Vendetta in Venice

by Don Pendleton

  Maybe the driver was just deaf.

  A few minutes later the taxi slowed down by a long redbrick wall, finally turning into a rutted lane that led to a junkyard. The driver braked to a halt, jumped out and opened the Fed's door. "Very well, mynheer," he said. "The other party is waiting."

  He jerked his thumb at three men in long green leather overcoats who were leaning against a wrecked truck in the shelter of the wall. One of them pitched the cigarette he'd been smoking into a puddle and slowly straightened.

  "You took your time," he said. "We'd almost given up."

  "Wim was late with the boat," the driver replied. "According to Hendrik he never explained why. Just pushed off again to the island."

  "Forget it. As long as the client's here. Okay then, Herr Bird of Passage, let's have your passport."

  Bewildered, Brognola clambered out of the car. He looked at the outstretched hand of the man in the leather coat. "Are you talking to me?"

  "Look, don't fool around," the man said coldly. "I'm not likely to be asking for one from the cabbie here, am I?"

  "Yeah, move it, man," another member of the reception committee called from the truck. "We're damn near frozen, waiting in this dump."

  "You want my passport? My passport? Are you some kind of plainclothes police patrol?"

  "Police patrol he says! That's a good one." The man in the leather coat guffawed. "Of course we want your passport. You don't think we'd fix you up with a new one until we have the old, do you?"

  "I don't know what the hell you're talking about," Brognola growled.

  There was a sudden silence. It was quite dark in the lane now. A gust of wind shook heavy raindrops from bare branches overhead. Squelching in the mud, the two other men moved slowly to Brognola and their companion. "What did you say?" one of them asked softly.

  "I said I had no idea what you were talking about," the Fed snapped. "And I don't care. All I want is to get back to my hotel in Amsterdam. So if you'll kindly permit my driver to turn..."

  "Amsterdam? Hotel? What the hell are you talking about?" the first man asked angrily. Then, struck by a thought, he added, "What's your name?"

  "If it's any of your business, the name is Brognola. And..."

  "Brognola! You're not Helmut Wünsche?" the chauffeur exclaimed blankly.

  "Wünsche? I never heard of him. I insist..."

  Brognola broke off with a gasp as he was seized abruptly from behind. Rough hands dragged his jacket down over his arras, effectively pinioning them. At the same time the man who had first spoken snatched his passport from the exposed inner pocket. Scowling, he flicked over the pages. "By God, he's telling the truth!" he said hoarsely.

  "Of course I'm telling the truth," Brognola shouted, scarlet in the face and struggling. "Whatever this setup is, I'm telling you you'll be sorry..."

  "Shut up!" the third man rapped out. "You mean it's definitely not Wünsche, Conrad?"

  "Apparently not. Come to think of it, he doesn't look like him."

  "Then who the hell is it?"

  "That, my friend, we shall have to find out."

  "Release me, right now," Brognola yelled. "You can't go around roughing people up..."

  Suddenly he choked on his words. The lane spun up and slashed him across the face as an enormous weight descended on his skull, and the inside of his head exploded into a crimson night.

  2

  "And I don't remember anything else," Brognola concluded three days later to the tall man in black, "until I woke up in a damned shop doorway at four o'clock this morning. There was the mark of a hypodermic on my forearm."

  "Okay. They had to keep you quiet while they confirmed that you were who you said you were and not some Fed out to blow their setup."

  "So I was dumped here in the city, outside a liquor store in the Kalverstraat. I was still groggy, of course, and the two policemen who found me... well, they jumped to the obvious conclusion and they called up the wagon and slung me inside for the rest of the night."

  Bolan grinned sympathetically. "I can just see the headlines, Hal. 'Missing U.S. Spokesman Was Alcoholic. Found Smashed Out of His Skull Outside Liquor Store.'"

  "That was the way it looked," the Fed admitted. "Until they let me contact my colleagues at Interpol. The chief of police was apologetic. But of course it gave them a head start after they had gotten rid of me. By the time they let me out the trail was cold. Don't even mention the conference ending without a peep from the U.S. rep. No firm course of action was decided upon. And the Man is as sore as a nest of hornets."

