Chapter One
Norway. Land of the midnight sun. Cascading waterfalls, deep fjords, breathtaking views and abundant wildlife—the mother lode to a notorious wildlife criminal.
Sure enough, a few weeks ago, Headquarters received an anonymous tip that Ray Goldman, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s most-wanted, was sailing these waters, on the prowl for killer whales. Rumor was, he was planning a live-capture for the mega-aquarium industry. And I was going to catch him.
Special Agent Poppy McVie, reporting for duty.
Since U.S. law prohibits an American citizen from hunting, capturing, killing or even harassing a killer whale anywhere in the world, and we wanted him—we wanted him bad—here we were.
“I feel like a damn circus bear jumping through hoops,” said Dalton as he ended the call with the informant. “I’m starting to think he’s just some crackpot getting his kicks.”
My partner, Special Agent Dalton, up until now, had patiently dealt with him through every stage, even promised the man that his anonymity was a top priority, but the guy still wouldn’t even give his first name. We’d started referring to him as Johnny, as in: Here’s Johnny, the nutjob.
“At least he stays on the phone longer than thirty-eight seconds now,” I said. “Maybe Hollywood called and told him that even they’d given up on that old drama ploy.”
“Hollywood.” Dalton rolled his eyes. “I’m sure that’s why he believes agents are all ‘gun-wielding, cowboy cops who shoot first and ask questions later’.” He paused, looked at me. “Well, maybe he’s got you pegged.”
“Hey!” I frowned. “We’re making progress with him. Now we have a time and location to meet, right?”
“He said he’d be at the Vikinghjelm pub down on Bryggen wharf after lunch. I’m supposed to wear my sleeves rolled up and sit at the bar with a beer and wait.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“All right. I’ll go in ahead of you and scope out the place,” I said, “see if I can identify him, then I’ll keep an eye on him for any suspicious behavior before you arrive.”
Dalton started shaking his head before I’d finished my sentence.
“What? You don’t think I can handle a little reconnaissance.”
“No, that’s not it.” The edge of his lip curved upward into a half grin as his eyes traveled down to my waist, then back up. A slight tilt to the head. “You don’t exactly blend in.”
“What? I blend in.” I winked and, in my best Irish brogue, said, “Me Ireland’s jist a ‘op, skip an’ a jump dare, fella.”
“I don’t mean your American accent, my dear.”
I thrust my hands onto my hips. “What then? I don’t look Irish enough with this red hair and freckles?”
“This isn’t a tourist pub. It’s a local hangout for dockworkers and fishermen.”
“So,” I said. “I can blend in.”
He frowned.
Geez. “Have some faith.”
I wasn’t going to give this informant a chance to change his mind and slip out the back door. Ray Goldman was a ghost. If there was any chance, any chance at all, that Johnny-boy actually had real intel, I wanted a piece of it.
In the 1970s, Ray Goldman had single-handedly decimated the Pacific Ocean killer whale population. He had permits to capture, but so many died in his careless capture attempts, scientists say that group of whales might never make it back to sustainable numbers and have declared them endangered. During his escapades, some drowned entangled in the capture nets, some died after being tranquilized with darts, and in at least one instance, he and his cohorts feared the terrified orcas would capsize their boat and opened fire with high-powered weapons.
His rogue methods started a political shitstorm and details only emerged later, when his help finally talked. By then, he’d fled to Iceland, where, at the time, whaling was not only acceptable, but welcomed. Fishermen wanted the competition gone, claiming the whales depleted their stocks. Which is absolute bullshit. Ignorance and bad science.
In 1982, the International Whaling Commission enacted a total ban on whaling, trying to protect whales from annihilation, but Icelandic whalers used a loophole to continue to kill whales on a commercial scale under the guise of scientific research. Like Japan still does today. Iceland only quit whaling because of a public boycott of Icelandic fish in Europe and the U.S., plus the threat of U.S. Government-imposed trade sanctions.
Even with the public outcry for the whales, Ray Goldman never showed an iota of remorse. He simply vanished into the ether.
Until now. Assuming it’s really him. But it seems plausible. China and Russia are building new mega-aquariums and the demand for live orcas has resurged. One live killer whale carries a one million dollar price tag. That’s a lot of dollars floating around in the sea. And nothing brings a trafficker back to work faster.
I turned to head for the pub when Dalton’s phone rang.
