Primal Instinct Page 31

  Jim leaned over, tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to a series of monstrous driblets of the jagged rock jutting through the waves and looking like a school of dragons from an old legend. “Pahoehoe, the natives call it,” he announced through the headphones.

  Then Lee, the helicopter pilot, began to circle inland over the sleepy, staid, yet famous settlement known as Hana Town on the maps. They caught glimpses of the gray ribbon on Highway 36, the Hana Highway, which snaked crazily, hugging the coastline, twisting and turning along the virgin coastline where black beaches stared up at them like enormous, crescent-shaped cats' eyes.

  “My first black-beach spotting,” she confessed to Jim.

  “Beautiful, isn't it?”

  “Incredible.”

  “So like Hawaii to paint its beaches black. Look, would you like to go down to one of them?”

  “Really?” She saw down the coast another was coming into sight, a strip of black pebbles abutted on each side by lava cliffs. Beyond the beach lay a valley grown thick with hau and coconut trees. The ocean foam was stirred up wildly here in this desolate and isolated place of black sand.

  “It's created by a layer of volcanic rock washed and polished by the ocean for untold centuries,” he told her.

  “Can we really get to it?”

  “There's a trail—not a very good one—may be overgrown; leads down from the air strip.”

  Now she saw the small strip built here for commercial use of helicopters.

  'Trail may be grown over, but I brought a cane knife,” he continued.

  The mention of the cane cutter reined her emotions in, reminding her of the horrors they'd so effectively and completely left behind in the powerful wake of the chopper, Honolulu now a distant memory.

  The pilot pointed out a place he called the spout, another “blow hole” like the one at Koko Head on Oahu, and the sight of the shoreline geyser, sending up its powerful spray at hundreds of miles per hour, made Jessica's eyes turn to study Jim's, and there she found him out.

  “You wanted me to see this, didn't you?”

  “You're the one said he'd make for some place where he felt comfortable. There aren't too many of these spouts, and maybe it's about time we learn what happened to those missing Maui girls.”

  “Damnit, Jim, why didn't you tell me from the start?”

  He took in a deep breath of air. “I still think we can find some time here for ourselves. I've got enough equipment and food to last, and I've got a radio. We can call it quits whenever we like.”

  “We're going to dive here, you mean?”

  “That's if you'll... if you're still willing, yes.”

  “Jim, you want to come clean? Just... just tell me what's going on here.” She was both hurt and angry.

  “I planned to drop our gear here, have Lee take our bags on to the hotel and pick us up tomorrow. It's only ten minutes to Kahului, the island's main commercial airport and relative civilization, if you want to go back to Oahu, Jess.”

  “So, tonight you planned that we'd be roughing it, and tomorrow we'd make a dive near the Spout? Is that it?”

  “It's rough, but not near so rough a dive as the Blow Hole. I plan to get in as closely as good sense and safety allow.”

  “Good sense, huh? On the off chance we could be more successful here than the Navy divers had been in Oahu? Just tell me, Jim, what is the nature of this probe you're suggesting?” She had to secredy admit, she was intrigued even though he hadn't been completely truthful. “Do you have any facts here, or is this a hunch you're following?”

  “I've studied every inch of every police report filed on the missing girls here on Maui. One report mentioned some strange bird who was rousted for driving under the influence, caught pulling out of this area late one night. The reason it was in the report at all was that the car matched the description of one given by a witness in a later case, but a Lopaka Kowona was sought out afterwards, questioned and let go. The information was buried under stacks, and even I'd forgotten about it until we got Lopaka's name again.”

  “So knowing about the Spout, you came here.”

  He nodded, saying no more.

  She asked, “Did all the missing girls live in the vicinity of the airport in Kahului or along the Hana Highway?”

  “No, not really. They're from all over the island, but quite a few disappeared from Lahaina, the busiest tourist area where the old whaling sites and village are. The streets are lined with shops, row on row.”

  “I know, I've been there,” she confessed. “Dropped a bundle.”

