SAMOAN THUNDER

Hawaiian Nativists launch a campaign of terror throughout the islands in what appears to be a white slavery ring. With female tourists disappearing and the bodies of U.S. servicemen lining up, Mack Bolan goes in to stop the violence. But Bolan soon learns the attacks are only part of a bigger threat—and a countdown to the final strike has already begun.

Handicapped by witnesses too afraid to talk, Bolan teams up with a Hawaiian to infiltrate the splinter group…or be killed in the attempt. To win their trust, Bolan will need every tactic in his arsenal. But surviving their trial by fire won’t be easy. The terrorists are trained warriors and they’ve already marked Bolan for death. Judgment day is coming and the Executioner is prepared to fight until the bitter end.

The glass walls and ceilings had begun to shake and the sound of rotors thundered overhead.

Bolan drew his Beretta and rose. His team followed suit. He scanned the skies, searching for the chopper. “We’re about to get hit.” Looking around the open, gold and glass penthouse, he knew it would be easier than shooting fish in an aquarium. “Kill the lights, and we need bigger guns.”

De Jong jerked his head at one of his gigantic guards. “Turn off the lights! Go into my bedroom and get the—”

Glass shattered overhead and shards fell like miniature guillotines. A Bell 204 helicopter took a tight orbit and a man in chicken straps hung halfway out the door behind an M-60 machine gun. Bolan ignored the piece of glass that cut his arm and began squeezing off three-round bursts from his Beretta. The three remaining bodyguards sprayed their weapons skyward. Sparks ricocheted off the fuselage and the helicopter banked away into the glow of the skyline.

Bolan spun around as a second chopper roared overhead. It was a much smaller OH-6. A man leaned out each door firing rifles on full auto. Bolan printed a three-round burst into the starboard assassin who fell out of the chopper and crashed through the glass roof of De Jong’s master bathroom. Something clattered to the glass-strewn hardwood floor. Bolan hurled himself over a couch and roared, “Grenade!”

Pacific Creed

Don Pendleton

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

—Friedrich Nietzsche

The true monster is the man who does nothing, allowing evil to flourish. I will never stop hunting down the monsters who prey on innocent citizens, and I won’t rest until I’ve brought them to justice.

—Mack Bolan

THE

LEGEND

Nothing less than a war could have fashioned the destiny of the man called Mack Bolan. Bolan earned the Executioner title in the jungle hell of Vietnam.

But this soldier also wore another name—Sergeant Mercy. He was so tagged because of the compassion he showed to wounded comrades-in-arms and Vietnamese civilians.

Mack Bolan’s second tour of duty ended prematurely when he was given emergency leave to return home and bury his family, victims of the Mob. Then he declared a one-man war against the Mafia.

He confronted the Families head-on from coast to coast, and soon a hope of victory began to appear. But Bolan had broken society’s every rule. That same society tarted gunning for this elusive warrior—to no avail.

So Bolan was offered amnesty to work within the system against terrorism. This time, as an employee of Uncle Sam, Bolan became Colonel John Phoenix. With a com-mand center at Stony Man Farm in Virginia, he and his new allies—Able Team and Phoenix Force—waged relentless war on a new adversary: the KGB.

But when his one true love, April Rose, died at the hands of the Soviet terror machine, Bolan severed all ties with Establishment authority.

Now, after a lengthy lone-wolf struggle and much soul-searching, the Executioner has agreed to enter an “arm’s-length” alliance with his government once more, reserving the right to pursue personal missions in his Everlasting War.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 1

Chinatown, Honolulu

The soldier staggered down the wrong street in Honolulu’s red-light district. He’d deliberately left behind the walled courtyards that had been converted into malls and the fading green clapboard storefronts of the merchants dealing in traditional herbs, teas and imported goods from China. Those establishments had all closed their doors hours ago. The soldier immersed himself in the narrow alleys that lead down toward the Nuuanu stream. These streets were crowded with pool halls, massage parlors and heavy-duty bars where people drank to get drunk and prostitutes and pushers plied their wares. He was far from the only military man indulging himself, but he was on a mission, and his mission had taken him to the bad part of town. The soldier was looking for a real party.

He found it.

It was unseasonably hot in Honolulu and it hadn’t rained in two days. Nonetheless when he stepped into the alley, his foot splashed in a puddle of mystery moisture. He pulled his foot out of the liquid and shook it. “Eew!”

A mountain of a man stepped out of the shadows. He was of Hawaiian or Samoan extraction. A ferret-faced individual whose aloha T-shirt was the most Hawaiian thing about him came into formation with the giant. “Hey, haole,” the man-mountain rumbled. “You lost?”

“I was lost.” The soldier smiled and spread his arms wide. “But now I’m found!”

The man-mountain guffawed against his will. “You know? They say the gods favor the dumb, and this haole? He’s so dumb I almost like him.”

Ferret-face glared daggers. “I don’t like him at all.”

“Bro, you don’t even know me.” The soldier belched. “That’s messed up.”

“You!” Ferret-face went livid. “You don’t ever call anyone on this island bro!”

The soldier registered two individuals stepping into the alley behind him to block his escape. “Bruddah?” he tried.

“You’re dead, white-boy.”

“That’s white-man to you, poi-boy,” the soldier corrected.

Ferret-face’s flinty eyes went cold. “This one we put in the ground. Bundle him.” In a pinwheel of sharpened steel, he snick-snick-snacked open a butterfly knife. “Get his dog tags.”

The soldier blinked. “Bundled?”

“Sorry, bruddah.” The man-mountain kicked off his sandals and came on with deceptive grace for his bulk. “This gonna hurt.”

The soldier shot out a one-knuckle jab for the big man’s throat. Man-mountain’s right hand intercepted the blow like a magic trick. Massive fingers enfolded the soldier’s fist like a catcher’s mitt and squeezed. White fire shot down the soldier’s forearm as giant fingers burrowed into the nerve points in the top of his hand like cold chisels. The soldier threw a haymaker with his right hand for all he was worth.

The giant flicked his other hand up as though he was catching flies. “Ah, bruddah, you— God!” The man-mountain groaned in shock as the slapjack—which the soldier had palmed during the exchange—broke three metacarpal bones. The giant’s grip weakened and the soldier ripped his throbbing hand free. The soldier stepped to his left, keeping the giant between him and Ferret-face’s knife. The giant’s broken left hand shot forward and he gasped in shock as the soldier flicked the sap into his injured hand again and broke a few phalanges. The man-mountain couldn’t help but retract his hand. The soldier lunged and snapped the sap like a towel just behind the giant’s ear.

Man-mountain collapsed like an avalanche.

Ferret-face moved in like a fencer. The soldier recognized an accomplished killer was coming to carve him up. However that was the knife-fighter’s Achilles’ heel. Most schools of blade fighting taught that your first target was the enemy’s knife hand. Ferret-face had seen what the soldier had done to the giant. The soldier feinted with his slapjack toward the butterfly knife. Ferret-face’s hand turned and ghosted away from the blow with the grace of a hula dancer.

The soldier stepped in and snapped the concealed steel toe of his dress shoe into the knife-fighter’s lead shin.

Ferret-face gasped as his tibia fractured. He tottered and pulled his injured leg back, waving his knife to ward the soldier off. The soldier took the opportunity to give the assassin a second snap kick under the kneecap of his good leg. Ferret-face fell like a house of cards.

The soldier spun.

One of the two men hung back, but the second charged toward him, shouting some kind of Hawaiian war cry and wielding a short, paddle-shaped wooden club. The soldier flung his sap into the man’s face. The war cry faltered as the man took the equivalent of a deep-sea fishing sinker between the eyes. His club sagged like a reed. The soldier’s fist followed the sap about six inches lower to the point of the jaw.

The soldier’s assailant dropped as if he’d been shot.

The soldier regarded the fourth man at the entrance to the alley and cracked his knuckles. The man broke and ran for the lights and people of the main drag. The soldier stood over Ferret-face. “Bundled?”