He held up one finger, signaling me to wait. “It’s Nash.”
Joe Nash was our supervisor, a legend in Special Ops. He’d been the Special Agent in Charge on my first assignment with Agent Dalton in Costa Rica. Dalton and I were undercover as a married couple, buying illegal animals for the pet industry. Nash thought Dalton and I made a good team. He had no clue that, before we caught the kingpin, we’d damn near killed each other.
Dalton punched the speaker button. “Yep.”
“Hey,” said Nash. “How’s it going over there?”
“We’re heading to meet the informant right now,” said Dalton.
“Good. Proceed with caution.”
Dalton flashed me a like-I-said look.
“I don’t have to remind you, we’re out on a limb on this one. I did some fancy dancing to get you on this special joint effort with NOAA. Your directive is to confirm it is indeed Ray Goldman, gather the evidence we need to convict, then call in the Norwegian authorities to make the arrest. Got it? Just do that cute couple routine and you’ll slide in under his radar.”
I tried not to roll my eyes. From day one, our fake marriage felt like it was headed for a fake divorce.
“Got it,” said Dalton, winking at me.
“A lot of people around here have been wanting to bust this guy for years. Keep it by the book. I don’t want any loophole he can slither out of.”
“Right, boss,” said Dalton and disconnected.
Before he could say anything, I said, “I’m going to head in.”
He shook his head.
“What?” My cheeks flushed pink. “I’m quite sure I can handle a little reconnaissance. You just make sure you’ve got those shirtsleeves rolled up.”
I turned on my heel and left him standing alone in the middle of the sidewalk holding onto his phone.
* * *
Bergen is the second-largest city in Norway, as modern as any other in the world, but for some reason Johnny-boy wanted to meet at the Bryggen wharf in Old Town.
A series of buildings lined up in a row, all the same shape and size, distinguished only by their bright colors—red, yellow, orange, and white. I wished I had time to explore, learn about the history of this place. All I knew was that these buildings had been here since the late Middle Ages, part of the Hanseatic merchant guild that stretched along the north European trade routes. There was even a Hanseatic museum here to get the whole, sordid scoop. Alas, maybe next time.
Occasionally an alley separated two buildings where a wooden-plank boardwalk provided passage to the many shops and pubs tucked behind the storefronts. On this late fall afternoon, the shadows were already darkening the corners. I made my way down the main thoroughfare, through the crowd of tourists, then turned down one of the deserted alleys.
When I managed to find the pub, I had to admit, Dalton had been right about it. The place smelled of stale beer and fish guts and everything was coated with the brownish hue of tar from decades of cigarette smoke.
Five locals hunched over the dimly-lit bar—fisherman, or dockworkers maybe. Two other men ate at a table in the corner. At another sat three looking like they’d spent the last ten weeks on a boat and had dragged themselves down the dock to land here before hitting the showers. Otherwise, the place was empty.
With the exception of the computer cash register, it felt like I’d stepped back in time to circa 1650.
Yeah, I got the looks, the side-glances, the what-the-hell-is-she-doing-here expressions. But hey, a girl should be able to get a beer in peace, right? Wouldn’t take long and they’d forget I was even here.
I climbed onto a stool at the end of the bar and waited for the portly barkeep to mosey my way.
He wiped his hands on his apron—also appeared to be circa 1650 by the amount of crusty grime glommed onto the front of it—and gave me a curt nod, his way of welcome.
“A Beamish, please,” I said in my best Irish accent. Everyone knows the Irish drink Beamish. None of that Guiness sludge.
In good time, a frothy mug of my favorite, tasty malt beverage was slid my way. I took a sip and settled in to watch for unusual behavior.
The five men at the bar eased back into their conversation. Thankfully, nearly everyone in Norway speaks English and I could follow along.
The one who sat on the end, closest to me, seemed to have the attention of the others and I got the sense he wasn’t from around here. He was about my dad’s age, though this man’s manners would never have been accepted at my mom’s table. He had both elbows propped on the bar, his chin leaning on grubby hands. His features—large, bulbous eyes, pointy nose, protruding ears, pencil-thin lips—weren’t all that odd, individually, but the combination somehow didn’t quite go together, like he was a toddler’s Mr. Potato Head creation, come to life. Even his weathered skin resembled an old spud.
“I tell you what,” he said to the other four men. “Another go at it?”
