Happy Tuesday everyone.
I've posted some long chapters over the past weeks and many of you have read them like the troopers you are. To reward the faithful, this post is short.
Thank you for reading and commenting, especially the Arkansas crew.
Aloha,
Doug
The Bones of the King CHAPTER 118 Courage in the dark
Kaiulani thought of her coming death and hung her head and sobbed.
The thought of her life ending and the long march of time continuing without her were too much to bear. She did not want to become someone else’s memory. Life was too precious. She would miss her mother and Noah and her young cousins flocking around her during hula classes at Kawaihae. She would miss the dawn swims and the view of the moon rising over the mountain month after month in its endless cycle. Alone in the darkness and afraid, Kaiulani reached out to the only source of solace she knew in times of trouble.
She was a descendant of warriors proud and strong, members of a race that had found its way to Hawaii in open hulled canoes guided by navigators the likes of which the world would never see again. They had suffered and died, yes, but they had lived and loved and survived. Her story was their story and their strength was hers. She reminded herself she was being watched and stopped crying. Kaiulani raised her head. Whatever fate awaited her, she would face it with eyes undimmed by tears. She would not give al Shar the pleasure of seeing her cower and she would fight for her life and the lives of those she loved.
Summoning the courage of her ancestors, Kaiulani steeled herself and waited for the ordeal to come.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
At Play in the Home of her Ancestors
Thanks to your comments a new name for D.T. Rhysing's submarine has been found. Formerly the Hot Runner, a name only a submariner could love, his creation and one of the central characters of The Bones of the King has been changed to DreamWeaver. Let me know what you think.
This chapter is an introduction to Kaiulani. Free spirit and child of the sea.
Please read and comment. Your input is very much appreciated.
Aloha,
Doug
CHAPTER 12
Kaiulani Spencer stood quietly beneath the palm grove at the southern end of the beach at Anaeho’omalu Bay and listened to the trade winds rustling the fronds high above her. The eastern sky was molten silver, heralding the imminent arrival of the sun. Giving thanks to the gods of her ancestors and the spirits of all who went before her for the gift of another day, Kaiulani walked down the gentle slope into the cool water. Small waves broke against her knees and the sand between her toes was rough and pebbly. Kaiulani enjoyed the dawn like no other time. The beach was usually deserted and even when there were people about they seemed to be of the same mind, quiet and contemplative, respectful of the majesty of a new day beginning.
Diving into the low surf, Kaiulani swam down to the sandy bottom and stroked hard for the mouth of the bay. A school of manini parted as she approached, eyeing her warily but sensing that she posed no threat. Surfacing for air like a breaching dolphin, Kaiulani swam with a fluid grace, her sleek frame gliding through the gradually clearing water until she saw the start of the coral reef twenty-five feet below. Once more she dove, clearing her ears as she descended to her favorite spot, a graceful arch of coral growing on a foundation of jumbled basalt fragments.
Cradling a stone block the size of a football in her lap, Kaiulani sat cross legged on the sand and let herself become one with morning in the bay. The dirge like cadence of individual Ulu taking rasping bites of lobe coral sounded on top of a back beat of clicks and chirps of the pod of Nai’a heading to Kiholo for their morning play. The low thunder of the surf at 69’s came faintly beneath the staccato snap of shrimp and merged with the distant sound of a charter boat’s propellers. Each sound spoke to her, telling her about the day and much that was happening in and on the body of water she called home.
The world was peaceful and she sensed it in every cell of her body. Her heart’s lazy throb mixed with the other sounds and she willed it to slow to match the unhurried pace of life beneath the waves. The longest she had ever held her breath at this depth was three and a half minutes. Today she would hit two and half easily. It was a but short time in the morning on the reef, yet starting her day thus always helped to remind her that Hawaii was far more than the Aina. The land was but a dot in the middle of a vast blue world whose inhabitants knew nothing of the empty space above it. Kaiulani counted herself fortunate to be able to visit the ocean with such regularity.
A stirring of cold water brushed against her back. Kaiulani knew that if she had a mask on she would see a distinct swirling distortion created by freshwater welling up and out of the seabed and mixing with salt water. There was a spring behind her, one of many that could be found through careful searching by a patient swimmer. Long ago her ancestors had taken large gourds, called hoewai or ipu, with holes at either end and placed them directly over such outflows. When the more buoyant freshwater had displaced all the salt water from the gourd, they would plug both ends and swim to the surface and then to shore bearing the precious cargo. Through ingenuity and an intimate knowledge of their environment, they were able to make Anaeho’omalu into a thriving community, one that had been continually inhabited for over eight hundred years. Hawaiians were a wonderfully inventive people, children of the land and the sea, and Kaiulani Spencer reveled in being one of them.
When she felt her lungs pulsing Kaiulani put the stone down and slowly floated toward the surface. As the sky drew closer she realized not for the first time that she was as relaxed as it was possible to be without sleeping. Her body seemed to sense this and even her lungs quit urging her to inhale. Pulling with her arms and kicking hard, Kaiulani surged upward, exhaling just before she cleared the surface. Crossing the boundary separating two worlds, Kaiulani inhaled a huge breath and took in the view from her offshore vantage point.
Sunlight sparkled on the water as she floated. A few early risers had made their way down to the beach chairs and were settling in for their morning’s sun worship. She wondered if she would be teaching one or two of them later. Beyond the palms to the south a lone man walked along the lava and sand that formed the shoreline. He had the look of a local; long-sleeved shirt and straw hat to protect him from the sun, surf trunks and tabis, the black rubber split toe reef walkers popular with some shore fisherman. Up by the showers she could make out Chris Pope and Kimo Andrade, two of the staff hired by Noah, her brother, and D.T. Rhysing at the outset of operations of their company. Chris and Kimo were walking a pair of hydrospeeders on their lightweight trailers down to the waters edge. To the north the trade winds had flattened the clouds above the Kohala range and were ripping shreds off of them that were driven downslope and out to sea. Their wispy remnants faded above the black lava flows that surrounded the bay and then regained some of their lost moisture as they sped out to sea. It was going to be a great day for windsurfers and a murky day for snorkelers. The happy medium was going to be SCUBA diving. Kaiulani smiled. She was happiest when she was in the water teaching, swimming, or playing, it didn’t matter which to her.
Kaiulani and her brother had been working as beach attendants when D.T. Rhysing had shown up one day and started drawing diagrams of his submarine in the wet sand. Before the incoming tide erased them all an hour later he and Noah had become friends and many weeks and hundreds of drawings later they had become partners. Noah had given his two weeks notice to the beach shack supervisor and flown with D.T. to California and then to the east coast. He said he was just keeping D.T. company and it was like her brother to not seek the limelight, but she knew he was doing more than that. Noah and D.T. were shepherding the hull of the DreamWeaver, the submarine that D.T. had conjured up out of the sands of Anaeho'omalu, through its creation at a foundry and following as it went to each of the subcontractors for additional work. Noah was gone for two interminable months and Kaiulani had missed him fiercely, but she knew he was involved in a once in a lifetime opportunity and encouraged him every time he called home. When he returned, Noah was a changed person, due in large part to the responsibilities that he had taken on in the partnership with D.T.
At first she had been worried that the strange vessel they had built would claim Noah’s life somehow but in time the fear had receded. On the morning of the inaugural dive, D.T. and Noah had approached her and asked whether she would come and work for them as a pilot. She had been honored and thanked them both, but had declined. Why would she choose to work inside a steel hull when she could spend her days swimming? It was really no contest.
From that day forward Kaiulani had looked at D.T. Rhysing in a different light. She liked him and respected his knowledge and the easy way he shared what he knew with Noah. It was, she reflected more than once, a very Hawaiian thing to do. D.T. was a handsome man, tall and well muscled, but not overly so. His blond hair had a way of falling across his face as he was talking and the way he brushed it absently away always made her look at his eyes. They were a deep sea green, sometimes shifting all the way into blue in the right surroundings. He made her think more than once about what it would be like to engage in the sport of love with him, but despite this attraction she kept her distance, wary but curious at the same time.
Business for the fledgling company had grown rapidly and all had gone well until yesterday’s disaster. Kaiulani had spent a long time at the hospital reassuring herself that Noah was not hurt. He had explained again what they were searching for and told her the sad news of their discovery. How terrible for that young girl to be killed in such a fashion and then dumped into the ocean. Noah had finally convinced her to go home. He knew she would be up early and told her he did not want her over-tired on his account. His reassurances did little to put her fears to rest. The man they suspected, Sid Hart, was on the loose and had already tried to kill her brother once. Would he try again? Kaiulani wondered about this briefly but then put the question behind her.
The day was young and promised to be gorgeous. Chris and Kimo had staged the hydrospeeders and were now attending to the DreamWeaver. Mated to its transporter and looking none the worse for wear from the previous day’s troubles, the sub was entering the water for the first of the morning dives. Kaiulani smiled in anticipation and swam to a spot near a pinnacle on the north side of the bay’s mouth.
Despite declining to join the team at Manta Ray Submarines, Kaiulani had, in her own pleasurable and unique way, done her part to help the business get off the ground. What had started innocently enough in a chance encounter with the submerged sub had turned into a legend of sorts and now seemed to account for the fact that the first dive of the day was the most popular by far. By the time she was in position the DreamWeaver had taken on its two passengers and was motoring on the surface out towards the channel. As she watched, the sleek shape slipped effortlessly beneath the waves, leaving only a smooth patch of water in its now invisible wake.
Kaiulani took several deep breaths and counted slowly to thirty, then jackknifed and propelled herself gracefully down to the side of the coral pinnacle below. Once in position she quickly removed the top and bottom of her bikini and stuffed them into a crevice. She could hear the high-pitched note of the DreamWeaver’s thrusters long before she saw the sub gliding toward her through the sunlit water. Kicking hard, Kaiulani set out for the bottom and then turned on her back and watched as the DreamWeaver approached twenty feet above her. She saw the blurry visage of Chris Pope wave from the center view port and imagined with satisfaction the open mouthed astonishment of the two men on either side of him. Then the perfect symmetry of the manta shape passed overhead and she rose beneath it and positioned herself. Trailing behind the body of the sub was the manta’s tail, a thin, stiff whip-like appendage. With a surge of speed Kai reached out and grabbed the tip as it went by. Holding tight with one hand, she hitched a ride for an eternal few seconds beneath the blue bowl of the sky, a creature of delight at play in the home of her ancestors.
This chapter is an introduction to Kaiulani. Free spirit and child of the sea.
Please read and comment. Your input is very much appreciated.
Aloha,
Doug
CHAPTER 12
Kaiulani Spencer stood quietly beneath the palm grove at the southern end of the beach at Anaeho’omalu Bay and listened to the trade winds rustling the fronds high above her. The eastern sky was molten silver, heralding the imminent arrival of the sun. Giving thanks to the gods of her ancestors and the spirits of all who went before her for the gift of another day, Kaiulani walked down the gentle slope into the cool water. Small waves broke against her knees and the sand between her toes was rough and pebbly. Kaiulani enjoyed the dawn like no other time. The beach was usually deserted and even when there were people about they seemed to be of the same mind, quiet and contemplative, respectful of the majesty of a new day beginning.
Diving into the low surf, Kaiulani swam down to the sandy bottom and stroked hard for the mouth of the bay. A school of manini parted as she approached, eyeing her warily but sensing that she posed no threat. Surfacing for air like a breaching dolphin, Kaiulani swam with a fluid grace, her sleek frame gliding through the gradually clearing water until she saw the start of the coral reef twenty-five feet below. Once more she dove, clearing her ears as she descended to her favorite spot, a graceful arch of coral growing on a foundation of jumbled basalt fragments.