  "You went straight back there with a team?"

  "Sure. But there was nothing to see." Brognola shook his head again. He winced. He still had one hell of a headache. "Nobody had ever seen or heard of a boatman called Wim. Nobody had ever seen a Minerva cab, which is crazy because you'd think a mid-thirties monster like that would attract attention. Nobody could be found, naturally, who knew anything about three men in leather overcoats."

  "End of story?"

  "Just about. We did locate the junkyard, but there were so many tracks and it was so muddy that the cops couldn't identify any one set." Brognola stared at the raindrops sliding down the window of his hotel room. "What do you make of it, Striker? Cook me up a theory to fit these facts."

  "A straightforward case of mistaken identity," Bolan offered. "Here's this organization all set up and waiting to go. Ferryman ready to make the crossing...two linkmen on hand to liaise with the cab, the chauffeur, the men in the truck ready to supply fake ID. All they need is the client."

  "Okay, but why pick on me?"

  "They were expecting someone from the island, someone they didn't know very well by sight, and you showed at the right time. Maybe you inadvertently gave the right password, or unknowingly came across with the right answer to a coded question."

  "That's what I think," the Fed agreed. "I spoke in German, something along the lines of 'Hello, I'm lost.' Then I asked if the guy could take me across. He didn't reply directly. He said something about it being late. Then I said there wasn't a sign pointing the way to the bridge."

  "Well, that's it. The approach in German — and then, by some coincidence, the right sequence of words to complete the coded exchange."

  "It figures," Brognola said, "because, come to think of it, I spoke in German, but he replied in Dutch. And that's the way it went on — German from my side, Dutch from his. I don't speak Dutch, you see, but I can make out what it means. That was probably part of the routine, the twin-language deal. How do you read this thing? In its broader aspects?"

  "As a continuing organization, I guess," Bolan replied after a moment's consideration. "Not a one-shot deal."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Several reasons. The boatman figures you'd want to be out of there as quick as possible, and added 'Your lot always does/ Secondly, the insistence on not talking. A hastily improvised, one-shot plan would risk nothing by talk. But if there was going to be more of the same, well, obviously the less known and said the better. Then there was the fact that nobody knew that taxi, although it was easily identifiable. On a one-shot deal they could have used a local car and bluffed it out, but a mystery vehicle spells organization to me."

  "Yeah," Brognola said. "But why the hell choose such a standout vehicle, tell me that?"

  Bolan shrugged. "As to what the organization is, my guess would be that it exists to smuggle undesirables — drug dealers, guys on the run, maybe terrorists — into Holland. From what you say, this guy Jaap lands clients on the north coast of your island, and they hoof it across to the south and meet up with the boatman. Then he passes them on to the cab and the hoods in the junkyard."

  "Going where?" Brognola asked quietly. "If they're already in the country, why would they need to be escorted farther?"

  Bolan was silent for a moment, then said, "Long green leather overcoats? Kind of a dark bottle-green? That suggests northern Germany to me. You see coats like that all winter in Hamburg, Bremen, Oldenburg." />
  "So you think Holland's only an interim stage? That would explain why the client was to pick up his false papers after he entered the country: he'd need them to cross the German frontier."

  "Could also solve the taxi mystery," Bolan said. "Suppose it's a German vehicle, only showing up in Holland when there's a job to be done, when they fit it out with phony Dutch plates? That would take care of the fact that the locals aren't familiar with it. Then, once the client has been fed his new ID, the boys simply change back to the genuine plates and drive across the border."

  "There are two dozen small frontier posts between Emmen and Enschede," Brognola agreed. "We could have been targeted on any one of them when they tumbled, realized they'd picked the wrong guy. Maybe they use a different one for each job, to cut down on the risk."

