She was looking at him very strangely, now. “Well, you’re a wanted man. You couldn’t risk—”
“Before that, even, before I was identified—the chances are very strong that I would be summarily hauled off to jail, tossed into a rat-infested black hole, and rot there until all the facts were known and all blame finally established regarding the deaths of the victims. I’m no hero, see—I’m guilty of what the Mexicans call mal medicina. I moved an injured person, and the person died—or maybe they were already dead when I moved them. The point is that they observe the Napoleonic Code in Mexico. I’m guilty until proven innocent—and that usually takes a hell of a long time. Meanwhile, sure, my sordid past surfaces to bite me, and I’ll probably never see the outside world again.”
“So?” she asked, interest rising.
“Well, so, Max the Man has a lot of clout around here—and I doubt very much that he would be unduly affected by a murder in his own bedroom. But even a half-hearted investigation into that guy’s closets would release more skeletons than all the clout in Mexico could cover up. And the timing is so bad, see. There’s this world-carving conference I told you about. No, the Man doesn’t want any real trouble with the authorities here—not even if he owns half of them. The more they have on him, the deeper their hands reach into his pockets. He has to cover himself, protect the conference, erase any possible link between himself and the victims. But he probably wouldn’t kill you, Marty.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He’d sell you.”
“What?”
“Or maybe he’d just give you away. To a desert sheik, maybe, who’s earned a favor. Or to an African chief with friendly influence in a developing market. Or maybe to a whoremaster in Algiers, as a special bonus.”
The girl had turned positively ashen. Very quietly, she asked him, “Are you serious?”
“I never make sick jokes,” he assured her.
She blew then.
“For God’s sake, don’t leave me here alone!”
“I’m afraid I have no choice, Marty.”
“But he’ll find me. You don’t know—I do! Max is like God around here! If he wants me, he’ll find me!”
Yeah. Sure. If you want honesty, you catch them at the borderline of consciousness—or at the edge of panic.
Honesty, sometimes, can be very painful. For a man with uncertain emotions, especially so.
A very pained Mack Bolan told the lady, “Okay, Marty. You’re probably not worth it … but I’ll take you with me.”
Sure. She had their smell on her.
5: The Hook
Shops and stores along the way were opening their doors; the town was coming alive again; siesta was over. There was plenty of action along the beaches and on the bay, though, since visitors generally took their siesta at sundown.
Bolan had changed into bell-bottom white ducks, deck shoes, nautical shirt and skipper’s hat. He wore, also, a .38 chief’s special in snaprig strapped to the inside of his left leg, concealed beneath the belled pants leg.
He stopped at one of the shops and picked up a cotton beach wrap for the lady, also a sun hat to cover that golden head. She accepted the gifts without comment and put them on.
Bolan then drove directly to the marina. He transferred the girl and his gear to the power boat he’d rented shortly after his arrival in the resort city, then took the jeep back to the parking area and left it there.
The attendant had been watching him through the window all the while. Bolan stepped inside the office to lay a few pesos on the guy.
The attendant pocketed the money with the standard smile. “I see you have company this time, Señor Franklin. Will you require skis?”
“Gracias, no,” Bolan replied.
The smile broadened. “Fishing, maybe?”
“Maybe,” Bolan said, and returned to the pier.
Marty was seated tensely in the front seat. It was a sixteen-foot inboard/outboard with plenty of poop and comfortable appointments. The girl had removed her hat and wrap.
Bolan frowned at that as he moved in beside her. He kicked the engine and got up to cast off.
“I can do that,” Marty offered.
“Stay put,” he growled. “And put your hat on.”
The attendant was watching them through binoculars.
“Is something wrong?” the girl asked Bolan, reading his face probably more than his growl.
“Maybe.” He cast off the lines and moved away at a sedate idling speed. “Can you handle a boat?” he asked her.
“Sure.”
He turned it over to her with the simple instruction, “Head south.” Then he broke out his own binoculars.
The guy was still watching them. And he now had a telephone to his ear.
It was not much, but enough to put the Bolan combat senses on edge. He went aft to his gear and made ready his weapons. When he returned to take over the wheel, the gleaming AutoMag .44 was strapped to his hip in open leather and a wicked little Uzi submachine gun dangled from a shoulder strap.
They were well clear of the marina now, but Bolan was still casting his attention that way.
Marty took note of the weaponry with obvious distaste. “What are you doing?” she asked, in a frightened voice.
“Staying alive, maybe,” he told her. He stowed the Uzi underfoot then took the wheel and immediately swung it hard a’port, accelerating into a wide power turn and heading toward the east side of the bay.
The girl lost her hat and shivered slightly under the sudden spray.
“You okay?” he asked her, in a softer tone.
“Sure,” she said, and left it there.
Neither had found much to say to the other since the departure from Las Brisas. The mood between them had been one of almost brooding restraint. Once, during the drive to the marina, she had timidly ventured a sort of half-apology. “I guess I’m putting you in some sort of double joepardy.”
“We’ll see,” was his only response to that.
