12
Ava took the elevator up, stepping off into a quiet third-floor hallway. The man staffing the nurses’ desk looked relieved to see her. “There you are. Officer Li said you’d had some trouble out front.”
“A little drama,” she agreed. “Things quiet up here?”
“Depends on your definition. She arrested him, the John Doe. Checked him out of the hospital.”
Ava spoke in a carefully neutral voice. “I didn’t see them leave. You showed them a back way out?”
He pointed. “Down the hall, on the right. There’s another set of stairs. When you get to ground level, take the staff-only door. Code to shut off the alarm is 9972.” And then, as if an afterthought, “Officer Li said to call her, when you’re free.”
Nice to know. Why the hell hadn’t Akasha just sent a message? Had Lyric told her not to risk it? Had they worried a message would be seen by the wrong eyes if Ava lost the confrontation downstairs?
She jogged down the hall, listening to Akasha’s phone ring. The door to Matt’s room stood open. Ava slowed, glanced inside. Empty. An untouched meal tray. An unmade bed.
She hurried on.
Four rings, and Akasha still had not picked up. Were they still on their way down? Matt had been unsteady on his feet. He’d be slow on the stairs. Was the stairwell blocking the signal?
Just as Ava reached the fire door, a flurry of gunshots broke out—pow-pow-pow . . . pow. The reports muffled by walls and the white noise of air-conditioning, but unmistakable.
Ava shoved the door open. From below, sounds of wind and a distant siren. Someone had killed the alarm and opened the exit door.
Two more gunshots, far louder, almost on top of each other, echoing in the stairwell.
The call went to voice mail. Ava dropped it and charged downstairs, making noise as she did, calling out, “It’s me! It’s Ava!” She didn’t want to draw friendly fire. “What the fuck is going on?”
Two flights to go, when Lyric answered, her voice reverberant against the concrete walls. “Your friends are back, Ava! We’ve got black masks in the parking lot.”
Tyrone Ohta and company. They must have gotten fresh orders.
“Right behind you,” Ava warned as she descended the last flight of stairs.
The exit door hung open, twelve inches or so. Akasha crouched, peering out the gap, her service pistol in hand. “Twelve and two,” she said.
Matt answered, “I see ’em.”
He stood over her, holding his own pistol, showing no sign of weakness or disorientation. Rock steady, now, though less than fifteen minutes had passed since Ava had walked out of his hospital room. Matt had used the time well, equipping himself with smart glasses and a tactile mic. Around his hips, a large camouflage waist pack with bulging pockets.
Lyric lingered two steps behind them and out of the line of fire, a pistol in one hand, the now empty-looking cloth flight bag in the other. A faint illumination of data flickered across the lens of her smart glasses as she eyed Ava.
“Sit rep!” Ava demanded.
Lyric answered: “Three individuals arrived as we exited. They called for our surrender. We retreated under fire. They’ve blocked our taxi from coming in, but I’ve got an app cracking the security on their van. It’ll be ours in another minute.”
“And then we get the fuck out of here,” Matt growled.
“No,” Ava said. “No way.” This case was careening toward a legal cliff. She had to stomp the brakes now before momentum carried them over. “We stay here. Wait for HPD. I’ve got Ivan working his navy contacts. If this is real, if Sigrún is real—fuck, if you’re real—the navy will take over.”
“Navy’s not listening,” Matt barked back at her.
“Make them listen. Jump the chain of command. Put it out in public. DM the goddamn president. No way can this succeed as a wildcat operation.”
Dual sirens now, getting closer.
“Lyric?” Matt asked. “How’s our ride?”
“Stand by.”
“Stand down,” Ava countered. She moved past Lyric. “Akasha, get that door closed.”
“Van’s ours,” Lyric said. She caught Ava’s shoulder, fingers squeezing, her gaze intense behind the lens of her smart glasses. “Maybe the chain of command will step up, but right now that’s not happening.”
