Don Pendleton: Caribbean Kill

Bolan slung the Thompson across his chest and affixed the silencer to his Beretta Belle.

Right.

It was time to take the offensive.

Field Marshal Lavagni had his troops in place, and he was impatiently awaiting word that the plug crews were on station. A crude, hand-drawn map of the bay area lay on the sand in front of him, and this he was studying intently.

"How long d'you figure it'd take a guy on foot to cross this patch of jungle, Charlie?" he asked his chief gunner.

Dragone shrugged his shoulders. "Depend on the guy, I guess. It's probably slow going in there, though."

"Probably take me half a day," Lavagni admitted. "A guy who knew his way around, though…"

"You figure he's making for the back side?"

"Yeh. That's what I'd do." The Mafia boss tapped the map with a thick finger. "I'd head straight for this sugar farm here. I'd buy or steal me some wheels, and I'd high-tail it for San Juan."

"That's what he's doing," Dragone agreed. "He needs to make some connections. I'd say San Juan, yeah." The crewchief scratched absently at his forehead. "One thing though, Tony. I doubt if this boy know where the hell he really is. I mean, without a map…"

"He come in by plane, remember," Lavagni said, sighing. "Don't worry, this boy always knows where he's at. Did you tell Vince what I told you?"

"Yeh. I told him you want a complete rundown on all the civilians living in the area. He's sending a boy over, a native I guess, to talk to you. Soon as he can find him. Things are pretty lore up over there, Tony."

"They got things about under control?"

"Yeh, pretty much. But it's a mess. What the fire didn't get, the water did."

"Tell Latigo to send a couple of boys to the farm, this sugar farm here."

"Okay."

" Good boys."

"Sure, Tony."

"How about those whirly birds?"

"Taken care of. Grimaldi says it'll take about an hour."

"An hour from when?" Lavagni wanted to know.

"Well… about fifty-five minutes from right now." Dragone heaved to his feet and motioned to a man in bathing trunks who was standing just down-range. "Bring that radio, Kelly," he growled.

The man hurried over with a small transistorized two-way radio and thrust it toward the chief gunner.

"Lavagni was saying, "Tell Latigo…" and Dragone was reaching for the radio when suddenly it took flight, propelled with a screech from Kelly's hand by a sizzling lump of hot metal.

Another sizzler came in a heartbeat ahead of any possible reaction, this one squarely between the startled Kelly's eyes, and the man in the swimsuit toppled over and slid toward the water without a sound.

The other two found themselves lying shoulder to shoulder on the sand, their weapons up and searching for a target.

"Where'd it come from?" Lavagni puffed.

"It just came," the crewchief replied in a taut voice. "He got Kelly."

"Fuck Kelly, where's that sonuvabitch at!"

"I don't see a goddam thing, Tony. I didn't even hear nothing."

"Bastard! He's using his silencer."

Silencer or not, the line of gun soldiers flanking the two men had become aware of the drama at their center, and all were sprawled in the sand and anxiously watching for some sign of the enemy.

Dragone said, "I guess he ain't making for no sugar farm, Tony."

"He shot up the damn radio, didn't he."

"Yeh."

Lavagni was building toward a huge rage. "Dammit, we just can't lay here. Listen. Now listen close! Work your way along your side of the line, but dammit keep yourself down! Tell your boys we move on my signal. I'll take this side and clue everybody in on the action. When I get to the far end I'll fire two shots. That's the signal to move it . Tell each boy this, he's to stay in sight of the man next to him, I mean looldn' toward the center. That's important, so tell 'em. Dammit!"

Bolan's angle of vision onto the beach had given him a limited choice of targets. It had been like looking through a twenty-yard length of two-foot diameter pipeline and seeing clearly only those objects which happened to pass by the far end. Another foot or two to the right and he could as easily have taken out Lavagni himself, instead of settling for an anonymous soldier and a radio. Just the same, the message had been sent and received, and this had been the primary consideration.

He wanted those guys to get the taste of sand in their mouths and a fresh vision of death in their consciousness. And he'd wanted them to eat sand long enough to allow him a chance to advance to the next firing line.

That objective had been accomplished also, and now he was lying at the very edge of the forest, in a prone firing position and with good cover behind the rotting remains of a fallen tree. The terrain dropped away sharply just beyond that point, with the beach sloping abruptly to meet the water. From his ground-level point of view, only the glassy surface of the bay lay directly ahead of him. Off to either flank, however, he had an excellent view of the activities underway on the beach itself.

To his right he saw Lavagni emerge from the blind spot, moving quickly in a low scamper along a line of rifle-toting gunners. The guys were flaked out there like a landing party in an amphibious assault, awaiting the signal to proceed inland. Then the other guy, obviously Lavagni's good right arm, appeared on the other flank in a similar movement.

Bolan precisely understood what they were doing.

He final-checked the Thompson and made a quick calculation of the firing angle which would be immediately available to him. He decided to set his limits at thirty degrees of horizon, then fed this into his observations of the enemy line.

They were spaced at ten or twelve feet. He would begin at dead center, and immediately sweep five degrees to either side. This should bring down the four or five closest threats.

His right flank was the most exposed, and the most vulnerable to an effective return-fire from the more distant points. So his second pattern would be sweeping out to fifteen degrees right, to at least minimize the retort from that angle. Then, if everything was on the numbers, he'd try to sweep some away from the left.

That was the battle plan. The entire fire mission should last no more than a few seconds. It had to be quick and brutal and over with, before the enemy fully realized that it was happening. If properly executed, the play would mean, in actual numbers of those engaged, reducing the odds of the firefight to about 10 to 1 at the very worst. With a good automatic weapon, jungle cover, and the element of initiative in his favor, Bolan would ride those odds any time.

He watched Lavagni reach the far end of the line, saw the revolver lifting into the air, and heard the double report signaling the game to commence.

And then the line was up and running in a ragged advance across the white sands. Bolan's impression was of about twenty men to each flank, plus two rising up from the blind spot.

He spotted them three strides into the soft stuff, then the heavy chopper began its guttural doomsday report. The two guys directly ahead were accorded the initial burst, each receiving a closely packed wreath of .45 caliber expanders in the chest. They went over backwards and out of view as the chopper swung on and the horrible sounds of automated death swept across the sands of paradise.

Bolan executed the fire mission to its planned parameters, no more and no less, and it was all over in a matter of seconds. Then he withdrew, back into the bosom of his home — the jungle, and left paradise to the company of the friendly dead.

Fire Mission number three was next on tap.

Lavagni and Dragone met at the center and reformed their line, under the cover of trees — minus eight gunners who had not made it that far.