Executioner 055 - Paradine's Gauntlet

by Pendleton, Don

  "That's the job, April," he reminded her.

  "Where's it written that he has to do it alone?"

  Brognola scowled around his cigar. "How do you plan to find him?"

  "I know as much about the first rendezvous coordinates as he does. If I miss him there, well—I planted a homer in the Citroen. I can trail him from a distance if I have to."

  Hal shook his head. "He isn't going to like it," he said.

  "I'll take that chance." She hesitated, gauging Hal's reaction. "There's one thing you can do to help."

  "What's that?"

  "Take a taxi home."

  He blew another plume of smoke toward the ceiling, holding his temper. "Have you really thought this through?"

  She nodded grimly. "All the way."

  April Rose had met Mack Bolan for the first time on the Monday of his week-long "Second Mile" against the Mafia. She had fought with Hal then too, resisting her assignment as the warrior's driver and technical support. Back then, April had disapproved of Bolan, ethically and personally, in spite of the strong physical attraction that she could not deny.

  Bloody Monday altered April's thinking irreversibly. By the end of that first day, Bolan had not only saved her life, but changed it. She had passed through the fire and emerged with a commitment to the man and to his cause, if they were ever separable. When the Phoenix team was constituted, April was the first aboard; nothing short of death could have kept her off the squad and away from Bolan's side.

  And if some might confuse her dedication to the man with love, April would not argue. She loved the warrior with her body and her soul, receiving an equal measure in return.

  She loved the man too much, in fact, toobey his orders now, too much to let him run the gauntlet alone. April Rose was backing Mack Bolan.

  All the way.

  5

  THE BLACK MERCEDES circled the block, raising slowly like a hungry shark. Reconnaissance complete, the driver parked against the curb outside the Café Justine, a weathered waterfront establishment.

  The restaurant was a favorite nocturnal haven for the underworld figures of Nice, but daylight was cruel to the cafe. It exposed it for what it was—an ancient whore, stripped of all mystery and allure.

  The Mercedes disgorged a pair of carbon-copy hardmen. One of them lingered by the car while his partner took the point, scanning the street and sidewalk. When he was satisfied, the scout took up his post beside the cafe entrance.

  Another man emerged from the Mercedes, smartly dressed in a pearl gray business suit. He crossed the sidewalk and passed inside, the hardguys trailing. The guncocks followed their boss across the dark interior and left him only when he gained the stairs,peeling off on either side to close the way.

  Upstairs, a somber trio waited for the new arrival in a smoky conference room. An empty chair was waiting at the head of the table, and the newcomer filled it with his bulk.

  He was called Louis, and as the ranking leader of the Union Corse, he was given due respect. A scarred and grizzled veteran of the Riviera drug wars, he had alternately fought and worked with Mafiosi, Communists and American intelligence. Since the death of the American intruder, "Monzoor" Rudolfi, Louis had risen rapidly to stand astride the underworld of southern France. He owed that rise, and the commensurate advancement of his brother Corsicans, to his own ferocity and to the timely intervention of L'Americaine Formidable, now also happily deceased. In a jungle full of savages, Louis was the strongest, most tenacious of the tribe.

  He addressed the eldest of his three lieutenants, a balding, one-eyed survivor of the streets and gutters who had risen in Louis's shadow to the pinnacles of power. Louis's voice rumbled up from deep inside his barrel chest.

  "What news from the Sûreté?"

  "My people are in touch with the Americans. The ransom will be paid."

  Louis nodded. "Continue."

  "As you know, the demand requires delivery by one man. We should have no difficulty in relieving him of the goods."

  "No difficulty," Louis repeated, "if they follow their instructions to the letter. We must learn the time and place."

  "Monaco."

  Louis cocked an eyebrow at his friend. "Confirmation?"

  "Positive."

  The Corsican smiled.

  "Prepare the family. Make every soldier understand our top priority."

  He fanned the air with one hand, a gesture of dismissal. In another moment he was left alone.

  Louis relaxed and lit a cigarette, trying to imagine one billion dollars’ worth of diamonds. He would lose sixty cents on every dollar in the fencing process, but the profit would still be close to 200 million francs. A fortune, and badly needed at the moment.

