The gunners hit the ground running

Bolan didn’t wait for them to organize. He fired a three-round burst into the nearer chase car’s windshield, where the driver’s head should be, and thought he heard a strangled cry before all hell broke loose around him.

Bolan couldn’t accurately count the muzzle flashes winking at him from behind the headlights, but he thought that there were only five. If he was right, if he had drawn first blood with the unlucky driver, then he had already shaved the hostile odds by seventeen percent.

That still left five assassins, armed and angry, throwing down at him with everything they had.

Aolani’s car would never be the same. Bullets were raking it from grill to trunk along the driver’s side, some of them coming through the now shattered windows. So far, Bolan could not smell any leaking gasoline, but that was just dumb luck. Both tires were already deflated on the driver’s side, and Bolan knew they wouldn’t leave the Punchbowl in it.

Assuming they ever left at all.

Pele’s Fire

The Executioner®

Don Pendleton

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Special thanks and acknowledgment to Michael Newton for his contribution to this work.

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.

—Aldous Huxley,

1894–1963

Collected Essays

I’ve learned enough from history to know that some mistakes should never be repeated. I can’t change the past, but with a little luck, I just might change the future.

—Mack Bolan

THE MACK BOLAN LEGEND

Nothing less than a war could have fashioned the destiny of the man called Mack Bolan. Bolan earned the Executioner title in the jungle hell of Vietnam.

But this soldier also wore another name—Sergeant Mercy. He was so tagged because of the compassion he showed to wounded comrades-in-arms and Vietnamese civilians.

Mack Bolan’s second tour of duty ended prematurely when he was given emergency leave to return home and bury his family, victims of the Mob. Then he declared a one-man war against the Mafia.

He confronted the Families head-on from coast to coast, and soon a hope of victory began to appear. But Bolan had broken society’s every rule. That same society started gunning for this elusive warrior—to no avail.

So Bolan was offered amnesty to work within the system against terrorism. This time, as an employee of Uncle Sam, Bolan became Colonel John Phoenix. With a command center at Stony Man Farm in Virginia, he and his new allies—Able Team and Phoenix Force—waged relentless war on a new adversary: the KGB.

But when his one true love, April Rose, died at the hands of the Soviet terror machine, Bolan severed all ties with Establishment authority.

Now, after a lengthy lone-wolf struggle and much soul-searching, the Executioner has agreed to enter an “arm’s-length” alliance with his government once more, reserving the right to pursue personal missions in his Everlasting War.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Epilogue

Prologue

Honolulu, Hawaii

“Here they come,” Tommy Puanani said. “Everyone get ready.”

“Man,” his brother, Ehu, muttered from the backseat of their stolen Ford sedan, “we all been ready for the past six hours.”

“Never mind that,” Tommy snapped. “Just do your job.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

It took iron will to keep from spinning in the driver’s seat and reaching for his younger brother, maybe slapping Ehu’s face. But what would be the point?

Across the street and half a block downrange, six young men wearing dress, blue U.S. Navy uniforms emerged from Club Femme Nu, a strip club known for hands-on dancers.

“There’s Benny, right on time,” John Kainoa said, from the shotgun seat.

So far, so good, Tommy Puanani thought. The cab with Benny Makani at the wheel appeared as if from nowhere, zigzagging through traffic on Kapiolani Boulevard to double-park in front of Club Femme Nu. The taxi was a boxy model, like a poor man’s SUV, that would accommodate six passengers if none of them was claustrophobic.

One young member of the six-pack spied the cab and waved to Makani.

“Gotcha,” Tommy said, as the six men jammed themselves into the seats of the taxi.

Benny Makani keyed the microphone of his dash-mounted radio and said, “Cab 41, with six fares leaving 1673 Kapiolani Boulevard, headed for 909 Halekauwila Street.” His four friends in the stolen Ford received the message via a walkie-talkie, resting on the console next to Tommy Puanani’s hip.

“Exotic Nights,” Kekipi Ululani said, naming the destination based on its address. It was another well-known strip club where some of the dancers provided “special services.”

“Whatever,” Tommy said as he fired up the Ford and nosed into the flow of traffic, following Makani’s cab.

“So, where’s he taking them, again?” John Kainoa asked.

“Nowhere special,” Tommy answered, staying focused on the taillights of the cab a block in front of him. “We tag along, see where he stops, and jump ’em.”

“These Navy SEALs know all that kung-fu shit,” Kekipi Ululani said.

“I told you once already,” Tommy said, “they’re just plain Navy. Get it? Not everybody in the goddamned Navy is a SEAL. Besides, that’s why we’ve got the guns.”

And guns they had, for damned sure. Each of them was carrying a pistol underneath his floral shirt, for starters. Tommy Puanani had a mini-Uzi with a foot-long sound suppressor attached. His brother and Kekipi Ululani both had shotguns, 12-gauge pumps with sawed-off stocks and barrels. John Kainoa was their rifleman, packing a Chinese knockoff of the classic Russian AK-47 with a folding stock and 30-round banana magazine.

“Okay,” Ululani said, sounding somewhat mollified.

“Just be damn careful with them, yeah? No shooting till I say so, or it’s your head on the chopping block.”

Which, in this case, was not just a figure of speech.

They trailed the taxi along Kapiolani Boulevard, eastbound, until it turned into Waialae Avenue, then southeast from there until Makani found the spot he was seeking, underneath the elevated Lunalilo Freeway.

