Page 43 of The Captain
“Copy.”
“Becca,” I called, and she was there. “You have incident command on the pen aisle. If Kogia One dips, you call me and we pivot. Tamika, you’re with me. Miguel, load short sling, towels, blowhole shields. Quiet skiff in five.”
“On it,” Tamika said, already jogging.
My father stepped out of the shade of the door like a ship easing from fog. “You need a boat?”
“I need your hands not to slip,” I said, and he smiled once with his eyes, which is a man’s way of sayingI’m with you.
We moved. The facility became choreography. Towels. Shade. Radios. The throw bag. Hydration. I turned rules into breath: don’t torque the spine, don’t drown an animal with kindness, don’t promise a crowd a miracle.
As I hit the dock, my phone buzzed in my palm.
McGuire:Per your quiet request, Jacob = Marine Raider. Deployed multiple theaters. Cleared. Assigned as temporary liaison through Dominion Hall. No red flags in personnel. I’ll give you more in person.
Heat crawled up my throat. Relief. Shame. A hundred other things I didn’t want to name. It was good intel, but not gospel. “Cleared” kept doors open. It didn’t certify a heart. “No red flags” meant a file hadn’t screamed. It didn’t mean it had nothing to say.
Promising. Not proof. I could hold that thin bridge, for now.
Me:Thank you.
Her reply landed before my thumb lifted.
McGuire:See you at 1100.
The radio on my hip crackled with the stranding alert.
Me:Scratch 11—juvenile whale reported north of the lighthouse on Sullivan’s Island. I’m rolling now. Can we slide to 2pm at my facility? I’ll keep 7–Delta up.
McGuire:Copy. 1400 at your facility. I’ll bring what we discussed. Stay safe.
“Doctor,” Miguel called. “Skiff’s ready.”
I slid the phone into my pocket. “Let’s move.”
We pushed off. The quiet motor purred low, not bragging, just competent, and I could feel the hull answer the creek the way a good dance partner answers a lead. Tamika handled the lines with that particular gentleness she saves for the beginning and the end of hard things. My father took the bow, a tall shadow watching for debris I wouldn’t see in the glare.
“Seven–Delta from Allard,” I said into the mic. “Request soft perimeter at Station Twelve, Sullivan’s Island. Keep drones down. Minimal cameras.”
Ryker’s voice came back dry. “Already on the road. Two plainclothes on scene in three. We’ll float the idiot line farther back.”
“Bless you,” I said, which made my father snort, because the French atheist in him loves when I sound like my mother.
Traffic on the water was bad and getting worse. The tide pulled at the marsh edges, petty and insistent. I threaded between a shrimp boat and a pleasure craft piloted by a man who had never learned to point his bow anywhere useful. Tamika braced her knee against the console and pointed two fingers to trim. I adjusted. The skiff lifted and settled, sweet.
My phone buzzed again and I let it vibrate against my thigh until it felt like a heartbeat. I did not check if it was Jacob. I could not check if it was Jacob.
“Breathe,” I told the water, then realized I was telling myself.
Sullivan’s water tower broke the horizon. The strip of pale sand at Station Twelve grew a crowd. When they saw the skiff arrow for the swash line, the mass moved as one. Atlas’s detail did their part. Two men in nondescript shirts became gravity. The cluster bent around them and re-formed farther back like iron filings finding a magnet’s edge.
The animal lay where the waves turn to hands—small, dark, the head rounded, mouth line low. Not a bottlenose. Kogia, yes. My stomach set and then steadied, because, at least, it was a shape I understood.
I killed the motor before the last set and let the boat kiss the sand. “Tamika, blowhole shield. Papa—sorry, Lucas—sling under on the lift. No heroics.”
“No heroics,” he repeated.
Calls like this lit him up. When the yard ran quiet, he’d wander into my facility, pretending he was only dropping off a bracket until I handed him a job. He loved it when I bossed him—carry this, hold that, stand here—and I’ll admit, I loved that Charleston made room for it.
