Bolan silently concurred. Shit was right. Even without the after-market armor, subsonic pistol bullets weren’t going to take out a truck weighing a deuce and a half. The soldier emptied his weapon into the truck’s grille and dropped down. Rice spilled as he pulled the last stick of dynamite from his goody bag. Bolan rose and threw the stick at the front of the truck as it emerged from the garage.
The sweaty, unstable stick of TNT slammed into the truck’s grille, bounced off the steel bumper and fell inertly to the ground. Bolan refrained from rolling his eyes as the truck advanced.
There was no time to reload.
Bolan snapped up his DP-52 in both hands and squeezed the grip. The laser sight blinked into life and painted a bright red dot on the dynamite as the truck’s chassis conveniently threw the stick into shadow.
Bolan fired and the dynamite detonated. The soldier threw himself back as heat and blast washed over the top of the unfinished pool in a wave. The secondary explosion sent an orange tsunami sheeting across the sky and threatened to suck Bolan’s lungs out of his body. He managed to clap his hands over his face—covering his eyes and mouth—and shoved his thumbs in his ears. He hugged wall as a tertiary explosion shook the pool foundation. Bolan opened his eyes and watched a minor mushroom cloud plume skyward.
He yawned at the ringing in his ears, reloaded his pistol and called out to his team over his phone. “Sound off!”
Every team member came back in the affirmative.
“So that would have been a truck bomb?” Belle suggested.
Bolan took in the unique smell of burning fertilizer. Bits of debris both large and small began raining down. He stayed close to the pool wall as a smoldering propane tank valve clanked to the concrete beside him. “To the deuce.” The soldier raised his head over the lip of the pool. The truck were gone. The garage and the vast majority of the clubhouse was rubble. The bits of structure still left were on fire.
“Whooo-hoooo!” De Jong howled like a frat boy at a kegger. “Cooper! Walking Tall! With the biggest stick there is! Stick-of-dynamite, assholes!”
Bolan refrained from shooting the giddy gangster. “Maintain your position, De Jong.”
“Oops! Sorry!”
Kurtzman spoke across the phone link. “That was pretty spectacular from our vantage, Striker. I counted three detonations. First one was yours?”
“Affirmative.” Bolan grimaced as he surveyed the destruction. “Rind, bring up the car. We are extracting now.”
“Copy that!”
Belle gave Bolan a coquettish smile. “Oh, cheer up. Jagon’s right. We kicked their bitch asses.”
“I doubt we have a single living suspect, and I just blew up a massive amount of evidence. We can’t afford to stick around. This was a goat screw.”
“So what do we do?”
Rind brought the Lincoln to a gravel-spitting halt in front of the sundered gate. “We’re going to have to pray that Rind’s buddies at the Federal Bureau of Investigation can pull something of use out of the wreckage, and hope they can do it in time. Meantime, we resurface in Happy Valley and see if our uncles still love us.”
Chapter 15
FBI safehouse
Agent Rind sat at the minibar with his back turned and winced as someone with a very high pay grade somewhere in Washington, D.C., went to town on him over the battle at Kelani Gated Community Development. Rind’s entire end of the conversation consisted of ever-increasingly meek, “Yes, Directors.” He set his phone down, stared at himself in the minibar mirror and saw a man who’d soon have a desk job in some lightless, low bowel of the J. Edgar Hoover building. Bolan nodded in sympathy.
“How’s it hanging, Special Agent?”
“How do you think it’s hanging?”
“You got ninety-eight problems and owning a pair of machine pistols ain’t any of them?”
Rind laughed against his will. “I have that.”
“Keep a stiff upper lip. There’s a chance you can still come out of this golden.”
“That would be epic.”
Bolan passed by the coffee table. Koa had pulled up several YouTube videos about the care of Korean small arms on his tablet and was busy cleaning guns. He handed Bolan the DP-52. “The laser was off by a hair, not that that stopped you, Captain Dynamite.”
