Death in Paradise Read online

  Jessica had put Woo Ching on speaker so Sam could hear the whole conversation. She was mentally tough, but this was almost too much. Sam could see her eyes well up with tears as she walked back inside the bungalow.

  “If we call the FBI, they could—”

  She cut him off and held up her hand. “We’re not. I know who to call. The only way this works out is if the Triads get their drugs back.”

  Sam thought better of arguing with her. Besides, she was more of an expert at this sort of thing than him. All he knew was how to build superyachts. Jessica was the expert at dealing with criminals. But Sam was an expert when it came to risk assessment. And this situation looked as risky as swimming with sharks to him.

  For the first time in three years, Jessica wanted to pour herself a gin and tonic and think about the whole thing. But that choice was no longer available to her, so she did the next best thing. She went to the bathroom, so Sam couldn’t hear, and called her grandfather, Eizō Tanaka, over in Honolulu.

  “Hi, Grandpa. It’s Jessica. Jasmine has been taken hostage by the Triads. They want their dope back or they’ll kill her.”

  “I’ll make a phone call,” Eizō said, and he hung up the phone.

  Jessica walked back into the living room and sat down on the couch, she exhaled a guarded sigh of relief.

  Sam sat next to her and rested his hand on her leg. “Why don’t you want to call the FBI? I don’t get it. We’re talking about Jasmine’s life and stolen drugs, and you don’t want their help. What am I missing here?”

  “There’s not enough time. The nearest office is in Honolulu, by the time they get here, it’ll be too late. There won’t be enough agents, and the Triads will kill Jasmine before the FBI has a game plan. The other reason is my family. I guess now is as good a time as any to bring out the skeletons. You’ll probably never want to see me again after you hear this.”

  Sam stared at Jessica as she stood up and paced back and forth in the living room for a minute, before she said another word.

  “I know who has the Triads’ dope. It’s one of my uncles on my mother’s side of the family.” And then she paused for a moment. “Three of my uncles on my mother’s side are yakuza gang members. My grandfather on my mother’s side is the founder of the yakuza in Hawaii.”

  Sam said nothing and just listened as Jessica shared one of her deepest, darkest secrets. The shame was written all over her face.

  He stood up from the couch and walked over to Jessica, and wrapped his arms around her. “I’ve got skeletons too,” he whispered in her ear.

  * * *

  It had been six hours since Jessica had called her grandfather, and she had heard nothing. She and Sam sat at the dining room table and cleaned their guns to pass the time, while they waited to find out where the Triads’ stolen drugs were.

  From where Jessica sat she had a view straight out the window and saw Pua’s Mercedes as it drove up the driveway. Pua had come to the bungalow to get Sam’s signature on closing documents for the house he’d bought in Keauhou. She had been worked hard the last month, to get the deal closed, and thought the day would be one of celebration instead of the bad news about Jasmine that she got.

  After Pua got out of her Mercedes and walked up the steps to the lanai, she could see the grim expressions on both Sam and Jessica’s faces through the dining room window.

  “Did someone die, or is someone going to?” Pua said in a half-kidding tone of voice, as she eyeballed both of them focused on the guns–and not her.

  Jessica continued to polish the barrel of the Glock, and didn’t make eye contact. “Jasmine’s missing. She’s been gone about eighteen hours or so.”

  Pua threw the papers in her hand down on the kitchen table and glared at her older sister. “When did you plan on telling me?”

  Jessica had been hoping not to have to tell her until after they had rescued Jasmine. She knew Pua had enough on her plate with having breast cancer and didn’t need any additional stress.

  “I’m sorry. I was hoping to have her back home before you found out.”

  “Why are you sitting here and not out trying to get her back?”

  Jessica stuck the Glock 19 in her ankle holster. “We’re waiting for Uncle Jin to call and tell us where we can find the ransom so we can exchange it for Jasmine.”

  “How much do they want?” Pua asked.

  “It’s not money they want. And the less you know about it, the better,” Jessica said.

  Pua had done enough shady real estate deals over the years to know when to quit asking questions, and she recognized this was one of those times, even though it wasn’t related to property.

