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 s
wabbing 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.
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