Escadrillo gave him a fleeting smile and set off for the house, a Thompson balanced jauntily across each shoulder.
Bolan then undertook a routine reconnaissance of the area, taking particular note of the terrain layout and orienting himself with the compass points. He was on relatively high ground and in a patchwork area of small truck-farms. He circled about to a hillside south of the house, and from there he could see the Caribbean, glisteningly blue in the afternoon haze. Off to the east were patches of wild growth and untended fields which were reverting to the jungle. To the north, at a somewhat higher elevation, was evidence of a strip-mining operation.
As he returned to the house, Bolan pondered the information given him by the woman who had brought him here. Her name was Evita Aguilar. She was twenty-six, single, and an agent of the Puerto Rican counterpart of the U.S. Justice Department, Organized Crime Division.
For three months she had been "cultivating" Vince Triesta and observing the visitors to Glass Bay. During that period, she had been Triesta's woman.
Bolan did not disrespect her for that.
In a war like this one, conventional morality was often the greater of two evils. Rightwas getting the mob before it gobbled up everything in sight. Wrongwas not doing so.
Bolan understood. It was his own philosophy. Hit them with every damn thing you have. And a woman had a unique advantage when it came to infiltrating the enemy. Why disrespect her for using her greatest weapon? Bolan did not.
Evita Aguilar was a gal with a cause. She had told Bolan, during that wild jeep ride, "This syndicate is hoping to take from our Operation Bootstrap. This is an economic development program, and it is badly needed in this land of the poor. I will not let these Mafiositake the bread from my people's mouths. Sometimes we must fight the devil with the devil."
Exactly what Bolan himself was doing.
"Since Bootstrap," she'd added, "the per capita income has nearly doubled. This means a great flow of money, new money, at all levels of our economy. The syndicate would divert this flow to their own pockets."
"Yeah," he'd commented. "A five letter word beginning with M is both Money and Mafia."
"Or D," Evita said. "For Dineroand Devils."
Yeah, she was a gal with a cause. And Bolan was glad she was on his side, if only unofficially.
"We have known of you in San Juan since your very beginning," she'd told him. "Officially, of course, our position is that you are a criminal. We would apprehend you and extradite you to the mainland, if you should ever come to Puerto Rico. Unofficially, of course…"
She'd left the rest of it unsaid, but Bolan knew what she'd meant. Many people in her department felt that they were in a life or death struggle with the Mafia octopus, and they would be happy to have all the help they could get. She had made it clear, though, that Bolan must not expose himself needlessly to the authorities.
"Not all of us have the flexibility to take unofficial positions," she explained.
It was the name of the game for Bolan. He understood.
He also understood Evita Aguilar. She was a social worker turned cop; a concerned citizen who had seen social justice crumbling under the pressures of organized cannibalism — and she'd decided to attack the problem at its source.
"This syndicate is corrupting district officials and looting the economy at all levels," she'd explained. "But it is the poor people who suffer the greatest loss. Is it not always so?"
Yes, Bolan knew, it was always so. The Mafia game was no more than the old European feudal system, dressed up for the twenty century and operating invisibly. In its gentlest form it was a method of "taxation without representation," an unconscionable gouging and exploitation of the economy of a people. It was the invisible hand forever in the pocket of the consumer. The corruptor of a nation's morals and of its government. Looter and rapist of industry and labor alike, temptress and panderer, and cheerleader to mass-man's baser appetites and needs.
In harsher variations it was contract murder, intimidation, white slavery, manipulation of competitive sports, narcotics, unrestrained political power, bigtime theft, black marketry — the whole wide range of criminal conspiracy.
Bolan had framed his reply to Evita in characteristic terseness, however. "A guy I met in Vegas," he'd told her, "wrapped up the whole rotten mess in just four words. Ants at a picnic. That's the mob. They don't build or produce, they just plunder. And wherever the picnic is, that's where you'll find them swarming. Where are the picnics in the Caribbean, Evita?"
