"A job in Venice?" The Executioner's interest quickened.
"That's right. I guess that's why he didn't have more time to pull out all the stops looking for you. The way I heard it, there are three Red Brigades killers who come up for sentencing tomorrow. Friends on the lunatic Left have collected arms from other extremist groups and they aim to spring them from the courtroom. Bart's being hired to get the men away once the opposition has been liquidated."
Bolan reached across the table and touched her arm. "Sunset over the lagoon. Gondoliers singing along the Grand Canal. High life in the Gritti Palace. What would you say to a trip to the Amsterdam of the South?"
21
Hal Brognola was in Paris, attending the second session of the terrorist summit, this one covering the side of the drug trafficking business that financed the buying of illicit arms for terrorists.
There had been more than fifty bomb outrages and random automatic weapon killings in the French capital within thirty months, some of them with death tolls as high as sixty, so the security chiefs and leaders of the antiterrorist squads at the summit figured they knew as much about the terrorist scene as any man — and more than most.
For the second time, Brognola was unable to deliver the major policy speech that was expected of him. But since Bolan's relayed SOS was concerned with the Red Brigades — perhaps the most cynically ruthless of all the terrorist groups — he reckoned that was a good enough excuse to take a rain check on the speech. His panic run to Italy was directly concerned with the conference, he told the organizers. It might affect what he had to say; he would report to conference the moment he returned.
He arrived at Treviso International Airport, fifteen miles north of Venice, at dusk on the day Mack Bolan contacted him. Bolan was waiting for him in the VIP transit lounge. The French antiterrorist chiefs and their Italian counterparts in Paris had fixed it so that the Fed didn't have to pass through immigration or customs at either end of the flight. He carried the equipment Bolan had requested in a plastic Alitalia airline bag.
Brognola was irritable. His eyes were red-rimmed, he had slept in his suit, he was still suffering from jet lag after his transatlantic flight twenty-four hours earlier and he was missing the special banquet laid on to welcome the conference members in Paris.
"What gives, Striker?" he growled. "What's so damned important it couldn't wait at least until tomorrow morning?"
Bolan filled him in.
"You said murder," the Fed said when he had finished. "How many cops and security men will they have to kill to spring these guys from the courtroom?"
"Around forty," the Executioner told him. "Not counting the people who get caught in the cross fire. The law was afraid there'd be a demonstration or even some kind of rescue attempt when the sentences were handed out, so they switched venues. The trial's been held in a specially built court on the island of Murano, north of Venice in the lagoon. The place is stiff with guards, but I don't think they're prepared for a full-scale commando assault."
"And that's what they're going to get?"
"That's the way it was told to me." Bolan took possession of the bag. Neatly packed inside were the Beretta and AutoMag that had been returned to Brognola by Colonel Sujic, a Heckler & Koch caseless assault rifle, Bolan's blacksuit, two sets of ID papers — one in his own name, the other identifying him as Mike Belasko, a news photographer — a miniature throwing knife and a few more arcane tools of his trade, plus keys to unlock his handcuffs.
"I don't have details of the raid on Murano," Bolan added. "My intel relates strictly to the getaway plans fixed by Baracco, and even that's only a generalized rundown."
Brognola fished a cigar from his vest pocket and bit off the end. "Do you aim to horn in on the raid," he asked, "or wait until Baracco is operating and hit him then?"
"There's a moral question involved."
The Fed spit the cigar end into a cuspidor. "A moral question?" he repeated. "Since when did antiterrorist activity and morals figure on the same printout?"
"As of today," Bolan said. "I'm in this to nail Baracco and waste his network before the Mob takes it over. And in practice that means wasting Baracco, too, because the Mob would for sure want to keep him in the driver's seat. He's the only one who knows one hundred percent how the organization works."
"And so..."
"So from our point of view it would be best to lie low and let the terrorists do their courtroom number. Then we could move in and catch the Corsican red-handed once the guys who'd been sprung were handed over to him."
