Sicilian Slaughter Page 6

  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."

  Bolan got Lena through the forehead first shot, then ticked off three more as they froze for a moment before bursting into frantic action. Bolan opened the door and backed out, flipped a grenade, then leaped down the stairs. He was almost a half-block away when the delay-fuse set the grenade off and blew out every window in the upstairs room, killing the last two bosses.

  One man survived the attack long enough to make a telephone call, but the man he called did not believe him. He laughed, said, "You're drunk again, Immondo," and hung up. He rolled back over and placed his dark, black-furred paw on the blonde's vast bosom. Jeeez-usss, thought Vistoso Mezzano, there's nothing like these Kraut and Dane and Swede babes, once our Corsican pals get them tamed down and broken in!

  The girl's milk-white skin still showed faint bruise marks, and high inside one thigh the cigarette burn scars had healed but still showed plainly. This one said her name was Hilde and she had gone to Paris with her sister on vacation, the both of them school teachers in Bavaria, and one night a truly distinguished looking but slightly threadbare man offered to guide them on a tour: those parts of Paris the ordinary visitor never saw. Of course it wasn't dangerous, what a thought! And they could take pictures, too—eh? Eh? They went first to a dingy place full of hashish smoke, stinking of sweat and vomit, and watched a pair of Apache dancers abuse one another, then to another place where other women and some men sat around a large glass. Some of them had cameras. When Hilde sat down she could see that under the glass was a room. In the room was a bed. On the bed lay a man and two women. Hilde watched in astonished fascination for a moment, then got to her feet, held onto the back of her chair, and asked her guide, please, for a glass of water, she felt so faint. She awoke with a crushing sick headache, and cottony mouth turned wrong-side out. She lay sick, thirsty, hungry, cold, and terrified for what seemed days, until an incredibly cruel little man, hardly five feet tall, came for her. She had not believed such pain as the little man could inflict truly existed. She had been brought up on the myth that God provided His children with an automatic cutout device, so that when pain became unendurable, you became unconscious. Once she learned this an absolute falsehood, her training began … and now here she was, hoping Signor Mezzano would be good to her because she had graduated with honors and could make the signor very, very happy. No, she had never seen her sister again, since that night in Paris, why?

  Mezzano giggled and buried his face between the vast pillowy milk-white bosoms, and he suddenly felt Hilde's entire body grow tense, then stiff as a corpse.

  Mezzano raised up. "Hey, that's no way to be nice."

  He saw her face. The total terror in her unblinking green eyes. Mezzano whirled around and looked up at the man in black. The man in black thrust out his hand, and Mezzano automatically accepted the preferred object. He stared at it. What the hell? It had the shape of a Formee Cross. A bar across the bottom read MARKSMAN.

  Recognition came in an instant to Mezzano and he lunged back, trying to squirm beneath the girl, and death forever darkened the light. He heard a faint phutt and felt a millisecond of pain, then nothing.

  By the time he left Mezzano's establishment, The Executioner left a total of ten deads.

  Before midnight Bolan hit another union boss and his underbosses, leaving six dead in a central-city private dining room, and leaving the Neapolitan teamsters leaderless. He struck the waterfront numbers bank, doubled back, destroyed all the betting slips and set fire to the lira. He destroyed every last vehicle of a car rental agency which had been taken over by Mafia through extortion and terror. On the outskirts of the city he blew up a Mafia-owned bank which the feds had learned did most of the financing of international smuggling operations between Italy and the U.S.

  At midnight, The Executioner made a telephone call: "Get your women out of the house."

  In panic, the Naples Capo di tutti Capi, Boss of Bosses, fled with his women and most of his retinue, and Bolan virtually destroyed the Frode estate with his most recent acquisition, an M79 grenade launcher. Much lighter and more portable than a bazooka, it also had the advantage of not gushing out a huge black-blast of flame and dust when fired. True, it did not have the knock-down penetration power of a rocket launcher, but with practice, and The Executioner had gotten plenty in Nam, he could put one frag after another through doors and windows from maximum range.

  Shortly after eight o'clock the following morning, two events occurred almost simultaneously. First, a non-union truck driver/owner who had barely managed to feed his large family for the past six years, carried a lighted lamp into a closet, pulled the door shut and locked it, and then counted the money again, just to be sure. It had not been a dream. The peculiar big man with the eyes that ran shivers up Fretta's back really had bought Fretta's ancient truck, for cash, in U.S. dollars, and paid more than a new Italian model would cost. He knew dealing with that customs man would pay off some day, and it had!

  At the same time, on a dusty road a hundred miles down the peninsula, in Calabria not far south of Castrovallari, a big man in worn clothing, face grimy, cap pulled low over his ice-blue eyes, drove an old rattling truck with a crate lashed down behind the cab. The Executioner took a bite of the moldy cheese he'd bought just after dawn from a farmer's wife on the road. He washed the cheese down with some bitter-tasting native wine. Perhaps when he reached Reggio, at the toe of the boot, just across the Strait of Messina from his objective, Bolan would feel safe. Yeah, safe.

  But so far his deaf-mute act had worked, buying gasoline, the food and wine, never dismounting from the truck except, on deserted stretches of road, to check the oil and water levels of the truck's engine. The last thing he could afford to do in the vast, sparsely populated, desert-like regions of Calabria was put himself afoot so he had to depend upon other people, other transport.

  He nursed the old truck along, and wondered if he dare use the ferry across the Strait to Sicily. In the meantime, Bolan allowed himself a wry smile. He couldn't expect it to work every time, but hopefully his nightmarish multiple strikes in Naples had set off another internal war among the dons and bosses and soldiers, especially the ambitious ones left fighting for control of the unions Bolan had left without bosses.

  "Have fun, boys," The Executioner muttered aloud, and took another sip of bitter wine.

  10: A
TABLE FOR THE DON

  To mafiosi, a nation at war, particularly their own country, is meaningless. Except that warfare invariably provides them with increased opportunities for illicit profits, most frequently black-marketing those items which became rationed: gasoline, meat, flour, sugar, liquor, auto tires, shoes.

  Mafiosi, members of "this thing of ours" owe a higher, overriding allegiance, to which they have given a blood oath, and into which they were born.

  This heritage, tradition, and membership both requires and molds a certain mentality, so that Don Vito Genovese, Mafia ruler of southern Italy, headquartered in Naples, could not believe it when he was arrested by a U.S. Army CID agent in 1944. His disbelief became speechless, staggering incredulity when Sergeant O. C. Dickey flatly refused a $250,000 cash bribe and personally returned Genovese to the U.S. in 1945, to face trial for murder.

  Into this sudden power vacuum, several Neapolitan underbosses moved, and with their crews fell into internal warfare for control until Charley Lucky Luciano, who had been released from a New York penitentiary, was deported from the States and came home to straighten things out. After Luciano's death and another inner struggle, Don Tronfio Frode emerged as Boss of all Bosses.

  But after The Executioner's nightmarish strike in Napoli, the few surviving dons, and the capos who instantly seized power upon learning of their bosses' deaths, called "a table."

  In a word, the Naples boss of bosses found himself on trial.

  From Rome, from Genoa, from Reggio and the Sicilian provinces, the dons came, and they all came with the same question on their lips: "What the fuck is going on here, can't you control your own Family?"

  "Listen to me, this wasn't Family, you get that? Not Family!"

  "Then what?" demanded Brinato from Rome in an icy voice.

  "That bastard Bolan, the one they call The Executioner."

  "Bullshit," said Vandalo from Palermo. "One guy blowing up a whole town. Bullshit."