Bolan brought the pistol up and squeezed the grip. The red dot printed perfectly in line with the small and simple sights. “Thanks.” He tucked the pistol away along with a triplet of spare magazines. Melika and Hu were down the mountain at the golf club’s restaurant picking up takeout. The RFID had died and the trail it had lead to was now a smoking hole a mountain and a half away, undoubtedly lit up in a lunar glare of floodlights and crawling with federal agents.
De Jong was in the bathroom and not making much of an effort to conceal the fact that he was snorting something. Belle stood out on the liana. She hugged herself, smoking and gazing down at the small constellation of lights in the darkened valley. Bolan frowned as she compulsively scratched her arms. He stepped out and admired the evening view.
“Belle?”
“Yes?”
“Now’s not the time to kick.”
Belle trembled and took a shaky drag from her cigarette. “I feel sick.”
“I know.”
“No, I feel sick every time you see me do it, or when I know you know I’m sneaking off to do it.”
Bolan sighed and nodded. “Well, I am known to have a positive moral influence on people.”
Belle giggled. “Screw you.”
“Though I admit a transgendered, potty-mouthed mercenary is new even for me.”
“I’m not a mercenary,” Belle said seriously.
“Transgendered glamour girl with a gun?” Bolan tried.
“He learns fast, and he’s good-looking, too.” Belle gave Bolan a demure look. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance at all that…”
“Well, if I was the last boy on earth, and you were the last…” Belle smirked.
“Transgendered glamour girl with a gun?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah?”
“We’d play a lot of chess.”
Belle wrinkled her surgically enhanced nose. “I’m Swedish, you’d lose.”
Bolan nodded. “It’s possible.”
“You know? I always fall in love with the wrong men.” Belle tossed her newly hennaed hair.
Bolan’s laptop very conveniently gave the “Bear on the line” signal. “I gotta take that.”
“I have to go powder my nose.”
Bolan took the armchair by the coffee table. Koa watched Belle walk to the bathroom. “What was that all about?”
“Belle thinks I’m hot.”
“I got no prepared response to that.”
Bolan clicked a key on his laptop. “What do we have, Bear?”
“Well, you made a mess.”
“I know.”
Kurtzman made a bemused noise. “We have no living suspects and most of the corpses are in really bad shape. The FBI is on scene checking fingerprints and dental records. We’ll have whatever they come up with ASAP.”
“Rind’s in trouble.”
Rind called out from the bar. “Copy that!”
“I’m making calls. Straight to the top.”
“Thanks, Bear. Do we have anything?”
“Something, and it isn’t good.”
“What’s that?” Bolan asked.
“Residual radioactivity.”
Bolan’s blood went cold. “The truck bombs were dirty?”
“We’re not sure.”
“Do I need to be worried about my team?”
Koa racked a fresh round into a K-7. “Shit…”
“Does Koa need to wo
rry about having two-headed kids?”
Koa took up a fresh weapon. “I already have kids. I have grandkids. And I also have a magnificent head of hair. I ain’t looking forward to coughing up blood and going bald.”
“Bear?” Bolan asked. “What about the Hawaiian bro fro?”
“As I said, according to the FBI, it’s residual. More like the bad guys were storing radioactive material there, long enough and stored badly enough to leave a footprint. I’m checking the local hospitals and clinics for anyone displaying symptoms of radiation sickness.”
“So we’re good?”
“No! We ain’t good!” Koa’s face twisted. “We got what looks like a planned pair of dirty deuce-and-a-half truck bombs! On my Island heritage! We ain’t good at all!”
Bolan nodded. “Bear, we ain’t good.”
“I’m on it. I have everyone on it.”
“I’m going to need some radiation detectors.”
“I’ve appropriated four from Pearl. They should be at the safehouse within the hour.”
“Thanks.”
“I wish I had more.”
“You’ll get more. I know you. Out.” Bolan rose and poured himself a club soda from the bar. De Jong and Belle came out of the bathroom. The Filipino gangster was positively jovial. Belle couldn’t meet Bolan’s eyes.
