“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 upright, 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.
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1: The Dulles Trap
For one frozen heartbeat, Mack Bolan knew that he was a dead man. And then the moment ticked on, recording the confusion and hesitation and perhaps even awe in the eyes of the adversary, and Bolan lived on. Trained instincts of the jungle fighter responded one flashing synapse quicker; Bolan’s reaction to the surprise encounter was a total one as mind and body exploded into the challenge for survival. His left chopped against the gun even as the yawning bore of the .45 thundered its greetings, his knee lifting high in the same reflex as he twisted into the attack. The shot went wild, the gun clattered to the ground, and the foe momentarily rode Bolan’s knee, buckaroo style, then he was groaning groundward and rolling into a spasmodic knot.
Bolan scooped up the .45 in a continuation of the defensive reflex and was swinging into the lineup on the fallen opponent when his corner-vision warned him of activity on the flank. He whirled and rapidfired three rounds in the general direction of that threat. Answering fire immediately triangulated on him as shadowy shapes rapidly dispersed and went to ground some twenty yards distant. A thick voice yelled, “It’s him awright—now waitaminnit, Bolan!”
Bolan was not waiting. He stepped around the writhing Mafioso and jogged quietly to the far corner of the building. A gun boomed from that quarter and a slug punched into the wall beside him. He jerked back and returned warily to his former position where he stared down at the suffering man, grimly assessing his possibilities of escape and qui
etly damning himself for walking into the setup.
The same thick voice from the darkness called out, “Wise up, Bolan. You’re sewed in. Throw out the gun, then put your hands where we can see ’em and come talk to us.”
Bolan knew how that conversation would go—with a six-figure bounty on his head. He also knew that this gun crew was not at Dulles International Airport to convoy a nickel-and-dime air freight hijack operation; Executioner Bolan had been suckered. What had begun as a soft surveillance of Mafia activity had quickly escalated into a full firefight, and Bolan could read nothing into the unhappy development except ambush. He gave them credit; they had played it cool. And now he was wondering just how long they had been onto his interest in the airfreight operation. Knowing this, he would know also how elaborately planned was the ambush. If it had been a hasty, last-minute set, then perhaps he stood a chance of busting out. But if they had come there in force, expecting Bolan to walk in …
He knelt and placed the muzzle of the .45 against the fallen Mafioso’s temple. “How many are out there?” he inquired quietly. “What’s the set?”
The man was in a paralysis of torment, and obviously cared little whether he lived or died. He made a faint attempt to respond, partially uncurled himself, then quickly drew back into the knot and vomited. Bolan grimaced with sympathy and stood up, leaning against the building and breathing as softly as possible, ears straining to tell him what his eyes could not.
Frozen time moved sluggishly as he assessed the situation. He could hear them moving about out there in the darkness, closing, consolidating the jaws of the trap. A big jet was taking off from the far side of the airport, another was landing close by, its landing lights probing the darkness as it swept low past the warehouse area—though not close enough to affect Bolan’s situation. He was in a section of the sprawling complex which normally saw little or no activity at this hour of the night, a pre-customs storage area. Perhaps even the gunplay had gone unnoticed in the other noises of the huge air terminal.
“What about it, Bolan?” asked the voice out there.
He snapped his .32 out of the sideleather and quickly inspected the load, then threw the appropriated .45 into the open. It clattered loudly as it slid along the concrete ramp, adding another grotesque note to the sounds about him.
Some one called out, “Watch it! He’s probably got Joe’s gun too!”
Bolan snapped a round toward the voice and was rewarded with a muffled yelp and a returning volley of fire. Meanwhile he had spun off as he fired, crouching and running along the shadows of the warehouse, his eyes alert to the sudden eruption of muzzle flashes. The fusillade tore into the area he had just vacated, and a gasping groan behind him told of the effect upon the writhing Mafioso who had been identified as “Joe.”
A voice crowed, “He’s hit!”
“Watch it, he’s tricky!”
“Not that tricky.”
“Well, you just waitaminnit, dammit.”
Bolan had located the enemy forces, as revealed by the last volley. They were clumped into four groups of about three men each. Two groups were directly across from him, in the shadows of the opposite building; the other two were flanking him, covering from the warehouses to either side of Bolan’s position. The leader was out front, as evidenced by the voice of authority; a sub-regime was off to the left flank, the cocky voice of impatience and disrespect for the Executioner’s image.
The groups out front would have to cross a wide area of relative light in order to close on Bolan. Either flank, however, could move in with only a momentary exposure between the buildings. The tactical instincts of the professional soldier had instantly become aware of this truth, and Bolan was ready to exploit this single favorable factor.
“Bolan?” came the voice from out front.
The wounded Mafioso groaned again, feeble and pained, a convincing sound of approaching death. Bolan tensed and waited.
“I told you he’s hit!” This from the left flank.
“Dammit you hold it!” From the center. “How you know that ain’t Joe?”
“Aw shit, you know better! Joe didn’t live a second, face to face with that guy! We can’t wait around all night. Cops are gonna be …”
Bolan was satisfied that the time had come. He was rolling slowly toward the edge of the shadow, silently putting as much distance as he dared between himself and the building and straining toward a midpoint position toward the left flank. They would be coming in any second now.
