Don Pendleton - Caribbean Kill

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 just a 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?

Tony Lavagni's report to the war council of bosses was an embarrassing ordeal. His eyes were slightly glazed as he stared beyond the mouthpiece of the telephone and on to the scene just beyond the window of the office, as another sheet-draped corpse was being added to the lineup.

"The thing was sour from the start," Lavagni told his distant audience. "The guy had us set up right from the beginning, nobody can tell me different. And I mean all the way from Vegas. I believe he was counting on being brought here to Glass Bay all the time."

There was a long silence on the line, then a voice which Lavagni recognized as that of New York boss Augie Marinello came in with, "I guess you could be right, Tony. We now discover that the men from Washington have a certain black book that's giving them a lot of thrills. It turns out to be Heart of Gold Vito's last will and testament, mostly testament. We know also that Vito was closely involved with Mr. Blacksuit just before his — uh, untimely death. It figures that Vito's book was in our friend's hands before it went on to Washington."

"That's terrible," Quick Tony groaned.

"It's worse than that," another voice commented.

This one sounded like that little prick from the Bronx, the guy that took over Freddie Gambella's death-ridden organization. "Vito was too careful a bookkeeper. He had it down to dollars and dimes, destinations, names, the whole..."

Marinello's cautious tones cut in with, "Let's remember our problems with telephones, eh. The thing is, Tony, you're probably right. The guy is maybe on another bust. You know what that means."

"Yeah. Well I..."

"Of course we had thought of that possibility when we asked you to meet him there. And if you can't meet the guy at Glass Bay then tell me, Tony, where can you meet him?"

"It's not all that tight here," Lavagni explained in a muffled voice. "I had nearly a hundred boys on the reception committee. We had everything covered, and I mean all of it. It's just… dammit, there's never nothing sure about this guy. It's almost like he's supernatural. You almost get the feeling sometimes that the guy reads minds or something."

"So what are you doing now to recover the situation?" Marinello asked.

"I got every car we had on the place out looking for him. I also got a couple of whirly birds that should be getting here in a few minutes. And I got in touch with our San Juan connections. They're sending committees out to cover all the roads coming in there from this part of the island. We got four big boats here. I sent them out. They'll check into everything that's floating, with the exception of the U.S. Navy. Soon as the whirlies get here, I'll send them on searching patterns from the air. Beyond all that, sir, I quite sincerely don't know exactly what else I can do."

"You can take some lessons in mind reading," said the little prick from the Bronx.

"What do you need from this end, Tony?" Marinello asked hastily, as though trying to soften the sarcastic comment from the youngest Capo .

Lavagni rode that wave of sympathy. He humbled himself to reply, "Whatever you think I could use, sir."

It didn't work. "Okay," the big boss told him. I'm glad to see you're thinking straight, Tony. Pride goes before the fall, eh? So you won't think it's a slap in your face if we sent Gus Riappi down to lend a hand."

Quick Tony choked back his displeasure at the suggestion as he replied, "Course not, sir. All I want is to stop this guy. I don't care about nothing else right now. I've worked for Gus before, I can..."

"You won't be working for him, Tony. We're just splitting the territory. You keep on working that end. Follow wherever the trail leads."

"Right, I'll follow it to hell if I have to."

"That's the idea. Meanwhile Gus will be working some other angles."

Lavagni cleared a lump from his throat and said, "The... uh... the Vito book thing?"

"Right. We've cooled everything, naturally, and we'll be setting up a new chain. But we're also going to dummy the old one along. Just for our friend's benefit. We figure maybe he'll come right to us."

"He came right to us at Glass Bay," Lavagni commented darkly.

"Don't remind me," Marinello replied coldly. "I don't have to tell you how disappointed I am, Tony."

"Yessir. Well, uh, we can't write this one off yet. And with me and Gus working towards each other, surely we'll… uh, Gus knows how I work so I guess he won't be getting in my way."

Marinello chuckled and said, "Well come to think of it, Tony, I guess this does develop into a horse race, doesn't it. Winner take all, eh?"

Lavagni understood perfectly. He replied, "Right, sir, I get you."

"Just get Mr. Blacksuit, Tony."

"You make book on that, sir."

The connection went dead and Lavagni slowly hung up. He turned to Charlie Dragone with a tired sigh and told him, "I don't blame them; they're terrible disappointed."

"What'd they say about Triesta?" Dragone wondered aloud.

"I didn't hear any tears splashing off the table." Lavagni sighed again. "They're sending down a replacement. They better replace the whole joint. I wonder how we managed to keep the telephone line."