They were huddled in a cave of moss, two feet above the ground, out of reach of any centipede. They had turned off their headlamps. Amar Singh seemed to be going out of his mind. Peter and Karen held him, talking to him, trying to keep him calm. Amar was in shock, sweating profusely, but his body temperature plummeted, and his skin felt cold and clammy. They wrapped him in the space blanket.

They also examined him with a light. The slash from the centipede fang had laid open his chest to the bone, and he had obviously lost a lot of blood. He had been splashed with a large quantity of venom, too, which had drenched the wound. There was no way of knowing how much venom Amar had absorbed, or what it would do to him.

Amar struggled with them, delirious. His breathing ran fast and shallow. “It burns…”

“Amar, listen to me. You’ve been envenomed,” Peter said.

“We have to leave this place!”

“You need to keep still.”

“No!” Amar struggled while the others held him and tried to calm him. “It’s coming! It’s almost here!” he moaned.

“What is?”

“We’re going to die!” Amar screamed. He fought to escape.

They held him down, trying to quiet his struggling.

Peter knew that the venom of centipedes had not been studied much by scientists. There was no antivenin, no antidote, for any type of centipede venom. Peter feared Amar might go into a breathing arrest. Some of the symptoms of centipede envenomation resembled rabies. Amar was experiencing waves of hyperesthesia, feeling and sensing everything with too much intensity. Sounds were too loud, and the slightest touch on his skin made him cringe. He kept trying to pull the space blanket off his body. “It burns, it burns,” he kept saying.

Peter flicked on his headlamp for a moment to get a look at Amar.

“Turn it off!” Amar screamed, swinging his arms. The light hurt his eyes. His eyes watered with tears that streamed down his face, though he wasn’t crying. Above all, an unspeakable feeling of doom had gripped Amar’s mind. He seemed to believe that at any moment something terrible would happen. “We have to leave this place!” he moaned. “It’s coming! It’s getting closer!” But he couldn’t say what “it” was.

“Run!” Amar shrieked. He tried to crawl out of the moss cave and jump. Peter and the others struggled with him, and they held his arms and legs, trying to keep him from leaping from the tree into the night.

For a long time Amar Singh struggled and babbled, but during the early hours of the morning he grew quieter and seemed to stabilize. Or perhaps he had exhausted himself. Peter took this as a good sign. He hoped Amar was turning the corner.

“I’m going to die,” Amar whispered.

“No you’re not. Hang in there.”

“I’ve lost my faith. When I was a little kid I believed in reincarnation. Now I know there’s nothing after death.”

“It’s the venom talking, Amar.”

“I’ve hurt so many people in my life. No way to make it up now.”

“Come on, Amar. You haven’t hurt anybody.” Peter hoped his voice conveyed confidence.

All of this happened in darkness, for they didn’t dare turn on their lights. Erika Moll had been very afraid of the dark as a small child, and her fear of the dark roared back as she listened to Amar’s frightened babbling. Amar’s suffering hit Erika Moll harder than the others, and she began to cry. She couldn’t stop crying.

“Will somebody shut the woman up, please?” Danny Minot said. “It’s bad enough with Amar going insane, but this sobbing is getting on my nerves.” He began stroking his nose, running his fingertips over his face.

Peter could see that Danny wasn’t doing well, either, but he turned his attention to Erika. He put his arms around her and smoothed her hair. They had been lovers, but this wasn’t love, it was survival. Just trying to keep people from dying. “It will be all right,” he said to Erika, and squeezed her hand.

Erika began reciting the Lord’s Prayer. “Vater unser im Himmel…”

“She turns to God when science fails her,” said Danny.

“What do you know about God?” Rick said to him.

“As much as you do, Rick.”

The others tried to sleep. The moss was warm and soft, and they were exhausted after the harrowing fight. None of them wanted to fall asleep, but sleep took them gently in its arms anyway.

Chapter 24

Chinatown, Honolulu 30 October, 11:30 a.m.

Lieutenant Dan Watanabe sat at a table in an eatery in downtown Honolulu, called the Deluxe Plate, holding a piece of Spam sushi in his fingertips. The sushi was a ball of fried rice wrapped in seaweed, with a chunk of Spam at the center. He took a bite. The seaweed, the fried rice, and the salty pork combined in his mouth into a taste that could be found nowhere but Hawaii.

He savored it, chewing slowly. During World War II, whole shiploads of Spam had arrived in Hawaii to feed the troops. American soldiers had basically fought the war on Spam; Spam and an atomic bomb had guaranteed American victory. At the same time, the people of Hawaii had developed a passion for the canned pork product, a love that would never die. Dan Watanabe believed that Spam was a brain food. He believed it could help him think more clearly about a case.

Right now he thought about the missing Nanigen executive. The executive, Eric Jansen, had apparently drowned off Makapu‘u Point when his boat had stalled out and flipped in heavy surf. However, his body had not turned up. Plenty of white sharks cruised the Molokai Channel, the stretch of sea between Makapu‘u Point and the island of Molokai, and the sharks could have eaten the body. But more likely the body should have washed up around Koko Head, since the prevailing winds and currents would carry it that way. Instead, it disappeared. Then, shortly after Eric’s disappearance, his brother, Peter Jansen, shows up in Hawaii.

And then Peter disappears.

The Honolulu Police had gotten a call from the chief security officer of Nanigen, Donald Makele, who reported that seven graduate students from Massachusetts had gone missing along with a Nanigen executive named Alyson F. Bender. One of those students had been Peter Jansen. The students had been in employment discussions with Nanigen. All eight persons, including the Bender woman, had gone out for the evening and never returned.

Don Makele’s call had been taken by the Missing Persons Detail in the Honolulu Police Department. A report had been written up, and it ended up in the “Daily Highlights” bulletin that circulated through the department each morning. Watanabe, glancing over the “Highlights,” had noticed it. So there were two missing Nanigen executives, Eric Jansen and Alyson Bender. Plus seven students.

Nine people tied to Nanigen. Gone.

Of course, people did go missing in Hawaii, especially young tourists. The surf could be very dangerous. Or they went on a drinking binge, or they got so high on Puna weed they seemed to forget their names. They hopped a flight to Kauai and went backpacking on the Na Pali Coast, and didn’t tell anybody where they’d gone. But nine people, all linked to Nanigen, from different places, doing different things, all missing?

Dan Watanabe took a swig of black coffee, and finished off his sushi. He had an unpleasant feeling mixed with a professional curiosity. He could almost smell it. It was a whiff of probable cause. A scent of unrevealed crime.

“Refill?” the waitress, Misty, said to him, offering a coffee pitcher.

“Thanks.” It was Kona coffee, strong enough to put structure in one’s afternoon.

“Dessert, Dan? We got a haupia chiffon pie.”

Watanabe patted his stomach. “Gosh, no thanks, Misty. I just had my ration of Spam.”

Misty left the check on the table, and he stared out the window. An elderly Chinese woman passed by, hauling a wheelie basket full of her day’s shopping, which included a fish wrapped in newspaper, the tail sticking out. A shadow raced down the street, darkening the people-a passing cloud-then hot sunlight flared, then another cloud-shadow. As usual, the trade winds were driving rain and sunlight across Oahu. Rain and sun, endlessly marching over the island, and when you looked into the mountains, you often saw rainbows.