Tommy wondered if the haole sailors recognized their peril, even now. He guessed they were too drunk and horny to concern themselves with street signs or directions. In any case, it was too late to second-guess their driver as the Ford pulled in behind the taxi with its high beams on.

“Remember what I told you,” Tommy cautioned his companions. “No one fires a shot until I do.”

The sailors were unloading as Tommy stepped out of the Ford. They were confused and getting angry now, but Makani had them covered with an automatic pistol, barking at them to undress. The sailors began to argue, but the sight of four more men with firearms changed their minds, and they reluctantly complied.

It was an awkward business, stripping, when they’d had so much to drink. Their stumbling progress made Tommy Puanani nervous, but he hid it for the others’ sake. When the six uniforms were piled up on the asphalt, Makani gathered them and ran them over to the Ford.

“How ’bout you let us keep our Skivvies?” asked one of the now-sober sailors.

“No problem,” Tommy said, and squeezed the mini-Uzi’s trigger, raking them from left to right and back again, his thirty rounds expended in three seconds.

His companions fired, as well, the heavy shotgun blasts, the automatic rifle stuttering and Makani’s pistol.

Five seconds, maybe six, and it was over. Six young sailors were as old as they would ever be.

“All right,” Tommy said. “Put them in the cab. We’ll follow Benny out to Makapu’u and torch it there.” And as an afterthought he added, “Good work, my brothers. We are on our way.”

1

Leia Aolani was nervous. All right, she’d admit it—and who wouldn’t be, in the same circumstances? Still, she prided herself on maintaining a measure of cool, unlike some people she could mention.

The man seated beside her in the Datsun Maxima, for instance.

Mano Polunu wasn’t just nervous. He was twitching like someone about to collapse into a seizure. His head swiveled constantly, eyes scoping.

They sat parked outside the Royal Mausoleum State Monument’s wrought-iron fence, with gold crowns surmounting each fencepost. Inside the fence lay buried all but two of Hawaii’s ancient kings and queens, missing only King Lunalilo—who was planted at the Kawaiaha’o Church, in downtown Honolulu—and Kamehameha the Great, who’d been buried secretly in 1819, to prevent haole invaders from defiling his corpse.

All that death, and more to come.

But Aolani still thought they were on a mission for life.

Twitchy Polunu didn’t seem so sure.

“He’s late,” Polunu said, glancing at his watch for something like the third time in a minute. “I believe he’s late, don’t you?”

“The timing was approximate,” she once again reminded him. “He’s flying in from the mainland, remember. Could be flight delays, who knows? Then, once he’s on the ground, he has to get his bags and grab a rental car. Cut him some slack. We’re cool.”

“You think so, eh? We don’t even know who this guy is.”

“Polunu, I see the same things you see. Normal traffic on the street, and empty spaces in the parking lot. I don’t see any snipers in the bushes, and I don’t hear any bullets whistling around our heads.”

“You never hear the shot that kills you,” Polunu answered.

“Thanks for that, okay? Is it possible for you to chill out just a little? Turn the heebie-jeebies down a notch or two? For my sake?”

“I don’t think so, but I’ll try,” he said. “It’s just that I keep thinking—”

“That they’ll find you. Right, I get it. And I grant you, it’s a real concern. That’s why we’re here, Polunu, remember? We need help to end this thing and keep you safe. To keep Hawaii safe.”

“But we’re exposed out here. You see that, right?”

“See it? I planned it, Polunu. But what I don’t see is anybody sneaking up to kill you.”

“Us,” he said, correcting her. “It’s not just me, now. You’re marked, too.”

That made Aolani shudder a bit, despite the warm evening. “All the more reason to follow through and finish this,” she replied. “If we don’t get it right the first time, we won’t have a second chance.”

“Because they’re killers.”

“Damn it, I know that!” she snapped at him. “Will you stop harping on the obvious?”

“Sorry.” He didn’t sound it, not even a little bit.

They sat in silence for a while, listening to traffic sounds and watching cars glide past on Nu’uanu Avenue. None turned into the parking lot. Why should they, since the mausoleum was closed for the night?

Aolani began to wonder about the other two cars in the lot, parked side by side, some twenty yards away. She’d driven past them when they entered, and both had seemed unoccupied, but there could be gunmen lying on the seats for all she knew.

Get real, she told herself.

Nobody could have known where she and Polunu had been going when they left her flat that evening, not unless he leaked the word himself. Unthinkable. He was afraid to show his face outside, much less invite his would-be killers to a meeting with the man who—Aolani hoped, at least—would stop their so-called revolution in its tracks.

“You want some gum?” she asked Polunu.

“No, thanks. It’ll make me more nervous.”

Aolani opened her purse and reached inside, touching the can of pepper spray that was wedged between her wallet and hairbrush. She felt a little better, knowing it was there—but not by much. It would offer no defense against a gun.

What did she really know about gunfighting anyway? Hell, or any kind of fighting, for that matter?

Whole lot of nothing, Aolani thought, and shut her purse.

“No gum?”

“Forgot I need to buy some,” she replied distractedly.

He’s not late, Aolani told herself. Allow for flight delays, airport security, slow baggage claim, a lineup for the rental car, the Honolulu traffic.

So, chill.

If the men who wanted Polunu dead knew where they were, she and her jittery companion would be toast by now.

Also, the odds against a random hit team cruising Honolulu’s streets and spotting them outside the Royal Mausoleum by accident were astronomical. Next to impossible, she thought.

Next to, but no guarantees.

