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  He placed the muzzle of the Beretta against the terrorist's temple and squeezed the trigger.

  Chapter Four

  Cortona was a small town perched on a hillside between Perugia and Siena. It boasted a dark and somber cathedral, a diminutive museum and a view on fine days of the Trasimeno lake.

  The airfield lay on the plain below — a clubhouse, a single hangar and a stretch of grass where a small Cessna, a Beechcraft, a Piper Cherokee and a couple of Cubs were tethered against the breeze sweeping in from the east. A World War II pursuit monoplane, captured from the French in 1940, was mounted on a plinth in the center of the graveled area in front of the clubhouse.

  By the time Bolan arrived it was after midday and the parking lot was deserted.

  A man in a white jacket was polishing glasses behind the bar in the empty lounge. He had a shock of black hair and heavy, dark eyebrows above a puckish face. "Ninety percent local stuff — joyrides, flying instruction, parachute jumping and gliding at the weekends, that kind of thing," he said in answer to Bolan's question.

  "Apart from club members or people with their own planes, I guess there aren't too many intercity flights or foreign traffic, right?"

  "You said it. We have a couple of regulars with estates down here who fly their own planes to Milan or Geneva. You know, business types. But on the whole, like you say, it's the homegrown talent."

  "So you'd remember anything recent on the international scale?"

  "Try me," the barman said.

  "Three days ago. A ship with a black crew. Probably foreign registration. Something local flying up to Udine at the same time."

  "Sure I remember. The foreigner was a Fokker. Not the F-27, something smaller, but big stuff for us. Normally they won't put them down on grass fields. This one was registered someplace in North Africa."

  "And the crew?"

  The barman shrugged; the black eyebrows rose. "They were okay. No uniforms. Didn't drink. Didn't say much. Once the ambulance arrived they took off again."

  "Ambulance?"

  "With the sick chick. Some tropical disease, they said. They were taking her to some special clinic. Too bad, she was pretty too, red hair, all the curves. You know."

  "Was she conscious? Did she say anything?"

  "They were way out on the apron, I was here. She was on a stretcher, looked as if she was asleep, or unconscious."

  "And the three guys who brought her?"

  "They were going to Udine. There was a chopper waiting for them. Civil version of a Bell Cobra. Unless I fucked up on the registration letters it was a rented job from Milan."

  "What about the ambulance?"

  "There was a fourth guy. He drove it away."

  "Just one more thing. On a small private field like this, any pilot doing anything more than joyriding has to file a flight plan. Am I correct?"

  "Sure, he does. No sweat if it's A to A. But if it's a case of A to B, he has to file. International regulations."

  "Okay. So this Fokker would have filed a flight plan with your guys here and the area control, right?"

  The barman nodded.

  "I have to contact the sick girl urgently. Family business," Bolan said. "But I don't know where this clinic is. And I doubt the air traffic controllers at Florence would part with the information to a stranger. You figure I could persuade anyone here to divulge that Fokker's flight plan?"

  "For that," the barman said, "you would have to be real nice to our flight controller."

  Bolan looked out the wide glass windows at the deserted field. It was still sunny, but the wind had freshened, bending the cypresses on the far side of the perimeter track. "How long do I have to wait before the guy shows?" he asked.

  The barman took off his white jacket and hung it on a peg. He walked around the end of the bar counter with an outstretched hand. "Meet the flight controller," he said.

  Bolan grinned. He peeled bills from a roll and laid them on the polished mahogany counter. "When the barman returns," he said, "buy him a drink on me."

  The black brows rose and fell again. The bills vanished and white teeth appeared in a fleeting smile. "I don't even have to check out the ledger," the man said. "We get so few international flights in and out of here, I keep a computer behind my eyes." He scribbled a line on a notepad, tore off the page and handed it to the Executioner. "This here's the plane's registration. The pilot filed a flight plan taking him due south, with a refueling stopover at Catania, in Sicily. He gave his destination as Tripoli."