Brognola nodded, but said nothing.
"On the other hand," Bolan said soberly, "if we let the terrorists go ahead so we can do our own thing, there's going to be a lot of people dead. People who might stay alive if we tipped off the Italian authorities. At the moment they don't know a thing about this rescue deal. They only suspect there might be something somewhere along the line."
"Do we have the right to sacrifice those guards, those passersby, in the interests of our own operation, important though it is — is that what you're asking yourself?" Brognola said. "How do you read it yourself, Striker?"
Bolan sighed. "I want to get this Baracco deal wrapped up — it's become personal. But I can't justify the death of a single innocent person, whatever the circumstances, if there was something we might do to prevent it." He shook his head. "No way."
"I guess you're right," Brognola replied heavily. "Okay. So we tip off the Italians there's a plan to spring these bastards. We don't know the details, anyway. And then we make our own dispositions — I can't say in the hope that the Italians screw up, but let's say in case they do. In which case we do our damnedest to get the terrorists back and eliminate your Corsican friend, right?"
"I guess that's about it."
"You said you had no details, only a generalized idea of what Baracco aimed to do. What exactly do you know?"
"I know the ultimate aim is to get the three Red Brigades terrorists to Albania, where anyone with ultra-Left, Maoist ideas is welcomed with open arms."
"That figures." Brognola nodded. "The Russians wouldn't want to know, but the Chinese might and the Albanians certainly would. It's only a couple hundred miles down the Adriatic, anyway."
"Across the Gulf of Venice... and nearer 350, parallel with the Yugoslav coast," the Executioner corrected. "I know there's a chopper involved and a powerboat, but I don't know which is to lift the guys from the island and which is slated for the Albanian trip. I only know some kind of switch is planned, which will take place in Venice itself."
"How do you know even this much? Can you verify it?"
"Yeah. Let's just say the intel comes from an ex-colleague Baracco betrayed."
"And the terrorists come up for sentencing tomorrow? I guess I better stop over and see it through," Brognola said. "What do you say we go into town and you show me the layout?"
"I have to familiarize myself with it first." Bolan grinned. "I only just got here, remember?" He led the way out to the parking lot.
"Jeez," Brognola said, staring at the battered Alfa Romeo. "You want me to ride in that? Where the hell did you get it?"
"I borrowed it from a friend."
"How old's the friend? Someone in the antique business? Or did you unearth it from one of Baracco's dumps?"
Bolan didn't reply. The Fed's last remark was a little too near the truth for comfort, and for reasons of his own he wanted — at least for the moment — to keep the source of his information under wraps.
He breathed life into the ancient engine and took the highway south to Venice.
Night had fallen by the time they arrived. The moon hadn't risen yet, and the dark waters of the lagoon surrounding the city were ablaze with the reflections of millions of lights. They checked into a hotel in the Calle del Barcaroli and made their way to the waterfront by San Marco. Although it was out of season, tourists still drifted in the huge floodlit square beneath the basilica's five great domes. Bolan and the Fed threaded thei
r way through and found a free motoscafo by the landing stage.
It was little more than a mile to the island of Murano, but a wind blew shoreward from the southeast and the lagoon was choppy. It didn't take them long to make the crossing.
The small town on Murano, once the scene of Casanova's wilder excesses, was famous for its glassblowing. There was a great deal of glass, most of it bulletproof, in the heavily fortified temporary courtroom built for the Red Brigades trial. The courtroom had been improvised inside a disused casino between an eighteenth-century convent and the Church of San Cipriano.
There was already an unusual concentration of police and carabinieri as the two Americans stepped ashore. If Brognola hadn't been supplied with special passes by his Italian counterpart before he'd left the conference in Paris, they would have been refused permission to land.
Brognola asked to see the officer in charge of security. There were two: one looking after the island as a whole, the other with special responsibility for the courtroom, the prisoners and safety of the officials.
