Caribbean Kill.
by Don Pendleton.
PROLOGUE.
The beautiful scene below him was probably the most hazardous spot on earth for Mack Bolan-at this particular moment. But it was the one scene Bolan had been hoping to find, the mob"s Caribbean hardsite, and the peril awaiting him there was merely another calculated risk in an impossible war which could end only with his death.
Bolan was willing to die-but not overly so.
The sleek little seaplane that had brought him here buzzed low over the rambling plantation house and rose again in a banking circle of the cozy, crescent-shaped inlet on Puerto Rico"s southern sh.o.r.eline. San Juan was less than fifty miles behind, at the far side of the island. The scenery below was magnificently framed around a small bay-more like a lagoon-with startlingly blue and gla.s.slike water. It was probably a mile across at the widest point, with a man-made breakwater built across the opening to the sea and almost closing it.
The landward sides were edged with gleaming white sand-it looked polished, and was nearly blinding in the midday sun. Beyond the sand was lush tropical vegetation, in several shades of green, here and there wild bursts of orange and yellow, and vivid purples. To the north lay cultivated land, a large plantation on which seemed to be growing sugar cane and tobacco side-by-side in well-defined patches. Eastward from the bay was a high coastal plain and, away in the distance, a couple of small seaside villages. Backdropping it all were the high mountains of the interior, bluish and shimmering in haze.
Beautiful, sure. To many men, it would seem like paradise found.
Gla.s.s Bay would be no paradise for Mack Bolan. Nor, from this moment on, for his enemies. A weird set of circ.u.mstances had brought Bolan to this unlikely battleground of his war with the Mafia. The distance separating Las Vegas and Puerto Rico had to be expressed in something more than mere mileage; for most people, an entire world of ideas and purposes would be required to bridge that distance. Bolan, however, had made the leap while riding one idea and a single purpose.
The idea told it like it was: the mob is everywhere, into everything-squeezing, gouging, clawing, manipulating and controlling wherever bucks flowed freely -and, like it was like it was, Puerto Rico and all the Caribbean playlands were identical peas in the same pod that housed Las Vegas.
The single purpose of Mack Bolan"s life was to stop the Mafia wherever he found their leeching tentacles of influence-to jar their omnipotence, to confound their brilliance at organization, and to rid the earth of their oppressive weight. Others had failed in that purpose. The combined talents of law-enforcement agencies the world over had been f ailing for longer than Mack Bolan had been alive. Compet.i.tive syndicates and rival gangs had arisen to challenge the awesome power of La Cosa Nostra La Cosa Nostra, only to be immediately snuffed out or absorbed by the invisible empire.
So what made a lone man, totally unsupported by anything other than his own wits and will, think that he could succeed where so many others had failed? Bolan himself did not consider such questions. In his own understanding, he was technically dead already-a man doomed by his own actions, by his own character. Victory meant living for one more day, and carrying his war to the enemy one more time. There could be no personal victory for Mack Bolan; this also he understood. His war with the Mafia had been declared on such an unpromising note, and each battle of that conflict was regarded as merely another step along his final mile of life.
It had all begun with five blasts of a Marlin .444, fired from an office building onto the streets of the eastern U.S. city of Pittsfield, in the ambush-execution of five local gangland figures.
Police authorities who investigated the slayings at first attributed the deaths to an underworld purge. It was not unusual for compet.i.tive criminal elements to engage in territorial disputes; the ma.s.s murder bore all the earmarks of a gang war.
But then the physical evidence began forming an entirely different picture. A local sports shop had been "burglarized" a few nights prior to the killings. A Marlin big-game rifle and a deluxe scope were missing, along with a supply of ammunition and a package of targets. A sum of money sufficient to cover the unorthodox purchase was left behind, and the shopkeeper had no complaints. He reported the incident to the police purely "for the record."
On the day following, the watchman at an inactive rock quarry just outside the city observed a tall young man in the act of test-firing and adjusting "a big game rifle." The man was apparently "sighting-in" the weapon and preparing trajectory graphs. The watchman saw no harm in these activities and did not report the matter until news of the slayings had been released.
