Sicilian Slaughter (5 page)

Mack Bolan knew that
Mafia,
both the word and the original organization bearing the name, originated in Sicily. The so-called Castellammarese War ripped open the Italian underworld in the early 1930s, littering the streets of various cities in the U.S. with more than sixty deads, and an unknown number of others simply vanished.

The outcome of this mutually destructive warfare resulted in settling once and for all the question of Sicilian versus mainland Italian — particularly Neapolitan — dominance of the Italian-American underworld.

The emergence of two men as Number One and Number Two, Charley Lucky Luciano, a Sicilian, and Vito Genovese from Naples, allied and working together and ruling with steel-fisted discipline, ordered the traditional factions to stop feuding and fighting for dominance, and all come together into "this thing of ours": the
Cosa Nostra.

For Mack Bolan, as for most people not members of a Family, the terms were, and are, interchangeable. Mafia ... Cosa Nostra.

And The Executioner did not deal in semantics, in vague shadings of word definitions. He had set out on another mission against the Mafia, this time to turn the Mafia's soldier training school into hell ground, and he was well on his way.

After Bolan shot the window out and the girl went, Captain Teaf shoved the nose down and put the chartered jet on the deck, calling a mayday. He wanted to turn back, but Bolan/Borzi refused.

"Christ, man," Teaf shouted, "we won't have ten minutes reserve fuel over the Azores. We miss one approach or have to hold, and we ditch, right into the drink!"

"Then you'd better not foul things up, huh? What do you think the bonus was for? You've got the uniform and the shoulder boards and big gold-plated wings, so let's see if you're a pilot!"

Teaf remembered that TWA had not thought so, and had dismissed him before his probationary period ended; that's how he ended up scrambling for nickles and dimes around dead-end country airports, until he'd smuggled in some "items" and got a good payday which allowed him to finance himself and get his airline transport rating. Armed with the Big Ticket, he found better jobs easier to get, and now he held the best he'd ever have. If he lived.

Like most executive and airline pilots, Teaf privately admitted he was overpaid, most of the time. But things had a way of catching up, so about twice a year on the average a professional pilot found himself in a position where he would have been willing to trade places with almost any other man in the world. Even a convict serving tune could reasonably look forward to eventual freedom, and life.

Teaf looked at the big ice-eyed bastard sitting in the right seat and knew this one of those times when he would earn it all, the bonus and more.

Once satisfied the pilot was continuing on course, Bolan went back into the cabin. Even though down on the deck, perhaps 200 feet above the wave-tops and the warm air, a chill had invaded the cabin. For even though Teaf had pulled back the power to conserve fuel at the low altitude, the jet's speed still exceeded 300 knots, and wind whistled through the destroyed window with hurricane force.

Bolan examined the cabin for a few moments. Then he slipped the catches on the sliding metal door on the built-in bar. He carried the two-by-three piece of polished duraluminum back to the open window, righted the seats the girl had made into a bed, then wedged the bardoor between the tops of two seats, covering the hole.

The wind still howled and buffeted through the remaining cracks, but the chill and noise diminished greatly. Mack found a cabinet holding more linen, pillows, cushions, and crammed them into the cracks, further cutting the wind and sound. Then he found the access door to the cargo hold and went down inside.

His crate had been opened, yeah. And more. Until now Bolan had felt bad, real bad, felt like hell about the girl, killing women wasn't in his line.

But he discovered now
she
had been playing for keeps. The crate was booby trapped. It took him more than half an hour of sweating effort to disarm the simple devices. That was what one-tune professional soldier Mack Bolan had never ceased marveling at, and putting to use.

The simple plans worked. The simple devices. Start jacking around with complicated procedures, super secret agent stuff, and first thing you knew, one of your own men got blown up. He forgot, or became nervous, sweaty, hurried, the timing failed to work out or the wire went slack in an unseasonal waft of warm air. The only guys you screwed when you made it fancy were yourselves.

Finished, Mack Bolan went back to the cockpit. "How we doing?"

"Twenty minutes out. I've called an emergency and we are first to land, a straight-in approach."

Bolan saw the pilot flick a glance his way. "Thanks to you, we're fat on fuel. Plugging that hole was smart."

"I got cold back there."