They glanced around at each other, nodding, then dug some paper kroner from their pockets and slapped them on the bar.
“All right,” the first man said. “I’m a slippery fish in a cloudy sea; Neither hook nor spear will capture me; With your hand you must hunt and seize this fish; To see that it ends up in the dish.”
The four fishermen’s eyes darted about, to the ceiling, to the floor. One scratched his beard in thought. A few glugs of beer, some barstool shifting, but no one spoke a word.
“Not even a guess?” the riddler asked. He waited. “Do you need a hint?”
One of the men eyed the pile of cash on the bar and grimaced, shaking his head in frustrated resignation.
The first man slapped his hand over the money and slowly dragged it in.
“A bar of soap,” I said, then quickly drew in my breath. Dammit. I’d said it out loud.
The man flashed me a dirty look.
I flashed back an innocent, apologetic smile.
He turned back to the men. “One more? Just for fun?”
A young, rosy-cheeked man with a round, cheerful face piped up. “Sure, man.”
The riddler glanced at the bartender and some unspoken signal passed between them.
“What has rivers but no water, forests but no trees, and cities but no buildings?”
More head scratching and lip chewing. “Dunno,” said the one on the far end, a young, blond man of about my age, built like a barn. He tipped up his mug and chugged.
“Me neither,” said the bearded man next to him, shaking his head. “What’s the lady say?”
All eyes turned my way. Crap. I was supposed to blend in.
The riddler glowered at me.
“C’mon. Nothin’s ridin’ on it,” one of them said.
The riddler raised his eyebrows and nodded his consent.
Rivers but no water, forests but no trees. “A map?”
The men snickered and grinned.
“Put the lady’s beer on my tab,” the riddler said to the bartender. “Okay, boys. Another bet?”
The bearded man shook his head right away, but the guy next to him dug into his wallet, then nudged the bearded guy, goading him until he finally dropped a bill on the bar. “My money’s on her,” he said, his gnarled finger pointed my way.
I shook my head and turned my attention to the contents of my mug. Why didn’t I find some hidey-hole in the corner with a view of the bar and keep my big mouth shut?
The others nodded their agreement and coughed up the cash.
“Fine by me,” the hustler said. He leaned forward on the bar as though ready to tell a ghost tale of old ‘round the campfire. “I can’t hear you, but I can touch you; You can feel me, but you can’t see me; I can’t see you, but I can kill you; You can’t kill me, but you can hear me.”
The blond barn on the far end dropped his face in his hands, then shook his head, tipped back his mug, and drained the contents in one gulp. The others seemed to try to solve the riddle, their eyes glassy and tired.
The bearded man raised his finger. “What about it, sweetheart?”
Crap. I couldn’t win either way. If I didn’t answer, the four men would be in an uproar. If I did, the hustler would get pissed off. I gritted my teeth. I hate hustlers. “The wind,” I said.
The bearded man flung his head back and roared with laughter.
The hustler didn’t flinch. He saw his opportunity. “Double or nothing,” he said.
The men shelled out the cash without hesitation.
“No, no,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m not—this isn’t…”
“All on the girl,” the hustler said, his potato-face puckered with amusement.
I kept shaking my head, no, but the men were back in the game now.
They pushed the cash into a tidy pile.
With a starchy grin, the hustler said, “With no wings, I fly. With no eyes, I see. With no arms, I climb. More frightening than any beast, stronger than any foe. I am cunning, ruthless, and tall. In the end, I rule all.”
I stared. I had no idea. I fly, I see, I climb. How’d I get myself into this mess? Cunning, ruthless, and tall?
“C’mon, lass,” someone said.
“I…” I shook my head. In the end, I rule all? “I don’t know.”
“Give the lady a minute, now,” said the round-faced man with the kind smile.
My mind was blank. “Really,” I said, “I have no idea. I’m sorry.”
Outsmarted by Mr. Potato Head. Could my day get any worse?
The hustler grinned wide and swept the cash off the bar and into his pocket. “Sorry, men.”
“Now wait just a minute,” said the bearded man, rising from his stool. His blue eyes flared with rage. “Why do I feel like we just been swindled by you two?”
“What? No.” I shook my head.
His fury wasn’t focused on the hustler, but me. The other three men fell in behind him.
“I didn’t have anything to—”
The hustler started to slip from his stool.
I nudged him in the shoulder with my finger. “Where do you think you’re going?”
