Wild Shores

Chapter Thirteen

Gem got back to her cabin late morning, stored her clothes in the narrow four-drawer dresser next to the twin-size bed tucked into an alcove adjoining the bathroom, and set up her computer on the table that served as desk and dining table. Fortunately, the research center had good Internet connections and had installed relay towers two years before, so she had the bandwidth she needed for her satellite and tracking programs. Many of the flocks she followed had adults or fledglings who had been tagged elsewhere in the country. Most naturalist organizations were linked into the national database, and members tagged birds in the watch groups, providing information such as location, estimated age, nesting behavior, and on occasion, deaths. By accessing the national network of data transmissions, she could locate tagged birds within flocks migrating up and down the flyway.

When she first logged in, her computer screen looked like something out of an air-traffic controller’s nightmare, with streaming data points that at first glance appeared random and chaotic. However, when she filtered for species and isolated those, discernible pathways became evident, as flocks coalesced and moved en masse along their migratory routes. She filtered for saltmarsh sparrows and anticipated, from the recent logged locations and rate of movement, they would be arriving within the week. She opened another window on her browser and checked the weather forecast. After scanning the first update, a knot of anxiety settled in her midsection. The storm yesterday had been only an advance warning.

A tropical storm was forming off the Bahamas, and forecasts were for northwest movement over the next two to four days. Depending on the trajectory, the heat rise from the ocean, condensation, wind speed, and a host of other factors, the storm could come ashore close to them as a lot of wind and rain or something much more dangerous. The salt marshes along the Eastern Seaboard were already endangered from erosion from rising sea levels, and a storm like this would keep the birds away, or if they’d already descended, would put them in harm’s way. The timing couldn’t have been worse.

Gem’s cell rang and her heart leapt. Austin. She caught herself in the next instant and chided herself for the whimsy. Austin didn’t even have her phone number, hadn’t asked for it, which ought to tell her something about what the night had meant to her. Of course, she hadn’t asked for Austin’s either.

She checked the readout, still a little hopeful. Alexis. Smiling despite the lingering disappointment, she answered. “Hi.”

“Hi, yourself,” her sister said. “Where are you?”

“At the sanctuary. I got in this morning.”

“I’m surprised you made it with the weather.”

“Long story,” Gem said, preferring not to recount once again her day with Austin. Even talking about it stirred an ache that she really wanted to avoid. “Where are you?”

Alexis, a commissioned officer and medic in the Coast Guard, was stationed across the sound from the sanctuary as part of the search-and-rescue team.

“On duty. Routine shore patrol right now. Things are pretty quiet. The storm has kept even the fishermen ashore.”

“It looks like you’re going to be busy pretty soon.”

“We’re gearing up for it,” Alexis said. “If the projections hold, you’re going to be right in the path. Are you planning on staying?”

“Of course. We’ll be fine here.”

“I’ve seen those cabins you guys sleep in,” Alexis said disdainfully. “A good huff and puff, and they’re going to be kindling.”

Gem laughed. Older sisters were a real pain, especially ones that weren’t that much older but liked to act like they were. Alexis had always been protective of her growing up, when she wasn’t giving her a hard time. They’d never been particularly competitive about grades or social connections or anything else, but sometimes following in her big sister’s successful footsteps had been a challenge all the same, especially since Alexis was naturally the outgoing one. Alex loved excitement and had always been something of a daredevil. She’d always loved the sea—its challenges and dangers—and had chosen her career early and never wavered. Gem was quieter and more contemplative. Hence, she was the landlubber, and the fanciful one.

“You’ll be careful, won’t you?” Gem didn’t have to say out loud what they both knew—Alexis would be the one at risk during the coming storm, answering distress calls from ships that were bound to be caught on the open water no matter how many warnings were issued. Sea rescues in high winds and rolling swells had brought down more than one helicopter. Gem pushed the worry away—Alexis and her team were experts. She’d be fine.

“Always am,” Alex said lightly. “You too, okay?”

“Absolutely. And when you get a break, let’s do dinner.”

“Will do. Love you. Bye.”

