Page 3 of Clive Cussler Desolation Code (The NUMA Files #21)

It took fifteen minutes with a police escort to get from the airport to the beach. Along the way, Kurt gave Lacourt instructions and detailed a list of equipment that would be helpful. “We’ll need excavators that can get down to the water. Fifty-five-gallon drums, Sheetrock or metal panels we can use to line a trench, and plastic highway barriers, empty and easy to move around. We passed a truckload on the way to the airport earlier.”

Lacourt looked surprised by the list of requirements, but he didn’t question it. “Anything else?”

“Fire trucks that can tap into the main water line.”

Lacourt listened closely and wrote everything down on a small pad, then pulled out his smartphone and began to send out texts to those who were waiting on instructions. By the time the police convoy weaved through the gathering crowd, help was on the way from multiple sources.

Kurt stepped out of the car as it pulled to a stop. One look told him they were going to need all the help they could get. Standing on the coastal road, thirty feet above the beach, he could see dozens of stranded whales, with one full-grown sperm whale right in the middle.

Out beyond the waves, the bay was teeming with sea life, the water churned white and foamy as the animals thrashed around in a panic, colliding with each other and darting off in different directions. Despite the wide opening to the bay, none of the animals seemed interested in swimming away.

Kurt had never seen anything like it.

Joe was just as baffled. “Are they trapped?” he asked Lacourt. “Is there a reef or a sandbar out there?”

“No,” the man in the white suit insisted. “No coral on this side, just a steady drop to deeper waters.”

“Maybe they’re trying to get to their leader,” Joe suggested. “Whale strandings often involve a pod of whales traveling in a group. A large family. If the leader gets confused and becomes stranded, the others may try to rescue it, or follow to their doom. Pilot whales are notorious for it, unfortunately.”

Kurt had been thinking the same thing, but as he studied the animals on the beach he noticed they weren’t the same species. The sperm whale was a solitary traveler. A pair of juvenile humpbacks farther down might have been traveling together, and there were several pilot whales and several porpoises, but even they were a mixed bag of different species, including a spectacled porpoise with a black-and-white color scheme that resembled a killer whale’s.

“They are not one family,” Kurt said.

Joe nodded. They weren’t marine biologists, but they knew enough to understand this was not a normal beaching.

Normal or not, they still had to get the animals off the beach and find a way to keep those in the shallows from joining them.

Kurt started down toward the beach. The group followed. “Which animal came in first?”

“The big one in the middle,” one of the policemen replied. “He was spotted an hour ago in the shallows.”

The sperm whale was on its side, its mouth open at an odd angle, its great weight deforming its normally majestic shape. Volunteers were throwing buckets of water on it, but beyond that, the crowd could only stand and stare.

“We need to move that one first,” Kurt said.

“You sure you don’t want to start with the smaller ones?” Lacourt asked.

Kurt was playing a hunch. “For reasons I can’t fathom, the others may have followed the first one in. If we get it back into the open water, those in the bay might leave and we can work on saving the smaller ones.” He turned to Joe. “What’s happening with the tide?”

Joe had been checking the tide and wave conditions on the way over. “High tide in forty minutes.”

“That’s not a lot of time,” the policeman said.

“It’s all we have,” Kurt replied. “Either that whale is off the beach in forty minutes or it’s never going back to sea.”

They arrived at the damp part of the beach a few yards from the whale’s nose. Kurt looked into the animal’s eye and sensed it wanted their help. It was probably his imagination, but it didn’t hurt to think that one mammal could sense the calming presence of another.

Stepping away from the whale, Kurt gathered a group of volunteers around him. They included a member of the fire brigade and a construction foreman, who’d arrived with one excavator and insisted another was on the way.

Once Lacourt had made the introductions, Kurt began to speak, dropping down on one knee and drawing a diagram in the wet sand.

“This is the waterline,” he said, drawing a horizontal line. “This is the whale,” he added, placing a stick of driftwood down to represent the stranded animal. “We need the excavators to dig a pair of channels.” Using his fingers, he gouged out a pair of diagonal lines, leading from the surf zone to a spot above the whale. “One here and one here.”

“You don’t want to dig under or behind the whale?” the man in the hard hat asked.

“Can’t really get under it,” Kurt said. “It’ll just sink in deeper. Like spinning your tires in mud. Dredging the sand behind it will be helpful, but save that for the last, because the sea will fill it in almost as fast as you dig it out.”

“Okay,” the man said. “I’ll get my guys on it.”

