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Even if I had never heard of me, I would start reading this book. Why? The cover.
It says the story is about dolphins. Dolphins have been special to me all of my life, starting when I was a kid and encountered one in the surf at Grand Isle, Louisiana.
I grew up in New Orleans, and our family occasionally drove the hundred miles through the swamps and marshes of south Louisiana to get to Grand Isle, a sizable chunk of sand stretching along the state’s southern coastline. It was home to a recreational fishing enclave, and numerous weekend camps. I always had a great time romping in the surf or fishing with my father and little brother.
But one day while at play in chest deep water a monstrous grey beast came hurtling by, almost knocking me off my feet. I yelled for my dad and he was there in a flash. Seeing the dolphin chasing mullet as few feet away, he surmised why I had summoned him. He poo-pooed my fears and told me about dolphin, noting that they were known to have helped drowning people survive.
Shortly after that, I came across a book, a piece of kid’s fiction called Children of the Sea. It’s a story about a Caribbean boy who is befriended by a dolphin that saves him from drowning. The book follows the boy and the dolphin through a number of adventures.
I had that in my mental back pocket when my best friend finagled me a job at the Gulfarium in Ft. Walton Beach Florida for the summer of my senior year in high school. He was diving in shows there. My job didn’t have the oomph that the divers’ jobs had, but it was a paying position. For my time there I lived in the Gulfarium, and after hours would often jump into the main tank and explore. I quickly became “friends” with a couple of the dolphin, feeling particularly close to them based on my previous experiences.
It wasn’t all good. One of the dolphins, a young and over-sexed male, died in an accident. He had been a particularly active little guy, and most of the female divers avoided him while in the tank because of his somewhat amorous advances. But his death was a tragedy that affected all of the diving cadre. We gave him a fitting funeral.
With those experiences in mind, drawing the dolphin who are part of The Tursiops Syndrome wasn’t difficult. Plus, there are reams of studies dealing with the species Tursiops Truncatus, the common bottlenose dolphin. And of course, there are the television programs that featured dolphin.
But, the common perceptions should be taken with a grain of salt. They are not “Flipper.”
Dolphins are quite intelligent, but that intelligence applies to their world, not ours. They should not be thought of like a buddy. They are big, strong animals with lots of teeth. Respect them for their intelligence, but don’t make them mad.
The dolphins in The Tursiops Syndrome become tools of an unscrupulous human being.
Don’t be that person.
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How do you get a nuke into the heart of the city? Maybe a dolphin can help. From Author John Waite, the tale of a police detective who matches wits with a mad scientist and terrorists intent on destroying America. When detective Hickory Logan joins Park Ranger Kevin Whitehead investigating the mysterious death of a dolphin she finds herself sucked into a far deeper whirlpool. Can she and Kevin stop the tide of terror that threatens to kill thousands or will they be fodder for a nuclear fireball?
A newspaper review described Tursiops thus: “The writing is, well, wonderful. Waite has a gift for dialogue and story-telling, and his plot is adventurous and perfectly paced.”
Enjoy an Excerpt
Red Logan hunkered down next to the Humvee’s left front wheel. He folded his lanky frame in several places to assure that the vehicle shielded him from rifle fire emanating from the house a hundred feet away.
A furious fusillade had greeted A-Company, first battalion, 407th Special Forces when their vehicles pulled to a halt in front of what was a rather strange building for northern Afghanistan. In the early morning darkness it looked for all the world like a California ranch-style home.
But there was no BMW parked in the driveway.
The firefight lasted less than fifteen minutes. There was only an occasional round pinging off the slate-riddled soil and infrequent bursts of automatic fire keeping the soldiers from charging the structure. Red wondered why the squads weren’t using some of the heavier weapons. He knew the unit armament included shoulder-fired missiles and a Carl Gustav 84-mm recoilless rifle but so far, the big stuff had been silent.
The tip had placed Azam al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda’s chief organizer for nine-eleven, in the house.
Numerous such tips over the past two years had come to nothing. Most of them originated in minds overly-motivated to garner the twenty million American dollars offered for the capture of several of the world’s most wanted terrorists.
At least one Osama bin Laden look-alike had been found dead. And it took weeks before authorities identified the body. The man had been killed and left in a house to which an Afghan citizen directed U.S. forces. Not only did he not get the reward he sought, but his countrymen also jailed him for mutilating the corpse by cutting off its hands and feet.
Army intelligence, a title Red thought oxymoronic, had considered tonight’s tip more credible than most since it had come in anonymously. The tipster hadn’t mentioned the reward. So the Special Forces unit had headed out in the predawn darkness for a two-hour drive north from Kabul into the mountainous terrain.
“Red?”
The voice belonged to the figure squeezed into the wheel well behind him.
He could barely see Jessie’s sinewy shape, strangely gawky where the video camera and its now-dark lights rested on her right thigh.
“Yeah, what?” he whispered.
“Should I get some video?” Jessie asked, cocking her left hand back over her shoulder.
“Hell no. We’re reporters, not soldiers. CNN’s not paying us to get shot. Just keep your ass down. There’s nothing to shoot.”
Before he could finish his sentence, an amplified Afghan voice rang out from the vicinity of the lead Humvee, imploring the occupants of the house to surrender. The answer was a three-shot rifle volley, the rounds pinging off the hard-pack and whining away into the darkness.
“Now,” Jessie said, pushing past Red and swinging the camera onto her shoulder, leaning on the Hummer’s hood.
“No.” Red yelled, trying to pull her to the ground. But it was too late. The light on Jessie’s camera flared brilliantly then died in a crash of glass and the harsh double bark of a Kalashnikov. The rounds zinged away into the darkness, but Red heard in the report the crunch of bone.
“Jessie.” he screamed.
About the Author:
Thousands of author John C Waite’s words flew past Alpha Centauri years ago, heading for the center of the galaxy, perhaps sparking an arthropod’s grin in route. Waite, a degreed journalist and retired Merchant Mariner has numerous writing and broadcasting awards to his credit, and millions of words in print and broadcast media. Originally from New Orleans he has called Panhandle Florida his home for fifty years, but still retains a taste for things Creole and Cajun. A recreational and professional sailor, his travels have covered the Caribbean, the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, portions of south and Central America, Canada, Hawaii, Ireland, Britain, and Europe. John resides in Pensacola, Florida. He is a father to four and grandfather to four. His books are available on Amazon.
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