Miami Massacre

by Don Pendleton

  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 illusive, 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 bluelights 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 off 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 awhile, 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.”

  “Por que? Margarita?”

  Bolan nodded. “That’s por que, 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 exp
erience 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 re-load.

  “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 vari-colored 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 c
rowding 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.”