“Fuck you!” Ferret-face screamed. He was in the fetal position clutching his right shin and his left knee. “We will hunt you down, haole! We will bundle you and—” The rant ended abruptly as the soldier flicked a steel-capped shoe into Ferret-

face’s jaw and unhinged it. The man sagged unconscious.

The soldier reached under his shirt and took out a syringe that looked more suitable for horses than people. He took a knee beside the unconscious man-mountain and examined the broken bunch of bananas he called a left hand. It was swelling as though he was holding a purple golf ball. The soldier sank the needle between the broken second and third metacarpals and had to press hard to express the contents. The syringe didn’t contain drugs but a Radio Frequency Identification Device. The antenna, battery and transmitter were linked in a line like boxcars in a flexible glass sheath about as thick around as a grain of rice and twice as long. Any X-ray of the big man’s hand would clearly show a foreign object, but the soldier was betting the giant wouldn’t go to a hospital with his injury, and among the pain, swelling and broken bones he wouldn’t notice the invader. All the soldier needed was a couple of days of tracking.

Mack Bolan, aka the Executioner, took out his cell. He touched an app and typed in his security code. “Bear, this is Striker. I’ve had contact. Very high target probability. I have an RFID embedded. Target is unconscious. Activate tracking.”

Aaron “the Bear” Kurtzman was Stony Man Farm’s resident computer wizard and head of the cyber team.

“Acknowledged, Striker,” Kurtzman said from the clandestine base in Virginia. “Broadcasting activation signal now.” His voice warmed with success. “We have a positive RFID activation and eyes on the target. Transmitting feed.”

A window appeared in Bolan’s phone and he saw a glowing pinprick blinking beneath an overlaid satellite grid of Chinatown. “Affirmative. I have eyes on.”

“Battery is at full charge. Unless the target literally goes underground we should have a good ninety-six hours of telemetry, and I have Pentagon confirmation on continuous satellite windows for all four days. Tracking of target is go.”

“Good work, Bear. Be advised I have three hostiles down.” Bolan swiftly went through the three men’s pockets. None was carrying ID. Bolan took pictures of his three unconscious assailants. “I don’t think it’s likely, but monitor local hospitals and clinics for descriptions of target A with broken left hand and concussion; target B with fractured tibia, broken knee and dislocated jaw; and target C with broken nose and possible concussion respectively. Run facial recognition software with local law-enforcement databases.”

“On it.”

Bolan rose. It was time to vacate the scene. “Oh. And, Bear?”

“Yes, Striker?”

“Look up ‘bundling.’”

Kurtzman paused. “What? You mean like cable, internet and phone service?”

“No. As a cultural practice.”

Kurtzman considered this weird and wonderful question. Strange requests were part and parcel of working with Mack Bolan. The soldier was at war with the worst evil that humanity could produce, and his adversaries ran the gamut from street-level thugs to those intent on changing the balance of world power and everything in between. Processing information streams and solving problems for Mack was one of the best parts of Aaron Kurtzman’s job, and he was proud of it. Some of the most confounding joys were questions from Mack that came straight out of left field. Others, such as this one, arrived like visitors from Mars.

Kurtzman summoned up an answer from his own memory. “Last I heard ‘bundling’ was something Pennsylvania Dutch did when two adolescents were courting. They would be allowed to sleep in the same bed but were professionally straitjacketed in separate bedding, often with a bundling board between them. They could kiss, and if they worked at it hands could roam, but it curtailed any serious hanky-panky.”

“Well, that’s fascinating, Bear, but I’m looking at bundling from a Hawaiian cultural perspective. One of the perps used the word twice, directed at me, and I don’t think he wanted to suck face over sleeping bags on the lanai. I don’t know if it’s slang, but I’m thinking it’s something you don’t want to be on the wrong end of.”

“Right, bad Hawaiian bundling. On it.”

“Do I have Koa?”

Luke Koa was Stony Man Farm’s current and only resident Hawaiian blacksuit. He had been a Military Police officer in West Germany before the Wall had fallen, and at the frantic end of the Cold War, as the U.S.S.R. fell, he’d specialized in what could best be described as “extracurricular scouting activities” for Uncle Sam on both sides of the border. Being Hawaiian, he couldn’t blend in with the native population, so Luke Koa had highly developed sneaking, peeking and, if it was called for, taking down skills. In essence he’d been a Special Forces border patrolman, and he had an unparalleled nose for trouble and things that did not belong.

When the current Hawaiian mission had come up, Koa had been an obvious choice as an asset. Bolan had brought up the mission parameters and Koa had volunteered. Kurtzman had kicked it up the chain.

Kurtzman liked and respected Koa. Everyone at the Farm did, but the man was by training a soldier, a policeman and a scout, not an undercover operative, and all signs indicated he would be operating against his own people. A very violent and dangerous splinter group, but they were still his own. Nonetheless Koa was an ace card they could not afford to hold back. He’d volunteered for the job, and the powers that be had agreed. “We have permission.”

“Then tell Koa I’ve had a serious contact in Chinatown. Send him everything I’ve sent you to review. Tell him he’s active, and I need him.”

“He activated himself. When I told him you had gone undercover in Chinatown he took the initiative and got on a plane. He’ll hit Honolulu International tomorrow at

10:15 a.m. Pickup not required. He’ll arrive at the safehouse in a green Jeep.”

“Copy that. Will rendezvous at safehouse. Tell him I’m going by Matt Cooper. Striker out.” Bolan emerged like Orpheus out of Chinatown’s darkest alleys. He shook his head at the physical carnage he’d left behind him and the questions it had raised. “Bundling…” Bolan mused.

Chapter 2

Honolulu Safehouse

“Bundling sucks, Matt. You don’t want any part of it.” Luke Koa feigned a crouch. Bolan fell for it and jumped. The soldier hit his apogee as Koa grinned. Gravity pulled Bolan down and Koa made a jump shot. His three-pointer floated inches past Bolan’s fingertips and caught nothing but net. Hawaii was Koa’s turf, and the safehouse driveway and its basketball net were swiftly becoming his yard. “I thought you haoles were supposed to be the masters of the three-pointer.” Koa was smiling. “You’ve been eating mine all morning.”

There was no getting around the fact that Koa was taking Bolan to town. “Haven’t seen you dunk yet.”

“You keep your six-footer shit to yourself, and now it’s nine.” The Hawaiian soldier didn’t smile often. He was built like a middleweight who spent a lot of time under a bench press. Koa shot Bolan a grin. “But we can go to twenty-one if you want.”

The Hawaiian surged forward and pulled a Harlem-Globetrotter-worthy up-and-under. His layup was gorgeous to behold. He sighed at Bolan with immense false sympathy. “Eleven.”

Bolan retrieved the ball and passed it back. “What do you know about Lua?”

Koa shot for fun and sank a basket from the curb cut that served as the top of the key. “You mean Kapu Ku’ialua?”

Bolan caught the ball and passed it back. “Yeah.”

Koa dribbled to the corner of the driveway. “What do you know about it, Matt?”

“Lua means ‘bone breaking.’ It’s the traditional martial art of the Islands.”

“Well,” Koa acknowledged, “that’s the Wikipedia version.”

“So?”

“So it’s kapu.” Koa sank another basket.

The Hawaiian for Dummies definition of kapu was “taboo,” but if you looked deeper into the language and culture the word was an intricate blend of “sacred,” “consecrated,” “restricted” or perhaps even “marked off.” He shot the ball back. “There are three Lua schools within walking distance, Koa. I can sign up today.”

“Where are you from again?”

“East coast.”

“Okay, haole. You go down to your local strip mall. You pay your three hundred dollars, buy your American-flag harem pants and get your black belt in Rex Kwon Do in twelve easy lessons. Do you learn anything?”

“I take your point, but I think I met a Lua master last night and the only thing that saved me was the slapjack I’d palmed. I broke his hands while he was in midmonologue.”

Koa shook his head sadly and sank his shot. “We were warriors once. Nothing’s what it used to be.”

