Continental Contract

by Don Pendleton

  He replied, “Probably not. We have enough of our own disappearing. Why?”

  “Why? Well, I jus’ wondair if you believe them, such tales. It is said that girl-stealers keednap these girls and sell them in Africa. The white slave markets. Do you believe this?”

  Bolan shrugged his shoulders. “I wouldn’t disbelieve it. Lot of rotten things happen, Cici.”

  “Officially these rumors are disclaimed. Not one year ago such stories were discussed in the newspapairs and declared false. Jus’ now, when I call Paris, I ’ear another of these stories. It sounds most diabolical.”

  Bolan did not comment. He wondered if she was simply making conversation. She seemed to be studying his face for reactions. She went on. “I am told that ten all at once ’ave been spirited away this time. A ’ouse full of girls, from the Latin Quarter. A ’ouse on Rue Galande.”

  She got her reaction. A muscle quivered in Bolan’s jaw and he said, “That sounds like more film stuff, Cici. Where’d you get a story like that?”

  “It is being repeated throughout Paris. It is said that gangstairs were killed at this ’ouse by a man called L’Executioner. These girls were thought to ’ave ’elped this man. As punishment, the gangstair boss is ’ave these girls stolen and sent on the underground trail to Algiers.”

  Bolan saw his Eden rapidly disappearing, flaring out like a shooting star in a black sky. His foot moved from the accelerator to the brake and the big car rolled to a smooth halt.

  She asked, “What are you doing?”

  “Turning around. I’ll be leaving you at the Lyon airport.”

  “No! Paris is too dangerous for you now! And you could do nothing there!”

  “I have to go back, Cici.” He was thinking of a humiliated man with the mark of a pistol muzzle burned into his forehead. “I have to see a man on some urgent business.”

  “The man you seek is no longair in Paris,” she declared quietly.

  He shifted into reverse, then hesitated with his foot on the brake and asked her, “How do you know that?”

  Even more quietly she said, “Would you believe me if I mention the name Thomas Rudolfi?”

  The gearshift returned to neutral and Bolan glared at her, frozen frames of his mind flipping slowly into overlaying positions. He asked, “just what do you know about Rudolfi?”

  They were halted on the shoulder of the road. The girl reached into the floor and picked up the newspaper she had brought from Lyon. She unfolded and refolded it and lay it across the steering wheel. The composite likeness of Bolan was there, blown up and occupying half of the front page beneath a heavy black headline: L’EXECUTIONER EN PARIS?

  She whispered, “L’Executioner is in Paris no longer, is this not true?”

  Bolan’s face was frozen. He repeated, “What do you know about Rudolfi?”

  “I ’ave known Rudolfi for a long time, stand-in. This is not the point. The point is that you cannot return to Paris, and also there is no reason to do so. You will find nothing there.”

  Bolan’s mind was beginning to whirl. He snapped, “You seem to know much more than I do. So what are you suggesting?”

  She showed him a wan smile and said, “On to Cannes, stand-in. You may plan your plans there, in safety. And perhaps you will be closair there to the problem.”

  He took her hand and squeezed it, hard. “Let’s get it all on the table, Cici. I want the whole story, all of it.”

  “Non. Not now. But please trost me, Mack Bolan.” She made the name sound like Mawk Bo-lawn. “And let me ’elp you.”

  He started the vehicle moving again, then his eyes flicked back to her and he said, “No go, Cici. Everybody I touch turns to ashes. I’m getting off at the next town.”

  “I weel not turn to ashes,” she quietly assured him.

  Bolan could almost believe it. He asked, coldly, “Who the hell are you, Cici? I mean, for real?”

  “I am Cici Carceaux, for very real,” she solemnly informed him. Her eyes moved in a somewhat muted echo of the coquette she had shown him back at the hotel. “Not many men in France would decline an invitation to Cici’s villa.”

  An idea was beginning to form in Bolan’s mind. Perhaps, he was thinking, the potential danger posed by this female enigma seated so demurely beside him would be a calculated risk worthy of challenging. Suddenly he said, “Okay. So long as you know the name of the game. You know who I am and what I have to do. If you’ll risk me, then I’ll risk you.”

  “On to Cannes, stand-in,” she replied, smiling.

  “Understand this,” he added solemnly. “At this moment, we’re even. We can say goodbye and, as far as I’m concerned, part as friends. But if we go on … and I discover that you are my enemy … well, you will be in very great danger, Cici.”

  “On to Cannes,” she repeated, the smile remaining.

  Bolan sighed inwardly and his foot grew heavy on the accelerator. Something, he knew, was screwy as hell about Cici Carceaux. At the moment she was playing the role of friend. He would accept that … for the moment. But he would watch her … and with his mind, not his heart. With ten female lives consigned to a living hell on his account, The Executioner could not afford a heart.

  As for those moments in Eden … they seemed now lost forever.

  12: The Riviera Plan

  Most of the trip from Lyon to the coast was conducted in virtual silence and it was nearing noon when the Rolls entered Nice and eased along the main boulevard, Avenue Jean-Medecin. Bolan’s thoughts had brought him here; now Cici’s directions guided him to the specific objective he sought, the Mediterranean headquarters of an American press service.

