter mile mark, anyway, and yes, there were lots of seals frolicking out there among the three and four-foot combers, and then Harry saw Brendan riding a five-footer on a boogie-board and he was screaming in delight as he rode the wave in for a hundred or so feet.