Blood Dues te-71

by Don Pendleton

  "But Toro..."

  "One man. Hunted. Outcast. He is nothing."

  "And Tommy Drake?''

  Another sigh, this time audible over the line.

  "These gangsters kill each other regularly. Why concern yourself with their misfortunes?"

  "But if there is some connection...."

  "Basta! That's enough! You are creating problems in your mind where none exist." Having delivered the reprimand, he allowed his tone to soften. "Rest easy. Everything is ready. Every possibility has been accounted for. You told me yourself."

  The caller cleared his throat, and when he spoke again he sounded calmer but still uncertain of himself.

  "I know, but..."

  "No more, now." Ybarra cut him off. "You represent the people's revolution. All the masses put their faith in you. Be worthy of their trust. If nothing else, be worthy of the price you have received.''

  The caller almost choked on his reply.

  "Si. Comprendo."

  "Bien."

  Before the other man could think of something else to say, Ybarra cradled the receiver. He was certain that "Jose" had understood his meaning, thinly veiled behind his spoken words. The project's ultimate success or failure rested on his shoulders, and if it should fail, then he would have to bear the burden.

  The cultural attache thought of Tommy Drake and his assassination. It would hamper drug trade in the south of Florida, but only briefly, virtually unnoticeable at street level, where the pushers and consumers made their deals. Another Tommy Drake would come along, perhaps before the day was out, and the flow of pure cocaine and heroin from Cuba would continue as before.

  As for the man called Toro, his escape from prison might be cause for some concern — but only to his caller.

  Jorge Ybarra had no more to fear from Toro than he did from any of the countless other rightist exiles living in Miami. Any one of them would kill him, but he refused to let them have the chance.

  Ybarra was a survivor by instinct and by training. He intended to go on surviving in the cause that he had chosen for his own.

  No matter if the several strange events should be connected by some stronger thread than mere coincidence. It was a troubling thought, but Ybarra finally dismissed it as unlikely — or, in any case, too little and too late to sabotage his plans. The wheels were greased, already in motion, and within twenty-four hours they would be grinding over anyone who tried to oppose him.

  The stage was set for ultimate humiliation of the Anglo-capitalist pigs, and very soon now, they would taste the kind of terror that was a staple in the Third World diet.

  Ybarra smiled and lit a thin cheroot, inhaling the acrid smoke and expelling it toward the ceiling. Another day, less now, and he would see his master plan fulfilled. Nothing, no one, could stand in his way.

  If anything went wrong, he would off-load responsibility upon his second-in-command, the worried caller. And if this man Toro was still hunting for the one who called himself Jose, Ybarra just might let them find each other. It would be amusing.

  The sudden laughter welled up out of him spontaneously, and filled the office. His secretary, if she heard him, might suspect that he was drinking, but Ybarra did not care.

  He was about to score the coup of his career, and there was not an obstacle in sight.

  His enemies, the Anglos, were about to learn exactly what it felt like to exist with terror. And Ybarra would enjoy his role as teacher in that lesson.

  17

  Well back from the picture window of John Hannon's house, out of sight of anyone outside, Evangelina sat watching the street.

  Hannon's low-pitched voice rumbled across the room.

  "You've known him long?" the ex-detective asked.

  It took a heartbeat for the young woman to realize who he was talking about.

  "Not long," she said. "We only met last night."

  She flashed back briefly to the scene at Tommy Drake's, blushing involuntarily at the image of herself, nude on the bed with the mobster on top of her, the man in black looming over them both, clutching death in his hand. She could still recall the rush of fear, thinking that it was a Mob hit coming down, herself included in the cast of victims. Fear, and then the sweet, almost guilty feeling of relief when it was done and she was spared from death.

  "I understand you helped him out this morning," Hannon said, trying to sound casual.

  Evangelina shrugged.

  "It was a small thing."

  Hannon nodded, giving her an understanding smile.

