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By mid-morning, we were in the only medical facility on the island, the hotel nurse's station. The nurse was a small, prim woman of Asian descent, possibly Thai. "We have no ability to care for Ms. Kent here," she informed us. "She was taken to Nuku'alofa yesterday, and checked into the Royal Hospital there. A Doctor Volk went with her. He is supposed to return on Monday."
I nodded. "Do you happen to know the status of the man who was brought in last night? Did he make it?"
"Ah, the preacher. His relatives came for him last night, and took him home. Poor man."
"The preacher? I didn't realize that he was a religious figure," I noted with some surprise.
She nodded. "I recognize him. He was a missionary. A Protestant. He arrived from Nuku'alofa a week or two ago and pestered the locals to convert. I thought he'd gone home."
"How did his family know he was here?" Laughlin asked.
She shrugged. "News travels fast in the islands."
Laughlin glanced over at me. I frowned slightly. "Had he regained consciousness before they came for him?"
"No, I'm afraid not. But local customs are very strong. They wanted him home, so I had to let them take him."
An unpleasant thought occurred to me. The ferry to Nuku'alofa normally ran twice a day, except for Sunday, when it ran more often. But I'd seen a sign in the hotel last night saying there was no ferry due to the storm.... "They must have felt pretty strongly, to brave that storm last night, just to come and get him," I noted. "Do you know if his relatives live on the island? I'd like to stop in and see how he's doing, if it's possible."
The nurse stopped. "I hadn't thought of that. No, they said they were from Nuku'alofa. I...I don't suppose there was a ferry last night, was there? Well, maybe they stayed the night in the resort, or in Utelei?"
"I guess they must have, unless they have their own boat. And I shudder to think of a boat out in that storm last night. I'm surprised they braved it for the trip out. Did you happen to see which way they were headed?"
She shook her head, sounding uncertain. "No. They said they were taking him home."
"In that case, they'll probably be on this morning's ferry. Thanks!" I began to turn towards, the door, then stopped and asked a question that had been itching at the back of my mind since yesterday. "Do you happen to speak any Tongan? There's a word I've been trying to find out the meaning of. Hee-na, or something like that. Have you ever heard it?"
"Hina? I have a smidgen of Tongan. But everybody knows Hina. That's the shark god the natives worshipped before converting to Christianity."
Of course! Brian had even mentioned it last night, but I hadn't made the connection. "A shark god? I've never heard of that before," I lied, trolling for more information. "Sounds...unpleasant."
"It was. Human sacrifice and the like. A lot of tribal warfare went into seizing sacrifices for Hina before the English came."
"I'll bet. How long ago did the natives convert? Or did all of them? You said the missionary was here trying to convert them to Protestantism. What was he converting them from?"
She gave a wry smile. "Catholicism. The natives converted some time in the last century, I think. Like the early 1800's."
I smiled as well. "That's a relief. The sacrifices would probably wreak havoc on the tourist trade, nowadays. Thanks for the translation!"
"Sorry I couldn't be of more help."
Once outside, Laughlin noted, "Me, too. Looks like the cult is cleaning up after itself. Let's keep moving."
I was not happy. "I knew I should have kept an eye on him after we brought him in. Damn! He's probably back on the island by now."
"If he's alive at all. But if they're sacrificing to Hina, I suppose they'll need him alive for awhile yet."
"What makes you so sure? Is there some specific time in which sacrifices to Hina are supposed to take place?"
"Not that I know of. No, what I mean is, that's their temple out on the island. They won't have had the chance to get too many cultists out there since last night - they've been too busy going after us, and presumably they're looking for Stroeker, unless they've caught him. So...they probably haven't held their ceremony yet, and I'm guessing they'll keep him alive until then. Tonight, or maybe tomorrow."
I nodded. "Hell, it's going to be almost impossible to get him out of there this time. Both entrances are bound to be guarded. And we have no backup. Damn!" I felt very frustrated. All of that effort to rescue the man...wasted.
"So what do we do? Contact the police?"
"That depends on who the police are here. We might have better luck with the authorities on the main island. Or perhaps we should notify that poor man's relatives, and have them push for an investigation. Assuming he actually has any relatives. If he's been missing for a while, I think they would have started looking for him by now."
"So you want to go to Nuku'alofa? I'm not fond of walking away while those artifacts are still out there. I want to know why Stroeker wants them, and what forces are at work, here."
I nodded. "I think we should check out the radar facility first, though. I'd like to know as much as possible before we leave this island. Ready to be a rich, American investor?"
"I always knew that money would be good for something," he quipped, and began walking with me to the radar shack at the airstrip.
