Bolan swam steadily toward Varzi's retreat, at first on the surface, then underwater, correcting his direction with the aid of a luminous compass strapped to his wrist. He was aiming for a section of cliff where slabs of rock formed a series of natural steps plunging below the waves.
According to charts he had read, the water there should be around thirty feet deep… and the rock shelves were halfway between two of the lookout posts. A preliminary recon while the light was still good had persuaded him that it would not be too difficult for an agile man to scale the weathered face in the dark. After that it would be the Montenegria prison tape played over — the rope, the grappling hook and the silent climb over the ramparts.
Then it would be playing by ear. There was no plan of the fortress in the Ischia public library or town-hall record office.
Ten feet below the surface, the water was pitch-black and surprisingly cold, pressing the rubber suit to Bolan's body with clammy insistence. Approaching the islet, he dived deeper and made the last few yards along the seafloor.
He was perhaps thirty feet out in his reckoning. The error saved his life.
Switching on the underwater lamp clamped to the front of his helmet, he groped his way past wave-smoothed boulders covered with barnacles, across clefts alive with fronds waving in the receding tide, to the lowest of the rock shelves.
A shoal of brightly colored fish, suspended in the viridian depths like the elements of a mobile, flicked their tails and darted away. Something large and scaly slithered out of sight into a crevice surrounded by sea anemones.
Suddenly Bolan saw that there was a cavern penetrating the base of the cliffs — a cavern that reached from the bed of the ocean to a point a few feet above the surface, a cavern whose low, arched entrance would have been hidden by the boulders from anyone approaching from the sea. But a cavern, nevertheless, that must give access by means of some system of tunnels and stairways carved from the rock to the fortress one hundred feet above. Because even here, five fathoms deep, there were guards.
He saw them first as dim shapes at the outermost range of his lamp. Then gradually, as they split up to outflank him, he realized they were frogmen like himself, but hostile — sinister figures now moving with a slow but remorseless scissoring of the legs toward his telltale light.
He killed the beam and thrust himself upward. The underwater guards followed. There were three of them, one who switched on his own lamp to identify the target, two others circling silently in the dark. The one with the lamp held a harpoon gun; the others clutched broad-bladed knives.
Bolan aborted the operation. Speed, strength, dexterity, mastery of the martial arts were all useless here, where action was in slow motion because of the pressure of the water. Three against one was a no-go situation. The only line he could take was to get out, fast. If he could.
The two with the knives were kicking hard, closing fast. Bolan somersaulted, propelled himself downward and then rolled to shoot toward the surface again. One of the attackers drifted away and down; the other sailed in with an upraised arm.
Bolan saw the filtered light gleam on the knife blade. He twisted sideways, feeling the razor-sharp point rip through the sleeve of his wet suit and score his left arm.
Then he had hold of the attacker's wrist, backflipping so that his knee came up and he was able to snap the bone of the guy's forearm across it like a dry stick. A stream of bubbles floated upward as the attacker screamed. The knife seesawed down into the dark.
Bolan turned. The second guard had switched on his headlight. The two beams were converging on him in the semiopaque water at the foot of the rock shelf. The first man was about to launch his harpoon at the Executioner.
Bolan fired first. The steel shaft arrowed through the deep to pierce the killer's chest. At once the man's limbs became as limp as the feelers of a squid. A murky cloud stained the depths, spread rapidly and roiled slowly toward the surface. The deadly harpoon hissed harmlessly past Bolan two feet away.
But the last defender was on him. The knife flashed, not menacing Bolan directly but above his head. Seawater gushed suddenly into his mouth and nose as a cascade of bubbles fountained upward. The blade had severed his oxygen tube.
Choking and spluttering, Bolan discarded the cylinder and shot to the surface.
He swam away from the islet with long, powerful strokes, actuating the bleeper attached to his waist belt so that Mettner, waiting with the sister device, could home on the signal and pick him up.
