Pacific Storm

by Linda Nagata

  “I am. Thank you for agreeing to stay.”

  A bruise darkened under Ye Xiaoxiao’s left eye, and on her shoulder an abrasion glimmered with antibiotic sealant, but she sat straight and proud, her makeup nearly perfect. A beautiful woman, one clearly accustomed to authority.

  Ava sat down across from her. Met her skeptical gaze. “I have just a few questions for you.”

  “I have a question for you,” she responded, pushing her empty teacup aside and letting the blanket Akasha had given her fall away from her shoulders. “Have you arrested the criminal who pushed me to the ground?”

  “I was not able to arrest Mr. Robert Bell. But he will never again be a threat. He met with an accident, and did not survive.”

  At this news, Ye Xiaoxiao leaned forward. “You are saying he’s dead?”

  “Yes. He is dead.”

  She leaned back again, lips turned in a hint of a smile. “You are very good at your job, Officer Arnette.”

  Sarcasm?

  No, a compliment. Undeserved. Ava had not caused Robert Bell’s death. “Tell me what happened out there,” she urged.

  “You were there. You saw what happened.” For the first time, a quaver marred her voice. But the moment passed. “You saw what the monster tried to do to me.” A scowl transformed her lovely face, giving her the appearance of a vengeful goddess. “You saw what I did to him.”

  Ava flashed on Robert Bell holding a hand to his split lip.

  “Tell me anyway,” she urged. “What inspired you to be out walking so late at night?”

  Ye lifted her chin and, as if granting a favor to an annoying minion, she said, “I did not want to sleep. My flight to Shanghai leaves in—” She looked at her phone, lying face-up on the table and it reacted to her gaze by flashing the time and a queue of messages. “In six hours. Why should I sleep? This night, beautiful, before the great storm. No. Better to walk in the park. It is safe. The guidebook said so.”

  Ava felt a sting of guilt. She could have had Akasha intervene before Robert Bell entered the unsurveilled area. A murmured warning, and he would have aborted his hunt, just like the other two EP4s. Ye Xiaoxiao could have flown home without the memory of this assault.

  But Ava had wanted cause to make an arrest. She’d wanted Robert Bell out of circulation, and she’d wanted the opportunity to question him. For that, she’d gambled this woman’s safety—and she’d almost lost.

  Pressing her lips together, she spoke a stock phrase, knowing that tonight, it was a lie, “We do all we can.”

  “You do not do enough,” Ye Xiaoxiao snapped.

  Ava did not try to deny it. Instead, keeping her expression carefully neutral, she asked, “Why did you go into the unsurveilled area?”

  Ye tsked and rolled her eyes to the right. “Always, everywhere, electronic eyes are watching. But not there. It is . . .” Her brow wrinkled as she groped for the right word. “Relaxing. Yes. Soothing, not to be observed. Not to be on display at every moment.”

  “Did you tell him you’d be there?”

  She drew back with a snarl of contempt. “Not him.”

  “You didn’t know him.”

  “No. I would not talk to him.”

  “You expected someone else.”

  Beneath her makeup, a rosy flush. Her brows pinched. Anger glinted in her eyes. “Yes.” She pronounced the word with a hiss of contempt. “He sent a text. I answered. He was a beautiful man—and I enjoy such men.” She glared at Ava, as if daring her to speak some criticism.

  Ava had none. Ye Xiaoxiao possessed a bold and fiery spirit that she could only admire.

  “You arranged to meet him?” Ava asked. “In the unsurveilled area?”

  A contemptuous shrug.

  “Did you?” Ava pressed.

  “Yes, I thought he would come. But it seems I was not worthy of his time.”

  Ava’s brows rose. Ye seemed more irate at being stood up than by being the target of Robert Bell’s assault.

  “Do you still have his text messages?” Ava asked.

  Ye tapped at the glass face of her phone, then turned the device, showing Ava a sequence of flirtatious messages. The sender: Ben Kanaele. A familiar name. He worked as a late-shift bartender in the Sandalwood Lounge at the Hotel Taipingyang—and he was a beautiful man. Good humored and well-liked, too. What connection could Ben possibly have with Robert Bell?