  He parked just off the Promenade des Anglais, the beach-front drive, and he and Cici went separate ways from there—she insisting upon performing a particularly important service for him.

  Bolan first stopped at the telephone exchange and placed a call to the Pension de St. Germain in Paris. After some small delay, the breathless voice of Nancy Walker came pleasantly across the wire.

  Bolan told her, “This is the alter-ego. Just checking. Are things all right there?”

  She said, “Oh my gosh, they’re turning this town upside down for you! Where are you calling from?”

  “A safe place,” he assured her.

  “Well, burrow deep! Even Interpol is nosing around. They were here early this morning.”

  “There? At your hotel?”

  “Yes. Real tough guys. Gill thinks they were phonies, but I don’t know what—”

  “Where is that telephone, Nancy?”

  “This one? In the hall just outside my room.”

  “Could I possibly speak to Gil?”

  “Well … I don’t know … his poor hands. I’d have to hold the phone for him.”

  Bolan said, “I need to talk to him, Nancy.”

  “Just a sec.”

  After a short wait, Martin’s voice announced, “You’ve blown the cover, boy. They’re tearing Paris apart for old Gil Martin. What’s more, your other buddies are hot on the scent. They were here this morning, posing as Interpol agents of all things.”

  Bolan asked, “Did they challenge you?”

  “Hell no, I was under the bed. They were calling on Nancy.”

  “You didn’t get a look at them, then.”

  “Only through the window, as they were leaving. But I’d bet my residuals they were Mafia. Where are you?”

  Bolan told him, “I’m with Cici.”

  “Cici who?”

  Bolan recalled uttering those precise same words a few hours earlier, and in just about the same tone of voice. He replied, “You’re old loving buddy, Cici Carceaux. I picked her up in your hotel room.”

  “Good work, but I’ve never met the lady. We almost worked together once but the deal fell through at the last minute. Where’d you get the idea that—?”

  Bolan said, “This is important as hell, Gil. No cute stuff … do you or do you not know Cici Carceaux?”

  “Professionally, by reputati
on, that’s all. She’s currently the hottest thing on film, the sex darling of Europe—but no, sorry to say, I do not know her personally.”

  “Okay.” Bolan’s voice was tinged with an I-knew-it sadness. “I guess that’s all I wanted, Gil. Uh … you’re right about that cover, it’s blown all the way off. You may as well come out now if you’d like. But very carefully. Call the cops to you, don’t go out on the street looking for them. They might shoot first and check identities later.”

  “Hell no, I’m staying put for awhile. Never had it so good.”

  Bolan could hear Nancy Walker’s soft laughter in the background. He grinned into the mouthpiece and said, “Okay, see you in the movies,” and hung up.

  Yeah, Eden was a total flare-out.

  He went back to the street and quickly to the press service headquarters. He stepped in off the street just as a guy was coming through the doorway from an inner office into a smallish room of quiet activity. A girl was bent over a teletype machine in the corner, another was busy at a typewriter at the far side of the room.

  Bolan and the man stared at each other for a frozen moment, the guy doing a double-take on Bolan, then he stepped quickly back into the office and snapped, “Jesus Christ, get in here!”

  Bolan followed the man into the private office and accepted a chair. The guy shut the door and went immediately to a filing cabinet, took out a bottle and two glasses, and told his guest, “I don’t have any ice or mix, sorry.”

  Bolan said, “Thanks, I’d better have nothing at all.”

  The man promptly returned the bottle and closed the drawer, then paced nervously across the floor to his desk. Bolan told him, “Guess there’s no need to introduce myself.”

  “Please don’t,” was the quick reply. “Just tell me why you’re here.”

  “Are you Lon Wilson?”

  The man shook his head. “I’m Dave Sharpe, bureau chief.”

  Bolan nodded. “I remember some feature stories from this part of the world. Two, maybe three months ago. An expose of Mafia connections, something about the drug traffic. I figure you know more than you reported.”

  “Lon did those. He’s in Turkey now.”

  “You must have records, files, something. All I want is a list of names and addresses—people known to have Mafia connections in this area.”

  Sharpe smiled grimly. “Oh, is that all you want? Why do you think I had to send my man to Turkey?”

  Bolan said, “I’m thinking of an exchange of information.”

  “What did you think you’d exchange?”

  “My reasons for wanting the list.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’ll tell you why I want the names and what I intend to do with them … if you’ll just give them to me.”

  Sharpe offered Bolan a cigarette, took one for himself, nervously exhaled a cloud of smoke, then said, “Any idiot knows why you want the names, friend. Also, any idiot who gave them to you would become an accessory to murder. Isn’t that right?”

  Bolan shrugged. “It isn’t privileged information. Those names are a matter of public record, and you know it. If I could move about freely I could get them from various sources. But I can’t move freely and I’m racing the clock. I need them right now.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s part of the deal. I can tell you this … the story will shake France.”

  “Yeah?”

  Bolan grinned. “Yeah.”

  The guy was thinking about it. He said, “Convince me.”

  “It has to do with the ten girls snatched from a house of joy in Paris early this morning.”

