“Look, Kamea,” he said, “I get the feeling that we don’t have much time. I came here to find out why your brother came to Washington and escorted that pathetic young girl who blew up the café. You know, don’t you?”
“He was sent.” She jumped when a gust of wind rattled the door.
“Who sent him? Prisler?”
“Yes. Mr. Alvi told him to send Paul.”
“Zafar Alvi, in Washington?”
“Yes. Mr. Prisler often sends people to do what Mr. Alvi wants done. He is Mr. Prisler’s biggest customer.” She glanced at the door again.
“For his illegal arms sales.”
She nodded.
“How come he never sent you?”
“He says that women play a different role in life.”
“Thoughtful guy. He only sends men, young men, to do Alvi’s dirty work. Of course he didn’t follow that rule with the young woman who actually carried the bomb.”
“I have get away from here, Mr. Brixton.”
“Yeah, I gathered that. And knock off the ‘mister’ routine. You can call me Robert.”
She stood, went to the door, looked out, and resumed her seat.
“Was Alvi behind the café bombing that killed my daughter?”
She replied by going to a corner of the shack. She used her penlight to find what she was looking for, a small envelope buried beneath discarded pieces of wood. She returned to the table and handed it to him.
“What’s this?”
“A DVD. All the answers to your questions are on it.”
“Where did you get it?”
“Someone gave it to me.”
“What’s on it?”
“The terrible things that Mr. Prisler and Mr. Alvi and their people have done.”
“You’ve seen what’s on it?”
“Yes.”
“Prisler doesn’t know that you have it?”
“No, of course not. It was given to me only yesterday. I watched it on Wayne’s laptop computer in the office.”
“Prisler doesn’t know it’s missing?”
“I don’t think so. If he did, he would have turned the center upside down, had all our rooms searched.”
“Who gave it to you?”
Before she could answer, a car’s headlamps sent shafts of light through a crack in the door. Kamea gasped. There was the sound of car doors slamming and male voices.
“We’ve got company,” Brixton said, pulling his Smith & Wesson from its holster and standing behind the table. “Sounds like an army. Here.” He handed her the handgun. “Stick it in your pants. They won’t search you.” He removed the holster and tossed it in a far dark corner as a foot kicked the door open. Standing outside were Akina and two other men carrying automatic weapons, backlit by their car lights.
“Hey, cool it,” Brixton yelled, his hands raised. “We’re not going anywhere.”
Akina entered the shack and kept his assault rifle trained on Brixton, while another man patted him down, ignoring the envelope in his pocket. He turned to look at Kamea, and Brixton thought for a moment that he might frisk her. He didn’t. Brixton wondered whether Kamea had set him up. Did she really want to escape, or was she the lure to draw him to Hawaii?
“Put that damn gun down,” Brixton told Akina. “Somebody’s going to get hurt.”
Akina pulled a cell phone from his belt and said into it, “They’re here.”
Everyone stood in silence until Brixton said to Akina, “Don’t you have something better to do?”
“Shut up,” the oversized Hawaiian said.
“If you have a beef with me, that’s fine, but Kamea hasn’t done anything. Let her leave.”
The sound of another arriving vehicle put an end to the conversation. The door to the Range Rover opened and Samuel Prisler stepped from it. He approached the shack and stood in the open doorway, his large frame dominating it.
“Ah, I get to meet Sam Prisler at last,” Brixton said.
“And you are Robert Brixton,” Prisler said, a hint of mirth in his gravelly voice.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Brixton said. “Maybe you can tell these goons to put down their weapons before they shoot up the place.”
Prisler took a few steps into the shack and pointed to the table and chairs. “Sit down,” he commanded.
“You just being courteous?” Brixton asked.
“Sit down!” Prisler repeated, this time with greater force.
Brixton and Kamea heeded his dictate and sat at the table. Prisler came close and stood over them. Brixton was aware of the man’s size. The kerosene lamp cast flickering light and shadows over his craggy face. What annoyed Brixton was the perpetual tiny smile on his lips, a sign of the superiority he was enjoying at the moment.