Koa’s phone rang. The Hawaiian frowned at the screen. “It’s Marwin.”
De Jong threw his hands up. “Why the hell is Marwin calling you?”
Bolan leaned in close enough to make De Jong flinch backward. “Because he’s posing as my and Koa’s cousin.”
“Oh shit! I forgot!”
Bolan jerked his head at Koa. “Answer it. De Jong? Not a word.”
De Jong pantomimed zipping his lips shut.
Koa answered. “Yeah?” He listened for long moments. “Marwin’s at Melika’s bar. Says he’s in trouble and was ordered to call us. He wants us to come. Our uncles want us to come. We going?”
“Yeah.” Bolan nodded. “We’re going.”
“We’re coming, cuz.” Koa killed the connection.
Melika’s Place
The bar was packed, and not with patrons. Bolan and Koa walked in bold as brass with Melika and Hu in tow. Rind was in charge of the silenced submachine gun team, waiting a block away and ready to storm the place if it went bad. Of course that would be too late.
Marwin sat at the bar with a sea of beer bottles around him. He was bracketed by two men even larger than him and didn’t look happy. Tino was behind the bar. The uncles held down their usual booth, and the VIP booth was once again drenched in darkness, but Bolan could detect more than one man holding court. Bolan could just see a huge hand in a cast resting on the table, barely illuminated in the dim glow of a beer sign. A lot of very hard-looking men were holding down the bar and most of the tables.
Uncle Aikane waved. “Koa! Makaha! Come! Sit with your uncles.”
Bolan and Koa took a seat at the booth of royalty with Aikane and Nui. Melika went behind her bar and started harshly whispering at Tino. Hu sat at a lone table and once again became the subject of leers and speculation. Bolan let Koa take lead as Uncle Nui poured two mugs of Koko Brown ale and pushed them at Bolan and Koa. Uncle Nui grunted and shook his head. “We missed you. We worried about you.”
“We worried about us, too, brah.” Nui flinched. Koa’s voice went cold. “When Bolo, Ezekiel and their friends came at us we had women in the house. Melika was in the house. She’s ohana. Turned the place into last dance with Butch and Sundance.”
Bolan admired the poetry. He also noted that Koa had called Nui “brah” rather than uncle. Koa was working the ohana outrage angle to the hilt, and no one was scolding him.
Aikane spoke. “You brought Makaha here.”
“And you sent him to die! Sent people to kill me and my girl!”
“I didn’t send Bolo and Ezekiel. You know that. It was personal and I would have stopped it had I known.”
Koa scowled into his brown ale.
“Koa, where is Ezekiel?”
Koa ad-libbed. “You don’t want to know what Makaha did to him.”
Aikane went stone-faced. “And? Makaha?”
“I know for a fact you did not send Bolo or Ezekiel, Uncle. Ezekiel told me, and I made him tell me until I believed him.”
Aikane and Nui regarded Bolan with a new and leery respect.
Koa shook his head and drank. “It was screwed up.”
“It’s all screwed up.” Bolan nodded and poured back half his beer. “Tell me, Uncle. Me and Koa messed up beyond repair?”
“What if I say yes?”
Bolan finished his beer and rolled his shoulders. “Koa and I are strapped.”
“We know. So is every man in this bar. What does that have to do with anything?”
“It means you tell me Melika keeps her bar and Hu goes back to California where she belongs. You promise me.”
Aikane grunted and sipped beer. “And if I do?”
“I’ll hand you my gun and go wherever you want with whoever you want. Back to the golf course if you say so.”
Aikane’s grunt had a tinge of amusement. “And if I don’t?”
“It goes down. Here. Now. Blaze of glory.”
Aikane looked at Nui. Nui looked at Bolan and nodded toward Marwin. “You know that fat piece of shit?”
Bolan glared at Marwin. Marwin flinched. Bolan shook his head. “Never seen him in my life.”
Marwin looked genuinely hurt but he stayed in character.