The tension made her crave a cigarette, even though she’d quit smoking eighteen months ago.

Damn you, Polunu, she thought. If we get out of this alive, I just might murder you myself.

THERE IS NO “Five-O” in Hawaii. No Jack Lord with perfect hair. In fact, no state police by any name. Still, Bolan watched his speed as he drove into Honolulu on Kamehameha Highway, not wanting attention from a traffic cop, then switched up to Nimitz Highway for a while. He also watched his rearview mirror to make sure he wasn’t followed.

He thought about the contacts he’d been sent to meet and wished that he could fill in some of the blank spots that he’d found in their respective dossiers, which Hal Brognola had given to him. One was a revolutionary who had bailed out on his former comrades in Pele’s Fire, an island terrorist group, when the going got too rough for his aesthetic taste. His name was Mano Polunu. The other, Leia Aolani, was supposed to be “a nationalist home-rule moderate.” Polunu reached out to Aolani for help after his desertion, telling her Pele’s Fire was planning something big in the next few days. Aolani in turn reached out to a fellow moderate who had contacts in the FBI.

Both Aolani and Polunu, apparently, held strong views on the subject of Hawaii’s link to the United States. As Bolan understood the wrangle, which had carried on from sometime in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, a portion of Hawaii’s native Polynesian population wanted more emphasis on native culture and religion, more influence in the state government, physical secession from the U.S.A. or some combination of the former, as yet to be agreed upon.

As usual, whenever issues of the sort aroused strong feelings, there were armed extremists who would hear no voices and no viewpoints other than their own. Bolan had seen the same phenomenon in Scotland, Northern Ireland, Asia, Africa, Latin America and even in parts of the United States.

Get half a dozen zealots in a room, then hand them guns and watch the bloodletting begin. It never failed.

Hard times had come to the Aloha State, but Bolan hoped that he could stop the action short of an all-out catastrophe.

It didn’t trouble Bolan, going in without liaison to the FBI, Homeland Security or local law enforcement. All of them had jobs to do, but none were quite in Bolan’s line—or else, wouldn’t admit it, if they were.

Bolan required no writs or warrants, analyzed no evidence in antiseptic labs, reviewed no testimony.

And, in general, he took no prisoners.

As for the allies he had yet to meet, Bolan devoutly hoped that they could do their part, pull their own weight. He’d have enough to think about, without adopting any nursemaid’s chores along the way.

The fact that one of his Hawaiian contacts was a woman didn’t bother Bolan in the least. He’d fought beside some female warriors he respected, loved a couple of them and could think of one or two who might’ve kicked his ass.

He was almost there, a few more blocks remaining until he saw his contacts in the flesh, instead of hidden-camera photos that had caught them unawares.

Expect the worst, hope for the best.

And maybe, this time, harsh reality would fall somewhere between the two.

“WE OUGHTA TAKE HIM now,” Ehu Puanani said.

“No,” his brother, Tommy, said. “They’re waiting for somebody, and I want to find out who it is.”

“What fucking difference does it make?” Ehu demanded.

“Stop and think a minute, will you, Ehu, just this once? Suppose they’re talking to the cops or FBI. You wanna know about it in advance, or just be taken by surprise when they bust down your door?”

Ehu sat sulking, fiddling with his shotgun, but at least he kept it down below the dashboard, so that Tommy didn’t have to scold him a second time.

From the stolen Audi’s backseat, Billy Maka Nani asked, “You think they’re really talking to the Feds? I mean, that’s gonna ruin everything, you know?”

“Not necessarily,” Tommy Puanani said. “Depends on how much they already spilled, and whether they’ve got any evidence to back it up.”

“Last time I looked, the Haole-Homeland gang wasn’t so worried about evidence. They lock you up without a charge and send you off to someplace where you get tortured, and then the courts say you’re an enemy combatant, so it doesn’t matter, anyway.”

“We are,” Tommy Puanani said. “Enemy combatants is exactly what we are.”

“Is that some kinda consolation when they fasten the electrodes on your balls?”

“Forget that chickenshit,” Ehu said. “When the smoke clears, haole bastards will be kissing up to us and asking what we want, instead of telling us the way things gotta be.”

“That’s right, bro,” Tommy told his younger brother. “Just remember that before you jump the gun and ruin everything.”

“You wanna tell me what I ruined?” Ehu challenged him.

“Nothing, so far.”

“You’re goddamned right.”

“I plan to keep it that way, too. So follow orders like a soldier, and stop bitching all the time.”

Ehu gave him a fuck-you look, but kept his mouth shut for a change. Small favors.

They had a second team on Polunu and the woman, parked across the street, behind a filling station, in a Chevy Blazer that they’d stolen from a strip mall. Changed the plates, gave it a hasty racing stripe, and they were good to go. In that car, John Kainoa had the wheel, with Ben Makani riding shotgun and Steve Pilialoha in the back. All armed and waiting for the signal to move in.

But Tommy Puanani had no desire to rumble with the FBI. Who would? His homeboys couldn’t match the haoles’ budget, damned sure couldn’t match their arsenal—at least, not yet—and if it came to fighting with the Feebs, next thing he knew, they would be fighting with Marines and everybody else on Uncle Sam’s payroll.

The plan they had in place was so much better, but to pull it off, they had to know if any part of it had been exposed.

Granted, Mano Polunu was a minor player when he bailed, gone yellow in the stretch, but there was no way of deciding what he might know until they could pin him down and question him. Of course, the next best thing would be to silence him forever.

