Dangerous Minds (Knight and Moon #2)(7)

“Exactly how do you expect to get in to see the head of NOAA without an appointment?” Riley asked Emerson.

“I have a plan,” Emerson said.

He pulled a pair of thick black-rimmed spectacles from his pocket and put them on Wayan.

“Showtime,” Emerson said, opening the large glass door in front of them and making a sweeping gesture indicating they should all troop up to the desk beyond the door.

The receptionist glanced at them as they approached. She had a round face, short black hair shot with gray, deep red lipstick, and ears like Dumbo. She looked like she was counting the hours and minutes before qualifying for her government pension.

“His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, is here to see the administrator,” Emerson said to the receptionist.

The receptionist stared down at Wayan, who really did look like the Dalai Lama in the glasses. “Are you really the Dalai Lama?” she asked.

Wayan Bagus nodded politely. “No.”

She looked back at Emerson. “I’m feeling generous today. What else do you have?”

“I’m really, really rich?”

The woman leaned forward. “That’s great. I really, really need a new Louis Vuitton handbag.”

Emerson turned to Riley. “Do you have any money?”

“Are you kidding me?” Riley searched in her purse. “I have seventeen dollars and fifty cents. Don’t you have any money? You’re the gazillionaire.”

“I don’t believe in carrying money,” Emerson explained to the receptionist. “How about a million-dollar smile?”

“Only if I can use it to pay for a new handbag.” The receptionist looked at Riley. “You’re up.”

What have I got to lose? Riley thought. I’m a nutcase by association.

“Dracula sent us to warn the administrator that Poseidon is about to release the Kraken,” Riley said.

A tailored woman in her midforties opened the door behind the receptionist and smiled. “I’m Cheryl Rhoads. I’m the administrator. What’s this I hear about the Kraken?”

“I’m Emerson Knight. This is Miss Moon, my amanuensis. And this is Wayan Bagus, who is a personal friend of the Dalai Lama,” Emerson said.

“Lovely to meet you,” Cheryl Rhoads said to Wayan. “Are you really a personal friend of the Dalai Lama?”

Wayan Bagus nodded politely. “No.”

“Well, then, I’m a personal friend of the Dalai Lama,” Emerson said, “not that it’s important. We’re investigating some unexplained discrepancies between your nautical maps in the Pacific Ocean.”

“Discrepancies?”

Emerson pulled the NOAA book from his knapsack. He’d circled the monk’s missing island in red pen. “I’m looking for an island that’s not on your current online maps.”

Cheryl came around to the receptionist’s desk and accessed the NOAA maps. “You’re right. It’s not there. Weird. It could be that it was never there, that we made a mistake in the older maps and corrected it in the newer.”

“Wayan was living at those exact coordinates five months ago,” Emerson said. “That was after the most recent maps were published.”

Cheryl shook her head. “An island doesn’t just disappear from our database, unless somebody deletes it manually.”

“That’s why we’re here,” Emerson said. “We want to talk with the somebody.”

Cheryl typed her password into the computer and logged in to her account. After a couple minutes, she looked up from the computer.

“Well, I’m sorry, but I can’t really help you. It turns out that this island and all the islands around it are part of the National Park of American Samoa. All the national parks are mapped by the Department of the Interior. Everything else is the responsibility of NOAA, at least when it comes to bodies of water. It’s been that way ever since the National Park Service was formed back in 1916. Interior is pretty territorial when it comes to the national parks.”

“Excellent,” Emerson said. “You wouldn’t happen to know who we should talk to over there?”

Cheryl scribbled down a name and phone number on a piece of notepaper. “I’d recommend you speak with the Park Planning, Facilities, and Land Directorate. They’re in charge of surveying all the national parks, including a lot of the waterways around American Samoa. If you want, I’ll send an email so you can get to see somebody without bringing the ‘Dalai Lama’ along with you.”

Emerson took the paper. “That would be helpful. Wayan Bagus isn’t a very convincing Dalai Lama, and the National Park Service has had it in for Dracula for years.”

The Office of Park Planning shuffled Emerson off to the liaison for the Pacific West Regional Office. The Pacific West Regional Office sent them to the Information Resources Directorate, and the Information Resources Directorate sent them back to Park Planning. Wayan Bagus had given up after the Pacific West Regional Office and was meditating in President’s Park.

“Look, James,” Emerson said to the paunchy middle-aged man sitting across the conference room table from him. “You’re in charge of surveying the national parks. Aren’t you the least bit curious how an island goes missing? An island that has been deleted from your survey, despite the fact that this emergency beacon clearly shows someone was living there?”