Hawaiian Thunder (Coastal Fury Book 4)

by Matt Lincoln

  “Set us down,” I told Ronnie. “We’ll deal with these guys then.”

  I freed my arm and delivered another punch to Pinky’s face. His grip finally went slack, but the rifle’s strap was tangled in his arm. I drove my elbow back and connected somewhere on Brain’s torso. He grunted, and I twisted toward him. The bastard pulled a gun after all and held it on me.

  “Yeah, set us down,” he yelled at Ronnie. “I’ll shoot your boyfriend in the face.”

  Ronnie juked right again, and Brain toppled onto me.

  “Hey!” I yelled at her.

  She didn’t say anything. Instead, she leveled out and reached the injured arm back behind her seat. I saw was she was doing, and I slipped my hand under the Brain’s body and found the buckle. He realized what I was doing and slammed his head into my face. My vision exploded and slowly faded back into focus.

  “Don’t you dare,” he screamed at Ronnie. “They’ll make you and your whole freaking family pay!”

  I heard the click of Ronnie popping the door handle at the same time I got that damn buckle to release. The helicopter banked hard to the left, and the Brain latched onto the seat and my shoulder as the door flew open. I twisted in my own belt until I got one hand on Volkov’s seat and the other on the back of my seat. I kicked at the Brain, but he held like a damn leech.

  “Ethan, I’m gonna pass out.” Ronnie’s voice came over the partially dislodged headset. “I’m landing before we crash.”

  “Hang in there, kiddo,” I told her. “You can do this.”.

  The Brain heard none of this as we were on the radio, and the open door made the engine’s noise louder.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he howled as he climbed. “I’m gonna rip your throat out, and then I’m gonna throw you out of this chopper.”

  A black knife appeared in his off hand. I let go of Volkov’s seat to slap at my leg. My Ka-Bar was still there. I pulled it and blocked his strike in one motion. As I knocked his blade aside, I kneed him in the gut, no easy feat as Ronnie leveled out and dropped altitude again.

  “Ethan…” Her voice was barely there, and we were dropping toward the water.

  “Ronnie, wake up!” I yelled. “Wake up, girl, you can do this!”

  “I… I’m trying.”

  “Brain, get out of my face, or we’re all gonna die,” I shouted.

  “My name is Bryan, you asshole!”

  He took another stab. I blocked but only connected at the tip, and his knife slid off of the smooth edge to dig through my sleeve and into my upper arm. It hurt like a son of a bitch, but it didn’t feel deep.

  The helicopter moved sideways. I looked up and saw Ronnie sagging forward.

  I mustered every goddamn bit of strength I had and gave the Brain a mighty shove. My knife drove into his side as I used everything I had to push. The shock of the stab loosened his vice grip, and he slid toward the open door. He dug his fingers into the top of my boot as his legs went free.

  “Don’t!” he screamed.

  I kicked at his hands while we entered a lazy spin. The air turned salty, and I saw waves way, way too close to the door. I delivered my heel into his eyes, and his fingers opened. The Brain disappeared into the early day ocean.

  I unbuckled, sheathed my Ka-Bar, and leaned into the front to grab the collective from under Volkov’s limp hand. I lifted it, and we went almost straight up. Helicopters weren’t my thing, but I understood the basic ideas. I bought myself a minute by going up, but it wasn’t enough to save us.

  Volkov’s upper chest and throat were a mess, and his buckle was soaked with blood. It took an effort to get it loose and then reach over to release his door. I grabbed the cyclic and nudged it until we had enough angle to help me get his arrogant, dead ass free. One good shove and he toppled out. I climbed over and moved the stick the other way so I wouldn’t follow. The door swung back in, and I secured it.

  “Ronnie,” I shouted. “Hey, I need you.”

  I reached over and shook her shoulder. Her eyelids fluttered but didn’t open. Dammit. I looked forward through the blood-stained windshield and only saw water stretching ahead of us. With a little trial and error, I got the helo turned back toward land. At that point, I didn’t give a shit where we landed as long as I got us down alive.

  There were no sandy beaches before us. Cliffs and mixed shoals were all I had. I pulled us up and looked for flat ground. Someone must’ve been smiling down on us because a golf course rolled out in all its splendor.

