kiDNApped (A Tara Shores Thriller)

by Chesler, Rick

  “I’ve got like three hundred cash,” Kristen said. Lance held his hands up. “Nothing here,” he said sheepishly.

  “Sixty bucks,” Tara said. She considered using her credentials to force a boarding, but realized that would probably hold things up while the driver stopped altogether, leaving them a sitting target for the approaching gunmen. Better to pay and go. If the driver refused to let them on because they weren’t at a designated pickup spot, then she’d use her badge.

  “Grab your stuff and come on!” Tara said.

  They sprinted across the parking lot after the Duck boat, which was headed for a concrete boat launch ramp. Two men had just finished launching a pair of personal watercraft from an SUV, which left the ramp open. The Duck boat headed for it.

  As the foursome neared the Duck boat, they could hear the driver-tour guide talking into a microphone to his passengers. “...DUCK-W amphibious vehicle originally used by the marines in World War Two. Back then there was also a mounted fifty-caliber machine gun, which we had to remove even though it would come in handy for Honolulu traffic, yeah?” As she watched the brown van approach the parking lot, Tara silently wished the 50-cal was still there. “The two-and-a-half ton Duck can go five knots in the water, and has a hollow airtight body to help it float. So hold on folks, and remember, from now on I’m not your driver anymore — I’m your captain!”

  Dave, Kristen, Lance and Tara hopped onto the Duck’s boarding steps, up front across from the driver’s seat, as the vehicle descended the launch ramp.

  The driver waved an arm frantically at them. “Whoa, hey, no can board here! You got to book a tour in advance!”

  Kristen thrust a handful of bills into Dave’s hand. Dave approached the driver. He leaned in close to him, speaking softly so the curious passengers couldn’t hear.

  The driver pocketed the bills, patted Dave on the shoulder, then said with exaggerated loudness, “Oh, you’re the group who missed their hotel pickup! Well, you caught us just in time for the best part of the tour. Welcome aboard, now sit down!”

  …TTTG44ACAC...

  10:01 A.M.

  The car became a boat as the yellow DUCK-W lumbered down the ramp into the waters of Maunalua Bay. The twenty-odd passengers ooohed and ahhhed as the vehicle’s wheels left the concrete, the steel Duck splashing into the sea like an aquatic SUV. The captain engaged the Duck’s propeller into cruising mode while narrating that the same engine that powers the Duck’s wheels on land also drives its propeller while in the water.

  Most of the passengers looked ahead as the Duck plowed into the ocean, but the boat’s four recent boarders craned their necks to look behind them at the launch lot. The UPS van was there, pulled to a stop next to the launch ramp.

  The man on the passenger side got out of the van and stood there watching the Duck pull away. He looked up and down the coast and then got back in the van. The two pursuers appeared to confer with one another.

  “So where does this thing go now?” Kristen asked, turning back around.

  “Good question,” Tara said. In the rush to elude their pursuers, none of them had considered what the vehicle’s course might be once it entered the water.

  The Duck followed a shallow boat channel through the coral shelf, parallel to shore and only a few yards from the beach. The UPS van crawled along the marina parking lot, stalking the Duck as long as it could before coming to a barrier at the end of the lot. They could only sit and watch as the curious watercraft plodded out of sight around a small point.

  In the Duck, Tara sat hunched over on her bench seat, between Dave and Kristen, rubbing her eyes with her fingers.

  “You okay?” Kristen asked.

  “Seasick?” This from Lance. The Duck chugged through a flat sea with only the mildest wind chop, a stable platform unlikely to induce seasickness after such a short time. Tara didn’t like being on the water in such a weird craft, but that was not the source of her worry.

  Tara stopped rubbing her eyes and lifted her head. “No, I’m just thinking. Those guys will figure out that this thing has to come back soon. If they’re smart, they’d call the number on the banner hanging over the side and ask where the Koko Marina Duck tour goes and how long it is,” she said dourly.

  “Maybe they’re not that smart,” Dave said.