“Yeah, and now there’s a nativistic murder spree going on. Will you tell me about bundling?”

“Well, they say that back in the day, a Koa—a Hawaiian warrior of the royal class—studied Lua. A true master could defeat an opponent, dislocate every joint in his body, and then reset them again. Though sometimes the victim died from shock.”

“That’s bundling?”

“No. According to legend, there’s another side to Lua. A Koa might defeat an opponent in single combat, dislocate all his joints and then fold him up like a cricket.”

“Bundling him.”

“Yeah.”

“Then what?”

“Then he’d be roasted and eaten. At least, that’s the story.” Koa sank another basket. “Why do you ask?”

“Last night a man told his three buddies to bundle me.”

“That’s messed up. You sure they weren’t Amish or something?”

Bolan laughed. “They were not plain.”

“Sounds like we have a problem. What’s the plan? I infiltrate?”

“We both infiltrate. You’re my ticket in.”

Koa looked Bolan up and down. “Good luck, Your Caucasianess.”

“I’m getting some help with that.”

“Should be interesting.”

Bolan lifted his chin at a red Jeep coming down the street. “You’ll get to see it now.”

CIA groomer Pegarella Hu barely cracked five feet. She literally jumped out of the Jeep with what looked like a massive fishing tackle box tucked under her arm. In South Pacific intelligence circles she was famous for her smile, her designer cupcakes and her ability to facilitate field operation role camouflage. Her cereal-box-worthy grin faded slightly as she looked at Bolan from head to toe. “You’re the one I’m supposed to Island up?”

“Yup.”

“This should be interesting.”

Koa nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I said.”

* * *

“You ready for your big reveal?” Hu asked.

“Can’t wait, Peg,” Bolan replied. His skin and scalp were alternately burning and tingling. The soldier stood, turned and looked at himself in the mirror.

“Well, fuck me running with a pitchfork,” Koa said.

Wearing only a pair of boxers, Bolan stared at himself. He had to admit it was an impressive sight. Hu had taken her CIA grooming skills and gone to town. She had depilated Bolan from his upper lip to his insteps. Hu had thickened, coarsened and extended Bolan’s naturally black hair into a shag. She had thinned his eyebrows and created a few other minor miracles with the help of cosmetics, but it was Bolan’s skin that was most impressive.

The soldier had spent more time than was wise under desert, jungle and equatorial suns. He tanned, and when he did it turned him ruddy and coppery. Agent Hu had stained his skin with a Da Vinci–like grasp of color. She had artificially tanned him but now his skin had a subtle but unmistakable golden base. Bolan and Koa looked nothing alike—and Hu had made Bolan’s skin several shades darker—but she’d given Bolan the same complexion as Koa.

Hu had also chemically tightened Bolan’s pores to give him the porcelain skin look. There wasn’t much to be done about his nose, cheekbones or chin, but Bolan looked like a product of the cultural crossroads the Hawaiian Islands had become. The haole was there in his bone structure for everyone to see, but by dint of Agent Hu’s artistry, if Bolan claimed to have a Hawaiian father or said he was half Portuguese and half Samoan, no Islander would dispute him at first glance. The lines and cicatrices of his numerous battle scars would only cement the deal. “You’re amazing.”

Hu shot him a smile. “I know. Listen, a lot of the work won’t last much more than the week. With three-quarters of your pores closed you need to worry about overheating if you overexert.” She gazed at Bolan in open appreciation. “And your beard and chest hair will start reasserting themselves ASAP.”

“What about the hairdo and the skin?”

Hu laughed. “It’ll take a chemical peel or a month to undo what I did to your skin, and if you want your hair back to normal you’ll have to let it grow out or come and see me.”

“What if I don’t want to come back? What if I asked you to stick around for a while?”

Hu perked an eyebrow. “What exactly are you saying, sunshine?”

“I like your style. I’m forming a posse. You want to be deputized?”

“Love it,” Hu responded. “But I’m not a field agent.”

“I know, but I’m thinking I need a girl on the ground who can blend in, run interference and run errands Koa and I can’t.”

Hu wrinkled her nose delightfully. “I don’t know how I would clear that with my superiors.”

“My people will clear it with your bosses. Can you shoot?”

“I’ve got an AK hidden in the Jeep.” Hu spread her hands and feet wide in invitation. “And if you want to see where I keep my PPK? We’ll just need to have ourselves a game of Treasure Island.”

Koa nodded. “I like her.”

Bolan met his own cobalt-blue gaze in the mirror. “What about the eyes?”

“I have three pairs of extended-wear browns for you, but since we’re already working you as a pleasing example of hybrid vigor, I’d stay with your oh-so-arctic blues. It’s downright striking, and you only have one chance to make a first impression. I say we throw off the opposition with your disturbing power.”

Bolan nodded at his reflection. “Koa?”

Koa let out a long breath as he took in Bolan’s transformation. “What Peg said. Given what the girl has done? You’ll have the power to seriously freak out some locals.”

Koa took a notebook out of his back pocket that looked as if it had seen heavy use in the past forty-eight hours. “Here’re some notes I made for you. It’s too late to teach you any slang much less the language—you’ll just screw it up. The good news is when my parents moved to the mainland some of our family was already there. I had a half cousin I barely knew. He dropped out of high school, moved to the east coast with some girl and just disappeared. You’re him.”

“What’s my name?”

“Makaha,” Koa said.

Bolan admired the randomness of it. “So we’re cousins?”

“That’s right. That gives me all rights to introduce you around and defend your ignorant, mainland-corrupted ways.”

“Nice.”

“I thought so.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“You’re looking for murder, mayhem and a native uprising?” Koa asked.

“That’s the current theory.”

“Then we go to my old stomping grounds. The most violent place in the Islands.”

“Where’s that?”

Koa nodded knowingly. “Happy Valley.”

Happy Valley, Maui

“You want to turn back?” Koa lifted his chin at the sliding-glass doors of the Takamiya Market as he drove. “This is where we U-turn.”

Bolan had spent the island-hopper flight and the drive studying Koa’s rather extensive notes on Hawaiian crime, culture and Bolan’s alias. He lowered the minor tome and gazed out the window of the ancient Toyota Land Cruiser the CIA had provided. Outwardly, the 1970s vintage 4 x 4 looked as if it was held together by rust and primer. Underneath the chassis, the engine and the suspension were tip-top. Bolan ran his eyes over the seemingly sleepy island borough. Happy Valley didn’t look like a ghetto, much less a slum. The heartachingly blue skies, lush hillsides and palm trees did a lot to dispel that, but there was obviously trouble in paradise.

The ironically named Happy Valley was a hotbed of drug dealing, prostitution and gang-related crime. At the end of the day, criminals who wanted to make a mark on the island had to come here and pay respect to the locals or try to carve it out of them. The local vibe was very strong, and the code of silence was even stronger. “This is where you did your damage?” Bolan asked.

“Back in the day, Matt.” Koa nodded.

“Then keep your eyes on the road.”

“Hell with that,” Koa countered. He took a right off the main drive. “I want a beer.”

“It’s not even noon!” Hu said.

“You want to meet the local royalty?” Koa asked. “Now is the time.”

“Is this like having cannelloni on a Tuesday with the dons in Jersey?”

“Yeah, except these dons don’t need help to break every bone in your body. Oh, and do me a favor, Matt.”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t piss off the Samoans.”

Hu sighed. “That’s good advice.”

“Don’t piss off the Samoans,” Bolan repeated. “Got it.”

“Good, make that your mantra. I don’t want to die today.” Koa pulled up next to a wall that was blank save for a door and bracket where a sign had been torn off. Bolan noted three bullet strikes in the stucco. “Where are we?”

“Melika’s. It’s named after the woman who used to own it. I made a call, and her daughter owns it now.”

“What’s her name?”

“Melika.”

Bolan’s phone rang. It looked like an old, battered, first-generation ’droid, but it was actually state-of-the-art Farm technology. Bolan answered. “Bear.”

“You’ve stopped.”

“Yeah, Koa wants a beer.”

