Pacific Creed

SAMOAN THUNDER

Hawaiian Nativists launch a campaign of terror throughout the islands in what appears to be a white slavery ring. With female tourists disappearing and the bodies of U.S. servicemen lining up, Mack Bolan goes in to stop the violence. But Bolan soon learns the attacks are only part of a bigger threat—and a countdown to the final strike has already begun.

Handicapped by witnesses too afraid to talk, Bolan teams up with a Hawaiian to infiltrate the splinter group…or be killed in the attempt. To win their trust, Bolan will need every tactic in his arsenal. But surviving their trial by fire won’t be easy. The terrorists are trained warriors and they’ve already marked Bolan for death. Judgment day is coming and the Executioner is prepared to fight until the bitter end.

The glass walls and ceilings had begun to shake and the sound of rotors thundered overhead.

Bolan drew his Beretta and rose. His team followed suit. He scanned the skies, searching for the chopper. “We’re about to get hit.” Looking around the open, gold and glass penthouse, he knew it would be easier than shooting fish in an aquarium. “Kill the lights, and we need bigger guns.”

De Jong jerked his head at one of his gigantic guards. “Turn off the lights! Go into my bedroom and get the—”

Glass shattered overhead and shards fell like miniature guillotines. A Bell 204 helicopter took a tight orbit and a man in chicken straps hung halfway out the door behind an M-60 machine gun. Bolan ignored the piece of glass that cut his arm and began squeezing off three-round bursts from his Beretta. The three remaining bodyguards sprayed their weapons skyward. Sparks ricocheted off the fuselage and the helicopter banked away into the glow of the skyline.

Bolan spun around as a second chopper roared overhead. It was a much smaller OH-6. A man leaned out each door firing rifles on full auto. Bolan printed a three-round burst into the starboard assassin who fell out of the chopper and crashed through the glass roof of De Jong’s master bathroom. Something clattered to the glass-strewn hardwood floor. Bolan hurled himself over a couch and roared, “Grenade!”

Pacific Creed

Don Pendleton

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

—Friedrich Nietzsche

The true monster is the man who does nothing, allowing evil to flourish. I will never stop hunting down the monsters who prey on innocent citizens, and I won’t rest until I’ve brought them to justice.

—Mack Bolan

THE

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 tarted 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 com-mand 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

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

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 1

Chinatown, Honolulu

The soldier staggered down the wrong street in Honolulu’s red-light district. He’d deliberately left behind the walled courtyards that had been converted into malls and the fading green clapboard storefronts of the merchants dealing in traditional herbs, teas and imported goods from China. Those establishments had all closed their doors hours ago. The soldier immersed himself in the narrow alleys that lead down toward the Nuuanu stream. These streets were crowded with pool halls, massage parlors and heavy-duty bars where people drank to get drunk and prostitutes and pushers plied their wares. He was far from the only military man indulging himself, but he was on a mission, and his mission had taken him to the bad part of town. The soldier was looking for a real party.

He found it.

It was unseasonably hot in Honolulu and it hadn’t rained in two days. Nonetheless when he stepped into the alley, his foot splashed in a puddle of mystery moisture. He pulled his foot out of the liquid and shook it. “Eew!”

A mountain of a man stepped out of the shadows. He was of Hawaiian or Samoan extraction. A ferret-faced individual whose aloha T-shirt was the most Hawaiian thing about him came into formation with the giant. “Hey, haole,” the man-mountain rumbled. “You lost?”

“I was lost.” The soldier smiled and spread his arms wide. “But now I’m found!”

The man-mountain guffawed against his will. “You know? They say the gods favor the dumb, and this haole? He’s so dumb I almost like him.”

Ferret-face glared daggers. “I don’t like him at all.”

“Bro, you don’t even know me.” The soldier belched. “That’s messed up.”

“You!” Ferret-face went livid. “You don’t ever call anyone on this island bro!”

The soldier registered two individuals stepping into the alley behind him to block his escape. “Bruddah?” he tried.

“You’re dead, white-boy.”

“That’s white-man to you, poi-boy,” the soldier corrected.

Ferret-face’s flinty eyes went cold. “This one we put in the ground. Bundle him.” In a pinwheel of sharpened steel, he snick-snick-snacked open a butterfly knife. “Get his dog tags.”