Still crouched at the door, Akasha turned her head, shooting Ava a dark look. “You could have stopped this,” she accused.
“What?”
“Eyes forward,” Matt instructed. Akasha’s head snapped back around. “On three,” he told her. “One, two, three.”
Staying low, he kicked the door wide. Akasha fired to the right; he sent a flurry of shots straight ahead. A scream of pain or rage and then a screech of tires. A van came into sight at speed, backing down a narrow lane. It was the same make and model as Tyrone Ohta’s van—except this one was dark-blue.
Not the same.
The van reversed all the way to the exit door, rear cargo doors opening as it came.
Ohta had left in a tan-colored van.
“Identify and log,” Ava whispered.
At the same time, Lyric barked, “Get inside!”
Akasha and Matt moved without hesitation, jumping into the van, clambering over the backseat. Lyric let go of Ava’s shoulder and followed. Ava moved too. Herd instinct? A desire to protect Akasha? Fuck it, just go, or you’re going to be left behind. She vaulted into the van.
HADAFA answered her query: “Vehicle self-identifies as owned by Bryan’s Truck & Van. VIN and visible license numbers are correct for vehicle make, model, and color.”
Ava crouched in the cargo space, arm hooked over the backseat to secure herself as the cargo doors closed and the van accelerated out of the lane, shooting past ancillary buildings in the medical center.
Same rental company, same make and model, but blue . . .
She looked out the rear windows, but saw no one—and saw no bodies. A dizzying sense of surreality washed over her as the van dashed through a parking area beneath a low-rise building, and skidded onto a side street.
She was being punked, wasn’t she? Ah, it would be so easy to engage in that paranoid, self-centered fantasy! She was being punked. Royally punked. And even Akasha was part of it.
Absurd, she chided herself.
On the chance it would help, she shifted her smart glasses to stealth mode, switching off location data, GPS, and sensors that might be used to track her position. She messaged Akasha to do the same.
Even so, they were far from invisible. Cell tower check-ins would still yield general location along with their direction of movement, and the van’s transponder might already be conversing with a police drone, but she did what she could.
The van slowed to legal speed as it turned onto Beretania Street. Out the back window, Ava saw two taxis a few blocks behind. Then a police car turned into sight, blue lights flashing—but it turned off at the side street they’d just left, while the van continued on through the capitol district.
Ava looked up front. “Were the surveillance cameras off for that little engagement?”
Matt had moved up to the middle seat. Akasha was in front behind the optional steering wheel, with Lyric in the seat beside her. At Ava’s question, Lyric turned. “Yes. I tried to shut them down, but they were already off.”
“I need to plug in a destination,” Akasha said. “Where are we going?”
“Pearl,” Lyric announced.
“To do what?” Ava wanted to know. “You think you can hack your way in past security? Hijack Denali?”
“Or prevent it from sailing?” Lyric asked. “Maybe. Maybe not. But I’m going to try.”
The van turned mauka onto Nu‘uanu Avenue. Akasha switched it to autonomous mode, then turned to glare at Ava from behind the lens of smart glasses that showed no glow of electronic activity. “Lyric told me why you’re involved in this. It’s because you’ve been fucking this guy, Kaden Robicheaux—”
“Yes,” Ava snapped. Her gaze shifted to Lyric. “I’ve known Kaden two months. He’s an honorable man. And yes, he has been my lover, and yes, Lyric thought she could use that against him.”
“I thought I could,” Lyric agreed. “But I was wrong. You had a chance to take him out—stop this whole thing—and you didn’t do it. It’s on you now, if that bomb goes off.”
“Fuck you.”
But wasn’t it true?
If Lyric wasn’t lying . . .
If Matt’s video wasn’t a deep fake . . .
If Kaden was not the man she had believed him to be . . .
Ava had asked Kaden for the truth and he had denied his involvement, but only after he’d pushed her smart glasses into her hair, putting them into sleep mode. He had done that so he could kiss her more easily . . . or he had done it to ensure she would not be using HADAFA to assess the truth of his denial.
