Don Pendleton - Caribbean Kill

He tried to shrug it off, deciding that the woman's presence could have little bearing on his own problem. As for her problem… 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.