radio.
Several men in business suits immediately came out of the service hangar and quickly approached the Cessna. Balderone headed over to intercept the pilot just as five other men filed out of the flying service office and hurried toward the plane. The pilot glanced at Balderone, then halted and watched his approach with an expectant half-smile.
The
'He got off at Jax,' the pilot replied, his smile fading. 'Are you Mr. Portocci?'
The unexpected query threw Balderone momentarily off balance. He said, thickly, 'He got off at Jacksonville? How come he— didn't he charter you through to Miami?'
The pilot repeated, 'Are you Mr. Portocci?'
'I represent him,' the confused Balderone snapped. A sudden thought crashed through his racing mind and he swung the tiny radio into position and barked, 'Hey, he must've switched to that Eastern plane at Jacksonville. We missed the bastard somehow . . . fan around, fan around up there good and goddammit let's at least get a smell!'
The pilot was staring at him curiously. He had opened the mapcase and was fishing out a small package, giftwrapped in colorful paper and topped with a satin bow. 'My charter said someone would be on hand to meet me here,' he said. 'Listen . . . if there's something illegal going on here, I don't know a thing about it. The man asked me to deliver the package — now if it's . . .'
Balderone was glaring at the man with undisguised irritation. He took the package and said, 'Now what the hell is this supposed to be?'
'The name is on the tag,' the pilot snapped, his own tone matching the other's irritation. 'It's addressed, if you can read, to John J. Portocci, and that's all I know about it.' He glanced over his shoulder, noting the men swarming over his small plane. 'Look, I fly airplanes,' he added dismally. 'For a salary plus expenses. I didn't know this guy was-'
'No no, you got the wrong idea,' Balderone said hastily. 'We just can't figger out why he ain't here hisself, but don't you give it another thought, there ain't nothing illegal.' He spun away, waved to the men around the plane, and marched back to his vehicle, tossing the small package from hand to hand as though it were too hot to handle.
'Instincts,' he muttered as he settled into the vehicle.
'What's in the package?' the driver asked.
'Too small for a bomb,' Balderone replied, sighing. 'But I got a feeling it's just as bad. It's addressed to Johnny. Imagine that?' A new thought crossed his mind, and his face reflected the new hope. 'Hey, you think I should open it? Maybe we been wrong all the way, about this plane, I mean. Maybe this is some of Johnny's business. Something he forgot, maybe, at Phoenix. You think maybe . . . ?'
The driver shrugged his shoulders. 'There's only one way to find out real quick.'
'Yeah,' the big
From a distance of less than a hundred yards, the watchers were being watched. A tall man in a shiny rental car was focusing his binoculars with considerable interest upon the men who were pacing about the service apron outside the flying service, studying the faces, memorizing them, with particular attention going to the heavyset man who had accepted the package from the pilot. He grinned at the look of consternation that swept the thick man's face as the tiny box was opened, then he laid the binoculars in the seat and awaited the next move. A small crease across his forehead was the only evidence remaining of the leather thong which had adorned that head only minutes earlier; a small blue 'tattoo' mark showed faintly on the chin where a hasty cleansing had not quite removed all traces of the color pencil.
He tensed in the seat of the rented car and quickly started the engine as the service vehicle suddenly wheeled about and lurched to another stop in the parking area beside the flying service. He watched as the thick man transferred to a dark Lincoln, waving his arms in some signal to the other men congregated there. Then a small motorcade, led by the Lincoln, pulled onto the service road and sped off toward the perimeter highway.
Inside the private terminal, a charter pilot was ruefully relating his 'weird experience' to the flying service manager. '. . . and chartered me to Miami, see. Then ten minutes out of New Orleans, he decides he wants to go to Jax until he makes this phone call, and then he gives me this precise schedule to Miami, see. I got to come in at a such and such time . . . well, hell, I guess it's okay, I picked up an extra hundred for my trouble, plus the deadleg fee . . . but did you
On a parapet overlooking the fast-awakening international airport, a pair of disgruntled 'photographers' were hastily packing up their gear and preparing to depart. Down below, anxious-eyed men in hand-tailored suits were spreading energetically throughout the facility, inspecting restrooms and lounges and waiting rooms in a final, almost frantic search for an illusive quarry.
In an airporter bus just then clearing the terminal area, the members of an obscure rock music group, bound for a music festival in a Miami suburb, were discussing their 'adventure' in solemn and dignified elation.
A round-eyed girl, still a bit breathless with suppressed tension, said, 'We should've, you know, found out who he was and why he was hiding. I mean, wow, he could be anybody. I mean it was groovy, sure, but wow! He could be anybody.'
'Sometime you just have to go on instincts,' their bearded leader observed. 'Like with chicks, you know. You just have to like the look in their eyes and like take it from there. I mean I just looked in those eyes, dig? — and I said, 'sure, man I'll let you carry my guitar.' And the cat fit, didn't he? I mean, he was a real cool Aquarian, wasn't he?'
The real cool Aquarian was, at that moment, pacing along at a discreet distance, following a Mafia motorcade to Miami Beach. For The Executioner, it had been a highly successful soft sweep.
Chapter Four
Sandbagged
Mack Bolan did not regard himself as a superman. He knew who and what he was. But he had learned, in the school of life-and-death, that knowledge coupled with action and wedded to total commitment would elevate any ordinary man into the ranks of the extraordinary. Superman, no; extraordinary weapon of war, yes — this was Mack Bolan. Sgt. Bolan was a craftsman. His craft was warfare; a particular type of warfare in which a man became either extraordinary or dead. The sergeant remained alive. He had learned his lessons well in the do-or-die theaters of Southeast Asia — and he had brought his diploma home to ply his craft in the untidy junglelands of America.
He did not think of himself as a crusader, nor even a patriot. He felt no grand exaltation in his self- appointed role as nemesis of the American underworld, and he did not have time or inclination to wonder if his sacrifice would have any meaning in the ultimate outcome of this highly personal war of his.
In speaking of Bolan and his pre-Mafia days, friends invariably described him as a friendly, thoughtful, and kindly man. Aside from his programmed forays against the enemy in Southeast Asia, there exists no evidence whatever to indicate that he possessed a violent nature; even in Vietnam the record reveals again and again that he was respectful of the Vietnamese people, responsive to the suffering of the children of that war-torn land, that he inspired lasting friendships and fierce loyalty from his comrades.
Bolan would not alibi his Vietnam 'specialty' to anyone, newsmen and war historians included. He would, and did, tell them simply that he had not chosen this war; it had chosen him. He had not requested permission to kill the enemy; he had been trained to do so. He did not war
And now he did not alibi his American specialty to himself. The conditions were the same. A different place, a new enemy, but the same rotten situation and the very same call to duty.
