Sicilian Slaughter (3 page)

Bolan ran for the car. As he crossed the street, the other car came rocketing around the corner, closing on him. Bolan dropped to his left knee, brought the Automag up and held it in both hands, and pumped three shots through the oncoming grillwork. The engine exploded and the car swerved, hit the curb, toppled over on its side, then rolled slowly over on its top.

Bolan dragged the dead wheelman from the car at his side, got in and drove away.

An hour later, Bolan stepped through the back door of a Village shop, attracted the attention of an elderly clerk, and a half-hour later emerged with a wardrobe somewhat more "fashionable" than suited his personal tastes; but he'd chosen the shop because the clerks were accustomed to freaks in such far-out clothing the gray-haired lady hardly looked at Bolan's black combat garb while outfitting him. Twenty minutes later, Bolan rented a shabby furnished room, slept until dawn, then hit the street again in his new clothes and found another shop which sold clothing of more conservative and nondescript styles. Here, Bolan completely outfitted himself, underwear outwards, for the long trip. Then he went to see a man about some papers.

Captain Charles Teaf felt like an ass. Ten minutes ago he'd been inside the company office wishing like hell he could get a good charter, maybe to Cleveland or Chi. But it was probably raining both those places, too. Miami or Phoenix were too much to hope for, on this soggy wet day at Teterboro Airport, New Jersey. He had might as well wish for the friggin' moon, or another trip to Rome like he'd had ten days ago.

That was ten minutes ago. He'd been grousing around the office, and hinting to Annabelle maybe they could slip back to the long-range jet, the one with seats on the starboard side aft that made down into a bunk, and rip off a little. But the gloomy day must have been working on her, too. She told him to go commit an impossible act with himself. As though she had some kind of treasure, saving it for the right guy.

What a laugh. Forty, if she was a day, but she sometimes worked stew on charter jobs. The thing was, hardly anyone ever noticed her face. With tits like she had who cared? Throw a flag over the face and go for Old Glory. Just what the hell else she did, Captain Charles Teaf was not quite sure. A little typing, answered the phone, spent a hell of a lot of time examining freight manifests, and when not in the office she was out walking the line, talking to guys and gals from the competition.

That was ten minutes ago, when Teaf s mind was occupied with speculation upon whether Annabelle wore a 44D— or 42DD-cup bra. Now he had something important on his mind. Around aviation's somewhat incestuous circles, Captain Charles Teaf had an acknowledged reputation. The word was
greedy.
He would backshoot his nice little old gray-haired mother for a guaranteed profit.

But Teaf found the man with the money rather frightening. A big, icy-eyed bastard with a bandage on his face who walked with a slight limp. And who insisted on such privacy that Captain Teaf stood outside in the goddam rain talking to him. Teaf's stiffly starched white shirt had turned to clammy glue against his skin, his fancy black shoulder boards with wide gold stripes dripped, and he knew the large wings above his left shirt pocket would need cleaning and polishing because they were brass, not gold.

The thing was, the big bastard with the chilly eyes had a big fist full of money. But the guy had not let go of any of it yet. Teaf could hardly keep his eyes off the green. He knew it had to be some kind of smuggling job. That did not bother Teaf at all. He'd been
there
before. Except dope. Dope was too heavy. Dope was in now, The Big Thing, with the feds, state and city and county cops, DAs; dope was Big, on TV, in the papers, so to hell with dope.

Some creep might cave in his wife's skull for cheating on him and he'd hit the bricks an hour later on $1500 bond. Some college punk with a half-kilo of grass went so far back in the slammer they had to pipe air to him, $25,000 bond. So no dope, no matter how much money the big bastard offered.

Christ, the big son of a bitch looked like he could snap a man in half with his bare hands, and he had a presence — brutal, as though he had cracked a few spines, crushed some ribs, snapped a neck or two.

"Cut the crapping around and answer me," Bolan said. "What's the charter rate, long-range jet, to Italy?"