  “Ronnie, I could use some help here,” I tried again. “It’s gonna be a shitty landing if you don’t wake up.”

  There was no response. I reached out and touched her mouth. She was breathing. Breathing meant a heartbeat. I turned my attention back to the controls when a cord flashed over my face and then under my chin.

  “Ungh gong ki hooo!” Pinky screamed in my ear.

  I grabbed at the cord with both hands and tried to steady the cyclic with my knees. We spun as I struggled to catch a breath. I got my left fingers under the coiled cord from Pinky’s headset. He pulled tighter, and my sight dimmed. This was a stupid way to go, and I wasn’t going to let it happen. Hell no.

  I reached my free hand down to my knife. It took less than a second to slice through the cord, and I gasped a lungful. Pinky reached around my head and dug his fingers into my eyes, but I trumped that by driving my knife up and back. He screamed, and I twisted. One hand released, and the other weakened.

  “Get off my face,” I yelled at him.

  A gunshot got him off my face, and then we stopped the slow spin. I looked over at Ronnie. She was barely conscious, but it was enough for her to hand me my gun limply and then sag into her seat. I felt the pedals move beneath my feet, but she cradled her arm.

  “Ease up on the throttle,” she rasped. “You got this.” She turned a little and saw the golf course. Her eyelids drooped. “Yeah…”

  She was out again. I took over the pedals and tried to keep the tail square. The sticky throttle needed some oomph but then loosened. We had lost too many RPMs and were dropping too fast. I compensated as best as I could and prayed that the sunrise golfers I saw got their asses out of the way.

  We slammed into a sloping fairway, and the right skid crumpled. I killed the engine, but rotors don’t stop on a whim. I held still as the craft settled. The rotors took their time, but they finally stopped. I rocked the frame a few times, and the craft held fast. The helicopter was steady.

  Ronnie, however, was not. Her ashen face looked still as death in the tropical morning light.

  CHAPTER 38

  Of the Holm siblings, Ronnie stabilized first. The cold she’d contracted from her time locked in Volkov’s house had led to pneumonia. In her starved and dehydrated condition, the infection had turned septic around the time we set down at the super-exclusive golf course on the big island.

  Davis met me at the hospital as they prepared to airlift her to Oahu. We stepped outside her room to talk.

  “Sorry I doubted you and her, man,” he told me. “I had to go on what I knew about her, which was, frankly, biased.”

  “I get it,” I told him. “You’re an honest guy, and you go by the book. Meisha is lucky to have you on her team.” I rubbed the back of my head. “I’ll see you back in the city. Sadie wants us to meet her and Liz Bell at the museum once everything’s settled down.”

  “Yeah?”

  “She found something else at her house.” I chuckled. “Maybe you all ought to help her renovate that place. You never know what you’ll find.”

  “You go first,” he said with a grin. “I heard your two weeks starts over tomorrow since you’ve worked since you got to Hawaii.” He gestured behind me. “You got company.”

  The flight team and hospital staff rolled Ronnie’s gurney out of her room. Her face was still pale, but it wasn’t gray anymore. A c-collar held her head in place, and an oxygen mask covered half her face, but she managed to catch my eye. I gave Davis a fist-bump and then went to Ron
nie’s side.

  “I don’t want the collar.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “Tell ’em I don’t need it.”

  “Yeah, you do, kiddo.” I brushed the hair from her forehead. “You were in a bit of a plane crash and a crappy helo landing.”

  A faint smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Flying’s not your thing,” she rasped.

  “Is, too,” I protested. “I almost have a small craft license. If you sign off, maybe you can get me a quarter-hour time for the helo.”

  “Dumbass,” she whispered.

  She started to laugh, but a cough welled up and wracked her bad.

  “Aw, sweetie.” I sighed. “Robbie’s waiting to see you in Honolulu. We got you guys a shared room.”

  She gave a thumbs-up with her good hand as she drifted off to sleep.

  “You ready, Agent Marston?” one of flight medics asked. She handed me a flight jacket even though it was hot enough to melt steel outside.

  “Ready and waiting.”

