Silversword

by Charles Knief

  We had Ricky Lee down pat, but the other two were a little more difficult: young, Polynesian, and heavy. There were probably three hundred thousand people on the island who fit that description.

  “This your warrior society?” I asked Kimo.

  “I hope not. What do you think, Caine?”

  “What was she doing without protection? Did you guys forget about the death threat?”

  “She just flew in this morning. Didn’t tell anybody. I was busy. At your hearing.”

  “Tala knew she was here.”

  “Tala is her attorney.”

  “Excuse me, guys, did you ask David if he noticed anyone else using the ATM? Was there a line of people waiting to use the machine?”

  “I didn’t ask,” said Husing, “but it’s always possible. This is a busy branch.”

  “You want photographs of the kidnappers?” I asked.

  “What?”

  I pointed at the ATM. “Those things take photographs all the time. Or video. Whatever. About once every ten seconds they record what’s right in front of them along with the background. Do you suppose the timing was right?”

  Kimo studied the position of the ATM, the alignment of its face to the place where David said Donna had been forced into the Toyota. He squared it off, looking from one locus to another.

  “It’s possible,” he said. “Let’s go take a look.” He stopped and put his hand on my chest. “I almost forgot, Caine,” he said. “You stay here. You’re a felony suspect, not a peace officer. Stick around, though, because I still want to talk to you.”

  I found a concrete bench in the sunshine and sat down and enjoyed the warmth while they went inside. It was a good place to think.

  On the surface it looked as if someone had taken Donna for what she knew. That appeared to be the only reason. It wasn’t what she had, or what she had done, so it had to be for what she knew. That being a logical assumption I started working on the other part of the question. Who benefits? With one hundred eighty million dollars in gold and silver and jewels at stake, just about anyone could benefit. But there was something else. As much money as one hundred eighty million dollars was these days, this whole thing had a different feel about it. Something I could not put my finger on. Something just out of reach of my faculties. It was about the money, or was not.

  The problem was that I had no idea which direction to go.

  If they wanted the treasure why kidnap Donna so publicly? If they wanted access, and they knew where she was here on Oahu, they could have quietly followed her to the treasure site. Why kidnap her in broad daylight? Why do something that would bring in the FBI, CID, and the other alphabet agencies? Why not keep it close and personal? What was going on here?

  I wished I could have spoken to David before they took him away. That must have been him in the ambulance. By now he would be in the emergency room, under the care of medical professionals who would not appreciate my questions, would not even allow me inside. I knew that questions had to be asked. I hoped the right ones would be asked.

  Donna had been kidnapped, taken by Ricky Lee and his compadres in broad daylight, leaving clues all over the place, pushing the envelope about as hard as it could be pushed. Why not take out an ad in the paper?

  It couldn’t be just to stop Donna, or to get the location from her. The secret of the site would not be secret long. According to what I understood, Donna and her sisters would not be there much longer.

  I rubbed my eyes and let the images flow. The morning Advertiser claimed that the volcano had been erupting continuously. Hualalai’s lava flow almost reached Queen Kaahumanu Highway yesterday, and then it stopped. According to one of the experts quoted in the paper, if it went off again and breached the road the lava would roll into the sea. Once it reached the sea her sisters would have to abandon the site completely.

  But first things first. Before I returned to the site we would have to find Donna. Alive, I hoped, and in one piece.

  Kimo and Husing came out of the bank, each man carrying a small white cardboard box. Neither man looked happy. Kimo was talking on his cellular telephone.

  “You were right, Caine,” he said, holding the cell phone away from his ear. “The ATM picked up the whole thing. Those tapes are used over and over again, so the quality is terrible. We’re taking the tape to the lab to look at it again. I think they can enhance it to where we might get some good evidence out of it.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Didn’t say thank you, you know what I mean?”

  I nodded. I knew what he meant.

  “Just got the call from the courthouse, too.” He held up his cellular phone. “That lady judge issued her ruling. She didn’t wait long. Probably got a lot of pressure from the governor’s office. You bond is revoked. That lady detective is coming to take you back to California. They got you booked on the midnight flight out.”

  “She ruled already?”

  “Probably didn’t want you to fly over to the Big Island and then have to pay me to come get you. She had no choice. You understand that?”

  “I know.” I knew I had to go. I wasn’t so sure about my fortunes in a California courtroom. I felt flimflammed by the courts here, telling me I could go and then yanking away my freedom all in the same afternoon.

  “You better come with me.”

  “You call Chawlie?”

  “I called him. Waste of time. He already knew.”

  “So what are you going to do about Donna?”

  40

  Kimo didn’t answer my question. He didn’t take me to jail, either. After he put me in his Mustang, Kimo took the Kamehameha Highway west toward the Hawaiian Homelands. When he turned west instead of east, putting Honolulu in his rearview mirror, I knew something was up but I said nothing. Sometimes it’s better to wait.

