money off her late husband’s operations?”
“Yeah,” Brognola said. “Apparently, Havana Five has a share-and-share-alike philosophy. All profits are supposedly split equally. But make no mistake about it. They’re still the largest single crime syndicate ever known to operate in a country that size.”
“Given the fact Melendez made it a point to mention Havana Five to you before he died,” Kurtzman said, “we thought this little fact might be of interest.”
“It is at that. I’ll be sure to follow up on it. Now I’d better run. I have an escape to plan.”
“We’ll get Jack and Rafael airborne as soon as possible,” Price said. “We’ll probably have to fly them into Havana. Will you meet them there?”
“No,” Bolan said. “I have a very specific place I want to start looking. Melendez mentioned it. I think he ran into your missing DIA guys there. Tell them to pick up some wheels and meet me in Matanzas. We have a jail to find.”
CHAPTER THREE
Mack Bolan studied the northwestern perimeter of Guantánamo Bay Naval Station from the cover of a hedge.
The mugginess of the evening air caused him to sweat profusely, but the inner lining of his blacksuit slicked the moisture from his skin. Bolan considered his options. Cyclone barbed wire topped the fifteen-foot-high chain-link fence. The Navy had posted motion sensors every five feet, and Bolan knew from past experience that invisible beams of light ran parallel to the fence. Any break in those beams would cause alarms to sound at the main guard facility and bring down a wave of security forces before Bolan could make egress.
The Executioner knew his escape wouldn’t be easy, but he felt his call to get off the base unofficially would raise less questions than calling down an official inquiry from Stony Man or, worse yet, the Oval Office. Bolan operated in an unofficial capacity for his government, and Brognola couldn’t afford to let the President get taken to task for authorizing covert missions on a military installation.
No, he’d have to go it alone on this one—as usual.
Bolan studied the fence another minute and considered his options. Even if he decided to risk breaking the barrier, he still had no guarantee of getting past the perimeter obstacles before the MPs managed to capture him. And he sure as hell wouldn’t fight them if he did. Long before Bolan had operated against terrorism, he’d gone solo against the Mafia, holding them personally responsible for their part in the death of his father, mother and sister. Even then he’d sworn never to drop the hammer on a law-enforcement officer—he considered them on the same side—and he wasn’t about to compromise that policy now.
However, getting off the base without being captured didn’t concern him; it’s what awaited him on the other side. In the 1980s and 1990s, the DMZ between the U.S. and Cuba had existed as one of the largest minefields in the world. An Executive Order had eventually called for the removal of the mines, but Bolan had to wonder if they got them all; that didn’t even address whether the Cuban government had ever disarmed the land they mined. Insofar as Bolan knew, escape via the DMZ posed too great a risk to life and limb. He’d have to find more conventional means.
The hedge line he’d used for cover ran along the perimeter road of the installation. The road terminated at three separate exits, two of them leading to the airfield and a third into Cuba, used only for official diplomatic purposes. That left one avenue of escape for Bolan, and he planned to fully exploit it. Several cays comprised the whole of the Guantánamo Bay region as well as the Guantánamo River, which ran north from its western feed at the mouth of the bay. Patrols ran at regular intervals along the river both day and night. The Executioner planned to use one of those boats as his outbound ticket.
Bolan made it to the boat ramp unmolested. He crawled the remainder of the fifty yards or so to the mouth of the river and quietly settled into the brackish water. Bolan moved through the river as silent and deadly as a crocodile. He reached one of the two patrol boats, slipped aboard on the blind side of the patrol station and found cover beneath a rear tarp tossed over a pair of equipment crates. Intelligence from Stony Man revealed patrols took off every thirty minutes with another thirty-minute rotation that kept two boats in port at all times. Bolan inspected the luminous dials of his watch. He’d have only seven minutes to wait.
And by the time the base personnel discovered he was missing, the Executioner would be deep in the heart of Cuba.
FOLLOWING A HURRIED DEPARTURE from the U.S., Jack Grimaldi and Rafael Encizo touched down in José Martí International Airport and submitted to inspection. Cuban customs officials subjected neither of them to more than a cursory inspection with paperwork and appearances impeccable, practically above reproach, but well-worn enough to satisfy their cover story. Once in-country, they quickly acquired transportation and headed toward their final destination in accordance with Bolan’s instructions. Jack Grimaldi, Stony Man’s ace pilot, had been a part of the Executioner’s War Everlasting from nearly the beginning.
The intense-looking man accompanying Grimaldi on the mission had quite a different history to tell. Quite a while had passed since Rafael Encizo last walked on the soil of his birth country. While Encizo had always taken pride in his Cuban heritage, he owed his life and career to Stony Man. A member of Phoenix Force, one of America’s elite antiterrorist teams, Encizo possessed deadly skills as a knife-fighter, demolitions expert and tactician in jungle warfare.
Encizo had passed on the rental car in favor of borrowing a loaner from a local contact. He told Grimaldi, “Rental plates will draw attention. Something we definitely don’t want.”
Grimaldi nodded. “It’s your show, Rafe.”
The men also retrieved the provisions left in the trunk by a Stony Man contact, which included a SIG P-239 for Grimaldi, a Glock Model 21 as favored by Encizo and a pair of MP-5 SD-6 submachine guns. They also had a second Beretta 93-R and an FN FNC carbine assault rifle for delivery to the Executioner upon their rendezvous. Stony Man had even included a satchel filled with enough C-4 to level a small house. The men donned their respective sidearms and concealed them in shoulder holsters before embarking on their journey to Matanzas.
Encizo took the wheel, given his familiarity with the country. Grimaldi settled into his role as shotgun and soon the two were out of Havana on a secondary road to Matanzas. Encizo gave Grimaldi a highlighted route on a comprehensive map supplied by Stony Man computers, and the pilot navigated for his comrade. Once they were away from Havana, Grimaldi rolled down the window and broke out a Cuban cigar he’d purchased at the airport. He lit the stogie, pulled it from his mouth with an admiring look and then gazed at Encizo.
“How long is it to Matanzas?”
Encizo shrugged, appeared to give it some thought, then said, “Well, I decided to take the back roads, so it’ll be about two-and-a-half to three hours.”
Grimaldi nodded. “I really got scant information from Hal and Barb on this mission,” he commented. “What’s the deal?”
The Cuban chuckled. “Join the club. From what little they said to me at the Farm, I don’t think they’ve got a whole lot to go on. Apparently they sent Striker to Gitmo to question some Cuban national about an ELN terrorist training camp somewhere inside Cuba, and then someone killed the informant and tried to punch Striker’s ticket, as well.”
Grimaldi let out a low whistle. “Sounds about like the kind of situation the Sarge would get himself into.”
“Yeah,” Encizo
