Unexpected Hero

  “And Magellan's descendants? What do I do about them?” Trent asked.

  “This is the biggest find of our lives. I will not have someone laying claim to it. No one, and I mean no one, will take this away from me. Take care of them. Can you handle that?”

  Trent hesitated.

  “If you can’t stomach doing what needs to be done, now’s the time to bow out and go back home to your mother with your tail between your legs.”

  “I can do it just fine,” Trent said through gritted teeth.

  “Good. And I want nothing, and I mean nothing, that can lead back to us on this.”

  And that was when Benji sneezed.

  9.

  Hold on!

  “What was that?” Micah snapped. He yanked aside the book rack and found Benji, crouched down and wishing invisibility cloaks were real. They made eye contact and recognition flashed across the older man’s face.

  "You."

  The man glared at Benji and spoke through a snarl. "Like father, like son."

  Benji jumped up and backed away slowly, as if facing a growling dog. Trent stared in disbelief.

  “Don’t just stand there, you fools!” Micah barked. “Get him!”

  Benji froze like a deer in headlights.

  The flash of a knife blade in a bodyguard’s hand jerked him back to his senses like a slap in the face. He ran for his life, knocking over displays on his way out of the small shop. Trent and the bodyguards stumbled over the books, buying Benji a head start.

  “Excuse me! Excuse me! Watch out!”

  He wove through the crowd of ugly Hawaiian shirts and the pale-skinned tourists with his pursuers not far behind. He sprinted toward to exit, fighting the rising panic.

  He’d read enough crime books to know what happened to people who heard too much.

  “Get out of my way!” He heard Trent shout behind him.

  With a quick backwards glance, Benji saw him shoving his way through a protesting group of tourists, their heavily accented complaints falling on deaf ears. He kept running for the front doors and the jeep beyond.

  Benji slammed into the glass, pushed the door open, and burst out into the hot Fijian day. He saw the jeep with its top off and jumped in the back.

  “Go, go, go!” He yelled to a surprised Josefa and Laura.

  “What-” Josefa began.

  “Drive!”

  At that moment, Trent and the others burst through the doors and looked around for their quarry. It took them only a moment to see him in the back seat of the jeep.

  Josefa saw the armpit gun holsters inside the open suit jackets of the bodyguards. He didn’t need to be told again. He stomped on the clutch, slammed the gearshift into first and sped off, leaving the smell of burning rubber behind them.

  Benji held on tight to the jeep’s roll bar with one hand and kept his hat on his head with the other. His sigh of relief was cut short. One of the bodyguards had dragged the driver from a taxi and all three of the pursuers jumped in.

  The jeep flew through the parking lot, making for the security checkpoint by the road. An officer stood on either side of the exit, and a third was on the radio inside a windowed booth. Josefa slowed to shout to the men in uniform.

  “No! Don’t stop!” Benji pleaded to the Fijian. “Drive, trust me!” They made eye contact through the rearview mirror. His smile was gone.

  Benji looked back at the checkpoint. The officer put down the radio and shouted to the other two, who quickly lowered a brightly painted bar across the exit.

  With only a moment’s deliberation, Josefa pushed the gas to the floor. The police officers dove out of the way, narrowly escaping the jeep as it roared past, smashing the wooden barrier to splinters. Three seconds later, the taxi carrying Trent and the bodyguards raced past the police in hot pursuit.

  Josefa turned a hard left onto the busy Queen’s Road and pushed the gas pedal to the floor. Moments later, the taxi swerved around the corner, tires squealing, and cut off a very irritated tour bus driver. The jeep had about a football field’s length of a lead, but that space was quickly closing as Trent and the bodyguards wove in and out of traffic in the smaller, faster, taxi.

  Josefa took to the opposite lane to pass a tractor trudging along, towing an oversized load of sugarcane. He drove as fast as the little SUV could go, straight at oncoming traffic.