A picture appeared on Bolan’s phone. It was a satellite image of Happy Valley.

“You want to see something interesting?” Kurtzman inquired.

“Always.”

The satellite image zoomed in. Bolan made out the Land Cruiser. A superimposed green dot blinked on Melika’s. “Really.”

“The tracker you placed on your assailant in Chinatown is in that bar.”

“Well, that’s convenient. If I don’t contact you in half an hour, get worried.”

“I’m worried now.”

Bolan clicked off and nodded at Koa. “Let’s do it.”

Koa took point and they entered Melika’s.

After the brilliant sunshine the bar’s interior felt like a photographic darkroom. Hawaiian slack key guitar lilted over the sound system. A trio of withered old men sat at the bar drinking their social security checks. A giant Samoan man with an Afro held down bouncer and security duties. He gave Bolan and Koa a hard stare. He leered at Hu. The woman behind the bar was tall, Polynesian, and had a smile that lit up the dingy surroundings. Bolan sat at the counter. “You must be Melika.”

“That’s me. What can I get you before you get your asses killed?”

“Primos. The lady will have an appletini.”

Melika shrugged. “Coming right up.”

Bolan locked his eyes with the Hawaiian crime patriarchs holding court at the booth in the far corner. One was built like an aging Olympic shot-putter. The other man filled half the booth like a retired sumo wrestler. Shot-put wore a red-and-blue aloha shirt and his iron-gray hair was cut in a shag. Sumo was a monstrosity in a men’s XXXL pink-and-black bowling shirt and had his hair pulled back into a short ponytail. Bolan kept his face stony as alarm bells rang up and down his spine.

Also seated in the booth was Man-mountain with his hand in a cast and a dressing behind his left ear.

The Samoan moved around the bar and loomed over Bolan. He gave Koa a disgusted look. “You seem a little lost, kolohe.” The Samoan leaned in and mad-dogged Bolan. “And I don’t know who this lolo haole is, but I don’t give a shit.”

Bolan’s cram sessions told him that he’d just been called an idiot white man and Koa had been called a troublemaker. The stone face of the morbidly obese man in the booth cracked as he squinted at Koa in recognition. “Luke?”

Koa nodded. “Uncle Aikane.”

Melika clapped her hands. “Luke!”

The dangerous men in the booth suddenly smiled.

Bolan knew “uncle” or “aunt” was a term of respect in Hawaiian for any elder or better. “Aikane” was the Hawaiian word for friend, and it was a much stronger word than the English version. “Uncle Friendly” the crime lord had just recognized Koa. Bolan was starting to get the impression that Koa had earned himself a reputation way back when.

The Samoan bouncer’s eyes widened disbelievingly. “Koa?”

Koa stared at the Samoan without an ounce of warmth. “Remember you, Tino. From back in the day, and that’s my cousin you’re talking to.”

Tino’s eyes flared. “Hey, brah, I—”

Bolan spun up from his bar stool and hurled a right-hand lead with every ounce of strength he had. The Samoan’s nose was already flat as a squid and took up nearly half his face. Bolan felt the cartilage crunch beneath his knuckles and saw the tear ducts squirt. Tino pawed for the bar and failed to find purchase. He fell backward and landed hard on the ancient linoleum.

Bolan sat on his bar stool and regarded the Primo beer Melika had set in front of him with grave consideration. “Guess I need a new mantra…”

Uncle Aikane held up a huge hand in friendship and as a sign for the violence to end. “Who is your cousin, Luke?”

In Hawaiian, “cousin” could mean any number of relationships both inside and out of kinship. The other side of the coin was that the Islands were small, and a great deal of mixing had been going on. There was a joke that when local singles met they had to compare family trees to make sure they weren’t breaking any laws of man or nature.

Koa stared at Uncle Aikane with great seriousness. “Makaha is my half cousin, Uncle.”

Wheels turned behind Uncle Aikane’s eyes. The massive killer suddenly smiled happily. “Little Luana! Married that sailor boy! Years ago! Moved to the mainland!” He nodded at Bolan. “You Luana’s boy?”

Bolan nodded. “Yes, Uncle.”

The leaner, older man clapped his hands. “You are Makaha!”

“Yes, Uncle.”

“Makaha!” Uncle Aikane laughed. “Your uncle Nui only pretends he knows you!”

“I remember Makaha well!” Nui protested. “He was even whiter in his crib!”

“How is your mother, Makaha?” Aikane asked.

“Many years in the grave, Uncle.”

“Mmm.” Uncle Aikane, Nui and the Lua master all nodded gravely. “Your father?”

Bolan put a terrible look on his face. “I don’t remember him.”

U.S. soldiers and sailors marrying local girls, having children and then disappearing was not exactly an unknown story in the Hawaiian Islands. The elders received this information with equal gravity. Dignity required the subject not be pursued. Aikane returned his attention to Koa.

“You are back, Luke.”

“I heard my cousin was in a bad place. I went east and got him out of it. And then? We decided there was nothing on the mainland for us. We came home.”

The elders nodded. After World War II there had been a significant diaspora, and among the Hawaiian expatriates even onto the second and third generation there was a powerful desire to return. Uncle Aikane nodded very slowly. “Aloha, Koa. Aloha, Makaha.”

Koa nodded in return. “Aloha” was another Hawaiian word with a lot of meanings. It could mean hello, goodbye, welcome or even I love you. In this setting Bolan perceived at the very least it meant “Welcome, returned ones.” Bolan and Koa were in, and their covers were hanging by threads.

They both responded in unison. “Aloha.”

Chapter 3

The Annex, Stony Man Farm

“They’re in,” Kurtzman confirmed. Barbara Price, Stony Man Farm’s mission controller, gave the computer expert a look, and he sighed. He felt the same way she did. Bolan had been on some very deep-cover missions before, but the Hawaiian job was pushing the limits.

“You really think they can pull this off?” Price asked.

“You saw the picture of Mack after Agent Hu got through with him. Are you going to walk up to him in a bar in Waikiki and tell him he’s not Hawaiian enough?”

“No, but the locals have a very strong vibe.”

“I know. That’s why Koa came up with the story about a prodigal son lost to the mainland and returning to his heritage. It will explain lapses, and Bolan has Koa to smooth things over for him. Plus if it looks like he’s desperate to prove himself, the bad guys may accelerate him into the inner circle of evil.”

“Yes, and just who are the bad guys again?” That was the million-dollar question. The mission was troublingly vague. Price looked at the converging data streams. “We have young female tourists disappearing—that implies white slavery—and two intercepted gun shipments.”

“Girls for guns.” Kurtzman scowled. He found the sex-slavery trade particularly abhorrent. “It’s not as if it hasn’t been done before.”

“In the United States? In Hawaii?”

“If it’s true, it’s bad,” Kurtzman agreed.

“I’m still trying to figure out the spike in violence against tourists and military personnel.”

“Hawaii has had locals-only trouble before,” Kurtzman countered.

“Yeah, and this is swiftly reaching the levels of the bad old days in the ’70s.”

Kurtzman nodded. Hawaiians were now a minority in their own islands, and they also made up the poorest segment of the Aloha State’s extremely cosmopolitan society. Their native discontent had sporadically manifested itself in violence, mostly against tourists, despite the fact that tourists and the U.S. military presence were two of the major pillars of the Hawaiian economy. Now the violence was spiking precipitously, and no one was talking. In fact, locally, a lot of people seemed scared. “We’ve heard ‘drive out the colonizers and invaders’ before. The Hawaiian Sovereignty Movement and its rivals and affiliates mostly send papers and delegations to the U.S. Congress and the United Nations demanding reparations. We definitely have something new going on here.”

“I know.” There was nothing about this mission that Price liked. The chatter was that something very big was going on in Hawaii, and something related was happening in the Pacific. She tapped a very thin file on her tablet. “This is the most troubling. The hints of a massive strike against the invaders. We’ve never heard that before.” Price brought up a sore point. “And so far all we have is a hula master who likes to beat up G.I.s.”