  “We know they’re not that smart,” Kristen piped in. “You’re talking about guys who shot up a house and chased people all over town with guns in what’s probably a stolen UPS van.”

  The captain’s voice came over the loudspeaker. “And around this point up ahead is the world famous Hanauma Bay, the best snorkeling spot on Oahu! We’ll poke the Duck’s nose around for a look-see, so get your cameras ready, but there’s no boats allowed inside the protected bay, and so then we’ll be turning around to head back to dry land for the rest of our tour...” The guide continued to deliver a spiel about the natural beauty and conservation status of Hanauma Bay, but Tara was no longer listening, having perked up at the mention of the renowned marine preserve.

  She watched as their boat drew closer to a jagged lava rock point.

  “Okay,” Tara began, “Hanauma’s crowded. Very crowded, even during the week. That’s the good news. We can blend in. The bad news is that there’s only one road in and out of the place—at the top of the cliff where they have an admissions booth and tourist center, but I’m just hoping that the shooters aren’t observing us right now,” she said, squinting at the shoreline. There was only a rugged coastline with part of a busy highway visible.

  “So you’ve been there before,” Dave said.

  “Once,” Tara said. She’d gone there on a picnic lunch date with a guy from the field office. The relationship hadn’t worked out.

  “I’ve been there many times,” Dave replied. “But never from the water like this.”

  “Here’s what I’m getting at,” Tara interjected, recognizing that time was short. She leaned over in the seat and lowered her voice. “If we can somehow get to shore at Hanauma, we could get up the hill to the parking lot and maybe catch a cab or even a city bus out. This Duck is just going to turn around and go back to Koko Marina, and even though they may be dumb, I think there’s a good possibility our attackers will be waiting there for us,” she finished.

  The Duck began carving a slow turn around the point into Hanauma Bay. Explosions of whitewater meeting lava rock could be heard in the distance.

  “You want to jump out of the boat and swim to shore?” Lance asked. Dave nodded.

  “I definitely don’t want to,” Tara said, “but at this point I think it’s our safest bet.”

  “Where’s the beach?” Kristen said.

  “It’s right around this point,” Tara said. “Trust me, there’s a big beach.” Dave nodded in agreement.

  “What about my laptop?” Kristen held up the computer. It wasn’t even in a carrying case. She had left that in Dave’s house when she ran from the gunmen. None of them carried so much as a bag.

  Tara noticed a Japanese man across from them with a backpack and a large duffel bag. “If we had that backpack we could put the laptop in it and we could try to hold it above the water while we swim.”

  “That might work,” Kristen said. “If we had it.”

  Dave shrugged. “I saved sixty bucks from what you gave me—didn’t give it to the driver—wanted to have something to bargain with in case he said it wasn’t enough. Plus,” he added, digging into his front shorts pocket, “I’ve got forty bucks.”

  “Hundred bucks for that old backpack should do it,” Lance said, eyeing the black pack next to the middle aged Japanese man on the bench across the aisle from theirs. It looked like it had seen a lot of use, the fabric frayed and tattered in spots.

  Tara got up and sidled over to the man. The Duck chugged into the outer reaches of Hanauma Bay proper, a sliver of white sand now visible about a half-mile ahead. The tourist’s English was less than conversational, but Tara pointed to the backpack and showed him the five twenties. T
he man raised his eyebrows, then turned to his wife. They both laughed. “This for?” he said, picking up the old pack and shaking it at Tara. Behind him, Lance and Kristen nodded enthusiastically. The man opened the pack and removed some camera equipment, handing that to his wife. He held the pack upside down and reached inside, to make sure he had gotten everything out of it. Then, with a grunt, he thrust the bag into Tara's hand.

  Tara gave him the money, which the man held up to the light for inspection. Tara thanked him and returned to her seat. Kristen put her laptop in the backpack and zipped it up. She handed the pack to Dave, since he was the strongest swimmer among them.

  “So when do we jump?” Kristen asked.

