by Toby Neal
Lei stood on a smooth flat rock in the middle of the creek, scanning the banks. She’d been looking for some sort of path or trail into the deep crack of this valley from the beginning, but still hadn’t spotted anything other than a thick welter of pili grass, wild ginger, kukui nut, rose apple, and mango trees forming an almost impenetrable wall of trees and foliage.
Most of these valleys had been heavily populated by Hawaiians at one time, but this one had a wild feeling, and Lei hadn’t seen any of the telltale lo`i terracing that showed the remains of Hawaiians’ agricultural domestication.
Perhaps it was too narrow. The walls rose claustrophobically steep and close on either side of the stream, bracketed by heavy undergrowth.
What could Mrs. Yamaguchi have been referring to? There was no sign of any human habitation here, and that in itself was unusual.
There were matted bits of grasses and dried, broken branches tangled in the underbrush along the way, giving testament to a flash flood not long ago. Probably the one that had washed the skull downstream.
“Well, someone was buried here,” Lei muttered, and she resumed her rock-hopping progress up the stream as the easiest route into the valley, her eyes continually scanning the banks for any sign of the grave that had yielded the boy’s skull.
The canyon made a sudden jag to the left, and the sides encroached even more, turning to nothing but a bluff of steep black lava rock with the jungle trying to get a grip on it by way of vines and grasses. Lei stooped, picking her way under a rough stone arch, and she straightened up and gasped. She moved forward several yards, awestruck by the beauty of the spot she’d stumbled upon.
A stream fell from a hundred feet of cliff directly ahead of her into a wide, calm pool surrounded by grass and kukui nut trees. The valley opened up entirely into a spacious bowl surrounded by the familiar crests of other ridges. This secret valley, cupped in the mountains like a fertile cradle, had been heavily populated at one time. Lo`i terraces, their even lines broken up by coconut and ulu breadfruit trees, ran in a stepwise pattern from the ridges down to the pond. Rock walls, fallen into disrepair and overgrown with vines and grasses, showed where Hawaiian hales had stood in a village.
And everywhere Lei looked were planted the tallest, lushest marijuana plants she’d ever seen. The hairs on Lei’s neck rose, because even though no one was in sight, the unique smell of the plant and a whiff of its smoke coming from her left told her that this was not a good place to stumble upon alone, wearing a badge.
Lei sank back down behind a large boulder as she assessed the scene. This was a mega-farm of the famous Maui Wowie pakalolo she’d heard came from Hana. The crop had been carefully planted in and around already-existing trees, using them for cover from the Green Harvest helicopter patrols the DEA used to do regularly—though now, with the loosening of policies toward marijuana, they were scheduled less and less often.
A mechanical noise and movement came from one of the fields.
The noise was a pruner on an extension rod, and the boy standing next to the plants looked no more than twelve. He was dressed in camouflage green, and he was harvesting mature buds from plants that soared fifteen feet high, reaching the pruner up to clip off the dense, sticky-looking, hairy green bundles that held the most THC. The kid was careful how he pruned, and Lei could tell that the dense plants had been growing awhile and had yielded several harvests. As Lei watched, another kid joined him, gathering the buds as they dropped into a plastic barrow. A third followed, using handheld clippers to harvest in the lower areas.
The kids had come from somewhere. She had to see where, but she didn’t want to be spotted. Wherever there were kids working, there had to be an adult making them work.
She didn’t have long to wait. A large, dark-skinned man with a halo of heavy black dreadlocks slouched into view from a shack deep in tree shadow on the opposite side of the pond. He was wearing camouflage, too, with a green undershirt that bulged unpleasantly over a boulder of a belly. A Glock was rammed into the belt of his pants, gangster style.
The kids took one look at him and sped up.
“You boys get your quota, you can watch some TV,” he said. Lei could hardly hear his words over the trickling of the stream.
He sat on a rock beside the pond and took out a large Bowie knife. The stick she thought he was holding turned out to be a stalk of sugarcane. He peeled the skin off with the knife and bit into the pulpy inner meat of the stalk.
