by Robert McCaw
ALSO BY ROBERT McCAW
Koa Kāne Hawaiian Mysteries
Death of a Messenger
Off the Grid
Copyright © 2020 by Robert McCaw
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
While this novel draws on the spirit and history of Hawai‘i, it is a work of fiction. The characters, institutions, and events portrayed are either the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
ISBN 978-1-60809-368-7
Published in the United States of America by Oceanview Publishing
Sarasota, Florida
www.oceanviewpub.com
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
To my wife Calli and my daughter Anne who have been wonderfully supportive throughout the lengthy process of bringing this book to life
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Among the many people who helped make this book possible are my dear friends in Hawai‘i who generously shared their knowledge of the culture, history, and language of the Hawaiian people. To them I owe an enormous debt of gratitude.
Special thanks must also go to Makela Bruno-Kidani, who has tirelessly reviewed my use of the Hawaiian language, correcting my many mistakes. Where the Hawaiian words and phrases are correct, she deserves the credit. Any errors are entirely of my doing.
Lastly, this book would not have been launched without the amazing support of my agent, Mel Parker of Mel Parker Books, LLC. His faith in my work and his tireless efforts made the publication of this story possible. I would also be remiss if I failed to acknowledge the support of Pat and Bob Gussin, owners of Oceanview Publishing, who have devoted their phenomenal energies to supporting and publishing my work and that of many other aspiring mystery and thriller writers.
CHAPTER ONE
DISASTER RODE THE gale-force winds of Hurricane Ida across the Big Island of Hawai‘i from the southwest. Ferocious gusts felled century-old trees. Sonic booms of thunder chased lightning bolts sparking through ominous black clouds. Torrential rains pounded the mountains, filling gulches and gathering into flash floods. On Hualālai Mountain, one of the five volcanoes that make up Hawai‘i Island, ten inches of rain fell in a single hour. Water cascaded into cracks and caverns, pouring deep into the earth. The pressure of the floodwaters opened long-sealed fissures in the faults on the west side of Hualālai. Water entered the volcano’s magma reservoir and flashed into steam. Steam under astronomical pressure.
Catastrophe struck. Devastating news flashed through the Hilo police headquarters. Disaster at KonaWili School on Hualālai Mountain. Dead kids. Injured children. Stricken teachers. Panicky reports of a mass shooter, a terrorist bomb, a deadly poison gas attack, or something even more sinister. Confusion swirled like the storm still raging.
Conflicting disaster scenarios swarmed the airwaves as Chief Detective Koa Kāne, Sergeant Basa, and four patrolmen dashed through the downpour to a police helicopter. Why does shit always happen when the chief’s off-island? Normally, Hawai‘i Police Chief S. H. Lannua, took the lead in disasters, but ‘a‘ole i kēia lā, not today. With the chief preparing for surgery in California, Koa would be the senior police officer at the scene. At least he had Sergeant Basa, whose piercing dark eyes missed nothing. The thirty-five-year-old, bear-like police sergeant was one of ten brothers, all immensely proud of their Portuguese heritage. No one in the police department topped Basa for reliability under pressure. In a crisis, he stood like lava against every tsunami.
What the hell happened inside the school? Koa asked himself as the chopper rocked and bounced through the vicious wind and pelting rain. When the helo rounded Hualālai Mountain, an eight-thousand-foot volcano towering over Kona on the west side of the island, Koa glimpsed the elementary school through the driving rain.
Emergency lights flashed from fire trucks, rescue vehicles, and ambulances. Dirty yellow smoke obscured the south end of the year-old elementary school. More emergency vehicles, lights blazing on and off, converged on the scene from nearby Kona. The chopper’s radio squawked horrific news—more than fifty children and teachers dead or injured. The mayor had activated the disaster management plan for the western side of the island. Nine-one-one operators were alerting all medical personnel to report to their emergency stations.