  When we turned off the Farrington Highway, just a little way past the Kalaukauila Stream, I knew he was taking me to his home. I watched the parched landscape fly by my window and waited for Kimo to open up.

  It didn’t take long.

  “I need your help, Caine,” said Kimo after a long, pregnant period of silence. Ahead I could see bright colorful patches on the yellow hillsides. Karen Graham’s flower fields.

  “I’m supposed to be in jail. How can I help?”

  “James was on the video. He and one of his friends I recognized. And Ricky Lee.”

  “James is with Ricky Lee?”

  “He’s in big trouble. We find him, we send in SWAT. This is a federal case now. They’ll send in the Hostage Rescue Team. They’ll kill everybody in sight and say they’re sorry afterward.”

  “You can’t mean that.”

  He nodded. “That was my fear talking. They’re professionals. But to them James is a kidnapper. He might have shot up the main gate at Pearl. He’s got one chance.”

  “So when the court called and told you to bring me in, you balked.”

  “That Henderson woman is at Beretania, waiting for us. When we don’t turn up she’s going to get angry.”

  “So what’s she going to do?”

  “She can protest, and I’ll tell them that I gave you some compassionate time. Chief will chew my ass, but I’ll survive. I will get in trouble doing this, but I want you to talk with Tutu Mae,” said Kimo, as he pulled onto the grassy lawn of his family compound. Three high-roofed wooden structures stood on a small knoll above the Kamehameha Highway. Behind the homes, a colorful blanket of flowers covered the hill. Two acres of tropical flowers bloomed in wild array, blessing the senses with their presence.

  “Talk to Tutu Mae?”

  “She thinks you know things that you don’t understand.”

  “That’s a given.”

  “She thinks that if she tells you what she knows, and what I know, and …” He took a deep breath. “If we pool our resources we might figure out what is going on. There’s much more to this than what we see on the surface.”

  I nodded. The thought had occurred to me. Chawlie ha
d mentioned the same thing the other night, alluding to events that I would have thought were unrelated.

  Kimo pulled himself from the Mustang and trudged inside, the weight of his children’s troubles and the events of the day very heavy on his shoulders, leaving me, a wanted man, alone in the car with his keys.

  I climbed out and followed, mindful of the trust.

  “Make house, John Caine,” said Tutu Mae, embracing me. “I made some iced tea for all of us.” She handed me a tall, moist glass, filled with tea and sweetened with a wedge of pineapple, and waved me toward a seat at a round oak table.

  “Thank you, Tutu Mae,” I said, sitting where I was told.

  “And how are you, John Caine?” she asked, sitting primly in a straight-backed chair.

  “I’m fine, so far,” I said, not knowing how much Kimo had told her about my legal predicament.

  “You no longer argue with your doctors?”

  “No, ma’am,” I said.

  “You look gaunt, as if you need to eat: Would you like something?”

  “No thank you. I am not hungry.” The truth was that I could not remember when I had been hungry last, the injury and the worries robbing me of my appetites.

  Neolani came in and I stood and shook her hand. She kissed Kimo and they had a whispered conversation and she left. She looked sad, the only time I had ever remembered her being so.

  “Mr. Caine,” said Tutu Mae, “I understand that Kimo told you about the lua.”

  “Yes.”

  “And he told you that he is a member of a lua society.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you have sworn to secrecy.”

  “I have.”

  She looked at Kimo, who nodded.

  “You must not tell anyone what he told you. Under no circumstances.”

  “I understand.”

  She looked at me through magnified lenses for a long time before she nodded to herself. “You should have been born Hawaiian,” she said.

  “What does it matter how we are born?” I asked. “When it is only the content of our character that’s important.”

  “Sometimes I cannot tell if you mock me. That was a quote from Martin Luther King. Is nothing sacred to you?”

  “It makes sense.”

  “It makes more sense than anything they talk about today. Any of them.”

  I didn’t have to ask who “them” was. I knew what she meant. It was any of the various groups.

  “Even the Hawaiians,” she continued. “I don’t understand our young people today. They want, but they do not work for what they want. So they become angry. They blow things up. They burn things up. They have temper tantrums and demand respect, yet they do nothing to earn that respect. Respect, they argue, must come from one’s existence. It no longer need be earned.

  “My grandson and his wife are worried about James,” said Tutu Mae, watching my face. “They have raised over a dozen children in their lives. Their children are very important to them. My great-grandson is not someone who has been taken lightly, or ignored, or who has been abused in any way. Kimo and Neolani are strict, but they are loving. They have rules, and they welcome conversation. On any subject. The children learn the art of critical thought, which is something that I have insisted that they learn in the home since they are not taught it at school.”

  She sipped her tea and cleared her throat. “But not all of the children are the students that we would wish them to be, nor do they become the people that we would have liked them to be. James, I’m afraid, is heading for trouble, if he hasn’t already arrived at that destination.

  “Was he on the tape?” she asked Kimo, surprising me with her knowledge of the afternoon’s events.

  He nodded. “It was him,” he said.