“That’s a Lua master,” Kurtzman corrected. “And we have a tracking device in his hand. Mack is working his way up the food chain.”

“I prefer it when Mack swoops in by surprise, mops the floor with the bad guys and then buys me dinner in D.C.”

Kurtzman smiled. “Yeah, that works for me, too.”

“He’s operating on U.S. soil and he’s almost never been this thin on assets.”

“We have full war loads in strategic locations.”

“But unless he breaks cover right now all he has is his phone and his fists.”

“And Koa.”

Price nodded. She liked the Hawaiian and she’d been infinitely relieved that he had volunteered to be on Mack’s six. “So they’re acquiring equipment locally?”

“We went ’round and ’round on that. Fact is Mack may not get a chance. As you mentioned, this cover is about as deep as it gets and as thin as it’s ever been. Until Mack proves himself, he and Koa might be ambushed or hit with a drive-by.”

“Tell me they’re armed.”

“Armed and waiting,” Kurtzman confirmed. “And now the ball is in the bad guys’ court.”

Wailuku Town: “Pakuz”

“I told you not to piss off the Samoans,” Koa muttered.

Bolan sat in the tiny den and cleaned his CIA-provided pistol. The old GI .45 came from Hawaiian National Guard storage. The soldier suspected it had been WWII issue. It showed a great deal of holster wear but as a National Guard weapon not a lot of use. The bore was clean and with a little oiling the action was slick. “I didn’t piss off the Samoans. I punched Tino in the face. Then I bought him a beer. Now he loves me. He’s calling me cuz. What’s not to like?”

“That did go better than expected,” Koa admitted. The Hawaiian had a similar pistol and was scrupulously checking the quality of the magazines they’d been issued.

“So what’s the Lua guy’s name? I didn’t catch it.”

“Me, either, and he scares the shit out of me. I think you got real lucky the other night, and even luckier he didn’t recognize you.” Koa grunted in amusement. “Though I think he liked it when you broke Tino’s nose.”

“I think the entire Island of Oahu liked it when I broke Tino’s nose.”

“There is that.”

Agent Hu gave Bolan a knowing look. “Melika sure liked it.”

Bolan began wrapping beige rubber bands around the .45’s grip. If he was going to pose as a low-level Hawaiian hoodlum who was willing to turn terrorist, a carry rig was out of the question. His options were front-of-the-waist or small-of-the-back, and he needed some friction to hold the big steel piece in place. He nodded at Koa. “Everything went better than expected, cuz, admit it.”

Koa’s brow bunched as though he was getting a headache. “Don’t call me that.”

“It’s our cover. Get used to it.”

“I don’t want to get used to it.”

“You want the grease gun or the kidney-buster?”

Koa nodded at the old Ithaca 12-gauge riot gun. “I’ll take the shotgun. I qualified expert on those. Not that model, but how much different can it be?” Koa warily eyed the ancient piece of ordnance on the coffee table next to the 12 gauge. “Those? Man, back when I was in this man’s army, the only people who were issued those were tankers or truckers, because they never expected to use them.”

Bolan put down his pistol and took up the antique

M-3 submachine gun, which did bear a striking resemblance to a mechanic’s grease gun. It was also inaccurate, unwieldy and notoriously unreliable under field conditions. It wouldn’t have been in Bolan’s top five hundred choices for armament, but if you had to defend a Hawaiian bungalow on the wrong side of town, the men who kicked down the door were in for a very nasty surprise.

“Pakuz,” as the locals called it, was a suburb of Wailuku Town. It had a straight shot to Main Street but the foreclosed bungalow the CIA had acquired abutted the foothills. It was just slightly off the beaten track and left several escape routes open. Pakuz was right next to and half the size of Happy Valley and, like the aforementioned and ironically named area, was a hotbed of crime and violence. If Hawaii really was spawning terrorist cells then any economically depressed areas could be hothouses where the revolution’s foot soldiers would be nurtured and grown.

“What did you do with the revolvers?” Bolan asked.

Bolan had requested some backup weapons in case they got arrested or had to hand over their weapons. The CIA had come up with four 4-inch Smith & Wesson Military and Police .38s of dubious vintage.

Koa slid shells into the Ithaca. “Put one in a waterproof bag in the toilet tank. Buried two in the backyard next to the banana tree.” He nodded at Hu. “The fourth one I gave to her.”

“Pegarella Hu, CIA agent, groomer…” Hu grinned. “Gun moll.”

Someone banged on the door as if he was about to knock it off its hinges. “Koa!” Tino roared. “Makaha!”

Bolan rose and tucked his pistol into the back of his waistband. Koa took up his shotgun and stepped to one side to give himself a lane of fire down the tiny hallway. Bolan opened the door and found himself staring down the two men he had delivered beat-downs to in the past twenty-four hours. Both Tino and the man-mountain whose name Bolan didn’t know stood in front of him on the landing. A third man—a thin-as-a-whip Polynesian—stood scowling by the driver’s door of a red VW van. Tino grinned past the bandaged bridge of his nose. “Aloha!”

“Aloha, Tino,” Bolan said. “You wanna come in? We got beer and chicken.”

“No, brah.” Tino shook his head. “Bring your grind. You and Koa are coming with us. You got people you need to meet. People who want to meet you.”

The Lua master nodded. It had been dark on the streets of Chinatown, and Bolan had been blond, with a totally different voice, demeanor and complexion and wearing a uniform. If this was the big fat kill, the Hawaiian and the Samoan were hiding it with the skill of trained intelligence agents. “Hey, Koa!” Bolan called. “Tino says we gotta go!”

“I wanna come with!” Hu called out.

The thin man by the van spoke for the first time. “The bitch stays.”

Hu stopped short of hissing like a cat. Bolan muttered a low “Hey, Tino?”

“Yeah?”

“Who’s Prince Charming?”

Tino made an amused noise and answered softly. “Best you don’t ask a lot of questions, Makaha. Not yet, anyway.”

“Got it.”

Koa came to the door sans shotgun and holding a six-pack and a bucket of chicken. He called back over his shoulder to Hu, “Don’t know when we’ll be back!”

The temperature in the bungalow dropped precipitously. “Whatever…”

* * *

The van bucked and bumped through the darkened back roads. Bolan hadn’t known there was such a thing as angry Hawaiian rap music, but Tino blared it loud enough to wake the dead. They had driven out of Happy Valley and entered state forestland. Bolan knew they were no longer traveling on state-maintained roads. Leaves and branches scraped the sides of the van. The forest formed a thick, sheltering canopy above when it wasn’t so low it scratched the roof. This was a smugglers road, most likely barely maintained by the local marijuana growers. Tino appeared to know the route like the back of his hand.

He killed the lights and spent the next ten minutes driving through the pitch black seemingly led by sense of smell. The white-knuckle ride ended as the van broke into a clearing and Tino brought the VW van to a halt beneath the stars. “We’re here.”

The Lua master turned around in the shotgun seat and held out his good hand. “The guns, bruddahs.”

Bolan smiled in the moonlight coming through the windows. “You can tell?”

“I don’t see everything, Makaha—” the Lua master smiled back “—but you’d be surprised what I do notice.”

Bolan withdrew his .45. He gave it 50/50 they’d been compromised the minute the Lua master had seen him in Melika’s bar. The soldier rolled the dice and gave himself to fate as he handed over the pistol. “Man, I thought I was all slick and shit.”

“You’re not bad.” The Lua man shrugged his mighty shoulders. “But I’m better. The knife, too.”

Bolan shook his head ruefully and handed over his knife. Koa gave up his gun. “You’re not going to put sacks over our heads and walk us into the volcano, are you?”

The thin man spoke. He sat in the backseat by himself, and Bolan had felt his eyes and his gun pointing at his back the entire ride. “We wouldn’t drop you in the volcano. But would you jump in if you were told?”

Koa met the thin man’s stare. “You know? I had just about enough of being told when I was in the army.”

The Lua man spoke quietly. “Would you jump in if you were asked, Koa?”

