He tensed in the seat of the rented car and quickly started the engine as the service vehicle suddenly wheeled about and lurched to another stop in the parking area beside the flying service. He watched as the thick man transferred to a dark Lincoln, waving his arms in some signal to the other men congregated there. Then a small cavern, led by the Lincoln, pulled onto the service road and sped off toward the perimeter highway.
Inside the private terminal, a charter pilot was ruefully relating his “weird experience” to the flying service manager. “…and chartered me to Miami, see. Then ten minutes out of New Orleans, he decides he wants to go to Jax until he makes this phone call, and then he gives me this precise schedule to Miami, see. I got to come in at a such and such time … well, hell, I guess it’s okay, I picked up an extra hundred for my trouble, plus the deadleg fee … but did you see that guy who picked up the package? Brrr, there’s a Murder Incorporated type if I ever heard of one. I’m wondering what the hell I got myself into, see, and I’m wondering if a hundred bucks is worth it, but I …”
On a parapet overlooking the fast-awakening international airport, a pair of disgruntled “photographers” were hastily packing up their gear and preparing to depart. Down below, anxious-eyed men in hand-tailored suits were spreading energetically throughout the facility, inspecting rest rooms and lounges and waiting rooms in a final, almost frantic search for an illusive quarry.
In an airporter bus just then clearing the terminal area, the members of an obscure rock music group, bound for a music festival in a Miami suburb, were discussing their “adventure” in solemn and dignified elation.
A round-eyed girl, still a bit breathless with suppressed tension, said, “We should’ve, you know, found out who he was and why he was hiding. I mean, wow, he could be anybody. I mean it was groovy, sure, but wow! He could be anybody.”
“Sometime you just have to go on instincts,” their bearded leader observed. “Like with chicks, you know. You just have to like the look in their eyes and like take it from there. I mean I just looked in those eyes, dig?—and I said, ‘sure, man—I’ll let you carry my guitar.’ And the cat fit, didn’t he? I mean, he was a real cool Aquarian, wasn’t he?”
The real cool Aquarian was, at that moment, pacing along at a discreet distance, following a Mafia motorcade to Miami Beach. For The Executioner, it had been a highly successful soft sweep.
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About the Author
Don Pendleton (1927–1995) was born in Little Rock, Arkansas. He served in the US Navy during World War II and the Korean War. His first short story was published in 1957, but it was not until 1967, at the age of forty, that he left his career as an aerospace engineer and turned to writing full time. After producing a number of science fiction and mystery novels, in 1969 Pendleton launched his first book in the Executioner saga: War Against the Mafia. The series, starring Vietnam veteran Mack Bolan, was so successful that it inspired a new American literary genre, and Pendleton became known as the father of action-adventure.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1970 by Pinnacle Books
Cover design by Mauricio Diaz
ISBN: 978-1-4976-8556-7
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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Battle Mask Page 18