The soldier blinked. “Bundled?”

“Sorry, bruddah.” The man-mountain kicked off his sandals and came on with deceptive grace for his bulk. “This gonna hurt.”

The soldier shot out a one-knuckle jab for the big man’s throat. Man-mountain’s right hand intercepted the blow like a magic trick. Massive fingers enfolded the soldier’s fist like a catcher’s mitt and squeezed. White fire shot down the soldier’s forearm as giant fingers burrowed into the nerve points in the top of his hand like cold chisels. The soldier threw a haymaker with his right hand for all he was worth.

The giant flicked his other hand up as though he was catching flies. “Ah, bruddah, you— God!” The man-mountain groaned in shock as the slapjack—which the soldier had palmed during the exchange—broke three metacarpal bones. The giant’s grip weakened and the soldier ripped his throbbing hand free. The soldier stepped to his left, keeping the giant between him and Ferret-face’s knife. The giant’s broken left hand shot forward and he gasped in shock as the soldier flicked the sap into his injured hand again and broke a few phalanges. The man-mountain couldn’t help but retract his hand. The soldier lunged and snapped the sap like a towel just behind the giant’s ear.

Man-mountain collapsed like an avalanche.

Ferret-face moved in like a fencer. The soldier recognized an accomplished killer was coming to carve him up. However that was the knife-fighter’s Achilles’ heel. Most schools of blade fighting taught that your first target was the enemy’s knife hand. Ferret-face had seen what the soldier had done to the giant. The soldier feinted with his slapjack toward the butterfly knife. Ferret-face’s hand turned and ghosted away from the blow with the grace of a hula dancer.

The soldier stepped in and snapped the concealed steel toe of his dress shoe into the knife-fighter’s lead shin.

Ferret-face gasped as his tibia fractured. He tottered and pulled his injured leg back, waving his knife to ward the soldier off. The soldier took the opportunity to give the assassin a second snap kick under the kneecap of his good leg. Ferret-face fell like a house of cards.

The soldier spun.

One of the two men hung back, but the second charged toward him, shouting some kind of Hawaiian war cry and wielding a short, paddle-shaped wooden club. The soldier flung his sap into the man’s face. The war cry faltered as the man took the equivalent of a deep-sea fishing sinker between the eyes. His club sagged like a reed. The soldier’s fist followed the sap about six inches lower to the point of the jaw.

The soldier’s assailant dropped as if he’d been shot.

The soldier regarded the fourth man at the entrance to the alley and cracked his knuckles. The man broke and ran for the lights and people of the main drag. The soldier stood over Ferret-face. “Bundled?”

“Fuck you!” Ferret-face screamed. He was in the fetal position clutching his right shin and his left knee. “We will hunt you down, haole! We will bundle you and—” The rant ended abruptly as the soldier flicked a steel-capped shoe into Ferret-

face’s jaw and unhinged it. The man sagged unconscious.

The soldier reached under his shirt and took out a syringe that looked more suitable for horses than people. He took a knee beside the unconscious man-mountain and examined the broken bunch of bananas he called a left hand. It was swelling as though he was holding a purple golf ball. The soldier sank the needle between the broken second and third metacarpals and had to press hard to express the contents. The syringe didn’t contain drugs but a Radio Frequency Identification Device. The antenna, battery and transmitter were linked in a line like boxcars in a flexible glass sheath about as thick around as a grain of rice and twice as long. Any X-ray of the big man’s hand would clearly show a foreign object, but the soldier was betting the giant wouldn’t go to a hospital with his injury, and among the pain, swelling and broken bones he wouldn’t notice the invader. All the soldier needed was a couple of days of tracking.

Mack Bolan, aka the Executioner, took out his cell. He touched an app and typed in his security code. “Bear, this is Striker. I’ve had contact. Very high target probability. I have an RFID embedded. Target is unconscious. Activate tracking.”

Aaron “the Bear” Kurtzman was Stony Man Farm’s resident computer wizard and head of the cyber team.

“Acknowledged, Striker,” Kurtzman said from the clandestine base in Virginia. “Broadcasting activation signal now.” His voice warmed with success. “We have a positive RFID activation and eyes on the target. Transmitting feed.”

A window appeared in Bolan’s phone and he saw a glowing pinprick blinking beneath an overlaid satellite grid of Chinatown. “Affirmative. I have eyes on.”

