Robert Walker - Primal Instinct

But the sun was far from Jim's or Jessica's mind tonight. With a near full moon, the sky over Oahu, as seen from the balcony of the Rainbow Tower overlooking Waikiki Beach and Diamond Head, was a deep, abiding cerulean, rivaling the blue sapphire of the Pacific itself.

“ Beautiful and enormous, isn't it?” she said to Parry, finding him in a thoughtful mood, staring out at eternity in the form of ocean and sky as it stretched before them.

“ Been a while since I've had a moment to really breathe it all in.”

She'd earlier left him to his own devices while she had showered and located an extra pillow and blanket for the sofa. He'd broken into the dry bar for wine, and now he held out a glass to her and she gratefully accepted. She had on a thick white terry-cloth robe compliments of the hotel, yet she clutched the extra bedclothes to herself.

He proposed a toast, lifting his glass. 'To all peaceful moments in paradise.”

She smiled in return and sipped the Zinfandel. It felt oddly intoxicating, pungent, telling her that maybe she'd better go easy on an empty stomach. “You hungry?” she asked him.

“ No problem,” he murmured, staring out once more at the deep colors of the evening over the pulsating sea. She bit her upper lip, tentatively stepped further out on the balcony and almost turned to leave when he wheeled, his hands reaching her shoulder, his eyes smiling at her blinking stare.

“ Your eyes, Jess.” He began to lift uncertain fingers to her cheek. “So pretty, alluring.”

She broke their stare, and while she hadn't resisted his touch, she stepped away now, her own wish to be held by him at odds with a nagging sense of duty and self-control that spoke of common sense.

She could think of nothing to say, but Jim filled in the silence. “You're as… as alluring as all of Hawaii and the ocean encircling us, Jess.”

“ Jim, we're not going to do this. It'd only lead to complications neither of us can afford right now.”

“ Complications.” He repeated the word as if it were an alien term. He stepped back, instantly hurt, turning his eyes away, nodding. He desperately sought to change the subject. “Bet you can't imagine what Oahu was like before we whites took over,” he said, setting aside his wine glass and taking pillow and blanket from her.

“ Unspoiled maybe?”

“ No concrete.” He said the word as if it were a curse.

“ No cars or exhaust,” she countered.

“ No liquor stores, pot or crack.”

“ No ice cream sundaes either,” she challenged.

“ There's little left of the old Hawaii. You find some of it around Hana in Maui, and of course there's Kahoolawe.”

She tried to repeat the melodic word. “Ka-whoo-law-we?” she asked, smiling, fascinated with all that he knew of the unknowable islands.

“ Ka-who-la-vee. Last of the old island tribal governments wants to rule there. It's forbidden to whites nowadays, returned to the people by the U.S., thanks to the PKO.”

“ PKO? What exactly does that stand for?”

“ Preserve Kahoolawe Ohana. You might liken them to American Indians out to redress wrongs. They've gotten good at working in the political arena, and they have hired some damn good lawyers. They're a lot like your dyed-in-the-wool wacko environmentalists.”

“ I see. So Kahoolawe is now a reserve?”

“ Yeah, now it is. U.S. Navy used the island for target practice with their big battleships since World War II, and this PKO group got them evacuated through legal means.”

“ I'm impressed, but why haven't I heard about this place?”

He shrugged, the pillow bobbing in front of him. “Nobody speaks of it much; certainly not the airlines or the brochures. Too unsettling, too political, for the tourist industry, you might say.”

He stepped inside, laid the pillow and blanket on a chair arm and located the usual stash of tourist information. He quickly found a map depicting all the islands of Hawaii. She followed him back inside and looked over his shoulder. In a moment. Parry was pointing out the smallest of the Hawaiian island chain.

“ That's Kahoolawe there. Only forty-five square miles across. No cars, no billboards, no hot-and-cold anything, no neon signs, football stadiums or shops. No one goes there and the islanders on Kahoolawe have shunned all Western ways, so historically there's been an understanding, but in the not-too-distant past, the U.S. made it officially off-limits to commercialization or development, and so off-limits to us, the white man.” He paused thoughtfully. “The Hawaiians are holding fast to their status there, feeling the encroachment of extinction on their culture, history and laws. Even the so-called 'civilized' Oahu natives here see the preserva-tion of the old ways on Kahoolawe as imperative to the survival of the culture. Hell, the Bishop Museum has a wing that showcases the aboriginal lifestyle, and believe me, they don't use pictures from your typical all-expense-paid TWA island luau.”

“ Is it part of… I mean, does the island fall under your bureau?”

He took a deep breath. “We don't interfere there. Leastways we haven't. Somewhere in between it gets very dull gray when we speak of jurisdictions and laws as they might apply to Kahoolawe, but suffice it to say, we're not wanted, and the State Department doesn't want us treading on their treaties. Hell, you've got the same situation on Indian reserves on the mainland. You know if the tribal leaders don't agree on FBI or even local intervention, we don't go in, any more than we would Guatemala-under ordinary circumstances, that is. Course, when things become extraordinary — “

“ Yeah, I know.” She studied the strange little island out in the sea to the southwest of Maui on the map he'd shown her. “So it's unofficially not part of your bureau?”

“ That's about the size of it, yeah, although it shows up as part of Maui County and Maui County still wants to think of it as under their jurisdiction.”

“ God, I'd love to see it. It must be — ”

“ Pristine, wild… yeah, so I'm told.”

“ Then you've never been there?”

“ I don't rush in where fools fear to tread; fact of the matter is, we've been ordered to stay out, and there's no love lost between the natives and us. But there are those who, for a price, will gladly take you to a remote side of the island, if you're willing to pay through the nose.”

“ Remote side? It all looks remote.”

“ Remote as in away from the main village. Remote as in where the wild sheep, goats and deer roam. There are some sacred shrines on the island, taboo for whites, that kind of stuff.”

“ Then I guess wc won't be doing any diving or hunting for deer there?”

“ Deer's scarce there anyway, I'm told. Maui's got enough wild lands to keep you busy for a decade. Although, I've heard what a markswoman you are. Heard about that shot you took from atop Quantico's central operations building that took out that maniac they called the Claw.”

“ Archer. Archer was his name, but you'd know that, having read my file. Right?”

He smiled wryly and nodded. “Couldn't help myself, matter of fact. One hell of a shot to make while you yourself were under fire from your own guys.”

“ Yeah, it's a shot I'd never be able to duplicate. But what gives here, Parry?”

“ Whataya mean?”

“ Do you really have nothing better to do? I mean reading all that crap about me? Maybe you need to get a life.”

He chuckled at this. “Touche.”

“ You really can't find me all that interesting.”

“ I had a request in specifically for your help for almost a year, so when I learned you were in the islands-”

“ When you learned I was in the islands? And when was that?”