Bolan matched the man’s tone. “I would, if the right man asked me. For the right reason.”

Tino and the Lua master both nodded at the sagacity of Bolan’s words.

“What he said,” Koa agreed.

The Lua man got out and slid open the VW’s cabin door. “Then come out.”

Bolan stepped into the Hawaiian night. He still had his phone and his bare hands, which was far more armament than most would suspect. But they wouldn’t save him from a bullet in the back.

The Lua master nodded. “Follow me.”

Bolan and Koa followed as Tino and the thin man took their six. They walked out of the clearing into the darkness. The Lua man was barely discernible but he moved unerringly down a clearly cut and maintained path. Soon Bolan both smelled and heard the Pacific. They came to a clearing about the size of a large recreational vehicle. Overhead military camouflage netting stretched to form a canopy thickly interwoven with the boughs of overhanging trees. A pair of red military emergency lights lit the forest encampment. Solar panels stacked to one side told Bolan the camp was powered by batteries. It would give off little or no recognizable heat signatures to imaging satellites and there wouldn’t be any light leakage visible to passing aircraft. Nor would the red lights ruin the night vision of anyone in camp if they suddenly went lights off.

It was a very professional setup.

Three sawhorse and plank tables were piled with very suspicious-looking, four-foot-long military crates. The Lua master, Tino and the thin man waited. Bolan and Koa stepped forward. Bolan unboxed a rifle. It appeared to be a 1980s or ’90s vintage M-16 A2. He held up the weapon as if he were admiring it. Bolan had fought with this type of rifle many times. If it hadn’t been parkerized black, the rifle would have glittered with newness. The M-203 grenade launcher mounted beneath the barrel was new, as well. There were no serial markings, which told the soldier it was most likely a Chinese or Philippine knock-off.

“Sweet,” Bolan proclaimed.

Koa racked the action on a rifle and peered through the sights. “Same model I learned on in basic.”

The Lua man nodded. “We need a lot more of them.”

Koa set the rifle on his shoulder. “I know a little something about smuggling. AKs would be a lot cheaper. Shit, they’re disappearing from Iraqi and Afghani inventory by the day, and for that matter the Russians and Chinese sell to anybody.”

Bolan knew the answer but kept his mouth shut. The weapons mimicked U.S. National Guard issue. A real insurgent force wanted the same weapons as their oppressor, so they could steal compatible parts, ammo and magazines. On a secondary note, until one of the weapons was taken from a captured or killed Hawaiian secessionist, the sight of them would send U.S. law enforcement scrambling to find out what military depot in the Islands was hemorrhaging storage guns. That would give the smugglers a few more moments of cover.

A few more moments might be all they needed. All evidence and Bolan’s hard-won instincts reaffirmed that something very bad was going to happen soon.

Bolan kept the frown off his face. If they added a few stolen military uniforms to the mix, the secessionists would be able to drive up to a Hawaiian military base as if they belonged and engage in some serious slaughter. “A lot more are going to cost a lot of money.” Bolan gazed meaningfully at the inland pot grower’s paradise. “Mary Jane going to pay for that?”

The Lua master went Island-style stone face. “How bad you want to know?”

Koa put down the weapon. “I trust you, and Uncle Aikane. Whatever it is, I’m down with it. All the way. Makaha?”

Bolan nodded slowly. “You got me out of Pennsylvania, back to my island and back to my ohana.” Everyone nodded at the all-encompassing Hawaiian word for family. Ohana meant family by blood or otherwise, friendship, as well as race. “If I don’t have your six by now, then you should have left me. You decide to jump in the volcano? I’ll jump in right next to you.”

“Good.” The Lua man nodded. “Good. Then follow me a little farther.” Bolan and Koa walked into the nearly pitch black once more. The ocean breeze began to blow stiffly in their faces. They broke out into starlight and found themselves on a cliff. The Lua man spoke over his shoulder as he vanished through a cleft in the rock. “Careful.”

Bolan climbed down ancient steps cut into the lava rock. The Pacific thundered and crashed against the cliffs below. Happy Valley and Wailuku were close to the beach, but their shores were not tourist destinations. The locals were not particularly friendly, and the rip tides and undertows made surfing and swimming a suicidal proposition. The rest of the coastline was a series of jagged lava cliffs carved by eons of tidal surges.

Bolan knew from experience that lava eruptions and the action of the ocean often meant caves.

The steps were so steep they almost became a ladder, and then the ladder turned into a lava chimney. The Lua master’s voice spoke from below. “Six more feet, brah.” Bolan clambered down into the blackness. His bottom foot found empty air and a huge hand caught his ankle. “Just drop.”

Bolan dropped and bent his knees as he hit soft sand. He found himself in a cave lit by a red emergency light, with the roar of the surf outside. The soldier grinned at the Lua man guilelessly. “You did that climb one-handed?”

The man made a pleased grunt. “Been doing it since I was six, bruddah.”

Bolan knew he was on Hawaiian Holy Ground. The muted sound of feminine fear and misery coming from the gloom told him Hawaiian Holy Ground had been violated.

Koa dropped down, followed by Tino and the thin man. Bolan kept an exhilarated look on his face as Ferret-face came hobbling out of the dark on crutches with his hatchet jaw set in an orthodontic brace. If the big kill was going to come, it was going to come now, and his bundled body would be consigned to the surf outside.

Tino spoke happily to Ferret-face. “They’re in! All the way!”

The thin man spoke. “We’re gonna see.”

Ferret-face turned and crutched awkwardly through the sand back the way he’d come. The thin man took up an electric lantern and turned it on. Bolan saw a pair of small boats parked in the sand and more sawhorse tables laden with boxes and crates. Beside solar panels stacked for the night the cave was equipped with a pair of small gas-powered generators and fuel drums. A threesome of small shipping containers that had been dragged in with obvious effort dominated the back of the cave. Two of them had been converted into living quarters.

The group stopped beside a little side cave formed by a pocket of superheated gas eons ago.

Bolan kept his thoughts off his face as he gazed upon the battered, terrified women weeping and squinting blindly into the LED glare of the lantern. Bolan counted seven women. Most of them were blonde and in their teens and they cringed and clutched each other with their bound hands. One woman might have been in her forties, with somewhat obvious surgical enhancements to her face and body. She glared at Bolan and company in open defiance despite a black eye. Tino’s huge meat hook slammed onto Bolan’s shoulder and gave it a meaningful squeeze. “This is a pass-fail situation, brah.”

The soldier knew what was expected of him. He pointed at the older one. “Her.”

“Nice choice!” Tino laughed. “No one misses a slice from a cut loaf!”

The men in the cave laughed as though this was the height of humor.

Bolan let some ugliness come into his voice. “I just want to wipe that look off her face.”

More laughs followed. The woman continued to glare but tears spilled down her face. She yipped as Bolan seized her by the neck and propelled her across the sand toward one of the containers to the cheers of the other men.

Chapter 4

Mack Bolan slung his chosen woman into the container and slammed the door shut behind them. Tino whooped. A part of Bolan had been trying to build some kind of empathy for the Samoan street criminal. Tino’s cavalier attitude toward sexual slavery had just soured the relationship. The woman cringed as Bolan took out his phone and hit the Farm-built electronic surveillance app. She was still defiant. “Screw you, asshole!”

Bolan grinned and hit the camera app. His phone flashed as he walked around the woman and took pictures of her. At the same time, the camera application was firing off infrared lasers looking for camera lenses and the electronic countermeasures probed for bugs. Bolan’s phone flashed an extra time. That told him the phone had detected nothing. He suspected that if he was being watched, the cavalry would have hit the container hard and told him no flash photography of the fun was allowed. Bolan sent the woman’s picture to the Farm and left the audio on for Kurtzman. “What’s your name?”

“Screw you.”

“And what do your friends call you?”

She sobbed. “Becca.”

“Rebecca?”

“Why do you care?”

Bolan laughed loud and spoke low. “Because I’m going to get you out of here.”