“Battery is at full charge. Unless the target literally goes underground we should have a good ninety-six hours of telemetry, and I have Pentagon confirmation on continuous satellite windows for all four days. Tracking of target is go.”

“Good work, Bear. Be advised I have three hostiles down.” Bolan swiftly went through the three men’s pockets. None was carrying ID. Bolan took pictures of his three unconscious assailants. “I don’t think it’s likely, but monitor local hospitals and clinics for descriptions of target A with broken left hand and concussion; target B with fractured tibia, broken knee and dislocated jaw; and target C with broken nose and possible concussion respectively. Run facial recognition software with local law-enforcement databases.”

“On it.”

Bolan rose. It was time to vacate the scene. “Oh. And, Bear?”

“Yes, Striker?”

“Look up ‘bundling.’”

Kurtzman paused. “What? You mean like cable, internet and phone service?”

“No. As a cultural practice.”

Kurtzman considered this weird and wonderful question. Strange requests were part and parcel of working with Mack Bolan. The soldier was at war with the worst evil that humanity could produce, and his adversaries ran the gamut from street-level thugs to those intent on changing the balance of world power and everything in between. Processing information streams and solving problems for Mack was one of the best parts of Aaron Kurtzman’s job, and he was proud of it. Some of the most confounding joys were questions from Mack that came straight out of left field. Others, such as this one, arrived like visitors from Mars.

Kurtzman summoned up an answer from his own memory. “Last I heard ‘bundling’ was something Pennsylvania Dutch did when two adolescents were courting. They would be allowed to sleep in the same bed but were professionally straitjacketed in separate bedding, often with a bundling board between them. They could kiss, and if they worked at it hands could roam, but it curtailed any serious hanky-panky.”

“Well, that’s fascinating, Bear, but I’m looking at bundling from a Hawaiian cultural perspective. One of the perps used the word twice, directed at me, and I don’t think he wanted to suck face over sleeping bags on the lanai. I don’t know if it’s slang, but I’m thinking it’s something you don’t want to be on the wrong end of.”

“Right, bad Hawaiian bundling. On it.”

“Do I have Koa?”

Luke Koa was Stony Man Farm’s current and only resident Hawaiian blacksuit. He had been a Military Police officer in West Germany before the Wall had fallen, and at the frantic end of the Cold War, as the U.S.S.R. fell, he’d specialized in what could best be described as “extracurricular scouting activities” for Uncle Sam on both sides of the border. Being Hawaiian, he couldn’t blend in with the native population, so Luke Koa had highly developed sneaking, peeking and, if it was called for, taking down skills. In essence he’d been a Special Forces border patrolman, and he had an unparalleled nose for trouble and things that did not belong.

When the current Hawaiian mission had come up, Koa had been an obvious choice as an asset. Bolan had brought up the mission parameters and Koa had volunteered. Kurtzman had kicked it up the chain.

Kurtzman liked and respected Koa. Everyone at the Farm did, but the man was by training a soldier, a policeman and a scout, not an undercover operative, and all signs indicated he would be operating against his own people. A very violent and dangerous splinter group, but they were still his own. Nonetheless Koa was an ace card they could not afford to hold back. He’d volunteered for the job, and the powers that be had agreed. “We have permission.”

“Then tell Koa I’ve had a serious contact in Chinatown. Send him everything I’ve sent you to review. Tell him he’s active, and I need him.”

“He activated himself. When I told him you had gone undercover in Chinatown he took the initiative and got on a plane. He’ll hit Honolulu International tomorrow at

10:15 a.m. Pickup not required. He’ll arrive at the safehouse in a green Jeep.”

“Copy that. Will rendezvous at safehouse. Tell him I’m going by Matt Cooper. Striker out.” Bolan emerged like Orpheus out of Chinatown’s darkest alleys. He shook his head at the physical carnage he’d left behind him and the questions it had raised. “Bundling…” Bolan mused.

Chapter 2

Honolulu Safehouse

“Bundling sucks, Matt. You don’t want any part of it.” Luke Koa feigned a crouch. Bolan fell for it and jumped. The soldier hit his apogee as Koa grinned. Gravity pulled Bolan down and Koa made a jump shot. His three-pointer floated inches past Bolan’s fingertips and caught nothing but net. Hawaii was Koa’s turf, and the safehouse driveway and its basketball net were swiftly becoming his yard. “I thought you haoles were supposed to be the masters of the three-pointer.” Koa was smiling. “You’ve been eating mine all morning.”

