"The world turns, Doc. Yesterday's alphas are today's betas. Losers lose. Isn't that what you biologists teach?"

Cliff Hyland came very close to burying a fork in Tarwater's tanned forehead, but instead he slowly climbed to his feet. "I need to use the restroom. Excuse me."

As he walked away, Hyland could hear Tarwater lecturing the junior researcher on how the strong survive. Cliff dug his mobile phone out of the pocket of his safari shirt and began scrolling through the numbers.

Clay was just dozing off in the driver's seat when his mobile trilled. Without looking at the display, he figured it was Clair checking up on him. "Go, baby."

"Clay, it's Cliff Hyland."

"Cliff? What's up?"

"You've got to keep this under your hat, Clay. It's my ass."

"I got you. What is it, Cliff?"

"It's a torpedo range. We're doing site studies for a torpedo test range."

"Not in the sanctuary?"

"Right in the middle of the sanctuary."

"Jeepers, Cliff, that's terrible. I don't know if my hat is big enough to hold that."

"You gave me your word, Clay. What's with 'jeepers'? Who says 'jeepers'?"

"Amy does. She's a little eccentric. Tell me more. Does the navy have divers in the water?"

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Heinous Fuckery Most Foul

"Jeepers," said Amy. She was at Quinn's computer. Streamers of digital videotape were festooned across her lap and over the desk.

"Oh, that's heinous fuckery most foul," said Kona. He was perched on the high stool behind Amy and actually appeared to be trying to learn something when Clay came in.

"They've been simulating explosions on the lee of Kahoolawe with a big towable array of underwater speakers, measuring the levels. The speaker array is what's in that big case we've seen on their boat."

"We have a couple of explosions on the singer tapes, but distant," Amy said. "Nate thought it might be naval exercises out at sea."

"Speaking of tapes?" Clay picked up a strand of tape. "This isn't my rebreather footage, is it?"

"I'm sorry, Clay. I didn't get the video, but I pulled the audio off before this happened. Want to see the spectrograph?"

Kona asked, "You think those voices in the water be navy divers?"

Clay looked at Amy, raised an eyebrow.

"He wanted to learn."

"Cliff says there're no divers in the water, that his operation is it, militarily, in the sanctuary anyway. But he might not even know."

Amy wadded up the videotape and chucked the resulting bird's nest into the wastebasket. "How can they do that, Clay? How can they put a torpedo range in the middle of the humpback sanctuary? It's not like people won't notice."

"Yeah, she's a big ocean. Why here?" Kona said.

"I have no idea. Maybe they don't want there to be any mistake about whose waters they're blowing up ordnance in. If they blow them up in between a bunch of American islands, maybe there can't be any misinterpretation about what they're doing."

"Lost now," Kona said. "Does not compute. Danger. Danger. Control room needs herb." The Rastafarian had affected an accent that seemed an excellent approximation of how a stoned robot might sound.

"Submarine warfare is all about hide and seek with other submarines," Clay said. "The crews are autonomous when they're underwater. They make decisions on whether they're being attacked and whether to defend. Maybe if the navy just shot torpedoes off in the middle of the open sea, someone might misinterpret the action as an attack. It's damn unlikely that a Russian sub is going to be cruising up to Wailea for brunch and misinterpret an attack."

"They can't do that," Amy said. "They can't let them set off high explosives around the mothers and calves. It's just insane."

"They'll go deep and say it doesn't bother them. The navy will guarantee they won't blow up anything shallower than, say, four hundred feet. The humpbacks don't dive that deep in this channel."

"Yes they do," Amy said.

"No they don't," Clay said.

"Yes they do."

"There's no data on that, Amy. That's specifically what Cliff Hyland asked me about. He wanted to know if we were doing any research on the depth of humpback dives. Said that it would be the only thing the navy would care about."

Amy stood up and shoved the wheeled desk chair away. It bounced off Kona's shins, causing him to wince. "Ease on up, sistah."

"Amy, this wasn't my idea," Clay said. "I'm just telling you what Hyland told me."

"Fine," Amy said. She pushed her way past Clay and headed for the door.

"Where are you going?"

"Somewhere else." She let the screen door slam behind her.

Clay turned to Kona, who appeared to be studying the ceiling with great concentration. "What?"

"You makin' up that submarine war story?"

"Kind of. I read a Tom Clancy book once. Look, Kona, I'm not supposed to know stuff. Nate knew stuff. I just take the pictures."

"You think the navy sink your boat? Maybe make something bad happen to Nate?"

"The boat, maybe. I don't think they could have had anything to do with Nate. That was just bad luck."

"The Snowy Biscuit — all this getting under her skin."

"Mine, too."

"I'll go put the calm on her."

"Thanks," Clay said. He walked to the other side of the office, slumped in his chair, and pulled his editing tools up on the giant monitor.

A half hour later he heard a tiny voice coming through the screen door. "Sorry," Amy said.

"It's okay."

She stepped into the room and stood there, not looking as glazed as he would have expected if Kona had put the calm on her in an herbal way. "Sorry about your tape, too. The camera was making crunching noises on playback, so I sort of rushed taking it out."

"Not a problem. It was your big rescue scene. It just made me look like an amateur. I got most of it on the hard drive, I think."

"You did?" She stepped over to the monitor. "That it?" Frame stopped, the whale tail from the edge, black marks barely visible.

"Just going through it to see if there's anything else the audio picked up. The camera was running the whole time you were saving my bacon."

"Why don't you let it rest and let me take you out to lunch."

"It's ten-thirty."

"What, you're Mr. Rigid Schedule all of a sudden? Come out to lunch with me. I feel bad."

"Don't feel bad, Amy. It's a huge loss. I… I'm not dealing well myself. You know, to keep this work going, we'll be needing some academic juice."

Amy just stared at the frozen image of the whale tail, and then she caught herself. "What? Oh, you'll get someone. You put the word out, you'll have Ph.D.'s knocking the door down to work with you."

"I was thinking about you."

"Me? I'm crap. I don't even have a bona fide hair color. Ink on my master's isn't even dry. You read my resume."

"Actually, I didn't."

"You didn't?"

"You seemed intelligent. You were willing to work for nothing."

"Nate read it, though, right?"

"I told him you were good. And if it's any consolation, he thought the world of you."

"That's how you hire? I'm smart and I'm cheap — that's it? What kind of standards do you guys have?"

"Have you met Kona?"

She looked back at the monitor, then at Clay again. "I feel so used. Honored, but used. Look, I'm thrilled you want to keep me on, but I'm not going to bring you funding or legitimacy."

"I'll worry about that."

"Worry about it after lunch. Come on, I'll buy."

"You're poor. Besides, I'm meeting Clair for lunch at one."

"Okay. Can I borrow Nate's — uh, the green truck?"

"Keys are on the counter." Clay waved over his shoulder toward the kitchen.

Amy took the keys, then started out the door, caught herself, then ran back, and threw her arms around the photographer. "I really appreciate your asking me to stay."