Thermal Thursday

by Don Pendleton

  Nasty-Mouth replied, “Well, sure, now that the iron is off, I guess why not.”

  Papriello hastily added his concurrence. “Sure, why not. We’ll do that every day from now on. And we’re going to get better work out of these guys from now on, too.”

  “Gives you something to hold over their head,” Bolan explained. “No work, no privileges.”

  “That’s exactly right,” said the Pip.

  “Treat ’em like men,” Nasty-Mouth ventured, joining the revolution.

  “I’m also going to kill these here death rumors,” said Papriello. “Real cool-like, though, you know. We’ll pump some hope back into ’em, and a lot better work out of them. Don’t you worry none about this joint, Frankie.”

  Bolan replied, “I haven’t got a worry in the world, Pip.”

  But he did. Oh yeah, he did.

  He had the secret of Island X under his arm and the lives of a hundred doomed men in his hands. And even the master con artist of them all had plenty to worry about.

  13

  STAYING STRAIGHT

  Mack Bolan had never been the sort of man who had trouble making decisions. Which is not to say that he did not carefully weigh all the various alternatives and options present in a given situation. But he did not agonize the decision process; once all the variables had been considered, it was characteristic that he moved immediately along the most realistic route toward his goal.

  At the moment, he was moving quickly and surely along the route of disengagement from the forces of Lucifer’s Ladder. Already he had overstayed and overplayed the masquerade. A penetration of this nature could work for a while—if a guy really knew what he was at—but all the expertise and artistry in the world could not prevent the thing from falling apart under external influences—such as a phone call from someone higher up, or any one of a hundred other possibilities.

  So he was putting that joint behind him. There was nothing to be gained and everything to lose by overstaying, now that he had the answers to that place. As for Bill Kessler and his Doomed One Hundred, there seemed to be no particular urgency to that situation; it would keep until a reasonably safe and sure rescue could be developed.

  Bolan walked with Papriello across the Level I catwalk without so much as a glance at the busy men inside the glass cubicle. Some other hardhats were pounding steel far below and the compressors were still sucking and banging. Papriello rolled his eyes as a comment to the ear-shattering noise and signaled an invitation for Bolan to precede him to the monorail.

  “Why don’t you drive it back,” he shouted, his voice barely audible above the din. “It’s very simple. You just got the one control. Cycle it over to ‘local’ and hold it there. It’s a dead man’s throttle there, see. All you do is throw it—yeah, over there—throw it to ‘local’ and hold it there. When we get off at the other end, you let go and she’s back on ‘remote.’ That’s so the car can be called from either end. Like an elevator, see. Only it’s dummy proofed, so you can’t forget and leave it in local control.”

  Bolan growled his understanding and sent the car back to Santelli Island. He knew that Papriello was curious about the mailing tube he’d brought from Anderson’s office but the guy would have died before inquiring about it. Mob traditions simply did not allow such questions. Bolan would not have had to volunteer any information whatever, but he did not want the guy’s mind sticking to any minor worries. Also, that roll of drawings was Bolan’s ticket out of that joint.

  As they ascended the stairwell to the surface, he lightly tapped the cylinder against the Pip’s shoulder and told him, “You didn’t see me with this. Right?”

  The guy grinned and replied, “Right.”

  “I’ve got to take it to Miami. They want to see it.”

  “Oh yeah, sure, I understand.”

  But obviously the Pip understood very little.

  “I’ll try to get it back before the Doc misses it. But if he misses it then he misses it. They still want to see it. And if Doc don’t like it, then that’s just too damn bad.”

  The guy was getting it, now.

  “Oh right, right. To tell the truth, I never liked this idea of him reporting direct. He could be telling ’em anything and how would I know? Hell, I never know what the guy is telling ’em. For damn sure, Guido never knew.”

  “He’ll never know, now,” Bolan said, lifting an eyebrow to emphasize the remark.

  “I see what you mean. Poor Guido. But it’s his own damn fault. I tried to keep the guy …”

  They’d reached the trap door to the portal. Bolan placed a hand on Papriello’s arm and said, “Before we go up there, Pip …”

  “Yeah?”