There was no getting around the fact that Koa was taking Bolan to town. “Haven’t seen you dunk yet.”

“You keep your six-footer shit to yourself, and now it’s nine.” The Hawaiian soldier didn’t smile often. He was built like a middleweight who spent a lot of time under a bench press. Koa shot Bolan a grin. “But we can go to twenty-one if you want.”

The Hawaiian surged forward and pulled a Harlem-Globetrotter-worthy up-and-under. His layup was gorgeous to behold. He sighed at Bolan with immense false sympathy. “Eleven.”

Bolan retrieved the ball and passed it back. “What do you know about Lua?”

Koa shot for fun and sank a basket from the curb cut that served as the top of the key. “You mean Kapu Ku’ialua?”

Bolan caught the ball and passed it back. “Yeah.”

Koa dribbled to the corner of the driveway. “What do you know about it, Matt?”

“Lua means ‘bone breaking.’ It’s the traditional martial art of the Islands.”

“Well,” Koa acknowledged, “that’s the Wikipedia version.”

“So?”

“So it’s kapu.” Koa sank another basket.

The Hawaiian for Dummies definition of kapu was “taboo,” but if you looked deeper into the language and culture the word was an intricate blend of “sacred,” “consecrated,” “restricted” or perhaps even “marked off.” He shot the ball back. “There are three Lua schools within walking distance, Koa. I can sign up today.”

“Where are you from again?”

“East coast.”

“Okay, haole. You go down to your local strip mall. You pay your three hundred dollars, buy your American-flag harem pants and get your black belt in Rex Kwon Do in twelve easy lessons. Do you learn anything?”

“I take your point, but I think I met a Lua master last night and the only thing that saved me was the slapjack I’d palmed. I broke his hands while he was in midmonologue.”

Koa shook his head sadly and sank his shot. “We were warriors once. Nothing’s what it used to be.”

“Yeah, and now there’s a nativistic murder spree going on. Will you tell me about bundling?”

“Well, they say that back in the day, a Koa—a Hawaiian warrior of the royal class—studied Lua. A true master could defeat an opponent, dislocate every joint in his body, and then reset them again. Though sometimes the victim died from shock.”

“That’s bundling?”

“No. According to legend, there’s another side to Lua. A Koa might defeat an opponent in single combat, dislocate all his joints and then fold him up like a cricket.”

“Bundling him.”

“Yeah.”

“Then what?”

“Then he’d be roasted and eaten. At least, that’s the story.” Koa sank another basket. “Why do you ask?”

“Last night a man told his three buddies to bundle me.”

“That’s messed up. You sure they weren’t Amish or something?”

Bolan laughed. “They were not plain.”

“Sounds like we have a problem. What’s the plan? I infiltrate?”

“We both infiltrate. You’re my ticket in.”

Koa looked Bolan up and down. “Good luck, Your Caucasianess.”

“I’m getting some help with that.”

“Should be interesting.”

Bolan lifted his chin at a red Jeep coming down the street. “You’ll get to see it now.”

CIA groomer Pegarella Hu barely cracked five feet. She literally jumped out of the Jeep with what looked like a massive fishing tackle box tucked under her arm. In South Pacific intelligence circles she was famous for her smile, her designer cupcakes and her ability to facilitate field operation role camouflage. Her cereal-box-worthy grin faded slightly as she looked at Bolan from head to toe. “You’re the one I’m supposed to Island up?”

“Yup.”

“This should be interesting.”

Koa nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I said.”

* * *

“You ready for your big reveal?” Hu asked.

“Can’t wait, Peg,” Bolan replied. His skin and scalp were alternately burning and tingling. The soldier stood, turned and looked at himself in the mirror.

“Well, fuck me running with a pitchfork,” Koa said.

Wearing only a pair of boxers, Bolan stared at himself. He had to admit it was an impressive sight. Hu had taken her CIA grooming skills and gone to town. She had depilated Bolan from his upper lip to his insteps. Hu had thickened, coarsened and extended Bolan’s naturally black hair into a shag. She had thinned his eyebrows and created a few other minor miracles with the help of cosmetics, but it was Bolan’s skin that was most impressive.

