One hour later, Alani had organized a three-day stay for all of them at Onizuka, and Riley had checked the weather report for Pohakuloa. The cloud cover was expected to dissipate by the next morning and the airfield would be open for business. Vernon and Wayan Bagus were eating in another room. Emerson had disappeared.
Riley looked up from her iPad. “Where’s Emerson?” she asked Alani.
“He went into the master bedroom to pack supplies and meditate. He said he needed some private time to come up with an idea that didn’t involve Macaulay Culkin.”
Riley shook her head. “He’s not normal.”
Alani smiled. “You like him, don’t you? I thought I sensed a spark between the two of you.”
“He’s the most irritating person I’ve ever met.”
“And you like him.”
“He is constantly getting me into trouble. Did I mention he got me fired from my last job?”
“And you like him.”
Riley sighed. “Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. He has his moments. It’s just that some of those moments make me want to punch him in the face. What about you? Did you and Emerson ever have a thing?”
“No. We were always just friends. I had a thing for Vernon. He has his moments too.”
Riley checked her watch. “We should be moving on. I’m going to see if I can help Emerson pack.”
She left the living room and walked down the short hall to the master bedroom. The door was ajar and she could hear Emerson pacing. She pushed the door open, stepped into the room, and came face-to-face with Vernon in the buff.
“Crap on a cracker,” she said, clapping her hands over her eyes. “What are you doing in here?”
“I was using Em’s shower. It’s better than the one in the guest room.”
Riley peeked at him from between two fingers. “Okay, I guess I get that, but why are you still naked, standing in the middle of the room, flapping your arms?”
“I like to air-dry. It’s real refreshing and it keeps my skin all silky smooth. I got a butt like a baby. I guess you already noticed that.”
“I didn’t notice anything!”
Riley spun around and fled the room.
Alani and Wayan Bagus were in the living room when Riley rushed in.
“Are you okay?” Alani asked Riley. “Your face is flushed.”
“I just saw Vernon naked.”
Vernon followed Riley into the room. He was still damp and he was wearing a towel. “Yep, she saw my doodles and my dongle in all their glory,” he said.
Alani gave a bark of laughter. “Your dongle isn’t that glorious. I’ve seen it, along with half the women on this island. You’ve got a teeny wienie.”
Not that Riley had seen hundreds of dongles but from what she’d just seen of Vernon he looked pretty darn good from head to toe, dongle included.
Emerson walked into the room. “What’s going on?”
“Riley saw Vernon naked,” Wayan Bagus said. “Furthermore, Alani thinks Vernon has a teeny wienie.”
“It was an accident,” Riley said. “I thought Emerson was in the bedroom.”
“I’ve heard about this on HBO,” Vernon said. “It’s a fetish called CFNM, or Clothed Female Nude Male. Apparently some women just like to look at as many wieners as they can. You’re probably next, Little Buddy.”
Wayan Bagus shook his head and looked disapprovingly at Riley. “Not good. Not good at all.”
“Criminy,” Riley said, “I don’t want to see everyone’s wiener! I only wanted to see Emerson.”
Emerson glanced down at himself. “And who could blame her.”
TWENTY-TWO
BY FIVE A.M., RILEY, EMERSON, VERNON, WAYAN Bagus, and Alani were loaded into the ranch SUV and passing through the cowboy town of Waimea on their way to the Mauna Kea summit.
“The turnoff to Saddle Road is just ahead,” Alani said. “It’s about twenty-five miles from there to the Pohakuloa Training Area and another ten miles from there to the Mauna Kea Access Road and the Onizuka Center.”
Riley wound her way up the mountain road in the darkness and felt her ears pop. “How high are we going?” she asked Alani.
“Waimea is at twenty-six hundred feet elevation. Pohakuloa is about nine thousand feet. The summit is almost at fourteen thousand feet. It’s usually below freezing there through the night and, in winter, it’s not uncommon to have snow.”
By five-thirty A.M., the thick cloud cover was right above them.
“It’s called an inversion layer,” Emerson said. “The temperature difference keeps a dense cloud over Mauna Kea at this elevation most of the time.”
Riley drove into the cloud. Even with the high beams, it was almost impossible to see more than a foot or two in front of the car.
“This is kind of spooky,” she said as the car passed a sign reading POHAKULOA TRAINING AREA. Riley slowed and looked off to the side of the road. The visibility was so bad she couldn’t see a single building, let alone the army airfield.
“There’s no way a plane could land in this soup,” Riley said. “Especially if you’re carrying cargo that could explode if you jostled it the wrong way.”
“That’s what I’m counting on,” Emerson said. “There’s an eight-hour window tomorrow when the sky will be clear. I’m betting our friends try to land with the Penning trap during that window.”
Five minutes later, the car popped through the clouds, and the impenetrable white ceiling turned into an impenetrable white floor. Riley looked up into the predawn sky. “Wow. I’ve never seen so many stars.”
Alani smiled. “Mauna Kea is the world’s largest observatory for optical, infrared, and submillimeter astronomy for a reason. The atmospheric conditions at the summit are near perfect.”
A couple minutes later, Riley turned on to the Summit Access Road and climbed steadily until reaching the Onizuka Center, where the paved road ended.
“There’s a very steep five-mile-long gravel road to the summit from here,” Alani said. “It requires a four-wheel drive.”
The sun was just beginning to peek above the horizon, and they all got out of the car. The air was noticeably thinner, and even walking up the small hill to the center was a workout. Only Wayan Bagus and Emerson seemed unaffected.
Vernon put his hands on his knees. “It’s kind of hard to breathe proper up in this here high country,” Vernon said.
“We all need to be alert for signs of altitude sickness,” Emerson said. “We haven’t had time to acclimate. Mauna Kea is probably the only place in the world where you can go from sea level to fourteen thousand feet in less than two hours.”
Alani led them to their dormitory. “The air is even thinner at the summit. Most of the observatories make the scientists spend a night or two at the center before using the telescopes.”
“Why?” Riley asked.
“There’s forty percent less oxygen up at the top than at sea level, and it can seriously mess with everything from your vision to your mental condition.”
“Interesting,” Vernon said. “Suppose a person worked where she was chronically deprived of oxygen. Would that cause a perfectly normal person to go all loopy and run over her boyfriend with a motor vehicle?”
Alani cut her eyes to Vernon. “You’re a chronic jackass.” Vernon watched Alani walk inside the dormitory. “Okay, so I might be a chronic jackass, but that’s no reason not to like me. Some people even think I’m a fun jackass.”
Wayan Bagus put his hand on Vernon’s shoulder. “It is written by the Sage that you, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”
“Thanks, Little Buddy,” Vernon said. “Right back at you.”
Alani returned with a key and handed it to Emerson. “You’re all set. I have to get to work at the observatory. Call me on my cell if you need anything.”
Alani had given them an accurate description of the dormitory room. It was a small, serviceable room with two sets of bunk beds and a distant view of the Bradshaw Army Airfield. A telescope had been placed on a tripod next to the window.
Wayan Bagus looked around the room and out the window. The sun was up and the clouds had disappeared, revealing a breathtaking view of South Kohala all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
“This is very nice,” Wayan Bagus said. “I’ve never been on a stakeout. I’m having such a good time saving the world that I almost don’t care if we find my stolen island.”
“We’ll find it,” Emerson said, peering through the telescope and adjusting it to focus on the runway.