The Swarm: A Novel Read online

  The woman didn’t seem to hear him: ‘You’ve got to help me. Oh, God, don’t let me drown! I don’t want to drown.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll—’

  Suddenly her eyes widened and she vanished under water. Something brushed against Anawak’s leg.

  Fear coursed through him. He pushed his upper body clear of the water and looked around. The Zodiac was drifting upside-down. All that separated him and the others from it was a few metres - and three black torpedoes.

  As the whales powered towards them, something in Anawak protested. Not once had an orca attacked a human in the wild: they treated humans with curiosity, amity or indifference. And whales didn’t attack boats - they just didn’t. Suddenly he was hit by a rush of water and a flash of red came between him and the whales. Hands reached down to grab him. Then Greywolf steered towards the rest of the swimmers. He pulled Alicia Delaware out of the water and set her down on a bench while Anawak hauled up a wheezing man. He scanned the surface for others. Where was Stringer?

  He caught a glimpse of her head between two waves. A second woman was with her. The orcas had surrounded the upturned Zodiac and were closing in from both sides. Their shiny black heads cut through the waves, jaws parted to reveal rows of ivory teeth. In a few seconds they would be upon the women. But Greywolf was at the wheel, steering purposefully towards them.

  Anawak held out a hand to Stringer.

  ‘Take her first,’ she shouted.

  Greywolf helped him drag the other woman to safety. Then Stringer tried to climb on board. She slid back into the water and the whales dived down behind her.

  Suddenly she was alone. ‘Leon?’ She stretched out her arms, eyes wide with fear. Anawak caught her right hand.

  The blue-green water parted as something shot up at incredible speed. Its jaws were open, exposing white teeth. Then they snapped shut and Stringer screamed. Her fist hammered on the snout that held her prisoner. ‘Get off.’ she yelled.

  Anawak’s fingers dug into her jacket. Their eyes met. ‘Susan! Give me your other hand!’ He held on to her, determined not to let go, but the orca’s jaws were clamped round her. Her mouth opened in a dull cry that become a piercing scream. With a sickening jolt, she was wrenched from Anawak’s grip. Her head disappeared underwater, then her arms and her twitching fingers. For a second her orange suit shone in the water, a scattered kaleidoscope of colour that paled, faded and vanished.

  Anawak stared at the water. Something glittered in the depths. A column of bubbles. As they reached the surface they popped and foamed.

  Then the water turned red.

  ‘No,’ he whispered.

  Greywolf pulled him away from the railings. ‘There’s no one here,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’

  As the motorboat roared off, Anawak tripped and steadied himself. The woman whom Stringer had saved was lying on a bench, whimpering softly. Delaware was soothing her, voice shaking. The man stared fixedly ahead.

  From across the water Anawak heard another commotion. He whirled round and saw that the Lady Wexham was surrounded by blades and humps. She was barely moving and listed dangerously to one side.

  ‘We have to turn back!’ he shouted. ‘They’re not going to make it.’

  Greywolf was powering towards the coast. ‘Forget it.’

  Anawak reached over and snatched up the walkie-talkie. He tried to call the Lady Wexham. The radio crackled and hissed. ‘We’ve got to help them, Jack! Turn back, damn it!’

  ‘With this boat it’s hopeless. We’ll be lucky if we make it ourselves.’ The worst thing was, he was right.

  ‘Victoria?’ Shoemaker yelled into the phone. ‘What the hell are they doing in Victoria?…Why? Doesn’t Victoria have its own Coast Guard? There are people drowning in Clayoquot Sound! We’ve got one skipper dead and a boat going down and you’re telling me to be patient?’

  He strode up and down in the office, waiting for a reply. He stopped in his tracks. ‘As soon as they can? Sorry, but I’m not interested in your damn excuses. Send someone else…What? Now, just you listen to me…’

  The voice at the other end of the line was so loud that, metres away, Anawak heard it. The station was in turmoil. Davie and Shoemaker had been talking non-stop into radios and phones. Shoemaker dropped the receiver and shook his head.