Nui looked at Koa. “You know him?”
“Uncle?” Koa looked amazed. “That’s cousin Marwin.”
Aikane and Nui blinked as they once again did very complicated Hawaiian family-tree math.
“Uncle.” Koa looked incredulous. “You know I got a Filipino streak in me.”
Nui nodded. “We know.”
Koa grinned and pointed his finger at the mass of Filipino flesh at the bar. “That is the house that lumpia built.” Laughs broke out around the bar as Koa described both Marwin and Philippine cuisine egg rolls. “I was two years in Subic Bay. My mother told me to look up some of her people. You wouldn’t believe the shit Marwin and I got into back in the day. Uncle, I’m begging you, throw the fat bastard a bone.”
More laughs broke out. Nui gestured. “Marwin, bring your glass. Join us.”
Marwin ambled over, sweating with relief. “Shit, I’m the biggest thing I’ve ever seen in the Philippines, then I come here, and it’s like I’m a hobbit…”
Laughs broke out again. Nui actually clapped him on the shoulder good-naturedly. Bolan poured Marwin a beer. De Jong’s personal thug took the mug in three swallows. “Man, it was starting to get unneighborly in here.”
“Why are you here, Marwin?” Aikane asked.
“Told you, my cuz Koa called me and said he was in some serious shit. Said he needed someone on his six. I got my ass on a plane.”
“Do you still want that job?” Nui prodded.
“It’s not a job. It’s like an obligation and stuff.”
Aikane tilted his head slightly. “No matter what?”
Marwin nodded with schoolboy earnestness. “No matter what.”
Aikane smiled. “What about Makaha?”
“He scares the shit out of me—” Marwin glanced nervously around the room “—but you all scare the shit out of me.”
Very tough men around the bar made amused noises. Bolan kept the smile off his face. Marwin was making a serious stab at this year’s best actor in a supporting role. Aikane nodded thoughtfully. “Koa, are you still with us?”
“Bolo’s problem was his problem. I solved it for him. Makaha took care of Ezekiel’s bullshit. This is about the ohana. This is about our Islands
. It’s bigger than personal problems and bullshit.”
Nui looked at Bolan. “And you, Makaha?”
“I’m like Marwin. I have Koa’s back no matter what.”
Marwin nodded vigorously. “Yeah, I’m like what he said.”
Aikane made his decision. “You can’t go back to Pakuz. Stay at Melika’s tonight. Tomorrow you have to leave the girls behind. Tomorrow you leave everything behind. The day after that I can promise you nothing, except that you will be remembered for all time.”
Bolan and Koa nodded grimly. Marwin gaped as if he had just fallen off a pineapple truck.
Aikane looked to the bar. “Tino! Before sunrise take Koa, Makaha and Marwin to my retreat. We trust them, but take the forest route anyway.”
Tino grinned. “Yes, Uncle!”
Aikane spoke low. “We have had setbacks, but things will start happening very fast now.”
Chapter 16
Bolan lay awake as the dawn turned from purple to pink to orange through the blinds. His every instinct told him the next forty-eight hours were going to decide everything. Melika made a noise as Bolan rose and began to prepare himself. His grease gun, his K-7 and the CIA-supplied weapons were all with Rind and the assault team. Bolan had the Korean .22 De Jong had acquired for him and Koa had his .45. Marwin had nothing. Still, Bolan had taken precautions.
When Melika and Hu had finished their “running the RFID” duties, Bolan had asked the ladies to do a little shopping for the undercover team. Melika had bought him a folding Buck knife. In fact Bolan had asked her to buy two, and he’d given both a shaving-sharp edge. There was still a good chance their guns would be taken. He’d also had Melika pick up a straight razor. The handle was faux tortoiseshell and the blade a brittle three inches long. But the little razor weighed only two ounces and was less than a quarter of an inch thick. It would ride easily in a boot top or slide into the side of a loosely tied shoe, and would require a very professional pat-down to detect.
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