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Molokai Forest Reserve
Sunday, 9 May
2140 Local Time
Yeager sat in the dirt and leaned his back against the side of the command barracks. The rough-textured wood jabbed his scalp with splinters. The acrid smell of burning plastic drifted from the smoking barrels, and tiny licks of flame peeked over their rims. The fires were dying out, and the darkness had all but reclaimed the abandoned camp. Exhaustion soaked Yeager’s muscles, and it was all he could do to force his mind to focus on Pettigrew’s debriefing.
“So you’re saying,” Yeager said, “that Osterchuk is dead, and the leader—”
“Second in command, but leader here.” Pettigrew knelt beside him, sweat gleaming on his dark complexion.
“This guy named Kimo dragged Charlie off with the rest of the quote-unquote military advisers.”
“Who are trying hard to look and act like North Koreans but the computer geek says are as North Korean as a fortune cookie.”
“Who, then?” Yeager’s eyelids dropped. Post-battle reaction and the dissipation of adrenaline sapped his will power. Add to that the crushing disappointment of his wife remaining a captive to these maniacs, and it was all he could do to keep from curling into a ball and giving in to the sleep that wanted to take him under.
“The kid thinks maybe Chinese.”
“Who’s this kid, the computer geek?”
“A homegrown wannabe terrorist all hot and bothered over Hawaiian independence. Rah-rah, Hawaii for Hawaiians. Yaaahhhh!” Pettigrew mimed a cheerleader waving pom-poms and imitated the roar of a stadium crowd.
Yeager cut a sideways look at the smaller man. “You kill him?”
Pettigrew shook his head. “Nah. Cut a few bits off at first—got him talking.”
“Heh. And they say torture doesn’t work.”
“Only Hollywood assholes say that. Torture works just fine if you know how to do it. The kid—his name is Alapai, by the way—is zip-tied to a table in there. He ain’t going anywhere. Not on foot, anyway.” Pettigrew added that last with a look that would sour milk still in the cow. Yeager chose not to pursue it. “Anyway,” the Vietnam vet continued, “the point being, Kimo’s got an hour head start, maybe an hour and a half. No way we’re catching up, trying to follow where they’re going.”
Yeager grunted. An hour-and-a-half lead and no trail to follow. It didn’t matter. He was going to have to try—
“But we don’t have to,” Pettigrew added.
“Huh? What?”
“We don’t have to run after Kimo and his boys.”
“I have to.” Yeager planted a hand to lever himself off the ground. “They have my wife.”
“One other thing Mr. Alapai related...” Pettigrew fished a scrap of paper out of his shirt pocket and held it up. Letters were scrawled on it in blue ink. “The name of a ship.”
“A ship?” Yeager frowned, trying to concentrate.
“We don’t need to follow the bad guys.” Pettigrew’s teeth glittered in a wolfish smile. “We just need to find the ship they’re headed for.”
#
MOLOKAI FOREST RESERVE
Sunday, 9 May
2350 Local
Victor glanced at his watch. Mickey’s big hand and Mickey’s little hand were both pointing almost straight up. At nearly midnight, he still had no plan. So far, what he’d come up with was A, throw the stoned, sleeping Jumbo into the back of the Jeep and drive back to town to report the dead bodies in the Land Rovers, or B, hike up a pitch-black trail into the jungle with nothing but a dime-store flashlight and a handgun. His head said A, and his balls said B, which left the default of plan C: insert thumb in ass, and wait for the killers of the tour people to reappear while watching for a bright star to blossom in the sky and lead him to Jesus.
The moon hung almost directly overhead, a brilliant-white scimitar against a backdrop of glittering pinpricks. None of the bazillion stars appeared ready or willing to step up and lend a hand, so Victor paced a circuit from the Rovers and their gruesome cargo to the picnic table under the canopy to the rusty Jeep with its snoring occupant. Jumbo sat with his head thrown back, mouth hanging open, and supplied a baritone counterpoint to the high-pitched whine of the insect serenade.
Jumbo’s snoring was the only reason he missed the sound of the intruder until a shadow flowed around the rear of the Jeep and tried to stab him in the neck. Victor caught the glitter of metal and the rush of motion from the corner of his eye. He fell as much as sprang backward, barking a harsh grunt of surprise. A burning sensation scored a line across his collarbone, and he twisted away as the attacker’s momentum carried him past. The man barked a curse and swept a backhand cut that swished through the air close enough for Victor to smell the steel.
