“You ready?”
The Philippine gangster prodigy brightened. “Oh, yeah!”
“Go.”
De Jong literally fell out of the Land Rover and staggered to the warehouse security door. He sounded close to tears as he pounded on the steel. “Handi! Handi! Answer the door!”
Bolan watched through the tinted windows as the security camera above the door regarded De Jong coldly. A voice spoke over an intercom. “Jagon?”
“For God’s sake!” De Jong bawled. “You have to let me in!”
Bolan knew Handi was shocked that De Jong was still alive much less whimpering on his doorstep. The intercom crackled. “Jagon, what are you doing here?”
“The Albanian! He lost his boat, his money, his girls and his guns! I think he ordered a hit on me tonight!”
Koa shook his head grudgingly. “He’s not bad.”
“Man deserves an award,” Rind opined.
There was no answer from the warehouse as Handi pondered this turn of events.
“Sweet Jesus! Google my name!” De Jong sobbed. Handi had to know his hit team was gone. The Philippine online news organizations were on fire with stories of gun battles in downtown Manila, helicopters falling out of the sky and the mysterious disappearance of gangster playboy Jagon De Jong. De Jong shrieked. “The son of a bitch is killing everyone!”
Handi made his decision. “Are you alone?”
“I’m with Marwin and Belle! Goddamn Xhindi burned up my penthouse and killed everyone else!”
A note of cupidity entered Handi’s voice over the intercom. “Belle? The waria?”
Bolan knew waria was the Indonesian word for a transgendered individual.
“Yes!” De Jong howled.
The door buzzed. “Come in.”
“Belle, Marwin.” Bolan lifted his chin at the converted warehouse. “You’re on.”
Marwin and Belle rolled out of the Land Rover. The intercom crackled. “Leave the guns.”
De Jong nodded at his minions. Marwin and Belle tossed their gold-plated guns back into the vehicle as Bolan and his team stayed low. Team Jagon entered the warehouse and the door closed behind them. Bolan checked his weapon a final time. “Handi is going to want some answers out of Jag-off. It sounds as though he wants a lot more out of Belle. Wait for my signal and then drive around back and blow through the loading ramp door.”
Koa nodded. “Got it.”
Rind took a stick of dynamite and a roll of duct tape out of the communal gear bag. De Jong hadn’t been able to get any heavy weapons but his family had multiple mining concerns in the Philippine Islands and a box of suspiciously sweaty dynamite had been in the Phenom jet’s stores at takeoff. Bolan slung his golden light machine gun and sub over his shoulders. He knew the inside team had only seconds before horrible things started happening. He stepped out of the Land Rover bold as brass and taped the stick of dynamite to the warehouse door. The Land Rover’s tires shrieked as Koa and Rind pulled away for the safety of the side street. Bolan lit the dynamite with a lighter he had bought at the Jakarta International gift shop. He ran across the street and hurled himself over a low wall as the fuse sparked and sputtered.
The street turned orange as the stick of dynamite went off.
Bolan rose in the smoking afterglow. He shoved his shining light machine gun into the hip-assault position and charged for the torn black hole that was now the warehouse frontage.
Handguns began popping inside the building. Bolan had instructed his team to hit the dirt when the blast struck. As he entered the breach, the soldier went hunting for muzzle-flashes in the smoke with bursts from the Minimi. The red laser made a pleasing line through the smoke and Bolan’s five-round bursts tracked along the line and silenced the opposition. By the same token the line let everyone know exactly where he was if his muzzle-flashes hadn’t and several returning shots came uncomfortably close.
An engine roared. Lights flared and the tires of an SUV parked within the building screamed against the cement floor. Bolan spun, took a knee and burned what remained of his hundred-round belt between the headlights. The engine cut and so did the lights. Bolan dropped the spent light machine gun and pulled his sub. He affixed the gold-plated bayonet for the hell of it and moved through the smoke. The soldier crouched after he nearly tripped over Marwin. The big man appeared to have been clubbed behind the ear. He was breathing but his eyelids were fluttering.
