It was, after all, the land of the zombie.
The land of the living dead.
And Mack Bolan felt entirely at home.
The helicopter circled in a high, wide pa.s.s at "the mansion in the rocks" while Bolan studied the,situation through binoculars. Lights were showing from every visible window, and a considerable number of cars could be seen in the vehicle area. Few other details were available, from this viewpoint.
"What"s with this "attack at dawn" jazz?" Grimaldi groused. "Is it just a tradition? They were always calling us out for dawn strikes in "Nam, and I never could figure it out. Why dawn?"
Bolan continued the binocular surveillance as he replied, "Not entirely tradition. There"s a psychological moment involved-also a biological one."
"Oh well, that answers my question entirely," the pilot said sarcastically.
"The human animal is a product of the planet," Bolan explained as he continued the scouting. "We"ve developed certain rhythms, both physically and mentally. Dawn is a sort of neutral area. For the guy that"s been up all night, it means an inner letdown, a torpor."
"Really?"
"Yeah. In the jungle sense, it means a relaxation from the perils of the night-that is, for us daylight creatures. That hint of light in the sky means that we"ve made it through another night, and we can relax now."
"So you relax and attack," Grimaldi commented. "Sounds brilliant."
"No," Bolan said. "You attack the guy who"s fallen into a false sense of security."
"You won"t find any false security down there, buddy."
"We"ll see," Bolan said. Tut her down."
"You really going to trust me to come back and get you?"
"Yep."
The pilot grinned. "Think you"re a pretty good judge of flesh, don"t you?"
"Have to be," Bolan clipped back. "Put me down."
Grimaldi put him down, hovering just off the coastal rocks less than a hundred yards outside the high walls of the estate.
Bolan opened the hatch, said, "Good luck," and slid to the ground, a drop of about five feet.
Grimaldi leaned over to secure the hatch, murmured, "Yeah, good luck, what"s that?"-and sent the little bird into a heeling climb toward the sea.
Bolan watched him disappear into the dusky overhead, then he took a sighting on his goal, checked his weapons, and moved silently toward the wall.
He was in blacksuit, face and hands also darkened, a gliding shadow in a landscape of darkness.
The moon was gone, and the first faint streaks of morning grayness were edging into the eastern horizon.
The timing had been perfect. So far. It had to be. Ten minutes... that was all the time he had.
He scaled the wall and dropped lightly inside the grounds and moved swiftly on without pause, relying now entirely upon Jack Grimaldi"s memories of things that had been-three months earlier.
Halfway across the compound Bolan was suddenly hit with the realization that things were almost precisely precisely as they had been on that earlier occasion of Grimaldi"s visit. as they had been on that earlier occasion of Grimaldi"s visit.
The d.a.m.n joint was overflowing with people.
Visiting type people.
A large-scale meeting of the mob was evidently in progress, and had apparently been going on all night.
Bolan did not know it yet, but the Caribbean Conclave was in session. He would soon recognize a familiar face or two, and he would wonder if he had dropped into an executioner"s heaven... or into h.e.l.l itself.
And he had less than ten minutes to discover which it was to be.
The dawn was on the march.
And so was Death.
Chapter Fifteen.
THE BIGGEE.
The layout almost perfectly coincided with Gri-maldi"s diagram. Bolan quickly located the telephone cable and took away their communications with the outside world. He then went directly to the security station at the east side of the courtyard.
It was an elaborate little structure made of choice Haitian wood and polished to a dark l.u.s.tre, about the size of a large American outhouse but with standing room only inside.
A row of closed circuit television monitors were banked along one wall, providing various exterior views of the grounds-including the wall Bolan had just come over.
An athletically built black man wearing a tight-fitting white suit was standing in front of the monitors, his back to Bolan, yawning and stretching and scratching the back of his head.
The Beretta phutted a quiet Parabellum in to help relieve the itch. It scrunched in between the clawing fingers and the guy pitched forward against the monitors and slid into a squat beneath them.
Another sentry came strolling in from a flower bed a few yards away, fiddling with the fly of his trousers. Yeah, even overloaded bladders wanted to let go at dawn. Bolan let go another zap from the Beretta. The guy"s head snapped back and he returned to where he"d been, lying in it now and not even knowing it.
Bolan grabbed the first guy by an ankle and dragged him into the flower bed and left him beside the other one.
He"d been a minute and a half inside the grounds. And not a peep from anywhere. No false security, eh?
Next on the agenda was the guard shack at the other side. Bolan crossed over on a soft run, avoiding the lighted areas near the house, and found the shack attended by a single guard who was in the act of pouring coffee from a thermos into a plastic cup.
He waited until the guy set the thermos down, then he reached inside with both hands and lifted the sentry out, one big hand over the mouth and a forearm clamped into his throat.
One violent twist and the guy stopped struggling and went limp. Continuing the initial motion without breaking stride, Bolan carried him on to an automobile in the parking area and tucked the body inside.
