kiDNApped (A Tara Shores Thriller) (8 page)

Lance was scared speechless but the Samoan was prepared.

“Give us your cash, we leave, you be okay.”

The smaller of the two approached Lance. He started to put a hand down his pocket, feeling for a wallet.

In his inebriated state, Lance’s anger overcame his better judgment, and he used his right hand to pull the robber’s head down by his hair. He wouldn’t remember the details of how he was overcome, but both of the men then attacked him, and soon he lay gasping for breath on the floor, his battered face smearing blood on the bedspread.

He felt a hand extracting his wallet from his pants, and this time he let it happen.

He heard one of the men rifling through the freshly dispensed wad of twenties before feeling his cash-free wallet thud onto his chest. Then all three of them—the hooker and the Samoans— were heading for the front door. The girl looked out the peephole, then quietly opened the door and stepped outside, beckoning for her associates to follow.

None of them said anything to Lance as they left. They simply walked out and let the door close behind them.

A few minutes passed before Lance was able to pull himself up and make his way to the bathroom, where he got the first look at his face. His nose had been broken, he was pretty sure, and he had one hell of a black eye. But he wasn’t missing any teeth, and, he decided, opening a fresh
mai tai
to dull the pain, he wouldn’t need to go to a hospital.

After washing up as best he could and polishing off the drink, Lance staggered out into the hallway and down the elevator, which was mercifully unoccupied. Walking through the hotel lobby, he spotted a baseball cap laying on a bench next to a dozing European kid waiting for his airport shuttle. He swiped the hat. It would hide his face a bit.

Then he struck out onto Kuhio once again, this time seeking only his sister’s hotel room.

 
…TTTG
13
TTGT...

Off Waikiki Beach

Monday, June 15, 8:30 AM

Watching Lance vomit over the side of the boat for the third time that morning made Tara feel for the scopolamine patch behind her ear to make sure it was still in place. The sea was flat and the ride smooth, however, and she knew Lance didn’t suffer from motion sickness. As Dave cut the engines and the boat glided to a stop, Tara studied Kristen’s brother from behind her sunglasses and cap.

He was severely hung-over—still drunk, probably—and in no condition to be useful aboard a small boat. She wondered why he'd even bothered to come out with them. His nose had obviously been broken, and one eye was swollen shut. He’d told them that he’d been mugged last night in Waikiki after visiting an ATM, which didn’t surprise Tara. Drunk tourists walking alone at night were common targets for thieves everywhere, and Hawaii was no exception.

While Dave dropped the anchor and Kristen readied her scuba gear for the morning’s dive, Tara considered her surroundings. She would never be truly comfortable around water. This was something she accepted about herself and did her best to work with. She scanned the shoreline a mile away, taking comfort in the familiar Waikiki landmarks, including the unmistakable outline of Diamond Head to the east. She wasn’t fond of small boats, but within the line of duty she would do what was necessary. It concerned her somewhat that she would be left on the boat with the near-incapacitated Lance while Dave and Kristen were underwater. She quickly located the lifejackets with her eyes.

Tara's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the anchor chain rattling. Returning from dropping the anchor, Dave catwalked around the boat’s side rail.

“You sure he’s going to be okay?” Dave asked Kristen as he stepped back onto the main deck. Kristen frowned, glancing back at her brother who slumped in the captain’s chair, nursing a mug of coffee.

“He’ll be okay while we do one dive,” she said.

Dave glanced at Tara, then back to Lance. He didn’t say anything to Kristen, but the message was clear:
I’m glad Lance won’t be alone in the boat while we’re underwater
. He’d had enough trouble with support boats lately.

Kristen cast a worried glance at her brother as she continued assembling her scuba gear.

“Lance?” she called. “Lance, you okay?”

Her brother stirred in the captain’s chair, grunting an inaudible response.

“So what exactly happened last night, Lance? Where were you when you were mugged?” Dave asked, screwing his breathing regulator in place on his air tank.

Lance removed his sunglasses, exposing a grotesquely swollen eye. “I was just coming out of a bar on Kuhio—forget the name of it—when these four Hawaiian-looking dudes pushed me into an alley behind the International Marketplace. One of ‘em pulled a knife and they said ‘give us your wallet.’ I tried to run away instead, but they threw me to the ground, kicked my ass and took my wallet.”