  Tara considered the question. She could identify herself to the Duck’s captain as FBI and order him to use his radio to call the Coast Guard or the FBI. The Duck could wait here until they were picked up by a law enforcement vessel. Then she eyed the cliffs overhead, imagining the gunmen appearing with their automatic rifles. They could well be tracing their route at this moment. She would not risk endangering the lives of the other Duck boat passengers. We’re sitting ducks, here, Tara joked to herself, cementing her decision that swimming to the crowded beach represented their safest option at this point. Not realizing she had started to smile, she heard Kristen ask, “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing. We jump when the Duck starts turning around to leave the bay.”

  The DUCK-W churned through some choppy water near the mouth of the bay, a rugged wall of lava rock to their left. Suddenly, the vibrations beneath their feet grew weaker, and the vessel arched into a slow turn. “Okay,” the captain announced over the loudspeaker. “This is as far as any boat is allowed to come to that big beautiful beach over there. So, take your pictures, take a deep breath of this wonderful Hanauma Bay air—”

  The captain halted his narrative when he heard the sound of bodies splashing into the water.

  …ACGT45ACCA...

  10:45 A.M., Hanauma Bay

  “It’s okay, we can swim. Don’t wait for us,” Dave called out to the captain as they swam for the rocky shore on the bay’s left side. The captain was yelling at them fiercely, words like “Crazy...haoles...no swim...trouble,” trailing after the four of them as they splashed their way further from the boat.

  Kristen almost managed a laugh when she heard an Asian boy ask if he could go swimming, too. “No swimming, no go in water!” the Duck’s captain shouted repeatedly.

  The beach was far in to shore. The foursome continued toward the much nearer uneven side of the bay. Lance was in the lead, followed by Dave, swimming with only one arm while he held the up the backpack. Kristen was close behind him, and then Tara, who swam a slow sidestroke, struggling to keep her head out of the water.

  The Duck followed them at first; a life ring was thrown, the captain concerned about liability. But as the swimmers continued toward the rocky shoreline and the water became rougher, the Duck’s captain retreated into deeper, calmer waters.

  Dave treaded water, switching the backpack held out of the water to his other arm. He scanned the rocky bank, looking for anywhere they might be able to climb or let themselves be washed up to avoid having to swim the entire distance to the beach, almost half a mile. The churning water included features such as the “Witches Brew,” where local legends spoke of whirlpool-like forces created by the unrelenting force of incoming water funneling through narrow channels. Whether or not there were vortices waiting to transport them to the ocean’s depths, Dave doubted he would be able to keep the backpack dry if they had to swim all the way in. But he could see no reasonable exit points. Everywhere he looked, torrents of rushing whitewater cascaded over razor sharp lava rock.

  “Let’s swim in a little farther,” he said. The rag-tag team made their way slowly toward the beach. Fifteen minutes later Lance called out from his place in the lead.

  “Here. We can get up.” He swam toward the rocks.

  “Careful,” Dave warned, but as he approached he could see that Lance was right. A break in the rocks led to a large but shallow tide pool area which in turn led to a narrow rock ledge that could be walked. Evidence of abandoned fishing gear—buckets, beer cans, snarls of monofilament line—was testament to its accessibility from the beach.

  “Time the swells—wait ‘til after it comes back out of the cut,” Dave said.

  Then they swam as fast as they could into the tide pool, scrambling up onto the rocks before the surge railroaded back through. Kristen and Tara were first to scamper up onto the narrow ledge, seeking shelter from the pounding surf. Dave and Lance followed suit. Soaking wet, they rested for a moment, looking out over the bay. The Duck boat honked its horn, the captain waving at them as he steered the ungainly vehicle outside of the bay.

  After a few minutes, Dave took the lead and they began picking their way single file along the ledge toward the beach.

  Kristen flopped onto the sand, exhausted, feeling sharp bits of shell and fragmented coral jabbing her skin, but grateful just to be here. Dave and Lance followed suit. Only Tara remained on her feet, resting her hands on her knees like a distance runner taking a break. Glad to be free of the water, she surveyed their surroundings.

