Part 12 (1/2)
Keeping close to the shadows, Karyn walked past the kitchen dumpsters, her heels reverberating on the concrete. She would jack a ride. A ride without pa.s.sengers would be better, but that might not be possible, she might have to kick a.s.s to haul a.s.s. Turning scenarios in her head as to how she was going to hookup with a set of wheels, Karyn heard a sudden squeal of rubber and she was caught in the headlights of a car moving in from behind her. She cursed. There was nothing this side of the clubhouse other than the staff only parking lot and it was too early for the help to be leaving.
Karyn didn't look back, just kept on walking, like she owned the road. The car followed slow in her wake. Dribbling after her in first gear, like some playground pervert trailing the object of his obsession. Without warning, the car sped faster and pulled up in front of her, with a squeal of breaks. The car, a late model Cadillac Sedan in phantom gray looked like it had less than ten thousand miles on the clock.
Karyn pulled up short of the driver's door, judging distances.
The pa.s.senger got out first, a thickset dude in a Government-issue windbreaker. He was holding a handgun across the top of the car in a shooting range stance that said he could pop off half a clip and make central ma.s.s with out so much as drawing a sweat.
”FBI. Hold it right there.”
Karyn, partially raised her hands and said, ”What you going to do, shoot me?”
The driver popped his door, and began to get out. He looked nasty like he had been chewing over some kind of deep held resentment. As he swung his feet onto the concrete, he grunted with the exertion and raised himself out of his seat with difficulty-five-eleven and pus.h.i.+ng two fifty, the driver was in shameful shape for a Federal Agent.
”You need a hand there big guy?” asked Karyn.
”Hey, shut up, don't you say nothing,”
snapped Mr. Target practice, pointing the gun at her head for emphasis.
It was a play Karyn had planned from the minute she heard the engine snap to life behind her. She dipped low and spun a fast scything kick below the level of the driver's side door. The impact caused the driver to stumble back against the roof of the car. Catching his spine on the roof edge, he cursed and struggled to regain his balance, but too late-Karyn shoulder charged the door, sandwiching the driver between the heavy swinging door and the rim of the interior. The driver flapped and cursed, his chubby arms trying desperately to do three things at once.
The triggerman popped off two quick shots, then two more. But Karyn stayed low, beneath the edge of the roof. ”What the h.e.l.l you doing Lou, get a hold of her already would you?” called the shooter. Karyn rose up fast, caught the driver hard under the chin with the heel of her hand, snapping his neck back so hard it impacted the roof of the car, with a heavy metallic thud.
It was the shooters turn to curse now.
Dipping down, Karyn heard his feet coming around the hood before she saw him. It was the only move he could make, and it was a bad one.
Before the shooter had chance to reach the offside headlamp Karyn rose up once again. This time, she swung the drivers door wide, allowing Lou the wheelman to slump outwards over the top of the door. She pressed in behind him, her Sig Sauer held shoulder high. As the shooter rounded the edge of the car he was presented with the sight of his partner hanging dazed across the door.
The shooter didn't know what to do, but he had his gun raised, so Karyn took him out anyway, popped him once in the upper thigh at close range. The bullet swung him off balance. He fell hard against the hood of the car squawking louder than a rainforest parrot. Karyn stayed hidden behind the driver, her forearm locked around his neck to keep him upright against the door.
”Unless you want me to blow the top of your ugly looking head off you might want to let go of the gun slow and easy,” said Karyn.
”You shot me in the G.o.dd.a.m.n leg, crippled me like as not,” whined the shooter, his voice thin and reedy as he stared accusingly across the hood, with wide fearful eyes.
Karyn kept a steady aim at the shooter's head. In a righteous world this guy would be dead already, clipped down to the pavement as a reward for thinking he could kill her. Karyn didn't like that kind of arrogance. The only thing that was keeping this goon alive right now was Jack Senegar and his warning words, No collateral damage to local law enforcement.
Karyn waited, then waited some more. Every instinct she had telling her she should waste this guy and now. She kept the gun steady, said, ”Throw it down and you walk away-or not. Your choice.”