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Anawak. Greywolf’s decrepit old boat had fought its way back to Tofino fifteen minutes earlier, and since then the office had been swamped with people. The news of the attack had spread like wildfire through the town. All the skippers who worked for the station had come in and the frequencies were jammed. At first nearby sport fishermen had called in, ridiculing the inexperienced idiots ‘too dumb to dodge a bunch of whales’, and bragging about how they would save them. Then the calls had dried up. Anyone who tried to help had become the target of a fresh attack. All hell had broken loose - and no one knew for sure what was going on.

  ‘The Coast Guard’s run out of people to send us,’ said Shoemaker angrily. ‘They’ve all been dispatched to Victoria or Ucluelet. Apparently the Lady isn’t the only boat in trouble.’

  ‘More attacks?’

  ‘And deaths, by the sound of it.’

  ‘News from Ucluelet,’ Davie called. He reached behind the counter and twiddled the dials on his shortwave radio. ‘A signal from a trawler. She picked up a distress call from a Zodiac and went to help, but she was attacked. She’s turning round.’

  ‘What kind of attack?’

  ‘Signal’s gone. I’ve lost her.’

  ‘And the Lady Wexham?’

  ‘No news. Tofino Air has sent two planes - I got hold of them just now.’

  ‘And?’ asked Shoemaker impatiently. ‘Can they see the Lady?

  ‘Tom, they only just took off.’

  ‘Why aren’t we with them?’

  ‘Don’t be a jerk. You know perfectly well why—’

  ‘They’re our boats, for Christ’s sake! We should be in those darned planes.’ Shoemaker was pacing wildly. ‘What’s happened to the Lady?’

  ‘We’ll have to wait and see.’

  ‘Wait? We can’t wait! I’m going out there.’

  ‘Tom—’

  ‘We’ve got another Zodiac, haven’t we? We’ll take the Devilfish and see for ourselves.’

  ‘Are you nuts?’ said a skipper. ‘Haven’t you been listening to a word Leon’s said? We need to leave this to the Coast Guard.’

  ‘There is no Coast Guard!’ yelled Shoemaker.

  ‘Maybe the Lady Wexham will make it back without us. Leon said—’

  ‘Maybe isn’t good enough. I’m going out there!’

  ‘That’s enough now!’ Davie held up a hand to silence them. He shot Shoemaker a warning glare. ‘Enough lives have been lost, Tom. I don’t want anyone taking needless risks. ‘We’ll wait for the pilots to report back, then we’ll decide what to do.’

  ‘Doing nothing never solved anything!’

  Davie didn’t answer. He was tuning his radio, trying to make contact with the seaplanes. In the meantime Anawak did his best to persuade the crowd to leave the office. His knees trembled and he felt dizzy. He was probably in shock, he thought. He would have given anything to lie down and close his eyes - but if he did, he knew he would see Stringer in the jaws of an orca.

  The woman she had saved was lying semi-conscious on a bench near the door. If it hadn’t been for her, Stringer would still be alive. The man they’d rescued was sitting next to her, crying softly: he’d lost his daughter, who’d been with him on the boat. Alicia Delaware was looking after him. For someone who’d only narrowly escaped death, she seemed remarkably composed. A helicopter was supposed to be on its way to take them to hospital, but right now they couldn’t count on anyone or anything.

  ‘Hey, Leon!’ said Shoemaker. ‘Will you come with me? You’ll be able to tell me what to look out for.’

  ‘Tom, you’re not going,’ snapped Davie.

  ‘None of you idiots should go out there,’ sai
d a deep voice. ‘Not ever again. I’ll go.’

  Anawak swivelled round. Greywolf had walked into the station. He pushed his way through the milling crowd, brushing the hair out of his eyes. The room fell silent and everyone stared at the long-haired giant dressed in suede.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ said Anawak. ‘Go where?’

  ‘I’m going back to your boat, to rescue your people. I’m not afraid of the whales. They won’t hurt me.’

  ‘That’s very noble of you, Jack, it really is. But from now on maybe you should keep out of it.’

  ‘Leon,’ Greywolf snarled, ‘if I’d kept out of it earlier, you’d be dead by now. You should keep out. In fact, you should’ve kept out in the first place.’

  ‘Out of what?’ said Shoemaker, with a dangerous edge.

  ‘Nature, Shoemaker. You’re the ones to blame for the whole damn disaster - you and your boats and your cameras. You’re responsible for the deaths of my people and your own people and the people whose money you pocketed. It was always going to happen. It was only a matter of time.’

