Operation Norfolk

by Randy Wayne White

  Hawker spread open the hammock and crawled from beneath the netting. He scratched his head and immediately winced. His jaw hurt like hell. His shoulders ached. Even his joints ached. His hands had been cut on barnacles, something he didn’t even notice last night.

  He smiled wryly. Getting older sure was a bitch. Five years ago he would have come through the whole ordeal without noticing the abrasions and bruises. Now he felt as if he’d been beaten with a bat.

  Hawker stretched painfully, yawned, and looked around.

  Sha’s hammock was empty.

  He walked out into the little clearing near the beach, making sure no boats were out there to see him. Sha’s tracks led down the beach. He followed them.

  Her tracks cut in abruptly toward a sheer wall of volcanic rock. Hawker could hear the distant splash of water and someone singing. It was Sha’s voice.

  He worked his way through the palm trees until he came to a clearing. A small river came down the side of the mountain and fell off a ledge. A waterfall. There Sha stood, naked in the pool of water below, washing her hair. There was a bar of soap on the rock beside her and a coconut with its top whacked off.

  Hawker stood watching, enjoying the sight of her, the tautness of her body, the leanness of her hips, the small firm breasts with then-brown nipples, the glistening pubic thatch, long and black. He watched as she threw her hair over her shoulder, like a dark sodden rope, then picked up the coconut and worked the coconut water into her hair.

  He felt like a snoop. Hawker didn’t like the feeling, but he didn’t want to leave either. It was a nice thing to see, her standing beneath the waterfall, a true island beauty.

  Pushing his way out into the clearing, Hawker stopped beside the pool, ten yards from her. “How you doing, partner?” he said.

  “What? Hey!”

  Hawker laughed at the way she tried to cover herself—pulling her right knee up, throwing an arm across her breasts, trying to cover her pubis with an open hand.

  “Let me know when you’re done with the shower, partner. I’m next.” The vigilante turned and walked back toward their camp. “And don’t use all the hot water!” he called over his shoulder.

  Sha came back into camp a few minutes later looking sheepish.

  “All done?” Hawker asked, smiling.

  “You spy on me. Watch me naked.”

  “That’s right, I spied on you. You were too pretty not to watch.”

  That seemed to please her, but she tried not to show it. Indeed, she slapped at him as she walked by. “I get stuff ready to go while you shower.”

  “You no come and watch?” Hawker grinned, mimicking her.

  “No! I got manners. I no watch!” She paused and grinned back. “Beside, I already see you.”

  “And you didn’t like what you saw?”

  She just walked away, flapping her hand at him.

  It took them half an hour to pack the gear they might need into backpacks with frames.

  Hawker carried the Colt Commando slung over his shoulder.

  He noticed that the woman had stuck the little snub-nosed revolver into the big pocket of her shorts.

  For half an hour they walked, avoiding the mountain. As they made their way through the jungle, hacking at vines, monkeys and birds scolded them from the high trees.

  Hawker kept an eye on Sha as they went, watching her expression. She seemed confused at first. That worried him. It had been a long time since she had found her “secret” path across the mountain. She had been a little girl then, probably frightened half out of her mind.

  He had to force himself not to second-guess her, ignoring the persistent urge to keep asking if she recognized anything. Hawker knew that pressure froze the memory banks, and he wanted her memory to be at its best.

  Gradually the confusion left her face. She began to move faster through the dense foliage. Once she stopped and looked at a huge black tree, one of the biggest trees Hawker had ever seen. Its trunk was the size of a two-car garage, maybe two hundred feet high. She peered up and said, “Yes. This I remember. This great tree. When a little girl, I rest here, wanting so bad someone come and help me.”

  Sha touched the tree fondly, then moved on without another word.

  The “secret” passage was a great crevasse in the mountain. It began as a cave opening hardly wide enough for Hawker to get his shoulders through. Sha simply walked toward a sheer rock ledge covered with vines and leaves, began poking at the vines, pushing them away, and there it appeared, this crack in the earth. Hawker wondered how in the hell she found it, how she possibly could have remembered. But somewhere in that little girl’s memory, the way of her escape from the bad man of Kira-Kira was forever etched.

