The Big Kahuna Read online

  “Tell me about the vultures,” Kate said.

  “Take your pick. Investment bankers. Thousand-dollar-an-hour lawyers. Some firecrotch hottie Czech venture capitalist who invested a ton of money in Sentience last year. Olga something or other. She’s the worst of the bunch.”

  Larry tapped his watch. “We’re a little behind schedule. I need to upload the photos from the morning session to Instagram,” he said over his shoulder as he scurried into the house.

  Vicky rolled her eyes and followed Larry. “Look, I really need to wrap this up. Just call me when you have a dead Kahuna so I can collect my inheritance and afford a lawyer who doesn’t end every other sentence with per se.”

  Nick, Kate, and Cosmo watched the sliders close and walked around the house back to the car.

  “Why didn’t you tell her you were Nick Nacky, the world-famous social media influencer influencer?” Kate asked Nick. “I thought she was a prospective client?”

  “In the first place, she’s a nut at best. At worst, she murdered her husband. I do have some standards.”

  “And in the second place?”

  Nick flashed the crooked grin at Kate. “When’s the next time I’ll have a chance to look for a missing kahuna? It just got interesting.”

  * * *

  —

  It was midafternoon by the time Nick and Kate dropped Cosmo off at the FBI field office on Wilshire Boulevard. It was decided that he would tend to the day’s paperwork and do Internet research while Nick and Kate checked on the Kahuna’s plane.

  By the time they made their way to John Wayne Airport in Orange County, thirty-five miles south of Los Angeles, Cosmo had left Kate three voicemails and sent four texts. She listened to the first voicemail in the airport parking lot.

  “Hello, it’s Cosmo. I filled out my form J1707, Daily Field Report, and form J453, Expense Report, but they require you to countersign attesting to their accuracy. No rush, but when are you planning to get me your J1707 so I can countersign? Also, we really need to get them submitted as soon as possible. Okay, so I’m running background checks on Vicky and Hamilton right now. On 48 Hours, it’s always the spouse, right? Just kidding. I’m a trained FBI agent and don’t base my investigations on a TV show, no matter how good. But, let’s face it. It’s always the spouse. And, also, 48 Hours is really good.” He paused. “This is Cosmo. Call me back.”

  The rest of the messages were all Cosmo asking if she received the first message.

  “Do you think someone murdered the Big Kahuna?” Nick asked Kate as they walked into the private-flights terminal.

  Kate shrugged. “Murdered, kidnapped, accidentally crashed his plane, having an affair, vacationing off the grid in his favorite surf spot. Who knows? He was last seen taking off from this fixed-base operator in his private plane. Hopefully, we can narrow down the list of possibilities after talking with the FBO manager.”

  The private terminal consisted of a small, tasteful lobby and some interior offices. A couple of pilots milled around the coffee machine, waiting for their passengers. An unaccompanied trolley filled with Disneyland bags waited by the doors leading to the tarmac.

  Kate showed the woman behind the reception desk her identification. “I’m looking for the operations manager. We have a few questions about a departure from this terminal three days ago.”

  “I’m Angela Rook, the operations manager. Is this about the Big Kahuna? You’re the second person today to ask about that flight.”

  Kate glanced over at Nick. “Who else was asking?”

  The woman behind the desk opened a drawer and fished out a business card. “A couple of guys who looked like corporate types and a pretty redhead who looked like she was in charge.” She handed the card to Kate. “Olga Zellenkova.”

  Kate took the card. “What did they want?”

  “Well, it was a little odd. They were looking for the Big Kahuna. They told me he’d disappeared with a Cessna Citation, and the plane was titled in the business name. They wanted my help to declare the aircraft legally lost at sea.”

  “What did you tell them?” Nick asked.

  Angela shrugged. “Nothing other than what you could learn from FlightAware and other publicly available information. At two forty-five P.M., a Citation X aircraft with tail number N733BK took off from this FBO. There’s absolutely no evidence that the plane crashed, so there wasn’t really anything I could do to help them.”

