Chapter 29
Kendall compelled everyone come to the briefing, even those who were staying on skyQuest. "I want everyone to know what's going on, so we're all prepared if anything goes wrong." He held it in the wet room near Darwin's tank, but it was probably just because that was the largest area on the sailboat. Tony couldn't see any reason that the dolphin needed to be present. Darwin could do a lot of stuff, but he couldn't walk on land and he probably couldn't follow complex conversations. Maybe he was just there to remind everyone how far they'd come and what was at stake, sort of like a mascot, but with power.
Tony didn't doubt Kendall would relieve Darwin of command if he felt it necessary, but he was pretty sure the chief would give the acting captain a lot of leeway when it came to benefit of doubt. After all, they had nothing but Darwin's word and circumstantial evidence that their bridge crew was on that island, behind those shiny black walls. If Darwin was wrong, this whole trip was for nothing. And if Darwin suddenly ordered them to halt the rescue operation, Kendall would at least consider it.
"Nichols, you said Forrester found a way in?" Kendall asked when everyone had settled down.
"I got his notes," Tony blurted out. Nichols glared at him for speaking out of turn. "Uh, sorry," Tony muttered.
"Let's see them, Piccolo," Kendall said absently even as he snapped his attention back to Nichols. "Go ahead with what you were going to say."
Tony removed a waterproof case from his swim trunks' pocket, opened it, and pulled the papers out. He unfolded the layers and finger-pressed the creases out, but he kept his mouth shut and listened to Nichols.
"Darwin said 'high sounds' right after Piccolo saw the woman in the rowboat. Forrester thought that could mean high-pitched, as in, ultrasonic—something that dolphins can hear but humans can't. So we brought a wideband sensor out when she returned from Marseille. Sure enough, when she got back to the building, an ultrasonic tone was emitted right before the wall disappeared. She went through with two bags of stuff and then bam! The opening changed right back to solid. We checked all the walls later that night. They all look the same. There are no catches or buttons or anything else that looks like it would open them."
"Did you try using ultrasonic waves when you got there?"
"No. You said to observe and report. It was just me and Piccolo. If we tried it and it worked, they would know we knew how to get in and we'd probably got ourselves captured."
"Good thinking." Kendall reached for Forrester's notes. "Looks like the tone is 30.7 kilohertz."
Sanders spoke up. "All we gotta do is say 'open sesame' with a high enough pitch, and we're in?"
Dagwood cocked his head. "I can say 'open sesame.'"
Tony slapped him on the back good-naturedly. "Sorry, big guy. Your voice is too low."
Parker laughed. "You know what they say, 'It ain't over 'til the fat lady hits that high note.' We're gonna hit the high note and it's gonna be over."
Tony frowned. "Don't tell me we gotta bring opera music with us."
"No, Piccolo, no human can sing that high. I think Darwin could make the right sound, but he isn't leaving the water. We've got ultrasonic emitters we can carry with us. But it's like microwaves. You won't hear it."
Microwaves? What, now they were going to cook the walls? That wasn't much better than having a fat lady sing. Whatever happened to good, old-fashioned explosives? After days of living in that cramped launch, worrying about Lucas and the others, Tony was ready to bust some heads, and he wasn't really interested in doing it figuratively.
Kendall found a diagram in Forrester's notes and spread it out for all to see. It was a rough map of the island and a good representation of the building. "Forrester said the building is a dodecagon. It's twelve equal sides."
"We didn't measure or count them. How'd he know that?" Tony asked.
Kendall laughed and pointed at the scribbles beside the map. "Geometry, Piccolo. He got a couple of angle measurements from the water, using reflection and a compass. You could all see it looked circular. Not bad math for a marine biologist, really."
"Which side did the woman go in?" someone asked.
"Due north," Tate answered.
"So do we storm the front door or try sneaking in the back?" Nichols touched the north and south walls on the diagram.
Kendall scratched his chin. "We don't know if any other wall has one of these invisible doors that opens with ultrasonics, but what would it hurt to try? Walking in the front door doesn't seem like the best idea unless we have no other choice."
