Distant Echoes

by Colleen Coble

  Kaia. Pronounced the Hawaiian way as “KIGH-yah,” meaning “the sea.” How appropriate of this Hawaiian who had thrown herself into the sea with no thought for her own safety. The island spirit of aloha meant uninhibited love and affection freely given. She’d certainly shown that today, as had the two men.

  Jesse heard a shout and turned back to the ocean. A man in the boat loaded with victims waved toward the one who’d insisted Kaia get out of the water. Jesse wondered if one of them was her husband. He ordered some of his own men to go help the overloaded boat.

  He crouched beside the water nymph. “You okay?”

  Kaia struggled to sit up. “Bane, what about Laban . . .” she began.

  “No sign of him,” Bane said. He turned and scanned the water. “Your dolphin is having a fit. She’s not letting this boat out of her sight. Whistle to her so she knows you’re all right.”

  Obviously still shaky, Kaia wobbled to the port side of the boat. Nani chattered from the storm swells. Kaia pulled the whistle dangling from a chain around her neck up to her mouth and blew a series of short and long blasts. The dolphin chattered again then turned to slowly circle the boat in a calmer manner.

  “You can talk to them?” Jesse asked, pulling a chair forward for her.

  Kaia sank into it. “I’m working on it. I’m studying mammal intelligence at Seaworthy Labs. Nani is the best I’ve ever worked with.”

  “She’s phenomenal,” Bane put in. “I’ve never seen anything like the bond between Nani and my sister. They’re soul mates. Kaia found Nani as an orphaned calf. She doesn’t belong to Seaworthy.”

  So these two were related, not married. Jesse turned and checked the progress of his men. Most of the victims were now out of the water. “We’ll have everyone to shore soon,” he said.

  As the boat rode the waves to Barking Sands Naval Base, Jesse’s gaze wandered to the dolphin that followed them. He’d never seen a dolphin act that way.

  Maybe it was his fatigue or maybe it was truly inspired, but a thought began to take shape in Jesse’s head. This missile system was important to national security. They had to get it right. With one man already dead from the security breach last night, he couldn’t afford another problem.

  He knew the navy sometimes used dolphins and sea lions to patrol offshore for divers who were threatening national security. Sea lions were trained to carry a clamp in their mouths. They would approach an intruder from behind and attach the clamp, which was connected to a rope, to the swimmer’s leg. With the person restrained and tagged, sailors aboard ships could pull the swimmer out of the water. Would something like that work here with Nani?

  “How many dolphins do you work with?” he asked slowly.

  “Three,” Kaia said. “But only Nani is this responsive.” She pushed her wet hair out of her eyes.

  Bane put his hand on her shoulder. Jesse could tell they were both done in. His aide, Ensign Will Masters, motioned to him, and Jesse went to join him. “What’s the death toll so far, Ensign?”

  Masters grimaced. “Five dead so far, sir. I don’t know about missing yet. But we’ve got another problem, Commander.”

  “What is it?”

  “Headquarters just radioed. Television news cameras are waiting for us.”

  Great, just great. As if he didn’t have enough to worry about, now the media would be swarming the base gate and trying to point a finger at what went wrong. “I’ll take care of it.” It was all he could do to suppress a sigh.

  “One of the survivors is asking to talk to you, sir.”

  “Which one?”

  The ensign pointed out a white-haired man leaning against the railing. Jesse made his way through the survivors. He paused frequently to offer reassurance to those crowding together before he finally reached the man. “Ensign Masters said you needed to talk to me?”

  The elderly man blinked bleary hazel eyes and straightened. “Been years since I was on a navy ship,” he said. “This is the first time I’ve been to the islands since World War II, and I get fired on again. That missile came right at us like it was aimed, my boy. I think the navy has a big problem.”

  Jesse pressed his lips together. Could the missile have been tampered with? Security was already so tight a crab couldn’t scuttle across the sand, though an approach by sea was still a possibility. He wasn’t sure how to tighten it, but he was going to have to find a way before the next test.

