Caribbean Kill te-10

by Don Pendleton

  Bolan took the Beretta and shook several spare clips from the dead man's waistband, then he picked up the body and heaved it over the side.

  There was a lot of running around and yelling farther up the pier, but no one seemed ready to venture down for a closer look.

  The boat was heading into the channel. A guy with a big handlebar mustache and a very worried face thrust his head out of the cabin and yelled something aft in very rapid Spanish.

  Juan looked up with a grimace and called back, "Gracias, Capitain. Vamos ustedes, con todo velocidad!"

  He reported to Bolan, "He says the bow lines are clear and we are underway. I tell him to get the hell out of here."

  Quickly, Bolan said, "Ask him if we can hook onto that pile of junk and haul it clear before the whole port is in flames."

  Juan nodded and hurried forward.

  Bolan remained aft to guard their rear, but no further hostile actions seemed impending — and soon he was assisting the three-man crew and Juan in the delicate business of grappling and towing a flaming marine disaster out to sea. They left the burning hulk wallowing in its own ashes a mile offshore.

  They headed west then, Bolan instructing the skipper to remain within sight of shore. "Alert me immediately," he requested, "if any other vessels seem to be closing on us or crossing our course."

  The captain signaled his understanding. Bolan and Juan went into the main cabin — a low-headroom affair with four bunks, a small galley, mess table, and various rough conveniences.

  The mate came in behind them, grinning, to serve a half-and-half mixture of rum and hot coffee. Bolan tasted it and decided against it. He got out of the uniform which Evita had borrowed from the town constable and carefully folded it and placed it on a bunk.

  The mate was very taken with the black combat suit He grinned at Juan, murmured, "Magnifico, magnifico" — and went back on deck.

  Juan stared into his cup and announced, "I killed a man, SenorBolan."

  How many had Bolan killed?

  He said, "Yeah, I noticed," and spread out a map which Evita had given him during those tense moments at Puerta Vista. He sat at the table with the map, gave Juan a close scrutiny, then added, "A man has a right to protect his treasures. No, he has an obligation."

  "If I had your skills, senor," Juan replied quietly, "I would kill them all. They are scum, filth — they are wild beasts with no humanity in them."

  "That's what I keep telling myself," Bolan muttered.

  "My Rosalita. You think she is safe now?"

  "She's entirely safe, Juan. Don't worry, she's in good hands."

  "She told me, before, at the first, that you would come. But she also hoped that you would not. She was fearful for you, senor."

  Bolan said, "How're you feeling?"

  "Fine. I am feeling like a man. I envy you, senor."

  "Don't," Bolan growled. "You have life where it's all at, amigo. Place of your own, a decent life, a good woman to share it with, a kid coming to give it all meaning. What is there left to envy?"

  "You are right.''

  Bolan fell to studying the map. He shoved it toward Juan and tapped a spot with his finger. "Tell the captain to put me in there at precisely midnight."

  The boy finished his rum-coffee and moved toward the door.

  Bolan said, "Juan… I'm damn proud of you."

  This drew a flashing smile. "You rest," Juan told him. "I will take the watch on deck until midnight."

  "Thanks. To tell the truth, I'm about out of my head. I can't remember the last time I slept."

  "Sleep now, Senor Magnifico. I have never myself felt more awake in all of my life."

  The kid went out, and Bolan tumbled onto a bunk.

  Yeah.

  Sleep now.

  Kill later.

  It was not over yet.

  * * *

  Jack Grimaldi eased the company car into Glass Bay and pulled up behind the office. The blackened hulk of the main house stood grimly deserted but both bungalows were blazing with light and some sort of noise contest seemed to be going on between the two. The boys had come back with booze and women, and quite a party was underway. The amplified throbbing of recorded rock was blasting from both camps above the hubbub of male voices and the gay shrieks of hired women.

  As Grimaldi stepped out of the car a nude cutie burst from a doorway above the carport and ran laughing down the stairs with a guy in jockey shorts chasing close behind. They ran past him without a glance, headed toward the beach.

  It was a celebration. A wake for Bolan, Grimaldi guessed.

