The captain’s features took on a puzzled expression. “But later today—tomorrow at the very latest—we will be on the big island, where you can get anything you want. Why take chances riding a scooter over poor roads in hazardous weather?” he asked, sweeping an arm at the chaotic rainfall, dark gray sky, and howling wind outside.
Marissa feigned embarrassment. She spun her head around, ostensibly to check whether anyone was within earshot. Then, as if about to share a secret with a close confident, she leaned in closer to the captain.
“I didn’t want to say anything, sir, but as you know, I am the only female aboard this ship, and unfortunately, I am in dire need of certain feminine items which are necessary once per month.”
The captain’s eyes widened and he nearly blushed. “Yes, yes, of course. But I can have the men go for you. No need for a lady to be out in this,” he said waving a hand at the threatening weather.
“With all due respect, captain, I have enough to overcome with the men as it is, just by being a woman, not to mention a white woman. I don’t want to give them any opportunity to see me as a burden on them. Allow me to go myself. I will also bring back other routine supplies that we are always in need of.”
The captain appeared to think about this, staring out to the angry sea. “Waiting out a storm always tries my patience. Bring me some cigarettes and a bottle of rum.” He dug an American twenty dollar bill out of his pocket and pressed it into her hand.
Noon
Tara paced about the small hotel room, talking to Rob on her cell-phone. As before, he said a lot, she listened. Dave, Kristen and Lance watched her expectantly from the table where they had been examining the pistol Tara found by the wreck. She had placed it into a plastic evidence bag and told them not to open it.
Tara snapped her phone shut and addressed them.
“Rob says that according to the latest weather reports he’s cleared to fly in thirty minutes.”
Dave nodded. Kristen thought for a moment and asked, “So where do we go?”
The room phone rang.
Kristen picked it up, listened for a few seconds and set it back down, a puzzled expression on her face.
“Front desk says I have a package.”
Dave raised his eyebrows.
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Lance said.
Tara went to the door. “I’ll check it out.”
They all started to follow her.
“Somebody should stay in the room in case this is a ploy to get us out so they can bug the room or something,” Tara said. “Lance and Dave,” you two stay here while Kristen and I go to the front desk.” She wrote her cell number on a pad. “Anything weird happens, call me, I'll come running.”
Tara and Kristen left the room and walked outside down a manicured path to the hotel’s stone walled lobby. Inside, there were only a couple of other people at the counter, and they thanked the clerk and left just as Tara and Kristen walked up. While Kristen addressed the clerk, Tara casually monitored the lobby, searching for anything unusual. She could detect nothing out of the ordinary.
“Room 126. You just called us about a package,” Kristen said. The clerk nodded and retreated for a moment into a back office. She emerged a few seconds later holding a brown paper sack. She placed it on the counter and took out a clipboard.
“Sign here, please,” the Asian woman said.
“I don’t understand,” Kristen said, as Tara watched an elderly couple stroll past the lobby entrance toward the pool area. “We’re not expecting any packages.”
The woman double-checked the clipboard, running a finger down a list. She shrugged. “It’s for you, ma’am. Dr. Kristen Archer?”
Kristen looked at Tara, who gave a subtle nod. Kristen picked the brown bag off the counter.
“Sign, please.” The clerk held out a pen and pushed the clipboard toward Kristen, who handed Tara the bag.
“But where did this come from?” Kristen asked.
Tara pulled something out of the sack. Kristen saw from her expression before she could see the object that it meant something to her. She held up a glass test-tube with a white cap. Kristen let out a little yelp when she saw it. “Excuse me,” she said to the clerk. “So where did it come from?”
The clerk shrugged. “It came from the daily ferry from Molokai. There is no way for me to tell who delivered this—there’s no note with it.”
Kristen signed the clipboard.
A family of four came in behind them, the father trying to wheel six suitcases up to the counter while the two children fought over a disposable camera, their mother an unsuccessful mediator.
“Let’s go,” Tara said, replacing the tube into the bag.
Back in the room, Dave held the test-tube up to the room light. “Looks exactly the same as the last ones we found,” he noted.
“And they all contained that same threatening message,” Kristen said. “Maybe this is just that same one?”
Lance looked nervously out the window. “Maybe we should get outta here,” he said.
“To where?” Kristen asked.
“Does it matter?” Lance replied. “Remember what happened last time they found out where we were staying?”
“Rob should be about ready with the chopper,” Tara said. “I want this sample sequenced. Let’s see if there’s a new message.”
Kristen thought for a second. “Let me call the lab and let them know we’re bringing a new sample.”
Tara gave Kristen her phone. Kristen continued while she dialed the lab. “Lance, can you make the trip this time? I just went.”
“Sure,” he said. The idea of visiting the big city of Honolulu appealed to Lance.
“Anyone coming with me?” Lance asked. Plenty of room in the chopper.” No one said anything at first, but then Dave volunteered. “I'll go,” he said, sensing that Tara wanted to question Kristen alone.
Kristen pressed the phone to her ear as the genetics lab came on the other end. Dave began packing his backpack while Kristen informed the lab that yet another high-priority sample would be arriving soon via helo from Maui.
