Haitian Hit

by Don Pendleton

  Annotation

  Ravaged by years of tyranny, Haiti is a hellhole of poverty, disease and violence. The new ruling military junta plans to change that — with some assistance from the Mafia. The syndicate's proposed face-lift would turn the island into a mecca of casinos and luxury hotels backed by dirty money and corruption.

  But the potential Mob stronghold is under attack by one man. Mack Bolan is determined to stop the insidious evil of organized crime clawing at the world's underbelly.

  The enemy is expecting a war. The Executioner is happy to oblige.

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  Don Pendleton's

  Prologue

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  Don Pendleton's

  The Executioner

  Haitian Hit

  The triumph of justice is the only peace.

  Robert G. Ingersoll

  To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties.

  Rousseau

  No battle for liberty or justice ever stays won. Each victory has to be freshened with the blood of warriors as the need arises and the call to action sounds.

  Mack Bolan

  To the memory of U.S. Navy Captain William Nordeen, American military attaché to Greece, assassinated by the terrorist November 17 movement in Athens on June 28, 1988. God keep.

  Special thanks and acknowledgment to Mike Newton for his contribution to this work.

  Prologue

  The killing ground lay seven miles due south of Port-au-Prince. Armand Saint-Cyr had no idea of his location when the dark sedan abruptly halted, but when rough hands drew him from the trunk, he could recognize the smell of death.

  It was an odor he had sampled often in the past eight years.

  His captors left his wrists and ankles bound and dragged him across the dusty road until they reached the border of a sugar cane field. Other bodies lay nearby, perhaps in shallow graves, perhaps exposed to predators, the elements. It scarcely mattered, since the field had plainly not been worked for years.

  Saint-Cyr had visualized this moment countless times, aware as he was of the risks involved in standing up against the military government of Haiti. He'd been a rebel under "Baby Doc's" regime and was incarcerated by Duvalier's successors, freed by general amnesty six months before the army's coup in June of 1988. No stranger to the prod or bastinado, he'd suffered much for Mother Haiti, and he was prepared to show the final measure of his loyalty now.

  Despite his mental preparation, all the theoretical discussions, he had still been startled by the raid. His hiding place had been secure, within the modern limitations of that term, and while he knew the hounds could find him anywhere, Saint-Cyr had gambled on a longer run before they tracked him down.

  There was so much that remained to be done.

  He wondered if his executors were members of the dread Tonton Macoutes. The father-son Duvalier regimes had trained a generation of sadistic police who still saw service under subsequent rulers, even though official designations changed from time to time. If the Macoutes had taken him, there was a fifty-fifty chance that he'd be tortured for amusement's sake, with any information he might spill accepted as a bonus.

  Conversely his abductors might be members of the military, traveling in civilian clothes on this occasion. Since the coup, it was reported that military intelligence officers were working overtime to establish a tough reputation for themselves, hoping to challenge the Tonton Macoutes in their own established field of expertise.

  It mattered little in any event. Both groups wanted Saint-Cyr dead, and neither was averse to violating civil liberties in the pursuit of their victim. The state of martial law imposed by members of the ruling junta simply made it easier for the gestapo to conduct its business in the usual time-honored fashion.

  Kneeling in the weeds, Saint-Cyr heard furtive rustlings in the cane behind him. Creatures of the night had come to watch the show and wait for food. Incredibly it made him smile to think that he was on the menu.

  Dust to dust.

  "Is something funny, pig?"

  His captors still wore hoods, as if afraid he might be able to identify them from beyond the grave.

  "I was imagining your faces," he informed them, still uncertain as to which had spoken. "Studying your souls."

  The gunmen glanced at one another, shifting nervously until their leader broke the mood. He slapped Saint-Cyr across the face, a solid blow that nearly toppled him. The Haitian rebel tasted blood.

  "Your base camp. Show us where the other maggots hide, and we might spare your life."

  Saint-Cyr regarded them with thinly veiled contempt.

  "My honor has no price," he replied scornfully.

  The interrogator took a short step forward, hammering a boot against his captive's ribs. Saint-Cyr bent double, slumping over on his side as his tormentors surrounded him and look turns administering savage kicks to his abdomen and spine, his thighs and buttocks. They deliberately avoided caving in his face, still hoping he might give them the information they sought.

  It might have lasted for a moment or an hour; Saint-Cyr couldn't have said with any certainty. He was aware that he had soiled himself, the odor drawing laughter from his three inquisitors. But pride was secondary now.

  His first priority was silence.

  The apparent leader crouched beside Saint-Cyr and rolled him onto his back. The move put painful pressure on his knees, but Saint-Cyr hardly noticed. One more pain was nothing. Less than nothing.

  "Why do you protect them?" the interrogator asked. "You must know one of them betrayed you. How else do you think we found your nest tonight?"

  "A traitor? In the movement?"

  Gloating. "Certainly. Your friends are only human, after all."

  "In that case…" Saint-Cyr hesitated, drew a ragged breath"…your toady has directions to the camp."

  A fist exploded in his face, the impact slamming the man's head against the spongy earth. He teetered on the verge of sweet oblivion but regained his balance, lurching back to consciousness.

