Don Pendleton - Pacific Creed

Uncle Aikane held up a huge hand in friendship and as a sign for the violence to end. “Who is your cousin, Luke?”

In Hawaiian, “cousin” could mean any number of relationships both inside and out of kinship. The other side of the coin was that the Islands were small, and a great deal of mixing had been going on. There was a joke that when local singles met they had to compare family trees to make sure they weren’t breaking any laws of man or nature.

Koa stared at Uncle Aikane with great seriousness. “Makaha is my half cousin, Uncle.”

Wheels turned behind Uncle Aikane’s eyes. The massive killer suddenly smiled happily. “Little Luana! Married that sailor boy! Years ago! Moved to the mainland!” He nodded at Bolan. “You Luana’s boy?”

Bolan nodded. “Yes, Uncle.”

The leaner, older man clapped his hands. “You are Makaha!”

“Yes, Uncle.”

“Makaha!” Uncle Aikane laughed. “Your uncle Nui only pretends he knows you!”

“I remember Makaha well!” Nui protested. “He was even whiter in his crib!”

“How is your mother, Makaha?” Aikane asked.

“Many years in the grave, Uncle.”

“Mmm.” Uncle Aikane, Nui and the Lua master all nodded gravely. “Your father?”

Bolan put a terrible look on his face. “I don’t remember him.”

U.S. soldiers and sailors marrying local girls, having children and then disappearing was not exactly an unknown story in the Hawaiian Islands. The elders received this information with equal gravity. Dignity required the subject not be pursued. Aikane returned his attention to Koa.

“You are back, Luke.”

“I heard my cousin was in a bad place. I went east and got him out of it. And then? We decided there was nothing on the mainland for us. We came home.”

The elders nodded. After World War II there had been a significant diaspora, and among the Hawaiian expatriates even onto the second and third generation there was a powerful desire to return. Uncle Aikane nodded very slowly. “Aloha, Koa. Aloha, Makaha.”

Koa nodded in return. “Aloha” was another Hawaiian word with a lot of meanings. It could mean hello, goodbye, welcome or even I love you. In this setting Bolan perceived at the very least it meant “Welcome, returned ones.” Bolan and Koa were in, and their covers were hanging by threads.

They both responded in unison. “Aloha.”

Chapter 3

The Annex, Stony Man Farm

“They’re in,” Kurtzman confirmed. Barbara Price, Stony Man Farm’s mission controller, gave the computer expert a look, and he sighed. He felt the same way she did. Bolan had been on some very deep-cover missions before, but the Hawaiian job was pushing the limits.

“You really think they can pull this off?” Price asked.

“You saw the picture of Mack after Agent Hu got through with him. Are you going to walk up to him in a bar in Waikiki and tell him he’s not Hawaiian enough?”

“No, but the locals have a very strong vibe.”

“I know. That’s why Koa came up with the story about a prodigal son lost to the mainland and returning to his heritage. It will explain lapses, and Bolan has Koa to smooth things over for him. Plus if it looks like he’s desperate to prove himself, the bad guys may accelerate him into the inner circle of evil.”

“Yes, and just who are the bad guys again?” That was the million-dollar question. The mission was troublingly vague. Price looked at the converging data streams. “We have young female tourists disappearing—that implies white slavery—and two intercepted gun shipments.”

“Girls for guns.” Kurtzman scowled. He found the sex-slavery trade particularly abhorrent. “It’s not as if it hasn’t been done before.”

“In the United States? In Hawaii?”

“If it’s true, it’s bad,” Kurtzman agreed.

“I’m still trying to figure out the spike in violence against tourists and military personnel.”

“Hawaii has had locals-only trouble before,” Kurtzman countered.

“Yeah, and this is swiftly reaching the levels of the bad old days in the ’70s.”

Kurtzman nodded. Hawaiians were now a minority in their own islands, and they also made up the poorest segment of the Aloha State’s extremely cosmopolitan society. Their native discontent had sporadically manifested itself in violence, mostly against tourists, despite the fact that tourists and the U.S. military presence were two of the major pillars of the Hawaiian economy. Now the violence was spiking precipitously, and no one was talking. In fact, locally, a lot of people seemed scared. “We’ve heard ‘drive out the colonizers and invaders’ before. The Hawaiian Sovereignty Movement and its rivals and affiliates mostly send papers and delegations to the U.S. Congress and the United Nations demanding reparations. We definitely have something new going on here.”

“I know.” There was nothing about this mission that Price liked. The chatter was that something very big was going on in Hawaii, and something related was happening in the Pacific. She tapped a very thin file on her tablet. “This is the most troubling. The hints of a massive strike against the invaders. We’ve never heard that before.” Price brought up a sore point. “And so far all we have is a hula master who likes to beat up G.I.s.”

“That’s a Lua master,” Kurtzman corrected. “And we have a tracking device in his hand. Mack is working his way up the food chain.”

“I prefer it when Mack swoops in by surprise, mops the floor with the bad guys and then buys me dinner in D.C.”

Kurtzman smiled. “Yeah, that works for me, too.”

“He’s operating on U.S. soil and he’s almost never been this thin on assets.”

“We have full war loads in strategic locations.”

“But unless he breaks cover right now all he has is his phone and his fists.”

“And Koa.”

Price nodded. She liked the Hawaiian and she’d been infinitely relieved that he had volunteered to be on Mack’s six. “So they’re acquiring equipment locally?”

“We went ’round and ’round on that. Fact is Mack may not get a chance. As you mentioned, this cover is about as deep as it gets and as thin as it’s ever been. Until Mack proves himself, he and Koa might be ambushed or hit with a drive-by.”

“Tell me they’re armed.”

“Armed and waiting,” Kurtzman confirmed. “And now the ball is in the bad guys’ court.”

Wailuku Town: “Pakuz”

“I told you not to piss off the Samoans,” Koa muttered.

Bolan sat in the tiny den and cleaned his CIA-provided pistol. The old GI .45 came from Hawaiian National Guard storage. The soldier suspected it had been WWII issue. It showed a great deal of holster wear but as a National Guard weapon not a lot of use. The bore was clean and with a little oiling the action was slick. “I didn’t piss off the Samoans. I punched Tino in the face. Then I bought him a beer. Now he loves me. He’s calling me cuz. What’s not to like?”

“That did go better than expected,” Koa admitted. The Hawaiian had a similar pistol and was scrupulously checking the quality of the magazines they’d been issued.

“So what’s the Lua guy’s name? I didn’t catch it.”

“Me, either, and he scares the shit out of me. I think you got real lucky the other night, and even luckier he didn’t recognize you.” Koa grunted in amusement. “Though I think he liked it when you broke Tino’s nose.”

“I think the entire Island of Oahu liked it when I broke Tino’s nose.”

“There is that.”

Agent Hu gave Bolan a knowing look. “Melika sure liked it.”

Bolan began wrapping beige rubber bands around the .45’s grip. If he was going to pose as a low-level Hawaiian hoodlum who was willing to turn terrorist, a carry rig was out of the question. His options were front-of-the-waist or small-of-the-back, and he needed some friction to hold the big steel piece in place. He nodded at Koa. “Everything went better than expected, cuz, admit it.”