by Toby Neal
“Let me guess. The big boss’s place,” Lei said.
“Yes. This is usually Lanai’s owner’s house. The computer guy hasn’t moved in yet, but we expect him any day.”
Lei got out of the police vehicle just as one side of the huge, iron-banded oak front door opened. A maid in a traditional black costume with an apron stood there, looking like a bit player in a period piece with her upswept hair topped by a lacy cap—but her eyes were wide with distress and her finger trembling as she pointed to the right side of the castle. “Thank God you came! Hurry, we’ve been robbed!”
That was all Lei needed to dive back into the vehicle, grab the shotgun, and toss the other one to Mikado. “Don’t follow me until you get your vest on,” she said to the young officer, who flushed as he popped the trunk of the vehicle.
Lei nodded to the maid and took off in the direction she’d pointed. She hurried at a jog along a crushed-shell walkway that fronted beds of roses planted up against the golden stone. She tightened down the Kevlar and crouched to minimize herself as a target as she came around the corner of the castle—only to hear a now-familiar sound, the high-pitched sewing-machine whine of the Hummel’s engine powering up.
It was parked about a hundred yards away from her on what must be a croquet field, because as Lei ran forward, she tripped on a wire wicket and almost went down. She felt Mikado grab the back of her vest to keep her from falling. He must have run full blast to catch up with her.
“Thanks,” she said. “It’s firing up. Let’s get in front of it and block his escape.”
They ran toward the Hummel even as it moved forward, bumping over the grass, and Lei could see it was off-kilter—one of the struts was bent, and that tilted the wings off-center.
Lei poured on some speed. The Bandit couldn’t shoot at them with the plastic hood down; they just needed to physically block the ultralight to get him to stop. She could see the shadow of a head inside that shiny, round, clear carapace, and she ran as hard as she could—but the Hummel was accelerating at the same speed.
Mikado passed her, running full on, and he had his rifle up. The young officer had game—he must be in good shape to pass her—and maybe Mikado could reach the Hummel in time. Lei stopped and knelt in firing position. She cocked the rifle and aimed a beanie round at the plastic dome of the little aircraft.
The rifle blast was loud, so loud she couldn’t hear the sewing-machine drone anymore, and the kick of the recoil knocked her shoulder back. The round hit the dome but did no damage. She fired another round, this time at one of the tires. It made the little plane wobble, but it kept going, bouncing as it tried to take off from the grass.
Mikado was running with all his heart and soul, but it didn’t look like he was going to catch up as the ultralight continued to accelerate, its bounces into the air higher each time.
Time to try something heavier. Stopping that aircraft might be her last chance to save the kid. Lei pulled her Glock and aimed at the tail fin. She steadied, lined up her sights, and fired. Even with the crack of the report, she heard a ping and saw a fist-sized hole appear in the shiny metal of the tail, and its rudderlike movement stopped.
But the Hummel kept going.
She caught up with Mikado and they watched as the damaged ultralight lifted awkwardly into the air, wobbling and tipping to the side.
“Shit.” Lei’s stomach churned. She holstered her weapon. This couldn’t end well. Her attempt to disable the craft had crippled it just enough to make flying even more hazardous.
They watched the bumpy ascension of the Hummel. It curved at first, as if following the road—and then it straightened off, still flying low. Lei saw a little smoke coming from the propeller—maybe it had been damaged more than she’d thought. Lei speed-dialed Ken and briefed him as they watched the struggling craft. “I shot the tail with a live round and hit him elsewhere with some beanies. He’s got to come down soon.”
“Get some four-wheel drives,” Mikado said. “We should be able to catch him in the open land outside of town. He has to bring it down.”
Lei was relaying that when the little plane veered again—and this time, it headed straight for the ocean.
“He’s making a run for Molokai! That plane is damaged. He’ll never make it!” Lei exclaimed.
“Meet us back at the helipad. I’ll alert the MPD over on Molokai,” Ken said. “And the Coast Guard.”
