Pacific Creed

by Don Pendleton

  The two-and-a-half-ton truck was being used as a tanker.

  The military used the same type of truck to haul fuel, and woodland fire services used the same rig as a portable water source. Bolan figured he was looking at twelve thousand gallons of radioactive horror. “What’s in it?”

  “Water.”

  Bolan raised an eyebrow. “We brought water to the water station?”

  “This is water from Fukushima. Do you know what

  that is?”

  Bolan kept the revulsion off his face. “That Japanese power plant. That got hit by the tsunami.”

  “Correct.”

  “You’re going to poison the water?”

  “How do they enslave us?” Jalaluddin asked in return.

  Bolan looked out toward the gleaming waters of Pearl Harbor. “The military.”

  “Correct. Our islands can no longer live without the money they bring. We service the service men of our oppressors. It is a sickness, and a dependency. One we are going to wean ourselves off, today.”

  Bolan examined the tank. “Is that going to be enough?”

  “The initial poisoning will be quite brutal, but of course the radioactive water will quickly disperse through the system and dilute. There will be a purge of the system, and a massive cleanup effort. But thousands of people will sicken and die for years to come. The revulsion of the Hawaiian people will ensure that the base is never reopened, nor will they allow such massive military bases to ever be built in Hawaii again. For those who wish to see Hawaii free and sovereign? Radioactive horror at U.S. military bases is a good place to start.”

  “How did you get it?”

  “To this day things are quite confused at Fukushima. There are thousands of foreign workers and specialists. Some water is treated and deemed releasable in the atmosphere. Some goes into the sea. Much is transported away and placed in storage sites. Such as this water, which has crawled in the belly of a broken reactor. Where there is the will, and the money, there is a way, Makaha. And there are others who wish to see the United States’ power in the Pacific greatly diminished.

  Bolan sighed. “It makes me sad.”

  Jalaluddin’s brow clouded dangerously. “Why?”

  “Pearl is ours. It is a shame to poison it.”

  The big Hawaiian regained his smile. “Makaha, Pearl Harbor is a cancer on our Islands. This is the radiation treatment.”

  Bolan grunted and smiled as if he got it.

  “Would you care to live?”

  “I’m not afraid to die.”

  “I know that, and that is why I ask. You and Koa are extremely valuable to our cause, and that is why I have kept you away from the tanker and what it contains. You will most likely die, but this is only one of many battles to come.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “For the moment, consider yourself my bodyguard. Aikane will direct the men in transferring the water into the mains.” Jalaluddin turned and started walking back toward the blockhouse. The Executioner raised his rifle and pulled the trigger. The hammer fell with a dull click on a dud round. He flicked the bolt and pulled the trigger again. The dead click of the hammer was his death sentence. Bolan found himself staring down the barrel of a U.S. Military Beretta in Jalaluddin’s hand.

  “You disappoint me, Makaha.”

  Bolan’s eyes slid to Koa in time to see Aikane buckle him with a blow to the kidneys. The big man threw Koa to the ground and pinned him. The squad looked around in consternation. Jalaluddin twitched the muzzle of his pistol. “Drop it.”

  Bolan dropped his rifle.

  “You are going to survive today, Makaha, but you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

  Bolan relaxed and prepared to draw down on a man who already had the drop on him. Some of the squad shouted in alarm and rifles began firing. A black Lincoln Town Car rammed the gate.

  Bolan slapped leather.

  Chapter 19

  Bolan drew down. Bits of unburned smokeless powder peppered his cheek, and he heard the zip of a 9 mm pass by his left ear as Jalaluddin’s shot missed. Bolan dug the revolver out of his belt and shoved it forward. The big Hawaiian dived for the truck and rolled beneath as Bolan’s bullet tore turf. Bolan dropped prone. Jalaluddin cleared the chassis and was starting to roll up to his feet. Bolan fired and Jalaluddin jerked but then he disappeared behind the driver’s wheel. The soldier popped up and spun on Aikane and Koa. Aikane bellowed like a bull. “I’ll kill him! I’ll snap his neck like a—”

  Bolan shot Aikane in the face.

