Pulse Point

by Don Pendleton

  Li Kam was the traitor.

  There could be no mistake. Her code had been entered to allow access to her computer station. Only she was permitted to use that particular unit. If someone tried to use someone else’s machine, the physical presence would have been noticed. If work had taken place on Li Kam’s computer, it could only have been done by Li Kam herself.

  The evidence was unshakable.

  There was no way around it.

  Li Kam was the guilty one.

  Yen reached for the phone on the desk and punched in the number that would connect him to Major Choi.

  “Yes?”

  “Major, it is Ki Yen.”

  “You have good news I hope.”

  “Yes. I have the name of the person who programmed the code inserted into the launch program.”

  “Tell me,” Choi said in a remarkably calm tone.

  “Li Kam.”

  “You have no doubts?”

  “I have the inserted code isolated on a monitor in front of me, along with the relevant information on the individual who placed it in the computer. It was Li Kam. Something else, Major. The system shows that data has also been downloaded onto removable drives.”

  Major Choi found he was not entirely surprised. Li Kam was not simply bright. She had a sharp intellect and a way about her that made Choi feel there was more going on inside her head than simply the apparent devotion to her work. Now, it seemed, her outward loyalty to the state was nothing more than camouflage. While she carried out her role as one of Absalom’s assistants, she had also been creating mischief; mischief that had caused a partial failure in the Hawaiian strike and the sinking of the launch vessel, bringing long-term problems for North Korea if the NNEMP equipment fell into American hands.

  It was good that there was a North Korean presence in Hawaii, a covert team placed to oversee the results of the strike. Now that team would be tasked with recovering the equipment and returning it to Korea, out of enemy hands. Hopefully the equipment could be investigated and data recovered. The NNEMP research would not end with this catastrophe.

  Choi sat for a moment, digesting the information, before he spoke.

  “Very well, Yen. Make certain that evidence is saved and stored. I will be with you shortly.”

  The phone call was ended.

  Yen replaced the receiver. It was out of his hands now. Major Choi would deal with the matter.

  Li Kam’s fate, and her life, lay in the man’s hands.

  Yen was considering what his revelations to Major Choi might mean for himself, when there was a rattle of gunfire coming from outside the building. It sounded like automatic fire. The shooting increased. Then there were heavy explosions that made the walls shudder. A window shattered...

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Able Team took time out for Lyons to have his wounds treated. Kalikani had directed them to the closest hospital, using his official status to get priority emergency help. Thereafter Kalikani excused himself to check with his unit. Outside the emergency entrance, he keyed his cell and spoke with his department.

  “Heard about your little escapade,” Tasker said. “You got time to take a message?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “That skinny guy, Mojo,” Tasker said. “He called at least three times in the last half hour. Guy is all over the place.”

  “I don’t have time for Mojo right now.”

  “Maybe you should hear what he has to say. He won’t talk to anyone except you. Says he has information you need to hear. About your run-in over the King Kamehameha.”

  “How in hell did he get to know about that?”

  “Oscar, he’s a smart guy. Has a bead on everything going down. You told me that yourself.”

  Kalikani debated what to do.

  He looked back over his shoulder to the treatment room where the American team was.

  “Oscar? You want to deal with this? Mojo won’t talk to anyone else.”

  “I want backup,” Kalikani said. “Have a cruiser meet me at the edge of the location, ready to move in if I call.”

  “You think it’s necessary? Mojo seemed determined he only wanted to see you.”

  “After what happened already today, I take no more chances.”

  “Oscar, you’re sounding almost smart.”

  “No one ever told me that before.”

  “I’ll have a unit join you. I just don’t want Mojo taking off, because you have someone else along.”

  “I’ll make sure the backup stays out of sight.”

  “Don’t screw this up.”

  Kalikani walked out of the hospital. His mind replayed the conversation he had just had with Rudy Tasker. The captain had seemed almost reluctant when Kalikani had requested backup. With the way things had been playing, Kalikani was simply being cautious. Tasker should understand that. Kalikani, like any HPD cop, knew budget restraints sometimes forced themselves on operational procedures, but asking for a backup car wasn’t about to break the bank.

  So why was Tasker acting like he had a bug up his ass?

  Kalikani found the conversation weird.

  He made his way to the parking lot and climbed into his vehicle. As he fired up the engine, his radio buzzed and he picked up the handset.

  “Kalikani.”

  A voice he recognized came over the speaker.

  “Hey, O. You need backup? Tasker called me.”

  As Kalikani cruised out of the lot, he smiled. The young female cop on the radio was Jenny Lopaka, a twenty-nine-year-old Hawaiian he had worked with on a number of occasions. She was a cop who he had no problems having as backup.

  Almost from the first time he had met her, Lopaka had addressed him as O. Never Oscar. Or Kalikani. Simply O.

  “So you going to babysit me today?”

  “No one else wants to do the job,” Lopaka said lightly. “Looks like I got the really short straw.”

  “I’m on my way to the location right now. I want you to hang back, but keep your ears open for my call if I need you.”

  “No lights, no siren,” Lopaka promised.

  “You hear about earlier?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So these people are not playing games, Jenny.”