  “So N733BK is registered to Sentience?” Kate asked.

  “Yes. But everyone at the airport knows the Big Kahuna is the owner. He’s kind of a charmer. Besides, a plane painted with a robot riding a surfboard stands out, even in L.A.”

  Kate nodded. “And he was the pilot?”

  “Yes. He always pilots his own plane. Usually he has a copilot, but this time he flew solo. No passengers or copilot.”

  “Are there any records of his flight path?” Kate asked.

  Angela scrolled through the computer screen. “Air traffic control lost track of him over the Pacific Ocean, ten minutes into the flight. That shouldn’t happen unless the GPS transponder was destroyed or disabled.”

  “I’m assuming there were no distress calls?”

  “None. It’s like he just disappeared.”

  Kate shook Angela’s hand. “Thanks for your time. We’ll be back in touch if there are any more questions.”

  Nick walked with Kate out of the terminal. “I might have disabled one or two transponders in my past, back when I was in the semi-legal business of smuggling antiquities. They’re pretty fail-proof unless it’s intentional, and there’s only one reason to tamper with them . . . to cover your tracks.”

  Kate rolled her eyes. “There’s no such thing as semi-legal. And I seriously doubt the Kahuna is leading a secret life as a smuggler. Not everyone steals for a living.”

  “What’s wrong with smuggling? Han Solo was a smuggler. Han Solo saved the Republic from Emperor Palpatine. Everybody loves Han Solo.”

  “Not me. Not Princess Leia.”

  Nick moved closer to Kate. “Are you sure? Princess Leia changed her mind about Han Solo after one kiss.”

  Kate bit her lower lip. Her number one rule of undercover work was don’t get romantically involved with charming con men who looked like Han Solo. “Not going to happen. But that must have been some kiss.”

  Nick nodded. “Game changing.”

  4

  Nick and Kate huddled over the round glass dining table in her father, Jake’s, small casita. The casita was actually a converted detached garage at Kate’s sister’s house in Calabasas. Jake had moved there to spend more time with his grandchildren, play more golf, and generally live the good life of a retired career military officer. Turned out you could take the man out of Army Special Forces, but you couldn’t take the Special Forces out of the man, and Jake had a hard time staying retired.

  Jake pulled up a chair, and they all studied a map of the world, spread out on the table. Jake had drawn a circle in black pen with Los Angeles at the center and a diameter of seven thousand miles.

  “The range of a Citation X is thirty-five hundred miles,” Jake said. “So this is the potential search area.”

  The circle covered most of North America and half of the Pacific Ocean.

  “That narrows it down to pretty much everywhere,” Kate said. “Including the bottom of the ocean. We can’t ignore the possibility of a plane crash.”

  Nick shook his head. “Vicky told us that the Kahuna was acting strangely before he disappeared. We think he disabled his transponder shortly after takeoff. I’d bet good money he’s not dead. He’s off the grid, hiding from someone or something.”

  “This sounds awesome,” Jake said. “I’m in.”

  “No,” Kate said. “You’re definitely out. Megan will kill me if I get you involved in this.”

  Jake rubbed the close-
cropped hair on the back of his head. “Yeah, that doesn’t really work for me. So I’m in.”

  “I like it,” Nick said. “Your code name can be Gunny. We could use a crusty drill sergeant type with a heart of gold to round out the team.”

  “Gunny is a nickname for a gunnery sergeant. I was a lieutenant colonel when I retired.”

  “A lieutenant colonel. Even better,” Nick said. “Just like George Peppard’s character in The A-Team. If I bought you a white safari jacket and some black leather gloves, do you think you could chew on a cigar and periodically say ‘I love it when a plan comes together’?”

  “Not happening. Except for the cigar part.”

  “Good enough,” Nick said.

  Kate blew out a sigh. “Fine. You’re in, Dad. Please try not to shoot anybody or blow anything up.”

  “Sure,” Jake said. “Not a problem. What’s first on the agenda?”

