Primal Instinct

22

Jessica was exhausted by the second trip down to the lovely beach, after which Jim proposed a romantic interlude coupled with some serious business the following morning, the dive below the Spout. As for the romance, he'd thought of everything, including a tent, which he efficiently assembled. Very soon they had a fire going, and the enormity of the sky and ocean seemed closed out for a time by the circle of their flames, which sent little fireflies off in the trade winds which slapped at the tent continuously, the noise adding to that of the nearby geyser and the ocean's music.

She'd made coffee and warmed some of the canned food he'd brought, hash and beans, and they ate hungrily from tinware with small camping utensils. Nearby their diving gear and tanks stood silent sentinel to their camp. “Jesus, it's like beyond Deliverance here,” she softly complained. “So what's really going down here, Parry?” she asked firmly, after finishing her meal.

“ Just a little excursion, so to speak.”

“ Unauthorized?”

He frowned and looked out to sea, his thoughts seeming to go in and out with the tide. He looked a bit annoyed that his ruse hadn't lasted any longer than it had.

She got up, walked to the nearby water's edge and said, “Great to have a ready-made sink to clean up in.” She dipped her utensils and tin dish under the current, getting her feet and pants leg wet in the bargain, a little unnerved by the black emptiness of the water below her. Given the color of the bottom, the bay here was its own controlled little abyss.

“ Leave it to you to call the Pacific Ocean a sink,” he called out.

“ Well, for our purposes, for the moment, that's what it is,” she playfully parried, splashing water in his direction, sending it cascading skyward from her tin.

“ Hey, cut it out!”

“ So, you going to come clean, Parry? I'm here, I'm with you, I'm on your side, and I've been known to disobey authority on occasion.”

He hesitated.

“ You can trust me.”

“ I pitched the dive to D.C. and given the limited success of the Navy dive in Oahu, they passed on it. Didn't want to hear any objections from me either. Said in effect that your time and your life-and mine, they were kind enough to add-were more valuable than to go wasting either on what was termed an unlikely prospect in a risky environ.”

“ Sounds like Zanek's term for a wild-goose chase.”

“ Zanek and a team of think-tankers in D.C. that don't know shit about what we're faced with here. I mean if we don't nail this butchering-wacko-sonofabitch six ways to Sunday, if we don't have him on every count, and he gets some deal cut… well, we'll be facing some kind of race riot over in Honolulu.”

“ Something new for the tourists,” she said.

“ This isn't a laughing matter, Jess.”

“ I realize that. Come on, loosen up. We're here.”

“ Yeah, we're here, but I left out the fact Zanek kinda… well, he…”

“ Out with it, Jim.”

“ He ordered you back…”

She'd been returning from the ocean edge when this news stopped her in her tracks.

“ Are you saying… didn't you think… what were you thinking, Jim?”

“ I wanted this time with you.”

She considered this. “Well, Zanek's got a hell of a nerve ordering me back when I didn't get half my leave. Christ, the more I think about it, the hotter I get.”

“ Something about a Green River-type bizarre killing spree in the Northwest.”

“ Northwest, huh?”

“ Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon and Washington.”

“ There're other people he can call in, you know.”

“ Said it was right for you.”

“ Right for me. Some rep, I've got, huh, Jim?” She sat alongside him once more, sighing heavily. The meal and the campfire reminded her of hundreds of excursions she might've gone on if she'd found a man like Parry before, a man secure enough to ask her.

Here the palms and fragrance of the exotic jungle surrounded them on all sides save the sea, acting as its own aphrodisiac in delightful addition. On one side of them lay the dense gray shadow of an ohia forest where the ieie vines with their big, sweet almond-colored flowers were in full bloom. From her reading of Hawaiian folklore, she recalled that the ieie plant was offered to Laka, goddess of dance.

Staring out at the flaming, pink and salmon-colored flowers of the forest, Jessica once again marveled at the interplay of what seemed a purely Hawaiian phenomena, light even in darkness, created of color. All Hawaiian life and culture seemed perched on a balance beam between childlike ebullience, innocence and warmth on the one side, and lethargy, cynicism and a stoic, dark sorrow like the carved wooden images of the island gods on the other. Not unlike the world at large, she thought. The lava rock thrown up about the cliffs here looked like the jagged edges of flames in silhouette. In another direction her eyes took in the source of the winds hurtling down from the world's largest crater, sweeping a fierce course along the ancient path of the lava that'd created the beach. Parry, watching her, now stared at the broad face of the ascending mountain at their backs. “Makaniloa,” he said.

“ 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.

Out of water and flapping their fins, they were an awkward pair, like beached dolphins, but the moment they submerged they became free of weight as they expertly descended.