Victor crow-hopped backward to gain some space, but the oily little wisp of smoke kept up the pressure. Moonlight revealed a scrawny black man in a windbreaker—What the fuck? A windbreaker?—whipping his knife around in the style of a Japanese chef. A three-headed snake couldn’t strike any faster than this guy. If he could clinch the skinny bastard, Victor could squish him like a tube of toothpaste, but hand-to-hand speed wasn’t among his superpowers, and the snake kept dancing in and out.
The guy whirled in with a slash that burned across Victor’s palm.
“Chingada tu madre!” Victor snapped. “Hold still, you little Chihuahua motherfucker!”
“Pettigrew! Back off!” boomed a voice from the night—one that sounded a tad familiar. The scrawny knife fighter oozed out of reach, poised in attack posture.
“Yeager?” Victor squinted at the broad shape looming out of the darkness behind the black man. “Is that you?”
With a few more steps, the shadow resolved into the blunt shape of none other than Abel freaking Yeager. A second later, Victor was engulfed in a bear hug and lifted from his feet.
Yeager pounded Victor’s back then put him down. “Goddamn, I’m glad to see you. How’d you... how is it you’re here?”
“I—”
“Never mind,” Yeager said. “I need to get to a boat. Something fast.”
“What—”
“They have Charlie, and I have to catch up to them out at sea. They’re going to meet another boat. Will this Jeep run?”
Victor blinked as a crowd of people materialized from the direction of the trail, led by a white guy wearing shorts but no shirt. They looked like refugees from a zombie apocalypse. “Who...? What...?”
The bald man in the tan windbreaker spoke up, his voice as raspy as a ten-inch bastard-cut file. “You know this guy, Yeager? He don’t seem too bright.”
“Another jarhead. C’mon, Por Que, snap to. Let’s get moving. I need to find a harbor and commandeer a boat.”
The parade of refugees shuffled closer. Most looked tired out, and Victor noted a frail old lady being carried by a square-jawed fellow with white hair. The chubby shirtless guy in the lead handed an AK-style rifle to the old man with the knife.
Chubby Half-Naked Dude eyeballed Victor but spoke to Yeager. “The Land Rovers are still here, keys in the ignition. The tour guides are dead and stuffed in the back.”
“Okay, fine.” Yeager raked his hair back with his fingers. He looked at where he’d propped his AK against the side of Jumbo’s battered ride, the owner of said vehicle still zonked out, mouth open, cutting wood with a rusty saw. Yeager retrieved the weapon and said to Chubby, “Load everybody up, and let’s get down the hill. Dump the bodies if you have to make room.”
“Where’d you get the guns?” Victor asked. “And by the way, you look like a bear ate you and shit you down a chimbly.” Victor flapped his wounded hand, which burned like everlasting sin, and splattered the black man’s windbreaker with drops of blood. “And you, Zorro. Why’d you jump me?”
“I thought you was one of them Chinamen—uh, Chinese.”
“I look Chinese to you, hombre?”
Zorro shrugged. “Y’all look the same to me in the dark.”
“Shut up, Marines,” Yeager ordered. “Por Que, we’ll explain on the way. Let’s go.” He turned to Chubby. “You good, Draper? You can get these people to the nearest town?”
The man named Draper scratched his belly with a thumbnail. “I have no idea where that is, but we’ll manage. Go get your wife, Abel.”
Victor rapped on the hood of the Jeep, banging his way around the front of the vehicle to the driver’s side. “Hey! Jumbo! Wake up!”
The heavy-lidded fisherman snorted and sat up. He wiped the back of his mouth with a bare forearm.
“Jumbo?” Draper asked.
“Dude, hop out!” Victor said. “You need to show these people how to get to the cop shop in Kuana-kaka, or Kabula-kooko, or what the fuck it’s called. Throw that shitty AK in the back, Yeager. I’ll drive. Just so happens I know where there’s a boat with a squid skipper and some good American guns.”
