"And you only let me know now, after we chatted the whole evening yesterday?"
"I wanted to sleep on it and figure out what this information is worth to us," I reply.
"Makes complete sense. You thought it was a good idea to get drunk, so that you could better think about what to do with such an insignificant piece of information – is that about right?!"
"Easy, boy, easy. And please don’t scream so loud, I have a bit of headache coming on."
"A little headache?!" Steve imitates me, "In my head, there’s a muscle man with a sledgehammer beating the inner wall of my skull every second!"
"Ah, I know that guy. Say ‘hello’ to him!"
"Alright – joke’s over. Where does Andrews live?"
"After you got kidnapped, I flew over Maui with Bob to search for you. In front of a luxury property on the north coast, we saw a helicopter. I'm sure it's the same helicopter that I saw on Kahoolawe; at least the color and model match. In addition, Andrews used to fly over to Maui.
"You’re going to have to do better to convince me; isn’t that just the classic helicopter and standard color?"
"True, the helicopter model is widespread: the fire department uses it, the Coast Guard, and they even use it to hang power lines onto the poles. But in bright red, it’s rare."
"Rare doesn’t mean one-of-a-kind!"
“Nitpicker!“
"Tom, there are about 30 private jets parked at the airport during Christmas. The entire upper crust of America owns a home on Maui. There could be dozens of red helicopters! What if the villa belongs to someone else?"
"Then we break into the wrong house."
"Ah, so now we’re breaking into luxury villas?"
"Well, so far we have no real evidence of Andrews` criminal operations. It's just too early to go to the police.”
"I was kidnapped, they repeatedly tried to kill us, my landlord is dead, two houses on Maui got burned, a warehouse exploded in Shanghai, and you have the files."
"Right. But, we can’t prove your kidnapping and the assassinations. It’s just our word against theirs. Two houses burned down on Maui, unfortunately causing two casualties. According to the police report, those were accidents or negligence. What happened in Shanghai is difficult for the local Maui police to understand. According to the newspapers, there was a gas explosion in a warehouse at the port. Yes, a clever official will be suspicious of the high number of accidents caused by gas fires, but apart from that our story will probably be dismissed as a cock-and-bull story from two stressed tourists.
With the files, we can prove that a particular shipping company makes no profit. This might interest the fiscal authorities when they see how luxuriously the owner lives. But it’s certainly not enough to bring up a criminal investigation. Apart from that, we would also have to explain how we got in possession of the folders."
"You’re right, but still: what if it is the wrong villa?"
"Then we steal something expensive!"
Half an hour later, we drive towards Kahului on Haleakala Highway. Steve hasn’t said a word since breakfast. Now he breaks the silence:
"You really want to break into Andrews’ home?"
"Do you have a better idea?"
"No," he replies, "but if we get caught, I'm going to lose my job and maybe even my pilot's license."
"Why’s that?"
"Life at an airline is slightly different; pilots are honorable men. To give you an example, we get invited several times a year to dinner parties. But not for the fun of it - there are observers from the company there. Cut in line at the buffet or give a wrong salute, and you receive a written warning. A pilot has to be the perfect gentleman, especially when working for an Asian airline."
"Gorgeous!"
"An arrest for burglary on your resume is definitely not very gentlemanly."
"That’s the same with any job. Look on the bright side: if you get thrown out, you can move over to Germany with me..."
"What am I supposed to do there?"
"Yeah, well, you didn’t let me finish! When the rape blossom is in bloom, you fly photographers over the fields near Kiel. Apart from that, you could also offer scenic flights; and if you start missing those long-haul flights, you are more than welcome to sit in my closet and stare at a television with a test pattern for 14 hours!"
"I have an idea how to arm ourselves," Steve replies.
"Ah, I thought you’d be plotting a way to avoid the burglary; instead you’re putting the artillery together. Respect!"
"Your closet argument convinced me."
"Oh, I thought it’d be the rape blossom..."
"We have to do something, unless we want to keep constantly expecting to get shot, strangled, stabbed, poisoned or blown up. Frozen paint balls!"
"Holy crap! You change subjects faster than my father. Paintball? The game where you shoot each other with colored ammunition?"
"Exactly. There are fully automatic paintball guns with lots of power; you get hit up close, you're bleeding."
"Ah yes..."
"They fire ten shots per second. Imagine getting hit in the head by thirty frozen bullets in three seconds!"
"Boy, you're totally nuts! How did you come up with that idea?"
"We played paintball recently, and you tend to get a lot of time to think in the cockpit. So I figured you can probably do some real harm with hard balls, and came up with the idea to try it out one day with frozen balls."
"I gained some good experience with electric tasers, recently," I interject.
"No worries, we’ll get some of those too. But for that, you have to get pretty close to the opponent. We definitely need some kind of a gun to widen our range, but one that won’t kill the guy right away."
