A setup. Big Tommy was going all out. Bolan wondered if he should be flattered.
Another inner door burst open, men and women in various stages of undress running through the office and outside, past the corpse in the hall. Bolan could hear their footsteps pounding down the stairway.
Bolan stared hard at the front-office guy. "You got anything else for me?"
"No," the man whined. "That's it. They wouldn't tell me anything. Please believe me."
"I do believe you," Bolan said. "Now turn around."
"Please don't shoot me in the back, mister."
"Don't worry, I haven't got ammo to waste," the Executioner said, and brought the butt of the 93-R down behind the man's ear. He dropped like a stone.
Bolan reholstered the weapon and brought the briefcase over to the safe. The bills were banded and stacked in piles of ten. Bolan quickly loaded it all into the valise, then took out the large plastic bag full of white powder he found in there with the cash.
He opened the bag. Licking his index finger, he dipped it into the contents, smearing a small amount on his gums, feeling the numbing sensation. Cocaine, nearly pure.
He used his arm to sweep everything off the desk, then poured the coke all over its top. He smoothed it out, then used a finger to write, TOMASSO METRANO, in the powder.
Then he called the police and told them about the shooting. When he hurried back down the stairs, the hooker was long gone.
* * *
The lunch crowd in the Rice Bowl was large and noisy. The Chinese and Cubans from the neighborhood were all regulars, laughing and yelling to one another from table to table.
Bolan parked the beat-up Volkswagen out front and walked through the open door, waving to May, the teenage daughter of the owner, Mr. Wong, as she punched the cash register.
The kitchen was at the very back of the place, behind a large window cut into a dividing wall for the placing and receiving of orders. A swinging door was set beside the window, and Bolan moved familiarly through it.
The kitchen was a confusion of chopping blocks, woks, rice cookers, cleavers, Chinese chatter and wonderful smells as the three cooks hustled through lunch rush. Instantly, memories of R and R in Southeast Asia stirred in Bolan's brain.
Johnny was leaning against a white tile wall near the pay phone, its receiver cradled on his shoulder as he wrote on a notepad. When he caught sight of his brother, he waved, then got quickly off the phone.
Bolan raised an eyebrow and motioned his brother back toward the room attached to the kitchen, which they had rented the night before from an ad in the Miami Herald.
"How'd it go?" Johnny asked, as he followed Bolan into the small room.
"They've been waiting for me all over town," Bolan replied, closing the door. "But we came out all right."
The room was just barely that. Two small beds and a night table between them.
Bolan put the briefcase on the bed and opened it. Johnny whistled when he saw the stacks of bills tumbling out. "How much?"
"Haven't counted," the Executioner said, and closed the case. "But it'll do. How's it going on this end?"
Johnny frowned, opening the notepad to the first page. "I've been using Kurtzman's computers long distance," he said. "It's taken all morning, but I'm not sure what I came away with."
"Let me hear it."
"I've checked all the commercial airlines, and there's no record of Metrano leaving the country on any of them. He could be using forged papers, but I saw no groups of travelers that looked suspicious on the flight plans."
"How about boats?" Bolan asked, as he tugged at the itchy beard to get it off.
"Nothing that could have Metrano on it," he said, flipping a page. "And I've been checking on the guns. Nothing obvious has gone out, although I've got something that strikes me as suspicious. The Latva, a freighter with Greek registry, sailed from Miami several days ago en route to Haifa, the chief Israeli port. Its manifest lists it as carrying several tons of wheat."
"So?" Bolan had the beard off and was rubbing his chin.
"I've been doing some checking on Israel," Johnny replied. "It's a country desperately striving for self-sufficiency, and it has to import most of its goods, which really screws up the economy. The end result is that they work hard to produce as much in country as possible. One of the things they grow…"
"Wheat!" Bolan said.
"Right. They not only grow enough for their own needs, but even manage to export a bit. So, about the last thing in the world they'd import is something they have enough of."