  “Mr. Caine,” Tutu Mae said to me, reaching out and grasping my arm. “This is more than a group of young men thinking they’re going to change the world. This is not revolution. I see more than that, depending upon your view. I see it as less, not more. As seen by Jefferson, a revolution can be a positive thing.

  “James has joined a group that pretends to be something it is not. James is getting deeper and deeper into trouble, following a leader who does not have the goal he says he does. Silversword pretends that it stands for Hawaiian autonomy. They are tired of asking the American government for justice. They now claim the moral authority to take matters into their own hands. Things are seldom as they appear. I have learned something that I must share with someone equally knowledgeable in the history of my islands, but from the viewpoint of another culture.”

  “How can I help?”

  “You are a warrior. Your actions, your thoughts, the way you live your life, you are the embodiment of a warrior. I know that you have been severely tried lately. I’m sure that there are even more challenges ahead, both physical and mental. But before you go to the mainland for your criminal trial I wish that you and Kimo could find James before the officials and the FBI. You will not harm him. I know that about you. He knows you. If he does not present a threat you will not hurt him. If he is a threat, then you will protect my grandson.”

  I nodded.

  “Kimo knows where Silversword hides. He will tell you on the way. I trust you in this as I would trust no other man.” She reached across the table and grasped my hands in hers. Her fingers were cold. “Please. Whatever you do. Bring my grandson and his son from there. Rescue them from themselves. We’ll let the authorities deal with the rest of them. But this is family.”

  She nodded to Kimo, who reached down and pulled out a little revolver. I recognized it as Kimo’s off-duty weapon, a Chief’s Special five-shot .38. It wasn’t good for much. I wouldn’t want to use it even if I had to. I had little faith in handguns under .40 caliber. But we weren’t considering a firefight. Whatever we did would be close combat. If there was combat.

  Kimo placed the revolver on the table in front of me.

  “Please, Caine. You and me. The two of us. We need to go in there and bring out Donna before the others find the location.”

  Kimo had put his life and career in my hands. And the life of his son. He needed unofficial backup.

  I nodded.

  There was nothing else I could have done.

  41

  I slipped the revolver in the hip pocket of my shorts and stood up. The room seemed filled with sadness. “We’ll be back for you,” said Kimo, kissing his grandmother.

  “Be careful,” she said, closing the screen door.

  Kimo’s cell phone rang again. He looked down at his belt, but made no move to answer it. “Gotta be the chief. I’m going to be in big trouble keeping you around, but this time I figure it’s your deal as well as ours.”

  We climbed into the Mustang. “How do we do this?”

  “That bar? That’s just their hangout. But Bumpy’s got a commune not far from there, out by the old airport. I figure we just drive on in and take the girl away from them.”

  “Come in with guns blazing?”

  “Nope. Just take her back.”

  “Front door approach.”

  “I’ll talk her out of them. I’m good at it.”

  “You’re serious.”

  “You’ve got the gun.”

  “Yeah.”

  “If I can’t talk them out of giving her over to us and coming along peacefully, then you can shoot them.”

  We rode along in silence between deep green hills and a pale blue gray ocean. The air smelled faintly of salt. We stopped once so Kimo could consult his map. I watched a pair of bright red cardinals perched on a tree limb. They cocked their heads at us and then flew away in a flurry of crimson.

  “It’s over there,” he said, parking the Mustang in a grove of coconut palms. Beyond was a dense tangle of shrubs and vines. Beyond that was the beach.

  “We can get up there through the cane field.” Kimo pointed across the road. “Good cover.”

  “You lead,” I said. “I’ll follow.”

  Kimo gave me an appr
aising look. “You sure you’re up for it?”

  “I’m fine.” I wished I were fine. But I told him I was. I would be fine, anyway. At least until this thing was done.

  “You know you’re going to have to go back to California after this is over.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And I might not have a badge.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And I can’t think of anything else to do.”

  “I know.”

  Kimo gazed up the hill, across the cane fields, toward the commune. “I hope she’s up there.”

  He went across the road and I followed. We entered the cane field, walking single file through the narrow rows. The stalks were lush and green, not yet ready for harvesting. The air was thick with the sweet smell of the young plants. We made little noise, and we couldn’t be seen except from the air. Even then, I doubted we would be anything but a couple of ripples roiling the leaves as we moved through the cane, two predators, a couple of sharks hunting a lagoon.

  We saw the first two members of the commune as we emerged from the cane. Two women working a taro patch looked up as we walked by. They called out to us, but we ignored them.

  A group of children played in a sandlot, watched over by an older woman. She gave us a sharp look, but said nothing. She had a more disapproving look when my eyes met hers than when she saw Kimo. He was local. He was Hawaiian. But I was the outsider, the haole.

  “Stop!”

  As we reached the main building, two men with lever-action deer rifles carried in the crook of their arm approached us. “You are trespassing,” said the leader. Neither man threatened us with their rifles, but the threat was there.