Nick borrowed the binoculars and looked down at Jasper and the box. “Okay, so it’s a mortar. How much trouble are we in?”
“It looks like an M252. It’s UK designed and used by the U.S. military. I was trained on it when I was a Navy SEAL. It can fire up to sixteen bombs per minute, and it can hit a target more than three miles away. Each round has a kill radius of more than a hundred feet.”
“This is really happening. They’re going to bomb the mountain.” The Kahuna opened his eyes and sat up. “Boy, they really want to kill me. Whatever they stole from Sentience must be big.”
Nick looked at Kalepa Ridge. It was still shrouded in fog. “We just need to make it to the cloud cover before they get that thing assembled. How long do we have?”
“Fifteen or twenty minutes, depending on whether they know what they’re doing,” Kate said.
“Then we should get moving. Same plan as the last section. I’ll free-climb. You and the Kahuna can follow once I have ropes in place.”
The Kahuna looked up from his sitting position. “I’m completely spent. I don’t know if I can climb anymore, period, even with a rope.”
“I’m coming with you,” Kate said to Nick. “That way the two of us together can pull the Kahuna up the cliff, if we need to.”
Nick looked down the cliff. The two mercenaries were climbing and had made considerable progress in a short time. “Okay. No time to argue.” He turned to the Kahuna. “If those guys get too close for comfort, start throwing our gear at them. Rope, cams, water bottles, even the backpacks. Anything to slow them down. Anyway, we need to travel light if we hope to get as far away as possible before the shelling starts.”
Nick and Kate climbed side by side up the last hundred feet of the cliff. They pulled themselves over the top and lay flat on their backs. “It’s still another steep mile uphill to Kalepa Ridge,” Nick said, “but at least it looks like there’s no more technical climbing.”
Nick and Kate had just started pulling the Kahuna up the cliff when they heard a low whistle coming from the valley floor. A few seconds later, an explosion a half mile to the right of Nick and Kate sent a huge chunk of red dirt and rock flying away from the mountain and raining down on the valley.
“That wasn’t even close,” Nick said. “And it still rattled my fillings.”
Kate continued to haul on the Kahuna’s rope with all her strength. “That was just a test run. They’ll use it to recalibrate the mortar and try again. With every miss, they’ll continue to zero in on our position.”
Another bomb exploded, this time half a mile to their left and above them, leaving a gaping red hole in the mountain. Nick and Kate looked at each other.
“They overcompensated,” Nick said. “The next shell is going to be a lot closer to home.”
Kate’s hands were burning from the pressure of the rope. “We’ve got to get out of here. Just keep pulling. He’s almost to the top.”
The Kahuna threw a couple of cams and his water bottle down the mountain toward the men in pursuit. They bounced off the wall, barely missing their targets, and continued to fall. “Those two thugs are gaining on us,” he shouted up to Nick and Kate. “I’m guessing we still have around a three-hundred-foot lead.”
Nick and Kate pulled the Kahuna over the top to safety, just as they heard a whistle pass over their heads and disappear into the cloud cover. A second later, another bomb exploded far above them, sending a thick cloud of dust rising through the clouds and giving the fog an eerie reddish hue.
The Kahuna looked over at Kate. “Do you feel the ground rumbling?”
A flash flood of trees, vegetation, rock, and dirt burst through the clouds and slid down the mountain, gathering speed as it went, in a massive river of muddy debris.
“Landslide,” Kate shouted. “Take cover.”
Nick, Kate, and the Kahuna dove under a large outcropping of rock, dodging the tumbling boulders that were leading the muddy slurry down the mountain.
The Kahuna hunkered down. “It sounds like a freight train.”
A medium-sized tree shot off the top of the outcropping like a missile, and flew over the edge of the cliff. The muddy mixture of rock and dirt followed a couple of seconds later, surrounding the outcropping and pouring over the top like a waterfall.
Nick, Kate, and the Kahuna plastered themselves to the wall beneath the outcropping, avoiding being struck by the larger debris, and waited for the onslaught to end. Finally, the last of the boulders sped by them and the mountain was silent.
