Distant Echoes (3 page)

“What about more live testing? We don’t want a missile coming down on our heads because the navy can’t get their computer to work.” The young woman asking the question thrust a mic into his face.

He pushed it away. “There will be no more live testing until we are sure the problem won’t reoccur.” Lawton had his theories, and Jesse had his. Jesse only hoped his own would prove false before the next test was scheduled.

Two

A
successful trial of our new weapon,” he said. He leaned back in his leather chair and propped his feet on his desk. The bank of windows behind him looked out on the Pacific Ocean, a grand view at this height that reduced the surfers to antlike figures riding the waves. He’d been one of the ants all his life, but that was about to change. He just wished his dad were still alive to see this success.

He glanced up. “Make sure you reward our man on the ground for a job well done.”

“I already did.” His right-hand man handed him a can of Red Bull.

He took it and popped the top. The immediate caffeine jolt would make this moment sweeter. “You’re sure they won’t realize this failure was deliberate?”

His assistant shook his head. “They’re blaming the guidance mechanism.”

“How many casualties?” Not that he cared about the lives lost. This would be just a handful compared to what he had planned for the next launch. A stab of guilt startled him. He’d thought he had successfully discharged feelings like that when he first planned this. He focused on what his assistant was saying.

“Mixed reports so far. Some say ten dead and twenty injured; other reports say only five dead.” His assistant never showed much emotion. A tall blond man in his forties, his bland expression never changed.

The man scowled at the remorse that kept rearing its head. He had to eradicate it now. “I’d hoped for more.” The more dead bodies, the more the media would sit up and take notice.

“A woman and her dolphin showed up and saved many of them.”

“A dolphin?” He waved his hand to indicate how unimportant it was.

His assistant nodded. “Part of the Seaworthy Lab research.”

“Interesting.” He glanced at the fish in the huge tank behind his desk. If only his piranha wasn’t a freshwater fish, and so small. But the sea mammal was unlikely to interfere.

This was his one shot at success. In one brilliant move, he could gain the respect he’d lost—no, the respect that had been stolen from him. Nothing could be allowed to go wrong. And he certainly couldn’t afford to let pity or guilt distract him from his purpose.

J
esse rubbed his eyes. His vision was blurry, and he knew his eyes had to be as red as this morning’s sunrise. He couldn’t remember when he’d slept last. It would be hours before his head hit the pillow today as well. The night had been a blur of interviews and questions.

His cell phone rang and he clicked it on. “Matthews.”

“Same here,” a familiar voice said.

“Kade?” Jesse hadn’t heard from his cousin in several months.

“You got it on the first try.” Kade’s voice was cheerful. “I’m going to be on the island in a couple weeks for some training. Can we get together?”

“You bet. Just you and Bree?”

“And Lauri, Davy, and Samson. Thought we’d make a family vacation of it. Our first official getaway.”

Jesse chuckled. “Wonder dog too?”

“You know he won’t let Davy out of his sight. And since he’s a service dog, he can travel on the plane with us.”

“We’ll get together for dinner,” Jesse promised. “Give me a call when you get to town.” They chatted a little longer, then he said good-bye. It was going to be good to see his cousin. They tried to get together once a year, but he and Kade had both been so busy, it had to have been eighteen months or so since they’d seen one another.

He grabbed a cup of coffee on his way to the control room. He added a bit of water so it was cool enough to gulp down quickly. The shot of caffeine revived him, and he stepped into the room filled with banks of computers with more spring in his step. The servicemen and women were too busy with their computers to notice him as he stood and gazed around, hoping to catch one of them taking a break and willing to answer a few questions.

He caught the eye of Ensign Donna Parker. She quirked an eyebrow, and he joined her at her desk.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you today, Commander,” she said.

Her red hair just skirted her shoulders in a sleek regulation bob, and the flirtation in her aqua eyes was subdued but obvious. Jesse had been aware of her interest since he’d arrived, but he hadn’t encouraged it, though he’d been flattered.

He smiled but made sure it was impersonal. “Good morning. I was wondering if you were on duty yesterday when the missile veered off course?”

Donna grimaced, her smile fading. “Sure was. We had to watch while that thing took a nosedive.”