  As Pua stood there in the kitchen her phone rang. She almost never took a call when with a client signing papers, and Sam was the most significant client she’d ever had. But when she saw it was Uncle Jin, she picked up.

  “Uncle,” she answered.

  Jessica reached out toward Pua. “I want to talk to him,” she said firmly.

  Pua ignored Jessica and turned away from her. “I’m here with Sam and Jessica. I’ll tell them.” And then she hung up the phone.

  Jessica’s nostrils flared, and her brow furrowed when Pua didn’t hand her the phone.

  “He said you’d find what you’re looking for on board Uncle’s boat at the harbor.”

  The anger left Jessica just as fast as it had come. “Let’s go,” she barked, and they piled into Pua’s Mercedes and raced to the harbor. To protect Pua, she and Sam never told her what was on the boat, and Pua was smart enough not to ask.

  Jin Tanaka’s forty-five-foot Hatteras was in its slip, with the key in it, and not a soul around when Pua dropped Sam and Jessica off at the harbor. It had been a long time since Jessica handled such a big yacht, and she decided the smart thing to do was let Sam take the helm, since he had a lot more experience handling big boats than she did. As they walked to the slip, Sam remarked, “Nice boat.”

  “And who said crime doesn’t pay?” Jessica muttered. “It’s going straight to the bottom if we don’t get Jasmine back. And I might sink it anyway.”

  “Could you not sink it while I’m on board?” Sam asked in a joking kind of way, as he tried to ease the tension.

  “We’ll see,” Jessica said with a half smile.

  Sam started the big Caterpillar engines, Jessica cast off the lines, and they idled out of Honokohau Harbor toward the open sea. Jessica had fished these waters with her father when she was growing up and knew them well enough to point Sam in the right direction toward VV buoy, where the exchange was supposed to take place. The buoy was only about four miles offshore of Kailua Bay.

  Woo Ching was supposed to meet them at the rendezvous point in a cigarette boat, it would be easy to spot, since they were a rare boat in Hawaiian waters.

  As they approached the buoy, Jessica had binoculars pointed at the horizon, and looked for any fast-approaching boats. Nothing. It was almost six p.m. The dope was in a duffle bag that laid next to the fighting chair at the rear of the boat.

  A few minutes later, a thirty-eight-foot Top Gun cigarette boat approached the Hatteras from the north at a high rate of speed. “That thing must be going over eighty knots. If you planned on chasing them down after getting Jasmine back, that’s not happening,” Sam said.

  “I just want her safely on board. I’ll look for Woo Ching later, after we get Jasmine back to Aloha Village,” Jessica replied.

  Sam and Jessica checked their guns and then re-holstered them with the safeties off, ready to rock–if they had to. Jessica had eyes on Woo Ching through her binoculars and could see Jasmine seated at the back of the boat with her hands bound behind her. Her waist-length, dark brown hair blew in the wind. Jasmine was less than a quarter of a mile away from being freed. A radio call from the Coast Guard came over the VHF marine radio on the Hatteras and jolted Sam and Jessica out of their focus on Jasmine. They hadn’t noticed the Coast Guard response boat, that had come upon them from behind out of the south, inten
t on boarding the Hatteras.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Sam said.

  “Quick, hide the guns and the dope,” Jessica ordered Sam. “I’ll stall them.” Jessica clicked the safety back on and handed Sam her Glock, she hoped the Coast Guard crew didn’t see the handoff with binoculars.

  As soon as Woo Ching saw the flashing blue light of the Coast Guard response boat, he hooked a hard U-turn, opened up the throttle on the Top Gun racer and disappeared into the sunset.

  It became evident as the Coast Guard boat approached the Hatteras that this would not be an inspection for lifejackets. Four petty officers were stood at the front of the response boat, and held M4 rifles. They were there to look for drugs, and they meant business. Lau had set a trap and Sam and Jessica had walked right into it. He was willing to donate ten kilos of China White if it meant Jessica would be behind bars and out of the way.

