Dangerous Minds (Knight and Moon #2)(62)

“We have it stashed away in the storage locker at the Keck Observatory,” Alani said. “It’s hooked up to power and there are two backup generators, so it should be safe. I told my assistant it was part of an experiment I was conducting and not to touch it but to call if there were any problems.”

Emerson got out a map of the Big Island. “Every riddle has an answer. It’s somewhere here on this map.”

“Mauna Kea?” Alani asked.

Emerson shook his head. “No. I’m certain that by now they’ve already disassembled the lab, moved everything, and sealed off the entrance to the lava tube.”

Wayan Bagus studied the map. “Do not seek answers but seek instead to understand the question.”

“There you go talking in riddles again,” Vernon said.

Wayan Bagus shrugged. “Would you search for a branch taken by a river? Instead, ask yourself what is the nature of the river. Everything on earth seeks its proper place.”

“If I were them my proper place would be somewhere I felt in control,” Emerson said. “Somewhere that I felt comfortable.” He pointed at the map. “Like Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. It’s part of their system.”

“Volcanoes National Park is huge,” Alani said.

“The woman we rescued from the lava tube on Mauna Kea said she was taken from a cave on Kilauea,” Emerson said. “Are there any restricted areas there?”

“There are some restricted areas near the active vents, but they’re not big enough to hide a research facility. And they’re so dangerous that nobody, not even Tin Man and Bart Young, would go there.”

Emerson returned to the map. “There’s a little square piece of land on the map that isn’t contiguous to the rest of the park. It looks out of place.”

“That’s Ola’a Forest,” Alani said. “It’s a crazy dense jungle. Hardly anybody ever goes there.”

Emerson tapped on the map. “There’s got to be a reason why the NPS annexed this little unrelated property into the park. How big is Ola’a?”

“Nine thousand acres, more or less,” Alani said.

Emerson smiled. “It’s the perfect place to hide a government compound. I think I know where we can find Riley.”

“We can’t search eighteen square miles of rain forest in twelve hours in the dark,” Vernon said.

“We don’t have to,” Emerson said. “They used the lava tubes at Mauna Kea to make a hidden base. It stands to reason they did the same at Ola’a.”

Alani’s eyes widened. “The Kazumura.”

Emerson nodded. “Correct, one of the biggest lava tubes in the world. And it starts in Ola’a.”

“The Kazumura is forty miles long and runs from the coastline near Puna all the way up to the summit of Kilauea. It takes a minimum of two days to hike,” Alani said.

“Well, we can’t just go walk right up to the entrance in Ola’a and knock on the door,” Vernon said. “If it is being used by the Rough Riders, it’s sure to be guarded.”

Emerson pulled up a detailed map of the lava tube on his iPad. “There are more than a hundred known entrances to the Kazumura. We just need to find an entry point close to Ola’a, that isn’t Ola’a.”

Alani looked at the map. It was divided into five sections. The one adjacent to Ola’a was described as Sexton’s Maze.

“What about here?” she said. “It looks like there are a couple entrances in the area.”

Emerson clicked on that portion of the Kazumura. The next Web page revealed a complex network of side channels, some of which were dead ends and others of which linked up and eventually connected to the main tube.

Wayan Bagus looked over Emerson’s shoulder. “A labyrinth. Very Zen.”

“I bet it’s a dark, moldy, cramped cave, probably chock-full of Bigfoots. We’re going to get lost for sure,” Vernon said.

“No man can be lost so long as he knows himself,” Wayan Bagus said.

Vernon rolled his eyes.

Alani looked at Vernon. “Don’t forget about the Night Marchers.”

“ ‘Night Marchers’?”

“They’re the ghosts of ancient Hawaiian warriors that come forth from their burial places to roam the countryside at night,” Alani said.

Vernon looked a little nervous. “Do they roam in caves?”

Alani nodded. “Absolutely. Caves are what they like best of all.”

Vernon looked up in the air. “Oh Lordy. This just keeps getting worse and worse.” He narrowed his eyes at Alani. “Are you joshing me? Are they for real?”

“They’re no less real than Bigfoot.”

“Oh Lordy,” Vernon repeated. “Assuming we get through the maze without getting raped by a Bigfoot or a ghost, what’s next?”

Emerson pointed to the section above Sexton’s marked Ola’a. “We have to navigate through a series of lava falls.”

“Lava falls,” Vernon said. “Seriously.”

“There hasn’t been any lava in the Kazumura for five hundred years, so they’re more or less just cliffs we’ll need to scale. There are at least twelve falls in this section, some as tall as forty-five feet. Hopefully, we’ll see something while we’re exploring that leads us to where they’re keeping Riley.”