She had raised her shoulders in a gentle shrug and replied, "Everywhere. Caribe land is the new swinging scene, and not merely for the idle rich. From the Bahamas throughout the West Indies and the Antilles, this is where the action is. The picnic, yes, the one bigpicnic."
"The Caribbean Carousel," he'd commented musingly.
"I have heard this term and wondered about it," the girl replied. "I am sometimes handicapped with the language, you see. Spanish is our official language but English is required teaching in all public schools. And in English, the carousel is a… a…"
She was making a circular motion with her hands. Bolan grinned and helped her complete the idea. "Yeah, a circular horse race without a start or a finish — a merry-go-round."
"Ah yes. The British call it a round-a-bout. In the Italian, this word is carosello, originally meaning a tournament."
"Well, maybe that comes closer to the real meaning," Bolan had commented. "As the mob uses it, I mean. I believe you could help me get into that tournament, Evita."
"I will do what I can," she had promised him.
And now as Bolan returned to the shanty cabin in Puerto Rico's back country, he found himself wondering if any of it was really worthwhile, after all. Here was a lovely young woman, obviously well educated and strongly principled, offering herself up body and soul as a sacrificial victim to the gods of human justice — and to what damned end?
Long after Evita Aguilar had been fully and finally desecrated, long after she had ceased to exist altogether — wouldn't the ants still be swarming at every human picnic?
Well… that was what life was all about, wasn't it? It was neither the picnics nor the ants that made humanity worthwhile. It was the struggle itself, the fight for balance — and the sacrifices that some humans were willing to make to maintain that balance.
Sure, Bolan understood.
It was the story of his own life.
Evita was waiting for him at the doorway.
She smiled and waved to him and called out, "The food is waiting. Come in and meet your friends."
Bolan understood that, also.
He took her arm and went inside to warm human companionship and a moment of relaxation.
In a little while the hell would begin again and the Caribbean carosellowould resume at full gallop.
For now, it was enough to simply re-discover and remember what it was all about. The horse race without beginning or end could wait awhile.
For the moment, Mack Bolan was home… and remembering.
Chapter Six
The parallels
The Escadrillo kids were obviously very much in love and caught up in the adventure of establishing home and family — as humble as the home and as tentative as the family might be. The girl appeared to be about six months pregnant. She was a pretty little thing with long black hair and glistening eyes — and beginning to move a bit clumsily with her extra burden. Rosalita, the little rose, was the perfect name for her, Bolan decided. She spoke very little English and at first seemed a bit awed with Bolan's presence in her home. He bridged their communications gap with an occasional complimentary phrase from his limited knowledge of her language, and they got a thing going with the eyes which transcended language barriers.
It was a simple meal, but the food was plentiful and tasty — and there were no social tensions in the Escadrillo household by meal's end.
The cabin was a single large room with a sleeping loft. It was spotlessly clean. The furni
shings and decorations were minimal and inexpensive, but the end effect was surprisingly attractive and comfortable.
They had inside plumbing and electricity, a few modern gadgets in the kitchen area, a television set that didn't work and an impressive looking multi-band radio that did.
The bathroom was a mere closet with a toilet fixture. A small porcelain-enameled bathtub was plumbed to a corner of the open living area and shielded from public view only by a thin curtain on an overhead rod.
The fancy radio had been a gift from Evita. Juan was a short-wave addict. He kept a log of foreign broadcast stations and their schedules. He was also an informal student of languages and had spent many hours at that radio. Evita had provided him with a collection of language textbooks, which showed evidence of heavy use.
The lads had purchased the five-acre truckfarm via a government-subsidized loan program. Part of Operation Bootstrap, Bolan assumed. They also owned an ancient one-ton flatbed truck which Juan used to haul his produce to the marketplaces of San Juan. He did not plan to be a fanner forever, though. "One day," he told Bolan, "I will work as a linguist — an interpreter. Maybe I will work for the United Nations."