  Jessica pulled her cell phone out and hit the button to dial Uncle Jack. As usual, he didn’t answer. “I don’t have time to explain. Jasmine was kidnapped and is on a boat heading north from VV buoy. I’d check the Puako boat ramp for a cigarette boat getting pulled out of the water. That’s the guy who has her. The Coast Guard will probably arrest me and Sam in a few minutes, and that’s why I’m telling you this. Go find the guy with that boat, and you’ll find Jasmine.” Then she hung up.

  The Coast Guard petty officers boarded the Hatteras and searched it until they found the drugs. Jessica and Sam tried to explain that they were trying to exchange them for Jasmine. The petty officer in charge of the boarding party was empathetic and didn’t think they were drug dealers, but it wasn’t up to him to let them go. He still had his orders to handcuff them and take them into custody.

  By this time, Jessica had nothing to lose and begged the Coast Guard to look for the cigarette boat and Jasmine. Once they verified Jessica was a former LA detective, they took her story seriously and dispatched an HC-130 to look for Jasmine.

  “The plan had never been to trade Jasmine for the ten kilos of China White. It had always been about getting me arrested for being in possession of the dope. Lau had correctly gambled that I wouldn’t call the cops or FBI and I’d try to make the exchange for Jasmine myself.”

  “And the gamble had paid off,” Sam said.

  37

  Night at Sea

  Woo Ching took Jasmine northwest toward Kohala, and was about ten miles offshore, when he decided that should be far enough. He had a simple plan. Shoot Jasmine in the head and throw her body over the side.

  Jasmine had been a competitive free diver in her late teens and had held her breath as long as five minutes. As soon as Woo Ching brought the boat to a stop and shut off the engines, Jasmine knew it was now or never. She tucked into a ball and brought her arms underneath her feet so she could get her hands in front of her. Thank goodness for the yoga class she had taught the last year at the resort she thought, as she performed the maneuver with little effort. She quickly broke the zip tie using a method her karate teacher had showed her. She pulled it as tight as possible, then raised her hands over her head and slammed them into her belly.

  Woo Ching had his back to Jasmine and hadn’t paid attention until she stood up with her arms in front of her and snapped the zip tie he had wrapped around her wrists. As Woo Ching turned toward her, he pulled a snub-nosed .357 Magnum out of his pocket. He brought the gun up to fire, but Jasmine was lightning fast and dove over the back of the boat, into the water before he got a round off in her direction.

  She only had seconds to hyperventilate before she went in the water, but it was enough to allow her to get a big gulp of air. She also knew she risked shallow-water blackout if she hyperventilated, but it was her only choice.

  Jasmine had a simple idea. She dove deep and held her breath long enough to make Woo Ching think she was dead. But her plan hadn’t included him putting a bullet in her.

  Woo Ching fired a half a dozen rounds into the water from the back of the boat. She watched them streak past her like torpedoes. All of them narrowly missed her, except one that struck and passed through her left hand. Jasmine didn’t realize she had been shot until she saw the blood in the water.

  Jasmine’s lungs burned for air more than she could ever remember. But she knew if she gave in to the desire for air and surfaced, she was dead. Jasmine struggled to stay submerged, and used the least amount of energy possible. With no weight belt on and her lungs full of air, her body wanted to surface, as she fought to stay down under the boat. It was simple physics.

  After close to four minutes, all Woo Ching saw was blood in the water. He thought for sure she was dead. He started up the engines, and headed back to the launch ramp at Puako.

  When Jasmine couldn’t hold her breath another second, she floated to the surface and prayed Woo Ching wouldn’t see her. By then, he was a quarter of a mile away and she was safe–for the time being.

  She had cupped her left hand as best she could, to cover the bullet hole and stop the bleeding, as she floated on the surface. She knew if she didn’t get the bleeding stopped, sharks would appear soon and end it for her. Jasmine took off her T-shirt, ripped it with her teeth and wrapped a four-inch-wide swath around her hand as a bandage.

