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Wayan Bagus tugged at Vernon’s shirt. “Isn’t this nice, Vernon? The universe has provided you with an opportunity to heal the roots of the past.”
Vernon shushed the little monk. “Ixnay on the talk about the astpay,” he whispered to Wayan Bagus.
Alani rolled her eyes. “Good grief. What did you tell him?”
Vernon held up his hands. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
“You didn’t tell him about the Unspeakable Incident, did you? Because that wouldn’t end well.”
Riley looked at Vernon and Alani. “Okay, I have to know. What happened?”
Wayan Bagus bowed politely. “Vernon accidentally superglued himself to Alani.”
Vernon gasped and put his hand over his heart. “That was a confession. What happened to the sanctity of the confessional?”
“I know nothing of a confessional. I know only truth,” Wayan Bagus said.
“Vernon, you incredible nincompoop,” Alani said. “You’re not even Catholic, and he’s a Buddhist monk, not a priest.”
“It was dark. I thought it was lube,” Vernon said. “It was an accident. Yeesh, it only took the paramedics twelve hours to get us separated. What’s the big deal?”
“The big deal is I live in a town with a population of one thousand. It made the local newspaper. Everybody called me ‘Doggie-Style Alani’ for a year.”
“Well, you ran me over with an ATV,” Vernon said. “That wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience.”
“That was also an accident,” Alani said.
“That wasn’t no accident. You ran over me twice!” Vernon said. “You’re a whackadoodle.”
“I am not a whackadoodle. How dare you call me a whackadoodle!”
“This isn’t going well,” Riley said.
Wayan Bagus picked up the food bag from the floor. “I will take Vernon into the kitchen and allow him to eat his dessert first.”
Vernon made a crazy motion with his finger going around in circles, pointed it at Alani, and followed Wayan Bagus out of the room.
“Vernon really didn’t know it was glue,” Emerson said. “He’s always felt horrible about it.”
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“I know,” Alani said. “It’s just that seeing him so suddenly brought it all back.”
“We really need your help,” Emerson said to Alani. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. Lives are at stake, including ours.”
“You don’t even have to ask. I’m in. You guys are like family to me, even the jackass in the next room who’s missing most of his eyebrows. I don’t even want to ask. Besides, I haven’t had a good adventure since you stopped coming to Kohala. What do you need?”
“A room at the Onizuka with a view down the mountain, and a telescope capable of spying on the runway at Bradshaw Army Airfield.”
“Do you think we beat Tin Man and the director to Hawaii?” Riley asked Emerson.
Emerson nodded. “I checked the FAA website. There haven’t been any inbound flights landing at Bradshaw in the past forty-eight hours. Of course, they might not have filed a flight plan.”
“The entire base has been buried in the inversion layer under thick cloud cover for the past three days,” Alani said. “Visibility is zero and, as far as I know, there haven’t been any inbound or outbound flights. This is an entirely different weather system from Kona.”
“Perfect. All we have to do is wait for the bad guys to arrive and use our telescope to track them to their secret lair, all from the safety of our first-class accommodations at the Onizuka.”
“It’s a moldy, cramped room with four bunk beds and the combined stench of a thousand dirty, tired scientists,” Alani said.
