At the DEA office, Dema told Jeff what her plan was. He was all for it.

"This could be bigger than the Yong Lee bust up in Vancouver," he said. "I'll round up the RFID chips for you, and make sure Homeland Security has the right scanners."

Dema used her time at the office to write up a report on her "investigation" of Captain Ryan Shaunessy. Of course she had to adjust some of the details to make them sound more plausible than what she knew had actually happened. But it clearly moved Ryan from the category of possible suspect to major ally.

Jeff returned with a bag of the electronic tags, and handed them over to Dema. 

"When you give the word that the chips are in place, all the Washington State Ferry security teams will start using the scanners to check out the cars on the boats," he said.

"That's perfect, Jeff," said Dema. She got her car and headed back to Anacortes to meet up with Ryan.

She met him at the ferry terminal and they had dinner at Charlie's again. The waitress was thrilled to see Ryan bring Dema back. 

This time when she was writing down Ryan's "usual" Dema said, "Make mine the same." He was right, the cod was nearly as good as the salmon.

"There's a pub in Chicago called Finn McCool that has pretty good fish 'n chips," said Dema, "But not like this."

"Ah, Finn McCool, one of the great Irish heroes. As I recall the story, when Finn was a lad he burnt his thumb on the salmon of wisdom when he was preparing it for his druid master. He stuck the thumb in his mouth to ease the burn and got a taste of the wisdom. Later in life, whenever he was at a loss for what to do, he would put his thumb in his mouth and the wisdom would come to him."

After dinner they went to a nearby scuba diving supply store and outfitted themselves with full-body neoprene wetsuits. It was Ryan's idea. Now that he knew he didn't have to leave his clothes behind in his dream-shift, he realized they'd be more comfortable when they had to shift back to normal to work on the bags if they weren't dealing with the onset of hypothermia. Dema said she hadn't noticed him with his thumb in his mouth.

So after they got to his house, they put on the wetsuits and walked down to the same little cove they had swum from the night before. Dema had the RFID chips in a plastic bag, tucked inside the zippered front of her suit. Ryan had a waterproof flashlight hung from his neck on a lanyard. When they shifted, Dema made sure the bag of chips stayed intact, but now she had it on her seal-belly under a layer of blubber. Ryan still wore the flashlight on its lanyard.

As before, they visited cave after cave, but now each time they found a bag they shifted back to normal, and Ryan held the light while Dema opened the bag and put a chip inside. She shoved them in as deep as she could, even though she knew the bags would probably not be opened again until they reached the mainland.

They had worked far into the night, and now they were inside one of the larger sea caves, standing waste-deep in the water, thankful for their wet suits. Ryan had the light on, and Dema was busy sliding an arm deep among the packages in one of the bags they had found there, when they heard a boat engine. It was very close, the sound of its approach had been masked by the wave noise echoing around them in the cave.

Ryan doused the light, and Dema let go of the RFID chip and pulled her arm out of the bag. But the men in the boat had their own lights, and they were already playing them around the mouth of the cave. In alarm, Dema knew that if they were discovered it could easily blow the whole operation. But if she left the bag open it could be just as bad. She hurried to reclose the bag. Ryan sank beneath the surface.

Dema was left fumbling to get the bag sealed in the dark. The cave was big enough for the small boat to nose inside, and the lights from it were already sweeping very close to her. Then she heard a dog barking. No, it was Ryan, in sea lion shape, barking at the men in the boat, distracting them.

"Stupid seal!" someone said. She heard the splash of a paddle hitting the water.

"Ignore it!" said another voice.

But it was hard to ignore, as other seals joined Ryan and raised an almost deafening cacophony of barking outside the cave. The lights swung away from Dema and onto the seals.

"What's going on? They've never done this before!"

"Dunno. But ignore them, okay?"

Dema finished closing the bag and shifted to seal shape herself. She swam out to join Ryan. When he felt her beside him, he stopped barking and they hung back from the boat. The other seals kept barking for a while, into the game of it, but soon quieted and dispersed. 

Dema and Ryan stayed to watch the bags being loaded into the boat. There was no hint that the men suspected anything.

When the boat left, they followed it. It didn't stop at any other caves. Dema figured these mules were purposely given only limited information. 

The boat tied up at a little dock on Orcas island, and the men hauled the bags up to a small shack on the shore. There was a floodlight on the dock, and Dema got a good look at the men. She and Ryan were ready to call it a night, and went back to his place.