Blood Dues (5 page)

"We're almost there."

The pilot had to raise his voice to make it heard above the helicopter's engine. In the seat beside him, Bolan did not need to check his watch; he knew they were on time. Soon they would reach the pickup point.

Jack Grimaldi had been bringing Bolan into hot landing zones from early in his private war against the Mafia. Reluctantly at first, and later with a convert's zeal, he had provided vital air support on some of Bolan's most demanding missions, calling on every skill as a flier to put the Executioner into striking range.

Grimaldi had survived the storm that shattered Bolan's Stony Man command center and blew away a portion of his life. The Italian-American flyboy had made a tacit avowal, then, to help the big guy — who had pointed Grimaldi on the right path — wherever the canker of evil reared its head.

Two warriors, joined in spirit, fighting for a cause.

But nothing they had ever done together matched the sheer audacity of Bolan's morning mission on the outskirts of Miami.

Grimaldi held the Bell at cruising speed a hundred feet above the highway, running parallel to northbound traffic. Fields of grassland and palmetto stretched away on either side of the two-lane blacktop.

The Executioner was dressed in camouflage fatigues and jump boots, cheeks and forehead streaked with jungle war paint. Heavy bandoliers of ammunition hung across his chest and cut into his shoulders.

Bolan's weapon of the moment was a portable artillery piece, the XM-18 semiautomatic launcher. It resembled nothing quite so much as an old-fashioned Tommy gun complete with pie-pan drum, but time had wrought some drastic changes in the formula. The smoothbore weapon chambered 40mm rounds and could deliver them with accuracy at one hundred fifty yards. An expert hand could place a dozen lethal rounds on target in the space of five seconds — anything from high explosives and incendiaries to the deadly needlelike flechettes.

But at the moment, warrior Bolan's launcher was equipped with ammunition of a different nature. Cans of smoke and tear gas alternated in the drumlike cylinder with nonlethal batton rounds, specially designed for crowd control in riot situations. While the current mix would let him blind and gag an enemy, or knock him on his ass with stunning force, it would not deal a fatal blow to any man of average health.

The Executioner was rigged for battle, right — but with a crucial difference. This time out, nobody was supposed to die. If blood was spilled, Mack Bolan did not want to be responsible.

And yet, of course, he would be.

He had already turned over the options in his mind, examined every facet. This was simply, undeniably, the only way to go.

He was breaking Toro out of prison.

It was the first time he had ever tried to liberate a prisoner from "friendly" hands, and he was pledged to bring it off without a bloodbath. Prison guards were like police in Bolan's estimation — soldiers of the same side in his war against the savages who preyed upon a civilized society.

Their methods differed radically, and many of the men in uniform would drop him if he gave them half a chance, but soldier Bolan had preserved a unilateral ceasefire with law-enforcement officers from the beginning of his Mafia war. No matter what they did or tried to do in the performance of their duty, regardless of the strain of corruption left upon some isolated badges, Bolan would not drop the hammer on a fellow fighting man.

But the soldier was a realist. He was well aware that Toro's airlift out of prison would require some cover fire. A little something that would cause confusion, leave the guards a bit disoriented, and perhaps a little bruised.

The XM-18, with its riot loads, had solved the problem for him. If he played his hand with skill they could be in and out before the reinforcements gathered, bringing up the heavier artillery.

Mack Bolan pushed the odds out of his mind and concentrated on the countryside below. They were no longer following the highway, but a narrow asphalt ribbon sliced across the landscape off to Bolan's left. In front of them the prison compound was a tiny clutch of buildings, growing closer by the moment.

As they crossed the outer fence a mounted guard made visual contact, waving frantically to warn them off. When they ignored him, he removed a walkie-talkie from his saddle horn and started speaking rapidly into the mouthpiece.

Bolan marked the rider and dismissed him. He could never catch them now, and if they played it right, the reinforcements he was calling up would not have time or opportunity to cut them off.

It hinged on Jack Grimaldi now, and on their small remaining element of surprise. Assuming that the mounted guard had radioed direct to the command post, instead of warning personnel on duty in the fields, they had a chance.

Bolan primed the launcher, tucking it beneath his arm. He shrugged out of the safety harness, moving back to take his station in the chopper's loading bay. Below them, rows of crops flashed past beneath the Bell, almost close enough to touch.