The company would hang Teaf if he lied. "I can't kid you, mister. Or lie to you. Against company rules. Commercial carrier is cheaper."

"If I wanted that, Teaf, I wouldn't be here."

The big bastard fanned out the wad. If he had a dime he held twenty grand in those big hands. And how the hell does he come to know my name?

"Okay, mister, I've told you. The airlines are cheaper. You dig?"

"I dig. Talk to me."

"I don't know what you want yet, so I can't quote a price firm."

"Look, ace, I didn't come here to stand in the rain and bullshit.
You
dig?"

Before Teaf could answer Bolan said, "I want a private, long-range jet charter to Naples. For starters. There may be more work. I can give you a ten grand deposit.
Will
that get you moving?"

"Just one thing, mister. No dope. Absolutely nothing involving dope."

"I ought to break your face."

"Okay, okay, get hot, but just so you understand."

"The ten Large do it?"

"Well, depends on the party, baggage, freight if any, crew, maybe a particular
kind
of stew you want — " Teaf leered.

"Get cute one more time, ace, and watch me vanish.

This airport's full of grounded
airplanes
and non-flying pilots."

"Deal!" Captain Teaf said fast.

"Okay, I'm the only passenger. I have one crate of cargo and some personal baggage. No other crew. You alone."

"When do you wish to leave, sir?"

"I don't want the crate opened by Italian customs. That's why I came to you. It's not dope. You know that. Nobody carries crap from the outhouse to the bedroom, right?"

"Can it sting me?"

"Heavy, cap. That's what the bonus is for."

"I've seen no bonus."

Bolan peeled ten hundred-dollar bills from the wad and stuck them between the bottom two buttons of Teaf's shirt. He peeled another Large out and let Teaf have a look at it, then stuffed that inside the captain's shirt.

"There's another three G after we get the crate past customs."

Teaf nodded. "Like I said, deal." Teaf placed his hand on his belly and rubbed, feeling the green against his skin under his wilted shkt.

"When do you want to depart, sir?"

"Now."

"You mean
right
now?"

"Exactly."

"No way, man."

"Hand the bread back, ace."

Teaf backed away. "Wait! I mean you need a passport, visa, innoculation certificates, all that stuff."

"I've got them."

"You ... have?"

"My baggage and freight's ready to load."

"Well, Jeez. I can't believe this. I mean only ten days ago I lucked out ... I mean a trip to Rome, some rush job for an oil company — "

"So, what are you saying?"

"Hell, man, I'm ready, too. I got
all
the papers. For myself
and
the aircraft. I mean, Jeez, it's like some kind of miracle, you know?"

"Not exactly," Mack Bolan said. "I shopped around."

It was the only way to go.

As Mack Bolan had told the treacherous doctor: The Executioner did not go naked in the world, unarmed. Doing so invited certain death. The Mafia, the Outfit, the Organization, Cosa Nostra, whatever the media called it this week or today, still had a $100,000 bounty on Mack Bolan's head. Since he not only double, or was it triple-crossed them, sending their Wild Card's head back to them in a sack, maybe the ante had gone up.

You get what you pay for.

Pay cheap, get cheap.

Blank check, expect the best. And have the right to demand it, by god!

The Executioner
knew
the bounty had gone up. The sum he did not know, only that the Outfit would never stand for what he'd done, panic in Philly. Once more, he'd rigged it so the Families became involved in unremitting warfare against each other. The last thing in the universe they wanted.

What am I worth to them now?
Bolan wondered.

A quarter mill?

A half?

The whole wad?

One million dollars?

Why not? Even the most conservative "experts" claim organized crime milks the U.S. public of $40
billion
a year. A billion is a thousand million.

"I can't think," Bolan wrote in his journal, "of figures that size. They are an endless number of zeroes to me, unreal, meaningless, and yet
actual.
Nickles, dimes, quarters, dollars, entire paychecks, into hock, into shylocking, vigorish, trapped, becoming prostitutes, numbers runners, pimps, drug pushers."