  “Just what I like, O, my man.”

  Jenny Lopaka had a reputation as a tough street-smart cop. In a few short years, she had worked her way up to sergeant and had a long list of solid busts on her sheet. As well as being a crack shot, she was also a ranking martial artist. Kalikani had personally seen her take down a six-six solid hardcase with nothing more than a few quick moves. Having Jenny Lopaka as your backup was akin to having a SWAT team on your six. Added to that, she was also a stunning young woman who didn’t feel the need to compete with anyone.

  “Where are your new buddies from the mainland?”

  Kalikani negotiated a snarl of traffic. “One of them got a couple of whacks on the head during the takedown this morning. Had to leave them at the hospital while getting him doctored up. If Mojo wants an urgent meet, it can’t wait, or he’ll decide to go native and hide out. If Mojo hides, even Hawaii Five-O couldn’t find him.”

  “Tasker said the meet is at the old Wiseman apartments. Even I know that is a bad place to go in solo. You sure about this, O?”

  “No. But with you at my back, I feel safer.”

  “Brother, you have great faith. I’ll try not to let you down.”

  Kalikani guided his vehicle through the late-afternoon traffic. He hit the AC button and felt the chilled air start to blow.

  He recalled what Lopaka had said about the location for the meet. She was right about it being a tough spot. He appreciated Mojo not wanting to meet in a busy place, where he might be seen talking to a cop. In all the years he had know
n Mojo, they had kept to quiet spots, but never one as remote as the Wiseman scene. Kalikani shook his head. Tasker had said Mojo needed the meeting urgently, so he was going to have to suck up his doubts and make it.

  “Lopaka, when we get to Wiseman, you hang back but stay on the ball. Okay?”

  “Hey, I’m not about to drop to sleep, O. Your back will be covered.”

  “I can be sure of that?”

  Lopaka laughed. “O, believe me. I’m a cop.”

  * * *

  IT WAS STARTING to get gloomy as Kalikani rolled his cruiser off the main highway, and bumped over the cracked and uneven strip that led to the meeting place.

  The area was in the early stages of falling apart, a collection of empty apartment buildings that was waiting for the wrecking crews to start tearing them down. In the years they had stood empty, the buildings had been subjected to vandalism, used as crack houses, refuges for the homeless and somewhere for low-rent hookers to take their unsuspecting johns.

  Kalikani headed his car across the empty lot fronting the buildings, searching the shadows. He saw nothing except the derelict building and the burned-out shell of an automobile. Beyond the trees behind the apartment blocks, he made out the haze of city lights coming on in the distance. Over there was noise and people. Here it was another world—shadows and near silence with only the occasional hum of a passing vehicle on the highway.

  Kalikani stopped the car and turned off the engine. He was about to step out, when caution dictated his actions. He loosened his autopistol in the holster on his hip, then opened his door ready to climb out. Kalikani reached across and pressed the transmit button on the handset, leaving the channel open.

  “You still hearing me, Jenny? I’m leaving the channel open so you can monitor.”

  “Got you loud and clear.”

  He hadn’t seen or heard anything—but he began to experience an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. He had been a cop long enough to heed those feelings.

  Experience was clicking in.

  The sensation of something being off-kilter grew stronger.

  He stepped out, pulling his S&W and holding it parallel with his pants leg, as he walked to the front of the auto. The shadows, deeper in the trees, stopped him seeing anything in detail, but he was sure he could see someone standing directly ahead of him. The figure looked familiar.

  “That you, Mojo? Step out here. It’s Kalikani. You wanted this meet. So here I am. Let’s do it, brother.”

  Kalikani reached the front of the auto. He saw the figure start out from the shadow of the trees and undergrowth. His trigger finger tapped repeatedly against the side of the S&W. That told him he was uneasy.

  “Hey, Mojo, don’t screw around, man. I got other things to do.”

  That was when the moving figure stopped, and even at the distance they were apart, Kalikani saw the man’s head move to one side.

  In the pale light he saw the man was not Mojo.

  Warned, the Hawaiian cop began to turn as he picked up a whisper of sound close by.

  There was a flicker of movement behind him. He saw a heavy figure closing fast. Then the blur of something slicing through the air a second before Kalikani felt a solid blow that slammed across his left shoulder. The blow stunned him. Enough to make him tip sideways, and it was only the bulk of the car that kept him from going down. Tears of pain filled Kalikani’s eyes. He slid along the hood of the car. A second blow landed, his legs almost giving way under him.

  Kalikani tried to stay on his feet. He knew, if he went down to the ground, he was finished. He turned his body to face his attacker and saw the dark bulk as the guy moved in for another strike. He heard someone yell, picked up the thump of booted feet on the ground as the first guy moved to join the fray.

  A third blow cracked ribs on his left side. Kalikani gasped. The pain was intense.

  Son of a bitch.

  He was inwardly calling himself every kind of an idiot for walking into this. With eyes wide open. Like a newly badged rookie. The morning’s incident had been bad enough. Now he had been suckered into a fake meet that might easily turn into his premature funeral.... He had no idea what was really going on. All he did know was somebody was working hard to keep him and the team from the mainland from getting too close.