"Zero for that one," Bolan said when he had regained his breath and staunched the flow of blood from his arm. "We'll have to put Plan B into operation at once."
"You mean tonight?" The newspaperman was astonished. "Don't you think you've done enough…"
"Look," Bolan cut in. "This little comedy beneath the ocean will have tipped them off that someone wants in. My fault, I should have done a soft probe. The whole place will be on the alert now. The quicker we strike, the more likely we are to catch them on the move."
Mettner shrugged. "Okay, guy, it's your dream."
It didn't take Bolan long to ready himself. Bind up the arm. Keep the rope and the weapons, junk headlight and harpoon gun. Check the chute and strap on quick-release skis.
"Someone — anyone who's watching — is going to think somebody's out of his skull," Mettner observed. "Para-sailing in the dark, for chrissake!"
Bolan grinned. "You forget, this is a tourist center. If anyone does see, they'll take us for Brits."
He grabbed the towrope and lowered himself into the ocean for the second time that night. Mettner gunned the Evinrude, the bow rose, the double wake creamed out in a wide V and Bolan was up.
Mettner approached the islet in a shallow curve as the chute lifted the Executioner from the ripples rolling in toward the port.
Bolan manipulated the shrouds so that the onshore breeze buoyed up the rectangular canopy of the aerofoil chute, flying him higher and higher as Mettner gave the vessel full power and paid out the special towrope from the stern. At the same time the parachute was being carried sideways so that as the boat passed the rocky boss it flew over the islet itself.
From his position twenty feet above the rooftops, Bolan saw that the place was much bigger than he had imagined. In the center of the medieval buildings clustered above the ramparts was a domed chapel, and outside this a wide piazza encompassed a pool, a sunken garden and lawns planted with floodlit orange trees.
Bolan had intended to maneuver the shrouds so that he was able to lower himself from the sky, let go the towrope and float down to a narrow, grass-covered ledge beneath the ramparts.
This would have been dangerous enough. There was a risk that the towrope would snag on the cliff face and spill him 150 feet into the ocean; there was a risk that he might miss his footing or overrun such a small landing area. And, of course, despite the blacksuit, the helmet and the matt black nylon parachute canopy, there was always a chance that the dugouts would still be manned after dark and someone would see him silhouetted against the stars.
What he decided to do now was more perilous still.
Since he had enough height, he would forget about scaling the rampart; he would land on the inside of the fortress.
He would be at a wider angle from the boat, there was more chance of the cliff snaring the rope and the complexity of the surfaces available to him for a landing could easily result in a broken leg or a fatal fall. Because in practice this meant that he had to land on the roofs.
The towrope snaked away down into the dark. Bolan heard the wooden bar he had been holding clatter against the rock face before it dropped into the sea. The wake from the outboard faded and then dissolved into the night as Mettner throttled down and coasted.
Bolan spilled air from the canopy. A slope raced up to meet him. He landed heavily, pitching forward across the roof to dislodge a tile that shattered on the rock below.
Had anyone heard the wooden bar rattling down?
Had the smashing tile ale
rted one of Varzi's guards?
Affirmative.
Peering over the edge of the roof, Bolan heard a shout below, saw first one, then another, dark figure scrambling upward between the cliff outcrops. He sighed. He knew what the score would be if the positions were reversed; he already had evidence of the lethal intentions of Varzi's guards. He took the silenced Beretta from the pouch at his waist and sighted carefully down toward the clifftop.
It wasn't an easy shot. The sliver of moon had already sunk below the horizon; he had to wait for that brief instant when a man shape was outlined against the lacework of white foam circling the rocks below.
Now!
He squeezed the trigger. A single shot.
One of the figures jerked, appeared to leap outward, dived down and vanished into the surf heaving against the base of the cliff.
The second was even more difficult. Because of the flash-hider and subsonic rounds, Bolan's position was impossible to define. But the guard had heard the breaking tile; he had seen his companion fall. He dived for a crevice in the rock.