  “We pay a visit to the Big Kahuna’s business partner, Olga Zellenkova,” Nick said. “I googled her. She owns a venture capital company that invests in Silicon Valley start-ups. Also owns the entire second story of an office building in Sherman Oaks, not too far from here. She’s Czech and splits her time between L.A. and Prague. Her LinkedIn profile credits her as being on the board of directors for Sentience as well as a couple of San Francisco Bay area biotechs.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Kate pulled into the parking lot of a nondescript three-story redbrick office building and walked through the front doors with Nick and Jake. They rode the elevator to the second floor and stepped into the deserted lobby. “Zellenkova Private Equity” was written in large block letters on the wall behind an empty reception desk.

  Kate peeked around the corner. All the offices and cubicles were dark and unoccupied. “Hello. Anybody here?” The only answer was a faint mechanical whirring coming from the back of the space.

  Jake looked around the office as they walked toward the whirring noise. “Am I the only one with the heebie-jeebies? This place feels like a ghost town.”

  Kate, Nick, and Jake peered into a small conference room. Two men in suits were shredding stacks of papers through an oversized document shredder, while a curvy late-thirty-something woman with wavy red hair reaching halfway down her back, wearing a tailored pencil skirt and white blouse, stood and watched.

  Kate knocked on the door. “Olga Zellenkova? I’m Special Agent Kate O’Hare. I was hoping to ask you some questions about the disappearance of Richard Wylde.”

  The redhead looked up. If she was surprised to see Nick, Jake, and Kate it didn’t register on her face. She walked slowly out of the conference room, closed the door behind her, and shook Kate’s hand.

  “You’ll have to excuse us. We’re doing a little spring cleaning.”

  Kate looked through the glass door at the stacks of documents covering the conference table and the garbage bags of shredded paper that filled the room. “Looks like more than just a little.”

  Olga smiled at Kate. “I invest in private equity. Knowing how to keep a secret is a prerequisite.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” Kate said. “I’m an FBI agent. I don’t have a lot of use for secrets.”

  Olga looked Nick directly in the eyes and smoothed her hair. “How about you? You don’t look like an FBI agent. You look like trouble.”

  “I’m more of an independent contractor,” Nick said. “Let’s just say that I have a healthy appreciation for a good secret.”

  Olga winked at Nick. “I’ll bet.” She turned to Jake and looked him up and down. “Who’s Mr. Buzzcut with the hard body and Special Forces tattoo? Don’t tell me. He must be an independent contractor too.”

  Jake crossed his arms but didn’t say anything.

  Olga turned back to Kate. “I’m guessing he’s the strong, silent type who lets his actions speak for him.” She removed a lipstick from her pocket and applied it to her lips. The smile was gone. “I have a couple independent contractors like that on my payroll too.” She paused. “Anyway, how can I help?”

  “We were at John Wayne Airport this morning and were told you were conducting your own investigation into Mr. Wylde’s disappearance.”

  “Not exactly. He crashed the company plane into the Pacific Ocean. I own ten percent of Sentience, so I own ten percent of that plane and ten percent of the Big Kahuna’s big ideas. It’s tragic what happened to him, but I need to protect my investments.”

  “Let me guess. You want me to declare him legally dead.”

  “That would be helpful.”

  “It’s still an open investigation,” Kate said. “I don’t think he’s dead. I think he’s scared of someone or something. I think he’s in hiding.”

  “I have a very expensive Washington lawyer who has a letter signed by the deputy attorney general that says otherwise. Trust me. By tomorrow morning, your boss will have talked with his boss, and the investigation will be closed. The Kahuna is already dead, at least on paper. You just don’t know it yet.”

  “I don’t care who sends a letter to my boss. It’s not closed until I say so.”

  Olga shook her head. “You don’t know when to quit. Be smart.” She walked Nick, Kate, and Jake back to the elevator. “Just sign the paperwork and move on,” she said as the elevator door closed behind them.

  “What do you make of that?” Kate asked once they were in the parking lot.

