"The sea, Matador, is angry. A tropical storm approaches from the south. We are no more than . . . perhaps ten minutes removed from your enemy's position. You will reconsider?"
Bolan was staring glumly at the distant lights. In a gruff tone, he replied, "The price has already gone too high, amigo. It has become a lousy war."
"Porque? Margarita?"
Bolan nodded. "That's porque, Toro."
Toro sighed and reached into his breast pocket, withdrawing a folded paper. "Did you know that our Margarita was a poetess?" he asked quietly.
Still gruff, Bolan replied, "It wouldn't surprise me."
"She left this for me, Matador."He shrugged his shoulders and gently added, "As an explanation, perhaps. Can you read Espanol?"
Bolan shook his head and took a heavy drag on the Cuban-style cigarette. "And I don't believe I want to hear it, Toro. I don't believe in grief, and I really can't afford it."
Toro protested, "This is not for grief, Matador. It is for courage, and for remembering a shining light in the darkness. You will allow me to read it for you?"
Bolan sighed, nodded, and closed his eyes.
"It will not sound the same, maybe, in English, but this is how it would translate:
The world dies 'twixt every heartbeat,
and is born again
in each new perception of the mind.
For each of us,
the order of life is to perceive and perish and perceive again,
and who can say which is which-
for every human experience builds a new world
in its own image...
and death itself is but an unusual perception.
Live large that you may experience large
and thus, hopefully, die large."
Toro's voice broke as he added, "That is it, amigo."
Bolan sat silent for a long moment. Then he opened his eyes and crushed out the cigarette. "Margarita wrote that?" he quietly inquired.
"She did. Tell me, Matador, did the little soldier die large?"
"Yes, Toro," Bolan assured him, "she died very, very large."
"She was muy angry with me, senor. Because I would not offer you assistance with your war."
Bolan sighed. "Well, Toro, you've got those snakes to worry about."
"There are snakes, senor, everywhere." He looked out at the distant lights. "Shall we live large, Matador, for a little while — together?"
The Executioner smiled. "What sort of weaponry do we have, amigo?"
"We have the magnifico Honeywell, also personal weapons."
Bolan got to his feet and tested his sea legs. "Does this thing always buck like this?" he asked.
"Si, she is a Yanqui buckaroo."
"You'll have to get the Honeywell mounted."
"This is done. The Honeywell is deck-mounted, Matador."
Bolan said, "Show me."
Toro led the way just above and behind the cabin to what had originally served as a mount for a fifty-calibre machine gun. A small wooden platform had been added, and the Honeywell was bolted to this. Bolan nodded and ducked back into the cabin to escape the stinging spray which was now constantly flaying the main deck. He said, "Okay, I'm manning. I'll need another two men to crew me. How do you have the belts configured?"
"Your shoulder, amigo. Will this not-?"
"It's all right," Bolan assured him. "What's in the belts?"
"High-explosive only. For war at sea-"
"Okay that's fine, but have some flares ready just in case. And make up a belt of double-ought." He grinned. "We might want to do some deck-raking."
Toro grinned back. "And we shall largely live."
Bolan turned away quickly, so that Toro could not see the surge of emotion across his face, muttering beneath his breath, "And a little soldada shall lead them."
The Merry Drew was underway and moving sluggishly in the general direction of Biscayne Bay. The PT crossed her a hundred yards astern and heeled into an upwind run. Soldados with light machine guns were lashed to the deck, some were poking up from the cabin, others took positions around the hatch to the troop compartment. Toro was in the conn, just above the cabin. Bolan, standing grimly spraddle-legged at the Honeywell in a constant wash of spray, shouted up to him, "What's our speed?"
The Cuban's voice, lashed back by the wind, announced, "Revolutions at 40 knots, Matador."
Bolan yelled, "Let's run by once and confirm that identification."
"Si! We identify on the upwind run!"
Bolan tied himself to the gun mount and tried to estimate the correction he would need in view of the shuddering, heaving platform, the relative speeds of the two vessels, and the howling gale-force winds. They were quickly closing on the larger vessel and beginning to run alongside.
The cruise boat was brightly lighted from stem to stern. Bolan could make out people standing in the protected overhang of the boat deck, and an interested crowd was gathering at a brightly lighted window which he presumed to be the main lounge. The Merry Drew was not quite a passenger liner but she was, at worst, a junior edition of one. She seemed a stable mass beside the plunging PT boat, her bow cutting smoothly through the wild waters in an undisturbed transit. The bridge was high and sleek, and the pilot house was dimly illumined behind a row of square windows reaching from one side of the vessel to the other.
Her passengers were inspecting the PT with considerable interest. One of them waved, cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted, "Ship ahoy!" Others around him were laughing and pointing at the PT as it plunged and bucked through the cresting waters, obviously amused by the wild ride being experienced by those upon her.
A man in a white uniform stepped to the wing of the bridge, a megaphone in his hand, and called over as they passed abeam. "Do not attempt a transfer of passengers. Suggest you follow us into the harbor."
Toro lifted his own bullhorn and replied, "What we transfer, capitan, can be accomplished at sea!" The PT lunged forward in a sudden acceleration and quickly slid ahead of the Merry Drew, heading off into a wide arc and coming about for the downwind run.
Toro swivelled about to grin at Bolan and shouted, "We go! Vamos!"
The running lights were extinguished and the little craft leapt into a full power run, barely fifty yards abeam the other vessel. With the wind now at his back, Bolan settled into the harness and angled the latest thing in gatlings to several points off his starboard bow. He made motions with his hands to forewarn his crewmen as to the proposed swing of the gun as they swept past the target . . . and then they were back and speeding along the target area and Bolan was cranking the firing handle . . . and the war at sea was enjoined. He raked the vessel from stem to stern with a walking line of brilliant explosions along the main deck level, while the machine-gunners opened up in a steady drumfire, and pandemonium arrived aboard the Merry Drew. Men were running and shouting even above the shrieking wind and continuous explosions, in a quick exodus from that side of the ship. Then it was behind them and Bolan's crew was feeding in another belt of large living, the PT was swinging wide in a rapid encircling maneuver, and Toro was laughing lustily into the wind.
The next downwind run was to the Merry Drew's port side and there were no hands on deck. Lights were being extinguished throughout and there were no catcalls or hooting cries of good humor to greet Bolan's raiders. Automatic weapons spat at them from the bow, the boat deck, the bridge, and handguns were being unloaded from every point. Standing tall against the withering fire, Bolan cranked the Honeywell into a stunning assault upon the bridge, maintaining his fire into that limited area for the full run. As they swept into the turn, two of the PT's soldados were being hastily helped into the troop compartment for treatment of wounds and Bolan was urging his crew into a rapid reload.