Bolan flipped the Husqvarna’s bolt. The cross hairs lowered, shifted sideways, centered on Telder’s chest. While he remained immobile, perhaps petrified with astonishment, Bolan held his breath, took up the first pressure, squeezed again.
The second coughing explosion. A click of the bolt, the glint of a cartridge case, slam the last round in and at once — now!— fire for the third time.
They both saw it — Raoul via the Zeiss prisms, Bolan through the Balvar scope. Telder fell to the back of the platform, his chair flung aside, a scarlet patch already blooming horribly across the front of his pale jacket. He hit the wall and slid to the floor.
Raoul was giggling. Bolan scooped up the three ejected shell cases and tossed them onto the roofs below. Seconds later he was lashing the rope around the rifle, complete this time with sniperscope and empty magazine, using the leather strap to tie on the binoculars. He lowered the gun into the shaft and began playing out the rope.
When three sharp tugs told him that the janitor had safely received the rifle, he let go the remainder of the coil and allowed it to snake down the tube.
While Raoul, still grinning with obscene glee, grabbed the canvas case, Bolan replaced the ventilator cone. By the time the police began any house-to-house search for the assassin, the Husqvarna would be back in its rack in the gun shop from which Jean-Paul had taken it.
In the distance, police whistles shrilled. Soon afterward, Bolan heard the crescendo warble of approaching patrol cars and the siren of an ambulance racing to the assembly hall. He hurried back toward the roof and the ladder.
By the time armored-truck details appeared in the courtyard below, Bolan and the mobster were sitting in the painter’s cradle, eating their sandwiches and sharing the wine from the plastic bottle.
13
For Mack Bolan it was one hell of a situation. Correction: two separate hells.
For starters, Bolan was fighting, or pretending to fight, on the side of the savages. And second, instead of riding the crest of that usual one-man wave, the warrior’s own plan forced him to lie low, working in the dark, using the plotters’ own underhand techniques in order to force them to destroy each other.
It was the only way that he could be sure to provoke a rift in the planned association that would rupture any chance of a worldwide Mafia league and disenchant the KGB’s Colonel Antonin sufficiently to make him throw the whole idea out the window.
This time the frontal assault, the elimination of enemy key men that Bolan favored, would be useless: there would always be others to take their places. No, the Soviet conspirators had to see the Mafia fighting family against family; they must be made to see the alliance as totally unstable... and therefore unreliable. Only then would they withdraw their support.
And, yeah, the Executioner was the only man who could do it.
From his position of trust he had to engineer a series of deceits and apparent treacheries that would split the syndicate apart like an overripe melon.
Okay, that position was now well established. After the disappearance of three men and the public murder of a fourth, Bolan in his role of the German hit man was well in with the high command of the Riviera Mafia.
But it was only now that the really hard part began.
And there were dangers.
The ever-present threat of a confrontation with Antonin.
The fact that now, as an accepted man in the organization, Bolan would be expected to take part in group operations, in crimes that would be difficult to avoid without blowing his cover or faking them as he had done with Telder.
The Telder operation had been impressive: it was Raoul’s reluctantly admiring report, and the newspaper accounts of this and the other three disappearances, that had finally raised Bolan’s stock ace high in Jean-Paul’s book.
The only tough spot, Bolan reflected, was choosing the moment when Raoul’s attention was distracted so that he never got wise to the fact that the magazine Bolan slammed into the rifle wasn’t the same one that the mobster himself had loaded.
The clip Bolan had shoved in — hidden until then in his pants pocket — carried only one live round and two blanks.
The live round shattered the glass roof of the assembly hall, all right. But it wasn’t, as Bolan had said, to minimize the danger of deflection and make it easy for the next two: it was to tip off Telder that the operation was all systems go and alert his audience that something dramatic was on the way.
All the Interpol man had to do then, once he heard the distant reports of the second and third shot, was hurl himself backward against the wall behind the platform and press the gelatin ball concealed inside his jacket that so convincingly covered his chest with “blood.”
