Fury Of The Orcas Read online

  Grabbing a deep plastic tub, he set about helping Raquel collect the organs.

  Chapter Seven

  Sitting down to sift through his email account was always heavy lifting for Jamel Abrams. Aside from the dozens, if not a hundred or more, direct emails that came to him on a daily basis were the score of automatic alerts he had set to keep him apprised of the secret world that existed right under everybody’s noses.

  The alerts were divided into numerous categories. Each would send him links to stories that concerned: strange weather, animal die-offs, chemtrails, psychic phenomena, major storm warnings, earthquakes and many, many more esoteric happenings. He was good at skimming the topline of a story and separating the wheat from the chaff, but it still took time.

  The Internet was great for gathering information. It was also bogged down with a nightmarish load of chaff. It had taken Jamel some time to program certain websites to be ignored. In the world of conspiracy theories, the thin line between informed and paranoid seemed as fine as silk. The general public may have derided conspiracy theorists as the ‘tin foil hat people’, but in Jamel’s community, they knew who really had the shiny heads.

  Not that Jamel considered himself a conspiracy theorist.

  What he knew to be true was a stone cold fact. No theories needed.

  The truth was in there. He just needed to find a way to get it out.

  His grunt job at a filling station left him plenty of time, and brain power, to do the real, necessary work. It was why he’d become the master of odd jobs, a far cry from the life his parents had mapped out for him. If they only knew. Sometimes, he wished to hell he could clue them in to the truth, but plausible deniability was essential.

  His computer chimed that a Skype call was coming in. He opened the application and saw it was his east coast cohort, Sam, who went by the Skype handle IN2MNDCTRL. Jamel accepted the video call request and a window popped up displaying Sam sitting by her dining room bay window. Her yard was a virtual forest. A cardinal pecked away at food in her bird feeder.

  “You just get home?” Sam asked, sipping from a glass of iced tea. She was a retired schoolteacher with the beatific face of your favorite aunt or grandma. Only in this modern age of technology, information sharing and remote communication could she and Jamel have become friends.

  “Literally walked in the door. Looks hot by you.”

  Sam looked over her shoulder and the bird flew away. “Summer came early. It’s a perfect day for sun tea.”

  He held up a paper bag, its soggy bottom stained with grease, and a cup of coffee. “I’ve got the breakfast of champions here. I’d make sun tea if I could find the sun.”

  Anchorage, Alaska was not the place to be if you enjoyed warm summer days. Jamel had been here so long, he’d forgotten what it was like to break out in a sweat.

  “Well, I have something that I think will brighten your day.” She tapped on her keyboard and an email instantly popped up in Jamel’s inbox. “I know it’s early for you, so people probably haven’t heard about this one yet.”

  Jamel opened the email and saw five links. Nothing was labeled but he could tell from the URLs that they were from reputable websites.

  “What do we have here?”

  “That’s exactly what I said,” Sam said.

  Jamel scanned the first article, the headline reading: KILLER WHALES LIVE UP TO THEIR NAME!

  He felt his heartbeat quicken. The article went on in graphic detail about a trio of killer whales that had turned on their trainers in the middle of a show at a marine park in Barcelona. Seven people were dead, many more injured. The whales were immediately euthanized and autopsies were being conducted. There was no explanation for the revolt of the killer whales and it was too early to even speculate.

  Sam sat quietly while Jamel read each article. The others were pretty much a rehash of the first, though one of them did have a grainy picture of several people gathered around a whale that lay on its side on the ground. There appeared to be a long gash in its belly.

  When he finished, he popped the lid off his coffee and took a long drink.

  “What a nightmare.”

  Sam cringed. “I can’t even imagine. Just think, the park was filled with little kids. They watched those trainers get eaten alive. The poor dears.”

  “Three killer whales, all going postal at the same time.” Jamel tugged at the coarse hairs on his chin. “That seems kinda odd, don’t you think?”