The young couple were aware of Bolan's situation. Evita had explained the problem at the outset; still, they had welcomed him as an honored guest and seemed to be planning on him remaining for an extended stay.
But Bolan was not so certain that they fully understood all the implications of his visit. As the women cleared the table, he caught Juan's eye and stepped outside to light a cigarette.
The youth followed him through the doorway and told him, "It is all right, SenorBolan. You may smoke inside."
"I want to talk to you," Bolan explained. "One guy to another."
"Si. Talk."
"I'm leaving pretty quick. Don't misunderstand. I appreciate your hospitality. But I'm a walking plague, Juan. The hounds of hell are after me. Sooner or later they'll find me. I don't want them to find me here."
The boy fidgeted and stared at the ground. "I will help you," he stated quietly. "Show me how to shoot the big gun."
"No good," Bolan said. "There's more to making war than shooting a gun. When death is staring at you, or when blood starts flowing, you suddenly lose everything that's human. If you're not trained for that sort of thing, you're left with nothing but blind reaction. A trained soldier is programmed into certain instinctive actions. I can't program you, Juan, simply by showing you where the trigger is on a gun."
"I can be of help," the boy insisted.
"Sure you could, but not enough," Bolan told him. "If the headhunters find me here, blood will flow. And not just yours and mine." He jerked his head toward the cabin. "Their's too. So I've got to move on."
"I will help you to move on, then. Unless it is that you do not trust me."
"You know better than that." Bolan looked into the sky and tried to estimate the angle between the sun and the western horizon. "We're pretty close to the equator, aren't we," he murmured.
"Si, about 20 degrees north latitude." The boy smiled and somewhat slyly added, "I do not know this until I study my radio propagation tables. It is a good thing to know, yes?"
Bolan sighed. "Yes, Juan, it's always a good idea to know where you are. And 20 degrees north also happens to be where South Vietnam is at. Isn't that a hell of a parallel." He grimaced and added, "Would you say we have about two hours of daylight left?"
"Yes, this is true."
Bolan was trying to weigh the thing in his mind, but Juan beat him to the decision. "You will stay at least until darkness comes," the Puerto Rican insisted. "And then I will guide you wherever you wish to go."
"That makes sense," Bolan agreed. His attention swiveled northward. "I saw an open pit mine or something a few miles onto the high ground. What are they mining?"
Juan shrugged his shoulders. "I think construction materials. Gravel, maybe. Maybe cement."
"They do any blasting?"
"Blasting? Oh, explosives. Si, sometimes."
"If you were going to charter a boat," Bolan asked, quickly changing the subject, "how much money would you figure you'd need?"
"What kind of a boat, senor?"
"Something capable of inter-island travel, a deep water job with a motor."
"As cheaply as possible?"
"That's the idea. A small fishing boat, maybe."
"You wish to have such a boat?"
"I'm considering the idea, Juan."
"For to escape with?"
"Yeah."
"I will find this boat for you, senorBolan. At the price you say."
Bolan dug inside his shirt and through the sunsuit to the chamois money belt at his waist. His Vegas "winnings" were secure and dry there. He worked several bills free and handed them over.
"Do what you can with this," he said.
"Thousand dollar bills," Juan observed in a hushed voice. They are real?"
"Genuine Grover Clevelands," Bolan assured him. "Liberated from occupied Vegas just last night. Don't worry, it's cool money. Can you spend it without attracting the wrong kind of attention?"
The kid was dazed by the sudden wealth in his hand. "I would spend it at the very gates of hell," he muttered.
"Okay, but be very careful. Get the best deal you can on the boat and keep the change for yourself. How..."
"I could not keep your money, Mack Bolan."
"The hell you could not. Call it a birthday present from me to the kid, if you'd rather."
"But I will need less than half..."
"The better for the kid," Bolan said brusquely. "Shut up about that and listen, to me, Juan. I don't want anything new or touristalooking. Understand? I want something old and decrepit looking, but seaworthy and with enough fuel reserves to at least island-hop."