  * * *

  "I know you won't accept money," Michael Bozuffi said, "but anything you need in the way of travel expenses, transport, weapons, contacts — well, just name it. I have a certain amount of influence and I'm not a poor man. It's all at your disposal if you can just locate Suzy."

  "I may need that help," Bolan said. "I don't like the way this is shaping up. I don't understand why this terrorist group should make such a big deal out of snatching your daughter. Especially since there's been no ransom demand."

  "She's got to be found and she's got to be safe. I know you'll do all you can, Mack. I rely on you."

  "Where terrorists are concerned," Bolan said, "you can count on me."

  He drove back to Udine and asked to see the police chief he had met at the site of the train wreck.

  "Massimo?" the commendatore repeated. "And the man who quoted the name was a member of this AFL nonsense?"

  "He was. Like one of his friends who… disappeared, he had this monogram tattooed on his wrist."

  "Then it must be Rinaldi," the officer said. "Massimo Rinaldi. Said to be head of this terrorist group, but nobody can prove anything. Besides, he has protection. His father was a big wheel under Mussolini. Killed by the partisans at the end of the war."

  "And Junior continues to preach the extreme right?"

  The police chief heaved his shoulders in a Latin shrug. "But carefully, my friend. Very carefully. The night the train was wrecked, for instance, Massimo was at La Scala in Milan, the guest of a respectable politician. At the time your supposed kidnapping took place he was provided with an equally unimpeachable alibi: hosting a luncheon for fifty members of France's Front National, who had come to Italy to air their anti-Semitism and their Hitlerian views on immigration."

  "Nice guy," Bolan said. "I think I'd like to visit him. He might find it difficult to get protection from me.

  "It is supposed to be a secret — once more the protection, you see — but I can give you an address." The commendatore wrote on a sheet of paper, which he handed to Bolan. "It is, of course, my duty to warn you that we cannot tolerate any kind of punitive activity that is outside the law."

  "Of course."

  "But apart from that, if there is any way I can help…"

  "You could have your bloodhounds check out a couple of registrations for me," Bolan allowed. He passed over the details he had gleaned at the Cortona airfield. "The Fokker's from North Africa. I believe the Bell's a rented ship from some company in Milan, but I'd like to know who hired it three days ago."

  A telex machine began chattering beyond the filing cabinets ranged along one wall of the commendatore's first-floor office. "I shall do what I can," he promised.

  He rose to his feet, tore off the paper when the telex machine ejected it through the plastic slit in the lid and began to read the message. The phone on his desk rang. He picked up the receiver and held it against his ear. Bolan scanned the paper with Massimo Rinaldi's address on it. Unexpectedly, it was a small seaside town between Alassio and Imperia, on the Ligurian Riviera.

  The police chief laid the handset carefully back on its rest. He glanced a second time at the message in his hand.

  "Signore Bolan," he said uncomfortably, "I am truly sorry, but I have my duty to do. It is a task that is personally unpalatable to me, but this time I have received specific orders…"

  Bolan looked up, frowning. "Meaning?"

  "It concerns a man found dead last night in a hotel room in Perugia. The room
had been booked by someone who answers your description. A second man was found dead on the sidewalk outside the university early today. He had, it seems, fallen from the roof. Again, a person fitting your description was observed to leave the building shortly afterward."

  Bolan said nothing. The policeman cleared his throat. "I am instructed that the local police require that you be held for questioning. There is also a third death — all of them, curiously, members of this AFL commando — about which they feel you may be able to help. A man found by the roadside near Citta di Castello. You must forgive me, signore, but my orders are to place you under arrest."

  The Executioner rose to his feet. "I understand," he said. "You have your duty to do; you must obey your orders. But first, tell me — how much would it cost to replace that window if it was broken? And the shutters beyond if they should become damaged?"

  The policeman stared at him. "I… really do not know. Something perhaps in the neighborhood of 950,000 lire. It would depend, of course, on the damage."

  "Great." Bolan peeled bills from a wad he took from his pocket. He laid them on the desk. "Let's hope this covers it," he said. "If not, you must let me know somehow… and in the meantime my apologies for a hasty departure."