  “Look at paragraph five in the CNN article.”

  He clicked into the tab with the CNN link. When he read paragraph five, his right eyebrow lifted as high as it could go.

  “You’re shitting me?”

  “Language,” Sam scolded with a light smile.

  “The third whale was in another tank. How is it possible that they all decided to attack at the same time? Can whales plan and remember something like that?”

  “Actually, killer whales aren’t whales at all,” Sam said, ever the teacher. “In fact, they’re members of the dolphin family. I’ve always found it odd that we call them killer whales, when in reality they’re whale killers. They’re apex predators that will attack anything in the sea. There have been instances where captive killer whales have attacked trainers, but only one attack on one person. Never has there been a case of mass murder by multiple killer whales.”

  Mass murder.

  The thought of it made Jamel shiver.

  Jamel’s fingers were itching to hit the keyboard and start doing research. He’d have to wait until he disconnected the call with Sam.

  “Are you sure of that?” he asked.

  “Positive. I did some digging while you were sleeping. It’s unprecedented.”

  “In captivity, but how about in the wild?”

  Sam bent closer to her keyboard, keys clacking. Another email landed in Jamel’s inbox.

  “Just a few links on orca behavior. They’re known to hunt in packs, or more correctly, pods. They’ll zero in on a walrus or shark or even a whale three times their size and work in tandem to take it down. One of the videos I sent you was taken by a drone as it hovered over a pod attacking a beluga whale. The pod contained fourteen killer whales. They divided into two groups. One group would surround the beluga, keeping it surrounded. They’d repeatedly smash into it, trying to induce internal bleeding. In between body blows, they would leap on top of the whale, dunking it under water so it couldn’t breathe.”

  Jamel opened the video file and was transfixed.

  “They were trying to drown it?”

  “Exactly,” Sam said. “And while the first group attacked, the other would stay to the side to catch their breath and recharge. When they were ready, they’d relieve the first group to continue the assault.”

  He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The only time he’d seen killer whales was in the movies. Free Willy and Orca were the extent of his knowledge, and he knew that Orca was just a cheesy B-movie that had no basis in reality.

  What he was watching was a highly intelligent assault, deftly organized by the pod of whales.

  No…dolphins.

  The scene was as brutal as it was awe-inspiring. The water churned around the trapped beluga. Killer whales both big and small took turns battering it with their heads and massive tail fins. He could see the whale desperately trying to expel gasses and take in air from its blowhole as it was repeatedly shoved under the surface.

  “I can’t believe this,” he said.

  “They call them the wolves of the sea for a reason. If you fast forward to the end, you can see that the whole pod shares in the victory. It took them over an hour to kill the whale, but once they did, every member got their share.”

  He moved the scroll bar to just a few minutes shy of the end and stared in rapt fascination as each killer whale took its turn feasting off the beluga carcass. As brutal as it looked, he realized that like man, killer whales had to eat. And like man, they were the apex predators of their domain. There was nothing agains
t nature with feeding your family.

  Even though it was shot from a distance, he was shocked by how much blood was in the water.

  He ended the video and settled into his chair. The breakfast sandwich he’d gotten at Nancy’s Diner had lost its appeal.

  “They can do all that to a whale, but they’ve never tried to attack a person in the water like that?”

  Sam shook her head. “Not that I could find.”

  If Sam couldn’t find it, it didn’t exist. She was a master at research.

  “Why do you think they don’t attack boats like that?” he asked.

  “I guess boats don’t look as yummy. Their DNA isn’t programmed to hunt artificial objects. Even when they’re on the hunt, people can be in kayaks close to them and not be touched. It’s really pretty incredible.”

  “Which makes what just happened in Spain all the more remarkable.”

  “Exactly. I don’t know if it has any correlation to what we’re looking for, but it’s worth keeping an eye on.”

  Jamel’s computer screen was filled with open windows related to killer whales and the Barcelona story.

