|
"Laura's Dream" |
| Copyright Francis Blow, 1986. |
| CHAPTER 24 |
| After Honolulu and Waikiki, the island of Kauai was a haven of serene relaxation. For three days, all Laura did was run, swim and surf, with breaks for the huge meals, an occasional show, and lots of time for sleep. |
| Kauai is an island that soothes the most overwrought nerves. The tense girl who landed at Kauai was different to the young woman who flew out again three days later, to return to Honolulu. |
| A few phone calls located Misau and Leanii, allowing her to meet the two girls and shout them lunch. Naturally, little Wahine was tucked safely under Laura's arm. Laura was dressed in the costume Misau had given her, with the bottom half of her bikini underneath. The yellow hibiscus in her hair and her naturally golden-brown skin, made her look almost like a native Hawaiian. |
| "You are going home tomorrow night?" Misau asked. "I hope you can keep in touch. I have already written to your home, because I thought we might have missed you." |
| "I'll write often, I promise. Scout's Honour." Laura gave the salute. |
| Leanii returned the salute perfectly. "Are you a Scout too Laura?" |
| "I'm a Venturer. I never thought to ask you if you were in the movement. We can swap badges, and maybe my friends can write to yours?" |
| Leanii clapped her hands in excitement. "Wait till I tell them next week! This is great! Did you know we even have a scout shop here on Oahu?" |
| Misau listened patiently as the other two girls swapped information, until she had to remind Leanii they were going to rehearse the younger girls. Hugs and more promises were exchanged, and Laura watched them leave. |
| |
| When calamity struck, it was as unexpected as it was inescapable. |
| Laura paid her driver and walked away from the taxi to her hotel. Before she reached the door, a woman blocked her path. |
| "Laura, you must come with me," she ordered. "There has been an accident. I must take you to the hospital." |
| "Is it, Gran?" |
| "There's no time to talk. You have to come now, Laura!" |
| Something in the woman's eyes or voice sent warnings into Laura's head. "I don't believe you. Get out of my way or I'll scream for help." |
| "That would be a mistake. As my friends will show you." |
| Two men stepped in close behind Laura. Something hard was pressed against her ribs, and there was a metallic click. |
| "If you turn around to your left and walk towards the black car, there will be no need to harm anyone, especially on such a crowded street." Without further need for falsehood, the underlying viciousness of the woman surfaced. |
| Helpless to run or strike out, Laura had no alternative. She got in the black limousine with its opaque windows. One man climbed over her to sit next to the far door, and the other sat on her other side; each of them brought a pistol into view, aimed at her heart from centimetres away. As soon as the woman was in the front, the car drove off, speeding out of the tourist area and towards a heliport. |
| |
| Thousands of miles away, Doug was cleaning his landrover for the first time. Under the passenger seat, he found a small slip of paper. After reading what was written there, he ran into his house, cut Suzie's call off before she could protest, and dialed the police. |
| |
| When the limousine jerked to a halt beside a large helicopter, the two guards pulled Laura out and carried her into the waiting helicopter. Laura could scarcely keep her dignity and her bear, as she clutched her clothes and furry mascot. |
| Despite the manhandling she received, Laura did not panic. She knew that sooner or later there would be an opportunity to escape. As the aircraft took off, Laura mentally listed her possessions. One bear named Wahine, a dress made of a single piece of material, one bikini pants, a pair of sandals and her purse; in the purse was about two hundred dollars in notes and coins, some photos of her family and Doug, hotel keys, blue scarf, passport, basic toiletries and her trusty pocket knife. |
| On either side of Laura sat a man at least twice her body mass. Each man was probably an experienced fighter. In front sat the woman and a pilot. There was nothing in arm's reach that could be used as a weapon except the two pistols pressed against her waist and ribs. |
| What other weapons could a fifteen year old girl use? |
| Laura squeezed Wahine against her chest and started sobbing. Even though she could not be heard over the engine noise, her shoulders were visibly shaking. First one, then the other pistol was pulled back from her sides. A small, yet definite victory. |
| There was hope. While she pretended to cry, Laura deliberated every possibility. The problem was she was in an aircraft she had no experience with, and there were three people free to restrain her. Laura knew she would wait until a better chance was presented. |
| |
| The helicopter dropped towards a farm and landed on one side of a clear, flat field that looked suspiciously like a runway. A wind sock was at each corner and a row of traditional Hawaiian torches ran down the middle. |
| Once more, Laura was carried by the two men. Only her legs were free, yet the gun barrels pressed against her were discouragement enough against kicking. The main farm building was old, and built of stone and wood. Inside, there were few furnishings, just a half dozen chairs around a plastic-topped table. |
| One man was sitting, watching Laura's undignified progress, until she was forced to sit opposite him. |
| "You don't know me, Laura, but I've known you for nearly a year." |
| "Are you going to explain why I'm here?" Laura continued to act more afraid than she really felt. "Is it ransom?" |
| "Not in your case. You see, you have been causing me to loose a great deal of money and prestige. Take for example when you caused my agent, Gordon Flint, to be imprisoned. His knowledge of Sri Lanka was vital to part of my business. And so were the children you deprived me of in Australia a few months ago." |
| "You're behind the drug-running and kidnappings?" Laura was startled. |
| "You're a nuisance, Laura. And you conveniently delivered yourself into my hands, even if it did cost me one of my best juniors." |
| "Alan Stevens?" |
| "Whatever name he used, he's no good to me now. That's all in the past. Would you like to know your future?" He did not smile at her, yet she knew he was gloating. "I was going to have you killed and dropped out to sea. That is until I saw a video of you feeding deer near Honolulu Zoo. Most of our clients who are interested in obtaining children prefer younger ages, because they adjust to conditions more quickly. But there are one or two who would pay very well for a prize such as you. Soon you will be enjoying life in a palace. Isn't that wonderful?" |