In the faint light from the stars it was hard to distinguish shapes. Bolan was forced to trigger three 3-round autobursts before he was convinced he had hit his target. He ventured a quick look with the flashlight he carried in the pouch. The hardman was wedged into his crevice with half his head blown away.
Bolan redistributed the contents of the pouches: the Beretta and the AutoMag holstered in their usual positions, grenades and flashlight clipped to belt, transceiver attached to his shoulder strap. He gathered the chute canopy, packed it into one of the pouches and left it beside a chimney stack. On the far side of the stack he fixed the grappling hook and then paid out the rope over the edge of the roof and down into the piazza.
He let himself down among the orange trees on the floodlit lawn. Standing still for two minutes, he took in the scene around the open space.
Two guards patrolled the arched gateway that led to the bridge and the tunnel beyond. At least another couple, Bolan surmised, at the landward end of the bridge. The piazza itself was deserted. On the sea side, a couple of lights showed in upper windows. Above the arch and to the south the facades were dark. But the building rising from the northern ramparts was ablaze with illumination.
Behind stone balconies on the second floor, light showed in the cracks between heavy draperies covering most of the windows; it streamed down a flight of steps leading to double glass doors behind which an ornate hallway was visible; it outlined three uncurtained windows on the ground floor overlooking the sunken garden; and it glowed behind a whole row of casements beneath the overhanging eaves.
Nobody inside the redoubt seemed to have been alerted that a stranger was on the rock. Perhaps they expected him to make another attempt on the cave below. If they had missed out on the parachute, the presence of the outboard could support that theory.
Bolan stole between the orange trees to a patch of shadow below the lighted facade. Through the glass doors he could see a typical Mob hardman sitting reading a newspaper in back of the hallway.
The uncurtained windows beyond the sunken garden revealed officelike interiors with gray steel desks, filing cabinets and telex terminals. There was also a small computer console with a display screen, but no operator.
From the upper floor, a hum of voices floated on the night air. Bolan crossed the sunken garden, skirted the pool and climbed a pillar to the nearest balcony.
It was the only one with darkened windows. Two small tools from a pocket in his belt enabled him to spring the lock. Warily, he pressed down the latch and opened the window.
Darkness.
A presence nevertheless. Breathing, heavy breathing and something else — vocal but muffled.
Bolan dropped to his hands and knees, the AutoMag fisted in his right. He reached up and swung the window wide.
In the diffused light reflected from the floodlit piazza he saw an iron bedstead. A figure spread-eagled on it. He stifled an exclamation and switched on the flashlight.
Ruth Elias.
Her wrists and ankles were handcuffed to the four corners of the iron frame. Wide adhesive tape strapped across her mouth held a gag in place, and her eyes were taped shut.
The Executioner's breath hissed between his teeth. The Israeli woman's skirt was pulled up around her waist and her blouse had been ripped open. Angry red blotches visible between the torn edges showed where the slopes of her breasts had been burned with cigarettes. When he had pried off the tapes as gently as he could, he saw that one of her eyes was blackened and both lips swollen and split.
He pulled a rubber sponge from her mouth. "You!" she gasped. "The last person I would — My God, am I glad to see you!"
"What happened?" Bolan whispered.
"I got too close again." Ruth spoke with difficulty, grimacing with pain as she moved her lacerated mouth. "Bluffed my way in, pretending I wanted to interview Varzi, but someone recognized me."
Bolan began opening the handcuffs with his picks. "How did you get on to Varzi?" he asked.
"Still on the same antidrug assignment. One of our operatives in the South managed to penetrate the gang operating the Mexican supply line. After that it was no sweat making the connection through Rostand to his old boss."
"You shortcut my own research by one round trip to Washington, D.C.," Bolan admitted. "On the other hand, you won't know about the Comrades."
"What about them?" she asked.
Bolan told her.
"But there are still things I don't understand," she complained, pulling the ragged edges of her garment together and massaging the circulation back into her cramped limbs.
