Moon over Maalaea Bay (16 page)

Lee took off in the direction Jennifer had disappeared, towards the big dining room.

When he turned the corner to enter, the short stocky Iranian flew by him. He had reversed direction. He was running the opposite direction as Jennifer and obviously planned to intercept her on the other side of the big loop forming the first floor of the resort.

Lee hesitated, then turned to run after the stocky man, but Jennifer emerged from the dining room. She had reversed direction, too.

Smart girl.

He hooked Jennifer with an arm and pulled her to his right, towards the Chapel wing elevator door, and pressed the button. “Fourth floor, Jenn, 414, Bertha Renner. Love you. See you there.”

“But, Lee—”

He pushed her inside and ran opposite the direction the Iranian had run.

Sirens wailed in the distance. As Lee ran through the dining room, they grew louder. Would the man give up the chase now? The guy must have seen his friend out on the floor covered in blood. No. Even that didn’t stop the man.

Lee stepped into the dining room, lined up with the far corner, giving him a straight shot at it, and waited for the sound of running feet.

He heard shots from two different guns. This added an extra measure of uncertainty to what he was doing. The Iranian could take him out with a single shot unless…

Lee moved to within ten yards of the corner, positioned his feet to run, waited, and listened. The sound of running feet grew louder. He tried to picture where the man was by the sounds, tried to time his run to hit the guy at the corner, tried to picture the man’s body slamming into the floor like a helpless quarterback being blindsided.

Here he comes.

Lee broke from his starting posture and streaked towards the corner. He arrived in tackling position just as a shoe hit the floor. Lee executed a picture perfect tackle. His shoulder struck the man’s thighs and took him down hard.

The impact from a knee sent another flash of light through Lee’s head. He crashed onto the floor on top of the man. Lee raised his fist to smash whatever first appeared smashable. When the two stopped sliding, Lee stopped his fist. He was staring into the face of Officer Yagi.

“Brandt don’t hit me, or I’ll have you arrested.” Yagi groaned as he rolled and pushed up onto his knees. “Why did you tackle me anyway?”

“Where’s the short Iranian dude? He was running this way. I was planning to take him out.”

Yagi pushed up into a kneeling position, shook his head a few times, and then rose to his feet. “The Iranian dude got himself shot. He pulled a gun on us when we came in. Kaai had to shoot him.”

“Then what were you doing running towards the restaurant?”

Yagi shook his head again. “Man, where’d you learn to tackle like that?”

Lee stood and rubbed his jaw. “Where’d you get legs like that? Your knee nearly knocked me out. But you didn’t answer my question.”

“What question?”

“Come on. I didn’t hit you
that
hard. Why were you running around this corner?”

“They told me there was another Iranian down here. A tall dude, bleeding all over the floor.”

Lee nodded. “There is.”

“Where is he and what happened to him?” Yagi cocked his head and frowned.

Lee tugged on his arm. “Come on. He’s around the next corner. He was unconscious when I left him. Don’t even know if he’s still breathing.”

Yagi followed Lee as they jogged to the far side of the restaurant. “Did somebody shoot the guy?”

“No. I tackled him. We hit the stone wall instead of the floor. His head didn’t fare so well.”

He rounded the corner and saw the motionless body of the Iranian, his head covered with blood.

Yagi knelt down and checked the man’s pulse. “Brandt, next year when the Maui PD takes on the Fire Department in our annual football game, I want you at linebacker.” Yagi looked up at Lee. “Well, he’s alive…barely.” He frowned at Lee again. “Did you blindside him?”

“Close to it. I couldn’t afford to give him any warning. He was chasing Jennifer.”

Kaai and another officer approached from the direction of the main desk, hearing his words. “Brandt, are you OK? And your wife…she’s here? You know that?”

“This Iranian dude needs an ambulance,” Officer Yagi said. “What about your wife?”

“I sent Jennifer up to the fourth floor to hide while I kept these two busy. I need to go up to let her know that I’m OK.”
And tell her about Katie.
“If you need me, come up to room 414, Chapel Wing.”

“Brandt…” Yagi looked up at him again. “Are you sure there were only two?”

