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“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.