  On hands and knees now, he crawled behind her into the dark cave. He took out his little flashlight, holding it in his teeth.

  “Why you need light?” she asked once. “Nothing to see.”

  The cave broadened, becoming huge. The floor was covered with water, the walks slick with slime.

  Hawker switched off the flashlight and saw that light filtered in from someplace, he couldn’t tell where. The ceiling of the cave was so high, there were probably cracks all along the top of it.

  It was rough walking. Volcanic litter covered the floor. Suddenly Hawker saw something on one of the walls and shined his light. Huge ceremonial faces stared down at him, Polynesian-type Kon Tiki faces. Perhaps they had been drawn by some tribesman a hundred or even a thousand years ago. The faces of the Polynesian gods had eerie eyes, fierce and accusing.

  After more than an hour of walking, they came out into daylight, although they still remained in the crevasse. Grass and roots formed a roof over much of the crevasse, probably making it impossible to see in from above. Twice they passed human skeletons, shattered skulls testifying to the fact.

  Sha hurried by the skeletons, hands against her chest, as if they might reach up and bite her.

  Finally the crevasse funneled into another, narrower cave opening. It was strictly a hands-and-knees journey at this point, the backpacks barely fitting through. Hawker said, “How in the world did you get up the courage to come through this thing when you were just a kid? I keep expecting to put my hand on a snake or a rat or something.”

  From the darkness came Sha’s voice. “You never meet Cwong. Nothing so scary as Cwong. After being with him, nothing frighten me.”

  But the narrow tunnel did not last for long. Ahead, Hawker could see a pinpoint of daylight—tiny at first, then getting broader, whiter. Sha pushed away dirt and roots and grass, and Hawker stepped out behind her into the smokey daylight of jungle.

  Behind them was the sheer volcanic wall of the mountain.

  Before them were the steel buildings and wooden shacks and chain-link fence of the complex.

  “There it is,” Sha said with an involuntary shiver. “That where you go tonight. That where you kill Cwong.”

  fourteen

  They rested, the sun a pale bubble over the glittering Pacific. It leached steam from the jungle. Even the monkeys seemed to doze.

  Hawker slept beneath a huge tree with elephant-ear leaves. He would awaken occasionally, his eyes searching for sentries. Once he awoke to see Sha looking at him.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi. I thinking.”

  “Oh? About what?”

  “About place I make for you, back on island. Place with thatch roof. Very nice, huh?”

  “Yes,” said Hawker. “Very nice. I liked it a lot.”

  She stirred, uncomfortable. “Just think might be nice go back there … you and me.”

  Hawker raised himself on one elbow. “You and me? You in the tent, me in the little hut?”

  She looked away. “No. Just you and me.”

  Hawker smiled, dropping back down. He slept until someone shook him away from a dream in which he was with another woman in another jungle, not so long ago.

  The vigilante sat bolt upright. “What—”

  Sha was kneeling
over him, shaking him gently. “You tell me wake you when sun goes down. It time now.”

  Hawker stood up to see one of the most stunning sunsets he’d ever seen: a huge orange ball, streaked with brass and purple, melting into the sea.

  He stretched and yawned. “You okay?” Sha asked. “Maybe we should wait. Wait maybe tomorrow?”

  Hawker looked at his watch: 8:17 P.M. The thermite bombs he had planted on the boats would be going off in about forty minutes. The bombs he had planted under the derrick would explode in just over an hour.

  “No reason to wait,” said Hawker. “I’ve been looking forward to this too long to wait. You know what you’re supposed to do?”

  “Maybe I should come with you. Maybe you need help.”