But, sure, the truth of the matter was that Martha Canada’s presence at his side posed a definite hazard and heavy liability to Bolan’s Acapulco effort.
Bolan himself was a sort of ghost. He was there but not there, visible but hardly recognizable since few living enemies had ever seen his face or even a respectable likeness of it. They knew him by image and reputation only, and he took pains to keep it that way.
Also, Bolan moved with care and watched his tracks, ever alert and responsive to enemy presence, and he was always ready to meet the enemy head-on or to stand down quickly in graceful retreat, if that seemed advisable. For every path forward, he usually managed to engineer several alternatives including one or two to the rear.
So, yes, the lady was definitely a problem. The enemy knew her, and they probably had eyes everywhere looking for her. A light such as that was pretty hard to hide under a bushel. The guy at the marina had certainly noted it, and the chances were excellent that he’d reported the sighting into the Man’s telegraph system.
She was going to mess him up, for damn sure.
But what the hell could he do with her?
He could, he knew with a resignation born of many such situations, do only as he was doing. Drag her along, and hope for the best. With a few necessary changes to his own plan of attack. Yeah. It was the only way. He could not change her place in the general run of things—but he could, maybe, change her relative importance.
He could give the Man something else to think about. Something, maybe, that would make him forget for a while that the lady even existed.
And this was the present thrust.
“That’s Max’s yacht!” the girl cried, pointing to a sleek craft looming up on their starboard bow.
“That’s what it is,” Bolan agreed.
“You aren’t taking me there?”
“Either you trust me or you don’t,” he replied, yelling to make himself heard above the roar of the motor. “If you don’t, it’s time to get off.”
“Thanks, I’ll stay,” she yelled back.
The big yacht was riding anchor off Guitarron Beach, at the south end of the bay. Fully fifty to sixty feet long and deep drafted for transoceanic service, she was designed to be propelled by sails or power, or both in combination, and she was a thing to delight the nautical heart.
Any Acapulco regular could tell the curious tourist about the Seaward, with her fabulous salon where thirty people could sit down and eat together—or get drunk and raise hell together—or go to bed together in her many plush cabins, with fine appointments to satisfy the most luxury-loving landlubber.
It was said that Spielke loved nothing in all the world more than he loved that boat. To be invited aboard was a singular honor. To be a guest at one of the rare parties in her salon was a social triumph. To be included on a cruise to Puerto Vallarta or some other nearby port meant that you had made the blue book of international society.
Bolan knew from his own close investigation that the Man studiously avoided any cross-relation between his beloved yacht and his “business” life. He never held meetings there. He did not entertain visiting hoods there. Most of the time, it was said, the boat just sat there, riding anchor, with a two-man caretaker crew who saw to the security and kept everything shipshape. When Spielke used her for entertaining, he brought people from his household staff to mind the chores. For the infrequent voyages, he hired local sailors to round out the crew for proper ship-handling.
Right now she was just sitting there, riding anchor off Guitarron Beach. Spielke’s villa was on a coastal bluff overlooking the anchorage; it gave him pleasure just to look out and see her riding there. He did have a deep-water pier immediately below the house, with direct access via stairway, but the Seaward was too much boat—and perhaps a bit too deep-drafted—for accommodation there.
Bolan cut his power at fifty yards out and asked the lady, “Have you been aboard?”
“No,” she replied quietly.
“Ever invited aboard?”
“Never.”
“Would you like to go aboard?”
She shivered. “No way.”
“Fine, because I have other things in mind for you.”
She shivered again, this one much more pronounced. “What are we doing?”
“We’re hijacking a beloved yacht.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Dirty trick, isn’t it.” He was studying the Seaward, trying to read her inner secrets. A big-chested guy in dungarees and white shirt was on the flying bridge, staring back at him. Another was on the main deck forward, fooling with the rigging. “Looks easy from here. I’m going aboard, Marty. Soon as I do, circle off—but stay close—within swimming distance.”
“I just hope you know what you’re doing,” she commented miserably.
He chuckled and told her, “So do I.”
A moment later, they were alongside and Bolan was moving onto the gangway. A dinghy was tied there. He cast it loose and sent it skimming along in Marty’s wake.
The guy on the bridge yelled something and came quickly down the ladder. Bolan met him at the quarterdeck and showed him the snout of the AutoMag.
And, yeah, it was easy.
True to Bolan’s guess, there were no gunners on board. The crewmen were mestizos—Mexican nationals of Spanish-Indian stock—and neither exhibited any desire to challenge the authority of Bolan’s big blaster.
“Are you the skipper?” Bolan asked Bigchest.
The guy was looking at the gun, not at the man behind it. “Si. I am the skipper.”
“We’re getting underway. Get to it.”
The crewmen exchanged unhappy glances, then silently got to it. They stowed the gangway, fired the engines, raised the anchor.
Marty was lying off to the rear, at about a hundred feet.
Bolan went to the flying bridge and looked over the layout there.
“Where do we go, señor?” asked Bigchest.
