Vishal said, “Just because he outsmarted the FBI doesn’t make him an Einstein.”

  Randall said, “Making ninety-year-old invalids young and healthy does make him smarter than the average bear. But we don’t have to be smarter than him to catch him.”

  Landau held up his hand for silence. He stared off into space. Jessup could almost see the wheels turning in his head. Everyone waited.

  Finally, Jessup said, “What?”

  “What you just said gave me an idea,” Landau said. “We’re assuming that all the patients he used over the past twenty years were eighty and ninety-year-olds on their death beds. That way, if they died, nobody would raise an eyebrow. And if they became young again, they had to go into hiding. That’s our theory, right?”

  “Okay,” Jessup said, “but how does that help our search?”

  “Randall, you have government contacts at high-security levels. Can you get access to government assistance records?”

  Randall snapped his fingers and pointed at Landau. “Jesus fucking Christ, of course. You earned your pay today, Sal. I know just who to approach, but it will cost. Bribery doesn’t come cheap in this country.”

  Jessup slammed his fist on the table. “Dammit. Would someone tell me what the hell’s going on?”

  Chapter Forty-two

  MATT REECE grew stronger. He thrived on the fish-vegetable-fruit diet. At the rate Lilikoi forced food on him, he felt like a goose being fattened for Christmas.

  He never knew which day it was, and he didn’t care enough to ask. Each day looked identical to the previous one, because there was no change in the weather. Colors seldom varied. Life became the monotonous heat with an occasional downpour, and of course, another plate of food to consume.

  He took on Lilikoi’s mission to safeguard the animals arriving daily by cargo ships. Most of them were set free to fend for themselves. The mountain and rainforest were a magnificent zoo, the treetops a menagerie. Only the predators—cats, bears, hyenas, wolves, alligators, crocodiles—were kept in enclosures. A sizable goat herd was maintained to feed the predators. Matt Reece discovered that uninvited guests coming to the island supplemented the predators’ diet.

  Roaring lions woke him each morning as the sky aged toward sunrise. No Swiss clock was as regular. As Lilikoi made breakfast, he fed, watered, and saddled the horses. They would enjoy breakfast with Gran on the veranda. That first meal of the day was punctuated by chattering black mynahs, Moluccan cockatoos, macaws, toucans, and the cries of howler monkeys. They rode out while the morning light was still as soft and friendly as an embrace.

  He adapted to his new life like falling into a dream. The hell in San Francisco and the weeks at sea were replaced by verdant mountains, sunsets over the purple sea, and the pristine clarity of the air after a rain shower.

  He loved the simplicity of his life: the humble house, Gran, and riding Kantaka. It seemed the closest thing possible to being back on the Promesa Rota. Also, he came to respect Lilikoi’s belief in the Quaker-like principle of emphasizing spiritual over material. She had no interest in marriage, which she perceived as a ball and chain that foreclosed any future ambitions. She called it a “golden-threaded straitjacket.”

  On the morning of his sixth day on the island, while lingering over coffee and noting a squeaking colony of fruit bats, Lilikoi told him Gran was dying. He was not surprised. The old woman looked sickly and seldom left her place in the kitchen.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said to Gran. “Is there a clinic here?”

  “Stage four,” Gran said. “But it’s fine by me. Not a sparrow falls that God don’t know. He’s calling, and I’m ready.”

  He reached up and held her hand. “I wish there were something I could do.”

  Gran said, “Child, flesh is but a memento, yet it speaks truth. Every man’s path is every other’s, for we all end up at the same destination. There are no separate journeys, for there are no separate men to make them. We are one. That’s the only story to tell.”

  “There is something you can do,” Lilikoi said.

  Slowly, but with accelerating alarm, his comprehension illuminated. “That’s why you saved my life? You think I can help her?”

  She returned a cheerless pinch of a smile. “A life for a life, you little shit.”

  “Right, so I’m back to being a little shit unless I help you?” He held her gaze, hearing the squeaking bats, smelling the coffee. He nodded. What else could he do?