Lei and Mikado jogged back to the cruiser and waved at the maid. “Someone will be back to take a statement on what’s missing,” Lei called to her. They put on the siren and lights and headed for the helipad area.
“Do you think he’ll make it?” Mikado asked. His brows were knit above his strong nose, lips pursed.
“No telling. I can’t believe he’d go for it. I thought I’d ground him for sure.” Lei felt terrible. That kid was going down. There was no way the Hummel, already off-kilter with a bent strut, was going to make it across the turbulent, gusty nine-mile Kalohi Channel to Molokai.
Her bullet might be what sent him into the ocean. Still, if it hadn’t been that, it would have been something else, she told herself. She wished they’d had time to do the consult with Dr. Wilson, but something inside her knew the truth—the Smiley Bandit had always meant this to be a one-way trip.
The cruiser pulled up at the open area where the JetRanger waited, ready for liftoff.
“I can direct us to where he headed out,” Lei said as the three other agents climbed in and everyone put on their flight helmets. With a brief wave to her new friend Mikado, Lei pointed through the rounded Plexiglas. “Straight ahead.”
Chapter Seventeen
The helicopter took mere minutes to orient on the golden-stoned castle and draw a bead on the weaving trajectory the Hummel had taken. The pilot pushed forward the collective to top speed, and they zoomed down the arid sculptured flank of Lanai toward the deep cobalt of the surging channel between the islands.
“You say you hit the tail fin?” Marcella asked through the comm unit.
“Yeah. Used my Glock, since the beanies weren’t doing anything.” Lei’s stomach was still knotted, and it wasn’t just the turbulence that filled her with a hollow dread.
“That could come back to bite us,” Ken said.
Lei turned from her front seat to glare at her partner. “I wanted to disable the aircraft. The beanies weren’t doing that. The Hummel was already damaged. One of the struts was bent, and I hit the Plexi cover with a beanie round. He still didn’t stop. I hit one of the tires, and again the beanie didn’t do a thing. But one bullet from a nine mil stopped that tail rudder cold, and it was exactly what I aimed at. Any sensible unsub would maybe fly a little way and then land, try to get away on foot. But I’m thinking this kid has a death wish and has had it from the beginning. All this is just a setup for the inevitable, rubber ammo or no. We’re being used to make a statement.”
“It’s possible,” Ken replied. “I did get ahold of our psychologist, Dr. LaSota, but she’s still at Quantico for something so she cleared us to use Dr. Wilson, who’s reviewing the case with Ang on Oahu. I hope she’ll have some feedback for us on the unsub soon.”
The helicopter buzzed over the churning, wind-whipped sea. Lei scanned the ocean in front of them with field glasses and Rogers did so from the side window, while Ken and Marcella worked phones with the Coast Guard and Molokai Police Department respectively. Lei reached to the side to loosen her vest, and her hand slid into her pocket to rub the white-gold disc she still carried.
Stevens. He was lost to her now, but he’d loved her well as long as she’d let him. And he was giving her back her dog. Somehow, these background thoughts comforted her in the midst of the stressful chase in a bumpy helicopter over a churning ocean.
The wind caught the JetRanger, giving it an alarming dip and heave—and she thought she spotted something, a gleam that wasn’t the right color for foam on the waves.
“There!” Lei cried, pointing. “I think I see it!”
Lei found herself leaning forward to almost touch the instrument panel, but the four-point harness held her back. They overtook the Hummel rapidly, and Lei’s heart sank as she visually measured the distance between the craft, weaving about five hundred feet above the water, and the coast of Molokai. She put her field glasses up and could see smoke trailing from the propeller. The bobbing, weaving flight path resembled that of a drunken pelican.
She put the glasses up to scan the coast—the terrain was a savannahlike open field of dry grasses, ending with rocky beach. If he could just make it to land, bringing the ultralight down looked relatively easy.
They circled the straining little aircraft.
“What do you want to do?” the pilot asked. “We can open the doors, if you want to bring it down.”
“Waxman’s given direction—we’re to track the aircraft and rescue the Bandit if he’s in trouble and apprehend him when he lands,” Marcella said.