“I may have made a mistake,” Ava conceded, not knowing which of her actions was the mistaken one.
Matt spoke up. “It’s hard to accept when the people you love and admire turn out to be the bad guys.”
“Do you accept it now?” Akasha demanded. “Do you understand these assholes intend to burn our people for their own stupid political game?”
“That’s the story Lyric is telling,” Ava agreed as the van accelerated onto the Lunalilo Freeway.
Akasha said, “Don’t pretend like you don’t believe it. You have to believe it. With what’s at stake, our only choice is to respond like it’s real.”
Ava’s smart glasses chimed: Ivan calling. “Hold on.” She linked Akasha in, then picked up, speaking before Ivan could: “Has the navy detained Kaden Robichaeux?”
“No, and they’re not going to. I talked to a navy investigator. He couldn’t tell me much—I don’t have the security clearance—but you’re being played, Ava. The navy has sent a special unit to the hospital to apprehend the woman, Lyric. She’s considered dangerous. Do not approach. She’s a double agent gaslighting for the Chinese, sowing doubt and dissension by starting rumors of domestic terrorism in the ranks. And they want the John Doe, too. He released malware on the Makani. When it goes down, you and Li need to stay out of the way.”
Ivan didn’t know about the gunfight.
Akasha stared at Ava, stunned, scared.
Thinking aloud, Ava said, “One of Kaden’s men came to the hospital with four other sailors. He told me they were there as a favor to Makani . . .”
Could that have been true? Could Lyric have faked a message from Makani, asking for Kaden’s help?
Gazing at Lyric, she tallied the score: The Predator Network, and at least three Chinese women set up for assault and possible rape; Robert Bell running on a mapped path to a gruesome death; Ben Kanaele’s phone hacked; and Ava, drawn into a conspiracy that circled around a man she’d come to love and admire.
Lyric returned her questioning gaze with the calm of an innocent woman . . . or of a psychopath?
Had Lyric just hijacked a van being used by the navy’s special unit?
“Are you still at Queen’s?” Ivan asked. “Are you still with her? If you’re in a position to do so, Ava, arrest her. And don’t discuss with anyone! I’ll relay to the navy. This is super-secret. You got it?”
“Confirmed,” Ava said, her voice husky with tension. “I’ll let you know when it’s done.”
She ended the call.
Lyric told her, “They know everything about you. They have your full psychological profile. They know what you’ll react to, they can predict your behavior, and they know the best way to confuse you is with obvious lies.”
“You know that, too,” Ava said.
“Yes, but I’m telling you the truth when I say that they want to manipulate you into a weapon they can use against me.”
Ava renewed eye contact with Akasha. A slight nod. She slipped her pistol from its holster.
Matt watched her closely, his eyes made visible by a slight illumination welling from the lens of his smart glasses. She had no doubt he had his weapon in hand. It might already be aimed at her, through the seats. Even so, he spoke gently: “It’s real, Ava. I was part of Sigrún. I heard what I heard. And I didn’t go into the water for nothing.”
He had gone into a storm-tossed ocean. He should have died there. He almost did. He got very lucky, when Officer Limbaco pulled him out.
Ava’s shoulders sagged. Wait, she urged herself. Work out the truth. There was still time. Don’t risk a wrong move, because the cost would be unredeemable.
She slid her pistol back into its holster, feeling sick.
Nine years ago, she’d trusted her own judgment over the chain of command, and three fellow officers had drowned along with the children they’d imagined they could save. She’d sworn to never again defy the chain of command. An oath now broken. Who would die, this time, if she made the wrong decision?
◇
Ava remained crouched in the van’s cargo area. From that position she had a good view out the back, and a swift egress should she need to exit quickly. Traffic remained sparse. She counted only seven sets of headlights on the freeway behind them, and even fewer vehicles on the town-bound side.
The freeway’s wet concrete absorbed the glow of streetlights and threw it back, changed into mesmerizing diamond glints.