But sometimes, next best wasn’t good enough.

So, they would wait and see.

If Polunu and the woman met some other asshole moderates with no official status, Tommy Puanani’s men could kill them, then and there. If it was cops or Feds, though, then the killing would require more delicate finesse.

But every minute Polunu spent in custody or talking to the law, the more danger he posed to everything the movement stood for, everything it might accomplish in the next few days.

With Polunu silenced, then the plan could move ahead on schedule. They could strike a blow that would be felt from Honolulu all the way to Washington, D.C.

A shot heard round the world, damn right.

The haoles loved that kind of shit, as long as they did all the shooting.

Tommy Puanani’s ancestors had been kings before the haole sailors had “discovered” what they liked to call the Sandwich Islands, some 230 years ago. The native life had gone to hell since then, but it was not too late to salvage something from the ruins.

Or, at least, to pay the haoles back in spades for all the damage they had done, Tommy vowed.

BOLAN SLOWED on his approach to the Royal Mausoleum State Monument, scouting the grounds before he took the final action to commit himself.

There were three cars in the parking lot, two sitting off together in a corner, and the third positioned closer to the entrance of the park. Bolan saw no one in the first two vehicles, although they could’ve been concealed. At least two people clearly occupied the third car, facing the street and watching traffic pass.

His contacts? Or a trap?

In either case, he had to check it out. If something had been leaked and this turned out to be an ambush, he would simply have to fight his way clear of the trap, then find another angle of approach into the mission.

Bolan knew the second part would likely be more difficult. If someone on the other side knew he was in Hawaii, knew the why of his arrival, they’d be battened down with extra-tight security until they made their one big score.

Whatever that was.

Bolan needed his contacts to give his quest direction.

He turned into the parking lot and let the cars behind him roll on to their sundry destinations: meeting lovers, going out for dinner, to a movie, maybe heading for a second job. The normal things that Bolan hadn’t done—or even had much time to think about—for years.

Inside the parking lot, he drove the long way around to check the empty-looking cars. He slowed as he drove past them, staying far enough away that he could check for man-sized shadows lying underneath.

The last car was a Datsun Maxima, an older vehicle, but in decent shape. A woman occupied the driver’s seat, staring at Bolan in his rental car, while a pudgy, nervous-looking man squirmed beside her. Bolan recognized them both from photos in their dossiers, although while the man looked worse in person, the woman’s snapshots hadn’t done her justice.

They could still be covered, shooters huddled in the backseat, out of sight, but Bolan took a chance. Drawing the 93-R from its holster, he pulled in beside the Datsun, so that his driver’s window faced the lady’s.

“Leia Aolani?” he inquired.

She nodded without smiling. “Matthew Cooper?”

“Make it Matt. Mano Polunu with you, there?”

The nervous shotgun rider flinched as Bolan spoke his name. He flicked anxious eyes in the woman’s direction, but she wasn’t looking to see it.

“That’s right,” she replied. “You were briefed on the mainland?”

“Bare bones,” Bolan said. “Should we talk here, or go for a ride?”

Her pink, full lips were opening to answer Bolan, when a squeal of tires behind him cut her short. Glancing at his rearview mirror, Bolan saw a black sedan tearing along North Judd Street, toward a secondary entrance to the parking lot. There were three occupants, two of them staring at the point where he and Aolani sat in their respective vehicles.

“It’s time to go,” Bolan said.

“Right. You follow me, and—”

“No,” he interrupted her. “We either take one car or split and try to hook up later, when it’s safe. Your call.”

“I can’t just leave my car,” she said, her eyes wide and staring at the black car that was in the lot now, turning their way.

Bolan thought about it for a microsecond, knowing she was right. His rental wouldn’t trace to anyone, and he could always grab another from a different agency.

“Okay,” he said, his door already opening. He pocketed the rental’s keys, holstered his piece and took his two bags with him as he stepped across to Aolani’s car. She was already moving as he settled in the backseat, gun in hand once more.

“Have you done lots of combat driving?” Bolan asked her.

“Combat driving?”

“Right. The kind where—Watch it!”

Aolani swerved to miss the charging black sedan. Her swing was wide enough, but as they passed in opposite directions, Bolan saw a weapon thrust out of the black car’s left-rear window.

Bolan ducked and saw its muzzle-flashes winking in the tropic dusk. At least three slugs tore through the Datsun’s fender, rattling around inside the trunk.

“That’s combat,” Bolan said.

“Okay, got it! Jesus!”

Aolani stamped on the accelerator, racing toward the nearest exit from the parking lot. Bolan was sorry there’d been shooting here, which might bring the police to seize his rented car, but if they took the fight away, at least there was a chance the cops would miss this crime scene.

Maybe.

But it wouldn’t matter if they died, and Bolan wasn’t sold on Aolani’s combat-driving skills. She knew the city, but she wasn’t used to fighting for her life at high speeds behind a steering wheel.

In fact, Bolan guessed, she likely wasn’t used to fighting for her life at all.

He couldn’t navigate and fight at the same time, so Bolan told Aolani, “I need someplace to deal with them. Sooner’s better than later. We don’t want the cops involved if we can help it.”

“Deal with them?” she asked him, looking wide-eyed in the Datsun’s rearview mirror. “What does that mean?”

“It means I’d like all three of us to walk away from this, if possible,” Bolan answered.

“Is that a gun you’re holding?”

“I sure hope so.”

Studying the chase car, Bolan saw another fall in line behind it, nearly sideswiping a taxi in the process. Three more guns, at least, and their pursuers had a chance to flank them now.

