“Now what?” Riley asked.
“We wait,” Emerson said.
Over the next several hours, a steady stream of airplanes landed on the airstrip, but none were carrying cargo or any passengers wearing park ranger uniforms.
Vernon groaned and tilted his head back. “Here’s something they don’t tell you about stakeouts. They’re really, really boring.”
“It’s about to get really, really exciting,” Emerson said, turning the telescope over to Riley.
Riley focused on a medium-size jet taxiing down the runway. It had two crossed sabers and a number one above them painted on the side of the plane.
“For a secret society, they’re not very good at keeping themselves under the radar,” Riley said.
“Pure arrogance,” Emerson said. “They’ve been an untouchable secret quasi-military unit for the past hundred years and don’t think anybody can take them out.”
“What chance do we have then?” Vernon asked.
Emerson watched the plane pull up to the terminal and power down. “If we can expose the secret they’re protecting, they’ll no longer be useful and will become more of a liability than an asset.”
“They’re crazy,” Riley said. “If we expose them, they’ll destroy Yellowstone and who knows what else. You heard Spiro. He said we’d find Armageddon waiting for us in Hawaii. I don’t know what that means, but it sounds really bad.”
Emerson focused the telescope on the plane’s door. “Then we’ll just have to steal the super-weapon they’re creating here on Hawaii, find a way to neutralize Tin Man, and then expose the secret to the world.”
“Yeah, that sounds like a walk in the park. We can do that, no problemo,” Riley said. “And then we can end world hunger by growing tomatoes on the moon.”
The plane’s door opened, and Emerson watched as the pilots walked down the stairs and waited for the passengers to disembark.
“They’re coming out now,” Emerson said. “It’s Tin Man and Bart Young. An SUV is driving onto the tarmac to meet them. And now two Rough Riders wearing khaki uniforms and campaign hats are unloading something from the cargo storage into the SUV.”
“Is it the Penning trap?” Riley asked.
“It’s a crate, but it’s the right size to contain the Penning trap.”
Emerson watched as Tin Man and Bart Young climbed into the SUV with the two soldiers. They drove through the airfield’s gate and onto Saddle Road. After a quarter mile, the SUV turned left onto a rough Jeep trail and headed into the barren wasteland.
“Where are they going?” Riley asked. “The army base is in the other direction. There’s nothing where they’re heading but lava desert.”
Emerson watched them drive for a couple more minutes in silence. “Well, that’s interesting.”
“You found their base?”
Emerson looked up from the telescope and turned to face Riley. “Not exactly. It turns out there is someplace to hide. They’ve disappeared.”
Riley looked through the telescope. There was still a cloud of dust where the SUV had passed, but no SUV. She scanned the surrounding area. Nothing but miles and miles of desert without a structure in sight.
“That’s impossible,” she said.
“It’s improbable,” Emerson said. “Clearly it’s possible, because it happened.”
“Maybe that SUV is with Little Buddy’s island,” Vernon said. “Like they both got sucked into one of them black holes and got spit out someplace else.”
Emerson returned to the telescope. “What do you think happened to the SUV?” he asked Riley.
Riley allowed herself a grimace. “I’ve got nothing.”
“So what are we going to do now?” Vernon asked. “Do we go out to look for the black hole?”
Emerson lay down on one of the bunk beds. “Nothing. We do nothing. The universe will provide the answer.”
“We can’t sit around in this hotel room forever wu wei waiting on the universe,” Riley said. “We’re sort of in a time crunch. Tin Man plans to destroy Sour Creek Dome in less than a week if we don’t either get ourselves killed or stop him first.”
Emerson closed his eyes. “We don’t have to sit around forever. Just until three P.M.”
“Why three P.M.?”
Emerson smiled. “The clouds may drop down titles and estates, and wealth may seek us but wisdom must be sought.”
Riley rolled her eyes. “Wu wei whatever.”
Riley woke from a sound sleep at two-thirty P.M. to the sound of her cellphone alarm. She hadn’t intended to take a nap, but she’d been up since four in the morning and was exhausted. Vernon was kneeling next to a snoring Wayan Bagus with a can of shaving cream he’d appropriated from the dormitory bathroom in one hand and a feather in the other. Emerson was looking out the window and down the mountain.
Vernon held his index finger up to his lips, grinned at Riley, and pointed at Wayan Bagus’s hand. It was filled with a giant glob of shaving cream.
“Little Buddy, wakey-wakey,” he whispered, tickling the monk’s cheek with the feather.
Wayan Bagus snorted and turned his face from side to side. “Spiders, spiders,” he mumbled.
“Get those spiders,” Vernon whispered.
Without ever opening his eyes, Wayan Bagus lifted his shaving-cream-filled hand and smacked Vernon in the back of the head.
“Son of a bitch,” Vernon said. He wiped the shaving cream off his head and went to the bathroom to clean up.
Riley crossed the small room and stood behind Emerson. “What are you looking at?”
Emerson pointed down the mountain toward Pohakuloa. The clouds had returned, and white tendrils of fog were creeping around the airfield and buildings at the army base.
“I’m looking at the fog,” Emerson said. “I’m waiting for the universe to solve our problems. Another half hour and the entire area will be completely socked in. We could be right on top of Tin Man and he wouldn’t see us.”
Riley watched the clouds as they continued to roll in. “We also won’t be able to see him. How did you know the universe would send you fog at precisely three P.M.?”
Emerson held up his iPad. “The universe works in mysterious ways. In this case, the universe sent me a Weather Channel app. Besides, the clouds always come back in the afternoon.”
Thirty minutes later, Emerson, Riley, Vernon, and Wayan Bagus were standing outside the Onizuka Center. Thick clouds covered the lower elevations of the mountain, and the temperature was noticeably cooler.
Vernon shifted from foot to foot. “What the heck are we doing out here?”
“Waiting for our transportation,” Emerson said.
“Is it being provided by the universe?” Riley asked.
“In a manner of speaking,” Emerson said.
Alani pulled up to the front of the center in a six-person Polaris ATV. “Ready to go?” she asked.
“I’m ready to go nowhere with you behind the wheel of this thing,” Vernon said. “I’d rather walk.”
“Good idea,” Alani said. “You go wandering around in the zero-visibility fog. I’ll follow you in the ATV. I’m sure you’ll be perfectly safe. I’m an excellent driver. Only had one accident.”
“Emerson, did you hear that? Devil Woman threatened me,” Vernon said. “She’s probably planning on driving us all over a cliff.”
“There aren’t any cliffs here,” Alani said. “You’re safe . . . for now.”
“Okay then,” Vernon said, getting into the back seat next to Wayan Bagus, “but I’m keeping my eye on you.”
Alani drove into the cloud cover down the access road to Saddle Road and toward Pohakuloa.
“I wouldn’t think it was possible, but it’s even more dense than it was this morning,” Riley said.
Emerson pointed to an unimproved Jeep trail, barely visible through the fog, off to the right side of the road. “Turn there.”
Alani turned onto the gravelly path and followed the tire tracks as best she could.