Don Pendleton: The Libya Connection

Eve's agency had not heard from her in seven days. Too long. Eve had been sucked into the Jericho operation, her cover probably blown.

Bolan was here to do whatever damage he could to the unfolding Jericho scam... which, under the circumstances, would be considerable.

They had Eve.

Bolan was not here to give quarter.

Three men were sitting around a table playing cards. The air had become stale and hazy with cigarette and cigar smoke. A naked low-watt bulb cast the walls and corners of the room in dark shadow.

The men were all armed.

They were all fast.

But they were not fast enough.

Bolan plugged an ugly, scarred Puerto Rican with an even uglier hole through the head. The shot sent the guy spiraling backward from his chair into the corner, a hand still wrapped tight around the butt of a shoulder-rigged .357.

The second guy was big, and fast enough that he managed to fill his fist with a P-35 Browning hi-power and track it around on Bolan, before death from the Beretta stopped him cold. He was kicked back in a deadfall slide to join the first corpse.

In microseconds Bolan sidestepped deeper into the crew's quarters, deep in the belly of Lenny Jericho's yacht. The third guy, an Arab, had lunged for a sawed-off Remington 870 pump shotgun that was positioned on the floor near his chair.

He never made it.

The Beretta sneezed a third time.

A third man died.

Not one of them knew what in hell had come exploding through that door.

Bolan straightened. He saw a wall of personal lockers, another with a row of bunks.

And he saw one lower bunk, separate from the others, built into the far bulkhead.

Gliding over the three dead men, he moved over to it and made a cursory inspection of the bunk.

It was indeed different from the others. Heavy chain shackles that ended in braces were built in to imprison the occupant by wrists and ankles. Rough blankets were in twisted disarray, indicating a recent struggle.

Tiny red droplets on the mattress screamed in Bolan's eye. He reached down and touched the stains with a fingertip.

Blood. Still sticky.

He hustled back into the corridor, to his left now, along the narrow walkway toward midship.

He slowed his pace when he reached the hatchway that led up to the deck. Then in silent, ghostlike manner he mounted the hatchway steps. He was halfway to the companionway when the opening was fully filled with the bulky form of a crewman toting an ugly FN Model 49.

Bolan pulled off two rounds, head shots. The man was propelled backward as if pulled by invisible forces. Bolan holstered the Beretta and unlimbered the mighty AutoMag as he continued on up the steps.

He erupted onto the deck, then wove a brisk zigzag pattern across the forty feet that separated him from cover at the base of the wheelhouse superstructure.

The second guard, partner of the late creep with the FN, had not left his post behind the windows of the wheelhouse. The guard spotted the black-clad figure in the dawn's early light before Bolan had gone five paces.

The guard leaned through an open window and opened fire. A NATO round splintered the planking of the deck where Bolan had been a split-second earlier.

Bolan halted his course, in the same movement bringing up Big Thunder on the guard's silhouette on the bridge, and squeezed off a round from a two-handed target-range stance. The blazing issue of the mini-howitzer ruptured the guard's skull into a misty pink shower. The guy toppled down and out of sight.

Silence reclaimed the dawn.

Bolan gained the base of the superstructure. He knew that half his allotted time had run out since planting the five-minute fuse on the plastique.

Bolan heard a dull bump on the port side.

He responded with economy of movement. He circled the wheelhouse and cabin and came around a corner on the far side of the superstructure, just as Leonard Jericho was reaching over to activate the lowering mechanism for the lifeboat in which he was standing.

The bump was the hull of the lifeboat clunking against the yacht as Jericho clambered aboard.

Lenny was not alone.

His co-passenger was a heavyset guy, in his fifties, dressed in a five-hundred-dollar suit that was as out of place as hailstones in these surroundings.

Bolan quit the safety of cover with no attempt at secrecy. Still drenched, but silent as a wraith, he approached the lifeboat.

The two men sensed their executioner's presence. They glanced in unison toward him and their eyes widened.

The guy in the sharkskin suit reacted first.

He was Manny Mandone. Bolan recognized him from his Dixie mop-up.

Right now the Mafia shark was trying to negotiate too many things at once: turning around in the small boat, trying to maintain his equilibrium, reaching for his hardware.

The AutoMag belched flame from Bolan's fist, the heavy round tearing flesh and bone. Manny Mandone toppled over the side of the lifeboat with an astonished look on his face and a baseball-sized cavity where his heart had been.

Leonard Jericho did not move except to glance over the side, ever so briefly, after Mandone. Then he looked back at Mack Bolan.

Bolan recognized him from the intel dossier. Ten years ago, Jericho had been movie-star handsome. But now that he was assessed to be the third or fourth richest man in the world, layers of dissipated flab had been added to the financier's features.

A heartbeat pause.

"Get out of the boat," said Bolan. His voice had the same command of Jericho's attention as the extended barrel of the AutoMag. The seconds were running out on the plastique.

Jericho obeyed. He climbed from the lifeboat. A patina of sweat glistened below his hairline despite the coolness of the early hour.

"I don't know who sent you," Jericho said. "But I can double whatever you're getting."

"I want Evita Aguilar," growled Bolan.

Jericho blinked. "Evita? She's not here."

"Where is she?"

"Who sent you? I'll triple whatever you've been paid. If you're working for the Libyans ..."

A noise came from the northeast.

Grimaldi, coming in for the pickup. Right on schedule.

Which meant there were seventy-five seconds remaining before the plastique blew.

Leonard Jericho did not appreciate that the approaching helicopter was not his. Victory flashed in his eyes.

Bolan triggered the AutoMag, blowing away Jericho's left ankle, effectively amputating his foot.

They had Eve. No quarter would be given.

Bolan stepped forward and knelt atop the stunned, silently shrieking man, pinning Jericho's neck to the deck with his leg. He grabbed a handful of Jericho's hair and banged the back of the guy's head down hard to get some more of his attention.

"I want Evita. Tell me where she is."

The financier gasped for air. The pain of his shredded ankle was numbed by breathtaking shock. Blood pulsed from the wound, swilling around bone shards to form a widening puddle on the deck.

"Evita was taken from here... an hour ago..."

"Where to?"

"I swear to God I don't know! Santos... took her. Libya? Business finished here... Thatcher was aboard last night... paid and gone..."

Time was running out. But this man was talking. Too much.

"You're not Jericho."

"Let me live, please, I beg you!"

"I'm here to collect dues from Jericho."

"I'm not Jericho, you're right... you said it yourself."

Surprise.

Jack Grimaldi was hovering at two o'clock off the Traveler's port bow. The bubble-front of the Hughes 500-D chopper reflected the rays of a new Bahamas day. A secured rope ladder dropped from the copter's side door.

Fourteen seconds to detonation.

Bolan could not allow the talkative Jericho imposter to die here. He was invaluable now for the information he could give about the boss cannibal. And about Eve, which is where Bolan came in.