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Alani led them to their dormitory. “The air is even thinner at the summit. Most of the observatories make the scientists spend a night or two at the center before using the telescopes.”
“Why?” Riley asked.
“There’s forty percent less oxygen up at the top than at sea level, and it can seriously mess with everything from your vision to your mental condition.”
“Interesting,” Vernon said. “Suppose a person worked where she was chronically deprived of oxygen. Would that cause a perfectly normal person to go all loopy and run over her boyfriend with a motor vehicle?”
Alani cut her eyes to Vernon. “You’re a chronic jackass.”
Vernon watched Alani walk inside the dormitory. “Okay, so I might be a chronic jackass, but that’s no reason not to like me. Some people even think I’m a fun jackass.”
Wayan Bagus put his hand on Vernon’s shoulder. “It is written by the Sage that you, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”
“Thanks, Little Buddy,” Vernon said. “Right back at you.”
Alani returned with a key and handed it to Emerson. “You’re all set. I have to get to work at the observatory. Call me on my cell if you need anything.”
—
Alani had given them an accurate description of the dormitory room. It was a small, serviceable room with two sets of bunk beds and a distant view of the Bradshaw Army Airfield. A telescope had been placed on a tripod next to the window.
Wayan Bagus looked around the room and out the window. The sun was up and the clouds had disappeared, revealing a breathtaking view of South Kohala all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
“This is very nice,” Wayan Bagus said. “I’ve never been on a stakeout. I’m having such a good time saving the world that I almost don’t care if we find my stolen island.”
“We’ll find it,” Emerson said, peering through the telescope and adjusting it to focus on the runway.
“Now what?” Riley asked.
“We wait,” Emerson said.
Over the next several hours, a steady stream of airplanes landed on the airstrip, but none were carrying cargo or any passengers wearing park ranger uniforms.
Vernon groaned and tilted his head back. “Here’s something they don’t tell you about stakeouts. They’re really, really boring.”
“It’s about to get really, really exciting,” Emerson said, turning the telescope over to Riley.
Riley focused on a medium-size jet taxiing down the runway. It had two crossed sabers and a number one above them painted on the side of the plane.
“For a secret society, they’re not very good at keeping themselves under the radar,” Riley said.
“Pure arrogance,” Emerson said. “They’ve been an untouchable secret quasi-military unit for the past hundred years and don’t think anybody can take them out.”
“What chance do we have then?” Vernon asked.
Emerson watched the plane pull up to the terminal and power down. “If we can expose the secret they’re protecting, they’ll no longer be useful and will become more of a liability than an asset.”
“They’re crazy,” Riley said. “If we expose them, they’ll destroy Yellowstone and who knows what else. You heard Spiro. He said we’d find Armageddon waiting for us in Hawaii. I don’t know what that means, but it sounds really bad.”
Emerson focused the telescope on the plane’s door. “Then we’ll just have to steal the super-weapon they’re creating here on Hawaii, find a way to neutralize Tin Man, and then expose the secret to the world.”
“Yeah, that sounds like a walk in the park. We can do that, no problemo,” Riley said. “And then we can end world hunger by growing tomatoes on the moon.”
The plane’s door opened, and Emerson watched as the pilots walked down the stairs and waited for the passengers to disembark.
“They’re coming out now,” Emerson said. “It’s Tin Man and Bart Young. An SUV is driving onto the tarmac to meet them. And now two Rough Riders wearing khaki uniforms and campaign hats are unloading something from the cargo storage into the SUV.”
“Is it the Penning trap?” Riley asked.
