Don Pendleton - Caribbean Kill

Another close voice demanded, "Hey you, guy, give the boss the flashlight."

The big man said, "Never mind, we got candles. Relax, it's not the end of the world. This is Haiti, not Baltimore. Things like this happen here. What's the matter? Can't you boys read your cards in the dark?"

Someone chuckled.

The big guy said, "It'll be daylight pretty soon. Relax." He spun gracefully around and went back through the doorway.

And then Bolan realized who he was.

Big Gus Riappi.

He called out, "Gus!"

The guy reappeared, looking edgy and disgruntled in the flickering yellow light, but the voice was smoothly controlled. "Yeah. Who is that?"

"Frankie. Tell Sir Edward a courier is here."

"A courier from what?"

"Hell I don't know. Came in by helicopter. He's in a hell of a sweat. Says we should tell Sir Edward he's here."

"Yeah, I thought I heard a chopper. Where is he?"

"Went upstairs, to the suite. Just before the lights went out."

"Okay, I'll tell him. We're almost through in here."

Riappi went back into the conference room. One of the bodyguards muttered, "It's about time they were through in there."

Another one said, "Shut up. They'll be through when they get through."

"I just meant, shit, since midnight chrissakes. How long does it take to shuffle a few heads around?"

"I said shut up."

So Bolan had another reading. As he had suspected, the Caribbean Carousel was being dismantled and put back together again — same game, same rules, different players. And it was being engineered from Port au Prince.

He kept the flashlight beam well in front of him and casually announced, "That courier must've just come from San Juan. He says they're having a party at Glass Bay."

The guy with the hard voice came to stiff attention and said, "What's that?"

"Glass Bay's celebrating. I guess they got reason to."

Bolan received a totally different reaction than the one he was expecting.

The guy spun around and walked stiffly to the door of the conference room, rapped lightly with his knuckles, and went in.

"That fuckin' Lavagni is the luckiest shit alive," someone muttered.

Bolan agreed, "Yeh, he's lucky."

Big Gus reappeared, the bodyguard in tow. Bolan thoughtfully put the spot on the floor at Riappi's feet. The big guy glared at the invisible entity behind the flashlight and growled, "What's this about Glass Bay?"

Bolan replied, "Hell, Gus, the guy just said they're having a wild celebration. That's all I know."

"Well I'll be a son of a bitch," Riappi said disgustedly. He pushed his chief bodyguard aside and returned to the conference room.

Bolan said, "What's he so steamed up about?"

"You'd be steamed up too if you'd just lost what he just lost," the talky one told him.

The other guy said, "Flukey, shut the hell up!"

"Well I just..."

"Get on back in the tank!"

"Well dammit, it's..."

"All of you! Back in the tank! Open the goddam drapes or something, shit — use your goddam heads for a change!"

Bolan watched as three hardmen filed into their watchroom — the "tank." The head man looked toward Bolan and growled, "What the hell are you waiting around for?"

Bolan waggled the flashlight and replied, "I'm waiting for Sir Edward."

The guy grunted and went into the conference room.

Bolan leaned against the wall and counted the seconds. Not many were left. Very soon now the sun would be sliding up out of the sea and the Executioner would be losing his invisibility.

Then that door down there opened, and a tall straight man emerged to stare coldly into Bolan's light shield.

And yes, this had to be the guy… and he was no black man. He was also no white man such as Bolan had ever encountered in the usual Mafia circles.

He had that soft antiseptic scrubbed chairman-of-the-board look, that Wall Street image of solid respectability and impeccable social background, the kind of guy you wouldn't expect to yell shit if he were drowning in it.

Bolan had never seen this man before, but he'd seen dozens of duplicates gazing benignly from the pages of national magazines and from the financial pages of big city newspapers.

He was Mr. Plymouth Rock, WASP of the ages, president of that corporation and director of this foundation and chairman of a dozen charity drives.

He was Mr. Good, protector of the nation's morals and preserver of a society's cultural treasures.

Or, at least, he must have been at one time.

And Bolan found himself filling with rage and shaking inside over this particularly revolting new look in "the criminal type."

In the name of what golden graven god did a guy like this put down every human trust and confidence and turn upon his society to cannibalize, loot, rape, and ruin the upward movements of his fellow man?

Yes, this was a big one. This guy didn't steal nickels and dimes. He built and perpetuated ghettoes, created junkies and filled the jails with habitual criminals, destroyed lives and disrupted families by the wholesale… and all for the love of the lousy buck.

Yeah, and Bolan knew now why the fates had directed the Executioner into the sunny Caribbean… he knew that he had come for just this man, this man alone, the biggee.

He choked back his anger as he said, "Sir Edward, a guy is dying to see you."

"Yes, so I'm told," the guy replied smoothly, and the voice fit the rest of him. "Lead the way, please."

"You'd better go first, sir," Bolan suggested. "Ill keep the light ahead of you."

"Very well."

The guy moved on along the hall, following the spot, and walked past the door to the "tank."

Bolan fell in at his side and the Beretta found soft flesh just below the ribs and the icy voice of the Executioner recommended total silence and faultless behavior.

Sir Edward stiffened slightly but moved on without a falter to the end of the hall, across the reception room, and out through the French doors to the courtyard.

They headed across the grounds toward the north wall, and the eastern horizon was glowing reddishly when Mr. Clean decided to risk a confrontation with his captor.

He came to a halt and turned a haughty gaze upon the man behind him.

And then the eyes wobbled, and that board-chairman jaw dropped, and Sir Edward gasped, "My God! It's Mack Bolan!"

"That's who," Bolan replied coldly. "The bells toll for you, Edward."

"Now just one moment! You have allowed yourself a hasty and dangerous conclusion!"

The guy was trying to dazzle him with his good-liness.

Bolan said, "And what's that?"

"I am not associated with the Mafia!"

The graveyard voice told him, "Of course not The Mafia is a legend, it doesn't exist."

"Oh it exists, Mr. Bolan. Believe me it exists. But my God, man, surely you can't believe I could be mixed up in anything like that!"

Bolan's stomach rolled. He shoved the guy toward the wall. "Move," he commanded.

The image was falling apart before Bolan's eyes.

The face went mean, the gaze crafty, and the voice turned to pure oil. "All right, then, let's be realistic. You're a grown man, Bolan. What do you want? From life, what do you want? I'll get it for you. Your heart's desires, riches beyond imagination, power beyond measure. Women! The most beautiful and desirable women in the world, Bolan — a sultan's harem! Think of that! Think of..."

"Shut up," the voice of death commanded. "I've got what I want."

"My God, man, be reasonable!"

"I didn't come here to judge you, Edward. I came to execute you."

The dissolved image was pleading, "I can give you..." when the Parabellum punched through the bridge of the nose and expanded into the brain, and another evolutionary backslider seceded from the three-dimensional world.