  He avoided the bungalows and went to the grassy area behind the carports. Air Two sat there gleaming in the moonlight, deserted and forlorn with her work all done. The pilot from San Juan was no doubt partying it up with the hardmen, celebrating a death which all Mafiosi been working toward.

  Grimaldi slid inside and checked the fuel situation.

  It was terrible.

  He returned to the carport and found a five-gallon can, took it to the gas pump, and began the laborious process of refueling the copter.

  Grimaldi did not feel like partying.

  Nor did he feel like hanging around Glass Bay any longer than was absolutely necessary.

  It was a thirty minute job of pumping, lugging, and filling — over and over again — and the party had lost no steam at all during that period.

  He made an extra trip, for future contingencies, and secured the five-gallon spare inside the cabin of the helicopter.

  Grimaldi was getting the hell out of Puerto Rico, as fast as those rotors would carry him.

  It had been a hell of a day, though, and he needed one final item for the road. He entered the end bungalow through the kitchen door, shoved a clinched half-nude couple out of the way, and snared a bottle of bourbon from the open case on the table.

  The guy was a total stranger and the girl was drunk. She mumbled something like "For favor"and Grimaldi muttered, "Yeah, same to you," and went back outside.

  The moon was high and Glass Bay was basking in its soft radiance. A paradise, sure. Under somewhat different circumstances, Grimaldi could have really enjoyed the joint. But those sheet-wrapped bodies were still laid out over there. By morning they would be stinking. He shivered and went the other way. Couldn't they at least dump their dead before the orgy?

  He went on around to the front and gazed out across the bay as he opened the bottle. Bahia de Vidria, the bay of glass. Yeah, broken glass, shattered, and nobody would ever put the pieces back together again. Not for Jack Grimaldi, that was for sure.

  He heard a boat chugging along somewhere in the distance, and he wondered how ordinary people made the pieces of their lives fit, how they used their mundane lives, how they bridged the awful gulfs between hope and despair, dreams and disillusionment, challenge and failure.

  Jack Grimaldi's life had been failing steadily since birth.

  Life itself was one big schtick.

  But Grimaldi was not yet quite ready to write it all off. He had not even reached the midpoint yet… he hoped. In a few more months he'd be thirty. Maybe. Twice this day he had stared into death, and twice he had walked away from that unsettling view. It was enough to make a guy think.

  He took a deep pull from the bottle, choked, wiped the spillage away, and looked at his watch. Ten minutes past midnight.

  Yeah, it had been a hell of a day.

  He stared back around the bumed-out hulk and walked straight into the big mean bastard in the black suit.

  He was wearing one of those tight, mirthless smiles, and he said, "Enjoying the party, Jack?"

  Goodbye, thirtieth birthday. So the son of a bitch had made it through, after all.

  Grimaldi sighed and said, "Okay, where do you want to go this time?"

  The guy chuckled — like a skeleton clearing its throat. "You got some wings?"

  "Sure." He uncorked the bottle and handed it over. "The windmill type. Gassed up and ready to fart. What the hell are you doing here, Bol
an?"

  The guy refused the bottle. "Looking for wings," he said. The bastard didn't waste many words. "And a pilot."

  "You don't want to hang around and crash your own party?"

  "That's my party?"

  "Sure. I guess I never got around to correcting an erroneous impression. But let's not tell them now," he added hastily. "I figure let 'em live a little. You know? Or no, I guess you wouldn't know. I, uh, I caught your fireworks at Puerta Vista."

  The guy had him by the arm and they were walking quietly toward the rear, skirting close beside the end bungalow. He said, "Yeah?"

  "Yeah. But I, uh… I guess I jumped to a hasty conclusion. Well, I guess the curtain was for Lavagni, huh?"

  "Buried at sea," the guy said.

  "Uh huh. It figures better that way. Uh, after you turned me loose I circled back along the waterfront. Sat there on a damn rock just outside of town, and I guess I was thinking about a lot of things. Then I heard the baloom and I saw the flames, and I said, 'Contact, there goes Bolan.' I guess I should have said, 'Ho ho, there's Bolan!' Well anyway, I sat there a little while longer, then I went on into town and found one of the company cars. I hotwired the ignition… and here I am with a lonely bottle at a false wake."

