Hawaii Five-O - 2 - Terror in the Sun

by Michael Avallone

  The time for the knife had come.

  Kono’s time had come.

  The second when Igor Dorkin’s arithmetic demanded one more subtraction from the quantity of four. He could finish up the woman on his way out of the office. For the time being, he had only wanted to render her incapable of assistance or interruption.

  “Pardon?” Tornier said aloud from the doorway.

  Kono whirled, looking up, his broad body in direct line with the doorway. For a split second, he could think of nothing to say. The Frenchman had materialized like a wraith.

  There was no more time.

  Like a bolt of lightning, a flash of cobalt thunder in the night sky, the delicate, deadly stiletto left Tornier’s expert hand. It flew across the room, shining, impossible to follow with the naked eye. A star dying in the heavens does not seem to travel so fast.

  Kono was incapable of movement.

  Death was on the way.

  5. HOMICIDE IN HULALAND

  The door to the hospital room was locked shut; far from prying eyes and ears. McGarrett stood by the side of the sick bed and stared down at Danny Williams. He kept all the sympathy out of his face though his voice was lighter and softer than usual. The younger man recognized the surrender of one of McGarrett’s prime tools of equipment and went along with the routine. He didn’t smile. Yet his eyes and stiffened lips reflected gratitude, despite the painful harness contraption of leather and straps accommodating his whiplashed neck. Miles of white gauze and protective splints froze his legs into a rising angle of mummified limbs, weighted down with traction trolleys supporting the small of his back. The white room was small and cheerless. Pale green curtains closed out the night.

  “Sorry we muffed it, Steve.” Williams’ voice, throttled and choked off by the neck harness, was cracked, weak and dry. McGarrett placed an index finger to his own lips and Williams subsided gratefully.

  “Shut up, Danny. You didn’t muff anything. Kelly’s still under sedation but he’ll live. And you will too. I’ll miss you both but it can’t be helped. Now, pay attention. We’ll do a rundown but you answer one or two words at a time. Don’t strain yourself or reach for the words. That sawbones out in the hall gave me only about ten minutes and time’s important. Got that?”

  Williams managed a tiny nod of his head. His short, curled hair was damp with exhaustion, pain and shock.

  “Good. The accident now. A Plymouth ran into you on Kalakaua Avenue. A man jumped out of the car before it hit you. A panic jump or a methodical one?”

  “Methodical.”

  “Strike you as a planned maneuver all the way? Something worked out in advance?”

  “Yes. The thing was acrobatic. Like a stunt man—”

  “Sshh. Let me do the talking. And thinking out loud. The Plymouth. Old or new?”

  “Sixty or—sixty-one model.”

  “Old, then. Chances are a rented car. One of the agencies right here in town. Nobody smashes up his own bus on a hit. And this was a hit?”

  “Yes. Definitely.”

  McGarrett dug a cigarette out of his inside pocket and lit it. His police mind was turning over like a smooth set of six cylinders. Williams could see that. As occupied as he was with the throbbing agony of his battered flesh.

  “No one in our files,” McGarrett said, “has an MO like that. Trick driving or stunts. Out-of-town talent. No doubt about it. I expected it. Our VIP at the Kahala is drawing them like flies. Also, I don’t think the object necessarily was to kill you and Chin Ho. Just to put you out of action—”

  “They succeeded—”

  “I said Shut Up. If that was the idea, then it means they want me. Or Five-O. All of us. And probably all because the Governor asked me to join the party. Make sense? Just nod your head.”

  Williams nodded.

  “Okay, then. What do I do now? Check the rental agencies, bother with the guest list at the Kahala? Waste of time. This bunch is highly organized if they go after us with automobile accidents. And we haven’t got that kind of time. Look.” McGarrett leaned over the bed and stared down into the eyes of his subordinate. “You stay put here. You can’t go anywhere. I’ll see that you and Chin get around the clock protection while I’m running this down. The State Police owe us a couple of favors. I’ll ask for them back. Promise me you don’t go screwball on me and make trouble here.”

  “Steve—”

  “Promise me. It’s no good, Danny. You couldn’t sign your autograph now and you’d only slow me down.”

