Diamond Head (19 page)

Authors: Charles Knief

BOOK: Diamond Head

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Kate was still alive. How much longer, and how she would spend her remaining hours was not something I wanted to think about. I only wanted her free. I took inventory and assessed my situation. I'd brought enough ammunition to celebrate a Chinese New Year, but I could not bring an attack on them through the cane. Physically I was hurting and weak. The pain was tolerable, the adrenaline helping to cover most of it, but my injuries slowed me down.

The tapes had to be with Thompson. They were far too valuable to be out of his sight. But their recovery was far outweighed by Kate. She was alive and breathing, and I had to get her away from him before getting to the tapes.

I didn't think Thompson would run until he was certain I was dead, and he wouldn't count on that until he saw the body this time. I began crawling quietly toward the house, the massive revolver in front of me.

The breeze intensified, blowing in off the water. It brought with it a new smell. The smell of fire.

I saw the glow of flames moving toward me, fueled by the night breezes behind it. Thompson had called his men from the cane to set it on fire. He was going to burn me out.

I ran.

I tried to take a perpendicular track to the flames but they
were on a broad front. I didn't gain anything with that maneuver, I only lost ground. I changed directions and ran for my life.

Halfway across the field was a small stream, nearly five feet across and several feet deep. It was supposed to be my second fallback position. The fire was moving fast and I hoped to beat the wall of flame to the stream. Making the far edge of the field was impossible, but I might make it halfway.

I ran for another thirty seconds and realized even the stream was too far. The cane was too dense to run through and the flames were licking at my heels. My injuries were also catching up with me. Even with the terror of the flames I just didn't have the energy I needed.

I ran at an angle to the flames, searching for an opening. There was only one chance left. If I could find a spot where the fire was sparse I could risk jumping back through, landing on the other side. If it was moving fast enough, and if there was another side and not just more fire. That wasn't the best option, but it was the only one left.

And then I didn't even have that option. The fire swept up and boiled over me like a white-hot orange wave. I sprinted straight into the flames as fast as I could run.

A
s the fire reached me I leapt into the air as if I could hurdle the wall of flame. I obeyed my instincts. Having no operational experience in anything like this, I held my breath and closed my eyes, covering them with my hands.

The heat and smoke seemed to be worse before I jumped than while I was inside the flames. There was no conscious realization other than a buffeting of warm winds that seemed to come from hell itself, tendrils wrapping around my legs and tickling the hair behind my ears. I seemed to float above the earth for an eternity, weightless as an ash from a fireplace borne into the sky.

Then I hit the stalks of singed cane on the other side of the fire and the hard-packed earth below. My heels hit first and I rolled forward in a perfect paratrooper landing. I continued the roll until I was standing again and the flames burned behind me, turning the cane into barren stalks.

My clothes were smoldering but the hard-surfaced cotton had not burned and I didn't seem much worse off than before. Warm viscous fluid leaked down the back of my leg from the reopened bullet wound. The hair on the backs of my hands was black and stubbed, and I guessed that the hair on my head would look much the same. My face felt as if I'd been out in
the sun too long, but I could see and I could walk with not much more appreciable pain than before.

“I am alive,” I said.

I checked the loads in the Ruger and began jogging through the stubbled cane toward the house. It didn't take long. I hadn't run as far as I thought before the fire overtook me. The two police cars were still in the unburned cane, out of the path of the fire storm. The flames would get to them only if the winds shifted.

I found the body of the man I'd shot. The fire had not been kind.

At the fence I found an opening in the chain link, the one Thompson's man had used. The van was gone, the house and grounds dark. I tried the door to the house and found it unlocked.

I took a flashlight from my pack and entered the dark structure, the light in my left hand, the .44 in my right.

It was an unremarkable house, unpretentious and sparsely furnished. It was not what I would have expected from Thompson, but it would have been an excellent cover for the snuff film production house.

The bodies of Yoshida and the other policeman were sprawled on the floor of the kitchen, blood congealing under them in a black syrupy pool. Both men had been shot in the head. From the amount of blood it looked as though their hearts had continued to beat for a while after the trauma.