They flew over another horseman and he wheeled around to follow them, brandishing the lever-action .30-30 that was standard issue. Convicts, scattered up and down the rows, were taking full advantage of the interruption, leaning on their hoes and shovels, watching the helicopter.

More cons below them now, more horsemen rapidly converging, driving mounts into a lather. Bolan spotted Toro in among the others. The Executioner knew Grimaldi had the Cuban now, as the bird began circling, hovering, preparing to land. The chopper's rotor wash flattened the rows of collard greens and forced men down there to shield their eyes.

They were a dozen feet from touchdown when Mack Bolan opened fire. He swung up the XM-18 and triggered three quick rounds, the belching muzzle swinging on a track from left to right. Two bursts of smoke erupted on the field, and in the midst of it a tear-gas can exploded, mingling noxious fumes with Bolan's artificial fog bank.

Grimaldi set the chopper down amid the greens, and rotor wash was working for them now, propelling clouds of smoke and gas across the field in an expanding screen.

There was mass confusion as the cons started shouting, gagging as they scattered, seeking daylight. Bolan saw a pair of riders bearing down on the helicopter, then the smoke screen cut them off from view. He lobbed another sputtering can in their direction.

Above the general din, he heard a guard attempting to bring order out of chaos, shouting at his charges, firing in the air. Off to Bolan's right another rifle cracked in answer, the bullet drilling through his smoke screen.

A mounted guard exploded into view, his animal colliding with a startled inmate, hurling him to the ground. The rider was fighting with his reins and rifle simultaneously, struggling to stay aboard and get a shot at the intruders. He was tracking onto target when the gelding made a break for cover in the smoke and dumped him off the starboard side.

He touched down hard, the .30-30 jarred out of his hand on impact.

The fallen convict scrambled toward the .30-30, retrieving it and fumbling with the lever action for a moment, finally chambering a round. Ignoring Bolan and the helicopter, he was sighting on the semiconscious guard, already tightening his finger on the trigger when the XM-18 roared.

The range was thirty feet and there was little need to aim. The hard batton projectile struck the convict underneath his arm and punched him over sideways in the dirt, his captured rifle spinning free.

A running figure cleared the smoke and Bolan recognized El Toro, sprinting for the chopper. Close behind him, three more inmates were intent on keeping pace, the nearest of them threatening to overtake him in the break for freedom.

Bolan swung his light artillery around to intercept them, but the Cuban was directly in his line of fire. To take out the leader he would have to topple Toro, and the other two were fading back now, legging it in single file to let their pointman take the heat.

The Cuban feinted left, and Bolan was about to drop his closest competition when El Toro spun around and drove a fist into the convict's sweating face. Momentum did the rest, and Toro's opposition touched down shoulders first, a tumbling rag doll.

His companions hesitated, breaking stride, and they were circling Toro in a pincer movement, Bolan and the chopper momentarily forgotten. One of them threw himself at Toro with his arms outstretched, talon fingers groping for the Cuban's windpipe.

Toro took him low and inside, catching him off balance with a slashing knee that crushed his genitals. The man doubled over, retching, and his nose was flattened by the toe of Toro's boot. He vaulted backward, unconscious before he hit the turf.

His backup was considering an angle of attack, but he never got the chance to follow through. A rifle cracked and Bolan saw the straw man airborne, pitching forward on his face beneath the deadly impact of a .30-30 slug.

The Executioner reacted swiftly, pivoting to face the source of gunfire. He spotted a prison guard some thirty paces to his right. The rifleman was seeking other targets, blind with panic now and desperate to do something,
anything,
before it was too late.

The launcher bucked and bellowed, sent another stunner out to close the gap between them. Downrange, Bolan's target hurtled backward, propelled into a sprawl by the batton round's impact. Bolan turned his full attention back to Toro, focusing upon the mission.

And his passenger was there, one arm outstretched to grasp the helping hand that Bolan offered. Jack Grimaldi saw the Cuban come aboard, and the pilot reacted instantly. The ship lifted off, ascending vertically, the altered angle of their rotor blast dispersing smoke and gas.

Below them riflemen were searching for the range and finding it. A bullet whispered next to Bolan's ear and drilled an exit port behind him, through a pane of Plexiglas. Another twanged against the fuselage and spun away.

