There was another visitor there too and Hooker grinned at her.
Kim Sebring stood up and shook hands with both of them. “You guys really made them jump in the home office, you know that?”
Judy’s eyebrows went up. “Why? We’re pretty far from your home base.”
“It was a double whammy,” Kim said. “Your father was a big money donor to our cause at Woods Hole.”
Judy simply shook her head. “My father was interested in anything about the ocean.”
When Kim looked at Mako she grinned again. “My boss was in the service with you, Mr. Hooker. He got a medical discharge after the helicopter you two were in got shot down. He was all busted up and you had a piece of tubing stuck in your butt. He hopes you can still sit in a straight chair.”
“I’ll be damned. Old Bambi Hill. I thought he’d go back to his farm on Long Island.”
“He did, but between tourists and traffic he got run out and the only place he could go where there still was some privacy was the ocean. Woods Hole was a perfect spot for him.”
“You two sound like cousins,” Captain Watts interrupted. He got everybody seated, passed around cups of fresh coffee and said, “Mako, pursuant to your original problem, I have some new information.”
“The eater?”
“Possibly.” Watts tilted back in his chair, his fingers laced across his stomach. “We’ve picked up some radio traffic from boats between Peolle and here. It was pretty frenzied and sometimes garbled, but I have a good guy on the horn who can make sense out of anything. What he heard was all on CB, and friend, we were lucky it carried this far. Those old fishing boats aren’t noted for having any sophisticated equipment.”
“You’re right,” Hooker said. “Most likely inexpensive Radio Shack models, good, but old. Everything they have is out of date, including their outboard engines.”
“They had two sightings of that thing you called the eater.”
Judy leaned forward quickly. “What did they say it was?” Her voice had a breathless touch to it.
“They didn’t say everything in English.”
“Damn!” Hooker exploded.
Captain Watts held up his hand. “Don’t sweat it. We recorded the conversation. I contacted Chana on the Tellig and they took off for the area immediately.”
“Damn, she never let me know!”
“Was she supposed to?”
“This is my call, not hers.” Suddenly he shook his head, angry at himself. “No, she did right. It was an emergency action. How long have they been gone?”
“Tellig left twenty minutes ago.”
Hooker felt his breath ease out slowly in relief. “Send somebody over to the Clamdip and get Billy Bright. He’ll be able to decipher what they said.”
Watts reached for the phone, gave the order and hung up the receiver. “We have a fix on the position of the incident. I suppose you’ll want to go there.”
“Right. How far is it?”
“You should make it in a couple of hours.”
Hooker nodded at Kim Sebring. “Where do you come in?”
Kim leaned on the edge of the desk and said to Hooker, “We finished our little ocean bottom experiment. It was very interesting.”
Mako frowned, wondering what she was getting at.
“Captain Watts was good enough to contribute some of his findings too,” she said. “Neither of us were doing any secret work, but we have both come to some oddball conclusions.”
“The face of the earth is changing,” Watts put in. “There are plate movements where we never suspected them to be.”
“Like the San Andreas Fault?”
“At this point, not so severe. There are indications.”
“I don’t like the way you say that,” Mako told him.
“Nothing may happen in our lifetime,” Watts said softly.
“Oh boy,” Judy whispered, the sense of it getting to her.
Kim leaned forward again, her hands poised to describe what she had found. “There are currents below that weren’t there a hundred years ago. Scara Island was clean then, a breeding ground for seabirds.”
“How do you know?” Judy asked.
It was Hooker who said, “Old charts. The captains of the old sailing ships did a lot of topographical work too.”
Kim nodded in acknowledgment. “We’ve known a lot about Scara Island, but when we found out that the Sentilla was going to do some experimental sounding nearby, we coordinated with the navy to carry out our own investigation too. The navy was glad to cooperate.”
“So,” Captain Watts said, “why don’t we have some more coffee until Mr. Billy Bright comes aboard.” He called for the mess boy to bring what was needed and had the radio room deliver up a tape of the CB transmission, and they made small talk until the ship’s launch bumped against the ramp of the Sentilla.
There was wariness in Billy’s eyes when he came aboard. Nobody had briefed him, and until he saw Mako sitting there comfortably with Judy beside him, he was as tensed up as a tight spring. His eyes caught Hooker’s and he said, “Sar... it is all right?”
Hooker pushed a chair toward him and nodded. “Everything’s okay, Billy. We need an interpreter and you’re our man.”
Billy’s face stayed blank.
Mako explained, “The eater’s out there again. Our guys are on the CB, but we can’t understand what they’re saying.” He motioned for Billy to sit down and flicked on the tape recorder. Captain Watts turned on another to record Billy Bright’s rendition of the radio chatter.
Billy recognized the first voice immediately. “That’s Poca... and Lule Malli... their boat, she got hit again!”
“They sinking, Billy?”
The Carib shook his head. “No, sar... the pump, she is holding.”
Other voices came in, fainter but frantic. All their heads were turned toward Billy, waiting to see what had happened. Suddenly there was a pitched screaming and the sound of engines suddenly being revved up past the redline almost blanked out the voices. Billy’s voice was shaking as he said, “They saw it... the eater... it was right behind them.”
“They get hit again?”
Billy shook his head hard. “No, sar, they got away.” He turned and stared at Hooker. “They all saw it, sar. They heard it breathe.”
“They describe it?”
The tape had gone quiet. That was description enough. With death so close nobody had time to describe it. It was there. That was enough.
But Billy knew what was happening. “They see another ship to the west and Lule think it be the Tellig. They be helping in Poca and Lule, you think?” Suddenly his face wore a dark scowl. “They won’t leave them, will they?” he asked anxiously. “Lule and Poca, they be good friends, them.”
Judy finished it for him when she got to her feet. “So are we, Billy.”
Billy grinned, the relief plain on his face. Hooker said, “We’ll take any boat and tow them back. I’ll stay in touch on VHF. Channel nineteen okay?”
“No problem,” Captain Watts told him. “You need anything?”
“What I need is on the Lotusland.” He glanced at Judy and said, “You have a handheld camera aboard, haven’t you?”
“We have anything you can think of.”
“Good. Get the newest digital camera you can! Get the smallest you have and the simplest to operate.”
“Can do.” She beamed.
“Any weaponry?” Watts asked.
“No, that rocket launcher I got before is enough. I have a few other pieces aboard. Strictly legal in these waters.”
“Don’t start a war, buddy.”
“Hell, it started a long time ago.”
“Something eating ships is hardly a war.”