Hunter had been to Hawaii several times while he was touring with the Thunderbirds. The Honolulu he'd remembered was a nice, clean if overcrowded city. Now he was sure that had changed. According to the reports PAAC did get from Honolulu, the city was now a sprawl of honky-tonks, drugs, hedonism and crime. Gambling, never considered a vice in the old days, had been raised to the level of science on the islands these days. Yet there was no police force or government. Hunter was glad he'd made the trip packing both an Uzi and his trusty M-16. He also carried a small backpack that was filled with some of his best tricks of the trade.
He met his first Hawaiians about five miles into his trip. They were all wearing typical Hawaiian shirts and calmly manning a roadblock set up in the middle of the highway. It was the marking of the edge of their tribe's territory. He knew from here on in, he'd have to deal with these gunmen. The one regret Hunter had was that Ben Wa, he of the island of Maui to the south, wasn't able to accompany him on this trip. They would have made a great team, but a pilot of Wa's caliber was much too valuable at the front.
Of the 10 men guarding the outpost, six were asleep. They were quickly roused when their partners first spotted Hunter, clad in a green, unmarked flight, suit, baseball cap on his head, his flight helmed dangling from his belt, walking down the middle of the unused highway.
The pilot carried his firearms in full view as he approached the men. He heard the safeties click off their firearms — a variety of hunting rifles, M-16s and shotguns. Hunter walked right up to their railroad crossing-style barrier and asked the first man he came to: "Which way to Honolulu?"
The gunmen laughed at him. A man who appeared to be their leader emerged from a small hut and walked up to Hunter. He was a small, dark, obviously Hawaiian man of middle age. Tough and wiry, he carried a .357 Magnum on one hip, an extra-large machete on the other.
To this man, Hunter repeated his questions: "Is this the road to Honolulu?"
"Could be," the man said in broken English.
Hunter got right to the point. "How much to pass through?"
"How much you got?" the man said.
"I'll give you a thousand in real gold now," Hunter said calmly. "Two thousand on the way out."
The man grinned. "Lot of money. Why don't we just shoot you now and get all three thousand?" A few of his men laughed in agreement.
"Ain't got it all now," Hunter said. "Gotta do my business in Honolulu first."
"What kind of business?" the man asked.
"Drug kind of business," Hunter answered. "As in blow. Coke. You guys get that stuff up here?"
The leader laughed again. "How much you got?"
"It ain't how much I got," Hunter said. "It's what kind I got." With that he reached into his backpack and produced a brick-sized piece of compacted brownish leaves.
"Jesus Christ, man," the leader exclaimed. "You got a brick of…"
"Raw coca," Hunter said, finishing the man's sentence for him. "Now unless you guys got some processing works around here, you'd better let me through, so I can sell this shit."
The leader knew Hunter was right. The chemicals needed to break down the raw coca were in short supply — ether especially. Handling a brick of raw coca would be useless — but breaking it down into pure cocaine could net them anywhere from $25,000 to $50,000 in real gold, and that was only if they were stupid enough to sell it pure. And they weren't that stupid.
Neither was Hunter. The leader thought for a moment, then said. "You go, two of my guys go with you."
"Bodyguards?" Hunter said. "That's great, my man. You just got yourself an extra thousand."
"At least," the man said, grinning.
Twenty minutes later, Hunter was sitting in th back of the gunmen's speeding jeep, enjoying th scenery. Not only had he parlayed himself a ride for the final 20 miles into Honolulu, he also had a way to pass through the seven further checkpoints be tween him and the city. At each stop, the gunmen — known as the Tan Fin — were routinely waved through. A peaceful, if shaky, coexistence was ii force among the tribal gangs, or at least the one who controlled this roadway. Between roadblocks his escorts remained silent, which was fine with Hunter. He sat back and let the warm late spring sunshine soak through him.
They reached the outskirts of Honolulu about an hour later. From the top of a hill, Hunter could see the island that used to be the Pearl Harbor naval station. He was too far away to see if there was an; military activity at the base. His earlier radar sweep revealed nothing heavy, but he hadn't yet discounted the possibility of some kind of presence at the base He had to reach the USS Arizona Memorial, bu first he had to rid himself of his chauffeurs. Hi didn't feel that he was justified in shooting them although they had foolishly left him alone in the backseat of the open vehicle with his M-16 and Uzi both fully-loaded. Instead, he would put the two to sleep.
"Stop!" he yelled in the driver's ear as they drove into the very outskirts of the city.
The passenger gunmen turned around quickly, he sawed-off shotgun at the ready.
"What?" he yelled over the sound of the motor.
"Stop," Hunter yelled again. He had reached into his backpack and produced a small plastic bag of white powder. He waved it in front of the passenger-side gunman.
The man smiled broadly. "Coke? We do a line?" he asked as his partner slowed the jeep.
"We do many lines," Hunter said, producing a mirror and a razor blade.
The jeep had slowed down and stopped by this time. The gunmen smacked their lips as they watched Hunter expertly pour a small pile of the powder onto the mirror and start chopping away with the razor blade.
He fashioned the resulting fine powder into six long, thick lines. A straw was produced. Hunter handed the mirror to the passenger-side gunman who took a long, noisy sniff, pulling the entire stretch of white stuff up his nose in one swipe. "Ahhhhh!" he said with evident satisfaction.
His partner grabbed the mirror and repeated the process. His reaction was also one of delight. "Goooood stuff,"' he said, snorting the stuff back into his nostrils.
In two seconds, both he and his partner were knocked out cold.
"You mean 'Goooood night," Hunter said, jumping out of the jeep and hauling the two limp bodies out of the vehicle. Thorazine pentathol, Hunter's own concoction of sleeping powder, looked, cut and tasted like cocaine. The gunmen would sleep for almost 24 hours, he figured. That's what they get for being so greedy with their lines.
"See ya, chumps," Hunter said as he disarmed the men, got behind the wheel of the jeep and roared off toward Honolulu.
He was across a makeshift bridge and at the fence of the old Pearl Harbor base less than an hour later.
Passing through the city of Honolulu had been an. experience in itself. The place had so many gambling casinos even Louie St. Louie would have blushed.
There were people in the streets although it was still barely 9 AM. Every one of the men were armed and it seemed every one of the women were topless. Ben Wa would have been proud.
He had found the road to Pearl with no problem. Driving slowly long the perimeter fence, he saw little evidence of military activity inside the base.
There were a few military vehicles such as APCs, halftracks and even an old M-60 tank. But he saw very few people walking inside the base.
He reached the main gate and found it manned by a lone sailor. With his white uniform, complete from upturned hat to black boot leggings, the man looked like something out of World War II. He was also sound asleep.