Caribbean Kill

Chapter Nine Paydirt

They arrived at the mining site in the waning moments of twilight and Bolan drove the Chevy right through the flimsy gate. Evita swung in behind him and they proceeded along the dusty road to a lip overlooking the ugly white gash in the mountainside.

He parked on the overlook and scrambled out for a quick recon of the area. Heavy equipment stood idle here and there along the strip. No lights were showing and there was no evidence of a watchman.

Evita joined him at the front bumper of the jeep and told him, "The spot is perfect. Send them over from here. They would not be discovered until morning."

He replied, "No, let's get all the mileage out of this thing we can. Listen… I can handle what needs to be done here." He pointed to a small building, constructed of cement blocks and snuggled into the lee of the mountain a few hundred feet downrange. "That should be their explosives storage. Shoot the lock off if you have to but get inside there, Evita. Look for dynamite, in sticks. Get me four or five. And pick up blasting caps, fuses, you know."

She said, "Yes, I know," and took off on a run for the blockhouse.

Bolan swung about to the rear of the vehicle and started dragging out bodies. One of them he placed in the driver's seat and slumped him over the steering wheel. The others he scattered about the landscape and placed weapons in or near their hands.

Then he returned to the vehicles and went to work on the Thompsons, specifically on the ammo drums. Between the bunch, he hoped to be able to come up with at least enough of the heavy ammo to reload one drum almost to capacity.

By the time Evita returned from her errand, panting but glowing with success, Bolan had his stage set and he was ready for the next big gamble.

He kissed her, sat her down on the ground and brushed the dust from her nose. "Okay," he said. "Now here is what we are going to try."

Charlie Dragone was seated irritably in the transparent bubble of "Air One" and closely watching the rocky shoreline as it slipped past several hundred feet beneath him. He pressed the throat-mike and asked the pilot, "How're we doing on fuel?"

"About ten minutes left," Jack Grimaldi replied. "For all the good we're doing, we might as well..."

"Shut up!" Dragone snarled.

They had hit it off wrong from the very start. Dragone did not like wise-guy nobodies who didn't know their place.

He punched in the radio command channel and said, "Air One to Ground Control. It's almost dark and it's been nothing but zip. Whatta you think? Do we keep it up?"

Quick Tony Lavagni's voice returned immediately, vibrating excitedly into the earphones. "I was just about to give you a call, Charlie. Listen, I think I got something going down here on the waterfront. See if you can reach Latigo and tell 'im to close on Puerta Vista."

Latigo was in Air Two, screening the west side of Glass Bay and out of radio range of the east side surface vehicles.

Dragone replied, "You mean him and all his ground scouts?"

"Yeh, let's get 'em all together. At least headed this way."

The chief triggerman acknowledged the instructions, then he punched into the other communications channel and relayed the word to Earl Latigo in Air Two.

This had hardly been accomplished when an excited voice swirled in faintly on the air-to-ground net. "Air One, Air One, can you hear me?"

Dragone busily punched his transmitter into that channel to reply, "Yeah, I hear you. Who's this?"

"Ground Four. And shit man I hit it!"

"You hit what? Talk straight out, buster!"

"Ass, man, ass! It's in a jeep and full of juice!"

"This is Ground Four? Where are you? At that mine?"

"Yeah. Get it up here, eh?"

"Well wait a minute! Are you sure? The boss thinks he's got something, too, down here on the coast. I'm sending all the cars his way!"

"Great, you do that," replied the exultant voice. "I don't need no help anyway. I got this guy boxed in tight, and man his juice is all mine!"

"Well now wait a minute!" Dragone cried.

"Ground Four out, and don't bother calling for awhile. I'm gonna be busy."

"I said wait a minute, dammit!"

There was no response.

The future right hand of a future Capothrew a perplexed glance toward his pilot and muttered, "Goddammit, feast or famine! How the hell do you like that?"

Grimaldi was searching his chart. He pressed his throat mike and said, "I've got the place. There's just about enough gas to run up and look, if you'd like."