  Koa grunted as the dead bulk of the Hawaiian fell on top of him. The pumping station descended into chaos. Rind had spun the Town Car broadside to form cover. His team had spilled out the opposite side and he, De Jong and Belle were unleashing hell with Korean K-7s. The shackled civilians lying in the dirt screamed and screamed. Bullets ripped across the Lincoln as the suicide squad addressed the invaders. Marwin took the opportunity to double tap three of them in the back with his revolver. Then his bulk jiggled grotesquely as he charged and tackled a fourth and began pistol whipping him.

  Koa had emerged from beneath Uncle Aikane’s deadweight. “Koa!” Bolan shouted. “Get—”

  Keo came around the front of the truck and shot Koa. Koa dropped. Keo lowered his aim. “Traitor!”

  Bolan fired. Keo’s burst went wild and tore turf. He tried to bring his muzzle around on Bolan. Bolan pulled the trigger four more times in rapid succession, shattering the young man’s chest and taking whatever future he might have had. The soldier scooped up the 600 and racked out the three remaining dummy rounds. He replaced them with the five he had retained from his practice session. Bolan ran to Koa. The Hawaiian had risen and found an M-16. He had a bad wound low on his right side but it would take some time to kill him. “Musa and Nui!”

  “They’re already over the fence!” Koa snarled. “Go!”

  “FBI!” Rind roared. “On your knees!”

  The three remaining suicide soldiers dropped their rifles and fell to their knees. Bolan ran around the truck and caught sight of Jalaluddin’s size-fourteen boot prints in the dirt. He also saw De Jong lying beneath the bumper of the Lincoln with a head wound.

  Belle aimed her submachine gun one-handed as the other lay bloody along her side.

  “Rind!” Bolan bellowed. “We don’t know if they have backup. The truck is loaded with radioactive material. Defend it!”

  Agent Rind tossed away his spent K-7 and drew his machine Glocks. “Go!”

  Marwin shouted from behind. “I’m with you, bro!”

  “Stay with Rind!” Bolan hit the fence and was over it and into the trees. Jalaluddin might have been a master of Hawaiian martial arts and prophet of the apocalypse, but he was not a woodsman. The trail he left was easy to follow. Nui was running in Jalaluddin’s footsteps and Bolan could tell by the spoor Uncle Nui was starting to lag. Bolan could hear Marwin crashing through the underbrush behind him but there was no way to stop him save shooting him, and the morbidly obese Filipino was already falling far behind.

  Bolan fell into a hunter’s lope that allowed him to examine the trail ahead of him. Nui was an immensely powerful man but he was old. Jalaluddin was carrying the physique of a professional wrestling champion at the physical peak of perfection, but there was a good chance that he was not a distance runner. Neither were professional soldiers. Bolan was betting one or both would weary and start making the mistakes of the exhausted. Despite a spate of bad fights and brutal excursions, Bolan was one of the most fighting fit humans on earth, and he currently had a good night’s sleep and breakfast under his belt. And he knew something about running the bad guys down.

  Bolan took another hillside. He could see where Nui had grabbed and torn trees and roots to pull himself up. The soldier dropped short of the crest. A hump of rocks bloc
ked the left. Bolan took a hanging trail of roots and erosion and pulled a Spider-Man to his right. He could hear Nui wheezing.

  Bolan took a chance and put the 600’s sling between his teeth. He grabbed two saplings hanging off the hill and kip-upped to the plateau. Nui’s jaw dropped in horror as Bolan appeared like a magic trick. Nui leveled his M-16 and his burst ripped through the trees as Bolan ducked. Bolan fired from the hip and the .350 Magnum ripped through Nui’s side and turned him. The soldier flicked his bolt and fired as Nui ripped off another burst. Nui took the hit through the guts and screamed as he kept coming forward firing. Bolan and Nui exchanged fire from nearly spitting distance, except Bolan’s big-game bullets kept smashing the Hawaiian off his aim. Nui’s assault rifle clacked open on empty. He dropped the weapon and charged at Bolan screaming Hawaiian imprecations with his massive hands curled into claws.

  Bolan took a heartbeat to raise his aim and blew Nui’s brains out.

  Nui toppled to the sward.

  Bolan flicked the bolt. The 600 was empty, but he traversed the hilltop as if he still held thunder. “Surrender, Musa! And I’ll—”

  Jalaluddin exploded out of the underbrush right next to Bolan. The massive Hawaiian psychopath might not have been an experienced gunfighter or woodsman but he had skills. Bolan wasn’t used to being surprised. He had spent a great deal of time and effort training to make that impossible.