“Love you,” Gem murmured as the connection disappeared. She set her phone aside and sighed. As close as she was to Alexis, she’d never talked to her much about her personal life, another result of bad timing. Alex had always known she was a lesbian and had come out when she was fourteen. When Gem finally realized she and Alex shared the same interest in women, they’d already been living apart for years and had missed the chance to share stories about girlfriends. Plus, Alexis had never liked Paul, had actively tried to dissuade Gem from marrying him, but she hadn’t listened. Alexis had been the only one in the family who had objected to him. Everyone else, most especially her parents and brother—who had been Paul’s best friend and probably still was—thought the match was perfect as well as destined. Knowing Alexis had been right in warning her away had made it hard for her to talk about what had happened.

For an instant, she wished she’d told her about meeting Austin, but then what would she say? I met a woman who made me feel things I didn’t know I wanted to feel and who made me behave in ways I barely recognize, and I loved every minute of it?

No, she wouldn’t be able to explain that to her sister any more than she could explain it to herself.

❖

Austin peered over Claudia’s shoulder at the satellite readouts streaming across the two large monitors connected to Claudia’s mega-souped-up laptop. She could read the storm patterns well enough to know they indicated trouble. “Looks like it’s picking up speed.”

“Mmm, and size.” Claudia skimmed the pointer to a dense area behind the swirling configuration that represented the growing tropical storm. “Those vertical updrafts are feeding it.”

“So you’re saying it’s going to be big?”

“Along with the El Niño effect on the ocean temps, this has the makings of a monster.” Claudia swiveled in her chair and looked up at Austin. Her eyes weren’t really black, but a deep, deep brown, so dense they almost appeared to have no color. Austin didn’t think she’d ever seen eyes quite so mesmerizing. “I’m afraid we’re going to get thrashed. And we’re sitting out here like a rubber duck.”

“Not quite that bad. This rig is designed to withstand storms of that magnitude, and with a good coxswain to hold the trim and keep it on balance, it shouldn’t be that big a deal.”

“Trust me. If things go as I expect, this storm will be a very big deal. We’ll be in for a very rough ride.”

“Then with what’s going on deep underwater, that breach is likely to get a whole lot worse,” Austin muttered.

“I’d say so.”

“Are you willing to put that in writing?”

Claudia smiled wryly. “Not right at this moment. I don’t like to stake my reputation on a gut feeling, although I’m usually right. Give me ten hours and I will sign my name to a prediction, one way or the other.”

“Eloise will want an answer before that.”

“She’ll have to wait.”

Claudia’s tone was friendly, but Austin detected steel beneath the easy manner. “Maybe by then Reddy and his team will have the well locked down.”

“You don’t really believe that, do you?”

“Nine times out of ten, maybe ninety-nine times out of a hundred, these kind of things are contained without any substantial spill.”

“If we weren’t looking at a perfect storm of conditions here,” Claudia said, “I wouldn’t be as worried. But given what the situation is on land—well…”

“Yeah, I know. Recipe for a nightmare.”

“So what is it,” Claudia asked, indicating the control room and the computer monitors and the communications center that right now went unmanned but continued to emit bits of chatter between Reddy and Tatum and the teams working on the well platform, “that you do about all of this?”

“If and when we go public,” Austin said, “I’ll be the face of the company on-site for the press. All communication will go through me.”

“You mean you can actually keep Tatum quiet?” Claudia laughed. “This is the first time I’ve worked with him, but I’d heard his reputation before. He certainly lives up to it.”

“He’s really good at what he does, and he’s not a bad guy.”

“You mean for a chauvinist?”

“I’ve seen him with female OTLs, not that there’s many, and he doesn’t even seem to notice they’re women.”

“That’s because they’re wearing hard hats, work boots, and coveralls.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Austin laughed. “And yes, keeping Tatum and any other unauthorized individuals from making statements to the press is my job.”

“Including me?” Claudia asked, a teasing glint in her eye.

“Especially you.”

Claudia made a humming sound that might have been the equivalent of you hope. “Can’t they just do all that spinning from headquarters?”

