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The sounds of Yeager crashing through the forest, leading the enemy away from his position, faded with distance. Pettigrew grinned. Yeager was a good man in the woods when he could move slowly and quietly. When he was in a hurry, Yeager sounded like a bull loose in a cymbal factory.
A few yards back from Yeager’s initial ambush point, Pettigrew had found a spot under a rotted, fallen tree. The gap beneath it was thick with vines and heavy with shadow. Bugs and slugs were everywhere, and it smelled of wet wood and green moss. Winston Pettigrew squirmed into a hole that a gopher would find constricting.
It was like coming home. His thing—the talent he’d learned in that Southeast Asian vacation courtesy of Uncle Sam—was to find a place any man would overlook as too tight, too narrow, too confining, or too intimidating to search then ferret himself into it and hide every molecule of his presence from the outside world. Many a canny, sneaky Victor Charles had stepped over Pettigrew and walked on, unaware of the skinny black man under his feet.
Once burrowed in tight, Pettigrew concentrated on a spot in front of his nose and... folded in on himself. He didn’t know any other way to describe it. To him, it was like pulling the drapes at night. He felt himself... diminish... in relation to the rest of the world. When he pulled it off just right, he could damn near fade into the wallpaper in a crowded room, change color like a chameleon, and be as forgotten as yesterday’s news. Guys standing right next to him would forget he was there then turn around and bump into him.
The enemy soldiers following Yeager zipped past Pettigrew’s hiding place without a second glance. Some rounded his fallen tree in front of him, others behind, splitting and bypassing him without slowing. Had he a weapon, Pettigrew could have nailed three of them easily.
He counted them off as they passed. One... two... three... four. All moved in disciplined silence. Pettigrew pinpointed them by the sounds of their passage as they spread through the jungle—a scratch of cloth on a branch, a crunch of grit underfoot... one so close that the stench of garlicky sweat infiltrated Pettigrew’s nose and threatened to break his concentration.
They came and they went, one after another. After a long pause, number five appeared, slipping from tree to tree and sweeping right, left, up, and rear, his eyes glued to his weapon’s sights. Pettigrew could see individual beads of sweat trickling down the man’s face as he passed. Asian features, black uniform, carrying an AK... now, didn’t that bring back some memories?
Oh, how I wish I had my Betty Ann. His preferred weapon in the ’Nam: six inches of icy-sharp double-edged blade—a single piece of Sheffield steel from needle tip to rubber-coated grip, completely nonreg. As if killing was only okay with gear supplied by the lowest bidder. The Marine Corp had issued him a K-Bar, which was a handy knife for camp chores and whatnot—sturdy, capable, and good for opening C-rations and cutting branches for shelter.
For killing, though, nothing equaled Betty Ann. Named after a wicked little bitch from Mobile who had blown him, rolled him, and stolen his car, Betty Ann had sliced more throats than Sweeney Todd on free-shave Saturday. Man, he missed that blade.
Minutes ticked off the clock. Pettigrew had no idea how long he stayed immobile. In his folded-in state, time had no meaning for Winston Pettigrew. The critters crawling over and under his body did not register in his conscious mind. The damp ground chilling his belly and balls was as comfortable as his king-sized four-poster at home. Well, okay, that was a lie, but the point was, he could ignore the discomfort.
After an unmeasured space of time later, something clicked in Pettigrew’s subconscious. Sounds of the jungle returned to undisturbed harmony. His sixth sense detected no enemies within a noticeable distance. Pettigrew decided he was as alone as he was going to get. He unfolded, and a deep breath filled his lungs for what felt like the first time in hours. Wriggling from under the tree trunk, he stood on shaky legs and brushed off the debris clinging to his clothes. The chill of damp clothes made him shiver in the brisk morning air. Returning to the world brought with it a reminder of his aching bladder, his swollen, arthritic joints, and his tobacco-deprived lungs. Getting old sucks.
Pettigrew navigated around the tumble of rocks at the base of the cliff and scrambled to the earthen ramp leading up into the cut in the steep wall. “Aha!” he whispered.
The enemy soldiers had moved on too quickly to stop and secure the body of their fallen comrade. The commando lay in an awkward heap halfway up the gravel path, caught on a stewpot-sized bush. Pettigrew hiked up the slope and recovered the man’s rifle first—he’d need to check it for grit and obstructions later—then slung it over one shoulder and climbed up to inspect the body.