Prisler ordered the guards except Akina to wait outside. Akina moved to a corner of the shack and leaned against the wall, his weapon cradled in his muscular arms.
“Why have you come here?” Prisler asked.
“To enjoy Hawaii,” Brixton replied. “It’s beautiful.”
“I don’t appreciate your attempt at humor,” Prisler said.
“Frankly, Sam, I don’t care what you appreciate. You don’t mind me calling you Sam, do you? You can call me Robert but never Bobby. I really get pissed off when someone calls me Bobby.”
Prisler brought the back of his large hand across Brixton’s face, nearly knocking him off the spindly chair. Brixton touched his cheek where he’d been struck. He looked up at Prisler and came up with his own smile. “I didn’t appreciate that, Sam.”
“I ask you again,” Prisler said. “Why have come here?”
Brixton decided to not mention that Kamea had called him. “I’m here to find out why you sent Paul Skaggs to D.C. to blow up a café.”
Prisler’s perpetual smile became a laugh. “You believe that I would do that?”
“I admit it’s hard to believe that anyone would do that, Sam, but from everything I’ve put together, that’s exactly what I think you did.”
Prisler sighed like a parent disappointed in a child’s actions. He said, “Paul Skaggs was a headstrong if silly young man. I was shocked when I heard that you not only accused him of being involved in the bombing of that café but that you decided to take the law into your own hands and kill him.”
“Nice story, Sam, but it’s bull. I don’t know all the details, but I sure as hell do know that you and your pal Alvi are behind what happened in that café. But you know what? I really don’t give a damn about whether you run illegal weapons through Alvi to terrorists around the world. The only thing I care about is who’s behind the bombing that killed my daughter, and how and why Paul Skaggs was involved.”
Prisler’s smile returned. “You’re full of crazy notions, aren’t you, Mr. Brixton? I would have thought that someone like you, who has been a cop, would be more levelheaded. I suppose that’s naive of me. But as long as you’re here, I suggest that we go back to my home. You can entertain me with your theories and whoever else you may have discussed them with.”
He turned his attention to Kamea. “I am so disappointed in you, my dear. This man you’ve chosen to meet under these murky circumstances is exactly why you left your family and joined mine.”
She hadn’t said a word since Akina and the others arrived, and Brixton wondered what was going through her mind. Until this turn of events, he was confident that she was committed to leaving Maui and the cult. More than that, she’d provided him with the DVD on which she claimed were the answers to the questions that had brought him to Hawaii. But was there anything on it? If she was being straight, would her resolve hold, or would Prisler’s influence over her win out?
Prisler led Brixton and Kamea from the cabin to the cars, with Akina bringing up the rear.
“You come with me,” Prisler told Kamea. He instructed Brixton to get into the second Range Rover with the other two armed men.
They followed the dirt road back to the front entrance, drove past the guard p
ost, and pulled up in front of the main house. Once ensconced in Prisler’s living room, the cult leader dismissed the other two guards, leaving him and Akina with Kamea and Brixton.
“Make yourself at home,” he said to Brixton. “A drink?” He went to an elaborate bar and held up a bottle. “Good whiskey,” he said.
“You have any gin?” Brixton asked. “I’m a martini drinker.”
“Of course,” Prisler said. “You, Kamea?”
“I don’t drink. You know that.”
“Oh, that’s right.” He turned to Brixton. “I suppose my darling Kamea has filled you with tales of life here at my Center for Healing.”
“As a matter of fact, she hasn’t,” said Brixton. “Tell me about it, Sam. Maybe I’ll get inspired and join.”
His laugh was disingenuous. “That could never be, Mr. Brixton. We have very high standards. You see, there are few places of spiritual and emotional refuge in this wicked, wicked world, and there are very few people who refuse to abide by its destructive rules. Take Kamea for instance. She came to me a terribly confused and frightened young lady. Her family personified wickedness, and she was desperate to escape its grip on her. The same was true of her brother, Paul. I opened my arms to them as I have to so many others over the years.”