  ‘Asshole!’ Shoemaker screamed at him.

  Delaware got to her feet. ‘He’s not an asshole,’ she said firmly. ‘He saved us. And he’s right. If it hadn’t been for him, we’d be dead.’

  Anawak was well aware that they were indebted to Greywolf - he more than anyone else - but he couldn’t forget all the trouble that the man had caused them in the past. He said nothing. For a few seconds there was an uncomfortable silence.

  ‘Jack,’ said Anawak, ‘if you go out there, someone’s going to have to fish you out of the water. The only place you should take your boat is a museum. It won’t survive another trip.’

  ‘You’re going to let them die out there, then?’

  ‘I don’t want anyone to die - not even you.’

  ‘Oh, so it’s me you’re worried about, is it? But I wasn’t planning on using my boat. It took a few knocks out there. I’ll take yours.’

  ‘The Devilfish?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I can’t just hand it over to anyone,’ he said, ‘least of all you.’

  ‘Then you’ll have to come with me.’

  ‘Jack, I—’

  ‘You can tell that loser Shoemaker he can come too. We’ll be in need of some bait, now the orcas are eating their enemies.’

  ‘You’ve lost it, Jack.’

  Greywolf bent down to him. ‘Leon,’ he hissed. ‘My friends died out there too. Do you think I don’t care?’

  ‘Well, if you hadn’t brought them along…’

  ‘Arguing won’t get us anywhere. We’re talking about your people, and I’m not the one who needs to go out there. You owe me a bit of gratitude, Leon.’

  Anawak swore. He glanced at the others. Shoemaker was on the telephone. Davie was speaking into his walkie-talkie and beckoned to him. ‘What do you think of Tom’s idea?’ he said, in a low voice. ‘Would we be able to help or would it be suicide?’

  Anawak chewed his lip. ‘What did the pilots say?’

  ‘The Lady has capsized. She’s on her side, taking in water.’

  ‘Oh, God.’

  ‘The Victoria Coast Guard says it can scramble a helicopter in a rescue operation, but I doubt they’ll make it in time. They’re busy enough already, and the calls keep coming in.’

  The idea of re-entering the hell that they’d just left was a terrifying prospect, but Anawak knew he would never forgive himself if he didn’t do everything in his power to help the Lady Wexham. ‘Greywolf wants to come too,’ he said quietly.

  ‘In the same boat as Tom? You’ve got to be joking. I thought we were trying to solve a problem, not create one.’

  ‘Greywolf could be useful. God knows what’s going on in his head, but we could do with having him around - he’s strong and completely fearless.’

  Davie nodded gloomily. ‘Keep the two of them apart, OK? And if it looks hopeless, come straight back here. I don’t want anyone playing the hero.’

  Anawak headed over to Shoemaker, waited for him to put down the phone, then told him of Davie’s decision.

  ‘You want to take that phoney Indian with us?’ Shoemaker said indignantly. ‘Are you crazy?’

  ‘I think it’s more a case of him taking us.’

  ‘In our boat.’

  ‘Look, you and Davie are in charge around here, but I’ve seen what we’re up against and I’m telling you now: we’ll be glad to have him with us.’

  The Devilfish was the same size as the Blue Shark and had the same horsepower, so it was small and easy to turn. Anawak prayed it would give them enough of an advantage. The creatures still had the element of surprise on their side. No one could tell when or where they might attack next.

  As the Zodiac sped across the lagoon, Anawak wrestled with the question of why. He had thought he knew about whales, but now he was at a loss. He couldn’t begin to work out what was happening. The attack on the Barrier Queen was his only obvious lead,. It must be some kind of infection, he thought. A strain of rabies, perhaps.

  But what kind of disease would affect different species? The attacks had been carried out by humpbacks, orcas and grey whales. The more he thought about it, the more certain he was that a grey had overturned his Zodiac.

  Could the high levels of PCBs in the sea and the toxins in their food have played havoc with their instincts? But orcas ingested toxins through contaminated salmon and other creatures. Grey whales and humpbacks ate plankton. Their metabolism was different from that of toothed whales.

  Disease didn’t explain it.

