Caribbean Kill

'What's Detroit got going down here?'

'Bit of juice, I hear, among other things.'

'You don't mean nickel and dime juice.'

'Hell no, big league stuff. Unofficial loans for off-the-record business enterprises And the take is high. I hear as much as thirty percent in some cases.'

'The Haitian government condones that?'

Grimaldi shrugged 'What the hell is the government? In a country like this one, especially. Look, Bolan. Get the picture. The black people in our country have been screaming about white repression of blacks and all that jazz — and I'm not saying they shouldn't. They're right. Every guy has a right to his own shot at life, his own way. That's not the point. Here's a country that's all black. But it's not very beautiful down here. It's misery and poverty and repression like no American black man has experienced in this century. And he's getting it from his own brothers, see. I mean, when you speak of the Haitian government, you're talking about a gang of thieves and cutthroats with licenses.'

'Okay, I have that picture,' Bolan said.

'They're all on the take.'

'Is Sir Edward a black man?'

'I told you I didn't know, dammit.'

'What's his real name?'

'I don't know. In Haiti, he's Sir Edward Stuart. That's all I know.'

'But he is not a citizen of Haiti.'

'No, hell no. Look, Port au Prince is just the center. Everything down here revolves around that center.'

'Who does Sir Edward belong to?' Bolan asked quietly.

Grimaldi snorted and replied, 'It's the other way around, friend. Look, he's bigger than — look, get the picture straight, huh? Sir Edward Stuart is not a Mafioso.'

'I understood that.'

'A private pilot is like a bodyguard, you know. We hear all kind of stuff — but we're supposed to pretend that our ears are missing. This Sir Edward is an international biggee. I thought you knew that.'

'I do. Who else is getting burned — other than the people of Haiti.'

Grimaldi sighed. 'Everybody, man. Cuba, even, and that's a whole ball game of its own. Fidel thinks he's got Cuba snookered. The poor sap. I could tell Fidel, capitalism is flourishing in his living room. And it's black money, and it's moving through Cuba like Ex-Lax.'

'Panama bankers?'

The pilot nodded. 'Same laws as Switzerland, you know. Hell, it's tailor-made for the Caribbean takeover.'

'Then it really is a takeover,' Bolan mused.

'You'd better know it is. Did you ever notice the way the good money always flows behind the blood money? Watch the so-called legit businessmen swarming toward the good thing. They know.'

'What do you know about the Mediterranean tie-in?'

'What the hell is this, Bolan?' Grimaldi asked irritably. 'A pump job or a hit?'

'It all figures in, Jack. The more I know, the better I can operate. What's this stuff about the Med?'

The pilot sighed and replied, 'Just talk, that's all I know. A word here and there, a joke, a slip, it doesn't amount to much.'

'Give.'

'They just call it 'the island.' Somewhere in the Med, I don't know where. Someplace around Italy, I think — or maybe it's Greece. Hell, I don't know. The international Commissionemeets there, I hear. It's like a little UN. But it's more than Mafia, bigger than Cosa Nostra. I don't know just how it's structured. But it's a cartel, Bolan. The world monopoly on organized crime. And it's big, daddy, it's damn big.'

'And Tel Aviv?'

Grimaldi smiled sourly and said, 'Shit you do have big ears. That guy is officially retired, I hear. He requested and received political sanctuary under the Israeli charter. You know, the inviolate home of the international jew. The Israeli government doesn't like it, I hear… I mean, giving refuge to a guy like him… but they're stuck with it, gored by their own constitution.'

'Ishe retired?'

'Thatguy?' Grimaldi snickered. 'Does a shark turn into a goldfish in its old age?'

Bolan muttered, 'It just goes on and on, doesn't it.'

'Make you feel like you're trying to dam the tide with turds?'

Bolan growled, 'Sometimes, yeah. But then I remember.'

'You remember what?'

'I'm not here to cure, just to kill.'

Grimaldi shook away a shiver and said, 'Well, you do that pretty well. And Sir Edward is next on tap. Right?'

'Right. You get me in there, Jack. That's all I ask.'

'You don't want me to get you out?'

Bolan grinned. 'I'd consider that a bonus. But yeah. Yeah, I'd like to get back out, Jack.'

'That's my specialty. But tell me, Bolan. Why?'

'Why what?'

'Why this Mil? Why any of them? What the hell are you winning? I mean, realistically now. You know the score. You pop one, he falls over, another steps up, you pop him, up comes the next guy. They're too big for you, fella. You're fighting a machine that fixes its own hurts. So why?'

'Crime pays,' Bolan replied quietly. 'It pays damn big.'

'So what else is new? Was that supposed to answer my question?'

'Yeah. I'm not fighting a machine. I'm fighting people. People who intend to profit from crime. I'm showing some of them that there is no profit. Okay?'

Grimaldi said, 'Okay. Maybe you're right. If you can stay alive and keep it going, then maybe so. Maybe you'll make it too damn hazardous for the next guy to step to the head of the line. But I doubt that you'll live that long, Bolan.'

'I'm going to try.'

'By trying a hit on the hell hole of the Caribbean? So keep trying that hard, buddy, and… aw, what the hell. Let's go do it.'

'You got everything straight in your mind?'

Grimaldi glanced at his watch. 'We have plenty of time, let's run through that floor plan once more, just in case I forgot something.'

Bolan shuffled the map to one side and laid out the diagram of the cliff side, mansion near Port au Prince, as reproduced from Jack Grimaldi's memory of a brief visit three months earlier.

'Okay,' he said. 'North wall here, gate to the west, guard shack over here. Bedrooms...'

'Hell I'm glad I looked again,' Grimaldi interrupted. 'There's a courtyard between the east and west wings.'

'Right here?'

'Yeah. Flower gardens and stuff. Uh, I think — yeah, French doors into the house, ground level. Security station down here at the corner.'

'Hardmen?'

'Hard blackmen. Civilian clothes.'

'Weapons?'

'Sidearms, concealed.'

'How many at that station?'

'Two, I believe. Yeah, two.'

'Okay, let's take the whole thing again, detail by detail. First floor, reception hall — a man and a dog.