“Cooper!” De Jong was screaming in the smoke and darkness somewhere to Bolan’s left. “Cooper!”
“Shut up!” Bolan roared. “Stay down!”
Bullets sought them both. A second vehicle roared into life and began to roll for the massive breach in the side of the warehouse. Bolan put several bursts into it and automatic rifles fired back.
The former door of the warehouse’s loading dock shattered as Koa brought the Land Rover ramming through. The Hawaiian fishtailed for one second then caught sight of the other vehicle, corrected and T-boned it broadside. Rind ripped his way past the air bags and emerged with his machine pistols rolling in each hand as he peppered the vehicle with bursts.
Most of the overhead lighting had been shattered by the blast. Sparks flew as the generator kicked in and the two remaining overhead fixtures blinked on. At the same time the fire sprinklers belatedly hissed into life.
The Handyman snarled. “Enough!” Bolan turned to find Handi holding Belle in a one-armed chokehold. The front of her black shirt glistened with blood and he held a pistol under her jaw. Handi screwed the muzzle underneath Belle’s soft palate.
De Jong rose and dropped his pistol in a panic. “No! Don’t do it!”
Handi scanned the room at Rind, Koa and Bolan. “I’ll blow the bitch’s brains out!”
Bolan kept his Sterling leveled but nodded in disgust at the FBI agent. “Rind! Drop them!”
“Oh, for—”
“Do it!”
Rind dropped his Glocks. Bolan duly noted Handi’s eyes had flicked to the FBI man as he dropped his weapons.
Handi put the gun into Belle’s temple. “All of you!”
“Koa!” Bolan called.
“Hell with that!”
“Do it! We’re done here! He lets her go? We walk away!”
Koa’s weapon stood rock steady. “You think he’s going to let her go? You think any of us walk out?”
Bolan hoped to hell the Hawaiian would understand his impromptu code. “You don’t think I can make him see reason?”
Koa didn’t blink. He simply dropped his weapon. Handi watched it fall. Belle was looking at Bolan in desperation. Bolan hoped she got his code, as well, as he looked at her feet and jerked his head both ways and up.
Belle jumped, her feet apart a meter, and shoved her hands up against the butt of the Hi-Power pistol screwed against her skull. She screamed as the gun went off. Bolan lowered his aim between Belle’s legs and held the trigger of his Sterling down.
Most of the Handyman’s right tibia shattered and collapsed under the onslaught. Handi toppled backward, screaming. Belle staggered forward two steps, clutching her right ear, and fell to her knees. Koa vaulted a couch and landed with a knee in Handi’s chest. He took the Indonesian gangster’s gun and choked him unconscious.
“Rind! De Jong! Clear the building!”
Rind scooped up his pistols, hauled De Jong to his feet and shoved a weapon into the gangster’s hand as he began a professional sweep. Bolan went to Belle. Blood trickled beneath the hand covering her ear. “Can you hear me?”
Belle tilted her head as though she had the worst migraine on earth. “On the left side.”
“I think your eardrum is perforated.”
Rind called out. “Clear!”
“See to Marwin! Koa?”
Koa had finished applying a tourniquet to Handi
’s leg. “He’ll live.”
“Run a sweep for any laptops or tablets. Get their phones. We’re out of here. De Jong! I need a medic!”
De Jong grinned. “I happen to know a guy in town!”
Chapter 9
Glodok, Jakarta
“You do know who that is?” Dr. Dewa asked, looking none too happy.
Bolan glanced down at the Handyman. Whatever drugs De Jong had shared with him on the trip to Chinatown clearly weren’t doing enough to take the edge off the gangster’s pain. He shook and sweated and moaned on the gurney. Bolan nodded at his prey. “Oh, yeah.”
“Do you want me to try to save the leg?” Dr. Dewa looked dubiously at the mess Bolan’s burst had made of the Handyman’s lower leg. Dewa was a very serious-looking young doctor—a member of the long and less-than-distinguished line of medical professionals who through addiction to drugs or gambling—in his case both—had been forced to relaunch his medical career catering exclusively to criminals. He had made the severe mistake of getting himself indebted to Jakarta’s Chinese organized crime element.