Lei remembered the sugary crunch of raw cane fondly, but the sight before her stole the memory’s sweetness. This asshole was making kids work in a pot field when they should be in school, bribing them with TV while he held a gun.
I could take him.
But he was armed, and who else was back here in the shelters? There could be multiple perps, and she’d put the kids in danger if she made a premature move.
Lei slid her phone out of her pocket, checking for signal. There was none. Making sure it was on silent, she shot a picture of the man, crunching a sugarcane stalk as he watched child laborers harvest the biggest, fattest marijuana buds she’d ever seen.
It was like a third world movie happening right here on Maui.
The sun felt hot on the Kevlar vest she wore, and on the top of her head. Stealthily, Lei reached down and dipped a hand in the cool stream water, rubbed it around on her face.
She had to get back out undetected. If she could just get through the stone arch and around the corner, she could rock hop down the stream and be out of there, then come back with reinforcements and do a proper raid with SWAT and DEA.
Lei began a stealthy withdrawal, squatting low and backing her way down around the rocks. She moved carefully, still facing the boss man. She was pretty sure she would make it until she saw the dog.
A big blue-nosed pit bull trotted down from the area where Boss Man had come from. He was one of those heavily muscled dogs with a big square head, wide chest, and the kind of heavy jaws that clung to prey until the fight was over.
Lei froze, hoping like hell that the slight breeze blowing in her direction from the waterfall didn’t swirl her scent over to the big dog now standing beside Boss Man. Lei continued her withdrawal, sliding backward, dropping down into the water to stay lower out of sight.
Sunlight shone on the pit bull’s blue-gray coat, rippling over its muscles. Thick as a tree trunk, the dog’s cropped behind wagged in a way that reminded her of her beloved Rotties. Lei took a stealthy step backward, and another. The stones beneath her soaked shoes were muddy and slick, but she was almost at the stone arch, where she’d be out of sight.
And suddenly the dog scented her, throwing his head up and spinning to point in her direction. He let out a menacing bellow of a bark.
There was nothing to do but brazen it out.
“Maui Police Department!” Lei jumped to her feet where she stood in the stream, holding up her badge, her weapon drawn. “Call your dog, or I’ll have to shoot him!”
Boss Man was on his feet, weapon in hand. He fired in her direction in answer, yelling, “Get her, Killah!”
The dog leaped into the stream and came at her like a sleek gray missile.
Lei scrambled backward on the slippery rocks, cursing as she stumbled, trying to keep the dog in view and almost losing her weapon. Then the dog was on her, too fast for her even to get a shot off as it jumped, jaws sinking into her Kevlar vest, knocking her backward into the water among the rocks. It sank its teeth into the vest and shook her with such force she tossed back and forth in the shallow water, gasping and flailing.
But she’d kept a grip on her weapon. She put it against the dog’s head and pulled the trigger. The report almost deafened her.
The dog’s big, muscular body relaxed abruptly, and he dropped onto her, weighty as a bag of rocks.
He didn’t feel a thing. Tears started in her eyes, even as gunfire erupted from the direction of the marijuana fields. The day had finally come that she’d had to kill a dog, and she was lucky to be
alive to do it.
That child-slaving dog killer. He was the one whose fault this was—he’d sent his dog to its death. Tears wouldn’t stop streaming from her eyes as Lei tried to heave the pit bull off her, but its teeth were sunk into the vest and locked. She wasted precious seconds shoving the Glock between its jaws and prying them open to rid herself of the heavy body. Finally, with one glance back at the deadly valley, Lei dove through the stone arch and behind the sheltering bluff that curved downward toward the ocean.
Scrambling downstream, Lei pulled her radio off her belt, thumbing it on to call for help, but there was no reception. She fumbled her cell phone out of the pocket of the vest and called 911, but there was no reception for that either in this remote canyon.
And so she just ran, diving into the heavy jungle beside the stream, unwilling to make herself a target by rock hopping as she had on the way up. Lei fought her way through the underbrush, blindly shoving reaching branches and heavy growth out of the way, stumbling and scrambling, her wet pants, shoes, and Kevlar vest as heavy as her heart.
