Authors: John Strauchs
She was alarmed.
“Suppose they come while you’re gone?” she asked.
“It’s too soon for them to be here. Moreover, they won’t do anything in a public
area. We’re anchored in an active harbor. I won’t be gone long. It’s safe right now.”
“Alright, if you think its safe,” she said.
She was still uneasy about being left
alone.
Jenny was about to say that he shouldn’t be walking that much.
He could open
his stitches and there was always the worry about internal bleeding. She didn’t say anything. She needed time to think.
Jared took a wad of cash and left. She waited until she heard him walking off the
deck and then she went back to the stateroom.
She walked back into the galley and
opened the cabinet above the sink. There it was. Jared’s secret wooden box! What was
he hiding? Why was it the only thing on the boat that was locked? She stared at it for a
while longer and then went back to the cabin. She curled up on the bed and tried to fall
asleep.
She bolted up in bed and ran out to the galley.
She pulled open the junk drawer
next to the sink. The gun was gone. The Walther PPK was no longer there. She stared
into the drawer for a long time…thinking. It was too much. She went back into the cabin
and climbed back on the bunk. She fell asleep. Emotional fatigue drained her.
Jared stepped into a coffee shop for a double espresso. When he got his coffee he
loaded it with sugar and sat on a stool near the window to unwind. He needed the caffeine. He sipped at it—slowly.
He casually glanced out the window. Suddenly, he spotted a small, frail, black
woman sitting on a bench on the wharf. It was the same little woman he saw at Ashley‘s
and other times since then. It was Mary Thomas. She was more than a hundred yards
away, but it was the same little woman. It was the same faded black dress and the same
limp yellowed lace.
He gulped down the espresso and ran out of the shop toward the
bench.
He lost sight of her when he left the window.
As he opened the front door, she
was gone. It troubled him. He thought about it the rest of the afternoon.
Jenny was woken by a hatch slamming.
She glanced at her watch. She had slept
for more than an hour.
She thought she shut her eyes for only a few minutes but it had
been more than an hour.
She was off balance.
She felt very tired.
Her entire body felt
heavy.
She glanced out of the port hole and saw strange men climbing around on the
boat. She panicked.
Jared peeked in.
“Not to worry. They’re gassing us up, refilling our water and other supplies.”
“You could have told me,” she said.
“You needed more sleep.”
“Are we still in Newport?”
“Of course!” said Jared.
“Oh.”
“Go back to bed. I can take of this myself.”
“No, I want to help. What can I do?” asked Jenny.
“Alright, if you really want to.”
“This is a great boat, but I wish it was just a little bigger.”
“Carver makes cabin cruisers much bigger than 36 feet, but really large boats attract a lot of attention that I don’t want. I wanted a boat that was comfortable, generally
at least, but that could be somewhat anonymous.”
“I guess that’s important if every nation on earth is hunting you.”
Jared ignored that. He didn’t want another argument.
“What exactly are you doing?” asked Jenny.
“I need the boat to be more anonymous.
I need to change its appearance—just a
little bit.”
“And how are we doing that?”
“You have to understand how people actually see things. At a distance, the brain
searches for recognizable patterns.
It could be the life rings on the side. It could be a
shape. It could be spacing between things.
It could be a color.
If these patterns change,
even slightly, it is not the same thing that was seen before.”
“We are being followed. I think by this Colombian. I spotted a helicopter following us…tracking us actually. It’s gone for the moment. Probably needed to refuel.”
“You didn’t say anything. When did you discover this?”
Jenny was frightened
again. “Are you telling me that it is going to happen again?”
“Someone planted a tracking device—a little infrared flashing beacon—on the
boat. It’s called a firefly.
I noticed it when we first got on board.
People can’t see into
the infrared region. I can see it, or at least just enough to notice a faint flash.”
“Jared can see like a cat. So what else is new?”
thought Jenny.
“Why didn’t you throw it overboard?