Possibly the only reason the police had not found the entrance to the cellar was because they had not been looking for one. If they knew what I knew they would have torn the structure down and jackhammered the slab. I had some rudimentary knowledge of how these things were constructed. I looked in closets.

A trapdoor can be concealed wall to wall in a small area. It cannot be hidden in a large room. I found it on my third try. The master bedroom had two closets. One had nothing but shoe
racks, lining each wall, floor to ceiling. The other had hanging clothing. I took a long look and decided the shoes.

The shoe racks started at the floor, making the actual floor area that much smaller, about three feet by five feet, a good size for a trapdoor that had to accommodate material and equipment. And dead bodies. I searched the perimeter of the racks and found the latch, hidden just under the carpet.

I pushed the latch and lifted the trapdoor until it locked in place. I descended wooden stairs, my flashlight held before me like a magic wand to ward off evil spirits. I put my revolver away. Whatever was down here would not be afraid of a gun.

When I reached a landing I found I could stand without hitting my head and closed the hatch behind me. This is North Shore Oahu, and police and fire equipment are far away. The police would want to contact their own people on the site first. Unless someone reported hearing the shots they would become alarmed only when they couldn't raise them. The closest units were either Wahiawa or Kuhuku, each about twenty minutes distant. The fire department was closer, but they would come out, find a cane field burning, contact the sugar company and stand by to see that the fire didn't get out of control.

I tried a switch and a light came on.

The studio occupied one half of the room. The torture rack was partially disassembled, its parts leaning against the wall. Forensics should be able to match splinters taken from Mary MacGruder's body with pieces of that rack. The paneling looked familiar. The carpet was similar. I wondered how many innocents had died in this dim little room.

Three depressions were worn in the carpet where a heavy tripod had stood. I squatted behind the triangle to sight the room and saw that the camera angle was identical to that in the two tapes Thompson had displayed. Looking to my left, I visualized the place where the two men had stood with the girl before they butchered her. I stared at the spot and could almost feel her terror.

A wall of tapes, floor to ceiling, stood behind me. A snuff library. The cassettes were labeled by number, an obvious code system. There were no clues how to decipher the code. There was no way to be certain I could get any of Mary's tapes, much less all of them. I had the feeling that Thompson took most of the Mary tapes as well as a representative sample of the others, as many as he could carry. He had a day to pick and choose, already knowing the code.

I went upstairs and looked around again. No one had come to the house yet. Flashing lights and activity bustled on the far side of the cane field but no one had yet discovered the house and the cars. The flames had not spread and looked to be dying.

I dragged the bodies of Yoshida and the other murdered policeman from the kitchen and laid them in the driveway, away from the house. The effort winded me and I had to rest at the door, leaning against the jamb. After a few minutes I went back to the basement.

The disassembled cross was even more difficult to move from the basement to the driveway, but I managed to muscle it up the stairs and place the pieces next to the bodies so the wood would be perceived as being significant. I returned to the basement, thinking over my last decision.

If Mary had been murdered over three months before, she would not be in the most recent tapes. There were no dates on the labels, but the ink looked fresher on some than on others. I chose five of what looked to be the newest cassettes and stuffed those in my pack.

I found a can of spray deodorant in the bathroom, took my lighter and held it at arm's length, and sprayed the tiny flamethrower toward the tape library. The plastic cases and the rough pine shelving instantly caught fire. I repeated the process near the floor. When the library was totally involved and I was certain that none of the tapes would survive I left the basement.

I was concerned the air might not draw down to the basement and the flames would smother, so I left the trapdoor
open. I opened a couple of windows, too, and left the kitchen door open to give the fire plenty of oxygen. It didn't matter if the house burned completely. I wanted to eliminate all evidence of Mary MacGruder from this place.

After thoroughly wiping down the cassettes, I dropped the five tapes on the bodies of the policemen. I had done all I could for them. With two police cars, one with bullet holes in the windshield, the tapes and the pieces of the rack, the police should be able to put two and two together and come up with at least four.

