"Well . . . it's just a million to one shot, Hal. I won't ask why you want the meet, and I don't want you to tell me why."
"Don't worry, I hadn't intended to."
"I guess we could come face to face before it's all over down here. I can't promise anything, Hal. What's the drop?"
Brognola handed over a scrap of paper with a telephone number written on it. "Memorize that and give it back," he said.
The Mafioso glanced at the number and passed it back. "Okay, I'll see what I can do."
Brognola said, "This is really hot stuff, and I can't-" He stepped against the other man suddenly and shoved him into a darkened doorway as an automobile wheeled suddenly into the alley, lights out and cruising slowly. They stood there, hardly breathing, as the car eased past them, an alert and grimfaced man behind the wheel.
Brognola gasped, "God's sake! Wasn't that Bolan?"
The other man shook his head, frowning. "Can't say for sure, Hal. I've never seen him in his new face."
The automobile was powering in a sudden acceleration into the next street, heading west, away from the beachfront. Brognola said, "Dammit, that was him! Come on!"
The two men ran to the corner, paused, then hastened up the street after the disappearing vehicle.
His heart was thudding against his ribs in the certain knowledge that he was probably too late, although a quick reconnoiter of the hotel area had produced no sign of the prey. Possibly, he was thinking, he had misread the signs entirely . . . maybe they weren't even headed for the hotels . . . maybe they were hotting it for the boat, and Bolan had not the faintest idea where that boat lay or even the approach to it.
He would try one more quick pattern through the back streets . . . maybe they had ditched the car and were footing it. He eased through an alleyway just above the Hacienda determined to give it one last desperate shake.
A barricade lay partly across the street, two intersections up from the beach. Apparently a demolition job had just been completed there. One lane of traffic had been closed down and a wooden wall, still partially standing, extended halfway to the centerline to fence off a rubble-filled vacant lot. He was about to go around when another vehicle swerved in from the street above, running with one headlamp and rumbling along on a flattened tire.
Bolan's heart leaped, and his car along with it. He powered on into the partially-blocked street and swung his vehicle broadside across the open lane, and he was out and running up the street with Luger at the ready when the other car halted, doors flew open, and bodies began ejecting themselves.
One man stood behind the cover of an open door and leaned across it, pistol in hand, firing deliberately at the advancing figure in the black suit. Bolan fired once, on the run, the big Luger thundering across the distance. A nine-millimeter missile punctured the glass of the car door and the Taliferi went down without a sound.
Three other men were racing for the demolition site. Bolan let them go, and they scurried through a break in the fencing and disappeared.
Bolan's chief interest lay inside that shattered vehicle. And he found her there, rolled into a little ball and stuffed to the floor of the back seat. She had bled profusely from a nicked vein at the side of the once-lovely neck . . . and they had allowed her life to bleed away with no apparent effort to stop it. More . . . they had done more. The fatigue jacket had been jerked away and down over the arms, imprisoning them at her side. The bra had been torn away, and they had taken a torch - probably a butane lighter, Bolan decided - to what Bolan remembered as rose-petal breasts. One nipple was charred and virtually incinerated; the entire chest area was a horribly seared and blotched abomination of once-beautiful womanhood.
In the name of god, Bolan wanted to know, what had they wanted her to tell them? What could any man need so desperately, so fearfully, that he could do a thing such as this to another human being?
Bolan stretched her out on the back seat and carefully arranged the jacket over the mutilated chest. His shoulders quivered and his head fell to his chest, and he was remembering the last words the little soldier had whispered to him. "Vaya con dios, soldada," he whispered back, and then The Executioner walked numbly away from there and back to his own vehicle. Mechanically he removed the keys from the ignition and went to the trunk, got out the golf bag, and calmly withdrew his magnifico weapon. Ammo belts went around his neck, extra clips of 5.56 tumblers into his hip pouch, and he thumbed a high explosive round into the M-79, a 30-round clip into the M-16, and then he walked back up the street.
An arm appeared around the opening in the fence and one of the Taliferi was challenging him with the impotent yappings of a hand gun at more than a 100-foot range. Without breaking stride and without lifting the weapon, Bolan squeezed into the pistol grip and the M-79 replied.
The end of the fence exploded in flame and shredded wood and an anonymous scream from somewhere just beyond. Bolan went on, stepped around the shattered fence, and into the demolition site. A high building barricaded the west side of the lot; the high wooden fence completed the seal. He took in the scene with a single glance and knew that he had them. The only way out was past Bolan, and no one seemed inclined, at that moment, to try that perilous route. A man lay at Bolan's feet, his clothing still smoking from an almost direct hit of the HE round. He could hear the other two running along the fence.
Bolan calmly selected a flare round, thumbed it into the breech, and put a brilliant parachute in flight above the site. The running men halted in confusion, looking wildly about them, then made a break for a wooden shack near the center of the lot. Bolan watched them fight with the door, then scramble inside. He continued the deliberate advance, marching stiffly erect. A window shattered and a pistol roared. The bullet zinged harmlessly into the ground several yards ahead. Bolan's path was taking him in a slow circle of the shack as he inspected the physical dimensions. This was obviously a tool shed or something similar, no more than ten feet square, with a low flat room. Beside it and resting on a tubular steel structure about six feet above the ground was a large tank with a hose and a nozzle, obviously a gasoline storage.
Bolan halted then, loaded an HE round into the M-79, sighted onto the tank, and let fly. He was already thumbing in another flare round when the gasoline erupted in a towering explosion. Flaming liquid spilled immediately onto the shack - and then Bolan was sighting again, and the white hot flare went to join the party.
The shack was engulfed immediately in roaring flames. Bolan stood and dispassionately watched as two human torches erupted through the doorway and flopped convulsively about the rubble. When the flopping ceased, he turned his back on them and walked stiffly away, back to their vehicle.
Bolan placed his weapon on the roof and leaned into the car for a final farewell to a too-brief friendship, and when he came back out of the car he was looking into the bore of a very large and ugly .45 automatic.
He looked beyond, then smiled faintly and said, "Hi, Leo. We meet again."
Leo Turrin, lately elevated to an underboss role in the former Sergio Frenchi family, showed a strained smile and quietly said, "Watch the gun now, Bolan, and note that I'm putting it away."
"I guess it doesn't matter," Bolan replied in a strangely flat voice. "I'm sick of this war, Leo. I am sick to death of it."
Another man, also an Italian type, stepped into view then and commented, "If what I just saw is an example of your sickness, Bolan, I hope you never get well."
"Who is this guy?" Bolan asked, not really caring.
"We're telephone friends, remember?" the man replied. "I'm Harold Brognola."
Bolan said, "Great. What do we do now, shake hands?"
Brognola stuck his hand out. "Yes, I'd like to shake your hand, Bolan," he said soberly.
Bolan unsmilingly accepted the hand. "Thanks for the assist at L.A.," he murmured. The sound of distant sirens were beginning to break the night stillness. Bolan said, "I guess I'd better be getting along." He glanced at Turrin and added, "How's it been, Leo?"
"Hairy, as usual," Turrin replied, smiling.
Brognola agitatedly declared, "Dammit, Bolan, I have to talk to you!"