Yeager sagged into the passenger seat while Victor tossed out Jumbo’s tackle box of six lures, four rusty leaders, and a Ziploc bag of primo weed. When Jumbo scrambled after the baggie of green, leafy substance, Victor took his place behind the wheel.
“Hey, my car!”
“You’ll be a hero, Jumbo,” Victor said, cranking the ignition key. “Name will be in all the papers, dude.” The back of the Jeep bounced, and Victor looked over his shoulder. The black man had climbed in and was settling down for the ride. “Where do you think you’re going, Zorro?”
“He’s coming with us,” Yeager said, scrubbing his eyes with his palms. “Now, find a gear on this bitch and let’s go.”
#
SOUTHERN COAST OF MOLOKAI
Monday, 10 May
0002 Local
Charlie Yeager stumbled in the thick sand of the beach and caught herself with her good hand before falling, only to be kicked in the butt and sent sprawling face-first. She bit back a whimper when her throbbing right hand thumped the ground and was squashed by her body. Sand showered her face, and she tasted grit. The pain almost equaled the indignity of being kicked in the rear.
A giant hand lifted her by the belt and set her on her feet. “Keep moving,” Kong ordered. Kimo—the other men called him Kimo. “Don’t try to slow us down again.”
Then stop kicking me! She wanted to say the words, but her jaw remained clenched. A combination of despair, anger, and fear were muddled together and twisted her mind away from finding a solution to her situation. Considering that they were approaching a small fleet of inflatable boats being maneuvered into the water by black-clad soldiers, her situation was headed from desperate to hopeless in a hurry.
From the first moments of leaving the camp with the four Hawaiians, she pictured Abel springing from the bushes, Ramboing all the terrorists, and carrying her to safety. This fantasy played out in various ways, her mind always refusing to dwell on the possibility that he might be killed in the attempt. When the Hawaiians connected with a cadre of their more professional-looking Asian soldiers, the fantasy became more difficult to sustain.
The group had topped a high ridge in the pitch-black night then proceeded downslope through thick, slashing fronds and loose soil that threatened to crumble underfoot. Their path crossed the main hiking trail at one point—Charlie could make out the Park Service steps cut into a slope as they traversed it at an angle.
The men shifted around a lot, making it hard to keep track, but by the time they reached a convoy of high-wheeled vehicles parked under a canopy of trees, she counted at least ten enemy combatants, including Kimo and his bunch of home-grown assholes.
After being shoved into the back seat of an SUV and squished between Kimo and the man he called Hambone, Charlie’s hope of a quick rescue sputtered out like the stub of a candle melting away to nothing. The convoy barreled downhill along a game trail barely suited for dirt bikes and mountain goats, and though their speed wasn’t anything close to the high end of the speedometer, the SUVs rumbled downhill faster than a man on foot could keep up.
Which meant Abel was far, far behind her when the trucks pulled into the driveway of what appeared to be an abandoned house. Everybody had piled out and double-timed around the back, where a narrow strip of sandy beach lay between the grass of the home’s backyard and the rollers of the Pacific Ocean—the same beach upon which she had just stumbled and had her ass kicked for good measure.
The trail would be cold and hard to follow by the time dawn gave Abel enough light to follow her tracks—tracks that would lead across a beach and disappear forever. No tracker in the world could follow a boat across the sea. Cold logic suggested that if she got into a boat, she’d be as good as dead.
Her jumbled thoughts clicked into a coherent picture in the space between one shove in the back and the next. Her life had come to a decision point, and Charlie had never been afraid of making hard choices.
She looked up at the glittering stars. She saw the crescent moon hanging in the sky and felt the sea breeze flutter her blouse. In the space between heartbeats, Charlie said goodbye to everything she had known. David, her son. Abel, her husband. John, the baby. She had to let them all go, for this was it. She wasn’t getting out of this alive. She would die on this beach, or the monster, Kimo, would carry her to their waiting boat, rape her, then dump her over the side, dead or alive. She would disappear forever, her body lost to the sea. Abel would never know what became of her.
They were halfway across the beach when her realization coalesced into an action plan. She would rather die then and there than be dragged onto a boat to a bleak and certain future. Charlie broke right and kicked into high gear. Her legs powered her across the sand, kicking up small white puffs with each stride.
She ran for her life.