by Toby Neal
Mrs. Yamaguchi pointed her cane at a mound of interwoven sticks, logs, and debris on the other side of the creek. “It was in there.”
“I see how smart those Crocs are,” Lei muttered, as the old lady waded the shallow stream flow, wearing the plastic footwear, to reach the driftwood pile while Lei was still pulling off her athletic shoes and socks. She joined the old lady a few moments later. “Where was the skull?”
Lei had already slipped some latex gloves on in the truck, so when Mrs. Yamaguchi pointed with her cane, Lei lifted the wood away, searching carefully for anything more.
“Mrs. Yamaguchi, I’m looking around this area and there’s nobody. For miles. I don’t see any houses in that valley either.” Lei gestured up into the thickly jungled, narrow valley. “You have to tell me why you said someone would take the skull.”
“There are people in that valley,” Mrs. Yamaguchi said. “People who don’t want you to know about them.”
“But I told you the skull was old, right? It was buried. Probably an old grave that washed out in a flash flood.” Lei gestured to the mountain of tangled branches and debris. “These floods rip down the valleys and clear out all the overgrown brush. Some little boy’s ancient grave just finally washed away in all this.”
“You think what you like. I know what I know.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Mrs. Yamaguchi refused to answer and just wandered off, picking up bits of plastic and litter and putting them slowly, painfully, in her bag.
Lei tore into the pile of debris, pulling it apart and searching it carefully. She found nothing but branches, rotting grasses, old logs, leaves and twigs, and one battered coconut.
But somewhere up in that narrow valley was a gravesite and people Mrs. Yamaguchi said didn’t want to be known. She photographed the area, the stream, and the valley with her phone camera. Seemed like a good time for a hike.
But first she’d have to take Mrs. Yamaguchi home and let Pono know what she was up to.
She checked the time on her phone. Twelve thirty p.m. She wasn’t going to make it back from Hana in time to pick Kiet up from school. Signal was iffy out here, but hopefully on the beach she’d be able to get a call through. She connected with her father, Wayne.
“Hey, Dad. I’m out in Hana and can’t get back in time to pick up Kiet. He’s supposed to go to Ellen’s today—would you mind?”
“No problem, Sweets. The lunch rush will be over by then.” She heard the clatter and clash of dishes in the background. Wayne’s Local Grindz in the Haiku Cannery Mall was doing a brisk business since he opened a few years ago. “I’ll run him out there. Maybe have a cup of coffee with Ellen while I’m at it.”
“I’m sure she’d like that.” Lei had often wondered if the friendship that had grown up between Stevens’s widowed mother and her own single father might turn to something more. “I should be home by five, though. Thanks so much.”
She hung up, but didn’t call Pono because Mrs. Yamaguchi was making her way back. The canvas bag was filling up with trash. “Do you do that every day, Mrs. Yamaguchi?”
“I do.”
“It’s amazing that there’s that much trash on this beach, then,” Lei said.
“Such a shame, that,” the elderly lady said. “Rubbish, it washes up from the ocean. So many people, they throw any-kine stuffs in the ocean like it one big garbage dump.”
“I hate that, too.” Lei’s most recent case had revolved around fish poaching and reef conservation. “The ocean is more fragile than people realize.”
“The `aina, too,” Mrs. Yamaguchi said.
That Hawaiian word for “land” was also the name of a handsome Coast Guardsman she’d met on her last case, a man whose appearance and heritage, similar to hers, had elicited something within her. A recognition. A chord of something shared, compatible, and exciting.
But she wasn’t going to find out what. She didn’t care what it might be. She was married.
Happily.
Okay. Maybe not happily, but married. And her husband was a captive in Central America, probably suffering right now in some hideous prison camp. On the other hand, there was Kathy Fraser, her husband’s beautiful partner. Kathy knew things Stevens should have shared with his wife. She meant something to him, and he to her, and that scared Lei.