  “I could have told you this as soon as I got here. But I had to wait. You know why I had to wait.”

  “Tell me what, Frankie?”

  “I didn’t come here to take over from Guido.”

  “No?”

  “No. You must know why I came. Hey, you know. And why I couldn’t tell you ’til now.”

  A grin was beginning to spread across the face of the gunner so long denied his own desk … “You mean …?”

  “I had to check you out, Pip. Standard procedure. I had to do that.”

  “Jesus, Frankie. That’s okay. You check me out any damn time you please.”

  “You’re the boss here, now.”

  “Jesus! I just don’t know what to say! I’m speechless!”

  Bolan chuckled as he told the gloating gunner, “You’re long overdue. You know that. You’ve earned it.”

  “I’ll try to keep on earning it, Frankie. Jesus! Tell them—tell the men—well, I’m grateful. I’ll give ’em a hundred percent all the time.”

  Bolan grinned. “Make it a hundred and ten.”

  The guy was stunned. Obviously this was the last news he’d ever expected to hear. He could not keep his mouth straight. “Right, right. You know I will.”

  “Starting at midnight.”

  “Huh?”

  “We turn the book at midnight. Just to keep it all straight.”

  The guy was becoming confused again. “Keep what straight, Frankie?”

  “The counts, the split. You know. Hey, Carlo. You got to get used to high finance.”

  From the grin on Papriello’s beaming face, he was already getting used to it. Nor had he missed the subtle shift of respect which called him “Carlo” instead of “Pip.”

  Bolan felt no particular sympathy nor enmity for the guy. Let him have a few hours of imagined glory. It would all turn to ashes by nightfall, anyway, if Bolan had his final way with this group. Nor was he simply having fun at Papriello’s expense. There was a studied effect implicit in every movement of the Bolan mind … and mouth.

  “I think it deserves a celebration,” he said as they moved into the barren room at the surface. “I think it calls for a party.”

  Papriello was beaming at Vesperanza, keeper of the portal, and the big legbreaker was grinning back without knowing why.

  “We gonna get some broads, Pip?”

  “You’re gonna get more than that, Rock,” Papriello replied gaily. He flicked dancing eyes at Bolan and asked, “Can I tell ’im, Frankie?”

  “Why not? He can be the first to know.”

  “How many broads,” asked the gorilla, almost drooling in anticipation of the good news.

  “Broads, broads, that’s all he’s got on his mind, Frankie,” Papriello said in mock disgust. “To tell the truth, I think his nose bleeds every month. I’m not telling that guy nothing. I’ll save it for someone who cares.”

  “Aw shit, now, Pip.”

  Bolan told the big bruiser, “You better get used to calling him mister. I would if I was you. I’d call him mister.”

  “Why?”

  “Figure it out.”

  But Vesperanza already had it figured out. The broad face sobered and turned mean. Very briefly mean. But Bolan took note of the quick transition from glad through bad to sad. “Couldn’t happen to a better man
,” said the keeper of the portal in a melancholy voice. “It’s too late for me, I guess. But I’m happy for you, Mr. Papriello. God, pardon me, but that sounds funny. Mr. Papriello. So what does it mean? To me, I mean? Who’s doing what?”

  “Guido’s out and Carlo’s in, that’s what it means,” Bolan soberly informed him. “But now you listen to this and you mark it at the top of your head. Nobody goes across ’til Carlo says so. Nobody. The portal is closed.”

  “It’s closed, right. Why?”

  “You don’t need to know why,” Papriello replied for Bolan.

  “And nobody comes the other way,” Bolan said sternly.

  “Okay, it’s closed both ways. And I don’t need to know why.”

  “That’s right,” said Papriello.

  “But is tonight still the night?” Vesperanza inquired anxiously.

  Papriello burst out laughing.

  Bolan chuckled and said, “Count on it, Rocky. Tonight is the night. How many will you need?”

