Part 1 (2/2)
The pilot swallowed hard past the outside pressure of cool steel and muttered, ”I don't get you, Mr. Vinton.”
”Sure you do,” Bolan told him. ”When the engine dies, you die.”
He divided his attention to lift the binoculars into a close scan of the sh.o.r.eline. A signboard on the pier loomed into the vision-field: GLa.s.s BAY RESORT PRIVATE.
Beyond the pier lay neatly landscaped grounds and a rambling structure resembling an oversized plantation house-a two-story job with verandas at top and bottom levels. Colorful cabanas lined the beach. People in bathing suits sprawled about here and there in the sand-all male-type people, Bolan wryly noted. Others strolled casually about the grounds or lounged at the railings of the verandas. Say, thirty people in plain sight. Two guys in white ducks and sneakers waited on the pier to dock the plane.
It all would seem perfectly innocuous, to the casual observer.
Mack Bolan was not observing casually.
Not a native Puerto Rican was in sight. No females, no relaxed frivolity, no fun or games anywhere in evidence. It was a set stage, sloppily done-no doubt, Bolan mused, the result of haste. They hadn't had time to get all the props out. Something inside a beach cabana was giving off telltale flashes as it reflected the strong rays of the midday tropical sun-a telescopic lens, maybe. The beach towels of the ”bathers” revealed oblong lumps of just about the proper size and shape to suggest concealed rifles or shotguns.
As the plane steadily closed the distance, clumps of men on the lower verenda of the house began drifting down the steps and disappearing into the vegetation.
Yeah, Gla.s.s Bay was the hardsite. And it was primed and waiting for a gate-crasher in masquerade.
It was, of course, time for the official unmasking. Bolan had known in his bones, for several hours now, that his little game was over. And now the time had come to pay the fare for that wild-a.s.s exit from Vegas.
By the numbers, now, very carefully. A single moment would decide life or death for Mack Bolan- a very precise moment in psychological time.
The pilot had been with Bolan through three exchanges of aircraft. He was a versatile flyer, but hardcore Mafia all the same, and he knew all the tricks of illegal evasion. Here was one situation that could not be evaded, however, and the knowledge of that truth was pasted all over the guy's face. He nervously cleared his throat and said, ”Look, Bolan, it's all in a day's work, eh? Nothing personal. I just follow orders.”
Bolan said, ”Yeah.”
”I didn't know it was you until the switch at Na.s.sau. And I still didn't know for sure, I mean n.o.body told me. They just said Gla.s.s Bay instead of San Juan. That was the tipoff, I mean I knew something was up. And I put it together myself.”
”Sure.”
The guy was reaching for life. ”You got to believe me, I wasn't in on the setup.”
”I believe you,” Bolan muttered.
A strangled sound from the rear announced that the bagman was not quite ready to die, either. He was cowering against his bags of bucks and trembling as he croaked, ”Me, too, Mr. Bolan. Honest to G.o.d I didn't know until just now.”
”Okay, get out,” Bolan growned.
”Right here?” the accountant warbled hopefully.
Bolan nodded. The pier was less than fifty yards ahead now. ”Not the money, just you.” To the pilot, he commanded, ”Pre-set those controls for a quick lift-off. Then you follow Lemke.”
”Too late,” Grimaldi replied, sighing. ”Can you fly this crate?”
”Watch me,” Bolan told him.
”You'll never make it out of here now. They'll blow this thing out of the water before you can get it turned around. You waited too long, Bolan.”
”Just set it up,” the Executioner commanded.
Lemke pushed the hatch open and gazed apprehensively at the water slipping gently by just below, then he jumped and disappeared from view. The two men on the pier reacted immediately, and a sudden film of perspiration appeared on the pilot's brow.
”Okay she's set!” he yelled, and pushed himself clear of the seat.
The people on sh.o.r.e were beginning to look alive. A man on the pier cupped his hands and shouted something toward the house. A clump of men wearing bathing suits and openly displaying, weapons broke into a run for the seaplane dock.
Girmaldi threw himself through the hatch and Bolan swung around behind him to punch a pair of Parabellums into the two agitated figures on the pier. They went over backwards, their own weapons firing reflexively and wildly, and Bolan made a lunge for the throttle.
That precise moment had arrived.
He gave the little craft full throttle, swung the nose around to the desired course and locked the controls in that position, then he moved swiftly to the blind-side hatch as the seaplane hunched into the sudden acceleration.
He had no intention of trying to fly that water bird out of there. The intention was to make the opposing troops think think that he was. that he was.
A startled moment of confusion was all he'd been bidding for. And he got it, sliding into the calm Caribbean depths just as the reaction-fire came cras.h.i.+ng into the speeding craft.
Bolan remained shallow and concentrated on achieving maximum underwater distance. By the time he surfaced, the pilotless plane had reached nightspeed and was just beginning a rather ragged lift-off. It broke land with only inches of clearance between pontoons and beach, then rose swiftly in a steady pull for treetop level, winging through a sustained and withering fire that was reaching out from every spot about that lagoon.
He had miscalculated the guns at Gla.s.s Bay. For each obvious one noted during that hasty landing recon, three and maybe four were now unloading in a ma.s.sive and determined effort to abort the ”getaway.”
The trajectory of that speeding airborne missile must have suddenly become obvious to all who watched; the gunfire ceased as abruptly as it had begun and Bolan could see energetic bodies hastily disembarking from the second-story veranda. All along the beach, men were erupting from places of concealment and sprinting toward the house.
h.e.l.l was winging into paradise, and everybody there seemed to know it.
The men who had raced onto the pier were now stampeding back toward land, and the grounds surrounding the big house had come alive with frantic figures lunging about in diffuse patterns of escape.
The plane itself seemed poised motionless in the air, like a football in a stop-action forward-pa.s.s replay on the Game of the Week, with the plantation house representing the only eligible receiver downfield, and with the chagrined defenders hoping to G.o.d that the pa.s.s was going wild but knowing in their sinking hearts that it was directly on target.
And then the plane hit, slicing in just above the second-story porch and punching on through into the house with a shattering roar and exploding flames. Bolan saw airborne bodies, one of them flaming like a chunk of flying s.h.i.+sh kebab, and a shrieking hubbub of panicky voices was wafting toward him across the still waters.
He watched just long enough to a.s.sess the probable results of the hit, then he sank once again beneath the smooth surface of Bahia de Vidria Bahia de Vidria and continued his quiet approach to the beach. and continued his quiet approach to the beach.
His departure from the plane had apparently gone unnoticed. He had seen a motor launch speeding to the other swimmers, Lemke and Grimaldi; chances were excellent that not even they had been aware of Bolan's exit. So far, then, so good. If he could make a landfall with the same good fortune, then maybe he would be able to climb aboard that Caribbean Carousel and give it one mad ride.
He had not continued into that trap at Gla.s.s Bay for the sheer thrill of living dangerously. Bolan was living to the point. He had arrived at the scene of the kill.
For Quick Tony Lavagni, the flame-leapt scene at Gla.s.s Bay was anything but comforting. It was too much like re-entering an old and familiar nightmare, that's what it was like, and Quick Tony had that sick feeling at the pit of his gut.
Not that Lavagni was worried about the d.a.m.ned joint. Vince Triesta was the head man at Gla.s.s Bay. Let Vince worry about the d.a.m.ned real estate. Tony had, in fact, already set Vince straight about that matter.
”Bulls.h.i.+t,” he'd calmly told him. ”My boys ain't playing firemen. We didn't come all the way down here to pick up your broken pieces. Put out your own G.o.ddam fires.”
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