“Not we,” Bolan corrected him. He tossed a lifejacket at the guy. “Goodbye,” he said. “Take the other guy with you.”
There was no mistaking the meaning of that. Bigchest seemed very happy with the order. He shouted something at the other man as he quickly descended to the main deck, and both were over the side in a twinkling.
Bolan watched as they stroked for the dinghy, then he dismissed them from his mind and turned his attention to the Seaward.
It was a hell of a ship.
He had to squelch a rising tide of regret over his plans for her as he meshed the big power plant and the sleek craft smoothly responded to quarter speed forward. She was not built for speed—eight to ten knots in standard cruising, probably—but she handled like a dream, smooth and quick to the command. And, yeah, Bolan hated to do it to her.
He did it, though.
He brought her around and set her course, locked in the auto-pilot, and sent the engines to full speed forward. After a moment to confirm the true path ahead, he then went below and dived over the side.
Marty picked him up almost as soon as he broke surface.
“What are you doing?” she cried. “There’s nobody left on there. And it’s—”
Bolan growled, “Yeah. Damned shame, isn’t it.”
He was sending Seaward home.
Home to Max, who loved her so.
At full speed forward, and no one aboard.
6: The Crunch
Spielke’s palatial hillside villa, near the entrance to Acapulco Bay, had quickly become something of a fortress.
Two Indians in a jeep, casually watching the front drive, did not challenge Royal’s vehicle—but they had a radio, and he knew that they were passing the word inside.
It was a different story, at the gate to the compound. The guys there went over that car like border customs men. One guy even patted Royal down for a weapon—and they did not clear the vehicle for entry until positive that it was virgin pure.
Inside was an armed camp. Indians and mestizos were everywhere, patrolling in pairs and armed to the teeth—here and there a criollo (a Mexican of pure European heritage) in an Australian bush hat—the mark of rank in this tightly disciplined force.
It was the Sultan’s private army, occasionally whispered about in certain quarters but rarely visible. The only other time Royal had actually seen this force was during the state visit by Augie Marinello and the New York combine of bosses. Rumor had it that they were customarily quartered down on the Costa Chica, near the Oaxaca border—the Afro-Mexican veldt. The force supposedly numbered some two hundred men, including the officers—and had a village of their own where they lived with wives and children. The fact that they were now deployed at Acapulco lent emphasis to the gravity of the situation there.
Royal found himself again scrutinized and detained at the parking area. One of Too Bad’s boys had to come down from the house to identify him and escort him inside.
It was some kind of far-out joint. The architecture was what Royal termed Mediterranean Bastard. The basic construction was of cement block with fake adobe plastered over the outside and painted a soothing pink. There were also tons of cantilevered steel and special engineering marvels to allow the mass to be hung on the mountainside in just that fashion.
A tri-level job with a full acre under roof, on every level the entire ocean side had walls of glass. The floors were tiered, so that each of the many bedrooms on the upper levels had their own private patio garden. The main level boasted a huge semicircular garden area, complete with fountains and the works, projecting out over the sea. This was fantasyland, even for the jaded jet set. There was a full “bar under the stars” with a dozen stools and a hardwood dance floor. There were umbrella tables, set up like a sidewalk cafe and attended with the most gracious of continental service. There was a swimming pool, with glass panels open to the sea so that one could dive into its depths for a fish-eye view of Acapulco Bay from on high. Finally there were a putting green and two shuffleboard courts.
At the m
oment, fantasyland had been converted to an emergency command center.
Spielke and his legbreakers sat at a large oval table near the pool. Long extension cords provided individual telephone service for each man at the table—and there were ten of them.
Too Bad Paul sat at the opposite side of the oval from the Man. He was gazing forlornly onto the pages of an international hotel guide, spread open before him.
“This is awful,” the crew boss declared as Royal got within earshot. “Did you realize there’s thirty-five pages of listings, just for Acapulco?”
“You take them one page at a time, Paul,” Spielke growled. “Tear them out and pass them around.”
“It’s over two hundred damned hotels, sir.”
“I don’t care if it’s two thousand. The guy is here and we have to find him. Or would you prefer that we just call everything off, sit tight, and wait for him to find us?”
“Shouldn’t be all that hard,” volunteered another lieutenant. “I’ll make ten to one the guy travels alone. That narrows the field a hell of a lot. We ask for American males registered as singles. We get that list and start—”
“What if he rented an apartment?” Too Bad growled.
Spielke blinked at that, then replied, “Call that Playasol office. They handle most of the condominiums around here.”
“See, it’s getting broader as we go along,” Too Bad complained.
“Then we’d better get started quick, hadn’t we,” Spielke retorted acidly.
The crew boss sighed loudly and began tearing out the pages.
Royal’s arrival had gone apparently unnoticed. He tried a laugh that failed and said, “Put walls around this table, Max, and you’ve got a Chicago bookie joint.”
The Man did not think that funny. “We’re busy as hell, Johnny. What do you want?”
“I was wondering about my girls.”
“What about them?”
“What’d you do with them, Max?”
Acapulco Rampage Page 4