“Uh,
no. Not much chopper experience.”
“Well,
no worries. Ono here has probably forgot more’n I’ll ever know. But you think
you’ll be okay in the second seat?”
Okay,
I’m not stupid. I could see where this was going. I nodded. I figure lying’s a
little more acceptable if it’s done silently.
“Great.
Well, she’s all gassed up and checked out. But you two will want to do your own
pre-flight checks, I’m sure.”
“
Mahalo,
brudda
. I owe you a cold one,” said Ono.
“Dude,
you could fly this thing all the way to Japan and I’d still have a ways to go
to pay you back for everything you’ve done for me,” said Gordon. “But I’ll take
you up on that beer sometime. It’d be good to catch up.”
Another
man hug and Gordon loped off toward a little free-standing building with a neon
orange wind sock flapping from a pole on the roof.
“You
want to fill me in on what just happened?” I said.
“We’re
gonna take this bird up and look around for your girl.” Ono’s grin told me he
was proud of his little performance—and mine.
“Well,
then let’s do it.”
***
I
strapped myself in and put on my ear muffs. Ono flipped switches on the dash
and started talking to the tower at Kahului Airport. He got clearance to head
out and the next thing I knew we were up and away.
Flying
in a helicopter is nothing like flying in a commercial jet. It’s not even like
being in a small two-seater plane. Helicopters feel like they have more in
common with elevators than anything with fixed wings. They go up—straight up.
No fooling around with taxiing, no slow climb from the runway to reach flying
altitude. The steady
whomp, whomp, whomp
of the rotor blades reminded me
we were traveling in a machine and not something extraterrestrial, but the
helicopter lifted so effortlessly it was almost as if it were immune to
gravity.
“Whew!
This is fantastic,” I said. “I feel lighter than air.”
“I
know. I love it. In the Army I flew Uncle Sam’s big Bell copters, but flying a
little sightseeing chopper like this is like driving a fancy sports car. Keep a
sharp eye out, we’ll be over ‘Iao Valley in no time.”
He
was right. We were moving much faster than we ever could’ve on land, and within
a few minutes we’d left Kahului and Wailuku behind and were entering the lush
green of the valley.
“What
are we looking for?” I asked.
“Didn’t
you say Beni said your girl was in a blue tent? Maybe it’s still there.”
“Yeah.
But I don’t know what color blue. It could be dark blue, baby blue, turquoise
blue—”
“Doesn’t
matter. If you see something blue, sing out.”
We
swooped in low over the ridge of the ‘Iao Needle and I grabbed the edge of my
seat in alarm.
“Coming
in a little low there, cowboy,” I said.
“Nah,
don’t worry. We’re not as close to the ground as it looks. And the altimeter
bell will go off if I get too hold-ass crazy. We gotta stay low if we hope to
see anything from up here.”
We
zipped along and it seemed to me that even if there was anything worth seeing
it would flash by too quickly for us to notice.
Then
I saw it.
CHAPTER 27
I
pointed to the four o’clock position in the front bubble window of the cockpit
and Ono nodded. A bright smudge of royal blue contrasted against the mottled
green of the carpet of foliage below.
“Do
you think that’s it?” I said, squinting my eyes to peer at the blue blotch.
“I’m
gonna take her around again and see if I can get in a little lower.”
“Lower?”
My voice sounded squeaky through the mic system in the ear muffs.
“Not
too much lower. Just enough to see if we can get a fix on a surrounding
landmark.”
There
weren’t many landmarks. The dense tropical forest stretched on and on—a bumpy
topography of tree-tops and dark green hillside brush for as far as the eye
could see.
We
hovered above the small patch of blue for a few seconds. Ono blew out a breath
and then dipped the chopper down a bit lower.
“Hang
on,” he said. “We’re good, but I’m trying to get a bead on pinpointing the
stream from here. If I can locate the stream in relation to this blue thing,
we’ll have a shot at finding our way back here on foot.”
The
stream turned out to be only a short distance to the west of the blue spot.
“Just
like you thought,” he said. “We’re over the opposite fork of the ‘Iao Stream.
This isn’t the side we were on this morning.”
He
tapped one of the cockpit dials, then maneuvered the stick to take us up a
little higher. As we hovered over the spot, he scribbled a note on a tiny
notepad clipped to the instrument panel.
“We’re
good. Let’s take ‘er back now,” he said.
I
shot him my best sad-faced
do we have to?
look.
“Okay.
I’ll take you on a quick spin over the West Side before we buzz on in. I
promised Gordy we’d be gone less than an hour. He doesn’t mind sharing his
chopper, but paying for the fuel’s another thing.”
We
flew all the way through the ‘Iao Valley, then dipped and followed the Launiupoko
Valley until we popped out on the leeward side of the island. I could see
Lahaina Town to my right and a huge tract of glittering ocean straight ahead.
The islands of Lana’i and Molokai lay ahead on the horizon, their tops still
shrouded in clouds. Just at the point where the earth curved away from view I
spotted what I think was the uppermost point of Diamond Head on O’ahu. Ono
steered left and from that vantage I was able to make out the stark brown
landscape of the uninhabited island of Kaho’olawe, just off the southern tip of
Maui. I knew the Big Island of Hawaii lay somewhere further south, but it
wasn’t visible. Below me lay a dazzling expanse of diamond-studded ocean
quivering beneath a fierce blue sky.
I
didn’t say a word. There was nothing to say that would capture the awe I felt
at that moment.
***
By
the time we landed it was almost one o’clock, which gave us plenty of time to
go back into the valley to check if the blue smudge we’d seen from the air was
the tent in the campsite we’d been looking for. But I was hungry.
