Two men rushed past Bolan to the stern rail and watched the chopper disappear. One was obviously a Mafia soldier. He held an old model .45 automatic. The other was a Japanese seaman wearing blue jeans and a blue T-shirt.
"Now what the hell was that all about?" the hood said.
"Friendly American hello?" the puzzled Japanese said in heavily accented English.
The soldier shook his head. "I think we got trouble."
"Yeah, back here," Bolan said, the 93-R in his right hand.
The hood spun, his .45 ready before he had seen a target.
Bolan fired. The shot took the hood under the chin and traveled upward through his brain. The Executioner rushed to the rail and flipped the Mafia corpse over the barrier into the churning wake.
Bolan turned to the stunned Oriental. "Friend," Bolan said, looking at the seaman. "I won't hurt you. How many bad Americans like him are on board?"
The Japanese sailor's eyes were still wide.
"You... you... killed him!"
"Yes. He's a Mafia criminal. How many?"
"Four. They come with river pilot at Astoria."
The Executioner scowled. It figured Canzonari would want some protection coming upstream. He motioned for the Japanese to follow him, and they squatted behind the metal shack for cover.
"Do the other Mafia guys have guns?"
"Yes, big pistols. Most of them two guns."
"Have they hurt any of your crew?"
"No, but Captain most unhappy."
"I bet he is. Can you bring one of the Americans back here?"
"Not if you kill him."
"Yes. I understand. Where are they?"
"One with pilot, one in captain's cabin with captain. Other two..." The Japanese shrugged.
"Do you know there are illegal guns on board, thousands of them?"
"No, industrial machinery!"
"Big closed boxes?"
"Yes."
Bolan asked the seaman to direct him to the captain's cabin. Then he ran past three cargo hatches to the superstructure.
There were three decks above. He slipped through a doorway and climbed some steps to the top deck and found the room he had been told was the captain's cabin.
The Executioner tested the doorknob. It moved.
He turned it as far as it would go to the right, held the 93-R in his left hand and quietly and quickly opened the door.
It was a big cabin with a window. A Japanese man the captain, Bolan guessed sat in a soft chair. A tall Mafia soldier wearing jeans and a T-shirt and a black stocking cap stood looking out to sea.
"I thought I saw a white man down there," muttered the hardman. "You got anybody else on board?" He glared at the captain, a heavy handgun held at his side.
"I'm right here, bad-ass," Bolan said quietly.
The soldier spun, his piece coming up, but it never reached target. A 9mm slug punched a widening hole through the side of the soldier's head, killing him with only the sound of a gentle cough.
The captain leaped to his feet, chattering in Japanese. At that moment the seaman Bolan had met below entered and began translating.
"Captain Ohura wants to know if you are one of the criminals."
"No. I'm here to help him, to help all of you and to stop the hidden arms from reaching their new owners."
The crewman translated. The bilingual man listened to the captain speak, then turned to Bolan.
"Then you are a policeman. Welcome. Now we must retake the bridge. Another pirate is there with the river pilot, and you may kill the criminal, also, if you wish."
Bolan grinned. "You lead," he said.
The seaman spoke briefly to the captain, who took a small automatic from a handsome mahogany cabinet.
Then they left the cabin and moved forward and to the left, as the seaman indicated.
"That's the door. Inside are three big windows, and navigational and operating instruments. The pilot knows the river and he steers us upstream to the port." The captain spoke quietly but sharply. The seaman listened, then translated. "Captain Ohura says he must fight this battle. It is his honor. I am to enter the room first to distract the Mafia man. My captain will capture him."
"Tell him I'll back him up at the door." Bolan stood by the wall beside the door and watched the seaman open it and enter the room.
"What the hell! Told you guys to stay off the bridge!" The voice was a roar.
The seaman muttered something softly.
"What the hell! Speak up!"
The captain bolted into the room. Bolan followed, aware that more than one Mafia soldier might be inside.
There was not.
The captain yelled something in Japanese in a wild, high voice, then shot on the handgun sounded like a .32 to Bolan, who watched the hoodlum take four rounds in the chest, then drop the .45 automatic he carried and collapse. There was no need to check his condition.
The American pilot at the electronic steering board stared in amazement.
"What's going on here? First these gunmen take over the ship, and now the captain shoots this guy down in a rage. And who are you?"
"Shall you just got a gun out of your ribs, joker. Don't push your luck. You do your job, we'll do ours." The Japanese were talking quietly. The bilingual seaman approached Bolan.
"My captain says he will stay here with door locked. I show you where last two are. He says you may kill them."
"Let's go find the other two rats in your holds."
They descended metal ladders, traveled along the deck, then down more ladders into a dark hold. It was jammed with big boxes and pallets of goods stacked high against the walls. Ahead, by a bright light, two men were laughing and joking as they wiped grease off a pair of submachine guns. A large cargo box was open beside them.
Bolan noticed that neither seemed to be familiar with the big weapons, and neither held side arms.
Bolan lifted the Uzi, made sure it was charged with a round and crept forward in the gloom. He stopped beside two heavy pine boxes and looked around. The men were trying to load a magazine with rounds. The two weapons were German-made MP-40 submachine guns.
"You've got to release the operating lever first, guys," Bolan said from twenty feet away.
Both men dropped the machine guns and dug for hand weapons.
The Executioner triggered a 5-round burst at the faster one, dumping him on the floor in front of the box with four holes in his chest. The slower one dived to the floor and crawled behind a wooden box. Bolan motioned for the seaman to stay put and ran ahead to the cover of an eight-foot-square box, the first in a row.
There was no sound. Stepping on a small crate, Bolan boosted himself on top of the tall box. He bellied across it and looked down an aisle.
Nothing. He jumped to the next box, and bellied across it and looked down. More nothing. He jumped to a third box and looked down. The gunman lay directly below, his .45 two feet from his hand.
Bolan stood.
The gunman lunged for his weapon.
"Touch it and you're full of lead." The hand stopped moving. "Some questions. You work for Canzonari?"
"Yes."
"Will he be at dockside at one-thirty today?"
"Yes, him and Joey."
"Good. Now stand up and walk back to those MPBLEDJ's. Put them away so all looks fine. Are all of the hidden weapons in this hold?"
"Yes. I saw the loading manifest."
"Move it."
The soldier repacked the two submachine guns in the box, replaced the box in the larger crate and nailed it shut. It took five minutes.
The box looked enough like the other crates now to pass. Bolan was about to order the mobster to move, when he heard someone coming.
Captain Ohura stepped into the glow of the bare bulb in the cargo hold, and glared at the hoodlum without speaking.
Then the Japanese skipper took out his small automatic and shot the hood in the head three times at point-blank range.
The Executioner watched as the Japanese maritime captain fired twice more into the Mafia gunman after he fell to the floor.