  “Four or five would do,” the guy replied, grinning. “For starters.”

  “You guys figure it out between yourselves,” Bolan said. He patted his pockets. “I left my damn lighter somewhere. Maybe it fell out down below. I bet it’s in the tunnel of love—on the damn seat, maybe.”

  “The Rock can run down and get it for you, Frankie.”

  “Naw, naw, I better go myself. That lighter was gave to me by old man Castiglione himself. I better …”

  He was still mumbling to himself as he opened the trap and went below.

  Bolan would not have returned to that hole for all the cigarette lighters in Florida. But he had to get back down there. He popped open the control panel for the monorail car and used his penlight to study the logic circuits. It was a simple fix. Pop-out connectors had been utilized in the wiring. He popped one loose from a vital circuit then carefully restored the panel cover. Dummy-proof or not, that car would not now respond to a call from the other end.

  “I found it,” he said, showing the mafiosi his lighter as he rejoined them. “God, I would’ve hated to lose it.”

  “Hey, that’s great,” said Papriello. “Listen, Frankie, I made a decision. I’m making Rock my number one cock around here. I’m hoping you’ll second the motion.”

  “You couldn’t have picked a better man,” Bolan agreed soberly. “But let’s keep it like it is for today. You know what I mean.”

  No, Papriello did not know what Bolan meant. But he grinned and said, “Exactly what I had in mind. Rock—we’re both depending on you to keep this portal closed. Until I say different.”

  “Hey, it is closed,” Vesperanza assured one and all. “And you can just send those broads in here to help me keep it closed, when they get here.”

  The two “bosses” went into the sunlight laughing.

  “I had to do that,” Papriello explained, sobering quickly as soon as they were clear of the shack. “Rock has been around a long time. He’s deserving, too.”

  “You did the right thing,” Bolan assured him.

  “Ah, hell, Frankie, it’s a beautiful day. I can’t believe how down I was when that sun came up this morning. And how high I am now. It’s like a dream. Say, don’t pinch me. I don’t wanta know.”

  Bolan was not about to pinch him. Not right now, anyway. That would come later.

  The sun was at the midday zenith. Thermal Thursday, at midpoint. And the surface had barely been scratched.

  “I want you to go see if my plane is back,” Bolan told the beautiful dreamer. “I’m going to the house and get my stuff together. Tell Grimaldi I want to take off in twenty minutes. Hell, this is great. I figured to be out here all day, at least. I brought enough clothes to last a week. Listen, I have to tell you this, Carlo. You really have things in good control here. I made a lot of sounds but that’s all it was. I had to do it. I hope you understand that. But I’m going to Miami to tell those men that Santelli Island is in the best of hands. I wanted you to know that. And, uh, that other stuff—you know, the prisoner problem, that’s just between you’n me. Okay? I don’t need to say anything about that, do I?”

  “Christ, no. Frankie … what can I say? Hey, you’re the very greatest. I’m sorry you have to leave so soon. Hey, really, I hate to see you go. But I understand. Hey, I understand.”

  The guy was thrilled to death that Bolan was leaving.

  Bolan said, “My gal will see to the, uh, social diversions for your boys. We’ll take care of all that soon as we hit Miami. Believe it, you’ll get the very highest grade beef around. Depend on Jeanie for that. And I meant what I said about that celebration. You deserve it.”

  “Why’d we close the portal?”

  Bolan tapped the guy again with the cylinder of drawings. “Just why do you think I’m taking this stuff to Miami?”

  “I don’t even know what it is you’re taking to Miami, Frankie.”

  “Right. And all you got to know, Carlo, is that I want that portal shut tight until we’ve had a chance to examine this stuff very closely in Miami.”

  “Oh, you mean … you don’t want those hardhats …”

  “I want them to stay put, right.”

  “They’ll stay put, count on it.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m counting on. Now you better go see about the plane. I need to get moving.”

  “Right, I’ll go see. God, it’s been a pleasure having you here, Frankie. You’ll, uh, let me know about the hardhats. We need to rotate the duty shift at five o’clock.”