Bolan simply smiled, shouldered his weapon and began trudging wearily to his vehicle. The other men hastened after him. Brognola said, "Bolan, dammit, will you listen to me?"
"Will those cops listen to you?" Bolan asked, inclining his head toward the advancing sirens.
"Talk to him," Turrin advised. "What have you got to lose? Just talk to him."
"What about?" Bolan asked. "That same portfolio?"
Brognola snapped, "Yes, that same portfolio. Look, you said you were tired of the war. I'm offering you a possible way out of it."
Bolan threw him an interested glance. "Yeah?"
"Hey, those Miami cops are getting with it," Turrin warned. "Better make this quick."
Brognola said, "Look, it's all in here." He was thrusting a rather fat, oblong wallet upon Bolan. "Look it over in your leisure and call me at the contact number I have in there. That's all I ask, Bolan - just look it over."
Bolan took the wallet and thrust it inside the neck band of his nightsuit. "Okay," he said. "I'll look it over." He carefully placed the weapon inside his car and then climbed in behind the wheel. "Good seeing you again, Leo. Give my best to the wife, eh."
Turrin smiled and said, "Will do. She worries about you a lot, if that's any comfort."
Bolan nodded and cranked the engine. "Uh, get lost for the rest of the night, eh."
Turrin replied, "That means that you're rolling."
"That's what it means. So stay clear."
"Thanks. I'll do that."
Brognola irritably said, "Look, don't go getting yourself killed now. Break it off, dammit, and go someplace safe and read that portfolio."
"I can't break it off now," Bolan replied in a flat voice. "Too much is already invested in this battle."
"Well at least-"
Bolan had stepped on the gas and left Brognola standing open-mouthed in the street. As the car disappeared around the corner, he turned to Turrin and said, "Now if that guy isn't the coldest number I've ever run into. He wasn't like that on the phone last month. Hell I-"
"He just buried a compatriot, Hal," Turrin explained. "You didn't see what was in that car up there, did you."
"No, I was just-"
"Come on." Turrin was dragging his companion back up the street, toward the bullet-riddled automobile. "I'll show you what makes The Executioner tick."
Chapter Sixteen
BOLAN'S BATTLEGROUND
The Beach Hacienda was of old Spanish architecture, complete with bell tower and ceramic-tile roofs, covered walkways through colorful gardens, fountains and lily-pools, and poolside cabanas posing as adobe huts. Three major buildings comprised the hotel proper, set at clever angles to exclude the patios and gardens from the outside world, except for the exposure to the ocean. There, a smallish replica of a 17th century Spanish galleon served as a floating pier for those who preferred their beaching with all the comforts of iced drinks and shaded lounges. A broad expanse of well-combed sand was also provided, for those who took their surfing seriously; surfboard racks, outriggers, and other water toys were in ample evidence though in general disuse.
The hotel buildings were single-story, except at the center where the bell tower reigned above a luxurious penthouse suite. The mock-adobe structures presented a windowless, walled appearance to the street; inside, all rooms opened via sliding glass onto the garden patios, in a setting of obvious and no-expense-spared luxury.
The Beach Hacienda, in local Mafia circles, was known as "the joint," and the penthouse had served, until very recently, as the meeting place for the Council of Capos.
Now, the penthouse was virtually abandoned. A sleepy-eyed man in a waiter's jacket sat tiredly upon a barstool in the corner of the main room. Two other men were standing on a small balcony which hung out over the enclosed gardens; these were Ciro Lavangetta and his underboss from Tucson, Salvatore Di Carlo. Lavangetta was at the extreme corner of the balcony and trying to peer around to the street-side of the building, an impossible project. He told Di Carlo, "I'm telling you, Sal, I heard gunshots and explosions. Something's going on out there somewhere."
As though to confirm Lavangetta's conclusions, the wail of sirens rose up faintly in the distance. He said, "I knew it!"
"It's a long ways off, Ciro," Di Carlo assured him.
"Just the same, it makes me nervous. I wish the Talifero brothers would report in. I'd sure like to know . . ."
After a brief silence, Di Carlo said, "You should have gone out to the boat, like the others. That's the safest place, Ciro. You should've gone."
"All of 'em didn't go yet, Sal. And that's why I didn't either. Look down there and tell me who you see gossiping by the pool."
Di Carlo craned over the railing, "Looks like Georgie the Sausage Man and Augie Mary."
"That's exactly right, and I'll tell you also exactly what it is George the Weenie is try'na put in Augie's head!"
Di Carlo soberly nodded his head. "He's really been pitchin', Ciro."
Lavangetta snorted a string of obscene words, then added, "I ain't going to stand for it. You know that. I won't take that, Sally."
"I wouldn't take it either," Di Carlo agreed.
After a brief silence, Lavangetta fervently declared, "I wish this Bolan would come in here, Sal."
"He's going to be a dead son of a bitch if he does," Di Carlo growled.
"Yeah, but so might somebody else, Sally, if you know what I mean."
Di Carlo thought about that for a moment, then: "I guess I get you, Ciro."
"Yeah, I guess you do. I wish he'd come in here before everybody makes the boat, that's what. And I wish he'd blast a certain weenie king right in his liver sausage, that's also what."
The sirens were becoming louder. Di Carlo sniffed the air and said, "I smell smoke, Ciro. Maybe this Bolan is already here and is right now burning the joint down."
Lavangetta laughed quietly. "Maybe somebody is going to think so anyways, Sally."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"This Bolan" was not at that moment burning the joint down, but he was quietly casing it from a soft drop some 200 yards down the beach. The binoculars could not give him the full details, but his mind supplied what the eyes omitted and the general lay of the place came out into a quite logical extension. He studied the bell tower and the men standing on the balcony just below, then shifted to the adjoining roofs and what he could see of the beach area and the galleon. Hardmen were everywhere. They patrolled the beach, perched upon the otherwise deserted galleon, and hovered in the shadows of the red slate roofs. It was a hardsite, no mistake about that.
Bolan's attention returned to the men on the balcony of the penthouse. The one who was waving his arms about seemed vaguely familiar. Bolan racked his memory, sliding through the newspaper and magazine photos he had studied so often, and then he had his "make." It was Ciro Lavangetta, a bit heavier in the jowls than his pictures indicated, but Ciro nonetheless. The man with the worried face standing beside him Bolan could not make, but he would remember him if he ever saw him again.
Bolan wondered what would happen if he were to lob a round of HE into that bell tower. If he could work in about a hundred meters closer, he could do it . . . but then he might lose his angle in the intervening rooftop. As he debated the question, the two men left the balcony and went inside.
Bolan was a bit elated around the core of cold deadness which had settled into him upon finding Margarita's mutilated body. He had located a Capo; undoubtedly others were on hand also. It was a hardsite, and that usually meant VIPs present. He fell to studying the terrain between his soft drop and the hotel. If he could find a rise down there somewhere, maybe he could get that angle he needed, and maybe that angle would give him the passport he needed for entry into the hardsite. One way or another, he meant to get in there.
Salvatore Di Carlo was greatly disturbed and excitedly whispering "Dammit, Ciro, I'm telling you - cold crying Christ, it ain't worth it. You can't just take it on yourself to-"
"Stop telling me what I can't do!" Lavangetta replied furiously. "The old weenie's got one foot in the grave already anyway, he's got hardening of the dollar signs in his arteries, and I'm not taking no more shit from that weenie!"