  “I promise.”

  “Good. I’ll run May over in the morning to hold your hand and read a book to you.”

  Williams forced a tight smile.

  “Make it—How To Dodge Plymouths?”

  “Sure. You rest up now. Soon as you’re back in regular harness and Mr. Endore is out of our hair, I’ll stake you to a big feed at Volcano House. Those crazy steaks you like so much.”

  “Thanks, Steve.” Williams’ voice was almost a hoarse whisper now. McGarrett frowned. Doctors always knew what they were talking about. Danny was slipping off into merciful unconsciousness.

  When he tiptoed out into the hallway, Danny Williams was out cold. McGarrett had been unable to leave without checking his pulse. Danny’s color and the sound of his breathing had scared him. Deep, full anger bottled up in McGarrett showed only in the ridged muscles of his lean jaws. Literally under his nose, two of his best men had been taken away from him in less time than it took to jump out of a Plymouth exceeding the speed limit. He put the cigarette out, thoughtfully.

  The Doctor had waited for him to come out. A doughy-faced man with rimless spectacles whose nasal voice concealed a wealth of first class medical skill. McGarrett knew him. He had removed a .32 caliber slug from McGarrett’s left arm only the spring before. Fredric T. Ash.

  “He fell asleep, Doc. Even as I was talking to him.”

  “Only natural. Considering the accident. You won’t be able to talk to Kelly until late tomorrow afternoon. Very late.”

  “It’ll wait. I want the best for these two, Doc. Right down the line. Sorry, I’m going to have to fill these quiet corridors with some policemen. It’s necessary.”

  “I understand. We’ll cooperate.” Dr. Ash took off his glasses and wiped some mist from them. “Your man Kelly got some words off his chest before the drugs hit him. Thought you might like to hear them. Greek to me but you’re the policeman, McGarrett. You do the doping out.”

  McGarrett felt that inner soaring of hope that all policemen on the trail wait for and pray for. And hope for.

  “Shoot. What was it?”

  Dr. Ash groped for the precise words. He replaced the glasses on his nose and his eyes searched the ceiling.

  “He said—the exact words now, mind you—‘suede windbreaker, crew-neck shirt, light brown slacks’—exactly in that order, Mac. He repeated it a couple of times before blacking out.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “Mean anything?”

  “Yeah, Doc. Once a cop always a cop.”

  The interview ended, McGarrett walked quickly down the hall, skirting white uniforms and green uniforms, on his way to the elevators. He hadn’t been kidding Dr. Fredric T. Ash. Chin Ho Kelly was a wonder, all right. A ring-tailed, Irish-Hawaiian wonder. Bless his eyes!

  Even in what must have been split seconds as that Plymouth and squad car roared toward each other, his police-trained eye and mind had taken a picture. A brief but vivid portrait of the man who had been driving the runaway car.

  McGarrett would have bet a month’s pay that Chin Ho Kelly’s words of delirium were his description of the nameless, faceless driver. It was a mighty slim lead, thinner than the spaghetti sticks in some of the Honolulu pizza parlors.

  But it was a lead.

  A clue.

  With very little to work on, McGarrett had learned how to be grateful for small favors.

  You made use of them.

  No view or glimpse of Hawaii is more breathtaking and fant
astically grand on the main island than that offered by the mountain pass of Nuuanu Pali. At sunset, it is something to make even the Grand Canyon play second fiddle as a panoramic phenomenon. Oahu has many wondrous natural features that makes it difficult for malihini to tear themselves away for a further tour of the neighbor islands. But these visitors from the mainland find it impossible to take in Nuuanu Pali’s grandeur at one gulp and usually come back for a second look.

  There is just too much to absorb in one viewing.

  For here, a towering, mammoth mountain, over twelve hundred feet in height drops off to sea level in one sheer plunge of nature. The waters of the Pacific lie below, foaming, boiling. This is the historic spot where King Kamehameha I cemented his royal position as emperor of the islands by compelling Oahuans, warriors and their women, to take the suicidal plunge to the ocean below. The kamaainas, Hawaii’s long-time residents, grin proudly as malahinis lose their tourist satiety at the sight and allow their mouths to gape.