Don’t just sit, she chided herself. Take action!
Right.
She took the most direct action she could and called Kaden. The ring tone pulsed and pulsed and pulsed. The call went to voice mail. “I need to talk to you.” Nothing more than that. She ended the call. Shifted her focus. You’re a cop, so investigate.
She asked HADAFA for Kaden’s profile. She had looked at it once, prior to their first date. Now she skimmed it again, to find it unchanged, the same bland, shallow bio she’d seen before. No hint of intrigue or malfeasance. Not at the level of her security clearance.
But there was one item that caught her attention. His oldest daughter, Astrid Robicheaux, age twenty years, was listed as next-of-kin. Ava had never been introduced to Kaden’s daughters; he’d never talked to them in her presence. But Astrid’s contact number was included in the record. Ava decided to call. Astrid might be willing to talk, and she surely knew more of her father’s background and beliefs than appeared in Kaden’s HADAFA profile.
Ava saved the number into her personal contact list and initiated the call—but she canceled it when a new message appeared in her field of view:
You are now logged out of
HADAFA
Akasha shouted, “Hey! What the fuck? I just got kicked out of HADAFA.”
“Same,” Ava told her.
A text message arrived from Gina Alameda in vice: What the hell? A warrant just came in for you and Akasha.
Ava relayed the news.
“We were defending ourselves at the hospital!” Akasha objected. “Protecting Matt. A person-of-interest. What the fuck were we supposed to do?”
“You did the right thing,” Matt said in a reassuring voice.
“Ivan told us to arrest these two,” Ava reminded her. “Warrants exist for them, too.”
Super-secret warrants?
Akasha pulled her pistol. She aimed it at Lyric.
Ava wasn’t going to let her go down alone. She drew her weapon, too.
But the van swerved, braking hard, a shift of momentum so sudden, Ava was thrown across the cargo compartment. Lancing pain in her upper arm. Her head cracked against glass. The shriek of skidding tires and a furious yelp from Akasha.
The van had come to a hard stop in the emergency lane on the right side of a section of elevated freeway. Akasha had been thrown against the optional steering wheel. Matt remained secure, braced between the seats. Lyric looked unruffled. She calmly released her safety belt. “Theft override function,” she announced.
Ava gritted her teeth, cursing herself for her stupidity. She should have anticipated the override function. It was hard-coded and unhackable. Even Lyric couldn’t get around it. Accessed through the manufacturer, it allowed law enforcement agencies to safely and temporarily brick a vehicle if suspected of being stolen or involved in a crime.
She unlatched the van’s backdoors, kicked them open, and bailed out onto the rain-wet road, weapon in hand. A taxi sped past, and then another. More headlights on the way. Still distant, a wail of sirens.
Turning back, Ava aimed her weapon into the van. “No one move!”
Matt froze, part way over the back seat. Lyric stopped too, flight bag in hand. She’d been scrambling to the back of the van. It had stopped so close to the freeway’s concrete wall, the front door wouldn’t open; there wasn’t even room on that side to squeeze out the window.
Akasha had scrambled out into the traffic lane, but she’d pivoted, holding her weapon in two hands, elbows bent, aimed inside.
“We can wait to be arrested and hope that what Ivan told us is true,” Ava shouted at the young officer. “Or we can run with these two and see where it takes us. What do you want to do?”
Akasha’s lips curled, her mouth worked, spilling a silent, Fuck.
“Run,” she said aloud.
Ava lowered her weapon, stepped aside, and waved Matt ahead as a light rain began to fall. “Let’s go.”
The van had just completed the merge onto the elevated airport viaduct. To the east—Diamond Head side—the viaduct descended to Nimitz Highway. Ava pointed past a veil of falling raindrops glittering under bright streetlights. “That way. And run. It’s probably a half mile to the bottom of the ramp.”
Matt took off, with Akasha on his heels, but Lyric hesitated at the back of the van.