“Only two men chased Jennifer in here. That’s all either one of us has seen.”

“Kaai, you go with Brandt, just in case,” Yagi said.

Lee looked from Yagi to Kaai. “Guys, she was taken on our wedding night. I haven’t seen her since then, except when I pushed her into the elevator a few minutes ago. Can we have a few moments alone, please?”

Kaai pushed the elevator button. The door opened. “Sure. As long as I’m convinced it’s safe.” He motioned towards the elevator door.

Lee stepped inside and pushed number four, and then he shoved everything but Jennifer from his mind, everything except his fearful concern about Katie. He prayed the FBI would get to the yacht in time.

When the two exited the elevator, Lee jogged down the hallway, scanning the room numbers.

“Wait up, Brandt. I don’t want you getting into more trouble.”

He ignored Kaai and ran to room 414, positioned his face in front of the peephole, and knocked.

The door flew open and Jennifer jumped onto him, locking her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. Tears spilled from her eyes and splashed onto his neck. “We heard the shots. I was afraid that you—”

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Brandt.” Kaai chuckled. “Your husband just sent one of Iranian goons to the hospital. I shot the other one. Just tell me there were only two and I’ll leave you two alone for a while.”

Jennifer’s legs slid down his body and her feet landed on the floor. “Oh. I didn’t know anyone was with you. I—” Her cheeks turned rose red.

Lee stepped inside the room and closed the door, leaving Kaai outside. “Now there isn’t anyone with me, Jenn.” He pulled her lips to his, oblivious to everything but Jennifer.

“Praise the Lord!”

He broke the kiss. “Mrs. Renner, I completely—”

“Yes, you did. But don’t stop on my account. I’ve been praying for you two every hour since last night. Don’t I deserve to see the fruits of my labor?”

He kissed her again, but Jennifer hijacked his kiss taking it to an intensity he had never before experienced.

When Jennifer slowly pulled her lips from his, she cupped his cheeks, turned his head, and looked into his eyes. “Finally, we’re all safe. There were times when I—”

“Jenn…” His heart ached as he sought words that would be less hurtful, that would soften the blow he had to deal her. Such words didn’t exist.

Jennifer’s smile faded and turned to a frown. “Lee, what’s wrong?”

He pulled her close. “They took Katie. She’s on the yacht.”

29

Franklin James scanned the blue sky littered with puffy white clouds, looking for any aircraft from Molikini to Maalaea Bay. Only one helicopter. However, the red-orange chopper had flown directly over his yacht twice in the past five minutes.

“Snake, did you tie the girl’s feet to the bedpost like I told you?”

“Yes. She won’t be rolling around looking for a weapon.”

Snake shoved the spear in a storage compartment and turned towards his boss. “You worried about the chopper?”

James rubbed his chin, and then locked gazes with his employee. “What do you make of it?”

Snake gave him a tight-lipped smile. “The Coast Guard is definitely interested in us. That’s not good. Means either our million-dollar baby survived and called the cops, or the boat with the snorkelers reported the missing girl. Either way, our time here is limited.”

How does one bait a snake?
“What do you think the Coast Guard will do?” James studied Snake’s face as he waited for a reply.

“This is a hostage situation for them.” Snake shrugged. “What else can they do? They’ll bring in reinforcements and try to—what is that strategy they teach them at the FBI Academy?”

“The three Cs. Contain, control, and capture. Eventually they’ll get to capture. Which probably includes snipers.” James looked at the shore, studying it, waiting for Snake to bite.

The lean man followed his gaze. “You’re not thinking…No, no way. We’re five hundred yards out. They can’t—”

“Yes, they can. A sniper with a tactical rifle, say a modified Remington .308, can shoot your eyes out at five hundred yards. At a thousand yards, he can put five consecutive shots in a three-inch circle, such as your forehead.” James studied Snake’s face again, watching for signs that the man was swallowing the bait.

“Then we’d better stay on the port side by the blonde princess. We’d better not show ourselves on the side facing the shore.”

James smiled, not because he agreed with Snake’s assessment, but because the snake had slithered through a knothole in the chicken coop and swallowed a golf ball instead of an egg. An old farmer’s trick, but it had worked. Snake would never get out of here alive. No one on the yacht would, including the blonde princess.