The detective in charge of the homicide investigation recalled that a young soldier on emergency furlough from Vietnam had, some days earlier, been agitating for a closer police scrutiny of the deaths of his parents and teenage sister, whom the soldier had come home to bury. The official police blotter covering that earlier tragedy revealed an open and shut case of suicide-homicide, with the soldier"s father as the culprit of the piece. The soldier had strongly protested this finding, insisting that underworld figures were at least indirectly responsible for his family"s death.
Following a hunch, the Pittsfield police detective sent a query to the military police in Saigon. The reply, reproduced below, fully confirmed the detective"s suspicions and laid to rest any ideas concerning a "gang war" in Pittsfield.
"Sgt. Mack Bolan-age 30-height 74 inches-weight 205 pounds, hair brown, eyes blue. Currently on emergency furlough, ARC verified, from Corps I area, destination your city. Subject known locally and respected throughout enemy strongholds as The Executioner. Penetration Team specialist, sniper. Holds sharpshooter rating, various personal weapons. Twice awarded Silver Star and holds many lesser decorations. Also decorated by South Vietnamese government for quote conspicuous valor unquote and quote humanitarian actions unquote. Career man, good conduct, second tour Vietnam. Officially credited ninety-seven kills, execution missions behind enemy lines. Personally described by CO as quote formidable psychological warfare weapon unquote. Request full details any alleged civil infractions your city."
An army psychologist had these further words concerning Sgt. Bolan"s specialty: "A good sniper has to be a man who can kill methodically, unemotionally, and personally. Personally personally. Personally because it"s an entirely different ball game when you can see even the color of your victim"s eyes through the magnification of a sniper-scope, when you can see the look of surprise and fear when he realizes he"s been shot. Most any good soldier can be a successful sniper because it"s an entirely different ball game when you can see even the color of your victim"s eyes through the magnification of a sniper-scope, when you can see the look of surprise and fear when he realizes he"s been shot. Most any good soldier can be a successful sniper once- once-it"s the second or third time around, when the memories of personal killing are etched into the conscience, that the "soldiers" are separated from the "executioners." Killing in this manner is closely akin to murder in the conscience of many men. Of course, we do not want mad dogs in this program, either. What we want, quite simply, is a man who can distinguish between murder and duty, and who can realize that a duty killing is not an act of murder. A man who is also cool and calm when he himself is in jeopardy completes the picture of our sniper ideal."
Sergeant Bolan was that kind of man. That he maintained proper balance through two years and more of this b.l.o.o.d.y career is suggested by the other side of the Bolan ledger. Base Camp and Green Beret medics in Bolan"s theatres of operation had quietly dubbed him "Sergeant Mercy"-an interesting contrast to the Executioner tag. It was said that the sarge seldom returned from a mission in enemy territory without an entourage of refugees who had become victims of enemy terrorist activities-usually the very old, the very young, the sick, the maimed.
It was this total portrait of Mack Bolan which so intrigued Lt. Alan Weatherbee of the Pittsfield homicide bureau and-though he had nothing to base a case upon-the detective knew that The Executioner had descended upon his town and that he was stalking another kind of enemy through the underworld paths of Pittsfield. Weatherbee was shedding no tears over the dead hoodlums-he would not have invested a nickel in a wreath for the ma.s.s funeral-but he also could not allow a self-appointed executioner to prowl the streets of his city. He pointed this out to Bolan, and suggested that the soldier return immediately to the more appropriate battle areas in Vietnam.
Bolan, however, had discovered something of his own, as witness this entry in his personal journal, dated the day following the initial slayings: "Scratch five. Results positive. Identification confirmed by unofficial police report. The Mafia The Mafia, for G.o.d"s sake. So what? They can"t be any more dangerous or any smarter than the Cong. Scratch five, and how many are left? A hundred? A thousand? Ten thousand? So-I"ve got another unwinnable war on my hands."
