The elders were sorry about what had happened, but their furrowed brows at the disrespect indicated there was still a good chance an imu pit up in the hills had Bolan’s name on it. Uncle Nui spoke in a stern, fatherly tone. “Makaha…”
“There’s no need for an apology, Uncle.” Bolan lifted his chin at Koa. “He’s the one you wanted.”
The big men shifted in their seats.
Bolan put bitterness into his voice. “Koa the soldier. Koa the warrior. The son of your ohana, come home. Not me.” Bolan gave his reflection in the mirror behind the bar the thousand-yard stare. “Say it, Uncle Nui!”
Nui let out a long breath. “Yes, Makaha.”
Bolan shoved his glass at Ezekiel for more kava. He could barely feel his tongue so he let it run. “You saw me, and you saw a haole mutt, trash, begging at the door like a stray dog. A junkie. A mainland punk. You saw a liability to the ohana and an anchor dragging Koa down.”
Uncle Aikane rumbled a low, “Yes, Makaha.”
Bolan poured back another round and slowly revolved his bar stool to face the terrorist, criminal crime lords. “Tell me you were wrong. Or give me a spear and test me again.”
Uncle Lau Lau grunted in approval at Bolan’s courage and shot a hard glance at Nui and Aikane.
Aikane nodded slowly. “We misjudged you, Makaha.”
“Yes,” Nui affirmed. “We misjudged you. Badly. We will not do so again.”
Bolan rose. “Well, then, Tino’s eating my ribs, I haven’t had any grind in two days, and Melika’s probably wondering about me.”
Uncle Nui laughed. “Well, then, Makaha! Why don’t you stay here in the air conditioning with your uncles for a little bit? Out on the side lanai we got Kobe beef about to go on the grill.”
Koa went stone-faced at the mention of Kobe beef. “We’re staying.”
* * *
It was dark by the time Bolan and Koa came staggering and bloated out of the main house. They were stuffed full of grilled Kobe, Lomi Lomi salmon, octopus in cooked ti leaves and half a dozen other ancient Hawaiian specialties. He’d gathered no hard intel, but the private party had served its purpose. The kava flowed. The old men told stories from back in the day, some of them about highly illegal activities ranging from the hilarious to the harrowing. Bolan and Koa had listened in awe like newbs. Nothing that was said hinted about what was to come, and Bolan and Koa hadn’t asked, but the fact was, they were in.
Koa let out a long belch and the security on the lanai sighed with mild jealousy. Out in the yard a bonfire had been lit and a number of couples were dancing. The two warriors descended the steps. Koa let out another belch. “My left arm is tingling. That was some serious grind.”
Bolan pushed his fingers against his lips and cheeks experimentally. “I can’t feel my face.”
“Yeah, you hit the kava hard. I’m surprised you didn’t give them the address to the Farm and say the next luau was on you.”
Bolan grinned. “Would you believe that I’ve been subjected to far harsher chemical interrogations?”
“I’m still betting the lau lau almost broke you,” Koa said, referring to the butterfish and pork wrapped and steamed in ti leaves.
“Almost,” Bolan agreed. He held up the plastic bag that contained his leftovers in Tupperware. “And still maybe.”
Melika materialized in front of them, fists on hips. “And where have you been?”
“Falling in love with lau lau.”
Melika wrinkled her nose. “You’ve fallen in love with Uncle Lau Lau?”
“No.” Bolan held up his goody bag. “Lau lau.”
Jealousy twisted across Melika’s beautiful face. “You got lau lau?”
Bolan shook the bag. “Brought you some.”
“Oh! Gimme!” Melika snatched it out of Bolan’s hand.
“What’s the story out here?” Bolan asked.
“Some very dangerous members of the community are missing, and rumor is you killed them, Makaha. Then you got invited to the main house for some private grind.” Melika rummaged through the goody bag. “Rumor confirmed.”
“And?”
“And you just walked out, apparently forgiven. You’ve got some pretty huge machismo right now. Some people don’t like it, but everyone knows something big is going down soon and now you’re part of it. Add that to the fact that you and Koa are running buddies? You’re achieving godlike status.”