  Jalaluddin’s huge hand wrapped around the hot barrel of Bolan’s rifle. Bolan’s arm was still in the sling and his limb was nearly torn out of its socket as the weapon was ripped out of his grasp. The big Hawaiian flipped the rifle around like a toy and caught it by the grip. He slid his finger into the trigger guard and effortlessly pointed the rifle at Bolan one-handed as if it was a giant pistol. Bolan ignored the Hawaiian and rolled his arm in its socket. His shoulder felt as though it was on fire but everything was still connected. “Rifle’s empty.”

  “Makaha, I—” Bolan produced his Buck knife, snapped it open by the blade and threw it in nearly one motion. Jalaluddin didn’t flinch or dodge. He simply tilted his head to one side and let the knife flash past his face. It stuck into the trunk of a tree behind him. His head stayed tilted and the mocking eyebrow rose once more. It rose a millimeter higher as Bolan took out his second knife and snapped it open by the handle.

  Bolan considered his options. They weren’t good. Jalalud­din was larger than him, stronger than him, faster than him as well as far more skilled at hand-to-hand. Jalaluddin quite clearly, and smugly, was aware of Bolan’s dilemma, as well. He made a sympathetic noise. “Despite having only half a Hawaiian heart, I had fostered hopes for you in mine, Makaha.”

  Bolan let his tongue drip scorn. “I’m about as much Hawaiian as you’re Zulu, idiot.”

  Jalaluddin’s brows drew down.

  He clearly wasn’t used to disrespect and Bolan worked it. “One coating of Man-tan, some hair extensions, a can of SPAM and you and your whole ohana were fooled. Oh, and you think I’m working alone? You Hawaiian hillbillies! I swear, you’re like children.”

  Psychosis flashed for a hideous second in the big Hawaiian’s eyes, and then he smiled. He flipped the rifle again so that the barrel landed in his palm and he backhanded the weapon against a koa tree. Springs flew like shrapnel and the stock broke in two different directions. Bolan thought that was a waste of a mighty fine little rifle. On the other hand shattering a laminated stock one-handed was one hell of an intimidation maneuver. It was also extremely troublesome that Jalaluddin hadn’t pulled the trigger when Bolan had thrown the knife. The Hawaiian hadn’t even bothered to see if Bolan was lying about the weapon being loaded before smashing it. He didn’t seem much concerned about the knife in the tree behind him, much less the knife in Bolan’s hand.

  Jalaluddin spoke to Bolan as though he was a small child in the wrong. “You are not working alone. You are working with Koa. I see no gunships or Navy SEALs. I do not yet know who you are or what you represent, but you are alone. You’re going to die alone and—”

  Bolan attacked.

  He took a stutter step and dragged the toe of his boot along the ground. Bolan kicked it up and sent a decent clod of dirt and debris at Jalaluddin’s face. Bolan came in low with his knife edge-up to zipper-cut the big Hawaiian from his bladder to his sternum.

  The soldier barely saw the hand that chopped into his wrist and sent the knife spinning away. Jalaluddin’s backhand nearly unhinged Bolan’s jaw. The soldier staggered back seeing stars. Bolan’s head stopped just short of exploding as Jalaluddin gave Bolan the hand again, forehand, upside the skull at full strength. The soldier went sprawling in the dirt.

  The man was bitch-slapping him to death. Bolan rolled badly but sheer instinct allowed him to roll up with a knee under him. He was off balance but lurched upward raising his hands in a palsied, all too stunned defense.

  Jalaluddin was upon him.

  The huge Hawaiian knocked aside Bolan’s hands and seized him. Jalaluddin bodily pressed the soldier over his head and hurled him against the koa. Bolan’s body curled sideways around the trunk with bone-shattering force and he slid off the towering hardwood to the forest floor like a cracked egg. He barely had time for one ragged gasp as Jalaluddin picked him up like a sack of potatoes, inverted him, and charged the tree as if it was a football blocking sled. Jalaluddin was the hammer. The massive tree was the anvil. Bolan was the sack of meat between a rock and a hard place as they collided. His vision went dark as he ate tree upside down and his every internal organ violently compressed. He didn’t feel himself hit the ground. Despite the fact that Bolan was now limp he presented no trouble to Jalaluddin as the Hawaiian picked him up once more and hurled him at nothing in particular, as though he was a human caber. The soldier flew through the air and met the ground without even a pretense of trying to slap out or roll.