  "It adds up," the Executioner said. "Even the client's name — Wünsche — is German. I'd figure it for a big-time organization, too. Your boatman said the 'fare' was paid. You hand over the money in advance and every little thing's taken care of from then on, like in a travel agency package. In my book that means an efficient, large-scale operation. The ferryman shook you down for the extra because Jaap's man was delayed and he thought, taking you for the fugitive, you wouldn't dare refuse."

  "Where would you say Jaap's man, the real one, was from?"

  "Looking at the map, I'd say they undertake to bring in illegal immigrants from anywhere outside Europe. I'd think the clients are stowed away on ships docking in Amsterdam. Then, once they get there, instead of walking down the gangway they drop over the blind side, make their way to the neck of land separating the canal from the Ijsselmeer and pick up Jaap there."

  "Unless he's so well-known, so much a part of the landscape, that he can sail right in among the docks and pick them up."

  "That's always possible," Bolan agreed.

  "But why the hell should they take the trouble to cross an inland sea, traverse an island and get themselves ferried back to the mainland again when it would be easier to make the same location simply following the shoreline all the way around?"

  "Because of the relative danger. A guy on the run is a natural target in a seaport, on the streets of a capital city, along the highways, all of them covered by cops. But take him to a desolate, underpopulated stretch of country and put him in touch with people who can supply papers there, and you minimize the risk of detection right away."

  "I thought strangers were supposed to be more noticeable in a country area than anyplace else," the Fed objected.

  "They are. If they stick around, if they're going to make camp there. Not if they're just passing through. They hit it lucky, nobody sees them at all."

  "You could be right, Striker. In any case," he added, "you're going to find out for sure when you check this whole thing over and run these guys to earth."

  "Me? Wouldn't the police?.." Bolan paused, unwilling to voice the thought that the mystery wasn't high enough on his list of priorities to occupy his energy and time. "Hell, this isn't in my ballpark," he finished.

  "I've got to have answers for the White House. I want you to handle it — as a personal favor to me. Please. I have a hunch it could turn out to be big, and you're the best man for the job. Plus it'll look good if we hand the West Germans something on a plate for once. If we can wrap this one up, it could cancel some of the operations the Company screwed up."

  "Okay, Hal," the Executioner murmured.

  Ten minutes later someone tried to kill Mack Bolan.

  3

  "Bolan? You're sure that's the guy, Conrad?"

  "Sure I'm sure." Conrad hunched deeper into his overcoat, his pale eyes fixed on the glass-canopied side entrance to the hotel across the street. The imposing main entrance was on Damrak, around the corner, but the American wearing the black sweater and jeans had gone in this way. It was a reasonable guess he'd exit by the same door.

  "Muscular dude, few inches over six feet? Dark hair, blue eyes?" the gunner man with the MAC-10 insisted.

  "Look, Willi, I know the son of a bitch. His mug's on file. I saw the picture in a spook dossier I saw last year. It's not a face you forget."

  The third man was at the wheel of the Mercedes off-roader. He twisted around in his seat, scowling. "Will you two knock it off?" he snarled. "We're double-parked on this damn corner, and if the law shows, my ass is in a sling. I gotta watch out for them, watch out for the mark, check for holes in traffic, keep the engine idling so I'm ready for the getaway, and that's just for starters. You think it helps my concentration to hear you bums arguing the toss whether it's the right guy or not? If it turns out to be the wrong guy after you hit him, then we'll get the right guy another time."

  "All right, Nils, all right," Conrad smoothed. "There'll be no mistake,"

  "Just the same," the gunner said, "I'd be happier if Bart knew we were handling it this way. We don't know if he..."

  Conrad exploded. "Will you for Pete's sake stop bellyaching! You know there's no way we can contact Bart. We were hired by him to handle Wünsche. The asshole never showed, and then we screwed up — or the Dutch half of the team did — latching on to this Brognola. Now that we know who he is, and that he's involved this Bolan creep, the least we can do is wrap the whole thing up before he picks up the trail."

  "Yeah," Nils growled. "For our own sakes as well as Bart's." He stiffened, dropping his right hand to the vehicle's gearshift. "I think we're in business."

