Don Pendleton: Caribbean Kill

"What do you figure the guy thinks he's doing, Tony?" Dragone asked.

Lavagni was perspiring heavily from a combination of over-exertion in the tropical heat and strained emotions. "I don't know, Charlie," he replied disgustedly. "He's a hard case, that guy. If I was him, I'd have been halfway out of this place by now."

"Maybe he didn't get away clean. From the plane, I mean. Maybe he ain't able to travel too well."

"It's something to think about," Lavagni admitted. "Anyway it don't matter. Look, I know what I'm doing, Charlie. Don't worry, the guy will run out of bullets before we run out of bodies."

"Don't let the boys hear you talking like that," Dragone cautioned in a hushed voice. "They're worried enough as it is."

Lavagni was about to make a heated comment to that when the chatter of the Thompson again erupted, this time from far along the line.

"Contact," Lavagni growled. Let's go."

Before the two Mafia leaders could close on the new trouble spot, however, that third fire mission had been completed and the Executioner was moving swiftly through the jungle toward number four.

Bolan's battle plan was a basic guerilla maneuver. It was meant to draw the enemy line forward along a course of Bolan's choosing, to widen the spaces between the teeth of the grinder, and to slip through them.

This objective was neatly accomplished during the confused aftermath of the next brief firefight. Bolan stood quietly in the branches of a giant tree and watched the shaken enemy re-form their line beneath him and sweep on northward.

He noted that they had carefully collected the weapons of their fallen dead — and he smiled at this, accurately reading Lavagni's game of numbers. Quick Tony was willing to give the prey a few dead bodies, so long as he continued spending his precious ammo for them.

But that game was ending now.

Bolan was no longer concerned with the acquisition of friendly dead, and he had all the breathing space he'd wanted.

He gave the meat-grinder time to chew up a bit more jungle on the sweep northward, then he slipped to the ground and set off for the next objective.

It was time for a closer look at Glass Bay Resort

The easiest and most direct route of retreat from Glass Bay would be through the jungle pocket, across the coastal plain, and into the mountains of the interior. From there, a guy on the run could probably commandeer a vehicle and make it into San Juan, a modern city of maybe half a million people. He could lay low for awhile in San Juan, then slip back to the states via ship or plane when the situation had cooled off.

There were two principal reasons, though, why Mack Bolan did not choose this avenue of escape.

First, the enemy would be expecting just such a move — and he did not wish to give them the added advantage of reading his game plan.

Secondly, Bolan did not choose to "lay low" in San Juan, nor did he have any intention of leaving the Caribbean until he'd completed his operations there.

The strategic route of retreat which he had selected lay directly across Glass Bay, past the enemy hardsite, and on beyond to one of the seaside villages. From there he would play it by ear and figure some way to strike at the mob's wheel of fortune.

The big problem of the moment was Glass Bay itself.

Bolan had moved cautiously to the eastern edge of the forested area and he was taking a quiet reading of the situation there. He was about two hundred yards inland and looking southeasterly onto the grounds of the hardsite.

The fire had apparently been brought under control but smoke continued to rise from several stubbornly smoldering pockets. He counted twelve men moving tiredly about the damaged structure, a few still on fire hoses but most of them now engaged in salvage operations. Furnishings and other objects were strewn about the lawn. Angled to one side and out of the way was the line of Glass Bay dead, neatly lined up and wrapped in sheets.

Bolan grimaced and consulted his wristwatch. It had been a fast and chaotic forty minutes at Glass Bay.

His point of view was toward the rear, of the house and across several hundred feet of open area. Four smaller structures were semi-circled behind the main building. None of them seemed to have suffered damage. Two were bungalows, one was a storehouse of some kind, the fourth appeared to be an office.

A VW sedan was parked between the bungalows. Behind these and set off at a right angle stood a long and narrow structure which provided carport parking for perhaps a dozen vehicles, with living quarters above. This would be the barracks, Bolan deduced, for lower echelon attendants of visiting big shots — the wheelmen, hardmen, etc. The place appeared deserted now, and there were no vehicles in the bays. So it followed that Lavagni's party had been airlifted in, not brought in by ground transport.

Continuing the visual inspection, Bolan noted an asphalt road looping in from the east-rear section of the property. An arched gateway marked that eastern boundary. The blacktop road traversed the manicured grounds to the carports and ended there in a graveled circle. A dirt road led from there to Bolan's side of the compound, skirted the jungle for a hundred yards or so, then angled off toward the rear perimeter.

A jeep was presently occupying that dirt road, parked at the midpoint of the jungle stretch not a hundred feet from Bolan's position. Two men with poised Thompsons were standing behind it and intently watching the forest line.

Occasional distant gunfire was coming from the interior of the jungle area, in singles and in volleys, as the Lavagni meat-grinder chewed on northward. The survivors were probably thoroughly spooked now and firing at anything that moved or seemed to move. This suited Bolan fine. Another five minutes of that and they would probably be shooting at one another.

Meanwhile the pressure was being lifted from this corner of the battle zone. The two plug men at the jeep had noted the audible evidence that the sweep had progressed far beyond their position, and they were relaxing.

As Bolan watched, one of them lowered his weapon to light a cigarette. The other man said something, to which the first one laughed and moved around the front of the jeep to hand over the cigarette. Then he lit another for himself and the two stood chatting in low tones, their backs to Bolan as their attention remained focused on the distant sounds of "battle."

That jeep was Bolan's ticket out of Glass Bay, and he meant to have it. He was calculating the precise range from his position and applying this to the ballistics characteristics of the Beretta. The firing range would be approximately thirty yards. The Beretta had been worked-in for a twenty-five-yard point-blank range, meaning no rise or fall of trajectory across that distance, and the finely balanced weapon had delivered consistent two-inch groupings at such a range. The silencer, however, altered all that — and Bolan needed silence as much as he needed the jeep.

He was mentally calculating the corrections required when his attention was diverted by a commotion near the house. The Volkswagen had lurched away from the bungalow area only to be halted at the graveled circle opposite the carports.

The driver, to Bolan's surprise, was a woman. A big guy in a rumpled Palm Beach suit had pulled her out of the car and was dragging her back toward the bungalows.

The two men at the jeep had also swiveled about to watch the little drama. One of them chuckled and called out, "Atta boy, Vince" — though not loud enough to be heard across the intervening area.

Bolan pondered this development for a moment. Anything which was out of the ordinary deserved his attention, and to find a female around a hardsite at such a time was certainly unusual. Who was she? What was she doing there? Why was she being prevented from leaving?