Executioner 022 - Hawaiian Hellground Page 4

  "One man," Chung commented thoughtfully. "Yeah."

  "Single-handedly. A real American hero."

  The cop lit a cigarette and blew the smoke in a strong gust toward the lotus pond. "That's what they say about the guy, yeah. How much is truth and how much is myth is for someone else to say. But I've read all the official bulletins on the guy from the mainland. And let me tell you—even at seventy-five-percent myth, he's a dangerous son of a bitch."

  "So I've heard. We get our bulletins too, you know."

  "Yeah. Well, that's all I have. I thought you'd want to know."

  "It seems quite enough," Chung mused. "Except ..."

  "Except what?"

  "Why is Frank not as dead as the others?"

  "I told you, he got lucky. A flesh wound in—" "That's ridiculous!" Chung exploded.

  "Well—okay, yeah. I see what you mean. So it wasn't luck."

  "You'd better get back to Frank. Determine why he is alive. What price did he pay for that stupendous good luck? Once you have determined the truth, I think it best that Frank join his friends in the garden of silence."

  "No, sir, not me," Riggs protested.

  "You can set it up," Chung insisted. "Who else can? Better get to him before his lawyers begin swarming over that hospital with writs. Once he gets out . . ."

  "I'm not going to do it, Chung," the cop said flatly. "I'm not in for that long a ride."

  "You are in as far as I say you are," the Chinese said unemotionally. "If you wish to be a hero, go ahead. I'll see that you get a decent burial. As decent, at least, as your friend Frank's."

  "My friend?" Riggs flipped his cigarette into the lotus pond and went out of there without another word.

  Chung remained beside the Buddha until the sound of the policeman's car faded into the distance; then he placed his cigar in the hands of the statue and brought his own hands together in a sharp clap.

  Two Orientals in immaculate Western dress appeared immediately from the shadows at the wall, one of them grinning hugely.

  "You heard?" Chung inquired.

  "Yes," replied the grinning one. "So the big one has come."

  "He has come," Chung affirmed. "And now we shall succeed where ten thousand Italians have failed. We shall behead the Executioner."

  "And," added the grinner, "ten thousand Italians?" "Oh, many more than that," Chung replied, chuckling. "But first the big one."

  "It is done," said his companion, in perhaps the most optimistic pronouncement of the night. But the speaker had huge cause for optimism. Huge cause. Could eight hundred million Chinamen be wrong?

  Perhaps they could.

  As Chung and his companions linked arms and strolled casually toward the house, another shadow detached itself from the wall several yards downrange and moved silently across the "garden of peace."

  The "big one" had indeed come. He had been, there through the entire exchange.

  5: The Task

  Mack Bolan's declared war was with the Mafia. Yet he had known for some time that he was in fact battling more than Mafiosi. The war fronts had been expanding continuously, almost from the beginning—broadening and splitting into diverse elements of an international power structure which, taken together, constituted an alliance of criminal influence which threatened to dominate the entire world.

  Cosa di tutti Cosi was no idle dream. Literally translated, it meant "The Thing of all the Things"—or, loosely, The Big Thing. A bastardized stepchild of the original American idea, La Cosa Nostra—or, This Thing of Ours—the evolution from the old. Italian-Sicilian Mafia to Cosa di tutti Cosi was on a scale comparable to the distance travelled from a Stone Age tribal council to the United Nations.

  Bolan had long known that he was battling more than an accretion of American street

  hoodlums. Regardless of their present exalted status in the underworld hierarchy, guys like Augie Marinello and the other bosses who constituted the Cosa Nostra ruling council were still simply hoods. Success breeds success, however, and the fantastic wealth and power that had flowed almost unchecked for decades to this professional organization of criminals brought with it a capacity to attract those who naturally gravitate to the lure of easy wealth and unlimited power—with the result that a veritable fourth world, an international infrastructure of organized crime, inevitably came into existence.