  With the blazing ball of sun lost in the Pacific and the skies tinted cobalt and magenta and orange, the great plunge is a sight in a million.

  Angelo Bellini, Mark Tillingham and Von Litz had decided upon Nuuanu Pali as a perfect place to discuss strategy and battle plans. Or rather, the next steps of murder for hire.

  They had rented a blue sports convertible late that afternoon as soon as Igor Dorkin had reported back to the Kahala Hilton of his great success with Five-O’s two police officers. And now, Tornier, perhaps even now, was busily completing his project at the official Headquarters of the targets. The three assassins, all attired in duplicate Aloha shirts worn loosely over the tops of their variety of slacks, were as unassuming and nondescript as any tourists. They sat, smoking cigarettes in the convertible, the nose of the vehicle facing the ocean and the shore, the mammoth suicidal plunge to their very left, no more than several hundred yards off.

  Turkish aromas filled the air as Bellini chain-smoked his particular brand The breeze rolled up from the surf below, whispering across the beach, fanning their faces. Tillingham who had driven the car, was also chewing gum at Bellini’s side. In the rear of the vehicle, Von Litz, his head close-cropped with the gray hair, was rolling his lethal pellets almost absentmindedly in one very hard fist. Like so many marbles. The big moon up in the sky hung like something in a picture post card.

  Bellini said around his cigarette, “The Undertaker is a smart bunny. I like doing it this way.”

  Tillingham nodded. “Hear, hear. We pooled our efforts and now we three can do McGarrett.”

  Von Litz stopped rattling his pellets. “When?” he growled.

  The angelic face of Bellini, almost cherubic and utterly innocent, save for the Romany coloring, smiled.

  “Tomorrow. We’ll take him in three shifts. We know where he lives, where he eats. Bound to stop him one way or the other.”

  Tillingham clicked his gum like a teen-ager. His hairless face and head gleamed in the gloom.

  “The garrote, the pistol and the poison. Oh, we’ll stop that blighter’s clock. Wonder when Bygraves will make his own move.”

  “That one,” Von Litz shuddered. “Like Death. I admire him but he gives one the shudders.”

  “The Undertaker,” Bellini said with the awe of a Little Leaguer in the presence of Mickey Mantle. “In a class by himself.”

  “A million dollars,” Tillingham reminded him. “Not exactly alfalfa, dear Bellini.”

  “I can count,” Bellini laughed, flicking his Turkish cigarette out of the car so that the night breeze caught it, whipped the butt along, showering sparks and ashes. “Come on, I’ve seen enough. Let’s go back to town and hit one of the night spots. I want to try some of this hula food.”

  “Positively delightful, old cock,” Tillingham agreed. “They do things with guava fruit you wouldn’t believe—”

  “Come on,” Von Litz snapped, the soldier in him surging to the top of his voice. “Move out. You don’t want to get any parking tickets—”

  “Here?” Bellini snorted. “Hang onto your nerves, Von baby.”

  Mark Tillingham laughed again, turned the ignition key, flicked on his headlights, and backed slowly out onto the gravel road. Von Litz grumpily folded his arms and said nothing. Bellini lay back against his seat and closed his eyes. It was a dream setting, a luxury for the five senses and a man should not have to think of murder in such a place. Yet all of them had.

  Yet, each of them had.

  In his own individual, quietly murderous way.

  Tillingham pointed the nose of the convertible toward Honolulu proper and shifted easily into gear. The vehicle throbbed forward, leaving behind, rising like a tremendous shadow from the past glories of the universe, the towering mountain pass of Nuuanu Pali. It stood like a monolithic marvel, dwarfing the greatest plans of the biggest men.

  And the smallest.

  Palm trees rustled outside the suite window. Benjamin Bygraves was busy. Alone in his bedroom, he was making ready his own end of the bargain he had made with five of the world’s most infamous assassins. Had any of them been present in the room, they might have wondered what the Undertaker was up to.

  Even standing by as eyewitnesses, they might have been perplexed. Justifiably. No one had ever really known how exactly Benjamin Bygraves had toted up such an alarming addition of corpses. And kills.