“Can you?” Bolan inquired.
“It would take multiple operations. I would have to call in some people to help. He needs—”
“He needs to speak with me immediately.”
Dewa tsked thoughtfully. “I see.”
Bolan was pretty sure this wasn’t the first time one of Dewa’s patients had been assessed this way.
Koa gazed down upon Handi in grim amusement. “I think One Foot Wonder suits him better than Handyman, anyway.”
Marwin held an icepack against the purple lump on the back of his head. “Screw him.”
“De Jong?”
“Do you even have to ask?”
“Rind,” Bolan called, “you got any love for this man?”
Rind didn’t bother looking up from his rampaging through the laptops and tablets they had taken from the warehouse. “None whatsoever, Coop. The Handyman? Total scumbag.”
Handi sweated through his clothes. Bolan shook his head. “Vote’s going against you, you know.”
The gangster’s comb-over had flopped to one side on his pillow, giving him a remarkable kraken/cranium effect. He remained defiant. “If you wanted me dead I’d be dead.”
“That’s right!” Bolan brightened. “So I’ll make you a deal. Morphine, your leg and your life, in that order.”
“And in return you want what?”
Bolan sighed. “Is that the foot you want to put forward?”
“As it stands you only have one,” Koa cautioned. “I’d make it your best one.”
“Morphine,” Handi countered. “And have the doctor prep me for surgery.”
“Dose him,” Bolan agreed.
Dr. Dewa pressed an auto-injector against Handi’s thigh. The gangster sighed and blissfully sagged back into his rolling bed. “Ah.”
“So tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“You sent the hit squads to kill De Jong in Manila.”
“Of course.”
“Bastard!” De Jong snarled.
Bolan held up a placating hand. They knew that already, but getting a suspect’s first willing admission was key to any interrogation. “You want a cigarette?”
“Of course.”
The cloying sweet mixture of tobacco, cloves and cocoa wrapped in corn husk filled the infirmary as Bolan lit Handi one of his Kretek cigarettes from the pack he’d been carrying when he was captured. Handi sighed with pleasure. Bolan perked an eyebrow. Handi was sweating bullets from the bodily stress of pain, but the Indonesian gangster did not stink of fear. Something was wrong. “Marwin, watch him.”
Bolan pulled his team into the foyer. The soldier spoke low. “He’s not afraid.”
“Give me five minutes with him.” Belle cracked her man-size knuckles. “I’ll teach him fear.”
“I’m sure you could teach a man all sorts of things about himself.” Bolan smiled. “But hold that thought.”
Belle smirked.
“Sociopath?” Rind suggested.
Bolan had met a number of sociopaths and ended most of them. “No, your first assessment was correct. Handi’s a straight-up scumbag. A professional criminal from a long line of professional criminals, with an organization around him. Now he’s in unknown hands, possibly crippled, with his career in ruins, and he’s calm, cool and collected.”
“He was salty even before Dewa hit him with the morphine,” Koa noted.
Bolan nodded. “And so?”
The Hawaiian warrior saw it. “And so I think someone got inside Handi’s head.”
“You and me both, brother.”
Koa gazed heavenward for strength. “You know? Strangely enough, I like it better when you call me brother rather than cuz.”
Bolan turned to the FBI agent. “Rind?”
“You’re thinking he’s undergone some sort of conversion?”
“It would explain a lot. It might even explain how a bunch of admittedly misguided sons of the Aloha State are stockpiling weapons and recruiting for some kind of doomsday Island repatriation act.”
“Do I detect sarcasm?” Koa questioned.
Rind frowned. “I see where you’re going, except for the fact that according to our files Handi was at least ostensibly raised Muslim.”
“And?”
“And the majority of Hawaiians are Christian.”
“Yeah.” Bolan nodded. “But it seems to me our boys back in the Islands are starting to go nativistic.”