She could see the moves telegraphed loud and clear in those greedy little eyes of his. It was no big thing. So when the shooter slipped quickly away below the edge of the hood and let off a fusillade of shots from beneath the car it was no surprise to Karyn. The whining little punk couldn't have broadcast his next move any louder if he had tried. No doubt the creep thought he would catch her in the ankles with a bullet, by way of payback.
Karyn wasn't worried. She released the dazed driver, let him sag to the floor, then vaulted effortlessly across the hood of the car, catching the horrified gunman hard in the face with the heel of her shoe. He sprawled sideways, making a sick dead noise as his gun trickled helplessly though his fingers. He tried to right himself to fight back, but it was too late, Karyn was on top of him, pounding him repeatedly in the face with the b.u.t.t of her automatic.
She kept hitting him again and again, until, b.l.o.o.d.y and lifeless he impacted the cold hard concrete and stayed there, with a lasting sense of finality. She took only a fraction of a second to admire her handiwork, before rising quickly and getting behind the wheel of the Cadillac. There were no emotions, no sense of compa.s.sion or regret. She was just doing her job, plain and simple. Nothing and no one could stop her now. Not laws, not men of violence and certainly not the dystopian dreams of some boy-like billionaire.
26.
Mauna Loa volcano, Big Island, Hawaii Keo stood on the north side of the Mauna Loa volcano and looked down. Over nine miles below, the barren volcanic slopes disappeared into the morning mist shrouding the Northeastern rift valley. Up this high, the air was thin, so thin it hardly counted as air at all. Keo was a man of science, professor of environmental research at Mauna Loa Observatory. He knew that the physiological effects of working at such alt.i.tudes included diminished inspiratory oxygen pressure, a syndrome known as hypoxemia which caused headache, fatigue, nausea and dizziness- sometimes even death. But Keo was also a spiritual man, as he surveyed the endless rolling volcanic landscape, he had no doubt that the elemental energies of the spirit ancestors were watching over his affairs. He believed also, that the ancient omniscient G.o.ds governed the natural world in its entirety: Papahnaumoku the earth mother and Wakea the sky father. Living in such a place as this, there could be no doubt that the spirits governed the land. There were those who believed that the sickness brought on by the great alt.i.tude at the summit of Mauna Loa was a form of demonic possession-perhaps the spirit of Pele, G.o.ddess of fire, known to many as she who shapes the land. Keo rarely spoke of such spiritual matters to his fellow staffers; whilst they were most often respectful of Native Hawaiian beliefs, they regarded such stories as nothing more than primitive legends. But Keo knew different. A professor of Volcanology and world renowned authority on plate tectonics, he had spent enough time in the presence of awe inspiring geomorphic phenomena to know that there was much more than scientific princ.i.p.als involved in their genesis.
As Keo looked west, the bitter chill of morning was accentuated by a relentless wind, howling in over the top of the mountain. He snuggled into his goose down parka and looked towards the horizon. There, swimming through the cloud base like an emergent whale, he could see the steaming peak of Klauea, the most active volcano in the whole of Hawaii, if not the world. How beautiful it was in the morning light and yet there was something more to this smoldering giant, something lonely and threatening, an unspoken curse that hung over the mountain, as secretive and impenetrable as the broiling volcanic clouds that crowded the land.
Life in these mountains was hard and dangerous. To many, such a solitary existence would be unendurable. The adversity of such an environment, combined with the isolation, had the power to drive men mad. Some might say it was the alt.i.tude, combined with lack of human contact. But Keo knew otherwise. The power of the elementals was strong here-evil spirits released from the bowels of the earth stalked the land with impunity, biding their time, so they might s.n.a.t.c.h an unwary soul and move into the world of man.
