Dragon Clan

Chapter 2

Two

Monday, April 18

Roatán Institute for Marine Science

Roatán, Honduras

Eva and Axel were very busy over the next three days. Eva spent as much of the Easter holiday as she could with her family, but that meant late nights loading the sound equipment and their personal belongings onto the USS Bougainville. The last step, completed just now, had been for a platoon of Marines to load the four dolphins—Taffy, Finn, Cleo, and Chico—using slings on Zodiacs. The dolphins would make the voyage in inflatable pools set up on the ship’s well deck.

This meant Eva now had to say goodbye to the family and friends who had gathered to see her off. She gave Gilberto, the old dolphin trainer, a hug.

“I’ll put Jose to work with the other dolphins. He’ll be fine,” he said. As Eva had feared, Jose’s passport, visa and security clearances hadn’t gone through.

Mel gave Eva a reassuring smile. “If we ever get Jose approved somehow, I’ll make sure he gets to you. Your mother and I have been thinking about going to Hawai‘i for our honeymoon anyway. The kids would love it, and we could dock the Aggressor at the base’s marina there.”

Eva knew things were more complicated than that. They were also waiting on a visa for her mother, and for Luis Junior too. Mel and mamá had officially adopted Luis Junior after the wedding, but getting citizenship sorted out would take time. At least Soledad, a US citizen like Eva, could go to Hawai‘i with no issues. And of course Mel went where he pleased.

Mel then added, in a low voice, “And if we do come, I’m going to bring Rascal.”

Eva grinned and gave him a hug. She’d asked the Navy if she could bring the cattle dog—after all, he was Finn’s best friend and helped keep the playful wholphin calm—but they’d refused. It was unlikely she’d see any of her family in Hawai‘i, much less Rascal, but it was good to know Mel was thinking about it. He was a good man, a kind man who had become like a father to her, as well as a father to Soledad and Luis Junior, and he clearly made mamá happy. Although Eva hated to leave Roatán, she knew that her family was in good hands.

Eva then hugged and kissed first her mother, then Soledad and Luis Junior. She hugged Soledad a second time when the girl began to cry. Eva rubbed her back and whispered in her ear, “It’ll be okay, hija. I’ll see you soon.”

Her best friends, Tess and Nick, with their baby, Héctor, were also waiting to say their goodbyes. And strangely, it was the sight of Héctor that broke Eva’s determined calm. Looking upon him, she realized that even though she wouldn’t be gone long, the baby could be a toddler when she saw him next. That in turn made Eva realize that Soledad would look even more like a young woman. Eva’s floodgates suddenly burst, and Tess let her sob on her shoulder for a moment.

Eva pulled back, wiping the tears from her face. “I’ll miss you, Tess. Take good care of Héctor.”

“You know I will.”

Eva took a last look around to see if Jose had shown up, but she wasn’t surprised to not see him. Not only had he gotten back late from Tegu, but this sort of thing could also easily be too much for him. Large gatherings could be overwhelming for the young man who had autism. She told Gilberto to pass along her goodbyes, then was about to board the ship when Soledad stopped her.

“I almost forgot this,” the girl said, handing Eva a wrapped box. “We put this together for you. Just in case you get seasick. Open it when you’re on board.”

Eva hugged Sol one last time, pushing back her tears.

Captain Caleb Williams personally escorted Eva and Axel to the Bougainville. The captain was an old friend of Thomas’s, which was just barely enough to allow her to set aside her normal distrust for the military. As far as she was concerned, they had a way of dabbling in areas they shouldn’t. Even though she now knew that her brother and father had not died at their hands during the drug interdiction long ago—they were killed by the cartel’s bullets instead—it was nevertheless true that had the military never entered her village that fateful night, they would both likely still be alive.

Once aboard the Bougainville, Eva stopped in the hold to check on the dolphins. It was bright with LED lights, so Eva figured out how to dim them when night came so that the dolphins could stay on a circadian rhythm. She also double-checked the food stores kept in the hold in rows of deep freezers as well as the other supplies for the dolphins’ care.

In all the hustle and bustle of loading, she and Axel hadn’t yet set up the sound equipment for a communication interface, but Eva didn’t need any equipment to tell that they were all excited and nervous. This wasn’t Taffy and Finn’s first time in the hold of a ship being transported in inflatable pools, so those two were no doubt answering the questions from Cleo and Chico. Eva smiled as she wondered if those questions included the old standby: Are we there yet?

