Tiger War by Don Pendleton Read Free Book Online Page A

planned to coincide with the meeting. All fifteen men were to be executed by Bolan. Personally. It was that kind of war. The enemy would understand no other.
    "I think we're going to get some entertainment," said Nark.
    On the parade ground soldiers were setting up chairs in a semicircle. Then from a nearby building came a group of men dressed in kendo uniforms. Each man carried a sword.
    "The man with the bandanna is Liu," said Nark.
    So
this is the man who has vowed to turn America into a nation of junkies....
Bolan focused his field glasses on the Tiger president. Bolan always found it interesting to compare a gangster with what he had read about him, and in most cases the real thing was a disappointment, imagination inevitably being more romantic than reality. But not in this case. This man, Bolan decided, was every inch the prince of darkness. Handsome, athletic, he had deliberate movements and a commanding presence.
    What Bolan had read about Liu was this: The son of General Liu, commander of the 93rd, now dead, Liu was educated in Japan in honor of his Japanese mother who died in childbirth. The mother was the daughter of a samurai, and in keeping with tradition, Liu was sent to one of those select boarding schools that still taught
bunbu itchi,
or pen-and-sword-in-accord, an ancient art that combined calligraphy with swordsmanship.
    He continued his education at a university in England. After being graduated with an engineering degree, Liu served as a soldier, leading parachute missions sponsored by the CIA on reconnaissance and spoiling raids in China. His grudge against the U.S. was said to date from those days. Liu felt the U.S. had sold out the Nationalists and exploited his father with false promises of a return to the mainland.
    Liu's dislike of America did not prevent him, however, from taking advantage of a CIA-sponsored grant to the Harvard Business School where he picked up the know-how for his subsequent successes.
    At Harvard Liu was remembered for his demonstrations of savate boxing, and for the subject of his master's thesis — the financial prospects of the illicit drug trade, a thesis his professors found amusing in its originality, not realizing Liu was having a laugh at them.
    Long before he went to Harvard Liu was already pushing for the transformation of the 93rd from a military to a commercial enterprise, arguing that fighting Communists was a waste of time and the U.S. would recognize the People's Republic of China sooner, or later. When subsequent events proved him right he automatically became head of Tiger Enterprises, and it was under his direction that the company had reached its heights.
    On the parade ground, meanwhile, the kendo masters had reached the area where the chairs had been set up. They stood around, seemingly waiting. One pulled his sword from his scabbard, and Bolan caught the glint of sun on steel. That surprised him. Normally in a kendo demonstration wood
bokkens
were used. There was also no evidence of the usual head guards, another indispensable item. Even a wood
bokken
could do considerable damage to a man.
    "What sort of contest is this?" Bolan wondered aloud.
    "The headman said they hold fights until first blood, "said Nark.
    The waiting fighters turned toward the residential area, and Bolan looked in that direction. Coming out were Tiger's directors, middle-aged iron of various races dressed in sober suits, some with hats.
What a respectable-looking lot,
Bolan reflected. They could have been a group of United Nations diplomats. But he knew evil always wore a mask; in fact the bigger the evil, the more respectable the mask.
    Bolan recognized one of the directors as Jack Fenster. He was a distinguished-looking man, impeccably dressed, the sort of man people admired. He was a Wall Street financier who lived in Summit, New Jersey, where he had a palatial home, nice wife and children, belonged to the right clubs, pumped iron at the YMCA twice a week and attended church every