"Yeah, sure." Teaf knew Borzi had spent the better part of an hour in the cargo hold. He'd felt it in the controls. Shifting over two hundred pounds that far aft, and the two hundred pound man moving around. Teaf had kept his thumb on the electric trim button on the control wheel, compensating for the shifts in weight back aft.

Bolan sat in the cockpit's right seat during the landing. As he anticipated but dreaded, there were too many people — firemen with their trucks and foam hoses, cops, a crowd of gawkers, airport officials, and as they taxied in and Teaf shut down the engines, Bolan said, "Don't forget what the bonus is for, ace. And there's more to come."

The pilot earned his money. Bolan was hardly bothered. In forty minutes Teaf had arranged for an aluminum plate to be solidly riveted over the hole left by the window. Fortunately, a wide blood-red stripe ran down the length of the airplane along the same line as the spaced windows, and if they noticed anything untoward, the ground engineers said nothing.

While the mechanics worked, the line crew refueled the jet, and in less than two hours after landing Teaf lifted the jet off the runway again, eastbound. At Bolan's instructions, he'd taken on a maximum load of fuel and recharged all ox-cylinders, so in case the cabin failed to pressurize with the patch, they could still fly at high altitude and get maximum performance from the jet engines. The patch held though both men kept their masks dangling around their necks. Also, on Solan's orders, Teaf had filed direct for Naples, some 2,200 miles, well within the jet's range if the weather held and the met-guys at Azores said it should be clear sailing all the way.

Once airborne and the ship on flight director, with Teaf relaxing in his shoved-back seat, Bolan peeled off another $1000 and tossed it into the pilot's lap. "You did a good job, ace."

Teaf nodded and folded the money into his shirt pocket. "If you're sweating Napoli, the crate and all — forget it. I sent a radiogram while we were on the deck at the island. The fix is in."

The hair on Bolan's neck bristled.
Which
fix, he wondered. Getting the crate past customs, or waxing Mack Bolan's ass?

The Mike Borzi cover had to be blown by now, because the girl had known. Or had she? Maybe not. It was just possible she had only recognized him, but had no time.

And she had not seen Mack's phony passport. No way. Only she had disrobed.

Bolan looked around the cockpit. He saw latches and handles on the windows on each side of the cockpit. "Do these open?"

"Hold on, man!" Teaf shouted.

"I'm not touching anything," Bolan said. "Do they?"

"Sure. Just slip the catch," Teaf put his finger on the latch beside his face, "then pull back. Nothing to it."

Bolan looked at the window. Open, it would give him a firing port about eighteen inches by almost two feet. The nose of the airplane sloped down sharply, giving him an open view forward. The wings were placed at a mid-fuselage position, well behind the cockpit and high enough so he could see well back under them. From the cockpit, if necessary, he had something close to 300-degree vision.

From directly behind would be the only safe place for an attacker to approach.

But as they flew onwards, toward the east, first raising the coast of Portugal, then the snow-tipped Pyrenees along the French-Spanish frontier, Bolan liked bullassing straight into Naples less and less.

The radiogram….

Professional soldier Mack Bolan knew no better way to insure suicide than notifying the enemy of your coming.

And to die in Naples would be stupid. It would be like a race driver dying in a freeway wreck. Naples had but one purpose. Diversion.

Dead men divert nothing, no one, and achieve no main objective.

Bolan's left hand flashed out and took Teaf's throat. "Let's see the copy."

Wind clamped off, voice-box almost crushed, Teaf could not speak, only point. Except he did not point. He pounded his shirt pocket. Bolan found the flimsy paper, released the pilot.

PERSONAL … INSPECTOR G. LISA, CUSTOMS CONTROL, NAPLES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT . . . ESTIMATED TIME ARRIVAL EIGHTEEN HUNDRED THIRTY HOURS ZULU . . . ONE VIP WITH PERSONAL EFFECTS . . . DESIRES ANONYMITY IDENTICAL HOWARD HUGHES WITH SAME ABILITY PAY EXPEDITIOUS TREATMENT ... ENDS ... TEAF.

It worked.

