Exodus 2022 (26 page)

“The vicar’s had an interesting week,” said Chen. “A very interesting week.”

THE NINE-PASSENGER BELL 412
registered to Erebus Industries touched down at Goshen Field, eight miles northwest of downtown Bellingham, at 4:13 p.m.

Orondo Ring, Sheldon Beck, and two of Beck’s men—Drucker and Knox—emerged from the helicopter. Beck told the flight crew to stay put and be ready for a quick departure.

Despite Ring’s optimism, Beck wasn’t convinced they’d be spending much time with Dieturlund. The man was old, frail and in an uncertain mental state. There was no guarantee he’d talk to them. And if he did talk, there was no guarantee he’d say anything of value. 

A taxi waiting outside the miniscule terminal took them four miles, to a senior living facility called The Willows, in an older, well-manicured neighborhood of Bellingham.

There was a small high-end retail strip across the street, and solid 1960s-era houses with well-maintained yards on either side. Stately trees and flower beds.

Beck paid the cabdriver and told Drucker and Knox to wait in the Starbucks across the street. Then he and Ring headed for the entrance to The Willows.

The sign at the door read The Willows. A Home for Active Seniors, and the lobby was big and bright and airy. It felt to Beck like a cross between a hospital and a Hampton Inn. Nice carpeting and fresh-cut flowers, on the one hand. Fluorescent lights and Muzak on the other. The air smelled vaguely antiseptic.

A twentysomething attendant sat at the front desk, typing on a laptop. He shut his computer halfway and removed one earbud as Beck and Ring approached.

“Help you?”

Beck said, “We’re here to see Will Dieturlund. What room is he in?”

The kid frowned. “You guys family?”

“Admirers of his work,” said Beck. “My name is Stan Evans and this,” he said, pointing at Ring, “is Lars Hillcraft.”

The kid shook his head doubtfully. “Dr. D. doesn’t usually see visitors. And plus, this is his naptime. You might want to come back in a couple hours.”

“He’s expecting us,” Beck lied. “We spoke with him yesterday.”

The kid looked skeptical, then shrugged. “Apartment J,” he said. “Far right hallway.”

They made their way down a long corridor, past a kitchen where an ancient woman was methodically preparing a snack.

Ring said, “Lars Hillcraft? Is that me?”

Beck nodded. “In case we piss Dieturlund off and he reports us.”

“Stan Evans and Lars Hillcraft?

Beck shrugged. “Best I could do on the spur of the moment.”

They found Apartment J and Beck knocked softly.

No reply.

He knocked louder.

No response.

He tried the knob and found the door unlocked.

“Professor Dieturlund?” he called, sticking his head inside. “Hello?”

A husky voice answered. “Who’s there?”

“Visitors,” said Beck, easing the door open and stepping inside. “Friends.”

“You’re not my friends,” said Dieturlund.

He was seated at a table next to a window, a gaunt, fragile-looking man with wispy white hair, age spots, and skin as thin as rice paper. Ring had said that Dieturlund was fifty-eight, but Beck figured the man before them could easily pass for seventy-eight, or older.

Beck proceeded through the small foyer and deeper into the efficiency apartment. Ring followed.

The air was stagnant. Stale. The room arranged more like an office than a residence. A messy, run-down office.

Stuff was everywhere. Piles of yellowing paper. Files. Official-looking reports. Professional journals. There were dented filing cabinets festooned with tattered
Far Side
cartoons. Graphs and charts and curling Cibachrome prints of whales covered the walls. Images of Northwest coastline.

Ring surveyed the space and imagined some of Dieturlund’s graduate students—kids who still believed in the old man or who just felt sorry for him—moving his university office pretty much lock, stock, and barrel to The Willows retirement home.

“We’re admirers,” said Beck. “We’d like to talk to you about your work.”

“That’s nice,” said Dieturlund, peering at Beck through nearly opaque glasses. “Thing is, I don’t want to talk to you.”

“We’re fans of your research,” said Ring.

“Bullshit,” replied Dieturlund. “Who the hell let you in, anyway? That dumb-ass kid at the front?”

Ring pushed his way past Beck and said, “Professor Dieturlund, my name’s Lars Hillcraft.”

“So?”

“And this is my friend, Stan Evans. We were kayaking in the San Juans, sir, five days ago. We had an encounter with a pod of orca whales.”