  Shielding his face with crossed arms, he launched himself at the window and burst through into the night in a shower of broken glass and splintered wood.

  Chapter Five

  Laigueglia is an Italian fishing village not far from the French border, with a twelfth-century watchtower, a single short jetty and an extraordinary twin-towered church that presides over the catch from the lower slopes of hills rising from the Mediterranean shore.

  Not the place, on an early-fall afternoon at the end of the tourist season, where a man expects to be struck between the shoulder blades by a 14.6 mm slug from an elephant gun.

  The ocean was smooth that day. Half a mile offshore, water and sky merged in a uniform oyster-gray. The sun was hidden. Moisture beaded the white wrought-iron tables on the deserted cafe terrace and brightened the paint of fishing boats drawn up on the damp sand.

  Even indoors, where Mack Bolan sat nursing a beer, the humid air caused the walls to glisten and misted the panels of the espresso coffee machine. Apart from a couple of students necking in back, the cafe was empty. The proprietor, elbows resting on the counter-top, was reading a newspaper.

  With the sleeve of his jacket, Bolan wiped a clear space in the center of the steamy window. He saw fishermen in shorts and vests crouched over a net that was stretched along the dock. A small speedboat nosed in toward the jetty. In a few minutes the contact he was waiting for would arrive.

  The man was four minutes early. A chunky guy wearing a windbreaker and sunglasses, he braked a knobby-tired Honda trail bike to a halt and leaned the machine against one of the empty terrace tables.

  After a quick glance around he walked into the cafe and sat down at Bolan's table. Renzo Gandolfi was a part-time burglar, small-time fence and smuggler and full-time scavenger of information, which he was prepared to sell.

  It was two days since the Executioner had burst out of the carabinieri office in Udine. According to the newspapers, authorities were on the lookout for him at docks, airports and railroad stations. But he had an idea that the police chief, while fulfilling his duty to the letter, had nevertheless omitted to mention to his superiors that the person they wanted was likely to pay a visit to a man in Laigueglia — a man whose address he had himself provided. Certainly Bolan had received no suspicious looks either here or in San Remo, where he had passed by the musty antique store that Gandolfi operated as a front.

  "You have the intel?" Bolan asked.

  The Italian nodded. "You were right about the chopper, it belongs to Italavia at Milan. It was hired on the day you mention for a straight three-point run — Milan to Cortona to Udine, and then back to Milan. The pilot was a company man. He received his orders, picked up the clients, delivered them and then went home."

  "And the name of the client renting the helicopter?"

  "Renato Colibri. If it's the same Colibri, he works as a chauffeur and bodyguard for Rinaldi."

  "It'll be the same one," Bolan assured him. "Did you find out about the North African Fokker?"

  "It's registered in Libya. Based in Tripoli. But in fact it belongs to Anya Ononu, part of his private fleet."

  Bolan whistled. "Ononu? The dictator of that West African…"

  "Montenegria, that's right. I guess he must be in with Khaddafi."

  "That's great," Bolan said sarcastically. "A crazy black fascist shacked up with a mad Arab Communist! And talking of fascists, what do you have on this Massimo Rinaldi? I checked out the property, uphill on the far side of the tracks, but I waited to get the lowdown from you on his security organization before I took it any further."

  "Renato Colibri looks after that," Gandolfi said. "Apart from the dogs and his three thugs, there's the wire…"

  The snitch never completed the sentence. Gandolfi reared up suddenly from his chair, knocked over the table and hurtled headfirst into the wall on the far side. He slid to the floor with blood frothing from a grotesque hole beneath the collar of his windbreaker. At the same time Bolan registered the crack of a distant shot. Glass from the shattered window cascaded to the tiles.

  Bolan was out on the terrace by the time the proprietor reached the dead man. The sound of a fiercely accelerating engine cut through the babble of voices from tourists and fishermen, who stood horrified among the nets and lobster pots. Beyond the jetty, riding high on its creaming bow wave, the speedboat streaked out to sea.