| Laura stared at him. She did not have to pretend hard that she was petrified. |
| "Put her in the guest quarters." |
| Hands went under her arms and dragged her further into the house, to a room with a heavy door and a single barred window. At one time the small room may have been a bathroom; it had a concrete and rock floor, holes where drains might once have been, and one working tap. Laura was thrown in, and she turned in time to see the door closed behind her. There was the sound of a padlock being snapped into place, and a peephole in the door opened to reveal an eye for several seconds, before the cover dropped back down. |
| There were only the door and window as possible escape routes. The holes in the floor were too small. Yet, Laura realised her abductors had not planned very well. Even though the window would be difficult, Laura thought she could squeeze through sideways and loose only a small amount of skin. Should she try immediately, or wait for some better opportunity? |
| |
| Half an hour after Laura's imprisonment, she heard a droning from outside. From the window, she looked into the sky and saw a small plane preparing to land in the empty field. |
| That was a way to escape, though she had only two hours of daylight left. She could not fly at night. |
| She continued to watch through the bars. Two more men ran from the small plane the seventy or eighty metres to the house. Loud voices came from the front of the building. |
| Laura's decision was made. As Gran so often said "If something's worth doing, it's worth doing now." |
| Laura pulled herself onto the window ledge and dragged herself painfully through the bars. As she sprinted towards the plane, she held up the dress that had been torn by the bars; it would never be the same again. In her free hand was her purse. |
| To Laura's joy, no one saw her, even when she climbed into the cabin. A large gun lay on one of the seats, but Laura ignored it while she first checked that the key was in the ignition, and that the plane was ready to fly. Her cursory pre-flight check done, Laura started the engine, and seconds later turned the nose into the wind. Before she began her run for take off, Laura looked over her shoulder and saw people running towards her. With the brakes on, she powered the engine, released the brakes and the plane surged along the dirt field towards the mountains beyond the fence. As the wheels left the ground, Laura realised she had left Wahine behind in the cell. |
| Airborne, Laura felt safe. The first thing she did when she leveled off, was try the radio. It was not working; no power light came on when she turned the switch. |
| Frustrated by her lack of technical knowledge, Laura searched the cabin for anything useful. There was the sawn off rifle beside her, a sealed box on the back seat and several white envelopes on top of the box. The loose, torn dress was a nuisance, tangling her arms and legs. Laura undid the knots that held it around her. She had to lift herself off the seat to pull the material free. As Laura was too modest to appear half dressed, she rummaged for a scarf from her purse. One thing her Guiding and Venturing had taught her was the many uses of a scarf. |
| Steering with her feet and occasionally with a hand, Laura fashioned herself a bandeau top and tied it in place. Satisfied that she was ready to be seen in public, Laura went looking for somewhere populated so she could land safely and find transport back to Waikiki. |
| Laura's blood ran cold when she saw that her captors' helicopter was closing on her aircraft. She applied more throttle until she was doing almost a hundred and thirty knots. It was just enough to pull away from the helicopter. Laura banked around the back of a mountain and saw a village with hundreds of people in it. More important to her was the proper landing strip between the village and a river. |
| She throttled back to ninety knots and started to descend. Suddenly, the deadly blades of the helicopter were in her plane's way, and Laura was forced to climb away from a collision and certain death. |
| Each time Laura attempted to land, the helicopter was underneath her. She thought about letting the wheels of her plane hit the rotors below her, but the risk of the long blades ripping through the thin floor was too high. |
| Laura's desperate search for a solution saw the torn dress. If she could just get it to tangle the helicopter's rotors she could land. When Laura pulled the grey cloth into her lap, she jumped, because the steel of the rifle barrel poked her thigh. In that moment Laura had her solution. |
| Very cautiously, she tied the material to the trigger guard, opened the window next to her, and started another descent. |
| As soon as she saw the helicopter come from behind and beneath her, Laura pushed the gun and dress out the window. |
| It fell, fluttering, towards the whirling, long blades. Laura's hopes that the cloth would hit the rotors were dashed, when the gun passed behind the tips of the blades. |
| What Laura did not at first see, as she pulled up, was the dress catch in the smaller, tail rotor that steered the helicopter. The helicopter spun out of control, not losing height, but turning like a mad, blind thing, unable to be steered. |
| Elated, Laura banked her plane sharply, and came around to make a successful landing, while the helicopter was trying to descend slowly, but still spinning in circles. |
| On the ground, Laura jumped out of the plane and ran towards the crowds that were watching the helicopter on its gradual drop towards the ground. Inside the tourist village, Laura found an office and asked for a phone to call the police and fire brigade, in case the helicopter crashed. Before Laura could put the phone down, she heard a loud thump over the normal helicopter noise, and a series of snapping, grinding sounds followed. |
| The machine had hit the ground hard, and toppled, so its rotors destroyed themselves against the ground, several hundred metres from the village. Laura watched people run towards the fallen aircraft. Seconds later, she was at the phone again, calling for ambulances. |
| |
| "Laura! Where on Earth have you been?" Gran demanded, when Laura returned to their room. "I was worried sick about you, especially when I got a call from the local police. Doug found a note saying that the man responsible for all those kidnappings near your home is living here in Hawaii!" |
| "I know. The police have him. Do you mind if I have a shower and get changed?" |
| "Of course not. That's a lovely top, but I don't think it goes very well with the pants." |
| Laura smiled. "I'll tell you about it over dinner. And I'm paying tonight. I hear that the Lobster Hut's pretty good." |
