Robert Walker - Primal Instinct

God, had they all sunk to such levels?

He could believe that the U.S. Government might resort to any underhanded trick possible if the killer had been shown to be a white sailor or soldier; he knew that by white standards and thinking Lopaka, by virtue of having any percentage of Hawaiian blood, was labeled a non-white and a prime example of how a man could be “tainted” by savage blood. It went without saying that Caucasian prejudices, bigotry and fears would run rampant in and out of private circles, in and out of the press. Still, what motivated Kaniola in all this? Was he a man willing to forget his own son's ruthless murder for the sake of appearances? It seemed unbelievable, yet everything pointed toward Joe Kaniola's intentionally leading Parry away from Maui as a possible destination for the fugitive by suggesting that Lopaka had taken to the mountains of Oahu.

Why? Why? he wondered over and over without answer.

“ And who's going to believe it?” he asked himself aloud between calls.

It was as if Lopaka Kowona, the Cane Cutter, had been swallowed up by the earth; neither the all-points bulletin nor the U.S. Army, working in cooperation with the FBI and the HPD, could turn up any sign of the man the press was now calling the Monster of Maui, as his personal history had him in Maui for several years previous to his arrival in Honolulu. On Maui the fire-haired Lopaka had worked as a cowboy at the same ranch where Paniolo had been a wrangler. Before his cowpunching days, Lopaka had been a cane cutter on Maui.

Jim Parry had supplied most of the background on Lopaka from sources he had on Maui. Information also came down that both Lopaka and Paniolo Ewelo could be placed on the island during a time when a series of disappearances had had authorities there scratching their heads. Could the two have worked as a murdering duo? Not according to either the evidence gathered at Lopaka's grisly cottage, or Jessica's findings regarding the deaths of Alan Kaniola and Thom Hilani.

U.S. Army teams and their dogs were now scouring the jungle above Lopaka's repulsive bungalow, everyone now aware of just how dangerous this butcher could be. Jessica had remained at the makeshift outpost along a paved highway, halfway up the mountain. She now saw Jim Parry's Stealth winding its way along the road as Jim drove the circuitous path toward the command post. She walked over to greet him when he opened the car door.

“ How's the search going?”

“ You really want to know?” she asked.

'Tell me some good news, will you?” His plea hung in the thin air for a moment as he glanced around at the operation.

Jessica shaded her eyes against the afternoon sun, which was more intense than the noonday sun in D.C. “Only good thing is that since Kowona's gone into hiding, the killings've ended.”

“ So far's we know, you mean.” His smile was easy and sly as he handed her a plastic thermos cup fdled with black Kona coffee and a careful blend of Jack Daniel's. They were high enough up the mountainside that it was cool here, even in the bright sunlight. “Thought you could use a little kick,” he warned.

“ What, I'm not hot enough?” she asked playfully.

They stood halfway up the face of a mountain, watching intently a platoon of weary men in army fatigues searching alongside dogs for any sign or scent of Lopaka Kowona.

Parry studied the lay of the land and then the layout of their makeshift headquarters: an unpaved, red-sand parking lot outside a small grocery store, nestled among the foothills, serving a shy, retiring community of peaceable island dwellers, both well-to-do and otherwise up here, who'd carved out a little place of their own. Even the houses up here, tucked away behind thick greenery and blooming mango trees, seemed to be hiding from this influx of machines and human activity on the mountain. The only exception was the store and the little man who owned it, a Korean who knew opportunity when he saw it; he'd been peddling packets of peanuts, raisins, candy and Twinkies along with soft drinks and coffee to the army that had descended on the area and had bivouacked at his doorstep. He looked as if he had God to thank for his sudden prosperity, but that thanks would have to wait until after the end of a business day.

“ What about the homes in the area?” asked Jim, looking over an aerial map on one of the tables here. “Have they been canvassed and cleared as possible hiding places for our man?”

“ Yes, all done within a fifty-mile radius,” Jessica walked him to a second rickety table below a tent where she pointed to a map held down in the wind by stones. “No irregularities, no suspicions reported, and no one's seen a hair of this guy's head.”

“ Then we move out to a hundred-mile radius. Give me the radio. I'll make the order.”

“ He's not here, Jim,” she softly said.

He looked curiously at her as she stared off into the lush distance. “Just how do you know that?”

“ If he hasn't been flushed by the dogs by now…”

“ It's a bastard of a mountain range, Jess.”

“ The dogs've picked up no trace of him. If he were here, or if he'd been here…”

“ Do you propose we just give in already? Tell everybody in the islands it's over, that he's given us the slip?”

“ Just being practical. Don't forget, I know something about hunting, and this hunt?” She paused and pulled tiredly at her aching neck with one hand. “Just isn't panning out, Jim. We're looking in the wrong place.”

“ Any suggestions?” Jim's frustration was like a jagged file against his words. “He's either the goddamned invisible man or he's somehow gotten off the island.”

“ Bound for where?”

“ We've checked and double-checked all the airlines, including the island-hoppers and chopper lines. No one boarded Lopaka, so he didn't fly out of here.”

“ Then he got aboard a ship or a boat of some sort.”

“ You been talking to Tony?”

“ Of course I have.”

“ Look, the Harbor Authority wasn't alerted to the emergency as quickly as the airlines, but they claim there've been no irregularities.”

“ Come on, Jim.”

“ Regardless-”

“ How many times do those guys look the other way?”

“- regardless,” he continued, “we radioed every ship that left port yesterday. We're tracking every destination, and we've got agents waiting at each destination port. Each vessel will be thoroughly searched. So we've long ago assumed a correct posture there, and we've got every ship's master cooperating.”

“ So you covered the big ships, but what about the fishing vessels that work the islands?”

“ They're all accounted for, according to the harbor patrol.”

“ And if there was an unscheduled boat in a slip the other night?”

“ Assuming such… that he got a boat out. Where'd he go to?” he pointedly asked. “Best guess… hunch… anything?' Parry was feeling his way in the dark, looking for corroboration for his own amorphous theory, looking to form it into a conviction, to convince himself he was about to do the right thing.

“ Some safe harbor, or where he feels at home,” she suggested. “Perhaps… maybe Maui? He was comfortable there once.”

“ Again I'm ahead of you, Jess. I've already alerted authorities there. They're on the lookout for Lopaka, armed with his photo. So far, nothing.”

“ Now whata we do?”

“ Keep our fingers crossed. Hope he makes a slipup? Whataya suggest?”

She gritted her teeth and returned the empty coffee cup to him. “That's not good enough, Jim.”

“ I agree wholeheartedly, dear Doctor.”

“ Talk is cheap, Jim. We've got to take some action and we need to do it now.”

“ What the hell do you think I've been doing with my days and nights? What the hell do you want from me, Jess? Miracles?”