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“I see a road,” Riley said.
Emerson looked. “I think it’s the Old Mamalahoa Highway. There’s nothing in the area but uninhabited cattle ranches. Just cross the road and keep going.”
A couple minutes later, Riley burst through another barbed wire fence and launched the ATV across the Old Highway. Emerson was right. Just more pasture on the other side, but at least it wasn’t as steep as the upper slopes.
“Are they still there?” Riley asked. A bullet whizzed by Riley’s head. “I guess that answers my question. I thought they were afraid of hitting the Penning trap.”
“Something tells me Tin Man doesn’t care too much. He’s flat-out crazy.”
Riley passed through a grove of trees and exploded across Hawaii Belt Road, barely missing an eighteen-wheeler. Across the road, the landscape was more lush and lightly forested.
“This is good,” Emerson said. “We may be able to lose them in the trees. Just keep going and look for an opportunity.”
Riley dodged the trees and entered a meadow covered in tall guinea grass.
“I can’t see a thing,” Riley said.
“Neither can they.”
Seconds later, the ATV rocketed out of the guinea grass and Riley slammed on the brakes. The ATV fishtailed and rolled over several times, coming to a stop at the edge of a thousand-foot cliff overlooking a green rain forest in the valley below.
Riley unbuckled herself from the ATV and struggled out and over to Emerson. He had blood on his forehead and was still dazed from the impact. She unbuckled him and dragged him out of the ATV.
“Emerson, are you okay?”
“Cows can walk upstairs but not downstairs because their knees don’t bend that way,” Emerson said.
Riley smiled. “You’re fine.”
She looked up and saw Tin Man and six armed Rough Riders standing over her.
“You won’t stay that way for long unless I get back what you stole,” Tin Man said. “It’s not in the ATV, and I’m assuming it’s not at the bottom of the cliff, or there’d be no more cliff by now.”
Tin Man grabbed Riley and put a gun to her head. “Tell me where it is, or I’ll shoot her.”
“If I tell you, you’ll shoot her. Then you’ll kill me too,” Emerson said. “And, if you do shoot her, I’ll never tell you anything. That’s a promise.”
Tin Man held tight to Riley but lowered the gun. “What do you suggest?”
“Let her go and keep me as a hostage. She’ll get the Penning trap and we can arrange a swap. Me for the trap.”
“I have a better idea,” Tin Man said. “I keep the redhead and you get the trap and bring it to me. And if you break our agreement, I’ll hurt her and then I’ll kill her. That’s my promise.”
TWENTY-SIX
Riley looked out the window of the SUV as they drove south along the Hawaii Belt Road toward Captain Cook. She was sandwiched in the middle of the back seat between Tin Man and a hulking Rough Rider. Bart Young was in the front.
“We’re not going back to Mauna Kea?” Riley asked.
“No,” Bart Young said. “That location is obviously compromised. Everything of value, including you, is being moved to our other base of operations in Kilauea.”
Riley thought it probably wasn’t a good sign that they hadn’t blindfolded her and were taking no precautions to hide the new location from her.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked the director.
“Are you familiar with the writings of Machiavelli?”
“Wasn’t he the sixteenth-century philosopher who thought it is better to be feared than loved?”