“That was . . . terrifying,” the Kahuna said to Kate. “Does this sort of stuff happen to you often?”
“Unfortunately, all the time,” Kate said.
Nick peered over the cliff. “No more bad guys climbing up the mountain. They must have gotten swept away. Thanks, Jasper. That solves that problem.”
Another shell whistled through the air and exploded, just a couple of hundred feet below them. Kate looked up the mountain toward Kalepa Ridge. It still seemed an eternity away.
“The shelling is getting closer, and there’s nowhere to hide until we reach the fog,” Kate said. “It will be a miracle if we survive.”
Nick scrambled up the mountain. “I don’t believe in miracles. I depend on them.”
16
Jake and Cosmo hid in the jungle, silently watching as Jasper stared into the mortar’s telescopic sight and directed one of his men to adjust the angle by three degrees.
“Kate and Nick are sitting ducks as long as Jasper has that cannon,” Jake whispered.
Cosmo’s eyes were wide. “What are we going to do? There are six of them, all armed to the teeth. We’d be mowed down as soon as we stepped out of the rainforest into the field.”
Bob emerged through the dense vegetation behind Jake and Cosmo, carrying a big burlap sack on his back. “It sounds like World War III. Everybody in the valley is freaking out. What did I miss?”
“Jasper and his crew are shelling Nick and Kate. Did you bring the stuff?”
Bob plopped the burlap sack onto the ground. “You bet.” He opened the bag, revealing at least a hundred sticks of dynamite. He pointed at Jasper and his crew. “Those Death Eaters are destroying the mountain with their dark magic. I was saving these, but I guess this qualifies as a special occasion.”
Cosmo removed a stick from the bag. “These look like they’re at least a hundred years old.”
“One hundred and two,” Bob said. “They’re from 1917. That’s when the sugar plantations gave up trying to farm the valley. I found them in an abandoned storage bunker.”
“Will it still work?” Cosmo asked.
“Dynamite is like wine,” Jake said. “It only gets better with age.” Jake took the stick from Cosmo and sniffed it. “Musty with just a hint of oakiness. Oh yeah. This is the good stuff. Nineteen seventeen was a good year for dynamite.”
“What do you mean by ‘gets better with age’?” Cosmo asked.
“More dangerous. As it gets older, nitroglycerin becomes more and more unstable. We don’t even need a blasting cap with this stuff.” Jake held the stick up to the light. “Dynamite sweats over time. Do you see these crystals coating it? A moderate shock should do the trick.”
Cosmo inched away from the sack. “I’m not sure a burlap sack is the right way to store unstable dynamite. I’m not even sure there is a right way to store unstable dynamite.”
Bob rolled his eyes. “You Muggles worry too much. I already cast a protection spell on it. We’re perfectly safe.”
Jake put the stick back in the bag. “There you have it. Nothing to worry about.”
Jasper launched another shell. A couple of seconds later, the valley reverberated with the sound of it exploding somewhere up the mountain.
“Jasper and his mortar are at least two hundred feet away from us,” Cosmos said. “There’s no way to get close enough t
o throw the dynamite without getting shot.”
“Yep. Thought of that,” Jake said. “I couldn’t throw it much further than fifty feet. That’s why I asked Hamilton to pick up something to even the odds.”
There was a lot of rustling and grunting in the thick vegetation behind them, and Hamilton limped through the foliage with his arms wrapped around a bundle of rubber tubing and cloth.
“Here you go, dude,” Hamilton said. “Had a heck of a time convincing the locals to let me take it from the beach. What are you going to do with Old Reliable?”
Jake unwound the tubing and laid it out between two palm trees. “We’re going to load it up with unstable dynamite. The bad guys have a cannon, and now we have a giant slingshot.”
Cosmo and Bob helped Jake secure the ends of the tubing on the two trees and straighten the big cloth pocket. Jake unloaded half of the dynamite from Bob’s sack and carefully placed it in the cloth pocket.
“You’ve had the most practice with this thing,” Jake said to Hamilton. “Want to do the honors?”