  Ava took out her tablet, subvoking a request to HADAFA to send an image of Ben. The AI provided a crisp, clear shot of him smiling from behind the bar where he worked. From the angle of the image, Ava knew it came from a surveillance camera.

  She showed it to Ye, who confirmed, “That is him.” Her dark eyes flashed. “You will speak to him,” she said imperiously. “You will question his motive. I want to know why he toyed with me.”

  Ava nodded, stone-faced as she suppressed an astonished laugh. Given Ye Xiaoxiao’s commanding persona, she strongly suspected Ben had simply lost his nerve.

  ◇

  Ava assigned Akasha the task of escorting Ms. Ye back to her hotel, while she walked to the end of the hall, where KCA Security Chief Ivan Ishikawa waited for her at the door of his glass-walled office. Ivan must have arrived while Ava was still in the interview room.

  A big man, six feet tall, he had the muscular build of a veteran cop and the discipline of a good commanding officer. Even at 4:00 AM, the thick gray hair that topped his sun-bronzed face was neatly combed, and he wore a fresh-looking uniform, down to the green duty belt.

  “You let this one get away from you,” he said.

  She started to speak, but hesitated when a text message popped up on her display: New boss is here. Tread carefully.

  Saying nothing, she followed Ivan into the office to find the Chinese liaison, Shao Hua, seated in a guest chair in front of Ivan’s desk. Rumor had it that after the handover, he would be appointed as the first governor to oversee the ninety-nine year lease.

  A relatively young man, no more than forty years old, Shao Hua wore gray slacks and an aloha shirt featuring cranes and swirling clouds in subdued blue and gray hues. His thick hair sported a fashionable tousled look. And though his face was round and his features soft, Ava wasn’t fooled. The truth of his personality lay in the sharp gaze that evaluated her from behind the clear lens of his smart glasses.

  Without waiting for an invitation, she sat in the second guest chair while Ivan took his seat behind the desk. “So what happened?” he asked.

  She addressed her answer to him. “We recently experienced two earlier incidents that developed exactly like this one—”

  “But in this case, you allowed the assault to occur,” Shao interrupted. “It is understandable. Present law forbids an arrest despite the certainty of an intended crime. But your actions must always take into account the reputation of Waikīkī. Even in the face of the oncoming storm, the bizarre nature of this incident is sure to make the news.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ava said, aware that bad press was an unforgivable sin. She’d been hired to help ensure visitor safety, but like everyone who worked in the resort, her position came with the collateral duty of helping to preserve the illusion of Waikīkī as an idyllic paradise. Even now, as Hurricane Huko threatened landfall.

  And it was an illusion.

  Waikīkī had first earned its international reputation well over a hundred years ago, when the weather had been cooler and less humid, the trade winds had been constant, the natural beach had been wide, and the palm trees had not been imported. Since then, the average temperature had climbed by several degrees. Now, nearly every day was hot and heavy with humidity, and the cooling trade winds were almost forgotten. Air-conditioning and alluring advertising could make up for that, could make visitors believe they’d truly bought a ticket to paradise—but any crack in the façade could cause the illusion to fail.

  Ava said, “You’re right, sir, that this incident is likely to be a blip in the news cycle. But it’s part of a series of attempted assaults—and if we�
�re still here after Hurricane Huko, you’ll want these incidents stopped. Tonight I was able to interview the victim. She’s a cooperative witness who provided a lead that may help to reveal the connection between all three incidents.”

  Shao’s expression remained fixed and stern. “You believe there is a connection, though these incidents each involve a different Expected Perpetrator.”

  “Yes, I do, because each followed an identical pattern—entering the coastal park and then immediately proceeding to an unsurveilled area where they knew a victim waited. I need to know where they got their information. Once we identify the source, we can stop these potential assaults before our reputation is permanently damaged.”

  Shao Hua observed dryly, “You do not have much time before the game pieces are shuffled by the oncoming storm.”

  “You’re right, sir,” Ava agreed in terse syllables that left an unspoken implication drifting in the air: Get out of my way, mister, and let me get on with it.

  “I will expect your report,” Shao said, standing up.