Cradling a stone block the size of a football in her lap, Kaiulani sat cross legged on the sand and let herself become one with morning in the bay. The dirge like cadence of individual Ulu taking rasping bites of lobe coral sounded on top of a back beat of clicks and chirps of the pod of Nai’a heading to Kiholo for their morning play. The low thunder of the surf at 69’s came faintly beneath the staccato snap of shrimp and merged with the distant sound of a charter boat’s propellers. Each sound spoke to her, telling her about the day and much that was happening in and on the body of water she called home.
The world was peaceful and she sensed it in every cell of her body. Her heart’s lazy throb mixed with the other sounds and she willed it to slow to match the unhurried pace of life beneath the waves. The longest she had ever held her breath at this depth was three and a half minutes. Today she would hit two and half easily. It was a but short time in the morning on the reef, yet starting her day thus always helped to remind her that Hawaii was far more than the Aina. The land was but a dot in the middle of a vast blue world whose inhabitants knew nothing of the empty space above it. Kaiulani counted herself fortunate to be able to visit the ocean with such regularity.
A stirring of cold water brushed against her back. Kaiulani knew that if she had a mask on she would see a distinct swirling distortion created by freshwater welling up and out of the seabed and mixing with salt water. There was a spring behind her, one of many that could be found through careful searching by a patient swimmer. Long ago her ancestors had taken large gourds, called hoewai or ipu, with holes at either end and placed them directly over such outflows. When the more buoyant freshwater had displaced all the salt water from the gourd, they would plug both ends and swim to the surface and then to shore bearing the precious cargo. Through ingenuity and an intimate knowledge of their environment, they were able to make Anaeho’omalu into a thriving community, one that had been continually inhabited for over eight hundred years. Hawaiians were a wonderfully inventive people, children of the land and the sea, and Kaiulani Spencer reveled in being one of them.
When she felt her lungs pulsing Kaiulani put the stone down and slowly floated toward the surface. As the sky drew closer she realized not for the first time that she was as relaxed as it was possible to be without sleeping. Her body seemed to sense this and even her lungs quit urging her to inhale. Pulling with her arms and kicking hard, Kaiulani surged upward, exhaling just before she cleared the surface. Crossing the boundary separating two worlds, Kaiulani inhaled a huge breath and took in the view from her offshore vantage point.
Sunlight sparkled on the water as she floated. A few early risers had made their way down to the beach chairs and were settling in for their morning’s sun worship. She wondered if she would be teaching one or two of them later. Beyond the palms to the south a lone man walked along the lava and sand that formed the shoreline. He had the look of a local; long-sleeved shirt and straw hat to protect him from the sun, surf trunks and tabis, the black rubber split toe reef walkers popular with some shore fisherman. Up by the showers she could make out Chris Pope and Kimo Andrade, two of the staff hired by Noah, her brother, and D.T. Rhysing at the outset of operations of their company. Chris and Kimo were walking a pair of hydrospeeders on their lightweight trailers down to the waters edge. To the north the trade winds had flattened the clouds above the Kohala range and were ripping shreds off of them that were driven downslope and out to sea. Their wispy remnants faded above the black lava flows that surrounded the bay and then regained some of their lost moisture as they sped out to sea. It was going to be a great day for windsurfers and a murky day for snorkelers. The happy medium was going to be SCUBA diving. Kaiulani smiled. She was happiest when she was in the water teaching, swimming, or playing, it didn’t matter which to her.
Kaiulani and her brother had been working as beach attendants when D.T. Rhysing had shown up one day and started drawing diagrams of his submarine in the wet sand. Before the incoming tide erased them all an hour later he and Noah had become friends and many weeks and hundreds of drawings later they had become partners. Noah had given his two weeks notice to the beach shack supervisor and flown with D.T. to California and then to the east coast. He said he was just keeping D.T. company and it was like her brother to not seek the limelight, but she knew he was doing more than that. Noah and D.T. were shepherding the hull of the DreamWeaver, the submarine that D.T. had conjured up out of the sands of Anaeho'omalu, through its creation at a foundry and following as it went to each of the subcontractors for additional work. Noah was gone for two interminable months and Kaiulani had missed him fiercely, but she knew he was involved in a once in a lifetime opportunity and encouraged him every time he called home. When he returned, Noah was a changed person, due in large part to the responsibilities that he had taken on in the partnership with D.T.
At first she had been worried that the strange vessel they had built would claim Noah’s life somehow but in time the fear had receded. On the morning of the inaugural dive, D.T. and Noah had approached her and asked whether she would come and work for them as a pilot. She had been honored and thanked them both, but had declined. Why would she choose to work inside a steel hull when she could spend her days swimming? It was really no contest.
From that day forward Kaiulani had looked at D.T. Rhysing in a different light. She liked him and respected his knowledge and the easy way he shared what he knew with Noah. It was, she reflected more than once, a very Hawaiian thing to do. D.T. was a handsome man, tall and well muscled, but not overly so. His blond hair had a way of falling across his face as he was talking and the way he brushed it absently away always made her look at his eyes. They were a deep sea green, sometimes shifting all the way into blue in the right surroundings. He made her think more than once about what it would be like to engage in the sport of love with him, but despite this attraction she kept her distance, wary but curious at the same time.
Business for the fledgling company had grown rapidly and all had gone well until yesterday’s disaster. Kaiulani had spent a long time at the hospital reassuring herself that Noah was not hurt. He had explained again what they were searching for and told her the sad news of their discovery. How terrible for that young girl to be killed in such a fashion and then dumped into the ocean. Noah had finally convinced her to go home. He knew she would be up early and told her he did not want her over-tired on his account. His reassurances did little to put her fears to rest. The man they suspected, Sid Hart, was on the loose and had already tried to kill her brother once. Would he try again? Kaiulani wondered about this briefly but then put the question behind her.
The day was young and promised to be gorgeous. Chris and Kimo had staged the hydrospeeders and were now attending to the DreamWeaver. Mated to its transporter and looking none the worse for wear from the previous day’s troubles, the sub was entering the water for the first of the morning dives. Kaiulani smiled in anticipation and swam to a spot near a pinnacle on the north side of the bay’s mouth.
Despite declining to join the team at Manta Ray Submarines, Kaiulani had, in her own pleasurable and unique way, done her part to help the business get off the ground. What had started innocently enough in a chance encounter with the submerged sub had turned into a legend of sorts and now seemed to account for the fact that the first dive of the day was the most popular by far. By the time she was in position the DreamWeaver had taken on its two passengers and was motoring on the surface out towards the channel. As she watched, the sleek shape slipped effortlessly beneath the waves, leaving only a smooth patch of water in its now invisible wake.
Kaiulani took several deep breaths and counted slowly to thirty, then jackknifed and propelled herself gracefully down to the side of the coral pinnacle below. Once in position she quickly removed the top and bottom of her bikini and stuffed them into a crevice. She could hear the high-pitched note of the DreamWeaver’s thrusters long before she saw the sub gliding toward her through the sunlit water. Kicking hard, Kaiulani set out for the bottom and then turned on her back and watched as the DreamWeaver approached twenty feet above her. She saw the blurry visage of Chris Pope wave from the center view port and imagined with satisfaction the open mouthed astonishment of the two men on either side of him. Then the perfect symmetry of the manta shape passed overhead and she rose beneath it and positioned herself. Trailing behind the body of the sub was the manta’s tail, a thin, stiff whip-like appendage. With a surge of speed Kai reached out and grabbed the tip as it went by. Holding tight with one hand, she hitched a ride for an eternal few seconds beneath the blue bowl of the sky, a creature of delight at play in the home of her ancestors.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
The noose tightens
Dear friends, followers and #teasertuesday readers. Thank you all for the time you've spent reading D.T. Rhysing's story. He would be pleased. Many of you have expressed concern about Kaiulani and whether she'll make good her escape. Rather than leave you hanging I thought I'd post this chapter so you can learn a bit more about Abdul bin al Shar and see for yourselves the growing peril D.T. and his extended family face.
The Bones of the King - CHAPTER 80 - The noose tightens
Kaiulani entered the water cleanly and allowed her momentum to carry her deep. When she saw the bottom of the Saracen she tucked under the dark overhang, exhaled some air to reduce her buoyancy and swam for all she was worth. She didn’t waste time or energy turning over, choosing instead to use the vessel's bottom as a reference as she passed beneath it. When she cleared the port side she angled up, still stroking powerfully, extending the distance between her and the yacht until finally, lungs urging her to inhale, legs and arms burning with fatigue, she surfaced using a powerful backstroke fifty feet inshore of the Saracen.
A quick glance in the yacht’s direction told her that al Shar had guessed her intent. He was standing at the port side rail watching her make good her escape. Kaiulani rolled over into a crawl and pulled hard for shore a thousand feet away. She didn’t bother to look to see how far she had to go. The bottom shelving up from the reef would tell her exactly where she was. All she had to do on this, her most important swim ever, was pour on the speed and hope.
On board the Saracen al Shar watched calmly as Kaiulani swam. She was going to be truly satisfying to take apart. He would spend a long time on her, looking for that spark that made her so much more of a woman than all the other cows he had sent to meet their maker.
“Go and fetch our guest,” Al Shar said to Ibrahim and Safwan. They disappeared aft and al Shar resumed watching Kaiulani, thinking of the blissful nights he would have with her on the long passage to Kuala Lumpur. He left the rail and went below to get dressed. After breakfast he was going to make a few calls. The first was to Darjeeling, India, to an operative they had in that city, telling him to make preparations for a kidnapping. The second was to Mr. Daniel Braddock, inquiring as to the availability of the note on the construction loan for Manta Ray Submarines. Both calls would serve to let Mr. Rhysing know that the noose was tightening and that he was dealing with someone who could not be trifled with.
As al Shar entered his stateroom, two jet skis were lowered into the water at the stern of the Saracen and dispatched after Kaiulani. She had covered more than six hundred feet before they came abreast of her just outside of the boat moorings. Kai dove once and swam as far as she could, but they were on her when she surfaced. One of the riders managed to land a glancing blow to her head with a leather cosh and Kaiulani was knocked senseless. Her inert body was easily hoisted over the gas tank of one of the nimble craft and less than a minute later she was once more aboard the Saracen.
On the bridge of the yacht the captain observed the rundown and interception of Kaiulani with relief. He secretly pitied the poor girl, but was immensely glad that they had been able to recapture her. Her life was effectively over now; she just didn’t know it yet. He had scanned the beach with binoculars during the two minutes it took to retrieve her and saw no one who might have seen what transpired. He set the binoculars down and went aft to personally supervise the transfer of the girl to the hose room. As he walked the length of the vessel the sun rose and bathed the Saracen in warm golden light.
The Bones of the King - CHAPTER 80 - The noose tightens
Kaiulani entered the water cleanly and allowed her momentum to carry her deep. When she saw the bottom of the Saracen she tucked under the dark overhang, exhaled some air to reduce her buoyancy and swam for all she was worth. She didn’t waste time or energy turning over, choosing instead to use the vessel's bottom as a reference as she passed beneath it. When she cleared the port side she angled up, still stroking powerfully, extending the distance between her and the yacht until finally, lungs urging her to inhale, legs and arms burning with fatigue, she surfaced using a powerful backstroke fifty feet inshore of the Saracen.
A quick glance in the yacht’s direction told her that al Shar had guessed her intent. He was standing at the port side rail watching her make good her escape. Kaiulani rolled over into a crawl and pulled hard for shore a thousand feet away. She didn’t bother to look to see how far she had to go. The bottom shelving up from the reef would tell her exactly where she was. All she had to do on this, her most important swim ever, was pour on the speed and hope.
On board the Saracen al Shar watched calmly as Kaiulani swam. She was going to be truly satisfying to take apart. He would spend a long time on her, looking for that spark that made her so much more of a woman than all the other cows he had sent to meet their maker.