"That's our ship," Bolan said, taking off the suit coat and hanging it in the small, freestanding closet in the corner. "When does it dock?"
"Day after tomorrow."
"We've got to get out of here. Have you found us a pilot?"
"Grimaldi can handle it," Johnny said, and closed the notebook. "But there's something else."
Bolan could see that Johnny was troubled. He sat on the bed opposite, loosening his tie. "What's wrong?"
"This whole deal," Johnny said. "I'm afraid it's our fault."
"How?"
"I've been correlating police reports, Mack." Johnny stared down at the floor. "Over the past several months, all the hits you've made on Metrano's places across the country have been followed up by break-ins at armories and factories near the same locations. I think this is where Big Tommy's gotten the guns to deal with the PLO."
Bolan felt the wind go out of him. "You think he's using this to make up for all the blood we've been taking out of him."
Johnny nodded, finally meeting Bolan's eyes. "Because of us, he needs the money. Because of us, he's selling heavy artillery to terrorists."
Mack Bolan looked at his brother.
"Maybe," he said. "But somehow I don't think so. You don't know these savages like I do. The man's pure evil."
7
From its Mediterranean harbor, Acco, Israel, looked exactly like what it was — a citadel. Even now, in the dark of night, its strength and history could be felt. During the Crusades, it had been the chief European stronghold in the wars to take Jerusalem from the Muslims. Richard the Lionhearted had fought Saladin here. Centuries later, Napoleon Bonaparte threw himself against the same stone walls in an unsuccessful attempt to drive the vicious Turks from Syria.
Mack Bolan found those walls no more inviting.
He and Johnny paddled to shore, the high walls stretching all around them. The small city was protected on three sides by water. Ancient Turkish cannons still pointed out to sea from the crenels, but their glory was long faded, their firepower a memory.
The Bolans had left the United States the day before, Jack Grimaldi getting them secretly to Cyprus. From there they had taken a fishing boat to within the three-mile limit, using the rubber raft for the rest of the trip. They carried neither passports nor identification. If they were caught, even by the people they were trying to help, they would be dealt with as enemies. For Israel was a country with a great many enemies and, like Mack Bolan, it felt the necessity of dealing with them quickly and with finality.
The shore was rocky and uninviting. They paddled toward a wide flat rock, the current washing them violently up against it. They climbed out quickly, dragging their heavy duffels full of ordnance onto the shore at the base of the walls. Bolan took a K-bar knife from the duffel and hacked a hole through the raft, watched it sink into the dark, swirling waters. They were in. They'd worry about getting out when the time came.
Johnny hoisted his duffel over his back with some effort and stared straight up the length of the high walls. He shook his head in dismay.
"Follow me," Bolan said, picking up his own bag.
He walked off, moving next to the wall, studying its contours.
The Executioner was not the first man to land illegally on these beaches. When the British controlled Israel and strictly curtailed Jewish immigration, thousands of Jews found their way into the homeland the same way Bolan did — by night, on the shores bet
ween Acco and Haifa.
"Here," Bolan said, pointing to an opening in the wall.
Johnny walked up beside him to see a small tunnel, barricaded by an iron grating, in the solid stone.
"The Crusaders built several of these in the twelfth century," Bolan said. "In case they got trapped in the city, these were escape passages to the sea. They've been left open for the tourist trade. This will get us into the heart of the city."
He got a small crowbar out of his pack, and they spent the next quarter of an hour prying the bars open enough for them to slip through.
They entered the tunnel, so small they had to crouch-walk. The pounding of the sea echoed all through the hewed-stone cavern; Bolan's flashlight beam sent rats scurrying for safety.
"Shouldn't we have landed closer to Haifa?" Johnny asked.
"This is a tourist spot," Bolan replied, "but not at night. The city itself is basically an Arab slum and the locals don't get along with the Israelis very well. We'll be safe here for tonight. Haifa's close enough that we can get there in the morning."
