Trifecta (97 page)

S
uzanne saw a huge nose in front of her eyes, with brown
glistening hairs sprouting from the nostrils.  The nose filled her visual field,
horrifying her.  It moved even closer and there were loud distorted noises she thought
were words, but she couldn't tell for sure because they seemed horribly gibbered
and senselessly loud. 

Her gaze roved below the nose and saw thick lips pulled
back over hideously yellow fangs.  The teeth were there to chew her up.  Suzanne
gave out a tiny shriek, threw herself out of the chair where she had been sleeping,
and ran for the door.  All she had in mind was getting away from the nose and horrible
fangs, which she knew would snuffle her out and tear her apart.  She did not realize
hallucinations were distorting her vision and hearing; that she was in the agitated
and delusional stage of drug withdrawal.

Suzanne's legs collapsed on the way to the door and she
crawled a few paces, staggered to her feet and out the door.  The dumbfounded security
guard, not feeling so cool himself, went after her. 

Suzanne reeled to the elevator and pushed the button. 
She glanced behind her and saw the guard slowly stalking her.  She pressed the call
button for the elevator repeatedly, but the damn thing wasn't coming.  She panicked
again and started racing down the hallway toward the stairs at the end of the hall.

Heather and Nakamura were hurrying up the stairs
to get in position to see where Samson went with the cat, when a girl pulled the
door open above them and started racing past them down the stairs.  She was crying
hysterically.  They both stopped and watched her blunder down.  She seemed to be
having trouble with her legs, as she almost fell a couple of times on the dangerous
cement stairs.  Then the door above them opened again. 

Nakamura saw the man he was paying to guard Michelle's
apartment, hurrying after the frightened girl.  The guard he had believed was protecting
both Michelle and Heather's security had abandoned his post, and was scaring the
poor frightened girl who had just run past.  Nakamura grabbed him angrily and started
giving him hell.

"You asshole.  You're supposed to be protecting people. 
Not running after young girls."

Suddenly there was an inhumanly loud shrieking noise. 
It sounded like someone was being hideously tortured from down below them.  Nakamura
stopped yelling at the guard and started down the stairs, toward the noise, with
Heather following.

Suzanne had almost blundered right into Samson
Stoker on the stairs.  She was suddenly aware that the man who frightened her most
in all the world was right in front of her.  It was the brut who had raped her wearing
demon horns and nothing else.  And now he was almost naked, which caused her to
suddenly recall the scene in detail, with the candle light, the incense and the
chanting of witches in Omar's apartment.  It was the horrifying giant who had painfully
raped her before all those witches and Omar.  He was positioned right in front of
her.

The sudden memory was puzzling.  Surely if Omar had been
there he would have stopped the rape, but the confusing though was gone as quickly
as it had come.  The loud screeching of the cat was making Suzanne more crazed. 
Her heart, which had been racing before, was now overburdened and galloped.  She
fell down half a flight of stairs, landing right at Samson Stoker's feet, in a dead
faint.

Nakamura and Heather were not far behind and saw the young
girl fall down.  She was not moving for a moment, then suddenly she started having
convulsions, her muscles violently contracting and moving her further down the stairs,
past Samson, who stood momentarily paralyzed in surprise.

"Grab her," Nakamura yelled at the giant.  "She's
going to get hurt." 

Samson Stoker looked at him, shook his head contemptuously,
and continued on up the stairs past them with the squalling cat.  It was the first
time Nakamura had seen the monster close up and he shuddered.  Michelle had described
Samson when she had told him about her rape, but seeing him up close in the flesh
was a wrenching experience.  The thought that this man had handled and hurt Michelle
so badly was disgusting and infuriating.  Nakamura wanted to hit the guy.  Just
smash his fist into the big ugly face.  But he wasn't stupid.  The giant was at
least six and a half feet tall and could probably kill him with one blow.  Anyway,
the poor girl on the stairs had to be taken care of, but Nakamura vowed revenge. 
He would hurt the ugly sonofabitch if it was the last thing he ever did.

Suzanne had stopped moving and lay face down, draped over
several stairs.  She was totally still.