“Go and fetch our guest,” Al Shar said to Ibrahim and Safwan. They disappeared aft and al Shar resumed watching Kaiulani, thinking of the blissful nights he would have with her on the long passage to Kuala Lumpur. He left the rail and went below to get dressed. After breakfast he was going to make a few calls. The first was to Darjeeling, India, to an operative they had in that city, telling him to make preparations for a kidnapping. The second was to Mr. Daniel Braddock, inquiring as to the availability of the note on the construction loan for Manta Ray Submarines. Both calls would serve to let Mr. Rhysing know that the noose was tightening and that he was dealing with someone who could not be trifled with.
As al Shar entered his stateroom, two jet skis were lowered into the water at the stern of the Saracen and dispatched after Kaiulani. She had covered more than six hundred feet before they came abreast of her just outside of the boat moorings. Kai dove once and swam as far as she could, but they were on her when she surfaced. One of the riders managed to land a glancing blow to her head with a leather cosh and Kaiulani was knocked senseless. Her inert body was easily hoisted over the gas tank of one of the nimble craft and less than a minute later she was once more aboard the Saracen.
On the bridge of the yacht the captain observed the rundown and interception of Kaiulani with relief. He secretly pitied the poor girl, but was immensely glad that they had been able to recapture her. Her life was effectively over now; she just didn’t know it yet. He had scanned the beach with binoculars during the two minutes it took to retrieve her and saw no one who might have seen what transpired. He set the binoculars down and went aft to personally supervise the transfer of the girl to the hose room. As he walked the length of the vessel the sun rose and bathed the Saracen in warm golden light.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Predator and Prey
Doing a little Time Travelling here. Moving forward in the story for a #TeaserTuesday entry that I hope will entertain you. Please comment, and, as ever, thank you for reading.
Aloha,
Doug.
(Kaiulani Spencer, sister of Noah and friend of D.T. Rhysing, senses something is amiss with her relationship with Prince Abdul al Shar, owner of the Saracen, a super yacht anchored in Anaehoomalu Bay. Follow along as she wakes in the night, searches for answers, and comes face to face with the ultimate predator...)
The Bones of the King - CHAPTER 78 - Predator and prey
Unable to sleep and frantic with worry, Kaiulani once again crept from the prince’s bed and found her way to the video monitor two compartments away. She touched the space bar on the keyboard and the screen came to life. Another touch and a menu appeared on the left hand side of the screen. With some experimentation she was able to discern order and meaning from the prompts the program offered.
Kaiulani was, like many of her generation, very computer savvy. There was nothing about them that intimidated her so experimenting with the unit she had stumbled across presented no challenges. Only the fear of being caught at her task made her nervous.
Within five minutes she realized that she had found a series of digital feeds from security cameras in several staterooms, the crew quarters somewhere in the bowels of the ship, the engineroom and other machinery spaces. There was one tiny room she did not recognize. The only piece of furniture in it, if she could call it that, was a sturdy framework of metal in the very center. The walls were unadorned and the deck seemed to be of bare metal.
The options toolbar listed controls much like a videocassette recorder and she found a menu of recordings cross referenced to location and camera number. She selected the feed from the stateroom she had slept in and hit the scroll back icon. A time rate prompt asked her to select a speed and Kaiulani chose a high speed. With a tap on the return key the room came to life. A blurred figure hovered around the bed and then suddenly resolved into her, sleeping restlessly on her first night on board. Kaiulani slowed the rate of playback and continued to scroll backward.
It was strange to watch herself sleep, though at the speed she had chosen it didn’t look as though she was sleeping at all. Her form twisted and rolled and crawled around on the bed as though possessed. Very soon the bed was empty and perfectly made up. Kaiulani sped things up again, knowing that she was now viewing scenes that had taken place before she had come aboard the Saracen. Two cycles of light and dark went by and the scene changed rapidly.
A young woman slept peacefully in the bed, long blonde hair flowing over the pillows. Kai switched to forward motion and watched until the woman disappeared. Slowing and reversing, Kai was able to isolate the last time the woman appeared in the guest stateroom.
She was asleep, a smile playing across her features when two crewmen, one of them Ibrahim, al Shar’s bodyguard, appeared in the scene. The covers were snatched away abruptly and the naked woman woke, fear and confusion apparent in her eyes. Ibrahim pulled her roughly from the bed and all three disappeared from the view of the camera.
Kaiulani felt a jolt of fear in the pit of her stomach. She had seen enough already to tell her to get out, but she had to know more about the previous occupant of her room and, if possible, what became of her. Maybe something had happened that Kai did not understand. She had to know for sure.
Fingers flying, she rapidly created view boxes for twelve camera feeds, trying to find and use all those that were closest to the guest stateroom. She found the playback was synchronized and seamless and immediately picked up the motion of the crewmen and the woman in the small room she could not identify. The men were doing something to her, holding her hands above her head and then moving to her feet as her hands remained in the air. Kai selected that view, minimized the rest and watched in growing amazement and dread as the woman was tied to the framework that was the room’s sole feature.
Scrolling forward as fast as she could while still being able to make out what was happening, Kai began whispering to herself and rocking back and forth on the edge of the chair. The two crewmen disappeared and the woman seemed to flutter against her restraints as she tested the bonds repeatedly. Suddenly she froze and a new figure appeared in the room. Kai slowed the playback to normal speed and watched as al Shar held the woman by her chin with his left hand and caressed her hair with his right. She was trying to pull away and Kaiulani could see the muscles in al Shar’s arms tense. Without warning he jerked a huge hank of the hair from her head. The woman mouthed a silent scream and Kaiulani shivered and lowered the monitor. She had seen enough to know she didn’t want to see any more. It was beyond time to go. She had to find a way to extricate herself from al Shar’s web and then never come near the Saracen again. Noah’s friend Mike could handle things once she got away and told them everything she had seen. Something terrible had been in store for the woman in the video.
“She came to enjoy it after a time,” said a voice from behind her.
Kaiulani turned and saw al Shar in the aft doorway to the compartment. He was looking at her without expression, his eyes cold and hard, taking her measure as she realized she had been caught. Kai knew in that second that al Shar was a predator and she the prey. She had seen this scene played out too many times on the reef to expect a happy outcome. Omilu shadowed schools of weke and waited until one out of hundreds was in the wrong position, a little high above the bottom or separated from the safety of numbers. Ulua hunting Durgon or Palani were the same. For the reef fish it was always a deadly race for shelter among the lobes and fingers of coral, begun in the blink of an eye and over within seconds. Sometimes the predators started late or too far from the reef and their prey would escape and other times the prey would be caught and swiftly consumed. Of these encounters Kaiulani knew there were two givens. The first was that when the attack came it was faster than the eye could follow. The second was that the prey never ate the predator.
Kaiulani bolted.
She made it to the aft door of the compartment and ducked through it and beyond. Behind her, giving swift chase came the prince. She heard his footsteps following her headlong dash but she did not look back. Another doorway opened into a passageway that she recognized. She was on the offshore side of the Saracen, headed forward, her bare feet lightly hitting the deck, her strong young muscles straining to add impetus to her flight. Rounding a corner she came face to face with a crewman, feinted right and then ducked left, losing none of her desperate speed. A curse in Arabic and the sounds of two bodies colliding told her that al Shar had lost ground.
Ahead of her the passageway walls and the overhead framed the soft blue of the predawn sky. The only barrier between her and safety was the gleaming rail some three and a half feet high. Kaiulani hit the deck with both feet and launched herself into a dive, clearing the rail with room to spare. She arced out over the water and down, elation competing with fear as the sea came up to greet her.
Aloha,
Doug.
(Kaiulani Spencer, sister of Noah and friend of D.T. Rhysing, senses something is amiss with her relationship with Prince Abdul al Shar, owner of the Saracen, a super yacht anchored in Anaehoomalu Bay. Follow along as she wakes in the night, searches for answers, and comes face to face with the ultimate predator...)
The Bones of the King - CHAPTER 78 - Predator and prey
Unable to sleep and frantic with worry, Kaiulani once again crept from the prince’s bed and found her way to the video monitor two compartments away. She touched the space bar on the keyboard and the screen came to life. Another touch and a menu appeared on the left hand side of the screen. With some experimentation she was able to discern order and meaning from the prompts the program offered.
Kaiulani was, like many of her generation, very computer savvy. There was nothing about them that intimidated her so experimenting with the unit she had stumbled across presented no challenges. Only the fear of being caught at her task made her nervous.
Within five minutes she realized that she had found a series of digital feeds from security cameras in several staterooms, the crew quarters somewhere in the bowels of the ship, the engineroom and other machinery spaces. There was one tiny room she did not recognize. The only piece of furniture in it, if she could call it that, was a sturdy framework of metal in the very center. The walls were unadorned and the deck seemed to be of bare metal.
The options toolbar listed controls much like a videocassette recorder and she found a menu of recordings cross referenced to location and camera number. She selected the feed from the stateroom she had slept in and hit the scroll back icon. A time rate prompt asked her to select a speed and Kaiulani chose a high speed. With a tap on the return key the room came to life. A blurred figure hovered around the bed and then suddenly resolved into her, sleeping restlessly on her first night on board. Kaiulani slowed the rate of playback and continued to scroll backward.
It was strange to watch herself sleep, though at the speed she had chosen it didn’t look as though she was sleeping at all. Her form twisted and rolled and crawled around on the bed as though possessed. Very soon the bed was empty and perfectly made up. Kaiulani sped things up again, knowing that she was now viewing scenes that had taken place before she had come aboard the Saracen. Two cycles of light and dark went by and the scene changed rapidly.
A young woman slept peacefully in the bed, long blonde hair flowing over the pillows. Kai switched to forward motion and watched until the woman disappeared. Slowing and reversing, Kai was able to isolate the last time the woman appeared in the guest stateroom.
She was asleep, a smile playing across her features when two crewmen, one of them Ibrahim, al Shar’s bodyguard, appeared in the scene. The covers were snatched away abruptly and the naked woman woke, fear and confusion apparent in her eyes. Ibrahim pulled her roughly from the bed and all three disappeared from the view of the camera.
Kaiulani felt a jolt of fear in the pit of her stomach. She had seen enough already to tell her to get out, but she had to know more about the previous occupant of her room and, if possible, what became of her. Maybe something had happened that Kai did not understand. She had to know for sure.
Fingers flying, she rapidly created view boxes for twelve camera feeds, trying to find and use all those that were closest to the guest stateroom. She found the playback was synchronized and seamless and immediately picked up the motion of the crewmen and the woman in the small room she could not identify. The men were doing something to her, holding her hands above her head and then moving to her feet as her hands remained in the air. Kai selected that view, minimized the rest and watched in growing amazement and dread as the woman was tied to the framework that was the room’s sole feature.
Scrolling forward as fast as she could while still being able to make out what was happening, Kai began whispering to herself and rocking back and forth on the edge of the chair. The two crewmen disappeared and the woman seemed to flutter against her restraints as she tested the bonds repeatedly. Suddenly she froze and a new figure appeared in the room. Kai slowed the playback to normal speed and watched as al Shar held the woman by her chin with his left hand and caressed her hair with his right. She was trying to pull away and Kaiulani could see the muscles in al Shar’s arms tense. Without warning he jerked a huge hank of the hair from her head. The woman mouthed a silent scream and Kaiulani shivered and lowered the monitor. She had seen enough to know she didn’t want to see any more. It was beyond time to go. She had to find a way to extricate herself from al Shar’s web and then never come near the Saracen again. Noah’s friend Mike could handle things once she got away and told them everything she had seen. Something terrible had been in store for the woman in the video.
“She came to enjoy it after a time,” said a voice from behind her.