The four men turned to him. His buggy eyes darted from one to the other as he assessed his foes.
I said to him, “I’m pretty sure what you just pulled isn’t legal. So go on, give these men their money back and call it a day.”
He smirked and stood taller. “I’ll do no such thing.” He looked to the barkeep as he adjusted his collar and smoothed his shirt sleeves. “It was a fair bet.”
“Maybe we should let the police sort it out,” I suggested to the bearded man.
The hustler grabbed me by the arm and shoved me against the bar. He probably stood about five-ten, two-hundred pounds of net-hauling muscle. “Maybe you should mind your own business, sweetheart.”
This guy was really starting to piss me off. I looked down at his hand, then looked him in the eye, and, with a smile pasted on my face, my voice all dripping with syrup, said, “Take your hand off me or I’ll break it.”
This seemed to encourage him more. “That’s not very ladylike,” he grunted through gritted teeth.
I matched his stare. “I’m not sure you know how to treat a lady.”
“What’s this? Part of your act?” the bearded man bellowed.
The hustler glanced at the door, the quickest of glances, but I caught it. He was going to bolt.
He shoved me into the bar and I reacted. I jabbed my elbow upward at his throat, extended my arm, gave his head a twist, and knocked him off his feet. He stumbled to catch his balance, but I had my foot on top of his. He teetered forward and, with a little help from my hand, face-planted into the edge of the bar. Take that. I brushed off my hands and wiped my brow. Mashed potato.
From his pocket, I pulled out the wad of cash and handed it to the bearded man. He responded with a bewildered expression, staring open-mouthed at the money as though it had magically shimmered into existence right there in his hand.
The hustler crumpled to the floor.
I picked up my Beamish. “Thanks for the grog,” I said and held it up in salute.
The four men exchanged glances, unsure whether this was still part of some elaborate con.
The barkeep tapped me on the shoulder. “Out.”
“What? Me?” I glanced down at the hustler, now sitting upright on the floor holding his head. “He’s the one who—”
The gruff old barkeep jabbed his finger at me. “I’m not going to ask you twice.”
Dammit. I didn’t even get to enjoy the beer.
I slinked out the front door.
As I walked down the wooden-plank sidewalk, I spotted Dalton coming my way.
“What’s going on?” he asked, his face wrinkled with concern.
“Nothing. I just—” I clenched my teeth together. “I just got kicked out of the pub is all.”
A grin spread across his face and his eyes lit with amusement. “Seriously?”
I wanted to punch him in the stomach. “Enjoy the moment.”
“What on earth happened—wait, I probably don’t want to know.” His eyes closed shut, then the grin took over again. He blinked them open. “Anything I should know?”
“No,” I said with a frown.
He shook his head and snickered. “I’ll meet you back at the lodge.”
I watched him saunter away, grinning all the way to the pub, the pub where I was supposed to be hunkered down in a dark corner to keep watch.
I headed down the wharf to walk it off. A couple of tall ships were docked, their wooden masts bedangled with complicated rigging. I’d always wanted to sail aboard one of those old ships, flying the Jolly Roger and spitting into the wind. Maybe drink rum from a wooden cask. I couldn’t go for the eye patch, but a pet parrot would be fun. I could teach him to swear with an Irish accent.
I sat down on the edge of the pier and let my legs dangle over the water. A couple of gulls skittered into the air, then circled back to perch on the pilings and the stench of backwater and diesel fumes wafted my way.
Of course I wouldn’t have a pet parrot. And some kind of partner I was. Dalton was in there alone right now, with no backup. Sure, the risk was low, but still. It was my job. And he was my partner. All because I’d misjudged the scene. And then I opened my big mouth.
I grinned in spite of myself. That ass deserved to get clobbered. And by a girl, as he would say. That probably really pissed him off. Thought he was so clever with his riddles. Cunning, ruthless, and tall.
“Imagination!” I shouted to the gulls. Dammit. Head slap. Now it comes to me.
* * *
About four hours after Dalton went in, the warm light spilled out into the dark alley as he came out the front door of the pub and headed toward our lodge. I stepped from the shadows and followed him. Made it two blocks before he spotted me.
“I thought I said I’d meet you back at the pension,” he said.
I shrugged him off. “I wanted to hang close. In case you needed me.”
“Uh, huh,” he said. “So how’d you get yourself banished anyway?”
