Blood Toll. Don Pendleton

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      BOLAN CALLED Sergeant Kirokawa, and together they escorted the big man to a marked HPD cruiser parked outside. The big Hawaiian sulked in the back of the marked car, testing the plastic cuffs strapped around his wrists, his nose swathed in adhesive bandages from the cruiser’s first-aid kit. Bolan had used three of his plastic restraints, just to be sure. He wouldn’t have been surprised if the Hawaiian could snap one or even two of them if he had the time to work at it.

      On the trunk of the cruiser’s hood was a pile of personal effects taken from the prisoner. His leather wallet, creased and faded with age, contained a Hawaii driver’s license issued to David Kapalaua. The thick features of the man staring blankly from the photograph matched those of the big native locked in the back of the cruiser, except for the recent alterations to the man’s nose.

      The wallet bore nothing of use apart from the ID. The Executioner checked the wireless phone’s call history, but there was nothing there. The phone either had not been used or, more likely, Kapalaua was in the habit of clearing the numbers after he used it.

      Finally, Bolan picked up a small device he could not immediately identify. It was about the size of a television remote. There was a single button on its face. The soldier thought at first it might be some kind of detonator, but if it was, it was unlike any he’d seen before. Turning it over in his hands, he discovered the slots of an audio grille on the rear side of the plastic casing. No, it was not for a bomb, he decided. On a hunch, he pressed the button on the face of the unit.

      The device began beeping rapidly and loudly. Bolan extended his arm, pointing the device through the rear window of the cruiser at the back of Kapalaua’s head. The beeping slowed marginally but remained insistent. He tried aiming the unit in other directions, finally pointing it at the ground. When it came closer to his body, it started beeping faster again.

      Realizing what was happening, Bolan passed the device over his arms and legs. As the unit moved over the left-hand thigh pocket of his blacksuit, it began squealing with feedback and the beeping became a single, continuous tone. Bolan pushed the button on its face again and the device was silent.

      From his pocket, he produced the card key he’d used to enter Jimmy Han’s room. Experimenting with the signaling device, Bolan satisfied himself that the unit was a tracker somehow linked to the card key.

      “What have you got there?” Sergeant Diana Kirokawa’s lilting voice came from behind him. Kirokawa was a petite five feet, four inches, her half Caucasian, half Japanese features delicate but firm. Her large brown eyes were alert and wary. Lustrous shoulder-length black hair framed her face. She wore a conservatively tailored women’s suit that, while professional and sophisticated, didn’t hide her figure. Her badge was visible on a chain around her neck, and the cut of her suit jacket did not quite conceal the Glock 19 holstered on her hip.

      “Our friend there,” Bolan said, “was carrying some interesting hardware.”

      “Bando?” Kirokawa chuckled. “He always is.”

      “You know him?”

      “He’s a regular at HPD,” she said. “David ‘Bando’ Kapalaua, God’s gift to women, tough guys and Hawaiian nationalists. Turns up every eighteen months or so. He’s been busted for assault, disturbing the peace. Mostly bar brawls, though sometimes it’s NHL rabble-rousing. Last time around he threatened a guy with some kind of sawed-off sword or machete or something.”

      “NHL?” Bolan asked. “Hockey?”

      “No.” Kirokawa shook her head. “New Hawaiian League. One of a handful of native separatist groups operating in the state. They believe Hawaii was illegally occupied and annexed by the United States. Bando here has been at the center of a few rallies and protests that didn’t exactly stay peaceful. The NHL has the usual gripes about racial prejudice directed at Hawaiians, of course, but they’re also working to reestablish a sovereign Hawaiian government, separate and distinct from the United States. You see, Cooper, I’m just a ‘Hawaii resident,’ even though I was born here. Only natives like Bando are, to his thinking, actually Hawaiians. The New Hawaiian League would like to make that clear and back it up with force.”

      “How violent are they?”

      “Bando’s a thug,” Kirokawa said, “but he’s never been much more. The New Hawaiian League makes him special, in his mind, but I don’t know how much even he really believes in it.”

      “Then he’s into something new, something bigger than him. Somebody’s pulling his strings. The gun’s not the hardware I was referring to.” Bolan held up the tracking device. “This is some kind of electronic monitor. It’s linked to a card key to a room here at the hotel. I think your boy tracked me here using it. I’m willing to bet something like this isn’t usual equipment for the Hawaiian nationalist on the go.”

      “No, definitely not.” Kirokawa nodded.

      “My people have a courier on the way,” Bolan told her. “When he or she gets here, I’m going to send this device for analysis.”

      “It’s your show,” the sergeant agreed. “I’ll have Bando taken in. I assume you’ll want to question him.”

      “Absolutely,” Bolan said. “I’ll meet my courier and then meet you at the stationhouse. I have a car.”

      “I’ll have mine driven back, then,” Kirokawa said. “Just let me make arrangements. You’re not about to get rid of me. Things are just getting interesting.”

      3

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