“
Mahalo
for the ride,” I said as Ono helped me out of the cockpit. “I think we’ve got
something to shoot for, but before we go back up there, can I buy you lunch?”
“Gordy
loaning me his chopper, you buying me lunch—this day just keeps getting better
and better,” Ono said with a smile. “Where do you want to go?”
“You
like
saimin
?”
“Sure.
Who doesn’t?”
“You
ever been to Sam Sato’s up in Wailuku? It’s right on our way back up to ‘Iao
Valley. It’s nothin’ fancy but he’s got
broke da mouth
good
saimin
.”
“Sounds
like a plan.”
We
made it to the
saimin
place in twenty minutes and were served and back
out on the road in another thirty. Ono’s van chugged back up to the entrance to
‘Iao Valley State Park but this time we had to park much further down the road
since the place was now teeming with tourists.
“Do
you think we should try this with so many people around?” I said.
“Nobody’s
gonna be looking at us. Let’s play like we’re lovers looking for a little
afternoon delight. I hear this is a popular spot for that kinda thing.” He
grinned.
“Sounds
like the voice of experience,” I said.
“I
told you, I come from hippie stock. We’re big into getting back to nature.”
We
held hands and lolled around the footbridge waiting for it to clear off before
ducking below it. As we scrambled through the thick brush it occurred to me
we’d probably never find the blue tent—the landscape was so overgrown it was
impossible to see more than a few feet ahead.
“Ono,
this is ridiculous. We could be out here for hours and still miss that tent by
half a mile.”
“Not
hardly,” he said. He swung his pack off his shoulder and pulled out the little
note he’d jotted down in the helicopter. Then from a different pocket he dug
out a device about the size of a cell phone. He fired it up and showed me the
display.
“Global
positioning,” he said, punching in numbers. “This baby’s accurate to within ten
feet. From the looks of things, we’re right on track.”
We
slogged on. This time we didn’t cross the stream, but instead kept to the right
of it as we hiked up the steep terrain. We passed a couple of small clearings,
and as we approached each one, Ono checked his GPS device and then shook his
head.
At
last we arrived within the hot zone of the GPS coordinates.
“Keep
an eye out. It’s gotta be right around here somewhere,” he said.
We
pushed through the brush and came out at a narrow rock-strewn trail.
“This
looks promising,” I said. “Why didn’t we see this trail before?”
“Don’t
know,” said Ono. “It looks like it’s been pretty well traveled. In fact, check
this out: looks like we may not be the first people up here today.”
He
pointed to a muddy shoe print traveling in the direction we were headed.
“How
do you know that print’s not a week old?” I said. “It could be from the
kidnappers—or Beni.”
“This
is a rain forest,” he said. “It rains nearly every day—especially this time of
year. This print is fresh—no more than a day old.”
“So
while we were chowing down at Sam Sato’s someone else might have beaten us to
the campsite?”
He
put his finger to his lips to noiselessly tell me to
shush
.
We
stepped back into the trees and crouched down. I peered through the thick
brush. I couldn’t see much, but within a few seconds I heard men’s voices
coming our way.
“…not
likely,
brudda
,” said one guy. His voice sounded local.
“What
you think?” said another guy.
“…up
here not so easy to find…” The wind rustling the leaves made it difficult to
catch the whole conversation.
Ono
and I stayed silent and hidden. My thighs were starting to burn by the time the
guys came within earshot.
“I
tol’ you this was a waste of time. The wife gave me a ton of
kaumaha
about ducking out on a Sunday.” It was the first guy’s voice.
“You
think they’ll close the park?” said the second guy.
The
other guy laughed. “No worries to me. I still get paid.”
“Man,
maybe we should look around a little more. I don’t want no trouble with the
cops.”
“No,
I gotta get home. It’s my
keiki
nephew’s birthday. Nothing’s gonna…” and
then their voices drifted away.
We
stayed hidden for another half-minute to make sure they didn’t circle back,
then we stood and stretched.
“Whew.
That felt like a million thigh squats,” I said. “My Sifu Doug makes us do those
if we whine during practice.”
“Well,
now we have some idea who made the shoe print we saw earlier,” said Ono. “And
it sounds like they were up there looking for something. We need to get a move
on.”
Later,
I couldn’t help thinking about how my life would’ve been different if we hadn’t
found the kidnappers’ campsite. I’m a pretty good wedding planner for a lot of
reasons, but mostly it’s because I’m detail-oriented and have great visual
memory. I see something once and it sticks. As we made our way up the
trail to the campsite, I tried to imagine what we’d find once we got there. I
pictured a tidy little mound of freshly-turned earth, with maybe a little
circle of stones marking a final resting place. I steeled myself to deal with
finding a sandal, maybe a piece of ripped clothing, or some other distressing
clue to Crystal’s final struggle. What I was totally unprepared for was seeing
just how vicious people could be. With each step I came closer to creating an
enduring memory that still haunts me each time I close my eyes to sleep.
As
they say, you can’t un-ring a bell.
CHAPTER 28
The
campsite was a mess—broken bottles strewn around; a barely-covered latrine hole
that stunk to high heaven; and the collapsed blue tent flapping in the wind
like a huge bird foundered by a broken wing. We took it all in but stayed back.
“This
is a crime scene,” I said. “I think we need to locate the grave, take a few
pictures, and then get the hell out of here.”
“Yeah,”
said Ono. “Except for the ‘head hole’ the dirt in this area looks pretty
intact. No grave here.”
“Beni
said he was ordered to dig some distance away. He said when he finished he went
down
to where they were holding Crystal.”
“Okay,”
said Ono, “why don’t you circle around that way to the left and I’ll circle
right and let’s see what we come up with.”