Wind slammed the police helicopter while it circled the school grounds waiting for a fire department medevac chopper to lift off and another to land on the flooded athletic field. Koa saw dozens of kids on the soaked ground in front of the school, some on stretchers and others lying helpless where they’d been dragged. He’d seen children bloodied during his Special Forces days in Afghanistan. Children caught in the crossfire. Youngsters killed by misplaced bombs. The sight sickened him then, but not like this. This was America. Kids should be safe in school. Instead, they were dead and dying.
When the police chopper settled onto the soggy softball diamond and Koa slid the door open, an overpowering smell of noxious gases washed over him, burning his nostrils and making his eyes water. He knew the awful smell—nearly everyone on the Big Island knew the odor of volcanic gases—but the stench was strangely out of place. Koa glanced up toward the top of Hualālai. The volcano hadn’t erupted in over two hundred years, but it wasn’t extinct. Had Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of volcanic fury, erupted under the KonaWili elementary school? If Hualālai went up, lava could rush down its steep slopes, cutting highways, disrupting electrical power, destroying Keāhole airport, and propelling death through the streets of Kona. The thought made him shudder.
Despite the torrential rain, thundering like a waterfall, firemen with two-and-a-half-inch hoses shot canons of water onto the south end of the school building. In defiance, the water vaporized before it touched the building, creating superheated steam clouds whipped in all directions by the wicked makani, the wicked winds. Try as they might, firefighters couldn’t get close to the south end of the building. No amount of water dented the inferno.
Koa ordered the police helicopter back to Hilo for reinforcements before fastening his poncho and dashing into the foul weather. Chaos reigned around him. People ran everywhere. Kids and teachers screamed. Since he didn’t yet know what had happened, Koa designated the whole area a potential crime scene, and assigned Basa and his patrolmen along with other cops from Kona to set up a cordon around the school. The five-foot-eight, barrel-chested police sergeant swung into action. Koa ran toward the building.
Firefighters in protective gear with breathing tanks, along with EMTs and policemen with bandanas over their faces, dashed into the north end of the building—the end away from the inferno. Others carried children from the building to a pair of raingear-clad triage nurses who categorized the injured. Green tags for the walking wounded, yellow tags for the injured not in immediate danger, red tags for the critical, and black tags for the dead. Way too many red and black tags.
Black-tagged kids lay in a row on the wet grass. Unconscious, but still breathing, children occupied stretchers, covered with makeshift ponchos waiting for ambulances or medevac helicopters. Youngsters suffering only mild signs of distress straggled toward buses four blocks from the building, guided by a phalanx of teachers. Anything to get the kids away from the crippled school and out of the driving rain. Teachers, some with rain protection, but many soaked to the skin, moved from one group to another trying to account for all the students. Even as Koa watched, more doctors, EMS, and nursing personnel po
ured in to help stabilize the situation.
Koa called Hawai‘i Mayor George Tanaka, stunning him with the gruesome scope of the disaster. The mayor, saying, “This is the damned Education Department; that makes it Māhoe’s problem,” hooked Governor Bobbie Māhoe into the call. Koa focused on the most urgent problem: “We need state-wide disaster help.” A rumble of tearing metal distracted Koa as a portion of the school roof ripped away. “There aren’t enough doctors or medical facilities on the Big Island to treat the injured.” He heard the governor instruct his staff to alert Maui Memorial Hospital and the Queen’s Medical Center in Honolulu to prepare to receive patients. Koa then requested additional medevac helicopters to airlift wounded children.
“What the hell happened?” the governor demanded.
“No one knows, Governor, but it smells volcanic. The heat is horrendous. If Hualālai erupts, thousands of people in and around Kona are in harm’s way. You should put the national guard on alert.”
“Jesus,” the governor responded. Both he and the mayor fired more questions, but Koa had no answers. The politicians demanded hourly updates, and the call ended.
