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On the other side of Vancouver Island, halfway up the coast off the entrance to Esperanza Inlet, a fish boat ploughed through a heavy swell. The weather in the area had been good for the past two days, but the swell was the result of a storm that had recently pounded the shores of Japan, almost five thousand miles to the west. The boat bucked and twisted as it quartered the sea, angling up the smooth face of the wave only to teeter precariously on the crest before starting its plunge down into the trough. It was a fishing troller with a length of just thirty-nine feet, small in comparison with the steel monsters that now dominated the fishing industry. Big business had replaced the independent fishermen that once made a good living on the sea and few small boats remained.
The old-growth fir planks and the oak ribs that formed the hull of the Betty Jean did not show up well on radar, but her metal rigging and the radar reflector mounted on the mast made her clearly visible on the coastguard satellite system. She had logged into Canadian Marine Traffic Control when she first appeared off Cape Flattery and started north across the Strait of Juan de Fuca towards Carmanah Point in the early hours of the morning. Registered in the United States with a homeport of Sitka, Alaska, she had been regularly recorded in transit through the area over the past several years as she followed the diminishing numbers of wild salmon on their return to the rivers of their birth.
Now more than one hundred and twenty-five miles north, the boat changed course and headed in. The captain, a man by the name of Tommy Estrada, again called up Marine Traffic Control and informed them of the course change as was required, adding that they were headed into Zeballos to take on fuel. That too had happened many times in the past. A small boat heading up as far as Alaska had to cover large distances between refueling stations and this one had come all the way from the Columbia River.
The new position was once again logged into Marine Traffic and the technicians there turned their attention to other things: there were nine freighters anchored off Vancouver Harbour waiting their turn to load or unload goods, three more waiting at Roberts Bank for coal and wheat, three inbound in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and two outbound in that same body of water. If that wasn’t enough to keep the overworked staff busy, there were also two cruise ships headed down the Inside Passage plus all the regular tug, tow and barge combinations and the ferries that criss-crossed the waters between the mainland and the myriad off-shore islands. No one even tried to count the recreational boats that dotted the screens like a virulent rash.
Even if the technicians had been paying close attention it was doubtful they would have noticed the insignificant splash made by the small inflatable lowered off the stern of the Betty Jean as she entered calmer waters. Within minutes the dinghy became just another local boat moving up and down the inlet, another couple of guys out for a day of fishing in one of the best salmon fishing spots in the area. By the time the old troller turned into Zeballos Inlet, the dinghy had already disappeared into the narrow sliver of water the charts identified as Port Eliza.
An hour and a half later, sitting lower in the water now that she had a full load of fuel and fresh water in her tanks, the Betty Jean headed back out. She barely slowed as she picked up the same two men and lifted the inflatable out of the water. It was a little heavier than it had been when they launched it, and they carefully removed six packages, each one tightly wrapped and sealed in black plastic, and placed them into the hold.
The Betty Jean continued on her course and when she had rounded the point and was once again feeling the swells of the Pacific under her keel, the captain changed his heading and set a course for the Scott Islands off the northern tip of Vancouver Island. From there he would angle across to Rivers Inlet and then enter Fitz Hugh Sound and the calmer waters of the Inside Passage on his way to Alaska.
Later that same day another inflatable with two men aboard plus their fishing gear and a couple of coolers presumably to hold their catch, returned to Zeballos. A heavyset man with short blond hair operated the boat, but it was the much smaller dark-haired passenger who directed its course.
They loaded it into a blue pickup and by midnight, driving slowly over the rough, gravel roads, the truck arrived in Port McNeill and was backed into the garage of a house located high on the hill above the town. Before the door was closed, the dark-haired man walked out to the end of the driveway and stared into the night, his eyes scanning the houses lining the quiet street. After a couple of minutes he turned and walked back inside, the garage door rolled down again and the lights were turned off. The house returned to silence, like all the other houses around it.