Grimaldi took them out of there, the Bell responding to a master's hand and climbing, banking, rising in a spiral that would get them out of rifle range.

The Executioner and Toro scrambled into seats and buckled up, riding out the storm. Grimaldi soon had them running true and arrow straight above the scrublands, with the prison compound dwindling, behind them.

Across from Bolan, Toro was beginning to relax, but his deliverer could not afford to share the feeling. They were flying out of momentary danger into greater peril, and the heat would follow them inexorably. The spark that he had struck that morning might ignite a lethal conflagration in Miami.

Fine.

Warrior Bolan was familiar with the heat; he thrived on it.

And he was carrying the fire this time, a cleansing flame to scorch the savages and drive them underground.

A number of his enemies had felt the Bolan heat already. More would follow. Hell had come acalling in Miami, and the purifying flames would have to run their savage course.

A skillful hand could fan the flames, attempt to channel and direct them, but the end result would be in doubt until the final shot was fired. There was every chance that warrior Bolan would be counted with the fallen, but he knew the long odds going in, and they did not deter him.

The Executioner was blitzing on.

Toro stood before the open kitchen window, leaning on the sink and staring out across a scruffy yard in the direction of a peeling clapboard fence. The nearest neighbor was an auto graveyard, its rusting hulks piled high above the fence.

"Sorry we couldn't set up something with a view."

Grinning, the Cuban turned to face Mack Bolan.

"The view is fine,
amigo.
I was getting tired of open spaces, anyway."

He retrieved a mug of coffee from the kitchen counter, sat down at a narrow dining table to face the Executioner.

"I have not yet thanked you for delivering me."

"No thanks are necessary," Bolan told him.

"Ah. Without the need, then.
Gracias, amigo."

"Welcome."

They were seated in the combination dining room and kitchen of a rented bungalow in Opa-locka, a Miami suburb. It was five minutes from the Opa-locka airport and well removed from Little Havana. And Bolan knew that it was there the main heat of the coming search for Toro would be concentrated. With any luck the hunt should pass them by completely.

Not that Bolan or the Cuban planned on hiding out while the search went on around them. Far from it.

They were pausing at the rented safehouse only long enough to coordinate a course of action.

There was work to do yet in Miami, and before proceeding with it, Bolan needed information.

"You mentioned a suspected sellout in your group."

Toro glanced up from his coffee cup, a frown etched into his forehead. He hesitated, and when he spoke, his voice was solemn.

"I will deal with him myself."

"I understand your feelings."

Toro raised an eyebrow.

"Do you?"

Bolan nodded.

"Faint-hearts... traitors... they injure all of us."

He did not speak of April Rose or of the mole who had done everything within his power to scuttle Bolan's Phoenix program. Good lives down the drain, and changes — driving Bolan back into the cold and giving back his name, his lonely war.

The Cuban was consumed with private thoughts, his own grim memories, but Bolan's voice cut through the fog.

"I need your help," he said. "If this connects, I can't afford to go in firing blind."

Another hesitation, then Toro finally nodded.

"Raoul Ornelas." He pronounced the name as if it left a sour taste on his tongue. "My right-hand man.
Mi hermano."
Disgust was heavy in his voice. "You know I worked with Alpha 66?"

Bolan nodded. The computer files at Stony Man had kept him current on a host of paramilitary groups, their personnel — anything and everything related to the covert war of terrorism. While it lasted, he had followed Toro's progress through the Cuban exile underground, had been relieved when he affiliated with a moderate faction, had seen him rise into a leadership position, helping to direct the energies of soldiers who might otherwise have run amok.

"Raoul, he was not satisfied. More action... always more. He blames your government for all our problems. FBI or CIA, they're all the same with Castro to Raoul."

The Cuban downed his coffee, then got up to refill his mug.

"We quarreled over policy. I learned Raoul was acting independently, recruiting others. Bomb here, there... all the same to him.''

"He challenged you?"

The Cuban's eyes flashed back at him.

"I threw him out." The sudden smile was almost wistful. "No use. There is always somewhere for a man to go."

"Ornelas set you up?"

A casual shrug.

"Raoul, or one of his
soldados,"
Toro answered. "Before the trial, he is already meeting with my men, reminding them they cannot trust the government, inviting them to join him.''

Bolan saw the picture clearly, all the ugly pieces falling into place.