  A fat guy with a beard had dropped a basketful of sea bass. "Un-b-b-believable," he stammered. "Standing at the end of the jetty, cool as you p-p-please! He had a rifle with a telescopic sight."

  "He must have sighted through the clear patch where I wiped the glass," Bolan said.

  Back in the cafe the proprietor had blood on his hands. "What kind of a gun is that?" he asked dazedly. "To send a man crashing over a table?"

  "Big-game stuff," Bolan told him. "A safari gun, probably a Mannlicher."

  Bolan didn't need anyone to tell him who was responsible. Clearly the word had gotten around that he was hot on the trail. Three members of the AFL cell were already dead, the cops were looking for a certain Mack Bolan, otherwise known as the Executioner — and the guy had the nerve to show up in the very town where Action for Liberty's boss had his headquarters!

  So it wasn't all that surprising that an organization with so little regard for human life should eliminate anyone likely to help out.

  Okay, Bolan thought grimly, elimination was a game where more than one could play. Renzo Gandolfi might have been small fry, a dispensable piece on the board, but he would be avenged.

  Yeah, as soon as the Executioner collected the necessary intel and the so-well-protected Signore Rinaldi could be confronted in his lair.

  Bolan figured it would be wise to lose himself. If the terrorists were this well informed, if they were prepared to waste anyone who tried to help him, he himself would be a marked man, the prime target on their hit list.

  They had gunned down Gandolfi first, he guessed, because he happened to be the clearer target and they dared not wait around for a second shot, and as a warning to others not to cooperate with Bolan. Or maybe because they wanted the Executioner alive — and they figured on jumping him if he attempted to break into the Rinaldi property.

  Either way, he had to go underground… in case the guy with the elephant gun came after him again or a second killer was unleashed on him. That meant before the cops arrived and started to ask questions.

  Bolan walked out of the cafe. If anyone thought of stopping him, a look at the expression on his face was enough to deter them.

  As soon as he left, the two students in back slipped out through the kitchen of the cafe. A quarter of a mile away, they went into a bar on the Via Roma. The girl headed for a booth with a pay phone. She dialed a number and waited. Then,
"Your man was a little late," she said. "Gandolfi had already begun to talk… but I don't think he had time to say much. The big guy split."

  By now it was dusk. Bolan was three blocks away. A salt breeze blowing off the sea carried a hint of drizzle along with the fish odors, and the promenade was deserted. He could hear nothing but the crashing of waves and a desultory rhythm picked out by a guitarist in the empty depths of a disco bar with a red neon sign that flashed Hell's Kitchen.

  Bolan turned down a lane so narrow that arched buttresses had been built high above to keep the houses apart.

  It was here, from a flight of stone steps half-hidden behind a solitary palm, that the man with the Mannlicher fired his second shot that day.

  And for the second time, an involuntary movement saved Bolan's life. He was passing a gun shop stacked with sports and fishing equipment, and an unusually designed suede shoulder rig caught his eye. He momentarily checked his pace to glance at the window display.

  In the instant he slowed down, during the tenth of a second that his head turned, the killer squeezed his trigger.

  The report from the huge-caliber rifle was deafening. The bullet, aimed fractionally ahead of Bolan on the assumption that the pace would not vary, fanned his ear and smashed through the plate-glass window of the gun shop.

  Bolan dived to the cobblestones, and crawled for cover behind a concrete trough planted with geraniums, before the echoes of the shot died away — the unleathered Beretta already in his right hand. High on the wall above him, the gunsmith's burglar alarm shrilled.

  Bolan lifted his head and peered through the aromatic leaves, wondering if the gunman would fire again.

  He saw movement, a play of shadows below the ancient walls. He heard running footsteps, the creak of hinges, a wooden door slamming. Evidently the rifleman had decided against another shot right away. Shutters had been opened, windows thrown up, a chorus of voices demanded to know what the hell was going on. The alarm continued to ring.