Becca stared at Bolan with something as dangerous as hope. “You mean that?”

“You have two ways out of here. Neither of them is good.”

Becca’s collagen-enhanced lips twisted. Bolan suspected Becca might be or had been a pro. She had seen bad times and bad things. A slave-cave below the water line in Hawaii with a one-way ticket to hell was pushing her limits. A terrible, fragile smile of defiance crossed Becca’s face. “Lay it on me, Island boy.”

“I’m not from the Islands.” Bolan forked his fingers at his arctic-blue orbs. “Look in these eyes.”

Becca stared back in surprise. “You’re no choir boy.” A short, broken laugh forced itself out of Becca. “But you’re a Boy Scout, aren’t you?”

Bolan considered his past. “What if I told you I would have gone for Eagle Scout but a war got in the way?”

Becca smiled. “What’re my two choices again?”

“A and B. A is you saying ‘get me out of here now,’ so we walk out of this container and I try to kill our way out against all resistance.”

Becca’s smile died. “And what’s Option B?”

“They sell you and the other girls for guns, intel and who knows what else. They put you on a boat and sail you west to God knows where. But I can put a tracking device on you and try to rescue you before you hit slave market central. Option A? Frankly I give me and my friend about a ten percent chance of overpowering everybody with our bare hands and finding our way out of the forest with you and the rest of the girls alive. Option B? You and the girls are most likely going to get loaded into a boat. I track you and rescue you.” Bolan didn’t sugarcoat it. “And you endure whatever happens until then.”

“And which one are you recommending?”

“Would you believe B?”

“God, you’re an asshole!”

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” Bolan conceded. “The problem is we’re outnumbered, I don’t have a gun, and it’s a fight to the finish. No way they’ll let us get out of here alive. B gives me a chance to gear up, and it also gives me a lead on where you’re being taken, which means I can crush the slave trade at both ends.”

“And you’re going to put a tracking device on me how?”

Bolan took out his phone, opened the battery compartment and slid out the RFID the Farm was tracking him with. It was far more powerful and sophisticated than the one he had injected into the Lua man’s hand. It was the size and shape of a quarter and about as thick as a PC’s processing chip. “You can’t swallow it—it won’t stand up to digestive juices.”

Becca gave the tracking device a very dry look. “I’ve dealt with worse.”

Bolan handed Becca the device. She blinked as he stripped off his shirt and flopped on a futon. “Would you give me a back rub? I need to stay awhile.”

Becca straddled Bolan’s hips and dug her thumbs into his trapezius with skill and alacrity.

* * *

Bolan left the container. Becca whimpered and cried in a convincing show of shame and degradation.

“You’re my hero, brah!” Tino’s voice boomed. “Man, I gotta get me a piece of that—”

“She’s mine, until she’s gone,” Bolan said.

“Well, shit, brah, you don’t have to—”

The Lua master spoke gravely. “This isn’t a party, Tino. This is a grave necessity. We all know Koa’s reputation, but Makaha had to prove that he’s all in. We’re going to hurt the haoles. We’re going to hurt them in every way possible. Makaha had to prove that he’s willing to do what has to be done.”

Bolan gave Koa a defiant look. “Don’t tell Melika.”

Koa gave Bolan a faux “saddened that you would even ask” look. “That’s not going to happen.”

“It’s like killing people, Makaha!” Tino just kept digging his own grave as he leered. “It gets easier with practice, except it’s not as much fun.”

“Done that.” Bolan stared into the middle distance in memory. “It never got easier. I just got better at it.”

The Lua master, Ferret-face and the thin man reappraised Bolan. The Lua man took out two thick, rubber-banded rolls of twenties. “Take this.”

“You want to pay me?” Bolan put pure disdain on his face as he jerked his head at the container. “For that?”

The man looked genuinely hurt. “No, Makaha. This is walking-around money. From your uncle Aikane. You telling me you’re flush?”

Bolan looked away as though he was ashamed. “Nah, I spent my last bills on chicken and beer today. Koa spent all he had on plane tickets.”

The thin man’s voice went from sneering to a neutral tone that almost had a tinge of respect. “Tino will take you home. Take a day off. Take two. Forget chicken and beer. Get some real grind. Koa, get reacquainted with your home.” The thin man came dangerously close to being friendly as he wrinkled his nose at Bolan. “And show this lost home-slice what he’s been missing.”

Even Ferret-face beamed a little.

Honolulu safehouse

“I gotta go.” Bolan shoved a few personals into a bag. They hadn’t gotten out of the forest and back in Wailuku Valley until after sunrise. He suspected the girls had been taken out to a ship and were already on their way to a short life of sex slavery, heroin addiction and an unceremonious death, dismemberment and dumping.

“You sure you don’t want me along?” Koa asked.

“I need you to take Peg, like now, and get Melika. Kidnap her if you have to, but then disappear as though we four went on a romantic couples’ weekend.”

Koa raised his hands in warning. “If Peg and I show up and say, ‘Hey, let’s go meet Makaha,’ she’ll come, but if you aren’t there? She won’t take kidnapping too kindly, man. Back in the ’70s, Mama Melika was like a genuine Island-style Ma Barker, and she taught her daughter well. There’s a reason we found all the uncles hanging out at her place yesterday.”

Agent Hu tossed her hair. “I’m not afraid of her.”

“I am,” Koa countered. “And you should be.”

“I need Melika on our side.” Bolan gave Koa a hard look. “And I need her sat on until I get back and can turn her.”

“Matt, we got Uncle Aikane trusting us. We can work with that.”

“I think Melika might be my key to getting in all the way.”

Koa clearly didn’t like it. “I know it was my idea, but we took a big chance going into her bar and—”

“And I’m doubling down. Koa, I’m getting the feeling this is starting to step on your loyalties, and I get it, but I need you to get her. Get her now, or punch out of this mission.”

Koa went pure Island-style stone face. Bolan realized Koa had deeper misgivings about this mission than he’d let on. Koa lifted his chin. “And if me and Peg sit on Melika and your charms fail, what are you going to do with the home girl?”

“Let her go.”

Koa’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “You’re just going to let her go, and let her compromise us and burn the entire mission down.”

“No, I’ll hold her for forty-eight hours first, and me, you and Hu go in hard, guns blazing on the camp, the cave, Uncle Aikane and the targets we know. We try to break it open the ugly way. Melika comes to no harm from my end.”

“Well, shit,” Koa opined.

“Yeah, it’s a bad deal all the way around.”

“I don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to like it, and you can hate me after. Question is, will you do it?”

“You know I volunteered for this one.”

“I know, and thanks.”

Koa nodded at Hu. “Pack for a picnic and a kidnapping.”

Hu shot a killer grin. “I can take her.”

Koa shook his head sadly. “No, you can’t.”

Bolan tapped an app on his phone. “Bear.”

Kurtzman came on instantly. “Striker.”

“Tell me we have tracking.”

“Tracking confirmed, Striker.” Kurtzman added, “But we don’t have tracking on you, and your tracer is no longer connected to your phone’s battery. Our tracking window is getting narrow.”

“Where are they headed?”

“West, as you can imagine. But when it comes to slavery there are a host of final destinations along the way.”

“Best estimate?”

“The tracker is currently on board a small freighter, the Pukulan Anggun. She has Dutch registration, but she’s currently flying Indonesian colors.”

Bolan saw the scenario. “Heading southwest for the North Equatorial Current. Straight shot for the Jakarta or Manila flesh markets.”

“That’s the way I’m seeing it, Striker.”

“Bear, it’s going to be a solo airborne mid-ocean interdiction. I need a plane and a jump rig.”

“Way ahead of you. I have a bird lined up at Coast Guard Maui station. I think we can get you in the air within twenty-four.”

Bolan breathed a sigh of relief. The U.S. Coast Guard had a very strong presence in Hawaii and often got some of the latest ships and aircraft. “I need a war load, stat.”

