“What else did you bring?”
“A few things I thought might come in handy.” He took off his backpack and opened it to show me. I had no idea what most of it was, but there were all kinds of small electrical gadgets, a flashlight, microcassette recorders, and a laptop computer. I gasped for a second when I saw a gun, thinking he’d taken a weapon from one of the lockers. But it was only a flare gun, he explained. He thought it might come in handy. I felt relieved that somebody was so prepared. He collected all of our watches and started installing the locator chips.
Finally we touched down in Hawaii at the Hilo airport. We quickly got off the plane and headed into the terminal like we knew what we were doing. I didn’t want the pilots nosing around or asking any questions, because they might notice that we didn’t have a clue about what we were doing, or worse, someone might place a call to Charles and we’d be busted.
I hadn’t heard a single word from Charles or Cynthia since I’d been sent to Blackthorn. That was no surprise. Out of sight, out of mind. But at some point someone at Buchanan Enterprises would discover what I’d done, and then Charles would hear about it, and since I’d hit him in his wallet he probably wasn’t going to like it too much. Oh well. I’d worry about that later.
We stopped for a moment in the terminal to get our bearings. The Hilo airport was pretty small and quiet, with not a lot of activity. We were studying a big map of the Hilo area on the wall, trying to figure out what to do next, when a Hawaiian girl about our age came up to us. She was wearing a khaki safari shirt, with white shorts and hiking boots.
“Hello. You must be Mr. Kim’s students? My name is Leikala. I was a graduate of Blackthorn Academy four years ago. You’re to accompany me to a safe house until he arrives. Mr. Kim thought you might try to get here, so he assigned someone to keep watch on the airports on all the islands and to check arriving flights. I have a car waiting. Hurry, we must go. It’s not safe.”
A lot of information. A little too much information. Shields up. I was reminded of Mr. Kim’s warning that we weren’t supposed to trust anyone. Also, his lecture to me the other day in the do jang: Always do a threat assessment. I mean, I have natural trust issues anyway. But something told me this wasn’t right. This didn’t sound like Mr. Kim. If he really wanted us, with all of his abilities and connections he could have tracked us down easy enough.
But here she was, obviously waiting for us. I heard Mr. Kim’s voice in my head. Simon has a vast network. Trust no one. I studied Leikala. She was maybe a little older than us, but she looked our age. So her story about attending Blackthorn could be true. She had gorgeous coal-black, shoulder-length hair and eyes the color of obsidian. I decided that I hated her on sight. How did she know who we were? Or anything about this, really?
I had a bad feeling. Maybe we were being watched. Somehow Simon knew what we were doing. We needed to lose this chick, and fast.
“I’m sorry, you must have mistaken us for someone else,” I said. “We’re here from Los Angeles on a class trip.” I looked at Pilar. She had been at Blackthorn the longest, and I wondered if she recognized this Leikala person with the beautiful hair and the impossibly perfect complexion. Pilar met my gaze and instantly understood. She studied Leikala intently for a few seconds. Then she gave me an almost imperceptible head shake. Pilar sensed that she was giving off bad vibes. I smelled a trap.
“You must be Rachel,” Leikala said, reaching out to shake my hand. “Mr. Kim sends his hello. I understand your suspicion, but believe me, I’m here to help you.”
Yeah, right. I looked at Pilar again just to make sure, and again she gave me a small shake of the head. For some reason she didn’t believe this Leikala person either. Mr. Kim’s words kept ringing through my head. Simon has vast resources, dedicated followers, and we should trust no one and blah blah blah. Then I looked at Brent and Alex and they were totally staring all moony-eyed at Leikala. Okay, she was beautiful, but sheesh, we’re on a mission! Boys.
“Listen, ma’am, I don’t know who you are or who this Mr. Kim person is, but we’re not who you’re looking for.”
I started to push past her.
“Rachel, please.” She grabbed my arm. I dropped my duffel bag, grabbed her thumb, and bent it backward off my arm, in a pressure hold that Mr. Kim had taught me.