  They were situated at the far end of Hanauma Bay, a good half-mile from the opposite end of the beach where it was hard to see the sand between tourist beach towels, and trams carried beachgoers up and down from the visitor center on a steep, paved grade. A handholding couple strolled perhaps fifty yards away, while a lone snorkeler escaping the finned throngs further down the beach kicked along after a parrotfish on the nearby inshore reef.

  Wary, the bedraggled group kept watch for any suspicious characters down the beach. They saw none. The tropical sun began to dry them in short order.

  “So what’s our game plan?” Lance asked, mustering the energy to stand and remove his shirt, hanging it on a nearby bush to dry. Beyond the beach, a rugged landscape of thick vegetation extended back to meet a cliff wall. They could hear occasional crackling through the underbrush—mongoose, lizards and birds.

  “I think we’re safe here for now,” Tara said. “I don’t think you should go right back to Dave’s house. Or your hotel.”

  “Agreed,” Kristen said, reaching for the backpack, which appeared to be mostly dry.

  “So, what—we’re just gonna camp out on the beach forever?” Lance said.

  “Lance,” Kristen said, “I will remind you that it was you who got us into this mess. So whatever we’re gonna do, you’re gonna go along with it.”

  “Right,” Lance said, tossing a pebble at a mongoose in the bushes.

  Kristen removed her laptop from the pack. She brushed a few water drops from the laptop’s case, then powered the computer on.

  “Lance, you and I obviously have some issues to work through. But for now—until we get Dad back—we are going to need to work together. So I’m not going to remind you anymore of what you did, okay? Because I need you—Dad needs you. But you should also know that when this is all over—you will have a price to pay. I don’t know what it will be, but you and you alone will have to come to terms with it.”

  Tara said nothing but silently agreed. She would have to arrest Lance at some point, but for now she was still building evidence against Lance, and she needed him in order to track down the kidnappers. As long as he stayed in her direct line of sight, she wouldn’t bring him in just yet.

  Lance turned around, letting the handful of pebbles in his hand drop back to the sand. “I know I screwed up,” he said. “But I’m here to make it right, as best I can. That’s all I can do.”

  Tara nodded. “Let’s come up with a plan,” she said. Lance realizes that his cooperation will make things go easier on him when he is charged.

  Kristen said, “I think we should stay here long enough to see if we’ve got another message from Dad. Dave, maybe—”

  Tara cut in. “Wait a minute, what?”

  “I forgot to tell you,” Kristen said. She exp
lained to Tara how she’d connected via the coffee shop’s Wi-Fi and downloaded the sequencing lab file.

  Tara was irked that Kristen had done this without telling her, because she could have summoned help from the F.O. But what’s done is done, Tara thought, and if there was a message from William Archer, that would constitute a tremendous break in the actual kidnapping case.

  “I was only connected for a few seconds,” Kristen said, reading her mind. She went on, “Lance, just stand by and stay out of trouble. I may have a job for you.”

  She squinted at the screen in the brilliant sunlight. It soon became apparent that it was too bright to read the screen.

  “You’ll probably have to duck under that tree to get some shade,” Dave said. He took off his shirt and walked over to a stunted, bush-like tree at the edge of the beach. He stretched the shirt over some branches. He grabbed Lance’s and did the same, forming a crude cover. “Under here,” he said, waving Kristen over. She took the laptop and hunkered down under the bush, sitting cross-legged on the dirt.

  “Much better,” she called out, angling the screen. She opened the lab file she had downloaded earlier during her wireless drive-by. Another plain format DNA sequence file, this one a DNA panel for the bioluminescent marine bacterium Kristen and Dave had recovered from the mason jar in the lab.Tropic Sequence’s flooded

  Kristen searched for the START sequence gleaned from the decryption file on the flash drive.

  Match.

  She repeated the process for the STOP string.

  Match!

  An uncontrollable shiver travelled down her spine. Another message from her father resided within the symbols on her screen, waiting to be unscrambled.

  …CGAA46CGAA...

  11:06 A.M.

  “Two guys coming our way,” Kristen heard Tara warn. A rush of adrenaline stabbed at her abdomen. She started to close the laptop, ready to run, but then Tara spoke again.