  The waiting helicopter was a hell of a lot faster than the one that belonged to poor Kaden’s dad. I was glad to leave that mess to Davis, as I’d heard that the young cop’s father was on the warpath shortly after we took his son and machine after some serious bad guys.

  I’d planned to watch the islands pass beneath the medical helo. It didn’t go that way. I got my helmet on and secured into my seat, and the next thing I knew, we were landing in Honolulu. Ronnie slept through the flight, also, but she was full of infection and drugs.

  Meisha, Stark, Bonnie, Warner, Little Jo, and Sadie were all in Robbie’s room when Ronnie and I arrived. They gave a quiet little team cheer, as both the Holms were still in unenviable shape.

  When Holm saw his sister, he struggled to get out of bed. One of the nurses tried to stop him.

  “I have not seen my sister in months,” he growled.

  “And you won’t see her for a few days if you open your stitches again, Mr. Holm,” the no-nonsense nurse informed him. “Get your fancy butt under those covers and let these nice folks get her settled. We’ll get her bed right up to yours as soon as we can.”

  This mollified him. The scene repeated itself when one Veronica Marie Holm woke up and saw her brother on the other side of the room.

  “Robbie!” she rasped. She waved her splinted arm and tried to get out of her bed. “Oh my God, Robbie!”

  The poor nurse had to threaten to sedate Ronnie before everyone calmed the hell down. She kicked out everyone but Meisha and me, although she glared at me the entire time.

  “You need a change of clothes, Marston,” Meisha informed me after the nurse left. “And you should vanish that knife.”

  I looked down and saw what nobody else was willing to point out. Volkov’s blood covered a lot of my battle wear, and the Ka-Bar was still strapped to my thigh and Sig in my holster. Not a great look.

  “I’ll borrow some scrubs and get a shower,” I promised.

  The Holms’ parent flew in by the next morning. By then, I was properly dressed and had a few winks of sleep. Their mom gave me a hug when they rushed into the hospital room. Linda and Ben Holm stood at the feet of their grown children’s beds and watched as they both slept. Ronnie’s splinted arm was stretched toward Robbie’s bed, and he had his fingers out touching hers.

  “Thank you, Ethan,” Linda told me. “I didn’t know if we’d ever see her again.” She shook her head at her son. “That big lout should’ve known to back off and let you do your job.”

  “Would you have done that?” Ben asked in a mild tone.

  “I’m their mother, Benjamin. If I’d known what was going on here, you know damn well I would’ve been on the first plane out of Tampa.”

  I chuckled. “Pot meet kettle,” I told her.

  Linda’s cheeks reddened a little, and she hugged Ben. They stood for a while, just watching the two loves of their hearts sleep. Eventually, Linda took a seat next to Ronnie’s bed, and Ben by Robbie’s. At that point, I was about to go on a coffee run when Ronnie stirred.

  “Mom?” she whispered.

  Linda squeezed Ronnie’s good hand.

  “You’re grounded, young lady.” Linda sniffed. “I can still ground a twenty-seven-year-old, right?”

  “My work will have me grounded for now anyway,” she said in a pre-cough rasp I now recognized. At Linda’s questioning look, Ronnie grimaced. “Can’t talk about it.”

  “Speaking of your work, why haven’t your guys showed up?” I knew better than to name them or their agency, but damn, the CIA could’ve made an effort to check on their agent.

  “What?” Ronnie narrowed her eyes, which was a distinctly different look than sleepiness. “Hey, Mom, Dad, I need to talk to Ethan alone. Robbie, too, if the dumbass ever wakes up.”

  “I heard that,” Holm muttered. His eyes popped open, and he looked up. He then groaned and sank back into his pillow. “They shouldn’t have flown you out. We’re fine.”

  “Robert!” Linda got up and walked around to him. “You almost died again. Of course, we came.” A bittersweet smile touched her lips as she searched for her silver lining. “Besides, we got to fly out on MBLIS’s dime. It’s been a while since we were here.”

  “Mom,” Ronnie whispered. “I need to talk to these guys. It’s… it’s confidential.”

  Once it was just the three of us and the door was shut, Ronnie sighed and resituated so she had a better look at Holm and me together.

  “I’m out here alone,” she told us. A cough shook her longer than I liked. “There’s no one to visit.”