…GAAA67GCCC…
The captain of the Nahoa kept one eye on the now turbulent waters of Maui’s north coast, and the other on his radar. The eye of the storm had moved west, but they still motored within its outer bands. The captain’s concentration was broken by an incoming call on his satellite phone. He raised an eyebrow. TYR headquarters, Beijing.
“Requesting status update,” the voice on the phone intoned.
The captain glanced at his GPS plotter, then once again at his radar screen. He gave his current position, then said, “We will dock in Kona later today. From there the ground team will transport the science expedition to Mauna Kea.”
“Excellent. Arrangements for ground transportation and equipment are being handled now. Inform us at once of any complications.”
“Yes sir. Out.”
The captain exhaled deeply as he set down the sat-phone. The stories of what happened to TYR employees who did not perform up to par were enough to keep him driven to succeed. Spotting his new pack of cigarettes on the instrument console, he lit one, inhaling deeply as he motored away from the storm’s fury.
Rain and wind still lashed the streets of Lahaina as Tara and Kristen ducked into one of the waterfront restaurants which had chosen to stay open through the storm. With most tourists still hunkering down in their hotel rooms, they had no trouble finding an empty booth overlooking the turbulent Maui channel between the islands of Maui and Lana'i.
They ordered Tara’s favorite, mahi mahi sandwiches. When asked for drinks, Kristen immediately ordered a lava flow. Iced tea for Tara. For a few moments after their server left they watched spray from the waves coat the window.
Then Tara went to work. “What do you think about that Swiss account number?”
Kristen shrugged. “Like Lance said, it's news to me that our father had a numbered account.”
“Did the estate attorney
ever get back to you regarding that account?” Tara asked, referring to the message Kristen had left with the lawyer handling their father’s estate.
“Good question. If I had my cell-phone, I would check,” she said, reminding Tara that she'd left it in Dave's house.
“Use mine,” Tara said, handing it to her.
Dialing her voice-mail, Kristen held a finger up.
“One new message. It’s him! Hold on...” Tara drank from her iced tea while Kristen listened to the message. She could see from Kristen's expression that whatever the attorney was saying, it was most unexpected.
Kristen set the phone back on the table, saying nothing.
“Well?” Tara prompted.
“At least you’re sitting down already.”
“So he does have a Swiss account?”
“Oh, yes.”
“How much is in it?”
“About one billion dollars.”
Tara studied Kristen as she kept a straight face.
“A million dollars?”
Kristen shook her head, “Billion.”
She picked up the phone again, re-dialed her voicemail and handed Tara the phone so that she could hear the message for herself. Tara pressed the button that would record a voice memo to the phone's memory, in case she needed to analyze the message later. After she heard the message, Tara leaned back, letting the booth support her head.
“Interesting,” was all she said.
“There’s only one thing this could mean,” Kristen said.
Tara sat back up again, nodding enthusiastically as she grabbed her tea. “Your father already sold GREENBACK.” Tara couldn't help but find it a little titillating that right now she could be talking to the daughter of a billionaire. A billionaire in trouble, she reminded herself.
“Exactly,” Kristen said. “I guess he didn’t want to tell anyone in order to keep it out of the media—keep a low profile so he could go about his life and work without being disturbed.”
“So much for that. But wait,” Tara said. “Obviously it’s not TYR who bought the rights to it, or they’d have no reason to kidnap him.”
“He must have sold it to another corporation before this whole thing with TYR even started,” Kristen agreed.
“Any idea which one?”
“Could be any one of about a dozen. But it’s not TYR. That’s the important thing. And God help my Dad if whoever did buy the rights decides to go public with that information now. Or if it just leaks out to the media somehow. Because if TYR finds out that GREENBACK has already been legally licensed by someone else, that it’s useless to them...” Kristen trailed off as she considered the possibilities for her father, none of them pleasant.
Tara's cell-phone rang, vibrating on the table. She picked it up, then passed it to Kristen.
“Great, thanks,” Kristen said before disconnecting.
“That was the genetics lab. The sample has been sequenced already.”
“That was fast.”
“Yeah, they said it’s because it was identical to the last sample we sent. Only a small part of the junk DNA was different.”
“So there’s another message,” Tara said, wondering if these coded DNA messages would be admissible in a court of law, should it come to that. She guessed that they would be.
“Exactly,” Kristen said, taking her laptop out of her backpack and setting it up on the table. “They have wireless in here?”
“Just try it. If they don’t actually have it here, you might be able to pick up another one close by.”
Kristen lit up the computer and flipped on the wireless switch. “Connected to Kimo’s Coffee,” she said.
Kristen downloaded the file waiting for her from the lab.
“Do you need to wait for Lance?” Tara asked.
“No, he did the real work of creating the decryption algorithm. All I have to do is run these new sequencing results through it. I think I can do it.”
Their food arrived and Kristen ate in between keystrokes that set up Lance’s program to parse the lab sequence with the encryption key recovered on the dive off Waikiki. By the time she and Tara had finished their drinks, she announced that she had a result.