She knew she'd been right about the sediment here in their private little bay, for even in the protected area, hugged by natural barriers on two sides, the waves created a gray snowstorm before their eyes. It was impossible to see Jim's fins or his signals just ahead of her. She grabbed onto his left fin and held on, and he guided her. He was an accomplished diver, like herself, capable of navigating underwater with his compass alone. He'd obviously trained in dark water and night diving, as she had.

They weren't met with undersea life except for jagged coral reefs that seemed bent on reaching out to tear their suits. The current was swift and no fish would be foolish enough to be caught in it here. So they saw no other signs of life or light, save the brightness of the sun overhead, and even that was being slowly crushed as they ventured deeper and deeper.

A date with Jim Parry was a lot of things, but it was never dull, she told herself here.

He slowed ahead, the current tugging fiercely at his frame, turning him like a top. They'd both found the anchor line and were holding onto it for guidance and now dear life. She half hoped now that Jim saw what she saw, that it was more than foolish to go on, that it was deadly dangerous to be here. Still, he corkscrewed down, holding to the lifeline.

She'd let go of his fin once they'd found the line, holding to the line instead. She momentarily forgot her fright for herself and worried instead about Jim when a powerful wave overhead sent a monstrous current into her. The current forced her and the lifeline in one direction toward the coral bed and the rock outcroppings, slamming her into the volcanic base. She felt the rap against her air tank, knowing that it was dented badly by the sudden impact, the sound of the thud softened by the absorbing environment and her own labored breathing through the regulator in her mouth. She feared the next wave might send her skull into the bone-hard rock. But then she was swept in the opposite direction, toward the open ocean, the lifeline so stretched and with so much weight per ounce tugging at it, she feared it might snap. Somehow Jim had gone on, but she felt trapped between the incoming and outgoing current. She forced herself to tug for the bottom, follow Jim, get out of the influence of the run-out.

She used all her strength to do so, her body being whiplashed by the power of sea meeting land. But suddenly, she felt free of the hostile force that had so wanted her. She was below the current's sweep, and waiting anxiously for her, his one hand on the lifeline, the other extended and waving her on, was Parry, bubbles fleeing madly around him. He was on his knees in calmer water.

She realized that the satellite photo was correct. Here was a crevice created over eons of time by the forces of this watery world. They were in the vestibule and hopefully the repository created here by the constant wash of time.

It was a large area, perhaps the size of a Littie League baseball infield, handily, small enough that they could scan every inch to locate what they'd come for, //… if there was anything to find. The current was still strong here, pushing them about like corks, but it was not so stalwart that they could not maneuver, if they forced the issue. She'd dived in places where the current swept by like space and stars against the porthole of an airplane, seaweed and small fish caught up in it and passing by her mask at thirty, maybe forty miles an hour, and yet she had still slowly managed to make headway against the current to return to the diving boat, using a draw line as last resort. She'd been in such a dive off the coast of Key Largo at the John Pennekamp underwater Coral Reef State Park in the Florida Keys once, when the dive-master, an enormous whale of a man whose only interest, it seemed, was his next can of beer, had foolishly taken the party beyond the barrier reef into rough waters. It was not pleasant to dive under such conditions, and it took every ounce of energy, and most of the divers that day never got off the boat, finding themselves too sick to do anything other than puke over the side.

Jim motioned for her to follow the contours of the circular field they'd discovered in one direction while he explored the other. The clarity of the water was better here than above, for it was calmer. Still, the sediment at the bottom of the reservoir was in a constant swirl, disturbed by the current, moving back and forth like milky, dirty water in a washbasin. Yet if she worked at it, she could see through this thin cloud, which hung ghostlike over the bottom, to see teeming life darting about, rooted plants, seaweed and coral and volcanic stone. A course could be determined and followed. One thing was quite clear, with visibility so bad, they had to remain above the sandy floor, to keep their fins from swirling up the sediment even more.

As it was, they could barely see one another after a few feet of separation. Parry in fact looked like a ghost as he swam off in one direction, disappearing before her eyes. Being careful, picking her way along with great caution, fearful of swimming into a vortex, Jessica felt her stomach lurch at the thought that her last sight of Parry might have already occurred.

They were crazy to be here doing this…

She adjusted her weight and descended further, getting closer for the survey of the floor, wiping aside floating debris. She followed a zigzag pattern, but not for long. She was stopped instantly by an unusually large, ivory stone with smooth contours below the sea, lichen growing on its base. Mold had so painted it over as to make it one with the surroundings, save for the top, rubbed bare, fanned for all eternity by the current. She sensed something strange about this stone immediately. It appeared bonelike.

