kiDNApped (A Tara Shores Thriller) (31 page)

Rob spoke loudly over the engine noise. “When we reach the island, I’ll follow the coastline north until we reach Kilauea Lighthouse. From there, we make a right turn back east across the channel to Oahu. Should take about three hours. With me?”

They all agreed. As they took the coast, a few vessels could be seen plying the waters beneath them.

“Not nearly as many boats as on Oahu,” Kristen remarked. Dave nodded. “Yeah, it’s pretty laid back out here. You don’t get the tourist hordes.”

They began the reconnaissance work of swooping in low enough to read the name on each yacht with binoculars. Lance, Kristen and Dave would do the spotting on either side of the aircraft while Tara scoped out the details through the glasses, directing Rob where to fly when needed. She called out boat names as she saw them, none of them the
Nahoa
. There would be a clutch of vessels as they passed over a port or harbor, and then a stretch of mostly deserted sea until they neared the next port area. Occasionally they would spot a yacht alone in the splendid isolation of the Garden Isle’s lush coast, and these excited them.

Still, no
Nahoa
.

After a while Lance said, “You don’t think we should swing over to the west coast, and search out from the Hanalei River?”

Tara shook her head. “No. Anywhere along the
Tropic Sequence’s
proposed route is still monitored by the Coast Guard. I don’t think TYR would want the
Nahoa
anywhere near that.”

“Probably true,” Lance agreed.

“That would also mean we’d have to stop at Lihue to refuel before heading back across the channel,” Rob interjected. “So if it’s not a high probability area, we should skip it.”

That settled it.

Rob flipped on a marine band in case they might hear any references to a
Nahoa
. The chatter was light.

In this manner they picked their way north along the coast.

Dr. William Archer steered the big waverunner around a coral formation that protruded from the water scant feet in front of him. Looking ahead, he saw a row of wooden houses on the waterfront with a busy road just behind them. People everywhere! He throttled up again and shot forward toward the road.

Then the noise of an engine from above caught his ear. He looked up in time to see a small plane towing an advertisement banner reading, “Lahaina Arts Festival, June 20-21.”

Though Archer had never been to Lahaina before, he had heard of it—it was the second most popular tourist area in Hawaii outside of Waikiki.

Lahaina
...on the island of
Maui
! It all made sense now, Archer thought, as he skirted around some more coral and headed for a gulf of deeper water ahead. The wooden stilt buildings along the water, the busy street and throngs of people. And stopping the
Nahoa
here. They must have needed supplies, Archer realized. Lahaina was a major port, though it no longer held the same importance it once enjoyed during its heyday as a whaling town. So his captors had made the
Nahoa
up to look like a pleasure yacht and anchored within dinghy distance of town.

Archer pointed the waverunner’s nose at the beach. He opened up the throttle, grateful for the increasing revolutions of the engine. He sped along the reef much faster than was safe, hardly noticing the danger to himself. His mind was still numb with the fact that he had in all probability just killed a man.

He banked right to steer through a narrow channel cut in the reef that opened into a deeper swimming area closer to the waterfront. As he did, he stole a glance at the
Nahoa
. His fists tightened on the throttle grips as he saw two single-person jet-ski’s—smaller than the waverunner, but even more maneuverable—launch from the yacht toward the beach.

They were coming for him.

He throttled up, coaxing the waverunner’s engine to a roar that was painfully loud. A hectic rooster tail of exhaust water sprayed high behind him as he crossed into the swim area. His eyes darted back and forth.

Ahead of him, Dr. Archer could see that there was a narrow sandy beach to the left and a longer stone seawall to the right. Beyond both was Front Street, Lahaina’s quaint main drag. Heads began to turn as Archer struggled to control his waverunner, which weaved erratically toward the sandy beach. He craned his neck behind him.

The two jet-skis were catching up fast. Archer had little doubt that the men riding them were armed and angry. He had to make the street before they caught up with him. He angled his craft a little to the left—away from the seawall—as he approached the beach. The ribbon of sand grew larger. Archer snapped his head back. The jet-skiers?

