Niklas took Maria's face in his hands. "What was your dream?"

Maria smiled, and her eyes filled with tears. "I was in a boat, and you swam up to me. You were transformed into a dolphin, but I it knew it was you."

Niklas laughed. "I dreamed of you as well. I saw you in the boat with moonlight shining down on you. You said something to me, but I couldn't understand it."

Maria pressed her head against Niklas's chest. "I told you I loved you."

Niklas kissed the top of her head and murmured, "I love you too."

Tepeu tapped them both on the shoulders. "My friends, we are all now desperados. The bribes will only keep the silence for so long. They say sooner or later, even the parrots start to gossip in Mexico. We must go."

Maria and Niklas followed Tepeu into a large hangar. A twin-engine, six-seater Piper Aztec was being readied by a flight crew. Tepeu exchanged greetings with a man who looked to be the pilot, and Tepeu handed him a thick envelope. More bribes, Niklas thought.

Tepeu walked back to Maria and Niklas. "Everything is ready," he said. "We can board the plane." Tepeu reached into another thick, large envelope he was carrying and handed two small blue books to Niklas and Maria. "These are your new pa.s.sports. Welcome to Canada -we are now all Canadians. This is good, yes?" Tepeu smiled at Maria and Niklas.

Niklas opened his Canadian pa.s.sport. He was now Stephen La.r.s.en, a math teacher from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Maria had downloaded a picture of Niklas from Facebook. He glanced at Maria's -she was now Maria La.r.s.en. "Are we going to Canada?" he asked.

Tepeu laughed. "No, no, that is too cold. We are going to Belize. A very nice place Acan has picked out for us. There is a nice dive shop for you, and a nice bar to run for me. You will see, you will see, this will be good. And we will meet our dolphin friends there." Tepeu pushed him and Maria towards the plane.

The engines fired, and the plane taxied on the runway behind a giant 767 headed for New York. A short time later, they were airborne. Niklas felt the freedom of flight like never before. He was free of the Cancun prison and soaring through air with the blue ocean on his left and the green jungle on his right.

The large ma.s.s of Cancun hotels and beaches gave way to an expanse of brilliant blue ocean and white clouds. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined he would free dolphins, and free himself in the process. Whatever the future held for him, he knew he could face it. He had Maria beside him. Niklas rested his head back in his seat, squeezed Maria's hand, and fell asleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

NEW ARRIVAL.

As the small airplane touched down, Niklas realized just seven days had pa.s.sed since he had first arrived in Mexico. Now here he was in another foreign country, under a new name. He was a fugitive. He could not have been happier.

The small party of desperados breezed through Belize customs and took off again for its final destination -Ambergris Caye and the airport of San Pedro. Fans of Madonna, the singer, would know the place from the song. Those lucky enough to have visited the place would remember it for its beauty.

There was no taxi to greet the desperados; instead, a golf cart bounced them along sandy streets lined with colorful houses and small, low-rise hotels. There was no building taller than a palm tree, and Niklas could hardly believe this place and Cancun existed in the same universe -they were diametrically opposite.

Families rode together on golf carts or in groups on bicycles, and people walked, or strolled, or ambled at a pace almost slower than a land turtle. The few vehicles present made way for everyone, and horns were used to honk h.e.l.lo to friends and neighbors.

The cart motored along through the little town of San Pedro, down the length of the caye, and finally deposited them at the front of a large, three-story house raised on stilts. An ornate stairway led up to a wide, wraparound balcony with a hammock that dared anyone to rest in its folds for just a moment that would seem like forever. Maria and Niklas followed Tepeu into the house, which was beautifully decorated in a style that even a Tommy Bahama designer would fall in love with, and walked out to the beach on the other side. The pristine blue ocean lay before them, and a hint of reef a kilometer out to sea was evident through the spray of white waves.

Maria and Niklas drew close to each other as they continued following Tepeu on the tour of their new place. Tepeu effusively described the home, the surroundings, the beach, and their future in Belize.

He motioned for them to follow him onto the long dock that jutted some two hundred meters out into the sea. "There is one last thing I must show you, but I hope they have arrived," he said as he hurried along the dock.

