by Rob Swigart
She should not, therefore, assume there would be a last minute rescue. She must appear to acquiesce, be passive, and watch for an opportunity, a moment when their guard was down.
They were in the mountains. She was sure she could not find her way back down alone, not in the dark. Patria was very good on the trail, but she had no compass and the trail was bad, nearly invisible even in daylight. There was no real point in trying to escape. Wait and see.
She heard a sound outside. Someone was coming. No-neck didn’t move or give any sign he had heard, but the pudgy one stared at the door somewhat apprehensively.
The door opened, and she recognized in the furtive shape standing there the real danger.
It must have showed on her face, the fear, for the man gave a nod, as if satisfied. His bow was strung, an arrowhead wickedly barbed with razor vanes gleaming in the gloomy half-light of the cabin.
The pudgy man said, “They’re not here yet. Where are they?”
The barb moved fractionally, and the pudgy man drew back. After a moment he turned to stare gloomily out the window. It was growing darker.
Patria sat up straight and looked at the hunter; she would conceal her fear.
What was the hierarchy in this room? The hunter was in charge, yet his motives were still obscure. What did he want? What was his connection with the murders? She noted the bayonet at his web belt, and thought of the Canadian girl with her throat slashed. Was he working for someone else? Was he a middleman, an errand boy, a hired hand? Did they want ransom, or did they want the help of a scientist like Charles Koenig?
The pudgy person was not directly under the hunter in the pecking order; perhaps he was irrelevant. She discounted him for the moment. That left No-neck as the employee. He would do what the hunter told him.
Was there a way she could establish some authority? Certainly not by appearing frightened, nor by asking questions. In fact, she did not trust herself to speak at all.
Ignore No-neck. Disregard Pudgy. Establish a bond with the hunter.
Patria smiled at him. His face was covered, and she could see no reaction. His eyes revealed nothing. They were brown, she thought, or gray. His forehead was clear, plain, blank. No lines, no marks. His eyebrows were straight, nearly connected. The hair visible under his cap was long, tied back.
The door was still open behind the hunter; the mist was close and wet. She could barely see the huge tree in front through the fog. Just a dim outline, really. Something moved there.
The hunter casually pivoted, lifted the bow and loosed the arrow in one motion. There was a brief whirring sound, a squawk, and then silence. He trotted outside and returned a moment later holding the arrow. The barbed tip protruded from a wild rooster. Its tail, once its pride, was already lusterless. The hunter tossed the rooster at the pudgy man, who scurried aside. The dead bird fell to the floor under the window. The pudgy man did not return to his moody staring; he looked in dismay at the dead bird skewered on an arrow; then he sat on a wooden bench against the wall.
No-neck had not moved at all. His biceps bulged in the dim light. They heard footsteps outside, and four men entered.
One of them was Chazz. He looked exhausted.
44
“We’ve lost them.” Sammy heaved his bulk onto the edge of Takamura’s desk and settled with a sigh. “Gone, poof, like that.”
Takamura said nothing. He noticed that his foot was jiggling, a very bad sign. Takamura was seldom nervous. He’d seen too much to be nervous.
Sammy noticed the foot, too. Takamura stilled the foot with an effort. Finally he whispered, “Damn.”
Sammy nodded. “The van is parked outside Sailor’s Cove, boat rentals. We’ve talked to Smitty, a surfer. He dropped Koenig off past Kalalau, barely made it back before the storm hit hard. There was a quote unquote developer asking about boats, signed up Koenig. Smitty didn’t know him. Late forties, white hair. They have organization.”
“I know.” Takamura sighed. “The weather?”
“Awful. This storm’s going to be the worst of the season. It’s still building.”
“Any ideas?”
“One.” Sammy stood up again, too restless to stay perched on the edge of the desk.
“Well?”
Sammy shook his head. “It’s a legend, really, nothing firm. There might be a trail.”
“Go on.”
“If they went through the lava tube from the Valley of the Lost Tribe, there might be a way to the top. They might know about it.”