Harry ‘Ōhai, the short, squat, titanium-tough Kona area deputy fire chief, trotted by, heading into the damaged building as fast as his bulky gear allowed. “C’mon,” he yelled over his shoulder, “still got keiki inside,” using the Hawaiian word for children. Koa covered his face with a handkerchief, like other police officers trying to rescue children, and sprinted after ‘Ōhai. “We’ve cleared the north end, but not the south classrooms,” ‘Ōhai shouted. Inside, they turned down the south hall. Thick yellow smoke billowed at them. Heat blasted Koa’s face. ‘Ōhai turned into the first classroom.
Koa ran straight into the thick yellow smoke. The rotten egg stench overpowered all other smells. He began to choke and dropped to the floor as though back on the battlefield, crawling under the worst of the fumes. The building rumbled and the floor vibrated. Turning into a classroom marked First Grade, he saw a child lying on the floor ahead of him. He scrambled forward, grabbed hold of the child, a little girl, and pulled her toward the door. At the doorway, he scooped her up in his arms. Holding her tight to his chest, he felt her shallow breathing. Still alive. Crouching low, he dashed down the hallway. Coughing from the acidic smoke, he carried the first-grader to safety.
Handing the child over to a teacher, he raced back into the building. The smoke had grown thicker, and he again crawled down the hallway. The floor grew hot. His eyes burned. He scrambled past the first two classrooms before turning into another. The building shook. A deep growling sound reverberated. He couldn’t see. He banged into a desk, and then something soft. Another keiki. Choking uncontrollably, he became disoriented. Which way to the door? Clenching his teeth, he told himself not to panic. That instinct to remain in control had saved him many times.
Clutching the limp child, he inched forward. When he hit a wall, he followed it until he reached the door. A hacking cough racked his chest. He made it into the hall. Barely able to stand, he hauled the child into his arms and stumbled forward. His eyes, the inside of his nostrils, and his throat burned like acid. The hallway seemed to go on forever; he wasn’t sure he’d make it out. Finally, he reached the entrance and stumbled outside. His lungs were on fire. A teacher rushed forward to take the child from his arms. Koa gasped for air. He couldn’t breathe. He felt his legs go weak. The world turned gray, and he collapsed.
CHAPTER TWO
TEN MINUTES LATER, Koa awoke with an oxygen mask over his face. In another minute, he was sitting up and then standing. He’d have a sore throat and hacking cough, but that didn’t prevent him from getting back in the action.
By late afternoon, emergency personnel had achieved some measure of control. Police had cordoned off and evacuated a mile-wide circle around the crippled school. Braving the unrelenting noxious air inside the building, professional firefighters with protective gear had retrieved all of the children and bodies they could find. Hostile temperatures in the south end of the school blocked rescue personnel from checking the last few classrooms. The most severely injured, all of them children, had been evacuated to hospitals.
Big Island Mayor George Tanaka arrived on the scene with his aides—Ben Inaba and Tomi Watanabe. The mayor never went anywhere without his political operatives. They made an odd pair. Watanabe, the mayor’s press agent, stood no more than five-feet-two, wore ill-fitting clothes, sported an ugly black mole on his right cheek, and had an attitude to match. Inaba, eight inches taller, and smooth as polished obsidian, might have stepped out of a Tommy Bahama’s catalog.
Tanaka’s grim expression grew darker when Governor Bobbie Māhoe appeared with Francine Na‘auao, his Department of Education chief. Both mayor and governor had reason to look distressed, but KonaWili wasn’t the sole cause of their sullen faces. They were political enemies with wildly different agendas and personally disliked each other. That Tanaka made no bones about angling for the governor’s job didn’t help. Given the animosity between the two men, Koa could be forgiven for feeling like he was walking on fresh lava.
Māhoe, unlike Tanaka, the short, heavyset Hawai‘i County mayor, looked movie-star handsome, resembling a somewhat younger and taller George Clooney with jet black hair. A Republican in a heavily Democratic state, he’d taken the governor’s office by storm with a whopping 60 percent of the vote. Pundits attributed his victory to his good looks and friendly manner rather than his pro-development policies. His reputation as a charming ladies’ man hadn’t hurt. Now in the face of the KonaWili disaster, he wore a bleak expression and looked older than his sixty-three years.