  They’ve been manipulated somehow, he thought. No disease or brain disorder can make three animals flip a switch to psycho killer at the same time. No fucking way. This was done on purpose. I can’t wait to see what bullshit excuse they eventually give to explain this away.

  The killer whale story had moved to the top of his ‘to-watch’ list. He thanked Sam and promised to keep on top of the story as it progressed.

  All of his other emails could wait.

  This bore some special attention.

  Chapter Eight

  Chet and Rosario didn’t get back to their hotel until five in the morning. Ivan had driven them across town, the car shrouded in silence. They were too exhausted to speak.

  Rosario set the alarm on her phone for noon. When it went off, singing Sweet Child O’ Mine, Chet’s first instinct was to chuck it across the room. It felt as if he’d just gotten under the sheets.

  “Wakey, wakey,” Rosario said. Her eyes were still closed and it looked as if she hadn’t moved a muscle since hitting the bed.

  “That’s easy for you to say.”

  Chet lifted his head off the pillow and his body came alive with a cascade of aches and pains that went all the way down to the arches of his feet.

  When he tried to stretch his arms, he had to quickly pull them back to his sides. It felt that if he stretched too far, something would snap.

  “I don’t think I can get up,” he said, half-joking.

  Groaning as she rolled onto her side, Rosario managed to get to her feet.

  “I think I’m broken,” she said, her hair a wild mess, face hidden, arms hanging limply like a sleepwalker.

  “Come back to bed,” Chet grunted when he leaned over to take her hand, pulling her back onto the rumpled sheets. “I’ll get us some water and ibuprofen. We’re going to have to take this in stages.”

  She lay next to him, her warm hand in his, blowing a curl from her eyes.

  “Ivan said he’d be here at one.”

  Chet got up and stumbled to the mini fridge, getting two cold bottles of water. He grabbed some pills from his toiletry kit in the bathroom. “An hour is plenty of time for these to work and feel somewhat human again.”

  While they drank and willed the aches and pains to go away, they talked about the autopsy. Doing an autopsy on four whales was no easy feat. Chet had done all he could. The rest was up to Raquel and the tense wait for lab results.

  He was amazed at how Rosario hadn’t shied away not just from the autopsy, but all of the madness that had erupted at Marine Paradise. She was a remarkable woman, and he was grateful she was with him. He wasn’t sure how he would have handled all of this alone.

  “I think any answers we find are going to come from the brain analysis,” Chet said, wincing when Rosario laid her head on his bare chest. “Unless they were drugged, in which case toxicology will come up with a culprit.”

  “Even if they were doped with something, no drug could coordinate the exact time when they would lash out.”

  “Which is exactly why I’m putting my money on the brain.”

  She finished her water and took his empty bottle. “What do you think they’ll find?”

  “Something we’ve never seen before.”

  They had just enough time to shower, get dressed and gobble down room service of sliced ham, olives and bread before meeting Ivan in the lobby. He wore a loose fitting cotton shirt and tan slacks. Unlike them, he didn’t look like he’d gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson.

  “I think the park has more cops than it did yesterday,” he said, pushing his hair back. “It’s a goddamn nightmare.” Even though Ivan had been born and raised in Spain, he’d spent a considerable amount of time in New York and Florida during his twenties and early thirties. He definitely had the colorful vernacular of a New Yorker, all without the trace of an accent.

  They climbed into his compact car, gripping the seats as he whizzed through the streets of Barcelona. A majority of the vehicles on the road were brightly colored Vespa scooters. Chet held his breath as they nearly clipped a score of Vespas and their unfortunate riders.

  He didn’t dare tell Ivan to slow down. Knowing him, that would only encourage him to speed up.

  Ivan informed them that Marine Paradise would be closed indefinitely. The entrance was blocked by two police cars. News vans were everywhere. After a few words with the police Chet couldn’t understand, they let Ivan drive through the barricade.