When Eva was satisfied that the dolphins were settling in, she headed for the deck to observe as the ship weighed anchor and left the Bay Islands. Along the way, she spotted several modern jet fighter planes in a large forward compartment of the well deck. She asked a passing sailor about it, and he explained that there was an F-35 Marine squadron aboard that would be doing exercises during their voyage. Eva shook her head in dismay. She had thought the Bougainville was an amphibious ship, not an aircraft carrier. It turned out to be both.

Axel joined her on the deck to watch Roatán recede into the distance. They were just about to depart from the rail when the captain appeared at their side.

“Even after all these years, it’s always exciting setting off on a voyage,” he said.

“How long will the trip take, Captain?” Axel asked.

“We’ll be in Hawai‘i in four weeks, give or take. Weather is a factor, and the F-35 exercises might put us off schedule a bit too. But it’s the passage through the canal that can be most unpredictable. We sometimes experience a wait of up to a week there if there’s a backlog of cargo ships waiting to get through.”

Eva had known it would be a long trip, but hadn’t anticipated the possibility of additional delays. “Captain, four weeks in an inflatable pool is already a very long time for these dolphins. I’d very much rather not keeping them contained for any longer than that.”

Caleb nodded. “I’ll do my best, Dr. Paz.”

He gave them a brief tour of the ship before showing them to their staterooms. Caleb said they were officers’ quarters, but to Eva they looked quite cramped. They dropped off Axel first, and though the room had bunk beds, one of them was loaded with his sound equipment. Eva’s room was just down the hall, and to her surprise, Caleb knocked on the door before entering.

The door was opened by a young blonde woman with intense hazel eyes. She wore an officer’s uniform, with aviator sunglasses hanging from one of her pockets, and had her hair in a tight bun. She was perhaps the most put-together woman Eva had ever seen.

The woman saluted the captain.

Caleb nodded curtly. “At ease, Captain Wolf.”

Eva looked between them, confused. “Are you two the same rank?”

The woman laughed at this, a clear, sweet laugh that surprised Eva. “No, ma’am. In the Marines, the rank of captain is similar to that of lieutenant in the Navy.” She stuck out her hand for Eva to shake. “I’m Sarah C. Wolf. I’ve heard a lot about you, Dr. Paz. In fact, I’ve been following your work long before this. I’m a big fan. It’s an honor to meet you. I can’t believe we’ll be roomies!”

Eva shook Sarah’s hand, feeling uneasy at this adulation. “So . . . I guess we’re going to be roommates, then?”

“You both deserve your own rooms,” Caleb answered, “but I figured putting you together would be much better than the alternatives.”

He explained to Eva that Sarah’s call sign was Sea Wolf, and that she was a member of the elite Black Knights, which apparently was the newest of the Marine squadrons that could land F-35s on an amphibious aircraft carrier.

“She was the star of the air show at the last fleet week in San Francisco,” Caleb added, grinning proudly.

Eva noted that Sarah didn’t look at all uneasy receiving praise. She definitely had the confidence of a pilot.

After Caleb excused himself, tipping his captain’s cap at Eva, she tried to get her few things organized in the tiny room. The top bunk would be hers; Sarah said she needed the bottom so she could get up quickly and not disturb Eva if her squadron was called out.

The two women chatted, and Eva discovered that she had more in common with this captain than she’d ever have expected. They were both scientists, sharing some similar interests, and Sarah had majored in astronautics at MIT before going on for a master’s degree in underwater acoustics, which Eva found intriguing. But she couldn’t help but think a degree like that could have been put to better use, and she said so.

“With everything you could do with those degrees, why would you choose being a pilot in the military?” Eva meant it as a simple question, but regretted how it sounded as soon as the words left her mouth.

Sarah raised an eyebrow. “Are you kidding? Flying the F-35 was an opportunity I couldn’t turn down. Did you know it only takes twenty years to retire with full benefits? I’ll be only forty-four, and then I can have a whole other career if I like, using what I know to help the world in some other way.” She laughed. “Really, Dr. Paz, you should ask why I joined the Marines, rather than the Navy or the Air Force.”

Truthfully, Eva never considered questions like that. She lumped the US military into one entity. But she went along. “Okay then. Why the Marines?”

Sarah smiled. “I’m glad you asked. I told my family it was to make my retired Navy granddad nervous, but actually my interest started when my parents took me to an air show at Miramar. That’s a Marine base in California close to where I’m from. Everyone I met was so polite and professional. I knew then that if I joined the military, it would be the corps. Semper fidelis!”

“What does that mean?” Eva asked.

Sarah beamed. “Always faithful.”

Eva laughed. It seemed impossible not to like this roommate.