From the bunch of headlights in the distance, two pairs veer off, on course for the unmanned quads. Very well, the plan works. Unfortunately, more lights split off and head in our direction. One team is on its way to check the speedboats, one goes to the bunker and two vehicles follow the unclaimed quads. Not so stupid, those boys! Unfortunately.
We’re almost there. If we manage to hot-wire a boat fast enough, we could be out of shooting-range in time.
When we arrive at the crane above the bay, we don’t have time to use it for a lift. We just have to jump. The cliff is about 60 feet high. Jumping from that height is a challenge alone. Sure, we’ve jumped cliffs like that for fun before, but not in the dark. We don’t know whether there are dangerous ledges below us, or if we have a free path into the water. But we have no choice; we push off the edge strongly and try to reach as far forward as possible.
Suddenly the reflection of the moon appears below me on the water’s surface. Relieved to know I’ve avoided any unplanned stopovers on rocky shelves, I hold my breath and get ready for the impact.
I don’t know how deep the water is, so underwater I immediately stretch out all fours to slow down as quickly as possible and swim up. After surfacing, I see Steve unharmed beside me, and we swim to the outer speedboat.
"Try to hot-wire this one; I’ll try my luck with the other. Whoever has their engine running first gets to drive!"
Steve is already at work on the ignition lock, while I climb onto the other boat from the floating pontoon. Before I’m even on board, I hear the strong outboard of Steve's boat howl. Surprised, I turn around. How did he do that so fast?!
Who cares, the important thing is that the engine is running. I quickly pull my knife out of the shaft and cut the fuel line to the outboard on “my” boat. A mistake like the one with the jeep in front of the bunker won’t happen to me again.
I jump on the floating pontoon, cut off the mooring with my knife and jump onto the bow of Steve's boat.
"Full throttle!" I shout, and Steve pushes the levers down onto the dashboard.
It’s pretty cool, when almost 500 horses unfold their raw power and accelerate. Good thing I’m lying on the floor, otherwise I’d fall over and slide to the back of the boat. The torque of the accelerating boat has Steve firmly embedded in the driver’s seat.
"How did you start the engine so fast?" I ask.
"Keys were in it!"
Of course, to avoid constantly looking for the keys, you can just leave them in the ignition. Makes sense on an island like Kahoolawe.
We leave the bay at full speed. Suddenly I discover a bright flickering on land, almost like a thin fire.
The engines drown out every other sound, but I realize: someone is shooting at us. One of the pursuers has positioned himself on the rocks of the neighboring bay. We just left the protection of the cliffs in between, heading to the open sea and right into his line of fire.
I’m in the front of the boat, looking backward to the island. Steve’s looking straight out to the sea and hasn’t noticed the fire. Where the bullets hit the water, small fountains erupt into the air. The strikes are getting closer in a hurry.
I instantly jump over the control panel onto Steve. We both fall to the ground and slide backwards. We come to an abrupt stop right in front of the motors. Exactly where I wanted to get.
"Are you stupid?" Steve yells at me.
"Head down, hold still! They’re shooting at us! We should be safe here - the bullets can’t pierce through the massive engine blocks!"
On our current straight course, we make an easy target. I hear the impacts of the balls, but the motor continues to run. As we pull away from the shooter at about 60 mph, the bullets quickly lose power, and soon our boat is no longer being hit. Nevertheless, we keep cover for a while, just to make sure.
I get up first and start checking out the boat. The engines are running, and as long as the tank is intact, it stays that way. The control panel is damaged, a few indicators are broken, and the seat where Steve sat is perforated with bullet holes.
"That was at least the second time you saved my life in the last few minutes!" says Steve, as he stands up next to me and inspects the damage.
"Don’t celebrate too early," I reply resigned, pointing at some bullet holes in the air hose of our boat.
"We’re gonna drown," I add.
Steve checks the hose and thinks for a while before he pushes the throttle all the way down again. We accelerate slightly. Astonished, I watch Steve changing the trim of the engines.
"What are you doing?" I ask.
"By changing the angle of the engines, you can either make the boat lay completely flat on the water or mainly plane on the rear."
"Yeah," I reply, "so we either get a smooth ride or one with a lot of rear wake. A waterskier or wakeboarder might like that, but what good does that do us?"
"I trimmed the boat for flat water. It’s now as flat on the surface as possible. I’m figuring we can get going at top speed even without any air in the hose."
Not a bad idea! At top speed, only the hard plastic hull is in the water. Since the boat is planing, it has so little depth, that the air hose barely touches the water.
The plan might work. We'll know soon enough.
The air pressure in the tube decreases rapidly, enough that I can depress the rubber like a flat bicycle tire.
I go to the front to weigh the boat down a little. The flatter the boat is on the water, the better.
So far it’s going well. As long as the motor perseveres and we avoid tight curves, we have a good chance of not sinking.