“That’s touching,” Brixton said.
“Oh,” said Prisler, “I don’t expect you to understand. People like you are the ones who the young people here are running away from.”
“Tell me more,” Brixton said, thinking there’s nothing an egomaniac likes more than to talk about himself.
Prisler handed Brixton his drink and raised his glass. “Welcome to Maui, Mr. Brixton.” He took a chair next to Akina’s who sat with his back to an expanse of windows. A row of eight-foot-tall shrubs blocked the view inside the room from the front of the house. The unpleasant Hawaiian looked relaxed, the assault rifle resting casually on his lap.
“I suppose you’re wondering what will happen next.”
“It’s crossed my mind,” Brixton said after sipping his drink and smacking his lips. “I’m sure you realize that keeping me here at gunpoint breaks the law.”
A deep growl of a laugh came from Prisler. “To the contrary,” he said. “You’ve trespassed on my property. It’s you who’s broken the law.”
“So call the police.”
“No need for me to do that.”
“Actually, I came to meet with Kamea. We met in a sugarcane field, which isn’t part of your property.”
Another laugh. “I love a man who asserts a fact when it isn’t a fact. That cane field is part of the center’s property, Mr. Brixton.”
“I was invited here by one of your cult members, Kamea.”
“Please, I would appreciate it if you would refrain from calling it a cult. It is a center for healing the wounds inflicted by governments and callous, greedy government officials.”
“Okay, so it’s a healing center. Look, Sam, this has all been pleasant and enlightening, but I’m ready to leave, and I think Kamea would like to come with me.”
Brixton stood, which snapped Akina to attention, the rifle pointed at him. As Brixton decided whether to call his bluff, a movement outside the window caught his attention. A face appeared for only a few seconds behind Prisler and Akina before disappearing.
“I think that everything we have to say has been said,” Prisler said. “Let’s take a pleasant little ride.”
“I thought you wanted my life story, all the juicy little details,” Brixton said.
“I think I know you well enough. Bobby is it?”
Until that moment Brixton hadn’t been overly concerned. As far as he knew, Prisler wasn’t aware of the extent to which he’d delved into the cult leader’s life, the renewed investigation by the Justice Department, Will Sayers’s research of him, and his connection with Zafar Alvi. Brixton also figured that Prisler’s primary concern would be keeping Kamea at the cult.
Throughout the conversation, Kamea had sat rigidly in a chair next to Brixton, her arms wrapped around herself as though she was cold or thought it was possible to squeeze herself as small as possible. Brixton thought of his Smith & Wesson tucked into her jeans and wished he’d had it now.
Akina stood and pointed his weapon at Brixton as Prisler indicated they were to follow him. Brixton assumed that they would exit the house through the front door, but Prisler led them down a long hallway to a rear door, outside which another Range Rover was parked. Brixton and Kamea stood together apart from Akina and Prisler. He put his arm around her and felt her trembling. “Take it easy,” he said into her ear.
“He’ll kill us,” she said. “He’s killed others,” she said in a whisper.
Prisler got behind the wheel of the vehicle. “Get in,” he said, motioning toward the rear seat.
Brixton and Kamea did as instructed, under the watchful eye of Akina, who now held both the assault rifle and a handgun. The Hawaiian got in the front passenger seat and swiveled so that the handgun was pointed at Brixton. Prisler started the car and pulled away, heading down a narrow macadam road that sloped down from the property toward the sugarcane field on the compound’s eastern rim. It struck Brixton that if Prisler was about to order Akina to kill them, the sugarcane field was a perfect place to do it, and he wondered whether there was more planted in the earth there than sugarcane.
They came to a gate. Prisler got out, opened it, got back in, and drove through, not bothering to close it. Brixton felt himself tense, matching Kamea’s movements. They approached Brixton’s rental car. He had the keys in his pocket.
“Everybody out,” Prisler announced like a friendly train conductor.
