Wired Ghost: Vigilante Justice Thriller Series (Paradise Crime Thriller Book 11)

by Toby Neal

  Sophie peered ahead. “There does seem to be some water up ahead. Make sure that new torch is really going.”

  “It’s burning fine, babe, and so is my libido. Now that I’m your ‘cootie’ I’m going to make a move to seal the deal.” He slid an arm around Sophie and leaned in for a kiss, then wrinkled his nose. “Whew. Babe, you stink. I think we better see if we can get clean before any more hanky panky.”

  “Hanky panky. That’s a new one.”

  “You mean an old one. Popularized in a rock-and-roll song back in the Fifties, but it’s really much older than that.” They made their way over to a much smaller pool that lapped against the wall. Sophie shrieked as he pretended to push her in. Laughing, he caught her in a parody of how she’d rescued him earlier. “Nah, I can’t have you getting your clothes all wet. We need to strip properly and make sure our stuff stays dry.” He found a notch in the wall and shoved the torch in carefully. “I’ll prep the other torch too. Wouldn’t want anything to go out while we’re bathing.”

  Sophie eyed the spring, which seemed to be filling from some underground source; its surface shifted and bubbled. “This does seem separate from the main pond. A different water source, maybe.” She tested the pool with a hand, and gave a little gasp. “It’s warm! Quite warm, like real bathwater. Maybe it’s got a geothermal heat source from the volcano.”

  “Finally! Something good from Madame Pele.” Jake had taken the jar of oil out of his cargo pocket. He peeled up the plastic lid and swizzled the torch they’d used before in the oil, and then put the lid back on, setting the container carefully aside. “The oil’s already halfway gone, dammit all.” He wedged the unlit torch into a crack in the wall beside the burning one. “In case the first one goes out while unattended.”

  Jake then stripped off his shirt and draped it over a rock. Standing on one leg, he balanced to pull off his boots and socks one at a time, then draped them to dry over the rocks.

  Sophie should have been undressing, but she was too distracted.

  His body.

  She cursed under her breath as she watched him. Every movement was graceful for such a big man, even when he was injured. How had she forgotten how magnificent his body was? She’d been too busy nursing her grievances to remember it—and what he could do with his fingers. And his tongue. And . . .

  Jake emptied his pockets, arranging the lighter and other items in a neat row on a rock beneath the torches. He unbuckled his belt, dropped his pants and boxers, and turned to face her stark naked. His brows rose. “Why are you still dressed?”

  “Um. I was taking in the view.” Sophie’s mouth was dry.

  “Oh. Well.” Jake stalked toward her like a lion headed for a steak. “Allow me to assist with your clothes. I think I can even help you get properly cleaned up in our handy geothermal hot tub.”

  “Okay,” Sophie said faintly.

  Sophie surrendered to the process, enjoying how he took off every stitch of her clothes with evident pleasure in spite of their state, murmuring endearments that melted her even more than the warmth of the spring. They slid into the geothermal waters at the same time, sighing with relief to feel the heated water on their bruised and abused bodies. After swimming and floating, they scrubbed each other with handfuls of pebbles and a bit of coconut husk Sophie had saved. They cleaned away the filth of hardship and struggle, reveling in mineral-rich waters that softened their skin.

  And finally, when they were squeaky-clean, they made love.

  Being with Jake was all Sophie had missed, longed for, and needed in the more than two years they’d been apart.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Raveaux

  Raveaux pushed through the heavy growth of ferns, following after the Guardsman who’d helped him into the sheltering trees. Ohale stood next to the bole of a tall ohia; the native tree’s gray, papery bark reminded him of the white birches in France.

  “We’re going to work our way back to the compound,” Ohale said. “The lieutenant wants us to take it slow in case of an ambush.”

  “Copy that.” Raveaux fell in behind the chief as he followed the National Guardsmen. The men spread out, moving forward alertly, with no chatter.

  Silence was a relief to Raveaux, and he had his wish: the forest was filled with the sweet, piercing birdsong of the rare native Hawaiian birds. He pushed his helmet back to hang from its strap so that he could hear them better. These are the kinds of things he noticed, the risks he took, that he would never have before Lucie and Gita were taken from him.