The tunnel exited into a huge stone room eight hundred years old. Mammoth pillars ran through the large space, the ceilings fifty feet overhead. Their footsteps rang hollowly as they walked through an ancient warriors' banquet hall.
They climbed many stairs, finally finding moonlight again in a medieval courtyard, an open doorway leading into the city.
It was late, most of the inhabitants long asleep. But Bolan wasn't interested in them anyway. It was the people of the night he wanted, the people who did things that cannot be done in the light of day.
They walked the cobbled streets, past the mixture of Crusader, Turk and modem slum buildings. Down a narrow, foul-smelling alley they found what they were looking for. A tavern, reeking of cheap wine and urine, threw dirty light into the night.
They walked in, the eight or ten patrons, all male, glaring at them. The man behind the bar hurried to intercept them before they got too far inside. He was short and swarthy, his three-day growth of beard salted with gray to match the streaks in his greasy black hair.
"This place for Arab," he said in a thick accent. "You go to place for Americans."
"I think this'll do," Bolan said, returning the bartender's gaze. "We want a room for the night, no questions asked."
Several of the patrons had moved away from the rough wooden tables to surround the pair. A lean young man in a torn undershirt and stained khaki pants prodded Bolan's duffel.
"What you got in bag, rich American?" he said softly, "Maybe a present for me?"
Bolan smiled widely, then came around hard with an elbow to the youth's gut, doubling him over. Turning, the Executioner grabbed him by his hair and pulled, running his head right into the bar. The man collapsed onto the dirty floor.
The others tensed, the room suddenly silent. Mack Bolan smiled easily.
"Now," he said, and pulled a hundred-dollar bill out of his pocket, showing it around the room. "Can't we all be friends?"
The barman grabbed the bill, pocketing it immediately. "I got a good room upstairs, just for you."
Bolan pulled out another bill, holding it up. "This is for as much as anyone wants to drink tonight." The guy on the floor was beginning to stir. "Buy him a whole bottle," Bolan said.
* * *
Tomasso Metrano was having a difficult time hearing on the telephone over the screaming in the next room. "What did you say?" he yelled, hand over his other ear as he strained to make contact through static with the voice on the American end.
It was no use. "Just a minute!" he yelled again, and turned to his son, Guido. "Would you do somethin' to shut off that racket. I can't hear myself think."
"Sure, Pop," Guido said, and moved across the gaudy, plush room to the attached interrogation chamber.
They were in Jamil Arman's underground headquarters, sequestered in the foothills that separated Israel from Lebanon. Arman hadn't as yet arrived, but all of Metrano's people were there, including his two remaining sons, Guido and Tony.
American weapons were piled everywhere, including mortars and hand-carried SAMs. On the dining table in the long room, Big Tommy's chemist was testing the potency of a five-kilo bag of processed heroin.
Guido Metrano was not too bright, but he loved his work, especially the dirty stuff. He smiled when he walked into the interrogation room. His brother, Tony, along with Abba, were taking turns skinning the Israeli Mossad agent they had caught earlier that day. Both men were stripped to the waist so as not to mess up their shirts with blood. The agent hung from the ceiling by his arms, leaving him totally vulnerable.
"That's not the way," Abba was saying to Tony Metrano. "Take a wider strip and do not cut down so deep. He will die too soon. Watch."
He moved to the dying man's chest, already a mass of torn flesh and open wounds. "You must go in sideways," Abba said, choosing a section along the operative's rib cage, under his left arm. He traced the blade's point along the skin, angling the knife nearly parallel to the body. Pain gurgled up through the Israeli's clenched teeth.
"Then you jerk quickly downward, like this…"
Abba pulled hard, his thumb holding flesh on the flat of the blade. The man screamed savagely as a wide, six-inch strip of dermis tore from his convulsing body.
"Wow," Tony said. "You got a real way with that thing."
"Practice," Abba said. "Practice."