"Just th' same, Ciro, you know better than me that-"
"That's right, I know better than you, Sally. Listen, he's done everything to me all day except shiv me. And if you could only see, I probably have shivs sticking out all over me just the same. If I'd been screwed by that old cock knocker every time he thought about it, I'd have a hole like Madame Bazonga."
"Well, it's your funeral I guess, Ciro."
"What do you mean, my funeral? It's our funeral, Sally, if we let Georgie make weenies out of our territory. Isn't it? Our territory, Sally."
"Yeah I figured you'd be getting around to that, Ciro."
"You better be damn glad I am. It's just you and me now, Sally, don't forget that. You and me. And listen, I don't want no fucking around on this job. I'm hoping, Sal, that you're understanding what I am telling you."
"Sure, I understand you, Ciro," Di Carlo replied in a defeated voice. "But I guess you better tell me exactly what you've got in mind."
"What I got in mind, Sally, is bleedin' the weenie with a Bolan bite."
"Shit, you say the funniest things at the funniest times, Ciro," Di Carlo complained soberly.
Hannon was positive that he was going to retire after this case. He had used up an entire year of police energy in this one orgiastic day of unbridled mayhem; anything after this would be anti-climactic anyway. He took a final look at the charred corpses in the rubble-heap, said tiredly, "Okay, get them out of here," and moved aside to give the coroner's boys the grisly remains.
A uniformed patrolman followed Hannon back to the street and, in a conversational tone, asked, "What'd he use on those guys, captain - a flame thrower?"
"I would not be at all surprised," Hannon replied in a quiet voice. He paused and stared toward the death car. "There's a story lurking here," he mused half-aloud. "And it could be a very romantic story. But I'm not quite ready to buy it."
"Sir?"
"Never mind. Any make on the girl yet?"
"No sir. Except that she's Cuban, and she's wearing-"
"Hell I know all that!"
"We don't have an identification, captain."
"All right. You stay right here with the car and you don't let anyone touch it, I mean not the chief himself, until the lab boys release it. Then you get it down to the police garage and you seal it up tight. You tell the lab people that I want something to definitely relate those charred corpses to this vehicle. I want physical evidence."
"Yes sir."
Hannon sighed and went to his car, picked up the mike, and contacted Dade Force dispatch. "How many mobile units are tied up in that soiree out at the raceway?" he asked.
"Twelve, sir," came the reply.
"All right, release six of those and send 'em over here. We'll assign definite stations while they're en route. What'll it take, about an hour?"
"Half that if we blue-light them, Captain."
"All right, blue-light them. Next I want a Dade alert call. I want every man on the job, and it'll take a doctor's statement to alibi any absence. You get them in and assembled and I'll have instructions by the time I get in. Have they gotten anything from Tommy Janno yet?"
"No sir, but he's conscious and they're still trying. He's in the room right next to Lt. Wilson, by the way."
"Okay, I'm coming in. Get those calls going."
Hannon racked his mike and set the car in motion. This massacre had gone far enough. It was going to be stopped . . . or by god Hannon was going to call the President.
Bolan had completed his recon and the picture was entirely readable to his mind. No one, it appeared, was going to bed. The patio gardens were filled with seemingly relaxed and congenial men, sitting around tables, talking, laughing, drinking - living it up. Except for the hardmen who were placed strategically about the perimeters, the Hacienda reeked with party atmosphere. Only a couple of details belied this. First and most graphic, no women were present. This was a large item. Secondly, the waiters did not move like waiters. They were clumsy, and frequently dropped things, and seemed to forever be scrambling their orders, producing an almost comic opera effect with much good-natured kidding and heckling from those being served.
All this fitted neatly into Bolan's developing strategy. As long as the Mafiosi had been intermingled with the "straight" public, his angle of attack had to be geared to pinpointed singling-out and man-to-man confrontations. But with them clutched up in an exclusive gathering, Bolan could go for the big strike, using massive-kill techniques - he did not need to walk amongst them.
Bolan did, however, need a "hard drop" - a site with reasonable cover from which to conduct the assault. He had worked his way to the water's edge and just north of the hotel. The illumination from the Hacienda's outside lights was creating a twilight effect all along the ocean-front in that immediate area, except right at the waterline where the sloping beach provided a thin band of dense shadows. The tide was running low, giving Bolan several yards of hardpacked sand in utter darkness. Hardmen were thick in that particular perimeter, stationed close enough to converse with one another. With the covering purr of constantly breaking waves behind him, Bolan was moving slowly and carefully along that shadow-area and toward the galleon. The pier, he had decided, would make an ideal hard drop. The problem was that the enemy had evidently reached that same decision, and was then in possession. He passed within a few feet of a hardman who was trying vainly to light a cigarette in the stiff ocean breeze. Another man stationed several yards farther on had evidently found this amusing and was calling over heckling instructions.
"Hey, go tell Augie we need a smoking tent out here."
"Go to hell."
"Hey, my brother Angelo was in the navy. He says you gotta climb up inside your ass to light up, but then you got another hazard."
A chuckle, and, "Come over here and lend me your ass then."
Bolan slipped on past and made the overhang of the galleon. The mock-up was built to look as though the ship had been run aground, bow end to, and rode perpendicular to the beach. At high tide, very little of the floating pier was resting on dry sand and much of it was actually afloat. Now, with the tide running out, the situation was reversed; only the stern section was actually afloat. Three heavy cables angled down from the stern, holding the galleon firmly in position. Bolan slung his weapon parallel across his shoulders and moved quietly into the water. He was in to his chest and fighting the turbulent pull of the surf when he reached the nearest cable. Then he clenched a commando knife between his teeth and began the hand-over-hand climb to the galleon's deck, some fifteen feet above.
Hannon charged into the bull room and growlingly announced, "Okay, we got it. It's the Beach Hacienda, North Beach - let's roll! Pick up on the Dade Net for your assignments!" He wheeled about and led the squad of riot specialists through the tunnel and into the parking lot. A uniformed officer in a white helmet ran along beside him for a short distance.
"Standard riot roll, captain?" he inquired.
"We'll play it by the seat of our pants," Hannon puffed.
The officer nodded and peeled off toward his own vehicle. Hannon dropped into his car and muttered beneath his breath, "It's a blood roll, sergeant." Then he was screeching away, leading the blue-light procession to the massacre.
Lavangetta intercepted George the Butcher as the latter was making his way along the covered walkway toward his room. He said, "Listen, Georgie, I think it's about time we had an understanding."
Aggravante tried to push past him. "I've understood you for a long time, Ciro," he replied.
"I don't think you have, Georgie, and I think that's been the cause of all our trouble."
"You've never been any trouble to me, Capino," the old man replied nastily.
"That's all over with now," Lavangetta assured him, and quietly slashed George the Butcher's throat from ear to hairy ear.
The Boss of Arizona stepped quickly clear and dropped the knife into a lily pond, then began hoarsely shouting, "Get 'im! Get that guy! Get-"
His voice was quickly drowned out in the roaring of a heavy revolver in the courtyard just beyond, as Salvatore Di Carlo unloaded his gun into the roof. Nervous fingers all about the enclosure quickly joined in and a hail of slugs began chewing up the roof area directly above Aggravante's room.