Why didn’t you tell me? When were you
going to tell me that we were still in danger?”
“As long as they thought that we didn’t know about the beacon, I was sure that
they would keep their distance for the time being…and they have. They would be willing
to wait until we are in a less populated area, such as at sea. That is why I didn’t throw it
overboard.
I didn’t tell you because…one…I was feeling very weak at the time…and
two…I didn’t want to alarm you. I don’t think we’re in danger.”
“How can you say that?
They tried to kill you. People have already been killed.
Are you kidding? They are watching us and you say we’re not in danger,” she said.
“I don’t think they’re watching us now. No! I would sense it. They are not going
to try anything in a busy harbor, especially not Newport. As long as they think they can
track us with the beacon, they are going to keep away at a safe distance.”
“So that’s why we are going to change the appearance of the boat?”
“Yes, exactly. I’ve been watching them. They are far enough away…actually flying very high…that they can’t see real details,” said Jared.
Jenny felt safe with Jared, or at least she used to. Seeing him wounded made her
lose confidence in him. Was it safe with Jared? She wasn’t sure now.
Jared left the cabin and went up on the deck. Jenny followed. He began to open
the bundles and boxes he brought back.
“I bought you some clothes. I hope they fit.
If you hate them we can take them
back. The underwear was a mystery so if it’s not right you may have to go back and get
what you need. Some more is being delivered later this morning.”
Jenny began opening the bags and boxes.
The clothing was expensive. The underwear was utilitarian.
“This looks OK…for now.”
“I bought you some sanitary pads and Tampax.”
“Thanks, but I don’t need that right now, but thanks. I know that took some courage to buy.”
“Why would buying Tampax require courage?”
“Never mind! I’ll need it later. Thank you for getting it.”
He pulled out blue plastic tarps, light rope, scissors, duct tape, and large pieces of
marine canvas sail cloth.
“Take the blue plastic and cut it to fit some of the colored parts of the boat. Cover
those areas with the plastic with the tape. Pay close attention to the fly bridge and cover
the red canvas with the blue plastic. Imagine how the boat looks like from the air,” he
said.
“What happens if they return before we’re finished?”
“Not to worry.”
Jared climbed up to the bridge and removed the firefly.
He climbed down and
jumped off the boat.
He slowly walked down the ramp and through the maze of interconnecting pier ramps.
Jenny couldn’t get over how fit he seemed despite the obviously
serious, if not incapacitating wounds he suffered just the night before. Or was it two
nights ago? She had lost track of time. He was a walking miracle. No, he was Jared and
Jared was a megagenius. She grabbed the field glasses from the table and watched him.
“Wow
, he found a boat that looks very similar to ours,”
thought Jenny. He was
far enough away that she couldn’t hear him, but it looked like he was calling out to the
boat.
No one was on board.
She saw Jared climb on board and climb up to their fly
bridge. The firefly found a new home. She watched Jared walking back. He had a smile
on his face.
“This isn’t another game, is it?”
“No, this is not a game. Not any more. I learned my lesson. But I would like to
see their faces when they finally discover that they’ve been following the wrong boat.
This was the only part that relied on luck and we got lucky. That boat is virtually identical to ours.”
Jenny was relieved. She didn’t want him treating this all as a game. It was deadly
serious. Deadly!
“Won’t they notice that the flash is coming from another location?”
“I doubt it. I’ve moved this boat several times while they were watching us. They
won’t be surprised to see it in a new location.
Boats do that all of the time as better
berths become available.”
Jared worked hard and fast. He moved everything on the boat that was movable.
Often he just changed the organization or the spacing.
Jenny was almost done covering
the red parts with the blue plastic. Jared was nailing the sail cloth over some hatchways
so that a flap could be thrown to cover the opening.
“Oops,” said Jenny.
Jared looked over and saw that she had hit her thumb nail—hard—with the hammer. A blood spot instantly appeared underneath the finger nail. It looked awful.
“So marine biologists can’t swing a hammer,” he said.
