Blood Toll

The men nodded as one.

“We will not fail, Commander,” Li said aloud.

“Good.” Hwong nodded. “Prepare yourselves. Soon, the world will change. It is we will who change it.”

4

Bolan guided the Dodge Charger into traffic, the engine rumbling throatily in eager response. Next to him, Sergeant Kirokawa flipped shut her phone and glanced his way. “The interrogation room will be ready when we reach the station,” she informed Bolan. “We’ll have Bando to ourselves. I wouldn’t get your hopes up, though. He’s not the most cooperative person I’ve ever met.”

“I got that impression.” Bolan nodded.

“How long do you think it will take for your courier to get that thing analyzed?”

“The device Kapalaua was carrying?” Bolan said. “There’s no way to be sure. It will be in my people’s hands within hours, conceivably. Figuring out what it is could take longer.” The Stony Man courier had met Bolan before the Executioner left the Holiday Inn. Bolan could only assume the man was even now being transported, possibly by Stony Man pilot Jack Grimaldi.

They merged onto the Lunalilo Freeway. Traffic was moving, though not particularly quickly, nor were the low posted limits helping matters. Bolan continued to follow the Malibu that carried Kapalaua. They had not gone far when he caught sight of the vans.

“Trouble,” he said simply. “Two vans, both black, moving up quickly.”

“Could be nothing,” the sergeant said.

“I don’t believe in coincidence.”

“Me neither.” Kirokawa drew her Glock 19 and flipped open her phone with her free hand and dialed a number. “Kirokawa,” she said into the phone. “Wake up. We’ve got two vans coming up fast, and you can bet they’re here for your prisoner. Take the next exit.”

“No,” Bolan said quickly. “That’ll take us into population. On the freeway we can contain them.”

“Scratch that,” Kirokawa said into her phone. “Stand by.” She looked to Bolan.

“We need to make some space,” he said. “We’ve got to keep the traffic out of the line of fire. Tell your men to get on the radio and call for backup. Then tell them to get left and put that car nose first into the guardrail.”

“What?”

“Do it!” Bolan ordered. “I’m going to follow. We’re going to slow down, get traffic moving over the right. Have your men put on their lights, ward everyone off.”

“Light ’em up,” Kirokawa said. “Siren, too. Eric,” Kirokawa said, addressing the driver of the Malibu, “we’ve got to make a stand and keep as many bystanders out of it as possible.” She described Bolan’s plan. “Can you do it?” She nodded to Bolan. “He’s ready.”

“Wait…” Bolan said. “Now!”

“Now, Eric!” Kirokawa ordered.

The Malibu, its siren wailing, its light bar strobing, executed a smooth turn across the left two lanes. Horns blared as drivers swerved to avoid the vehicle, pulling right to go around. Bolan put his blinkers on and brought the Charger roaring into formation, its tires squealing as he pulled the wheel hard over. He planted the Dodge’s nose behind the rear bumper of the Malibu, leaning on the horn all the while, making as much noise as he could to warn the other drivers. As planned, traffic started streaming around the blocked left lanes, moving right, out of what was about to become the killing ground.

“Time to move!” Bolan said. Then he was up and out, the Beretta 93-R in his left hand, the .44 Magnum Desert Eagle in his right.

Kirokawa braced herself behind the engine block of the Dodge. Officer Eric Davis and his uniformed HPD partner, whom Kirokawa had introduced back at the hotel as Charles, took up similar stations behind the front of their cruiser.

“You goin’ die!” Kapalaua shouted from the back seat of the Malibu, his voice muffled.

Bolan waited just long enough to confirm that his assessment of the threat was correct. The two black panel vans slowed, one of them cutting off a furiously honking motorist in an Audi. They rolled to a stop not far from Bolan’s makeshift roadblock. The Executioner counted a total of eight men as the side doors slid open. All were native Hawaiians who carried an assortment of weapons, including pistols, shotguns and a couple of AK-style rifles.

“Give us Bando!” demanded a tall man brandishing a sawed-off shotgun. “Give him to us and nobody dies!” Without another word he fired his weapon.

Bolan snapped up the Desert Eagle and triggered a round, the .44 Magnum bullet burning a path through the NHL gunner’s head, dropping him in a boneless heap to the pavement.

Horns sounded and brakes screamed. Bolan dived low, missing the hail of gunfire that came in response to his play. He rolled, targeting the feet of the NHL gunners as they scrambled for cover behind the vans. When he was sure of the shot, he sent a 3-round burst from the 93-R ricocheting off the asphalt beneath the closer of the two vehicles.

Bolan’s target shrieked and fell, his foot a bloody mess. The Executioner shifted his weight slightly, lying on his stomach, and punched a .44 Magnum round through the writhing man’s skull.

Two down, six to go.