Looking out through his binoculars, towards highway eleven and the Kau desert now, Keo observed the complex. Situated just shy of the Klauea larva field, on the very edge of the Hilina fault, the complex looked innocuous enough, almost like an out of town industrial facility, or some kind of sprawling storage depot for an opencast mining operation. But Keo wasn't concerned by what he could see. He was worried by what he couldn't see-stretching down, deep inside the earth like the poisonous tendrils of some monstrous ocean dwelling creature, sucking the life from the living rock, like a giant industrial parasite.
To Keo the five great volcanoes of Hawaii were as sacred as any ancestor. But the great Halemaumau crater of Klauea was the most sacred of all, because the flaming caldera of this, the most dangerous mountain in the world, was considered by the people of Hawaii to be the home of Pele G.o.ddess of fire. Surely such an unwarranted intrusion into the kingdom of the G.o.ddess would raise her ire? What right did these Haole outsiders have to drain the life-blood of the island, so they might harness it for their own selfish needs?
As he stood brooding on the lonely mountainside, wondering how the vengeance of the G.o.ddess would inevitably manifest itself, Keo noticed a lone SUV bouncing up the unsurfaced approach road. As it came, the merciless wind caught hold of the vehicles dusty slipstream and carried it away over the blackened lavascape towards the smoldering home of the G.o.ddess.
Pele G.o.ddess of wind and fire; sorceress of the heavens; thrower of lightning bolts; shaper of the sacred land-she was watching-waiting to pa.s.s her terrible judgment, of that there was no doubt.
Keo turned, watching as the dusty truck made its approach. It wasn't often that visitors came this far up the mountain; both determination and fort.i.tude were needed to make it this high, and even then, such attributes weren't always enough. A special permit was required to gain access to the summit, and knowledge of the combination to the lower gate. This was no place for sightseers, only the most committed hikers made it this far and when they arrived, they had to be prepared for anything-extreme weather, punis.h.i.+ng terrain and mountain spirits, waiting in readiness to s.n.a.t.c.h the unwary.
As the truck pulled alongside him, Keo recognized with displeasure the man sitting behind the wheel. Ted Congo was a government man, but only in the smallest sense of the word. There was something unpleasant about Congo-an air of superiority, an disrespectful inflection in his speech, but worst of all there was his att.i.tude. Congo was an unpleasant man, devoid of spirituality and with no understanding or interest in the world of science. All he seemed to care about was advancing the interests of the political cla.s.s and their objectionable corporate paymasters. No doubt this visit was connected in some way with Governor Geryon. It hardly seemed possible that the governor was dead now, murdered they said, in a sordid s.e.x scandal-how horrible. Keo let the binoculars dangle around his neck; watching silently as the truck door opened and Congo leapt out with a broad grin spread wide across his face.
”Keo. Up bright and early as usual I see.” Congo held out his hand.
Keo raised his knuckles reluctantly, for a fist b.u.mp greeting.
Congo look disappointed, but touched knuckles anyway, ”You going gangster on me professor?”
Keo frowned. ”What do you want Congo?” ”I brought an invitation to you brother, that's all. A thank you for all the hard work you do for us here on the Island.”
”Nice of you, I am sure, but the work I do here is for the Federal Government.”
”The Federal Government?” said Congo with a smile. ”Of course, you work for the Federal Government professor. What I am talking about is your cooperation in the much needed energy project we have been working on-in conjunction with our friends the Tao Corporation.”
”They aren't my friends Congo, neither are they friends of the Island. You mark my words, this geothermal daydream will have environmental implications we can only guess of.”
Ted Congo gave professor Keo a crafty look that might easily have been interpreted as empathy. He took a breath, then looked out over the valley towards the distant slopes of Klauea. ”You are right professor, no doubt about it. I am a believer and my enthusiasm s.h.i.+nes out because of that. But you are too modest when you deny the nature of your friends.h.i.+p with the Tao Corporation, because as we both know, you're as deeply involved with our friends as anyone on the Island.”
Keo gave Congo a wary look, but said nothing.
Ted Congo turned away from the majestic wind swept view and said, ”You thought I didn't know, about the generous donations Mr. Tao made to that little foundation of yours?”
”A charitable educational foundation,”