Bolan turned to Koa. “Just what did you do back in the day?”
Koa shrugged. “Someday I’ll confide in you.”
The soldier glanced around. “Where’s Hu?”
“She’s getting hit on by every man at the party. Koa, you better go rescue her.”
Koa frowned. “All the bruddahs are trying to steal my girl? What the hell, Melika?”
Melika’s voice dropped low. “That’s the other rumor. Apparently, you and Makaha aren’t going to live through whatever is going down. You’re going to be martyrs to the cause. Some people thought you might not even come out of the house tonight.” Melika looked back toward the beer keg and Hu. Huge Hawaiian admirers ringed the diminutive agent. “And the widow-humpers are lining up and taking numbers.”
Bolan raised an eyebrow. “And you’re not defending her because…?”
“She said she was going to gather intel. I think she’s in over her head.”
Koa cracked his knuckles. “Let’s just put a stop to this, shall we?” The Hawaiian warrior strode toward the party surrounding Hu.
Melika stared incredulously. “You’re not going to help him?”
“He doesn’t need my help.”
“Probably not,” Melika agreed. “So what do we do?”
“What do you want to do?”
Melika’s teeth flashed in the dark as she shook the goody bag. “Grind!”
“Didn’t you get enough to eat already?”
“There’s always room for lau lau. Besides, what do you want to do?”
Bolan lifted his chin at the bonfire and the couples dancing to old-school slow jams.
Melika’s smile lit up the lawn. “Show me your moves, haole!”
Bolan slid his arm around Melika’s waist and squired her toward the light, the heat and the rhythm of music and swaying bodies.
Honolulu safehouse
Bolan awoke. Something was wrong. The soldier’s internal clock told him it was a little after 4:00 a.m. Melika lay next to him naked, warm and smiling in her sleep. Bolan heard the bungalow’s side gate creak. He put on a pair of cargo shorts, reached down between the headboard and the wall and took up his locked and loaded grease gun. He slung a Korean War vintage six magazine pouch over his shoulder and stepped into the bungalow’s tiny foyer.
Koa came out of the side bedroom dressed in boxer shorts with his shotgun and a bandolier of twelve-gauge shells.
Bolan snapped out his submachine gun’s folding wire stock. “We’re about to get hit.”
Hu appeared behind Koa with the .38 Bolan had given her. “You think?”
Bolan heard a branch snap outside by the bathroom window. “Koa, I thought we were cool.”
Koa took a knee and leveled his kidney buster at the front door. “You killed some people the other day, Makaha. Their people may be showing up for some payback, no matter what Uncle Aikane says. Blood calls for blood.”
“Hawaiian hillbilly vengeance?”
“Something like that.”
Melika appeared in the darkened hallway and took a knee. “Gimme a gun.”
Bolan nodded toward the bathroom. “There’s a revolver in the toilet tank with a dozen spare rounds. Stay there and stay low.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.” Melika scampered for the bathroom.
A voice Bolan recognized shouted out, “
Hear you moving around in there!”
Bolan sighed. “Bolo.”
Koa shouted out. “That you, Bolo?”
“Yeah! Send out Makaha! We want him!”
“You want my cousin?”
“We want the haole! He’s done damage to the ohana. We got cousins dead, Koa! And Makaha’s gotta pay!”
Bolan heard the unmistakable “klatch” of Kalashnikov automatic rifle safety levers going off. “Everyone down.” The team hugged ancient linoleum as multiple assault weapons began tearing through the bungalow. The fusillade suddenly ceased and the click and clack of automatic rifles being reloaded broke the silence.
Koa roared, “We got women inside, asshole!”
“So send out Makaha! Or you all die!”
Koa looked at Bolan. “Are we in ‘hit ’em all and let God sort them out’ mode yet?”
“Thirty seconds ago,” Bolan confirmed.
Koa shouted his defiance into the night. “Kill you all, Bolo!”
Bolo yelled back. “You don’t even have a gun, Koa! You got nothing! Don’t make us come in there!”
Koa smiled over his shotgun in the dark. “Got a ball-peen hammer with your name on it, Bolo! Come in and get it!”