On the way there, I decided to broach the citizenship question. "Do you actually have American citizenship?" I asked. "Everything I've read about you always referred to you as being British."
He smiled, enigmatically. "I was born in Red Wing, Idaho, Agent Roman. I only teach at Oxford. The press doesn't check its facts very often."
Interesting. My instincts told me that there was more to the story than this, but that I wasn't going to get any more out of him today.
We reached the radar shack a short time later, where no one bothered to challenge us. There was one person inside, a Tongan, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt bearing a picture of Canadian pop icon Cleo St. George. He had headphones over one ear, but he was reading a book, smoking a cigarette and not paying much attention to the screens or equipment. "Yeah?" he asked in slightly accented English. "What's up?"
"Hi there," Laughlin responded, with the tones of a practiced actor. "I'm Kyle Laughlin and this is my friend, Ms. Roman. We were bored and wondered if we could take a look at your equipment."
The operator took a closer look at the two of us. "No way, man. I can't let you be in here. It's against the regulations."
"But I just want to show her how the scope works," Laughlin said. "I have one on my jet and she's never seen one. Don't you think we could just take a quick look?" He shook hands with the man and I noticed the $100 bill that passed between them.
"Uh, sure, but look, man, don't screw with anything, okay? I'm just going to have a smoke outside." He got up, smiled toothily at me, and walked out of the shack.
"Know how to operate one of these things?" Laughlin asked when he was gone.
I shook my head. This sort of thing hadn't been covered in my FBI training.
"It's all right, I do," he continued. "I wasn't kidding about the jet. Hit those two green switches right there."
After I did so, he fiddled with the screen a bit and pointed to the scope. "There. See that? That's Avuo...whatever. The temple island. See that? Fifteen miles out, a ship. Just over the sight horizon. Not moving, either. What do you want to bet it's waiting for dark?" We both checked our watches. It was about 11:00 am.
"No bet. How big an object can this thing pick up?"
"Should be anything larger than about four meters," he said. "Certainly anything large enough to move all those crates on. Why?"
"Just wondering if there was anything else out there. For that matter, I have to wonder, if the statues were on the island to start with, how did Stroeker get them off?"
"Good question. Maybe one at a time on a smaller boat? The locals may only go the island during times of ceremony, so he might have had the time."
"That could be. He did have a week to work with. Although I do have to wonder how he knew the statues were on the island in the first place."
"That's a good question," Laughlin said. "But we'll have to get the answer from him. So what do you want to do now?"
I sighed. "In the States, we'd keep tabs on the boat, wait for it to load the merchandise, and then bust them. But out here.... I'm not sure what the local police will do. They could decide that we must be in league with Stroeker, and throw us in jail. Or they could be part of the cult. This would be much easier if we had a local we could trust."
"Got any prospects?" Laughlin asked, doubtfully. "Why don't we concentrate on finding Stroeker? I could find him, given some time and one of his possessions. You've got his gun and wallet, right?"
"Yes. But how is that going to help us find him? He didn't exactly leave his address."
Laughlin laughed. "Oh yes, he did. The gun is probably printed with your aura now, but you haven't really handled the wallet much. It may take a few hours or so, but on an island this small, he can't really hide from me."
"How? Oh. Let me guess, magic, right? Which means you'll want to find someplace more private than this radar shack, I'm guessing." I was doubtful as to whether he'd actually find anything, and I'm sure it showed in my voice. On the other hand, it's not like I had any better ideas.
"Right on both counts. Come on. Let's try your cabana. I'll need to be alone, so maybe you can work some other part of the investigation? Or at least go get lunch and leave me to work?"
I looked skeptical. "Why do you need to be alone? It didn't seem to matter before."
He shrugged. "Before was a simple spell. This isn't. I need quiet and time to meditate."
"If you take the bedroom, and I stick to the outer room, would that be sufficient? I don't like the idea of splitting up, not when half the island may be trying to kill us. I have a feeling I'd come back from lunch and find the door ajar and you vanished without a trace." That, and I still didn't quite buy this magic routine. If I left, he'd probably just take a nap, then say he couldn't find Stroeker after all.
"Yes, I suppose that will do," he said. "It will take me many hours, but if you're willing to wait for that long, I can't say that I wouldn't appreciate the guard."
"It's not like there's anything else I can do, right now, and I'm just as vulnerable on my own. Why don't we grab lunch on the way back to my cabana, then? I hope they have a buffet. Less chance for a helpful staffer to introduce something nasty into our food."
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Jillian's Journals
All text on this page is © 2000-2002 by Kris Fazzari.
Last modified on November 12, 2002 by Kris Fazzari.