Caribbean Kill

Chapter Four Game plan

The easiest and most direct route of retreat from Glass Bay would be through the jungle pocket, across the coastal plain, and into the mountains of the interior. From there, a guy on the run could probably commandeer a vehicle and make it into San Juan, a modern city of maybe half a million people. He could lay low for awhile in San Juan, then slip back to the states via ship or plane when the situation had cooled off.

There were two principal reasons, though, why Mack Bolan did not choose this avenue of escape.

First, the enemy would be expecting just such a move — and he did not wish to give them the added advantage of reading his game plan.

Secondly, Bolan did not choose to "lay low" in San Juan, nor did he have any intention of leaving the Caribbean until he'd completed his operations there.

The strategic route of retreat which he had selected lay directly across Glass Bay, past the enemy hardsite, and on beyond to one of the seaside villages. From there he would play it by ear and figure some way to strike at the mob's wheel of fortune.

The big problem of the moment was Glass Bay itself.

Bolan had moved cautiously to the eastern edge of the forested area and he was taking a quiet reading of the situation there. He was about two hundred yards inland and looking southeasterly onto the grounds of the hardsite.

The fire had apparently been brought under control but smoke continued to rise from several stubbornly smoldering pockets. He counted twelve men moving tiredly about the damaged structure, a few still on fire hoses but most of them now engaged in salvage operations. Furnishings and other objects were strewn about the lawn. Angled to one side and out of the way was the line of Glass Bay dead, neatly lined up and wrapped in sheets.

Bolan grimaced and consulted his wristwatch. It had been a fast and chaotic forty minutes at Glass Bay.

His point of view was toward the rear, of the house and across several hundred feet of open area. Four smaller structures were semi-circled behind the main building. None of them seemed to have suffered damage. Two were bungalows, one was a storehouse of some kind, the fourth appeared to be an office.

A VW sedan was parked between the bungalows. Behind these and set off at a right angle stood a long and narrow structure which provided carport parking for perhaps a dozen vehicles, with living quarters above. This would be the barracks, Bolan deduced, for lower echelon attendants of visiting big shots — the wheelmen, hardmen, etc. The place appeared deserted now, and there were no vehicles in the bays. So it followed that Lavagni's party had been airlifted in, not brought in by ground transport.

Continuing the visual inspection, Bolan noted an asphalt road looping in from the east-rear section of the property. An arched gateway marked that eastern boundary. The blacktop road traversed the manicured grounds to the carports and ended there in a graveled circle. A dirt road led from there to Bolan's side of the compound, skirted the jungle for a hundred yards or so, then angled off toward the rear perimeter.

A jeep was presently occupying that dirt road, parked at the midpoint of the jungle stretch not a hundred feet from Bolan's position. Two men with poised Thompsons were standing behind it and intently watching the forest line.

Occasional distant gunfire was coming from the interior of the jungle area, in singles and in volleys, as the Lavagni meat-grinder chewed on northward. The survivors were probably thoroughly spooked now and firing at anything that moved or seemed to move. This suited Bolan fine. Another five minutes of that and they would probably be shooting at one another.

Meanwhile the pressure was being lifted from this corner of the battle zone. The two plug men at the jeep had noted the audible evidence that the sweep had progressed far beyond their position, and they were relaxing.

As Bolan watched, one of them lowered his weapon to light a cigarette. The other man said something, to which the first one laughed and moved around the front of the jeep to hand over the cigarette. Then he lit another for himself and the two stood chatting in low tones, their backs to Bolan as their attention remained focused on the distant sounds of "battle."

That jeep was Bolan's ticket out of Glass Bay, and he meant to have it. He was calculating the precise range from his position and applying this to the ballistics characteristics of the Beretta. The firing range would be approximately thirty yards. The Beretta had been worked-in for a twenty-five-yard point-blank range, meaning no rise or fall of trajectory across that distance, and the finely balanced weapon had delivered consistent two-inch groupings at such a range. The silencer, however, altered all that — and Bolan needed silence as much as he needed the jeep.

He was mentally calculating the corrections required when his attention was diverted by a commotion near the house. The Volkswagen had lurched away from the bungalow area only to be halted at the graveled circle opposite the carports.

The driver, to Bolan's surprise, was a woman. A big guy in a rumpled Palm Beach suit had pulled her out of the car and was dragging her back toward the bungalows.

The two men at the jeep had also swiveled about to watch the little drama. One of them chuckled and called out, "Atta boy, Vince" — though not loud enough to be heard across the intervening area.

