Death of a Messenger

by Robert McCaw

  “‘Natural sewers,’ that’s what the pros call these here lava tubes,” Piki said, his boyish face and crew cut making him look no more than nineteen years old. They perfectly matched his exuberant voice and inability to stop moving around.

  “Well, if this tube is one of Piki’s natural sewers, its lava came from Mauna Kea, and the tunnel leads back that way,” Jimmy said in his squeaky academic voice.

  “Yeah, the airflow is real, real strong. That’s peculiar.” Piki made a speeding motion with his hand.

  All of them turned to look at Piki. “Why?” Zeigler asked.

  “Well, air don’t flow for no reason. I figure Dr. Hikorea’s got it right. This here tube carried lava from Mauna Kea. The other entrance must be somewhere up the side of the mountain where the air is cooler. Cooler air is heavier. Temperature difference might explain a light breeze, but this air is really movin’. It’s more like a wind tunnel. It’s real peculiar.” Piki made another swooping gesture with his hand.

  “Dead-on, Sherlock.” Jimmy looked appreciatively at the young detective. “You ever think about becoming an archaeologist?”

  Piki couldn’t contain his pride. “No, sir, but I’ve read books about grave robbers.”

  Jimmy frowned. “Not exactly what I had in mind.” His voice betrayed more than a touch of sarcasm, and Koa shook his head.

  Coils of rope, cord, and wire lay stacked on the cavern floor. The arc lamps sent light piercing far into the tunnel’s depths. Zeigler carried a portable field telephone, linked by wire to a communications set on the surface. They were ready. The mouth of the tunnel beckoned.

  The five men moved easily down the wide underground passage trailing a white nylon cord, knotted at hundred-yard intervals, as well as the communications wire linking them to their support team on the surface. Jimmy rode his scooter, rocking back and forth as the fat rubber tires gained traction over the uneven floor. Each man carried a battery-powered halogen light.

  “Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four …” Basa kept count of the knots as Piki played out the nylon cord behind them. Suddenly he paused. “Oh my God.”

  They all heard the growing rumble. Particles of dust separated from the walls of the cave, sparkling in the beams of their halogen lights. Everyone stopped moving and stood, statue-like, in the middle of the cave. “Oh, God! It’s an earthquake,” Zeigler shouted.

  “Christ, we’ll be trapped in here,” Piki yelled, his voice reverberating through the tunnel.

  “Get flat against the walls,” Koa commanded. Everyone save Jimmy sprang to obey and crouched against the sides of the tunnel.

  The rumbling rose, growing louder and deeper. Louder and deeper. Bearing down upon them like a speeding locomotive growling through a tunnel, the sound reverberated, echoing off the walls, reinforcing itself and growing ever louder.

  “Mayday! Mayday! Earthquake! We’re caught in a strong earthquake,” said Zeigler, speaking urgently into the field telephone and huddling against the cave wall. “We’re about twenty-four hundred yards in. Explorer base, do you copy? Over.”

  There was no reply. Zeigler desperately repeated the mayday call, his voice rising to be heard above the din. Still there was no answer. A frightened look creased his face. “I can’t get through.”

  Basa, a devout Catholic, crossed himself. He sang baritone in the church choir whenever work permitted and rarely missed going to mass. His lips now moved in an obvious prayer none of the rest of them could hear above the awful noise. Koa guessed he was praying for his wife and kids.

  Louder. Louder. Rumbling. The sound seemed to be almost on top of them. The ground trembled. Dust particles flaked off the lava and clouded the air, growing thicker by the second. The noise became deafening. Piki screamed. Shaking like a tree branch in a hurricane, he broke from the wall into a stumbling run back the way they’d come. Koa thought about going after him but knew you couldn’t outrun an earthquake.

  Piki’s scream and the rising volume of the ominous roar reminded Koa of the Olympic Hotel in Mogadishu, where his rescue unit had come under heavy machine gun and rocket fire from Somali militia. Two of his men had died that day. Odd, he thought, to survive that disaster only to die in a lava tube. He knew now why he’d always hated caves. Someone in the great beyond had been warning him.