  “Fucking vultures,” Ivan said, staring down the throng of reporters with microphones held out toward his car. “What more do they want? They already have their pound of flesh…literally.”

  It was an exceptionally hot day. Chet had taken a shower twenty minutes ago and already felt like he needed another.

  As they walked into the park’s main offices, Chet asked, “I meant to ask you last night, how are Punch and Judy?”

  “Gone,” Ivan said, walking so fast, they could barely keep pace with him.

  “Who are Punch and Judy?” Rosario asked.

  “Bottlenose dolphins. They’ve been here for years. You’d love them. Or would have.”

  “What happened to them?” Rosario asked.

  Ivan stopped, turning on his heels. “I had to sell them to a marine park in Chile last year. We had a bad season. It was either them or let some staff go. I’ve been running things as lean as possible as it is. Any less staff and the animals wouldn’t get the proper care.” His eyes glazed over and he stared at the wall over Rosario’s shoulder.

  No doubt thinking about the seven people he lost yesterday, Chet thought. And the lawsuits that will inevitably follow. Marine Paradise is never going to reopen. After all of the unpleasantness that Ivan will have to go through in the following weeks, the light at the end of his tunnel is unemployment.

  He turned to Chet and curtly said, “Why do you ask?”

  “Because they’re dolphins. I was wondering if they were affected in any way at the same time as the orcas.”

  Ivan patted him on the shoulder. “Yes, you’re right. If they were here, that would have been my first question as well. Forgive me. Come, let’s see if Raquel has anything for us.”

  Chet reached for Rosario’s hand as they walked the corridors back to where the marine veterinary suites were located. Raquel Suarez was alone, hunched over a microscope.

  “Well?” Ivan said irritably.

  Raquel looked up, adjusting her glasses.

  “So far, nothing.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “Everything I’ve observed, from organs to tissue, looks normal. They were healthy animals.”

  Chet looked around at the staggering number of sealed plastic tubs they’d filled the night before. Sections of organs floated in preservative fluids. He wondered if Raquel had even gone home. She was wearing a stained lab coat, so he couldn’t tell if she had on the sa
me clothes as yesterday.

  “What about their brains?” Chet asked. Rosario walked over toward an examination table where a hunk of Katerina’s hide now sat. From the look of things, Raquel had been working on it before they’d intruded.

  “Visually, I can’t find anything abnormal. I did have a chance to thoroughly review Nootka’s. No parasites, no growths.”

  Ivan kicked a rolling cart and sent it spinning, making everyone jump.

  “We all saw there was something fucking wrong with them! I’m going to have to answer to the families of seven people…seven good people. Mierda! Make that the entire country. Everyone wants answers.”

  “You can’t blame Raquel,” Chet said. “Do you want her to just make something up?”

  There was a tense moment when it looked as if Ivan were about to pick up a tray filled with dissection tools and throw it against the wall. No one spoke or moved.

  He glared at Chet, then his shoulders softened.

  “You’re right. You’re right,” Ivan said, dropping the tray.

  Chet heard Rosario let out a loud exhale.

  “Something will turn up,” Chet said. “Until then, I’ll assist Raquel as best I can. I know everyone is screaming for the why of it all, but this may take time.”

  Ivan checked his watch and spluttered a string of curses in Spanish. “I have to be at a press conference in ten minutes. Then I’m going to visit each of the families. If I survive today…”

  He stormed out of the suite.

  “I feel bad for him,” Raquel said.

  “Me, too,” Chet said. He pulled some gloves from a box and handed a pair to Rosario. “So, let’s do whatever we can to help him.”

  Chapter Nine

  The skies had darkened and their bellies were grumbling when Chet, Rosario and Raquel came to the conclusion they had done all they could, at least for today. Five visiting marine veterinarians had stopped in at different times to offer their assistance. This was Raquel’s court, and Chet at first worried how she would react.