Melika stuck her head out of the bathroom and whispered, “You got two or more in the backyard.”
Bolo bellowed. “Send out Makaha!”
“Eat shit!”
The rifles ripped through the house again and stopped when magazines ran empty. Hu’s hands shook as she pointed her .38 at the side door across the kitchen.
“Wait for it,” Bolan ordered. “Wait until you can see your target.”
“Jesus! I do hair and makeup! I—”
“Here they come.” Bolan heard the slap of sandaled feet out on the street. The front door smashed off its hinges and a man who could have been Bolo’s twin literally filled the doorframe. The grease gun thundered in Bolan’s hands as he filled the big man full of lead. The giant dropped his AK and sagged backward.
Ezekiel tried to manage his crutches, an automatic rifle and a four-hundred-plus-pound corpse at the same time and failed. His crutches slid out from underneath him and he screamed as he fell to the ground and the big man landed on top of him. A third man fired his entire magazine into the darkened house interior. Koa put a pattern of buckshot into his chest and smashed the would-be assassin to the lawn.
The bathroom window broke.
Melika snarled an obscenity and her .38 pop-pop-popped. A man outside screamed in response. Out front someone shouted frantically, “Willie! Bolo! What’s happening?”
Bolan moved to the door. “Koa, hold down the house. I’m going to sweep.”
“Copy that.”
Bolan stepped into the cool night air. Dogs were barking and women were screaming up and down the dead-end street. He kicked Ezekiel’s AK out of reach as the man feebly pawed for it from under a mountain of flesh. The shouting man stood next to an old Ford Bronco. He stopped shouting at the sight of Bolan in the dim street light. Bolan put a burst into his chest. The man’s AK clattered to the street and he joined it a heartbeat later. The soldier slapped in a fresh magazine and moved to the open side gate. He heard the back door of the house crash open. Koa’s shotgun boomed and the girls’ revolvers popped. AKs tore into life. Bolan walked past the garbage cans and rounded on the backyard. Bolo and another man were taking turns blindly shoving their rifles around the doorjamb and emptying them into the interior. Another man lay facedown and unmoving in the grass.
Bolo whipped his reloaded weapon around the doorjamb. Bolan burned him down before he got a shot off. His partner screamed at the sight of Bolan and lunged for the dubious safety of the house. Koa’s shotgun roared and the assassin staggered outside again. A pair of pistol shots coincided with Koa’s second blast and the man made a decent effort to fly apart and then fell. “Clear!” Bolan called.
“Clear!” Koa called back.
“Continuing sweep!”
“Copy that! Holding position!”
“Copy!”
Bolan went around to the other side of the house. A man sat against the fence with a pair of leaking holes in his face you could put your finger through. Bolan avoided the broken bathroom window glass and emerged out front. “Coming in the front door!”
“Clear!” Koa called.
Bolan stepped inside. “We got three dead on the lawn. Three dead out back including Bolo and one down outside the bathroom.”
Koa was rapidly tapping on the tablet the Farm had issued him. “And we have police responding. ETA five minutes.”
“We gotta go, and we’re going to split up. Peg, you’re with Koa. Grab your things and take our car. Koa, get hold of Rind and De Jong. Have Rind set up a safe place for us to link back up. Melika, you’re with me. Grab our stuff. We’re taking Bolo’s Bronco and grabbing Belle on the way out of town.” Bolan stepped back outside. He gave Ezekiel a very severe look. “You are going to talk to me.”
Ezekiel moaned.
Melika came out of the house dressed in one of Bolan’s T-shirts and bearing their sparse luggage. She tossed him an aloha shirt and grinned as the soldier caught it. “What?” Bolan asked.
“You look smoking hot half naked with a machine gun in your hand.”
Bolan nodded at the wisdom of the statement. “I get that a lot.”
“I just bet you do.” Melika ran to the Bronco. “Keys are in it!”
Koa and Hu appeared, bug-out bags ready. Bolan returned his attention to Ezekiel pinned beneath four hundred pounds of flesh. “Koa, give me a hand with this piece of shit. He’s taking a ride with me.” Ezekiel started blubbering.
