Micro. Michael Crichton

woman, who was supposed to be his brother’s girlfriend but who had evidently plotted against him. No tears from this girlfriend—she didn’t seem upset at all.

      She said, “You’re awfully quiet, Peter.”

      “It’s been a long day.”

      “Buy you a drink?”

      “No, thanks.”

      “Mai tais are famous here.”

      “I think I better call it a night.”

      “Have you had dinner?”

      “Not hungry.”

      She got up from the sand, brushed herself off. “I know you must be upset. I am, too.”

      “Yes.”

      “Why so cold toward me? I’m just trying to—”

      “I’m sorry,” he said quickly. He didn’t want her to suspect anything. That would be unwise, even dangerous. “It’s all been such a shock.”

      She put her hand up, touched his cheek. “Call me if I can do anything.”

      “Thanks. Okay.”

      They walked back inside the hotel. “All your friends are arriving tomorrow,” she said. “They’re upset about what happened to Eric. But the tour of the facilities is all arranged. Do you want to go on it?”

      “Absolutely,” he said, “I can’t just sit around…feeling like this. Waiting.”

      “The tour will start at the Waipaka Arboretum, in Manoa Valley, in the mountains near here,” she said. “That’s where we get a lot of our rain-forest materials for research. Four o’clock tomorrow. Should I pick you up?”

      “That’s not necessary,” Peter said. “I’ll take a cab.” He somehow managed to give her a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks for coming by, Alyson. It means a lot.”

      “I just want to help.” She looked at him doubtfully.

      “And you are helping,” he said. “Believe me. You are.”

      Unable to sleep, unable to eat, tormented by Jorge’s information, Peter Jansen stood at the balcony of his room. The view looked away from the ocean, across the city, and up into a jumble of mountain peaks, wild and black, without lights, outlined only by stars in the night sky. Alyson Bender had made three brief calls to a phone number. The time of these calls, 3:47 p.m., stuck in his mind. Late afternoon. He remembered that the video shot by the couple had been time-stamped. He tried to recall the time stamp. He had a head for numbers; he used numbers constantly in his data sets. The time stamp rose in his mind’s eye: 3:50 something. Just three minutes after Alyson made those calls, Eric’s boat was stalled in the video.

      Wait. What about that text message from Eric? When did that come in? He went indoors and got his phone, and scrolled through the call log. The text—dont come—had arrived at 9:49 p.m. Eastern time. There was a six-hour time difference between the East Coast and Hawaii. It meant…it meant that Eric had sent the text at 3:49 p.m. He had sent it just two minutes after Alyson Bender had made three calls to a disposable cell phone. It was only a two-word text, “dont come.” That was because Eric had been in a life-or-death crisis and had not had any time to send a longer text. Eric had sent the text from his boat while he was struggling to get the engine started, moments before he had jumped overboard. Peter’s hands were clammy, and his phone almost slipped from his fingers. He stared at the words: dont come. He was reading his brother’s last words.

       Chapter 6

      Ala Wai, Honolulu

      28 October, 8:00 a.m.

      Akamai Boat Services was right on Ala Moana Boulevard, next to the Ala Wai Boat Basin, at the end of Waikiki Beach. The taxi dropped Peter off at eight in the morning, but the boat yard was already busy at work. It wasn’t a large yard, perhaps ten or twelve hulls out of the water, and it took him no time to locate the Boston Whaler.

      He was here because of Alyson’s question the night before: Did the police check the boat?

      Why would she ask that? Supposedly she was concerned about her boyfriend, yet she seemed to care more about the boat. He jumped off the boat.

      Peter walked around the boat now, looking closely.

      Considering the pounding it had taken in the surf, the Boston Whaler seemed surprisingly intact. True, the white fiberglass hull was scratched all over, as if it had been clawed by giant hands; a jagged rip ran several feet along the starboard hull, and a chunk had been whacked out of the bow. Whalers were famous for their ability to float even if the hull was broken into pieces. His brother had had years of experience with Whalers. Eric would have known the boat hadn’t been in danger of sinking. Certainly, the damage to the boat did not justify Eric’s abandoning it. Plainly, his brother shouldn’t have jumped. He would have been safer staying on board.

      So why did he jump? Panic? Confusion? Something else?

      There was a wooden ladder on the far side of the boat, and he climbed up onto the stern. All hatches and the door to the cuddy cabin were sealed with yellow CRIME SCENE tape. He wanted to look at the outboard engines, but they were sealed as well.

      “Can I help you?” A man below, shouting up. Heavyset, grizzled, streaks of grease on his work clothes. Dirty baseball cap shaded his eyes.

      “Oh hi,” Peter said. “My name is Peter Jansen. This is my brother’s boat.”

      “Uh-huh. What’re you doing here?”

      “Well, I wanted to see—”

      “You illiterate?” the man said.

      “No, I’m—”

      “Well it seems like you must be, because that sign over there says plain as day, all visitors register at the main office. Are you a visitor?”

      “I guess.”

      “Why didn’t you register?”

      “I just thought I could—”

      “Wrong. You can’t. Now what the hell you doing up there?”

      “This is my brother’s—”

      “I heard you the first time. Your brother’s boat. You see all that yellow tape? I know you do, and I also know you can read it, ’cause you told me you’re not illiterate. Isn’t that right?”

      “Yes.”

      “So that’s a crime scene, and you got no business up there. Now you get the hell down right away, and go to the office and register, and show us some identification. You have identification?”

      “Yes.”

      “Okay then. Get down off of there, and stop wasting my time.” The man stalked off.

      Peter climbed down the ladder on the far side of the boat. As he came near the ground, he heard a gruff male voice say, “Can I help you, Miss?” And a woman’s voice answered, “Yes, I’m looking for a Boston Whaler the Coast Guard brought in.”

      It was Alyson’s voice.

      He paused, hidden from view by the hull of the boat.

      “Goddamn,” the man said. “What is it about that fricking boat? Gets more visitors than a rich uncle on his deathbed.”

      “How’s that?” she said.

      “Well, yesterday some guy shows up, claiming it was his boat, ’cept he had no identification, so I told him to get lost. The things people try! Then this morning we have some young guy, claiming it was his brother’s boat, I had to get him out of the cockpit, and now we got you. What is it about that boat?”

      “I really couldn’t say,”