  “Of course you know already that information places our man here on the island some years ago, during which time the disappearances became frequent during the season for the trades.”

  “I'm more interested in recent history, Jim. What makes you think he's here and not on Molokai or elsewhere?”

  He shrugged and explained his reasoning, not forgetting to tell her that whatever path Joe Kaniola had wanted him to take, he felt compelled to move in the opposite direction.

  “So he says Molokai?”

  “Yeah, that's right.”

  “So you theorize Maui, and you know about the Spout, and you come directly for Lopaka's old dumping site. Not bad. Parry. Careful or somebody's going to call you slick.”

  “I just put it together.”

  “Rather pady, don't you think?”

  “Hey, two and two is always pat. The Spout's too good a connection to blow off.”

  “What about all those Kowona sightings we were getting all over Oahu?” she asked. “Like Elvis sightings?”

  “Ever notice how nobody's seen Roy Orbison's obese ghost anywhere?” he joked.

  “Suppose our being here's a mistake, Jim. Suppose one of those sightings on Oahu was correct. What then?”

  “You face it. Kowona sightings have come in from every bloody corner of every island except Maui. That makes me suspicious as hell.”

  “Are you sure your coming here has been the right step, Jim?” she persisted. “I want to know why you're committed to this move.”

  “It's what Gagliano and I've been able to pick up on the street, and like I said, it goes contrary to what Joe Kaniola would have us believe.”

  “But why would Kaniola want Kowona to escape, to go free? Just to hurt you, Jim? That doesn't figure.”

  “I'm not so sure Kaniola isn't working up to another revenge hit, like what happened to Oniiwah, only now he has the right target.”

  “You don't really think Kaniola had anything to do with George Oniiwah's death, do you?”

  “I'm not one hundred percent convinced that he didn't, no. Ahh, maybe not. I don't know.”

  “Just playing on hunches and guts, huh?”

  “So whataya think?” he asked with a boyish, disarming smile. “Are you in or out? Lee can take you straight to the airport and you can be back in Honolulu in a few hours. What's it to be?”

  She frowned, shook her head and stared down at the blinking black beach over which Lee had hovered as if to tempt her on. “You've thought this through thoroughly, haven't you?”

  “Sometimes ideas come to me after a good sleep.”

  Off Hana, the night sky was telling them they had very little time to decide. Over the headphones, the pilot cut into their conversation, saying, “I can set down on the ledge at the strip, but it'll have to be now, Mr. Parry.”

  “Put her down, Lee,” said Jessica.

  Parry placed a hand over hers. “You won't regret it.”

  “I've heard that line before.”

  The chopper put down at a small strip just the other side of the cliff wall. Parry climbed out behind her, tugging at a large duffle containing much of what they needed, including most of their diving gear. The pilot opened a compartment in the belly of the chopper and began hefting out air tanks, complaining that they were the reason the bird was so sluggish. Jessica hadn't noticed a moment's sluggishness in the aircraft, and had in fact thought it capable of duplicating any aviary
movement without the slightest awkwardness.

  “When's somebody going to invent a lightweight air tank that's affordable?” the pilot continued, lamenting aloud for no one in particular.

  The air strip, built for the heavy commercial chopper traffic that buzzed about the islands, was deserted this time of night. “Make a lot better time for Kahului without all the weight,” Parry assured the pilot, slipping him a hefty tip. “And thanks, Lee.”

  “You give a holler when you want me back,” he replied. “And I hope you'll enjoy lovely Hana and her waters. I'll see your bags go on to the inn.”

  “The inn,” she repeated for Jim's benefit. “Hmmmm, you do plan carefully, don't you?” And for the first time since seeing the Spout, she realized that the charter was in fact a commercial deal, not FBI issue after all. This then refueled her earlier suspicion that Parry was doing something counter to his own best interest here.

  Tugging him away from the pilot, she said, “James Parry, you're disobeying orders, aren't you?”

  “What the hell're you talking about now?” he replied. “Come on, we've got to set up a tent and build a fire on the beach.”

