Pele's Fire

“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.