Yes, decidedly, Bolan had another war on his hands. He knew the Mafia, had grown up in neighborhoods dominated by the lordly Dons- Dons-he knew their power, their viciOusness, and their patterns of intimidation which could never tolerate a successful retaliation from their victims. They would be after Bolan"s head, and they would follow him all the way to Southeast Asia if necessary. If the police had been able to put the story together, Bolan knew with a certainty that the mob"s own formidable intelligence network could not be more than a step or two behind.
He was a doomed man, and he knew it.
But, as he noted in his journal, "I"m dead anyway, I may as well make my death count for something. The cops can"t do anything about the mob. The Mafia is a leech at this nation"s throat and they know all the legal tricks and shady angles to keep themselves clear of the law. Besides, they"re just too big. What they can"t beat, they buy. If they can"t buy it, they simply stamp it out. As they"ll stamp me out one day very soon. But they are going to have to work for it. I won"t just roll over and die for them. Ill die, sure, but while they"re making it official I"m going to rattle their teeth and shake their house with everything I have."
For a "dying man," Bolan had a considerable amount of shake and rattle left in him. He hit the Pittsfield arm of the Mafia with a thunder and lightning blitz which indeed shook their house down and all but eliminated the Mafia presence in that city- for awhile.
Following that unexpected victory, Bolan faded away like the guerilla expert he was-believing himself to be ten-times doomed now, and determined only to stretch his "last b.l.o.o.d.y mile" to its highest toll of enemy lives. He resurfaced in Los Angeles a short while later, this time with a "death squad" of hastily recruited combat buddies from Vietnam -and the Bolan Wars began in earnest. He lost his valiant squad in the battles for Los Angeles, but he gained a new appreciation of the forces arrayed against him-and a deeper understanding of his own situation. And he began to believe that just possibly he could could beat the mob at their own game. beat the mob at their own game.
From an old friend, an ex-army combat surgeon, Bolan received plastic surgery and a new face-not to retire behind, but to come out fighting in. He called the new face his "battle mask"-it gave him a definitely Sicilian appearance, and he used this new advantage with a vengeance in exploiting the enemy"s greatest weakness: their own suspicion and mistrust of one another. He moved among them at will, sat with them at their councils, plotted with them his own demise-even romanced the Capo"s Capo"s daughter. And as he systematically set them up and knocked them down, the Executioner"s understanding of this curious enemy deepened. He learned to think as they thought, to speak as they spoke-he became a master at deception and manipulation, aad the death blows began to reverberate throughout the entire empire of syndicated evil. daughter. And as he systematically set them up and knocked them down, the Executioner"s understanding of this curious enemy deepened. He learned to think as they thought, to speak as they spoke-he became a master at deception and manipulation, aad the death blows began to reverberate throughout the entire empire of syndicated evil.
Stung now to a total response, the farflung families of La Cosa Nostra La Cosa Nostra a.s.sembled at Miami Beach for a summit meeting to discuss ways and means of responding to the Bolan threat. Bolan himself did not receive an invitation. He went anyway, and the summit meeting became a Mafia disaster on a scale never before experienced. a.s.sembled at Miami Beach for a summit meeting to discuss ways and means of responding to the Bolan threat. Bolan himself did not receive an invitation. He went anyway, and the summit meeting became a Mafia disaster on a scale never before experienced.
Bolan had many things going for him-nerves of steel, audacity, an utter contempt for death, moral outrage, the ability to discipline himself, military expertise-all of these, certainly, but perhaps the attribute which continued to spell success for this audacious warrior was an almost uncanny sense of timing. His. .h.i.t-and-fade strategy had the Mafia bigwigs figuratively climbing the walls of their empire with frustration and desperation. Ordinary street soldiers throughout the country developed the nervous habit of continually looking over their shoulders, of going through doorways with extreme care and of sleeping in lighted rooms. The Mafia"s businessmen doubled their retinue of bodyguards and sent their families on vacations out of the country. The face value of the murder contract let on Bolan pyramided as territorial chieftains added enticing bonuses to keep ambitious freelancers thick and alert in their areas.