“Might? So we should be looking up here.” Takamura went to the wall map. He traced the valley up from the coast with his delicate forefinger. “Somewhere up here, in Koke’e. Most of this is park. Not much private land, but there are some old cabins in that area grandfathered in. Long-term leases and such. Some are probably very old, maybe not even recorded recently, eh? They’d have to have a cabin, wouldn’t they?”
Sammy nodded. “I’d think so.”
“It would have to be unused, possibly unknown. We need the old real estate records. Damn, Samuel, this is a small island!”
“You’re calling me Samuel, boss. That’s a very bad sign.”
Takamura smiled grimly. “I can understand how we lost Koenig. Even with a tag on his car, a few elementary precautions would shake us. They took the opportunities. But why did we lose Patria? She was the bait, after all.”
Sammy shrugged again, a heavy gesture. “We were worried about Koenig.”
“Not good enough. They waltzed in and impersonated us. Waltzed out again. Changed cars once at the shopping center and we lost them. Damn. What about our call to the FBI? This is a kidnapping.”
Sammy snorted. “They said they can’t come into the case because the agent assigned to Kauai is not on Kauai, he’s on Maui helping the drug enforcement people investigate marijuana traffic; and he couldn’t get here even if they considered it an authentic case, which they don’t. The agent in charge suggested Koenig and his wife went hiking.”
“State Police, National Guard, anything come through there?”
Sammy shook his head again. “No luck. We’re blocked.”
“I know. Besides, flights are canceled because of the weather; the airport is closed. The island is isolated. Our problem is no longer medical. Perhaps it never was.”
They went down to Records, a long, echoing room filled with endless wooden-fronted cases full of ancient gray clothbound books. The ceiling fixtures were circular incandescent dishes. For economy, every other one had no bulb.
Sammy took one aisle and Takamura the next. They spent twenty minutes with the old maps and deeds.
Finally Sammy appeared at the end of the aisle and waved. His blunt fat fingertip rested on a map. Takamura nodded. “Let’s go.”
They made a photocopy and left the building. Takamura drove quickly but carefully. Sammy was on the radio most of the time.
Rain was sweeping in sheets across the roadway. At Sinner’s Head there was a four-car accident, and Takamura had to drive along the shoulder, fretting.
“I suppose it’s a good thing,” Takamura said as they drove through Hanalolo. The town was dead; deserted. “Choppers would be useless even if we had good weather. Did you get everyone?”
Sammy grunted assent.
Takamura shook his head. “I don’t like it. I don’t like the risk. They’ll all be there by now, assuming this is the place, which it may not be. We don’t know how many of them there are, how well prepared they are, or how well armed. I don’t like it.”
Sammy said nothing. Takamura was thinking.
“On the other hand, there can’t be too many. Not more than ten. Probably less. This is not a big cabin, and too many people make a lousy conspiracy.”
He drove on, still thinking.
“On the other hand again, they’ll be very well prepared, and very well armed.”
“That’s the third hand,” Sammy said.
Takamura looked at him and grunted. “These are professionals. Whoe
ver killed the kids, planned the kidnapping, he was no amateur. A vet, probably. Trained right here at home; for Vietnam? Likely. Well trained, well armed. Well, ‘Kitchen stove most excellent weapon – good for cooking goose.’”
Sammy snorted and Takamura looked over at him. “You’re wondering who’s got the kitchen stove?”
Sammy looked at his boss. He was expressionless. Then he nodded. “And who is the goose.”
They took the Waimea Canyon Road. When they started to climb, Takamura stopped fretting. The others should be there already. He’d called from Lihue, and Sammy had radioed ahead. When they merged onto the Koke’e Road, Takamura said, “We have the kitchen stove, Sammy. And they are the goose. And you are The Kukui Nut.”
Sammy smiled. It was action at last. Moving. Up the mountain to a cabin at the edge of the Alakai Swamp. It was getting dark, and the rain still poured in smooth sheets down the windshield whenever the wipers paused at the end of their cycle, only to be thrown off in wild spray when they swung back across the glass. The rain pattered on the metal roof of the police car, hissed under the tires as they cornered.