  Ivan stood too, and came around the desk. “I’ll walk you to the elevator.”

  They started to leave, but at the office door, Shao turned back. “Be assured, Officer Arnett, that we will still be here after the storm.”

  She leaned forward in her chair. “Then do you plan to ride it out, sir? I mean, if the hurricane does turn our way?” Would he stay here to oversee his pending fiefdom? Or would he flee?

  His eyes narrowed, recognizing the challenge. “I will be leaving for Kona later today. Negotiations are underway to move the signing ceremony there, to avoid any delay, given the storm’s predicted path. When I return in three days, it will be done.”

  She remained seated as the two men walked away down the hall, filled with bitterness, knowing her country had done this to itself. A self-righteous refusal to cooperate with global standards for carbon emissions had brought on the international sanctions and the embargoes that had ravaged an already fragile economy. Meanwhile, national debt compounded as successive environmental disasters far exceeded the country’s resources.

  Operating in the style of corporate raiders, the Venturists had demanded the sacrifice of assets to improve the country’s cash position, backing their play with skilled propaganda aimed at convincing the mainland citizenry that Hawai‘i wasn’t “real America” anyway. Visitors had lately begun to revive the old, exclusionary phrase “back in the States” to refer to the mainland USA.

  On a different level of psychological warfare, people feared conflict with China. The Mischief Reef incident had involved Britain, not the USA, but the radioactive debris drifting throughout the Pacific served as a stern warning. Appeasement was popular, though it was never called that.

  She looked up as Ivan returned. “What the hell are we doing here, participating in this?” she asked him.

  He took his seat behind the desk, looking grim. “It hasn’t happened yet.”

  “You think there’s a way the handover can be stopped?”

  He leaned back, his gaze faraway. “I won’t be surprised if the separatists give it a try. And that was bullshit, about moving the signing ceremony to Kona. The security apparatus is here. Propaganda too. Shao’s just going to have to wait a few more days.”

  “We should all be separatists,” Ava said softly.

  This drew a long, searching look, before Ivan said, “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. By the time you’re back on-shift tonight, we’ll be feeling the first effects of Huko. I want you to learn what you can before then. If the separatists are behind these serial incidents, I want to know it. And I want to know what else they have in mind.”

  As soon as Akasha returned, Ava sent her off again. “HPD is sending a crime scene unit to Robert Bell’s residence. I want you to go out there too. His social rating was in the dumpster, so his neighbors are going to be happy to talk stink. See what you can turn up. Call me with anything significant.”

  “What about Kanaele?”

  “Ivan’s agreed to take over the end of my shift, while I go talk to Ben.”

  chapter

  5

  An Ewa-bound streetcar approached, its eave decorated with a holiday garland of LED lights made to look like luminous green fern leaves and glowing red poinsettia blossoms, bright in the winter darkness. Despite the hour, despite the season, the air remained warm, and thick with a humidity that used to belong only to the muggiest days of summer.

  The car came to a silent stop. Ava stepped aboard, scanning the other riders: two families and a young couple. Out of habit, she stood on the running board, her elbow hooked around a pole, leaving the bench seats of the open-air car for additional passengers.

  Several more, all burdened with carry-on luggage, boarded at the next stop. Their anxious chatter made it clear they’d cut their vacations short and were on their way to the airport, having made the smart decision to get out before the storm.

  No one waited at the stop after that, so they rolled through it. But a crowd milled outside the Hotel Taipingyang—enough that the streetcar reached capacity.

  Ava found herself sharing the running board with a grinning blond carrying a small backpack over his shoulder. His slender frame, along with the smell of cigarette smoke, clued her that he was European. When he spoke, his accent confirmed this guess. “So we get a police escort now?” he asked, an eyebrow raised. “Should we expect trouble?”

  “Trouble in paradise?” she asked, mirroring his teasing expression. “No. This just saves me a walk.”

  She looked away, out to the disappointed faces of a group of evacuating tourists queued at the next stop as the fully loaded streetcar rolled past them.