Dave shook his head. “Geez, did you report it to the cops?”

“Yeah, I reported it,” Lance said. He seemed to have nothing to add, so Dave went on.

“That kinda stuff does happen here. There’s a big drug problem in the islands—crystal meth...” Then he added, looking at Kristen, “You know not to leave anything in your rental car, right? Like, no matter where you go, especially the beach. Locking it doesn’t make a difference.”

“Good advice,” Tara said without looking up from her cell-phone. She occupied a bench seat on the open deck.

Kristen nodded, wriggling into the vest attached to her tank. “The rental car place said the same thing,” she said. She looked at her air pressure gauge, then pronounced, “I’m ready.”

“Okay,” Dave said. He peered over the side. “Water looks nice and clear. Let’s just go over the plan one more time,” he said, donning his own gear.

Kristen nodded while Lance puked over the side of the boat again.

“I’ll get him some water,” Dave said, walking with surprising agility for someone with fifty pounds of gear on, but Tara waved him off. “I’ll get it,” she said, getting up from the seat. “Do your dive.” She wanted to get this boat trip over with and get back to the field office. She reached an arm into the small cuddy cabin and then handed Lance a bottle of water.

“Thanks,” Lance croaked. He used a towel to mop his face. Dave was annoyed when he saw that it was his towel, but for the thousand bucks Kristen was paying him, he could live without toweling off after his dive.

“So the plan is,” Dave said, turning back to Kristen, who was clipping a thin, gray cylinder to a D-ring on her dive vest, “to follow the anchor line down to the bottom, which is at about seventy-five feet. Sandy bottom. The currents up top get strong sometimes, so let's stick to the line. But once we get to the bottom it’s generally pretty calm.”

Kristen nodded. She didn’t appear nervous.

“What is that thing?” Dave pointed to the cylinder.

“This is what we marine microbiologists take with us on vacation,” she said holding up the tube. “It’s just a water sample collection bottle. I figured there won’t be too much for me to do down there since you’ll be the one doing the metal detecting, so I’ll take the opportunity to collect some Hawaiian microbes. ‘Bugs’, I call them. When I get back home I’ll check them out in the lab.”

Dave seemed to consider this for a moment, then continued with his briefing.

“Okay, cool. Once we get situated on the bottom, we’ll start looking for the metal detector. As soon as we find it, I’ll begin searching for the signal I locked into yesterday. When I locate it, I’ll point at the bottom, and you’ll see me drop the detector and start using the scoop.”

Kristen marked their start time by setting the rotating bezel on her Tag-Heuer dive watch—a gift from her father after successfully defending her PhD thesis. The jeweled precision timepiece was a constant reminder of her father’s passion for accuracy and meticulousness in the face of demanding conditions. Then she said again that she was ready.

She and Dave made their way to the stern dive platform. Dave was about to enter the water when Lance’s gravelly voice broke the silence.

“What happens if you find something?” Everyone turned to look at him.

“What do you mean?” Dave asked. He was starting to get hot standing there in the sun with all his gear on, gazing into gin clear water, anxious to get the dive underway.

“Say you come up with the ring. The guy’s dead now. So does that mean we would sell it and split the money?”

“Lance, please,” Kristen said. Tara, who had been about to check her e-mail on her cell, flipped the device shut. This was getting mildly interesting, she thought. Tara remained silent, doing her best to play the role of impartial observer.

“If it is a ring, I’d want to try and get it to his family, if he has any family,” Dave said. He looked to Kristen, to see if she would object.

“Of course,” she said. “We’re not interested in any jewelry, or money. I’m only here for...I don’t even know what I expect to find. Let’s just go see.”

Dave looked back at Lance. “If it’s not a ring, then who knows. We’ll bring it up and decide then. Back in a few.” Lance only dry-heaved in response.

Dave jumped off the dive platform and began kicking to the anchor line. Then, with a worried glance back at her sick brother, Kristen plunged after Dave.

 
… TTCG
14
GAAA
...