“Watch it!” I snapped. See how much those perfectly straight and brilliant white teeth help you when I knock you on your fanny.
Alex stepped in between us and she let go of my arm.
Just then, I saw a shuttle bus for our hotel pull up to the curb in front of the building.
“Sorry lady. We’re not who you’re looking for. Come on, guys, there’s our bus.” I headed for the door, with the rest of the gang behind me. I heard Leikala coming after us and shouting something, but by then we were on the bus. She turned and ran across the drive to a waiting car. It looked like she was going to follow us.
The shuttle bus took us to the outskirts of Hilo and the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. It was a pretty nice resort property. What the heck—as long as I had hacked into Buchanan Enterprises’ travel system for a jet, might as well go four-star on the hotel. We all kept staring at the car out the back window of the bus. For once I was a little too nervous to talk. Nobody else said anything either. Sometimes I thought if it wasn’t for me, Alex, Pilar, and especially Brent could go weeks without uttering a single syllable. We were quiet right up until the bus pulled in to the hotel lot.
Everything in the lobby was made out of teak, and a couple of the bellmen walked up to us and put leis around our necks. Our rooms had already been paid for, so we didn’t have any problem getting keys. We made plans to drop off our stuff and meet back in the hotel lobby in fifteen minutes.
Once we were in our room, Pilar and I discussed this Leikala person.
“What do you think she is up to?” Pilar asked.
“I don’t know. You didn’t recognize her, right?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean anything. There are about four hundred students in the school. If she really graduated from Blackthorn four years ago, that would have been right about the time I got there, so it’s possible I never ran across her. But there is something wrong about her. I get a funny feeling she isn’t telling the whole truth.”
“I’m learning to trust your ‘funny feelings.’ Besides, nobody with skin like that can be truthworthy,” I said. “Did you see the way that Alex and Brent were googling at her? It was disgusting. She’s not that pretty.”
Pilar laughed.
“What’s so funny?” I snapped. The long hours of travel plus being assaulted by a Miss Hawaii look-alike had left me a little cranky.
“You’re jealous.” She had a very self-satisfied smile on her face as she said it.
“I am not jealous.”
“Are too.”
“Am not.”
“Yep.”
“Nope.”
“You’re crazy!” I said. I picked up my little toiletries bag and stomped into the bathroom, slamming the door.
Me jealous. Hah! Not this chick. I mean, why would I be jealous? So this Leikala person was gorgeous and perfect-looking. But that didn’t mean I was jealous. Rachel Buchanan doesn’t do jealous.
I brushed my teeth, which were not as brilliantly white as Leikala’s. I ran a wet washcloth over the less-than-perfect skin on my face. Then I brushed my hair, which was not remotely as thick and lustrous. Jealous. I’ll show you jealous. Besides, did anyone notice how she was dressed? I mean, the girl obviously needed a shopping intervention. Maybe she should try wearing something from this decade. It’s Hawaii. No one wears hiking boots in Hawaii.
I ran down Leikala several more times in my head and started to regain my sense of superiority. When I came back into the room, Pilar was sitting on her bed looking through the hotel directory. I apologized for being snippy and slamming the door. She just smiled. Why wasn’t she jealous? I mean, she and Alex were a “thing” but he was totally checking Leikala out, too.
It must be that Mr. Kim’s Zen stuff rubs off on you if you’re at the school long enough.
“I think it’s time for us to put our plan into action,” I said.
“What plan is that again?” she said.
“The ‘stumble around until we find something’ plan.”
“Oh, that one. Good plan.”
I walked to the window of our room. We were on the front side of the hotel on the tenth floor, and you could see the parking lot from our window. Leikala’s car was parked in one of the spaces facing the hotel entrance.
“What should we do about Leikala?” I asked Pilar.
“I don’t know. She seems to know a lot about us, but she could have gotten that information from Blankenship. And here’s a worrying thought. What if Blankenship has someone inside the school to keep an eye on Mr. Kim? Somebody we don’t suspect. They could have figured out we were gone and told Blankenship.”