Bolan had no choice but to ride along, not being a pilot. And evidently, Customs Officer Lisa held considerable power, because when Teaf notified Naples approach control sixty miles out, he was given a vector that set the jet up for a straight-in approach. Upon the hand-over to Tower, the controller directed Teaf to land at once, take the second hispeed turnoff and proceed directly to ramp area Bravo. Once off the runway, Teaf tuned his radio to ground control and the instructions were repeated. He halted the jet before a small, single-story building, isolated from the rest of the terminal complex, and as Teaf shut down, a single man came striding purposefully from the building. He wore a uniform, a Sam Browne type military harness — wide leather belt with narrow shoulder strap, and on the belt hung a holstered pistol. The holster flap was down and snapped in place.

Teaf had depressurized as they taxied in, so the door popped open easily when he turned the handle and lowered it, steps unfolding. The uniformed officer came immediately aboard, stopped just inside the cabin, clacked his booted heels, bowed slightly, and touched a finger to the glossy brim of his cap. "Ah, yes,
Capitano!"

Teaf stepped forward and shook hands with Inspector Lisa. Bolan saw a flash of green.

And that was it. That easy. Bolan kept waiting for the hook, for the kink in the line, the catch; but none came. An old truck stood waiting beside the small building. In ten minutes the driver had Bolan's crate aboard and roped down, Bolan's papers had been processed — customs, immigration, public health, the works. Bolan pulled the pilot aside. "The only thing I want you to remember about me is that we can do business again if it goes this well."

Teaf held out his hand, palm up.

Good enough, Bolan thought. I wouldn't trust him if he wanted to be pals, go have a drink, now we're past the heat. All he wants is his pay for work done. Bolan paid him and climbed into the truck with the driver.

Carlo Maligno stood in the window of his office and looked across the Bay of Naples. He saw none of the internationally famous splendor which drew hundreds of thousands of tourists each year, from all over the world. He saw but one thing, and chewed his cigar with satisfaction. In the deepening gloom of sundown, he saw the lights ablaze at dockside where the U.S. freighter S.S.
Sundance
lay tied to, hatches open, cargo booms working. Carlo had finally broken down the ship's skipper, some dumbutt spic from Brownsville, Texas, who thought the unloading charges too high.

Carlo grunted. Too high!
He
thought. Spies weren't supposed to think, only pay, through the nose. And both ears, if Carlo Maligno said. Carlo wasn't boss of the docks for nothing, and not for his health. And he didn't keep shiploads of perishables standing by out of meanness, either. It was a simple matter of economics. If the ship's owners wanted the vegetables unloaded and sold in Italy, then they paid. So what? It jacked up the street price, and the poor went without greens, let'm eat cake! The room behind Carlo darkened, as though someone had stepped into the doorway and blocked the light.

Carlo turned, "Hey, get outta — " His voice died in his throat and he tasted a vile bitterness as he bit his cigar in half and the soggy wet end lodged halfway down his gullet.

The man in the door stood over six feet tall and wore a black commando uniform. The man's left hand moved and a small piece of metal sailed across the room, landing at Carlo Maligno's feet. Entranced, Carlo looked down, and in the dim light he saw what he recognized as a marksmanship badge from the days when the Yanks came through during the Big War. Then Carlo went blind, because The Executioner shot him through the top of the head.

Twenty minutes later, as Vassallo Flaccido sat in his tilted-back chair outside the garbage collectors' union hall, guarding the door because the bosses had a meeting going, so they could raise the rates again, Vassallo suddenly found himself sitting in mid-air. He landed hard on his fat rump, shook his head and stared up, felt his overworked heart pump too hard and a ripping pain shoot across his chest and down his left arm when his eyes saw the huge man in black with the gun in his hand.

Bolan stepped over the coronary case, opened the door, went catlike up the union-hall steps, opened the door and stepped inside. Only one light in the room, bright, a chipped green shade over it. The garbage union bosses conducted their meetings with considerable style and minimum formality. Six men sat around a poker table covered with green velvet. On side trays stood bottles and glasses, coldcuts, sliced fresh vegetables. Vivace Lena briskly riffled the cards, shuffled them, offered them for a cut, began dealing a hand of five-card draw poker. When the cards were out, Lena put the deck down and placed a coin atop it. "Okay, who opens?"

A metallic object came out of the gloom beyond the hanging light and landed with a smack, dead-center in the table. Then a flat, toneless voice said, "I open, and play the hand I've got."