"I dunno," Dragone muttered. He punched the channel selector again and tried to raise Lavagni, without success. "I wish people would stay at their goddamn radios," he complained.

"Do we go or don't we?" the pilot wanted to know. "Make up your mind while we have some light left. I can't pick up landmarks in the dark."

"We got enough gas for the round trip?"

"I told you I did," Grimaldi replied. "But if you're going to dick around all night thinking about..."

"Awright, go," Dragone growled.

As it turned out, they had more gas than light. The final minute of travel was conducted during that transition period between sunset and moonrise, and they arrived over the site with no light at all, except for that being provided by the vehicle with the four glowing markers on its roof.

The headlamps were at full blaze, the path of brilliance revealing a jeep swerved and tilted onto a lip of mountainside above the gaping slit trench. A couple of bodies could be seen sprawled out behind the jeep, and a still figure was slumped over the wheel.

And nothing at all seemed to be moving down there.

In a voice thick with emotion, Dragone declared, "By God I believe it's paydirt, all right."

"Do I take her down?" Grimaldi asked.

"Wait a minute." The triggerman pressed the throat mike and said, "Ground Four, what's the situation down there?"

There was no response.

He tried again. "Ground Four, goddammit, report! Whatta you got there?"

A feeble reply came back. "I'm hit."

"Did you get him?"

"Sure… can't you see? But I'm… hit… bad. Can't move."

Grimaldi turned on the ground floods and dropped to about fifty feet, washing the scene in a pale glow of light.

"Yeah," he breathed into the intercom, "that's paydirt."

"Okay, take it on down," Dragone instructed.

The helicopter settled to the ground at about midpoint between the two automobiles.

Dragone growled, "Cover me." He scrambled outside and made a cautious advance on the jeep, remaining clear of the lights from the company car as long as possible, his revolver extended in the firing position and ready to roar.

As he drew abreast of the little vehicle, he fired two deliberate shots into the slumped figure at the wheel, taking no chances whatever that a feeble spark of life there would flare up to turn his victory sour. Then he lunged forward, grabbed the corpse by the hair of the head, and swiveled that lifeless face into the light.

And then Charlie Dragone turned suddenly very cold and very stiff, very strongly aware that he had made his life's final blunder.

There would be no sitting in state at the right hand of a Capo — nobasking in unlimited wealth and influence and power — there would be nothing again ever for Charlie Dragone.

He looked up and into the headlamps of the company car, and his face showed the total resignation, that smashing finality of utter defeat — and probably Dragone never heard the growling chatter of the Thompson submachine gun that ripped him, sieved him, and flung him over the edge of the overlook and into the pits of Aggregates Limited.

Several yards away, one accomplished and versatile Mafia flyer had also become aware of the new turn of events — a turn which somehow seemed entirely too familiar.

He was trying to breathe past the muzzle pressure of a very business-like .32 revolver and watching the tall man with the Thompson walk casually toward his aircraft.

"Oh God, no!" Grimaldi groaned. "Not again!"

A coldly decisive female voice with a soft Spanish slur told him, "But yes. And do not dare to even swallow the spit until I say that you may."

And then Bolan was there, and spinning him around, and shoving him back to the aircraft.

No words were spoken until all three were inside and secured into the harnesses, then the big cold bastard asked him, "How much do you want to go on living, Grimaldi?"

"Just tell me where you want to go," the pilot replied, sighing. "But I think you ought to start paying my salary."

The guy actually grinned at the stab of humor and told him, "I just might." The grin disappeared abruptly and the face turned again to ice and Bolan commanded, "Lift her off."

Grimaldi lifted her off, and heeled her about, and pointed her nose toward the coast.

Yes, definitely, the whole scene was entirely too familiar.

"You're too much, Bolan," the flying Mafiosoannounced into the intercom. "Ill bet you sprinkle gunpowder on your Wheaties."

"I take it where I can get it," the laconic bastard replied.