  With just feet to spare, he swerved back onto his side of the road and narrowly missed a head-on collision with a public bus. Benji released his breath in a whoosh, having held it the whole time they had been in the other lane. He looked back and saw the taxi had halved the distance between them to fifty yards.

  Josefa passed a truck and had nothing but open road before him. The engine roared as he kept the pedal to the floor, desperately trying to speed away. Benji gasped when he saw the taxi pull into the opposite side of the road. Cars swerved out of their way, horns blaring. The taxi made it past the last truck unscathed and raced closer to the jeep every second.

  Then they were side by side, flying down the Queen’s Road at more than a hundred miles an hour.

  “Faster!” Benji screamed. He looked back to the taxi and saw the barrel of a gun pointed at his face. “Josefa!”

  The Fijian slammed on the breaks and the taxi shot past. Josefa took a sharp right onto a dirt road and accelerated towards the tall, green mountains of the island’s interior.

  “Is everyone okay?” Josefa asked.

  “We’re fine!” Laura said, looking back and seeing the taxi pull onto the road. “Just go!”

  Josefa glanced into his rearview mirror. The car grew larger by the second.

  The jeep hit a bump in the road and launched into the air. It landed hard, but Josefa managed to keep it under control and stay straight. The taxi hit the bump seconds later and landed with a crunch. Sparks flew as it bottomed out onto the rock-strewn road. It swerved from side to side, narrowly missed the trees lining the road.

  Benji heard the POP POP POP of a pistol and the jeep’s front windshield exploded into a thousand pieces. Trent and his goons were right behind them!

  “They’re shooting at us!” Laura shouted. “Benji, stay down!”

  They kept their heads low and Josefa swerved from side to side. The next shots went wide, cutting harmlessly through the trees.

  “Hold on!” Josefa shouted. Benji gripped the seat in front of him just as Josefa slammed on the brakes. Too close to slow down, the taxi swerved and ended up in the grass, buying the jeep precious time.

  They sped around a left curve in the road, tires skidding and wheels spinning on the loose dirt and stone.

  The taxi was gaining on them. Another straightaway and then the road curved slightly to the right, hugging a hill, and Josefa slowed down. A lot.

  “What are you doing?” Benji screamed, certain the would-be killers would catch up to them.

  Just then, the right curve became a hairpin turn and the jeep went up on two wheels, threatening to tip over and send its passengers rolling down the hill into the river below. After a few harrowing seconds in which Benji felt sure he was about to die, the wheels touched back down and Josefa sped up again.

  Benji looked back. The taxi took the turn way too fast. It flew straight off the road and into the open air, where it seemed to hang for a moment, as if it would grow wings and fly away. Instead, gravity caught the car in its lethal grip and pulled it toward the earth.

  He watched the taxi fall, fall, fall until it finally slammed into the water with a monstrous splash. As the taxi sank, he saw Trent and the bodyguards crawl out of the windows and glare up at the jeep.

  Josefa and the little Stone family drove off, leaving a cloud of dust in their wake.

  10.

  Lies and secrets

  After five minutes of speeding through open hillsides, making one turn after another, Josefa entered the forest and rolled to a stop. He took a deep breath, turned around, and looked straight into Benji’s eyes.

&nbs
p; “Why were they shooting at us?”

  Benji looked back and forth between Josefa and his mom. “I—I think I heard something I wasn’t supposed to. At the airport. Trent and his dad were talking about finding some cave in a mountain above a village. They think they’ll find a ruby there worth millions of dollars. They also said something confusing about the descendants of Magellan. Mr. Ironside told Trent he has to ‘take care of them.’ I think they’re going to kill people!”

  His mother stayed strangely quiet, staring at her lap.

  "He said one more thing that got me kinda confused. He said to me, 'like father, like son.' What the heck is that supposed to mean? Does Mr. Ironside think I'm here because of him or something? Mom?"