“We have barrels coming over on a flatbed,” Lacourt announced. “What do you want us to do with them?”

“How many do you have?”

“A couple dozen. They came from the highway project.”

Kurt took some pebbles and placed them around the front of the stick, which represented the whale’s head. “Put them here,” he began, and then turned to the battalion chief from the fire brigade. “Fill them to the top and round up some strong volunteers who can be ready to dump them over when we need it.”

“I think I see what you have in mind,” the fire chief said, standing up. “We’ll be ready.”

“One more thing,” Kurt said before the man left. “How much pressure is in the waterline?”

“Twenty psi at the hydrant, but running it through the truck we can jack it up to one-fifty.”

That sounded helpful. “Are you comfortable burying that line under sand and getting the nozzle under the whale?”

The chief pushed his helmet back. “‘Comfortable’ isn’t the word I’d use, but if you think it will help, I’ll give it a try. What’s the idea?”

“I want to create a slurry under the whale at the right moment,” Kurt said. “The biggest problem in moving this creature is that the sand compresses underneath it, which creates a lot of friction, but water doesn’t compress. If we can supersaturate the sand, it’ll be easier to move the big fella. As different as sliding on foam instead of forty-grit sandpaper.”

The chief nodded. “I’ll get my bravest guys to start digging a trench. How close do you want us to get?”

“As close as possible and as deep into the sand as you can go,” Kurt said. “Get the nozzle under the animal if you can.”

“What about all those teeth?”

Curved seven-inch teeth were visible in the whale’s open jaw.

“As long as you don’t stick your arm in his mouth you should be fine,” Kurt said. “On the other hand, if any of your guys don’t like the smell of fish, I’d leave them back at the truck. Whales have horrible breath.”

“Good to know,” the commander said, chuckling.

He went back up the slope to where the fire engines had parked. When he was out of earshot, one of the volunteers spoke up, a young woman who was part of the university’s marine biology department. “I don’t mean to be the voice of doubt,” she said. “But as you pointed out, the sand is porous. All the water you pour onto the beach will just sink downward and spread horizontally.”

She had raven-black hair, dark eyes, and pale, almost alabaster skin. Her lips were full and a dark reddish color without a hint of lipstick or gloss on them. She stared at Kurt with arched eyebrows and crossed her arms, waiting for an answer.

“You make a good point, Ms….”

“Chantel Lacourt,” she said, eyebrows remaining on full alert.

A whimsical look hit Kurt’s face. “The governor’s daughter?” If only he were a pirate looking for amnesty.

“She’s my niece,” Lacourt said. “And I am the prefect here, not governor.”

Both Kurt and Chantel laughed at that one, but the prefect didn’t seem to get the joke. Kurt looked back to Chantel, who was still waiting for an answer. “The water won’t sink too far, because high tide has saturated the sand below the surface. As for spreading sideways, that’s where the sheet metal comes in.”

Searching for something to represent the sheet metal, Kurt pulled out his wallet and emptied it of credit cards. He stuck them in the sand at an angle, pushing them down and under the stick.

“We jam the panels into the sand, making sure every sheet overlaps the one next to it.” His driver’s license and a library card made up the last links in the wall. He slid a fistful of sand in behind them for support. “We use the bulldozers to pile up sand behind them, and that way—”

“We create a sluice to hold all the water,” she said, finishing his thought. The eyebrows came down and she nodded approvingly. “Will it be enough to float the whale back out to sea?”

“‘Float’ is a bit optimistic,” Kurt said. “But with some luck, and a solid pull from one of the boats, we should be able to drag this big boy out into the bay. And from there, we can tow him to deeper waters.”

“Her,” Chantel said.

“What?”

“The whale is a female,” Chantel informed him. “Which is good, because if she were a male, she’d weigh another ten tons at least.”

Kurt had to smile. “Do me a favor,” he said. “Take charge of the placement of those metal sheets. I don’t have enough credit cards to explain it again.”

“I’ll get it done for you,” she said. “I’m good at bossing people around. Runs in the family.”

She moved off, heading toward the pallet of sheet metal and drywall. Only Lacourt and Joe remained in the circle.

“She’s trouble, that one,” the prefect said. “Always another question, until she completely understands. Ever since she was a kid.”

“There are worse traits,” Kurt said, then changed the subject. “We’re going to need a couple of boats. Any thoughts?”

“There’s a marina not far from here, just a few miles up the road,” Lacourt said. “I’m sure we could find something for you.”

“Take Joe. He knows what we need.”