Page 51 of Deadly Sacrifice

That moment when Steinbrenner saw he was going to die. The way his body went rigid, his breath coming in panicked gasps, his body shaking, muffled cries audible through the gag. Then the first strike had landed . . .

Katie clenched her fists, nails digging into her palms.

She hadn’t watched long enough to see the end, but she didn’t need to. The crime scene itself had filled in the blanks—the shattered skull, the blood running in rivulets down the altar stone. Mu had made sure his victims suffered.

And he had filmed it all.

“Sick bastard.” Katie sucked in a deep breath, forcing herself to sit up. The break room was quiet, the hum of the fridge the only sound. Down the hall, she could hear the muffled voices of the team still gathered in the conference room, still analyzing what they had seen.

She should be in there. She should be working.

Katie pressed the washcloth to the back of her neck, letting the cool sensation ground her. She wasn’t just some tech. She was the best at what she did. And if this monster thought he could hide behind his manifesto, behind encryption and anonymity, he was dead wrong.

She was going to find him. And she was going to watch his world burn.

But first, she was going to have a little lie-down until she felt better.

31

LEI

The team meetingbroke up when Captain Omura was called by the Governor of Hawaii and notified that the television stations and newspapers in the state had received emails tipping them off to the Warriors of Kamehameha website.

Omura held a quick, impromptu news conference after the Governor asked her to respond to the many calls from the media. Looking for a catchy headline phrase, the media hadn’t yet reached consensus between ‘The Kapu Killers’ or ‘Kamehameha’s Sacrificers.’ Lei and Pono were assigned to prioritize figuring out who The Warriors of Kamehameha were; Omura told them to reach out to the numerous groups that had been calling for sovereignty for the islands, through recognition, nationhood, or possibly even a restoration of the Hawaiian monarchy.

“But why isn’t anyone realizing the killer is a fake Hawaiian?” Pono growled as he and Lei headed for her cubicle after the Q and A, during which the Captain had fended off most of the questions. “Isn’t anyone else seeing that this ‘manifesto’ is bull crap? It’s a smoke screen.”

“Apparently you’re the only one who is sure of that,” Lei told her partner. “Today was one day of many I’ve been glad I didn’t have Captain Omura’s job.”

At their cubicles, Stevens met them and volunteered to help make calls, but their quick strategy session got off to a rocky start.

“Are these people serious?” Stevens asked. “Those demands from the Warriors of Kamehameha are crazy. The federal government will never agree to that.”

“I don’t think that’s even a question,” Lei said. “We don’t negotiate with terrorists—or murderers.”

“But wait, Stevens. You said ‘these people’?” Pono was fired up. “That attitude is part of the problem. ‘These people’ are Hawaiians, just like me. And the U.S. government is in control of our country. They don’t listen to us, the people of an illegally overthrown sovereign nation.”

“Why should they?” Stevens countered. “Isn’t this the same thing the Civil War was fought over?”

“Not even close,” Pono said. “The southern states joined the Union voluntarily, and then decided they wanted to secede. Hawaii is a country that was annexed by the U.S. after its Queen was deposed in an illegal coup.”

“I thought she stepped down voluntarily?” Stevens said. “I’m just trying to understand where this is coming from after all this time.”

“The overthrow was led by a small group of powerful white businessmen on Oahu. They marched to ‘Iolani Palace at the head of their private militia, backed by a couple hundred Marines from a U.S. ship in Honolulu Bay. They demanded that Queen Lili?uokalani abdicate the throne. Between their private soldiers and the Marines, the Queen’s guards were outnumbered nearly four to one. To keep anyone from getting killed, she agreed to step down, but it was hardly voluntary.”

“I was sketchy on the details,” Stevens said. “Sorry, man. And yeah, I get why the Hawaiian people are pissed.”

Pono looked away, drumming his fingers on the desk. “The Kingdom of Hawai‘i had treaties with the U.S., which means it had been recognized as a sovereign state. The Queen trusted the U.S. government to do the right thing. She sent messages to Washington, and when President Cleveland heard about it, he ordered the new ‘Provisional Government’ to stand down and give the country back. They ignored him. Four years later, when Cleveland was out of office and McKinley was elected President, he signed the act that annexed Hawaii.” Pono looked directly at Stevens. “Most Hawaiians believe our land was stolen from us, taken illegally. President Clinton signed an apology for the overthrow, but nothing changed. If someone took away something that was important to you and later said, ‘Sorry, what I did was wrong, but I’m not giving it back,’ how would you feel?”

Stevens and Lei exchanged glances. They’d both survived situations where someone had tried to take away everything. “We get it,” Stevens said.

Pono continued. “The sovereignty movement is lots of groups with different agendas. The radical ones believe that, because the annexation was illegal, the Kingdom of Hawai‘i still exists as a nation. They consider the U.S. to be an ‘occupying force’ with no legal authority, and they want it to leave.

“Others support working through the legal systems, trying to gain a foothold of recognition, and build on that toward self-determination. Hawaiians don’t even have the same rights as Native Americans or Native Alaskans. Currently, the state is supporting an initiative to establish a ‘roll’ of Native Hawaiians, as a first step towards empowering us in a nation-building process. There’s a lot going on.”

“It’s a little like shutting the barn door after the horse is gone,” Stevens said as he leaned against the wall of the cubicle. “But justice should be served in whatever form it can be. On that note, I’ll reach out to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and see if they know anything about these Warriors of Kamehameha.”

“Thanks, hon,” Lei said as he walked off. She turned to her partner. “You done with your rant, bro? That right after you told me these Warriors of Kamehameha are fake.”

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