  Laura stayed silent. She looked up at them each in turn. "I'm sorry, both of you. I didn't mean for any of this to happen." She looked at Benji. "I knew the Ironsides were going to be here. I had really hoped we weren't going to see them, but I should have been honest with you from the start."

  "Mom, what are you talking about?"

  "Your dad always got his information about Ironside's plans from an informant inside Ironside Enterprises. I've never met this person, but they would pass him a message, sometimes in an email, sometimes an envelope in the mailbox, that would give some details about what Ironside was up to. This is where your dad started all his planning from for his trips after leaving Here First. I still get these messages every once in a while, but I usually disregard them.

  “About a month ago, I got an email from the informant. It outlined Ironside’s plan to steal a ruby and kill an undiscovered group of people. Your father would never stand by and let this happen. I couldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t at least try to do something. My plan was to stop Ironside by myself while you were busy hiking or something. And now all of us were nearly killed."

  Benji sat there, not looking at his mom. "So you've been planning this for weeks?" She nodded and he looked her in the eye. "You lied to me."

  "I'm sorry, Benji. I thought I was keeping you safe. If you had mentioned something to anyone at school and Trent had heard you, he would have told his father. I don't know what he would have done.

  “I thought I could take care of it quietly,” she continued, “but Ironside knows we’re here. I think the best thing now is just to go to the police. Maybe they can protect Magellan’s descendants from that evil man.”

  Josefa shook his head, still looking at Benji. “But I don’t know if we can. Benji, why could I not talk to the police at the airport?”

  Benji took his eyes from his mom and looked at the stern Fijian. “Mr. Ironside told Trent the police and military wouldn’t get in the way—that it had been taken care of. Mom, do you remember those envelopes he gave those guys next to the plane? He was bribing them!”

  Josefa nodded, unsurprised. Laura, on the other hand, stared at the Fijian.

  “This happens here? People bribe the police? And the military? For some reason I didn’t think Fiji was that kind of place.”

  “Yes. Police here are corrupt. They take money often. If I am stopped for speeding, I give the man twenty dollars and he lets me go. The military, too. They are not honest.”

  “Then what do we do? Who do we go to? They’ll kill us, Josefa. You don’t know these people!” Laura’s voice had gained an edge of desperation.

  Benji alternated between watching his mom and looking back the way they had come, waiting for the men to catch up with them. He was sick to his stomach, and it wasn’t just from fear of Trent and the bodyguards—Benji had been counting on his mother to know what they would do next.

  Josefa seemed to think for a moment before speaking again. “We go to my village. It is very far from here, in the mountains. Those men will never find us. We will speak to my chief. He will tell us what to do. Do not worry—you and Benji will be safe there.”

  Laura nodded, seeming to cling to hope with every word.

  “Will we really be safe there?” Benji was skeptical. “Do you have guns?”

  “People cannot own guns in Fiji. But you will be safe. My village, Malakati, is very difficult to find and these men do not know what village to look for. They would have to search every village to find you. That would take weeks. You will be safe.”

  Both mother and son breathed easier at the husky Fijian’s confidence. After a brief silence it was clear there was nothing more to be said, so Josefa drove on towards Malakati.

  The scenery was lost on Benji. He kept watch behind them, always expecting a new attack to come. Twice he swallowed a warning shout; once when swirling shadows took the form of a racing taxi, and again when an old truck backfired, ringing out like a gunshot. In truth, the only thing that followed them was the small cloud of dust kicked up by the jeep. Nothing more.

  Over the next two hours they passed two small villages before turning off the road and into a dirt parking lot. The jeep rolled to a stop next to an old green pickup truck. Benji stood up in the backseat to look around, soaking it all in.

  Malakati village was in a deep valley, surrounded on all sides by mountains. Behind them was a sports field with white uprights, much like the yellow ones on an American football field. But instead of one post, the two side posts went all the way to the ground. It also sat in the front of the end zone instead of the back. The field was about the same size.