Bolan pondered this development for a moment. Anything which was out of the ordinary deserved his attention, and to find a female around a hardsite at such a time was certainly unusual. Who was she? What was she doing there? Why was she being prevented from leaving?

He tried to shrug it off, deciding that the woman's presence could have little bearing on his own problem. As for herproblem… well, maybe it was no more than a marital one. Maybe she was married to one of the Glass Bay wheels. Or she could be a girl friend, or the local whore-in-residence. At any rate, Bolan had enough of a problem already.

He pushed the woman from his mind and concentrated on his own problem in survival. One of his targets had raised a two-way radio to his head and was speaking into it.

New instructions?

It looked that way. Each of the men dropped his cigarette to the ground and stepped on it, then they swung around to opposite sides of the jeep and climbed aboard.

The Beretta was extended and ready to blast, the ballistics corrections being meticulously programmed through mind, eye and hand.

Bolan was waiting for the driver to stow his Thompson and start the jeep. The sound of the engine would be a further masking factor in the attack, and Bolan wanted everything going for him that he could get

The finger squeezed home with the first crank of the engine, the Beretta recoiled with a soft cough, and the driver pitched forward across the steering wheel.

The other guy was turned in profile, caught in that microsecond of stunned realization before reaction sets in, when the Beretta Belle resettled into the second alignment and another hi-impact missile sizzled along the doomsday course. It splattered in just above the mouth and sent the guy sprawling onto the ground, the Thompson still cradled in his arms.

The Executioner waited cautiously for some sign of a reaction from the hardsite. Receiving none, he stepped out of the vegetative cover and strolled unhurriedly to the jeep.

The engine was idling in neutral. Bolan went first to the man on the ground and dragged him around to the blind side. There was no recognizing that face. Most of it was missing. He was wearing a new sports shirt with a sale tag still attached and clean white denim slacks. Bolan removed the clothing and put it on over his skinsuit, and the fit was good enough for the moment.

Next he pulled the driver out and rolled him to the ground beside the other man. The Parabellum bone-crusher from the Beretta had penetrated at the base of the skull and angled up for an exit through a slightly enlarged eye socket There was not much blood up front, and the departing trajectory of the bullet had cleared the jeep's windshield. Bolan tore the guy's shirt off and used it to sponge up the blood spatterings, then he retrieved the fallen Thompson from the roadway and added it to the growing arsenal in the rear seat.

The crew at the house were going on about their tiring chores as he wheeled the jeep into the soft run for the asphalt road. One of them paused to wipe the sweat from his brow as the jeep eased past.

"Trade you jobs, slick," he called over.

"Get laid," the Executioner called back, and went on into the traffic circle at the carports.

He was just about all the way home now, and already the air was smelling sweeter. Then his eye caught the abandoned VW, and a disturbing little tic began working at his deeper consciousness. He shrugged it away and continued around the circle, avoiding the VW, and pulled onto the blacktop.

Then he swore harshly to himself, swung on around the carports, and pulled to a halt between the bungalows.

Dammit, the woman could be in as large a mess as he was. He couldn't just…

A man's angered tones were coming from the end bungalow. Bolan refueled the Beretta and returned her to the sideleather, then he left the jeep idling between the buildings and went on foot to the front.

A guy in wet, charcoal-smudged clothing stood on the porch. He gave Bolan a sour look and said, "Ay man."

The guy was no freelancer. He was a Mafia hard-man and clearly in a nasty mood.

"Ay," Bolan growled back. "Vince in there?"

"He's busy," the guy said, moving into a tense confrontation at the doorway.

Bolan had no time for games, and he was feeling a bit nasty himself. He replied. "I see," as the Beretta leapt clear and pumped a quiet one up the guy's nose.

Bolan pushed the falling body into the house and stepped across it. The man in the rumpled Palm Beach was standing over a couch and lighting a cigar. He saw the dead bodyguard and the tall man with the Beretta and death itself, with one sweep of the eyes. The hand with the match froze and the guy took a dancing step backwards.

In a voice of clearest ice, Bolan told him, "I want the woman."

"Take her," the Glass Bay boss urged.

She looked Puerto Rican and very pretty maybe twenty-five, simply dressed in a short skirt and cotton blouse. She was sprawled on the couch in a manner suggesting that she had been thrown or knocked there. The blouse was torn down the front, partially exposing an interesting chest, and she'd taken a couple of hard belts across the face.

The girl was crying and breathing hard, and mad as hell.