  Hawker shook his head. “No. You are to do absolutely nothing. Understand? You stay right here no matter what you see or what you hear. When I get away, coming up the mountain, I’ll blink my flashlight three times. But don’t shine any signal in return. Just watch for me. Yell if you have to. I’ll probably be moving fast, and there may be somebody after me. If it looks like you’re in any danger at all, get the hell back through the passage. Take the boat, the exact headings I gave you. I’ll make it on my own just fine. You understand?”

  “I understand,” she said, “but I no like. Should come with you. Maybe help.”

  Hawker had already set out the gear he would need. He finished greasing his face, and pulled the black wool watch cap on over his dark hair. “You’ve already helped. I mean that. And when we get back, after we rest up a little and all this stuff dies down, we’ll take a trip back to that little island. Spend a few days in your grass hut.”

  “You mean that? For sure, you mean that?”

  “Sure I mean it,” he said.

  Hawker shouldered his gear, turned, and walked down through the jungle, toward Cwong’s camp.

  The vigilante waited outside the high chain-link fence, in the trees beyond the ten-yard killing area on the outside of the complex. He watched the lights of the complex come on all at once as the generator kicked on. Hawker could see the guards change demeanor, relaxing a little with darkness and lighting cigarettes.

  Cwong certainly had no shortage of guards. The backside of the chain-link fence stretched maybe a quarter mile along the rear of the compound. Four guards paced that area in pairs.

  Hawker assumed there were four guards for each side of the complex, probably more out front by the wharf and still more by the arsenal.

  The ground inside the fence was roughly mowed scrub and sand, with a few palm trees. Beyond the fence were six small wooden houses, probably guards’ quarters. Beyond those were two large storehouse areas. Hawker knew from his intelligence briefing that off to the left of that was the camouflaged storage area for Cwong’s arsenal.

  From the vigilante’s position, the area looked like a plain of low jungle. Cwong had probably covered the area with netting and vegetation. Beneath the netting would probably be enough stolen ordnance to equip a small army.

  Hawker knew that he would have to keep reminding himself that Cwong’s men would certainly not lack firepower. He would have to hit them by surprise. Hit them hard and fast. Somehow he had to find Cwong, eliminate him, and get the hell out. It would be plenty tough: This organization was like some great writhing creature with Cwong for a brain.

  Eliminate the brain, kill it, and the creature would die.

  Lying in the jungle, watching the compound, Hawker thought once again about Cwong the man—what he would look like, what his expression might be when he looked up to see an executioner staring him in the face. He also thought once again about Sha as a little girl, how it must have been for her to be taken by such a disgusting creature. Hawker felt his grip tighten on the Colt Commando he held in his hands.

  He checked his watch again: 8:45. The thermite bombs would soon turn the two cargo ships into fireballs. He wondered how the people on the islands of Tongo and Mokii would react. They’d probably be pleased—glad that their keeper had been hurt in some way.

  As the second pair of guards strolled by and disappeared into the orange haze of the distant vapor lights, the vigilante took a deep breath, got to his feet, and sprinted to the fence. Quickly he took out the voltage tester he carried in the pocket of his green wool limey commando pants. He touched one prong to the fence and the other to the metal post.

  The light did not come on.

  Surprisingly, the fence was not electrified.

  But it would certainly be wired to some kind of burglar alarm system … or would it?

  The fence was six feet high with concertina wire on top. Hawker reached up, running his hands along the top bar. He felt a flat coated wire. Looking both ways to make sure the guards were still far enough away, he took out a long wire with alligator clips on both ends. Ever so gently, Hawker pressed both clips into the wire, then snipped it. He listened intently for bells and alarms and sirens to go off, but there were none.

  Hawker hurried back into the jungle once more as the guards approached, passed, and faded away. There was still no indication that he’d set off an alarm. So far, so good. He could feel the adrenaline-flutter deep in the abdomen that he always felt before starting a tough mission. It was a good feeling.

  Hawker took out the big wire cutters and sprinted back to the fence. He cut the heavy chain link between the alligator clips, skittered under the wire, then dove behind a clump of coconut palms as the guards returned and passed.