A door opened several carlengths away, another white suite rose into hazy view, and a soft voice called out, "Henri?"
Bolan stood there behind the open car door and waited for the guy to come forward.
The prey came down hesitantly, halted at the front b.u.mper, and again said, "Henri?"
He was a large one. Apparently he"d been goofing off in one of the cars, and now he was worried and wondering if he"d been caught.
Bolan did not have time to wait the guy out. He brought the Beretta up and closed the distance be-tween them with a silent but shattering Parabellum cruncher.
Bolan fed that body in on top of the other one, closed the door, and went on to the house.
Except for the front gate, that should have taken care of the outside men.
Bolan did not give a d.a.m.n about the front gate.
He went in through the French doors off the courtyard and turned into the east wing, pa.s.sing through a darkened hallway and into the fully-lighted dining room.
A television eye glared at him from a wall station. He phutted a bullet through it and continued on past the butler"s pantry and into another short hallway without changing pace. Over a door in the far wall was another eye. He moved swiftly beneath it and covered the lens with his hand, rapped on the door, and said, "Heyl"
A bored voice, mechanically reproduced through a speaker beside the television camera, responded with, "Yeah, what."
"You got some eyes out in there?"
"Well... yeah. I was just fixin" to call about it. What the h.e.l.l is it?"
No false security, eh?
"Open the d.a.m.n door and I"ll fix it," Bolan growled. "What the h.e.l.l you been doing, sleeping?"
"h.e.l.l no, I told you I was just A buzzer sounded and the door opened to Bolan"s pressure.
He stepped inside and a fat man with a face like red wine cried, "Whuuup" and made a lunge toward his shoulder holster.
The Beretta won the race by a lifetime. Blood and pulpy flesh and splintered bone splattered across the television monitors. Bolan stepped back to the hallway and clicked the door shut.
The next stop was the kitchen.
Only a night light was burning and no one was present there. He found the power panel and a thoughtfully-placed flashlight in a little alcove near the door and pulled the main disconnect, removed the cartridge fuses, and dropped them into a garbage can.
There were no lights-nor anything else electrical-operating in the big joint now.
Bolan was standing in total, choking darkness.
He stepped to the window and checked the progress of the sun, then he snapped on tkje tkje flashlight and went quickly back through the dining room. flashlight and went quickly back through the dining room.
People were astir when he reached the entry hall at the front of the house. The sentry dog was growling uneasily and his handler was trying to calm the big animal. Several shadowy figures had stepped in through the doorway from the west wing, swearing and groping their way through the darkness.
Bolan was the man with the flashlight, and obviously the man with the answers.
A snarlingly unhappy face appeared in the spot and the guy asked, "What the h.e.l.l happened?"
Behind that beam. Bolan knew that he was practically invisible. He replied, "Power failure. Just relax."
"Relax h.e.l.l," another voice protested. "You can"t see your hand in front of your face in here. How long"s it gonna be out?"
The rest of your life, Bolan wanted to say. Instead, he said, "Sun"s rising pretty soon. If you"re scared of th" dark, go outside. It"ll be light out there in a minute."
"f.u.c.k that," somebody commented.
"Sounds good to me," someone else argued. "Where the h.e.l.l"s the door? Shine that light over on the door, huh?"
That ancient animal dwelling within man still found himself nervous and uncertain about the dark.
Bolan obligingly spotted the door with the flashlight.
He counted five men moving through the open doorway.
Then he told the man with the dog, "Take that b.a.s.t.a.r.d outside and shut "im up..."
The guy did so, without a murmur, leaving the door open.
Bolan crossed over and into the west wing. It was set up with a hallway running the full length along the center, doors opening onto offices and rooms to either side.
One of those doors now stood open and people were loitering about in uneasy att.i.tudes along the darkened hallway, and all eyes turned toward the beam of light from Bolan"s flash.
Bodyguards, Bolan read it.
He announced in a loud voice, Tower failure. Don"t worry, it"ll be okay in a minute or two."
One of the men growled, "It"s already been a minute or two."
Another door opened then, farther down, admitting a feeble seepage of yellow light into the hall. According to Grimaldi"s diagram, that should be the conference room.
A large man moved through the open doorway, and a man close to Bolan hastened to explain to the new arrival, "Power failure, boss. It"s being taken care of."
Another close voice demanded, "Hey you, guy, give the boss the flashlight."
The big man said, "Never mind, we got candles. Relax, it"s not the end of the world. This is Haiti, not Baltimore. Things like this happen here. What"s the matter? Can"t you boys read your cards in the dark?"
Someone chuckled.
The big guy said, "It"ll be daylight pretty soon. Relax." He spun gracefully around and went back through the doorway.
And then Bolan realized who he was.
Big Gus Riappi.
He called out, "Gus!"