My Kind of Town
>> H-1, ewa-bound Making nice
Approaching the Houghtailing exit in the middle lane, the silver-blue van's red brake lights flared. The right-turn signal blinked. Following five cars behind, Commander Chuck Ryan of Navy intelligence kept the champagne Intrepid right where it was, in the right lane, ready to make an exit in a hurry if the van tried anything tricky.
But even if it did, Lt. Martin Luther Washington was following several cars behind Ryan.
The freeway widened to four lanes here and suddenly Ryan was not in the right lane. A couple of cars merged into the Houghtailing exit lane, a couple of others accelerated into lefter lanes, and now Ryan was directly behind the van.
"Taking the H-1 airport cutoff," Ryan said into his secure-line cell's hands-free mike, maintaining his distance from the van.
"Got it," Martin replied.
Ryan's mind was racing, trying to think several moves ahead. Martin had been following Muhammed Resurreccion since he landed at the airport this morning. If he was going to make a move on the airport, he'd have done so earlier. Sure enough, the van merged into the center lane and passed the airport. If the airport wasn't Muhammed's target, what was?
A cold shiver ran through Ryan. He hoped he was wrong, but it suddenly seemed quite appropriate that Navy intelligence was involved.
>> Honolulu Soap Co.
Lily Ah Sun sat back in her teal ergo-chair and had to smile. As much as it irritated her every time her brother Laird said that reading "Jesus Was A CEO" changed his life -- and he must have said it three or four times during their phone conversation -- the truth was that it had also changed her life. And she didn't even have to read the stupid book!
For starters, it changed the way she would interact with her father. Lily would make it a point to make nice. Oh, she'd still let her favorite cut-throat attorney Suzanna B. Balls continue with the paperwork to set up a possible hostile takeover of the Soap Co. Lily liked to cover all her bases.
But now that Laird said he didn't want to accept his appointment as president of the Soap Co., that left the door open for Lily and the proposal to reorganize she'd given her father yesterday.
Lily stood, ran graceful hula hands over her camel skirt to smooth the wrinkles, adjusted her white silk blouse and navy blazer. Opening her office door, she saw her father in the hall, returning with a long face from the production chamber.
"I was just on my way to see you," she said with a smile, "about Laird's graduation."
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin
with weekly summaries on Sunday.
He can be emailed at dchapman@midweek.com