Lavangetta had run into the courtyard, gun in hand, and joined the firing party. Augie Marinello charged out, flanked by two smooth-faced men in impeccable Palm Beach suits. "What is it?" he cried. "What's going on?"
"That Bolan!" Lavangetta spat. "He just shived Georgie Aggravante!"
Di Carlo ran over to corroborate the story. "He swung up on the roof," he excitedly reported. "I think maybe I hit 'im!"
One of the Talifero twins snapped a vaguely disbelieving glance at his partner and said, "Let's check."
The other brother waved his arm in a signal to the quickly approaching hardmen and led them in a running sweep through the main building and toward the street. The remaining brother touched Lavangetta's elbow and said, "Come on, Ciro, let's look at that roof."
Bolan had quietly dispatched three of the galleon's sentries and was working his way toward the fourth when the pandemonium erupted in the courtyard, some twenty yards distant. The hardmen of the beach area congregated in a loose knot, then began spilling slowly toward the disturbance. Some one yelled, "Bolan's on the roof!"
From the darkness just ahead of Bolan, a galleon hardman softly called over, "You guys back there stay put. Me'n Happy are gonna go see."
The only one remaining "back there" was Bolan. In a softly slurred voice, he replied, "Sure, sure."
Two men ran down the gangway and up the beach toward the hotel. Bolan quickly reconned his position, assuring himself that he was alone on the galleon, and immediately swung his 16/79 into firing position. The M-79 rounds had been carefully mixed in the ammo belt, with HE, buckshot, and tear gas, in that order then repeating.
A tight clutch continued to hold forth on the beach directly below Bolan's position. He decided that he should take them first. He checked the clip on the M-16, positioned the switch for automatic fire, and swept 30 rounds of tumbling projectiles into the group at 700 rounds per minute. They went down like pins in a bowling alley, and then the heavy weapon was swinging over and up and Bolan's hand was moving onto the pistol grip of the M-79.
Chapter Seventeen
HOLIDEATH INN
The bell tower exploded and rained debris into the courtyard, the heavy bell itself crashing down onto the balcony of the penthouse. Augie Marinello froze and cried, "My god, what . . ."
A calm voice from the roof called down, "He's firing from the pier. How the hell did he get-" The speech ended abruptly with another detonation and a sweeping spray of ballbearing-size buckshot, and the Talifero swung himself recklessly over the edge of the roof and into the courtyard, landing jarringly on his feet.
"On the roof, eh?" he yelled at Salvatore Di Carlo.
Another projectile impacted several yards to the side of Marinello and released a cloud of smoke. Someone coughed and exclaimed, "Tear gas!"
The courtyard was in a state of unrestrained panic now as another round of high-explosive sailed in, this time directly on target into a crowd of scrambling men. Instantly-mangled bodies were hurled in all directions and a cry of consternation swept the Spanish gardens. Talifero was swearing loudly and trying to lead a pack of hardmen through the confusion as round after round of grenade, buckshot, and tear gas continued to pelt the bawling mob. Men were leaping into swimming pools and lily ponds, crowding into cabanas, and racing for covered walkways as the panic reached peak level and the assault continued without letup.
The Talifero squad reached the edge of the gardens, almost in the shadow of the galleon, and tried to take cover behind a foot-high wall. With the first volley from their pistols, the chatter of a light machine-gun answered back, interspersed with the whoomps from the galleon, and four Taliferi learned the hard way that a foot of wall was not wall enough. The man in the now-dishevelled Palm Beach suit commanded, "Back, back, this is no good!"
Bolan had been preoccupied with the galleon sentries and had therefore not known of the rush of men to the street when the oddball shooting broke out at the hotel. He had been, in fact, puzzled by that outbreak though thankful for it and more than willing to twist it to his own advantage. He was even more puzzled, then, when at the height of his strike men began moving up over the roof areas from the street-side of the building, and he was strongly curious as to why they were firing at something down in the street rather than into Bolan's position.
There was no time to ponder the question, though - he was being challenged from the wall just below. A rain of bullets punched into the bulkhead just behind him. He moved his triggerfinger onto the M-16 and gave them a quick burst. Three or four of his challengers toppled over backwards and the rest immediately began to fall back.
He had gone through an entire belt of M-79 ammo, and there was but one belt left. He would have to make a tactical decision very shortly; for the moment, there were those characters on the roof inviting his attention. He kept raking the courtyard with sporadic bursts from the M-16 and dragged over his final belt of M-79 heavy stuff, then slipped a round of HE into the red-hot breech of the grenade launcher, sighted carefully toward the roof, and let fly.
Hannon's riot force had roared up into a startled eyeball confrontation for which neither side was really quite prepared. The guys had come tearing out of the hotel with blood in their eyes and obviously looking for something to shoot at, and it had been just their damn tough luck to have found the Dade Force instead of whatever it was they'd been looking for.
Hannon later admitted that perhaps it could all have been resolved peacefully except that in that first tense moment when the two startled forces were eyeing each other over their hardware, something exploded in the bell tower directly overhead and large chunks of adobe rained down upon both forces. A young trooper several feet to the side of Hannon overreacted with a spontaneous buckshot blast from his riot gun at pointblank range into the astounded men from the hotel. Someone fired back, perhaps also reflexively, and one of Hannon's uniformed men fell.
From there it was a spontaneous shootout, with both sides diving for cover and not awaiting directions from anyone. Added to this was the unsettling sounds of open warfare and general pandemonium from beyond the walls, and it is doubtful that any of the men outside the hotel, Captain Hannon included, had any large idea of just what was happening or why.
The Hacienda men did have presence of mind enough to bolt clear of the light spilling from the hotel entrance. By the time the Dade Force had reached protective cover behind their vehicles, the others had melted into the shadows of the windowless building; two uniformed officers and five members of the other force lay wounded in the no-man's-land between.
Hannon got to his bullhorn and bawled, "Throw out your weapons and come forward with hands raised." The instructions were all but drowned out in the booming explosions and rattle of small-arms fire beyond the walls. He threw down the PA and told his sergeant, "Hell, this is impossible. Pass the word to hold fire and await further instructions. Fire only if fired upon."
"What the hell is going on in there, Cap'n?" the sergeant asked.
"How the hell should I know! You wanta go in and ask?"
The sergeant's reply was lost in another booming explosion beyond the walls. He shook his head and slipped away to pass on the captain's instructions.
Moments later men began to appear on the roof, snaking furtively up the sloped tiles and slipping over the peak to the courtyard site. Hannon shouted through his PA: "You men on the roof! Halt or be fired upon!"
Scattered shots came back in reply. Harmon grabbed a plainclothes officer and ordered, "Get those spotlights going, back along the building there. There must be an emergency ladder to the roof. Seal it off. Get some men along that wall down there. Shoot anything that moves across that roof!"
At that precise instant, the area of Harmon's concern was subjected to a shattering explosion. Two bodies and a sizeable section of the roof were ejected and hurled off somewhere into the darkness.