But I will.

“Mr. James, wouldn’t it be better to simply hoist anchor and make a run for the South Pacific?”

“Not an option. The Coast Guard at Oahu just took delivery of their first FRC, Fast Response Cutter. They could outrun us and, with all their firepower, blow us out of the water.”

James pointed towards Maalaea. “Look. The Coast Guard is sending both of their boats. It looks like ‘contain’ is underway.”

“Mr. James,” Snake’s gaze roamed the shore, “Maybe we should all move to the port side now and stay there.”

“Go tell Mack,” James said. “I’ll join you after I talk to the captain.”

“I know someone has to take the wheel, but it’s a sniper’s paradise up there.” Snake left for the room where Mack lay resting.

When Snake disappeared from sight, James opened the storage bin by the ladder and moved a small scuba tank, mask, and fins to the front where he could quickly grab them. Then he climbed the stairs to the wheel and warned the captain about sniper fire.

The Amber Alert had created some big challenges. He would probably lose his yacht today, but Franklin James would not die on it, and he refused to spend his life in a federal penitentiary. When everyone else was on the port side, he would grab the air tank, slide into the water, and not surface until he was nearly to Big Beach. If he couldn’t steal a car there he would hijack one and drive to the airport where his Gulfstream would take him to Southeast Asia and to safety.

Granted, he would have to take off without permission. Besides being a bit dicey, that would tip off the FBI who, worst case, might scramble fighters from the base on Oahu. But, if he flew towards the southwest at maximum speed, his Gulfstream would be outside the fighter’s fuel range before they caught him. When the fighters turned for home, James would be home free.

He smiled.
Great challenges cause great minds to rise to the challenge.

A few minutes later, James, Snake, and Mack gathered in the cabin next door to the girl. He noted that Mack’s neck had stopped bleeding. The man needed some stitches, but he would be OK until…”Mack, do you feel up to watching the girl? As things heat up, we’ll need someone with her all the time.”

“Yeah. I can handle the girl.” Mack’s voice was weak and a little hoarse.

“I still haven’t heard your plan for getting us out of here.” Snake stared at him.

Clearly this was a challenge to his authority and ability. It was unlike Snake to question him. Perhaps James didn’t know the man as well as he thought. Perhaps he shouldn’t trust the man as much as he had. Perhaps it was another reason Snake should die on the yacht.

James smiled, trying to portray confidence to the men. “We still have a case of dynamite on board and some plastic explosives, don’t we?”

His question drew a frown from Snake. “Yes. But how will we—”

“Don’t worry, Snake. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Let me take a look outside, tweak my plan a little and then—”

“I’m not going to stay on board if this ship goes down.” Snake glared at him.

“You don’t have to. It only has to appear that way. Then we all disappear…together. All but the girl. She stays on board.” James pounded his fist into his palm. “The princess goes down with the ship.”

“But, if anything should go wrong, let’s say a sniper picks me off, and then they try to take the ship, put the girl on the deck and let them watch you kill her. Let the whole world watch you kill her.”

30

When the man called Snake grabbed Katie’s ankles, sliding one on either side of the bedpost and securing them with the restraint, she discarded all of her previous plans to escape. She now lay on her back, hands tied behind her, and her ankles secured to a leg of the bed. This called for a new plan, but in this predicament nothing she could think of seemed to work.

First, she had to free her feet, but freeing her feet required raising the corner of the bed, lifting the bedpost a few inches off the floor. That would allow her to slide the ties around her ankles under the bedpost, permitting her to roll around the room. Even if she accomplished that, it was only step one in a long, risky process that could be upstaged at any moment.

Did they tie Jenn like this?
If so, she had managed to escape. But what if they tied Katie like this
because
Jenn had escaped? That was a depressing thought. Nevertheless, Jenn
had
escaped and, somehow, Katie would also.

Could she raise the bed with her back and legs? Katie slid under the bed and tried to roll onto her stomach, so she could pull her knees under her and lift. When she rolled over her legs twisted around each other, tightening the tie around the post. She discarded this approach.