Closing—and fast. He could see their sunglasses and baseball caps as they lasered in on him. Archer eyed the beach. It wasn’t packed body-to-body but there were plenty of people there, with still more walking back and forth on the sidewalk above.

Archer was concerned that these killers would gun him down like an animal even if he did reach the beach. Then they’d retreat back to the boat and leave.

But people were taking notice. Archer wasn’t quite aware of how eye-catching he was, a fifty-five year old man coated with blood, wearing arm’s length yellow rubber gloves, white hair and beard flying in the wind as he crazily rode his waverunner in a tourist swimming zone. There was no lifeguard.

But Archer had unconsciously slowed down while he thought about what to do next. The jet-skis were almost on him now. Archer jammed the throttle back up to full. He plowed toward the center of the beach.

A mother took notice and dragged her two children away from the sand castle they had been working on. An elderly woman beachcombing dropped the shells and beach glass she had just gathered and ran.

Archer didn’t like his situation. He was about to run up onto the beach, and then he would have to run to a stone wall with a short staircase cut into it leading up to the street. The two jet-skis whinnied like electric stallions just behind him.

Archer held the throttle down so hard his hands hurt as he hit the beach. The tide was with him, giving him more water, and the waverunner’s hull flew across the wet sand like a motorcycle across a slip N slide. What happened next was a blur to Archer—action so fast that his brain was unable to process it.

Two paddleboards had been propped up on the stone wall abutting the street. Archer saw the wall, saw the boards, beckoning like a crude ramp—heard the jet-skis hit the sand behind him—and steered for the boards.

His speed was more than sufficient to fly up the artificial incline. One of the waxed boards broke away as he rocketed up, and for a split second Archer thought he was going to slam right into the stone wall. But he cleared it with an inch to spare, and then he was careening across crowded Front Street on a three-person waverunner, shreds of its fiberglass scattering everywhere as he fishtailed first across the sidewalk, and then across two lanes of traffic.

Pedestrians leapt out of the way. Horns blared. People shrieked. Archer was fortunate that the near lane was empty except for a bicyclist whose rear wheel he clipped, sending the biker flying onto the beach below. Then Archer’s waverunner—he no longer had any kind of control over it—slid across the second lane of traffic and into a street lamp.

A pickup truck was unable to stop in time. It nicked the waverunner’s rear, causing the wayward watercraft to spin in place like a top.

Archer was thrown from the waverunner. He landed in the doorway of a restaurant. The last thing he heard before blacking out was a Chinese-accented voice speaking English, assuring everyone within earshot that he was a doctor.

…TTAT
56
CGGA…

In the chopper, the initial excitement of the search had worn off. The Kauai Channel on the way back to Oahu was now a monotonous expanse of dark blue, offering precious little in the way of boats to investigate. Those few they did see proved not to be what they were looking for.

The sight of Oahu’s land mass ahead forced the unspoken question on all of their minds from the pilot.

“Where to next?” he asked.

Tara turned around in her seat to consult her passengers. “Circle Oahu? Or keep going East to the other islands?”

“I doubt they’d risk hanging around Oahu,” Lance said. “Such a huge law enforcement and military presence. What’s the next island over if we keep going this way?”

“Molokai,” Dave declared.

“Molokai...” Kristen echoed. “That’s definitely off the
Tropic Sequence’s
itinerary. Could be good. Not much there, is there?”

“Hardly anything,” the pilot answered. “Only one small town, one small harbor. Easy to pick out any large yachts along the coast. If I were gonna try to hide, I might blend in rather than take myself to a remote location. Oahu is probably too populated, like he said.” Rob jerked a thumb back at Lance. “But...how about this...” He paused while he adjusted some controls on the dash.

“We do a quick fuel stop in Honolulu. Then we fly by Molokai, see if we see anything there. If not, we continue on to Maui. Or Lana’i, the smaller island in between Molokai and Maui. Either way. But head to that group: Molokai, Maui, Lanai. Those three are close together—they make up Maui County.”