“Which makes no sense,” Rind scoffed.
Koa went from stone face to genuinely dour. “It makes every bit of sense.”
“I don’t get it.”
Koa folded his arms across his chest. “Syncretism.”
Rind looked to Bolan for a lifeline. Bolan tossed it to him. “The fusion of differing systems of belief.”
“Yeah.” Rind saw it. “At the academy we took classes about the pan-Jihadist threat. They talked about how historically Islam had been incredibly successful in piggy-backing onto animist religions. It’s how it penetrated so deeply and so swiftly into Africa, Asia and the Pacific archipelagos. It makes a crazy kind of sense.”
Koa nodded at the agent. “Our tax dollars at work.”
“The boy’s got a future,” Bolan agreed.
Rind ignored the comments. “You’re not trying to tell me Handi and Uncle Friendly are on the same page?”
Bolan shook his head. “If we’re right—and that’s a big if—I don’t think the grand syncretism has happened yet. In the meantime, I think something is being set up. Something big enough to qualify as a human-initiated disaster in Hawaii, and from Indonesia to the Philippines to Hawaii someone is linking Pacific Islands like a necklace.”
Koa took up his golden gun and snapped out the folding stock. “So we’re about to get our asses hammered again?”
“I’d say it’s a good bet.” The soldier limbered up his light machine gun. “Everyone gear up.”
Belle scowled at her weapon. “We’re low on ammo.”
Bolan racked a round and wished he had a spare belt of ammunition. “Short bursts, if it comes to it.” His team fanned out to cover the windows and entrances. The soldier strode back into the infirmary. “So who’s coming?”
Handi’s smile was sickening. “Thank you for the cigarette, and the morphine.”
Bolan tapped his phone. “Bear, do we have satellite on my location?”
“Our next satellite window on Jakarta is thirty-five minutes out.”
“Cooper!” De Jong’s voice rose a very distressed octave. “They’re coming! And they have a tank!”
Koa shook his head as he peered out of his firing position. “That’s an IFV.”
De Jong was not consoled. “A what?”
“Infantry Fighting Vehicle. It has six wheels. Tanks have tracks.”
De Jong gazed upon the wheeled, armored beast in sheer terror. “Well, that makes it all better then, doesn’t it!”
Bolan looked out over De Jong’s shoulder and frowned. Technically it wasn’t a tank or an IFV. It was an armored car, possibly forty years old. He watched the olive-drab, ex-Indonesian army, Saladin-armored car rumble down the street. The impending priority would be the turret-mounted 76 mm cannon and two general-purpose machine guns aiming at the infirmary over the armored car’s squat hull. His team had nothing that would breach the vehicle’s rolled-steel armor. A reinforced squad of gunmen trotted behind it. “Koa, I need a diversion.”
Koa considered the request. “Oh, you want me to attract an IFV’s attention?”
“While I assault it.” Bolan sighed fatalistically. “Unless you want to switch jobs.”
“Oh, no, you go right ahead.”
“I thought you’d say that. De Jong! Tell me we have some dynamite left.”
“Ooh!” De Jong suddenly got happy as he yanked open the satchel. “Six sticks!”
Bolan peered down into the alligator-skin satchel. The sticks of dynamite lay sweating in sawdust, but with none of the sweaty confidence of the Handyman. It was a blow-at-any-second sort of sweating. Bolan could smell the nitro.
“Koa, I need you to throw two lit sticks out onto the street.”
“And you’re charging the armor with the other four?”
“Yeah, and everyone is giving me covering fire.”
For the first time during the mission Rind showed reluctance. “There’s no covering fire against cannons.”
“You ever see a stick of dynamite go off?”
“Actually I just directed a short film where we used explosives.”
“And?”
Rind saw it. “Smoke and fire!”
“That’s right. You pour in fire to keep them buttoned up and Koa throws the TNT to give me a smoke screen.”
Belle sighed. “While you go dynamite torch runner on their armored asses.”
Bolan grinned. “You’re hot.”
Pacific Creed Page 8
