by Toby Neal
The kid he’d knocked into the lava tube opening was climbing out, his face red with the effort of climbing the rope—but he gave a sudden cry as the crumbling earthen edge began to collapse.
All the activity around the opening must have loosened the rocks and soil and broken the thin wall of lava, because a sudden rush of falling earth and stone swept the teen down and out of sight. The earth trembled and roared ominously as the opening collapsed, a pouf of dust rising like a djinn.
“Holy shit!” Alika rushed to the edge of the pit, almost falling into the jumbled depression that showed where the boy had disappeared. The rim crumbled beneath his feet, and Alika scrambled back, grabbing a sturdy tree branch for balance. He looked wildly around, and gestured to the kid he’d just restrained. “Your friend is buried in there! Let’s try to get him out before he suffocates!”
The boy, wide-eyed, scrambled to his feet awkwardly and Alika ripped the restraining shirt off his hands. “Get your friends to help! I’ll check if the rope he was holding onto is still secured to the boulder.”
The boy hurried to help his groaning friends to their feet as Alika rushed to the boulder he’d tied the line to. Reaching over, he tugged at the cord, and it began to pull out of the dirt. He stopped pulling and checked the rock’s stability by pushing at it. The boulder was still solid. He turned, looking for help.
The tall kid with the gray-green eyes, pale now beneath his tan, stood next to him. “Is Eric dead?”
“He will be if we can’t get him out of this landslide, fast,” Alika said. “I’m too heavy to go out there into the fall area. I want us to make a human chain. We’ll each hold onto each other and use the cord to track down to him, and for backup. The lightest of you will go out first and dig down, following the rope, and try to get to your friend. It’s his only chance and it might already be too late.”
The boy gave a brief nod and turned to the others, showing his leadership skills as he barked, “Emilio! You’re out in front!” The remaining boys scrambled to follow directions, and in moments Emilio crawled down the rope headfirst into the pit, using the rope as a guide, digging with his hands as the boys, one clinging to the next with Alika holding up the end, stabilized him.
It couldn’t have been longer than five minutes, but it felt like an eternity to Alika as he held onto the tall kid’s belt, learning his name was Keo. He anchored Keo as the boy held onto another named Payton, then Raymond, then finally Emilio.
“I think I’ve got him!” Emilio yelled. “I can feel his hair!”
“Dig, dig!” Alika yelled. “Get Eric some air!”
It wasn’t long before Emilio had got the dirt and rocks away from Eric’s head. The boy had instinctively covered his head with his arms, making a shallow pocket of air. He’d passed out but soon came around as Emilio slapped his cheeks.
Sweating and straining, Alika pulled the human chain back onto solid ground. Working together they extracted Eric from the loose fall of pebbles and dirt.
They all collapsed, panting in exhaustion, around the pit. Alika’s whole body trembled and his shirt was soaked with sweat as he watched filthy, bruised Eric crying as he was hugged by his friends.
His discarded walkie-talkie squawked from inside the backpack he’d cast aside when the confrontation broke out. “Dragonfly, come in. This is Search and Rescue. We’ve arrived in Kalalau. We’re at your bird and looking for directions. Come in, Dragonfly.”
Alika scrambled to his feet. He hadn’t had time to think of what was happening to Sophie and Nakai; they must be terrified. He ran to the backpack, retrieved the handheld, and pushed the Talk button. “Dragonfly here. Things are a little more complicated than I originally thought. We need you down here ASAP.”
Alika arranged to meet the rescuers at the turnoff to the encampment. When he lowered the walkie, he looked at the circle of watching boys. A long moment passed, and finally Keo, the leader, extended a hand.
“I’m sorry for what we tried to do.”
Alika shook the boy’s filthy hand. “I’m not going to take you all down and tie you up—I’m too tired right now for that. I guess I don’t expect you to be here when I get back with the Search and Rescue team, but if you stay, I promise we’ll get you a better situation than wherever it is you’re living. It’s up to you.”
The boy inclined his head, and the others nodded, but Alika didn’t expect to see any of them again. He turned and forced his tired body into a run toward the main trail. Sophie and Nakai needed him.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Sophie stood stock still, afraid to move, afraid to know what she had seen and heard even as the last tremors of the rockfall settled. The smell of freshly turned earth filled her nose.
She felt dizzy.
The tunnel had just collapsed. The way out was closed.
“Sandy?” The disturbance had woken the boy. Nakai’s voice vibrated with terror. She was torn between returning to the frightened kid and investigating what lay ahead.
Finding out what had happened was more important to their survival.
Sophie turned back, calling out, “I’m all right, Nakai. Just relax. I’m investigating a little landslide that happened.”
Nakai wouldn’t be able to see around the bend in the tunnel to the disaster that had occurred. No sense in adding to his fear.
“Come back soon!” The kid’s voice wobbled.
“I’ll be right back.” Sophie injected her voice with cheerfulness and authority.
“And I’ll just be kicking it over here.” Yes, Nakai was a brave kid.