“I guess not,” said Jenny. “It really hurts. It is throbbing.”
Jared went into the galley and brought back a small propane torch and a paper
clip.
He held the paper clip in pliers and heated it in the propane flame until it was red
hot.
“Now don’t get upset. Remember, the nail itself has no pain receptors. This isn’t
as bad as it is going to look,” said Jared.
“What are you planning to do?” she asked.
“I am going to treat this subungual hematoma.”
“Are you nuts? You’re going to poke me with that?”
Before she could ask another question, he grabbed her hand and pushed the paperclip into her thumb nail. It instantly burned through.
The smell of burning nail was
terrible.
“There! That will relieve the pressure by letting the blood escape. No pain. No
problem.”
Sure enough, Jenny could see that the red spot was gone. She made a mental note
to ensure that she never gets an injury again while Jared is around.
Jared put everything away and went back to work.
“It stopped hurting, thanks,” said Jenny.
In less than an hour they had transformed the boat. The difference was profound.
Clearly, from a distance it was surely a different boat. People on other boats were watching them work. Jared ignored them. They could think what they wanted.
Since most of
the metamorphosis was designed to be visible from the air, it wasn’t that obvious what
they were doing.
“Are we going to change the name on the boat,” asked Jenny.
“I don’t think they can see it from a distance.
The vibration from the helicopter
must make it difficult to use binoculars. Besides, they are depending entirely on the firefly. It must look like fireworks going off when seen through a starlight scope imager.”
“I hope you’re right after all of this work,” she said.
“More important, since 9-11 the coast guard does a lot of registration checks.
I
don’t want to attract their attention or the harbor master’s by fooling with the name. Besides, I like StarWind, don’t you?” asked Jared.
“Those are just random checks.
There must be hundreds of boats around here.
They can’t check them all,” she said.
“In the entire universe there isn’t a single event that is random. People call something random only because it is too complicated for their understanding.”
“Jared, Am I getting another science lesson?”
“Math lesson!”
“You’re trying to tell me that picking numbers from a lottery bowl is never random.”
“That’s right.
It isn’t random. In theory that is. You…we…simply don’t understand all of the cause and effect dynamics that are occurring. If we knew all the forces at
play we could predict each number, every time.
The dynamics are extremely complicated of course. Many of the dynamics cannot be measured or even observed. But, they
are, in theory, all knowable,” he said.
“If I close my eyes and open a page in a very large phone book and run my finger
down a page until it stops on a telephone number…that isn’t random? I could decide to
open the book near the top. I could decide to open it near the bottom. How can that not
be random?”
“Your decisions are all predisposed by your internal makeup--both nature and
nurture. You have subliminal preferences that bias your decisions. They may change on a
daily basis, but they are, in theory, predictable, if all the factors in play are known.
It
isn’t random.”
“That’s BS. You're full if it."
She walked away. She knew she should believe it
simply because he said it was true—but she didn’t.
They both sensed that there was a chill in their relationship—again. The chill was
palpable. Perhaps it was only fatigue.
Perhaps Jenny was still afraid.
Whatever it was,
Jared was demonstrably aloof and Jenny was no longer dutiful to him.
Jenny went into the cabin to warm up.
She found a spot where she could watch
the dock and the inner harbor.
She watched people moving about with their daily business.
She sat and thought about Krissy and Lars. She remembered times spent with her
grandmother when she was a little girl.
She thought about the research she was doing
and what was still undone. For the first time in a long time, she didn't think about Jared.
She sat there and thought about many things for several hours, but she was unaware that
time had passed. She knew that Krissy and her mom would be worrying about what happened on the island.
It would have been in the news, even in Boston. She had to phone
them soon.
Jared walked in. "It’s almost two. Hungry?"
"Sure."
"I have reservations at Christies. It's right here on the dock."
"OK, give me a few minutes to get ready.
I am tired of looking like an old sea
hag."
She went into the head and closed the door.