  Waist high ferns and fallen branches slowed their approach, until suddenly the lieutenant signaled that he’d found a path, and they were to use it. The going had been so slow and noisy through the raw jungle, that Wong must have decided the speed they’d gain was worth the risk of detection. They soon reached a cleared space with a fence that marked the edge of the compound they’d been able to glimpse from the air. The Guardsmen hunkered down, surveying the area, but there was no sign of movement.

  The gate, a homemade affair of woven barbed wire, stood ajar. Around the big metal central shed were scattered signs of a hasty departure: an overturned bucket, a plastic bin left open, a jug of water fallen on its side.

  “The suspects are probably gone,” the lieutenant said, his voice still audible, even with Raveaux’s helmet not all the way on. Raveaux flipped it back up and tightened the strap, the better to hear the comm link.

  He hung back with the chief next to a fallen log outside the gate. The guardsmen moved forward, their weapons ready, to search the compound.

  As he crouched there, Raveaux noticed signs of disturbance in the dead leaves and heavy moss covering the ground. He traced the impression of a boot: size nine American, with a lug sole. Sophie wore that size. “I think Sophie and Jake were here, checking out the camp as we are,” he told the chief. He pointed out the evidence.

  Ohale nodded. “Makes sense.”

  The commanding officer gave the all clear. The two of them hurried up into the camp. Raveaux was eager to look for any trace of Sophie and Jake in the main building or the huts, which appeared to be crude sleeping areas.

  There was no sign of either of them anywhere. The ground outside the main building was disturbed, a maze of crisscrossing boot marks in the muddy soil, but there was no way to tell who had made the marks, or why.

  Raveaux discovered the latrine, a foul-smelling shed with a bucket half-filled with feces, close behind one of the huts. A large hole in the ground, screened by ferns, drew him to investigate. An eye-watering stench rose from it—this foul trench was likely their refuse dump.

  Raveaux held onto a sapling and peered over the edge into the pit, his heart stuttering with fear at what he might find—but there was nothing to see but a mound of garbage at the bottom.

  Raveaux’s gaze sharpened—the pile appeared to have been disturbed.

  He retrieved his binoculars from inside his vest, and studied the trash carefully.

  The top formed a body-sized depression, and there were marks of disturbance around the sides, as if someone had recently been digging in it. He gestured for the chief to come over.

  Ohale complied, frowning a bit. “What is it, Raveaux?”

  “Either someone lost something in that mess, or Sophie and Jake were tossed in there, probably for safekeeping, and they went through the garbage looking for weapons or something useful.”

  The chief’s eyes gleamed with interest as he surveyed the scene. “That’s a lava tube. These things can run for miles. Looks like the ceiling of it caved in to make the hole. Do you think they could still be in there?”

  Raveaux squatted at the edge of the pit. He leaned down into the opening. “Sophie!” He called. His voice echoed around the chamber briefly.

  No response.

  He drew a small, powerful flashlight out of his pants pocket. The chief did the same, and they shone their lights as far as they could around the edges. “It looks like some kind of cavern, but there’s no way to tell if th
ey are still inside without going down there,” Raveaux said.

  He and the chief eyed each other for a moment. “Let’s call the lieutenant over and consult with him,” Ohale said. “They would have to rappel down into the cavern, and I don’t think we brought that kind of equipment.”

  Just then, the earth shivered.

  Raveaux had ridden horseback on his family’s farm in France in his youth. He remembered the feeling of when his horse shook its skin to scare off a fly—but now that fly was Raveaux. He fell to his knees, grabbing for the sapling he’d held onto before, but it was out of reach. The quake was strong enough that the edge of the pit began to crumble inward—taking Raveaux with it.

  He scrambled back with a cry. Ohale grabbed his vest and yanked him to safety as a large chunk of the cave’s lip fell into the refuse pile below.