“It’s real simple,” Kristen said, turning the laptop around so that Tara could read its screen.
The special agent read the two words aloud:
“MAUNA KEA.”
Their server arrived to clear the plates. They ordered another round of drinks. Kristen asked Tara where Mauna Kea was.
“It’s a volcanic mountain on the Big Island, where the observatories are. I’ve never been there,” she said, before adding, “You're sure that’s all it says?” She stared at the two words displayed on the screen.
“Positive,” Kristen said.
“I was expecting another threat, like the last message.”
“Me too. Maybe Dad figured out how to slip another sample past them?”
“Or maybe it’s a trick to lure you,” Tara said.
“I don’t see what they could want from us. They already have Dad—he’s the one with all the money. Kidnapping or killing more people will only increase their risks.”
“True.” What Tara left unspoken was the thought that if the kidnappers had been unable to pry what they wanted from William Archer, they might use his children to get at him. “I guess that only leaves one thing to do,” she said, setting a credit card on the table with the bill.
Kristen sucked down the last of her drink. “What's that?” she asked Tara.
“Dave and Rob should be back with the helo pretty soon. Let’s go pack for the big island.”
…ACAT68ACGG…
1:50 P.M.
Tara looked down on the Alenuihaha Channel from the front seat of the helicopter as they flew from Maui to the Big Island’s Kona coast. Dave, Kristen and Lance occupied the back seats, while Rob again handled piloting duties.
“So that’s all it said—Mauna Kea?” Dave asked Kristen and Tara. He and Lance had barely landed in Maui before being told they were now going to the Big Island.
“That’s it,” Kristen said. She had already filled him in on the fortune they hadn’t known about sitting in the Swiss account.
“But Mauna Kea’s huge. Which part should we go to?” Dave asked.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Kristen said. “I think I know.”
“Do tell,” Lance said.
“The top. GREENBACK is an aerial microbe. With an elevation of about 13,800 feet, the summit of Mauna Kea is an ideal launching and testing ground.”
Rob immediately looked over at Tara. “Just so you know, I can take you to the base of Mauna Kea, but the air is too thin for a conventional chopper like this one to fly to the summit. So you’ll have to arrange ground transportation.”
“Understood,” Tara said.
“We can do that in Waimea,” Dave said from the back, reading from a Big Island guide book. “After we land at the Kona airport, we can rent a regular car, take it to Waimea, and get a four wheel drive there. We’ll also need some warm clothes and hiking boots.”
“I’ll be booked into a hotel we use outside of Kona,” Rob said. “So I’ll be on standby until I hear from you. If you drive to the summit and back, you’re talking at least-”
“Eight hours,” Dave said, looking up from his book.
“Right,” Rob said.
Tara spotted a pair of boats below and focused her binoculars on them. The Nahoa had to be somewhere en route to the Big Island, or were they already there? She didn’t know, but she could see that neither of the two racing catamarans below them could be the Nahoa. Their sleek, hydrodynamic hulls left no room for the extensive cabin space the kidnapper’s ship must have to support a sophisticated laboratory like the one they would need to produce William Archer's bioengineered microbes.
As they approached the island of Hawaii's coast the ocean below changed in color from a deep, dark blue to a mottled turquoise and jade—a patchwork of shallow reefs. The B
ig Island loomed as a brown mass, its shoreline a series of irregularly shaped coves, inlets and beaches. When they passed over the land for the first time they stared down at the solidified lava rock shores—a rugged, tortured landscape shaped by the passage of incalculable amounts of time.
All four of Rob’ passengers were surprised when a landing strip appeared out of nowhere, carved out of the lava rock. The sparse landscape was dotted with scrubby, yellow plants eking out a living from their unique geological surroundings. Then ahead they saw a cluster of buildings.
“Small little airport, kinda like Maui,” Lance commented.
Rob spoke into his headset, returning some chatter from the control tower before landing them at the heliport. Stepping from the chopper, they could see vast mountains with wide bases reaching for the sky, their upper portions obscured by clouds.
Waimea, Hawaii
4:30 P.M.
Tara stared out the window from behind the wheel of the Rav 4x4 SUV at the thousands of acres of empty, dry lava scrub land whizzing past. Dave, as designated navigator, occupied the front passenger seat while the Archer siblings studied the Big Island guidebook from the back seat.
“We stay on this Saddle Road for about another ten miles and then we should hit the turn-off for Mauna Kea,” Dave announced, looking up from a map.
“My ears just popped,” Kristen said, working her jaw.
“Our elevation is about 6,000 feet right now,” Lance confirmed.
“8,000 more feet to go,” Dave said, alluding to the summit of Mauna Kea.
Tara held her cell-phone in one hand. For her it was decision time. She had confirmed in town at Waimea that once they left Saddle Road and headed up the summit of Mauna Kea, there would be no cell-phone reception. On the flight over, she had felt confident that she was making the right decision. But now she questioned herself. There were many isolated places on the summit and on the way up. What if the kidnappers had gunmen waiting to snipe them as soon as they step out of the car? She had her Glock, extra rounds, her badge, but...would that be enough?
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