  This new shadow world was peopled not only with the traditional types of hoodlums, but also with "respectable" financiers, industrialists, politicians, brokers, traders, merchants, lawyers, lawmen, soldiers, athletes; the entire wide spectrum of human interests was well represented in that tidal wave of criminal avarice—and it was sweeping the world.

  And, yes, Mack, Bolan knew his enemies. They were the enemies of all honourable men everywhere. He had, however, attempted to limit his war, to contain it and direct it toward the most militant face of that enemy, to make war upon the armies and not upon the civilians—but those times did come when it was impossible to draw a line between soldier and civilian. Such a time had come in Texas. It had come in Haiti, in Detroit, in San Francisco and Seattle and, to a lesser degree, in the nation's capital and in Boston. Bolan had met the fourth worlders in many places and in many guises. And he had not hesitated to strike at those who cloaked themselves in respectability while feeding with the rest of the pack.

  An entry in Bolan's personal war journal best illustrates the man's own understanding of the situation:

  Despite what the media people are saying, I have never thought of myself as judge, juror, or avenging angel. I don't know what I am, and I do not even want to think too much about it.

  My gut knows, though, down there where rationalizations have no chance at it. I cannot co-exist peace fully with cannibals; that's the whole of it. I feel the same about the fellow travellers, the white-collar boys who've never had the smell of gunpowder on their hands.

  A cannibal without a spear, seated at the feast with his warrior brothers, is as guilty as any. As for my "simple solutions," let the moralizers and rationalisers come up with a complex solution that works and I will gladly hang up my guns. Until that time, I must keep on.

  The war for Hawaii would present the severest test to this man's courage and resolve. He would be once again battling quite a bit more than a confederation of street hoods.

  In Hawaii, the Executioner would be challenging the military arm of the fourth world. No more awesome an enemy had ever been faced by a man alone.

  Minutes into the soft probe of the Chung headquarters in the Kalihi Valley of Oahu, Bolan was already receiving strong intimations to this effect. But the die was cast and the battle was on. There was no choice to make. Mack Bolan would keep on keeping on.

  Against, even, eight hundred million Chinamen, if that be the task.

  And, indeed, it was.

  6: Kalihi

  The Chung stronghold was situated on a couple of rugged, hilly acres near the head of the Kalihi Valley, in an area of dense vegetation and brooding mountain peaks. Beyond the mountains to the east lay Kaneohe Bay and that side of the island known as Windward, the sparsely settled section of Oahu. Just to the south east soared magnificent Nuuanu Pali, the sheer cliff over whose precipice the eighteenth-century conqueror, Kamehameha the Great, drove thousands of Oahuan warriors to their deaths upon the jagged rocks below.

  It had not always been paradise, no—not for everyone.

  It was not going to be such for the mob, either—not if Mack Bolan had his say.

  The Chung headquarters was officially billed as the Trans-Pacific Cultural Association. A seven-foot wall enclosed an artistic arrangement of gardens, pools, and fountains which themselves surrounded a modernistic glass and stone facsimile of Chinese architecture, a rather large building on two floors with small pagoda towers on its roofs.

  Bolan had left his vehicle far to the rear to close on foot, getting the feel of the terrain and circling the estate at a wary distance—listening and watching and reading the vibrations of that place from
the high ground abutting it to the south.

  A sensitive scout can soak in quite a bit from mere atmosphere. The atmosphere here was electric, pregnant with foreboding. It was a place of important, clandestine operations. The interior lighting of the house was muted, almost muffled despite the glass walls. Outside lighting was pinpointed via a battery of roof-mounted spotlights at each corner, in an arrangement which highlighted specific critical points while leaving much of the grounds darkened except for the pale wash of moonlight filtering through the broken clouds of the night. One of the pools had submerged lights, producing a peculiar glowing effect for the, distant viewer. A bubbling fountain was spotlighted from the ground, sending dancing shadows to play upon a back wall. Stonily silent men with infrared scanners and automatic weapons patrolled in pairs outside the walls, visible only to the professional eye and discernible only by the most patient surveillance. Bolan counted three paired patrols while quietly noting their routine and mentally mapping his route of penetration.