  Through it all, Jimmy sat on his scooter in the middle of the cave with his head cocked to one side, listening intently.

  The rumbling rose to a thundering crescendo … and peaked.

  The sound began to gradually fade. Softer. And softer still. The din slowly faded away to an intense silence. Koa felt his heart racing and realized he’d been holding his breath. Zeigler too had stopped breathing.

  “What the hell was that?” Basa exclaimed.

  “A truck,” Jimmy proclaimed dispassionately. Poised upon his wheels in the middle of the tunnel, he alone sat completely unruffled by the terror they’d experienced. They all looked at him as though he’d lost his mind.

  “We’re directly under the Saddle Road,” he piped with a self-satisfied grin. “You just got run over by an eighteen-wheeler.”

  The sound came again, only softer this time, rising and fading, like an oncoming vehicle crossing above them.

  “That must have been a damn car,” Zeigler said. He laughed. Basa joined him. They all laughed, even Jimmy.

  Koa knew that laugh well. He’d heard it many times in the military. It had nothing to do with humor.

  One by one Koa, Basa, and Zeigler unfolded themselves from their crouched positions against the cave walls and slapped dust from their clothing. Piki, now red as a fire truck with mortification, rejoined the group. Zeigler, choking down his embarrassment, cancelled the mayday call.

  “Wow, that was scary. I thought I was about to meet my maker,” Basa, who was normally unflappable, commented.

  “Yeah,” Koa conceded.

  The five explorers slowly moved forward again. As they advanced, the tube became narrower. The airflow going past them grew stronger and cooler. The floor of the tube sloped upward, and Jimmy had an increasingly difficult time maneuvering his scooter. Finally, they came to a point where the passage narrowed to the width of a man. They had to proceed single file, and Jimmy had to abandon his scooter.

  “You want one of us to go back with you?” Basa knew the answer, but somehow felt compelled to offer.

  “Hell no, my arms need the exercise. Besides, I wouldn’t miss the end of this expedition for a week’s R and R in Bahrain.”

  The five men forged through the narrow, now-twisting underground passage. Jimmy hopped along behind at a surprisingly rapid pace. Their route turned sharply upward. The tunnel veered ninety degrees to the right, then ninety degrees to the left. Koa suddenly saw light ahead, glimmering off the lava walls.

  He emerged from a tiny portal behind a giant boulder inside a cinder cone. He saw that the wall of the cinder cone rose almost straight up an eighty-foot cliff to the west, while the eastern side of the cone had disintegrated. One by one the others emerged from the cavity, blinking in the brightness of daylight, leaving Jimmy behind.

  “Hey, Koa,” they heard Jimmy exclaim, “come look at this.”

  Jimmy sat inside the mouth of the lava tube on his pad and pointed toward a spot on the wall about eighteen inches off the ground. Koa, mindful of his neck, knelt and bent over to see. Recessed into the wall below a small rock shelf, he spotted a small metal plate with a tiny dim red light. Jimmy pointed to a similarly small plate with a crystalline patch on the opposite wall. Both were impossible to see when standing.

  “What do you make of it, Jimmy?”

  “Looks like an infrared light beam designed to detect the presence of anyone entering or exiting this tunnel. And it’s positioned so anyone walking normally would miss it. Whoever installed it didn’t count on someone looking at the world from my vantage point.”

  “And we’ve just tripped it.”

  “Dead-on, Detective.”

  Jimmy finally hop
ped out of the crevice behind the boulder screening the mouth of the tunnel. Koa pointed up toward the western wall of the cinder cone.

  “Those old adze makers could teach modern engineers a thing or two. There’s the answer to your airflow mystery. The western wall of this cone acts like a sail. It catches the predominantly easterly winds and funnels the air down the wall into the lava tube. Nature has created a near-perfect ventilation system for the underground workshop two and a half miles away beneath the floor of the saddle.”

  “Wow. That’s way cool,” Piki said. He grinned, the cherry-red blush of embarrassment having faded to a dull rouge.

