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My Kind of Town Don Chapman |
Contingencies
>> Above Kahuku
Clive the Aussie, having killed the gay anti-war protester from UH, zipped him inside a clear plastic bodybag and strapped him onto the back of the horse, remounted and charged up the hill after Primitivo and Fariq and their quarry. It had been over two minutes since the air-horn warning, and they and their dead quarry were supposed to be vacating the premises already.
The Aussie was not prepared for what he found in a small clearing in the 'ohia forest. Both men lay on the ground, Primitivo shot in the chest and slashed mortally in the groin, the Arab shot in the shoulder and mortally in the forehead. Their quarry, the Japanese beauty and the Manila street girl, were gone, as were Fariq's magnificent sword and Primitivo's $100,000 rifle.
What the ... ?
He got out his walkie-talkie and called Nakajima. "Where are you?!" Nakajima hissed. "We're clearing the camp!"
Clive described what he'd found, heard Nakajima swearing in both English and Japanese. "Stay with the bodies. Help is coming."
While he waited, Clive inspected the bodies and tried to imagine how this could have happened, and where the two females went. And what had happened for Nakajima to suddenly call the hunt off just minutes after it began?
Things were going badly all around, and that had never happened before with this club. Amazing how fast his sense of immortality vaporized.
In his command truck, Nakajima checked the GPS screen. All of the 20 hunted were either accounted for here or moving back toward camp. All but two, Primitivo's and the Saudi's. Nothing like this had ever happened in the 15 years he'd been associated with the club. They'd released hundreds of captives, and had a 100 percent kill rate and zero trouble. Law of averages, perhaps? Well, they had planned for this contingency.
Peering from the shadows behind a rock outcropping just 35 yards up the slope from where Clive waited and paced, Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka trained the big hunting rifle on him.
"What's happening?" the Japanese beauty who'd brought him the rifle whispered as she peered from the cave behind him.
He turned, pressed a forefinger to his lips.
A light blanket drawn around her, Shauny Nakamura stooped out of the cave, Imelda the young Filipina still gripping her hand.
They crept behind the man who'd saved their lives. Shauny suddenly covered her mouth as she gasped, turned away before Imelda could see. Royce, the young man who'd run with them, lay dead in a bag across the back of a horse.
It was all she could do not to puke. "Shoot the other one!" she whispered. The one who'd killed her young friend. "Now!"
The senator shook his head, pointed toward the cave. But too late.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek. His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin. He can be e-mailed at dchapman@midweek.com