A little later, we buy a paint ball gun at Sports Authority, lots of paintballs, two hunting knives and two flashlights.
After the shopping trip, we drive to the south side of the island and enjoy the rest of the day surfing in high head waves.
On the way home, we stop at Panda Express, an extremely fine Asian fast-food chain. The orange chicken is sheer poetry and an absolute must in the culinary world of Hawaii.
Back home, two bottles of rum have to evacuate their place in the freezer to make place for several packages of paintballs. The rum doesn’t need to grieve long, since he immediately moves into our gasses together with his new roommates "cola," "lime" and "ice."
We spend the evening recalling the past and shooting the shit. We laugh a lot and it feels good not to think about Andrews and all that other crap for a while.
At breakfast, the muscleman with his sledgehammer once again pays us a visit, but the evening was well worth the hangover. The paint balls froze overnight. While Steve prepares the paintball gun, I steal an old metal bucket from our landlady.
We hike into the bushes behind the house and start shooting at the bucket from about 15 yards away.
I have to admit: I’m impressed! This "toy gun" shoots at a stunning clip and the frozen balls leave some decent dents in the metal bucket. Steve is right; I would not want to get hit in the head by one of those.
There is only one flaw: after about 20 minutes, the balls thaw and just pop when striking the bucket, without causing significant damage. Steve is confident to tackle the problem with some dry ice.
Today is Saturday, which is not a good day for a burglary since most people spend their weekends at home.
We arrange to meet with Bob and Kiara for dinner and to visit our old friend Jeff, founder and director of the windsurf brand "Hot Sails Maui." His house is located right on the water. It’s best for us not to make an appearance at the public beach since Andrews’ people have already twice searched for us there. So it’s good to have a friend with a private beach. From Jeff's property, we can go windsurfing without being seen. On top of that, some world-class waves break just a few hundred yards in front of Jeff’s house.
In a small bungalow right on the beach, there are always plenty of sailboards, and
some rigged sails are usually hanging in the garage. When it comes to using his stuff, Jeff is rather unconventional. Possessive pronouns such as "mine" or "yours" don’t seem to exist in his vocabulary. Most people in his circle of friends can come onto the property at any time to relax or help themselves to a rich variety of water sports toys.
Around noon, the trade wind is not quite strong enough, so we go stand-up paddling. This reminds me of the two boards I buried on the beach on Kahoolawe, and my conscience gets the best of me. First thing tomorrow I’ll call the surf shop.
The paddle trip is wonderful. In the crystal clear water, you feel as if you’re gliding silently over an aquarium. We see colorful fish, coral, turtles, reef sharks and even a few small stingrays.
In the afternoon, the wind increases and we spend a few hours of windsurfing in the waves. All in all, just another day on Maui.
In the evening, we meet up with Kiara and Bob in the Kula Lodge. Everything here is incredible: the view, the food, the wine and, unfortunately, also the prices.
At dinner, we inform them about the events of the last week. Coinciding with dessert, we serve them our plan to break into Andrews’ home. At first they try to talk us out of doing it, but they ultimately recognize the necessity. Bob insists we send him a text message every 30 minutes. In case he doesn’t get any more messages from us, he wants to call his old friend General Miller, the chief of the Hawaiian military, for help.
It’s a very nice evening, and although we spend nearly three hours in the restaurant, we only drink two bottles of wine. After the stately alcohol consumption over the last couple days, it’s a nice change to stay almost sober tonight.
On the way home, my phone rings. It’s Alex.
"Tom, I got a letter from you in New York. Two credit cards?"
"Oh, I almost forgot. Can you please use both of them a couple of times?"
"Gladly! Should I buy anything specific or just go on a wild shopping spree? If that’s the case, I’ll just give the cards to my wife."
"Oh well, would be nice if you kept them under their limits. Our opponent Marc Andrews can apparently check our cards. He found the hotel in Shanghai where I signed in using a false name, but paid with Steve's credit card. So, I wanna send him a bit astray."
"That’s perfect - I have an appointment in Munich tomorrow. So I’ll fuel up here in Hamburg with your card and use Steve’s to have dinner in Munich. Tuesday, I need to be in Berlin, so I can leave a wonderful track throughout Germany. This will occupy your friend a while."
"Perfect! Oh, Alex, can you send us money through Western Union?"
"For a moment I really thought you’d be treating me to dinner and gas."
"Oh, no worries, we don’t want the money back that you spend on our credit cards. Steve earns so much, he’ll happily cover that."
Steve’s fist violently crashes into my shoulder, while he smiles broadly.
"What’s ‘Western Union’?" Alex asks.