Kaiulani turned and saw al Shar in the aft doorway to the compartment. He was looking at her without expression, his eyes cold and hard, taking her measure as she realized she had been caught. Kai knew in that second that al Shar was a predator and she the prey. She had seen this scene played out too many times on the reef to expect a happy outcome. Omilu shadowed schools of weke and waited until one out of hundreds was in the wrong position, a little high above the bottom or separated from the safety of numbers. Ulua hunting Durgon or Palani were the same. For the reef fish it was always a deadly race for shelter among the lobes and fingers of coral, begun in the blink of an eye and over within seconds. Sometimes the predators started late or too far from the reef and their prey would escape and other times the prey would be caught and swiftly consumed. Of these encounters Kaiulani knew there were two givens. The first was that when the attack came it was faster than the eye could follow. The second was that the prey never ate the predator.
Kaiulani bolted.
She made it to the aft door of the compartment and ducked through it and beyond. Behind her, giving swift chase came the prince. She heard his footsteps following her headlong dash but she did not look back. Another doorway opened into a passageway that she recognized. She was on the offshore side of the Saracen, headed forward, her bare feet lightly hitting the deck, her strong young muscles straining to add impetus to her flight. Rounding a corner she came face to face with a crewman, feinted right and then ducked left, losing none of her desperate speed. A curse in Arabic and the sounds of two bodies colliding told her that al Shar had lost ground.
Ahead of her the passageway walls and the overhead framed the soft blue of the predawn sky. The only barrier between her and safety was the gleaming rail some three and a half feet high. Kaiulani hit the deck with both feet and launched herself into a dive, clearing the rail with room to spare. She arced out over the water and down, elation competing with fear as the sea came up to greet her.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Aloha old friends and new. Here is Chapter 6 of The Bones of the King for those who are reading along.
Good, Bad, or Ugly, please let me know what you think.
And if you've gotten this far and not joined my blog, please do. Helps me to know who visited and makes thanking you a lot easier.
Mahalo.
Doug
The Bones of the King --- CHAPTER 6 ---The Hunt Begins
Sid Hart sat in the tube entrance and watched the sun slip beneath the waves far out to sea. A hint of green limned its upper arc and then, following the sun, it, too, disappeared from view. The waves rolled on and the curtain of night rose in the east behind Mauna Loa’s smooth bulk. Stars burned through the deepening twilight and took their place in the night sky. The lava reluctantly gave up the heat of the day as night feeding swallows whickered back and forth across the stark black landscape.
Sid decided that he had fucked up. Screwed the pooch, poked the pup, you name it; he’d done it this afternoon. He should have waited, bided his time and let the situation clarify itself before he struck. Now his cover was blown. The police were sure to put two and two together and the heat was going crank up several notches. That might have been worth it if he had accomplished something for all the trouble he’d just invited into his world, but it was clear that his effort had been wasted. Dicked the dog. Fornicated the fucking canine.
The surface vessel had ignited wonderfully, the satisfying crump and thump of explosion and shock wave hitting him in the ears and chest moments after he had toggled the transmitter. Watching with his binoculars, Sid had had an excellent seat for the show. Flames and smoke had obscured his view for quite a while following the detonation but there was no hiding the surfacing of the submarine and the subsequent rescue of the crewman who had been knocked overboard. After another half an hour the orange and yellow Hawaii County rescue helicopter had come racing down the coast and hovered over the sub. The injured man had been winched aboard in a basket and then a man from the sub traded places with a crewman from the chopper, which then flew off to the north like a shot. Within minutes the two men on the sub had rigged a steel cable to the boats bow and taken it under tow, still blazing like a torch, and headed north. He never would have imagined that the sub could have towed the hulk, but what came next really floored him. After a moment on the surface the man from the chopper went below and pulled the hatch shut behind him. White foam appeared on either side of the sub and the deck began to submerge then pitched rapidly downward and vanished. A wave splashed over the bow of the trailing boat and then another and another, each larger than the preceding one, their combined weight pulling the bow ever lower. He thought the hull would surely sink but that hadn’t happened. Instead the waves coming over the bow had surged over and around the fire and extinguished it within seconds. The smoke plume became steam and then faded away on the wind as the strange procession moved farther down the coast. After a while the sub surfaced and the burnt out hull of the boat rose in response. The two vessels continued north until they disappeared over the horizon leaving Sid alone with his thoughts.
He had underestimated whoever was running the submarine. The explosion and fire had been a pretty sight, but there should have been more to show for it. Things like a dead crewman and submarine adrift in shock as the burning support boat was reduced to cinders. Instead the submariners had rescued their man, put out the fire on their vessel and essentially salvaged the hull for future use or examination. All this had happened in the space of two hours following what should have been a devastating attack on their operation. Hell, the only thing he had accomplished was to show his hand to no effect. Talk about a fuck up. And all because the men running the sub outfit had their shit together. Next time he would not leave anything to chance.
The east wind whispered to Sid Hart as the night wore on and he worried away at the problem he had created for himself. He was up against the wall in a big way. The sub crew had not been able to bring up the Harlots body, but he was sure they had found her and it was only a matter of time before they tried again to retrieve her. When they did the noose would tighten around his neck and the police would try to lock him up forever. He vowed not to let that happen.
The only way to keep that promise was to get to the Harlot before they did. Which meant he would have to do everything in his power to stop them from diving while he went after her. He was going to have to disable the submarine and he was going to have to get some better dive gear. The second was pretty straightforward, entailing a visit to one of the many dive shops in town. The disabling of the sub was not going to be as easy, but he was already looking forward to the challenge.
It was time for him to find out more about Manta Ray Submarines and the man who ran it. Time to ferret out their schedule and their weaknesses and wait for the moment when the method he would use to attack them would come to him in the course of observing his quarry. Sid Hart rose on stiff legs and stretched. He entered the tube for a few minutes, gathered some supplies and then returned to the flow, sealing the entrance carefully behind him.
Above the slope of Mauna Loa the newly risen moon lit the island with its soft silver light. He felt exhilarated. The road ahead was going to be dangerous, but he was supremely confident that he could do what was necessary to protect his world. Sid struck out across the flows, headed for the far off access road and his car. It was time to go north and hide in plain sight. A shiver coursed up his spine and he smiled in anticipation.
The hunt was on.
Good, Bad, or Ugly, please let me know what you think.
And if you've gotten this far and not joined my blog, please do. Helps me to know who visited and makes thanking you a lot easier.
Mahalo.
Doug
The Bones of the King --- CHAPTER 6 ---The Hunt Begins
Sid Hart sat in the tube entrance and watched the sun slip beneath the waves far out to sea. A hint of green limned its upper arc and then, following the sun, it, too, disappeared from view. The waves rolled on and the curtain of night rose in the east behind Mauna Loa’s smooth bulk. Stars burned through the deepening twilight and took their place in the night sky. The lava reluctantly gave up the heat of the day as night feeding swallows whickered back and forth across the stark black landscape.
Sid decided that he had fucked up. Screwed the pooch, poked the pup, you name it; he’d done it this afternoon. He should have waited, bided his time and let the situation clarify itself before he struck. Now his cover was blown. The police were sure to put two and two together and the heat was going crank up several notches. That might have been worth it if he had accomplished something for all the trouble he’d just invited into his world, but it was clear that his effort had been wasted. Dicked the dog. Fornicated the fucking canine.
The surface vessel had ignited wonderfully, the satisfying crump and thump of explosion and shock wave hitting him in the ears and chest moments after he had toggled the transmitter. Watching with his binoculars, Sid had had an excellent seat for the show. Flames and smoke had obscured his view for quite a while following the detonation but there was no hiding the surfacing of the submarine and the subsequent rescue of the crewman who had been knocked overboard. After another half an hour the orange and yellow Hawaii County rescue helicopter had come racing down the coast and hovered over the sub. The injured man had been winched aboard in a basket and then a man from the sub traded places with a crewman from the chopper, which then flew off to the north like a shot. Within minutes the two men on the sub had rigged a steel cable to the boats bow and taken it under tow, still blazing like a torch, and headed north. He never would have imagined that the sub could have towed the hulk, but what came next really floored him. After a moment on the surface the man from the chopper went below and pulled the hatch shut behind him. White foam appeared on either side of the sub and the deck began to submerge then pitched rapidly downward and vanished. A wave splashed over the bow of the trailing boat and then another and another, each larger than the preceding one, their combined weight pulling the bow ever lower. He thought the hull would surely sink but that hadn’t happened. Instead the waves coming over the bow had surged over and around the fire and extinguished it within seconds. The smoke plume became steam and then faded away on the wind as the strange procession moved farther down the coast. After a while the sub surfaced and the burnt out hull of the boat rose in response. The two vessels continued north until they disappeared over the horizon leaving Sid alone with his thoughts.
He had underestimated whoever was running the submarine. The explosion and fire had been a pretty sight, but there should have been more to show for it. Things like a dead crewman and submarine adrift in shock as the burning support boat was reduced to cinders. Instead the submariners had rescued their man, put out the fire on their vessel and essentially salvaged the hull for future use or examination. All this had happened in the space of two hours following what should have been a devastating attack on their operation. Hell, the only thing he had accomplished was to show his hand to no effect. Talk about a fuck up. And all because the men running the sub outfit had their shit together. Next time he would not leave anything to chance.
The east wind whispered to Sid Hart as the night wore on and he worried away at the problem he had created for himself. He was up against the wall in a big way. The sub crew had not been able to bring up the Harlots body, but he was sure they had found her and it was only a matter of time before they tried again to retrieve her. When they did the noose would tighten around his neck and the police would try to lock him up forever. He vowed not to let that happen.
The only way to keep that promise was to get to the Harlot before they did. Which meant he would have to do everything in his power to stop them from diving while he went after her. He was going to have to disable the submarine and he was going to have to get some better dive gear. The second was pretty straightforward, entailing a visit to one of the many dive shops in town. The disabling of the sub was not going to be as easy, but he was already looking forward to the challenge.
It was time for him to find out more about Manta Ray Submarines and the man who ran it. Time to ferret out their schedule and their weaknesses and wait for the moment when the method he would use to attack them would come to him in the course of observing his quarry. Sid Hart rose on stiff legs and stretched. He entered the tube for a few minutes, gathered some supplies and then returned to the flow, sealing the entrance carefully behind him.
Above the slope of Mauna Loa the newly risen moon lit the island with its soft silver light. He felt exhilarated. The road ahead was going to be dangerous, but he was supremely confident that he could do what was necessary to protect his world. Sid struck out across the flows, headed for the far off access road and his car. It was time to go north and hide in plain sight. A shiver coursed up his spine and he smiled in anticipation.
The hunt was on.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Plucked from the sea -- Chapter 5 -- The Bones of the King
Hi, friends. Thank you for reading these chapters of The Bones of the King. I realize it's daunting to enter D.T. Rhysing's world, but I'm confident you'll enjoy it once you're fully immersed.
If you find yourself interested, please comment and tell me why.
The first five chapters are posted on the blog and are easy to find. Please dive in and enjoy. Your input is invaluable. Hope to hear from you soon.
Mahalo,
Doug
CHAPTER 5
The shrill screech of the UWT was unrelenting. D.T. turned the volume down to a whisper and checked the sub’s system parameters. Their ascent rate of 300 feet per minute was not top speed, but it was as fast as he thought necessary and gave him time to gather his wits and prepare. It would do them no good to arrive on the scene without a plan. And the plan, which he quickly outlined to Detective McCoy, was simple, though it hadn’t started out that way. For a moment at the outset of the incident, listening to Noah’s cry of alarm, D.T. was thrust back into a darker time in deeper water and was lost, literally, in memories of an event that he struggled with always. Overwhelmed with choices, faced with so many possibilities to prepare for that there was no way to take care of them all, he didn’t know where to begin. Then the wail of the UWT drove all else from his mind and he knew what they would be dealing with topside.