Chapter Nine
The explosion that rocked the jungle was more than I’d bargained for. I was very glad of the shelter of the wide, heavy trunk of the native tree as the choppers’ metal exploded in all directions with the shriek of a thousand banshees. Flaming, gas-covered, melting plastic soared into the air. The blades of one of the helicopters scythed through the tents. The weapons on the birds exploded, too, and in the middle of it all, a massive round went off with a whizzing boom like the biggest of Fourth of July pyrotechnics.
As a distraction, it was superb.
The three burning birds were still firing random bits of destruction all around them as I stood, pulled my cap down, and ran purposefully toward the wooden shed through the shouting, milling hostiles.
Everywhere men were yelling and cursing, almost drowned out by the roaring, crackling flames spreading from the burning choppers. Everyone at the shack had run to see what the problem was. The shack’s door was deserted, and it was sealed with a simple hasp and padlock. I looked around the side of the building, and sure enough, hanging on a hook was the key.
I unlocked the padlock, keeping my pistol ready and eyes moving, but no one came back this way. I could hear the hostiles mustering over by the burning choppers. They’d be back in a moment.
I threw the door wide.
“This is Lieutenant Stevens. Come with me!” There were four men inside, already up and no doubt freaked out by the noise. “We’re getting out of here!”
“Yes, sir!” The young man whose name began with a “K” ran toward me, and two others—Falconer and another man. One stayed back, sitting down on his pallet with his back against the wall. It was Carrigan. His polo shirt was black with filth, but his blue eyes sparked in the light of the flames.
“No. We’re being ransomed.”
“They’re going to start killing us tomorrow. I heard it straight from the camp commander. This is your chance.”
“No. Good luck, you crazy bastards.”
I slammed the door on Carrigan and ran into the forest, the three other men following me. Once in the darkness of the trees, I slid the headlight on its webbing band around my forehead. “Grab each other by the belt and hang on. We need to get as far as we can from here.”
Thankfully, there were no arguments to this rudimentary plan. I handed K-Man and each of the others a weapon, keeping the M16 and the compass knife for myself as we moved out. K-Man grabbed the back of my belt.
We managed a shuffling trot in the dense jungle, which was surprisingly open beneath the canopy of foliage far above, once we got away from the bushy growth around the camp. We were silent except for the crunching of sticks and leaves beneath our feet and the occasional grunt or muffled curse as someone stumbled or barked their shins in the dark. Periodically, I’d pause and check the compass, keeping us headed north.
I aimed the headlight toward the ground as best I could, navigating obstacles: a stump, a fallen log, a mound of dirt, a prickly thorned bush. Going around that, we startled some sort of ground-nesting bird, which flew up from beneath my feet with a shrill cry and a clatter of wings. K-Man cursed and pointed his pistol at it.
“No!” I pushed his weapon down. “We fire something, we might as well take out a neon sign telling where we are. We’re making enough racket as it is.” I took that moment to scan around us with the headlight, and the numbers of glowing animal eyes surrounding us were not reassuring. “Move out.”
I stepped forward and got a nasty surprise as some sort of snake wriggled out from under my boot, lashing back to bite. Fortunately it sank its teeth into my pants, and I was able to hit it away from me with the butt of the M16.
“Everyone find some kind of stick to fend off snakes. Many here are poisonous, so take a minute to tuck your pants into your boots.” I got no argument as I bent and pulled my heavy, filthy socks all the way up, wrapping my pants around my legs and tucking them into the tops of the hiking boots I’d slid my feet into on a day that seemed like a year ago.
I felt exhaustion dragging at me. Trembling racked my body. I’d tapped my resources tonight for sure. And there was no way out but through.
Fortunately, everyone but Carrigan had opted to wear the uniforms we’d been issued and some sort of boots. Only my roommate, Falconer, had been wearing a sleeveless black tank shirt when we were captured. Even with the heat of this place, it was better to be covered up.