  That very morning, he had learned of Laval's assassination in Marseille and the destruction of important heroin reserves. Sinister and inexplicable, the sudden violence might foreshadow open war within the underworld, accompanied by harassment from authorities. Louis was anxious to recoup hislosses, fatten up his war chest before the shooting started. Forty million francs would help the Union withstand a lengthy siege.

  Louis was ready to lead his troops to Monaco.

  GIOVANNI GORO CHECKED THE ACTION of his Walther P-38 and left the safety off as he returned it to his belt. It was small enough protection, but the young man was pressed for time and there had been no chance to secure other arms on his way to the urgent rendezvous.

  He risked a glance around the corner, briefly exposing his body at the alley's mouth, quickly ducking back under cover. Everything looked normal at a glance, the way it had in Naples three weeks before. He had not seen a trace of the SIG commandos before they opened fire, blasting out of second-story windows, spraying bullets from a van parked against the curb. Two close friends had fallen, riddled in the cross fire, and only Giovanni Goro had escaped. Disgusted, he attributed his own survival not to skill or planning, but to plain dumb luck.

  There had been enough luck in recent times, most of it bad. As a captain in the Red Brigades, Goro was accustomed to the element of risk, but ever since the Dozierdebacle, he felt he was on the verge of losing control.

  Pressure from the Special Police Corps' Security Central Operation, and worse, from the paramilitary Special Intervention Group, was relentless.

  Hard-eyed gunmen of the SIG were everywhere, scouring the underground for Red Brigades stragglers, shooting first and asking questions only when the body count was taken. Brigades prestige was at an all-time low, the coffers dangerously close to empty as the heat dried up secret sources of support.

  Weapons were expensive, and because of the escalating danger, potential recruits had grown reluctant to enlist without considerable financial compensation. It repulsed Goro to involve himself with mercenaries, but he was a realist and a veteran of the urban struggle, willing to use anyone, any tool, in furtherance of holy revolution.

  Lately, however, he had considered getting out, but his clandestine travel agent had been traced to Rome and shot while trying to evade police. Goro was evaluating other options, seeking other means of escape, when his luck began to change. An opportunity was handed to him, ripe and ready for the picking. All he had to do was get across the street alive.

  The target was a cheap hotel, separatedfrom the alleyway by twenty yards of open pavement. It should have been secure—his agent in Milan had guaranteed safe passage—but the same had been true in Naples. Twenty yards could stretch forever if the SIG was waiting for him, in a car with engine idling, or in the windows overhead. Twenty yards could be a lifetime.

  Goro braced himself, one hand on the Walther as he crossed the street, eyes fixed upon the hotel entrance.

  He made it in a walk, beginning to relax only when he reached the lobby. He kept his fingers wrapped around the pistol as he bypassed an ancient elevator in favor of the stairs. Two flights up he reached his destination. He rapped out a coded signal on the numbered door.

  The door opened to reveal a sallow face, Goro's local contact, Vito Lettieri.
Shifty rodent's eyes examined him, then peered around his shoulder, checking out the corridor beyond. When he was satisfied, Lettieri stood aside and let the new arrival pass.

  Inside the dingy room, another man was seated at an old dining table, watching closely. The stubby muzzle of his submachine gun, a Beretta Model 12, followed Goro like an extra sightless eye until the man made the recognition and laid the gun aside. Goro took aseat across from him, and Lettieri settled on his left, having stopped for some wine and glasses on the way. He filled a glass and passed the bottle, offering a crooked, mirthless smile.

  "Schroeder sends his compliments," the ferret said.

  Goro frowned. The German, a member of the Baader-Meinhof gang, was hiding in the south of France and waiting for officials to forget his face at home. They had worked together in the past, and it was Schroeder who had leaked the word to Lettieri of a major project in progress.

  "What else does he send?"

  "Good news," Lettieri answered. "The Americans will pay."

  "Is the landing verified?"

  Lettieri nodded once. "Outside Tolmezzo."

  "And the border?"