"The whole trial," the man told the Fed, "has been, as your countrymen would say, kept under glass. Armored glass separates the dock from the rest of the court. It protects the judges, the lawyers, the ushers, and keeps the press, the witnesses and the few members of the public admitted in separate compartments. Everybody can see everybody else but the testimony, the pleading and the judgments have all been through microphones."
"You tell us that a rescue attempt is planned," the first officer said, "with a powerboat and a helicopter involved. Naturally we have expected — and been on our guard against — such an eventuality. But I cannot see..."
"That's all I know," Brognola interrupted. "That and the fact that the getaway arrangements have been put in the hands of a second organization. It was an underworld tip-off. With no details." Bolan was keeping discreetly in the background. This was strictly administration material: he would step up to bat when they knew where the action was at.
"I don't see how they can hope to get away with it," the commendatore pursued. "All entries and exits to and from the court are heavily guarded. There are twenty men in reserve at the Church of San Cipriano, with automatic arms, grenades, even a rocket launcher loaded and ready. There will be an escort of half a dozen armored cars when the police van brings the prisoners from the cells on the other side of the island. And they will keep their engines running while the sentences are pronounced, in case some kind of break did succeed and they make for the waterfront."
The island security chief continued, "Even if they get that far, there will be six high-speed police launches equipped with machine guns and 40 mm cannon on constant patrol around the island. Everybody will be in constant radio contact, and naturally all persons landing or in the neighborhood of the courtroom have been — and will continue to be — closely screened."
"The only conceivable way," the commendatore said, "would be to use the helicopter — a direct assault on the courtroom roof, and then lift them out of there. It's been done twice in France. But we already have a dozen men posted on surrounding rooftops, expert marksmen with express rifles and Ingrams for short-range work. In view of what you say, sir, we'll add a team with a bazooka, and perhaps have a couple of choppers of our own on patrol above. Other than that, I can't think..." He shook his head in disbelief.
"I'm only passing on what I've been told," Brognola said. "And you seem to have covered all the angles.
"I don't understand about the powerboat," the first police chief said. "If they used that to escape from the island and the chopper was waiting someplace else for Phase Two, that would make sense. But since we agree they'd never get as far as the waterfront and they'd have to leave by air, why the boat?"
"Maybe it's a decoy." Bolan spoke for the first time.
"Or maybe it's the chopper that's a decoy," Brognola put in.
The commendatore shook his head. "I tell you again, Signor Brognola, it is impossible for anyone to leave the island by water while the court is in session. Impossible."
Maybe, Bolan thought, both the powerboat and the chopper were decoys. But he said nothing: it was what happened after an escape that commanded his attention.
"We're all assuming an attempt would be made while the court is in session." Brognola tried a new tack. "But suppose it's planned for some time before — while the guys are still in their cells, on the road between the cells and the courtroom, or even on the way back, after sentences have been passed?"
That would make it even tougher for the would-be rescuers, the two officers agreed.
And when Bolan and the Fed made a tour of the tiny island, it certainly looked that way. Carabinieri covered every inch of the waterfront; armed police stood silhouetted against the floodlights on rooftops, behind balustrades, in windows commanding every street. "Most of them seem kind of jumpy, too," Brognola observed. "We'd all have egg on our faces if the breakout was scheduled for tonight, eh?"
"It won't be, Hal." The Executioner was adamant. "My source was quite definite: the getaway is planned for tomorrow morning, after the court appearance. And they're not going to have those terrorists hanging around for hours after some earlier breakout. Besides, Baracco couldn't have had the time to organize anything for tonight. He was still chasing after me at breakfast time!"
"Okay," Brognola said. And then added, "What's bugging you, Striker?"
"I don't know." Bolan was frowning. "The little we do know doesn't stack up with Baracco's usual MO. Not in my book. The lead-up to the getaway, I mean. This guy's specialty is ancient machinery, all along the line. Powerboats and 350-mile flights over the open sea... For my money, they're written into a different scenario."