Maria and Niklas had no idea what Tepeu was talking about but dutifully followed him as two people lost in a new wonderland. "What is it?" Niklas asked.

"Wait." Tepeu put one finger to his lips, motioning for silence. Only the sea breeze made the merest whisper, and then there it was -the sound, the unmistakable sound, of dolphins. "You hear them? They have arrived, all the way from Cancun." Tepeu threw up his hands.

Maria, Niklas, and Tepeu moved forward to the end of the dock, and a pod of twelve dolphins surfaced. They splashed and jumped and called back and forth to each other and to Maria and Niklas.

Niklas turned to Maria, "Are these the dolphins we freed in Cancun?"

Maria took Nikla's hand, "Yes, can you hear their voices, do you recognize them?"

Niklas c.o.c.ked his head to one side, listening intently to their clicks and whistles, "My G.o.d, yes, I recognize them, they were the same ones from my dreams, they are the same ones we freed." He looked at Maria and Tepeu, "How did they get here so fast?"

"They have swum over four hundred nautical miles, the leader there ..." Maria motioned to a large dolphin with noticeable grey patches, "claims they rested only briefly, they wanted to be here to greet us."

Maria and Niklas hugged and kissed each other, then jumped in the water with the dolphins. They each grabbed a fin and laughed and shouted as the dolphins pulled them along.

"You see," Tepeu shouted from the dock, "they knew you would be here, and they came to be with you. You are their lifelong friends."

Maria and Niklas floated in the ocean, their hands touching, as the dolphins swam lazily by, creating small swirls and waves in the calm water. If there would be a time happier than this they were not sure, but at the moment, the moment was magic.

EPILOGUE.

Pekka and Caroline languished in the Cancun jail for several months. Niklas wanted to help free them, but he couldn't do it without revealing who had actually a.s.sisted him in the Dolphins escape.

A video taken by a tourist and posted on YouTube showed Pekka and Caroline throwing off their clothes and rushing into the ocean only minutes before the Dolphins were freed. An American lawyer hired by Pekka argued successfully that the two, (now dubbed the naked eco terrorist) by the Mexican media could not have a.s.sisted in the dolphins escape. A previous video from the nightclub showed them locked in an embrace only twenty minutes before the dolphin escape.

With great reluctance, the Mexican police set Pekka and Caroline free. Pekka returned to a large empty home in the states, with a note from his wife telling him to contact her lawyer regarding their divorce. Caroline returned to England to be fired by Malcolm. He had had enough of her conference prowling. Niklas heard that Caroline started an athletic sportswear company and within a short time had a legion of young men under her.

Niklas started a dive shop with the help of Acun, and Tepeu opened a small bar nearby called the Blue Dolphin. One day while Niklas was loading diving gear on the dock, Ansa and Magnus showed up.

Ansa and Niklas rekindled their relationship and spent that summer scuba diving. In the years that followed, while Ansa studied marine biology in San Diego, she would come to live with her father in the summers.

Niklas and Maria married later that summer. Maria was pregnant by the fall, and the baby girl who came into their lives was named Ixchel, after the Mayan moon.

Niklas could not have been happier. Some nights, when the waves lapped the sh.o.r.e outside the house, and the frigate birds sailed overhead in tight formation, and the moon shone just right he would grab onto a dolphins fin in his dreams. The next moment he was flexing his powerful tail and swimming with them under the Maya moon. Maria would be there, right by his side, and sometimes even with baby IxChel. The dolphins still let them into their dreams, just every so often, so they could play together.

No one seemed to mind.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

I want to thank my good friend Diane Semchuck, who read this book while my wife and I were on our 30th anniversary cruise in Europe. When I returned from our trip, the ma.n.u.script was laying on the counter with a note, "I loved, loved, loved your book! I couldn't put it down." That was my first review, and the motivation to get this published.

I also want to thank the guidance of Susan Toy, for providing me a road map of self publishers, graphic artists and editors, who guided me along. For a first time writer and self publisher, her information was invaluable. Susan gave me an introduction to Rachel Small at www.faultessfinishediting.com, and with her copy and stylistic edit, and insights, this Novella came to be.

My final thanks to the good people at Iguana Books, who liked what I wrote, and said they would be proud to publish it.

Iguana Books.

iguanabooks.com.

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