“Any idea what happened?”

She shook her head. “Not yet, but I’m looking into the GPS system or the gyros. The system performed perfectly until it veered off course. It didn’t seem to hear any of our commands. I’ve never seen a test go so haywire.”

“You think it could have been deliberate?”

She frowned. “Deliberate? It would have had to be someone on our own team, and no one I know here would send a missile into a boatload of tourists.”

“We’ve had some break-ins. Could someone have accessed the missile controls?”

She shook her head. “No. Only our computers can do it, and they’re all here. There has been no break-in to this room. And it can’t be one of our own. We’re all together. Someone would have noticed. It was a malfunction.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m positive. The bigwigs are going over the missile scraps right now, but I’m sure they’ll find it was in the navigational system.”

Jesse nodded in feigned agreement. He still wasn’t convinced. The WWII veteran’s words wouldn’t go away, no matter how much he wanted them to.

K
aia drove her Mazda pickup along the narrow highway. A flock of chickens squawked and ran for the ditch when she turned into her driveway. She slammed the brake to avoid hitting the last straggler. Wild chickens had once roamed freely on all the Hawaiian islands, but the introduction of the mongoose to all except Kaua’i and Lana’i had decimated the wild chicken population on the islands where they’d been imported. The chicken situation on Kaua’i had grown worse when Hurricane ’Iniki roared through the island in 1992 and freed most of the domestic chickens. The island had slowly recovered from the big blow, but capturing the chickens had been the least of the islanders’ concerns.

Bane clung to his door handle as the truck jerked to a stop. “Where did you learn to drive?” he demanded.

As an oceanographer for the Coast Guard, he was taller and slimmer than Mano, and his long limbs could glide through the water like Nani herself.

She stuck out her tongue at Bane. “You taught me,” she said. She rubbed her eyes. They’d been at the Lihu’e hospital all night, and the sun was already halfway up the horizon now. She glanced at her watch. Nearly nine o’clock. Her gaze met her brother’s. “They never found Laban.”

“I know.”

Kaia wanted to comfort Bane. She hadn’t known their cousin well—he’d spent most of his life in California and had only recently come back to the islands—but Laban and Bane had grown close in the past year. Thankfully, Laban hadn’t left a wife or children.

The media had accosted them when they’d gone ashore, and she was sure reports of the disaster had been on TV this morning. After disappearing for a time, the handsome lieutenant commander had returned to take charge of the reporters with the same aplomb he’d demonstrated on the water. The self-sufficient type always made her feel inadequate.

Bane got out of the truck and went to the porch of Kaia’s bungalow. The neat green shutters framed windows that overlooked the blue waters of the Pacific from the house’s perch atop a cliff. A set of steps that had been cut into the face of the rock led to Echo Lagoon, a tiny smile of beach on the leeward side of the island. Square and squat with a roof that looked like thatch but wasn’t, the house had been in the Kohala family, her mother’s ancestors, for nearly a hundred years. Her brothers had opted to let her have it, and she hadn’t refused. A brightly colored rooster crowed and hopped off the step as Bane neared. “You’d better run or you’ll be dinner,” he said. He held open the door for her.

“He knows he has nothing to fear,” she told him. “No one in their right mind would try to eat one of them.” The local joke was that if you put on two pans to boil and put a chicken in one and some lava rock in the other, the chicken would be ready when you could stick a fork in the lava rock.

Bane laughed, but his eyes were grim. She pushed open the door, and her brother followed her inside.

“This place looks like ’Iniki just came through again.” He looked around with obvious disfavor.

Kaia tried to look at it through his eyes. Her cat had knocked last night’s popcorn bowl onto the floor, and unpopped kernels littered the carpet. The laundry she’d sorted on the living room floor was still there. “I haven’t been home much lately,” she said. “Besides, I’ll never be Suzy Homemaker.”

“Yeah, but not even the
Clean Sweep
crew would be willing to take this on. Don’t you believe in organization?” He picked up her discarded shorts and top that she’d changed out of on her way to work a week earlier and dropped them in the first laundry pile.