The soldier had spent more time than was wise under desert, jungle and equatorial suns. He tanned, and when he did it turned him ruddy and coppery. Agent Hu had stained his skin with a Da Vinci–like grasp of color. She had artificially tanned him but now his skin had a subtle but unmistakable golden base. Bolan and Koa looked nothing alike—and Hu had made Bolan’s skin several shades darker—but she’d given Bolan the same complexion as Koa.

Hu had also chemically tightened Bolan’s pores to give him the porcelain skin look. There wasn’t much to be done about his nose, cheekbones or chin, but Bolan looked like a product of the cultural crossroads the Hawaiian Islands had become. The haole was there in his bone structure for everyone to see, but by dint of Agent Hu’s artistry, if Bolan claimed to have a Hawaiian father or said he was half Portuguese and half Samoan, no Islander would dispute him at first glance. The lines and cicatrices of his numerous battle scars would only cement the deal. “You’re amazing.”

Hu shot him a smile. “I know. Listen, a lot of the work won’t last much more than the week. With three-quarters of your pores closed you need to worry about overheating if you overexert.” She gazed at Bolan in open appreciation. “And your beard and chest hair will start reasserting themselves ASAP.”

“What about the hairdo and the skin?”

Hu laughed. “It’ll take a chemical peel or a month to undo what I did to your skin, and if you want your hair back to normal you’ll have to let it grow out or come and see me.”

“What if I don’t want to come back? What if I asked you to stick around for a while?”

Hu perked an eyebrow. “What exactly are you saying, sunshine?”

“I like your style. I’m forming a posse. You want to be deputized?”

“Love it,” Hu responded. “But I’m not a field agent.”

“I know, but I’m thinking I need a girl on the ground who can blend in, run interference and run errands Koa and I can’t.”

Hu wrinkled her nose delightfully. “I don’t know how I would clear that with my superiors.”

“My people will clear it with your bosses. Can you shoot?”

“I’ve got an AK hidden in the Jeep.” Hu spread her hands and feet wide in invitation. “And if you want to see where I keep my PPK? We’ll just need to have ourselves a game of Treasure Island.”

Koa nodded. “I like her.”

Bolan met his own cobalt-blue gaze in the mirror. “What about the eyes?”

“I have three pairs of extended-wear browns for you, but since we’re already working you as a pleasing example of hybrid vigor, I’d stay with your oh-so-arctic blues. It’s downright striking, and you only have one chance to make a first impression. I say we throw off the opposition with your disturbing power.”

Bolan nodded at his reflection. “Koa?”

Koa let out a long breath as he took in Bolan’s transformation. “What Peg said. Given what the girl has done? You’ll have the power to seriously freak out some locals.”

Koa took a notebook out of his back pocket that looked as if it had seen heavy use in the past forty-eight hours. “Here’re some notes I made for you. It’s too late to teach you any slang much less the language—you’ll just screw it up. The good news is when my parents moved to the mainland some of our family was already there. I had a half cousin I barely knew. He dropped out of high school, moved to the east coast with some girl and just disappeared. You’re him.”

“What’s my name?”

“Makaha,” Koa said.

Bolan admired the randomness of it. “So we’re cousins?”

“That’s right. That gives me all rights to introduce you around and defend your ignorant, mainland-corrupted ways.”

“Nice.”

“I thought so.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“You’re looking for murder, mayhem and a native uprising?” Koa asked.

“That’s the current theory.”

“Then we go to my old stomping grounds. The most violent place in the Islands.”

“Where’s that?”

Koa nodded knowingly. “Happy Valley.”

Happy Valley, Maui

“You want to turn back?” Koa lifted his chin at the sliding-glass doors of the Takamiya Market as he drove. “This is where we U-turn.”

Bolan had spent the island-hopper flight and the drive studying Koa’s rather extensive notes on Hawaiian crime, culture and Bolan’s alias. He lowered the minor tome and gazed out the window of the ancient Toyota Land Cruiser the CIA had provided. Outwardly, the 1970s vintage 4 x 4 looked as if it was held together by rust and primer. Underneath the chassis, the engine and the suspension were tip-top. Bolan ran his eyes over the seemingly sleepy island borough. Happy Valley didn’t look like a ghetto, much less a slum. The heartachingly blue skies, lush hillsides and palm trees did a lot to dispel that, but there was obviously trouble in paradise.