  His interrogator rose and stepped back to join his comrades. "We are wasting time."

  Each drew a pistol, flicked a safety off and sighted his huddled target. Twenty-seven rounds were fired at point-blank range, of which Armand Saint-Cyr felt three before he died. The other twenty-four were therapy for his assassins, an expression of their fury at the worm who dared defy them with his dying breath.

  When they were done, the gunmen used a stick to roll Saint-Cyr's body farther off the narrow road, concealing it among the weeds. They were agreed that their enemy didn't deserve a Christian burial; as he had spent his life with maggots, so his flesh would nourish them in death.

  "I'm hungry," one man announced to his comrades as they removed their stuffy hoods.

  "And me."

  Their leader jingled car keys in his hand and sniffed the air, excited by the proximity of death.

  "I need a woman," he declared.

  "Bien. But first, let's eat."

  "I think you have a tapeworm."

  "Just a snack," the hungry gunner protested. "I disappoint the ladies when I lose my strength."

  "They should be used to it by now."

  "I'll match you anytime. We'll take a poll."

  "You keep the pole. I brought my own."

  The growling engine drowned
their banter as the dark sedan reversed direction and headed back toward Port-au-Prince. Behind them, waiting for the dust to settle, the nocturnal predators emerged from hiding and began to feed.

  1

  The big man finished pacing off his field of fire and settled into cover at the roadside. It was nearly dusk and he was ready, everything in place, his preparations finished.

  All he needed now were the targets.

  Clad in camouflage fatigues, his face and hands streaked different shades of green, the man blended with the forest like a shadow. Practiced eyes might pick him out in time, but there would be no time, no opportunity for his selected prey to save themselves.

  Mack Bolan checked his watch against the sky and verified that dusk would fall within the hour. The convoy out of Port-au-Prince would pass at any moment now — or try to. This time, after weeks of uneventful runs, they'd be in for a surprise.

  The road was new and well maintained by Haitian standards. Though unpaved, it had been bulldozed wide enough to accommodate two cars abreast, and therefore qualified as something of a superhighway in comparison with the narrow, rutted tracks that served the hinterlands.

  His fire zone had been carefully selected for utility, incorporating the advantages of surprise. A hundred yards downrange, the convoy would be forced to brake around a curve, and he'd placed his Claymore there, on either side, to close the door behind them when the fireworks started. Detonated by remote control, the antipersonnel mines were designed to slaughter infantry, but they were equally effective with the average Cadillac.

  Three cars. The first and last would each carry half a dozen gunners who were employed to guard the occupants of the sleek Mercedes limo sandwiched between the Caddys. The terms of martial law had a limited effect outside of urban areas, and bandits had been known to prowl the roads, relieving tourists or unwary locals of their valuables.

  Not that there was very much to steal of late. Political unrest had laid the groundwork for a military coup, but the suppression of dissent by ruthless means didn't alleviate the nation's problems. Poverty, starvation and illiteracy were a daily fact of life in Haiti, where the population had been decimated by the rampant spread of AIDS. Disease and media reports of urban violence had conspired to kill the Haitian tourist industry, applying further pressure on the moribund economy. When even bandits starve, the times are hard indeed.

  The ruling military junta meant to change all that — with some assistance from the Mafia.

  As early as the 1960s, members of the Syndicate had toyed with gambling in Haiti, trying to recoup their losses from the Castro revolution in Havana. The cruel regimes of "Papa Doc" and "Baby Doc" Duvalier were too despotic and corrupt for leaders of the underworld to stomach — something of a testimony in itself — and an alternate location had been found in the Bahamas. Now, with changing times and fortunes, scandals brewing in the neighborhood of Nassau, strategists and money movers for the Mob had started to review their options.

  The military junta had ostensibly seized power to eradicate corruption, crush the threat of Communist insurgency and shore up the economy. It took no time at all to realize that ultimate achievement of the first and third objectives might be mutually exclusive. Likewise, revolutionary slogans found a more receptive audience when bellies growled with hunger. Rejuvenation of the country's economic life assumed a top priority.

  The problem, simply stated, was that no one in the world community had time for Haiti anymore. Investors sent their dollars, pounds and marks where they would bring a fair return, instead of disappearing into dead-end projects, fattening the pockets of a few while insurrection simmered in the countryside and threatened chaos. Who would take a chance on Haiti in her time of tribulation?

  Enter Cosa Nostra.

  Syndicate ambassadors proposed a facelift for the failing island nation. A casino, large enough to shame Atlantic City's finest, would be followed in a year or two by others, with resort hotels and lavish restaurants. A new community — called Liberté, or Freedom — would be built along the coast, between the capital of Port-au-Prince and Leogane, its nearest neighbor. Starting from scratch allowed the PR boys to put some space between their product and the threat of random violence, the lurking threat of AIDS. With new employment, poverty would be reduced — albeit gradually at first — and gambling revenues could be applied to clinics, schools, the ultimate eradication of disease.