Hannon knew, then, what was "going on" in there. The question now uppermost in his mind was what, precisely, could he do about it. The beam of a powerful searchlight arced across the darkness then and illuminated a large section of the roof. Hannon found himself looking at the handsome face of a blond man in a once-impeccable Palm Beach suit. There was a large bloodstain on his shoulder and the expression on his face sent a shiver down the almost unshiverable spine of a 35-year police veteran. He was there for one brief instant, sliding awkwardly over the peak to the other side, and then he was gone and Captain Hannon was wondering. Bolan? No - Bolan's rugged face could never be reduced to such pretty angles - this guy was something else, but what else?
Hannon leaned into the open doorway of his cruiser, snared his mike, and told the Dade dispatcher, "I want some mobile units behind this place, Ed. I don't care how you get 'em there, but get'em there damn quick!"
"Yessir."
"And Ed . . . this is a blood roll. Let's shoot to kill."
Ciro Lavangetta was in a mental state closely approaching shock. He had somehow managed to get off the roof alive, scrambling down seconds after the bell tower exploded but not quite soon enough to avoid being laced across the forehead by an angry double-ought ball from Bolan's second round. He had seen the Talifero boy take his circus-stunt leap to safety, and had heard the sarcastic comment he'd hurled at Di Carlo. Somehow he had also made it across the insane courtyard while being alternately buffeted by exploding munitions, choked by teargas, and trampled by panicky Mafiosi. He stepped quietly into his room, switched on the lamp, turned on the television, and made himself a drink, then sat tensely on a hard chair and stared unseeingly at the television screen, the drink clenched in his hand and forgotten. The welt across his forehead was red with congealed blood, several fingers of which trailed down to his eyebrows.
None of this bothered Ciro Lavangetta now. He was a dead man already and none realized this truth with such subjective conviction as Ciro himself. What the hell, he'd tried. It was a beautiful idea, nobody could ever take that away from Ciro no matter how it had turned out. It'd been a beautiful idea. But that Bolan. That goddamn Bolan couldn't even be trusted to not cross him up at a time like that. If he'd hit 20 seconds earlier, or even twenty minutes later, everything would have turned out all right for Ciro. But no. The goddamn bastard had to do it right when he shouldn't have.
Arizona Ciro, the master of the perfect timetable, had been crossed up by a lousy trick of time. Nobody was fooled by it now, especially nobody named Talifero. Ciro was as good as dead.
The hell was still going on outside, but that couldn't bother Ciro now. Hell no. Nothing could bother him now. Not even the certain knowledge that he had unwittingly played right into Bolan's timetable. Ciro had messed it up good, he'd got everybody off balance - god how he'd messed it up, and now Bolan was out there and he had 'em all by the balls, and god he was squeezin' like hell, wasn't he. Well it didn't matter now. Ciro was already a dead man.
He was sitting there in that frame of consciousness, staring at the television, an untouched drink in his fist, when Talifero came in. The brother looked like hell, Ciro thought. He'd never seen him look that way, hell no, not ever.
Ciro said, "Hi there Pat or Mike, I never could tell which one."
"Hi there, Ciro," the brother replied.
"Looks like you hurt your shoulder. That's hell out there, huh."
"Yes, it's quite a bit of hell, Ciro. You know what I have to do, huh."
"Yes I guess I do, Pat or Mike."
"It's Mike. You deserve to know that much, also. How do you want it, Ciro?"
"I want it dignified, Mike, like I always lived my life. I want it right between th' eyes, sittin' here watching television, a good drink in my hand. Dignified, Mike."
"That's the way it is then, Ciro. Remember me to the boys on the other side, huh?"
"I'll sure do that, Mike."
Then the bullet punched in between his eyes, his head snapped back and rolled to his chest, the drink fell to the floor, and the King of Arizona sagged into the chair and a "dignified" death.
Though deposed by death, Ciro Lavangetta had died a true Capo.
Bolan got off his final M-79 round and slammed a fresh clip into the M-16. Perhaps, he was thinking, he had not accomplished all of his objectives, but as far as Bolan was concerned the offensive was over. The problem facing him now was a tactical withdrawal, and the chances for success in that direction were seeming more remote by the moment. He had carried the strike overlong. Now the enemy was overcoming that initial confusion and panic, they were regrouping, and it appeared that the counterattack was underway. They were flanking him from both sides and a murderous fire was spraying in on him from various locations in the center. Then he caught a glimpse of movement down at the wall again, followed closely by the staccato of a Thompson, and the big .45 slugs began chewing up the woodwork all about him. Another Thompson opened up from the right flank. Bolan scooted back and threw a fast burst toward the wall, rolled quickly to his left, tossed another burst, and rolled again.
Two men tried to charge the gangway. Bolan heard rather than saw them, and rolled quickly back to his earlier position, chopped them down, then again spun across to his left. As he was pondering a likely escape route and gazing longingly down the beach, another threat bore in on his consciousness. A blue flashing light was coming along down there, running along the low tide mark, then another and another. He could not see to his other flank, but Bolan knew without looking that blue lights were to that side of him also. Meanwhile, a very hot war was commanding his attention right where he lay. Much more lead in this old scow, he was thinking, and she'd never float again.
Just as he was seriously considering a standing plunge down the gangway, another sound registered in his consciousness - a most dramatic sound for Bolan. Above the endless and constantly growing rattle of gunfire, above the methodical chopping of the Thompsons, above the thudding and screaming of projectiles all about him - a faint, almost ghostly voice drifted in on the wind from the sea. Obviously electronically amplified and further distorted by the wind and surf and the uproar of warfare, it was still warmly familiar, a voice of friendship, and it was insistently calling El Matador.
Bolan's sagging spirits experienced a rapid recharge. He abandoned the heavy weapon and snaked along the deck toward the stern, intent on getting over the side and into the water. The police cars were less than a hundred yards away now, and Bolan did not find it inconsistent with this observation that the fire from the beach also halted abruptly.
Deciding that it was now or never, Bolan raised to a crouch and raced along the deck to the fantail. And then, in a startling moment of awareness, Bolan understood the full significance of that ceasefire from the beach, at the same moment realizing that Mack Bolan was not the only man who might decide to climb a mooring cable. Crouched on the galleon was a handsome man with blond hair in a dripping Palm Beach suit and in his hand was a long-barreled pistol. His attention had apparently been momentarily diverted by the rapidly approaching blue lights, and the two men became aware of the other's immediate presence at the same instant.
Bolan's recovery was a shade faster. One hand chopped at the gun as the other seized a fistful of cloth and he lunged into a backward roll, bringing the man down with him, chest on feet and flipping in a sprawling somersault. Then both were springing to their feet and Talifero was lunging forward with a small stiletto poised for the strike. Bolan tried to move inside the blow but he slipped on the deck-moisture and took the stiletto low in the shoulder. Whirling with the man's arm locked across his chest, Bolan sent him catapulting in a backwards, off-balance plunge along the galleon. He balanced there for a doubtful split-second; then, his eyes boring into Bolan's, he toppled on over and took the long plunge into shallow water.
The stiletto remained in Bolan's shoulder. He withdrew it and quickly crammed in a compress. It was a puncture wound, and not bleeding too severely. He tested the damage by pushing against the galleon with both hands and immediately ruled out a hand-over-hand descent via the cable. He stepped quickly to the overhanging fantail and stared down at the water for a moment, timing the insweeping swells.