  He had to do something before the second guy reached him. Two of them pounding away at him and he was finished.

  Through watering eyes he made out the new guy, wielding what looked like a baseball bat. That was a moment before his original attacker delivered the fourth blow. It cracked across Kalikani’s left arm, just below the elbow, and Kalikani heard bone snap. A burst of pain exploded.

  Kalikani managed to bring his pistol up from where he had been holding it concealed between his leg and the side of the car. There was no hesitation in his action as he swung the S&W on line and eased back on the trigger. The pistol cracked twice. The range was short by this time—no more than a couple of feet—and both 9 mm slugs slammed into the attacker’s chest. He stumbled forward a couple more steps, the bat slipping from his fingers, then he toppled forward and hit the ground on his front, his face slamming into the hard earth. His slack body bounced as he hit.

  Kalikani heard the roar of a car and knew Jenny had heard the attack over the open channel and was coming in like the 7th Cavalry.

  Tires burned on the concrete.

  Kalikani heard Lopaka’s voice as she left her cruiser.

  His senses were all over the place, pain overriding everything else.

  “Police. Lay it down,” Lopaka yelled at the second guy.

  Kalikani saw the swinging baseball bat arcing in again. He tried to duck but the tip scraped across the right side of his jaw, blood welling up from the tear in his flesh.

  Then he heard the rapid burst of fire from Lopaka’s Beretta. At least a half dozen 9 mm slugs blasted into the hitter’s face, obliterating his features and twisting him off stride. The guy didn’t even have a chance to yell as his head was snapped back under the close range of Lopaka’s burst. Dark gouts of blood erupted from the back of his skull as a couple of the slugs powered through.

  The swinging bat lost its momentum, slamming across the auto’s windshield, leaving a starred pattern.

  The shot guy went down, and his body wriggled for a while before it became still.

  Kalikani slumped to the ground, his entire body burning with pain. He could taste hot blood in his mouth where the inside of his cheek had caught against his teeth.

  “Hey, you still with me, O?”

  Kalikani blinked away the tears from his eyes and stared up into Jenny Lopaka’s face. Her concern showed as she helped him lean against the side of his vehicle.

  She keyed her comm set and asked for medical assistance. She gave their location.

  “On its way,” she told Kalikani.

  He was trying to get up but she forced him back down.

  “I need to see who these guys were,” he said. “We might get something from them. We don’t have time to waste....”

  “I’ll check them out. You stay where you are, O.”

  Kalikani saw her push to her feet, casting around in the gloom. He kept his S&W in his right hand, pushing back the pain threatening to overwhelm him as he covered Lopaka’s back.

  She checked the guy she had shot. He was dead. Then she moved to the one Kalikani had dropped, crouching to find a pulse.

  “He’s gone,” she called.

  Lopaka holstered her pistol, then she frisked the dead men expertly, coming up with a few items she brought back to Kalikani.

  “Wallet,” she said. “Full of money. All hundred-dollar bills. A lot of them. Looks like they got paid in advance. Driver’s license. Says the guy is Ritchie Stroud. Hell, I know that name, O. He’s a lowlife. Hangs around the docks. Done time
for petty crimes. Offer him cash, and he’d mug his own grandmother. Last time I saw him, he was on his way to do six months in the slammer. Other one is Ben Loki. Similar rap sheet as Stroud.”

  * * *

  LOPAKA WAS AT Kalikani’s side as the medic team stretchered him into the ambulance. The two bodies were being placed in the medical examiner’s vehicle for transport to the morgue. She had spoken to the cops who had turned up and given a statement. She would have to show up later at the station and speak to the incident team.

  “It won’t cause you any problems,” Kalikani said. He was groggy from the sedative the medics had given him, but refused to give in. “This was a righteous shooting. I’m involved, as well, so we look out for each other.”

  Lopaka said, “What are you? My dad?”

  Kalikani winced as pain from his cracked ribs flared.

  “You wish,” he said.

  One of the medics said, “We need to get moving.”

  “I’ll see you there,” Lopaka promised and headed for her cruiser.

  * * *

  KALIKANI WAS TAKEN to emergency for X-rays and treatment. Before he was wheeled away, he told Lopaka about Able Team and their own presence at the hospital.

  “Go talk to them. An update.”

  “Leave it with me, tough guy.”

  “Compared to you, I’m a pussycat.”

  Her laughter trailed down the corridor.

  * * *

  LOPAKA FOUND WHERE Able Team was gathered, drawing appreciative glances when she stepped into the room.

  “Sergeant Jenny Lopaka, HPD. Kalikani asked me to drop by. He...he’s been hurt.”

  She told them what had happened, filling them in on the incident.

  “How bad?” Blancanales asked.

  “Looks like a broken arm. Maybe cracked ribs and a bad scrape across his jaw.”

  “You took both perps down?” Lyons asked.

  Lopaka shook her head. “I handled one. O dropped the other.”

  “What started it all?” Schwarz asked.

  “One of O’s informants asked for a meet, insisted he had to see him about that boat involved in the Coast Guard strike. Had the name. When we got there, the snitch wasn’t around, but two guys with baseball bats attacked O.”