"Then you better check back with this mysterious source you're so cagey about," the Fed replied tartly.
Ten minutes later Bolan rapped a code knock on the door of a fifth-floor room in the same hotel. "There's nothing, not the smallest, unimportant detail that you can add? Nothing else at all that you can remember?" he asked Gudrun when she had let him in.
She shook her head. "It wasn't finalized the last time I saw him. All I know is that the changeover is in Venice itself, near San Marco."
"The changeover from what to what? That's what we need to know."
"I can't help you," the woman said. She looked very desirable — tan leather jeans with a loose honey-colored sweater that only touched the seductive curves of her body where it mattered. "He usually spends some time checking over the wrecks he's going to use. But the only time he spoke of this job, it was too far ahead. He hadn't made up his mind."
"But he knew about the job some time ahead? That doesn't sound like his usual routine. He usually waits until people are holed up and then he contacts them, right? Are you telling me that he's been hired for this job, that someone contacted him first?"
She nodded, the gold threads woven into the sweater mirroring the highlights in her red hair and green eyes. "It was that pig in Prague. It was the first time I heard of her. She put him up to it. She was the go-between." Gudrun's green eyes flashed fire. Bolan took note of the information: it was something that could come in useful later.
Back in the American Bar with Brognola, he said, still keeping Gudrun's existence secret, "It seems a hundred percent certain that the escape itself is a Mafia-organized job, and that this time Baracco is the hired help rented by the Mob."
"With the support they can count on in this country," Brognola observed, "that could mean the breakout is a big-time deal — lots of troops, unlimited funds, the latest weaponry."
"That's what I'm afraid of," Bolan agreed. "So we watch the island, the waterway, the sky, and we note every arrival and every departure, every single movement, suspicious or otherwise... as of now."
"Counting those they built the city on," Brognola said heavily, "there are 120 islets on this lagoon. The city itself is subdivided by 117 separate canals. You figure we can keep all that water under surveillance throughout the night and tomorrow mo
rning?"
"Look, we can forget all of those islands except Murano and the city ones, because the operation has to start on Murano, and we know the rendezvous with Baracco is someplace in the city. Okay, that leaves just your 117 canals. With the help of the police, they shouldn't be impossible to cover — given that we finger the prisoners the moment they leave Murano. That way we can pinpoint their direction and narrow down the areas they could be heading for. For us the vital thing is to stay mobile."
"Suppose they leave the island on the far side and head away from the city?" Brognola growled. "Switch transport on one of the smaller isles and come back to Venice for the rendezvous by land?"
"It's a thought," Bolan admitted. "Let's hope they don't."
The night watch was aboard a brass-railed, teak-decked cruiser with 240 horsepower available to spin the two titanium screws beneath the sloping stern. There was a Trilux night vision scope attached to Bolan's Heckler & Koch G-11, and the bag Brognola had brought from Paris offered up IR binoculars and a helicopter crewman's helmet equipped with the latest HNVS nightsight apparatus, including a B&W binocular display on the visor.
The launch itself, cajoled from the anti-drug-smuggling squad attached to the Italian coast guard service, was fitted with a "black hole" engine exhaust suppression system that drastically reduced the craft's own infrared signature in the event of attack by guided or self-seeking missiles.
They cruised the lagoon all night, circling the island of Murano close inshore every fifteen minutes, but they saw and heard nothing. Fog blanketed the lagoon at dawn, leaving the baroque roofline of San Cipriano and the towers and domes of the buildings on neighboring islands riding ghostlike on the ocean of white that lay above the oily swell of the gulf.
"Damn," Brognola said. "Don't tell me the Mob is strong enough in these parts to lay on this!"
Bolan throttled down the engine and allowed the cruiser to ride the swell. He looked up through the veil of mist. "Sky overhead seems cloudless," he said, "as far as I can see. If the sun's not hidden this should disperse by eight-thirty, nine. It's part of the scenery at this time of year."
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