Sicilian Slaughter by Don Pendleton, Jim Peterson Page B

the boat pass, then fell in its wake, pouring it on. The same line he had observed three times earlier in the day still trailed carelessly in the water off the port stern, and Bolan caught it. He worked his way up the rope, hand over hand against the force of the boat pulling him through the water, wrapped his right leg around the trailing slack, drew the leg up and caught the slack, and in a moment had a bowline-on-bight in the line. Mack slipped his right foot into the non-slip loop, passed the line under his right arm, across his back, under his left arm, and in a sort of cradle, he rode along buffeting in the foaming wake.
    When the ferry slowed, Mack instantly used his right hand as a rudder and swung his body out to the side and looked past the ferry. The Reggio landing was less than two hundred yards away.
    Bolan went hand over hand, fast, up the rope to the side of the ferryboat, placed his feet against the slippery sea-slick hull, and climbed. As he knew they would — it was only natural — everyone aboard faced the dock and the city. What was there to see back across the Strait? In a moment, he was aboard.
    Thanks to his
ragazza,
his girl Alma from Reggio, Bolan was on the ferry to Sicily, and in a few minutes his warchest, the Bohemian Magician's crate, would also be aboard. A mile or so out of Messina on the crossing, he would drop over the side and swim ashore, then cut inland to the Messina-Catania road, flag a bus or wagon, or hire a taxi, hole up in Catania until his warchest arrived, then across the island along the base of snowcapped Mount Etna, to Enna, then the road southwest from the junction at Caltanissetta, through Canicatti and Naro, and then —
    Then he would have to see. Another long-range penetration behind enemy lines. He would be in Indian country at Naro, Agrigento Province, and somewhere back in the convulsively upthrust mountainous and canyon-slashed boondocks, he would find Don Cafu's
Scuola As-sassino,
School for Assassins.
    It was becoming so ridiculously easy, Mack Bolan felt the hair on his neck bristle in warning. It had become
too
easy.
    He was a known and hunted man in a foreign country on a mission of death and destruction, and since leaving Naples airport it had all gone his way, virtually without a hitch. Bolan was good and knew he was good and he'd survived because he was better than good, because he was The Executioner, man with a mission, and incomprehensibly efficient, to the Mafia's bitter knowledge and experience. He was so good that more than once the "membership" had sent the word out: come and reason with us, join us.
    When you can't beat 'em, join 'em....
    Bolan knew he'd have lasted inside the Mafia about as long as a crooked cop in the regular jail lockup. Until he was exhausted and had fought as long as he could. Then they would make pulp of his head with their heels.
    For the cons in the tank, the cop had to go just on general principles.
    Inside the Mafia, identified, Bolan had to go because no man, no organization, including the United States Government — and all its enforcement agencies, FBI, Bureau of Narcotics, Customs, Alcohol & Tobacco Tax Unit, and the Department of Justice Organized Crime Task Force — none of them, nor all of them combined, had taken down as many
mafioso
as this one single man, Mack Bolan, The Executioner.
    The bastard Bolan was an earthquake, a timebomb, an off-duty cop, a drunk driver bent upon suicide all in one package — totally unpredictable and no way, no-fucking -way! To get handles on the guy. To figure him. His next move. Christ, how do you make plans for a bastard who goes through San Diego like water through a hose and a couple of days later wipes out Frank Angeletti's soldier barracks in Philadelphia? Then shows up
inside
Don Stefano's home impersonating Wild Card Cavaretta so well the son of a bitch sleeps, actually
sleeps
in the don's house, before taking the whole fucking place down!
    Perhaps the "members" could have