  Koa led them southeast toward the collapsed side of the old cone. They climbed to the crest of a small rise and were greeted by a breathtaking view. Looking south, they peered down the slope of Mauna Kea, back across the Humu‘ula Saddle, and over the Saddle Road. Their starting point was identified by Jimmy’s bright red Bronco, which sat among a collection of military vehicles. The broad shield of Mauna Loa rose to a snowcap on the other side of the saddle.

  Basa voiced their shared feelings. “I’m never gonna feel the same way about that damn road. That truck scared the shit out of me.”

  A shout came from Detective Piki about twenty yards down the hill. Koa hurried toward the young detective, who knelt over a small pit on the slope of the mountain.

  “What have you found?”

  “Dunno. Looks like somebody’s been blasting.” Piki held up a short piece of frayed cord and a fragment of heavy yellowish paper. Koa examined both the cord and the paper. The detective was right. The cord appeared to be fuse material, while the paper had the waxy texture of explosives packaging.

  “What do you make of it, Piki?”

  “There’s no reason for blasting … except maybe the survey crew for the Saddle Road improvement project?”

  Koa shook his head at the young detective’s wild guess. He tried to make sense of it all. The mutilated body, the series of caves, the disturbed grave, and now this explosives residue. What the hell was going on? Who would go to all this trouble, with all these elaborate ritual preparations, to kill someone? And leave a body, he reminded himself, he hadn’t yet identified?

  CHAPTER SIX

  AFTER TWO LONG days away from home, Koa was thrilled to be back in his own cottage waiting for his sweetheart, Nālani. It felt right to leave the case behind and play chef for her, even if the respite was only temporary. He cut the deep red sushi-grade ‘ahi into long square strips, added salt and pepper, and coated them with a mayonnaise wasabi mixture. With the panache of a sushi chef, or so he liked to imagine, he added enoki mushrooms and wrapped each strip in a sheet of seaweed nori. Setting aside the ‘ahi, Koa prepared the tempura batter and placed it in the refrigerator.

  Nālani burst through the door and danced across the great room, whirling around and moving her arms in graceful arcs. As her long black hair swirled around her body, her oval face lit with a mischievous smile like the one that had first attracted him.

  “I gather the job interview went well,” he remarked wryly. The two were so different—a forty-plus-year-old cop and a thirty-four-year-old biologist … she so trim, so lithe, so gentle in her movements, while he resembled the muscular football player from his high school days. Given how independent they both were, it was a small miracle their romance had blossomed. Luckily, her free spirit made her tolerant of the demands of his police duties.

  “Fantastic!” She twirled around again. “There’s going to be an opening in four months, and I’m the number one candidate … numero uno!”

  After graduate school in California and a stint in the research department of a big pharmaceutical company, Nālani had worked as a park ranger at Yosemite for four years before returning to Hawai‘i. Unable to secure her dream job at Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park, she’d lucked into a technical support job at the Alice Observatories on Mauna Kea. While she’d loved her nine months at Alice, she’d kept pursuing her dream, applying for an opening at Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park and finally winning an interview. Now a job had opened up, and she stood on the brink of grabbing it.

  Koa poured two glasses of Russian River chardonnay, and they toasted to her success before he pulled her close for a long kiss. “Now, or after dinner?” she teased, fiddling with the top button of his shirt. Her eyes twinkled with naughty delight before she playfully pushed him away.

  “No, you should feed me first. I’m famished.”

  Koa smiled at her tease. It was one of the many qualities that drew him to her. She was his miracle. Attracted from the first time he’d seen her smile at a charity cocktail party, he’d doubted such a sexy woman could possibly fall for an older, hard-boiled cop. But against all odds, it had happened. They’d been introduced by a mutual friend, dated, and found excitement in being together.

  Both loved the outdoors, and most of their dates had involved hiking, surfing, and overnight camping. They’d spent hours exploring the national park, and she’d taught him more about native birds and plants than he could ever have imagined. Making their dream romance almost too good to be true, she was the most sensuous and creative lover he’d ever known. She even left the cooking to him, which might have bothered some men, but suited him to a T. After dating for three months, he’d carried her over the threshold of his little Volcano cottage to stay. He lived in constant fear she’d tire of him and cherished every moment they were together.