  He was in skin-tight blacksuit, rigged for soft probe —packing only the silent Beretta in snap-draw shoulder rig, a nylon garrote, the trusty stiletto. Hands and face were blackened, feet softened in sure-grip rubber sneakers.

  He made his move as an automobile approached along the drive, moving in behind its lights, then breaking for the wall from twenty yards out to thread the seam between the outer patrols. He hit the wall and was up and over in one fluid motion, dropping silently into a garden area, freezing there as a living component of the Wall within hearing range of the vehicle gate, watching the automobile enter and turn slowly into the inner drive toward the house. It bore a single occupant, a man who was obviously well known by the gatemen. The vehicle swept out of sight behind a hedgerow and a moment later its headlamps were extinguished.

  A door opened and closed.

  A male voice instructed an unseen greeter: "Tell the general I'm here. I'll be at the lotus pond."

  Bolan moved on along the wall, then again froze as two men appeared from the direction of the house. They were walking rapidly and stealthily, and they appeared to be heading directly for Bolan.

  He gave them room and much of his attention as he moved quietly on toward the corner of the wall and concealment beside a flowering bush. The pond with the submerged lights was now directly opposite his position. The two men from the house had blended into the shadows of the wall in the same area which Bolan had just vacated.

  He was keeping those two in view and wondering about their intentions when a man in casual sports dress appeared on the flagstone path at the far side of the garden. The newcomer was immediately joined by another—a burly guy with bristling hair, wearing a karate wrap. The two stiffly shook hands and moved on toward Bolan's end of the garden, quietly conversing as they strolled.

  Undoubtedly this was the visitor and "the general."

  They halted beside a statue at the edge of the pond, and the conversation became a war report. The men at the wall were frozen in attitudes of close attention; one of them held a pistol with an elongated snout in a firing stance, close-sighting across a clasped-elbow rest, targeting on one of the men at the pond—the visitor, no doubt.

  It was all very interesting, as well as revealing. Bolan listened to the conversation, watched the visitor depart, then took interested note of the post-meeting critique by the three who remained. Personalities began sifting out there for Bolan. The tall man with the perpetual grin, an Oriental, ranked higher than the others.

  The one with the long pistol was obviously a low number—probably a bodyguard. The guy in the karate wrap was a power, all right, but he was not the power ' here.

  As the three departed the garden, so too did Bolan.

  He broke cover directly in their wake and moved silently across to the house, becoming part of the larger shadow of a scudding cloud from windward, and made his entry almost in step with the others—but through a patio door to the rear.

  Echoes of the VC: a little guy in black pyjamas with a Mao collar rose from a chair directly in Bolan's path, a burper clutched to his chest and a cry of alarm boiling into his throat. The stiletto intercepted that cry before it reached vocalization, and snuffed it out forever. The sentry fell back into his chair with a dying gurgle. Bolan caught the falling weapon before it reached the floor and returned it to dead hands, positioned the sagging body in the chair, then went on. He was in the darkened region of the building—the Section which was evidently used for business purposes. He found offices, a conference room, a small gym with a reddishly glowing night light, then finally the goal of the probe: an executive suite.

  And this was pay dirt.

  Double pay dirt.

  A small outer office opened to a larger room along the garden side. Oriental art decorated the walls and the smell of incense hung heavy in the air.

  Beyond the doorway in the inner office an arresting figure in a transparent kimono was bent over a small lamp at the desk, going through some papers. It was a woman, totally nude beneath that wispy garment. Her back was to Bolan, and it was quite an appealing backside—a rather tall girl, strikingly formed, dark hair swept into an Oriental-type bun atop her head.

  He moved on through the doorway.

  She sensed the new presence in that room and turned to him with a rather glassy smile—a smile which instantly evaporated, to be replaced by a rather woeful march of conflicting emotions.

  There were moments in the life of Mack Bolan that seemed like instant replays of past events. This was one of those.