  Jake hopped into the backseat of the car. “Pretty sketchy. She’s a relatively young investment banker with access to hundreds of millions of dollars, shredding documents in a sham office.”

  “She’s no investment banker,” Nick said. “I know another con man when I see one, and my gut tells me that she’s good at her job. She made us immediately. I don’t think she knows where the Kahuna is, but she’s definitely involved in his disappearance.”

  Kate started the car. “Well, she got one thing right. I don’t know when to quit.”

  * * *

  —

  Kate woke up early the next morning in her Spartan one-bedroom apartment, tied her shoulder-length brown hair into a ponytail, and went for a run. By the time she got back, Nick was waiting in the kitchen, fiddling with her cellphone and eating her last yogurt.

  She snatched the half-eaten yogurt and cellphone out of his hands. “Jinkies. How the heck did you get in here again without tripping the security alarm? And didn’t we have a major discussion about boundaries just last month?”

  Nick put the spoon in his mouth and ate whatever yogurt was left before Kate snatched that away as well. “What about your bathroom? Is that off-limits too?”

  “It includes my entire apartment and everything in it. Especially the bathroom. What did you do?”

  Nick pointed to himself. “Me? Nothing.”

  The bathroom door crashed open and Cosmo walked gingerly into the room, massaging his stomach. “Don’t go in there. It’s totally polluted. Did I mention I have an irritable bowel? What’s for breakfast? I can’t eat anything with gluten or I get diarrhea.”

  Nick reached into a box of Cap’n Crunch cereal and pulled out a handful. “By the by, Kate, you got a text from Jessup. He wants to see you in his office first thing this morning. That’s why I invited Cosmo to breakfast. He has some pretty interesting news about Zellenkova Private Equity.”

  Kate smacked Nick’s hand, sending Cap’n Crunch scattering across the room. “You can eat my yogurt and you can use my bathroom, but stay away from my Captain Crunch.” She turned to Cosmo. “What have you got?”

  “So, I stayed up all night researching Zellenkova Private Equity. It invests exclusively in Silicon Valley businesses. Mostly tech, but also biotech.”

  “I’m guessing there’s more.”

  “Okay. Here’s the good part. According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Zellenkova owns ten percent or more of three different unicorns. Sentience, the Big
Kahuna’s company. Kranos, a biotech developing cancer drugs. And Waterloo, an Internet security start-up.”

  Cosmo smiled at Kate, then at Nick, then back at Kate. “Hello. Don’t you read the financial news?”

  “Not unless I have to,” Kate said.

  Cosmo shook his hands back and forth. “Okay, okay. Kranos was founded by a woman named Irenka Radcliffe. She died in a car crash three weeks ago. Waterloo was owned by Peter Travis. He committed suicide two months ago by overdosing on his insulin medicine.”

  Kate looked at Nick. “Two dead and one missing-presumed-dead billionaires in the past two months can’t be a coincidence.”

  “There are around five hundred billionaires in the United States,” Nick said, “but the ones connected to Olga Zellenkova seem particularly accident prone.”

  Cosmo gathered up some stray pieces of Cap’n Crunch from the table and popped them into his mouth. “I checked with Homeland Security. Olga has an iron-clad alibi. She was out of the county in Prague when Irenka and Peter died. There’s absolutely no evidence of foul play.”

  “It also doesn’t make financial sense,” Kate said. “Without the Big Kahuna leading Sentience, the business would be worth a fraction of what it is today. Zellenkova Private Equity stands to lose money if the Kahuna is dead. Why kill the goose who lays the golden egg?”

  “We won’t get any answers from Irenka Radcliffe or Peter Travis,” Nick said. “We’ll have to find the Big Kahuna, preferably before Olga or Vicky. They’ve both made it clear they’d prefer a dead Kahuna to a living one.”

  “This is more complicated than Jessup envisioned,” Kate said. “He thought he was going to bury us for a while on a missing-persons case that was probably bogus. As it turns out, we seem to have stumbled into a crime that’s appropriate to our commission.”