Twice in the past ten years he had heard the identical banshee scream issuing from an underwater telephone system. On each occasion the transmitting unit had been in a fire and had produced the same infernal howl, as if the circuits could feel the flames eating into their electronic souls. The split second of paralysis would not have registered with McCoy and the danger to Noah had slammed shut the window on that other world.
With a flick of his wrist D.T. had pointed the Hot Runner for the sky and fed her the juice. His feet were pressed back into the acceleration pads and his weight had shifted from his chest and hips and elbows to the balls of his feet. It was normally a pleasant sensation after a prolonged dive but now he had little time to enjoy it. They were climbing fast.
When D.T. designed the Hot Runner it was the regal look of a cruising manta ray that he strove to capture in steel and fiberglass. To a great degree, the Hot Runner mimicked that look almost perfectly. Her wings were fixed and quite a bit stubbier than those of the manta but the effect was perfect for their purposes. They extended seamlessly from the hull with a small positive dihedral and were almost invisible when viewed from ahead of the craft. Their thick roots supported and enclosed two main propulsion thrusters, then tapered to thin cambered, virtually neutral lift water foils. A pair of tiny flaperons was set into the trailing edge of the wings and was used in conjunction with the twin rudders mounted aft to help the Hot Runner turn on a dime in extreme maneuvers.
The skin of the Hot Runner was a proprietary design silicon-polymer coating that promoted and enhanced laminar flow of seawater across its surface. This feature, coupled with the sleek teardrop hull and a high power to weight ratio let them fly through the water at ten knots. At that speed there was a tremendous drain on the available power of the batteries, but if they needed to and were willing to spend the electrons the sub could move quite quickly. D.T. was willing and from the sound of it, Noah needed them to.
McCoy was busy preparing to exit the sub with two life preservers and a portable fire extinguisher. The life preservers were folded into small plastic pouches and shoved into his shirt. The fire extinguisher was a powerful Halon model in a special high-pressure cylinder the size of a large thermos. It was anybody’s guess whether it would do any good once they got to the surface, but if he needed it and didn’t have it with him then the question would be moot.
By the time D.T. had finished instructing McCoy and checking his ascent profile the Hot Runner had left the darkness and five hundred feet of seawater behind them. Ahead a pale blue and silver circle of light filled the limits of their vision, growing ever wider and brighter. At one hundred feet they could begin to make out details of the ocean’s surface above. Their target was a black smudge at the center of a series of concentric shock rings that overlaid the normal cris-crossing linear patterns created by wave chop and swells. There had been no other vessels in the area when they dove and no keels were visible from their vantage point. Normally they would arrest their ascent at twenty feet and put up the camera mast but something told D.T. there was no time. They were going to surface so close to the Safe Boat that he felt sure they would avoid any danger other than that posed by the burning craft. He had to take the chance for Noah’s sake.
D.T. bled off speed by making a wide circuit of the Safe Boat hull. They were banked hard over into the port turn and had almost boxed the compass when he saw a body floating motionless in the water some twenty feet from the stricken craft. He jinked once, pulled into an almost vertical climb and powered upward. The Hot Runner broke the surface, rose for an eternity into the smoke filled sky and then crashed down into the water with a huge splash. The weight of their keel kept them upright and very quickly restored the sub’s surface equilibrium.
“Go!” D.T. shouted.
McCoy opened the hatch and was outside faster than D.T. thought possible. The detective dove in directly in front of the view port and swam like he had a three-day liberty he couldn’t wait to get started on. D.T. hit the master trip switch to shut down all thruster power and went topside with the first aid kit and another fire extinguisher. Things were far worse than he had imagined and again, for just a moment, before the need for action spurred him on, D.T. was overwhelmed by the magnitude of the casualty they were dealing with.
The Safe Boat was fully engulfed in flames, drifting on a light breeze and trailing a rapidly spreading slick of burning gasoline. She was facing south, her starboard side to seaward, and was sitting lower in the water than usual. The Hot Runner had surfaced too close and now there was a very real need to move away to safety. Acrid black smoke boiled from the hulk and from the sea and rose over and above them as D.T. watched McCoy.
The big detective proved to be a very good swimmer, pulling strongly toward the inert body of Noah Spencer with an efficient crawl. Just as it looked like McCoy was going to win the race the wind freshened and the line of flame pulled itself toward Noah. With a grisly puff of white smoke, Noah’s hair burst into flame and he seemed to twitch in the water like a sleeper trapped in a nightmare from which there was no escape. D.T. screamed at McCoy but it was too late, or so he thought, until he saw the detective’s shoulders and back rise up out of the water in the characteristic surge of a sprinter using a butterfly stroke. As McCoy brought his hands together to penetrate the water he kept them flat and outstretched and sent up a wall of water directed right at Noah’s head. Noah disappeared behind this splash and D.T. saw the legs and feet of McCoy kick hard once, before he too, disappeared.
Noah’s head was smoking but no longer on fire. The flames around him seemed to have been forced back briefly by McCoy’s targeted spray, but they were soon going to close over him like a wave. As D.T. watched, Noah was jerked under the water as suddenly as if a shark had chosen that moment to put him out of his misery. D.T. was just about to go below and see if he could see what had happened through the viewports when McCoy surfaced with Noah in tow in a cross-chest carry. They had covered an amazing stretch of water submerged and as D.T. watched he saw Noah spit up a mouthful of seawater. Something knocked against his feet and he looked down to see the fire extinguisher and the two life preservers McCoy had carried topside rolling around in the shallow water in the hatch well. When D.T. looked up McCoy was closing the distance to the sub with long powerful strokes. D.T. urged them on silently while the inferno of the Safe Boat bore down on them all.
Noah was conscious but dazed. He had been kept afloat; his head elevated and out of the water by a flotation device D.T, required all of his crewmen to wear. It was a tiny harness with a small inflatable collar and chest piece. If a person hit the water without first disengaging the safety, the vest would automatically inflate. If they were unconscious, the vest would right them until help arrived or the person came to. McCoy pushed Noah up onto the curved superstructure of the Hot Runner and D.T. pulled him aboard.
Noah was breathing regularly and while McCoy surveyed him for bleeding and broken bones D.T. went below, re-energized the thrusters and backed the sub away from the flaming hulk of the Safe Boat. He radioed Hawaii County Fire and Rescue with their position and status. When they were a hundred yards farther offshore he jettisoned the trim weight so that the sub would ride higher in the water, set the auto pilot to hold a heading that kept their stern into the swells and then went back topside to see how McCoy was doing.
As D.T. stuck his head out of the hatch he was greeted by Noah’s voice. The plucky Hawaiian was on his back looking up at the cloudless sky.
“We’re gonna' need a new Safe Boat,” Noah said with a grin. D.T. chuckled and shook his head.
“Well, your sense of humor’s still intact.” D.T. said. “Are you okay?”
“Shot at and missed....” he replied.
“...Shit at and hit.” D.T. finished. And that’s exactly what it looked like.
”What the hell happened up here?” asked McCoy, giving voice to D.T.’s thoughts.
“All I know is I was talking to you one second and looking at Mike in the next,” said Noah. “The Safe Boat guys aren’t going to believe this happened to their baby.”
“They’ll be happy to sell us another one,” D.T. said. “Noah, are you sure you can’t remember anything else?”
“I wish I could, D.T.,” said Noah, “All I know is I was on the UWT and there was a loud crack and then the whole port side of the boat exploded. I must have been kicked overboard by the shock wave.”
“And it’s a good thing you were,” said Detective McCoy, nodding toward the flaming pyre that a few moments ago had been their surface craft.
At that moment one of the fuel tanks exploded and they all ducked involuntarily as the fire on board the Safe Boat redoubled in intensity. The pillar of smoke generated by the conflagration was growing thicker as the foam of the floatation collar began to burn in earnest.
“Well,” D.T. asked, “You think the chopper will be able to find us?” McCoy smiled ruefully and shook his head in amazement.
D.T. stowed the fire extinguisher back in the Hot Runner and did what he could to prepare for the work that they would have to do in order to get the Safe Boat back to Keahou. It was possible the burnt out hull would contain evidence and he wanted to be able to examine it closely. D.T. didn’t want to discuss it with McCoy in front of Noah, but he was pretty sure they had just run afoul of one of Sid Hart’s fire bombs.
If you find yourself interested, please comment and tell me why.
The first five chapters are posted on the blog and are easy to find. Please dive in and enjoy. Your input is invaluable. Hope to hear from you soon.
Mahalo,
Doug
CHAPTER 5
The shrill screech of the UWT was unrelenting. D.T. turned the volume down to a whisper and checked the sub’s system parameters. Their ascent rate of 300 feet per minute was not top speed, but it was as fast as he thought necessary and gave him time to gather his wits and prepare. It would do them no good to arrive on the scene without a plan. And the plan, which he quickly outlined to Detective McCoy, was simple, though it hadn’t started out that way. For a moment at the outset of the incident, listening to Noah’s cry of alarm, D.T. was thrust back into a darker time in deeper water and was lost, literally, in memories of an event that he struggled with always. Overwhelmed with choices, faced with so many possibilities to prepare for that there was no way to take care of them all, he didn’t know where to begin. Then the wail of the UWT drove all else from his mind and he knew what they would be dealing with topside.
Twice in the past ten years he had heard the identical banshee scream issuing from an underwater telephone system. On each occasion the transmitting unit had been in a fire and had produced the same infernal howl, as if the circuits could feel the flames eating into their electronic souls. The split second of paralysis would not have registered with McCoy and the danger to Noah had slammed shut the window on that other world.
With a flick of his wrist D.T. had pointed the Hot Runner for the sky and fed her the juice. His feet were pressed back into the acceleration pads and his weight had shifted from his chest and hips and elbows to the balls of his feet. It was normally a pleasant sensation after a prolonged dive but now he had little time to enjoy it. They were climbing fast.
When D.T. designed the Hot Runner it was the regal look of a cruising manta ray that he strove to capture in steel and fiberglass. To a great degree, the Hot Runner mimicked that look almost perfectly. Her wings were fixed and quite a bit stubbier than those of the manta but the effect was perfect for their purposes. They extended seamlessly from the hull with a small positive dihedral and were almost invisible when viewed from ahead of the craft. Their thick roots supported and enclosed two main propulsion thrusters, then tapered to thin cambered, virtually neutral lift water foils. A pair of tiny flaperons was set into the trailing edge of the wings and was used in conjunction with the twin rudders mounted aft to help the Hot Runner turn on a dime in extreme maneuvers.
The skin of the Hot Runner was a proprietary design silicon-polymer coating that promoted and enhanced laminar flow of seawater across its surface. This feature, coupled with the sleek teardrop hull and a high power to weight ratio let them fly through the water at ten knots. At that speed there was a tremendous drain on the available power of the batteries, but if they needed to and were willing to spend the electrons the sub could move quite quickly. D.T. was willing and from the sound of it, Noah needed them to.
McCoy was busy preparing to exit the sub with two life preservers and a portable fire extinguisher. The life preservers were folded into small plastic pouches and shoved into his shirt. The fire extinguisher was a powerful Halon model in a special high-pressure cylinder the size of a large thermos. It was anybody’s guess whether it would do any good once they got to the surface, but if he needed it and didn’t have it with him then the question would be moot.