  He didn't know why he told the guy all that. He wasn't talking for his life, and this realization came with quite a shock. He didn't give a damn anymore; that was the shocking part. He just didn't give a damn.

  They reached the helicopter and they stood there for a moment, the big guy just sort of looking around, then those icy eyes lit on Grimaldi and he said, "I've noticed you don't pack hardware, Jack."

  "Never," the pilot replied unemotionally. "My only crime, Bolan, is carting these clowns around. It brings me two grand a month and an unlimited credit card for expenses. The price of a soul, eh? But it beats anything else that turned up after…"

  "After what?" the guy asked, as though he was really interested.

  "Well… you don't know the routine. I mean, you never really tried the returning serviceman routine. You just went from one war right into another. No employment problems, right?"

  "You were at 'Nam?"

  "Yeah. Flew everything from single-engine scouts to Huey close supports. Enlisted pilot, later a warrant officer. You know what kind of jobs I got offered when I got home?"

  Bolan said, "I can guess."

  "Well, a cousin got me this job. And I kissed his shoes for it. But I guess…"

  "You guess what?"

  "Nothing. Where're you hijacking me to this time?"

  A soft hardman staggered across the yard about twenty feet from where they were standing and disappeared around the carport.

  The big guy watched him out of sight, then he dug inside his suit and fumbled around with something at his waist and came out with a lot of green. He counted the stuff out, twelve Clevelands, and laid it in Grimaldi's palm.

  "No hijack this time," he said gruffly. "I came looking for you specifically, Jack. I want to take you up on that suggestion that we laughed about earlier. I'd like to pay your salary for a day. That's what's left of my war-chest, twelve thou."

  Yeah, the guy was too much. Grimaldi mumbled, "What the hell, all you gotta do is point the gun, I'll fly you anywhere."

  "Special mission," the guy said.

  "Yeah?"

  "Yeah. Not the kind you take a guy into with a gun at his head. I need you. Your skill and your guts. I mean, cooperatively. What do you say?"

  The fuckin' guy was insane!

  "Do I have to handle a gun?"

  "Not unless you want to."

  "This a kill mission, Bolan?"

  "Yeah."

  "A biggee?"

  "A hell of a biggee."

  "Suppose I say no?"

  The guy shrugged. "Then the hit is off, I hijack you back to the mainland, we go our separate ways."

  "A real biggee."

  "A hell of a biggee."

  So what the hell. It was the end of schtick.

  Grimaldi counted off six of the Clevelands and gave them back to Mr. Death. "Split it down the middle," he said quietly. "And call it a deal"

  Chapter Thirteen

  Death brief

  An old salvage boat cruised a slow circle in the sparkling Caribbean several miles off Bahia de Vidria. In the pilot house, Juan Escadrillo stood a tense watch over the radio equipment while the man with the handlebar mustache stared expectantly into the moonlit skies.

  The mate brought coffee from the galley, and drank most of it himself, and twice the engineer came topside to restlessly roam the deck and gaze toward shore, and the quiet watch went on.

  At almost exactly 12:30 the radio in the pilot house crackled and a familiar voice came through the international distress frequency to give the awaited announcement.

  "Okay Juan, we're off and running. The number here is 25, 12, 12, 14. That is two-five, one-two, one-two, one-four. Thanks to all of you. And give those treasures back there my, uh, deepest regards."

  "Ok," Juan replied immediately. "Run with luck, my friend."

  "Adios, amigo."

  "Return to us one day."

  "Ill try, Juan. Leave a light in the window."

  "It will be there."

  The boy's eyes were brimming with moisture as he shifted the gear to the harbor frequency. The crew had moved outside to search the sky for visible evidence of the small aircraft.

  Juan made the call in the Spanish language. This is salvage tug Salvadore calling Puerta Vista Harbormaster.

  "Go ahead, Salvadore."

  "I am ready with the Matilda report."

  Evita Aguilar's voice responded. "Matilda. Go ahead, Salvadore."