  In his backpack he carried eight pounds of military-issue plastic explosives. He had already molded the yellow catalyst into the blue claylike explosives, kneading it until it turned green. All the explosives needed now were the radio-activated blasting detonators.

  The vigilante slid out of the pack, took three half-pound chunks out, broke each in two, then sprinted to the first of the six wooden houses that housed Cwong’s elite guard.

  He poked his head up to the window of one. Inside, a half-dozen men sat cross-legged on the floor. There was a pile of money in the middle of the floor, American currency, and the men were hooting and laughing as they rolled dice.

  Hawker watched them for a moment, then ducked back down. The houses were built up on cement blocks. He took a chunk of the plastic explosive and stuck it beneath the house, then inserted the detonator.

  As he got back to his feet, he heard the faint rustle of footsteps. Turning to look, he fell backward as a wide, dark figure dove into him. The figure was swinging something, something long and bright, reflecting the faint camp lights.

  One of the guards had found him and was now trying to kill him with a knife.

  fifteen

  Falling backward, the vigilante let the guard’s momentum carry him over his shoulders. The stranger somersaulted over onto his back.

  The guard landed with a whoof that knocked the air right out of him, which might have been the luckiest thing that had happened to Hawker for a long time. Surely the guard would have called out for help if he could have found the air to speak.

  The vigilante kicked the man once in the side of the neck, but the soft heel of the Nikes he wore only stunned him. The guard responded by rolling to his knees, brandishing the knife. Hawker kicked the knife from the man’s hand, then kicked him hard in the throat.

  The guard rolled over, gurgling, clawing at his throat. It would have been enough to disable him for some time. But the vigilante hadn’t come to disable.

  Coldly and without emotion, he drew the Randall knife from the calf holster and drove the big saw-edge blade into the man’s right eye and twisted. He pulled the knife out and cleaned the blade in the earth before reholstering it.

  The guard lay in the darkness, twitching in his own blood.

  Once again Hawker scanned the area to make sure no one had heard. He poked his nose up over the window to see the men still playing dice. Then he went to the other houses, looking in each one. Two were empty. There was a total of fifteen men in the other three. Hawker planted exp
losives only in those three.

  He checked the glowing squares of his Seiko watch: 9:14 P.M. The two cargo boats would be burning fireballs by now. In sixteen minutes, the derrick down at the wharf would go up. The vigilante knew he would have to hurry but also knew he had to be extremely cautious, because getting caught now would ruin everything, putting the whole compound on alert.

  Cautiously Hawker worked his way across the area to the two big storage barns. He planted plastic explosives and thermite bombs in them, all keyed to the same radio frequency of his detonator. Coming around the corner of the second barn, he almost walked right into two guards who were standing and smoking, their weapons at their feet.

  Hawker backed quickly against the wall. He slung the automatic rifle over his shoulder and drew the .45 automatic from its holster. Finding the sound arrester in his pocket, he screwed it on tight. He hoped the sound of the surf and the distant hum of the generator would be enough to cover the noise. But he also knew that he didn’t have much choice. If he tried to take them with a knife, one of them would certainly have enough time to call out. Hawker wished he had the Cobra crossbow he had used so often.

  Holding the .45 with the barrel by his ear, pointed at the sky, Hawker stepped back around the corner and shot the guards quickly. Two careful shots, that’s all it took, the slow slugs knocking their heads back and breaking their necks. The guards were probably dead before the slugs entered their brains.

  Hawker stepped out, checking the area carefully before removing the sound arrester and holstering the weapon. Then he was across the clearing, heading for what still looked like a low jungle plain. As he got closer, though, the jungle began to look like a gigantic tent. Hawker could see the support posts, then the dim outline of crates, hundreds of them stacked on top of each other, plus the canvas-color shapes of what had to be cannon and field rocket launchers.

  Once he got into the camouflaged area, the vigilante took it a lot more slowly. He couldn’t believe there weren’t guards all over the place. But he saw none. Maybe Cwong wasn’t the perfectionist he had feared. Maybe Cwong thought that the perimeter of his complex was defense enough.