Still. It wasn’t right to think about Aina Thomas and his kindness and the connection she’d felt with him. She flushed with shame for even having a thought about another man. Hopefully he’d get the message and just leave her alone, because she wasn’t feeling very strong right now.
Stevens was captured, in danger. That was the priority. That, and her son. This case was just a time filler, but she might as well have a look for the gravesite since she’d driven all this way.
Lei dropped Mrs. Yamaguchi off and tried to get a signal to call Pono, but there was no reception at the Yamaguchi house. She drove back to the beach and parked on the shoulder beside the stream. She found a plastic water bottle in the back seat, along with her portable backpack crime kit.
Lei twisted her wayward hair into a ponytail and tried to call Pono again. This time the call went straight to a glitching voice mail.
“Hey, Pono. Just wanted you to know I’m taking a hike into a valley in Hana at”—she looked around for a landmark—“mile marker sixteen.”
The voice mail cut off abruptly in midsentence, and when she tried to call back, it didn’t connect at all.
Oh well.
She locked the truck, donned the backpack and her Kevlar, checked her weapon, pulled her MPD ball cap down over her hair, and headed into the mouth of the stream.
Chapter Seven
Darkness had finally fully come. I prepared as best I could, untying the rope, which might be useful for something else, and looping it around my waist. I snapped the knife scabbard onto my belt, drank a little water, and carrying the jug, headed into the back corner. I pressed gently on the shutter.
It didn’t open.
It was too dark in the shed to really see, so I set the water jug down and felt around the edges of the window.
Yes, there was an opening in the wall. Whatever hallucinogenic state I’d been in yesterday, I wasn’t so gone that this remembered window wasn’t even real. But the opening was shut firmly now. Pushing on it, nothing happened. A wave of terror rippled over me, prickling the skin of my hands and erupting across my shoulders in sweat.
This was the first time I was really scared. All this time I’d been pretty sure that the best thing I could do was stay alive until rescue, that I’d be ransomed. But I’d heard it myself from the camp commander’s lips—I was to be made an example of, to show how serious the kidnappers were.
I need to get out. I stifled the desire to pound and push on the window. That would draw attention.
Perhaps there was a latch of some kind.
I drew the knife from its scabbard. It was a six-inch blade of tapered, tempered steel with a serrated back and a razor-sharp blade, the tang running all the way through the molded plastic grip. It fit my hand like it was made for me.
I slid the knife down into the crack between the edge of the window and the shutter, sliding it slowly along.
It made a rasping sound against the metal that sounded like our dogs when they wanted to get in at the back door, a clawing that raised the hairs on the back of my neck.
And it caught on something.
I worked it back and forth, hoping it was a simple hook.
Hyperaware of the loud scraping noise I was making, I slid and pried, jiggled and worked. Finally, with a squeak, the latch of the shutter gave.
A draft of slightly cooler, mossy-smelling air drifted up into the shed as I lifted the shutter. At least it wasn’t raining at this particular moment.
I sheathed the knife, dropped the water jug gently outside. I slowly raised the metal shutter, looking and listening. No response to my activities so far.
I used my arms to lift myself into the open
ing, and brought up a leg. Awkwardly, painfully, I slid my leg out over the sharp, narrow edge. Weakened as I was, it took all I had to ease myself quietly out the opening and drop onto the soft, pulpy ground outside. The smell of green, growing, and rotting things filled my nostrils as I squatted, all my senses alert.
In the dark of the creaking, clicking, squeaking jungle, several of the glowing moths flitted. I’d probably been having a hallucination yesterday. Anchara couldn’t have visited me.
Thank God the shed butted up against the jungle. It would be easy to just set off into the darkness, but I had to see if I could get any of the men out of the pit.
I flattened myself against the metal wall and sidled along it, staying in the shadow of the roof overhang as I worked my way to the front of the building.
