The robot found the bodies of two more children and the missing teacher before approaching the door to the last classroom—the one on the southeast corner of the school. The robot’s thermal camera registered white-hot temperatures over six hundred degrees. Yet, the door to this last classroom, although ravaged charcoal black by fire and bent out of shape, remained intact.
“What the hell?” ‘Ōhai said. “That’s a fire door—a steel fire door. We don’t put fire doors on classrooms. And it looks like that sucker suffered bomb damage.”
The tech moved the robot’s claw to the handle, but the door wouldn’t budge. The robot tried again to no avail, and the tech turned to ‘Ōhai. “What do you want me to do?”
“Can we send it downstairs into the mechanical spaces?”
“There’s a basement?” Koa asked. The island’s rocky volcanic soil made basements expensive and rare.
“That’s what the blueprints show,” ‘Ōhai responded.
“Got to be the only kula, school, on the island with a basement,” Koa mused.
“Tell me where to go,” the tech requested.
‘Ōhai turned to the floor plans spread on the wall. “The stairs are back down the hallway, just south of the main office.”
The Ardros F6B retreated back toward the main office and found the stairs. Koa watched the monitors as the odd-looking machine extended and lowered its front wheels, descending step by step down the stairs with remarkable agility. At the bottom, the robot turned to reveal a smoke-filled corridor with a concrete floor, walls, and ceiling. The thermal imager showed the walls to be a relatively cool one hundred degrees, but when the robot faced the south end of the hallway, its thermal imager registered solid white reflecting temperatures above 600 degrees. Reading from the plans, ‘Ōhai announced, “It should be 300 feet to that end wall.”
A rumbling sound reverberated through the speakers. The concrete tunnel shook, sending particles of cement into the air already laden with sulfur gases. The robot crept slowly down the hallway. Even with its powerful halogen lights, they could see less than a yard. The tech repeatedly stopped and turned the robot to avoid broken pipes and other obstructions. The sound grew deafening and the tech turned the volume down. Vibrations shook the images. The robot did not, however, transverse 300 feet.
After 240 feet, it encountered a concrete wall—or rather the remnants of one. The whole middle section had collapsed, leaving a gaping hole. The remains of the barrier stood no more than three feet high at its midpoint with crumbling concrete and twisted reinforcing rods protruding all around. Broken electrical cables hung like spaghetti and a ruptured pipe gushed water that flashed instantly into steam.
“I don’t understand,” ‘Ōhai said. “There’s not supposed to be a wall for another sixty feet.”
“I thought it was impossible to burn concrete?” Koa said, adding a question mark.
“‘Ae,” ‘Ōhai agreed, “but at temperatures above a few hundred degrees, concrete loses its strength. The cement and the reinforcing steel inside expand at different rates and the stuff rips itself apart.”
“Auē, my God,” Koa exclaimed, pointing to the monitor. “Look! Look at the edge of the hole. That’s no ordinary wall.” Smoke poured through the opening, but gaps in the opaque cloud revealed the remnants of a slab of concrete at least six feet thick.
“Christ,” ‘Ōhai exclaimed, “it looks like a bank vault.”
“Why would anyone put a six-foot-thick wall in an elementary school?” Koa asked.
“It’s like the contractor tried to seal off the end of the building,” ‘Ōhai responded.
The fire door on the classroom and this ruined basement barrier made sense only if they were intended to isolate the south end of the building. “Exactly!” Koa exclaimed. “The damn contractor must have known about the volcanic risk and tried to seal it off.”
The two men stared at each other in disbelief. “Hard to believe anyone would do somethin’ so stupid,” ‘Ōhai said.
“And criminal. The builders deliberately put those kids at risk. That’s murder by reckless endangerment.” Koa’s voice rang with barely contained anger. “Somebody’s going to pay for this. And pay big-time.”
“Wonder where all that concrete came from,” ‘Ōhai mused. “With six-foot walls, they must have poured over a thousand cubic yards of concrete just in this one corner of the building.”
“Had to be West Hawai‘i Concrete,” Koa responded. “One of Sergeant Basa’s brothers is a manager up there. It’s the only place on this side of the island big enough to handle the volume.”
At that moment, an explosion rocked the truck. Rocks and other debris battered the side of the vehicle. The screens and readout from the robot went black. “Jesus,” the tech said. “We lost the robot.”
What had begun as one of the worst civil catastrophes in Hawaiian history had suddenly become one of its most horrific crimes. The deliberate concealment of a deadly flaw inside an elementary school had killed keiki and their kumu, children and their teachers. Murder … reckless endangerment murder.
CHAPTER FOUR
KOA NEVER MADE it to bed. Bleary-eyed, he found his way back to the police headquarters in Hilo. He stopped in the command center for a large Styrofoam cup of strong coffee. No cream, no sugar. Black and bitter. He’d always liked it black, and the Army taught him to like it bitter. The Army had taught him a lot of things and was the reason he’d become a cop.
Jerry, his closest Army buddy, had planned to leave the service, return to his hometown of Seattle, and, like his father, join the police. Only Jerry had died in Somalia, killed by a bullet meant for Koa. That moment when Jerry had died in his arms set the pointer for Koa’s life. He returned to Hawai‘i, joined the police, and channeled his guilt into fighting for justice.
His coffee had the acrid taste of sulfur dioxide, and he realized the chemical smell permeated his hair and clothes. Jolted by the caffeine, he made his way toward the jail. Waiting for one of the wardens to bring his brother to an interrogation room, he wondered which Ikaika would show up—the troubled boy he’d known as a child or the foulmouthed con he’d become.
It bothered Koa that he couldn’t connect with his brother. In reality, they both had a criminal past. After Koa’s father had been killed in a supposed sugar mill “accident,” Koa, then eighteen, had talked to his father’s mill coworkers. They shared their suspicions that Anthony Hazzard, the mill manager, had arranged the fatal accident because of Koa’s father’s union activities. Blaming Hazzard for his father’s death, Koa had tracked the man to his remote mountain cabin.
He’d watched Hazzard, biding his time. By late in the evening, after Hazzard had downed nearly half a bottle of bourbon, Koa had jumped the heavyset mill manager in a chokehold. Wanting to punish, but not kill the man, Koa had released his death grip. Hazzard had rebounded and they’d fought. Sensing he was outmatched by the older, stronger man, Koa had grabbed an iron fire poker to defend himself. Hazzard had charged, his huge fists swinging. Koa struck and Hazzard had gone down.