The faint voice from the sea continued to summon El Matador. He wondered how far away lay that voice and how far a man could swim with a hole in the shoulder . . . but then, there was no other exit available. He watched the ocean gird itself and lift in a cresting swell, then he vaulted over and plummeted down, and he was once again swimming for an unknown destination . . . this time with only a phantom voice to guide him.
Chapter Eighteen
LIVING LARGE
Bolan's left arm was useless, the pain in the shoulder becoming excruciating with the gentlest movement. He side-stroked and tried to guide himself by the elusive, wind-lofted calling from somewhere out there in the blackness. A stiff wind had begun to blow steadily and the water was turbulent, the troughs deep and the swells immense. The view behind his course was sporadic, though he had travelled no more than fifty yards or so. Lifting with the swells, he caught wet-eyed and spray-brown glimpses of blue lights and swirling action all about the beach in front of the Hacienda, an occasional rattle of gunplay and the booming of riot guns adding to the surrealistic atmosphere of the night. The nicest part was that Bolan was out of it; what was left, the cops were welcome to.
He was tiring rapidly and fighting for breath. His good arm and both legs were beginning to lose feeling, the compress at his shoulder was sticky and irritating, and he wondered about the stories regarding blood and sharks. He had flopped onto his back and was trying to relax and get his wind in a dragging float, allowing the waters to carry him where they would, when he sensed the throb of a powerful marine engine and the shape of something riding a high swell. The voice was no longer calling to him and he had to wonder about that, also. If there were blue lights on the beach, were there not also, as before, floating counterparts in the sea?
The sounds from the beach had either ceased or he had outdistanced them. This was now, for The Executioner, an item of entirely insignificant information. He was floating in the womblike hold of the sea, and he was feeling entirely comfortable, totally relaxed - and goodbye, world, Mack Bolan was getting off now.
He had never thought that he would die so placidly, so comfortably - it should come with searing pain and with hyperelevated senses straining into the release of death - not this way, not so easy, so downright lulling, like an old man in a rocking chair and nodding pff into the final sleep. It should be like la soldada and the . . . Bolan's lagging consciousness was jolted by that memory, and suddenly the comfort was gone, the quiet acceptance of death wrenched away in a painful floundering and a fighting to clear impacted lungs. He was under, and suffocating, and totally disoriented and trying to cry out against the unbreathable atmosphere of heavy water - and suddenly he was churning atop a high swell, liquids were being hastily expelled from irritated membranes, and he was shocked by the sound of his own voice crying out against the entombment of the sea.
Toro's voice also, very close now, was rattling off sharp commands in excited Spanish, and Bolan wondered if he was still reliving a memory. Then a dark bulk crested above him, a volley of excited voices restored his sense of reality, and immediately others were beside him in the water. Some one was forcing a lifering down over his arm and he was being tugged and dragged and then lifted; his heels bumped solid matter, and Toro's anxious face was looming above him, and Bolan knew that he was in good hands once again.
He was lying on the soft cushions in the cabin of a boat, the constant vibrations of a strong propulsion system jarring into him, and someone was sawing off his arm at the shoulder. He opened his eyes and looked into Toro's, and the Spanish Bull smiled and said, "Sorry, amigo, it is difficult to remain the gentle doctor in so turbulent a sea."
He was swabbing out Bolan's shoulder wound with raw alcohol. Another man hovered nearby, holding a tin cup. Toro relieved the man of the cup and held it to Bolan's lips. "Drink this, my friend," he commanded. "It is a transfusion of spirit."
Bolan lifted his head and accepted the transfusion. It was undiluted rum, and it momentarily took his breath. He coughed and pushed himself upright. Toro said, "See what I have told you? Already you are sitting up and looking for another fight."
Bolan smiled weakly and watched the Cuban apply a bandage to the shoulder, then he replied, "I guess I'm all fought out for a while, Toro."
"And Margarita, amigo?"
Bolan's eyes fell. His voice sounded unnatural in his ears as he heard himself saying, "She followed me, Toro. I should have spotted her, but I didn't."
Toro nodded his head to the other man, then told Bolan, "It is as we suspected. She is the cat, senor. You cannot feel that-"
"Was, Toro."
"Senor?"
Bolan lifted pained eyes to his friend. "Margarita is dead, Toro."
The Cuban stared at him for a long, silent moment, then he patted Bolan's good shoulder and wearily got to his feet, said something in Spanish to the men grouped around them, and lurched across the pitching cabin. The men began talking quietly amongst themselves and slowly drifted back topside.
Bolan moved his feet carefully to the deck and tested his equilibrium. "You know how I felt about Margarita," he called over to his friend.
"Yes, amigo, I know," Toro replied.
Bolan found a crushed pack of brown-leafed cigarettes and lit one. The boat was idling along, maintaining just enough headway for maximum stability, and that was not saying much. The craft was an old, much-patched, and several times renewed PT boat of World War Two vintage. Torpedo tubes and deck guns had long since given way to more practical space utilization for its successive postwar roles as private yacht, commercial pleasure craft, and deep-sea fishing sportsboat. The powerful Packard propulsion plant remained virtually intact and smoothly functioning. Now the boat was primarily a troop-carrier, small commando strike-force variety. Bolan was looking it over with casual interest when Toro returned and tiredly sat beside him. He explained to Bolan that the 15 men now aboard constituted a hastily recruited volunteer crew, and that they had come forth for the express purpose of offering tactical support to Bolan's war.
"We have learned the identity of this big boat, the floating home of your enemies," he further explained. "We have thought perhaps that El Matador would highly desire this information and -" He swept his arm in a half-compass of the little vessel. "- and the facilities of our navy."
Bolan smiled, genuinely affected by the offer of military aid. "Thanks, Toro. You risked your navy to pull me out of a tight spot, and that's plenty enough. Besides, I guess the Miami War is over. If you'll just put me ashore somewhere. . . ."
Toro's face clouded. He pointed through the cabin porthole to faintly winking lights in the distance. "She lays there, senor, this boat. Soon she will be forced to seek refuge in a safe harbor."
"The sea, Matador, is angry. A tropical storm approaches from the south. We are no more than . . . perhaps ten minutes removed from your enemy's position. You will reconsider?"
Bolan was staring glumly at the distant lights. In a gruff tone, he replied, "The price has already gone too high, amigo. It has become a lousy war."
"Porque? Margarita?"
Bolan nodded. "That's porque, Toro."
Toro sighed and reached into his breast pocket, withdrawing a folded paper. "Did you know that our Margarita was a poetess?" he asked quietly.
Still gruff, Bolan replied, "It wouldn't surprise me."
"She left this for me, Matador." He shrugged his shoulders and gently added, "As an explanation, perhaps. Can you read Espanol?"
Bolan shook his head and took a heavy drag on the Cuban-style cigarette. "And I don't believe I want to hear it, Toro. I don't believe in grief, and I really can't afford it."
Toro protested, "This is not for grief, Matador. It is for courage, and for remembering a shining light in the darkness. You will allow me to read it for you?"
Bolan sighed, nodded, and closed his eyes.