  The girl in the see-through kimono was the swinging Ranger Girl from Vegas, the show-stopper herself, the "missing" Smiley Dublin.

  Bolan quietly closed the connecting door and gave her a long, close look, wondering if his own face were displaying that same sense of consternation that he was getting from Smiley's vibes. He took in the lay of the room with a single sweep of trained eyes, then returned his attention to the girl and took her into his arms for a brief but warm embrace.

  She melted against him with a happy sigh and whispered, with moist lips at his ear, "Old thunder and lightning himself. How goes your war, Mr. Bolan?"

  "Up till now, fine," he whispered back. "You ready to travel? I'm getting you out of here."

  "In a pig's ass," she hissed. "Just get yourself out, and damn quick. Do you know what you're—oh no!" The girl pushed away from the embrace and locked gazes with the tall man in blackface. "Don't tell me you crashed in here on a rescue mission!"

  Bolan shook his head. "Just probing. Others are looking for you, though, and with much concern."

  "I couldn't chance a contact," she explained. "Look at me—I'm really connected. Tell them I'm very cozy and having a ball. Mack—I'm in something very big. Bigger than anyone can imagine. Now you butt the hell back out!"

  Bolan moved quickly like a graceful cat, switching out the lamp and smoothly pushing the girl to the floor behind the desk.

  "Hey, what—?"

  "Shush!"

  The door from the outer office opened and a shadowy figure leaned into the room. An overhead light clicked on and off, then the door closed again.

  Bolan was lying partly atop the girl, the Beretta clear and ready, their soft breaths mingling. Her eyes glowed at him in the semidarkness as she whispered, "You turn me on, friend Mack. You really do. But why oh why does it always have to be at a time like this?"

  "I'll gladly give you a rain check," he told her. "Did you see the guy?"

  "No. I didn't even hear him until—"

  "If it was the corporal of the guard, my time's about up. He's going to find a dead soldier at the rear. Are you coming with me or not?"

  "I'm not," Smiley quickly replied. She huffed to her feet and gathered the sheaf of papers she'd been inspecting when Bolan arrived. She thrust them at him. "Take these instead. Get them into the right hands. It's very sensitive, so watch who you give them to."

  Bolan accepted the papers and secured them inside his shirt. "Who is Chung?" he asked her.<
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  "Around here, they call him the general. I call him Big Daddy, and he eats it up. That should explain my position here. Now you better beat it or you'll blow the whole thing."

  "Who's the other guy—the one with all the teeth?"

  She tossed her head. "I don't know. He doesn't come very often, and I've never been allowed to meet him."

  "What's going on here, Smiley?"

  "World War Three, maybe," she replied, smiling tautly.

  "You're secure?"

  "Sure. I shake my butt, the general will follow me anywhere. Get out of here, Mack. And don't come back. There's nothing here for you. If you must romp, then go find King Fire. That's where it's really at, soldier."

  "What is King Fire?"

  "A very hush-hush place somewhere near Volcanoes National Park. That's on the big island. Something very curious is going on there. Sounds like your kind of place."

  Bolan said, "Last chance, Smiley. I can get you out of here."

  "Mack," she replied sadly, "have you any idea how hard I've worked to get in here?"

  He brushed her lips lightly with his own and said, "Live large, lady. Maybe I can at least give you a bonus. The alarms will be sounding pretty soon. You may as well get the points. Count to twenty, then go to the hall and start screaming your head off."

  The girl smiled and patted his bottom. He dropped a death medal on the desk and made his exit via the garden door.

  "Stay hard," she whispered after him,

  Bolan left the sliding door ajar and loped off across the garden. He made it to the shadows at the wall undetected, then waited for the commotion to begin inside the house.

  Right on the numbers, it came. Smiley's screams flailed the night. Running feet jarred the ground. Floodlights all around the house erupted with brilliance. A siren began whooping.

  And Bolan went over the wall, Beretta at the ready.

  The patrol in that sector was caught flat-footed, mouths agape, staring into the brilliance of the lights inside the compound.