Bolan had been there.

He had a dead father, and mother, and sister, and maimed brother to show for it. And a girl he loved that he dared not go near, for fear he might be followed.

Once already the bastards had kidnapped his brother Johnny, and Valentina. To get them back alive, he blitzed Boston — a real old-fashioned
lightning war,
and eventually exposed a man in the highest possible influential circles, social and governmental, as just one more asshole.

That's what the cops called criminals. Assholes.

Mack Bolan could think of no better or more descriptive word, when he really thought about what happened around that particular area of the human anatomy.

Of course, Bolan had expected his documents source to betray him, after his experience with Dr. Wight Byron.

Strangely, that had gone off with remarkable smoothness. Bolan wondered if it had been too smoothly. Thinking back, he wondered if he'd covered himself well enough, asking not only for the impeccably forged passport, but visas to France, Switzerland, and Algeria.

Despite the dollar devaluation, most countries in Europe still eagerly sought the good old U.S. greenback and American tourism, and therefore required no visa whatever: Ireland, England, West Germany, Spain, Holland and Denmark.

They made it hell for a phony to prove up his
bona fides.

Maybe the smoothness of his documentation had gone so well because the gut-hollowing footsteps in the parking lot had been those of Leo Turrin. And Mack Bolan knew that backing Leo stood rock-solid Bragnola, and, possibly, Persicone.

Bolan could not bring himself to trust most FBI agents, despite the individual behavior of Persicone when panic went through Philly like sand through a tin horn. FBI types were too ambitious. And Mack knew they'd turn on their own kind — other agents, local cops, deputies, state policemen — and nail their hides to the barn wall for "civil rights violations."

Given a million years, Mack Bolan could think of no man who violated more "civil rights" than he did himself in his declared war against organized crime. He was arresting officer, booking desk officer, judge, jury, and Executioner.

About the only thing he did not do, in the Bureau's Book, was whip niggers over the head with pickhandles like guards in some prisons did. Mack never used that word.

The charter flight was the only way Mack Bolan could have gone.

His crate would never have passed U.S. Customs export control. Nor would it have passed the regular, scheduled airline customs in Italy.

But more important than that, Mack had carefully checked out the new antihijacking security procedures at La Guardia and JFK. He saw no possible way he to bypass them while carrying his silencer-equipped Beretta and .44 Automag; and he was not about to enter Don Cafu's ballpark unprepared.

If he played it tight, cool, smart, and had plenty of luck to back him, Bolan knew he'd get one good swing at the first pitch.

And that son of a bitch would be a low outside curve, sure as God made little green apples!

He settled back into the deep cushions of the chartered private jet and tried to get some rest. It would be a long flight.

Annabelle Caine had worked with and for the Mafia since she was fifteen years old. For the first two years she had not been aware who her employer was. Having excessively matured quite early, she won a beauty contest in her Ohio hometown. That same night the grinning master of ceremonies placed a rhinestone "crown" upon her blonde head, Annabelle learned the price of success. The emcee introduced her to a terribly handsome, mature, swarthy, impeccably tailored individual named Vito Rapace, head judge of the contest. Vito asked permission of Annabelle's widowed star-struck mother to take the lovely young winner out on the town, show her off. He hinted broadly about Hollywood connections. Annabelle would have gone no matter what her mother said. It was simply convenient and time-saving that mother said,
"Yes,
Mr. Rapace!"