But they were moving, and Takamura had called him The Kukui Nut.
45
Chazz, slumped on the ratty couch beside Patria, had trouble adjusting to the gloom of the cabin. Patria stroked the back of his hand slowly, and something in the touch revived him. He listened to the room without moving.
There had been, besides Patria, three other people in the cabin: a muscular man with cropped hair seated impassively in a straight-backed wooden chair tilted slightly back against the wall; a familiar pudgy man with his back to them was staring out the window; and a lean figure in combat fatigues with an elaborate hunting bow. He added Ward Freeman and the other two who had brought him here.
He rested his head in one hand and watched through slitted eyes.
No one spoke. His escorts arranged themselves around the perimeter of the room, as if the center were a stage just before curtain time. The darkness increased rapidly; rain drummed on the roof; and the sound matched the darkness, a noisy, chaotic clatter. Finally the hunter nodded, and the muscular man stood up. He stretched briefly, cracking his elbows. Then he used a long match to light two kerosene lamps. He set them down on a table so they threw their light across the room.
Chazz spoke softly. “Dewilliter! I might have known.”
The pudgy man turned and looked sourly at Chazz. He shook his head. “I tried to warn you, Koenig. I tried.”
Chazz laughed wearily. “A sense of foreboding on the horizon? Disquieting rumors?”
“Time. We needed time,” he said. He sounded bitter.
“Lobelioids?” Chazz said it almost to himself. Lobelioids were harmless plants. The hunter held his bow slightly cocked, ready. Chazz had no doubt he could use it. He wished he knew more about bows. Zen archery.
The thought almost made him smile. This did not look like a Zen archer. This looked like a killer. He could feel Patria’s fear of him, her need to tame him and her fear. She sat stiffly, stroking the back of his hand. Chazz could feel tension rise in the cabin. No one spoke.
“So,” Chazz said at last, pushing it a little, “you’ve abandoned lobelioids for gene-splicing?”
Dewilliter smiled grimly. “Not really. Lobelioids suffer from a spindle viroid. I’d been looking into it, you know. Really. Not very practical, you might think. Not much to build a reputation on. But useful.”
“Dewilliter,” Ward Freeman said pleasantly. “You talk too much.”
Dewilliter bit his plump lips and looked uneasily at the dead rooster on the floor. Chazz followed his gaze. Patria saw where he was looking and said, “The hunter. He’s a good shot. Very fast.”
Chazz nodded. “Impressive.”
The rain swept noise rising and falling in waves across the roof, against the windows, into the water-soaked ground outside. The air in the cabin grew close and damp with bodies and tension.
“Why did you need time?” Chazz asked. He directed the question at Freeman.
Freeman appeared to think it over. “It’s complicated, Dr. Koenig. Very complicated, more than you know. They’re working on it, the other side, the Soviets, you see. We know that. They’re working on it, and they may be ahead of us. We can’t let that happen.”
“You told me. And you want them to know you’re working on it, too, and they know you want them to know. I don’t believe a word of it.”
“But it’s all true! The boats go faster! It’s just that there was an accident. These things happen. We took precautions. The best. We have funding; the sky’s the limit. This is an important project. Very important. Something slipped up. No one understands it, how it happened, or even why. We have a P-4 facility. We took every physical precaution. We used standard K-12 bugs. It shouldn’t have happened.”
Chazz rubbed his temples. He could barely hear Freeman over the sound of rain and wind. He felt crushed into a bubble of fatigue.
“That’s why we needed time, Koenig. The bugs got out. They mutated. People were, ah, affected.”
Chazz spoke to the floor. He spoke slowly and dully. Freeman leaned forward to hear. Even Dewilliter was listening closely. “The bugs slashed two throats. The bugs cracked open their skulls and removed the brains. The bugs laid out the two bodies, a young couple, a woman and a man, beside the stream. Their faces were sliced open. I saw them.” Patria stopped stroking his hand, dug her nails into the skin. Chazz turned his own hand over and squeezed hers. He understood. The hunter. He hadn’t missed the knife at his belt. Chazz put his other hand to his temple, cupped his head in a cradle of his palms.