By the time D.T. had finished instructing McCoy and checking his ascent profile the Hot Runner had left the darkness and five hundred feet of seawater behind them. Ahead a pale blue and silver circle of light filled the limits of their vision, growing ever wider and brighter. At one hundred feet they could begin to make out details of the ocean’s surface above. Their target was a black smudge at the center of a series of concentric shock rings that overlaid the normal cris-crossing linear patterns created by wave chop and swells. There had been no other vessels in the area when they dove and no keels were visible from their vantage point. Normally they would arrest their ascent at twenty feet and put up the camera mast but something told D.T. there was no time. They were going to surface so close to the Safe Boat that he felt sure they would avoid any danger other than that posed by the burning craft. He had to take the chance for Noah’s sake.
D.T. bled off speed by making a wide circuit of the Safe Boat hull. They were banked hard over into the port turn and had almost boxed the compass when he saw a body floating motionless in the water some twenty feet from the stricken craft. He jinked once, pulled into an almost vertical climb and powered upward. The Hot Runner broke the surface, rose for an eternity into the smoke filled sky and then crashed down into the water with a huge splash. The weight of their keel kept them upright and very quickly restored the sub’s surface equilibrium.
“Go!” D.T. shouted.
McCoy opened the hatch and was outside faster than D.T. thought possible. The detective dove in directly in front of the view port and swam like he had a three-day liberty he couldn’t wait to get started on. D.T. hit the master trip switch to shut down all thruster power and went topside with the first aid kit and another fire extinguisher. Things were far worse than he had imagined and again, for just a moment, before the need for action spurred him on, D.T. was overwhelmed by the magnitude of the casualty they were dealing with.
The Safe Boat was fully engulfed in flames, drifting on a light breeze and trailing a rapidly spreading slick of burning gasoline. She was facing south, her starboard side to seaward, and was sitting lower in the water than usual. The Hot Runner had surfaced too close and now there was a very real need to move away to safety. Acrid black smoke boiled from the hulk and from the sea and rose over and above them as D.T. watched McCoy.
The big detective proved to be a very good swimmer, pulling strongly toward the inert body of Noah Spencer with an efficient crawl. Just as it looked like McCoy was going to win the race the wind freshened and the line of flame pulled itself toward Noah. With a grisly puff of white smoke, Noah’s hair burst into flame and he seemed to twitch in the water like a sleeper trapped in a nightmare from which there was no escape. D.T. screamed at McCoy but it was too late, or so he thought, until he saw the detective’s shoulders and back rise up out of the water in the characteristic surge of a sprinter using a butterfly stroke. As McCoy brought his hands together to penetrate the water he kept them flat and outstretched and sent up a wall of water directed right at Noah’s head. Noah disappeared behind this splash and D.T. saw the legs and feet of McCoy kick hard once, before he too, disappeared.
Noah’s head was smoking but no longer on fire. The flames around him seemed to have been forced back briefly by McCoy’s targeted spray, but they were soon going to close over him like a wave. As D.T. watched, Noah was jerked under the water as suddenly as if a shark had chosen that moment to put him out of his misery. D.T. was just about to go below and see if he could see what had happened through the viewports when McCoy surfaced with Noah in tow in a cross-chest carry. They had covered an amazing stretch of water submerged and as D.T. watched he saw Noah spit up a mouthful of seawater. Something knocked against his feet and he looked down to see the fire extinguisher and the two life preservers McCoy had carried topside rolling around in the shallow water in the hatch well. When D.T. looked up McCoy was closing the distance to the sub with long powerful strokes. D.T. urged them on silently while the inferno of the Safe Boat bore down on them all.
Noah was conscious but dazed. He had been kept afloat; his head elevated and out of the water by a flotation device D.T, required all of his crewmen to wear. It was a tiny harness with a small inflatable collar and chest piece. If a person hit the water without first disengaging the safety, the vest would automatically inflate. If they were unconscious, the vest would right them until help arrived or the person came to. McCoy pushed Noah up onto the curved superstructure of the Hot Runner and D.T. pulled him aboard.
Noah was breathing regularly and while McCoy surveyed him for bleeding and broken bones D.T. went below, re-energized the thrusters and backed the sub away from the flaming hulk of the Safe Boat. He radioed Hawaii County Fire and Rescue with their position and status. When they were a hundred yards farther offshore he jettisoned the trim weight so that the sub would ride higher in the water, set the auto pilot to hold a heading that kept their stern into the swells and then went back topside to see how McCoy was doing.
As D.T. stuck his head out of the hatch he was greeted by Noah’s voice. The plucky Hawaiian was on his back looking up at the cloudless sky.
“We’re gonna' need a new Safe Boat,” Noah said with a grin. D.T. chuckled and shook his head.
“Well, your sense of humor’s still intact.” D.T. said. “Are you okay?”
“Shot at and missed....” he replied.
“...Shit at and hit.” D.T. finished. And that’s exactly what it looked like.
”What the hell happened up here?” asked McCoy, giving voice to D.T.’s thoughts.
“All I know is I was talking to you one second and looking at Mike in the next,” said Noah. “The Safe Boat guys aren’t going to believe this happened to their baby.”
“They’ll be happy to sell us another one,” D.T. said. “Noah, are you sure you can’t remember anything else?”
“I wish I could, D.T.,” said Noah, “All I know is I was on the UWT and there was a loud crack and then the whole port side of the boat exploded. I must have been kicked overboard by the shock wave.”
“And it’s a good thing you were,” said Detective McCoy, nodding toward the flaming pyre that a few moments ago had been their surface craft.
At that moment one of the fuel tanks exploded and they all ducked involuntarily as the fire on board the Safe Boat redoubled in intensity. The pillar of smoke generated by the conflagration was growing thicker as the foam of the floatation collar began to burn in earnest.
“Well,” D.T. asked, “You think the chopper will be able to find us?” McCoy smiled ruefully and shook his head in amazement.
D.T. stowed the fire extinguisher back in the Hot Runner and did what he could to prepare for the work that they would have to do in order to get the Safe Boat back to Keahou. It was possible the burnt out hull would contain evidence and he wanted to be able to examine it closely. D.T. didn’t want to discuss it with McCoy in front of Noah, but he was pretty sure they had just run afoul of one of Sid Hart’s fire bombs.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
The Bones of the King - Chapter 4 - Starlight into darkness
Hello friends. Here's Chapter 4 as promised. Please read, join Ironwoodwind and comment. Thanks to Barbara Uechi for linking to her Kona Yoga blog. http://uechi.typepad.com/konayogacom/this-week-announcements-updates.html
Aloha, Doug.
CHAPTER 4
A soft breeze cooled Sidney Hart as he sat in the entrance of a small lava tube a quarter mile south of his old home site. From his vantage point Hart could see the coastline past his property and Togawa’s and on into the heat haze to the north. Only three hundred feet from shore, the tube entrance was a good spot to observe from and would remain so until the morning sun rose above the wall of lava behind him. Then the flow would begin to bake and he would have to move. For now, though, it would do. He did not need to see much more.
Three days ago he had returned to his property to retrieve a batch of crystal meth he’d stashed months earlier. Approaching the tube he noticed a boat headed north close to shore. At first he thought nothing of it, but upon leaving with his drugs nicely bagged he noted that the boat was still moving in the same area offshore so he sat down to watch.
Three hours later he knew he was in trouble. Big trouble. The crew of the vessel was not trolling, at least not for fish. They were conducting some kind of search and that could only mean they were looking for the Harlot. The insufferable bitch was still fucking with him! He should have swum her much farther out than a few hundred feet. Maybe he should have found a way to take her miles out to sea in his boat before letting her sink. More importantly, though, since what was done was done and no sense crying about it, he had to know who was in the vessel offshore and how they figured it out? Or were they just guessing? Whatever the case, he had to find out what they were doing, why, and if possible, what they knew.
Many years ago he had been SCUBA diving offshore of his property to test a new rig. During his brief stay at two hundred feet he had paid particular attention to the details of the sea floor topography. There in the half light and quiet cold he had seen that the bottom dropped steeply away, disappearing into the fathomless blue. A thrilling sense of anticipation coursed through him as he floated above the void. He made his first kill two weeks later.
She had been visiting from Oahu, living in Ka’u, trimming pot during the winter harvest season and had been hitching to Kona when Hart picked her up. By the time they had driven twenty miles her fate was sealed. She was pretty and blonde and talked a blue streak, telling Hart everything about herself without being prompted. She lived on the North Shore near Ehukai Beach and shared the rent with several other girls. They didn’t have a lot but they didn’t care. The beautiful days at the beach and the parties every weekend were all they needed. A friend had given her the name of a guy on the Big Island who would put her up for a month during the push to get his crop to market and pay her twenty an hour when she worked. Her roommates all thought she was on the mainland visiting her folks. All Hart heard was that no one would miss her.
She let him take her to his house and sometime during the night he tied her to the bed and blindfolded her. The sex was beyond description and the sense of absolute power was enthralling. He did not untie her or remove the blindfold until the afternoon of the third day, after he had strangled her for screaming too loudly while he was trying to sleep. He fucked her again in the evening, her body stiff and pleasantly compliant, then went out into his shop and used a saber saw to cut the lid off of an old fuel drum. She fit nicely, tucked into the oily space, knees bent up by her chest, feet down, hands folded in front of her as though in prayer. Hart cooked some ahi and went out to his lanai, watching the stars over the ocean and wishing the girl didn’t have to go so soon. After he’d eaten he welded the drum’s lid back on, then took his axe and went to work with it on his grinding wheel until the edge was razor sharp. The lower tip of the axe blade punched tight little triangular holes through the metal about an inch and a half long by half an inch wide, and the weight of the girl kept the drum from jumping too much as he maneuvered around it. He tipped it onto its side and used candle wax to seal each puncture, then returned to his lanai and had a beer.
Hart waited till midnight when the heat had left the flows and the night air was cool then dragged her down to the water. He wore a bathing suit and tabis and carried a set of swim fins and a mask. The barrel rang with a muffled note as he pushed it off the edge of his property and into the surging water. Donning his mask and fins, Hart entered the water and took it under tow with a small bridle of cord thrown over his shoulder. A few minutes of easy swimming and he was well offshore. Wavelets tapped lightly on the drum, shifting it beneath his hands as he found each wax covered hole and pushed a finger into the openings. The sea began to fill the void and the drum settled lower. A soft exhalation of air rippled the water as each puncture sank below the surface. The drum whistled and bubbled at the end, the weight of the water pulling it under before the last of the air was displaced. Hart had taken a deep breath, grabbed hold of the lip and let the descending drum pull him down. At twenty feet he cleared his ears, exhaled, and let go as it spiraled from starlight down into darkness.
It had taken time and planning and there had been some mistakes on his part over the years but he had made the crossing and come through stronger for it. There had been many other women, all drifters of some sort; each without roots and each with few people to search for them, assuming anyone had known where to start looking. Hart lived on his own terms, like the big Ulua that stalked the reef, taking his prey when they left the protection of the coral, ranging over his territory as he wished. It was a good life and no one was going to take it from him.
The Harlot had been one of his mistakes. She had made him step outside his character and try to win her in the old way, the weak way, the way of the feathered nest and pleading. What had he been thinking? She had driven him mad with desire and he had taken the bait and run with it. Maybe if he had fought more she would not have let him go so suddenly. But she had cut him loose like a dying marlin and he descended into the depths. The days and weeks that followed were the worst of his life, but in the end he survived and was ultimately revitalized by the finality of her rejection. He had husbanded his strength and grown and planned. Now, years later it was she who had been given to the blue.
Was there a chance the searchers could find the barrel and recover her remains?
Hart knew the tiny creatures of the ocean would reduce the body to bones in a year and to nothing but teeth within a few more, but only three months had passed since he had disposed of her and that was not remotely long enough. He hadn’t counted on anyone guessing what had happened, no less sending out a boat to search for her. If he had known that was going to happen he would have taken her body to Napau Crater and dumped it into the East Rift. There were places along that crack where a body would fall for a long time. Still, though the land could swallow you up, it was nothing compared to the sea! The sea consumed all! But now someone was meddling with his work and he had to figure out what to do while there were still options open to him. He knew no one had found anything yet or he wouldn’t be watching now. He’d be in Hilo Jail waiting to be sent to Halawa Prison. If he didn’t want that to happen he was going to have to do something, and do it fast.