“Some old man had grabby paws.” It was only a half fib.
Dalton grinned. “You’re something, you know that?”
“Whatever.” I gave him the look. “Did our informant show?”
He shook his head. “Waited all this time. Then the bartender hands me this note.”
He held it out for me to read. Fish Market, 10 a.m. Two days. Come alone.
“Two days. But Ray Goldman is out there, somewhere, right now. We need to get going. We need to know which direction.”
Dalton sauntered along, unaffected.
I kicked a tiny chunk of concrete that had crumbled from the edge of the curb and watched it skitter down the sidewalk. “We don’t have two days to wait.”
Dalton stopped and turned to face me. “Patience, my dear.”
“Don’t patronize me. You know time’s a factor here. We’ve got a tiny window to catch this guy. If he gets a whale before we catch up to him, he’ll sail off into the sunset, to sell it in Russia or China or Timbuktu. He’ll be beyond our reach. Don’t you care?”
His hands went to his hips. “Of course I care.”
“Well, how can you be so—”
“You’re so cute when you’re angry.”
My bottom lip was sticking out. I sucked it back in. “Cute!” A rush of color heated my cheeks. Errrrr!
“I want to catch this guy as badly as you do,” he said, calm as can be. “But some things are out of our control.”
“So, what? You’re saying we wait around and do nothing?”
“You don’t like cold coffee and stale doughnuts?”
“Dalton!”
“Actually, I have an idea.” He grinned. “I think you’ll like it.”
I didn’t like the sound of this.
“When I was a SEAL, we used down time for training, trust building, that kind of thing. We could use a little of that.”
“Like a little of what?”
A grin spread across his face. The hint of challenge in his eyes made me nervous.
Chapter Two
I leaned out over the granite ledge and gazed down at the fjord 3,208 feet below. A white sheen of glistening sunlight spread across the greenish-blue water. Two endangered Eurasian peregrine falcons swooped and soared on the wind below us. One caught a thermal and gently glided into a circular flight path, its wings outstretched. The fastest animal on Earth, a falcon can dive over 200 miles per hour. I don’t know how Dalton knew, but I’d been wanting to see one for as long as I could remember.
At last, there were two in my sights. But today we weren’t here just to see them. We were going to soar with them. If they’d have us.
“You ready?” I asked Dalton.
He nodded and smiled, the dimple in his right cheek appearing. “You’re the one who’s been lollygagging.”
“I want to time it just right.” I shaded my eyes with my hand and searched for the sliver of grassy shoreline onto which I was supposed to land. “See you on terra firma.”
I ran back to where my paraglider wing lay in the grass, clipped it to my harness, then gave it a yank. It lifted from the ground, filling with air. I turned and ran and as I reached the edge, I was airborne, held aloft by the warm ridge-lift air current.
My breath left my body as the great expanse of the fjord spread below me, the cliffs on either side narrowing downward. No matter how many times I did this, it still took my breath away.
As I glided outward, I felt a slight uplift and shifted to catch the thermal, which lifted me up and up as I circled.
I scanned below for the falcons. There was the one I’d seen, its wings spread wide, still riding on a thermal below. I leaned right, yanked on my brake, and went into a sharp, spiraling, tickle-belly descent, heading toward the bird on a corkscrew path. I dropped about a hundred meters in eight seconds.
I released the inner brake, shifted left, and planed out.
Curious, the falcon flapped its wings and cut right, circling to get a look at me. I spread my arms wide. “Come fly with me!”
I entered the core of the thermal and caught some serious lift. As I circled, Dalton appeared, riding on the wind beside me.
The two falcons darted between us, banked and soared upward, then circled back and streaked past like feathered bullets.
I grabbed my radio. “Oh my god! That was incredible!”
Dalton gave me a thumbs up.
Now I could relax and enjoy the view. Blue sky dotted with tiny, white puffy clouds contrasted with the jagged granite peaks. Below, strokes of green, white, brown and yellow covered the landscape—an abstract painting come alive. I settled into the peacefulness of no sound save for the breeze against my ears. It was perfection.
Between my feet, a tiny spec of a boat left a wake on the water’s surface, a white line etched in blue. Amid the patches of green that spread across the mountain side, little dots of white randomly roamed. Billy goats.