  "Sure. With me it was the other way around. A small thing. All he did was save my life."

  Evangelina looked at him with new awareness.

  "You care about him, don't you?"

  Hannon looked embarrassed and confused at the same time.

  "Lady, I don't know exactly what I care about these days." His voice softened as he asked her, "You?"

  "My sister knew him long ago." She hesitated, trying hard to think of something else to say, some way to finish it. "She... died."

  A look of understanding passed across the former captain of detectives' face.

  "I... I had no idea...."

  The telephone rang, before either of them could dredge up further conversation.

  Hannon left his chair and crossed to the phone, picking it up on the third ring. From her position by the window, Evangelina could watch him and eavesdrop on his side of the conversation.

  Hannon was silent for a long moment, listening to the caller. At length, his brow deeply furrowed, he said, "I'm listening."

  After another twenty-second pause, he glanced over at Evangelina with a look that might have been concern — or guilt.

  "I can find it," he said at last, turning his wrist for a look at his watch. "Yes... no problem."

  Hannon looked worried as he cradled the receiver. Moving back into the living room he stood beside the window for a long, silent moment, staring out into the quiet street before he spoke again.

  "I have to go out for a while," he told her simply. "You should be safe here if you stay inside."

  Evangelina shook her head.

  "I'm coming with you.''

  "I told the man I'd keep you safe," he said.

  "You said that you would stay with me," she countered, reading irritation in the large man's face, refusing to be cowed by it.

  Hannon looked flustered, his face reddening.

  "I can't afford to take you. There's no way for me to guarantee your safety."

  Evangelina let him see a cryptic little smile.

  "There's no way you can guarantee another." And then she played her ace. "You leave me here, I follow you. There's nothing you can do to keep me here."

  He mulled that over for a moment, finally making up his mind.

  "All right. I want your word you'll stick with me and do exactly what I tell you, when I tell you. Agreed?"

  "Si. I will."

  Hannon disappeared into a narrow hallway leading to the bedrooms. When he reemerged he was wearing a jacket and there was a revolver in his hand. He broke the cylinder and checked the load, then slipped it into a holster that he wore beneath his jacket, on his belt. The eyes that met hers across the room were made of flint.

  "You armed?"

  Evangelina nodded. She produced a small automatic pistol that she carried in her handbag.

  As Hannon showed her out and locked the door behind them, Evangelina's mind was racing on ahead. She wondered if she had the strength and courage that it took to kill a man; if she was equal to the challenge posed to her by the man she knew as El Matador. Perhaps she would lose her nerve, get herself and Hannon killed through cowardice or stupidity.

  The young woman stiffened, shaking off the fears. Inside, she knew that she would do whatever might be necessary to avenge her sister, to become a part of Matador's unending battle.

  And it finally seemed, in spite of everything, that she might have an active part to play in that crusade. She looked forward to the opportunity �
� and not without a trace of fear — but she would not permit John Hannon, anyone, to rob her of her destiny.

  Her sister, Margarita, had died in this cause. Now Evangelina had a chance to live for it, and she was holding on with both hands, refusing to let go while life remained.

  * * *

  The Chevy was a loaner. Hannon's car would not be patched up before Monday, and in the meantime he insisted on remaining mobile. Now pushing borrowed wheels south along the Dixie Highway, he was thankful that he had insisted on the car when his was towed off from the shooting scene.

  He had not recognized the caller's voice. It had been a different voice from the one that had suckered him the day before, but Hannon knew that the identity of individual callers probably meant next to nothing.

  It was the message that had riveted him instantly, compelled him to risk another ambush, violate the trust that had been placed upon his shoulders. He could hear the words inside his mind, as if the caller had been sitting in the back seat, whispering in his ear.

  "You looking for some trucks? Some guns? I know where you can find them."

  The caller had provided the directions for a meeting, and Hannon, dammit, had agreed to everything.