"It will not sound the same, maybe, in English, but this is how it would translate:
The world dies 'twixt every heartbeat,
and is born again
in each new perception of the mind.
For each of us,
the order of life is to perceive and perish and perceive again,
and who can say which is which-
for every human experience builds a new world
in its own image-
and death itself is but an unusual perception.
Live large that you may experience large
and thus, hopefully, die large."
Toro's voice broke as he added, "That is it, amigo."
Bolan sat silent for a long moment. Then he opened his eyes and crushed out the cigarette. "Margarita wrote that?" he quietly inquired.
"She did. Tell me, Matador, did the little soldier die large?"
"Yes, Toro," Bolan assured him, "she died very, very large."
"She was muy angry with me, senor. Because I would not offer you assistance with your war."
Bolan sighed. "Well, Toro, you've got those snakes to worry about."
"There are snakes, senor, everywhere." He looked out at the distant lights. "Shall we live large, Matador, for a little while - together?"
The Executioner smiled. "What sort of weaponry do we have, amigo?"
"We have the magnifico Honeywell, also personal weapons."
Bolan got to his feet and tested his sea legs. "Does this thing always buck like this?" he asked.
"Si, she is a Yanqui buckaroo."
"You'll have to get the Honeywell mounted."
"This is done. The Honeywell is deck-mounted, Matador."
Bolan said, "Show me."
Toro led the way just above and behind the cabin to what had originally served as a mount for a fifty-calibre machine gun. A small wooden platform had been added, and the Honeywell was bolted to this. Bolan nodded and ducked back into the cabin to escape the stinging spray which was now constantly flaying the main deck. He said, "Okay, I'm manning. I'll need another two men to crew me. How do you have the belts configured?"
"Your shoulder, amigo. Will this not-?"
"It's all right," Bolan assured him. "What's in the belts?"
"High-explosive only. For war at sea-"
"Okay that's fine, but have some flares ready just in case. And make up a belt of double-ought." He grinned. "We might want to do some deck-raking."
Toro grinned back. "And we shall largely live."
Bolan turned away quickly, so that Toro could not see the surge of emotion across his face, muttering beneath his breath, "And a little soldada shall lead them."
The Merry Drew was underway and moving sluggishly in the general direction of Biscayne Bay. The PT crossed her a hundred yards astern and heeled into an upwind run. Soldados with light machine guns were lashed to the deck, some were poking up from the cabin, others took positions around the hatch to the troop compartment. Toro was in the conn, just above the cabin. Bolan, standing grimly spraddle-legged at the Honeywell in a constant wash of spray, shouted up to him, "What's our speed?"
The Cuban's voice, lashed back by the wind, announced, "Revolutions at 40 knots, Matador."
Bolan yelled, "Let's run by once and confirm that identification."
"Si! We identify on the upwind run!"
Bolan tied himself to the gun mount and tried to estimate the correction he would need in view of the shuddering, heaving platform, the relative speeds of the two vessels, and the howling gale-force winds. They were quickly closing on the larger vessel and beginning to run alongside.
The cruise boat was brightly lighted from stem to stern. Bolan could make out people standing in the protected overhang of the boat deck, and an interested crowd was gathering at a brightly lighted window which he presumed to be the main lounge. The Merry Drew was not quite a passenger liner but she was, at worst, a junior edition of one. She seemed a stable mass beside the plunging PT boat, her bow cutting smoothly through the wild waters in an undisturbed transit. The bridge was high and sleek, and the pilot house was dimly illumined behind a row of square windows reaching from one side of the vessel to the other.
Her passengers were inspecting the PT with considerable interest. One of them waved, cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted, "Ship ahoy!" Others around him were laughing and pointing at the PT as it plunged and bucked through the cresting waters, obviously amused by the wild ride being experienced by those upon her.
A man in a white uniform stepped to the wing of the bridge, a megaphone in his hand, and called over as they passed abeam. "Do not attempt a transfer of passengers. Suggest you follow us into the harbor."
Toro lifted his own bullhorn and replied, "What we transfer, capitan, can be accomplished at sea!" The PT lunged forward in a sudden acceleration and quickly slid ahead of the Merry Drew, heading off into a wide arc and coming about for the downwind run.
Toro swivelled about to grin at Bolan and shouted, "We go! Vamos!"
The running lights were extinguished and the little craft leapt into a full power run, barely fifty yards abeam the other vessel. With the wind now at his back, Bolan settled into the harness and angled the latest thing in gatlings to several points off his starboard bow. He made motions with his hands to forewarn his crewmen as to the proposed swing of the gun as they swept past the target . . . and then they were back and speeding along the target area and Bolan was cranking the firing handle . . . and the war at sea was enjoined. He raked the vessel from stem to stern with a walking line of brilliant explosions along the main deck level, while the machine-gunners opened up in a steady drumfire, and pandemonium arrived aboard the Merry Drew. Men were running and shouting even above the shrieking wind and continuous explosions, in a quick exodus from that side of the ship. Then it was behind them and Bolan's crew was feeding in another belt of large living, the PT was swinging wide in a rapid encircling maneuver, and Toro was laughing lustily into the wind.
The next downwind run was to the Merry Drew's port side and there were no hands on deck. Lights were being extinguished throughout and there were no catcalls or hooting cries of good humor to greet Bolan's raiders. Automatic weapons spat at them from the bow, the boat deck, the bridge, and handguns were being unloaded from every point. Standing tall against the withering fire, Bolan cranked the Honeywell into a stunning assault upon the bridge, maintaining his fire into that limited area for the full run. As they swept into the turn, two of the PT's soldados were being hastily helped into the troop compartment for treatment of wounds and Bolan was urging his crew into a rapid reload.
"Bring her in to a hundred meters on the upwind!" he shouted to Toro.
The Cuban nodded and the PT whirled back for a stern-to-bow sweep. Again the Honeywell transmitted a walking line of thunderstorms, this time along the boat deck and into the lounge, then into a concentration of men at the bow. A halfhearted crackling of return fire was noted but not actually experienced aboard the PT, and they were swinging once again into the jouncing return circle for another downwinder.
Bolan's wound was bleeding again and his left arm virtually useless. The Merry Drew was afire in numerous places, most notably upon the bridge deck and wheelhouse, the crackling flames revealing men in frantic motion all about. She was pursuing an erratic course and obviously foundering.
Toro called back, "I think you have knocked out the pilot house, Matador! She wallows in the troughs!" He cut back on the power, maintaining just enough forward motion to assure control, and pointed off into the darkness. "Sound the trumpets, senor, the cavalry approaches!"
Bolan swiveled about to gaze into the direction of new interest. From out of the darkness, perhaps five hundred yards behind, two sets of varicolored lights were moving rapidly toward them.
"Police boats?" Bolan yelled.
Toro shook his head, "Not this far out, amigo. We have played the games with these ones many times also. These are your Coast Guard!" The PT was beginning to pick up speed again, and they were roaring along across the heavily troughing waters.
Bolan looked back to the Merry Drew. She was brightly lighted now by leaping flames which seemed to extend from bow to stern. A group of men were crowding about a boat davit, frantically trying to lower a lifeboat. Bolan found the scene holding less and less interest for him. He raised his gaze to the skies, now flashingly illuminated by both the flames from the Merry Drew and an almost continual display of heavenly fireworks.