When she came out she had transformed herself into a beautiful young woman again.
The clothes Jared bought were expensive and very feminine.
He had good taste in women’s clothes. That surprised her.
She had put on make-up.
Jared took notice, but didn't tell Jenny that she looked beautiful. She would think he was patronizing her. They walked off the boat.
The restaurant
was close. They were immediately seated. Neither said anything for a while.
Jenny studied the menu for a long time. She wasn't going to order what Jared recommended. She
was going to decide things from now on.
"Do you know what you want?" asked the waitress.
"Not yet. Let me have a Sam Adams while I decide," said Jenny.
"I'll have a glass of house Chardonnay," said Jared.
When the drinks were served, they finally talked. It was small talk.
"You seem to have recovered. It's quite remarkable," said Jenny.
"I'm feeling fine. No problems."
"That's good,” she said. "Do you sense that those men have returned yet?"
"No, but I'm not infallible. The guy sneaking up on us at the pond proved that,
didn’t it?” said Jared.
"I can't believe that you would admit that."
"Why would you say that?" asked Jared.
"Sorry! Forget I said anything."
They stopped talking again.
The food arrived.
They ate their meals, mostly in
silence. That Jared probably sensed what she was thinking was unsettling. Finally, Jenny decided to let it go.
It was too tiring to constantly filter her thoughts.
She dismissed
the eavesdropping as something she had no control over.
Jared could listen in all he
wanted to. It was not her doing.
"I don't know why you are so angry. Are you still mad that I don't believe in God
the way you do?" asked Jared. “Was it what I did at the house? What is it?”
"I don't know.
Yes, maybe I am just tired.
Yes, it bothers me that you are an
atheist…no agnostic….whatever, but it is a lot of other things too. You would have had
no problem running away from that poor homeless man in Orchard Beach.
If I hadn’t
forced it on you, you would have let him burn to death. Isn’t that true?”
“That is true. He meant nothing to me and what you did put your life in danger.
We should have left.”
“How can you live with yourself?
Don’t you care about anything or anyone?
You have these incredible gifts.
How many people in this world could say that they
could actually make a difference to help make the world a better place for everyone?
I
just don’t understand you, Jared. Suppose you could cure cancer. Wouldn’t you want to
do something that could save the lives of millions of people? Help me understand.”
“Cancer is simply a breakdown of cellular mechanics. It is nothing more than uncontrolled cell growth.
In fact, curing cancer should be relatively simple.
The answers
are already out there, it’s just that the researchers can’t see the connections.
But for the
sake of your argument, let’s suppose I did offer the world a cure for cancer.
Who will
feed these millions of people?
You understand of course how ridiculous the term “died
of natural causes” is. There is no such thing. And, let’s suppose that it is possible to extend life to two hundred years, or more, by preventing death from natural causes for
many decades. Have you ever heard of Malthus? Do you have any understanding of the
consequences of changing the balance of life and death?
A balance determined by millions of years of evolution?
“Don’t you feel any responsibility to help others?”
“I do not. Not in any way,” said Jared.
“That’s playing God, Jared. You don’t believe in God.
Why? Because you are
God in your own mind. You are deciding not to help anyone—whether it is one homeless
man or if it is millions of people—you are making life and death decisions for all of
them.”
“Can’t you see how ignorant that argument is? Changing the natural order of the
world would be playing God, not deciding not to.”
“I may not be as intelligent as you, but I’m not stupid.”
“I didn’t say you were. I said your logic is ignorant. That means lacking knowledge. It does not mean stupid. Right now all I care about is protecting you. You do realize that you’re in danger, don’t you?”
“I just don't want to think about it right now. I'm also frightened. It is conceivable that someone might come after me as a way of getting to you. I am having a difficult
time dealing with that. If it wasn't for that I would probably just go home now and try to
figure out if you and I have a special relationship or not.
But, I obviously can't do that.
We're stuck with each other for a while, aren't we?"