Annabelle was not even aware she truly had no beauty, even skin-deep. She simply had a marvelous set of jugs and Vito Rapace wanted to get his hands on them. That night he did, and took the rest from her, too. After that, Vito became her "sponsor"; she dropped out of school and moved into a Toledo apartment Vito just happened to have vacant at the time. He paid her tuition to a "charm" school and the training gave her a certain superficial gloss — she learned to walk well. Vito dropped by the apartment on the average of three times a week, occasionally bringing another couple, usually Johnny, The Plumber Augurio, and some girl. The girls all looked like they could have been sisters and, Annabelle realized after awhile, a lot like herself. Within six months, after Vito tired of her and she had been passed on to Johnny, then Tonio, and Joe The Sapper, she was a "business girl" and knew it. After once attempting to leave and surviving the consequent beating, she accepted it. After a fashion, she actually did have a career in "pictures." Stills, which were taken by hidden cameras and highly compromised the other "actor" — a cop, or judge, or banker, or president of a labor union.

But Annabelle Caine had an almost feral instinct for personal survival, and she courted favor with her Vito until he let her out of the "business" and worked her into other operations. For awhile she handled the books in a numbers back office, then worked a phone drop, a telephone relay system. She was a sort of middlegirl, who took bets from runners, then phoned them to the bookie's back office. Even if arrested herself, as she twice was, she could tell the cops nothing but a phone number. The bulls didn't even get that much from Annabelle Caine, and Vito knew about it. He moved her up another notch, into a loansharking operation. Then Annabelle created a job for herself.

One evening she drove Vito to the airport. She got a porter to take care of Vito's baggage, and they went into the bar for a drink until the plane for Newark arrived. She saw her boss off, and this being an early evening flight, Annabelle saw that more than half those who deplaned headed directly for the lounge and a drink. She walked around to the baggage pickup and found it deserted. She watched for an hour. She went back five nights in a row and watched. The sixth night she dressed in large loose coveralls, tucked her hair up into a railroader's cap, wore gloves, borrowed a pickup truck, and twenty minutes after the plane landed, she cleaned out the baggage ramp. She did so again, the next night. The third night she went back, but this time in Vito's car and wearing a tight sweater. She had long since learned that men, and most women, could not identify her face after they had seen her in a tight sweater.

She spotted the plant five minutes after she began walking along the pickup, checking the tags. Two plainclothes bulls in a car parked in the shadows. She put on an act for them. Sure enough, one of the bulls got out of the car and came over, flashed the tin, asked what she was doing.

"I lost all my baggage on a flight three nights ago. I thought maybe it had come in by now."

"Well, I'll tell you, miss," the cop said, "I think maybe you can kiss the stuff goodbye. It was probably stolen."

Annabelle wailed, burst out crying, ran away, leaving the cop with egg on his face. After that she never made more than one hit a month when she wiped the pickup clean. On odd nights and days, she would drive up in different cars, and with a now-practiced-eye, pluck one large expensive bag or one set of luggage, stow it and drive away.

The first six months after she began her own little thing, she had fifty cameras of various values, what eventually turned out to be almost $10,000 worth of jewelry, and several thousand dollars worth of clothing and good quality luggage, even at dime-on-the-dollar selling to a fence.

Then she let Vito in on the scam, it having occurred to her that if the baggage was left unattended much of the air freight probably was also left sitting until shipped or picked up. She staked out the freight ramp and discovered she was right. Vito took it over then, and cut her a big slice plus a terrific bonus for getting on the scam. He was so pleased he started coming around again for a while, then tired of her again. When that happened, Annabelle felt herself in a position to ask a favor. She asked permission to leave town, and Vito agreed, seeing those dollar signs, all her share becoming his.

With the connections Vito gave her, Annabelle moved on to Cleveland, then Chicago, La Guardia, Idlewild, becoming a sort of "traveling instructor and advisor"; but it had gotten too hot, much too heavy by the time Idlewild became JFK, because virtually every theft was an FBI case, an interstate shipment case. It was time to fade, so Annabelle drew in her chest and after a six months vacation at Nassau, she went to work at Teterboro, still the best damn spotter in the business.