  Bolan lay facedown in the grass. It seemed like a very nice place and he never wanted to leave it. Physically he had red lights blinking across the board, but his battle instincts were still semi-consciously running assessments. He didn’t feel the telltale nausea of broken bones. He took a ragged breath and air filled his lungs without burning agony. Bolan deliberately blinked twice and his vision slewed back into the binocular. His mental tactical center was also firing urgent messages.

  Jalaluddin hadn’t snapped his spine or crushed his skull. The big Hawaiian was playing with him, and the psycho wasn’t finished. Jalaluddin’s voice sounded as though it came from underwater or very far away as he spoke. “Get up, Makaha.” Bolan yawned and spit blood. The second “Get up” was much clearer. The soldier got to his elbows and knees. He kept his right side away from Jalaluddin. He got one foot under him and groaned as he faked toppling to his right. The groaning and the toppling didn’t take much faking.

  “Try harder, Makaha.”

  Bolan pushed himself back up. He slid his fingers inside his boot as he did and palmed his concealed razor. Bolan fell back to his hands and knees and pitched a coughing fit as he pinched the blade loose and low between his thumb and forefinger. His little finger flicked the handle open along his inner forearm and held it in place. He left his two middle fingers open. To conceal the razor, Bolan let his arm hang against his side as if it was hurt as he rose. He didn’t need to fake reeling as his vision skewed again. The soldier took long breaths and let his vision clear. He bared his bloody teeth at his foe in a dead man’s smile. “Screw…you…”

  “Good!” Jalaluddin nodded. “Do you know what I am going to do now?”

  “I don’t know.” Bolan spat more blood and was surprised no teeth came out with it. “Bundle me?”

  “Yes, Makaha. I am going to bundle you, alive. I will spend a day doing it, and during this time you will tell me absolutely everything about who you are and who you work for. Then I am going to bury you, up to your neck, bundled, in the forest, in a small pit that will accommodate yo
ur new size. I will keep you alive, feeding you like a poi dog. After you have rotted and tenderized for a week, and the ants have eaten your eyes, I will disinter you, and I will barbecue you, alive. You will die screaming in my fire.” Jalaluddin smiled beatifically as he ran the movie in his mind. “Then I, and the ohana, will feast upon your flesh and eat your soul.”

  Bolan was fairly certain this wasn’t Jalaluddin’s first trip to the syncretism rodeo. “You know?” Bolan let blood and spit pool under his tongue. “You are one sick bastard.”

  “Is that the best you can do, Makaha? The gods are watching.”

  “Okay.” Bolan considered a proper response. “We should have let the Japanese take these islands, so they could have taught you and your inbred, poi-eating, screw-faced ohana fear, respect and personal hygiene.”

  Jalaluddin grinned delightedly. “I am going to knock you unconscious now, and take you to the place of woe.”

  Bolan spit blood at the psycho’s face and despite his condition threw a right-hand lead with surprising snap and alacrity. Jalaluddin’s huge hand enclosed Bolan’s fist as he caught the punch like a softball. He grinned through the blood and spittle spackling his face. “Oh, Makaha, you—” The big Hawaiian hissed and his eyes flared as Bolan twisted his fist in Jalaluddin’s grip and yanked. The man reflexively released Bolan as the razor sliced his palm to the bone. Bolan threw another right but rather than a punch it was more like the paw-swipe of a bear. Jalaluddin tucked his head as he recoiled and rather than cutting the Hawaiian from carotid to Adam’s apple, Bolan laid open his jaw from his ear to his chin. Blood flew in a spectacular fashion and Jalaluddin’s face fell open.

  Bolan dropped to one knee and swung a razor-loaded uppercut at the man’s crotch. Jalaluddin was still fast, far too fast, and Bolan was in bad shape. His right hand struck like a snake and seized Bolan’s wrist in a bone-crusher as Bolan knew he would. The soldier allowed it and simply dropped the razor into his left hand.