  “What about Agents Barrister and DeVine?” I asked with a frown. “They said the CIA was investigating the money laundering case that led to your disappearance. They provided information that helped us to find you.”

  Her eyes widened, and she pressed back into the pillow as if bracing for an attack.

  “They aren’t CIA,” she hissed. “They’re part of the Irish mafia in New York. If they were here with that information, my people have a leak. I was reporting to people in New York and L.A.”

  “They came to the new MBLIS office,” Holm told her. “Wait, if they aren’t CIA, then did they lie about you?”

  She shook her head. “No, they had that right. I’m just part of a huge joint investigation with the FBI. Have you heard the name ‘Mezzanotte’?”

  “Yeah, Sugar Fingers is sitting in a cell not far from here.”

  “No…” Holm glanced at his sister before looking me in the eye. “They found him hanging in his cell while you all were on the raids.”

  “Not Val Mezzanotte,” Ronnie gasped.

  “Fingers is dead?” I looked up at the ceiling with my jaw clenched. “He’d agreed to testify for us about Volkov. And that nasty little attorney of his…”

  “Gorski.” Ronnie clutched at her blanket.

  “He’s out,” Holm reported. “That happened around the same time. Meisha and I figure he’s involved.”

  “Of course, he is.” Ronnie forced her voice and started coughing. “Guys, we are all in danger here. Mom and Dad, too. These families are merciless, and Volkov and Pinky were important to them.” She put her face into her hands. “This is gonna be ugly. I am so sorry.”

  There wasn’t much we could do about it at the time, other than start planning how to keep their parents safe. The return of their nurse ended our session. After the vitals were cleared and meds administered, visitors were allowed in.

  Sadie entered with Erika from the library plus a woman I didn’t know. They pushed a cart with a folded sheet and a box and set it between the now-separated hospital beds. The entirety of the small MBLIS office, plus Bonnie and Warner, also joined us. Linda and Ben Holm were the last ones into the crowded room.

  “Make this quick,” Nurse Hatchet called in from the hall. “You people are giving me a headache, and I hate headaches.”

  “Hey everyone, this is my best friend, Erika,” Sadie said as people found places to sit or stand. “And this is Liz Bell from t
he museum. We were going to do this over there, but we didn’t want to leave out Robbie and Ronnie.”

  “Is this that item you found in your house?” Davis asked from over by the door.

  “It is,” Liz Bell said in a mellow, nonchalant voice. She handed the long box to Sadie and then opened the sheet over the cart. “Sadie found something that promises to be quite remarkable.” She took out a pair of white gloves. “I’m breaking my own rules to do this here, but I understand the importance to everyone in the room.”

  I walked over to the cart. “Is it from the ship?”

  Sadie handed the box back to Liz Bell. To this day, I can only think of that woman as her first and last name, and it began that day in the hospital room. I got the sense that intense emotions roiled beneath her calm surface.

  “I believe it to be related to the Dragon’s Rogue, yes,” Liz Bell answered. She opened the box and pulled out a gorgeous leather tube with what looked like leather burning work. She showed me the end of the tube.

  Johnny Finch ~ 1728

  Shivers went down my arms. Sadie had teased this, but wow, I didn’t expect it to be this level of interesting.

  “This hasn’t been opened in over a hundred years,” Liz Bell informed us in a teaching-style voice. She gently worked with the buckle straps that held the lid on. I held my breath as the centuries’-old tube gave a mild protest to giving up its secrets.

  Liz Bell nudged the lid off the end of the tube and eased it down to the sheet on the cart. Sadie took photos as Erika ran a small video camera. Liz Bell showed them first and then turned it so I could see.

  “Holy shit,” I breathed.

  My reaction apparently failed to disappoint, and Liz Bell gently pulled out the rolled parchment. She laid it on the sheet and then took some tongs from a shelf under the cart top. Using the tongs, she pulled out six gold and four silver coins.

  “Wow,” Linda Holm gasped in wonder. “Ethan, is this really from your pirate ship?”

  “We need more information,” Liz Bell told her. The professor looked up and smiled. “The chances are the answer is ‘yes.’” She nudged the parchment with her gloved finger. “Sadie, was this box sealed?”