Meanwhile "the b.a.s.t.a.r.d" blitzed on, surfacing here and there for a quick hit and an even quicker fade-out, and Bolan"s "last b.l.o.o.d.y mile" became an ever-widening wipe-out trail which ranged across the ocean into France and England, then back to New York City for a pitched battle there and another quick fade.
Timing kept Bolan moving, kept him alive-but intelligence and planning and a finely tuned military poise kept him beating the mob at their own game.
Mack Bolan was more than a war machine, however. He was also a man-subject to all the dreams and desires of any mortal-and his soul was growing weary of its burden of continual warfare, unending violence and ever-flowing rivers of blood. He did not regard himself as a crusader or as an avenging angel-but simply as a man who was doing a job which could not be avoided. Many times he contemplated the comparative ease which death offered him. Frequently he railed against his "leper" status, self-imposed, which necessarily alienated him from all lasting human relationships. Occasionally he succ.u.mbed to a dark melancholy which drove him into deep introspections and philosophic searches.
Through all this inner writhing he remained Mack Bolan, the Executioner, one-man army par excellence par excellence, and through it all he developed a meaningful philosophy-or perhaps, simply, a deeper understanding of his own unique situation. In that understanding there was no possibility of a personal victory. If the mob did not eventually get him, then the police would. He was doomed, whether he surrendered or fought on-the only difference being that his doom could have some positive value for the world if he continued to fight the good fight. So, life for Mack Bolan had boiled itself down to the simplest of terms: kill to live, live to kill. Fight on, and go out like a warrior-or give up, and die like a caged rat. He did not regard the latter alternative as an option worthy of the smallest consideration. He would die as he had lived-to the point.
Though sought by virtually every police establishment in the nation, Bolan never fought cops. His war was with the Mafia and-whether the police accepted the idea or not-the cops were his allies, not his enemies. He also exercised great care to keep non-combatants out of his battle zones. There is no record of any innocent bystanders being caught in the crossfire of a Bolan campaign. It is known that frequently, in fact, he scrubbed missions and broke contact when it became apparent that bystanders would become involved, and several of these occasions were at great peril to himself.
It was at Chicago that Bolan finally came to grips with his own inner turmoil and accepted once and for all his place in the universe. "A man"s character is his fate," said Herac.l.i.tus, the early Greek philosopher-and Bolan discovered at Chicago that this same truth applied to societies as a whole. He found there a city chained by its own character, and he left it that way, though minus a few characters it would never miss, -and continued along his wipe-out trail to Las Vegas, the city of chance and very nearly the city of Bolan"s last chance.
The Mafia counter-war reached its greatest proportions ever at Vegas, and the national enforcers thought they had the Executioner sewed up for sure in this town where the comfortable end of the averages perennially rode with the house. Once again, however, the astute militarist uncannily read the offense and turned it to his own advantage-and he left Vegas with all the chips.
He also left with $250,000 of the mob"s money, one of their helicopters, a pilot and an accountant, or "bagman." The helicopter represented but the first leg of a devious route to the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico-the money, "skim" from Vegas casino profits, was but the latest installment of a continuing cash movement onto the "Caribbean Carousel," a new scene of intense activity for the international syndicate. Thus Bolan"s escape from Vegas was also his springboard to the next battleground. It seemed a virtual certainty that the survivors of the Vegas battle would recover from their stunning defeat early enough to read Bolan"s play and arrange a reception for him at flight"s end.
Bolan was a military realist, not a wishful thinker. He had known that the Vegas deception could last just so long, and was expecting the trap that awaited him at Puerto Rico. It was another calculated risk, little different than all the others. The important thing was that they had revealed their hardsite to him.
The next move was up to him.
A tropical paradise lay just beyond that airplane window.
But the Executioner had not come to America"s backyard playground to gambol in the sun and sand.
He was living to the point, and he had come for the Caribbean Kill. Bolan was blitzing into paradise.
Chapter One.
COLLISION COURSE.