The ammo harness came off first. Six magazines and—oho, look!—two smooth baseball-sized grenades. Next came the flak jacket, which Pettigrew slipped over his shoulders. Rolling the body around had dislodged it, and the heavy weight of the corpse slid into Pettigrew’s legs, threatening to unbalance him but also revealing—
“Oh yeah, baby. Come to Daddy.”
A sheathed knife was secured at the man’s back. Double-edged. Four inches of blade instead of six. Plain wooden grip. Not a patch on Betty Ann, but...
“You’ll do, my sweet thang,” Pettigrew cooed, holding the blade low to keep from catching and reflecting sunlight. He repressed a chuckle and settled for a satisfied smirk. “Let’s go do some hunting, little sister.”
#
MOLOKAI FOREST RESERVE
Sunday, 9 May
0815 Local
Kimo Ekewaka stalked the camp, pacing like a caged lion. The two dead “advisers”—soldiers supplied by the nation that had agreed to fund and support the Niho Niuhi—lay under blankets in the center of the clearing. He couldn’t give a shit about their dead carcasses. The attack, on the other hand, made his blood boil. Who was it? What was his objective? Clearly, the guy was not a cop or a soldier. He wore plain clothes and had brought a rock as his only weapon. Plus, he had taken first blood. Those were not the actions of any type of authority.
Kimo had ordered a squad out after the lone-wolf attacker. The man had escaped down the ravine and disappeared before Kimo, running bare-assed and pricking his feet on a thousand fucking thorns, could catch him.
Hunter? Off-duty military? Kimo guessed the guy was in his midthirties and six feet tall with a wrestler’s body. Killing both guards had required skills beyond those of a casual hunter or passing tourist trying to play hero. These advisers were not conscript soldiers—they were commandos, supposedly Special Forces. It should not have been so easy to take them by surprise. Kanoa said they were North Korea’s best, though Kimo had been to Korea several times, and these men struck him as less Korean than pizza. That awareness was based more on gut feeling than any fact Kimo could point to.
The mystery attacker, however—now, that asshole was pure haole, a white cockroach who badly needed to get stomped on. Before Kimo needed to report the attack to Kanoa, he wanted that white hide tacked up on his wall. Kimo did not do failure. Failure sucked.
Six men had left the camp more than two hours back. Closer to three. The chatter of shots had crackled in the distant gorge for a while early on. Since then... nothing.
One of the new sentries called a challenge from the south perimeter. The response came back friendly. The team leader, Manu Ho—the one who had carried out the resort hotel shootings—led his team and the Pearl Harbor mortar crew into the clearing. More advisers. The only native Hawaiian in the group was Mal, who came in dragging the tail end.
Kimo greeted his fellow native first. “Aloha, Mal. You win?”
Mal’s answering grin was tired but happy. “The monuments are toast, my bruddah. Pearl Harbor burns again.”
Kimo had argued for the Pearl strike to happen during the day, when the tourist attractions would be flooded with haole pricks. The slaughter of haole always warmed Kimo’s heart. Kanoa and his mysterious companion, Mr. L, had vetoed the idea. Too many people were around the launching area during the day. The mortar teams would be seen setting up the weapons and not achieve the objective. Still, the gutting of the Arizona Memorial would strike directly at the heart of the pigs infesting his nation.
Manu Ho approached, reporting to him since Kimo was senior member of the Niho Niuhi in camp. With a respectful nod, the strike-team leader said in his stilted broken English, “Strike team leader, reporting all objectives achieved.” The man slurred his Ls and Rs, so his words came out lepohting arr objectives achieved. Ho’s gaze fell on the two shrouded corpses. “Who killed?” Who kirred?
“Your sentries got sloppy, brah.” Kimo laced the last word with contempt. He stepped in closer, using his height and strength to intimidate the smaller man. The commando was forced to look up to meet his eyes. “A fucking tourist killed them and ran away. Six more of your men are on his trail. Assuming they don’t fuck up, too, I expect they’ll have his nuts in a sack pretty damn quick.”
Ho must have understood the gist of his comments because his brow lowered and his jaw clamped tighter than a vise. He stalked over, stiff legged, and flipped back the blanket covering first one soldier, then the other. Soft curses in a foreign tongue flowed from his mouth. The language did not sound Korean. Ho glared at Kimo.