Everyone mumbled agreement to this.
"Do we have any idea how many are on the enemy side? We know about the two big dudes and this woman. Did you see any more than that?" Bishop asked.
"The guy with the French accent may be one of the 'big dudes', or he may be a third man," Kendall said.
"Nope, we didn't see anyone else," Tony added.
"So our eleven people are being held by three or maybe four? You'd think Brody and Ford would have had them overpowered by now," Clark joked.
"None of them have ultrasonic emitters," Kendall said in a grave tone.
"And Darwin says they're all hurt," Tony reminded.
"What if they can't swim back?" Tate asked. Leave it to the medic to worry how to transport stretchers through open sea.
Kendall nodded, undaunted by the prospect. "Once the enemy is neutralized, we can bring skyQuest right up on the beach. That's another reason why I wanted to keep enough of us back to raise the anchor and set her sails."
Nichols glanced down at his diving watch. "Do you need sunlight to run? If so, we need to get moving. The sun sets in another three hours."
"We can run on wind, but we have more speed during the day. Does everyone feel ready to do this now? Should we wait for the cover of night?"
"There aren't any windows, so they're probably operating on sensors," Nichols said.
Tony shook his head. "So you think they knew we were there, but they just let us come up and check them out last night?"
"Yes, I think they did," Kendall said. "They probably wanted us to see it was impenetrable and hopeless, so we'd give up."
Tony scoffed. "They don't know us very well."
"So when should you introduce yourselves?"
No one spoke for several seconds.
Dagwood broke the silence with his slow speech pattern. "If our friends are hurt, we should help them now."
Everyone nodded.
"Dagwood's right," Kendall said. "Darkness doesn't really offer any advantage. How soon can you all be ready?"
Nichols looked around at his team. "Fifteen minutes enough?"
Nods and grunts of assent proved it was. The ground team started to change clothes, since they were already in the wet room.
"What kind of weapons did you bring?" Tony asked.
"Standard UEO-issue sidearms, why?" He pushed a large box out of the corner and revealed the stash.
"Oh, I dunno. Guess I was hopin' all you brainiacs came up with somethin' new and cool."
Kendall smirked. "We were a little preoccupied."
Tony waved him off like building a solar-powered trimaran with scrounged parts was old hat. Sure, he'd been impressed, but you couldn't let these smarties get any bigger heads than they already had.
Nichols sidled up to Kendall and whispered, "Are you giving Dagwood a sidearm?"
The look in the chief's eyes revealed he hadn't given it any thought yet. Tony looked up at the GELF. "Hey, Dag, you know how to use one of these?" He held up one of the weapons.
Dagwood was straight and simple with his answer. "No."
"Does it make you feel unsafe if we don't give you one?" He shoved the example behind his back, centering it between his gills, then pushed it under his waistband to hold it secure.
"No. My hands are too big for the trigger anyways."
"When we get inside, where the bad guys are, they might have guns or swords or something. Will you be afraid without a weapon? You don't have to go with us, you know." Tony realized someone should have asked Dagwood before deciding to just draft him for this mission, but better late than never.
"I want to help."
"All right, good. But you stay with me at all times, okay?" He was strong, but he wasn't too bright and Tony didn't want to see him get hurt.
The big guy nodded. "Okay."
Kendall winked at Tony and mouthed, "Thanks."
Tony looked back at Dagwood. "Can you swim?"
"Yes, but I don't got a swimsuit." He was still wearing Bermuda shorts, but he also wore a seaQuest t-shirt now.
"What you got on is fine. You can take the shirt off, if you want." Dagwood started to peel off his shirt. Tony glanced at the tank where Darwin was floating slowly back and forth, his blowhole spraying regularly. "Hey Darwin, you ready to go rescue Lucas and Bridger?"
The dolphin nodded enough to splash water at them. "Darwin ready!"
"Well, I guess that settles it. Good luck to all of you." Kendall made the rounds, shaking hands with every man who was going to be leaving skyQuest. This send-off was a little weird, but Kendall had never been in a position to send people on dangerous missions before and he was probably more nervous than Nichols was. He ended with the GELF. "Before you go, could you help me on the capstan again? We're going to sail closer to the island before we let you all out to swim ashore."