“Go on,” Ava growled. No way was she going to let Lyric get behind her. For all she knew, her usefulness had expired and Lyric was only waiting for an opportunity to put a bullet in the back of her skull.
A quirk of a cold smile, and then Lyric was running too, her black street clothes and her flat-soled shoes performing well as athletic wear. She’d either abandoned her weapon or stashed it in the flight bag, which did not seem quite empty anymore.
Police sirens wailed out on Lunalilo Freeway, growing swiftly louder. More would be rushing in past the scattered bars and warehouses that still survived all along Nimitz—but maybe not right away. With the police stretched thin ahead of the hurricane, Ava bet that backup would be slow to arrive. She bet her freedom on it. Only when Lyric was a safe thirty feet ahead, did she holster her weapon and join the race to escape.
◇
The broad ramp from Nimitz up to the viaduct had always passed in a flash whenever Ava had taken a taxi that way, or ridden in a patrol car. On foot, that same ramp felt like it had undergone an Alice-In-Wonderland transformation, growing immensely longer, or else she had shrunk to minuscule dimensions. Each all-out stride lopped off just a tiny percentage of the distance she needed to cover.
Blue lights and howling sirens raced in on the H-1 merge. Would the patrol cars make a turn against traffic to pursue?
But there was no traffic. A pull-over-and-stop signal must have been issued to every autonomous vehicle Ewa-bound on Nimitz because no one was coming up the ramp. But in the distance, refracted by rain, flashing blue lights marked the positions of two oncoming police cars. Ava saw them, and knew she did not have time to reach the bottom of the ramp.
She strove to fill her already heaving chest, intending to call out to Akasha, Don’t resist! But Akasha had stopped running. She heaved herself over the side of the ramp and disappeared. Ava wanted to scream, knowing the jump from that point was too high. But Matt was gone from sight, too. Had he gone over first? Was there something below to land on?
Lyric remained in sight. She threw her shoulders back and slowed. Then she rolled over the ramp’s low concrete wall. Ava saw it then: two heavy-gauge hooks fitted to the wall, rust stains running from them to the road bed.
Ava reached the hooks, and peered over. Hanging immediately below, she saw a narrow platform hemmed in with black netting. Lyric knelt on the platform as it swayed with her weight. She glanced up at Ava with a cool half smile. Then she crept out of sight beneath the ramp.
Ava looked around for surveillance cameras, but this wasn’t the strip or the villages. If there had ever been security equipment here, she guessed it had been vandalized and not replaced.
Blue lights and screaming sirens both ahead and behind. Ava heaved herself over the wall, landing in a crouch, fingers clawing at the netting to keep her balance as the platform bobbed beneath her.
It was made of heavy steel, the kind of plate used to temporarily cover excavations in roadways. More chains shackled it to bolts drilled into the underside of the ramp. Beneath the ramp, a gap in the netting. Lyric slipped through it, disappearing below as police cars screamed past overhead.
Ava scrambled to the gap. She looked down, and saw to her shock that there were people below. Not just Akasha and Matt. A lot of people, at least a hundred, LED lanterns everywhere, shedding clean white light across a scene of organized chaos.
A settlement of tents and tiny homes on wheels occupied the gravel-covered ground under the soaring ramps of the freeway interchange. The tents were FEMA issue—the kind that should have been distributed after Nolo, but shipments had gone awry, disappeared, leaving people to devise their own emergency shelters.
Good to know at least one shipment had finally been found and put to use.
But now the tents were being taken down, the tiny homes hooked up to trucks and hauled away.
Akasha looked up, saw her, and waved at her to hurry.
Lyric was already halfway down a ladder that linked the platform to the ground. It was an emergency ladder, the kind that could be stashed in a box, ready for use as a fire escape, its steps linked together by chains. Ava bit her lip. She hated ladders. Especially dangling chain ladders. If even one link gave way, the whole thing might collapse.
You’ve been through worse.
She’d seen war. She’d endured Nolo.
Just do it.
She eased herself over the edge and started down, clutching hard at the chains.