“We have a second chase car,” Bolan told his driver. “If you’re not thinking of someplace we can take them, now’s the perfect time to start.”

2

With Aolani driving, Bolan had no opportunity to mark the streets they followed on their winding course. A few landmarks stuck in his mind, but he was focused on the chase cars that kept pace with Aolani’s Datsun, regardless of the rapid zigzag course she set.

“Where are we going?” Bolan called to Aolani from his place in the backseat.

“I’m not sure, yet,” she answered, her voice cracking from the strain.

“Come up with something,” he responded. “If the cops get in on this, we’re done.”

“I’m thinking, damn it!” Then, as if by sudden inspiration, “How about the Punchbowl?”

Bolan knew something about the Punchbowl Crater from his visits to Oahu in the past. It was the cone of an extinct volcano, used at various times for human sacrifice and tribal executions, as a rifle range for the Hawaii National Guard, as an artillery emplacement protecting Pearl Harbor and finally as a national memorial cemetery for U.S. servicemen killed in the Pacific Theater during World War II. It had been years since Bolan had visited the site himself, but he knew there were public access roads and acreage for hiking.

He supposed it would do.

“How far?” he asked Aolani.

“We’re halfway there. I take Ward Avenue to Iolani westbound, loop around to San Antonio, and there we are.”

“Do it,” Bolan said.

Polunu gave a little groan and settled lower in his seat.

Bolan ignored the turncoat revolutionary, instead concentrating on the mechanics of the firefight that was now unavoidable. He had one pistol and 120 rounds of ammunition against six armed men in two vehicles. He’d faced worse odds and lived, but every firefight was unique, distinct and separate from all those that went before it.

He didn’t think the chase cars carried any armor, but he wouldn’t know for sure until he tested them, and Bolan wasn’t ready for a running battle on a public street.

If they were armored, he was screwed.

And if they weren’t, he still faced odds of six to one, with no strategic information other than the fact that one of his assailants had an automatic weapon, probably a 9 mm.

In his worst-case scenario, the enemy would corner him and keep his head down with suppressing fire, while they encircled him and took him out. They wouldn’t find it easy, but it could be done.

He needed an edge.

Six men, 120 rounds. One magazine per man, if things got truly desperate. And if it came to that, if he was still alive and on his feet after the smoke cleared, he would be in need of resupply before the mission could proceed.

It was bad timing for an ambush, but the Executioner was used to that.

The only good time for an ambush came when he was ambushing his enemies.

And maybe, in the Punchbowl, he could do exactly that.

“Here’s Ward,” Aolani announced. “We’ve got about a half mile, maybe less, till we’re on Iolani Avenue.”

“Just get it done,” Bolan replied.

“Okay, okay!”

She wrung a bit more speed out of the Datsun, weaving in and out of evening traffic on Ward Avenue, northbound. Horns blared behind them after each maneuver, and continued bleating as the chase cars followed Aolani’s lead. The second group of hunters clipped a taxi but kept going, leaving several cars behind them in a tangled snarl.

That tears it, Bolan thought. If no one had seen fit to call the cops before, a hit-and-run was sure to get them on their cell phones.

“We’re running out of time,” he warned Aolani.

“Doing the best I can,” she said. “It’s just a Datsun, not a rocket sled.”

“Expect the cruisers any minute,” he replied.

“We won’t be here!”

Polunu moaned again and sank completely out of sight, which was the best thing he could do, if shooting started up again.

“Here’s San Antonio,” Aolani said, still intent on keeping Bolan posted on their progress. He said nothing, focused on the two chase cars that followed them around the loop, spiraling toward the cemetery that would have fresh corpses on its grounds before another hour was gone.

“THEY’RE HEADING for the Punchbowl,” Ehu Puanani said.

“I see that,” Tommy told his brother, his hands pale-knuckled where he clenched the steering wheel. His mini-Uzi rested on the seat beside him, wedged against his hip.

“I know I hit their car,” Billy Maka Nani said, from the backseat.

“Well, it didn’t slow them down,” Tommy replied. “Next time, try shooting at the goddamned people.”

“Yeah, okay.” He muttered something else, as well, but Tommy Puanani didn’t catch it.

The rearview mirror showed him John Kainoa keeping pace, despite his fender-bender with the taxi back on Iolani Avenue. Tommy knew it would’ve been the shits to lose three men in traffic, but he would have left them where they sat without a second thought.

Polunu was what mattered now, squeezing his nuts until he told them everything he’d spilled to the police or Feds, whoever he was talking to. And finding out what Aolani had to do with it, since she wasn’t exactly friendly with the cops.

Now, they’d picked up another player out of nowhere. Tommy didn’t recognize the haole, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. There were a million Feds to choose from in the new police state. No one could pretend to know them all.

And if he wasn’t a Fed? What, then?

The question out of left field angered Tommy, made him wish he’d never thought of it. For damned sure, there was no time to debate it with himself right now, when he had urgent, bloody work to do.

“See there? They’re turning in.” Ehu seemed almost giddy with excitement. “Man, I told you they were going to the Punchbowl.”

“Like this road would take them someplace else,” Tommy replied, determined to rain on his brother’s parade.

“I’m just saying—”

“Shut up, and be ready to rock when they stop.”

The Punchbowl’s public access roads were laid out roughly in concentric circles. Pele’s Fire had scouted the graveyard as a possible target for the main event, then rejected it on grounds that vandalizing headstones or messing with corpses seemed both petty and perverse.