The specially prepared ambulance would then rocket up to the school complex and whip the “body” away before professional medics could make it and blow the plan.
But apart from reinforcing his image as an ace contract artist, all this did was get Bolan off the hook for a while.
His score was zero so far on the seeds-of-discontent chart; he was not even sure what approach to take, what kind of discord to sow. And time was vitally short. Because of the attack on La Rocaille and the need for the expedition to Corsica, Antonin had agreed to wait a little longer for the final response, when the plan would be wrapped up for better or worse. But the Executioner had to start operating in a matter of days — perhaps even hours — if his own plan was to succeed.
What plan, Bolan thought wryly. It would be easier if he had one.
It was the day after Telder’s “murder,” and now Bolan sat above the sea in the Jaguar XJS he had been awarded as a bonus after that successful coup and pondered the problem. He was due to report at Jean-Paul’s house, along with Smiler, Raoul, Bertrand, Delacroix and half a dozen other hoods in the early evening. Something had to be worked out — even if it was only in general terms — before then.
It was hot inside the low-slung car. The afternoon sunlight was glaring and fierce.
Mentally Bolan ran over the unrelated points he had filed away as potentially useful.
Jean-Paul was no birdbrain but he was an autocrat: he didn’t go for anyone except himself making the decisions — and he could lose his cool if they did. The mobster from Marseilles was not one hundred percent certain that he could count on unstinting loyalty when the guy in question was the Corsican boss, Ancarani.
Ancarani himself, together with Lombardo, the capo who ran Toulon, and the Italian Scalese seemed slightly dubious of the KGB offer.
Smiler was an enemy, and would remain one, because Bolan had humbled him in front of his own men.
Raoul’s sadism was likely to fog his judgment in a critical situation.
Coralie Sanguinetti blew hot and cold — but Bolan’s gut reaction was that she would be on his side if she didn’t regard him as a professional killer. And even believing that, she had thought enough of him to sense his mistrust of Antonin and fabricate an excuse to keep him out of the Russian’s way.
Coralie was therefore likely to view any Russian participation — even indirectly — in her father’s business with disfavor.
Could any of these disparate factors, proven and unproven, be threaded together strongly enough to fashion a cord? A cord that could be made into a noose?
Chain, Bolan thought, was a better image. A chain is really as strong as its weakest link, and there were weak links here.
The obvious one was the Ancarani-Scalese-Lombardo trio. Could their doubts be linked with Smiler’s hostility and the temperamental idiosyncracies of Raoul and J-P himself in such a fashion that they threatened the balance of the coalition?
Bolan thought maybe they could.
But he would, after all, flip the problem back into the Pending tray until the meeting with the mobsters was through. Could be a more positive pointer would emerge there.
As for Coralie... well, she was the wild card!
Bolan fired up the Jaguar’s V12, 225 horsepower engine. Backing the
heavy speedster up onto the road, he lowered the visor against the setting sun and blasted off west, toward the city.
* * *
“This weekend,” Jean-Paul said, “I don’t have to tell you guys — it’s the busiest of the whole year on the roads. Damn near the whole of France at the wheel: July vacationers going home; August families with kids on the way down here. Something like one hundred thousand automobiles on the move during these forty-eight hours!”
He paused and looked over his audience: Bolan and ten hardmen lounging in the white leather chairs that furnished the sun room overlooking the glittering sea those holidaymakers paid so much to be beside. Most of the mobsters wore puzzled expressions. “More than eighty percent of those folks,” J-P explained, “will be using the north-south expressway. All of them will go through the pay station at Aix. Those driving down from Paris and Lyons will hand over six, seven bucks each. The ones heading home from Nice and Cannes will part with four or five at the tollbooths on the other side of town. Any of you smart enough to work out eighty thousand times five dollars?”