  "We're in touch. They didn't cross." "Very well. The delivery will be made onItalian soil." He pinned Lettieri with a penetrating stare. "We need the time and place." Lettieri frowned, dropped his eyes andstared at the bottom of his wineglass. "I'm working on it now," he said.

  "Work harder. This is your assignment. If you fail. . ."

  Goro left the statement hanging. Lettieri's own imagination filled the gap, and there was fear behind the eyes when finally he raised his head.

  "You'll have it, don't worry. My people are reliable."

  "I hope so. We cannot afford another failure."

  He rose, and turned his back on Lettieri and the silent gunner. Goro felt their eyes upon him as he reached the door. He hesitated with a hand on the knob. He pivoted to face his rodent-faced lieutenant.

  "Two hours, Vito. Have the information when I call again."

  And he left them, slipping out and moving toward the stairs before either of them had a chance to answer. Automatically, instinctively, he scanned the corridor, alert to any sudden sound or movement.

  Lettieri would not fail, he was sure of that. Ruthless and efficient, he would follow orders out of fear, if nothing else. Fear was Giovanni Goro's business, and he knew its value as a motivator.

  As he hit the stairs, Goro had his mind on money. One billion U.S. dollars translated into nearly sixty-five billion lire. .. enough wealth to help the Red Brigades regain lost ground and start looking toward the future.

  In a single stroke they could eclipse the score of other splinter factions operating around the Mediterranean, and assume pre-eminence among European terrorists.

  Giovanni Goro smiled at the thought of undercutting Paradine, robbing him of gold and glory. He had met the mercenary twice and remembered him as cold, evasive. Goro had mistrusted him as he mistrusted every gun for hire. It would be a pleasure to disrupt his master plan and take the legendary warrior down a peg or two.

  The euphoric mood evaporated as he reached the lobby, heading for the open street. All his hopes were resting now on Vito Lettieri and his network of informers. If they obtained the information he required, if he, Giovanni, could evade authorities and pull his troops together at the target site, if the ransom was delivered, they would have a chance.

  First, he would have to keep himself alive for two more hours.

  IVAN ILLYANOVICH CLOSED THE THICK manila folder and rested his massive hands on top of it. He glanced around the Spartan office, eyes settling on the framed pictures of Lenin, Marx, and Uri Andropov. The latter, a new addition in a narrow frame, was slightlysmaller than the portrait of Leonid Brezhnev, which it had replaced. Faded paint was visible around the edges, and Illyanovich decided he would speak with maintenance soon. At the moment, there were other pressing problems on his mind—all of them concerning the adventures of the man called Paradine.

  The placard on his office door proclaimed Illyanovich to be Assistant Cultural Attaché. In fact, he was a section chief of Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti (KGB) and as such, the single most important figure at the Soviet embassy in Belgrade. His responsibilities included state security, disinformation, espionage and certain other delicate assignments that required a screen of strict deniability—such as sponsorship of terrorism in the West, a role Illyanovich embraced with special fondness.

  The Komitet had sponsored Paradine before, lending guidance and support through an elaborate buffer network. Even now, an agent was planted in his entourage, feeding information back whenever possible, but the control was slipping. Since the Turkish operation fell apart in flames, Paradine had been dangerously independent and erratic. He had all the earmarks of a maverick, and his latest action had been undertaken free of sponsorship.

  The hijacking did not faze Illyanovich; any interruption of the Middle Eastern peace talks was welcome. If the hostages should die, and thus precipitate another war, so much the better. Such an outcome would escalate the sale of arms and broaden Soviet influence with the Arab nations.

  No, it was not the operation, but rather Paradine's obsession with personal revenge that Illyanovich found disconcerting. It implied that Paradine was losing touch with the realities of his profession, sacrificing objectivity and putting everything at risk. It would be regrettable to lose an operative of his potential, and yet .. .

  Illyanovich reflected that Paradine's fixation with the Western agent Phoenix might be turned to Soviet advantage. The section chief had lately been preoccupied with a disturbing trend in terrorist affairs—the disruption of paramilitary groups and operations by an unknown hand, striking hard and deep at the eleventh hour.

