Pele's Fire. Don Pendleton

      “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.

      Maybe Kukailimoku, the Hawaiian god of war. He’d be a good one to recruit, when bullets were about to fly—but would he save two Polynesians and a haole who were bent on ruining the plans of Pele’s Fire?

      The worst part, Aolani thought, was that she didn’t even know the goddamned plan. Polunu had either kept the details to himself, or really didn’t know them in the first place.

      Either way, it seemed that curiosity was proving fatal once again.

      BOLAN SAW Aolani roll across the Datsun’s hood and drop into a crouch behind the vehicle, as high-beam headlights from the two chase cars swept their position. They had gained maybe ten seconds from the swerve off Outer Drive. One of the chase cars skidded past their turnoff, while the other nearly stalled, but both cars had them covered now, doors flying open as gunners hit the ground running.

      Bolan didn’t wait for them to organize. He fired a 3-round burst into the nearer chase car’s windshield, where the driver’s head should be, and thought he heard a strangled cry before all hell broke loose around him.

      Bolan couldn’t accurately count the muzzle-flashes winking at him from behind the headlights, but he thought that there were only five. If he was right, if he had drawn first blood with the unlucky driver, then he had already shaved the hostile odds by about seventeen percent.

      Which still left five assassins, armed and angry, throwing down at him with everything they had.

      Aolani’s car would never be the same. Bullets were raking it from grille to trunk along the driver’s side, some of them coming through the now shattered windows. So far, Bolan could not smell any leaking gasoline, but that was just dumb luck. Both tires were already deflated on the driver’s side, and Bolan knew they wouldn’t leave the Punchbowl in the Datsun.

      Assuming that they ever left at all.

      He wished the gun fairy had left him something more substantial in the Honolulu airport locker—possibly a compact submachine gun; better yet, some frag grenades—but he would have to work with what he had. The 93-R was a potent close-range weapon, but its Parabellum rounds could only do so much against vehicles.

      But he didn’t want to wreck the chase cars, anyway.

      Without at least one of them functioning, he’d have to walk back to his rental car at the Royal Mausoleum.

      There came a lull in firing from the other side, perhaps his enemies reloading, but he didn’t trust the sudden silence. Peering cautiously around the listing tail of Aolani’s Datsun, Bolan saw two shadow men breaking from cover, running to his left as if their lives depended on it.

      Which they did.

      Flankers, he thought, and reckoned one or two more would be making the same run off to his right, encircling Bolan’s weak position. Once they faded into darkness there, they could drift back and bring him under fire, drilling their hapless targets in the back while others hiding by the chase cars kept him occupied.

      But not these two.

      Lying on his left side, Bolan fired twice, two 3-round bursts at moving targets twenty yards or less in front of him. It wasn’t quite point-blank, but it was close enough.

      The first man stumbled, clutching both arms to his chest and tumbled like a mannequin, his face slamming hard against the gravel of the access road. He shivered once or twice, then lay deathly still.

      The second runner saw his comrade drop and tried to turn away from Bolan’s bullets, but he didn’t have that kind of speed. The bullets spun him like a novice dancer, trying out a pirouette he hasn’t mastered, lurching and collapsing midway through the spin. This time, death didn’t seem to be immediate, but from the spastic thrashing he observed, Bolan had no concern about his last mark rising to rejoin the fight.

      He’d cut the odds by half, unless his adversaries had more men than he had counted at the onset. That was good, but Bolan had no time for self-congratulation. Rather, he assumed that one or two gunmen had flanked him on the right, while he was dealing with their comrades.

      He would have to deal with them, if he intended to survive. And living on to fight another day was always part of Bolan’s master plan.

      He crawled to Aolani, clutched her arm and drew her close, speaking into her ear without raising his voice. “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll be back soon.”

      “You’ll be back soon?” she echoed, sounding horrified. “What are you doing, going out for coffee?”

      “Just stay put!” he hissed at her. “Stay quiet, and stay down. Do that, you just might stay alive.”

      That said, he turned and scuttled off into the darkness.

      TOMMY PUANANI SAW his brother fall, with Billy Maka Nani right behind him. Shot down, both of them, and if they weren’t already dead, he guessed they would be soon.

      Goddamn it! How was he supposed to tell his mother that he’d gotten little Ehu killed?

      “Fuck!” he said.

      “Say what?” asked Steve Pilialoha, crouched beside him in the shadow of their stolen car.

      “Nothing. Did Benny make it?”

      “I think so. Hard to tell, it’s so damn dark out here.”

      Tommy had meant to send one man around in each direction—Ben Makani to his right and Billy Maka Nani to the left—flanking the three they meant to waste. But Ehu wouldn’t take no for an answer, damn his stubborn ass. Not only was he set on going to the right, with Billy, but he broke from cover early, making Billy hustle to catch up.

      Now both of them were dead, because his goddamned little brother was a stupid brat.

      And John Kainoa, too, though that one wasn’t Ehu’s fault. One of the bastards they were hunting had some kind of automatic weapon, and he’d nailed John through the windshield of their second chase car right away, before John even had a chance to kill the engine.

      It was idling even now, with John slumped over in the driver’s seat, blood leaking from his shattered face. Just then Tommy considered what would happen if the car slipped into gear and started rolling forward. If it maybe had some help, and slammed into the bullet-riddled Datsun, for instance.

      How would that be?

      Pretty goddamned good.

      “I’ve got a plan,” he whispered.

      “What, another one?” Pilialoha sounded skeptical.

      “Shut up and listen. We can flush ’em out, we play our cards right.”

      “Yeah? How’s that?”

      “John’s ride. One of us goes around to diddle the accelerator, then we give a shove, and bam!”