I walked through unblackened sugar cane toward the spot where I'd hidden my Jeep. It was over a mile away, in the opposite direction of the path of the fire. Once I was out of the light I began jogging. I set an easy pace, one that went well with my injuries and yet would get me to my Jeep in less than ten minutes. I planned to be home in forty minutes after that.

I had to report Kate's abduction, even though that would put me at the fire and the destruction of evidence and three dead bodies, two of whom were policemen. There would be hell to pay, and if the cops could not go after those who did it, they'd destroy anyone still standing. That was me.

I'd started way behind the power curve on this one, and I'd doggedly stayed there. The only thing I could say about my performance so far was that I'd hung in there. Persistence may be a virtue, but it was the only one I'd demonstrated. The rest of my work sure wasn't brilliant.

I'd go after Thompson myself, but I had no idea where he was. I counted on the evidence I left at the scene to heat the police to a fever pitch to find him and rescue Kate. This is a small island, and there are many, many men and women in blue. Thompson would have to leave if he intended to survive.

Hawaii is unique in all the world. It is the most isolated land mass on the planet. In order to leave here it takes a large ocean-going vessel or a capable, long-range airplane. No one leaves in a small private plane. No one can drive away. No one can
hitchhike. Everyplace else is too far away.

An idea popped into my mind. Thompson had sacrificed
Pele.
The airport was out of the question. How else was he going to leave? A small boat could rendezvous with a ship. A smaller boat would not be shown on most radar sets. A boat such as a sailboat might even be considered a mote on the screen of all but the most sophisticated military strike radar.

Come on, man, think! The closest marina was down in Haleiwa. If Thompson had gone to so much trouble to hide, he'd also have an alternative way out of the islands. His actions tonight were those of a man with no intention of remaining in Hawaii.

I started running harder. The faster I could get to my Jeep, the faster I'd make the Haleiwa harbor.

I
desperately sought a telephone. I was used to having a cellular, and finding a pay phone was a skill I'd lost. After what seemed like an endless search I found a working phone at the back of a restaurant in Haleiwa and reported the shootings and Kate's kidnapping to a young female 911 dispatcher. I told her to contact the coast guard, but she ignored my suggestion. She demanded my name, and when I wouldn't give it to her became officious and abusive. Knowing our conversation was being taped, and knowing my location appeared on her monitor, I gave her the address of the house in Haleiwa, repeated the suggestion that the coasties get involved, and hung up.

Haleiwa Boat Harbor was deserted. The ocean was spastic beyond the breakwater. Erratic waves pitched over the rock barrier, spilling into the calmer waters inside. A storm lurked beyond the horizon. Of what size or intensity I couldn't tell, but there was the heavy, tangible feeling of something huge and malevolent out there. It was not a night to be out in a small boat.

I jogged to the end of the dock where two local men were fishing. They sat on the edge, legs dangling in the water, pole gripped tightly in one hand, a beer in the other. A Playmate
cooler perched on the deck between them and empty bottles lined the dock like sentinels.

“Did any boats leave here tonight?”

They looked at me as if I'd suddenly materialized from a flying saucer. I realized I still had on my ragged fatigues and my weapons were all too apparent.

“Yah,” said the older one after a moment of sizing me up. When I got close I saw a family resemblance between them. “I told my son they was crazy to go out tonight. Big blow coming, I think.”

“When did they leave?”

“Dunno. Not long. I opened two beers since they left. Maybe twenty minutes.”

“Twenty?”

“Ten or fifteen. I dunno. They was plenty guys, and a woman. She didn't want to go. The big man, he carry her aboard after she hit the other man. She hit him wit' her fist. Good smack, right in the chin. Don't blame her she don't wanna go. Gonna be bad tonight.” Kate's fight had been vastly entertaining to watch. And neither man had thought to interfere. Their understanding of the situation was only that a man was having problems with his woman.

“What kind of boat?”

“You some kind of cop?” I'd asked too many questions and aroused their natural suspicions of haoles.

“Does that mean you aren't going to tell me?”

“What's your beef?”

“That woman was kidnapped. The guys who did it killed two cops tonight.”

For the first time the fishermen paid attention to what I said. The younger one spoke first. “Sailboat. About thirty feet. Couldn't catch the name, but it's a white sailboat with white sails.”