"Where are we going? Big Island?" Steve pulls me from my thoughts.
"Nope. La Perouse. The car is there."
"Oh, then change course for Maui."
"Wait a sec!" I grab the flare gun and shoot a signal rocket into the air.
"Are you stupid?" Steve shouts, while the bullet explodes above us and illuminates us and our surroundings in a bright red light.
"Helicopter," I say.
"What?"
"They still have a helicopter that can be here any second, looking for us."
"Oh, and you wanna make it easy for him by lighting the way?”
"Nope, the helicopter’s not yet in sight. The pilot probably got informed over radio that we went straight towards Big Island with a damaged speedboat. From Maui to Big Island, he’ll be coming straight at us. Thanks to the flare, the boys on Kahoolawe will hopefully assume that we’ve taken on too much damage from the gunfire to carry on. If I were the helicopter pilot, and knew that the boat I'm looking for can’t move anymore, I would fly to where we started out and go directly towards the emergency signal. If he follows a straight line, he’ll find us much faster than by flying a random zig-zag course towards Big Island.
If the pilot thinks like me, we‘ve bought us some time. First he’ll fly to Kahoolawe, and from there to Big Island. If we turn towards Maui now, chances are our paths won’t cross."
"Then pray he thinks like you!" Steve says, and makes a long turn towards Maui.
"... And that he’s flying low and the moon isn’t shining too bright."
The powerful engines dig into the sea and we draw a long track of foaming, shining white water behind us. Since we’ll start sinking as soon as we slow down, we have no choice but to continue at top speed and hope for the best.
Part of the hope dies just a minute later, as a helicopter’s searchlight appears above Maui. Right now it looks as if the chopper is flying from Maui to Kahoolawe. He hasn’t yet taken a direct route to Big Island, so not over us.
There’s nothing else we can do now, but await our fate, for better or worse.
Resigned, we hold our breath and watch the bright spot in the night sky. Steve finishes the turn and we now head directly to Maui. We won’t reach La Perouse with this course, but maybe we’ll attract less attention closer to the island.
On the south side of Haleakala, where we are now, there are neither villages n
or ports, only lava desert. The only road isn’t along the coast, and it wouldn’t make sense to land here. But so close to the island, our white tail may look like small waves breaking along the shoreline. Moreover, we’re moving away from the helicopter. It’s a game with an uncertain outcome. We do a detour that takes longer, but might provide the bonus of camouflage. Soon we’ll know if our tactics worked.
As hoped, the helicopter flies to the bay from where we left. Here he goes down briefly, perhaps to take someone on board or to obtain accurate information.
Soon it rises again and flies in the direction we originally flew off in. Thank God! The pilot flies very low. He’d rather be fast than gain a better perspective from a higher altitude. It appears our flare-gun distraction might have worked.
The helicopter is flying about two miles left of us in the opposite direction. Just as we’re passing each other, the clouds suddenly rip open and a beautifully shining moon casts a bright silver stripe on the water’s surface. The white tail of water behind our boat must now be clearly visible, even from two miles away.
"Damn it, couldn’t the fucking moon back off for another ten minutes? We would have been safe by then," Steve bemoans.
My body is pumping gallons of adrenaline into my blood. Amazing that I still can produce that stuff given the loads that I already made over the last two days.
The helicopter flies unerringly straight. Slowly, my muscles relax and I dare to breathe again. I turn to Steve. He’s still staring at the helicopter, which is now directly next to us.
A few seconds later, it's over - helicopters have no rear view mirrors. It seems we’ve come out of this by the skin on our teeth.
"I think we're lucky," I say.
"Yeah, well let’s save the cork-popping until we’re actually on land," warns Steve.
Less than ten minutes later, we reach La Perouse. The helicopter flies in wide circles and gains altitude almost exactly halfway between Kahoolawe and Big Island. My plan worked. They are looking for a sinking boat!
"Kill the engines," I shout. "We can’t get off while doing 60 clicks, and there are too many rocks in the shallow waters here. Let’s swim the rest of the way."
Steve pulls back the throttle and we slow down. The stern sinks in fast and water starts running into the boat. Steve turns off the engines and we jump overboard. At this point, the seabed drops steeply. It gets deep very fast here. The boat has saved our lives. Soon it will be a new home to many small sea creatures as an artificial reef.
I usually don’t like swimming at night. Dark water is kind of scary. Sharks hunt at night and I feel small and helpless in black water.
But it’s just for 500 meters and then we’re safe. The endorphins keep my stomach from turning, and for once I’m in the mood for a little night swimming!
My Toyota is still parked where I left it and the engine starts without any problems - a tribute to the Japanese art of engineering! Although the helicopter is circling far away, we still drive to the main road with the lights switched off.
Done. We have actually done it!
Chapter 7
"I could really go for a cold one right about now!" says Steve.