Better to kill the living than disturb the dead.

The crater’s three circular roads included Inner Drive, Memorial Drive and Outer Drive, arranged in the logical order. There was also Link Drive, running south to north, which earned its name by linking Inner Drive to Outer Drive.

Simple.

Unfortunately, the graveyard alone sprawled over 112 acres, and the Punchbowl proper was larger than that, leaving more than ample room for three persons to run, duck and hide.

Or to fight, if they had the guts and guns to go for it.

So, we make sure they don’t get the opportunity, Tommy thought.

Hit them hard and fast, keep Polunu breathing if they could, but in the end, the most important thing was to silence him for good. If Tommy had to kill the traitor here and now, he’d find some other way to learn what information Polunu had provided to their enemies.

“Watch out! They’re turning!” Ehu blurted out.

“I’m not blind, damn it!” Tommy snapped.

There were no other cars in sight, a slow night at the bone orchard. Tommy supposed there had to be caretakers or guards around the place, somewhere, but if he did his business fast enough they wouldn’t be a problem.

And if they got in his way, tough shit for them.

The Datsun swung right onto Outer Drive, as if to make a loop around the outskirts of the military graveyard. Tommy knew he had to watch them closely now, stay on their tails, since they could brake and bail in seconds, scattering into the night on foot.

“Be ready if they bail,” he ordered, flooring the accelerator to remain close on the Datsun’s tail.

“We still want Polunu, right?” Maka Nani asked from the backseat.

“I’d prefer it,” Tommy said. “But if he pulls any shit, protect yourself.”

“I hear you, brah.”

“I hope he has a piece,” Ehu said, hunching forward with his AK-47 poking up above the dash. “I fucking hope he does.”

AOLANI WISHED she knew what she was doing. Okay, driving, that was obvious, but driving for her life while men with guns tailgated her was something new and terrifying.

Something that could make her lose it, if she wasn’t very careful now.

“Start looking for a place to stop,” Bolan said.

“Stop what? The car?”

“And try to take them by surprise, if possible.”

“Any suggestions?” she inquired sarcastically.

“When you see a likely spot, first kill your lights, then turn in without braking. Throw them off. Something like that.”

She understood about the taillights and the brake lights giving her away, but with the chase car riding on her bumper, Aolani didn’t think she’d be deceiving anybody with a sudden swerve.

“They’ll see me, anyway,” she said.

“With any luck, they’ll overshoot,” Bolan replied. “Buy us a few more seconds to get ready.”

Ready? Sure. Ready to die.

Her only weapon was a can of pepper spray, unused since she had purchased it. Polunu, at her personal insistence, was unarmed. That gave them one gun against six or more, and Aolani didn’t even know if Cooper was a decent shot.

We’re dead, she thought. I may as well just drive around until I find an open grave, and jump right in.

And it was her fault, damn it. Had to be. The gunmen had to have followed her to Polunu’s place, or had the rundown little house staked out. In either case, they’d clearly followed her to the Royal Mausoleum and waited to see who showed up. Now Cooper was at mortal risk, along with Polunu and herself.

Focus!

A place to stop.

A place to—

There!

“Hang on!” she warned her passengers, and did as Cooper had suggested—killed her lights and swung the steering wheel hard right, onto a graveled access road that pointed toward some kind of prefab shed, presumably where maintenance equipment would be stored.

Thirty or forty yards along the road, she stamped down on her brake pedal and slid the Datsun to a halt. Cooper was out and on the move before the sound of crunching gravel died, dust swirling in the headlight beams of the approaching chase cars.

“Perfect,” Aolani muttered. “Now we’re trapped.”

“Trapped here?” Polunu was in a panic, cringing in his seat, half-crumpled to the floorboard. “Why’d you stop?”

He knew as well as she did, but his fear had taken over.

“Polunu, get out of the car!”

“They’ll kill me! Kill us all!”

“You think that sitting here will save you?” she demanded. “What about the gas tank?”

“Jesus!”

That got Polunu moving, fumbling with the inside handle of his door and spilling out into the night. He left the door wide open, making Aolani reach across to slam it and kill the inner dome lights, cursing all the while.

Her car had slithered to a stop across the graveled access road, on a diagonal. Aolani was on the side nearest their rapidly approaching enemies, but fear propelled her in a leap across the Datsun’s hood to cover.

Damn good thing I’m wearing slacks, she thought, and nearly laughed. Then thought, Hysteria, just what I need right now.

But what she really needed was a SWAT team or a helicopter gunship swooping in to save her from the gunmen who would surely kill her any minute now, unless some miracle occurred.

Who should she pray to, in the final moments of her life? Not Pele, since her acolytes were those about to do the killing.

Maybe Kukailimoku, the Hawaiian god of war. He’d be a good one to recruit, when bullets were about to fly—but would he save two Polynesians and a haole who were bent on ruining the plans of Pele’s Fire?

The worst part, Aolani thought, was that she didn’t even know the goddamned plan. Polunu had either kept the details to himself, or really didn’t know them in the first place.

Either way, it seemed that curiosity was proving fatal once again.

BOLAN SAW Aolani roll across the Datsun’s hood and drop into a crouch behind the vehicle, as high-beam headlights from the two chase cars swept their position. They had gained maybe ten seconds from the swerve off Outer Drive. One of the chase cars skidded past their turnoff, while the other nearly stalled, but both cars had them covered now, doors flying open as gunners hit the ground running.