Bolan knew the guy, by mugshots and reputation only. It was Vince Triesta, a nickel and dime hood who'd made it big in drugs and girls in the Detroit area some years back. Before that he'd been involved in every rotten thing from shylocking to contract killing. He had, in fact, become endeared to the syndicate brass by murdering his ex-wife and her brother when they were preparing to testify before a Michigan crime commission. It had been nothing but roses for Triesta ever since… until this very moment.

And certainly he realized that his time had come. "Take her!" he repeated shrilly. "I don't know her and I don't know you. You're Tony's problem, not mine. Take the broad and blow, and let's call it even."

"Not quite," Bolan told him, and he caressed the Beretta's nerve center once very lightly, and things were suddenly evened for Vince Triesta.

Bolan pulled the shaken girl to her feet and gently shoved her toward the door. "Let's go," he said. "Vamos."

He preceded her to the porch and led the way to the jeep, and it was obvious that she was beginning to understand the situation as she scrambled onto the rear deck and curled herself into a little ball on the floorboards.

He told her, "That's the idea — bueno," and sent the jeep in a tight loop of the bungalow and onto the blacktop.

A guy lolling at the east gate picked up his shotgun and walked to the center of the road as the jeep approached.

Bolan slowed almost to a halt, then he stomped the accelerator and gunned ahead at the last moment. The guy was caught off-guard in the path of the charging vehicle. The impact flung him onto the hood and carried him along for a few feet before spinning him off into the bushes at the side of the road.

Then they were free and clear and climbing a gentle rise onto the coastal road. The girl came out of her curl and climbed into the seat beside Bolan.

"Thank you," she said shakily.

"You speak English," Bolan observed. "Great."

She gave him a ragged smile as she replied, "I speak it once too often in the wrong place. It is my downfall. He would have killed me."

"Triesta, eh?"

"Yes, Triesta. He overhears me on telephone, in the little office. I think I am dead for sure. Except for you, I am."

Bolan was unwinding taut nerves and giving the woman a closer inspection. The eyes were wide-spaced, luminous, intelligent — almost contradicting the blatant sensuality of the rest of her.

"You've been staying at Glass Bay?" he asked.

"Yes, three months I am there."

"You could tell me things?"

She nodded and met his brooding gaze. "I could tell many things. If you are who I think."

Bolan returned his attention to the road and fought the jeep into a screaming turn as they topped the rise. Straightening out, he threw a quick glance along the backtrack. Glass Bay was laid out for his inspection. And it was a revealing one. A pickup truck and another jeep were tearing along the dirt road back there. Evidently the truth was out and the pursuit was on.

The girl had seen it also. She told him, in soft Spanish accents, "A man called Latigo coordinates their operations by radio. That is he in the pickup. Also they have sent to San Juan for helicopters."

Bolan reached into the rear seat and snared the radio he'd inherited with the jeep. He gave it to the woman and told her, "You be our ears."

She nodded assent and activated the radio, with no fumbling whatever.

The woman was becoming more of a puzzle. He bluntly asked her, "Okay, who are you and where do you fit?"

She countered with, "I would ask of you the same."

"Save it for later," he growled. "We're a long way from clear."

"And you are a long way from home, Mack Bolan," she replied.

"Right on," he muttered, not bothering to deny nor confirm the identification.

"You cannot remain on this road. There will be police roadblocks at Puerta Vista, the next village."

"How do you know that?" he asked, feeling already the answer in his gut.

She sighed. "Trust me. I owe you my life. I would not betray you. Go north at the next crossroads. I know a place of safety."

Bolan realized that there was little alternative but to play the game her way. He felt that wriggling finger of destiny tickling at his life-strings once again, and he had learned to yield to its directions.

"Okay," he said tightly. "I guess I'm in your hands."

"And I am in yours."

"Let's set the game," Bolan said quietly. I'm a wanted man. You're a cop. Now where do the two of us go from there?"

"I am also a woman," she reminded him in a small voice.

Bolan didn't need the reminder. From the top of that perfect head to those bare little feet, she was every inch a woman.

He showed her a reluctant smile and told her, "That was the first idea I got."

Her eyes flashed warmly to his and she said, "At the moment, I am justa woman."

Bolan could have told her that there was no such animal as just a woman. The female was the more complex and enigmatic in any species, and she wore many jungle hats. This one also wore a badge.

A small warm hand crept into his. He gently squeezed it and felt a responsive pressure.

"Okay," he said gruffly.

"Okay," she echoed, mimicking his gruff tone.

Then she laughed, a bit self-consciously, and Bolan laughed with her.

Into every jungle must creep an occasional ray of sunshine.

And they were approaching the crossroads. A crossroads in no-man's-land, somewhere on the border of hell and paradise.

Which way, Bolan wondered, led the road ahead?