  “The procedure is called parabiosis, a technique that unites the vasculature of two living animals, so that they share the same blood supply, like conjoined twins. By joining the circulatory system of an old mouse to a younger one, scientists have produced remarkable results. The heart, brain, muscles, and every other tissue of the old mouse became stronger, smarter, and healthier.”

  “What happened to the younger mouse?”

  “The article I read didn’t say,” she said.

  “What changed me was a tricorder that surrounded me with radiation.”

  “That doesn’t matter. A stem-cell researcher at Harvard used this method to pass immunology from one host to another. I’ve confirmed that you’re both type-O blood.”

  He stared out at the sunrise, feeling uncomfortable. “We’re dealing with something only Kenji understands.”

  “My father, gigantic asshole that he is, did the research. That’s why he invited your father to come here. He plans to use parabiosis to make himself immortal and to eventually treat everyone on the island, all Hawaiians. As the rest of the world goes up in flames, he sees us rising from those ashes. His flock of indestructible phoenixes.”

  “I’m afraid of what her blood will do to me.”

  “I’ll inject ten vials of your blood into her and monitor her for five days. If she does well, then I’ll inject ten vials of her blood into you. If all’s well at the end of next week, then I’ll connect your systems so you share each other’s blood for twenty-four hours.”

  He sighed. “I’ll do it under protest, but don’t blame me if she mutates and an alien creature rips out of her chest.”

  She laughed as she stood. “If that happens, I’ll know who to blame, and it won’t be you.” She breezed into the house and came back with her medical bag.

  She laid out a towel, ten empty vials, and a syringe. He rolled up his left sleeve, and she drew blood from his arm. After injecting that blood into Gran’s veins, they walked to the stables and mounted up. It all seemed so simple, too simple to work.

  SUNRISE AND sunset were his favorite times because that’s when all the animals scampered out of hiding to water, to eat, to parade their apparel, to croon mating songs. The forests crawled with gibbons, gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans, baboons, tapirs, elephants, and deer. On the flats roamed herds of buffalo, zebra, wildebeest, camels, rhinos, and stately giraffes. At the shores of the lake, hippos lounged beside a stand of flamingos. Becoming a steward to this cornucopia of life electrified his senses.

  They rode toward Kaunakakai, the largest of Molokai’s towns. Lilikoi’s posse—Mako, PJ, Duke, and Songoree—who were also riding horses, soon joined them. The men’s reek of carrion told Matt Reece they had come from feeding the caged animals.

  Since joining the group, he had not yet fed the carnivores. He proved to be a barely competent game warden helper, but he managed to hang tough without embarrassing himself. He carried no weapons, kept his head down, his mouth shut, and by and large seemed well liked among the four men.

  He had come to understand that the posse was more than soldiers. They, along with Lilikoi, shared a bond of trust that transformed them into one thing—indefinable, a rare unit in tune with itself, the animals, and the island.

  As happened each of the last six days, Songoree, handsome Songoree, rode up beside him on his pinto horse named Boozer and flashed him a smile. Matt Reece knew by now that Songoree smiled whenever he was happy or nervous or tipsy with drink, and he could never tell which. Today, however, his smile seemed to hint at a secret they shared—something about youth and lust and their claim to both. Or perhaps youth and lust had laid a claim on them? Trying to sort out these claims grew into a notion of losing one beautiful man with the promise of finding another, which morphed into the idea that hidden in a man’s marrow, beauty and loss and lust walked hand in hand, were one.

  His new friend proved sociable, freewheeling, and handy with a joke, but Lilikoi had warned him that Songoree could unexpectedly turn somber—never bitter or hostile, but guarded, because he kept part of himself hidden, a place he didn’t let anyone touch.