  Oh, the victims were usually found with their necks wrung or their larynxes crushed or with water in their lungs, indicating a manual attack. But no one could say how Bygraves had managed to get to his highly inaccessible victims. It was still a wonder of the assassination world how he had contrived to get past an army of guards into the royal palace at Dirigio to strangle the young prince, heir apparent to the throne of Laran.

  No, nobody knew.

  The Undertaker had always worked alone. Up until now.

  There was a small black bag on the bed. The kind that might have accommodated your TV repairman or a telephone lineman. Or even an electrician. Bygraves had it open, removing several black leather articles not readily identifiable. When he spread the bag’s contents on the counterpane, it became more clear what the nature of his tools were.

  A leather harness belt with many pouches. A pair of black gloves, the sort risk workers use for operating in high places. A set of tiny steel cutters, for snipping wire and such. Also, a glasscutting tool that Tornier the Frenchman would have admired with his predilection for sharp instruments that performed their job well. At last, Bygraves drew forth from the bag his last and most vital piece of equipment.

  Rubber disks, crude black rubber, about as large as silver dollars backed up by conical attachments, also rubber. Bygraves looked at these, almost fondly. Their specially treated texture was a new step in defying the laws of physics: gravity, specifically.

  Benjamin Bygraves could very nearly match the behavior and wizardry of the common housefly. He could walk up a wall, his great height and weight notwithstanding.

  It was all elementally simple.

  The target, Rogers Endore, was ensconced in a similar suite no more than five floors above. Same side of the building. Though it faced the beach with its hordes of nighttime frolickers and the sounds of the electric guitars were close enough to fill the evening with melody, the situation was made to order. The target had to sleep sometime. He would sleep alone, probably. If not—well, two could be killed for the price of one. Even more.

  It would be another impossible kill. One that would baffle every law enforcement agency in Hawaii. Thanks to a judicious survey of the blueprints and architect’s plans of the Kahala Hilton and more mundane information garnered that very day, Benjamin Bygraves was thoroughly familiar with the peregrinations of one Rogers Endore. The Diplomat was to make an address at the University of Hawaii. He was due back around midnight. At one o’clock in the morning, he should be in bed. He was no young man; an important man with a heavy schedule. It was then that Benjamin Bygraves would make his move. Not even his crew of assassins wou
ld know—or could—that he had merely stepped through the bedroom window and gone for a walk up to Endore’s floor! How could they?

  Passing around the fashionable lobby after dinner, Bygraves had seen Rogers Endore dining with a beautiful young redhead. It was no magic to ascertain that this was Myra Endore, the great man’s daughter. A wild young heiress used to her own way who had taken it in her head to fly down from London to see her father. Bygraves had not mistaken the tenor of their table talk. Endore was being parental and firm about his offspring leaving Hawaii. The young lady had argued, looked upset, but in the end, relented. She would be gone by morning.

  Some clever footwork at the Registration Desk, the old trick of putting an innocent tourist brochure in a hotel envelope, putting Miss Endore’s name on the outside and watching the clerk drop it in her slot for mail and messages, convinced Bygraves that the lady was not sharing her father’s suite of rooms. She had taken a separate billet. Therefore, she should not be in the way when the Undertaker made his move.

  Nor would the brochure make her really suspicious.

  Despite his own indelible appearance, Bygraves had been careful to be unobtrusive. He was wary of the big man with the pocked face who hovered close by whenever Rogers Endore walked in the hotel. Also, the handful of agent-types who pretended tourist boredom and innocence as they read newspapers, paused at vending machines or dawdled within Endore’s vicinity. Bygraves knew agent types when he saw them. He estimated that perhaps four men were responsible for the safety of Rogers Endore and the man with the pocked face seemed to be the chief agent.

  Benjamin Bygraves was not unduly alarmed by his own features and extraordinary physiognomy. There was no photograph of him in existence. He had never had his picture taken after his twenty-first birthday and that was only a group shot of his graduation day from Grinnell College, Iowa. He had left America for Europe after that and been swallowed up by the dark alleys and byways of his curious profession. A citizen of the world. An assassin for any country or power group who would pay his price.