“Sure, I believe in it. I’m just not obsessed with it like you are. It’s not that bad. Besides, no one sees it but me.” The message light on her answering machine was blinking. She punched it, and her grandfather’s deep voice came on. Twice. The second time he sounded worried. “Sounds like
Tutu kane
thinks we might have gone down with the ship.” She cleared the messages and walked toward the kitchen. She’d go visit her grandfather in a little while. His fears wouldn’t be allayed until he saw her. She wondered if he’d heard about Laban. Maybe the news hadn’t announced the name of the catamaran involved.

Her stomach rumbled, but nothing sounded good. She was too tired. She knew she had to eat something though. It had been eighteen hours since her last meal. “Want an omelet?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Me neither, but we haven’t eaten since noon yesterday.”

Bane shrugged, and Kaia grabbed the eggs and ham from the refrigerator. She chopped pineapple to toss in as well, and its aroma filled the kitchen. She handed her brother a plate heaped with his omelet and taro hash browns then joined him at the table.

“I need to call
Tutu kane.
” Kaia suppressed a shudder at the thought of explaining to her grandfather about his great-nephew.

“Mano has probably already told him about Laban. He was heading there from the hospital.”

“You know
Tutu kane
though. He won’t rest easy until he knows all his
keikis
are safe and sound.” Kaia finished her breakfast then grabbed the toothbrush she left near the kitchen sink. There was another one in her bathroom, and one more in her purse.

She brushed her teeth vigorously. She could feel Bane’s gaze on her.

“None of us will love you less if you forget to brush.”

Kaia didn’t answer. She and Bane had been over this ground many times before.

Her tabby cat, Hiwa, had come out from under the couch to investigate. Kaia picked her up, and she began to purr.

Bane scratched the cat’s head, but she bared her teeth like a dog and he drew back. “I don’t know why she hates me,” he complained.

“She’s very discerning.” Kaia grinned when Bane smiled back.

“Thanks for letting me stay with you,” he said, heading to the coffeepot. “You know how Mano and I get along. It would have been pure torture to spend this month off duty with him, and I’m up too late to stay with
Tutu kane
.”

At least he quit nagging about brushing her teeth. “Only because you can never keep your mouth shut. Mano is entitled to his own opinions.”

“But he’s wrong!” Bane’s face reddened.

“Pele Hawai’i might not be as bad as you’re making out. You haven’t checked it out. Extend Mano a little aloha.”

“He needs to grow up.”

When Bane set his jaw like that, there was no getting through to him. Kaia sighed. “Whatever. Let’s not argue about it. I’m too tired.”

Bane’s face softened. “Sorry. You’re right. I should check out the organization before I judge them. But the Hawaiian sovereignty groups make me nervous.”

“You take our Hawaiian heritage too lightly, and Mano takes it too seriously.”

“Whereas you are in the middle and just right, like Goldilocks.”

Kaia grinned at her brother’s tone. At least he was over his snit. She hated being on the outs with him. He was her mentor, the one person in the world she most trusted with the secrets of her soul. “I’m the last person to accuse of being perfect. You’ve heard me sing.”

He clapped his hands to his ears. “And I hope never to hear it again. You’re far from perfection, all right.” Bane tipped his head to one side. “Though I saw the way the handsome navy guy was giving you the once-over.”

Kaia felt a volley of heat race up her neck to burn her cheeks. “Don’t be ridiculous!” Hiwa yowled, and she realized she’d been squeezing the cat too tightly. She loosened her grip, and the cat jumped down and stalked away with her tail in the air.

“If you’d been a dish of
‘ono
ice cream, the commander would have consumed you on the spot.” Bane dodged the dish towel Kaia threw at him and went to the refrigerator. He rummaged for a minute and pulled out a mango. “Is this fresh?”

“Pfftt!” She crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue. “I thought you weren’t hungry. You know how I am about fresh fruit.”

He grinned and shut the refrigerator. “Looking at this house, I wasn’t sure.” He cut the mango and put it on a plate then carried it back to the table. “That omelet just reminded my stomach how empty it was.”

She realized they were still skirting around Laban’s death. Bane must still not be ready to talk about it. She stared out the window at the palm tree swaying in the breeze. “I bet that lieutenant commander is dealing with a lot of garbage today.”