"Me, too," he said. He helped her off the bed. "Come on, we'll see what we can find out. Did they find out anything from you?"
Ruth hung her head. "Only that I'm on an Israeli antidrug mission," she whispered. "I couldn't hold out any longer. But no other names. There was going to be another… session… tomorrow morning."
Bolan pressed her arm in sympathy. Somebody was going to pay for this. He handed her his Beretta, unsheathed Big Thunder and led the way out of the room.
They were in a long dimly lit corridor. The voices came from behind a door near the stairway at the far end. In between, light streamed from a small empty room.
The door was ajar. Bolan pushed it open and they stole inside. The place looked like the anteroom to an office. He saw typewriters, ledgers, a nest of trays filled with papers and documents, another telex machine. On a table in front of the window he scanned a dozen clipboards holding printed share certificates, extracts from company registers, invoices, correspondence from brokers, details of short-cover dealings and washed sales.
"Here, right here on this table, is the missing piece of the puzzle," Bolan murmured. Ruth raised her eyebrows, but he shook his head and held up a warning finger. The voices, which had been distant, were approaching. A door opened and closed. They had moved into the next room.
He laid his ear against a communicating door.
There were two voices: one a baritone, the other deep, guttural, oddly familiar. Varzi and… who else?
A phone rang. Varzi's voice. "Well, go out there, you fool, and check… If there was an attempt to penetrate the cavern earlier and now you can't raise Ricardo and Pasquale… No, don't come whining to me. Get out there, the whole lot of you. I want the whole rock searched, inch by inch. And alert the guys guarding the tunnel." The receiver was slammed down.
Voices now from an upper floor. Feet tramping down the stairs, perhaps six or eight men, following Mr. Big's orders. The front door slammed and the voices spread out across the piazza.
With the soldiers out, now was as good a time as any.
Bolan kicked open the communicating door, having motioned Ruth to remain in reserve, and leaped into the next room with the AutoMag held out in front of him. "Don't anyone move!" he ordered.
And gasped with astonishment.
He was as dumbfounded as the two men in the room, a
luxuriously furnished study with leather-bound books behind glass, white leather armchairs and spotlit paintings on the gold-paneled walls. One man stood frozen on either side of a wide, flat-topped desk.
Varzi was sixty-five years old, a tall, bulky individual with crimped silver hair, a pink face that testified to the daily application of hot towels and small green eyes above a widely smiling mouth. He was wearing a bright blue mohair suit with a white open-necked shirt.
The second man, taller, bulkier, more muscular, was black. His right arm was in a sling and he rested his left on an aluminum crutch that supported a leg in plaster.
Anya Ononu!
"You're supposed to be dead," Bolan rasped. No prizes now for guessing who had blown Ruth's cover.
"It's not only capitalist mercenaries who can dive from a height and survive," the ex-dictator snarled.
"But it's only 'capitalist mercenaries, " Bolan said evenly, "who seem able to expose the lies and betrayals of a mobster who's tricked you, Rinaldi, Vanderlee, Reinbecker and Rostand, and even the KGB, that you've been working for the good of the socialist revolution… while all the time you've been risking your lives to make money for him, and him alone."
"What the hell do you mean, betrayals?" Ononu blustered, his hate-filled eyes glaring at the man who had lost him his kingdom.
"The bastard's crazy, don't listen," Varzi said. "My boys will be reporting back any time. We'll see who's lying then."
"You thought you were financing terrorist activity to create a situation in which your Russian friends could unload their gold and make a killing," Bolan said. "All to help the balance of payments in the socialist paradise. But all you were doing, all of you, was improving the balance of payments into this vulture's pocket."
"You're out of your skull," Varzi said.
"You really believed the plot to take over the mines in your country was to help the Arabs train skyjackers and urban guerrillas?" Bolan said directly to Ononu. "And you figured that would keep you in favor with Moscow and ensure a further supply of cheap arms? Ask your racketeer friend here about some of the other mines he's taken over?"
Dead Easy Page 28