The moon was a thin blue-white flashlight in the sky, flicking on and off as clouds came and went. The deep shadow of trees provided extra cover around the shed, but ahead of me was the open area at the end of the muddy runway. Temporary shelters hunkered like turtles around a fire pit area.
I could hear voices coming from that area, snatches of conversation. The fire provided a distant glow and flickering invitation, glimpsed through the tents’ fabric.
Even though things looked deserted, there had to be guards posted.
How was I going to get out into the open area to the pit, let alone figure out a way to get the men out?
Perhaps a distraction could draw attention away.
My eyes finally adjusted all they were going to, and I spotted two guards. They were armed, leaning against trees near the main open area. They didn’t appear to be highly alert—their postures were relaxed, their heads turned toward the fire. One of them was on my side of the clearing, the other on the opposite side, farther away but closer to the pit.
Perhaps I could disable one of them and he would have something I could use as a distraction.
I began working my way around, keeping to the shadows, my rubber-soled hiking boots silent on the damp jungle mulch underfoot. There was no rush. I had all night. I just needed to get around the camp undetected, disable the guard, and then… That was as far ahead as I could plan.
I controlled my breathing, keeping each breath quiet and slow, and as I did I felt an extraordinary alertness flood me. My earlier weakness and sluggishness were completely gone. As I crept around the wide, rough-barked bole of a tree, I realized I hadn’t felt this alive in years.
I was clearheaded, revitalized, and firing on all cylinders.
This. This was what I’d come for.
In a highly dangerous situation, with my life and the lives of others at stake, I finally felt good in my body again. This was what I’d needed and had been unable to explain to anyone.
When I got home, I had to get back to solving cases. Being the trainer behind a desk had been making all my other shit worse.
I closed the last few yards toward the guard leaning on his tree. I slid around the tree, focused on the man leaning there, his rifle carelessly propped on his leg and his chin nodding on his chest.
I grabbed him in a yoke chokehold, hauling him back into the darkness.
He thrashed, and I tightened my grip, feeling his struggles get more frantic. His legs were kicking up leaves as he writhed and kicked, so I lifted him off the ground, and that settled things rapidly.
I hoped I wouldn’t have to kill him. When I felt the artery in his neck, his heart was still beating.
“Arturo! You okay, man?” came from the other guard in Spanish.
“Taking a piss,” I called back in that language, coughing into my fist in case my voice didn’t sound right.
I lowered the unconscious man to the ground. He was wearing a web belt with shoulder straps loaded with several grenades, ammo, and a canteen. I stripped it off him and put it on, acquiring another knife and a pistol, too. In his upper shirt pockets were a chocolate bar, a packet of sugar cookies, and a small LED flashlight on a webbing strap, meant to be worn as a headlight.
Jackpot. I was good to go into the jungle with all of this.
I gagged the man with his own neckerchief and hog-tied him with his belt. Killing him certainly would have been faster, but I didn’t want to raise the stakes on this whole operation before I’d even gotten away from camp. I put Arturo’s billed hat on, and holding the M16 in the same way he had, I slouched back to his surveillance spot.
“I need to piss now,” the other man said.
“Go.” I gestured with the weapon, and the other guard vanished into the jungle on his side of the clearing.
I was now on the opposite side of the camp than I had been, with the pit close to me on my left. Perhaps I wasn’t going to have to make too big of a distraction. While the other guard was gone, I could assess the prisoners.
Feeling naked and vulnerable, knowing I was taller than the other man had been, I slouched into the open and walked casually over to the pit, hoping the dark concealed my U.S. camouflage uniform clothing. I squatted and lifted one edge of the bamboo frame with its covering of palm branches. I flicked the headlight on and shone it into the pit.
The hole was empty. Several inches of muddy water at the bottom gleamed back at me, mocking.
“Arturo! What are you doing?”
The other guard’s voice was right above me. He’d approached while I was distracted. My heart stuttered in my chest and a wave of adrenaline jacked through me.