Having been so brave on his own, now that rescue was in sight, he must now be feeling all the feelings he hadn’t let himself have before. Sophie could almost hear Dr. Kinoshita’s voice in her mind explaining what the boy was going through.
Sophie held her glow stick up and forged ahead. She identified several more sticks that Alika had dropped on his way to them, but left them where they were so they could provide illumination for anyone coming to rescue her and Nakai. She refused to think of any alternative to that. Refused to think of the rest of the tunnel collapsing, or that something had happened to Alika so that he could not bring them help.
A giant pile of dirt and rock almost blocked the tunnel. The hole they had come in through had collapsed, as she had suspected. Sophie’s stomach dropped. Had Alika been buried in the fall?
But even if he was somehow disabled, the first responders were on their way. The people in the encampment would direct them to Sophie’s area, and from there it was just a matter of time until they found the collapsed lava tube.
Rescue was just a matter of time, and patience.
She sure hoped that rescue came before the glow sticks ran out—and she refused to think of Alika injured or trapped. No. He was fine, but his weight must have collapsed the fragile wall of the lava tube as he climbed out. She refused to imagine anything else.
Returning to Nakai, Sophie moved the three glow sticks to where she could get a better look at him, while trying not to disturb him with the light. “Is that protein bar staying down better now?”
Nakai burped again. “I still feel sick.”
Sophie’s stomach was still queasy, too. She hadn’t eaten much lately either, but they both needed energy. She quietly consumed one of the protein bars and followed it up with a bottle of water. She held the bottle out to Nakai. “You need to try to drink some water. It should help settle your stomach.”
The boy’s eyes had closed again, and he shook his head. He still looked really pale. Sophie knelt beside him.
Nakai lifted his head to gaze at her, his eyes wide and blank in the green glow of the sticks. “We’re not getting rescued right away, are we?”
“We are definitely getting rescued. But you’re right, it might be a little longer than we had hoped.” She stroked his hair, straightening it, feeling a crust of blood on his scalp. It made her heart twist that he had been through so much and still had to endure so much more.
�
�How long do glow sticks last?”
Sophie laughed. “We must have a mind meld. I was just thinking the same thing. I believe these usually last four to six hours.”
“And just when I was getting used to having some light,” Nakai said sleepily, and turned his head away from her.
There was nothing to be done but wait. Worrying wasn’t going to make the time go by any faster; in fact, it could use up energy resources she might need. Sophie lay down beside the boy, pressed against him so her body would warm his chilled flesh. She couldn’t relax into sleep. Nakai slept, though it was a light and troubled sleep marked by frequent twitches and low moans. The exhaustion of pain and ordeal had caught up to him, and with the resilience of youth, his body had simply shut down.
Sophie had no such escape. Her mind cycled through scenarios, trying to figure a way out.
Even if they lost the glow sticks’ light, they would be fine. Of all the people in the world, they two were best equipped to live through an extended period in total darkness without losing their minds. That didn’t mean she wanted to go through that.
And what about Ginger, tied at the camp? And oh God, Alika, that magnificent body he’d worked so hard to regain, crushed and smothered… Or trapped, partway in and partway out as Nakai was, with escape hours or days away.
“Please no. Please let Alika be okay,” Sophie whispered. These were the times she wished she had a clearer sort of faith, but if there was a God and S/he was merciful…
Sophie pressed closer to the boy, and draped an arm across his back, comforting herself as much as him as she did so.
Her anxious thoughts turned to friends and family.
Her father must be frantic; she didn’t know if he’d received her text that she was okay, and now more time had gone by without any communication.
Marcella must be so angry. Having to track down Sophie via a clue at her apartment and send Alika to Kaua’i to get her for her own legal proceeding was above and beyond the call of duty—especially when Marcella already felt betrayed that Sophie had never told her about the Ghost.
Hopefully, when this was all over, they could meet somewhere and discuss everything. Marcella would see that Sophie’s position had been impossible.
And that reminded Sophie of Connor.
Her whole body contorted involuntarily as she thought of Connor.
His betrayal was by far the worst. Why hadn’t he simply told her that he could not give up his “mission”? Why had he given her reason to hope? And worst of all, how could he have let her grieve his death, when he’d had the opportunity to send her a confidential message? His explanation that he’d wanted to let her move on felt woefully inadequate.
Sophie still had the software program he used for his vigilantism: a program that could hack the phones of gangsters and send them messages, supposedly from each other; a program that appeared able to penetrate the best security and turn it against itself. The Ghost program might be even more powerful than her own DAVID program.
And that software was sitting on a hard drive at the bottom of her backpack, along with her satellite-enabled laptop.
She probably couldn’t get a signal out from this far underground, but she had not been able to crack the Ghost program’s security the last time she tried. Perhaps this was the perfect thing to do to pass the time until her laptop battery ran out.
Sophie eased away from the boy and fetched the backpack, resting her back against a boulder and unzipping it. She took out that laptop and turned to face Nakai so that the faint glow of the screen wouldn’t wake him. She plugged in the external hard drive Connor had left her in the safe deposit box, and pulled up the Ghost program.