  Of course, the meet could be another trap. He recognized the risk; his memories of his brush with death were vivid in his mind. He knew the possibility — hell, the probability — that he was walking into mortal danger... but at least this time he would be going into it with both eyes open, armed and ready.

  The woman, now, she was a problem for him. Bolan had surprised him with her, dumping her into his lap that way. And Hannon now had compounded the problem by dragging her along on what could prove to be a lethal wild-goose chase.

  The lady was a veteran of sorts, by Bolan's own admission. Hannon would watch out for her as best he could, but in the last analysis it would be every man or woman fighting solo for survival.

  The way it had always been, sure.

  They were following the Dixie Highway, crossing out of Broward County into Dade, when Hannon picked out the Caddy crew wagon in his rearview mirror. He felt the old familiar chill race up his spine, his palms suddenly moist where they gripped the steering wheel.

  The tail was gaining. He could make out hostile faces behind the broad, tinted windshield. Reaching inside his jacket he drew the Colt Python .357 Magnum out of its holster and laid it on the seat beside him.

  The woman saw his move and craned around in her seat, following Hannon's gaze, picking up the tail through the window.

  And Hannon was surprised at the look of grim determination on her face as she pulled the little nickel-plated autoloader from her handbag, jacking back the slide to chamber up a live one.

  Their eyes met briefly, and he found something inside there that he had seldom seen in the eyes of combat-hardened veterans. Strength, a hard, indomitable will — all tempered by a healthy fear of what was coming.

  Some lady, right.

  They shared a fleeting smile and then his eyes were on the road, his mind fully occupied with their immediate predicament. He milked some more speed from the Chevy's straining engine, but the more powerful Caddy was chewing up the distance between the two vehicles. The crew wagon's grill was inches from their bumper now, and Hannon flirted with the thought of slamming on his brakes, forcing them into a collision and coming out with all guns blazing while they were still dazed.

  Just as quickly he saw the gun muzzles nosing up above the dashboard, recognized the automatic weapons back there and abandoned the idea.

  Any chance they had remained in flight now. Standing still, they could only be cut to ribbons by the gun crew.

  Suddenly the Caddy surged around them, gaining on the driver's side, pulling abreast. In his side mirror, then through the window itself, Hannon could see weapons jutting from the power windows as they slid down, opening a field of fire.

  John Hannon cranked desperately on his own window handle, using all his strength, and he had the glass almost halfway down before the handle came off in his hand with a resounding snap. Cursing wildly, he dropped the useless crank and snared his Python from the seat beside him, lifting it and trying hopelessly to find an angle through the half-open window.

  He was tightening into the squeeze when the guns in the Caddy erupted, raking his Chevy with a shattering broadside. Glass flew everywhere, jagged shards embedding themselves in his cheek and throat. Bullets drilled through the door and bodywork, one of them tracing fire across his thighs, another boring deep into his side, reaming vital organs along the way.

  Hannon lost control of the Chevy, doubling over the wheel as the car jounced across the shoulder, swerving off pavement onto gravel, finally grass. The Caddy swept on past them, one parting burst turning the windshield into crystals, the glass suddenly imploding in a thousand pebbled pieces.

  On the seat beside him he heard Evangelina scream, then the car was plowing shrubbery under, straining at the leafy barrier and finally stalling out amidst the ruins of a demolished hedgerow.

  Through a haze of pain John Hannon was aware of everything around him. He could feel the blood puddling in his lap, the throbbing of his wounds, a creeping chill that could only mean one thing.

  As if from far away he heard the engine ticking, slowly cooling down, and beneath the hood, a steady dripping from the hoses severed by the broadside fusillade. It might be gasoline, he knew, but suddenly it did not seem to matter.

  Something was holding his legs down, and Hannon realized that his gun arm was also pinned against his side. Glancing down, vision blurry from the blood of ragged scalp wounds streaming across his face, he recognized the girl.