  The two men hurried backward, flattening themselves against the heaving soil. Around them, the trees cracked and groaned. The forest rained leaves and debris down on the rippling ground.

  Over in the compound, a man cried out, clearly audible in their comms. A tree fell spectacularly, knifing down through the air to crush one of the huts. The crash of the falling tree, and the splintering sound it made, were all Raveaux could hear for a few moments as he pressed hard into the dirt, his fingers clutching it, his body spread-eagled, as if clinging to the side of that remembered horse’s hide.

  As suddenly as the shuddering began, it ceased.

  The crackling voices of the men filled his helmet as everyone checked in. Raveaux, too, answered to his call sign, and so did the chief next to him. Slowly, the two of them sat up and looked back at the pit. A good six feet of the edge had fallen in, collapsing one whole side of it.

  Dread filled Raveaux. “If they’re down there, how could they survive that?”

  He didn’t realize he had spoken aloud until the chief spoke. “Perhaps the interior is more stable. Maybe the perps took them out of the pit. We don’t know.”

  The lieutenant leading the mission trotted up to them. “You two all right?”

  Raveaux stood up, dusting dirt off of his clothing. “Fine.”

  Ohale pointed into the pit. “Right before this collapsed, we discovered that our targets had been in this pit. Would you and the men go in and see if they are still somewhere inside?”

  The lieutenant approached carefully, peered into the hole, and shook his head. “Can’t take that risk. I almost lost one of my men to that tree. He had barely left the shed when the quake hit. The ground is too unstable for any subterranean rescue attempts right now.”

  Raveaux was not surprised by this, but nonetheless, disappointment tightened his gut. “What can we do?”

  The lieutenant addressed them. “We have verified the camp is clear. We have also verified, now, that your targets were here, and likely captured. The best strategy would be to pursue the meth gang out into the open, since they’ve fled the kipuka. They can’t have gotten far, with the lava this active on the plain.”

  Raveaux felt sick as he waited for the chopper’s return. He tried not to look at the pit—because he was almost certain that was where Jake and Sophie had been thrown to die. God knows where they were now—somewhere miles underground, potentially, with a river of lava on its way.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Raveaux

  Raveaux leaned out of the open side window of the chopper as the team got underway again. Ohale and the lieutenant had spent a little time studying a satellite image of the area, planning a grid to search. “We know they didn’t leave via the road they usually used,” the lieutenant said. “We need to fly low around the edge of the kipuka and look for signs of where they took off across the lava fields. The base camp is well established, so likely they have already planned for an emergency exit in another direction. Once we identify that, hopefully we can catch them before they reconnect with the main road.”

  The pilot took the chopper even lower, circling around the edge of the forested hump of land, which was well-defined and easy to follow. A clear demarcation existed between the rough, black lava field and the edge of the rise whose elevation had become its own “island.”

  “There!” Ohale pointed to a break in the trees, his thick arm and beefy hand a solid signpost for Raveaux’s binoculars to follow. The pilot circled back in a tight loop, and Raveaux’s stomach lifted and tightened uncomfortably.

  Sure enough, emerging from a gap in the trees, a faint set of tire tracks had created a noticeable path across the virgin black stone. Now that they’d identified the gang’s escape route, the track was fairly easy to follow from above. The chopper pilot increased their speed.

  “No telling how long ago they abandoned the camp,” Raveaux said into his comm. “What if they’re off the lava already?”

  “Then we’re shit out of luck for this part of the search,” Ohale replied. “But we’ll up the security at the airports, harbors, and roads—anywhere they might re-enter civilization. I heard there’s a new lava flow ahead of us on the plain, though—maybe they’re trapped on this side of it. If so, we’ll be able to grab them up.”

  Raveaux glanced back over his shoulder at the Guardsmen in the back of the chopper. They looked tense and serious; some of them were checking their weapons, others closing their eyes to gather inward, tapping into whatever energy resources they could before another lap of tension.

  Raveaux had often found police work to be that way—long stretches of waiting and boredom, punctuated by intense danger and stress. Somehow, the combination was addicting—and not just for himself. It felt good to be back in the field in the middle of a dangerous operation. There was no room to think about anything but the immediate moment.