But she was getting dull-edged, and smart enough to know it. Plus one other thing. Since she no longer stole anything herself, she needed accomplices. And that's how your ass lands in jail, taking in other people, because you never know how strong they really are until the heat hits. And now that the feds and most states had the immunity law for cop-outs, she was scared and seldom turned anything but cinches, stuff she already had a buyer for, and she cut out the middle guy, letting the "buyer" pick it up himself. It lowered her take, but it also lowered her risks.

Now, on this particular gloomy, wet, gray, filthy day, she felt as out of sorts as everyone else. In fact, she thought, maybe it would be a hell of a good thing if she
did
whip a little on Teaf. She could use a good lay herself, maybe cheer her up. If the son of a bitch just didn't strut so! Like some 25,000-hour senior airline captain, when she knew for a fact Teaf was a TWA reject.

And then the whole world turned rosy for Annabelle Caine.

Mack The Bastard Bolan walked into the office. Just like that. God, ballsy guy, like a goddam cape buffalo! The word was already out, she'd heard it the night before from a contact she still maintained with the organization. Bolan had shot his way out of a trap at the hospital, then vanished.

Except, there he stood! Bolan. The man with $100,000 on his head! Her hands shook as she dialed. But her connection was out of pocket, Oh, the bastard, why couldn't he be shacked up with some —

Christ, they were already rolling out the long-range jet!

Answer the phone, you son of a bitch! I've got a hundred thousand fuckin' dollars standing fifty feet from me! Teaf came in and wrote up the charter, gave Anna-belle ten thousand in cash, advised her to call an armored car service immediately because it was risky having that kind of dough.

She could hardly breathe. She dropped the money. Scrabbled around on the floor gathering the bills up. She heard Teaf go out. She couldn't stand it. There he went, getting aboard, a
hundred thousand dollars.
Oh, God, no!

She jerked open the back door and screamed at one of the lineboys. He came running. She thrust the money into his hands and pointed, "Clean it up, call an armored car service, ten thousand," and shoved past him, running, almost tripping in high-heels. She stopped and jerked her shoes off and ran.

Mack Bolan became aware of another presence aboard the aircraft when he felt a slight change in the cabin air pressure. He did not move until he felt the pressure normalize, and heard a faint
click!

Still lying back in his seat as though asleep, he eased his hand under his jacket and gripped the Beretta, then like a cat, he rolled out of the seat and flat on the floor, pistol aimed.

The girl shrieked: "No!" and shoved her hands out palms forward as though they would stop 9mm Parabellum sizzlers.

Bolan relaxed pressure on the trigger and got to his feet.

Teeth chattering, eyes sprung wide as saucers, the woman managed, "Mr. Borzi ... can I, can I bring you anything?"

Bolan sat down, motioning her forward. She stopped directly beside the seat. Never in his life had Mack Bolan seen such bosoms. Looking up he could not see her face, only the underside of a brown knit jersey jutting out. Then she leaned over and Mack saw an ordinary face, a few years on it, thin lips, muddy eyes, bad complexion not hidden by pancake. The only thing she had going for her was the tits and she knew it.

Her right hand dropped to Mack's left thigh. "Or anything I can
do
for you?"

"No, darlin,' I'm fine." Mack gestured toward a seat across the narrow aisle. "Sit down."

He noticed she wore a pants suit. Probably had legs as bad as her face, tits the whole show.

"When did you come aboard?"

"While they loaded your crate.
Machinery,
I believe it was stenciled."

Mack Bolan did not know for sure, quite yet, positively, but he believed he'd have to kill this girl. Her nose was much too long. He answered. "That's right. Machinery."

"What business are you in?"

"Well, ah, various. Actually, salvage and demolition are my main specialties."

"Of what?"

Mack knew then. He would have to kill her. She played it too clever. Possibly . . . hell,
probably
she had already been down into the cargo hold with a prybar.

"Is there any booze aboard?" Mack asked, as though the thought had just occurred to him.