  "It is done. Ok. The numbers are two-five, one-two, one-two, one-four. He sends love. We return to port."

  In the little shack on the Puerta Vista wharf, Evita turned away from the radio and spoke into a waiting telephone connection to San Juan.

  "Success," she reported, using the official language. It is clear. Suggest that you move on Glass Bay immediately."

  "Right," was the reply. "We are moving."

  "Connect me now with Glenn Robertson."

  "Right, standby."

  A moment later an American voice came on the line and the language shifted to English. "Robertson here."

  "Glenn, Matilda."

  "Save it, I know. Bolan busted loose."

  "Yes. Ramirez is now moving on Glass Bay."

  "Yeah, I heard. So there goes your sweet little intelligence drop. Should've played it my way, pretty lady."

  "The sweet drop was gone the moment he arrived. Do not fear, we are awaiting the reorganization and we know whom to watch. As for doing it your way, I would have more compassion on a pig in a slaughter pen."

  The American sighed heavily. She heard the snap of a cigarette lighter and he said, "You know that none of us like the order, Matilda."

  "We may as well drop the 'Matilda' now, also."

  "Right, right. How come it's so hard to hate the guy, Evita? What's he got that John Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd never had."

  "Integrity, maybe," she replied coldly.

  "Well, that's a lot of deadly integrity you turned loose on the world, pretty lady."

  "It is simply a matter of time, anyway," she told him. "The way this hombreoperates, he cannot be long for this world."

  "How many did he clobber there?"

  "We will be counting the dead for days," Evita said. "Some may never be found."

  "Well, that's Bolan. He leaves a hell of a wake. One of these days, Evita, the guy is reallygoing to run amuck. He's going to start killing cops and little kids and anything that gets in his way. And then you'll understand why we..."

  "That is a stupid idea!" Evita stormed. "This is as gentle and fine a man as I have ever known! Polida estupido! Acerca de..."

  "Hold it, hold it, don't start throwing hot Spanish at me." The federal agent chuckled drily and added, "Sounds as though he made more than one kind of kill. Just
how well did you get to know this fine gentle man, pretty lady?"

  She said, "Get to hell, Glenn Robertson."

  He said, "Well… I guess I better alert Washington. Battle stations, repel all boarders, and so forth. Give me a clue, just a sniff. Where should we concentrate the defenses?"

  "Never mind," she replied.

  "What?"

  "Never mind." Her voice broke as she added, "I have sent him to his death."

  * * *

  Grimaldi set the little bird down on the tiny island which gave its name to the Mona Passage, between Puerto Rico and Hispaniola, and the two-man assault team laid their battle plans and awaited the countdown to the kill.

  Bolan studied terrain maps while the pilot pored over radio navigation charts and reviewed in his memory the various details of Haiti's border security setup.

  "How long since you flew in there?" Bolan asked him.

  "About three months ago," Grimaldi muttered. "Uh… put an X on your chart, uh… down here at Charlie Eight. There's a Haitian Coast Guard station there. They have radar and hot-pursuit capability. Also up at, uh, Bravo Three, a base for jet fighters."

  "How good are they?"

  "Can't say. Never had to evade them. Always had the right words."

  Bolan studied his companion for a thoughtful moment, then he suggested, "Let's figure the withdrawal through the gap, on a 340 magnetic from Port au Prince. That looks like high mountains to the north."

  "It is, and rugged as hell," Grimaldi replied. "They still have insurgents operating in those mountains."

  "Perfect. If we have to take to the ground then there'll be good cover and maybe even a helping hand along the way."

  "Don't count on it," Grimaldi warned. "Most of the rebels have turned commie. They worship Che and Fidel, and I'll have to say that's a better alternative than Papa Doc. But America has become a nasty word in those hills, I hear."

  "I thought the old man died," Bolan said.

  "Yeah, but Doc Junior stepped right in, same regime, same ruthless repression. Look, Bolan, are you sure you know what you're getting into? That country is crawling with secret police. If they catch you, the nicest thing they can do for you is to show you the firing squad. They've got people chained in rat holes who haven't seen the light of day — or a courtroom, I might add — for more than ten years."