Hamilton grinned. “Absolutely, dude. Just give me coordinates. I’m used to chucking coconuts into the ocean. I’ll need some help getting the right trajectory.”
“The target is straight ahead about two hundred feet. Once you get over the initial vegetation that’s giving us cover, you’ve got an open field,” Jake said.
Hamilton used his whole body to pull the pocket back as far as he could. He launched the dynamite, it sailed over the treetops, and arced high into the sky, spinning and turning. The sticks appeared to hover for a split second before beginning their descent. Everyone held their breath in anticipation of the detonation.
Bob removed his flute from his wizard robe and waved it in the direction of the dynamite. “Reducto.”
The first of the sticks hit the ground about thirty feet short of their target, blasting a huge hole in the earth and sending a cloud of debris into the air. A second later, the explosions cascaded one after another, engulfing Jasper and his crew in a thick haze of black smoke and fire.
“Wow!” Cosmo said. “That’s freaking awesome. Do you think we killed them? Did we annihilate them?”
“Doubtful,” Jake said. “Too much smoke to see anything.” He loaded the next fifty sticks of dynamite into the slingshot. “I get that this isn’t an exact science, but we might want to try for a range adjustment. See if you can increase the distance a little.”
“I can’t do it with this bad leg,” Hamilton said. “I can’t put my full weight on it.”
“I’m on it,” Jake said. “Move over and I’ll give it a try.”
“Keep your feet square and just lean away,” Hamilton said.
Jake pulled back and fired off the pocketful of dynamite. Seconds later, the second round of explosions rocked the clearing, unleashing a colossal fireball that rose at least fifty feet into the air.
“I must have hit their ammo,” Jake said. “Go figure.”
Jake, Hamilton, Cosmo, and Bob stared into the clearing, waiting for the dust to settle. When it finally did, they ventured forward slowly, taking in the destruction in complete silence.
The mortar had been obliterated. Giant craters littered the blackened earth, strewn with all manner of debris and several barely recognizable dead bodies.
“This isn’t good,” Cosmo said, stopping short of the worst of the carnage. “I didn’t think it would be like this. I’m feeling sick. I’ve never seen anything like this. Maybe in video games but this is different.”
Hamilton limped up to stand beside him. “Yeah, it’s like real, dude.”
“We did what was necessary,” Jake said, walking through the damaged attack site. “There are three bodies burned beyond recognition. Some others might have been blown up entirely. There’s no way of knowing if Jasper is one of the dead. There’s no way of knowing right now who escaped into the rainforest without us seeing them.”
“My karma is doodie,” Hamilton said, “but at least Nick and Kate and my dad are safe.”
Jake looked up the mountain and the clouds hiding Kalepa Ridge, seeing no sign of Nick or Kate. “I hope so. Something tells me it won’t last long.”
* * *
—
Nick and Kate stared at the fireball rising from the valley floor.
“Looks like we just got our miracle,” Nick said. “I wish we still had the binoculars. I left them behind with the rest of our gear.”
“Not a miracle,” Kate said. “That kind of destruction has to be my dad’s handiwork.”
The Kahuna somberly took in the scene below him. “So, it’s over?”
“We still need to make it off the mountain,” Kate said. “Let’s keep walking.”
Nick, Kate, and the Kahuna continued their slow progress up toward the cloud cover. “We may have gotten rid of Jasper for the time being, but how are we going to flush Olga out of her hole? Without her, we’re at a dead end,” Kate said to Nick.
“Not exactly a dead end. Last night you told me when Jasper discovered Horace’s dead body on Red Hill he told one of his flunkies to call the Remarkables for reinforcements. And a new helicopter.”
“Yep, the Remarkables. Like Mr. Remarkable and his wife, Elastigirl,” Kate said.
Nick grinned and shook his head. “You’re thinking of The Incredibles. The Remarkables are a mountain range and ski resort on the South Island of New Zealand, near Queenstown.”
The Kahuna grabbed a shrub and pulled himself up a steep section. “I remember Olga talking about Queenstown. She would go there for vacation a couple times a year.”
