Blood Toll. Don Pendleton

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      BANDO KAPALAUA WASTED no time when the gunshots started. He wormed his way down low, maneuvering his large body onto the floor of the vehicle behind the front seats. Then he clenched his fists, locked his wrists and began to pull for all he was worth.

      Bolan had tightly strapped the Hawaiian’s wrists. That was nothing to Bando, though. He could snap handcuff chains if he wanted to, and sometimes did it at parties or in bars when somebody was stupid enough to bet him. Screwing up his face, his cheeks growing red with effort, Bando wrenched his meaty hands. The first strap popped easily. Twisting his wrists, the massive Hawaiian snapped the second one, then the third.

      Just like that, he was free.

      Well, not free, exactly, but he was loose, and soon he would have his freedom back. It was just like the haole police—Bando savored the insult, a catch-all term for these no-breath whites and foreigners ignorant of Hawaiian ways—to put so much faith in locked doors and stupid toy plastic straps.

      A bullet struck the driver’s window and several rattled the frame of the Malibu, but Bando ignored them. His people would know that he was in the back seat and would do their best to avoid shooting him.

      Bando had no illusions about his own intelligence. Though he was primarily muscle, not brains, Bando was not stupid. It took no genius to figure out how his New Hawaiian League compatriots had found him. Clearly that Chinese, Hwong, had called them and provided his location.

      Bando squirmed into position on his back, his zori flat against the Plexiglas partition. Then he pistoned his mighty legs, as if pressing out a squat, pushing with all his might. The Plexiglas panel started to strain in its housing. Bando then recoiled, snapping out again with his sandaled feet.

      The partition gave way.

      Bando immediately scrambled after it, shoving himself painfully and awkwardly through the opening. Upside down, his legs still sprawled over the passenger seat, he reached the glove box. It was locked, but the lock was a light one. Bando simply grabbed the lip of the glove box with his thick fingers and ripped it out of its housing in the dash.

      The plastic evidence bag containing his revolver, his reloads and his other personal effects was inside, where he’d seen it stashed before they’d driven him away. He ripped it open, pocketing the knife and his wallet before snapping open the cylinder of the three-inch Model 29 and loading it with the .44 Magnum rounds in the speedloader.

      “Hey!” someone shouted outside the vehicle. It was the smaller white cop, the one he’d heard called Davis. Without hesitation, Bando pushed the stubby barrel of his weapon against the passenger’s window and pulled the trigger.

      The blast blew pebbles of safety glass across the cop’s chest, but the bullet hole in his neck meant he’d never know or care. Davis dropped and Bando crouched low, ready to crawl out the passenger’s door and make his escape.

      That was when he realized the plastic bag was missing something important.

      The tracking device was gone. Possibly the big, dark-haired haole cop had it. Possibly he had given it to someone else, too. If that was true, someone might be poking at it soon, maybe figuring out where it came from. Bando didn’t know if that was possible; he knew nothing about electronics. Hwong had given him the device, told him how to operate it and explained how best to put it to use in carrying out the Chinese agent’s plan. The loss of the device would not be taken lightly.

      Bando knew a moment of fear, considering Hwong’s reaction. The Chinese had been very specific. Bando was to use the homing device to follow the haole spy and take back to Hwong whatever the spy uncovered. Most importantly, Bando was not to be caught, nor was he to breathe a word of his mission. The connection to Hwong was to be kept secret at all costs. Failure—and worse, discovery of the Chinese—meant more than simply a loss of the precious weapons and money Hwong was funneling to the New Hawaiian League. It meant that Bando’s family—his mother and a younger sister living in Molokai—would be killed. Their deaths, Hwong had promised, would not be swift, nor would they leave this world, as Hwong had put it, “inviolate.” To make his point, Hwong had introduced Bando to the little Chinese with the crazy look, whom Hwong had called Zho Wen. Bando would not soon forget the light of insanity that played behind that man’s eyes. Bando feared no man, he told himself, but this Zho Wen was something less than human. He would pay any price to keep such a creature from his sister and his mother.

      Shaking these troubling thoughts from his mind, Bando stayed low as he climbed out of the police car. On the ground, not far from the corpse of his partner, was the other cop. He was down, clutching a wound in his belly, his face pale and covered with sweat. Bando could tell he had native blood. The Hawaiian cop looked up at Bando, his eyes unfocused with pain.

      “Sorry,” Bando said. He lined up the front sight of his chopped-down Model 29. When the front СКАЧАТЬ