  By the time they arrived at the base, the storm had passed. When Jesse got to shore, he headed off to talk to Captain Lawton, who was in charge of the testing. He found the captain pacing his office. Nearly sixty, Captain Jim Lawton had the vigor and drive of a thirty-year-old.

  Lawton stopped wearing a path through his carpet. “How many dead?”

  “Five.”

  Lawton’s expression didn’t change. “The next trial is in two weeks. I don’t want to miss that date.”

  Jesse nodded. “Sir, one witness, a World War II veteran, said it looked like the missile had targeted the catamaran.”

  The captain scowled. “That’s not possible, Jesse. I was right there watching the trial. It was a computer malfunction. The guidance system, most likely.”

  “I don’t think we should do any more trials until we investigate. What if it was more than the malfunction it seems?”

  Lawton jabbed his finger in Jesse’s chest. “Security is your baby, Commander, not missile design. I’ve waited my whole life for this moment. Nothing is going to stop this test. I’ll get my engineers on it. It was a simple computer problem and I’ll fix it. You just do your part and make sure the public doesn’t panic. There’s nothing to fear.”

  “What about the possibility of terrorist interference?”

  The captain stared hard at Jesse. “Are you saying you suspect a terrorist plot?” His lips lifted in a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Don’t mention such a harebrained idea to the press. You just keep everyone off my back until I get the real problem corrected.”

  “Sir, last night’s security breach. It could be related.” Jesse could hear the captain’s teeth grinding. Sometimes he wondered if Captain Lawton had it all together.

  Lawton’s teeth grinding grew louder before he spoke again. “I’m not going to stop our military exercises on a vague feeling from an old man. It’s not going to happen. We have this under control. You’re dismissed.”

  Jesse didn’t understand the captain’s stubborn position. The World War II veteran wasn’t some crackpot. This was more serious than the captain wanted to admit. Jesse had to figure it out somehow. But first he had to deal with the media.

  He could hear the buzz of voices as he approached the gate to the base. A young man with a shock of red hair was the first to reach Jesse.

  “What happened, Commander? A terrorist attack?”

  Other reporters joined them, and Jesse took a reflexive step back from the mics reaching toward him. He held up his hand. “A computer malfunction is suspected at this time. We’re conducting a full investigation, but we don’t believe the accident was terrorist related.” He just hoped the captain was right.

  “What about more live testing? We don’t want a missile coming down on our heads because the navy can’t get their computer to work.” The young woman asking the question thrust a mic into his face.

  He pushed it away. “There will be no more live testing until we are sure the problem won’t reoccur.” Lawton had his theories, and Jesse had his. Jesse only hoped his own would prove false before the next test was scheduled.

  Two

  A successful trial of our new weapon,” he said. He leaned back in his leather chair and propped his feet on his desk. The bank of windows behind him looked out on the Pacific Ocean, a grand view at this height that reduced the surfers to antlike figures riding the waves. He’d been one of the ants all his life, but that was about to change. He just wished his dad were still alive to see this success.

  He glanced up. “Make sure you reward our man on the ground for
a job well done.”

  “I already did.” His right-hand man handed him a can of Red Bull.

  He took it and popped the top. The immediate caffeine jolt would make this moment sweeter. “You’re sure they won’t realize this failure was deliberate?”

  His assistant shook his head. “They’re blaming the guidance mechanism.”

  “How many casualties?” Not that he cared about the lives lost. This would be just a handful compared to what he had planned for the next launch. A stab of guilt startled him. He’d thought he had successfully discharged feelings like that when he first planned this. He focused on what his assistant was saying.

  “Mixed reports so far. Some say ten dead and twenty injured; other reports say only five dead.” His assistant never showed much emotion. A tall blond man in his forties, his bland expression never changed.

  The man scowled at the remorse that kept rearing its head. He had to eradicate it now. “I’d hoped for more.” The more dead bodies, the more the media would sit up and take notice.

  “A woman and her dolphin showed up and saved many of them.”