“Do you think that’s possible?” I asked, not mentioning that I’d already had the same thought. I was paranoid enough on my own. No need to drag anyone else down with me.
“I don’t know. That little speech that Mr. Kim gave us about not trusting anyone has me all spooked,” Pilar said.
“And unfortunately we can’t check if she attended the school, because the records aren’t online, so I can’t hack into the Academy files to find out. The only other people that might know are Agent Tyler and Mrs. Marquardt, and if we call one of them we’re dead,” I said.
Pilar agreed.
“I think we need to ditch her if we can. Let’s get Alex and Brent and head down to the lobby.” I went to my Academy duffel bag and grabbed my roll of cash. I had brought $200 with me when I came to Blackthorn four months ago and still had most of it. We didn’t really go anywhere—unless we were sneaking off school grounds to foil an international network of evil spies, of course. But I knew it would come in handy at some point.
The lobby was shaped like a T. The elevators were off to your left and the hallway to your right led to ballrooms and meeting rooms and some of the hotel restaurants. By the bank of phones in the hallway there were a bunch of scratch pads and pens, which I used to write out a note. It said: Sorry we got off on the wrong foot. Please come to room 1237 so we can figure out what to do. Thanks, Rachel Buchanan.
I asked a bellman to deliver my note to the driver of the black sedan that was parked out front. I gave him a $10 bill and he hustled out the door. Then we all picked up phones and stayed out of sight until, a couple of minutes later, I saw Leikala come scurrying into the lobby and head straight for the elevator. She took the first available car and was gone.
“Come on!” I said.
We shot out the door and grabbed a taxi. I asked the driver if he knew where the big archaeological dig site was outside of town. He said he did and that the fare would be $20 and did we have the money? I showed him two twenties; he smiled and said “Mahalo” and off we went.
“Very slick, Raych,” Pilar said.
“Yeah, she’ll be confused when no one answers the door,” Alex said.
“Or somebody that isn’t me answers the door,” I said. I had of course given her the wrong room number in the note.
Brent cleared his throat and nodded his head slightly toward the driver, signaling that maybe we shouldn’t say too much in front of people we didn’t know. That was one thing I didn’t like about this whole spy/secret agent thing. Basically I’m a big blabbermouth, so everybody is always shushing me.
We were quiet the rest of the way to the dig site. Outside of Hilo the Hawaiian terrain looks basically like the middle of the jungle. The eastern side of the Big Island of Hawaii gets a lot of rain and so there is vegetation everywhere. It was like something out of a Tarzan or George of the Jungle movie. I half expected a loinclothed Brendan Fraser to swing by the taxi on a vine. Now, that would be cool.
The cabbie dropped us off at a dirt road that led back into the jungle to the dig site. We could see it through the trees about a half a mile away. There was a lot of scaffolding and trucks parked around it.
It didn’t take us long to reach the site. It looked pretty much like a big hole in the ground, maybe a hundred feet across and about fifty or sixty feet deep. There was scaffolding around the edge and reaching down to the floor of the hole with a little lift elevator attached to it, like a window washer on a skyscraper. At the bottom, on each side of the hole, were what looked like small tunnels, going in opposite directions.
“It’s a lava tube,” Alex explained.
“A tube of what?” I asked.
“A lava tube. When a volcano erupts and the lava flows over the surface of the ground, the top layer will cool and harden but the lava will keep flowing underneath. Eventually molten lava flows out to a lower elevation and the empty hollow tube is left behind. The island is full of them. Early Hawaiians actually lived in them sometimes. I’ll bet that’s how this site was discovered.” He looked at me and shrugged, like everyone in the world knew about lava tubes.
I was surrounded by brainiacs.
Amazingly we walked right up to the dig site and nobody asked who we were or why we were there. Of course, none of us had ever been to an archaeological dig before, so we didn’t have the slightest idea what to do. There were about thirty people at work, and it wasn’t like we could walk up to any of them and say, “Excuse me? Are you a Mithrian? Intent on world domination? Like to steal priceless artifacts? Step away from the hole, please.” I was sure that Blankenship would have people here undercover, looking for clues about where the artifact was hidden. He would want people on the inside so that if anything valuable was found he could move to steal it right away. We would have to be careful about what we said and whom we talked to. The only trouble was, we were eventually going to have to talk to someone.
