Moon over Maalaea Bay

by H. L. Wegley

  “Do it now, Snake. We might need a hostage.”

  Snake’s eyes widened as he stared at his boss for a moment.

  So Snake understood the extent of the danger now. Good. Perhaps it would motivate him.

  Snake grabbed the spear gun from the storage cabinet beside him. He slipped off his sandals, ran to the bow of the yacht, and jumped over the railing.

  James only hope of keeping his identity and location concealed long enough to escape was to kill the two men in the boat, capture the blonde in the water, and hope they had fatally wounded Jennifer Akihara-Brandt. Or hope the Iranians got her if she somehow made it to shore. He felt certain the pesky Iranians were watching. Without even knowing it, the Iranians had become his rear guard.

  His Gulfstream was fueled and ready to fly at Kahului airport. But first, he had to get there, and he would sacrifice anyone and anything but himself and his pilot to reach his plane.

  The sound of whining outboard engines grew louder.

  James took the gun and crossed the deck towards the noise. The men in the boat were trying to circle his yacht to the side where Snake and the girl were. He couldn’t allow that.

  He started to call to Mack for help, but saw him lying on his side coughing and choking while holding a bloodstained wad of fabric to his neck. He could forget about Mack.

  James waited for a good shot. When the boat rounded the bow, fifty yards out, he fired a burst.

  The boat veered out of control when both men dropped to the deck. But they got up and made another run, getting further around the yacht before his gunfire drove them away.

  Now the boat raced away from him headed due south, still on the side where Snake and the girl were swimming in the water. He fired again, but the boat was out of range.

  They would call the authorities. Within the hour these waters would be teeming with Coast Guard personnel, Maui policemen, FBI agents, and who knows what else?

  James’s mind moved ahead with his plan, a plan that would free him from the clutches of the law, a plan that would get him back to Southeast Asia, a plan that relied on using the blonde-haired princess as his hostage.

  ****

  Katie had blown it. She felt like a foolish schoolgirl. She was a foolish schoolgirl and it may cost her life.

  Why did I follow the turtle so far? What was I thinking?

  Everything seemed to have changed in an instant. But what really happened?

  First, the yacht had moved. Then there was gunfire.

  Thoughts of what the gunfire might mean tied her stomach into one big knot. If it cramped any harder, here in the water, she could be in serious trouble.

  A movement near the bow of the yacht caught her attention. Someone had jumped overboard. She was in trouble, but it had nothing to do with cramps.

  Katie gasped as a man’s head burst out of the water less than six feet from her. He thrust one end of a long object at her. She gasped again when she recognized the menacing spearhead loaded in the spear gun that was pointed at her face.

  “Come with me…unless you’re into body piercing.”

  The man’s voice was all air, like a hiss, like a snake. She was too stunned and frightened to move.

  “Where shall we do the first piercing? Nose or belly button?” the man hissed.

  She needed to think, to collect her wits, but they were scattered to the four corners of—

  “OK, let’s do the nose.” He aimed the spear gun at her face.

  “No! I’m coming.” Katie fluttered her fins and moved a couple of feet closer to the man.

  “Smart girl. Cute, too. No…more like a blonde-haired, blue-eyed princess.”

  That’s what the traffickers who captured her near Seattle had called her. Coincidence? Katie doubted that.

  “Swim around me, towards the boat. Do it now!”

  She complied. Lee, I’m sorry. So sorry. I didn’t think.

  “Swim towards the ladder. You will go up it first. Leave your gear in the water. You won’t need it.”

  Katie’s gaze followed the ladder to the top. Silhouetted against the blue sky, was the form of a tall man holding an assault rifle.

  The man with the rifle whirled and ran for the far side of the boat.

  A boat motor revved up. The rifle fired…in automatic mode.

  A second burst of fire sounded, nearly drowned out by the roar of boat engines. It sounded like Granddad’s boat.

  Please keep them safe.

  A third burst of gunfire. The boat sounded farther away. A booming voice spewed a garbage can full of gutter language and some other words Katie had never heard, but they didn’t sound good. She took the man’s response as a good sign.