Akina exited the Range Rover holding the handgun and leaving the assault rifle where he had been sitting.
“If you’re about to do what I think you are,” Brixton said, “you won’t get away with it.”
Prisler said, “What bravado. I admire that in a man. The truth is, Mr. Brixton, you are a murderer. Your victim was the son of a very powerful member of the U.S. Congress. You came here to kidnap one of the center’s members and to assault me. We had no choice but to defend ourselves. Isn’t that right, Kamea?”
She didn’t answer. But Brixton saw her reach down into the front of her jeans. As she did, a figure leapt out of the shadow of the shack and pounced on Akina’s back, sending him to the ground, the handgun flying from his hand. Brixton joined Akina’s attacker and pressed the Hawaiian’s head into the soft soil with his knee.
“Reyes!” Brixton said.
Lalo answered by ramming a fist into the side of Akina’s face.
Brixton turned to Kamea, who’d pulled his revolver out of her jeans and leveled it at Prisler.
“Gimme that,” Brixton said.
She backed away from him, shaking her head, and crying.
Brixton retrieved Akina’s handgun from where it had fallen and trained it on him.
“Give me the gun, Kamea,” Prisler said in his best modulated cult leader’s voice. “Don’t listen to them. I’m the one who saved you. You must never forget that.” He took a few steps toward her, his hand outstretched.
The discharge of the weapon in her hand pierced the misty night air. Prisler, his eyes wide, his face elevated, extended his hands as though to embrace Kamea. And then he pitched forward, his face hitting the soil with a thud.
Brixton grabbed the gun from Kamea and now held it and the one Akina had been wielding in each hand. Akina sat on the ground, scowling and muttering what Brixton assumed were Hawaiian curse words.
“Thanks,” Brixton said to Lalo. “I owe you one.”
“They planned to kill me too,” Reyes said.
“Let’s get out of here,” Brixton said.
“What do we do with him?” Reyes asked, indicating Akina.
“See if there’s any rope in the Range Rover, something to tie him up with.”
The young Spaniard returned with a ball of white clothesline.
With one of the h
andguns pressed against Akina’s temple, Brixton and Reyes took the Hawaiian into the shack, where they trussed his hands and feet. Brixton tied a length of cloth he found on the floor around his face, tightening it into his mouth.
“What about Prisler?” Lalo asked.
Brixton answered by dragging the cult leader into the shack, where he propped him against a wall. “Sorry it ended this way,” Brixton said to the dead arms dealer.
Before exiting he retrieved his holster from where he’d tossed it, extinguished the kerosene lamp, and left the struggling Hawaiian in the dark hut that smelled of sugarcane and fertilizer—and his own fears.
CHAPTER
35
Had anyone in the Prisler compound heard the gunshot? Brixton wasn’t taking any chances. He hustled Kamea and Lalo into his rented car and backed out to the dirt road. He’d collected Akina’s two weapons and laid them on the front passenger seat along with his own. Kamea and Lalo huddled in the back as he drove, lights off, until reaching the paved road that ran past the cult’s entrance.
“Where are we going?” Lalo asked.
“My hotel. Nobody knows I’m there. When we arrive we walk in nice and easy, like we all belong there. We’ll go to my room and figure out our next step.”
After parking, Brixton shoved both handguns into his waistband and concealed the assault rifle beneath his oversize authentic Hawaiian shirt. He led them to his room, where he locked the door and drew the drapes.
“He’s dead,” Kamea said. “I killed him.”
“You won’t get any argument from him,” Brixton said.
She fell into a chair and wept.
“It’s okay,” Lalo said. “He deserved it.”
Brixton pulled an ottoman up in front of Kamea and placed his hand on her knee. “I know it’s upsetting,” he said, “but you need to get hold of yourself. We have to figure a way off the island. Where’s your buddy, Wayne?”
“I … I don’t know.”
“Prisler must have known that I was on Maui,” Brixton said. “Who told him? The only person who knew besides you was Wayne. Did you tell him that we were meeting tonight at that shack?”
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