  They fell into their usual pattern: talking trivialities while letting the others ride ahead. Occasionally Lilikoi turned in her saddle and glanced back with a mirthless grin. Her obvious matchmaking embarrassed him, but on the other hand, Songoree was a fetching twentysomething man with a strong jaw, high cheekbones, and tough-guy scars that he wore with pride. It was flattering that Matt Reece could so easily form a relationship with a man six or seven years his senior. And besides, Songoree had a reputation for being a first-rate rhino-chaser, and Matt Reece wanted to try surfing.

  “Hola, Songoree. Don’t tell me what you fed the cats today. I’m feeling queasy.”

  Songoree tugged on his ponytail. “Roger that, cowboy, but only if you start calling me Song-boy.”

  “Song-boy,” he said, trying it out. Only Lilikoi and her posse called him that.

  “God, what a kickass day,” Songoree said. “The only thing better than riding horses on a day like this is riding waves on a day like this.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Matt Reece said.

  “High time you did. We’ll drive to Halawa Beach, and I’ll give you your first lesson.”

  “You’re fucking with me, right?”

  Songoree smiled. “Hell no. Not yet, anyways.”

  At Kaunakakai, they rode down the middle of Ala Malama Avenue with not a car or truck in sight. The town was only three blocks long, with a few mom-and-pop eateries and stores selling groceries, staples, and other supplies. He noticed that the restaurants outnumbered the churches by a multiple of four. Apparently eating was more important than religion on this island. Many of the buildings were the original volcanic-stone construction. An abandoned movie house still held a faded poster of a Bruce Lee movie on the marquee. The place had a population of less than five thousand, and it was the kind of town where neighbors came together for an impromptu Saturday night dance or a Sunday afternoon fish fry. Old men sat outside the barbershop watching the world wag on.

  They continued to Lono Harbor, where the regular militia was unloading cages from a cargo ship. The docks were teeming with men and animals and cranes and trucks. The militia all wore their military uniforms and kept their weapons close at hand. Armored vehicles were parked up the rise as if they were expecting Marines to charge ashore at any moment.

  They dismounted. Matt Reece led the horses to a makeshift corral. He unsaddled, watered, and brushed them down while Lilikoi oversaw the unloading operations. He finished settling the horses and sauntered back to help Songoree load cages of impalas onto a beat-up, one-ton Dodge flatbed with no plates and sporting bald tires. They tied down the cages and jumped into the cab.

  Songoree said, “Once we drop these puppies by the lake, let’s grab some boards and a six-pack and drive out to Halawa.”

  “What about helping the others?”

  “Hey, cowboy, you never played hooky? We’re sitting on a full tank of gas and a high tide coming this afternoon. Lilikoi enjoys her authority too much. It’s good to take her down a peg now and then. Let me handle her.”

  The last thing he wanted was to get back on Lilikoi’s bad side, but he couldn’t help feeling thrilled. “Roger that, Song-boy.”

  They drove northwest toward the flatlands that had once been a thriving cattle ranch. An automatic weapon perched on the seat between them. They drove past a field of low brush, and a cloud of rooks lifted into the sky. The birds whirled in a black spiral that laced out into a line winging eastward.

  “Can I ask what might be a touchy question?” Matt Reece said, and Songoree nodded. “Lilikoi and her posse are all about gathering and protecting these birds and animals.”

  “That’s not a question,” Songoree said.

  “Why are you so heavily armed?”

  “We help with the animals because the boss man likes to keep her happy,” Songoree said, “but our primary objective is to keep her safe. We’re bodyguards.”

  “Protect her against what?”

  “We Hawaiians declared independence. We have a fledgling government on Oahu, but the power is with the militia, and that means the gun rules us all. Men who have assault rifles have power, and those who don’t have nothing. At any moment, as you know all too well, some nutcase having a bad hair day can threaten your life.”

  “Anarchy? You’ve regressed to feudal times. Or should I say futile?”

  Songoree shook his head. “It’s always been the rule of the gun. It’s just that the government had the biggest guns. Nothing changed, except we’re the government now.”

  “So the posse protects Lilikoi from the militia?”