BANDO KAPALAUA WASTED no time when the gunshots started. He wormed his way down low, maneuvering his large body onto the floor of the vehicle behind the front seats. Then he clenched his fists, locked his wrists and began to pull for all he was worth.

Bolan had tightly strapped the Hawaiian’s wrists. That was nothing to Bando, though. He could snap handcuff chains if he wanted to, and sometimes did it at parties or in bars when somebody was stupid enough to bet him. Screwing up his face, his cheeks growing red with effort, Bando wrenched his meaty hands. The first strap popped easily. Twisting his wrists, the massive Hawaiian snapped the second one, then the third.

Just like that, he was free.

Well, not free, exactly, but he was loose, and soon he would have his freedom back. It was just like the haole police—Bando savored the insult, a catch-all term for these no-breath whites and foreigners ignorant of Hawaiian ways—to put so much faith in locked doors and stupid toy plastic straps.

A bullet struck the driver’s window and several rattled the frame of the Malibu, but Bando ignored them. His people would know that he was in the back seat and would do their best to avoid shooting him.

Bando had no illusions about his own intelligence. Though he was primarily muscle, not brains, Bando was not stupid. It took no genius to figure out how his New Hawaiian League compatriots had found him. Clearly that Chinese, Hwong, had called them and provided his location.

Bando squirmed into position on his back, his zori flat against the Plexiglas partition. Then he pistoned his mighty legs, as if pressing out a squat, pushing with all his might. The Plexiglas panel started to strain in its housing. Bando then recoiled, snapping out again with his sandaled feet.

The partition gave way.

Bando immediately scrambled after it, shoving himself painfully and awkwardly through the opening. Upside down, his legs still sprawled over the passenger seat, he reached the glove box. It was locked, but the lock was a light one. Bando simply grabbed the lip of the glove box with his thick fingers and ripped it out of its housing in the dash.

The plastic evidence bag containing his revolver, his reloads and his other personal effects was inside, where he’d seen it stashed before they’d driven him away. He ripped it open, pocketing the knife and his wallet before snapping open the cylinder of the three-inch Model 29 and loading it with the .44 Magnum rounds in the speedloader.

“Hey!” someone shouted outside the vehicle. It was the smaller white cop, the one he’d heard called Davis. Without hesitation, Bando pushed the stubby barrel of his weapon against the passenger’s window and pulled the trigger.

The blast blew pebbles of safety glass across the cop’s chest, but the bullet hole in his neck meant he’d never know or care. Davis dropped and Bando crouched low, ready to crawl out the passenger’s door and make his escape.

That was when he realized the plastic bag was missing something important.

The tracking device was gone. Possibly the big, dark-haired haole cop had it. Possibly he had given it to someone else, too. If that was true, someone might be poking at it soon, maybe figuring out where it came from. Bando didn’t know if that was possible; he knew nothing about electronics. Hwong had given him the device, told him how to operate it and explained how best to put it to use in carrying out the Chinese agent’s plan. The loss of the device would not be taken lightly.

Bando knew a moment of fear, considering Hwong’s reaction. The Chinese had been very specific. Bando was to use the homing device to follow the haole spy and take back to Hwong whatever the spy uncovered. Most importantly, Bando was not to be caught, nor was he to breathe a word of his mission. The connection to Hwong was to be kept secret at all costs. Failure—and worse, discovery of the Chinese—meant more than simply a loss of the precious weapons and money Hwong was funneling to the New Hawaiian League. It meant that Bando’s family—his mother and a younger sister living in Molokai—would be killed. Their deaths, Hwong had promised, would not be swift, nor would they leave this world, as Hwong had put it, “inviolate.” To make his point, Hwong had introduced Bando to the little Chinese with the crazy look, whom Hwong had called Zho Wen. Bando would not soon forget the light of insanity that played behind that man’s eyes. Bando feared no man, he told himself, but this Zho Wen was something less than human. He would pay any price to keep such a creature from his sister and his mother.

Shaking these troubling thoughts from his mind, Bando stayed low as he climbed out of the police car. On the ground, not far from the corpse of his partner, was the other cop. He was down, clutching a wound in his belly, his face pale and covered with sweat. Bando could tell he had native blood. The Hawaiian cop looked up at Bando, his eyes unfocused with pain.

“Sorry,” Bando said. He lined up the front sight of his chopped-down Model 29. When the front blade was squarely over the center of the cop’s face, he pulled the trigger.

MACK BOLAN WENT ABOUT his work efficiently, taking targets of opportunity, the Desert Eagle and the Beretta extensions of his hands. The NHL gunners were nothing special; he had faced fighters better than these countless times. Their numbers, however, gave them a temporary advantage. It took time to defeat odds so slanted against him.

The soldier ducked back as a blast of buckshot from a sawed-off shotgun clawed the air above his head. He triggered a return volley from the Beretta, the Parabellum rounds stuttering across the second NHL vehicle.