  But did the droning boat motors mean Granddad and Lee got away without being hit? Her hand grabbed the ladder attached to the side of the blue yacht, and she froze.

  “Off with the snorkeling gear,” the man with the spear gun hissed at her.

  Katie willed her frozen muscles to move. She pulled off her mask and snorkel. They floated on the water. She slipped out of her fins and watched them sink slowly into the depths of the blue water. Is that where she would end up when they were through with her?

  A sharp sting radiated from a spot on her back. He had shoved the spear gun against her skin.

  “Up the ladder, princess.”

  Was it better to have it out right here than to endure whatever waited for her on the yacht?

  Pain. The spear cut through her skin, followed by the tickling sensation of blood trickling down her back.

  “Move! Now!”

  I’ve got no choice.

  Slowly Katie climbed the ladder towards the man with the gun and an ominous, and possibly very short, future.

  25

  A disturbance on board the yacht drew Lee’s attention. He froze in the water when an automatic rifle went off like a string of firecrackers. The catamaran and the yacht swung apart. Now the action was all on the opposite side of the yacht.

  Lee glanced back towards Katie and the big turtle she had followed. Katie was gone, cut off from his sight by the moving bow of the yacht. She was on the wrong side of the yacht and possibly in serious danger.

  “Katie, come back!”

  No use yelling right now. The roar of the engines from the two boats maneuvering in the water drowned out his voice.

  A gunman and another man appeared on the bow of the yacht. The gunman pointed towards the water. Towards Katie.

  Now he was certain she was in danger.

  Lee whirled in the water to swim back to Granddad for help, but stopped when someone jumped from the yacht into the water. The man held something in one hand, something very long, something that looked like a spear gun. He prayed it wasn’t.

  With a sudden surge of adrenaline and his fins fluttering, Lee propelled his body through the water at an incredible speed.

  Granddad swung the boat alongside, and Lee pulled himself onto it.

  “They cut Katie off and someone on the yacht jumped in to get her. I think he had a spear gun.”

  At Lee’s words, Granddad cranked the wheel and hit the throttle. Powerful engines tilted the boat sharply as they spun a one-eighty and headed around the bow of the yacht.

  “Careful, Granddad. They’ve got automatic weapons. They already fired at something in—”

  Lee stopped in mid sentence. The shots were fired towards the rear of the yacht. They hadn’t fired at Katie. She was near the bow.

  Jennifer!

  Had she tried to escape? Was the catamaran the customer’s boat? The one who was trying to buy Jennifer? If she waited this long, it must have been an attempt born of desperation more than opportunity.

  A thought hit him out of the blue. Jennifer or Katie? What if he could only save one of them? Could he make a choice? Would a good God require him to do that?

  A staccato burping noise jolted Lee out of his musings. Water exploded upward in a dotted line of splashes. The dotted line headed straight for the boat. Straight f
or Granddad.

  Lee hooked Granddad with an arm. He yanked the small man all the way to the back of the boat. The line of bullets bisected the boat. The burst of gunfire ended.

  Granddad’s last hand to leave the wheel had jerked it to the left. Without a pilot, the boat turned towards the bow of the yacht. The throttle was three-quarters open.

  Lee dove for the wheel and another line the bullets cut a swath through the spot his body had vacated. It narrowly missed Granddad.

  Lee yanked the wheel to the right. The boat veered away from the yacht.

  Granddad crawled over a seat, stood beside Lee and opened the throttle…all the way. The powerful boat surged forward, knocking Lee off his feet. It rose onto a plane and flew across the flat water at sixty miles per hour, headed due south, away from the yacht, away from the bullets, and away from Katie.

  Lee grabbed his cell phone from the compartment by the wheel where Granddad had placed it.

  Granddad slid behind the wheel and took full control of the boat. He left the throttle wide open.

  There were no more shots. At least none that Lee heard. But concern for Jennifer and now Katie assaulted him with a mind-chilling fear, a brain freeze with an emotional source.

