Robert Walker - Darkest Instinct

Jessica asked Lansing to again radio ahead to ask for the chief investigatory officer, Ja Okinleye, to meet them at the airport, and it was relayed back to them that Okinleye had been contacted. Now Lansing told them to ready for landing as he got his final clearance, although at such a late moment in the landing that he could only laugh and wryly reply, “Thanks, guys!”

The approach was smooth and effortless, despite a brisk, buffeting wind which threatened havoc. Lansing laughingly said, “The wind’s a funny animal, like Huey, Dewey and Louie: You never know what they’re going to give you.”

“ Sounds like a Gumpism to me,” said Santiva in the rear.

“ Call it a Donism,” Lansing replied.

Out her small side portal, Jessica could see an official- looking vehicle with a Cayman Island flag on each front bumper and two officers in dress whites-which amounted to long pants in this subtropical heat-standing nearby. One appeared to be Okinleye. In a moment the tiger-striped plane bounced shakily on and along the runway, their speed decreased to nil and they turned to taxi onto a side strip.

Moments later, they deployed from the plane directly onto the asphalt, where Ja Okinleye personally met them, his hand extended in a warm gesture of greeting. “Dr. Coran! It is a wonderment to see you, and we are so pleased to have you back with us again in our paradise.”

“ I wish we were just here to enjoy your paradise, my friend.” Jessica saw that Okinleye’s man had gone directly to the plane, ostensibly to see to their bags but with an obvious eye to any cargo aboard. Finding neither cargo nor bags, he was stumped, so he raised both shoulders to his smiling boss.

Jessica turned to Santiva, who had weathered the trip well by sleeping much of the way, and added for Ja’s benefit, ‘ ‘This is Chief Eriq Santiva, the man I work for nowadays, Ja.”

“ I am so pleased to make with your acquaintance, sir.” Okinleye looked about for their bags as he vigorously shook Santiva’s hand. “My aide, Kili, he will see to your bags. Where are you staying, my friends?”

“ ‘ Fraid we haven’t any bags, Ja,” confessed Jessica, a frown puckering her lips, “only what’s on our backs. We left in something of a hurry.” Jessica noticed the pained expression on Don Lansing’s face. “And as for reservations… well, we have none.”

“ Oh, not good… it is the height of the season… You will then stay with me and my family in my humble abode?”

“ We couldn’t put you out, Ja.”

“ Please, it is not a bother.”

“ Well… first things first,” said Santiva. “Have you had any word or inkling on the approach of this boat we’re chasing?”

“ No, none whatsoever. I only hope you are correct in assuming he will be corning this way.”

“ We’re ahead of him, Eriq, but he’ll be along,” Jessica assured Santiva and Ja Okinleye at the same time.

Ja smiled and said in a mirthful tone, “Is that what your instincts tell you?”

“ Yes… yes, it is. That and the difference between nautical miles and air flight.”

“ Well then, Chief Okinleye,” Eriq interrupted, swallowing hard, “maybe we’ll take you up on that offer of hospitality, after we stop at one of your local stores to pick up a few essentials?”

“ Not a problem. We will drive you to wherever you need go, right, Kili?” The silent, uniformed Kili eagerly nodded.

With this settled, Jessica turned to Don Lansing and thanked him for his help, paying him three times what his normal fee would have been. He stared at the cash as if it meant an operation for his kid sister or dog, his eyes sparkling. “Maybe this’ll help me make that commitment we talked about.”

She gave him a crooked smile. “I rather doubt it.”

“ This kind of dough… you sure you don’t want me to hang around for a flight back, maybe?”

“ What I’m going to need here is a helicopter, and I think Okinleye will point us in the right direction for that. Again, many thanks for getting us here so quickly, Don.”

“ Don’t mention it; my pleasure.”

“ You heading straight back?”

“ Yeah… my boss-partner-is going to be wondering what’n hell happened to me and his plane, so I’d better move it, yeah…”

Jessica, Santiva and Okinleye rushed now for the waiting official car which would take them from the broiler plate of the asphalt. It must be one hundred thirty degrees in the shade, she thought. A glance back showed Jessica that pilot Lansing still could not believe he had been a part of all this. Maybe the little Cayman Island flags on Ja’s official car were too much for him, she mirthfully thought.

“ So, now it has become a game of cat and de mouse, hey?” Okinleye asked Jessica and Santiva where they sat across from one another at his backyard patio table. There, they enjoyed a view of the ocean in the distance, the sun, the hibiscus trees, the birds chasing one another, the trade winds and the bright orange daiquiris which Ja’s wife, Aliciana, had just prepared for them. The Okin- leyes” home was, by island standards, a Grecian mansion, but Ja laughed uproariously when Jessica made mention of its grandeur.

“ This… this old place? It is our little hut.” Ja drew two of his three children into his arms while the third and oldest was ordered to answer an incessant door chime filtering out to them.

Ja had done well for himself and his family, perhaps too well to be above suspicion of graft, Jessica thought. It was well-known the islands over that graft was the rule of law and order in most dealings here. However, middle- class American standards of right and wrong seldom applied in foreign countries, where a man had to be concerned first for his family, and besides, here as in America, a complete absence of crime would mean people would have to go without food, clothing and shelter. Some just knew how to play the game better than others, it appeared. Jessica withheld her judgments of Ja for the time being.

“ It was a foreclosure, this house. The old couple died owing a great deal of money to the island government. It was put on auction. I was highest bidder.” It sounded good.

“ Were you able to find anything helpful in your records here about the disappearances, the deaths, any possible connections with our man Tauman?” asked Jessica.

Ja sadly shook his head. “Very little of help, I’m afraid. We used both names you supplied, but nothing comes as result. Some notion here and there about some strange fellow. I have my men working on it still.”

It didn’t sound promising, and Santiva gave Jessica a frown.

“ In the morning, we’ll want a helicopter, very early, say six,” she told Ja. “Can you provide us with one?”

“ Ours is a small government agency, Dr. Coran, not like your FBI, no… I can only recommend to you my most talented cousin who operates a tourist line from George Town Airport.”

“ That will do just fine, but we’ll need a combat-ready pilot for what we need. If we get lucky.”

“ Combat-ready? Henri, he is such a man.”

“ He has flown in combat conditions?”

“ Bad weather, yes… combat, no,” confessed Okinleye.“Well, he’ll have to do,” said Santiva.

“ I’m certified on fixed wing and choppers,” came a deep voice from the patio doors. “I also flew a chopper in Desert Storm. Let me help you,” added Don Lansing, who had been shown through the house by Okinleye’s oldest boy. The boy had a wide grin on his face as though he had performed a miracle in making Don appear.

“ Don, I thought you had to get back,” Jessica replied.