  She frowned and scowled and stared at the departing helicopter as it lifted, leaving them in the wilderness of Hawaii, quite alone on their own private black sand beach.

  “I've always wanted to walk on a black sand beach,” she admitted, “but I want to know just what we're doing here, Jim. This is an unauthorized campaign, isn't it?”

  “I can see there's no keeping a secret from you.” He hefted as much of the equipment as he could carry. “Grab a tank, and follow me down to the beach. I'll explain along the way.”

  She hefted two tanks.

  “Hey, take it easy. We're going to have to make two trips regardless, so...”

  “Just move out and show me the way, and thanks for insisting I wear jeans.” He shook his head, smiled and moved out ahead of her toward the winding little footpath that would take them to the ocean edge and its volcanic, exotic black sand, which, in the approaching night, sparkled as if some magical stardust had been sprinkled by island angels, the jeweled flakes blinking under the moon. A sparkling gift of the sea.

  'Talk about mixing business with pleasure,” she called out to him as he moved along the footpath to the richly colored volcanic beach.

  “Be careful where you step along here,” he bluntly cautioned.

  “Why? What're we afraid of? Scorpions, snakes, iguanas, what?”

  She could hear the softly cushioned roar of the ocean as it rose up to meet them, as if it were lulling the world with some eternal hymn. A shaggy, unkempt grove of pandanus trees lined their way, each tree looking like an old man trying to get up the cliff, each bent from the effects of the ocean wind on their woody bodies. The ground was spongy with rotted palm fronds, and all around them the spiny, saw-toothed foliage crackled and tore at her with a disturbing and eerie wind giving it life. For a moment, seeing Jim ahead of her, the cane cutter strapped to his hip, she felt a mild but compelling wave of fear rush in to her.

  “Careful!” he shouted, and pointed at obstacles in their way, lashing out from time to time with the cane cutter, swiping away at vines and saw-toothed leaves. “Puka!” he next shouted. “Large enough to swallow you whole. Careful!”

  “What? What're you saying, Jim?”

  “Watch out for these!”

  She peered down at his feet to see a strange hole large enough for either of them to slip through; it appeared to spiral to a bottomless cavern.

  “Puka, it's called. Volcanic hole carved out of lava,” he explained. “I'd hoped to get here before dark.”

  “I can see why.”

  After several minutes of steady, rhythmic hacking with the cane knife, Jim stepped into a surprising and unblemished clearing, into which she quickly followed. This unimpeded area the size of a ballfield was neatly divided by ancient stones covered with spongy moss picked up by the beam of her flashlight. The clearing was bracketed by rows of slender, tall coconut trees acting as silent sentinels here, their plumed tops tilting to the wind, which seemed a refreshing but eerily constant force. She saw evidence of a graveyard in the distance and a marsh and stream beyond. A cluster of stunted kamani trees hung low over the setting. Behind this swampy area there was an impenetrable wall of hau trees that stretched back into the valley.

  “We're almost there,” said Jim.

  “What is this place?” she asked, feeling it had a sense of haunting.

  “Just a clearing.”

  “It's more than that.”

  “Well, legend has it there was once a village here, part of the Wailanos people, whose beneficent deity was the lizard. They were mostly fishermen.”

  “Really? I sensed there was something about this place.” She imagined the simple life that had once gone on here, the sound of babies crying, of women pounding poi or beating tapa, of men telling tales as they repaired nets and others working shark tooth and shell into a lei. She pictured old women bathing their babies in the nearby surf. She could even hear the laughter of the children in the tidal pools... but then she realized what it must be that she was hearing: the rushing surge of the sea and its counterpoint, the outgoing flow, that timeless heartbeat of the ocean.

  Still, if any place on earth harbored spirits, she sensed them here, felt them blowing lightly over her hair and down her neck. She'd felt a similar sensation once as a child, stepping lightly through a deserted cemetery. Her curiosity about headstones and what they said had gotten the best of her even as a young girl, and it had grown with age into what some considered a morbid hobby, which put off a lot of gentlemen callers along with her profession. Still, visiting old cemeteries and studying what was written on ancient headstones had always held a fascination for her. She'd taken vacation tours in New England just to get to the oldest cemeteries in the land, and one day she hoped to get to see some of the oldest in Europe, Great Britain and Ireland. She told Jim this, and added, “Just feels like we're being watched, you know.”