Gearing up for a press conference, the politicians gathered in a police command vehicle. They wanted answers. Koa and ‘Ōhai did their best to lay out the sketchy facts. ‘Ōhai, still wearing firefighter’s boots and insulated pants, reported thirteen known fatalities, three teachers and ten children. One teacher and four children remained missing. Ambulances and helicopters had transported forty-five children to medical facilities—fifteen to Hilo Memorial and ten each to Queen’s Medical on O‘ahu, Maui Memorial in Kahului, and Kona Community Hospital.
When ‘Ōhai completed his accounting, Koa took over. “We’ve sealed off the site. It’s still early, but we’ve found no evidence of a terrorist attack. No one shot. No bombs. The medics report injuries consistent with extreme heat and volcanic fumes like we’d normally see in Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park. All signs point to some kind of volcanic venting from Hualālai Mountain.”
Koa paused to scan the ashen faces of the state’s political leaders. “When I smelled sulfur gases, I called in Richard Tatum, a volcanologist from the USGS at Kīlauea. He’s here with us now.” Koa turned to the government geologist. “Richard, tell ’em what you’ve already shared with me.”
Tatum, a tall skinny man with wispy arms, a pinched face, and a high-pitched voice, began, “Hualālai is an active volcano. It last erupted in 1801, sending streams of lava through Kona into the sea. Keāhole airport, just down there—” he pointed downhill toward the commercial airport at the edge of the ocean—“is built atop one 1801 flow.”
“But that’s over two hundred years ago,” Na‘auao, the DOE chief, objected. In her sixties with thinning gray hair and dressed in an expensive, but conservatively tailored, charcoal dress, she carried herself with a presence that warned against challenge. Her patrician face, once attractive, had hardened into a statue-like caricature of itself, and her arrogance confirmed what little Koa knew from press reports.
“True,” Tatum acknowledged, “but Hualālai hasn’t been quiet. Pu‘u Wa‘awa‘a, the many-furrowed hill that looks like a Jell-O mold on Hualālai’s northern flank, erupted in 1859, and lava vented under the ocean south of Kona in 1877. More recently, in 1929, a month-long swarm of 6,200 earthquakes, including a couple of big ones, shook the mountain. Probably a failed eruption. Hualālai’s not extinct, and she’s gonna erupt again. It’s just a matter of time.”
The politicians reacted with dour faces and deep frowns. “Get to the point, man,” the governor insisted.
“Hualālai,” Tatum continued, “has three rift zones—fault lines where volcanic activity is most likely to occur. One of those faults runs directly under the KonaWili school building. Looks like the volcano vented along that fault under the school.”
“Holy shit,” the governor swore uncharacteristically. “Do we need to evacuate the area between here and the coast?”
“Not right away,” Tatum responded. “Our monitors haven’t detected the kind of earthquakes or ground swelling signaling a major eruption. You’ll have some warning—at least a few hours—before a full-scale eruption. It would be prudent, however, to begin planning for an evacuation.”
“Shit is right,” Mayor Tanaka interjected. “We’ll have mass panic on our hands if we’re not careful.”
“You can’t hide the problem, Mayor,” Tatum warned, his voice rising to an even higher pitch. “Hualālai presents one of the most severe volcanic risks in the United States. We’ve been warning about the threat of runaway development along this coast for years.”
“I recommend,” Koa said, once again taking the lead, “we state the facts in a calm, straightforward manner, emphasizing we’re at the early stages of this crisis, and there’s no cause for panic.”
Heads nodded in agreement. They decided the governor and the mayor would speak first, expressing condolences and emphasizing the extraordinary emergency resources made available by the state and county. Koa and ‘Ōhai would then lay out the facts and answer questions.
When their meeting broke up and the group headed out into the storm to brief the press under a makeshift tent, Koa’s cell phone rang. He looked at the screen and recognized the number. He answered the call he’d been expecting from Deputy Sheriff Mary Perko. “Your brother’s here in the lockup,” she reported.