The men found sturdy sticks nearby with the aid of my light, and I gestured for them to gather around. “My plan is to get us to the main river in this area, the Río Coco.”
Falconer was standing next to me, and he nodded. His skin was so dark that he disappeared without the light on him, the gleam of his eyes the only giveaway of his position.
“I know a little of the geography of the area.” His voice was a low rumble. “We can get to Nicaragua by crossing the river.”
“That’s what I was thinking. They won’t pursue us to that side, hopefully, and if we can make contact with some other people, we can get the hell out of here. I’ve been navigating with this.” I held out the compass-hilted knife for Falconer to see, suppressing a flash memory of the guard’s warm blood pumping over the plastic grip and my hand.
Falconer gave a brief nod of assent, and I turned away and forged forward, the headlamp holding back the darkness, the chain of men behind me a weight of trust.
Chapter Ten
Lei burst out of the heavy jungle underbrush at the edge of the river, stumbling over a noose of vine. The narrow two-lane road was just ahead, and her truck, pulled over on the shoulder, an oasis of safety.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Lei threw herself facedown to the ground behind a rock as the report of a shot was accompanied by the hiss and thunk of the round hitting a tree nearby. She smacked her shin on a protruding stone, scraped her cheek on the rough bark of a tree, and nearly knocked the wind out of herself. Rallying, the sound of pursuit unmistakable, Lei belly crawled behind the nearest cover, a large boulder surrounded by heavy undergrowth. Her breath tore through her lungs in ragged gulps as she tried to stay hidden but see where the threat was coming from.
Her only visual window was toward the road.
“Come out, cop!” A harsh bawl from the area of the stream. “Come out, and let’s make a deal!”
“Yeah, right,” Lei muttered under her breath. She was surrounded by heavy undergrowth and currently hidden, but it couldn’t last long if they decided to beat through the bushes. The road was a nearby promise of escape—but also dangerous. The hundred or so feet across the open asphalt to her vehicle looked miles away. She ejected the clip from her weapon and checked—she had thirteen rounds.
“That your truck, cop?” The harsh voice she was sure belonged to Boss Man had drawn closer. Lei very slowly pulled her limbs in tighter behind the protective shield of the rock. The smell of moss and damp stone filled her nostrils.
A sudden burst of
automatic gunfire made Lei jerk into an even smaller ball behind the rock. She lifted her head and peered out to look when it ended, and terror and rage dried her mouth—the growers had shot up her truck, blanketing the silver Tacoma with a fusillade of bullets. The alarm went off in feeble protest. The broken lights flashed and the vehicle pulsed in strangled tones, exactly like a creature dying. Another burst of gunfire, this time from the front, firing into the truck’s hood, ended the alarm with a wheezing, sad little bleep.
There was a second shooter on the other side of her. Both had automatic weapons.
The growers must have a path through the jungle on the other side of her—she knew there was nothing alongside the stream. She was pinned down between them, and her means of escape was gone.
“Shit.” Lei tried to calm her pounding heart and slow her breathing. Panicking wasn’t going to help. Unless these perps were going to beat their way through every foot of the natural cover she was embedded in, she was safe for the moment. She heard the rumble of a car’s engine coming down the road and held her breath, terrified for the unsuspecting commuters along the famous, picturesque Hana Highway.
The car, a bright red rental, meandered slowly past, a string of other cars and a van-style tour bus bringing up the rear. She could jump up and wave down a vehicle, but with the level of violence these growers were showing—what was to stop them from mowing down an innocent tourist in their effort to eliminate her? She couldn’t put anyone else in danger with the armed shooters right there in the bushes.
Surely someone would notice the bullet holes riddling her vehicle and call in? Please God. Please have someone call it in.
The train of cars passed on, with no visible decrease in speed or change of behavior in response to her battered truck, as if they drove past shot-up vehicles every day.
When the road was clear, the shooters came out onto the open road. One was the big man she’d nicknamed Boss Man. He was carrying an army-issued M16, and she spotted the handgun still in the back of his pants.