  “Hey, come daylight, if you want to check for headstones, you'll find 'em here but no markings,” he said. “For now, let's trudge on, huh?”

  “You're reading my mind now, Parry.”

  “Let's just say I'm beginning to learn.”

  They continued on. “Just how often have you brought women here, Jim?”

  “Don't do this, Jess.”

  “Do what?”

  “See what I mean?” he asked without looking back.

  “No, I don't see what you mean.”

  “Your damned FBI training takes over once more.”

  “That's a nasty thing to say,” she replied with a tinge of indignity.”It's better than saying you're too suspicious.”

  “Well, you don't deny that you've been here before, and if you've been here before, a place like this, you don't come alone, now do you?”

  “All right... all right. You're the second, if you want the truth.”

  “I want the truth.”

  “But I've never dived here with anyone.”

  “Diving doesn't look safe here. Not a place for the islander dive shops to bring their charges.”

  “You got that right.”

  “Whataya mean? No one dives here?”

  “No.” He turned and stared long into her eyes. “We'll be the first.”

  “A virgin dive. That'd be something to take home. But this place... it's kind of a spooky, Jim,” she observed. “I mean it's really desolate. If anything should happen down below...”

  “This location can be reached from the Hana Highway.”

  “That doesn't inspire confidence. Isn't there something like six hundred curves?”

  “Six hundred seventeen, mostly hairpins, with fifty-six one-lane bridges, but in case of emergency, go toward Hana Town, not away. There's a small hospital there.”

  “And I'm sure they're equipped with the latest in decompression chambers, sure. Where's the nearest phone?”

  “W
e're not totally isolated. I've got a CB radio in one of the packs, and you saw the village of Hana as we came over, a few cattle ranches, and if things get too rough, we can always hike up to the Hana-Maui, only six hundred dollars a night to stay in the lobby's john,” he joked.

  She wasn't laughing.

  “Come on, Jess... there's a dirt road pull-in the other side of the helicopter pad. We could have visitors tomorrow, and our pilot's due back by noon. In any case, it's not quite as impregnable as it looks from the air, not if you're willing to make the trek.”

  “Do you really think Lopaka Kowona used this place as he did Koko Head on Oahu?”

  “It's worth a look-see; that's what I think. Drop one of those tanks here.”

  “What?” she gasped, a little out of breath.

  “We go down sharply from here. I don't want you losing your footing. It's only just wide enough for one foot at a time, and if you fall, it's a straight plunge into the sea.”

  Protesting, Jessica said, “Only the other day I was using a cane, remember.” She did as he suggested, placing one of the heavy air tanks on the ground. When she did so, she saw a place where they might climb out over the cliff ledge and stand over the Spout, which continued to blast water into the night sky like a powerful Chicago fire department boat she'd once seen battling a blaze from its moorings in the Chicago River just below the Michigan Avenue bridge.

  Seeing her stare off in the direction of the Spout, he said, “Quite a sight. See what I mean?”

  The ocean water roared here, a fierce lion, as it was pummeled and forced through the underwater tunnel and out through the whale-like promontory of rock at the spoutlike egress. The thunder it created was deafening, the water reaching them in a light spray even here. “Yeah... yeah, I do.” She was beginning to feel like Fay Wray in the frightful kingdom of King Kong.

  Below them, lava rocks jutted from the frothy foam, forming gargantuan sea monsters that seemed perched on the waves, readying for any morsel to fall into their demonic jaws. It might be insane and impossible to dive here. It was anything but the peaceful underwater crater she'd dived in on the opposite side of the island before she'd ever met Jim Parry. Here the current and the dragon rocks would make it a precarious and risky venture, an underwater Dungeons and Dragons, filled with every sort of obstacle and demon, she surmised from the murky surface.