  The uniformed doorman beneath the hotel canopy spun the revolving doors, and Mack Bolan strode through from the lobby. The gunner raised the stubby Ingram, but an instant before he squeezed the trigger, a youth with both his feet up on the bar of a moped zigzagged from between two parked cars and spluttered away toward the Damrak, spraying a fan of mud from the rain-wet street.

  Mud splatted against the panels of the Mercedes and arched toward the hotel entrance. The gunner started back involuntarily as he fired. The hail of subsonic .45-caliber slugs jetting from the silenced SMG climbed slightly as they hosed the street, missing the Executioner by inches and thwacking across the doorman's chest like a leaden whip.

  The subdued crack carried by the bullets was drowned by the exhaust note of the receding moped, but Bolan's warrior nerves, honed 10 the finest edge by a lifetime of combat, signaled the danger before the initial burst had streaked from the Ingram's muzzle.

  Flung back against the wall by the impact of the death-stream, the doorman slid to the steps with a line of crimson additions to the row of medals studding his pale gray uniform. Before the dead man hit the ground, Bolan dived for a panel truck parked at the foot of the steps. A compact automatic pistol, snatched from a holster on his right hip, was nestled in his hand.

  A second burst from the Ingram chipped fragments from the hotel stonework as it followed the Executioner down, but Bolan was already below the line of the truck's hood. Glass shattered and metal sang. The truck shuddered on its springs with each burst of heavy rounds. Bolan maneuvered himself until he had a perfect line, then kept on firing until he scored.

  The automatic was a Beretta 93-R, his favorite handgun, modified to take a suppressor and equipped with specially machined springs to cycle subsonic rounds. Prone between the truck's offside front and rear wheels, he squinted up from under the chassis and lined up on the man with the Ingram. His left hand steadied his right wrist; his elbows splayed on the wet asphalt.

  Yet another burst from the SMG thudded into the truck's cab, and somewhere to Bolan's right, gasoline from a broken fuel pipe splashed onto the roadway. He had to get off a shot before enough vapor gathered for the flash to ignite.

  Bolan held his breath and triggered a 3-round burst from the automatic. Angled up toward the window of the Mercedes, the 9 mm parabellum skullbusters tore away the top of the gunner's head to spread a relief map of blood and brain tissue across the inside of the vehicle.

  Nils cursed and slammed the lever into first, stamping on the throttle as he released the clutch. The Mercedes jerked forward, whee
ls spinning on the greasy road surface.

  Conrad thrust away the corpse and smashed the rear window with the barrel of a 6-shot Colt revolver. Knocking aside shards of toughened glass, he fanned the hair trigger half a dozen times to send the whole cylinder of .38-caliber slugs blazing toward the Executioner.

  Bolan had rolled out from under the rear of the truck, dodging unexpectedly into the center of the road to choke out three fast shots toward the Mercedes driver.

  After the near-silent exchange of Ingram and Beretta, the roar of the Colt was deafening. Pedestrians, hurrying through the rain, stopped at the end of the street to stare. A cab turning in from the Damrak braked to a halt.

  Bolan's move took Conrad by surprise, and the off-roader's tail was already slewing sideways under Nil's brutal acceleration. The Colt's stingers flew wide.

  The Beretta's trio didn't.

  In the instant that the driver's window of the Mercedes slid into his sights, Bolan chalked up two hits, one drilling the hood's left shoulder, the other gouging a strip of flesh from his cheek. Nils slumped against the door with blood pouring from his face. The door burst open, and he plunged to the ground. At the same time the Mercedes clipped the front of the panel truck. Bolan didn't know whether it was one of his shots or the rending of metal against pavement that generated a spark. All he saw was the sudden spurt of flame as the gasoline vapors ignited... and the giant fireball that bellowed up between truck and off-roader a quarter of a second later with a flat, thudding explosion that cracked his ears.

  Blazing debris scythed through the rain. Nils rolled, screaming, from the inferno, his leather coat set alight by burning liquid flooding across the road from the ruptured fuel tank. Black smoke veined with scarlet boiled up into the sky between the buildings on both sides of the street.