  She had fallen toward him when the Chevy came to rest. Now her head was resting in his lap, her shoulder jammed against his forearm, pinning it against his seat.

  It took only a glance to tell the veteran of Homicide that she was gone. The bullet's entry wound above one eye was tiny, but the fist-sized exit pit behind her ear had taken everything inside and scattered it across the back seat of his loaner.

  She was dead as hell, and rising through the pain, John Hannon felt a sudden sense of failure. He had promised Bolan that he would protect the girl, and now he was directly responsible for killing her. He might as well have pulled the frigging trigger personally.

  The fingers of his right hand still were locked around the Python's grip, and Hannon tried to free his hand from underneath her. He had to get out of there while wounded legs and leaking veins still had the strength to carry him away.

  The girl was out of it, and Hannon had to think in terms of personal survival.

  Reaching down, he tried to lift her head, and in the process saw that much of the blood pooling down between his legs was hers.

  He was reaching for the door handle, when a hulking shadow loomed beside the car. A man-shape blotted out the sinking sun and cast sudden darkness across the wounded and the dead.

  They had, of course, returned to check their score.

  He should have seen it coming, known that on the second hit they would not risk another near-miss foul-up.

  Hannon tugged at the Magnum. Its front sight snagged in the material of Evangelina's bloodstained blouse, digging into a lifeless breast. He tried to curse, but at the moment he could muster nothing louder than a whimper.

  The hitter raised a weapon — Hannon recognized it as an Uzi — and he racked the cocking lever back to chamber up a round.

  "It's checkout time," the hitter told him, grinning.

  Hannon closed his eyes and let the darkness carry him away.

  18

  Bolan saw the flashing multicolored lights ahead and started braking, letting other traffic pass him by, already looking for a place to park the dark, unmarked sedan. He had exchanged the car for Evangelina's conspicuous sportster an hour earlier, meaning to return her car later, but now he feared that he would never have the chance.

  He had been drawn there by a shooting broadcast over the portable police-band monitor
he carried in the car. The dispatcher named John Hannon as a victim, fate unknown, and there was mention of an unnamed female in the car.

  It was enough.

  He drove now with a lead weight sitting in the center of his chest, precisely where his heart should be. He found a place on the grassy shoulder of the highway and scanned the scene up ahead: an ambulance, the back doors standing open; state police cars and other unmarked vehicles belonging to the men from Metro Homicide. The uniforms and plainclothes officers were mingling on the shoulder of the highway, watching as two paramedics carried a sheet-draped figure toward the open rear of the meat wagon. Inside, another body was visible, already strapped to a stretcher and ready to go.

  Bolan felt the life drain out of him. His pulse was pounding in his ears. Across the narrow span of manicured grass a nondescript Chevrolet was buried nose into a hedge, and from where he sat the Executioner could see the shattered windows, the bullet holes that pocked the fading paint job.

  A motorcycle cop in helmet, shades and jackboots was approaching him, one hand raised in warning as Bolan alighted from the car, his face carved into a scowl.

  "I'm sorry, sir, you'll have to move along. This is official business."

  Bolan let him see the fake credentials briefly, snapping the wallet shut and returning it to an inside pocket before the officer could study it in detail.

  "LaMancha, Justice," he snapped. "It's as official as they come. Who's in charge here?"

  "That's Captain Wilson, sir." The motor officer pointed through the little crowd of shifting bodies. "Over there."

  Bolan followed his aim to a man in a gray three-piece suit. He was standing slightly apart from the rest, staring at the bullet-ridden Chevy. The name touched a bell in his memory, calling up fragmented images of another time, another Miami.

  Wilson had worked under Hannon in Homicide, if he recalled correctly. And now he was in at the finish.

  A finish for which warrior Bolan was at least partly responsible, yes.

  Bolan moved toward Wilson, brushing past a pair of uniformed patrolmen. He passed the ambulance, refusing to look inside at the bloody shrouded figures.