When the sun was low in the western sky on that first day he had retreated stealthily up the flow to a distant kipuka of kiawe trees that would shield him from view if any crewmen on the boat happened to look inshore. From there he ran through the heat, over the smooth pahoehoe flows, always skirting the chaos of the a’a lava until he intersected the access road where he had parked his rented Camry. He drove to Keahou in time to see the search boat pull into the bay and moor at the overnight slip.
The two-man crew offloaded a yellow torpedo shaped device and two small waterproof boxes and left in a metallic blue Dodge club-cab pickup truck. There was a sign on the door but he had not wanted to get close enough to read it. Instead, after the truck left, he turned his attention to the search vessel.
A quick dockside examination told him it was a Safe Boat, a durable 18-foot long rigid hull boat owned by Manta Ray Submarines and he knew immediately that he was right to think he’d landed in trouble. A submarine! He’d heard of the company a few months back. The Big Island boating community was relatively small and any new entry into the business fray was usually featured, as well as advertised, in Hawaii Today, the small paper that served the west side of the island. Word of mouth was an even better source of information and he quickly found out that Manta Ray Submarines ran tours of the reefs outside of Anaeho’omalu Bay, catered to high-end clientele and had a submarine that was supposed to be state of the art. He had no idea who ran it or how many crew they employed. Manta Ray Submarines had been just another player in the ocean tourism game until now, but all that had changed. A submarine! Could they find the Harlot with it? Hart knew he had to scope things out and do something about it fast. He needed time to think. Was there a way to stop the search? He decided to return to his land and spend the night in the lava tube so that he could watch what went on the following day.
Driving back to the south he mulled over the situation in his mind and resolved to do whatever was necessary to protect himself. There was no way he would sit back and let them take what he had worked so hard to achieve. His property was his home and sanctuary and gave him the freedom to pursue his quarry, both at sea and on land. His freedom was more than just a state of being. If thrown in jail he would never again experience the delicious power that coursed through him as he took a woman, mind and body. If captured and convicted he would lose all that he held dear. The quiet days and peaceful nights would be gone, replaced by years of confinement.
Close to his hideout an onshore breeze blew in off the sea and mixed with the warm air rising from the now cooling lava flows. A taste of salt and a hint of sulphur wafted around him as he carefully worked his way by the bright light of the moon across the jagged and uneven terrain. Soon he could hear the soft susurration of the sea in the distance and he began to scan the silhouettes of the tops of lava formations against the starry sky.
The tube entrance was small, only four feet across and three feet high but it opened into a huge system that ran many miles upslope. He had explored it to the very farthest reaches during his teenage years and knew its twists and turns like he knew the land above it. The tube was the perfect hiding place and had served him as such for many years. Locating the opening was simple for him but would be all but impossible to the untrained eye. Even in the daytime the small entrance was difficult to find. Long ago he had camouflaged it with a piece of black fiberglass cast from a mold of a nearby exposed basalt wall. When placed over the opening the cover looked as though it was just another heat blasted section of bulged and distorted rock.
Picking his way carefully, Sid Hart homed in on his hideouts front door. To avoid wearing a trail in the brittle surface of the lava he always approached the entrance from a different angle. Once in position in front of the door, he sat quietly for several minutes, listening to the night sounds for any sign he had been followed. As he waited he checked the position of a small slab of real lava set against the camouflaged cover. If anyone had stumbled upon his lair there was no way they would be able to replace the telltale rock without him knowing. The slab was undisturbed. Setting it aside, he lifted the cover and crouched down to step inside the tube. Turning around briefly, he pulled the cover back into place and attached a pair of bungee cords to a hook set in the inward facing side. The cords were connected to hooks epoxied to the floor and ceiling of the small entrance tunnel. They prevented the cover from shifting with the wind and gave it just enough resistance to movement by hand from the exterior so that it seemed as solid as a real piece of lava. He had tested it long ago by using a tiny skylight a mile inland to exit the tube and return to the seaward entrance. The skylight, a term he found quite appropriate to the nature of the tube systems characteristics, served as his back door should he ever need one. The main entrance camouflage was virtually undetectable to a casual hiker and the odds of anyone ever discovering it were astronomical.
Hart turned on a small penlight and duck-walked thirty feet in and twenty feet down to where the small passageway entered the main channel of the tube system. Once an insulated conduit for the lifeblood of the island on its race to the sea, the lava tube was now an empty vessel. Its arched roof twenty feet above his head and the smooth walls fifteen feet to either side formed an underground superhighway which narrowed at times but always held true to its reason for existence and remained oriented from east to west, summit to shore. It extended almost four miles inland to where the collapse of the roof had blocked further exploration. He had spent long hours trying to find a way around the debris but had finally given up. The tube was more than big enough for his uses and in time he had turned it into the perfect home away from home.
Hart removed a larger flashlight from a canvas rucksack and used it to check his surroundings for any signs of intruders. Satisfied that no one had violated his space he climbed up onto a shelf of stone made by receding lava levels. There was a mattress there and water and a cassette player. He pressed play, turned off the light and stretched out on the mattress. The dry air in the tube settled around him like a warm blanket and he fell asleep to a recording of more pleasant times with the Harlot.
After a restless night he woke early and left the tube to take up his position on the flow to await the arrival of the search craft. The sun had just begun to heat up the surrounding lava when he spied a high-speed vessel approaching from the north. As it neared his property and slowed, Hart trained his binoculars on it and saw that it was the same vessel that had worked the waters offshore the day before. The two crewmembers lowered the yellow torpedo over the side, let out some line and began their methodical passes up and down the coast.
The long morning that followed afforded Hart the time to think about what had to be done and to formulate his plans. When the sun was high overhead he removed a few items from a toolbox, covered the entrance to the tube and headed for town.
Now, exactly a day later, Hart again watched and wondered whether to proceed as planned. Things had changed slightly. On this third day of his long watch, Murphy had raised his head with the appearance of the submarine under tow behind the Safe Boat. Five minutes after their arrival on station one man clambered onto her, opened a hatch and disappeared inside, pulling the hatch closed behind him. Within seconds the sub had disappeared, leaving only a small patch of smooth water to mark the spot. Whatever they were up to, they certainly wasted no time going about it.
The subs presence meant that they had most likely found something and were headed down to have a look. If so, that meant their search had been successful and would probably change how the police viewed him. Was the plan he decided on yesterday still the right course of action? If he had known the Harlot’s disappearance was going to cause him this much trouble he would have made her suffer a lot more than she had.
Despite the way things looked he knew he had been extremely fortunate in the timing of his visit to the tube three days ago. The razing of his house had been the classic fuck you move, easy to accomplish and very satisfying in the long run. The thought of the police camped out in the Togawa’s house running a stakeout on a charred patch of lava made him smile. In the aftermath of the destruction of his home he moved to Hilo and rented an apartment there, biding his time, diving now and again to keep up appearances. He sold ice on the side and had come back to his property for the first time since the fire to pick up a stash whose sale would pay for a new engine for his boat.
Fishing out of Hilo was a drag for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the rough water, but until some time went by he was going to have to deal with it. There were still fish to be found, new reefs to seek out and plunder and the peace he found during the hunt was still the same. After a while he could return to the Kona coast and build again on the knoll. It would be a better house this time, with solar panels for electricity and none of the perpetual dicking around with that damn generator. He would get himself a nice home theater, too, one of those big projection screen TV’s and a huge living room and maybe a hot tub for the deck. All he had to do was build a reverse osmosis system and he would have all the water he needed. Just suck it up out of the ocean and run it through the rig and presto, instant fresh water. If he worked it right he could make a nice meth lab underneath the house. Build a little hidey-hole and make some easy money. The girls would come for the drugs. They were weak and they would open themselves up to him and he would have his way again and again and again.
Hart shook his head to clear his thoughts. There was not going to be any future for him if what he thought was happening offshore was allowed to continue. Though the situation was slightly different today, he had to act. From a canvas pack at his feet Hart removed a transmitter of the type used to operate radio controlled model airplanes. He removed a cover on the back, inserted a battery, then replaced the cover and set the unit in his lap. Through his binoculars the cockpit of the search boat jumped into sharp relief. Sunlight glinted off chrome and the bright blue sea formed a backdrop behind the crewman leaning against the helm console as he spoke into a microphone.
“That’ll be enough of that,” said Hart as he toggled a switch on the transmitter. A puff of brown smoke jetted into the air near the bow, followed immediately by an explosion of orange flame that engulfed the entire hull of the small vessel. The thump of the shockwave passed over him as shards of metal and fiberglass rained down on the sea. Black smoke billowed from the ruined craft in a roiling plume that climbed high into the morning sky.
Aloha, Doug.
CHAPTER 4
A soft breeze cooled Sidney Hart as he sat in the entrance of a small lava tube a quarter mile south of his old home site. From his vantage point Hart could see the coastline past his property and Togawa’s and on into the heat haze to the north. Only three hundred feet from shore, the tube entrance was a good spot to observe from and would remain so until the morning sun rose above the wall of lava behind him. Then the flow would begin to bake and he would have to move. For now, though, it would do. He did not need to see much more.
Three days ago he had returned to his property to retrieve a batch of crystal meth he’d stashed months earlier. Approaching the tube he noticed a boat headed north close to shore. At first he thought nothing of it, but upon leaving with his drugs nicely bagged he noted that the boat was still moving in the same area offshore so he sat down to watch.
Three hours later he knew he was in trouble. Big trouble. The crew of the vessel was not trolling, at least not for fish. They were conducting some kind of search and that could only mean they were looking for the Harlot. The insufferable bitch was still fucking with him! He should have swum her much farther out than a few hundred feet. Maybe he should have found a way to take her miles out to sea in his boat before letting her sink. More importantly, though, since what was done was done and no sense crying about it, he had to know who was in the vessel offshore and how they figured it out? Or were they just guessing? Whatever the case, he had to find out what they were doing, why, and if possible, what they knew.
Many years ago he had been SCUBA diving offshore of his property to test a new rig. During his brief stay at two hundred feet he had paid particular attention to the details of the sea floor topography. There in the half light and quiet cold he had seen that the bottom dropped steeply away, disappearing into the fathomless blue. A thrilling sense of anticipation coursed through him as he floated above the void. He made his first kill two weeks later.
She had been visiting from Oahu, living in Ka’u, trimming pot during the winter harvest season and had been hitching to Kona when Hart picked her up. By the time they had driven twenty miles her fate was sealed. She was pretty and blonde and talked a blue streak, telling Hart everything about herself without being prompted. She lived on the North Shore near Ehukai Beach and shared the rent with several other girls. They didn’t have a lot but they didn’t care. The beautiful days at the beach and the parties every weekend were all they needed. A friend had given her the name of a guy on the Big Island who would put her up for a month during the push to get his crop to market and pay her twenty an hour when she worked. Her roommates all thought she was on the mainland visiting her folks. All Hart heard was that no one would miss her.