Delacroix, the giant who’d gotten burned during the Corsican raid, still wore bandages on his hands. Now the huge white paws rose and fell in a bewildered gesture. His simian brow furrowed in concentration. “Sure is a lotta bread,” he agreed. “But I don’t see what good that does us — I mean, with those armored trucks they have, the money is moved quicker’n fast. Ten minutes from the pay station an’ it’s in the vaults of the city bank.”
“Not this weekend,” J-P said. “The whole damn consignment, takings for both days, is going to Monte Carlo.”
“Monte Carlo! But that’s a hundred thirty miles!” one of the hoods exclaimed.
“That’s right.”
“Do you know this for sure?”
“Of course I know,” snapped J-P. “Why do you think you’re here? It’s inside intel, from a contact in the bank.”
“Okay, okay. But why?..”
“Something to do with a French government loan. The Monaco principality is supposed to be low on funds, so they want a big sum — in cash — to cover themselves in case the luck runs with the punters at the casino. I guess some smartass figured this was the quickest, easiest way to get it to them.”
“And we’re gonna hit the convoy transferring the loot?” Smiler asked.
“With more than one hundred miles of road to choose from? Damn right we are.”
“Okay,” the hood called Bertrand said. “But if we’re about to shack up with the other mobs... if there’s gonna be so much more bread flyin’ around once the Comrades buy in... do we really need to take the risk? Or is this a joint operation?”
Jean-Paul shook his head. “No way. This is strictly a one-off. For us alone. As to why... well, it’ll be a while before the arrangement with the Russians pays off. And in the meantime, we have a slight liquidity problem. It’s only temporary but, among other things, that Corsican raid cost. In any case, it seemed too good a hit to miss, right? If any of you guys think it’s a dumb idea...” He left the sentence unfinished.
Apparently nobody did. Bolan least of all because it had given him an idea of his own.
* * *
The heist was well planned and expertly carried out, Bolan had to admit. The site Jean-Paul had chosen was one of the tunnels that pierce the mountain mass above the ocean between Nice and the principality.
There were three advantages to the site. First, the expressway ran on the landward slopes of the mountain, and there were no towns or villages for several miles; second, the eastbound and westbound sections of the road were routed separately instead of sharing one wide tunnel; finally, the site chosen was only a couple of miles from the Monte Carlo turnoff, so the armed guards protecting the consignment would already be relaxing, figuring their trip was almost over.
Raoul, Bertrand, Smiler, Delacroix, Bolan and J-P himself were the inside men. Of the remaining six in the team, two were drivers and the other four had the task of removing the money.
Most of the money would be in bills equivalent to five and ten dollars, but there would be a sizeable amount in ten-franc coins, parceled in heavy sacks of one thousand. Smoothness and efficiency in the disposal of the loot was therefore going to be vital.
It was midafternoon when the armored truck with its four motorcycle outriders, two in front and two behind, approached the long upward grade that led to the tunnel. The cash would be in the casino strong room before the big-time roulette and baccarat players began to drift in at dusk.
It was a sultry day, the heat haze spreading inland from the sea and over the hills. Traffic was light. The tourists were either crowding the beaches or packing before they left their rented vacation villas and returned home. Most of the heavy commercial transport running between France and Italy had already passed.
But there was a forty-ton semi parked some way from the tunnel entrance on the emergency strip, with its hazard lights blinking. The driver was squatting by the front suspension, tightening something with a wrench. When the convoy was still several hundred yards away he climbed into his cab and the rig rumbled back onto the roadway and headed for the tunnel.
It was more than half a mile long. When the two leading bikers rode in out of the heat, the semi was still some way short of the exit. The armored truck and the other two cops followed. They were halfway through when it happened.
A sudden hiss of compressed air brakes... a squeal of rubber... and the front section of the huge truck skated across the roadway to graze the curved tunnel wall with a shriek of tortured steel. At the same time, the light, unloaded rear trailer jackknifed, swinging wide to hit the opposite wall and completely block the exit.
