Page 23 of Wired Ghost

He had to calm down, allow things to unfold, stay calm, look for a chance to help.

Renfield walked steadily forward toward thekipuka’s jagged profile of trees, holding the white flag aloft and waving it gently back and forth. He stopped a hundred yards or so from the raised area, and applied his bullhorn to his mouth. “This is the National Guard. We are on a rescue mission, looking for survivors fleeing or trapped by the recent eruption. If you’re hiding on thekipuka,surrender any weapons and come out; you will not be harmed.”

The response was immediate; a gunshot that threw up chips of rock near Renfield, and made all of them jump. The negotiator ducked instinctively, but straightened back up, holding the flag aloft. “Don’t shoot. We’re here to help. I’m going to leave a walkie here, with the flag, and you can come pick it up so we can talk. You will not be harmed.”

Renfield set the walkie down on the rock and turned his back to thekipuka,walking unhurriedly back to the chopper. Raveaux felt a vicarious itching between his own shoulder blades; that had to be one of the hardest things in the world to do.

A moment later, movement on thekipuka. A man in a red ballcap hurried out onto the lava and took the walkie and the white flag, running back to duck behind a large boulder. “Doesn’t look like anyone we need to worry about,” Wong said. “Just a meth head punk.”

“That’s not the reputation Finn O’Brien has,” Ohale cautioned. “He has a long record in Ireland, and it includes things like terrorism and murder for hire. He got to Hawaii on a stolen visa and passport, and has been cooking meth and living off the grid for years now—and people keep disappearing around him.”

“Where does kidnapping a young girl come into that profile?” Raveaux asked.

Ohale didn’t have time to answer that, because the walkie crackled in Renfield’s hand. “Hey there, gentlemen.” An Irish brogue. “We require assistance in getting away from the lava. We’re folks living off the grid, and we came as far as we could on our own. Why all the guns and hostility?” He sounded so genuine that Raveaux’s brows rose.

Renfield looked at the Lieutenant. Wong looked at Ohale. Ohale looked at Raveaux. Raveaux shook his head. “We need to know if they have Sophie and Jake,” he whispered.

“Well, of course we’re happy to help. As to the weapons, you took a pot shot at us first, if you recall. Never know what kind of people you might run into out here,” Renfield sounded friendly, too. “Hey, we’re looking for a missing couple who were supposed to be hiking out in your area. Names are Jake and Sophie. Have you seen them?”

A short pause. “Never heard of them.”

Raveaux’s chest tightened and his eyes narrowed as they met Ohale’s gaze. The older Hawaiian man looked equally pissed. As they’d suspected, thegang had left Jake and Sophie to die in the pit.

“Wrap it up,” Ohale told Renfield. “We have no more time to waste on these lowlifes.”

Chapter Sixteen

Raveaux

Raveaux hung backwith the chief as the Guardsmen moved forward to take the meth gang into custody under the protection of the white flag. Negotiations had not taken long, once the team had ascertained that Sophie and Jake were not with the group.

Raveaux stared down at his phone in frustration. “I need to report in to our head of operations and there’s no signal out here.”

“No problem.” Ohale took a heavy-duty satellite phone off his belt and unlocked it for Raveaux. “Give him a call from here.”

Raveaux had to look up Bix’s private number on his own phone, and enter it manually. A few minutes later the president of operations for Security Solutions picked up. After Raveaux identified himself, Bix said, “About time you checked in.”

“We’ve been a little busy, and there’s no signal out here on the lava,” Raveaux said. “We’re in the middle of a natural disaster, if you’ve been watching the news. And we’ve hit a dead end—I hope not a literal one—in finding Jake and Sophie.”

“Report,” Bix barked.

Raveaux filled Bix in on their progress so far. “The meth crew says they pitched Jake and Sophie into the garbage hole for safekeeping, and abandoned them there when they fled before the oncoming lava reached them.”

Bix swore. “Good thing we have an ace in the hole. Get yourself back to Hilo airport ASAP. You’re to rendezvous with an associate who is flying in from Thailand to head up the search. He’s got a lot of pull in the company, and he’ll be coming in on the Security Solutions jet and taking out a chartered chopper to look for them. I’ve made all the arrangements.”

This made no sense. “Our operatives were thrown into a lava tube at a remotekipukathat’s now cut off from access by an active flow,” Raveaux said. “I know where they went in, and it’s going to take rappelling and spelunking gear to find them in that hole in the ground. How will some corporate type from overseas be able to do anything more than we’ve been able to?” He pushed a hand into his hair in agitation and gave it a tug. “I don’t know if they could have survived the earthquakes and the escalating amount of lava that’s moving.” Raveaux’s heart was hammering inside his chest as he stared at the group of meth cookers. The group’s leader, a man that looked like a stereotype outlaw biker, stared back at him with cold blue eyes. Lia Ayabe, the supposed kidnap victim, clung to the brute until she was pried off and cuffed with the rest of them.

Could his beloved Lucie have grown up to break his heart the way this girl was breaking her father’s?

No. Never would have happened. He wouldn’t have let it.

Except he’d let her die, instead . . .

“Don’t ask questions. Simply do what our associate tells you to. He has tech that can track them that we weren’t aware of,” Bix said.

“Who is this man? How does he have so much influence in the company?” Operating on not enough intel could be dangerous.

“You can call him Connor, but his name is not important. What he’s able to do to find them, is what’s relevant here.”

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