Grimaldi knew better. This guy moved it to wherever he thought he could take it. And now he was moving it to Puerta Vista. But Grimaldi was betting that he knew something about Puerta Vista that Bolan didn't know.

He told his hijacker, "We might not have enough fuel. It's marginal at best."

Bolan growled back, "You'd better get it there, Jack. Your life is on the same margin."

Grimaldi did not doubt that for a moment. He shrugged and replied, "So I'll get it there if I have to pee in the tank."

Hell yes. Grimaldi would get it there if he had to bleedin it.

He wanted in the worse way to deliver Bolan to Puerta Vista.

With every gun on the island closing at this very moment on that tiny fishing village, Grimaldi could think of no better place to drop Mack Bolan.

It could mean paydirt yet. It could mean, hell, riches beyond Jack Grimaldi's wildest dreams.

"I'll get you there," he assured his passengers.

And then Earl Latigo's voice was crackling into the earphones. "Air One from Air Two. Where are you? What's going on?"

The cold voice in the intercom instructed Grimaldi, "Very carefully, Jack. Tell him what happened, with one exception. Bolan is dead, also. You are returning alone. Carefully now, soldier."

That impressive black Beretta with the muzzle silencer appeared in Grimaldi's peripheral vision and the barrel made a small indentation alongside the throat mike.

Grimaldi sighed and punched into the command channel. "Air One," he said tiredly. "Good news and bad. Charlie got Bolan. But he didn't live to brag about it. I'm coming in empty."

Bolan nodded approvingly and Latigo's elated tones swirled back with, "Hell, I'd about given it up! He really got the bastard? Bolan's dead? Where'd you nail him?"

"Up in the hills. I, uh, don't feel much like talking right now, Earl. Tell you all about it when we get together."

"I guess that's why I can't raise Tony," Air Two replied.

Bolan growled, "Send them home."

Grimaldi sighed again, heavily. "Boss wants you back at the joint," he told Latigo. "Go on home, Earl."

"My ground crews too?"

The Great Stone Face nodded his head.

Grimaldi pressed the throat mike and said, "Yeah, everybody is heading in."

"Okay, see you there," Air Two replied, signing off.

Bolan eased off the pressure of the Beretta and commented, "I might even pay you a salary plus bonuses, Jack."

That, thought Grimaldi, was because the guy didn't know what he was heading into. Quick Tony couldn't be reached on the radio because he was setting up something at Puerta Vista.

He went along with the gag, though, and told Bolan, "When Tony hears about this, you'd better make it enough to get me to Lower Slobbovia, eh."

Bolan did not reply, and they went on in silence until the lights of Puerta Vista became visible.

Then the woman spoke, for the first time since entering the 'copter. "Circle from the east," she instructed him. "On the first road north of the coastal highway, just inside the village, you will see the church. It has a high bell tower. You will land in the churchyard to the rear."

Grimaldi nodded his head and glanced at the ice man. "Is that what you want, Mr. Bolan?"

"You heard the lady," Bolan replied. "Do it."

He found the spot with no trouble at all, and he set her down without landing lights exactly where the lady wanted, and with hardly a bump.

The moon was coming up, and visibility was definitely improving. Grimaldi shivered, wondering what was coming up next — and fearing the worst.

He cut the engine and the rotors were still chugging around in the rundown spin when the big guy started battering the radio with his pistol and ripping out the ignition system.

Then Bolan grabbed Grimaldi and hauled him to the ground and told him, "Run east, soldier. Don't slow down, and don't look back."

Grimaldi had absolutely no desire to argue with the man. Paydirt now meant simply remaining alive.

He started running, mentally bracing himself for the shot in the back which never came.

Twice in one day the bastard had let him off. Jack Grimaldi simply could not understand it. He ran on, almost hoping that the big guy would make it through Puerta Vista in one piece. Maybe the guy wasn't such a total bastard, after all.

It was a dumb hope, though. Grimaldi was the lucky one. He was running out of Puerta Vista.

Bolan was striding into it Straight into Quick Tony's paydirt.