It's midnight. We are the only vehicle on the Mokulele Highway between Kahului, Kihei, so I slow to a stop on the side of the road.
"Why didn’t I think of that before? There’s a cooler full of beer in the trunk."
Steve isn’t screwing around and brings out the whole cooler. "That way we won’t have to stop so often," he says, grinning. The beer isn’t exactly cold, but not warm either - but by far the tastiest beer of my life!
"What do we do next?" Steve asks after the second beer.
"I have absolutely no idea! I only planned up until after Kahoolawe. I wasn’t even sure if you were actually there. Let's go home and sleep on it."
"Home: I don’t think that’s a good idea. We should go into hiding now. These people from Kahoolawe are very powerful and quite dangerous."
When we arrive in Kahului, our minds are made up. First we buy a twelve-pack of beer, a bottle of Havana Club and some cola at the Hawaii Liquor Superstore. Then we stop at every ATM we can find and withdraw the maximum amount allowed from our credit and debit cards. Afterwards, we drive home to get our passports from the apartments.
Half an hour later, we pull into a McDonalds with more than 5,000 dollars in cash in our pockets. Those drive-thrus truly come in handy when you’re hungry and it can’t wait. Shortly afterwards, we’re on our way to Lahaina.
The shoreline just before Lahaina is called "Thousand Peaks.” Good surfing spots and beach parks are lined up for at least three miles along the road. Surfers aren’t the only ones attracted by this area; many locals also come here to fish. Between their cars, a dilapidated station wagon with two guys drinking beer doesn’t stand out.
After a while, we go to the beach and sit in the warm sand, looking out over the sea. In front of us lies Lanai; left of it, but out of sight, is Kahoolawe.
"Begin," I say.
"After the attack, I woke up in the same speedboat we used to get out of there today. The guys on board were masked and didn’t say a word. When they realized that I was awake, they tased me again.
As you now know, you don’t stay in dreamland for very long after somebody electroshocks you. This time I woke up in the bunker. I didn’t know where I was. My hands were tied, eyes blindfolded. Eventually a guy came up to me and introduced himself as Marc Andrews. That scared me. When kidnappers introduce themselves, they usually aren’t planning to let their victims leave alive."
He asked if I knew him. When I said no, he asked questions about Christine. Strangely, he seemed nice and polite. So I wanted to know what was actually going on. Then he punched me in the stomach and made it clear that he was the one asking the questions.
He alleged that I was going out with Christine. I explained to him that I only got to know her at the day of the party. Then his fist visited my stomach for a second time. I told him to send someone to my house and look in my passport. He would then see that I only got to Hawaii a day before the party, and had not been to Hawaii for a long time before that.
He then left the bunker but returned soon after. Too soon. No one could have been in my room in that time to take a look at my passport, but, somehow, he knew I wasn’t lying.
He apologized and said something like, "In any war, innocent people die." I thought I could leave then, but he kept me there. Slowly, I realized that his remark about innocent people dying was not just a figure of speech:
they really wanted me out of the way."
"I’m not surprised - while you were being kidnapped, they tried to drown me,” I interrupt.
"I overheard a conversation between Andrews and a guard. Andrews said the freighter just left Shanghai and would be here in a few days. He wanted to bring me to this freighter. He said a dead German tourist in Hawaii would create too much attention and lead to a thorough investigation. But if they threw me overboard halfway between Hawaii and South America, my body would never be found and nobody would care two hoots about me."
"A freighter, you say? Where could that freighter dock? I doubt in any of the major ports. How did he want to take you there?"
"Well," says Steve, "Thanks to you, I’ll probably never know the answer to that. If you hadn’t saved me, I’d soon be leaving this beautiful world."
"So what’s with all the precautions: the passports, all the cash, and sleeping on the beach?" I ask.
"This guy Andrews just radioed and knew within minutes when I had entered the States. They must have access to the immigration authority’s database. There’s no other explanation. I guarantee you: if they can access it, they also won’t have any problem checking our credit cards. Since we’re not staying in a hotel, we won’t appear in any directory. But these guys are good; it’s only a matter of time before they know where we live."
"That’s not very difficult; even Christine found me."
"Christine visit
ed you? Does she have something to do with it? Andrews doesn’t kidnap or kill other people just out of jealousy. He’s not the type."
"Christine believes he’s dealing in weapons. When she was with him, she heard him on the phone talking about rockets. After they broke up, she pretended she had a new boyfriend and claimed to have told him all about Andrews’ illegal weapon deals. She told Andrews if anything happens to her, her new boyfriend would go to the cops. So Andrews apparently monitored Christine. When the two of you were sucking face at the party, he assumed you were her new guy. Now everything fits the picture, at least everything about the kidnapping. But we still don’t know what’s really going on, and what kind of a freighter it is that was supposed to take you on your last ride.”
Half way to Hawaii Page 9