“They're out there in a sailboat?”

“Had a small motor and they was using it, but they also was using their mainsail. Buncha clowns.”

“Thank you,” I said. I ran back down to the quay and found another pay phone outside the Chart House. When I got the Honolulu Police Department I gave the dispatcher the information I'd just received and hung up when she again started questioning my identity. They'd get to me sooner or later, but there was no way I was going to voluntarily take myself out of the action. I ran to my Jeep and pointed it toward Pearl Harbor. It would take half an hour if I hurried, and hurry was the only thing I could do.

No one was aboard
Duchess
and there was no evidence that anyone had been there since I'd left. Even though I knew the young SEAL had been aboard to retrieve my gear, nothing had been disturbed. Max was right about these kids. The new guys were puppies, but they were good. Possibly better than I'd ever been in my prime.

The telephone rang. I ignored it. I went into my cabin and stripped off my fatigues. They were damaged beyond repair, burnt through at the knees and elbows. The plastic tips of my bootlaces were melted. I put the Ruger away in the gun locker and loaded a more appropriate firearm.

I stared at my face in the mirror. A stranger with a red, boiled face and no eyebrows stared back at me. I pushed a finger into my cheek. The spot I touched remained white for a full thirty seconds before it slowly faded. First- and second-degree burns, nothing worse than a bad sunburn. Not as bad as it could have been. Other images floated to the surface of my consciousness, memories of napalm victims. For years after Vietnam I had been unable to eat barbecued ribs.

The telephone rang again. I let it ring six times. Whoever it was was persistent.

I changed into shorts and a sleeveless gray sweatshirt. My pain was constant now, but it was merely background. My face felt raw and hot. Pain radiated down my right leg from my buttock where I'd been shot. The jellyfish welts felt as bad as they looked. But I was alive and I had a mission. I was running on adrenaline and hope.

The telephone rang again. It was still ringing when I went topside to disconnect the utility connections and to prepare to cast off.

Somewhere out there was a small boat carrying Thompson and Kate and the rest of Thompson's men. I had to make the effort to find them. Their twenty-minute head start had grown to an hour, expanding the possible radius of where they might be. There was little chance of finding them. It was a big ocean and, like Thompson's boat,
Duchess
was small and slow. The only way to look for them efficiently would be in a small aircraft. Even then it would be chancy, especially at night. But I didn't have access to an airplane. All I had was
Duchess.

Someone came down the dock toward my boat. Only one man. From the cadence of his step I could tell that it was an athletic male wearing tennis shoes.

“Permission to come aboard?”

It was Max. He was carrying a small day pack and dressed in his tourist outfit. He looked ready to play volleyball on the beach, although I knew he must have spent at least six of the past hours on an airplane.

“Come aboard,” I said. I wedged the four-barreled .357 magnum derringer back into my hip pocket while he climbed the side of the boat and lightly touched down in the cockpit. He made no noise and
Duchess
shifted only slightly as she adjusted for his weight. “Thought you couldn't make it out here.”

“Thought you could use some help.”

“I'm damned glad to see you,” I said. I worked mechanically, stowing lines and cables. As much as I appreciated it, Max's arrival was not going to interrupt my preparations for departure.

“My people told me it got hairy out there tonight,” he said.

“I didn't see anybody,” I said.

“They saw you. Said you took on four or five guys armed with automatic weapons and you only had an old six-shooter hand cannon. Said you were okay for an old fart.”

“Thompson's got a hostage,” I said. “A female police detective. God knows what he's going to do with her.”

“I know.”

“I was just leaving,” I said. “I have places to go.”

“I tried calling you.”

When I made no reply he went on. “You know you need permission from the harbor master to leave Pearl at night.”

“I've already got the FBI, the Honolulu Police Department and the state of Hawaii mad at me. I might as well piss off the navy, too.”

“Heard you started a hell of a house fire.”

“Listen, partner, I've got to try to find a sailboat that left Haleiwa an hour ago. I don't know where he went, or in which direction, but I've got some ideas. I've got one shot at it and I want to make it my best one.”