“Oh, somebody above my pay grade will release the sanitized and politically correct statements that will get picked up by the national media, but what’s really happening right here on the ground is what we need to control. There’ll be reporters everywhere, talking to anyone they can talk to, and GOP wants a technical expert—not a media spokesperson—to direct the message that goes out.”

“Sounds like a lot of fun.”

“That’s the easy part.”

“Really? I’m not sure I want to know the bad part.”

“That would be dealing with all of the agencies involved in containment if the oil gets away from us. U.S. Fish and Wildlife are the first responders and will be in charge of the operation, but lots of other agencies and even independent organizations get involved. Considering where we are? We’ll have a regular circus.”

“Couldn’t be a worse place or a worse time,” Claudia said.

“No,” Austin said, thinking of Gem and the sanctuary, “it couldn’t be.”

“So what now?”

“We wait,” Austin said, “until the leak stops, the well blows, or you tell us the storm is going to tear the rig out of the water.”

“Lovely,” Claudia muttered.

Austin’s cell rang and she checked it. “And now I do the other part of my job.” She answered Eloise’s call. “Good morning.”

“Is it? What have you got for me?”

“Nothing new. They haven’t stopped the leak, but they slowed it. They’re still working on it, and we’ll know more by nightfall.”

“That’s not what I wanted to hear.”

“I know,” Austin said, “but that’s what we’ve got.”

“No, what we’ve got is a big-ass storm headed right for you and a gathering of some of the nation’s premier wildlife scientists fifty miles away on shore.”

“Really? I didn’t realize—”

“Apparently, your passenger didn’t explain to you exactly what a big deal this project is. It’s federally funded at a very high level and has every tree hugger and green agency supporting it. Add to that the recent outbreak of avian flu in the Midwest and the concern for human crossover, and even the damn CDC is involved.”

Austin tried to adjust the picture she’d had of Gem’s role at the sanctuary, remembering Gem had told her she was a virologist studying the association between wild bird flu and domestic flocks. “I guess I didn’t realize—”

“What’s your passenger’s name?”

“Gem…Gillian Martin. She’s a—”

“PhD virologist from Yale. That’s wonderful.” Eloise sounded as if she was chewing bits of broken glass. “She’s the lead researcher and her work is funded by the CDC and the NIH and half a dozen other places with acronyms I could give you, but that wouldn’t mean anything. We’re talking international reputation here. Could you have possibly picked up anyone more likely to shoot us down in flames?”

Eloise’s researchers had been busy. “I really didn’t have any way of knowing that, and besides—”

“Well, now that you do”—Eloise actually paused for breath—“you can put that knowledge to good use.”

“I don’t think I follow.”

“You have a direct pipeline inside the sanctuary. Make contact, find out what the status is there after yesterday’s storm. If the conditions are already compromised, we can’t be blamed as much for anything that happens if we have problems with the rig. Just take a look around. Test the waters.”

Austin unclenched her jaw. “You mean spy?”

“No,” Eloise said coolly, “I mean gather information. Information is essential where communication management is concerned, and you are the communications specialist. It’s all in a day’s work.”

“I don’t see how anything we learn now would really be of benefit,” Austin said. Communication management was Eloise-speak for keeping a lid on bad press, which Austin would do, up to a point. The point being lying—or spying. No way was she going to pump Gem for information, not after what they’d shared. Gem wasn’t a source—she was…well, that was kind of ill-defined, but she was special, and that’s all that mattered.

“At least get boots on the ground and take a look at what the situation requires if we have to institute protective measures. Advance knowledge will allow us to plan and deploy more efficiently.”

Eloise was an expert at manipulation, and Austin knew it. But she couldn’t argue when she made sense. The more Austin and the company knew about the exact nature of the sanctuary, the better they could design the protocols they would need to protect it.

“I’ll see what I can find out, but I’m not going to lie about who I am.”

“Of course not,” Eloise said, “but there’s no need to advertise it until necessary, is there?”

Austin sighed. Rock and hard place. She could keep on protesting, but part of her job was to assess the logistics and personalities she might have to work with, and beyond that, she couldn’t keep pretending she didn’t want to see Gem again.