  Returning to the stove, Koa brought the mixture of wine, vinegar, lemon juice, butter, soy sauce, and wasabi to a simmer. Nālani, always flirtatious, had plainly missed him, and he relished what was coming after dinner.

  Nālani suddenly became serious. “I’ll be glad to leave Alice.”

  He knew the nuances of her voice, and this one sounded off, somehow forced. “Oh, why is that?”

  “It’s not always what it’s supposed to be.”

  He wasn’t liking the sound of this mysterious “it.” “And why is that?” he asked.

  “You remember Charlie Harper?”

  “Vaguely. He’s one of the assistant directors, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  He sensed hesitation on her part and turned to face her. “What about him?”

  “He’s got roving hands.”

  Koa stiffened. “Has he hit on you?”

  “Yeah. A couple of times.” Looking away, her face colored.

  A couple of times, Koa thought, and she hadn’t said anything. “You haven’t told me about anything like that,” he said mildly, trying not to press her. He didn’t like to bring his interrogation tactics home.

  “You haven’t been around much.”

  That was true. He’d had a series of demanding cases and late nights even before spending two nights away at Pōhakuloa. “It’s been pretty hectic,” he responded, kicking himself for sounding lame. “So what happened?”

  “The first time he came in while I was alone in the mirror cleaning shop—you know, where we re-aluminize the hexagonal pieces that make up the telescope’s mirror—and made a pass at me. I told him to get lost and didn’t think too much of it.” She turned to face him, glad to have the issue out in the open. “Then a week ago, he put his hands on me.”

  Her words jolted Koa. A week ago. Why had she waited a week to tell him about it? A sneaking part of him couldn’t help wondering what had motivated Harper to hit on her. Her impish sexuality had attracted Koa, and he’d seen it turn male heads when she walked into a bar.

  “And?”

  “I slapped him across the face and told him to keep his paws off me. That’s when he told me he liked a feisty bitch.”

  “What?” Koa thundered.

  “Yeah,” she said. She must have sensed his doubt, because she added, “He’s done the same thing to a couple of the women astronomers.”

  “Jesus,” Koa growled, and shifted position. Pain shot down his arm. He suddenly felt much older than Nālani, and worried that she might not be so attracted
to a decrepit cop facing spinal surgery. He tried to dismiss the thought, but it wouldn’t go away. He’d lost a step. He’d felt it out at Pōhakuloa. Basa, he was now sure, had seen it. Nālani too must see him as less of a man. That couldn’t be good for their relationship.

  “He thinks he’s God’s gift to women. He’s such a perv. I feel sorry for his wife, even though she’s a total doormat. I need to shower after being around the guy.”

  “Does Director Masters know about Harper’s sexual harassment?” Koa had never met Masters but knew of him through Nālani. He’d had a celebrated career as an air force defense contractor working on President Reagan’s Star Wars anti-missile program before becoming the top dog at the Alice Observatories. He’d been at Alice for a number of years and was frequently in the news. Although as a lowly technician, and not an astronomer, Nālani had limited contact with Masters, she never had anything but good things to say about him.

  “Oh, God, no. Masters would fire Harper if he got wind of it. I mean, Masters went out of his way to give me a job, and he’s one hundred percent supportive of the women astronomers and techs.”

  “So why don’t you talk to Masters? If he’s as supportive as you say, he’d make short work of Mr. Harper.” Koa was thinking that Masters should cut off Charlie’s roving hands, but as a cop he couldn’t say that.

  She gave Koa a surprised look. “You think I should?”

  Why would she be reluctant to go to Masters? the cop voice inside him wondered. Was there more to this story? “Don’t you want somebody to stop this snake?”

  “I don’t know. Seems like … well, I should fight my own battles.”

  “Harper hasn’t tried anything else with you, has he?”

  “No, not really, but he followed me into the control room today and may have been stalking me, so I told him I had Mace in my purse, and I’d use it on him.”

  “Did you really have a can of Mace?”

  “Actually, it’s pepper spray, but it would do the trick.”

  She walked across to the table where she had dropped her purse and pulled out a can of pepper spray. She tossed it across the room to him.