"Anything you wish," the girl said, smiling. She had good teeth. "Not limited to drinks, I might add."

"So nice to know. If the mood strikes me, dear. What's your name?"

"Annabelle."

"Annabelle, who, what?"

"Just Annabelle."

"Okay, Annabelle no last name, I'll take a Bloody Mary and go very light on the hot."

"Right on, Mr. Bo-oh-orzi."

Well, The Executioner thought, that's a death warrant. My passport and visas and documents and the few travelers' checks he'd bought, all in the name Mike Borzi; but she damned near called me Bolan. And it took her too long to build the drink.

Bolan winked, faked a sip, reached up and touched, found a hard unyielding silicone stiffness and dropped his hand. She had dropped to her knees beside him, hand going to his belt the moment Mack touched her. He acted as though he understood nothing, unlatched his lap strap and rose to his feet and shoved past her.

In the cockpit Teaf lazed back in his seat, the aircraft on flight director, a highly sophisticated autopilot. Bolan shot a look at the altimeter. It showed FL 23: Flight Level 23,000 feet. He glanced past the pilot and looked out the window.

Bolan was not a pilot, though he had flown many hours in Nam and in the Army, in fixed wing aircraft and helicopters. He also had phenomenal eyesight and depth perception. He was not sure they were actually 23,000 feet above the ocean, but knew the airplane was tremendously high.

Laconically, Bolan said, "Christ, we're so high it looks like a calm lake down there."

Teaf roused himself, reached forward, rapped the altimeter sharply, and the big marker moved some forty feet higher. Teaf then twisted the knob on the instrument and set the tiny window marker on the left side of the altimeter to read 29.92 inches mercury, the standard setting for over-ocean flights so all aircraft had the same altimeter reading and would, theoretically, if conforming to assigned altitudes, avoid mid-air collisions.

"We're a little high," Teaf said, but did nothing. The extra forty feet did not seem to bother him.

"What about oxygen?" Mack Bolan/Borzi asked.

"Plane's pressurized, sir. No sweat."

"What if something busts open?"

Condescendingly, expert explaining to frightened novice, Teaf said, "Still no sweat. Get a might cold before we got down to lower altitude, but we have portable ox-bottles all over the ship. The green ones, stashed in niches, with a mask. Notice them?"

"Yeah, but what the hell, man. Like it
goes,
I mean all of a sudden?"

"You mean explosive decompression?" Teaf turned in his seat and grinned at Mack. "No sweat. If you can't reach an ox-bottle soon enough, you might hypoxia, oxygen starvation, and pass out."

Teaf pointed vaguely at the instrument. "But that would show up here instantly and I'd put her down on the deck. Like I said, Mr. Borzi, no sweat."

"Unless I happened to be standing next to a door or window that went, huh?"

With obvious and decided discomfort, Teaf sat up straight in his seat. He did not answer. He took the bizjet off flight director and began flying manually.

Bolan/Borzi jerked up the armrest of the right side pilot seat and sat down sideways so he could look directly at Teaf. Deliberately, he thumbed the pilot in the ribs.

"I don't remember an answer, ace."

Evidently knowing that both silence and lies had become worthless, Teaf shrugged, sighed, and said, "Okay, sure, at this altitude we are pressurized for eight thousand feet while flying at twenty-three thousand. If we had an explosive decompression — extremely unlikely, mind you! — then anything close to the leak would go."

"You mean
ME?"
Bolan/Borzi shouted.

"Oh, no, sir, unless a big, I mean
big hole.
Like a window or door. The chances of that are so remote, hell, I'd give you million to one odds."

"That's a bet," Bolan said, getting to his feet.

"What?"

Bolan did not answer. He returned to the cabin from the cockpit, and as he expected four of the aft seats had been lowered so they made a wide but not too long bed. Immaculately clean, smooth, pale blue silk sheets had been laid across the lowered bed-made seats. Anna-belle lay naked on the pale blue.