"It’s a service where you can send cash without a bank account. You just go there, show your ID and pay cash. For the transaction, you get a number assigned, and with that number, I can go to a Western Union office here and withdraw the money. You only have to tell them my name and give me the exact amount and the transaction number."
"Alright, how much should I send?"
"Find out if there’s a limit. If you can, send 10,000 dollars."
"Did you just say ten thousand US dollars?"
"We want to give the impression that we’re back in Germany, so we can’t use any credit cards here. Our cash is running out and I have no idea how long this is gonna take. Rather than going there every few days to send us small amounts, you better just go once and send us a big wad."
“Ten thousand it is. Oh, by the way, I'm going to go to some really fancy restaurants in Munich and Berlin. Thanks for your cards again!"
"Don’t make such a big deal out of it; it’s only money."
"Yes, when it comes to money I'm a bit old-fashioned."
"You mean ‘bourgeois’!"
"Call it what you want. Since you’re so totally casual, I’m pretty sure you don’t care how much my dinner costs on your credit card."
"Touché!" I reply and end the conversation.
At home we open one last aloha beer for the day.
"Tell me, did you actually talk to Christine while I was in Shanghai?" I ask Steve on the terrace.
"No. Damn, I totally forgot about that. Are you sure we can trust her?"
"I think so; at least she didn’t pass on the name of the hotel I told her I was staying at in Shanghai. I’ll text her; maybe she’s in the mood to join us for a surf session tomorrow.”
"Hold that thought until after the burglary. Those two days won’t make a difference to her, and we don’t need to take any unnecessary risks now."
I put the phone down again; we finish our drinks and go to bed.
The next morning, there’s a surprisingly good vibe at the breakfast table. The combination of a little alcohol and a lot of sleep gives us an almost tangible energy. One might even think there were actually three of us sitting at the table: Steve, myself and our good mood.
Otherwise, the day is the same as yesterday. After a hearty breakfast, we drive down to Jeff’s again. A canoe trip follows a windsurf session and, by pure coincidence, we pass by Jeff’s glowing grill and can’t resist.
Tomorrow is our big day: our first burglary, apart from a couple minor delinquencies in our youth. A debut without a rehearsal, a skydive without a reserve parachute, a car without a reverse gear. Tomorrow is all or nothing!
"Tell me, how do we to actually open a locked door?" Steve rips me out of my thoughts.
"Uh, credit card?"
This fucking Steve, with his reasonable, forward-thinking ways, thinks of nothing but problems. As always. How I’m supposed to open a locked door is a problem I don’t have to deal with until tomorrow!
"Is it important that the break-in remains undetected?" asks Steve.
"Good question. Depends on what we find. But basically, it would probably be better."
"Well, how do you intend to get into the house?"
"Maybe it’s open!"
"Come on..."
"Well, you can only reach the villa by helicopter. There’s no road. How many burglars own a helicopter?"
"Do you really think the villa isn’t locked?"
"No idea - basically there’s no need to have any locks in the doors at all."
"You're right, but somehow it’s not very likely, is it?"
"No, of course not. Presumably there are locks and maybe even security guards. If we’re correct, Andrews is a criminal, and if he’s storing any documents that prove that in the house, he would be pretty stupid to leave the door open."
“So back to question one: How do we get into the house?"
"I don’t have the faintest idea, my friend. Let’s just make a trip to the house tomorrow, check the surroundings and decide on the spot."
With that, the tiresome if-and-but discussion is finished.
Of course we can’t sleep, so we take a midnight drink out onto the terrace. The view of the twinkling lights of Kahului is world class and, together with the rustling of palm leaves, somehow soothing.
Breakfast the next morning has a surprise in store for us. Just when I cook the bacon on the side burner of the outdoor gas grill, a bright red helicopter rushes past just downhill from us. Steve jumps to his feet and I also run to the balcony railing. The helicopter keeps going straight to Kahoolawe. Bingo! Andrews is away, his villa just waiting for our visit. We’re as happy as a couple of kids in front of a candy shop. We are now too jittery for a quiet breakfast, so we just put the bacon and eggs between two slices of untoasted toast and saddle the hooves – ahem – saddle the horses. In other words: we throw everything we think might be helpful into the car and race down the mountain.
Just as Steve wants to leave the Haleakala Highway to turn right towards Makawao, something
crosses my mind.
"Go straight ahead, I need to go to Sports Authority and the hardware store!"
"Now?" wonders Steve.
My eyes plainly say "Of course now, otherwise I would not have said it NOW!" But Steve still stares at me in disbelief.
So I try verbal communication: "Dear Father, I ask you humbly to go straight to Kahului. Father can be certain, I would not bother the fine gentleman with such mundane wishes at this holy hour, if I would not be aware of reasons to justify such a detour."
"Asshole!" whispers Steve and pulls back onto the highway with screeching tires.
Half way to Hawaii Page 19