They circled low over the breakwater and dropped smoothly onto the gla.s.slike surface of Bahia de Vidria Bahia de Vidria, the pontoons taking a gentle bite and skimming along the water runway toward the beach. The pilot had cut back on the power and they were idling slowly in a soft glide for the seaplane dock, a hundred yards or so downrange, when the Beretta slid into Bolan"s fist and muzzled into the guy"s throat.
"End of game, Grimaldi," the Executioner announced coldly.
The pilot swallowed hard past the outside pressure of cool steel and muttered, "I don"t get you, Mr. Vinton."
"Sure you do," Bolan told him. "When the engine dies, you die."
He divided his attention to lift the binoculars into a close scan of the sh.o.r.eline. A signboard on the pier loomed into the vision-field: GLa.s.s BAY RESORT PRIVATE.
Beyond the pier lay neatly landscaped grounds and a rambling structure resembling an oversized plantation house-a two-story job with verandas at top and bottom levels. Colorful cabanas lined the beach. People in bathing suits sprawled about here and there in the sand-all male-type people, Bolan wryly noted. Others strolled casually about the grounds or lounged at the railings of the verandas. Say, thirty people in plain sight. Two guys in white ducks and sneakers waited on the pier to dock the plane.
It all would seem perfectly innocuous, to the casual observer.
Mack Bolan was not observing casually.
Not a native Puerto Rican was in sight. No females, no relaxed frivolity, no fun or games anywhere in evidence. It was a set stage, sloppily done-no doubt, Bolan mused, the result of haste. They hadn"t had time to get all the props out. Something inside a beach cabana was giving off telltale flashes as it reflected the strong rays of the midday tropical sun-a telescopic lens, maybe. The beach towels of the "bathers" revealed oblong lumps of just about the proper size and shape to suggest concealed rifles or shotguns.
As the plane steadily closed the distance, clumps of men on the lower verenda of the house began drifting down the steps and disappearing into the vegetation.
Yeah, Gla.s.s Bay was the hardsite. And it was primed and waiting for a gate-crasher in masquerade.
It was, of course, time for the official unmasking. Bolan had known in his bones, for several hours now, that his little game was over. And now the time had come to pay the fare for that wild-a.s.s exit from Vegas.
By the numbers, now, very carefully. A single moment would decide life or death for Mack Bolan- a very precise moment in psychological time.
The pilot had been with Bolan through three exchanges of aircraft. He was a versatile flyer, but hardcore Mafia all the same, and he knew all the tricks of illegal evasion. Here was one situation that could not be evaded, however, and the knowledge of that truth was pasted all over the guy"s face. He nervously cleared his throat and said, "Look, Bolan, it"s all in a day"s work, eh? Nothing personal. I just follow orders."
Bolan said, "Yeah."
"I didn"t know it was you until the switch at Na.s.sau. And I still didn"t know for sure, I mean n.o.body told me. They just said Gla.s.s Bay instead of San Juan. That was the tipoff, I mean I knew something was up. And I put it together myself."
"Sure."
The guy was reaching for life. "You got to believe me, I wasn"t in on the setup."
"I believe you," Bolan muttered.
A strangled sound from the rear announced that the bagman was not quite ready to die, either. He was cowering against his bags of bucks and trembling as he croaked, "Me, too, Mr. Bolan. Honest to G.o.d I didn"t know until just now."
"Okay, get out," Bolan growned.
"Right here?" the accountant warbled hopefully.
Bolan nodded. The pier was less than fifty yards ahead now. "Not the money, just you." To the pilot, he commanded, "Pre-set those controls for a quick lift-off. Then you follow Lemke."
"Too late," Grimaldi replied, sighing. "Can you fly this crate?"
"Watch me," Bolan told him.
"You"ll never make it out of here now. They"ll blow this thing out of the water before you can get it turned around. You waited too long, Bolan."
"Just set it up," the Executioner commanded.
Lemke pushed the hatch open and gazed apprehensively at the water slipping gently by just below, then he jumped and disappeared from view. The two men on the pier reacted immediately, and a sudden film of perspiration appeared on the pilot"s brow.
