Robert Walker - Primal Instinct

She grabbed for it.

“ Jess, it's me.”

“ Where are you, Jim9”

“ Take a cab and meet me at Nuekuela Point Wailea harbor. We've got passage.”

“ I thought you'd left me.”

“ Don't think I didn't give it serious thought. You realize if we're taken into custody by the local tribesmen, well, it'll be hell to get off the island, much less fax for help from Washington. You sure you don't want to reconsider, Jess?”

“ I've stopped thinking about it, Jim. Let's just do it. I've got to know where this Jack the Ripper is, and if there's a chance in hell we can bring him to justice, then I say we go for it.”

“ We won't have a scuba in from the boat either.”

“ Really?”

“ We're rafting in, inflatable.”

“ Terrific.”

“ And we'll have a guide.”

“ A guide? This is sounding better and better.”He remained cautionary. “It's not like any guided tour you've had of the much-visited islands, kiddo, so don't think it's like the little choo-choo ride through the plantation.”

“ Don't worry about me.”

“ Still, it's someone who knows the island.”

“ Sounds like one hell of a plus to me,” she replied with enthusiasm.

“ Name is Ben Awai. He trades with the locals, knows the village on Molokai where Lopaka grew up. How's that for a turn of good fortune?”

“ Has he been able to confirm your suspicions?”

“ Some, not all. Says Lopaka's people did move out to Kahoolawe, but doesn't know if our killer's out there or not.”

A glint of suspicion like the sliver of shadow and light that runs the gamut of a knife blade flashed along her consciousness before it faded. But she didn't allow her suspicious nature to sway her this time. Jim had wanted her to be less suspicious, more trusting of him.

“ I'm on my way, Jim, and don't you dare embark without me, you hear?”

11 P.M., Wailea Harbor, Maui

At the harbor where the cab let her off, she saw Jim coming toward her in the dark. The harbor lights were dim and pretty, reflecting off the water, more show than functional, creating paths for lovers to walk, not light for boatmen to work by. Still the harbor was thick with fishing boats and men unloading large caches of fish, carving them up over a worn, gray boardwalk long before stained and discolored with blood.

Jim hailed her and casually said, “Ready for that moonlight boat ride, honey?”

“ I can hardly wait, dear,” she replied, not missing her cue, realizing Jim feared one or both of them might be recognized and that their trip must remain clandestine.

He guided her down the pier, the calm Pacific lapping at the boats in the harbor, rocking them gently against their moorings. Ropes and lines swayed with the masts here and metal clinked so gently against metal that the effect was of a hundred crystal wine glasses chiming together.

A crescent moon blinked over the scene, the sea a watery blend of turquoise, jade and azure, like an unfinished oil painting, its colors running, except that this seascape was real. She carefully boarded the small craft that Jim had arranged for, nodding to Ben Awai, a thick-necked, barrel-chested Hawaiian with the familiar knatty, red-burnished hair and grinning eyes of his race. Ship's master here, Awai welcomed Jessica aboard with the economy of words she'd come to expect from his race, saying, “He mea 'ole.”

“ He says welcome aboard,” Jim translated.

The ship's master mumbled something in Hawaiian to the two crew members, also Hawaiian. The other two laughed and began casting off, wasting no time.

Jessica felt the comforting weight of her ankle holster and gun, knowing that Jim's own weapon was safely tucked into the small of his back below the dark green U of H sweatshirt he wore. “How well do you know these characters, Jim?” she whispered as the boat began its slow departure from port.

“ Enough. Don't worry.”

“ What're you saying? Situation normal, all fucked up, or have you simply gone beyond worry stage? Exit left or no exit left?”

“ Awai will do right by us. I've had assurances from friends on the island that he's okay, that he's a man of his word.”

“ Friends?”

“ In law enforcement.”

This didn't quell her fears, especially when she saw one of the other crewmen glaring unashamedly at her. This was followed by more mumbling between the crewmen and more icy stares.

“ What're they saying?” she asked Jim.

“ Can't make it out. Something about how pretty you are, I think.”

She gritted her teeth. “I don't feel entirely right about sticking our necks out so far, Jim.”

“ Hey, come on, you don't want a blind crew, do you? And they'd have to be blind if they didn't see how beautiful you are. As for sticking our necks out, I tried, if you remember, to leave you behind.”

She frowned, paced the small deck of the fishing charter and wrapped her hands around one of the thick ropes of hemp. “Yeah, you did warn me of the risks. But now we're actually out here, sailing away from all contact with the outside world… I mean, anything could happen out there on Kahoolawe. We have no jurisdiction, our badges are worthless. What if we have to fall back on our weapons, Jim? You and me, we could end up on the wrong side of the law very easily.”

“ Kahoolawe law, yeah, quite easily.”

“ Just how much do you know about the people on the island? Are they as feudal as they sound?”

“ They're made up of people who chose to return to a completely traditional way of life, all of them cultists in a sense-”

“ Great, sounds more and more like we're stepping into a David Koresh situation without backup.”

“ Cultists in the sense they embrace the old ways. They've come to Kahoolawe only recently, actually, appearing from all over the other islands, Molokai, Maui, even Oahu and the big island of Hawaii itself. They're not much different from the American Indians who're trying desperately to hold onto their culture in the States, and they enjoy the same kind of immunity from governmental pressures as do the American Indians. Sure, we could storm the reservation, but the political repercussions would cause a ripple effect that would be felt all the way back to D.C.”

“ And the already widening rift between the peoples of the island would be opened wider?” she added. Old scars, she thought, ripped to bleed as never before, something neither side wanted.

He put an arm around her and squeezed her shoulder firmly as the boat slipped its moorings and backed out under the power of its relatively quiet motor. “We just have to play this one by ear.”

'Tell me everything you know about Kahoolawe.”

“ I already have!”

“ Everything, Jim.”

“ Hmmmm, well, there's no way your prophet on the mountain, Lomelea, could be right about the so-called legend of Lopaka Kowona's having seen his brother killed.”

“ Why do you say so?”

“ If it happened, it happened on Molokai, but records there indicate that there was no brother, that Lopaka in fact is and always has been the only son conceived by Chief Kowona, and this with a white wife who died of cholera when Lopaka was quite young. She was pregnant with a second child at the time, but no brother was bom. That is according to a rough census taken.”

“ The old chief could've lied.”

“ Perhaps… perhaps not. I don't know a hell of a lot about psychology but I do know that killers lie, and very often they lie to themselves, to rationalize that which cannot be explained away in any other manner, if you get my drift.”

“ That would only prove Lomelea wrong factually; symbolically, for the killer, he did have a brother who was destroyed by his father, even if that brother was his alter ego.”