  She had trained for the annual Hawaii triathlon for the last two years. She could swim three miles, but she had never swum more than that. If she wanted to live, she’d have to swim three times further than she ever had, and with a bullet hole in her hand. She wasn’t ready to die yet; the only thing that kept the pain at bay was the fear she would not make it to shore.

  It was late in the afternoon, and the ocean surface had light swells about a foot high, with visibility close to a hundred feet down. Jasmine could see shadows in the water below her, and out of the deep, appeared a big shadow about fourteen feet long. Soon it became clear, even without goggles, it was a tiger shark. The blood from her wound had attracted the shark. The upside was the shark didn’t act like it was going into a feeding frenzy, as they were known for doing just before they attacked.

  The apex predator circled Jasmine for about ten minutes, looked her over as if deciding whether it wanted to have lunch or not. Jasmine was an island girl and had seen sharks before while she swam close to shore. It was no big deal then, because all one had to do was just get out of the water. But this was different. There was nowhere to go. The tiger started to dart back toward Jasmine, and she knew she would die right there as soon as it attacked. Suddenly out of the blue came another shadow from the deep, and then another and another. “Great, he’s called his buddies, and now it’s going to be over. At least it’ll be fast,” she said out loud to no one but herself.

  But this time it wasn’t sharks–it was a pod of dolphins, they surrounded Jasmine and formed a barrier between her and the shark. And the shark, just as quickly, decided to look elsewhere for its lunch.

  As Jasmine swam toward the shore, she looked toward Mauna Kea from time to time so she knew she was going the right direction. But the problem was, the mountain didn’t get closer–only smaller.

  She told herself, You can do this. But the current was headed away from the island and went toward Japan. Even though she had the stamina to swim ten miles, she couldn’t break free of the riptide that carried her away from the island.

  The dolphins stayed close to her, they never left her alone, as she floated on her back for a while to rest and think about what to do next.

  Exhausted, she thought how easy it would be just to give up and slide beneath the surface of the ocean. And then she thought of the pain it would cause her sisters, besides, she wasn’t ready to go just yet. She decided she would try to swim two miles south, to see if she could get out of the current she was in, and then try swimming toward the island.

  Jasmine swam south for thirty minutes with everything she had. The island had disappeared from sight and it had started to get dark. She could see the stars become visible in the eastern sky. She rolled over on her back again to enjoy the view one m
ore time before she would die. After an hour, she was almost hypnotized by the beauty of the stars that twinkled in the night sky. By this time, she figured she had drifted a long way from the Big Island and the end was near.

  As she thought about how she’d never see her family again she was bumped by a small log that jolted her out of her thoughts. At least it wasn’t a shark, she thought, after the initial fear had passed. It was debris from the Japanese tsunami that had made its way into Hawaiian waters. There was a sliver of a moon out, and it provided just enough light that she could see something else bobbing up and down, about three hundred feet away.

  It took almost all the energy she had left to swim to the object. It was a dock that had broken free and floated all the way to Hawaii. It had a rope that hung off one of its cleats into the water. She barely had the strength to swim to the dock, much less pull herself up on top of it. After she rested for a while, as she hung on to the rope, she felt she might have the strength to climb.

  The pain in her hand was excruciating as she pulled herself. “You can do this,” she whispered. She wanted to let go, but she knew if she did, she was as good as dead. By the last pull on the line, she reached up and grabbed the cleat at the edge and pulled herself all the way up on the dock, where she collapsed, and panted, unable to move another inch. She was dehydrated and exhausted, but now she had a chance to live long enough to be found—if she could collect some rainwater before dying of thirst.

  * * *

  As the sun came up, the dolphins reappeared. Not just the ten or twenty that had saved her from the shark the day before, but hundreds of dolphins,–if not a thousand.

  Great, I’ve become the dolphin queen, she thought. Then she yelled, “Does anybody have a boat?” and laughed until she cried.

  There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The weather had been hot and dry the last week, and the forecast called for more of the same. Jasmine had no protection from the sun– and no water. As the hours passed and the sun came overhead, she felt her skin burn, and her tongue felt swollen and had turned into leather all at the same time.