Robert Walker - Primal Instinct

“ What's 'at?” she asked.

“ The long wind, it's called. Fitting.”

“ Here,” she said, lifting the final bit of food left in the bottom of the skillet to Jim, “finish this off.”

“ Don't be too angry with me, Jess.”

“ Some cook, huh?” she teased, easing his concern. “That's something Zanek and the agency doesn't know about me. Hell, whata they care if we're human, huh, Jim?”

“ You kidding? Their first concern is for our best health. Really. And our pensions and our old age.”

She laughed in response. “I don't know what it is, but the outdoors makes me more alive, makes my senses come fully awake and my taste buds, wow.”

While she had gotten busy with the prepared can foods, Jim had been cooking something that looked a bit like an exotic potato. He reached over with a skewered piece of the island delicacy as he called it and said, 'Try a piece.”

“ What is it?”

'Taro.”

“ It looks like a gray boiled potato.”

“ Call it what you like, it's taro.”

She took the offering, rolled it about her mouth and chewed. “Hmmmm, interesting… different.”

“ The Irish had the potato, the Hawaiians have the taro plant. If we had the time and wherewithal, we'd boil it up, ground it into a mash, and you could eat it as poi, or simply mash-fried, a real treat.”

“ It's good just as it is, really, Jim.”

He then placed his hand at the back of her head and neck and gently pulled her toward him. He kissed her firmly before letting go. “How's 'at taste?”

“ Hey, you kidding? Everything and anything-I mean anything-tastes better in the wilds.”

“ Including me?”

“ Especially you.”

They laughed together.

“ To hell with Zanek,” he muttered.

“ You may regret all this in the morning when your Hawaiian sun is beating down on your career. Parry.” They sat curled in one another's arms for a time, silent and thoughtful until Jessica broke the stillness between them. “Once my father and I lost our catch in a torrential downpour.”

“ Lost your catch?”

“ Twenty pounds of catfish figuring low. Anyway, we raced off, leaving the fish on the fresh line, tethered in the water to a root on the bank.”

“ You didn't see the storm coming?” He almost laughed, picturing the torrent.

“ It just exploded over us. We were in another world. Anyway, Dad thought I'd retrieved the goddamn fish-our dinner-and I thought he had. We were in the middle of nowhere, Michigan woods, and we stumbled onto an old abandoned cabin, so we took advantage. The place was being used as an out-barn by some farmer, and it was pretty well stuffed with haystacks for his livestock. We slept on the haystacks and didn't get much sleep, let me tell you. Hay's not so soft when it's bundled and compacted; every dry stem stabbed me in the rear and back. Between us, we found two shriveled, raw potatoes. We started a fire in the fireplace and put the potatoes on the coals. It's a wonder the place didn't go up in flames.”

“ Best potatoes you ever ate, right?”

“ I never forgot 'em.”

“ Maybe it was more than just the potatoes,” he suggested.

“ What?”

“ The company wasn't too shabby either?”

“ Yeah, that too, of course. Hell, we talked half the night.”

“ You miss him a lot, don't you?”

“ Every day…”

“ When you go back to D.C., Jess,” Parry began.

“ No, let's not talk about that… not tonight.”

He took a deep breath, nodded and finished his food. “This is great.”

“ Go ahead and say it,” she challenged.

“ Say what?”

“ It doesn't get any better than this. Go on!”

She stared off into the immense sea, the slapping sides of the tent competing admirably with the surf.

“ Feels like we're the only two people on the planet, tonight,” she continued.

“ Glad to hear your paranoia's left you. You like the idea? I mean about us being the only two people on Earth, the only two that matter at the moment?”

“ I might…”

“ Maybe we could arrange for something a little more… permanent.”

“ What? Knock off the rest of the population?”

“ I meant, maybe we could do this again. This doesn't have to be our only visit to Hana.”

“ Okay, maybe we can, but maybe we can also concentrate on this night?” She leaned over and kissed him. Jim passionately returned the kiss. In his embrace all her fears melted like ice under a South Pacific sun, and it did feel as if they were the only two people on the planet, at least this stretch of it on the edge of nowhere.

“ Let's move into the tent where the sleeping bags are,” he suggested. “As pretty as this black beach is from the air, it'll work havoc on your backside.”

“ Whataya mean, my backside?”

“ Huh?”

“ It's my turn to be on top.”

“ Just who's counting and who's making the rules around here?” he countered.

“ Make no mistake about it: I am. Chief.”

“ What good is it then to be called Chief?”

“ Come here. Chief…”

They embraced again and Parry lifted her into his arms, carrying her toward the tent.

“ No, let's go for a swim first,” she suggested.

“ A swim…” he said as if it were a mad notion.

“ When's the last time you went skinny-dipping with a girl. Chief?”

“ A swim it is,” he agreed, carrying her out and into the surf. As their clothes became soaked, each peeled pieces of the other's clothing away.

6:35 A.M., July ZO, Maui

The lovemaking lasted well into the night. Spent and asleep in one another's arms, the couple was roused by a sudden change in the environment inside the tent which made Jessica bolt upright, causing Jim to do likewise. The incoming tide. They'd pitched the tent too close and now water was lapping at the sleeping bags. It was dawn on Maui. Parry rousted her up and out, fighting to salvage all the equipment. Once this was done, he turned to her sleepy eyes and said, “Let's make the dive.”

“ What about breakfast?”

“ No dice. Not where we're going.”

“ Are you sure this is safe?”

“ No, but we're both well-experienced divers, and I wouldn't ask you to go where I wouldn't go, and furthermore, I've brought a lifeline. We'll secure it to one of the outcroppings and we stay buckled to it at all times, if necessary.”

From the sound of the crashing waves, she thought it'd be absolutely necessary.

“ How're we going to see anything with the sediment as stirred up as it's likely to be?” she asked.

“ Look here,” he said, snatching out a curious photograph. It was an aerial photo taken from a satellite in space. He pointed to their exact location.

“ How'd you get this on such short notice?”

“ Suffice it to say, I have my contacts at Science City. Look here.” He pointed. “See here and here, these lines cutting away from the Spout.”

“ I do. What are they?”

“ Experts tell me there's a valley on the bottom that's been cut away by the years of run-out, possibly thirty feet below the surrounding terrain at bottom level.”

“ Like an underwater caldera?”

“ Inside which there could possibly exist a treasure of evidence against Lopaka Kowona, maybe not. Any rate, if we can make it to the bottom, locate the valley and enter it, we'll be protected from the powerful current.”

“ Still looks dangerous.”

“ Jess, if it looks bad, we'll turn around, come straight back up.”

She nodded. “Okay, I'm game.”

“ Somehow, I knew you'd say that.”

Before they did anything else, Jim swam out to the jagged rocks, careful not to be caught in the incoming waves and forced against the volcanic spikes. There he tied the one-hundred-foot- long nylon cable with its anchor-end being sent into the depths below the Spout tunnel. In the meantime, Jessica began gearing up and with Jim's return to shore, they were soon both in their colorful diving outfits, tanks on their backs, wading out into the waves like a pair of alien creatures from another planet.