"Дон Пендлтон. Caribbean Kill ("Палач" #10) " - читать интересную книгу автора

Behind him, then, through maybe a half-mile of dense jungle, should lie the
plantation he'd spotted from the air. The seaside villages lay in the
opposite direction, with all of Glass Bay and its legion blocking the only
practicable route of access.
Four motor launches were making a cross-grid search of the bay itself,
another was just then disembarking a head party on the southwest tip of
beach. These, about a dozen, would be working their way back toward Bolan's
position. The main body of gunners were sweeping down from the house area. A
pincers movement. With the jungle at his back and the open bay in front. And
they were closing fast.
Bolan smiled grimly to himself and wondered who was commanding the
Glass Bay forces. Whoever, the guy knew his business. And he had not been
long fooled by the diversionary play with the seaplane.
The Executioner was going to have one hell of an interesting survival
problem on his hands.
What could a dead man lose?
Bolan slid silently to the ground and quickly divested himself of the
soggy suit of clothing he'd worn from Vegas. The fancy threads would be a
hard liability now. He stripped down to the skintight black outfit which had
become a trademark of the Executioner's war on the Mafia, transferring
necessary personal items from the pockets of the discarded suit. Bolan was
not impressed by trademarks. His interest was combat-readiness, and he knew
the importance of appropriate garb.
He was not, by God, dead yet .
In a survival problem, a seasoned warrior would take every possible
advantage, anything and everything which could make that hairline of
difference between Me and death. And a seasoned jungle warrior would push
that difference to the limit.
The enemy was pushing ever closer. Bolan could hear their excited
comments to one another as they swept along the beach. Apparently someone
had spotted the point where he'd left the water.
He bared his teeth in a humorless grin and quickly arranged the wet
suit of clothing against the trunk of a young tree. Under jungle law, the
best man always won. That meant the quickest, the quietest, and the
deadliest - and there were no juries to sway or clouted judges to appeal to.
Here it was simply Man the Beast, reduced to his most basic elements and the
rage to survive.
Bolan had been there before. He knew the rules.
He attended to final details, then he faded into the thick jungle
growth, and merged with it, and became a living part of it.
They were allies now, he and the jungle.
And the Caribbean kill was finally underway.

* * *

At the time of his first run-in with Mack Bolan, Quick Tony Lavagni had
been a lieutenant in the Washington-based family of Arnesto "Arnie Fanner"
Castiglione, and he had been coasting comfortably toward old age with a
so-so position in the national hierarchy of organized crime. But Bolan had
brought many changes - dramatic ones - into Tony Lavagni's comfortable life.