Dieturlund just stared at Ring through his Coke-bottle lenses.

“I touched one of the whales,” said Ring. “Or rather, she touched me. Came up under my boat. I couldn’t avoid her. The contact only lasted a few seconds, but I’ve had a hell of a time since then.”

Dieturlund squinted at him. “What’s a hell of a time?”

Ring stepped farther into the tiny apartment. There were no chairs, other than the battered leather high-back Dieturlund was sitting in, so Ring sat, awkwardly, on the foot of Dieturlund’s twin bed.

“Bizarre dreams,” said Ring. “Hallucinations. Nightmares. The morning after the encounter, I dreamed I had a little girl, which I don’t. The dream, or hallucination, was very convincing. The girl had just died. I was devastated.”

“It’s true,” said Beck. “He was out of his mind.”

Ring said, “Stan was in another kayak a few feet away. But the whale didn’t touch him.”

Dieturlund looked from one to the other but said nothing.

Ring said, “My friend Stan here has been trying to help me make sense of my hallucinations. We started reading. Talking to people. A ranger told us the pod we encountered consisted of transient orcas. And then we read about your work with transients.”

Dieturlund folded his hands in his lap. Sighed. Beck didn’t know what to make of his body language.

Ring said, “The nightmares about the little girl faded, but then I started dreaming about something else.”

Dieturlund narrowed his gaze as Ring said, “Tunnels.”

The old man’s jaw quivered. His body tensed, and he raised a trembling hand to his glasses.

“Vast undersea tunnels,” said Ring. “Or chambers. Swaying in the current. Huge things. In my dream, I’m swimming toward one of the tunnels. It’s dark all around me—because I’m so deep underwater. But the tunnel has its own illumination. A sort of phosphorescence. The entire fragile structure is moving with the sea, undulating gently, like a jellyfish. Glowing with its own inner light.”

Dieturlund made no reply. Just kept his hands folded and his mouth shut. 

Beck said, “So that’s why we’re here, Professor Dieturlund. We’re hoping you can shed some light on”—he turned to Ring and abruptly forgot the alias he’d given him—“my friend’s experience.”

Dieturlund sighed again, leaned forward in his chair, and plucked a white grease pencil off a low table littered with scientific journals. He stared at the pencil and turned it slowly in his hands, this way and that. Beck imagined he was thinking, preparing to speak. But Dieturlund remained silent.

Beck and Ring exchanged glances.

“I know my story is ‘out there,’” said Ring, “but I swear it’s the truth.”

Dieturlund lifted his head. Looked Ring in the eye. “I believe the story.”

Ring smiled. “You do?”

“Yes. I just don’t believe it happened to you.”

Dieturlund lowered his head and resumed his deep contemplation of the grease pencil. He turned it slowly in his hands, this way and that, breathing noisily.

Beck could see the red emergency pendant Dieturlund wore on a tether around his neck—like a key fob with a single button in the middle. Push the button and help would come. 

Beck guessed most every resident at The Willows wore such a device. He also guessed he could jump Dieturlund before the old man so much as lifted his hand. Rip the tether off his neck and make him talk.

It would be easy, but Beck wasn’t sure it was worth it. He sighed. He’d had enough. The room felt claustrophobic. Stifling. There was a big window looking west, toward the San Juans and the Straits, but it was sealed shut.

Beck’s headache suddenly resumed. Like he’d flipped a switch. And his temper flared. In a moment he’d either leave, or step forward and slap the professor around.

Ring said, “I’m sorry you doubt my veracity, professor. I only wanted to get your advice. I thought—”

“You can’t follow her,” Dieturlund said quietly.

Beck laughed, “Follow who, old man?”

Dieturlund kept his eyes on Ring. “It won’t work. Can’t be done.”

Beck said, “What won’t work?” He turned to Ring. “What the hell’s he talking about?”

Ring waved Beck quiet and addressed Dieturlund again, respectfully. Softly.

“Where’s she going, professor?”

Dieturlund said nothing.

“Where do the tunnels lead?”

“Away.”

“Away where?”

“Away from here.” 

Ring stared at the old man in awe and nodded slowly. “Fascinating,” he said, as if he suddenly understood things perfectly.

“
What’s
fascinating?” demanded Beck.

Ring ignored him. “Please. Professor. I’m a scientist myself. Like you. I just want to understand. Where do the tunnels lead?”