  He tried to think, but the icy fear had paralyzed his mind.

  “Granddad?” He managed to shove the word out of his mouth.

  Granddad backed off on the throttle. “Yes, Lee.”

  They fired the first shots down into the water, between the yacht and the catamaran. I think that—”

  “That we should pray for Jennifer.” Granddad interjected.

  “Yeah. Maybe that was her only chance to try to escape before…” He couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “I think you’re right, Lee. That sounds like my granddaughter. She has a mental toughness that accomplishes amazing things. But we need to pray she made it and that she is unharmed.”

  Lee nodded as a tight knot in his gut turned to nausea. He choked off the urge to vomit and looked at the cell phone in his trembling hand. “I should call Peterson now.”

  Granddad sighed heavily. “Yes.” The man seldom frowned, but twin frown lines invaded his stoic brow. “You need to call Peterson.”

  Granddad turned the boat around and headed north between the yacht and the shoreline. He maintained a course that would keep them out of firing range when they passed the yacht.

  Lee flipped his cell open. He sought words to describe to the FBI agent all that had transpired in those few furious seconds.

  When he had collected enough words, Lee slid his finger over the speed dial button of his cell. His phone rang, giving him a jolt that nearly made him drop it. Who would be calling? Peterson? Ramirez? He glanced at the caller ID. It was a local number, but one he didn’t recognize.

  26

  Jennifer, you can’t let them shoot you. You’ve come too far.

  The words came from the muddle of thoughts running through the circuits of her oxygen-starved brain.

  Her legs dangled in the water, without the strength to move. Her body floated upward, face down, the dead man’s float. Barely aware that she would soon surface, Jennifer managed to rotate her body into a face-up position.

  Her face broke the surface and felt the warm sun as she sucked hard, filling her lungs with that marvelous mixture of gases that sustained life on the planet. She expelled the first batch of air and filled her lungs again. Her head began to clear, and she took greater care to allow only her face to show above the water.

  She dared not raise her head to look around, but she had to be sure of where she was. After she turned her body several degrees, a large white resort became clearly visible. The sprawling structure was situated on a small hill above the beach. Jennifer swiveled, aligning her feet with the resort, took a deep breath, and pushed her body under with her hands.

  She wouldn’t have to swim as deep now. The choppy water and the fact that surfacing drew no more shots meant she could swim only three feet under the surface where there was less pressure on her chest and the water was warmer.

  The resort wasn’t her real destination. She was swimming to Lee. At that thought a tremendous surge of adrenaline shot through her body. She swam furiously in the direction of resort.

  In another thirty seconds, she surfaced and drew a few breaths, then submerged and swam hard for the shore.

  Lee was waiting. Probably wondering if she was dead, or worse. She needed to feel his arms around her, to tell him she hadn’t been harmed, to listen to his heartbeat, and press her lips against his. There was more, a lot more waiting. Their wedding night had been interrupted by cruel men with cruel intentions. But they were behind her now. They were in the past and Lee was her future. She took another breath and started a one-hundred-yard swimming sprint to the shore.

  A small, partially hidden cove lay to her right. Jennifer swam towards it, careful to avoid the volcanic rocks protruding out of the water only slightly farther to her right. A gentle wave caught her body. She relaxed and rode it into the cove until her knees drug in the gritty, golden sand.

  When Jennifer stood, she was hidden to all boats except those directly seaward from the narrow cove. She scanned the narrow section of water. No boats.

  She waded into the cove and spotted a small path leading up to the main beach trail. She took it.

  On the beach trail there were many people walking, talking, oblivious to her ordeal. That she was standing here, having faced death moments before, was surreal. Perhaps she needed to pinch herself to be convinced of this reality. No. What she needed was a phone.

  Jennifer looked to her left, towards the Grand Wailea Resort. Surely there would be phones there. Or she could run down onto the beach and ask to borrow someone’s cell phone.