“I hope we have enough fuel to keep this up,” the pilot said. “We’re low. I didn’t have time to fill up before I picked you up for the trip from Maui, and fighting this wind sucks a lot of fuel.”
A new concern. Could this situation get any worse? Lei wondered, and thought it probably could.
The coast of Molokai approached with agonizing slowness. The pilot, conserving his fuel, throttled back to fly alongside the struggling ultralight, and Lei put her field glasses to her eyes, looking over at the shadowed figure inside the clear Plexiglas bubble.
That dark head turned, and a face looked at her—a small face, pale with terror and determination. A face with big brown eyes, a straight little nose, and full lips set in a line of defiance.
A teenaged girl’s face.
Lei dropped the glasses and they locked eyes. The expression—the narrowed eyes, the tilt of the chin—told Lei that this was a girl who’d do what she set out to do, or die trying. Lei recognized that expression. She’d worn it herself more than once.
And then the girl lifted an elegant, long-fingered hand and flipped Lei the bird.
Chapter Eighteen
They must have all spotted the girl at the same time, because Rogers said, “Aw, shit-damn.” His Texas drawl had gone thick, as it did when he was upset.
Marcella speed-dialed Waxman, and Lei could hear her murmuring: “Female suspect, looks like a local” and “Who the hell is this kid? Do we even have a girl in the suspect pool?”
Lei remained spellbound, watching the lurching, weaving craft and the girl’s tense face focused on the shore. If the plane went down, it was likely her bullet that had done it, and the knowledge made her hands sweat. With the field glasses, Lei could see the pointy profile of Angel, Max Smiley’s teacup Chihuahua, tucked into the neck of the girl’s shirt.
The Smiley Bandit was a teenaged girl. It was more than a PR nightmare; it was the stuff of legend.
Ken’s voice in her ear roused her as if from a trance.
“Looks like the ultralight’s going down.” Indeed, the craft had sunk another twenty feet, lower than they could keep pace with in the helicopter.
“She doesn’t want to kill the dog. She’s going to try to get to shore to save it, then get us to take her down. I bet she fires on us.” Lei couldn’t explain the total conviction she had about the girl’s state of mind.
“How do you know?” Marcella argued.
“I just know she’s going to try to suicide. This was always a one-way trip for this kid.”
“Well, we won’t let her,” Rogers said. “We’ll find some other way.”
“C’mon, come on, come on,” Lei found herself chanting under her breath as they tracked the aircraft’s descent, now within a couple hundred yards of the rocky shore—but it was a couple hundred yards too far.
The little plane dipped and bobbled, and the damaged wing caught the water, spiraling the Hummel around. Spray shot up and hit the windshield, and the helicopter, tracking, veered up and away from a flurry of splash as the ultralight spun, tumbled, and plowed nose-first into the water.
It had gone down only a couple hundred yards from the rocky shore, but the sea was still a deep cobalt blue.
“We have to help her!” Lei reached over and hit the door opener, and the side of the JetRanger shot open.
“Coast Guard’s on the way,” Ken said, and indeed they could see a cutter in the distance—but Lei could also see that the little aircraft, while it had landed upright and seemed miraculously undamaged, was sinking.
The Plexi top flipped open, and the girl pulled herself up to standing even as the front of the Hummel made a sudden lurching dive nose-first. Water poured into the little craft.
“Get closer!” Lei screamed. The helicopter lowered. “Let’s throw her a rope or something!”
The girl unzipped her jacket and took out the little dog. She pitched the Chihuahua into the waves, pointing the animal toward shore.
Then, even as the water swirled up around her knees, she pulled the Walther and aimed at the helicopter. She pulled the trigger, and the report knocked her backward. Lei heard the ping of a bullet hitting metal. The pilot spun the craft away, even as Marcella and Rogers, in a better position near the door, cocked their rifles and took aim at the defiant figure.
Lei spotted the little dog, confused, swimming back toward the sinking aircraft.