The login screen blinked at her blankly. She checked the Post-it app on her screen with all the combinations she had already tried. She’d run through the days of every first she and Connor had shared: their first date, the first time they made contact online, even the day Connor had taken a bullet to save her from a murderous perp on one of her cases. She couldn’t think of anything new to try.
Connor had given her the software with the expectation that she would use it; therefore, it made sense that she should be able to crack its security code. But if not, there was always the usual way. Sophie opened one of her code-breaking programs and set it to work running combinations.
Now it was just a matter of time. She watched the counter tick through letters, first, as it tried them for each spot. She felt an unpleasant emotion in the area of her stomach. Disappointment.
Sophie was disappointed that Connor hadn’t customized the login, given it some personal meaning. And here she was, buried underground, and there was no way he could help her.
As much as Sophie had told herself that she wanted nothing more to do with Connor, knowing that a powerful criminal mastermind loved her had given her just a little more confidence to step off into the unknown. “I can always find you,” he had said. And she believed him. Even here, even now…she would gamble that he at least knew her general location. If too much time went by, Connor would come looking for her. And he, of all people, was the most equipped to find her—with not only his tech savvy but also his physical skills and unlimited financial resources.
Jake could probably find her, too.
Her partner was another person who was likely angry with her right now. She had cut him off with hardly a goodbye. He didn’t deserve that, no matter how unsettling he was in her life. His friendship, loyalty, and many skills had earned her confidence and trust.
Leaning against Jake’s warm hard bulk at Connor’s mock funeral had been some of the best moments in those nightmare days.
She missed his physicality, his frequent laugh, his enthusiasm, energy, and potent personality. There were many things about him she didn’t miss, but not his reliability in a crisis. Sophie squirmed with embarrassment, remembering that moment in Shank Miller’s kitchen when she had almost flung herself on him.
Thank God, they had never so much as kissed. She had a sense that if they ever did, it would be hard to stop.
She was exhausted by her emotions. How could she have attraction and feelings for such different men? Was something wrong with her? Had Assan broken something in her that “normal” women had? Was she so damaged that she couldn’t recognize a good partner for herself? Because so far, she hadn’t been able to…
The spiral of negative thoughts heralded the beating batwings of depression. Sophie watched the decryption counter whirl by in the dark, unseeing, until letters began appearing. Her eyes widened as she recognized the beginning of words. A phrase was emerging: *I*love had appeared.
Sophie halted the code breaker program. She typed in, *I*love*you*Sophie*
“Yakish fool!” Sophie exclaimed, as the login window shimmered away in a cascade of ribbons and confetti and the Ghost software opened. “I want to hate you, Connor!”
Connor had personalized the login. She would have to change that code straightaway. Still, it gave her a warm feeling to watch the last of the ribbons spiral out of the screen.
Sophie was gazing at a world map. Red, pulsing markers were displayed in various areas across the globe, most of them in densely populated cities like Beijing, London, Paris, São Paulo, Los Angeles, and New York.
These probably were targets for his brand of justice that he had either already eliminated or had on his radar to manipulate. She was almost afraid to open any of them. She forced herself to choose one that was centered over Honolulu, and click it.
No Internet available flashed on the screen.
So this was a cloud-based program. She wondered what was stored in the depths of the program, what root protocols were encapsulated in the heavy external hard drive she had retrieved from the safe deposit box. She abandoned the opening screen and searched for the program specs. Fingers flying, she penetrated the layers of the program, investigating the base code.
Like her own DAVID program, the Ghost was a data mining and security firewall disabling program, appear
ing to work by searching out personal information, then digging in to extract details of identity and communication as well as financial sources. Unlike DAVID, which searched keywords and compiled confidence ratios on a given possibility, the Ghost could burrow out communications and then send new ones from its victims like a programmable virus.
Sophie found a subroutine that harvested bank account information, and frowned to see that pennies were being harvested off of thousands of accounts and rerouted to other accounts.
She had no way to look up where the numbers were coming from and going to, but she would be willing to bet that the Ghost was skimming money from drug dealers and rerouting it to either himself or some worthy cause. That was just the kind of thing Connor would love to do. He was probably using Security Solutions as the front to get all of those gangsters’ business, being paid for protection of those accounts up front.
Oh, how Connor would love the game of being hired for security and then using that access to rob unscrupulous clients. She could picture the gleam in his eye as he set up his clients to be fleeced, and ultimately, to die.
There was nothing more she could learn about the Ghost software without accessing the Cloud, and the internal conflict of thinking about Connor and his “mission” was too disturbing. Sophie shut down the laptop, and glanced over at the glow sticks.
They looked dimmer. Maybe it was her imagination.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The search and rescue team met Alika at the junction between the main trail and the turnoff toward the encampment. Striding toward him were two sturdy young men in dark blue uniforms, lugging a portable gurney. They were followed by a female EMT carrying a medical case.
Alika introduced himself. “There has been a further complication. The hole we discovered to access the lava tube has collapsed, and my companion is stuck down there with the victim. There’s no way to tell how stable the area is for further digging, and we don’t have any equipment. Do you have anything for excavating back at your chopper?”