  Josefa must have seen Benji’s confused look because he said, “That is a rugby pitch. Do you know rugby?”

  “Kinda,” Benji answered, distracted.

  In front of the cars sprawled the dwellings of the village itself. Some of the homes were constructed of bamboo and grass, with bundles of thatch for roofs. Other buildings were made of cement with tin roofs.

  A concrete path wound through the village like a snake and gave the inhabitants a path to walk on during the rainy season. Behind each family’s home was another, smaller building, many of which had smoke coming from chimneys. Kitchens.

  The trickling of a river reached Benji’s ears from the other side of the village.

  “So awesome,” Benji said under his breath.

  A small group of men, women, and children came to meet them. The three climbed out of the jeep, careful not to cut themselves on the bits of windshield scattered across the seats and floor.

  “Bula, Stone family.” A gray-haired man with a sun-wrinkled face reached out his hand to Laura, who took it.

  “Welcome to Malakati village. My name is Peter and I am Josefa’s father. This is my wife, Emmalise." He motioned to the woman beside him and she reached for Benji’s hand, her brown eyes sparkling in the bright Fijian sun.

  “Bula! You must be Benji. Welcome! It made me very happy when Josefa told us you two were coming to stay with us in our village.”

  Josefa’s father, Peter, motioned to a young man standing nearby. “Benji, this is my younger son, Seikz. He has asked if you would stay with him. Your mother can stay with us. Is this okay?”

  Laura and Benji looked at each other.

  “That will be fine,” Laura said.

  “Sounds good to me.”

  Peter’s smile stretched from ear to ear. “Good. First, we get your things and show you our village. Then, we drink kava.”

  Josefa hefted the two bags from the back of the jeep and escorted Laura and Benji to their temporary homes. The first stop was Seikz’s hut. Benji gave his mom a small wave before turning to follow his host. Laura stayed with the others to see her home away from home.

  “Welcome to my bure,” Seikz said.

  He looked to have inherited the same genes as his older brother: he was a bit short—about three inches shorter than Benji—and stocky, with dark skin and dark eyes. He didn’t have to crouch as much as Benji to go through the entrance of the bamboo and grass hut, even after Benji took off his hat.

  “It is not very big or modern, but I hope you like it.”

  “I love it!” He saw the two mattresses on the woven grass floor, opposite a wall decorated wit
h rugby posters, family photographs, and a mirror. Some shelving was built into another wall and this is where Seikz’s clothes and random belongings lay. There was no television, no phone, no Bluetooth speaker system. No lights.

  I am staying in a real, traditional thatch hut in a real village the middle of the Fijian mountains!

  “This is awesome!”

  Seikz’s eyes grew wide and his bright grin lit up the shadowy interior of the hut. “You can put your bag where you’d like. This bed is yours. There are a couple toilets in the village—I’ll show you as we walk to the chief’s home.”

  “To the chief’s home?” Benji dragged his duffel bag next to his bed and opened it. After digging around for a moment, he pulled out his pocket knife and stuffed it into his pocket.

  “Yes, it is very important. In Fiji, when you visit a village you must have a sevusevu, where you drink kava with the chief. It is a way of being welcomed. Are you ready?”

  Benji nodded, but after the long, bouncy drive, all the excitement of the afternoon, and his nervousness about joining a ceremony with the village chief, he had one more question.

  “So where’s that toilet?”

  And, for the sake of looking like he knew what he was talking about, there was one question he didn’t ask: What the heck was kava?

  11.

  Kava

  Benji had his answer and a fuzzy brain an hour later.

  Seikz and Benji joined Laura and their hosts in the chief’s tin-roof home. It was a small building divided in half by a sheet, with rugs strewn about to cover the cement floor and provide a bit of cushion for the rear ends of everyone as they sat in a circle around a large plastic bowl.

  It was obvious who the chief was, as the large man sat straighter than the rest and made small, occasional directions to the others in Fijian.