Dave and Kristen dropped in over a sandy, featureless plain. Kristen, while thrilled to be diving, was a little disappointed at the lack of coral reefs. Those were usually found in shallower waters, she knew. And besides, she reminded herself as she equalized the growing pressure in her ears by pinching her nostrils and blowing into her nose, this was not a sightseeing dive.

They landed next to a carpet of garden eels. First Dave, then Kristen, set down feet first near the community of pale burrowing eels, who first retreated into their holes, then popped their heads up again for a look at the intruders.

After consulting their air and depth gauges, Dave checked a compass strapped to his wrist. He indicated a course to Kristen, and they moved away from the sand cloud their landing had created, ten feet apart.

As a marine microbiologist, Kristen was fascinated not so much by the typical sea animals that attracted so many prospective young scientists to the field of marine biology, such as turtles, sharks, dolphins, whales and the like, but by the unseen organisms all around them—in the water, the sand, even within the larger animals themselves, Kristen knew. She swam along the bottom, taking special care not to let her fins kick up the sand, which would ruin their visibility.

She looked over and saw Dave treading water, turning slowly around, looking. Then he turned to face her and gestured excitedly.

This way!

She followed him as he finned across a sand bottom patterned into a series of grooves running roughly parallel to shore. In the distance, Kristen saw a whitetip reef shark laying on the bottom. She was glad Dave’s course took them further away from it.

Then Dave was kneeling on the seafloor, reaching for something. He held it up as she swam up to him.

The metal detector!

She watched as Dave untangled the unit’s coiled wire and put on the headphones. While she waited for Dave to fine-tune the instrument’s controls for the search, Kristen tilted her head back to gaze at the sunlit world above. She could just make out the bottom of their rental boat, a dark rectangle silhouetted by the tropical sun. She hoped Lance was doing okay up there. At least the FBI agent was on board. Kristen made herself useful by picking up the nearby sand scoop and bringing it to Dave, like a nurse handing a surgeon a needed instrument.

Dave took the scoop and gave her the OK sign. He began swimming again, headphones in place, the detector in one hand and the sand scoop in the other. Kristen followed him.

He swam in a tight circle, sweeping the electronic disc an inch over the ocean floor. After five minutes, just as Kristen was beginning to wonder if this would work, Dave stopped swimming, positioning himself over one area.

Kristen watched as he swept the search coil back and forth over the same patch of sand. He took the sand scoop and laid the basket end where the search disc had been, marking the position. He turned to Kristen and pointed to an earphone, a broad smile forming behind his mask.

Signal
!

Kristen watched as he knelt on the bottom and started to dig. He scooped out some sand and dumped it aside, then swept the search coil back over the spot. Dave pointed, indicating that something metallic still occupied the hole he was digging. He continued his efforts with the sand scoop.

Then he reached a hand into the hole and made fanning motions, clearing away suspended sand. Kristen watched as he removed the detector’s headphones before ditching the machine altogether.

Looking over at her with the same gleaming eyes she’d seen yesterday at Duke’s, Dave extracted something from the seafloor.

 
…CGAC
15
TTAG...

Clinging to the anchor line in fifteen feet of water, Kristen thought she would die of impatience. She looked on as Dave checked his dive watch
.
He held up two fingers: two more minutes.

For the past three minutes they had hung here just beneath the boat. Decompressing to allow any nitrogen in their bloodstreams to dissolve back into solution before making their final ascent to the surface, there was not much else to do but stare at the object Dave had pulled from the seabed.

A box.

A rectangular, watertight box. Black, opaque plastic.

Whatever was inside must contain at least some metal, Kristen thought as her eyes scrutinized the box.
But it’s not a ring that slipped off Johnson’s finger, that much is clear.
She wished she had x-ray vision as she watched Dave turn the thing over in his hands. He was careful to avoid touching the hinged lid, lest the box open underwater.

Kristen looked down and saw her water sample bottle. She had been so absorbed in the dive that she hadn’t yet collected any microbes. She unscrewed the bottle’s lid, checked to see that its fine mesh filter was in place, and then held the bottle into the surging current. After a few seconds she screwed the lid back down.