Finally he exhaled, said hai to himself, Japanese for yes. The severed head was still there. He grabbed the hair in one hand, lifted the head out to see the victim for himself, again, to get the full impact, to appreciate the spoils. Still salvageable as a completed task for the oyabun; all was not lost. Another prayerful Shinto thanks was in order. He lowered the head, then stopped short when he saw the Adam’s apple.
Philo pulled at the tarp with one arm, two edges gathered together in his hand, Kaipo inside it. He slid her along the jungle floor amid wild tropical overgrowth and over bumps of twisted tree roots and patches of volcanic ash hardened into rock. The blue tarp was good for it, was heavy and durable, and it helped that she was still unconscious, much like the exterminator doctor they’d spared after they had him cut up Mifumo’s body at gunpoint, rendering him a genderless, unidentifiable mess. The executioner now rested outside the slaughterhouse window, beneath the sill, unconscious and underdressed.
Kaipo mumbled, then came an agonizing groan, then came more mumbling, then an ouch.
“Sorry, didn’t see that rock. Hang in there, Kaipo, we’re almost down the hill…”
Kaipo mumbled more, spoke words this time, kept speaking until she was almost fully lucid. “I… I can smell you…”
Philo eyed her face, her closed eyes while he grunted through his steps, saw her REM-ing through her dream state that now mostly wasn’t. “You… you what?”
“Smell you, in your SEAL hidey-hole… Miakamii…”
Their conversation continued a few yards more, their re-introduction including complete sentences that sealed their shared history from Philly and Miakamii both, dating back to her time on the island as a teenager and his time as a SEAL. Philo was now running out of gas, his inflamed shoulder in torture overdrive. He couldn’t go on like this much longer—
He lost his footing and fell on his ass, slid feet-first down the hill, grimacing from the pain in his shoulder, the vegetation slapping his face yard after yard until he hit bottom, spilling onto a curb. Kaipo, still in her tarp, bumped against him a second later. He took some deep breaths, grabbed the edges of the tarp again, ready to move. Ten yards to their left, a behemoth of a truck moved in their direction. He squinted to better the glare from the sun on its windshield, to get a look at the driver, was greeted with a smiling Patrick in hazmat.
“Guess our ride is here, Kaipo,” he said, breathing hard.
With Kaipo jammed behind the front seat and cocooned in the tarp, Philo hauled himself onto a running board, the sweeper on the move again, Philo holding onto the window ledge, a tight live-or-die grip with one hand only. The brown-faced guy riding shotgun greeted him with a nervous smile and big, wide eyes that said he was scared shitless, focusing on the gun tucked into Philo’s pants.
“This is Marty the sweeper driver, sir,” Patrick said.
“Hi, Marty,” Philo said, shouting to better the road whine. “Relax, you can go with us or you can leave, your choice. If you haven’t figured this out, we’re in deep shit, but trust me, we mean well. I’m really hoping you stay behind, Marty, ’cause I’ve got a big favor to ask…”
“Good decision, Marty,” Philo said to himself. He checked the sideview mirror from the safety of the passenger seat, watched the uniformed sanitation worker at curbside stare at the departing street sweeper, a smallish white Styrofoam cooler at Marty’s feet. Marty stayed focused on his stolen truck while he made a phone call as it drove away.
Shit… he’s dialing 9-1-1. Cops, damn it…
Do me that favor, Marty, please. Follow through, bud…
“Philo sir?”
“Yeah, Patrick?”
“You think Mr. Lanakai survived that gunfight?”
“He owes me a lot of money, so yeah, I’m counting on it.”
Philo refocused the mirror to see many blocks behind them, into the distance. A car bolted onto the rear horizon, a silhouette against the setting sun, came down hard on its shocks, sparks scattering.
Company that wasn’t cops. Shit-shit-shit…
“How fast does this thing go, Patrick?”
“No idea, sir!”
“Pick a left turn and make it, into a neighborhood, anywhere, we need streets with corners…”
A sharp left and then more gas pedal, the sweeper approaching a stop sign, no cross traffic, a hard right onto another street. Philo dialed 9-1-1.
“What’s your emergency?”
“See, we’re in a street sweeper on Kela Drive, in a residential neighborhood, being chased by pissed-off Yakuza mobsters… No, I’m not drunk… Philo Trout, retired SEAL. I know Chief Koo. Turn here, Patrick…!”
“You sure you didn’t carjack that sweeper, Mr. Trout?”
“Yeah, ah, no, well, maybe, but we’re not the bad guys here. These mobsters… we sprang their hostage…”
At the next hard turn the phone jumped out of his hand, landed somewhere on the truck floor, out of reach. In the middle of the street, kids on skateboards. Patrick jumped the curb, started across the lawns, a bad move that would not end well for pedestrians. They needed to get out of the neighborhoods and stay out of them, find a stretch where they could accelerate, take their chances—
“Turn here!”
They turned onto a four-lane highway with a long straightaway, the first road sign, HOWLING SANDS – 4 MILES.
“The Naval base, bud,” Philo said aloud. “Really goose this thing, Patrick—”
“Yessir, Philo sir, fifty-five, fifty-seven—”
Philo watched the sideview mirror a full thirty seconds, no activity behind them, hoped their pursuers hadn’t taken out any kids; he’d have so much PTSD trouble with that. They passed a Lamborghini, a convertible in neon blue on a lazy early evening drive along the coast. Philo touched the Sig to his forehead in a friendly salute before realizing how bad a look that was. The sports car driver slammed the breaks and let their