  “I see signs of the fresh lava flow,” the pilot said. “We are coming up on another kipuka just before it.”

  Raveaux swung his binoculars directly ahead. This wooded mound was much smaller, a mere hillock covered with a few trees and bushes. Directly beyond it, smoke generated by a fast-moving flow of magma made a clear line. An awesome sight, the glowing, molten rock river was more than ten feet wide and had erased everything in its path as it made its way to the sea.

  The faint tracks made by the meth gang dead-ended at the edge of the lava river, below the kipuka.

  The chopper circled around over the area as Ohale, Wong, and Raveaux scanned the ground. “There’s nowhere for them to go,” Ohale said. “They must have hidden their vehicles somewhere on the kipuka—maybe covered them with branches or something.”

  “Or, they left earlier than we thought they did and got through before the lava cut off their escape.” Raveaux turned to make eye contact with the Guard leader. “Lieutenant, I recommend setting down and checking over the kipuka more closely; see if they’ve found a place to hide.”

  Ohale shook his head. “Negative on that, Raveaux. We should check the route all the way to wherever it joins a main thoroughfare. We might still find them along the way if they made it through before the flow cut them off.”

  The Lieutenant nodded. “Let’s do both.” He told the chopper pilot to follow the track as fast as he could. “If they got trapped, we haven’t lost any time. They’ll still be stuck behind the lava flow.”

  Another uncomfortable surge forward hollowed Raveaux’s stomach, as the chopper retraced the faint double pair of tire tracks, continuing across the plain. But there was no further sign or interruption until the track swung up to merge with a flat area of Saddle Road.

  “End of the line,” the pilot said.

  “Circle back to the hill near the flow,” Lieutenant said. “We’ll go in for a look on foot.”

  Soon, the chopper settled gently on the lava, several football-field lengths from the kipuka and the lava flow river. “I don’t want to get in trouble in case that flow decides to change direction,” the pilot said.

  Even though there was no sign of movement on the roughly five-acre hillock of the kipuka, the open area between them and their destination made Raveaux nervous�
��they had no cover whatsoever if the perps decided to start shooting.

  “Hopefully they realize there’s nowhere for them to go,” Ohale was clearly thinking along the same lines. “We’re a rescue mission as much as anything.”

  “Maybe we should communicate that clearly,” Raveaux said. “Any of you got a white shirt? A surrender flag?”

  “We don’t even know if they’re there for sure,” Ohale said.

  “Don’t see the harm, and it might reduce the risk for our men,” Lieutenant said. “Meanwhile, it’s a good sign that no one has taken a potshot at the chopper now that we’re down.” He turned to his men, clustered near the chopper. “Renfield! A word.”

  Ohale and Raveaux drew close as one of the men detached himself from the group and came to the Lieutenant’s call. “This is Sergeant Chet Renfield, our hostage rescue negotiator. We made sure he was part of our team in case we ended up with some kind of standoff situation. Renfield, what do you think about sending a peaceful message in case we’re being monitored?”

  “I like that idea.” Renfield’s expression was obscured by the faceplate of his helmet, but Raveaux glimpsed deep sun lines bracketing intelligent dark eyes. “I brought my negotiation kit; it contains two walkies, and other communication devices, including a reflective white vest and flag. I can put them up and use my bullhorn to communicate. If they aren’t hiding out on the kipuka, no worries—we’ll do a quick sweep and be done. If they are, it might save a kneecap or two.”

  Raveaux suppressed a shiver inside his combat vest. He’d seen too many men shot in the extremities to find it a joking matter; life could still easily be permanently altered by a non-fatal gunshot wound.

  Renfield climbed back into the chopper for his rescue kit. He returned a few minutes later, wearing a white reflective vest over his body armor and carrying a triangular white flag on a thin, flexible pole. “I’ll go ahead of the team and leave the walkie near the kipuka. If they confirm that they are willing to talk, I’ll plant the flag, wait for them to pick up the walkie, and we’ll go from there.”