Bolan didn’t wait for them to organize. He fired a 3-round burst into the nearer chase car’s windshield, where the driver’s head should be, and thought he heard a strangled cry before all hell broke loose around him.

Bolan couldn’t accurately count the muzzle-flashes winking at him from behind the headlights, but he thought that there were only five. If he was right, if he had drawn first blood with the unlucky driver, then he had already shaved the hostile odds by about seventeen percent.

Which still left five assassins, armed and angry, throwing down at him with everything they had.

Aolani’s car would never be the same. Bullets were raking it from grille to trunk along the driver’s side, some of them coming through the now shattered windows. So far, Bolan could not smell any leaking gasoline, but that was just dumb luck. Both tires were already deflated on the driver’s side, and Bolan knew they wouldn’t leave the Punchbowl in the Datsun.

Assuming that they ever left at all.

He wished the gun fairy had left him something more substantial in the Honolulu airport locker—possibly a compact submachine gun; better yet, some frag grenades—but he would have to work with what he had. The 93-R was a potent close-range weapon, but its Parabellum rounds could only do so much against vehicles.

But he didn’t want to wreck the chase cars, anyway.

Without at least one of them functioning, he’d have to walk back to his rental car at the Royal Mausoleum.

There came a lull in firing from the other side, perhaps his enemies reloading, but he didn’t trust the sudden silence. Peering cautiously around the listing tail of Aolani’s Datsun, Bolan saw two shadow men breaking from cover, running to his left as if their lives depended on it.

Which they did.

Flankers, he thought, and reckoned one or two more would be making the same run off to his right, encircling Bolan’s weak position. Once they faded into darkness there, they could drift back and bring him under fire, drilling their hapless targets in the back while others hiding by the chase cars kept him occupied.

But not these two.

Lying on his left side, Bolan fired twice, two 3-round bursts at moving targets twenty yards or less in front of him. It wasn’t quite point-blank, but it was close enough.

The first man stumbled, clutching both arms to his chest and tumbled like a mannequin, his face slamming hard against the gravel of the access road. He shivered once or twice, then lay deathly still.

The second runner saw his comrade drop and tried to turn away from Bolan’s bullets, but he didn’t have that kind of speed. The bullets spun him like a novice dancer, trying out a pirouette he hasn’t mastered, lurching and collapsing midway through the spin. This time, death didn’t seem to be immediate, but from the spastic thrashing he observed, Bolan had no concern about his last mark rising to rejoin the fight.

He’d cut the odds by half, unless his adversaries had more men than he had counted at the onset. That was good, but Bolan had no time for self-congratulation. Rather, he assumed that one or two gunmen had flanked him on the right, while he was dealing with their comrades.

He would have to deal with them, if he intended to survive. And living on to fight another day was always part of Bolan’s master plan.

He crawled to Aolani, clutched her arm and drew her close, speaking into her ear without raising his voice. “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll be back soon.”

“You’ll be back soon?” she echoed, sounding horrified. “What are you doing, going out for coffee?”

“Just stay put!” he hissed at her. “Stay quiet, and stay down. Do that, you just might stay alive.”

That said, he turned and scuttled off into the darkness.

TOMMY PUANANI SAW his brother fall, with Billy Maka Nani right behind him. Shot down, both of them, and if they weren’t already dead, he guessed they would be soon.

Goddamn it! How was he supposed to tell his mother that he’d gotten little Ehu killed?

“Fuck!” he said.

“Say what?” asked Steve Pilialoha, crouched beside him in the shadow of their stolen car.

“Nothing. Did Benny make it?”

“I think so. Hard to tell, it’s so damn dark out here.”

Tommy had meant to send one man around in each direction—Ben Makani to his right and Billy Maka Nani to the left—flanking the three they meant to waste. But Ehu wouldn’t take no for an answer, damn his stubborn ass. Not only was he set on going to the right, with Billy, but he broke from cover early, making Billy hustle to catch up.

Now both of them were dead, because his goddamned little brother was a stupid brat.

And John Kainoa, too, though that one wasn’t Ehu’s fault. One of the bastards they were hunting had some kind of automatic weapon, and he’d nailed John through the windshield of their second chase car right away, before John even had a chance to kill the engine.

It was idling even now, with John slumped over in the driver’s seat, blood leaking from his shattered face. Just then Tommy considered what would happen if the car slipped into gear and started rolling forward. If it maybe had some help, and slammed into the bullet-riddled Datsun, for instance.

How would that be?

Pretty goddamned good.

“I’ve got a plan,” he whispered.

“What, another one?” Pilialoha sounded skeptical.

“Shut up and listen. We can flush ’em out, we play our cards right.”

“Yeah? How’s that?”

“John’s ride. One of us goes around to diddle the accelerator, then we give a shove, and bam!”

“It’s not that far,” Pilialoha said. “It won’t be going very fast.”

“Won’t have to be,” Tommy replied. “If the impact doesn’t bring ’em out, we sit back here and shoot the shit out of the gas tank. Light ’em up.”

“Sounds risky.”

“Breathing’s risky. Would you rather just sit here and jerk off till the cops show up?”

“No, hell, let’s do it.” Pilialoha paused then, frowning, and asked, “Who’s rigging the gas pedal?”

“You’re the mechanical genius.”

“Fuck me!”

I just did, brudda, Tommy thought, but settled for, “Go on. I’ll cover you.”

“That’s great.”

