Dangerous Minds (Knight and Moon #2)(48)

“Oh man,” Vernon said, “I hope we don’t run into Alani.”

“Alani was Vernon’s first girlfriend,” Emerson said to Riley. “She still lives in Hawi and works as an astronomer at the Keck Observatory. She and Vernon had a small difference of opinion, and Vernon hasn’t been back here since.”

“She ran me over with an ATV,” Vernon said. “She’s got anger issues.”

“Is she one of the eccentrics?” Riley asked.

“She’s the eccentric,” Vernon said.

Emerson looked at Vernon. “In fairness to her, that was preceded by the Unspeakable Incident.”

Vernon leaned over the front seat and clapped his hand over Emerson’s mouth. “Hello. It’s called ‘the Unspeakable Incident’ for a reason. Anyway, I’m sure she’s forgotten all about it by now. It’s been years, right?”

Wayan Bagus rolled down his window to get a better look at the cows. “It is written by the Sage that never by hatred is hatred conquered, but by readiness to love. That is the eternal law.”

“I reckon the Sage might feel differently if he had a girlfriend who ran him over with an ATV,” Vernon said.

Riley parked the car in front of a small one-story Bali-style house. It sat at the edge of a one-hundred-foot sea cliff with the island of Maui in the distance, separated by the thirty-mile-wide Alenuihaha Channel.

Everyone got out of the car and stood in awe at the sight and sound of the ten-foot swells crashing into the cliffs below.

“It’s almost sunset,” Emerson said to Vernon. “Why don’t you and Wayan Bagus walk into town and buy us some food for dinner. I’ll show Riley around the ranch.”

Riley watched Vernon and Wayan Bagus disappear down the driveway.

“Is this the only house on the property?” she asked Emerson.

“The ranch manager has a house here, and there’s a larger house that my father preferred. This was built as a guesthouse, but I find the scale more comfortable than the main house. Vernon and Wayan Bagus won’t be gone long, but we can do a little exploring. Would you like to walk the perimeter of the property or would you rather see the tidal pool?”

“The tidal pool.”

“Good choice,” Emerson said. “The tidal pool has always been my favorite spot.”

They walked along the cliff for a quarter of a mile in silence before coming to a deep gulch. Seabirds flew overhead, trying to find their roosts before dark, and the occasional humpback whale breached just offshore.

“There’s a trail to the bottom,” Emerson said. “It’s a little rough, but it’s worth the effort. It’s also the reason for the cowboy boots. That and the cows.”

Riley followed Emerson down the muddy, slippery trail, and the pastures gave way to a lush rain forest that smelled of mango trees and freshly cut grass. Behind her, a hundred-foot waterfall plunged down a green cliff into a stream hidden by the thick jungle. In front of her, the jungle opened up onto a rocky beach with a large pool, fed half by the stream coming from the direction of the waterfall and half by the warmer ocean waves.

“We used to swim here every day,” Emerson said.

Riley put her hand into the pool. It was a perfect temperature.

“Makes you want to jump in, doesn’t it?” Emerson said.

“Are you going to jump in?”

“No,” Emerson said. “Unfortunately there’s no time. We want to head back before we lose the light. The gulch gets super dark at night because of the double canopy of vegetation.”

Thank goodness, Riley thought. Plotting to catch Emerson in the altogether was one thing. Coed naked swimming was something entirely different. She wasn’t ready for coed naked swimming. Her head was in other places. She had to save the world and make sure she didn’t end up like Spiro.

“How are we going to find the National Park Service research facility without getting killed?” Riley asked.

“No problem. Mauna Kea is very different from Yellowstone,” Emerson said. “Once you reach the higher elevations near the training area and the observatory, it’s basically an arid, treeless moonscape.”

“Is that good or bad?”

Emerson and Riley started back up the path out of the gulch.

“A little of both,” Emerson said. “The good is that there’s no place to hide an R&D facility, so it should be easier to find. The bad is that there’s no place for us to hide either. I have a plan, but it requires a certain amount of diplomacy.”

Riley looked at Emerson. Emerson was a lot of things, one of which was definitely not a diplomat.

“We’re doomed,” Riley said.

“My thoughts exactly,” Emerson said. “That’s why I wanted to talk with you first, without the others.”

“This is going to be good,” Riley said. “Let’s hear it.”

“We need an inside man. Someone who can get us close to the Pohakuloa Training Area without arousing suspicion.”

“You have somebody in mind.”

Emerson nodded. “Alani.”

“Vernon’s Alani? ATV Alani? Vernon’s going to freak out.”

“As long as we keep her away from motor vehicles, Vernon should be fine . . . more or less. She’s an astronomer at the Keck Observatory. She can get us access to the Onizuka Center for International Astronomy.”