“The commander of Coast Guard North Pacific Sector has been informed that he’ll have a guest to whom, if he felt so inclined, he might show every courtesy. You’ll have your pick of their armory and stores, but it’s going to be Coast Guard armory and stores. Their rigs are mostly rescue jumpers rather than military stealth, but that is your fastest option, and you have a green light as of five minutes ago.”

Bolan quoted the United States Coast Guard motto. “‘Semper Paratus.’” Always Ready.

Kurtzman made an amused noise. “I will see to it that the USCG is loved and thanked for their cooperation.”

“Thanks, Bear. Koa and Hu are going to kidnap a U.S. citizen and go dark.”

Kurtzman paused for a second. “How is that again?”

“I’ll let Koa explain it to you.”

Koa folded his arms and shook his head. “You’re a dick.”

Bolan nodded and scooped up his bug-out bag. “Bear, I’m in a Jeep and inbound for the Oahu Coast Guard station.”

Chapter 5

North Pacific, 6,000 feet

A maelstrom of violent air roared into the hold of the

HC-144A Ocean Sentry search and rescue plane as the loading ramp lowered. The interior lights blinked off and the emergency red lights lit. The bewildered and amused U.S. Coast Guard jumpmaster shouted over the wind. “Two minutes to target!”

Bolan rose. “Thank you, Sergeant!”

The six-man United States Coast Guard Port Security unit that had been scrambled out of Honolulu cradled their Colt carbines and Remington shotguns and observed Bolan with keen interest.

Bolan was dripping in Coast Guard issue. The jump rig was big, bulky and far from stealthy, but it was designed for operations at sea. The Mk11 Mod 0 rifle he carried resembled an M-16 on steroids. At nearly four feet long and weighing more than ten pounds, it wasn’t the ideal weapon to jump out of a plane with. However this was the only weapon in the Coast Guard armory that had a sound suppressor attached. Bolan hoped the sight of the big, silent, semiautomatic sniper rifle would put the fear of God into sailor and slaver alike. With luck they would never see it at all, much less hear it. He had also picked up a pair of .40 caliber SIG pistols and a Mark 3 Navy knife along with his jump rig and night-vision goggles. Spare magazines, flash stun grenades and flares made up the rest of his kit.

Sergeant Goldstein of the Security Unit gave Bolan a sympathetic look. “You sure you don’t want someone to come with you? I got three men who are jump qualified, including me!”

“Nothing I would like more, Sergeant. But not this time.”

“Are you expendable and deniable ’n’ stuff?” the sergeant inquired.

Bolan nodded. “’N’ stuff.”

“Awesome!”

“One minute!” the jumpmaster shouted. “We have an FLIR on target. The rain shouldn’t start for another ten minutes. The sea is pretty heavy and she’s only doing eight knots. You have a good glide path and a good window. Within thirty it’s going to start getting rough.”

Bolan nodded. The Ocean Sentry’s Forward Looking Infrared RADAR had eyes on the target and that meant so did he. He pulled his night-vision goggles over his eyes and powered them up. The world turned into a grainy screen of greens, blacks and grays.

The freighter’s manifest indicated it had taken on coffee and automotive parts on the main island. According to an NSA satellite Kurtzman had access to, the Anggun was also carrying the RFID Bolan had given Becca. Bolan was hoping it meant she was still alive.

The red lights blinked. The jumpmaster got excited. “You are over the target! Go! Go! Go!”

Bolan nodded and gave the jumpmaster a thumbs-up.

The soldier stepped into space and arched hard. The dark bulk of the blacked-out Ocean Sentry was silhouetted by the stars for a few fleeting moments and then it droned away to leave him with nothing but the bejeweled sky above and the water below. Bolan pulled his ripcord and felt his straps cinch as the canopy filled with air and the sudden drag yanked against his weight.

The Anggun wasn’t hard to find. She was a small tramp freighter in a great big ocean but she was the only light source for hundreds of miles. Bolan pulled on his steering toggles and began his approach. Details of the ship swiftly resolved in Bolan’s goggles as he descended. He spotted a dark area—out of sight behind the wheelhouse—crowded with the lifeboat and nautical objects he couldn’t yet identify. Bolan nodded to himself.

That was his LZ.

Bolan began a slow spiral, constantly compensating for the forward motion of the ship. A tailwind was pushing him in faster than he liked. If the soldier missed his LZ he’d be swimming. Bolan flared his chute and pulled his knees into his chest to clear the stern rail. He avoided a capstan and the chain curled around it and hit the deck in a textbook landing. The wet deck countered by shifting beneath his feet in the swell, sending him skidding. The soldier hit the orange steel side of an inverted lifeboat. His NVGs skewed on his head and Bolan fell back.

His chute filled with wind and began dragging him backward. Bolan’s straps cinched as his canopy dipped beneath the level of the rail and began to wildly billow and gyrate in the chop. Bolan tried to grab the slick hull of the lifeboat, but his fingers slid off, wet with his own blood. He was dragged inexorably backward and he lurched as his chute dipped into the sea. The canopy became an instant sea anchor and the soldier was violently pulled toward the rail.

Bolan’s Navy diving knife cleared its sheath with a rasp. He twisted and slashed at his lines. If the canopy managed to tangle in the propeller there was an excellent chance he’d be reeled in like a fish to a watery meat-grinding grave. Bolan hacked through his portside shrouding. The strain eased as the canopy went from a water scoop to a long soggy ribbon in the bow wake. He hooked an arm and a leg into the railing and cut his remaining lines. Bolan sagged to the deck and spat blood. He gave his septum an experimental and mildly agonizing wiggle.

His nose wasn’t broken but blood poured down his chin. Bolan reset his NVGs on his face and made double sure his rifle’s optics and suppressor were still in alignment. He gazed up at the wheelhouse but he had no visual on whoever might be inside. No one had gone to the rear window to see what had happened. The sea was rough, a storm was on the way and ships were noisy. Bolan doubted his landing, inglorious as it was, had registered over the sound of the engines and the swell. The soldier secured his phone to his left forearm and hit an app. Becca’s tracer was blinking away belowdecks.

Bolan rose and moved to the rear hatchway.

The hatch was open. All the lights were on and everybody was home. Bolan pushed up his NVGs and moved down the stairs that led below. The smell of tamarind, hot chilies, peanut sauce and rice frying told him he was indeed on an Indonesian ship.

Bolan moved along the corridor and took the second set of suicide steps down into the main cargo hold. Cigarette smoke and the sound of harsh laughter rose to meet him. Containers were stacked two high with narrow corridors between them. The center of the hold formed a small open area. Becca hung by her wrists from the starboard fork of a forklift at maximum height. Most of her clothes lay on the floor in sliced condition. A shirtless Indonesian man with a traditional parang sneered endearments in Malay as he laid the heavily curved machete blade between the shuddering woman’s collarbones. Five more men sat smoking, drinking beer and shoving fried rice down their maws as they watched. Bolan had the terrible feeling that Becca was considered a little too long in the tooth for the slave market and was being sacrificed to the crew’s appetites. Becca’s bra popped away beneath the blade.

Bolan sent three heavy, subsonic .30 calibers between machete man’s shoulder blades.

The rape crew watched for a stunned moment as the first in line fell and his blade hit the deck with a clang. They heard the clinking of Bolan’s spent brass a half second later and leaped to their feet clawing for pistols and blades. Bolan gave each man two rounds through the face in as many heartbeats. The slavers dropped dead like dominos in a neat semicircle. The soldier stepped out of the shadows, and Becca sagged in her restraints at the sight of him.

“You’re late.”

Bolan took out his knife and cut Becca free. “I know, and I am sorry.” He scooped up the machete man’s cast-off T-shirt and tossed it to her. “Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?”

Becca pulled the stained V-neck over her head. “Just get me and the girls out of here.”

“On it. Can you shoot?”

“My last boyfriend was a cop. He let me shoot his Glock.”

Bolan scooped up two of the slaver’s pistols. “These are Browning Hi-Powers.” He cocked them and left them unlocked. “Just pull the trigger. You have thirteen shots in each one. Where are the rest of the girls?”

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