The time for stealth was over.
I shot up from my crouch with the stolen combat knife in my fist and drove it upward into the man’s throat from below, burying it to the hilt in the soft triangle of flesh beneath his jaw
He dropped, clawing at his throat, emitting a horrible gargling. Warm blood, only slightly hotter than the surrounding air, pumped over my hand. I let go of the knife and grabbed the man under the armpits, hauling him out of the open area to his post against the tree, lowering him to a seated position against it.
He spasmed and lost control of his bowels, filling my nostrils with an abrupt stench. His legs sprawled and contracted. His heels drummed.
I’d forgotten how long it took for a man to die and how unpleasant it was to witness. No time for that sentimental shit. I needed the knife back. I yanked it out with a sideways gesture that opened the rest of his throat and finished things quicker, and got out of the way of the blood that followed.
I wiped the knife on the man’s shoulder. Gently, I replaced his hat, which had fallen off, and tipped it forward over his face. To a casual observer, he would have appeared to have fallen asleep at his post.
Straightening up, I scanned around.
No new sounds or movements. The fire flickered. The voices continued, interspersed with snatches of laughter.
I removed the man’s canteen from his belt. I took grenades, knife, and pistol and loaded up my harness belt, but I didn’t need another M16. I shot the magazine, stuffed that in a pocket, and threw the weapon into the dark.
Time to find the other captives.
I tried to think logically as I assessed the camp.
The kidnappers must have decided the pit was too unhealthy, so they’d moved the prisoners. I just couldn’t believe that the rest had been ransomed or rescued and I hadn’t and that’s why they were gone.
The men wouldn’t be stashed in a tent. Too easy to break out of. And most of the clustered shapes were tents. So I just needed to find a structure that was secure and solid, and that’s likely where the prisoners would be.
There was only one of those, a big sturdy-looking wooden shack, right in front of the fire. A row of men was seated in front of it, passing a bottle. Talking. A couple of them were playing cards.
Directly across from them, scanning the jungle and the open area, was another guard.
I wasn’t going to be able to break out my fellow prisoners without a major distraction, after all. I crept along toward my target, feeling the urgency to flee beating in my veins.
Every second I spent at the camp
was another second closer to discovery.
I squatted in the deep cover of a tree, feeling my heart beating with heavy thuds. The fresh blood from the guard was sticky on my clothing and skin, and its coppery tang filled my nostrils. Listening to the strange sounds of the jungle around me, I deliberately calmed myself.
I shut my eyes to remember the map I’d seen in the commander’s office.
Directly at the end of the runway, a couple of clicks to the north, was the great artery of the Coco River. I’d rescue the men and, using the compass, get us to the river and across it into Nicaragua, where hopefully these men wouldn’t pursue us. I had no idea how to do any of it, but I hadn’t known how to get this far, either.
Maybe there was some way to strike a blow against the camp while I was at it.
I opened my eyes and looked toward the far end of the runway. The three Black Hawk helicopters used to attack us were parked there, draped in camo netting.
Perfect.
I took a sip of water and chewed down the guard’s chalky chocolate bar. My stomach wanted to rebel, but I needed to keep this machine fueled, because I had a lot more to do.
I crept along the edge of the jungle to the helicopters, wishing I knew how to fly one, but flying wasn’t something I’d ever made time for. In a running crouch, I made it to the closest chopper, felt down the fuselage, and unscrewed the fuel cap. I took the fuel caps off all three, and then splashed fuel between them from a square green fuel container I found sitting nearby.
This was almost too easy. Something was bound to go wrong any minute. I had to hurry.
I pulled back into the jungle and took out two of the grenades I’d lifted off the guards.
I pulled the pin on one and tossed it between two of the choppers, then tossed the other one, too. It bounced and rolled between the struts of the third Black Hawk. I squatted down behind a big sheltering mahogany tree and plugged my ears with my fingers.
Chapter Eight