Nakamura ran down and knelt beside her, lifting her arm
to make sure she had a pulse.  The girl was unconscious but breathing, and the convulsions
seemed to have stopped. 

"It's one of Omar's witches," Heather said. 
She knelt down beside him looking at Suzanne's face.  "She's one of the women
who tried to kill me on the beach."

Nakamura saw the security guard standing dumbly behind
them.

"Use your phone, dammit.  Call for an ambulance and
wait with the girl.  I don't want you to carry her downstairs.  She may be hurt. 
Just stay here with her.  Got that?"

The guard nodded and took out his cellular phone to dial
911.

Nakamura and Heather started up the stairs again.  It was
easy to follow Samson.  The cat was still screaming it's head off in terror, the
sound echoing off the enclosed walls of the stairwell like a wailing banshee.  They
hurried up three more flights.  Nakamura was squinting in pain from his sprained
ankle.  Heather was breathing hard, afraid she would injure herself more with the
exertion. 

The stairs ended on the 20th floor.  There was a private
elevator in that hallway that led exclusively to the penthouse suite.  When they
opened the stairwell door they saw Samson entering the restricted elevator.

"You need a special key to use that elevator,"
Heather whispered, breathing hard, hand over her ribs.  They both stood in the doorway
to the stairwell.  "But I bet that's where Michelle is.  She probably went
up there to confront Omar."

Nakamura nodded grimly.  He was a loss at what to do
next and could hardly move because of the pain in his ankle.  He might go
downstairs and ring the bell and asked for admittance, but the notion that Omar
would let them in if he had Michelle was absurd.  He was becoming more and more
worried.  He had seen two of Omar's witches within the last hour.  One had been
trying to kill Heather.  The other one was probably still unconscious on the
stairs behind him.  How Omar was turning these beautiful young women into
homicidal maniacs was hard to contemplate, but the notion that they had been
given some sort of mind altering chemicals had crossed his mind.  The white
haired witch in Heather's hospital room had been crazed and ferocious.  The one
unconscious in the stairwell had tried to kill Heather on the beach.  Whatever
Omar was doing to these so-called witches was frightening.  Omar might, at this
very moment, be pumping Michelle full of drugs.

"We have to figure a way to get in there," Heather
said.  She was still breathing hard.

"What kind of pretext can we use?"

Just then the door to the private elevator started opening.
Samson strolled out.  The giant was carrying three large suitcases.  Two women exited
the elevator with him, one carrying another suitcase and the other holding a cat
box.  Lucifer was inside.  They both recognized his cries.

One of the women pressed the button for the regular elevator. 
It looked as though they were leaving for an extended trip, but where were Omar
and Michelle?

"They're going somewhere to meet Omar," Nakamura
said.

"My car's in the garage," Heather whispered. 
"They'll probably take one of Omar's cars.  He has a Jeep, a van and a small
Jaguar."

They both started down the stairs, almost running, not
wanting to connect with Omar's staff of witches, or the ubiquitous Samson, in an
elevator.  When they were a couple of flights down they decided it would be safe
to take an elevator the rest of the way.

The garage was composed of several levels.  Heather's car
was on the first, near the entrance gate.  If Omar's people had not already left,
they would have to pass Heather's car to get out of the garage.  They dodged low
around several cars and made it to Heather's small Mercedes. 

Heather handed the keys to Nakamura, "You're the race
car driver."

"How'd you know?"

"Michelle."

Nakamura nodded and then ducked low when he heard a car
squealing around the bend from a lower level.  He peeked over the hood of Heather's
car.  It was Omar's gang in a large blue van. 

Later, Nakamura wondered what undercover agents, covertly
shadowing the bad guys, would do in a situation like this.  He and Heather sat in
her car and helplessly watched the plane take off, carrying the grotesque Samson
Stoker, two of Omar's witches and one cat.  It happened so fast.  The three people
got out of the van and just walked directly over to the plane, which had evidently
been gassed, warmed up and ready to go, complete with pilot.

"They must be going to another island," Nakamura
commented.  "They couldn't use a small plane like that to reach the U.S. mainland."

