Caribbean Kill

'Would you think there was something in standing at the right hand of a Capo, Charlie?'

'Listen Tony… you know better than to ask. I mean, if you mean…'

'That's exactly what I mean, Charlie. Listen. We got to put a sack on Bolan's head.'

The exultant glow in the triggerman's eyes was already hardening to a calculated determination. 'Where do we start?' he asked.

'Get on the radio and see if Latigo has anything yet. Then pass the word, there's a ten thou' bonus for the boy that comes up with Bolan's tracks, twenty-five-thou' for the one that brings in his head.'

'That'll put some lead in their peters,' Dragone agreed.

'I hope they get a hard that never goes down.'

Lavagni said. 'I want them to wantthis boy, Charlie. The same way that you and I want him.'

'Offer the contract purse, boss.'

'Huh.'

'Give 'em something to reallyscramble for.'

Quick Tony was weighing the idea. By the time the various territorial bonuses were tacked on, that contract was worth somewhere around a cool quarter-mil. It was a hell of a lot of money. On a head-party expedition such as this, the pay-off ordinarily went to the contractor in charge, with the split going however he wished to make it.

'Well,' he said musingly, 'the man said winner takes all. That purse is peanuts compared to… Okay. The boy that comes in with Bolan's head gets the purse, all of it, the whole thing. You pass that around, Charlie.'

'You just bought yourself a crew of man-eating tigers,' Dragone replied, grinning. He hurried away to spread the news, and Quick Tony resumed his scan of the skies.

He hoped that he was buying Bolan's head. At a quarter-mil, that would be the sharpest deal a guy could ever hope for. Yeh. It would be a horse race well worth the price of winning. Big Gus, of course, could be thinking the same way.

Lavagni fidgeted and watched the helicopters swoop in over Glass Bay. Yeh. It was going to be one hell of a horse race.

* * *

Steady monitoring of the enemy's radio signals had produced the temporarily comforting conclusion that the hounds of hell were off the track and ranging far east of the retreat route. And, for Bolan, the end of a network of dusty trails was an isolated shack, several miles inland and well buried in the agricultural maze of the coastal plateau.

He pulled the jeep into a wooded area near the house and covered it with brush while the woman went on to clear the way for him with her friends. Before Bolan had completed the camouflage job, a slightly built youth of perhaps twenty-one or twenty-two emerged from the cabin and stood quietly watching him.

Bolan threw him a friendly wave and went on with his task. A moment later the Puerto Rican was standing beside him, a cautious smile on his face. 'I will help, senor,' he offered.

Bolan returned the smile and said, 'Sure.' He slung a Thompson across his chest and passed the other two to the youth. 'You can take these inside.'

The boy whistled softly under his breath and accepted the weapons.

'Call me Mack,' Bolan told him.

The smile returned, stronger. 'I am Juan Escadrillo.'

'This your place, Juan?'

'Si, this place is mine.'

'I won't be staying long,' Bolan said. 'Who else is here?'

'Rosalita, my wife.'

'No kids?'

'Now, no. Soon, yes.' He grinned. 'One is in the belly.'

Bolan turned away to mask the sudden displeasure he was feeling. This would be no good. A kid and his pregnant wife — Bolan had no wish to involve them in his troubles. So… perhaps a moment of relaxation, a bite of food, and he would be on his way.

The woman reappeared in the yard, the radio slung from her shoulder. 'Will you come inside?' she called.

'In a minute,' Bolan replied. He told the boy, 'Take the weapons in, Juan. I'll be along.'

Escadrillo gave him a fleeting smile and set off for the house, a Thompson balanced jauntily across each shoulder.

Bolan then undertook a routine reconnaissance of the area, taking particular note of the terrain layout and orienting himself with the compass points. He was on relatively high ground and in a patchwork area of small truck- farms. He circled about to a hillside south of the house, and from there he could see the Caribbean, glisteningly blue in the afternoon haze. Off to the east were patches of wild growth and untended fields which were reverting to the jungle. To the north, at a somewhat higher elevation, was evidence of a strip-mining operation.

As he returned to the house, Bolan pondered the information given him by the woman who had brought him here. Her name was Evita Aguilar. She was twenty-six, single, and an agent of the Puerto Rican counterpart of the U.S. Justice Department, Organized Crime Division.

For three months she had been 'cultivating' Vince Triesta and observing the visitors to Glass Bay. During that period, she had been Triesta's woman.

Bolan did not disrespect her for that.

In a war like this one, conventional morality was often the greater of two evils. Rightwas getting the mob before it gobbled up everything in sight. Wrongwas not doing so.

Bolan understood. It was his own philosophy. Hit them with every damn thing you have. And a woman had a unique advantage when it came to infiltrating the enemy. Why disrespect her for using her greatest weapon? Bolan did not.

Evita Aguilar was a gal with a cause. She had told Bolan, during that wild jeep ride, 'This syndicate is hoping to take from our Operation Bootstrap. This is an economic development program, and it is badly needed in this land of the poor. I will not let these Mafiositake the bread from my people's mouths. Sometimes we must fight the devil with the devil.'

Exactly what Bolan himself was doing.

'Since Bootstrap,' she'd added, 'the per capita income has nearly doubled. This means a great flow of money, new money, at all levels of our economy. The syndicate would divert this flow to their own pockets.'

'Yeah,' he'd commented. 'A five letter word beginning with M is both Money and Mafia.'

'Or D,' Evita said. 'For Dineroand Devils.'

Yeah, she was a gal with a cause. And Bolan was glad she was on his side, if only unofficially.

'We have known of you in San Juan since your very beginning,' she'd told him. 'Officially, of course, our position is that you are a criminal. We would apprehend you and extradite you to the mainland, if you should ever come to Puerto Rico. Unofficially, of course…'

She'd left the rest of it unsaid, but Bolan knew what she'd meant. Many people in her department felt that they were in a life or death struggle with the Mafia octopus, and they would be happy to have all the help they could get. She had made it clear, though, that Bolan must not expose himself needlessly to the authorities.

'Not all of us have the flexibility to take unofficial positions,' she explained.

It was the name of the game for Bolan. He understood.

He also understood Evita Aguilar. She was a social worker turned cop; a concerned citizen who had seen social justice crumbling under the pressures of organized cannibalism — and she'd decided to attack the problem at its source.

'This syndicate is corrupting district officials and looting the economy at all levels,' she'd explained. 'But it is the poor people who suffer the greatest loss. Is it not always so?'

Yes, Bolan knew, it was always so. The Mafia game was no more than the old European feudal system, dressed up for the twenty century and operating invisibly. In its gentlest form it was a method of 'taxation without