Double doors at the rear of the trailer had been flung open before the armored truck skidded to a halt and the two cops could draw their Brownings. From inside the trailer Jean-Paul and Delacroix fired heavy-caliber rubber bullets at the bikers, knocking them from their saddles. Simultaneously Bolan launched three gas grenades from an M-203 tube attached to an M-16 rifle — one between the fallen bikers, one beside the cab of the armored truck, the third toward the back of the vehicle, beneath the floor.
The fragile canisters were of a type unfamiliar to Bolan, but J-P had told him they should knock a man out for thirty minutes and leave no aftereffects.
They sure acted fast. Both cops were inert by the time Bolan and the two mafiosi, wearing gas masks and woolen balaclavas, thumped down the tailgate and raced toward the armored truck.
The gas, visible as faint wreaths of smoke in the yellow overhead lights illuminating the tunnel, coiled around the truck’s cab. There was a driver and a guard armed with a Belgian FN machine pistol inside. But the windows were down because of the heat and both of them were out by the time the three hardmen sprinted up.
A third guard, similarly armed, would be in the back of the truck, with instructions not to come out under any circumstances, but to fire at once if anyone unauthorized tried to break in.
He wouldn’t be coming out.
He wouldn’t be firing when they broke in, either. There was a grill between the strong room and the cab, open too because of the heat, and a small ventilator revolving on the roof. Enough to allow in sufficient gas to render the guy unconscious.
There were ventilator fans also set in the tunnel roof, their five-foot blades designed to extract gasoline and diesel fumes. Buy they lay motionless now in the yellow light. The mobsters working outside had cut the current powering their motors and dismantled the blades minutes before the convoy was due.
Sensing trouble, the two cops riding shotgun had accelerated the moment they’d seen the semi blocking the exit. Passing the truck, they rode straight into the motionless gas cloud... and straight out of action, the BMW 650s toppling over and spinning to the tunnel walls as the cops slumped over their handlebars.
Bolan cut the fuel feed on all four roaring engines as J-P and the giant hauled the security men from the cab and searched them for keys.
A second semi was now broadsided across the roadway to block the tunnel’s entrance. The driver, followed by Smiler and his two thugs, all of them wearing gas masks and balaclavas, ran to the stalled security vehicle. They were joined a moment later by the hood who had blocked the exit.
Everything now depended on timing. And it was here that Jean-Paul’s organizational genius paid off. Instead of loading their haul into cars and attempting a getaway on one of the expressway lanes, instead of leaving the tunnel and making it across the countryside to another road, he had come up with a smarter idea.
The sabotaged fans in the roof, when they were working, pushed the extracted air up into shafts that penetrated the hillside and emerged into the open air 150 feet above the twin tunnels.
These shafts were thirty-six inches wide.
J-P stood now beneath one of them and blew three shrill blasts on a police whistle.
Seconds later a steel loader’s hook on the end of a rope appeared at the shaft mouth in the tunnel roof. Rapidly it was lowered to the roadway. Working feverishly, Smiler and the other mobsters ransacked the armored truck, ranging boxes stuffed with bills and the heavy cylindrical coin sacks beneath the vent.
A second rope snaked down from the next shaft, fifty yards nearer the exit. Bolan, Raoul and Delacroix humped sacks and boxes over. Quickly now the hooks, loaded with three sacks at a time, rose upward and were swallowed in the darkness of the ventilator shafts, reappeared for another load, and then vanished again. On the hillside above two garage pickups equipped with powered hoists worked overtime.
It was a smart idea, all right. Bolan wondered with an inward grin just how much it had been influenced by his own ruse — as he had explained it to his boss — to get rid of the Husqvarna after the Telder “assassination.”
Except for a few sacks of coins, the contents of the armored truck had been hoisted by the time the men in the tunnel heard the distant bray of police sirens. Bolan guessed that the guards, before the gas got to them, would have had time to send out an SOS.
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