“Flight time from here is how long?” Tara asked.

“About an hour.”

Tara looked at Rob and nodded.

3:03 P.M.

When Archer awoke he knew he was back on the
Nahoa
. The boat’s rocking motion told him they were still at anchor. Whether they had moved since he escaped, he could only wonder, but this line of thought was cut short when he realized that his eyes were open even though he could not see.

His mind flashed on the waverunner accident, recalling random snatches of it—a shower of sparks, the side of a pickup truck, the sound of the hull grinding across pavement, the sight of people’s legs as he ended up on the sidewalk...

Were his eyes open? He blinked several times in a row, feeling them rub against something. He held his eyes wide open: still black. Then he heard the voice. Modulated voice.

“You have been blindfolded,” it began. Dr. Archer went to pull the blindfold off but found his arms were bound. “And restrained,” the voice continued.

“Doctor Archer, we are extremely disappointed in your lapse of judgment. We thought you understood our business arrangement.”

“You call holding someone prisoner a business arrangement?” Archer spat.

Someone rammed a fist into his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. The disguised voice continued while Archer sputtered and coughed.

“Your recalcitrance will no longer be tolerated. Should you prove too much of a liability to us, we will simply drop you over the side of the ship, bound as you are, and your loved ones will never know what happened to you. Is that clear, Doctor Archer?”

Archer lifted his head. His captor continued before he could speak.

“Up to now we have tried to give you as much freedom as possible while you work to demonstrate GREENBACK. This approach has failed, leaving us with no recourse but to closely supervise your every move.”

“You want GREENBACK? I’ll give you GREENBACK. But then what? You’re just going to kill me, right? So why should I do it?”

The silence that followed this outburst caught Archer by surprise. But it didn’t last long.

“So you have been deliberately holding out on us?” came the voice.

“I’m saying that after the experimentation I’ve performed thus far in your shipboard lab, I’m confident that I now understand the proper methodology to produce the GREENBACK organism.”

“Very well. Doctor Archer, even though you have killed one of my best men, we are going to release you from these bonds. You will then set to work on creating GREENBACK, with at least two guards standing next to you at all times. Every supply you require will have to be requested of us. We can no longer give you free access to the lab. If you need a chemical, we will get it for you. If you need anything, we will get it.”

“Wonderful.”

“You will also provide a running commentary on your procedures and why you are doing what you are doing, so that we may document your methodology ourselves.”

“Hooray.”

“We will begin at once.”

Archer felt a hand on his face and the blindfold was ripped away. He stared into the muzzle of a snub-nosed automatic weapon which slowly retreated as Archer blinked.

“What do you need to start?”

“A dozen Petri dishes with agar media, inoculation samples from test-tube rack number 32A in cold storage, a well-slide in the microscope, and the GenTrack program running on the computer.”

“Will that be all?”

“Oh, yeah, I’ll take a bottle of your best champagne on ice, some caviar on wheat crackers, and two of your best hookers, please.”

At length the kidnapper said, “Perhaps when you succeed, Doctor Archer, those wishes might be granted. Until then, your existence will be considerably less extravagant.”

Two masked assistants hustled about the lab as they prepared William Archer’s requests.

Part V: Denatured

…GAAA
57
CGAA …

3:33 P.M.

Dr. William Archer fine-focused a microscope as he gazed through its optics at another world. A clutch of rod-shaped cells decorated with fragile-looking appendages swam through droplets of water placed on a glass slide. He looked up from the scope.

“Can I have a Diet Coke, please?”

It wasn’t the question itself that disarmed the captor who leaned casually on the lab bench a few feet away, but rather Archer’s sudden movement after so many minutes hunched motionless over the scope. The guard had been caught in the act of lifting his mask to scratch an itch on his chin, and now Archer looked away quickly after making eye contact with the Chinese man who was supposed to have remained unseen.