"Island hop?"
"You know… travel from island to island."
"Oh, yes. A diesel would be better."
"I leave that to you. But find someone you can personally trust — that is, if you have any choice. If not, then do the best you can and leave the rest to me."
"I must be very quiet with this," the boy reflected.
"Very."
"I think I know the right man. Do not worry, senorBolan. I will findthe right man."
Bolan grinned. "I thought you were going to call me Mack."
"Ok, Mack. I will leave right away."
"Take Rosalita."
"Senor..."
"Take Rosalita with you. Stay gone until this mess blows over. Is there some place you can take her for a couple of days?"
"We have family in Puerta Vista," the boy replied. "But…"
"Then do it. Take her there first. Evita, also. Then make the arrangements for the boat."
"Okay yes, and I will then return..."
"No, don't come back here. Chances are I'll be slipping out shortly behind you. Let's go talk to Evita and work out a time and place for a meet. Then you get those women away from here."
That was the plan.
It did not work out quite that way, however.
Evita adamantly refused to even consider the suggestion that she accompany Juan and Rosalita to Puerta Vista. "You will need me to get you through the police lines," she told Bolan. "I stay with you, and that is final."
So it was final. Bolan shrugged his shoulders and walked to the truck with the kids.
Take care," he instructed Juan. His eyes warmed on the girl, and he added, "Guard your treasures, Juan."
The youth solemnly nodded his head and translated the parting words for his wife's understanding. She did the thing with her eyes, and she brushed Bolan's cheek with her lips as he helped her into the vehicle.
"Good luck," she whispered, in perhaps the only Inglisaat her command.
He watched the departing truck until it was out of sight, realizing that friendship was a quality of caring — not a duration of acquaintance. Bolan cared. And he wanted those kids out of his shadow of death. The girl had understood this. She, apparently, h
ad cared also.
He entered the cabin to the sound of water running into the bathtub. A dainty pile of feminine things was on a chair just outside the curtain. He could see the shadowy outline of Evita the Woman bending over the tub and it was quite an outline.
The noise from the plumbing chugged to a halt. The lovely Spanish-Borinquen head appeared over the top of the curtain. "Excusame," she sang out. "Una momento, por favor, while I scrub away Glass Bay."
Bolan snatched up a primed Thompson and made a strategic retreat.
It was time for another recon, anyway. He went to the high ground and prowled about for a few minutes, then he sat down with his back against a tree and lit a cigarette.
How long had it been since he'd slept? Two weeks? Three? It seemed that long. A guy on his last mile of life could pack a lot of living into a single day. Barely more than twenty-four hours earlier, Bolan had risen from a bed in Las Vegas and gone out to test the odds against him on Sudden Death Strip. And what a hell of a time it had been. And now here he was in Puerto Rico, of all damn places. Bone weary, emotionally exhausted, scared out of his Goddamned skull. How many men, he vaguely wondered, had he killed this week? Fifty? A hundred? Two hundred?
The odds had to catch up sooner or later. Why not sooner? Why not right here, in Puerto Rico, at 20 degrees north latitude. Wasn't that the equatorial parallel which had given birth and first breath to The Executioner? Sure, sure, that was where the monster was bom — at 20 degress north, not at Pittsfield. The Mafia hadn't been the midwife, but Life itself. The Executioner had been born to Mom Nature. Dad Society had knocked her up — and along came Bolan the Bold, a breech birth, a monster in military cloth. Pittsfield merely represented the inevitable coming-of-age for this bastard child nobody wanted. The Executioner.
How many men had he killed this week?
Bolan sighed and got to his feet.
Not enough.
But that was enough self-pity to last for several weeks. He crushed out the cigarette, called out his energy reserves, straightened himself up, and went back down the hill to the cabin.
Evita was standing at the kitchen sink, peering into the only mirror in the place, and brushing out the shiney raven hair.
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