Dieturlund turned his head slightly, as if acknowledging the ring of a phone in the next room.

“It’s under way,” he whispered. “In motion. Almost complete. You cannot follow.”

“Where do the tunnels lead?” Ring asked.

Dieturlund gazed at nothing out the window. 

Ring tried again. “Why does she want to leave?”

The question seemed to rouse the old man. “Why?” he laughed. “
Why
?” He seemed to find the question hilarious. He chuckled and chortled until his laugh became a labored wheeze.

He recovered at last and focused on Ring once more, his voice suddenly cold and hard and deadly serious. “She’s found a way out. An escape. Why on earth would she ever stay?”

“I don’t understand,” said Ring.

Dieturlund sounded incredulous. “Wouldn’t you want to leave your house if someone was pumping sewage in through the window?

 “Why does she want to leave? Why do they
all
want to leave?” He leaned forward, trembling now. “There’s a shit pile of plastic debris the size of Texas floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Another like it in the Atlantic. Oceans worldwide are acidifying. Coral reefs dying, fish stocks plummeting because we can’t control ourselves. The fish and mammals that do remain—their tissues are full of PCBs and dioxins from pesticides and other chemicals. And orcas are at the pinnacle of the food chain. Which means they have the highest concentration of toxic crap in their systems.”

Dieturlund was on a roll, and Ring made no attempt to stop him. 

“Did you know, Mr. Hillcraft—or whatever the hell your real name is—that orca whales’ bodies are so loaded with PCBs and heavy metals that when an orca dies and washes up on the beach it’s considered toxic waste? They have to call a hazmat team to dispose of the corpse!

“Why does she want to leave?” he laughed. “My goodness, I can’t imagine.”

Beck squirmed. He hated environmentalists, and Dieturlund’s rant was compounding his headache.

Ring said, “Where’s she going, professor?”

“Where you can’t find her.”

Beck grunted. “Jesus Christ, what the fuck is he going on about?”

Ring waved Beck off again and kept his eyes on Dieturlund. “Why do you think we’re lying?”

“I don’t
think
you’re lying. I
know
you’re lying.”

Ring sat studying the old man. After a minute he said, “They’re social animals, aren’t they, professor? Above all else, they’re social creatures. Isn’t that right?”

Dieturlund glared at Ring.

“T-197, or Mia, as you call her, will want to get her entire pod through. More likely, her entire extended clan. Every last individual. Wouldn’t you say?”

Dieturlund kept his mouth shut.

Ring kept his focus on Dieturlund. “If one of Mia’s relations were delayed somehow—”

“Get the hell out of here!” Dieturlund shouted, rising to his feet. “Before I call the police!”

Beck and Ring made for the exit in the lobby.

“What the hell was that all about?” Beck asked. “Why was he so upset?”

“Hit a nerve,” said Ring.

They stopped on the sidewalk outside, waiting for Knox and Drucker to rejoin them.

Ring turned toward the sign for The Willows, and Beck followed his gaze.

“Stanton will come here,” Ring said softly. “Or try to.”

Beck made no reply.

“Stanton and Mia are in touch. And Mia and Professor Dieturlund are in touch. It stands to reason that Stanton and Dieturlund are in contact as well.”

Beck raised an eyebrow. “You mean, telepathically?”

Ring nodded.

“Why would Stanton come here?”

“For help. It’s a fair bet he knows about our divers and the gillnetter. Knows they died after touching Mia. If that’s the case, he’s probably worried about his own chances and wondering how it is that Dieturlund is still alive. He’ll come looking for answers.”

Knox and Drucker crossed the street, and Beck waited until they were close. Spoke to them quietly. “You’re staying put. Want you to keep an eye on the entrance. If Stanton and the girl show up, let them visit the old man and then grab them when they come out.”

Knox nodded. Drucker said, “Okay.”

Beck said, “You’ll need a vehicle.”

“We’ll find something,” Knox replied.

Beck said, “Collins is poking around Bremerton, looking for Stanton there. Tell him to forget that and come here ASAP. You might need some help.”

“So what did you say that made Dieturlund so upset?” Beck asked during the cab ride back to the heliport.

Ring shrugged. “I implied that there may be a way to keep Mia from leaving. Or at least to delay her departure long enough for us to go, too.”

Beck stared at him, feeling lost once again. He massaged his temples and struggled to keep his voice even.