"The storm has found us, Matador!" Toro shouted.
Bolan nodded, warmly patted the shoulders of his crewman, unhooked himself from the gun, and joined Toro at the conn. Toro was grinning into the pelting spray and pointing behind them. One of the cutters had apparently dropped off to assist the Merry Drew. The other was still behind the PT. Bolan asked, "So what happens now, amigo?"
Men were moving about excitedly down below, in the cabin, and the Honeywell crew were calmly dismantling the weapon. Toro said, "We play hide and seek with the radar, Matador. Maybe we will lose them in the storm, maybe they will run us out of fuel." He shrugged. "Do not worry, we will elude them, at least until we have gained the appearance of peaceful fishermen."
Bolan was looking at his clothing.
Toro laughed and said, "I do not think we can make you into a fisherman, Matador. We will run you ashore near Hollywood, my friend. You can make it safely from there, no?"
"I hate to leave you this way, Toro. Maybe we will meet again some day, and stomp snakes together."
"This I would greatly like, Matador."
Bolan went below then, and made his farewells to the rest of the soldados. This was a group he would never forget. He put a fresh bandage on his wound, had another quick cup of jolting rum, and returned topside to conn the ship with Toro the Spanish Bull. They had lived largely together. Now they stood quietly, shoulder to shoulder, enmeshed in the atmosphere of that largeness. Some minutes later, when the boat had reached its nearest safe distance from the shore, they still had not spoken. Then Toro clasped his friend's hand and said, "Adios, El Matador."
"Adios, El Soldado Grande," Bolan murmured, and then he stepped over the side and joined the seething waters, carrying with him large memories of a very large people.
Some ten minutes later, he floundered ashore and knelt there panting in the surf and in the presence of another type of large people. Bolan had crashed a skinnydipping party of young people, and a startled girl with blond braids and an entirely unembarassed smile exclaimed, "Oh wow! This Aquarian makes it by land, sea, and air!"
Bolan was immediately surrounded by naked, curious youths. In the background, some distance inland, stadium-type lights melted the darkness and the crashing amplified sounds of mod music drifted across the intervening area to compete with the growing sounds of the storm coming in from the sea.
Bolan struggled to his feet and stood swayingly holding a burning arm tightly against him. Just as he was about to topple over, a nude boy with a luxurious beard stepped forward to support him and softly said, "Sure man, I'll carry your bod."
EPILOGUE
John Hannon knew with a certainty that he would never have all the details of that most fantastic day in Miami police history. What he did know was perhaps enough, he philosophized. A Mafia convention in his town had been busted, the county morgue was overflowing, and the police ward at the receiving hospital had been extended to cover two full floors. The surviving and the walking wounded, while probably in no danger of long-term incarceration, had at least suffered the embarrassment of arrest and exposure, and Hannon was thinking that there would be drifting snow upon Miami's beaches before the mob returned again. He had not caught so much as a glimpse of Bolan, of course, but there were some mysteries that a career cop enjoyed taking into his retirement, and Hannon would certainly have a lot of heady things to contemplate. In a secret corner of his mind, John Hannon was entirely satisfied with the way things had gone, massacre or not.
And, at this time, the Dade force skipper had not even been apprised of the Coast Guard report on one MV Merry Drew. According to this report, the cutter Oswego Bay had gone to the assistance of the cruise ship, finding her in flames and foundering in heavy seas. The ship's officers had insisted that the Merry Drew had been set afire by lightning, which had ignited a large case of fireworks brought aboard to entertain the passengers. The officers could not or would not explain the shrapnel and bullets found imbedded throughout the vessel's superstructure, nor could they explain the combat-type wounds of some 52 of her passengers.
A closely connected report, filed by the cutter Jarvis, indicated that a party of Cuban "fishermen" in a converted PT boat had been chased down and boarded at the height of the tropical storm, then towed to safety in Biscayne Bay. The Jarvis report indicated that her officers had suspected an involvement between the burning Merry Drew and the PT boat, and that charges might be filed against the PT's captain for a violation of international law, "failure to standby and lend assistance to a vessel in distress." It was pointed out, however, that the PT was in graver danger than the Merry Drew, because of the approaching storm and the relative inexperience of the PT's crew.
For Mack Bolan, in the aftermath of the Miami war, there was a feeling of emptiness and frustration. In his thinking, the "sweep through the middle" at Miami had been a dismal flop. It would not be until some time later that he would fully appreciate the extent of the losses suffered by his enemy. For now, he quietly mourned the death of a brave little soldada while taking comfort in the memory of the strong friendships generated during that hectic day. And he was studying an unusual and watersogged portfolio which had been urged upon him by a high officer of his country's government.
Various items within the portfolio had been sealed in plastic – such as a passport with Bolan's image upon it, credit cards and bank letters and an assortment of personal identifications. Not plastic-protected but still legible were excerpts from various reports on Mafia activity overseas, narcotics traffic through North Africa and France, secret bank accounts in Switzerland, and syndicated gambling in England, smuggling and so forth from various nations. Bolan grinned inwardly as the full implications of the portfolio were borne upon him. They were trying to export The Executioner.
A pretty blond girl dressed in buckskin jeans and nothing else was tenderly changing the dressing on his wound and shooting him warm, quick glances of open admiration. The storm was howling into its swansong, and others in the big tent were bemoaning its effect upon the music festival, but Bolan didn't mind at all being in the most incredible ghetto in the world – it seemed somehow to fit perfectly into the rest of the day. The girl completed her first-aid chores and lay her bare chest upon him and kissed his chin. "You're cool," she told him.
Bolan smiled, pushed her uptight, and pulled a peace medal from between the heavy breasts and spun it on the chain. "You wouldn't approve of me," he told her. "I wear war charms, not peace medals.”
She shrugged. "Sure, I know. Sometimes it's a thin line between war and peace. I get violent sometimes, too."
Bolan raised his eyebrows and said, "Yeah?"
"Sure. You should have caught my thing in Washington last month." She lay the breasts upon his chest again and wriggled gently against him. "There's more to life than just war and peace, though." After a moment, she moved hastily away and said, "Oh wow! I just thought of a great idea for a protest song!"
Bolan grinned and closed his eyes. The spirit of protest, he was thinking, was strong in just about everyone these days. He wished he could work that spirit out of his own bones by simply writing songs or marching in the streets. He thought again of Margarita, and of the depth of her thought and actions. Who was right, the Margaritas, the Aquarians, or the executioners? Bolan didn't know. He only knew what was right for him. His fingers played with the portfolio, then he quietly tucked it away. He would think about that. Perhaps The Executioner would joint the international jet set. Maybe he would try a sweep through Europe.
The blond was gigglingly whispering into his ear. He patted her bare back and made room for her, and she crawled in beside him. The dirt floor of the tent was awash and her feet were muddy. A weird kid with a fright wig for hair was just across the tent, strumming a guitar and singing a mournful song about injustice in the world. Bolan relaxed and tried to forget the girl's muddy feet. From the beginning to the very end, it had been a most incredible day . . . as were most days in the life of The Executioner.