The ironically named Happy Valley was a hotbed of drug dealing, prostitution and gang-related crime. At the end of the day, criminals who wanted to make a mark on the island had to come here and pay respect to the locals or try to carve it out of them. The local vibe was very strong, and the code of silence was even stronger. “This is where you did your damage?” Bolan asked.

“Back in the day, Matt.” Koa nodded.

“Then keep your eyes on the road.”

“Hell with that,” Koa countered. He took a right off the main drive. “I want a beer.”

“It’s not even noon!” Hu said.

“You want to meet the local royalty?” Koa asked. “Now is the time.”

“Is this like having cannelloni on a Tuesday with the dons in Jersey?”

“Yeah, except these dons don’t need help to break every bone in your body. Oh, and do me a favor, Matt.”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t piss off the Samoans.”

Hu sighed. “That’s good advice.”

“Don’t piss off the Samoans,” Bolan repeated. “Got it.”

“Good, make that your mantra. I don’t want to die today.” Koa pulled up next to a wall that was blank save for a door and bracket where a sign had been torn off. Bolan noted three bullet strikes in the stucco. “Where are we?”

“Melika’s. It’s named after the woman who used to own it. I made a call, and her daughter owns it now.”

“What’s her name?”

“Melika.”

Bolan’s phone rang. It looked like an old, battered, first-generation ’droid, but it was actually state-of-the-art Farm technology. Bolan answered. “Bear.”

“You’ve stopped.”

“Yeah, Koa wants a beer.”

A picture appeared on Bolan’s phone. It was a satellite image of Happy Valley.

“You want to see something interesting?” Kurtzman inquired.

“Always.”

The satellite image zoomed in. Bolan made out the Land Cruiser. A superimposed green dot blinked on Melika’s. “Really.”

“The tracker you placed on your assailant in Chinatown is in that bar.”

“Well, that’s convenient. If I don’t contact you in half an hour, get worried.”

“I’m worried now.”

Bolan clicked off and nodded at Koa. “Let’s do it.”

Koa took point and they entered Melika’s.

After the brilliant sunshine the bar’s interior felt like a photographic darkroom. Hawaiian slack key guitar lilted over the sound system. A trio of withered old men sat at the bar drinking their social security checks. A giant Samoan man with an Afro held down bouncer and security duties. He gave Bolan and Koa a hard stare. He leered at Hu. The woman behind the bar was tall, Polynesian, and had a smile that lit up the dingy surroundings. Bolan sat at the counter. “You must be Melika.”

“That’s me. What can I get you before you get your asses killed?”

“Primos. The lady will have an appletini.”

Melika shrugged. “Coming right up.”

Bolan locked his eyes with the Hawaiian crime patriarchs holding court at the booth in the far corner. One was built like an aging Olympic shot-putter. The other man filled half the booth like a retired sumo wrestler. Shot-put wore a red-and-blue aloha shirt and his iron-gray hair was cut in a shag. Sumo was a monstrosity in a men’s XXXL pink-and-black bowling shirt and had his hair pulled back into a short ponytail. Bolan kept his face stony as alarm bells rang up and down his spine.

Also seated in the booth was Man-mountain with his hand in a cast and a dressing behind his left ear.

The Samoan moved around the bar and loomed over Bolan. He gave Koa a disgusted look. “You seem a little lost, kolohe.” The Samoan leaned in and mad-dogged Bolan. “And I don’t know who this lolo haole is, but I don’t give a shit.”

Bolan’s cram sessions told him that he’d just been called an idiot white man and Koa had been called a troublemaker. The stone face of the morbidly obese man in the booth cracked as he squinted at Koa in recognition. “Luke?”

Koa nodded. “Uncle Aikane.”

Melika clapped her hands. “Luke!”

The dangerous men in the booth suddenly smiled.

Bolan knew “uncle” or “aunt” was a term of respect in Hawaiian for any elder or better. “Aikane” was the Hawaiian word for friend, and it was a much stronger word than the English version. “Uncle Friendly” the crime lord had just recognized Koa. Bolan was starting to get the impression that Koa had earned himself a reputation way back when.