So we stood around, waiting to stumble over a clue. Finally a guy in shorts and a T-shirt and hiking boots came up.
“Can I help you with something?” he asked.
“Yes, we’re from the Institute. We’re to meet our professor, Dr. Kim, here at the site today,” I said.
“The Pfizer Institute?” he asked. Doh! Of course, there would have to be a real institute. Dang the luck.
“Uh, no, we’re actually from the Buchanan Institute. We’re in the Antiquities and Medieval History Department there. Dr. Kim arranged for us to intern on the dig, and we were supposed to start today.” It sure sounded good, right? I almost said the Blackthorn Institute, but I didn’t want to give anything away.
“I’m Dr. Reynolds. I’m in charge of the site here. How come I don’t know anything about this? I’ve never heard of the Buchanan Institute.”
Sweat was forming on my forehead—and not from the humidity.
“Really? It’s the Buchanan Institute in eastern Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia. There must be some mix-up in the paperwork. Hasn’t Dr. Kim arrived yet?”
“I’ve never heard of Dr. Kim either…”
Suddenly, like a bad penny, Leikala was there. She must have arrived without us noticing. She barged into the middle of our group and grabbed Dr. Reynolds’s hand and started pumping it vigorously.
“I’m sorry for the confusion, Dr. Reynolds. I was supposed to be the university liaison with Dr. Kim’s students, and I just learned a short while ago that you had not been informed.”
“Hello, Leikala.” Dr. Reynolds frowned. “What is going on here?”
“It’s part of the university student-exchange program. These students are here to participate in the dig as part of their curriculum.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” he said. He was starting to sound really annoyed.
“I know, and I apologize for the mix-up. However, since they are here now, perhaps we can just put them to work?” She kind of fluttered her eyelashes at the professor when she said it. Made me want to punch them both.
“Leikala, what about their permits? You know the state regulations are very strict here. If they don’t have permits, they a
re not allowed on the site.”
“I guess you’re right,” Leikala said. “Tell you what. Why don’t I leave Alex, Pilar, and Brent with you and I’ll take this young lady into Hilo to the university office. They must have the paperwork there. Maybe you can have someone show them around while we’re gone?”
Dr. Reynolds frowned, then nodded. “I guess that would be all right. As long as you get back right away with the paperwork.” Leikala smiled and assured him that would be the case. Then she turned to me and said, “Shall we go?”
We were stuck. If I didn’t go with her, our cover was blown and we’d be in more trouble than any of us could imagine. But I didn’t trust this Leikala any farther than the end of her perfectly pert little nose. Still, we didn’t seem to have a choice.
“Sure,” I said. “We’ll get this all straightened out and be right back. But tell you what—Pilar should come with us. She’s so much better at that paperwork stuff than me.” Then I started to laugh. I laugh when I’m nervous and scared. Don’t know why, but there you go. Pilar elbowed me in the ribs sharply. The pain made me stop laughing. I watched Leikala for a reaction, but her perfectly chiseled face didn’t betray anything. I hated her even more. She just smiled and nodded.
I looked at Alex and Brent. “And while we’re gone, you guys make yourselves useful. Don’t stand around like you’re in a museum or something. Remember what Dr. Kim is looking for.” Alex nodded. He got it. If we don’t come back, do what you can to find the artifact. That was most important.
Leikala’s car was parked not too far away. When she reached it, she opened the back door and held it like a chauffeur.
Before I got in, I looked back at Alex and Brent. Alex gave a little wave and said, “Hey, if for some reason you don’t get back in time, we’ll meet you at the hotel! Better not be late for dinner or there will be fireworks.” He smiled like everything was normal. What the heck did that mean? Fireworks? Is that some kind of code word?
I slid into the backseat next to Pilar. Leikala looked over her shoulder and smiled as she started the car.
To Hawaii, with Love Page 6