  There seemed to be no downside, and the junta, desperate for answers, bought the package in a flash. The officers in charge weren't historians; they had no inkling of the problems legal, «honest» gambling had nurtured in Nevada, Atlantic City, Havana, the Bahamas. Searching high and low for easy answers, they were well prepared to grasp at straws. And if a profit could be made while they were salvaging the nation, who was more entitled than the leaders of the winning side?

  Each Friday afternoon the payroll was conveyed by convoy from Port-au-Prince to the construction site at Liberté, paying off the Haitian laborers and their American superiors in cash. Three-quarters of a million dollars, skimmed from various «legitimate» casinos in the States, extracted from the trade in drugs, pornography and women. The money was peanuts to the Mafia, a drop in the spitoon, but it was enough to launch the Executioner's campaign in Haiti.

  Nothing caught the Syndicate's attention like a swift kick in the bankroll.

  Shifting slightly, Bolan scanned his weapons. Two LAW rockets were positioned side-by-side for easy access, primed to fire, their tubes extended, sights erect. He merely had to aim and fire; at his selected range, the armor-piercing 94 mm projectiles would do everything else on their own.

  His backup weapon was the CAR-15, a shorter, lighter version of the standard M-16 assault rifle. On Bolan's right hip, an Israeli Desert Eagle automatic, chambered for the Magnum.44, rode military webbing. Tucked beneath his arm in a speed rig, the sleek Beretta 93-R provided balance for the cannon on his belt, with its capacity for semiautomatic fire or 3-round bursts. His outfit was completed by a Ka-bar fighting knife and canvas pouches bearing extra magazines, with half a dozen fragmentation grenades thrown in for peace of mind.

  He shouldered one of the light antitank weapons as the lead car rolled into view, waiting, silently counting down the doomsday numbers. Behind the scout, he spotted the Mercedes limo and a second Caddy, bringing up the rear.

  Another moment.

  Now.

  * * *

  The Haiti gig had been a natural for Selvino «Sonny» Esposito. Working on a major foreign project under Anthony Bartoli was a vast improvement over cracking skulls and breaking legs around Fort Lauderdale for chump change. Granted, Esposito made a living on the streets, with ample leisure time to spend on women, but he'd begun to get the feeling that his life was going nowhere fast. At twenty-seven. Sonny felt middle aged, depressed at his surroundings, ready for a change.

  When Haiti came along and the enforcer's spot was offered on the basis of his service to the Family, it took him all of half a second to decide. Of course, he knew about the problems going in; you couldn't drink the water, eat the food or screw the women, but Bartoli had allowed for that. Supplies of every kind were shipped from the United States to keep the wise guys and construction foremen happy, working at their maximum potential. If the laborers came down with something or decided they were tired of working, it was no big deal; there were a couple thousand jobless men lined up for every spot available.

  For Sonny Esposito, Haiti was the closest he had ever come to rank. Bartoli called the shots, of course, with captains under him, lieutenants under them, but Sonny had been elevated to command a crew and that was progress. Twice now, they had let him take the payroll from Port-au-Prince to Liberté, implying a degree of trust that marked him for bigger things to come.

  Bartoli didn't let a man watch the cash unless he had his act together, and Sonny meant to make the most of every opportunity that came his way.

  Transporting payroll wasn't just a milk run, either. There were bandit
s in the jungle, revolutionaries itching for a chance to take their shot and make a decent score. Six months ago a peasant gang had tried to flag down the convoy, and one of them had fired some kind of musket at the lead car. That was all she wrote for seven wasted peons, and the cash went through on time. There hadn't been an ambush since, but you could never tell.

  If things ran smoothly on the payroll job, there was a decent chance that Sonny might be tapped to stick around once the casino opened. Not that Haiti turned him on — far from it. But experience was vital to a young man moving up. Bartoli hadn't started at the top, but he was up there now, and Sonny had a feeling Haiti might be lucky.

  Like Las Vegas was for Benny Siegel in the forties, or Havana for the Lansky brothers ten years later. Any way you scoped things out, it had to beat Fort Lauderdale, with Cubans and those whacked-out Indians from Colombia and God knows what all crowding in to steal the Family's action.

  Haiti was a new frontier, and sometimes Sonny felt like Daniel Boone, which meant he had to stay alert for hostile natives.

  Riding in the limousine, beside the bagman, Sonny watched as the lead car slowed for a curve. The roads were shit, but pavement had to wait until they finished running all the big equipment back and forth to Liberté. And if the convoy moved a little slower than he would have liked, so what? The gunners front and back were packing riot guns and Uzis, ready for the worst that any ragtag gang of peasants could devise.

  They made the curve, and Sonny flicked a glance over his shoulder, checking out the tail car. Right on time, the second Caddy held its steady pace, the gunners looking sharp. The weekly run was boring, but he liked it that way. Action on a job like this meant trouble, and no matter how hard you kicked the opposition's ass, it still looked better if you never had to fight at all.

  Sonny thought the bagman looked a little nervous, but accountants had a way of wimping out when guns were on display. Trees and guns together were the kiss of death for guys who made their living pushing pencils in a high-rise office building, thinking they were out in nature when they shot nine holes and caught a sauna at the country club.