Vendetta in Venice

by Don Pendleton

  Baracco's revelations explained why nobody in the underworld knew how to connect with the escape service, why nobody ever knew if they were acceptable as clients until he contacted them: there was nobody to contact unless Baracco happened to be in the area; and he'd only make contact if he thought the case was worthwhile, and if it worked in geographically with his other commitments.

  So when a hit misfired in Paris, he decoyed the mark to The Hague, back in Holland, because he promised to be there to pack a terrorist into the inside of a barrel organ. A cigar for the gentleman with the prominent chin!

  Bolan wondered which junkyard the organ was in now. But he wondered, more urgently, if it was true that Baracco had been approached by the Mafia via their Corsican associates, or was that just another piece of bragging? It might be nothing more than wishful thinking on his part, an idea of his own that he hoped to sell to the Mob. Whichever, if the big wheels of organized crime stateside were interested, Bolan could see that the escape network would be of unrivaled value to them.

  Interpol had a thick dossier that listed every capo and most hit men and enforcers... information available by telex and computer links to every police force in the Western world. And even if there was nothing hard enough to warrant an arrest or an extradition demand, the activities of those men were logged, checked out and reported on wherever they went.

  With the increased interest the Mob was showing in European rackets, what an advantage if such men could be moved secretly from country to country in their efforts to organize crime into a worldwide conspiracy! What an opportunity to move mafioso who had a price on their heads out of reach of the law, to switch planners from one theater of operations to another without alerting the police. And, as Baracco himself had hinted, what a great way to co-opt or recruit specialist talent from among the ex-cons and jail-breakers who had nothing to lose...

  "Time to make a move if we want to hit the border between shifts/1 The Corsican's hoarse voice broke in on Bolan's thoughts.

  A gust of wind shook the truck as Baracco climbed out of the cab to hand-crank the engine, and before they rolled out of the lot the windshield was spattered with large raindrops.

  "Damn," the Corsican complained. "If it rains, we'll take all bloody night to make it through the mountains. We'll forget the Innsbruck yard, cross the frontier into Germany and then take the tunnel beneath Lake Constance to make Zurich."

  "All the way in this truck?"

  Baracco shook his head. "There's a yard off the freeway near Oberammergau. We'll make the switch there."

  The rain was much heavier now, bouncing high off the road and veiling the windshield more quickly than the ancient wipers could clear it. Ten minutes later it turned into driving sleet.

  Cursing, the Corsican pulled off the road and cut the engine. "We better wait here until this eases off. We can use the time wrapping you up for the frontier crossing."

  The delivery truck was loaded with rolls of carpet and linoleum consigned, according to the fake bill of lading, to a decorator in Zurich. Bolan was to pass through the border checkpoint inside one of the rolls.

  Turning up his collar, he left the cab and joined Baracco at the rear of the truck. The Corsican had already opened the double doors. Bolan helped him manhandle the heavy rolls into position, rearranging them on the floor beyond the tailgate. It didn't take them long, but by the time they were through, the Executioner was drenched from head to foot. Grasping his jacket by the lapels, he shook it violently to rid himself of some of the frozen sleet before he got back into the cab. At the same time he shook his head to clear his face of the streams of moisture running down from his hair.

  A truck rumbled past on the road, the headlights brightly illuminating the parked delivery truck and the two men who stood hunched against the sleet by the rear doors. In the vivid light, Baracco's face, with its staring eyes and jutting chin, abruptly changed into a mask of murderous rage...

  Before he realized what had happened, Bolan found himself hurled backward into the body of the truck as the Corsican shoulder-charged him with brutal force. The doors slammed, and a bar dropped into place. A moment later the engine roared, and the vehicle accelerated back onto the road.

  Bolan didn't get it. What the hell had gone wrong? He picked himself up and hammered on the partition separating the rear of the truck from the cab. He shouted. There was no reply. Slewing from side to side on the wet roadway, the truck careered ahead at a dangerous speed.

  They should have arrived at the German frontier in less than twenty minutes, but it was almost two hours before the delivery truck shuddered to a halt. Bolan heard running footsteps, voices shouting commands.

  Light flooded into the dark interior as the doors were jerked open. Facing him across the striped barrier pole of a minor frontier checkpoint were half a dozen uniformed men with leveled rifles. Behind them he could dimly see an officer and Baracco.

  The Corsican was waving his arms. "You see!" he shouted. "Stowing away in my truck! There he is! That's Zoltan Cernic — the murderer who broke out of jail and escaped from Prague... I'd know that face anywhere. His picture has been in all the papers. Arrest him! Take him away! He was trying to make it across the border in my truck."

  Keeping away from the rifles' line of fire, the officer motioned Bolan to jump down from the tailgate. Cold steel embraced his wrists as handcuffs clicked shut. It was then that he realized the uniforms were Italian and not German: instead of militiamen from the Bundeswehr, he was in the hands of the carabinieri.

  Bolan allowed himself to be led through the sleet into the guardroom. What had happened? What had given him away? For if Baracco had denounced him as the killer Cernic, it could only be for one reason: because he had discovered that the Executioner was an imposter.