  “Not today, Carlo.”

  “Oh. I see. Okay. Uh, like I said, it’s been a real pleasure.”

  But the pleasure was all Bolan’s. And he was more than pleased to share some of it with Jean Kirkpatrick Russell. “Game’s over,” he told her as he stepped into her room. “Get ready, we’re going home.”

  “I believe you’re forgetting a promise you made to me,” she said, eyeing him curiously. “Or are you?”

  “Maybe not,” he replied. “Not if you came out here looking for Bill Kessler.”

  Oh, indeed she had.

  She had, indeed.

  Now she would be going home without her Bill. But her mere presence here had lent credibility to a daring masquerade and her value to the Bolan game, thus far, was inestimable. Bolan owed her one. And, dammit, he intended to deliver.

  14

  TURNING POINT

  Brognola had moved his task force deep into the Everglades to within a few miles of Santelli Island, the force consisting of a collection of large, wheeled vehicles, two small helicopters, and several trailer-transported speed boats. It was quite a convoy but well disguised as an EPA group, with each of the vehicles appropriately marked.

  He’d also sent a helicopter to pick up the archeologist, Louis Cardinez, and an associate named Washburn, a geologist. Cardinez brought along some rough artwork he’d done years earlier on the Satan’s Hammock phenomenon and seemed entirely pleased to be taken into the police adventure now descending upon that “old dig” of his.

  Washburn, on the other hand, seemed a bit nervous and uncertain of his role in all this. Both men were fully cooperative, however, and obviously anxious to help in the investigation.

  One of the sketches brought by Cardinez looked like a bottom-heavy, severely unbalanced hourglass. The top part was a relatively shallow bowl-shaped object with gently sloping sides pulling toward a slender “neck” at its base. The bottom part was more bell-shaped, several times longer than the upper bowl, and considerably wider at the base than the “top” of the upper chamber.

  “What you are seeing, here,” the archeologist explained, “represents a rather phenomenal development of an otherwise common occurrence in this particular part of the country. The lower part is, in simple terms, a spring. Simply a spring. This part of the country literally abounds with fresh water springs, which are largely responsible for the great proliferation of lakes in the region. Where Satan’s Hammock takes its departure from the ordinary spring-fed lake is fou
nd in this huge vertical cavern which underlies the lake basin. Please understand … the lake did not produce the cavern. Quite the opposite, the cavern—or, more precisely, the water flowing up through the cavern—produced the lake.”

  Brognola ran a finger across the “neck” of the hourglass as he asked, “This was the original land surface?”

  “Still is,” interposed Washburn, the geologist. “A certain degree of sedimentation has occurred, naturally, but this sinkhole occurred in modern times. Within the past few hundred years.”

  “Sinkhole?”

  “A collapse sinkhole, yes. They’re fairly common in karst terrain. The entire Ocala plain is karst. They—”

  Brognola interrupted to say, “Wait a minute, you’re going technical on me. What is karst?”

  “It’s simply a term used to describe certain evolutionary features produced by solution channels and caves in underlying bedrock. Typically, in karst topography, you have surface water running off underground instead of via your usual surface streams and rivers. The Florida karst is more or less unique. It’s a situation where you have flat-lying bedrock of limestone at just about sea level. Surface-water runoff from distant elevations enters the limestone flats and goes underground, producing solution conduits which can become quite large. In other words, underground streams and rivers.”

  “And where do they go? Those underground streams?”

  “Typically they will discharge offshore as submarine springs of fresh water, at some point where the limestone interfaces with nonporous rock. Or they can bubble up as springs at most any point where surface limestone is present.” The geologist tapped Cardinez’s sketch. “Such as here. This particular formation is rightly termed a cenote, which is a bottle-shaped collapse sinkhole. At Satan’s Hammock, the limestone bedrock is only very thinly covered with soil. Various factors contributed, at that point, to produce a surface dome—that is, a large vertical cavern whose dome continued expanding through the ages until it broke through the surface.”

  “But filled with water,” Brognola said.