Hayden and Kinimaka spent the morning at the local Honolulu PD. The news was that some of Claude’s ‘associates’ had been taken out during the night, but no real news was forthcoming. A club owner called Pilipo was saying very little. Several of his bouncers were in hospital. It also appeared his video feed had miraculously gone down when a man and two women had assaulted him sometime before midnight.
Add to that a bloody gun-battle somewhere in downtown that involved more of Claude’s known associates. When armed officers had arrived at the scene, all they found was an empty house. No men. No bodies. Just blood on the floor and a kitchen table that, when dusted, revealed traces of C4.
Hayden tried Drake. She tried Alicia. She pulled Mano to one side and whispered furiously in his ear. “Damn them! They don’t know we have the backing to proceed as we see fit. They need to know.”
Kinimaka shrugged, his big shoulders rising and falling. “Maybe Drake doesn’t want to know. He’ll do this his way, government backing or not.”
“He’s a liability now.”
“Or a poisonous arrow shooting straight for the heart.” Kinimaka smiled when his boss glanced at him.
Hayden was momentarily fazed. “What? Are those song lyrics, or something?”
Kinimaka looked hurt. “Don’t think so, boss. So”—he flicked a glance toward the assembled cops—“what does the HPD know about Claude?”
Hayden sighed deeply. “Not surprisingly, very little. Claude’s the shady owner of a few clubs that may or may not be involved in illegal activities. They’re not high on the HPD’s watch list. Hence, their silent owner stays anonymous.”
“With everything no doubt engineered by Kovalenko.”
“No doubt. It always pays for a criminal to be several times removed from the real world.”
“Maybe Drake’s making progress. If he wasn’t, I think he’d be with us.”
Hayden nodded. “Let’s hope so. In the meantime, we have a few locals to shake down. And you should make contact with anyone you know who might be able to help us. Kovalenko’s started a bloodbath already. I hate to think how it might all end up.”
Ben fought hard to keep the focus at a high level. His emotions were in disarray. It was months now since his life had been normal. Before the ‘Odin thing’ his idea of being adventurous was keeping his modern rock band, The Wall of Sleep, a secret from his mum and dad. He was a family man, a good-hearted nerd with a talent for all things technical.
Now he’d seen fighting. He’d seen men killed. He’d fought for his life. His best friend’s girlfriend had died in his arms.
The adjustment between worlds was wrenching him apart.
Add to that the pressure of coping with his new girlfriend, an American CIA agent, and he wasn’t the least bit surprised to find himself floundering.
Not that he’d ever tell his friends. His family, yes, he could tell them. But Karin wasn’t ready for it yet. And she had troubles of her own. He’d just told her that after five years she should have moved on, but he knew that if the same thing ever happened to him, it would destroy the rest of his life.
And the remaining members of the Wall of Sleep were texting him constantly. Where the f*** are you, Blakey? Get together tonight? At least text me back, wanker! They had new tracks ready to lay down. It was his bloody dream!
Placed in jeopardy now by the very thing that had given him his big break.
He thought of Hayden. When the world came down, he could always switch his thoughts to her and everything felt a little easier. His mind drifted. He kept on scrolling down the pages of the online eBook that someone had transcribed from Cook’s own scribblings.
He almost missed it.
For suddenly, right there amidst the weather reports and the longitude and latitude notations and the brief details about who was punished for refusing daily rations of beef and who had been found dead in the rigging, was a short reference to the Gates of Pele.
“Sis.” Ben breathed. “I think I’ve found something.” He read a short paragraph. “Wow, it’s a man’s accounting of their journey. You ready for this?”
Drake went from lightly sleeping to wide awake in the time it took to open his eyes. Mai was pacing up and down behind him. It sounded like Alicia was in the shower.
“How long have we been out?”
“Ninety minutes, give or take. Here — check this.” Mai threw him one of the handguns they had liberated from Buchanan and his men.
“What’s the count?”
“Five revolvers. All serviceable. Two .38’s and three .45s. All with three quarter full mags.”
“More than enough.” Drake stood up and stretched. They had decided they were likely to be hitting more serious opposition — men close to Claude— so carrying weapons was imperative.
Alicia padded out of the bathroom, hair wet, shrugging on a jacket. “Ready to roll?”
The information they had obtained from Buchanan was that both Scarberry and Peterson owned an exotic car dealership on the outskirts of Waikiki. Called Exoticars, it was both a sales outlet and repair shop. It also rented most types of high-end vehicles.
A very lucrative front, Drake thought. No doubt developed to help conceal all sorts of criminal enterprise. Scarberry and Peterson were undoubtedly close to the top of the food chain. Claude would be next.
They climbed into a cab and gave the driver the dealership’s address. It was about twenty minutes away.
Ben and Karin read through Captain Cook’s log with wonder.
To see through another man’s eyes events that happened to a famous seafaring Captain over two-hundred years ago was remarkable enough. But to read an account of Cook’s recorded but still highly secretive journey beneath Hawaii’s most famous volcano was almost overwhelming.
“This is amazing.” Karin flicked through her copy on the computer screen. “One thing you don’t realize is the brilliant foresight Cook had. He took men from every field with him to record his discoveries. Scientists. Botanists. Artists. Look—” She tapped the screen.
Ben leaned over to see an exquisitely rendered drawing of a plant. “Cool.”
Karin glared. “It is cool. These plants were undiscovered and undocumented until Cook and his crew logged them and returned to England with these fantastic drawings and descriptions. They mapped our world, these men. They painted the landscapes and the coastlines like we would just snap a photo today. Think about it.”
Ben’s voice betrayed his excitement. “I know. I know. But listen to this—”
“Woah.” Karin was engrossed in her own yarn. “Did you know that one of Cook’s crew was William Bligh? The man who went on to captain the Bounty? And that the American president at the time, Benjamin Franklin, sent a message out to all his sea captains to leave Cook alone, despite the fact that the American’s were at war with the British at the time. Franklin called him a ‘common friend to mankind.’”
“Sis.” Ben hissed. “I’ve found something. Listen—landfall was made on Owhyhee (Hawaii) near the high point on the island. Latitude 21degrees 15 minutes North, Longitude 147 degrees North, 48 minutes West. Height 762 feet. We were obliged to make anchor near Leahi and go ashore. The natives we employed looked like they might strip the cloths from our backs for a bottle of rum, but were in fact both tolerable and knowledgeable.”
“Give me the abridged version,” Karin barked. “In English.”
Ben growled at her. “God, girl, where’s your Indiana Jones? Your Luke Skywalker? You just got no sense of adventure. Okay, well, our narrator, a man called Hawksworth, went with Cook, six other seamen and a handful of natives to investigate something the natives referred to as the Gates of Pele. This was done without the local king’s knowledge and at great risk. If they were found out, the king would kill them all. The Hawaiians venerated the Gates of Pele. The native guides demanded great rewards.”