  Trouble would come. Not right away. But within twelve hours, if the hurricane continued on its predicted path, people would start to panic. Right now, those with the means and the will to do so could still buy a seat out. But the gamblers would wait, riding out their bets against the storm’s predicted track until it was too late. When the airport closed, reality would set in. Ava had seen it all before.

  The streetcar moved slowly but steadily down the center of the Kalakaua pedestrian mall. No one got off. Every couple of minutes an eastbound streetcar, wearing its own holiday garland, slipped quietly by, occupied by only a few uniformed resort staff heading in for the early shift.

  Between Duke’s Lane and Lewers Street, old Kalakaua Avenue had been re-routed, so that it curved to meet what used to be Kalia Road. The streetcar wound past Fort DeRussy Park and on to Ala Moana Boulevard, continuing west to the Ala Wai Canal Bridge.

  The bridge marked the end of Waikīkī, and of the Kahanamoku Coastal Authority’s jurisdiction. At its western end, a double line of movable steel bollards formed a barrier to keep general traffic from entering the pedestrian mall. The streetcar swerved, moving onto the single track that passed through the barrier. Then it swerved again as the track doubled on the other side. The route continued down the center of Ala Moana Boulevard, now with vehicular traffic on either side—a mix of autonomous taxis, delivery vans, and the rare private car. Makai of the boulevard stood the massive concrete fortification of the Ala Moana Seawall. The concrete labyrinth of the old shopping center sprawled on the mauka side, a ghost town now.

  The streetcar picked up speed, hurrying on until it reached Harbor Station, alongside Aloha Tower—the end of the line. As the car came to a smooth stop, Ava jumped down from the running board, relieved to escape the reek of stale cigarette smoke.

  A sculpted white-canvas roof soared over the station, aglow at this hour with artificial light. Three black-uniformed officers from the Honolulu Police Department directed the streetcar’s worried passengers toward an escalator that would take them to the elevated train to the airport. Their luggage would be delivered by cargo van, already checked through to their final destinations.

  Ava nodded to an older officer she’d known when she’d been with HPD. Then she headed outside to the taxi station. Her apartment was just acros
s the street, in one of the few refurbished towers of old downtown, but she wasn’t ready to go home yet. Tablet in hand, she submitted her identity and a destination to the taxi app.

  The queue was short. In less than a minute, the app assigned her to a rideshare with a young mother and her two small children. Five and six years old, Ava guessed. Born since Nolo. They hugged their Fantastic Space Force backpacks, looking sleepy until they noticed Ava. Then their eyes went wide.

  Ava smiled at them. “Good morning,” she said, as their mom hoisted a large suitcase into the cargo area. As the back hatch closed, Mom herded the kids into the rear seat, admonishing them, “Seat belts on.” When the kids were secure, she joined Ava up front. HADAFA identified her as Anuhea Golden, twenty-nine, no criminal record.

  As the autonomous taxi pulled away from the curb, she evaluated Ava with narrowed eyes. “That’s a Coastal Authority uniform, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “I thought so, but I’ve never been to the strip.” A slight, satisfied smile, as her gaze shifted to the road ahead. “Too late now.”

  Right.

  Resentment was an indulgence that didn’t cost anything—and Ava understood it. It had been hard in the early years to see so much foreign investment poured into the construction of a luxury resort when the island’s people had lost everything. They’d been living in tents pitched in fields that cycled between dust bowls and bogs of sticky mud depending on the weather. The iron-rich soil had left a red stain on everything, and on everyone.

  But none of that changed the fact that Waikīkī and the Kahanamoku Coastal Park functioned as an economic engine, bringing much-needed outside money to the island.

  “Don’t give up yet,” Ava said coolly. “You might still have a chance to visit. The coastal park was engineered with Nolo in mind.”

  The artificial shoreline was a façade designed to persuade wealthy vacationers that paradise still existed. But it wasn’t just decorative. The esplanade, the lagoons, the dunes, the beach, even the artificial reefs—all served as layers of protection against sea-level rise and the storm surge of hurricanes. And along the Ala Wai canal, mechanical flood walls had been installed to prevent an overflow of rainwater into Waikīkī. The refurbished hotels had been strengthened too, and outfitted with hurricane-rated window glass.