She let him take her to his house and sometime during the night he tied her to the bed and blindfolded her. The sex was beyond description and the sense of absolute power was enthralling. He did not untie her or remove the blindfold until the afternoon of the third day, after he had strangled her for screaming too loudly while he was trying to sleep. He fucked her again in the evening, her body stiff and pleasantly compliant, then went out into his shop and used a saber saw to cut the lid off of an old fuel drum. She fit nicely, tucked into the oily space, knees bent up by her chest, feet down, hands folded in front of her as though in prayer. Hart cooked some ahi and went out to his lanai, watching the stars over the ocean and wishing the girl didn’t have to go so soon. After he’d eaten he welded the drum’s lid back on, then took his axe and went to work with it on his grinding wheel until the edge was razor sharp. The lower tip of the axe blade punched tight little triangular holes through the metal about an inch and a half long by half an inch wide, and the weight of the girl kept the drum from jumping too much as he maneuvered around it. He tipped it onto its side and used candle wax to seal each puncture, then returned to his lanai and had a beer.
Hart waited till midnight when the heat had left the flows and the night air was cool then dragged her down to the water. He wore a bathing suit and tabis and carried a set of swim fins and a mask. The barrel rang with a muffled note as he pushed it off the edge of his property and into the surging water. Donning his mask and fins, Hart entered the water and took it under tow with a small bridle of cord thrown over his shoulder. A few minutes of easy swimming and he was well offshore. Wavelets tapped lightly on the drum, shifting it beneath his hands as he found each wax covered hole and pushed a finger into the openings. The sea began to fill the void and the drum settled lower. A soft exhalation of air rippled the water as each puncture sank below the surface. The drum whistled and bubbled at the end, the weight of the water pulling it under before the last of the air was displaced. Hart had taken a deep breath, grabbed hold of the lip and let the descending drum pull him down. At twenty feet he cleared his ears, exhaled, and let go as it spiraled from starlight down into darkness.
It had taken time and planning and there had been some mistakes on his part over the years but he had made the crossing and come through stronger for it. There had been many other women, all drifters of some sort; each without roots and each with few people to search for them, assuming anyone had known where to start looking. Hart lived on his own terms, like the big Ulua that stalked the reef, taking his prey when they left the protection of the coral, ranging over his territory as he wished. It was a good life and no one was going to take it from him.
The Harlot had been one of his mistakes. She had made him step outside his character and try to win her in the old way, the weak way, the way of the feathered nest and pleading. What had he been thinking? She had driven him mad with desire and he had taken the bait and run with it. Maybe if he had fought more she would not have let him go so suddenly. But she had cut him loose like a dying marlin and he descended into the depths. The days and weeks that followed were the worst of his life, but in the end he survived and was ultimately revitalized by the finality of her rejection. He had husbanded his strength and grown and planned. Now, years later it was she who had been given to the blue.
Was there a chance the searchers could find the barrel and recover her remains?
Hart knew the tiny creatures of the ocean would reduce the body to bones in a year and to nothing but teeth within a few more, but only three months had passed since he had disposed of her and that was not remotely long enough. He hadn’t counted on anyone guessing what had happened, no less sending out a boat to search for her. If he had known that was going to happen he would have taken her body to Napau Crater and dumped it into the East Rift. There were places along that crack where a body would fall for a long time. Still, though the land could swallow you up, it was nothing compared to the sea! The sea consumed all! But now someone was meddling with his work and he had to figure out what to do while there were still options open to him. He knew no one had found anything yet or he wouldn’t be watching now. He’d be in Hilo Jail waiting to be sent to Halawa Prison. If he didn’t want that to happen he was going to have to do something, and do it fast.
When the sun was low in the western sky on that first day he had retreated stealthily up the flow to a distant kipuka of kiawe trees that would shield him from view if any crewmen on the boat happened to look inshore. From there he ran through the heat, over the smooth pahoehoe flows, always skirting the chaos of the a’a lava until he intersected the access road where he had parked his rented Camry. He drove to Keahou in time to see the search boat pull into the bay and moor at the overnight slip.
The two-man crew offloaded a yellow torpedo shaped device and two small waterproof boxes and left in a metallic blue Dodge club-cab pickup truck. There was a sign on the door but he had not wanted to get close enough to read it. Instead, after the truck left, he turned his attention to the search vessel.
A quick dockside examination told him it was a Safe Boat, a durable 18-foot long rigid hull boat owned by Manta Ray Submarines and he knew immediately that he was right to think he’d landed in trouble. A submarine! He’d heard of the company a few months back. The Big Island boating community was relatively small and any new entry into the business fray was usually featured, as well as advertised, in Hawaii Today, the small paper that served the west side of the island. Word of mouth was an even better source of information and he quickly found out that Manta Ray Submarines ran tours of the reefs outside of Anaeho’omalu Bay, catered to high-end clientele and had a submarine that was supposed to be state of the art. He had no idea who ran it or how many crew they employed. Manta Ray Submarines had been just another player in the ocean tourism game until now, but all that had changed. A submarine! Could they find the Harlot with it? Hart knew he had to scope things out and do something about it fast. He needed time to think. Was there a way to stop the search? He decided to return to his land and spend the night in the lava tube so that he could watch what went on the following day.
Driving back to the south he mulled over the situation in his mind and resolved to do whatever was necessary to protect himself. There was no way he would sit back and let them take what he had worked so hard to achieve. His property was his home and sanctuary and gave him the freedom to pursue his quarry, both at sea and on land. His freedom was more than just a state of being. If thrown in jail he would never again experience the delicious power that coursed through him as he took a woman, mind and body. If captured and convicted he would lose all that he held dear. The quiet days and peaceful nights would be gone, replaced by years of confinement.
Close to his hideout an onshore breeze blew in off the sea and mixed with the warm air rising from the now cooling lava flows. A taste of salt and a hint of sulphur wafted around him as he carefully worked his way by the bright light of the moon across the jagged and uneven terrain. Soon he could hear the soft susurration of the sea in the distance and he began to scan the silhouettes of the tops of lava formations against the starry sky.
The tube entrance was small, only four feet across and three feet high but it opened into a huge system that ran many miles upslope. He had explored it to the very farthest reaches during his teenage years and knew its twists and turns like he knew the land above it. The tube was the perfect hiding place and had served him as such for many years. Locating the opening was simple for him but would be all but impossible to the untrained eye. Even in the daytime the small entrance was difficult to find. Long ago he had camouflaged it with a piece of black fiberglass cast from a mold of a nearby exposed basalt wall. When placed over the opening the cover looked as though it was just another heat blasted section of bulged and distorted rock.
Picking his way carefully, Sid Hart homed in on his hideouts front door. To avoid wearing a trail in the brittle surface of the lava he always approached the entrance from a different angle. Once in position in front of the door, he sat quietly for several minutes, listening to the night sounds for any sign he had been followed. As he waited he checked the position of a small slab of real lava set against the camouflaged cover. If anyone had stumbled upon his lair there was no way they would be able to replace the telltale rock without him knowing. The slab was undisturbed. Setting it aside, he lifted the cover and crouched down to step inside the tube. Turning around briefly, he pulled the cover back into place and attached a pair of bungee cords to a hook set in the inward facing side. The cords were connected to hooks epoxied to the floor and ceiling of the small entrance tunnel. They prevented the cover from shifting with the wind and gave it just enough resistance to movement by hand from the exterior so that it seemed as solid as a real piece of lava. He had tested it long ago by using a tiny skylight a mile inland to exit the tube and return to the seaward entrance. The skylight, a term he found quite appropriate to the nature of the tube systems characteristics, served as his back door should he ever need one. The main entrance camouflage was virtually undetectable to a casual hiker and the odds of anyone ever discovering it were astronomical.
Hart turned on a small penlight and duck-walked thirty feet in and twenty feet down to where the small passageway entered the main channel of the tube system. Once an insulated conduit for the lifeblood of the island on its race to the sea, the lava tube was now an empty vessel. Its arched roof twenty feet above his head and the smooth walls fifteen feet to either side formed an underground superhighway which narrowed at times but always held true to its reason for existence and remained oriented from east to west, summit to shore. It extended almost four miles inland to where the collapse of the roof had blocked further exploration. He had spent long hours trying to find a way around the debris but had finally given up. The tube was more than big enough for his uses and in time he had turned it into the perfect home away from home.
Hart removed a larger flashlight from a canvas rucksack and used it to check his surroundings for any signs of intruders. Satisfied that no one had violated his space he climbed up onto a shelf of stone made by receding lava levels. There was a mattress there and water and a cassette player. He pressed play, turned off the light and stretched out on the mattress. The dry air in the tube settled around him like a warm blanket and he fell asleep to a recording of more pleasant times with the Harlot.
After a restless night he woke early and left the tube to take up his position on the flow to await the arrival of the search craft. The sun had just begun to heat up the surrounding lava when he spied a high-speed vessel approaching from the north. As it neared his property and slowed, Hart trained his binoculars on it and saw that it was the same vessel that had worked the waters offshore the day before. The two crewmembers lowered the yellow torpedo over the side, let out some line and began their methodical passes up and down the coast.
The long morning that followed afforded Hart the time to think about what had to be done and to formulate his plans. When the sun was high overhead he removed a few items from a toolbox, covered the entrance to the tube and headed for town.
Now, exactly a day later, Hart again watched and wondered whether to proceed as planned. Things had changed slightly. On this third day of his long watch, Murphy had raised his head with the appearance of the submarine under tow behind the Safe Boat. Five minutes after their arrival on station one man clambered onto her, opened a hatch and disappeared inside, pulling the hatch closed behind him. Within seconds the sub had disappeared, leaving only a small patch of smooth water to mark the spot. Whatever they were up to, they certainly wasted no time going about it.
The subs presence meant that they had most likely found something and were headed down to have a look. If so, that meant their search had been successful and would probably change how the police viewed him. Was the plan he decided on yesterday still the right course of action? If he had known the Harlot’s disappearance was going to cause him this much trouble he would have made her suffer a lot more than she had.
Despite the way things looked he knew he had been extremely fortunate in the timing of his visit to the tube three days ago. The razing of his house had been the classic fuck you move, easy to accomplish and very satisfying in the long run. The thought of the police camped out in the Togawa’s house running a stakeout on a charred patch of lava made him smile. In the aftermath of the destruction of his home he moved to Hilo and rented an apartment there, biding his time, diving now and again to keep up appearances. He sold ice on the side and had come back to his property for the first time since the fire to pick up a stash whose sale would pay for a new engine for his boat.
Fishing out of Hilo was a drag for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the rough water, but until some time went by he was going to have to deal with it. There were still fish to be found, new reefs to seek out and plunder and the peace he found during the hunt was still the same. After a while he could return to the Kona coast and build again on the knoll. It would be a better house this time, with solar panels for electricity and none of the perpetual dicking around with that damn generator. He would get himself a nice home theater, too, one of those big projection screen TV’s and a huge living room and maybe a hot tub for the deck. All he had to do was build a reverse osmosis system and he would have all the water he needed. Just suck it up out of the ocean and run it through the rig and presto, instant fresh water. If he worked it right he could make a nice meth lab underneath the house. Build a little hidey-hole and make some easy money. The girls would come for the drugs. They were weak and they would open themselves up to him and he would have his way again and again and again.
Hart shook his head to clear his thoughts. There was not going to be any future for him if what he thought was happening offshore was allowed to continue. Though the situation was slightly different today, he had to act. From a canvas pack at his feet Hart removed a transmitter of the type used to operate radio controlled model airplanes. He removed a cover on the back, inserted a battery, then replaced the cover and set the unit in his lap. Through his binoculars the cockpit of the search boat jumped into sharp relief. Sunlight glinted off chrome and the bright blue sea formed a backdrop behind the crewman leaning against the helm console as he spoke into a microphone.
“That’ll be enough of that,” said Hart as he toggled a switch on the transmitter. A puff of brown smoke jetted into the air near the bow, followed immediately by an explosion of orange flame that engulfed the entire hull of the small vessel. The thump of the shockwave passed over him as shards of metal and fiberglass rained down on the sea. Black smoke billowed from the ruined craft in a roiling plume that climbed high into the morning sky.
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