  “Affirmative, but that’s not all. At some point, Washington will defeat the vigilantes on the mainland, and when they do, they’ll be back. That’s when the real fight begins. We can only hope that by that time, they’ll be so sick of killing that they’ll lose heart and let us be.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  “Thanks to Lilikoi’s father, we have the weapons, ground-to-air missiles, and plastic explosives to defend ourselves. We may not win, but we’ll make them pay dearly.”

  “With bombs?”

  “I’m the go-to guy when it comes to making explosives. I’m more of a tinkerer than a warrior. I love electronic gadgetry and mechanical shit, and yes, I’ve designed explosive devices.”

  Matt Reece absorbed what he already figured out subconsciously. “And this new government in Oahu, is it any better than what Washington dished out?”

  Songoree turned a sly grin toward him. “Same old bickering and everyone out for themselves, but at least it’s Hawaiians on all sides of the argument. It’s happening the world over. The days of big governments may be done.” Songoree’s hands were clinching and unclinching on the steering wheel. “This is as good a spot as any.” He stopped the Dodge at the side of the road.

  They hauled their asses onto the flatbed, opened the cage doors, and stood back as the impalas scampered away. When the last one disappeared, they climbed back into the cab.

  They stopped at a house on the outskirts of Kaunakakai only long enough to pick up two surfboards and throw a six-pack of Kona Pacific Golden Ale in an ice chest, and then took Highway 460 past the airport and continued along the shoreline heading east. With the windows down, the sea breeze hit their faces with full force.

  Matt Reece marveled at the sheer rock cliffs rising from the shore. They seemed impressive from the ship a mile out at sea, but now, looking straight up made them seem otherworldly. Songoree pointed at the dark stains that colored the rock near the top of the cliffs and explained that those markings were the stains of blood left by island defenders who were beheaded and thrown from the cliffs during the war that united all the islands a few centuries ago. “The iron in their noble blood had blackened the rock forever. We still have that same pride, the same spirit as those warriors, and when the US government comes back to take what’s ours, those cliffs will turn solid black. Dover has its white cliffs; we’ll have black, like a veil of sorrow.”

  He was almost shoulder to shoulder with Songoree, with only the assault weapon between them. They pressed shoulders whenever the truck swayed around a curve. After a time, Songoree swung his arm around Matt Reece’s shoulder, drawing him closer.

  Several miles farther east, Songoree turned the Dodge inland where the road narrowed to one lane. The truck slowed while climbing a steep ravine carved between the inland mountain and another hill on the eastern tip of the island.

  They descended into a wilderness. The road followed a stream that snaked through a valley. Except for a few huts that bordered some taro patches and fishponds, the valley was laced with waterfalls and an array of fruit trees nestled within a forest of bamboo. The place seemed lost in time, untouched by modern man.

  The valley opened onto a wide expanse of beach. Songoree drove to the end of the road and parked before a four-foot seawall separating the vegetation from the sand.

  They surveyed the surroundings. The beach looked cool and inviting. The waves came in like unfolding mountains, one draped behind the next, spreading themselves out with a repetitive energy, given and returned. Beyond the white-headed combers, he saw a half-dozen boards and bodies lolling in a tight group.

  He focused on two men paddling in front of a swell that rose from the sea. A heartbeat later they jumped to their feet and rode the comber’s crest. Their arms spread like wings as they flew landward, two fleeting darts on an ephemeral curl of spume.

  The wave jockeys performed trick maneuvers, competing to see which one could do the flashiest ride. Matt Reece held his breath watching the ballet of speed and balance and athletic grace. As the wave died, they whirled their boards up over the wave. Then, belly to board, they paddled back out to sea. Matt Reece felt the urge to immerse himself in water, yet a cold tickle crept over his scalp. His body didn’t want to do this.

  “Will you save me if I start to drown?”

  With a bark that could have been a bout of laughter, they crawled from the Dodge and retrieved their gear. They trooped to a campsite of blankets, a boom box, and a fire pit with driftwood piled high. Now that they were away from the truck, Matt Reece felt their relationship evolving into something new.