"Okay she"s set!" he yelled, and pushed himself clear of the seat.
The people on sh.o.r.e were beginning to look alive. A man on the pier cupped his hands and shouted something toward the house. A clump of men wearing bathing suits and openly displaying, weapons broke into a run for the seaplane dock.
Girmaldi threw himself through the hatch and Bolan swung around behind him to punch a pair of Parabellums into the two agitated figures on the pier. They went over backwards, their own weapons firing reflexively and wildly, and Bolan made a lunge for the throttle.
That precise moment had arrived.
He gave the little craft full throttle, swung the nose around to the desired course and locked the controls in that position, then he moved swiftly to the blind-side hatch as the seaplane hunched into the sudden acceleration.
He had no intention of trying to fly that water bird out of there. The intention was to make the opposing troops think think that he was. that he was.
A startled moment of confusion was all he"d been bidding for. And he got it, sliding into the calm Caribbean depths just as the reaction-fire came crashing into the speeding craft.
Bolan remained shallow and concentrated on achieving maximum underwater distance. By the time he surfaced, the pilotless plane had reached nightspeed and was just beginning a rather ragged lift-off. It broke land with only inches of clearance between pontoons and beach, then rose swiftly in a steady pull for treetop level, winging through a sustained and withering fire that was reaching out from every spot about that lagoon.
He had miscalculated the guns at Gla.s.s Bay. For each obvious one noted during that hasty landing recon, three and maybe four were now unloading in a ma.s.sive and determined effort to abort the "getaway."
The trajectory of that speeding airborne missile must have suddenly become obvious to all who watched; the gunfire ceased as abruptly as it had begun and Bolan could see energetic bodies hastily disembarking from the second-story veranda. All along the beach, men were erupting from places of concealment and sprinting toward the house.
h.e.l.l was winging into paradise, and everybody there seemed to know it.
The men who had raced onto the pier were now stampeding back toward land, and the grounds surrounding the big house had come alive with frantic figures lunging about in diffuse patterns of escape.
The plane itself seemed poised motionless in the air, like a football in a stop-action forward-pa.s.s replay on the Game of the Week, with the plantation house representing the only eligible receiver downfield, and with the chagrined defenders hoping to G.o.d that the pa.s.s was going wild but knowing in their sinking hearts that it was directly on target.
And then the plane hit, slicing in just above the second-story porch and punching on through into the house with a shattering roar and exploding flames. Bolan saw airborne bodies, one of them flaming like a chunk of flying shish kebab, and a shrieking hubbub of panicky voices was wafting toward him across the still waters.
He watched just long enough to a.s.sess the probable results of the hit, then he sank once again beneath the smooth surface of Bahia de Vidria Bahia de Vidria and continued his quiet approach to the beach. and continued his quiet approach to the beach.
His departure from the plane had apparently gone unnoticed. He had seen a motor launch speeding to the other swimmers, Lemke and Grimaldi; chances were excellent that not even they had been aware of Bolan"s exit. So far, then, so good. If he could make a landfall with the same good fortune, then maybe he would be able to climb aboard that Caribbean Carousel and give it one mad ride.
He had not continued into that trap at Gla.s.s Bay for the sheer thrill of living dangerously. Bolan was living to the point. He had arrived at the scene of the kill.
For Quick Tony Lavagni, the flame-leapt scene at Gla.s.s Bay was anything but comforting. It was too much like re-entering an old and familiar nightmare, that"s what it was like, and Quick Tony had that sick feeling at the pit of his gut.
Not that Lavagni was worried about the d.a.m.ned joint. Vince Triesta was the head man at Gla.s.s Bay. Let Vince worry about the d.a.m.ned real estate. Tony had, in fact, already set Vince straight about that matter.
"Bulls.h.i.t," he"d calmly told him. "My boys ain"t playing firemen. We didn"t come all the way down here to pick up your broken pieces. Put out your own G.o.ddam fires."