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Joe had short dark hair, dark brown eyes, and a fit build. He seemed to be perpetually smiling, as if life, good or bad, was always grand. He motioned toward the plate in front of him. “You want a bite of this sandwich?” he asked. “Number one rule of travel: never skip a meal; you don’t know when you’ll get another chance to eat.”
Kurt shook his head in mild amazement. Joe was ten years younger than Kurt and several inches shorter, but he still looked like the middleweight boxer he’d been during his time in the Navy. Somehow, he seemed to eat all day long and never gain a pound.
“I’m sure they’ll feed us on the plane,” Kurt said. “Besides, not everyone has your enviable, overactive metabolism. You know, we’ve been here six weeks, and I can’t actually remember a time when you weren’t eating.”
“That’s the key,” Joe said. “A constant supply of food keeps the energy level high and burns more calories.”
Kurt wasn’t sure the science held up on that, but at the buzzing of his phone, he let it go.
Pulling the device from his pocket, he tapped in a password andlooked at the screen. A text had appeared, but there was no name, email address, or phone number attached to it.
The cynic in him figured it for spam. And if the phone had been an off-the-shelf, commercially available unit, that would have made sense. His friends were always complaining about robocalls and phishing texts, and the endless numbers of attractive foreign women who apparently wanted to spend time with them. But Kurt’s phone was a NUMA-issued device, specially designed to avoid any such pitfalls. All communications to and from the phone went through NUMA’s satellites and a highly secured computer system back in Washington, D.C., which should have made it impervious to such intrusions.
As Kurt studied the message he sensed something else odd about it. Not only was there no sign as to who the sender might be, but the message wasn’t complete. As he watched, additional letters were appearing one at a time, as if being keyed in by the world’s slowest typist. When the last letter appeared, the message read cryptically.
I’ve sent them to you…Find them…Their fate lies in your hands…
The idea that he was looking at spam fell away. There was no link to click, no invitation to write back, no offer of any kind. Just the odd phrases and a lengthy string of numbers and letters that looked like a password or the product code for a computer program.
Making the entire episode even stranger, the message vanished right before his eyes. He searched for it in various programs and applications, but found no record of it. It was just gone.
Joe looked over and noticed the irritation on Kurt’s face. “What’s the matter? Can’t figure out today’s Wordle?”
“No,” Kurt said. “Phone seems to have a ghost inside. Have you been getting any weird messages?”
Joe shook his head.
“I need to call our tech gurus,” Kurt said. “Something odd is going on here.”
Before he could place the call, a commotion at the security checkpoint caught his eye. Three policemen and two men in suits had come rushing into the building, cutting the lines and then badging their way past the screening crew. Now on the boarding side of the terminal, they pushed through the sparse crowd of passengers and came directly toward Kurt and Joe.
“Excuse me,” the policemen demanded. “Excuse me, please step aside.”
Kurt put the phone away as the men came closer. “I’m sure this is about that back scratcher.”
The trio of uniformed policemen arrived first, flanking Kurt and Joe, as if to keep them from running off. The men in suits arrived seconds later. The leader of the two was a man of perhaps sixty. He had curly gray hair and wore a white linen suit. He was perspiring and winded. He stopped to wipe his brow before addressing them.
“Are you Kurt Austin?”
Joe turned away and took a bite of his sandwich. “I wouldn’t answer that,” he said under his breath with a mouth full of food.
“I am,” Kurt said. “And this is Joe Zavala, my associate.”
“Really?” Joe said, turning around. “You couldn’t leave me out of this?”
Kurt grinned at Joe’s pretend frustration.
“You two men work for NUMA,” the man in the suit said. “The American marine biology agency?”
Close enough, Kurt thought. “That’s right,” he said. “What can we do for you?”
“My name is Marcel Lacourt,” the man said. “I am the prefect here on Reunion. What you Americans would call the island’s governor. I officially request your assistance.”
“To do what?” Kurt asked warily.
“There’s been a mass stranding of whales on the far side of the island,” Lacourt said. “I’m being told there are a large number of other sea creatures swimming in the bay and close by offshore. More whales. And schools of fish. The tide is high right now, but it will change soon. The volunteers are afraid more animals will strand themselves during the night.”
It was late in the afternoon.