“You... ah,” Ho growled, “re-responsible... this?”
“No, brah. Done told you—your guys fucked it up. Let a haole come in, and skrickkk!” Kimo made a throat-slashing gesture.
Ho’s eyes narrowed to slits. He nodded curtly and spoke to his men, this time in Korean. The foreigner troops collected their dead and carried them off into the woods. Kimo knew just enough Korean to order a beer and a whore, so he could only assume the leader had instructed his men to bury their dead in the forest. Ho followed after them.
Mal trailed him. “What’s this about a haole killing sentries?”
“Nothing big.” Kimo shrugged. “Some asshole playing soldier. The Koreans will get him.” Kimo smiled and punched Mal on the shoulder hard enough to jolt the smaller man. “Hey, but get this: I caught me some bitches hiking yesterday, dude, and College Boy brought some lookers with his haul. We are plussed up on pussy, brah. Come and see what we got, man. I got eyes on the skinny blond gal, but you can have your pick of the rest.”
#
HONOLULU, OAHU
Sunday, 9 May
1218 Local
Traffic in Honolulu had become a total bitch migraine, crotch-rotting horror show. Everybody in the city had decided to go for a drive at the same time—some leaving, some ransacking grocery stores, and some just wandering to no purpose. Checkpoints further solidified the traffic as the police looked for gun-wielding nutsos.
The spot between Victor’s shoulder blades had twisted into a Christmas-light tangle of nerves, muscles, and pain by the time he made it back to the city after seeing Butch. He inched through traffic to his hotel. Miraculously, he made it without pulling from vehicles and beating to death anybody in a minivan or a BMW. After arriving, he was so tense that he worked the hell out of the hotel’s inadequate gym for a solid forty-five minutes.
After that, showered and dressed and with totally no idea of what to do next, Victor wandered out to the bench seat under the motel’s portico and picked through the sparse articles of a pathetic newspaper to find some new piece of information about the attacks. Hunger nibbled at the edges of his stomach, though not enough to make him get up and do something about it.
His cell rang.
“Yo.”
“Victor, it’s Butch.”
“You find my ship?”
“Nada, amigo.” Cassidy’s voice conveyed a verbal shrug. “The vessel has not checked in with its parent company and is unreachable by radio, and the Coasties have nothing on her. She has, for real, dropped off the radar. Last known position: headed for anchorage off the south coast of Molokai.”
“Well...” Victor leaned back into the bench. Sirens wailed, making it hard to hear. An ambulance cut across his field of vision, light bar flashing as it weaved through traffic. “That sucks.”
“Yeah, it do,” Cassidy said. “Look, buddy, I got to run. Shit has blown up into a class-A clusterfuck of giant proportions out here. But hey, did you hear? We got one.”
“Huh?”
“Yeah, a sport fisher was intercepted by the Coast Guard leaving the vicinity of the Delphinius. They fired missiles at the cutter, who blew the ship out of the water. No survivors, unfortunately.”
“Yeah, I’m so sad,” Victor said. “My heart, she is breaking.”
“Intel, buddy. We needed the intel.”
Victor grunted an assent. A fire truck followed the ambulance, blowing its horn and howling through traffic. “Kind of approaching a clusterfuck out here too. Thanks anyway, dude. I owe you.” Victor ended the call.
Now what was he supposed to do—snatch up a helicopter and fly around, buzzing ships, to see if he could find Yeager’s? Volunteer as a CareFlight pilot and do some good like Alex? Or go back to the hotel and drink beer and eat peanuts while watching movies at fourteen dollars a pop? Logic suggested no one would be turning him loose in a borrowed helicopter, and staying in a sterile hotel room all day sounded like a torture made for the hell bound.
An idea crept up from a dark corner of his mind and begged for attention. Maybe...? With the use of his phone’s browser, Victor checked his way out-of-date social-media pages for news of a certain someone who...
“Oh, hell,” he said after a time staring at the screen. “Alex is gonna be so pissed.”
Victor smacked the fist holding his phone into his other hand a few times, jaw tight. He spat between his teeth, got up from the bench, and headed for his rental car. There was one trick left up his sleeve, and it would mean getting out into the craziness seizing Honolulu and driving back across the island to a spot near where he’d met Cassidy, but it beat doing nothing.