  She glanced to her right. Not twenty-five yards down the trail was a large concession stand, something like a small convenience store. As she jogged towards it, she felt a strand of nylon whipping her ankle and another slapping against her wrist. She had neither the means nor the will to remove them now, only a desperate drive to hear Lee’s voice.

  Jennifer sought appropriate words to explain her situation as she slowed near the stand. A young man stood by a cash register and a young woman was making an espresso drink. She chose the man. “Please, I need to use your phone. I’m the girl from the Amber Alert. I escaped and—”

  “How did you…? Never mind. Here’s my cell. Are you OK?”

  She took the phone. “Yes. But I would be more OK if you have something to cut these restraints off.” She shook the tie dangling from her wrist.

  He reached into his pocket, pulled out a knife, then opened and locked the blade. “Be careful, it’s really sharp.”

  She took it, cut the ties from her feet and hands, and then slammed them into a trash can like an NBA player at the end of a fast break. “Thanks.” She handed the man his knife and dialed Lee’s cell number.

  “Please answer, Lee. Please answer,” she whispered after two rings.

  After the third ring, she heard his voice. Tears filled her eyes. Jennifer opened her mouth, but emotions stopped her voice.

  “Hello. Who is this?”

  “It’s Jennifer. I escaped.”

  “Jennifer…” A sharp blast of air created a staticky sound. After another heavy breath, Lee’s voice returned. “I heard the shots.” Now his voice sounded tense, almost frantic.” Did they hit you? Are you OK?”

  Shots? Hit me? What was he—how did he know? “Lee, where are you?”

  “Jenn!” he shouted in frustration. “Are you OK?”

  “Yes, I’m OK. But where are you?”

  “I’m in a boat with Granddad. We’re near Wailea.”

  “Granddad? I don’t understand, Lee. What are—”

  “Jenn, you need to tell me where you are.”

  “I’m on the beach trail near the Grand Wailea Resort, at a concession stand. Please come and get me.”

  “We’re not far away. I’m coming, and I’ll only be tw
o or three minutes. But listen, there are some Iranian agents looking for you. Two of them were on that beach trail about a quarter mile south of you a few minutes ago. They look Middle Eastern. One is tall, the other short and stocky and they’re—”

  “What colors are they wearing?”

  “Red or maroon and white, I think.”

  She looked southward down the trail and gasped. “I see them. They’re coming towards me. About fifty yards away.”

  “Run, Jenn. Try security in the resort lobby. Or hide with the woman in Chapel Wing room 414. That’s Chapel Wing room 414. I’m coming, and I’ll call Peterson on the way.”

  Peterson?

  “I love you, Lee.” She shoved the phone at its owner. “Those two men are after me.” She pointed to the men now running towards her. “Please call 911.”

  She sprinted north on the trail towards the resort, the salt water on her skin, dried by the sun, cracking with each stride. After dodging an elderly couple, Jennifer glanced back at the stand. The two men sprinted towards her, less than fifty yards away.

  She still wore her wet sandals. Her feet slipped badly in them, nearly causing her to fall. She jumped onto the grass, ripped off her sandals, and glanced back. The two men had closed to within thirty yards.

  Jennifer veered off the trail across the grassy grounds of the resort. She scanned the area, looking for a place to lose the two men and then cut back to her left, sprinted by the chapel. No place to hide there.

  She turned up the hill towards the resort. The main entrance lay to her right.

  The men had split up. One cut off her path to the main entrance, the other dogged her.

  Like a wolf pack, the two ran her down, cutting off her access to any place of help, to any place to hide.

  She spotted a smaller resort entrance straight up the hill from the chapel. Inside the resort she would fine hallways, banquet rooms, elevators, stairwells, places she could elude them even if she couldn’t get to the hotel security people.

  Jennifer clenched her jaw and began an all-out sprint across the grass straight towards the entrance. A sign ahead said Chapel Wing Entrance. The room Lee mentioned was on the Chapel Wing. Room number 414. She couldn’t imagine what significance the room had, and she couldn’t enter a guest’s room with two men close behind her.