  At that moment he caught sight of his reflection in a mirror hanging over an old-fashioned mantelpiece behind the duty officer's desk. He knew at once what had betrayed him. In Prague, each time he had gone out into the rain, he had worn a Czech workingman's peaked cap. For the escape he had worn no headgear. This time, the cheap dye that had transformed his dark hair into Cernic's carrot thatch had run... and now his face was grotesque, streaked from one side to the other with the orange stain.

  17

  Now that he was wise to the mechanics of Baracco's one-man escape service — and now that he was certain there must be some Mafia connection as Brognola had feared — Mack Bolan felt justified in throwing the Corsican to the wolves.

  Whether it was the Executioner that eliminated the wily ex-trucker or the forces of law and order was immaterial; what was important was the timing. The service must be dismantled, finished, stamped out before the Mob got involved.

  But posing as a killer on the run, Bolan was in no position to denounce Baracco. The guy was smart enough to talk himself out of it, and Bolan had no proof. Also, as a common criminal rather than a political refugee, the Executioner would probably be handed over to Eastern-Bloc representatives or sent straight back to Czechoslovakia under escort. And by the time he had gotten through to Colonel Sujic and straightened things out, Baracco would have vanished and the trail would be cold.

  So he'd have to come out into the open now and tell the carabinieri who he really was. Except that he had no proof of that, either.

  As soon as the Corsican had left the guardroom, Bolan turned to the officer and said, "You've got to stop him."

  The young man stared at him. "What are you talking about?"

  "I'm not Zoltan Cernic. I'm..."

  "Be quiet. Of course you're Cernic."

  "I'm impersonating Cernic — why else would I have dye running down my face? I was investigating an illegal transportation racket. The man believes he is smuggling Cernic out of reach of the Czech authorities."

  "You're talking nonsense. If he was doing that, why would he hand you over to us? Why would he call in the military of all things?"

  "Because he discovered I was an imposter, that I am not Zoltan Cernic."

/>   "Now you're talking in riddles. That's enough."

  "He's running an escape service for criminals. Every police force in Europe knows about this service, but nobody knows he's the one organizing it. Now that he knows I'm not a criminal, his organization is in jeopardy, so he wants me out of the way."

  "Enough! It's time you were taken to the cells. Sergeant!"

  "You're making a big mistake..."

  "Silence! Sergeant, take this man to the cells and place a close guard on him. Transport will be arriving soon to take him to Rome. Until then he isn't to be left alone."

  And so, until some time after midnight, Bolan cooled his heels in a brightly lit room with barred windows and a peephole in the door through which guards kept constant — and curious — watch. He guessed from scraps of dialogue he could hear that the border guards were attached to an important frontier post on a more frequented road nearby. But his escort was clearly coming from farther away.

  During the long wait, Bolan wrestled mentally with the latest and most puzzling mystery since the mission had begun. If they had been within a few miles of the West German frontier when Baracco had unmasked him, why had he turned around and driven fifty or sixty miles through the foothills of the Tyrol before he had denounced the Executioner? If the aim had simply been to rid himself of the warrior, to hand him over to the military, why not make it directly to the Federal Republic and get it over with? What was so special about a mountain border post in Italy that Baracco rated it worth a two-hour drive in lousy conditions to make his play there?

  There could be only one answer. And, yeah, it tied in with the guy's thinking... like the tactic he used to decoy Bolan to The Hague: once he knew Bolan was a phony, there were urgent reasons for Baracco to have him in Italy... and not in Germany.

  So why denounce him to the authorities at all?

  There was an answer to that, too, and the implications were chilling. But before Bolan could work through them in his mind there was a rattle of keys, the door of the cell crashed open and he was led back to the guardroom.

  An escort of a half-dozen soldiers with submachine guns — Heckler & Koch MP-5s — was drawn up outside the door and beyond them, frosted with the sleet that was still falling, he could see a mesh-covered Fiat riot truck with a canvas top.

  The young lieutenant in charge of the escort was receiving his orders from the carabinieri officer Bolan had argued with before.

  "You will proceed south through the mountains to Udine and Padua. From there you take the autostrada through Bologna to Florence. It has been arranged that a civil police escort will rendezvous with you at the pay station complex south of the city, and they will complete the journey to the Czech embassy in Rome. You will deliver this envelope to the commanding officer at the same time as you hand over the prisoner. Is that understood?"

  "Yes, Captain." As the lieutenant saluted and reached for the brown manila envelope, Bolan exploded into action.

  He had seen the Walther automatic that had been taken from him at the time of his arrest lying with the document case on top of the guardroom table. He knew there were still five shots in the magazine.

  He knew, too, that the remainder of the money that was to have been paid to Baracco when they made Zurich was still in the leather case. And he was relying on the fact that the Italians would think that was what he was after to give him the second's advantage that he needed.

  It was a good try — and it almost worked.

  Bolan twisted away from the guards flanking him and dived for the table. Snatching up the Walther in his manacled hands, he hurled himself into the corner of the room as his finger wrapped around the trigger. "All right, drop the guns and put your hands in the air. Tell the soldiers with the SMGs that you're dead men if they open fire."

