asked, Koa?”
Bolan matched the man’s tone. “I would, if the right man asked me. For the right reason.”
Tino and the Lua master both nodded at the sagacity of Bolan’s words.
“What he said,” Koa agreed.
The Lua man got out and slid open the VW’s cabin door. “Then come out.”
Bolan stepped into the Hawaiian night. He still had his phone and his bare hands, which was far more armament than most would suspect. But they wouldn’t save him from a bullet in the back.
The Lua master nodded. “Follow me.”
Bolan and Koa followed as Tino and the thin man took their six. They walked out of the clearing into the darkness. The Lua man was barely discernible but he moved unerringly down a clearly cut and maintained path. Soon Bolan both smelled and heard the Pacific. They came to a clearing about the size of a large recreational vehicle. Overhead military camouflage netting stretched to form a canopy thickly interwoven with the boughs of overhanging trees. A pair of red military emergency lights lit the forest encampment. Solar panels stacked to one side told Bolan the camp was powered by batteries. It would give off little or no recognizable heat signatures to imaging satellites and there wouldn’t be any light leakage visible to passing aircraft. Nor would the red lights ruin the night vision of anyone in camp if they suddenly went lights off.
It was a very professional setup.
Three sawhorse and plank tables were piled with very suspicious-looking, four-foot-long military crates. The Lua master, Tino and the thin man waited. Bolan and Koa stepped forward. Bolan unboxed a rifle. It appeared to be a 1980s or ’90s vintage M-16 A2. He held up the weapon as if he were admiring it. Bolan had fought with this type of rifle many times. If it hadn’t been parkerized black, the rifle would have glittered with newness. The M-203 grenade launcher mounted beneath the barrel was new, as well. There were no serial markings, which told the soldier it was most likely a Chinese or Philippine knock-off.
“Sweet,” Bolan proclaimed.
Koa racked the action on a rifle and peered through the sights. “Same model I learned on in basic.”
The Lua man nodded. “We need a lot more of them.”
Koa set the rifle on his shoulder. “I know a little something about smuggling. AKs would be a lot cheaper. Shit, they’re disappearing from Iraqi and Afghani inventory by the day, and for that matter the Russians and Chinese sell to anybody.”
Bolan knew the answer but kept his mouth shut. The weapons mimicked U.S. National Guard issue. A real insurgent force wanted the same weapons as their oppressor, so they could steal compatible parts, ammo and magazines. On a secondary note, until one of the weapons was taken from a captured or killed Hawaiian secessionist, the sight of them would send U.S. law enforcement scrambling to find out what military depot in the Islands was hemorrhaging storage guns. That would give the smugglers a few more moments of cover.
A few more moments might be all they needed. All evidence and Bolan’s hard-won instincts reaffirmed that something very bad was going to happen soon.
Bolan kept the frown off his face. If they added a few stolen military uniforms to the mix, the secessionists would be able to drive up to a Hawaiian military base as if they belonged and engage in some serious slaughter. “A lot more are going to cost a lot of money.” Bolan gazed meaningfully at the inland pot grower’s paradise. “Mary Jane going to pay for that?”
The Lua master went Island-style stone face. “How bad you want to know?”
Koa put down the weapon. “I trust you, and Uncle Aikane. Whatever it is, I’m down with it. All the way. Makaha?”
Bolan nodded slowly. “You got me out of Pennsylvania, back to my island and back to my ohana.” Everyone nodded at the all-encompassing Hawaiian word for family. Ohana meant family by blood or otherwise, friendship, as well as race. “If I don’t have your six by now, then you should have left me. You decide to jump in the volcano? I’ll jump in right next to you.”
“Good.” The Lua man nodded. “Good. Then follow me a little farther.” Bolan and Koa walked into the nearly pitch black once more. The ocean breeze began to blow stiffly in their faces. They broke out into starlight and found themselves on a cliff. The Lua man spoke over his shoulder as he vanished through a cleft in the rock. “Careful.”
Bolan climbed down ancient steps cut into the lava rock. The Pacific thundered and crashed against the cliffs below. Happy Valley and Wailuku were close to the beach, but their shores were not tourist destinations. The locals were not particularly friendly, and the rip tides and undertows made surfing and swimming a suicidal proposition. The rest of the coastline was a series of jagged lava cliffs carved by eons of tidal surges.
Bolan knew from experience that lava eruptions and the action of the ocean often meant caves.
The steps were so steep they almost became a ladder, and then the ladder turned into a lava chimney. The Lua master’s voice spoke from below. “Six more feet, brah.” Bolan clambered down into the blackness. His bottom foot found empty air and a huge hand caught his ankle. “Just drop.”
Bolan dropped and bent his knees as he hit soft sand. He found himself in a cave lit by a red emergency light, with the roar of the surf outside. The soldier grinned at the Lua man guilelessly. “You did that climb one-handed?”
The man made a pleased grunt. “Been doing it since I was six, bruddah.”
Bolan knew he was on Hawaiian Holy Ground. The muted sound of feminine fear and misery coming from the gloom told him Hawaiian Holy Ground had been violated.
Koa dropped down, followed by Tino and the thin man. Bolan kept an exhilarated look on his face as Ferret-face came hobbling out of the dark on crutches with his hatchet jaw set in an orthodontic brace. If the big kill was going to come, it was going to come now, and his bundled body would be consigned to the surf outside.
Tino spoke happily to Ferret-face. “They’re in! All the way!”
The thin man spoke. “We’re gonna see.”
Ferret-face turned and crutched awkwardly through the sand back the way he’d come. The thin man took up an electric lantern and turned it on. Bolan saw a pair of small boats parked in the sand and more sawhorse tables laden with boxes and crates. Beside solar panels stacked for the night the cave was equipped with a pair of small gas-powered generators and fuel drums. A threesome of small shipping containers that had been dragged in with obvious effort dominated the back of the cave. Two of them had been converted into living quarters.
The group stopped beside a little side cave formed by a pocket of superheated gas eons ago.
Bolan kept his thoughts off his face as he gazed upon the battered, terrified women weeping and squinting blindly into the LED glare of the lantern. Bolan counted seven women. Most of them were blonde and in their teens and they cringed and clutched each other with their bound hands. One woman might have been in her forties, with somewhat obvious surgical enhancements to her face and body. She glared at Bolan and company in open defiance despite a black eye. Tino’s huge meat hook slammed onto Bolan’s shoulder and gave it a meaningful squeeze. “This is a pass-fail situation, brah.”
The soldier knew what was expected of him. He pointed at the older one. “Her.”
“Nice