  He stared at the glistening water. He’d made this trip hundreds of times before, and each time he’d been full of anticipation at the thought of seeing a whale. He’d always known about the dangers: fog might come down; the wind might change and send treacherous waves pounding into the cliffs - in 1998 a skipper and a tourist had died like that in Clayoquot Sound. And then there were the whales: placid, friendly, but unpredictable animals of enormous size and power. They were a mighty force of nature, as any experienced whale-watcher could testify. Yet if you sought out storms, monstrous breakers and wild animals, they no longer seemed so terrifying. Fear gave way to respect - and Anawak had immense respect for nature.

  But now, for the first time, he was afraid.

  Seaplanes cut through the sky above the Devilfish as she sped across the waves. Anawak was at the wheel with Shoemaker, who had insisted on steering, and Greywolf was at the bow, scanning the water for trouble. The tree-covered shores of tiny islets flashed past on their left. On the rocks, sea-lions sunned themselves, as if nothing could disturb their tranquillity. The Zodiac roared past them. The open sea lay ahead - a uniform expanse of endless water, at once familiar and forbidding.

  Beyond the sheltered waters of the lagoon, the swell was higher. The Zodiac bounced noisily over the waves. During the past half-hour the sea had grown rougher and dark clouds gathered on the horizon. There was still no sign of a storm, but conditions were deteriorating rapidly - as was often the case in these waters. A rain front was probably heading their way. Anawak strained his eyes to glimpse the Lady Wexham. What if she had sunk? In the distance he saw another vessel, one of many cruise ships passing the Canadian coast at this time of year, heading north to Alaska.

  ‘What brings them here?’ shouted Shoemaker.

  ‘I expect they heard the mayday.’ Anawak peered through the binoculars. ‘MS Arctic. She’s from Seattle. I’ve seen her before - she’s sailed this way regularly over the past few years.’

  ‘Leon!’

  A small, pointed outline had appeared in the distance, barely visible above the swell. Only the Lady Wexham’s superstructure was still above water. People had gathered on the bridge and on the viewing platform in the bow. Orcas circled menacingly, biding their time until the vessel slid into the water.

  ‘Oh, God,’ said Shoemaker. ‘It doesn’t seem possible…’

  Greywolf turned to them, making signs for them to slow down.
Shoemaker backed off the throttle. A grey, grooved hump surfaced in front of them, followed by two others. The whales lingered on the surface for a few seconds, expelled their bushy, V-shaped blow, then dived without showing their flukes.

  Anawak could sense their approach underwater. He could practically feel the impending attack.

  ‘Go, go, go!’ yelled Greywolf.

  Shoemaker slammed down the throttle. The Devilfish pitched forward and shot away. Behind them, the huge dark bodies of the whales surged out of the water and fell backwards. Travelling full-speed ahead the Zodiac shot towards the sinking Lady Wexham. At last they could make out individuals, waving at them from the platform and the bridge. Shouts carried over the water. To Anawak’s relief the skipper was among the survivors. One by one the gleaming black blades disappeared underwater.

  ‘We’ll be next,’ said Anawak.

  ‘You mean they’re coming for us?’ Shoemaker was panic-stricken. For the first time he seemed to take in what was going on. ‘What will they do? Capsize us?’

  ‘They might. The grey whales and humpbacks seem to be in charge of demolition, while the orcas take care of the rest.’

  Shoemaker’s face drained of colour.

  Greywolf pointed to the cruise ship. ‘They’re sending reinforcements,’ he shouted.

  Two small motorboats left the side of MS Arctic and moved leisurely towards them.

  ‘Tell them to hurry or get out of here, Leon,’ Greywolf yelled. ‘At that speed they’ll be easy pickings.’

  Anawak grabbed the radio. ‘MS Arctic. This is Devilfish. You’re in danger of attack.’

  For a few seconds there was silence. The Devilfish was almost level with the Lady.

  ‘This is MS Arctic. What kind of attack, Devilfish?

  ‘The whales will try to sink your boats.’

  ‘Whales? Is this a joke, Devilfish?’

  ‘For your own safety I advise you to turn back.’

  ‘We received a mayday from a sinking vessel.’

  Anawak lurched forward as the Zodiac careered over a wave. He steadied himself and shouted into the radio, ‘We don’t have time to talk, but you can take my word for it - you need to move faster.’