“Awright, check ’im out,” came the grudging instructions from up front, verifying Bolan’s prediction. “Bolan—if you’re listening—you fire once, just once, and you’re gonna get blasted to hamburger.”
The prospective hamburger was lying prone with pistol extended toward the shaft of moonlight falling across his left flank. Cautiously moving feet scraped the concrete out there as a crouching figure leapt across the lighted zone. Bolan held his breath and his fire; another man hurtled over, and then another. The Executioner smiled grimly to himself over that fatal mistake; the entire left flank had moved in, leaving none to protect their own rear. He heard them moving cautiously into the trap as he moved also in a silent circling, and then they were between him and the building and he was sighting down from his prone position, rolling swiftly now and squeezing off a single shot for a calculated effect.
A grunted exclamation of alarm and a confused volley from his original position signalled the success of step two of the bold escape plan; reflexive fire came in from the front and the other flank and the trap closed fully with the Mafiosi firing into each other’s positions in a contagion of over-reaction.
Bolan himself was on his feet and sprinting into the open flank, leaping across the thin shaft of moonlit area and disappearing into the shadows beyond.
An excited voice cried, “Hold it, we’re shooting at each other! Th’ bastard’s behind us!”
Indeed, the Executioner was behind them. He could hear them shouting and damning one another for their fatal error, the groans and frightened cries of the wounded becoming a cacaphony which was now entirely too familiar and increasingly repugnant to Mack Bolan. But this was the world he had built for himself, Bolan kept remembering; it was the only one available to him now.
He reached the small van truck which only moments before had been receiving looted pharmaceutical supplies from a darkened warehouse, the object of Bolan’s earlier surveillance and once hopefully the lever into the Family’s Washington area operations. The lever had become a boomerang, and now Bolan had more of a bite into the Family than he’d anticipated.
The cab door of the truck stood open and the driver was gaping at him across the hood; two men who had been loading the van stood indecisively just inside the warehouse, uncertainly poised between fight and flight. With the ominous appearance of Bolan’s .32, they opted for flight and moved hastily into the interior of the building. Bolan waved the pistol in a tight circle encompassing the driver and said, “You too, beat it.”
Wordlessly, the driver went into the warehouse and closed the door behind him. Bolan swung in behind the steering wheel of the truck, meshed the gears, and spun about in a rapid acceleration just as the regrouped remnants of the gun crew pounded into the vehicle lane and again opened fire. He dropped low in the seat and swerved into their midst, scattering them and momentarily disrupting their attack, then he was grinding past and careening into a power turn at the corner of the warehouse and the van was taking hits like puncturing hail. He felt a wheel tremor, then vibrate into a wallowing rumble. The clumsy vehicle lunged out of control, scraped the side of the building, rebounded, and plowed into a raised loading ramp an instant after Bolan had leapt clear. The truck partially climbed the ramp then overturned and fell to its side in a screech of grinding metal.
Bolan’s own vehicle was parked just beyond the next warehouse, spotted into an escape corridor, and this was his goal. He was running along in the shadows as the Mafia gun crew carefully explored the wreckage of the
van, and as he cleared the corner he heard an excited command: “He’s not here! Spread out! Al, you take the north side; Benny, the south. Rest o’ you guys …”
Bolan was in his MG and cranking away in a full power run when a fast moving figure darted out of a shadow and began futilely pumping away at him with a handgun. At the far end of the building another began unloading on him. He took no hits and was settling down with a sigh of relief as he hurtled into the Y leading from the freight area, then he noted the flare of headlamps as two vehicles swung onto the road to his right. Bolan took the left leg, powering into the turn that would take him toward the main air terminal. His first suspicion had proven correct; he had blundered into a massive mantrap, the end of which he had not yet seen. Another pair of vehicles were swinging in above him; there would be at least one more gauntlet to run.
Bolan was weary, and his belly was just about full of open warfare. For a split second he debated ending it here and now. It would be simple and relatively painless—a quiet matter of stopping the MG at the barricade ahead, the final shootout, then blissful oblivion. Already, however, he was there, the trap cars were seesawed across the narrow roadway, and Bolan’s intellectual centers stood aside for survivalist instincts. He was powering into the barricade at full throttle. Men with startled faces were flinging themselves clear of the certain collision, and Bolan’s hands and feet were quivering with the tension born of a necessity for hairbreadth control and precision timing. He hit brakes and steering and powershift simultaneously, arcing into a half-spin and ricocheting off the barricade into a shallow ditch at the side of the road, jouncing against the chainlink fencing enclosing the runway area—the wheels spinning, finding traction, then propelling him into a surging advance along the sloping walls of the ditch. An alarmed face was giving him the death look from just beyond the MG’s hood as human reactions fell one pace behind charging machinery; he heard the whump and saw the body spinning away; a flailing hand thwacked against his door post; then he was climbing for asphalt and making it and the high-traction drive was finding hard surface once more and the scene was falling behind. Only then did the impotent and receding rattle of gunfire officially mark the roadblock a failure; it seemed that Bolan was home clean—the trap had developed lockjaw. His heart had just begun beating again when he saw the police beacons flashing along the perimeter highway. Of course—it was time for the cops to crash the party, and they were coming in force. Bolan counted six cruisers in a tailgate parade, and he knew that there would be no exit from Dulles International this night.
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