  Thus far, covert actions had been scuttled, with the loss of valued personnel in Colombia, West Germany, Algiers, Italy, Nicaragua, in the United States itself . . . not to mention Paradine's own spectacular fiasco in Turkey. Other nagging rumors had a special agent doing costly damage in the satellitecountries—Libya, Iran and Vietnam. There were few survivors, but the name Phoenix had surfaced more than once, and Illyanovich was no believer in coincidence.

  Skeptical of one man's ability to wreak such havoc, the Central Committee had discouraged any mass effort to identify him and his death squads. Ivan had dissented, quietly, of course, but his covert inquiries had been frustrated by a veil of secrecy and death. Despite his conviction that the Phoenix agent and his neutralization squads must be either British or American, Illyanovich's efforts to pin him down, to get a handle on his whereabouts and movements, had failed.

  Now, thanks to Paradine, the Komitet might have a shot at Phoenix. If the man existed. If he dared respond to Paradise's demand.

  If.

  Elimination of the Phoenix secret weapon was a goal to be urgently pursued. Success would be a major coup, strategically and individually. Best of all, Illyanovich could claim full credit, flying in the face of party apparatus denials. It might even be enough to take him home, back to Moscow and the heart of the action.

  If it all fell through, well, Ivan Illyanovich was a survivor, an expert at covering histracks, cutting his losses. Deniability was the order of the day, every day.

  He punched a button on the desktop intercom, and a moment later his lieutenant entered. Stern-faced and humorless, young Protopkin was the only man Illyanovich could trust implicitly inside the embassy.

  "Call Nosenko," he instructed. "Have him here within the hour."

  Protopkin nodded silently and left. The door clicked firmly shut behind him.

  Alone again, Ivan Illyanovich relaxed, rocking back in his recliner chair to wait, pondering which shade of gray to order for the walls.

  6

  EUROPE'S PLAYGROUND is the French Riviera, and the Riviera's pulsing heart is Monaco. Roughly two square kilometers in area, the tiny principality exists to serve the self-proclaimed Beautiful People. Revenues from the casino at Monte Carlo are sufficient to help
exempt the 30,000 inhabitants from taxation. The casino is government-controlled, and Monaco is spared the taint of syndicate involvement found in Las Vegas, Atlantic City and the Caribbean.

  Even so, there were savages in evidence; the Mediterranean was full of hungry sharks.

  Mack Bolan had come to France the first time as a fugitive, spinning off from his early clashes with the Mafia at home. He was looking for a refuge, a sanctuary. What he found was another battlefront. The Mafia was eating France alive, and the resident capo , Thomas "Monzoor" Rudolfi, was master of ceremonies at the feast. Bolan's head-on collision with the cannibals had been inevitable, preordained.

  Warrior Bolan took the first swings, and Rudolfi, his reputation on the line, employed a desperate gambit. Ten women, courtesans from a maison de joie, were taken hostage in exchange for L'Americaine Formidable. Ten lives for the price of one, with Bolan's fate and that of France hanging in the balance. The Executioner responded with audacity and daring, delivering an ultimatum.

  For every hour that the women were in jeopardy, one ranking member of the underworld would die . . . and die they did. The final target fell in Monaco, inside the casino itself, before Rudolfi saw the light. Cornered by police and Mafiosi, Bolan had escaped with the aid of unexpected allies, blitzing on to execute Rudolfi.

  Now, the Executioner was returning to Monaco. There were still serpents in the garden, still hostages in jeopardy.

  Bolan crossed into Monaco at 10:00 A.M.

  He passed the casino, already crowded in spite of the early hour, then headed south, winding down the remarkable streets for which the resort was renowned, and which had claimed the life of its famous American princess, down toward the harbor and his designated rendezvous. Circling the marina parking lot, he found a space for the Citroen and backed into it. Bolan did not want any complications if he had to quit the harbor in a hurry.

  The warrior prepared himself to go EVA. He double-checked the Beretta's load, returned it to leather, and fished a yellow silk scarf out of the glove compartment. The scarf would serve as a recognition signal.