They watched the lights on the plane wink as it taxied
down the runway and then lifted off over the ocean.

The airfield was evidently a private one, located near
the Honolulu Airport.  Although it was almost 11:00 p.m. there were still lights
on in a one story, wooden, office building.  Private planes were neatly tied up
in rows along with several Lear jets, which probably belonged to wealthy businessmen
and real jet-setters.  Nakamura and Heather were parked without lights and with
the engine still running, outside the chain link fence surrounding the complex.

As they watched, the office went completely dark.

"Quick.  Drive in.  We have to find out where they
went!" Heather urged.

He drove swiftly to the office and screeched to a stop.

A thin man somewhere in his mid-forties was just locking
up.  He turned around quickly and squinted at the sound and the unexpected automobile
lights, which blinded him. 

Both Nakamura and Heather leaped out of the car and ran
up the few wooden stairs to the entrance.  The man was unlocking the door again,
probably preparing to hurry inside and lock them out, believing they were thieves,
the way they had screeched up and blinded him.

"We want to follow that plane," Heather said,
grabbing the man's sleeve to prevent him from going inside, and pointing to the
now almost invisible wing and tail lights out over the ocean.

The man had been expecting thieves.  He turned around at
an unexpected woman's voice and smiled when he saw her.  She was too tiny and cute
to be threatening.  Nakamura watched and smiled himself.  Heather had that effect
on men.

"Well, see here, I'm not a taxi driver," the
man drawled, grinning at her.  "And this isn't New York, thank God."

"I know.  And this isn't a movie.  But it is urgent,"
Heather said, fixing her large blue eyes on the man.

"That flight was the last one out of here tonight. 
It was chartered in advance.  I'm really sorry."

"But you fly, don't you?  I mean, you must own this
place," Heather guessed, waving her hand around the little field.

"Well, yeah."

"And I bet you even own a few of these planes,"
Heather said, her big eyes showing very animated admiration.

Nakamura decided to be background and watch her operate. 
She was too good at manipulation to interfere with at a time like this.

"So you do charter planes," Heather went on,
smiling with dimples.  "And with pilots and everything.  That's exactly what
we need right now.  And we'll pay you whatever you ask."

The man was obviously entranced with Heather, but still
doubtful.  He had been glancing sideways at Nakamura's torn clothing and abraded
face.

"Well, hey, I know it's late and everything, but it
really is extremely important," Heather said.  "We're supposed to surprise
our friends.  And you must know where they're going?"

The man nodded, almost with misgivings, and held out his
hand for Heather and Nakamura to shake in turn, "I'm Guy Thorner, owner of
this airfield.  And I would love to accommodate you folks.  Maybe tomorrow.  I'll
fly you all over Kauai, if you like.  Beautiful scenery.  You see, I've been teaching
student pilots all day long, just about, and I'm plain tuckered out.  Been a real
long day, you know?"

"I'm no haole," Heather said, using the slang
Hawaiian word meaning that she was not a white stranger to island ways.  "And
Mr. Nakamura, here, isn't either.  He will pay anything you ask."

She cut her eyes over to Nakamura and he nodded slightly.

The man dropped his country fellah act and was suddenly
all business, perhaps noting their desperation.  "Maybe Mr. Nakamura and I
can arrange something.  It would take, flight time, about three hours, over and
back again.  Plus the plane rental.  My time.  Gas...."

"Plus the fact that you're working after hours, and
on short notice," Nakamura said nodding, finally speaking for the first time. 
"Add to that, we would probably ask you to wait for a while and take us back. 
With another passenger."

"A red eye.  And an all-nighter," Guy murmured.

"Worth your while, I can guarantee," Nakamura
said.  He fished in his wallet and took out a corporate credit card, handing it
to Guy Thorner.  "Now you just hold on to that.  You can fill out the blanks
any way you want."

Guy studied the card.  "Heroshi Corporation.  Big
business here in Hawaii.  Own several buildings, don't they?"

Nakamura nodded, "I'm controller of Heroshi, so I
authorize all expenses for the corporation.  That card has my picture in hologram,
so it can't be duplicated."