While the chopper carried Joe off to join the search flotilla, Austin and Lee exited the airport terminal to look for the taxi stand. A young man in his twenties who must have weighed three hundred fifty pounds was leaning against a faded maroon Pontiac station wagon paneled with fake wood, KOLONIA TAXI CO. painted on the door. Austin approached the man and asked him if he knew a tour guide named Jeremiah Whittles.

“Old Jerry? For sure. He’s retired. If you need a guide, I can hook you up with my cousin.”

“Thanks, but I’d like to talk to Jerry,” Austin said. “Can you take me to him?”

“No problem,” the man said with a bright smile. “He lives in Kolonia town. Hop in.”

Austin held the door open for Song Lee, then got in the car beside her. The driver, who said his name was Elwood, shoehorned his body into the driver’s seat, the wagon’s springs groaning and its chassis listing to that side. As Elwood pulled away from the curb, a black Chevrolet Silverado pickup that had been parked several car lengths behind the station wagon followed it across the causeway and into Kolonia, a town of about six thousand whose ramshackle Main Street had a frontier air about it. Elwood turned off Main into a residential neighborhood and stopped in front of a neat yellow house trimmed in white.

The Silverado passed the Pontiac wagon and pulled up a short distance ahead where the driver could watch in his rearview mirror as Austin and Lee went up to the front door. Austin rang the bell and heard someone inside say hello. A moment later, a slightly built man who looked to be in his eighties answered the door.

Jeremiah Whittles first smiled at Lee. Then his eyes turned to Austin and widened in surprise.

“Is that Kurt Austin of NUMA? My God, I don’t believe it! How long has it been?”

“Too long, Whit. How are you?”

“Older, but not necessarily wiser. What brings you to my beautiful island, Kurt?”

“Some routine NUMA stuff for the Navy. I’m showing Dr. Lee here around. She’s interested in Nan Madol, and I couldn’t think of anyone more knowledgeable on the subject than Pohnpei’s best-known guide.”

“Make that best-known former guide,” Whittles said. “C’mon in.”

With his pink-skinned pate, thin aquiline nose, kindly yet inquisitive blue eyes behind wire-rimmed bifocals, and slightly stooped shoulders, Whittles resembled a friendly buzzard.

“I heard you had retired,” Austin said.