"You know the EAC — Exiles Against Castro?"

"Yes."

The Executioner was only too familiar with the exile splinter movement. Known to law-enforcement agencies since 1975, EAC was a tiny clique numerically — fewer than one hundred hard-core members had been publicly identified — but it exerted influence beyond proportion to its numbers.

EAC drew support from leading members of the anti-Castro bloc. Successful exile businessmen supported the guerrilla band with money, arms, a well-timed word in certain ears.

And for their efforts, they got action, right.

The soldiers of EAC had been linked with bombings from Miami to Manhattan, random acts of violence and intimidation. They were indiscriminate in choosing targets: federal, state or local offices; the homes and businesses of opposition spokesmen; foreign embassies and airlines. Voices raised against the terror were silenced by the bomb or sniper's bullet, and EAC won grim recognition as the most savage, most secretive faction of the splintered Cuban exile movement.

Freedom of expression had a fearful price in southern Florida, and everyone was paying. Everyone, that is, except the Communists
and Fidelistas
whom EAC was presumably established to combat. Strangely, and despite the rising tide of Cuban violence, little of the action seemed to be directed at the classic goal of liberating Cuba from the blight of Castroism.

"Raoul is influential in the group. Some say he leads it now, except in name."

"I see."

EAC.

Weapons, trucks and drugs.

The Mafia.

A link was not beyond the realm of possibility, Bolan knew, but he needed much more in the way of solid battlefield intel before choosing targets for elimination. Nothing was precisely what it seemed among the exiles; anything could happen, and the Executioner could not afford mistakes that might cost lives.

"What will you do?" the Cuban asked, his voice intruding on the warrior's thoughts.

"Start rattling cages," Bolan told him. "I don't have a handle yet, but somebody out there can give me one.''

"Raoul?"

The Executioner shrugged. "I recognize your claim," he said. "But if you shake loose something helpful..."

Toro spread his hands.

"Como no.
Of course. You are my friend. I owe you my freedom."

"You owe me nothing," Bolan told him solemnly. "All debts are canceled. From here on out, I can't predict where this will take me."

Toro frowned.

"You fear that it will lead you to my people.
Mis hermanos."

"I've considered it," the Executioner admitted candidly.

"And I." The Cuban leaned across toward Bolan, and there was a sadness mixed with pain in Toro's eyes. "I understand Ornelas, his
soldados.
They have spent a lifetime fighting
Fidelistas.
First encouraged by your government, then punished."

Your
government. Mack Bolan read the none-too-subtle message loud and clear. It drove the meaning home — that they were different, he and Toro. Different warriors with — perhaps — different wars to wage.

"I feel the same anger," Toro was continuing. "But even so..."

He hesitated, struggling with a problem that had clearly nagged him long and hard.

"A man must know his enemies," the Cuban said at last. "The blood, it is not enough. In here..." he tapped his chest above the heart "...a man can die before his time. A brother can betray his blood."

The Executioner was silent for a moment. When he spoke again, his tone was solemn.

"Blood doesn't always make a brother."

Toro nodded.

"Si. Comprendo.
I will help you... if I can."

Bolan felt the shadow pass between them once again, but briefly. He dismissed it, knowing that he could not chart the Cuban's course of action for him. He trusted Toro's instincts, his sense of honor.

Bolan rose, prepared to leave.

"I'm on the numbers, Toro. Give you a ride somewhere?"

The Cuban shook his head and nodded toward the kitchen telephone.

"I make a call," he said. "There are
soldados
still that I can trust."

"Okay. Is there someplace I can leave a message?"

Toro thought about it for an instant, finally rattled off a number from memory, and Bolan memorized it.

"I'll be in touch," he promised.

Toro rose and clasped his hand in parting, wrung it warmly.

"Vaya con dios, amigo."
And the Cuban's sudden smile was dazzling.
"Viva grande,
Matador."

Live large. Damn right.

The Executioner was out of there and tracking, leaving Toro to his own devices. They were separate soldiers, separate wars.

Mack Bolan hoped that they would meet again as allies, or at least as friendly neutrals. He had no wish to take the brave
soldado's
life, or risk his own in the attempt.

But he was moving now, and there could be no turning back.

Hunting.

Seeking out the savages in civilized Miami.

Rattling cages, right.

And living large.