Bolan considered that a good start to the interrogation.
Chapter 14
FBI safehouse
“Swanky,” Bolan said. Technically, like the Pakuz dwelling they had deserted, it was a bungalow, but it was a bungalow that hung off a forested mountainside as though defying gravity, and it was appointed with millionaire tourists in mind. “From the east deck you can see the ocean and the sun rise. Oh, and check this, you’ll love it.” Rind nodded at the French doors leading to the front deck. “From the lanai you can see the golf course. You know, I believe you beat a man to death with a putter on the fourteenth hole.”
“It was a driver,” Bolan corrected.
Belle sat smoking in the breakfast nook with Ezekiel. She was now a redhead. Ezekiel was tied to his chair and Belle sat with the muzzle of her Hi-Power shoved in his crotch. “I miss all the fun.”
“You should have seen him half naked, going Rambo on Ezekiel and his boys.” Melika sighed at the memory. “It was breathtaking.”
Belle jabbed Ezekiel in his nethers with her pistol. “I bet you got to see it. Did it take your breath away? Did it?” Ezekiel winced and shifted uncomfortably in his bonds. Pain meds for his fractures lay on the kitchen table with a glass of water but with his hands bound he couldn’t reach them. It was very clear Ezekiel had finally realized that Bolan was the man who had put him in crutches in Honolulu just a few nights ago.
Koa checked his phone as it buzzed. “Uncle Aikane is calling again.”
“Let him stew a little more.” Bolan sank into a butter-soft leather chair. “Thanks for the crash pad, Rind.”
“Courtesy of the FBI. This is one of the ones they keep for VIP security in Hawaii, and tonight that’s you, big guy.”
The soldier smiled tiredly. “What happened on your end?”
“Yesterday late afternoon we definitely picked up a tail. So I drove De Jong around while your buddy the Bear got a satellite tracking him. Bear gave me the word and I lost him downtown.”
“You should see Rind drive, man!” De Jong enthused. “Like Steve McQueen!”
Rind smiled tolerantly. “Anyway, we lo
st him in traffic and the Bear did something with his satellite to jam the RFID signal. He’s doing it intermittently, as if the device is dying.”
“Did the bad guys get a look at you?”
“Nah, all they saw was a rental with tinted windows.”
“Total super spy!” De Jong seemed positively giddy.
Bolan rolled his eyes. “And how did our boy Jagon behave?”
“Super fly!” Rind grinned. “Best stakeout partner I ever had. Best stakeout takeout I ever had, for that matter. I’ve never had lobster sushi before, much less fatty tuna belly and caviar. Jagon spared no expense.”
De Jong actually blushed. “It was the least I could do.”
Bolan thought De Jong’s gratitude might be misplaced. After all, the soldier had dropped in on De Jong, dropped a helicopter through his roof and destroyed one of his operations. On the other hand, De Jong appeared to be living out his ultimate James Bond Meets Hawaii Five-0 fantasy.
“Now—” Rind held up a finger “—the coolest part? De Jong happens to know of some real asshole variety local criminals. Once Bear established satellite tracking on our tail we drove by some of their residences and parked for a few minutes. Made it look like the Handyman was on the run and calling in favors or begging for asylum.” Rind shot De Jong a grudging look of respect. “That was his idea by the way.”
De Jong looked like a little kid who was earning his Junior G-Man badge. “I like to help!”
“Where is the RFID now?”
Rind tapped his pocket. “Right here. It’s currently being jammed. The question is how do you want to play it now?”
“By now Uncle Aikane is well aware Bolo and company tried to take us out last night. He knows they failed and we’ve beaten it for the hills, and he thinks we are seriously outraged but don’t know where to go or what to do about it. I’m going to let him sweat for another day before reestablishing contact. Meantime we focus on your guys. If they flew to Hawaii from God knows where tracking an RFID signal, they must be pretty high up the food chain.”
Bolan opened his laptop and established a link with the Farm. Kurtzman’s face appeared and it frowned at Bolan. “You look tired.”
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