Freeman turned away sourly. He spoke to one side, no longer looking at Chazz. “We need your help.”
“You didn’t ask for it. You can’t force someone to help.”
“We couldn’t ask you. We knew your politics. You were at Asilomar. You were very vocal there. You voted for containment, restraints. You argued for them. Restraints would be fine if everyone played by the rules. In the real world some people don’t, though. You underestimate the enemy. You’d be stopped by the rules. We can’t afford that. We can’t afford to be stopped by rules. They aren’t!”
“But the bugs escaped,” Chazz said quietly. “People died. Some of your bugs. Others were murdered. That makes it less of an accident, doesn’t it? That’s why we have rules, Freeman. Rules are to protect people from dying.”
Freeman shook his head. “You still don’t understand. We’re protecting people. We must. It is our job, our responsibility. Sometimes sacrifices must be made.”
The hunter spoke for the first time. “We’re getting nowhere,” he said. His voice was a flat, even tenor, slightly muffled by the handkerchief over his mouth.
Chazz could feel Patria tense beside him. The kerosene lamps splashed light against the textured wallboard.
Both lamps were on the table; beside them was a thermos of coffee, a small wisp of steam twisting from the open top. Chazz found that fact interesting. He was faced with what physics called a three-body problem: two lamps and a thermos. Two human bodies had to get away from this room. That problem was complicated by the presence of other bodies. How could he use the others to advantage?
In a sense the problem was spiritual. His head was still cradled in his hands, fingers slowly massaging his temples. He needed not to think. He needed simply to be. Awareness expanded around him. He felt the placement of bodies, the currents of aggression, fear, ambition, hostility, intent. Some intent was directed toward him and Patria. It was not good intent. He needed to cut the thread of that intent. Weapons meant nothing without the intent to use them. The bow and arrow, the knife, the guns in the room. They were objects, inert, dead. Only intent could make them kill.
He faced Shinawa, the live blade winking in a similar light. Intent.
You must be ready to die.
46
“Could I have some coffee?” Chazz asked. “I can’t think straight.”
A th
ermos was produced. Chazz settled back on the couch with a sigh, sipping. “You know, Freeman, you’re either an idiot or a liar.”
Freeman frowned.
“Which is it?” Chazz was smiling pleasantly. Beside him Patria was alert and tense.
“I’m not sure I follow.” Freeman spoke slowly. He looked at the hunter, who had pulled back his bowstring a bit, the steel tip of his arrow absolutely steady in the yellow light.
“Well, take Dewilliter,” Chazz went on. “He knows what’s going on. You see, people are dying in other ways. Not just bugs. That means this is not an accident. Do you know why, Dewilliter? He’s shaking his head. Dewilliter isn’t in on the real secrets. I’ll bet even the hunter here knows the score.” Chazz paused as the barbed tip lined up on him; it was answer enough, though, that small motion of the arrow. The hunter knew. The bayonet at his belt gave him away; that movement of the arrow tip confirmed it.
Freeman caught it. He turned to the hunter. “What does he mean, Renfrew? What is he saying?” Patria had heard the thick undercurrent of anger in Freeman’s voice.
She glanced at No-neck, who remained impassive. The others were alert, but confusion was increasing. The team lineups were dissolving.
Renfrew said nothing. For the first time he was uncertain. The lines of authority were not clear. He was supposed to apply pressure on Koenig. That was his current mission. Pressure. Ensure cooperation, those were his orders.
Tomorrow he would kill Collins. This was obscuring his mission. Therefore he would have to stop it.
“Shut up,” he said quietly.
Chazz held Patria’s hand; he laid his forefinger along hers and gently pointed them together toward the door. She glanced at him.
Freeman was saying, “I have a right to know.”
“No,” Renfrew said. He nodded at No-neck, who very carefully put the front legs of his chair on the floor and sat straight. “You don’t.” The arrow backed him up.