Dagwood pumped Kendall's hand twice and nodded. "Okay."
Kendall, Dagwood, and the other three who were staying behind climbed the ladder to the upper deck. Except for Nichols, Tate, and Tony, everyone was still getting dressed. Tony wasn't going to exit through the airlock in the hull, so he really wasn't needed anymore. "Nichols, I'm going uptop to wait for Dagwood. You guys got Darwin okay down here?"
"Yeah. Go on, beat it," he said.
Tony climbed up on deck where a cool breeze blew. Dagwood turned the capstan by himself as easily as Tony would have pushed a merry-go-round for his nieces and nephews back home. Soon the anchor was up and Kendall activated the impeller jets. Looking out over the channel, Tony could see If Island and some other ships in the distance, but they were pretty far away. They probably couldn't see skyQuest's triple hull and without her colored sails, she didn't look all that different. If anyone saw them moving without sails, they would probably assume it was water currents.
The chief picked up his PAL. "Titanic, do you read?"
"Loud and clear. I can see you're moving. Should I follow?"
"No, stay there, Cousteau. Just wanted to let you know we didn't forget you or anything. Your notes were very helpful. Entebbe won't know what hit it."
"That's good to hear. Please let me know as soon as you have…"
Tony knew why Forrester hesitated. They didn't give code names to their kidnapped crew.
"…Moby-Dick back where he belongs."
The chief grinned understanding. "Affirmative, Cousteau."
"Smooth sailing, skyQuest. Titanic out."
Kendall put his PAL back in his belt holster. He muttered as he turned the boat's steering wheel: "This sure is easier without all that hoisting and tacking rigamarole. I sure hope you're done before the sun sets so I don't have to sail out of here the old-fashioned way."
"We will be," Tony said, even though he knew Kendall didn't expect an answer. He wasn't even the team leader, so what did he know anyway?
It only took fifteen minutes to get skyQuest into position on the west coast of If and drop anchor again. Kendall hollered to the hull for the team to start its exodus. Tony walked to the edge of the deck and took a peek overboard. There wasn't a lot of room between the center hull and the starboard one, but enough for Dagwood and Tony to swim between them easily. It also wasn't that far down. "Hey, Dag, how are you at heights? Can you jump off here?" It would save time and trouble if they didn't have to mess with rope.
The GELF lumbered over and looked down. Then he looked up at Kendall. "Can I go now, Chief Kendall, sir?"
"Sure, Dagwood. Thanks for your help and be careful."
Dagwood grinned as he looked at Tony. His words were slow and unsure when he declared, "Last one in's a rotten egg." And then he just jumped off.
Tony chuckled. He waited to see where the big guy surfaced before he jumped in after, yelling, "Here comes the rotten egg!"
Still between the hulls and their heads above water, he whispered. "I got gills, so I can stay underwater all day long. You just come up for air when you need to, okay?"
"Okay," Dagwood said. He drew a deep breath and dove down, swimming a nice frog stroke.
Dagwood was a lot faster in the water than on land and Tony struggled to keep up. Luckily Darwin saw them and took pity. He offered his dorsal fin and Tony readily accepted. He'd never live it down if Dagwood beat him to shore. The water was clear enough that they could see the other divers swimming in deeper water. Having had a head start, Nichols' group was ahead at first, but Dagwood and Darwin were quickly overtaking all of them.
Dagwood only had to surface once to get another lungful of air. He didn't even seem winded and returned to his frog-stroking with gusto. They made it to the beach first and helped the other guys take off their SCUBA tanks. Darwin swam a nervous circle just far enough away to avoid the waves crashing on the rocks.
Weapons drawn, Nichols led everyone toward the south-facing wall of the big black building, Tony and Dagwood bringing up the rear. They divided themselves in half without saying a word and lined up on opposite sides, taking a defensive posture with their weapons trained on the shiny black granite.