Max reached into the cargo pocket of his day pack and took out a small black plastic box. “This will help.” He laid it on the cushion next to the transom and turned a switch. Red LED numbers lit up a small screen.

“What's that?”

“Radio direction finder. Works on a special frequency. Had people following you. They were under strict orders not to interfere, regardless of what happened. If you were killed they were to return to base and not to speak of anything they saw. When you were not killed they followed the man you are interested in to the boat harbor in Haleiwa. Before the boat left they managed to attach a transmitter to the hull. We've been tracking it ever since.”

“And?”

“We can't pick up the signal here because it's line-of-sight
and the mountains interfere, but the last bearing we had was off the western coast of Oahu. Heading south.”

“Right toward me.” I swiveled my head toward the Waianae Mountains. Only the lights of Makakilo sprawled along their eastern flanks made them visible. Otherwise they were a blackness against a greater dark. Somewhere beyond their peaks were Thompson and Kate. I pictured a map with a small sailboat moving toward Barber's Point.

“You can catch them.”

“How many people on board?”

“Two men and the hostage. The two men had the others carry the gear aboard the sailboat and then they forced them into a van at gunpoint. They were shot inside the van. My people think they used silenced weapons because they didn't hear any gunshots.”

That didn't square with what the local fishermen told me, but they were more intent upon what they thought were the antics of a haole domestic dispute. The activity would have suggested that all the people got aboard when they left the harbor, and if the fishermen had not heard the shots they would conclude that everyone they saw was on the boat.

“And they didn't stop them?”

“They didn't have orders to do that. And they figured you wouldn't mind if there were a few less.”

“Why would he shoot his own people?”

Max shook his head. “Lower his overhead. He's on the run. Why take more than you need?”

I pondered that. Max had a point. It would be typical of Thompson. He wouldn't think twice about eliminating anyone who was of no further use. And this man was holding Kate as a hostage.

Max pulled a navigational chart from his pocket. “I don't think he's headed for another island. If he were, he'd run east to Makapu'u Point and then take the Molokai Express south from there. I think he's trying to rendezvous with a ship south
of Oahu. There's plenty of ships out there tonight. Most are trying like hell to reach Honolulu before the hurricane hits.”

“Hurricane?”

“Headed north-northwest, last I heard. It's about four hundred miles south of the Big Island. It's supposed to be off Hilo by tomorrow, but it's jinxed all over the Pacific. Nobody can tell where that thing's going to end up.”

“And the sailboat's last bearing was due south?”

Max smiled. It was a grim smile, more suitable to an undertaker. “Right toward it. If they keep that up they'll either run into the hurricane or they'll find their ship.”

“If that happens â¦” I didn't know what else to say. If that happened, then Kate was lost, and so was any chance of retrieving the remaining tapes. Thompson would have all that remained of his tape library aboard that sailboat. Because of Kate my priorities were changing, but destroying the tapes was still high on the list.

“Wait one.” I went below and retrieved my cash from the bulkhead. If I went down I didn't want this going with me. I looked at the stacks of currency, aside from
Duchess
the only wealth in the world I possessed. For the first time I was splitting my resources. I put it in a white plastic trash bag and went topside and handed it to Max. “This is yours if I don't come back.”

Max didn't even look inside the bag but I could tell he knew what it was. “It'll be safe.”

“Throw a party if you don't see me again. A small party. Save the rest for your retirement.”

“Here.” Max handed me another black box, somewhat smaller than the other and without a screen.

“What's that?”

“Another transmitter. Don't want to lose you, too.”

I nodded and put the little bug in the pocket of my shorts. “Help me with the dock lines, will you?”

“Sure.”

“And see if you can put in a good word with the harbor master for me.”

“That's already been arranged by someone with a little more juice than I've got.”

“The admiral's here?”

Max smiled. “I didn't say that,” he said, unlooping the last of the dock lines. When the engine started he gave
Duchess
a shove and I was away.

“Be sure to deep-six that thing when you've found what you're looking for!” he called, meaning the direction finder. “We don't want any comebacks if it all goes wrong!”

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