“Angel!” Lei cried. “She’s turned around!” She opened the small cockpit side door, flung off her helmet and harness, ignoring the cries of the pilot and her fellow agents.
Lei felt the force of her will connecting with that of the girl as she pointed to the dog in the water, catching the girl’s eye. She was fully exposed to the Bandit’s gunfire, a ripe target—and somehow she knew the kid wouldn’t take the shot. The Bandit seemed to have heard Lei’s frantic message, and the girl turned away from the helicopter, scanning the water. She spotted the dog’s tiny head, struggling in the surging waves and about to be sucked down.
“What’re you doing?” Marcella yelled, even as Lei crouched in the door of the helicopter, holding on to the door frame. The Bandit flung the pistol away and dove away from the doomed ultralight, swimming toward Angel, but Lei could see she wouldn’t reach the animal in time—the tiny dog’s head disappeared under the waves even as the Hummel gurgled it’s last moments.
Lei pumped her lungs full of air and jumped out of the helicopter, aiming as best she could for where she’d last seen the Chihuahua. She lost sight of that spot on the water as she flew through the air, keeping her arms tight against her sides and feet together—but the water still felt like concrete as she hit, the shock of it slamming from the soles of her feet to the top of her head, buckling her knees and stealing her breath.
Lei opened her arms, kicking and swimming toward the surface, opening her eyes underwater. The salt water stung, and it was blurry—but she thought she saw a dark blotch straight ahead. She kicked hard, swimming toward it, her now-empty lungs screaming for air.
Lei scooped the Chihuahua into her arms and powered up through the water with her legs. Even weighted by the Kevlar vest, clothes, and athletic shoes, she was in shape, a strong swimmer, and she bore the dog to the surface, thrusting them both into air with a giant gasp. A wave promptly smacked her in the face as she treaded water, the Kevlar vest filling and weighting her down, her shoes heavy as iron.
Angel wasn’t moving.
The girl splashed over to reach her, dark eyes frantic. “Is she alive?”
“Take her,” Lei choked, thrusting the tiny dog into the girl’s hands. “Swim hard for shore.”
Without another word, the girl struck out for shore, holding Angel up above the waves with one hand.
Lei could see the helicopter still circling overhead, but her attention was now fully occupied with staying afloat. She was in trouble, weight
ed by the vest, her firearm, and accoutrements. She leaned over underwater and pulled off her shoes. That helped her kick, and she swam awkwardly after the Bandit, sinking a little lower with each stroke. Lei shed the Kevlar next, not sad to see the hated vest spiral into the depths. She was pretty sure she could make it now, her eyes on the seal-dark head of the girl swimming in front of her.
Lei staggered up into the shallows behind the Bandit, bare feet scraped by the rocky bottom, her legs rubbery, lungs burning, and eyes stinging with salt. The girl turned to her, and the little dog, cradled in her arms, still wasn’t moving.
“Help her!” the Bandit cried, face white and dark eyes wide.
Chapter Nineteen
“Turn her upside down,” Lei said. “Let’s try giving her chest compressions.” Surely the basics for drowning used on a human would be the same for a dog. She was dimly aware of the helicopter spiraling down to land on the slope behind them.
The Bandit upended the Chihuahua by her hind legs and held her against her body as Lei pried open the dog’s jaws, pushing the tongue out of the way with one finger as she compressed the dog’s side with the other. Foamy water pumped out of the dog’s mouth.
Lei kept going, compressing the lungs manually with one hand and holding the tongue out of the way with the other until suddenly the tiny body jerked. Angel thrashed and vomited water over Lei as she knelt on the rocks.
“Oh, thank God!” the girl exclaimed, hugging the tiny dog. “And thank you,” she said to Lei.
“You’re welcome,” Lei said, grinning. “Thank God is right.” The tiny Chihuahua twisted around to lick the Bandit’s face just as Ken arrived, cuffs in hand.
“You’re under arrest,” he said. “Put your hands behind your back.”
“Take care of Angel,” the Smiley Bandit said, and handed the tiny, shivering Chihuahua to Lei.