“That’s awfully far to go for a ski trip,” Kate said. “Pretty sketchy.”
Nick nodded. “Any smuggler worth his salt does the job himself. If I were stealing IP from Silicon Valley, I wouldn’t trust it to a courier or even secure email. I’d take it to my buyer in person.”
Kate cast a sideways glance in Nick’s direction. “And you think Olga’s ‘buyer’ is in Queenstown?”
“It’s a theory. We’ll need to find Olga to know for sure.”
“Even if he is, New Zealand is a big place. What makes you think she’ll tell us where to find her boss?”
“We have something she desperately wants.” Nick pointed at the Kahuna. “She’ll negotiate.”
“And if she won’t negotiate with you?”
Nick shrugged. “Then we let Jake negotiate.”
“Most of Dad’s negotiations end with something getting blown up.”
“Exactly.” Nick smiled. “That’s one way to close a deal, I guess.”
“We’re almost to the clouds,” Kate said, slipping on the mud and blinking against the mist that was sifting down on her. “The summit is close.” She turned and looked out over the expanse of the valley. From the top of the mountain, the beach looked like a tiny spit of sand a million miles away. A lone helicopter approached Kalalau from the Na Pali Coast and landed on the beach.
“Jasper requested a new helicopter,” Nick said. “I’m guessing it just arrived.”
Kate walked into the clouds. “We need to hustle.”
Fifteen minutes later, the terrain began to level out and the clouds began to recede. Nick pointed to a spot about a hundred feet up the hill where a narrow path wound its way along a ridgeline at the top of the mountain. “That’s got to be the trail.”
“Finally, some good luck,” Kate said. “I don’t think we would have found it in that soup.”
“It’s a fairly short walk to the Kalalau Lookout,” Nick said. “There’s a parking lot there and tons of tourists, so it shouldn’t be a problem finding a ride back to civilization.”
By the time Nick, Kate, and the Kahuna reached the trail, the clouds had largely disappeared, and they were able to look over the expanse of the valley and much of the Na Pali Coast. A short walk later they passed through a
pedestrian gate onto a road that dead-ended into a parking lot. The sign on the guardrail read “Kalalau Lookout—Elevation 4,000 Feet.” Nick, Kate, and the Kahuna walked into the lot and approached a tour bus operator who was getting ready to leave on his run.
“Can we get a ride back to Poipu?” Nick asked. “We’re kind of having a rough day.”
The bus driver looked them over. They were sopping wet, covered from head to toe in mud. Their clothes were in tatters, and Nick was bleeding from where the stitches had failed in his shoulder wound.
“I’ve seen a lot of people having bad days,” the driver said. “You’re in the red zone on the Bad-Day-O-Meter. You can ride along, but sit at the front, right behind me, so you don’t drip on the rest of the people. I’m stopping in Poipu anyway.”
The tour bus backed out of its parking space and drove down the mountain road, stopping at Kokee State Park Campground to allow the tourists to stretch their legs and explore. Nick and Kate used the hour to inform the park rangers about what had happened over the past two days and to let them know about the people stranded in the valley.
“It sounds like the rangers are used to rescuing people from that hike,” Kate said once they were back in their seats. “They promised me that Jake and the others would be back at the hotel before bedtime.”
The bus left Kokee and continued on along Waimea Canyon Road. Kate watched out the window as they navigated seventeen miles of switchbacks down to the little town of Waimea.
“I’ve never seen a canyon quite like it,” Kate said, leaning forward, talking to the driver. “The colors are striking. Red, green, and brown with waterfalls slicing into the canyon walls. If my phone wasn’t dead, I’d take a picture.”
“It’s ten miles long and three thousand feet deep,” the driver said. “And you’re right. It’s spectacular.”
The tour bus turned left at the bottom of the Canyon Road and drove along the coast toward Poipu, nineteen miles away.
Kate slouched in her seat and closed her eyes. “I could sleep for the next two days,” she said to Nick. “It was hard enough just finding the Kahuna without having to deal with Jasper. I have no idea how they found us so quickly.”
The Big Kahuna Page 14