While Pilialoha began duck-walking over gravel, holding his shotgun like a tightrope walker’s balancing rod, Tommy pulled the nearly empty magazine from his Uzi and replaced it with a fresh one. Stuffed the almost-empty clip into his pocket, just in case he needed one more burst to finish what they’d started here, before they split.

There’d been no shooting from the Datsun since Ehu and Billy went down, but what did that mean? Tommy, enraged, had fired off half a magazine after his brother fell, but had no reason to believe that he’d hit anyone. A lucky shot, perhaps, one in a million, but he didn’t really think so.

Now, he had to ask himself: who had the gun? Polunu or the haole stranger? Tommy couldn’t picture Aolani as a threat, in terms of shooting anyone, but Polunu—while a traitor—had been trained to handle weapons.

And the haole? Who in hell was he?

Check his ID after he’s dead, the small voice answered.

“Right.”

The dome lights in the second chase car flared as Pilialoha opened the driver’s door. Tommy flinched from John Kainoa’s shredded face, the blood that dribbled from his chin and streaked the inside of the punctured windshield. He imagined Steve reaching for the gas pedal, between John’s sagging legs.

And still no shooting from the Datsun.

Had their enemy run out of bullets? Was he waiting to find out what they’d try next?

Benny Makani hadn’t fired a shot since running off into the night, so Tommy guessed he hadn’t flanked their targets yet. What would they do if he just kept on running? Lost his nerve and didn’t even try to take out their opponents?

“Kill him,” Tommy muttered to himself. “I’ll kill him nice and slow.”

The second chase car’s engine revved, its harsh sound startling Tommy back to the here and now. He turned and lurched off toward its trunk, prepared to do his part and set it rolling toward the enemy.

They’ve had it now, he thought, unconscious of the fact that he was talking to himself again.

“You’ve fucking had it now.”

THE FLANKER WHO’D been sent to Bolan’s right was on his own. Bolan had no idea what made them send two men in one direction, while another went alone, nor did he care. It was enough to know he hadn’t missed a shooter in the darkness.

The guy was cautious, Bolan gave him that, but caution slowed him. A well-trained soldier would’ve taken half the time to cover forty yards, and likely would’ve been in place before Bolan was ready to receive him.

Not this guy.

A revolutionary he might be, at least in theory, but a soldier trained for war?

Not even close.

Shuffling footsteps on gravel marked his progress before Bolan saw him. The stalker carried a Kalashnikov but never had a chance to use it. The Executioner nailed him with a single shot, snapping the gunman’s head back.

Easy.

When he was satisfied that no backup was coming from the shadows, Bolan closed the gap, relieved his lifeless adversary of his AK-47 and a spare clip that protruded from his pocket. Two heartbeats to check the captured rifle, and he doubled back to join his companions under fire.

And just in time.

As he arrived, one of the chase cars was accelerating toward Aolani’s crippled Datsun. It wasn’t going more than 20 mph by his estimate, but it would still cause damage on impact.

And it would provide cover for the last two shooters, coming up behind it while the high beams blazed their trail.

Bolan ignored the car, its lifeless driver, concentrating on the men behind it. They had revved the gas somehow, and maybe given the vehicle a shove to start, both of them clutching weapons now and sheltering behind the vehicle as it advanced. From Bolan’s angle, though, one of the hunters was exposed completely, and his companion was visible from the waist up.

It was enough.

He stitched the nearer of the gunmen with a rising burst, six rounds or so of 7.62 mm death leaving the AK’s muzzle at a speed of 2,300 feet per second. Downrange, his moving target crumpled as if he were made of paper, crushed within a giant’s fist. The dead man fell, firing a shotgun blast into his own foot as he dropped.

The hunting party’s sole survivor swung toward Bolan, ripping off a long burst from a lightweight submachine gun. Bolan could’ve ducked but didn’t bother, instead answering with a short burst from his Kalashnikov that nearly emptied the long curved magazine.

His target took most of it, jerking through a clumsy little dance that ended with a belly flop on gravel, while the car that he’d been following rolled on and nosed against the Datsun’s driver’s door. It wasn’t much of a collision, but it finally extinguished those annoying high beams.

Bolan advanced to find Aolani and her companion huddled on the far side of the Datsun, still staying put and keeping low. Not bad, he thought, all things considered.

She had done all right on what he took to be her first time under fire.

“It’s over,” Bolan said. “We need to leave now.”

“Leave?” she challenged him. “In case you haven’t noticed, they just shot the hell out of my car.”

“We’ll borrow one of theirs,” Bolan replied. “That one,” he added, pointing to the vehicle that stood alone now, headlights burning tunnels through the night.

“And leave mine here?”

“I’ll torch it. Take out anything you need that’s still inside.”

As Bolan spoke, he tore a strip of fabric from a lifeless gunman’s shirttail and removed the Datsun’s gas cap to insert the wick.

“Burn it or not, the cops will trace it,” Aolani said.

“No sweat. You’re out of town right now. How could you know some punks would steal your car and use it for a rumble with a rival gang?”

“Jesus. Okay, hang on a minute, will you? Let me get my purse and—”

She was scrambling, fumbling in the glove compartment, underneath the front seat, grabbing this and that before he lit the wick. They piled into the second chase car, and he had it rolling toward the Punchbowl’s exit when the Datsun blew behind them.

“This is really not what I had in mind,” Aolani informed him.

“Hey, you know the saying—life’s what happens while you’re making other plans.”

And death could happen, too.

Oh, yes.

They hadn’t seen the last of death, by any means.

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