I leaned back and breathed deeply the cool, clean air. To ride on the wind, to soar like a bird, to see the world from this perspective, in pure solitude, where I was the spec, the tiny dot, made me wonder, is this what it is to know God? Or the spiritual essence some call God, that something beyond, the unexplainable sensation of being more than flesh and bone?
Is this what was meant by transcendence? To defy the law of gravity? To be held aloft by an invisible force of nature like some great hand, lifted from below? What is the wind but an illusion, made manifest by the collision of hot and cold air?
However it could be explained, it felt like touching the divine.
I closed my eyes and when I opened them again the colors looked deeper, more vivid. So many varied shades of green. The blue of the water, rich and deep against the sky. Simplicity. The purest form of beauty.
Dalton’s voice came over the radio. “Last one to the LZ buys dinner.”
He pushed on his speed bar, leaned left, and shot away, circling downward toward the landing zone.
I grabbed my B-lines and went into a stall, chasing after him. Like two giant raptors, we rode the wind downward.
He dropped away from me, gaining speed. The wind was perfect, the sun shining. Why rush?
Okay, fine. I admit. It grinded my butt that he got the drop on me. There was no way I could catch him now. Another dinner on me. Maybe he’d go for some peanut butter and jelly.
I controlled my descent, taking my time to plan my approach. As I lined up into the wind, Dalton was already touching down.
The landing site was a grassy patch along the shoreline. I circled to head into the wind and as I approached the ground, I pulled a quick brake, flared, then my feet touched the ground and I had to run a few steps to stay upright as the wing settled behind me.
“Took you long enough,” Dalton hollered.
He was wrapping his wing and stuffing it into the sack.
I had a mind to stuff his head in the sack. “We have enough daylight to make one more run,” I said. “Double or nothing?”
He shook his head. “We need to check in with Nash.”
I nodded. Work. Of course. That’s why we were here in Norway. But we had nothing new to report. We’d have called if Johnny the informant had changed the meet time again.
Dalton flipped on the flashing light that would alert the ferry of a pickup, then helped me gather my wing.
We hauled our packs to the shoreline and sat down to wait. My pulse was finally settling to normal after the glide. I’d stripped off my thick coat after landing, but now the chilly breeze coming off the water gave me goosebumps on my bare arms.
Dalton sat with his arms comfortably wrapped around his knees. His hair looked almost blond in the sun. A hint of stubble showed on his chin. Suddenly I was remembering watching him shave in Costa Rica, fresh from the shower, with nothing on but a towel. He hadn’t liked me much then. I’d been sent to fortify his cover story in a floundering operation and he wasn’t too happy about it. I’d barreled into the bathroom and demanded he talk to me.
“What are you thinking about?”
“What?” I snapped out of my reverie.
“You seemed a million miles away.”
“Oh, sorry, I…” I looked up at the sky, searching for a subject. “When you’re up there, do you, I don’t know, do you feel like—” I looked around “— like with all this, there’s something greater, you know—”
He raised an eyebrow, his dark eyes challenging me. “Are you getting soft on me, McVie?”
“Nah,” I snorted. “I was just testing you.”
He shook his head but his eyes lingered in the clouds. Then when they met mine, they revealed that he felt it too.
I held his gaze for a moment. This guy, I swear. I turned away.
“Here it comes now,” he said. The ferry was chugging down the fjord toward us.
We got to our feet and hauled our packs onto our backs.
The blue and white ferry pulled up and dropped its front loading ramp right on shore so we could walk on.
Once aboard, Dalton slumped to the floor, leaned on his pack, and closed his eyes. I stayed at the rail, counting waterfalls as we puttered back toward town. The landscape here was too much to behold. I turned to Dalton, “You’re missing the—”
His eyes were open; he was staring at me.
“What?” I said.
He smiled. “Nothing.”
“Don’t you want to see the scenery?”
“I’m full. Too much beauty for one day.”
I suddenly felt self-conscious of how I must’ve looked and ran my fingers through my tangled hair. “What are you talking about, cornball?”
“Nothing.”
“Hey, what was this exercise all about? What was I supposed to learn today, anyway?”
“Did you have fun?”
I shrugged, unsure what that had to do with it. “Yeah.”
“There you go.” He closed his eyes again. “Now, leave me be. I’m dreaming of that dinner you owe me. I’m gonna order a big, juicy steak.”