  “A dolphin?” He waved his hand to indicate how unimportant it was.

  His assistant nodded. “Part of the Seaworthy Lab research.”

  “Interesting.” He glanced at the fish in the huge tank behind his desk. If only his piranha wasn’t a freshwater fish, and so small. But the sea mammal was unlikely to interfere.

  This was his one shot at success. In one brilliant move, he could gain the respect he’d lost—no, the respect that had been stolen from him. Nothing could be allowed to go wrong. And he certainly couldn’t afford to let pity or guilt distract him from his purpose.

  Jesse rubbed his eyes. His vision was blurry, and he knew his eyes had to be as red as this morning’s sunrise. He couldn’t remember when he’d slept last. It would be hours before his head hit the pillow today as well. The night had been a blur of interviews and questions.

  His cell phone rang and he clicked it on. “Matthews.”

  “Same here,” a familiar voice said.

  “Kade?” Jesse hadn’t heard from his cousin in several months.

  “You got it on the first try.” Kade’s voice was cheerful. “I’m going to be on the island in a couple weeks for some training. Can we get together?”

  “You bet. Just you and Bree?”

  “And Lauri, Davy, and Samson. Thought we’d make a family vacation of it. Our first official getaway.”

  Jesse chuckled. “Wonder dog too?”

  “You know he won’t let Davy out of his sight. And since he’s a service dog, he can travel on the plane with us.”

  “We’ll get together for dinner,” Jesse promised. “Give me a call when you get to town.” They chatted a little longer, then he said good-bye. It was going to be good to see his cousin. They tried to get together once a year, but he and Kade had both been so busy, it had to have been eighteen months or so since they’d seen one another.

  He grabbed a cup of coffee on his way to the control room. He added a bit of water so it was cool enough to gulp down quickly. The shot of caffeine revived him, and he stepped into the room filled with banks of computers with more spring in his step. The servicemen and women were too busy with their computers to notice him as he stood and gazed around, hoping to catch one of them taking a break and willing to answer a few questions.

  He caught the eye of Ensign Donna Parker. She quirked an eyebrow, and he joined her at her desk.

  “I wasn’t expecting to see you today, Commander,” she said.

  Her red hair just skirted her shoulders in a sleek regulation bob, and the flirtation in her aqua eyes was subdued but obvious. Jesse had been aware of her interest since he’d arrived, but he hadn’t encouraged it, though he’d been flattered.

  He smiled but made sure it was impersonal. “Good morning. I was wondering if you were on duty yesterday when the missile veered off course?”

  Donna grimaced, her smile fading. “Sure was. We had to watch while that thing took a nosedive.”

  “Any idea what happened?”

  She shook her head. “Not yet, but I’m looking into the GPS system or the gyros. The system performed perfectly until it veered off course. It didn’t seem to hear any of our commands. I’ve never seen a test go so haywire.”

  “You think it could have been deliberate?”

  She frowned. “Deliberate? It would have had to be someone on our own team, and no one I know here would send a missile into a boatload of tourists.”

  “We’ve had some break-ins. Could someone have accessed the missile controls?”

  She shook her head. “No. Only our computers can do it, and they’re all here. There has been no break-in to this room. And it can’t be one of our own. We’re all together. Someone would have noticed. It was a malfunction.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m positive. The bigwigs are going over the missile scraps right now, but I’m sure they’ll find it was in the navigational system.”

  Jesse nodded in feigned agreement. He still wasn’t convinced. The WWII veteran’s words wouldn’t go away, no matter how much he wanted them to.

  Kaia drove her Mazda pickup along the narrow highway. A flock of chickens squawked and ran for the ditch when she turned into her driveway. She slammed the brake to avoid hitting the last straggler. Wild chickens had once roamed freely on all the Hawaiian islands, but the introduction of the mongoose to all except Kaua’i and Lana’i had decimated the wild chicken population on the islands where they’d been imported. The chicken situation on Kaua’i had grown worse when Hurricane ’Iniki roared through the island in 1992 and freed most of the domestic chickens. The island had slowly recovered from the big blow, but capturing the chickens had been the least of the islanders’ concerns.