She descended, parting small schools of fish as she did so. Nearby a sea turtle played out its underwater ballet, so at ease was it here in the depths. It came so near she reached out to touch it, but it sped off just ahead of her fingertips, as if in a teasing and familiar dance it'd danced with mankind for generations.

Below, in the sand at the bottom, she was coming to rest over what appeared the unnatural formation, a mound amid an otherwise smooth surface. Just as her knees were about to touch bottom, a UFO-shaped portion of the sand lifted off and shot away, its eyes on its head, looking angry and ratlike as it sped off.

If fish could curse, the pancake flounder would have the vilest words to say, she thought.

Jim Parry, doing his own zigzagging probe, saw her kneeling there, causing a smokescreen of sediment to settle around her. He came gliding over, curious about her find, giving her the universal hand gesture for What? He looked great underwater, she thought while pointing to her discovery, fearful of embarrassment now should her treasure turn into nothing, a false alarm.

She dug in with her gloved hands at the conical cap of the mound, Jim lending his own powerful hands, each scooping away sediment around the base. In an instant which made them both draw back, Jessica came away with a human skull and the neck bone from which it had so easily detached. The unmistakable skeletal remains of the skull's owner protruded now, shoulder bones and spinal column looking like a macabre mockery of the living coral around it.

Even here and through her face mask, Jessica could tell from the size, heft, contour and jaw that it was the skull of a woman. It was partially shattered at the cranium, brittle, ready to cave in. The eye sockets stared ceaselessly back at the divers. Christ help me, she thought, it's my nightmare come true, like a damned premonition. Parry went to work uncovering more bones, discarding rocks and silt, until soon, it appeared they had a large cache of human bones.

Jim had been so right it was scary, she thought.

Underwater everything was exaggerated, the five senses heightened, underscored. Colors were indescribably bright and blinding, shapes monstrous and large, and it took more effort to stare into death here like this than in her lab. Every effort made when working underwater, too, was more difficult; maneuvering the bone cache, like two spacemen lifting moon rocks in a zero- gravity environment, took its toll. Still, they worked to dig at the find with deliberate patience.

She had just begun to wonder how they were ever possibly going to get the bones to the surface when, like a magician's trick. Parry extended her a large net-from out of thin water, she mentally quipped-a net used for shelling or lobstering which he'd obviously brought along. Together they began filling the net with an array of bones, from ribs to femurs to skulls, some of which seemed too ponderous to be those of women-but this was no place to make such judgments. In fact, it was far too soon to tell for certain if all the bones were human, she conceded while Parry finished filling the net.

Now, the net filled to capacity, making it impossible for them to collect any more of the skeletal remains, they saw they had hardly scratched the surface of the underwater tomb. Still, it appeared that the top layer of bones was of more interest to them, since they appeared newer than most they'd found here.

Unlike the Navy divers at the Blow Hole, who'd not used satellite photo reconnaissance and had not located such a find, she and Parry had been extremely fortunate. Parry had made things happen here. She respected him for that. Forensically speaking, it appeared that they had Lopaka Kowona cornered in every sense of the word now. Just too bloody bad they didn't have the killer himself cornered.

Still, at least now they had more than the handful of bone fragments found at the Blow Hole, so skimpy as to be not enough for the usual jury, no matter how much Linda Kahala's minuscule remains might tell Jessica Coran.

Jim gave the signal that they should now find the tow rope and ascend the way they had come. She dreaded the return trip, but realized that the danger was only in one area, and when they reached that current belt, they'd have to move quickly and determinedly on. She worried about Jim and the extra weight the bone net represented, but then she saw that he had thought of everything, for he was attaching the net to the lifeline and tightly securing it there. He meant to bring it up with the anchor once on the surface, hand-over-hand.

Their little salvage operation looked to be a success when they were both successfully past the dangerous current zone and beyond any threat from the sea. The ocean was both benefactor and punisher here, depending on its whim and the foolishness of mortals like them who dared taunt the enormity of this god. Arising to meet the radiance of the upper world, Jessica was anxious to return to safety there amid the black stone beach, the sun and the silence of their private world above. She knew she'd been badly battered against the coral and lava rocks, and that her bruises would not soon heal, but they'd also be a friendly reminder of her exhilarating time here in this raw world with Jim Parry.

Even before he surfaced, Jim was looking at his watch, anticipating the arrival of the chopper and their departure. The bittersweet thought of leaving here was so strong that each of them felt it in the other's mind as they made their way out of the pounding surf to the safety of the protected bay and shore. They had yet to haul the bones from the sea. It was nearing mid- moming.