“We need to stay on the trail,” she said. “We’re officially trespassing on the army training area, and there’s unexploded ordnance left over from past military exercises all over the place. As long as we stay on the trail we’re safe.”
“Well, I don’t feel safe,” Vernon said. “I feel like I’m a character in some horror movie. You know, the kind of dumbass who’s being chased by a serial killer and decides to hide in a graveyard or an abandoned warehouse or some seriously scary fog.”
“I am certain that this is perfectly normal fog,” Emerson said. “Except for the unexploded artillery and top-secret government research facility guarded by a sociopathic axe murderer. But other than that, it’s a perfectly normal fog.”
“It would be easier to stay on the trail if someone walked in front of me,” Alani said.
Emerson got out of the ATV and picked his way over the disturbed gravel with the ATV bumping along behind him, making slow progress. After ten minutes of walking he held his hand up as a signal that they should stop.
“We should park the Polaris and go on foot from here on,” Emerson said. “We’re getting close to where the SUV disappeared, and I don’t want to risk them hearing the sound of a motor approaching.”
Riley looked around. She couldn’t see more than a couple feet in front of her face.
“This cloud cover is completely disorienting,” she said. “If someone accidentally wanders off the trail they’ll never find their way back.”
“I have that all worked out,” Emerson said. He reached into his daypack and fished around. “When I was packing our gear at the ranch, I had the foresight to pack whistles for each of us. Wayan will stay with the ATV while the rest of us snoop around. If we get separated or can’t find the Polaris in the fog, all we have to do is blow our whistle.”
Emerson pulled from his pack five long metal tubes with pistons on one end and mouthpieces on the other.
“Here you go,” he said, handing everyone a whistle.
Riley’s eyebrows went halfway up her forehead. “For real? It’s a slide whistle. What are we supposed to do with these?”
“They’re multifunctional,” Emerson said. “Blow once if you’re lost. Twice if you’re in danger. You can also use it to add some drama to the otherwise ordinarily mundane actions of sitting down, getting up, or turning the page of a book. The possibilities are endless.”
Alani cut the engine on the ATV and tried her whistle. Weeeoop!
Everyone smiled.
“It’s a slipping on a banana peel whistle,” Vernon said. “I always wanted one of these.” Weeeoop! Weeeoop!
“No more whistling,” Emerson said. “We don’t want the bad guys to hear us.” He handed his iPad over to Wayan Bagus. “I downloaded Rocky III for you. Vernon said you needed to know about manly hugging. We should be back in no more than three hours. I don’t want to be stuck here overnight.”
TWENTY-THREE
RILEY TOOK POINT FOLLOWING THE TRAIL IN the fog. Emerson, Vernon, and Alani walked close behind her.
“We’ve been walking forever,” Vernon said. “This is like the road to nowhere.”
“Unfortunately that’s a totally accurate description,” Riley said. “We’ve come to the end of the tracks. There’s no more road. And there’s also no more anything, including the missing Jeep.”
Everyone looked around. Riley was right. No more road. No more tracks. No Jeep.
“If it wasn’t for my cool new whistle I’d say this trip was a big waste,” Vernon said. “It’s cold, it’s spooky, and I can’t see where I’m going. I near broke my foot a minute ago on that stupid pipe sticking out of the ground.”
“I didn’t see a pipe,” Riley said. “Where was it?”
Vernon retraced his steps and pointed down at the ground. “It’s just some old waypoint left over by a surveyor.”
Emerson got down on his hands and knees to examine the pipe. “It’s not a surveying monument.”
“How do you know?” Alani asked.
“Because heat doesn’t come out of a survey pipe. This is an exhaust.”
Riley put her ear to the pipe. “It sounds like there’s a generator down there.”
“That would explain the need for an exhaust pipe,” Emerson said. He turned to Alani. “Are there any caves in the area?”
“In this area? None that I know about. There’s a big one on the eastern side of the mountain. It’s called the Paauhau Civil Defense Cave, but it’s really more of a lava tube.”
“What’s a lava tube?” Riley asked.
“It’s a conduit formed by lava flowing beneath the surface of already cooled and hardened magma,” Alani said. “Once the volcano is no longer active and the lava’s no longer flowing, what’s left is a cavelike channel with solid rock walls.”
“Do you think there could be a lava tube under us?” Riley asked. “One that was big enough to hide an R&D lab?”
Alani went still for a couple beats. “I suppose it’s possible. Some are up to fifty feet wide and can be very long. The Kazumura Cave in Kilauea, the active volcano in the southern part of the island, is almost forty-one miles long and the longest known lava tube in the world. There’s also one on Mauna Loa, the mountain just to the south of this one, that runs all the way from the summit to the Pacific Ocean thirty-one miles away, but there’s no record of anything like that on Mauna Kea.”
Emerson looked at the pipe sticking out of the ground. “It all makes sense.”
“Oh boy,” Riley said. “Here we go.”
“I’m listening,” Alani said.
“A hollowed-out volcano is every super-villain’s dream lair. It’s all about location, location, location.”
Riley looked around. “If you’re right, the entrance has to be close.”
“Agreed,” Emerson said. “We just need a bit of luck to find it.”
Everyone froze at the sound of a large, heavy door rolling open.
“It sounds like it’s at the bottom of this hill,” Riley whispered.
Footsteps scuffed somewhere out in the fog, and a male voice carried up to Riley, Emerson, Alani, and Vernon.
“Every time the motion detectors go off they send us out here,” the man said. “I don’t know what we’re supposed to find in this fog.”
“It’s probably just the stupid feral goats,” a second voice said. “It’s always the goats.”
“Okay, you found the entrance,” Riley whispered. “You got your lucky break. Now let’s get out of here before they change their minds and come looking for us.”
“That would be ignoring our unique opportunity,” Emerson said. “An opportunity like this doesn’t come up every day.”
“Do you mean an opportunity to get killed? You get those opportunities all the time.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Emerson said to Riley. “When presented with an interesting opportunity, you have a responsibility to the universe to acknowledge it.”
Riley stared at Emerson. “I didn’t say anything remotely like that.”
“Perhaps I paraphrased.”
“Perhaps you live in fantasyland.”
Emerson looked at Vernon. “How’s your unagi today?”
Vernon grinned. “I’m just chock-full of it. Then again, who needs unagi when you’ve got a big-ass gun.” He pulled his lucky Glock from his jacket. “Even put bullets back in it when Little Buddy wasn’t looking.”
“You see,” Emerson said. “It’s a sign. We have luck, an interesting situation, unagi, and a big gun. It would actually be grossly negligent of us not to overpower the guards and infiltrate the top-secret hollowed-out volcano.”
Riley nodded. “I’m sure I’ll regret it, but I’m in.”
“Let’s do it,” Alani said. “Mauna Kea is sacred ground to Hawaiians, and I don’t like what’s going on here on my mountain.”
“I’m all about the lair,” Vernon said.
Emerson, Riley, Vernon, and Alani carefully walked in the direction of the voices. As they got closer, the faint outlines of the men took shape. Two sentries were standing just outside a gaping hole in the hillside. They were smoking, and they’d laid their rifles against a rock wall.
“Howdy,” Vernon said, pointing his gun at the guards.
Both men jumped.
“What the—” the first guard said.
“Oh crap,” the second one said.