  The lieutenant barked an order. The captain, who had, as Bolan hoped, started a protective swoop toward the document case, stopped with a hand halfway to his holster. The guards who had brought Bolan from his cell remained frozen in astonishment. Handcuffed prisoners just didn't behave this way...

  "One of you step forward," Bolan growled. "You..." he indicated the lieutenant "...turn around with your back to me. I'm going out of here, and this gun will be six inches from your back. If anyone makes a single move, I'll blow you apart. Understood?"

  The captain looked beyond the Executioner's shoulder and raised an eyebrow. "All right, Rinaldi," he said quietly. "Take him now. But make it fast and make it sure."

  It was the oldest gag in the world and Bolan wasn't buying it.

  But Rinaldi was there. He was big and he was strong. He had silently opened a door that led to an inner office, and now he was immediately behind the warrior.

  Rinaldi's linked hands dropped smoothly over Bolan's head and shoulders, and the circle of his arms tightened around the Executioner's biceps, darting lower to force the warrior's forearms toward the floor. The barrel of the Walther no longer pointed at the officers.

  Bolan's finger contracted involuntarily, and the automatic spit flame. A 9 mm slug plowed into the floor. Then men were flying at him from all directions: gun butts thudded into his back; hands tore at his thighs and shoulders; a fist cracked against the side of his head and a practiced hand wrenched at his wrist so that the Walther fell from his fingers to be kicked away under the desk.

  He fought like a tiger, but the sheer weight of numbers was too much for him. Heaving manfully against odds, he was finally subdued. A few minutes later, bruised, bloodied and only half-conscious, he was dragged out to the riot truck and shoved into the rear with the escort.

  "What about the gun?" the lieutenant asked.

  His superior plucked his lower lip. "It's not ours," he said finally. "You better take it with you. Hand it over to the Czechs when you give them the money."

  The young man saluted again and climbed into the cab. The riot truck lurched back onto the road and headed down through the mountain passes toward Udine.

  18

  Bartolomeo Baracco wasn't a man who did things himself if he could persuade others to do them for him — especially if they didn't realize exactly what they were doing, or why.

  Having no forged papers suitable for a north-south crossing of the Austro-Italian border, and doubting whether he could make it anyway with a captive yelling in back of the truck, he had therefore decided to denounce not the man himself, but the character he was impersonating... and allow the authorities to ferry him into Italy for him.

  Once he was some way into the country, a rapid change of ownership would have to be reaffected — because Baracco had to lay hands on the imposter himself... fast.

  There were three reasons for this. The most important was to stop other, more influential people hearing the man's story. And it wouldn't be long before he was able to gain at least some credence for his protests that he wasn't really Cernic.

  Second of all, he had to have the man to himself so that he could find out who he was, who he worked for and how much they knew. And thirdly, the man had to be silenced. Permanently. He knew far too much about the network to stay alive, even in a Czech prison.

  Neither Germany nor Austria were suitable for taking care of his priorities. Italy was. It was perfect, and thanks to the military, the hardest part was over already. All he had to do now was to get the prisoner back.

  Waiting for the escort to arrive, he had driven to a junkyard near Tolmezzo and traded in the delivery truck for a military jeep, which was hand-painted a bright yellow and equipped with a 1951 civilian registration. The jeep's soft top flapped dismally, the garish paint was flaking off all over, and the tires were almost bald. But there was a highly tuned engine beneath the hood and it went like the hammers of hell.

  Baracco picked up the riot truck at a quarter to two, soon after it passed the yard. The downhill route ran in a valley, twisting left and right as it followed the curves of a river. In those conditions it was all right for the jeep to stay behind, but as soon as they hit a long, straight stretch, the Corsican
accelerated and took the lead. He knew where they were going, and it was too much of a gamble staying in sight of alert soldiers in a vehicle as conspicuous as his.

  Twenty miles from Udine the truck was joined by four motorcycle outriders. Baracco cursed, pushed the jeep to its limit and shot ahead until the lights of the convoy dwindled and then vanished in the dark of his rearview mirror. If his plan was going to succeed, he had to hit the convoy before they quit the country road and joined the high-speed autostrada that ran from Udine to Padua.

  The superhighway ran close to the road, but it was a good fifteen miles before the next cloverleaf. Baracco took a side road, bounced along a narrow lane and came eventually to a dirt road that led to a wrecker's yard — a large field piled high with the remains of cars that had come to grief on the autostrada, whose embankment formed one boundary of the yard. There were several ragged gaps in the hedge shielding the place from the dirt road. Baracco chose the smallest and least used and steered the jeep in among the mounds of scrap metal.

  Toward the back of the graveyard, just beneath the embankment, he drove close to a towering stack of metal and stopped the jeep, canting it over an outsized hummock of grass. From a distance, slanting drunkenly toward the mountain of wreckage, it would be indistinguishable from the derelicts surrounding it.

  He switched off the engine and jumped to the ground. Sleet blowing through the open sides had soaked him to the skin, but it wasn't even raining now and the clouds had momentarily withdrawn. By the light of the waning moon, he threaded his way through the scrap to an old East German Wartburg three-tonner that was parked among waist-high nettles near the hedge.