* * *
I milled around the fish market, keeping Dalton in view while checking out every man that looked like he might be our Johnny. Then the guy appeared out of nowhere, wearing a hoodie, his back to me. Dalton didn’t look uncomfortable or alarmed, so I hung back, scanning for anything out of the ordinary.
The whole conversation lasted no more than two minutes and he was gone. I never saw his face.
Dalton moved toward me. “The description fits. It’s Ray Goldman all right. He’s been busy getting a crew together and all the gear he’ll need. No doubt about it. This guy’s sure he’s going after orcas.”
My pulse pitter-pattered in my ears. “We gotta catch him, Dalton. This one’s big. Imagine the impact it will have, the message it will send to all the poachers out there.”
“Simmer down. We’ve got to find him first. The informant said he’s in Tromsø right now, on the fishing vessel Forseti, but he’s not sure which way he’ll set sail. We need to get up there, find him, and rent a boat before we lose his trail.”
“What then? We just follow him? That’s your plan? Won’t we be too obvious?”
“What else did you think we’d do?”
“Well.” I pursed my lips, thinking. “I don’t suppose Norway requires AIS on all commercial vessels? We could track him that way but keep our distance.”
“I doubt it. That would be too easy. Besides, he’d likely turn it off anyway. It’s a big ocean. Easy to hide if you don’t want to be found.”
“If only we could get away with planting a GPS tracker on his boat.”
He stopped and turned to face me. “We’d have to be awfully creative and I’m not sure—”
My head jerked back. “Isn’t that illegal? No matter how we did it?”
He gave me a half shrug.
An idea sizzled through my gray matter. “Maybe we don’t have to. Follow the boat, I mean.” Why didn’t I think of this before?
Dalton clenched his teeth. “I recognize that look.”
“What?”
“You’re thinking. Scheming.” He crossed his arms. “Let’s get something straight. We’re going to work together on this one. Do you understand? No secrets, no sneaking around.”
“I wasn’t—”
“And nothing off book. You got it?”
I lifted my hands in innocent surrender. I couldn’t blame him for being irritated with me. In Costa Rica, our first time working together, I hadn’t exactly been straight with him. Of course, he hadn’t quite rolled out the red carpet for me either.
“I was just thinking that the orca pods don’t follow a predictable migration route like other whales.”
Dalton waited, expectantly. “Yeah, so?”
“Well, I wonder how Ray plans to find them. Did your pal Johnny mention that?”
Dalton shook his head.
“I’ve got an idea,” I said. “We need the Internet.” I turned to make my way out of the crowded fish market and head toward the main street.
Dalton grabbed my arm. “First, you tell me what you’re thinking.”
“Maybe we don’t need to follow Ray,” I said and started walking again.
Dalton followed. “Slow down,” he said. “It’s not a race.”
“Actually, it is,” I said over my shoulder. I rounded a corner and saw a sign—Internettkafè—down one block. I picked up the pace, Dalton on my heels.
Inside the cafè, teenagers filled the booths and tables, plunking away at their laptops, sipping from cups of coffee as the expresso machine squealed, making its magical brew. The scent of fresh muffins lingered.
I went straight for an open computer along the wall and plopped down in the chair. Dalton hovered over my shoulder, so close I could smell his aftershave. For a moment, I forgot what I wanted to search. “Maybe you could get us some coffee,” I said.
He stood up straight and glared at me.
I gave him a sweet smile. “And some of those mørkaker shortbread cookies?” My eyebrows went up, a gentle pleading. “They are to die for.”
He crossed his arms. “Not until you fill me in.”
“It’s like I said, if we find the orcas, we find Ray.”
“Yeah?” He didn’t budge.
“I figure someone knows where to find them. Must be scientists monitoring the pods, right? Identifying their members, documenting their behavior.”
The corner of his mouth turned up with the hint of a smile. “Mørkaker shortbread cookies, huh?”
I nodded.
He slowly turned away from me and headed for the line.
When he got back, I’d already found what I was looking for. “Look,” I said. “Right here.”
I pointed to the page for the Center for Marine Research at the Havforskningsinstituttet.
“Now there’s a Norwegian word if I’ve ever seen one. It’s ten miles long,” he said.
“I think you mean ten kilometers.” I looked up at him. “They’re hosting an American biologist, here to study the vocalizations of killer whales. April Parker, Ph.D. If anyone knows right where to find killer whales in the north Atlantic, it’ll be her.”
“Yeah, but will she tell us?”