  Bane clung to his door handle as the truck jerked to a stop. “Where did you learn to drive?” he demanded.

  As an oceanographer for the Coast Guard, he was taller and slimmer than Mano, and his long limbs could glide through the water like Nani herself.

  She stuck out her tongue at Bane. “You taught me,” she said. She rubbed her eyes. They’d been at the Lihu’e hospital all night, and the sun was already halfway up the horizon now. She glanced at her watch. Nearly nine o’clock. Her gaze met her brother’s. “They never found Laban.”

  “I know.”

  Kaia wanted to comfort Bane. She hadn’t known their cousin well—he’d spent most of his life in California and had only recently come back to the islands—but Laban and Bane had grown close in the past year. Thankfully, Laban hadn’t left a wife or children.

  The media had accosted them when they’d gone ashore, and she was sure reports of the disaster had been on TV this morning. After disappearing for a time, the handsome lieutenant commander had returned to take charge of the reporters with the same aplomb he’d demonstrated on the water. The self-sufficient type always made her feel inadequate.

  Bane got out of the truck and went to the porch of Kaia’s bungalow. The neat green shutters framed windows that overlooked the blue waters of the Pacific from the house’s perch atop a cliff. A set of steps that had been cut into the face of the rock led to Echo Lagoon, a tiny smile of beach on the leeward side of the island. Square and squat with a roof that looked like thatch but wasn’t, the house had been in the Kohala family, her mother’s ancestors, for nearly a hundred years. Her brothers had opted to let her have it, and she hadn’t refused. A brightly colored rooster crowed and hopped off the step as Bane neared. “You’d better run or you’ll be dinner,” he said. He held open the door for her.

  “He knows he has nothing to fear,” she told him. “No one in their right mind would try to eat one of them.” The local joke was that if you put on two pans to boil and put a chicken in one and some lava rock in the other, the chicken would be ready when you could stick a fork in the lava rock.

  Bane laughed, but his eyes were grim. She pushed open the door, and her brother follo
wed her inside.

  “This place looks like ’Iniki just came through again.” He looked around with obvious disfavor.

  Kaia tried to look at it through his eyes. Her cat had knocked last night’s popcorn bowl onto the floor, and unpopped kernels littered the carpet. The laundry she’d sorted on the living room floor was still there. “I haven’t been home much lately,” she said. “Besides, I’ll never be Suzy Homemaker.”

  “Yeah, but not even the Clean Sweep crew would be willing to take this on. Don’t you believe in organization?” He picked up her discarded shorts and top that she’d changed out of on her way to work a week earlier and dropped them in the first laundry pile.

  “Sure, I believe in it. I’m just not obsessed with it like you are. It’s not that bad. Besides, no one sees it but me.” The message light on her answering machine was blinking. She punched it, and her grandfather’s deep voice came on. Twice. The second time he sounded worried. “Sounds like Tutu kane thinks we might have gone down with the ship.” She cleared the messages and walked toward the kitchen. She’d go visit her grandfather in a little while. His fears wouldn’t be allayed until he saw her. She wondered if he’d heard about Laban. Maybe the news hadn’t announced the name of the catamaran involved.

  Her stomach rumbled, but nothing sounded good. She was too tired. She knew she had to eat something though. It had been eighteen hours since her last meal. “Want an omelet?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Me neither, but we haven’t eaten since noon yesterday.”

  Bane shrugged, and Kaia grabbed the eggs and ham from the refrigerator. She chopped pineapple to toss in as well, and its aroma filled the kitchen. She handed her brother a plate heaped with his omelet and taro hash browns then joined him at the table.

  “I need to call Tutu kane.” Kaia suppressed a shudder at the thought of explaining to her grandfather about his great-nephew.

  “Mano has probably already told him about Laban. He was heading there from the hospital.”