"Pop wants you guys to cool it," Guido said. "He's trying to talk overseas."
"Shut the door," Abba said. "The room is soundproof."
"Great," Guido said, closing the door. "Can I take a crack at that, too?"
* * *
The screaming stopped abruptly and Big Tommy relaxed immediately, returning to his usual good humor. That torture stuff was for the young ones. It only made him nervous to listen to it, like drinking too many cups of coffee.
"Okay," he said into the receiver. "What's the story?"
The voice was distant-sounding, barely audible. "We tracked him as far as Miami International, then lost him. I think he took a plane."
"How could he?… The cops have got to be looking for him."
"Same way you did, Mr. Metrano. He ripped us off pretty good in Miami, came away with enough juice to buy nearly anything."
"You don't think he's comin' here, do you?"
"I don't know. He's like a bulldog once he latches on to something. You gotta kill him to get him off."
"We'll keep our eyes open," Metrano said. "If being dead's what the son of a bitch wants, we'll fix him up here same as home. They got a whole army to deal with him here. Okay, Vinnie. I'll worry about it on this end."
"So long, Mr. Metrano."
Tommy Metrano hung up, confident that he'd finally be able to get the bulldog's teeth out of his rump.
8
If Israel could be described as a body, Jerusalem would be its heart, Tel Aviv its raucous soul and Haifa its pumping lifeblood. Most of the commerce coming into or going out of the country comes through the port of Haifa — a beautiful, sprawling city that literally climbs the side of Mount Carmel right into the bright haze that usually covers it.
Mack Bolan and his brother had taken a sherut, a seven-passenger bus, from Acco to Haifa, a short coastal run, and now stood on one of Haifa's many wharves, watching the Latva being loaded in record time. Both men wore light jackets, as large as they could get away with in the perpetually warm climate. Both were heavily armed beneath.
The Latva was a large freighter. It rode anchor at the end of the dock that extended from the covered wharf, large crates being unloaded by crane into the backs of waiting trucks.
"I can't believe they'd do that right here," Johnny said.
"Makes perfect sense," Bolan countered. "The population here is nearly half Arab, most of them I honest and law-abiding. But terrorists are a part of the mix, and it's pretty hard to tell the difference. Probably a lot of that shipment is legitimate, with the contraband well hidden. If they can bring it in u
nder the authorities' noses, it can be distributed across the rest of the country very quickly. If they had to try and sneak it over the border a piece at a time, it would be a lot harder."
"Then these trucks we're watching drive away could be filled with hardware…"
"Or maybe just cabbages," Bolan finished.
Another truck rumbled down the dock toward them, turning onto the wharf, then disappearing into the city. They couldn't just stand there and watch millions of dollars' worth of death leak into the lives of innocent people.
"What do we do?" Johnny asked.
Bolan looked at his watch. It was 10:00 a.m. "First we've got to stop them from loading any more trucks. Then find the heavy stuff."
"What about the authorities?" Johnny asked. "What if we just called them anonymously and told them about the contraband? they could probably handle it better than us anyway."
"Uh-uh," Bolan said. "Even if they did take an anonymous call seriously, there'd be too much red tape before a massive search of an already cleared vessel could be mounted. Besides, the Port Authority would be mad as hell and wouldn't admit they could be wrong if anything was found. Meantime, the unloading continues unchecked because they won't call a quarantine without a more probable cause than an anonymous phone call. Of course, we could go to them in person, but then we'd be doing all our explaining from a jail cell."
"This is crazy."
"It's the way of the world, Johnny," Bolan said. "That's why we're here — to cut through the nonsense."
"When?"
"Right now."
Bolan began walking casually toward the freighter, where a large dockside crane was slowly swinging toward the ship, directed by a sailor on board.
Johnny hurried to catch up, surprised when his brother, moved to the side of the dock and stopped at a small snack bar that served wharf employees. The dock was crowded with people, a bad situation if trouble erupted.
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