  The newsman’s hand trembled as he removed the cigarette from his lips. He said, “Then they really were snatched? For Africa?”

  Bolan nodded. “I’ve confirmed it. And I intend to get them back.”

  “How?”

  “That depends on you.”

  Sharpe seemed impaled on the horns of a moral dilemma. He stood in a silent cloud of smoke for a moment, then: “Over in that cabinet, third drawer, there’s a file marked LW. I’m going to the john. Be back in about a minute. What you do while I’m gone is a matter of your own conscience, not mine.”

  Bolan smiled. “There isn’t a police hotline from that john, is there?”

  The bureau chief faintly returned the smile. “I’m not that big an idiot, friend.”

  He went out and Bolan went to the file cabinet. He found a small spiral notebook which seemed to fill his requirements and dropped it into a pocket. An oblong manila envelope contained small mug-shot photos with names pencilled on the back. This also went into Bolan’s pocket.

  When Sharpe returned, Bolan was standing at the window. He turned to show the man a tight smile and told him, “Well, I won’t take any more of your time. On second thought I have everything I need. I’d appreciate it, though, if you’d put out a news story for me.”

  Sharpe gave him a wry grin. “An obituary preview?”

  “You could call it that. The story, though, concerns the why much more than the who. Beginning very soon now, for every hour that those ten girls remain missing, a top Mafia connection is going to die.”

  A momentary silence, then: “Jesus Christ! So that’s how …”

  Bolan soberly nodded his head. “That’s how. And I’d like to see the story go out. It’s important that these guys know why they’re dying.”

  “One every hour?”

  “More or less. Until the girls are turned loose. And I suggest that somebody work out a method for verifying it when the girls are freed.” Bolan stepped toward the door.

  “Wait, dammit. How soon can I release this story?”

  “Give me about two hours. After that, the sooner the better … and the louder the better. Uh, how about verification that the girls are free?”

  “Can you keep check on the Nice TV station?”

  Bolan said, “I’ll make a point to.” He smiled and departed.

  There was nothing secret, of course, about the information in his pocket. The police knew those names, various agencies of the UN knew them, and they had appeared in syndicated news stories throughout the world at one time or another. Knowing was one thing; establishing legal proof was quite another; even in the face of legal proof, obtaining prosecution and convictions was often quite another thing also. Bolan did not need to establish legal proof, nor was he interested in political influence. Bolan merely needed to know. And now he did.

  The rabbits would run for their holes, of course—if not right away, then as soon as the first one fell over dead. It would require all the skill of his trade to carry out the promise. Somehow, he would have to do so—and he would be required to run risks which he would prefer to avoid. But a lot was at stake. So, once again, he was finding himself faced with a do-or-die situation.

  He was wondering at which side of the question he would finally find Cici Carceaux. Regardless of where she was placing herself, Bolan was resolved to use her as much as possible on the do side. She knew the country, she knew the people, and she seemed eager to help. Bolan was in no position to refuse any offer of help, no matter how suspect the source.

  Cici was waiting for him in the car. In the back seat reposed a lengthy object in heavy brown wrapping paper. “Oh-kay, I found what you wanted,” she reported. “In the Safari Shop. It is a formidable weapon. I could ’ardly carry it.”

  “Any problems?” he asked.

  “For me, a citizen of France, no. Why do you need such a formidable weapon?”

  “I’m going to be doing some big-game hunting,” he replied quietly.

  “The salesman assures me that this will drop the charging rhino,” she said. “But there are no rhinos on the Riviera, stand-in.”

  Bolan said, “That reminds me. I was just talking to Gilbear. He doesn’t remember you, Cici.”

  Very softly, she said, “Oh, my.”

  “You’re not going to explain?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Point me to your ’ouse.”r />
  “Take the ’ighway to Cannes,” she directed. “The villa is about ’alfway.”

  “I hope, for everybody’s sake, it’s not ’alfway to ’ell, Cici.”

  “Between ’eaven and ’ell exist many levels,” she said in a small voice. “I ’ave not betrayed you, Mack Bolan, whatevair you may be thinking.”

  “Just don’t betray yourself,” he muttered. They were leaving the beautiful seaside city behind them and cruising along a beach drive lined with palm trees. He thought briefly of Miami and Palm Springs and many battlegrounds beyond and, for one flashing moment, knew an almost overpowering sorrow for himself.

  The French Riviera would have made a nice setting for Eden.

  He quickly flung Eden away once and for all and savagely discharged the destructive little flicker of self-pity. He opened his jacket and checked the side-leather with his fingertips. Cici was on her knees again, quietly watching him from the far corner of the seat. He stared straight ahead and solemnly told her, “I believe I was falling in love with you.”

  “And I with you,” she replied, almost whispering.

  “We make a nice pair of frauds.”

  “Yes, but I ’ave not betrayed you, Mack Bolan.”

  “Why did you bring me down here?”

  “To save you.”

  “Oh, come on now. All this risk to save a total stranger?”

  “I ’ave my reasons,” she insisted. “And now, after these hours at your side, the reasons ’ave grown.”

  He sighed. “Cici, if there’s a set waiting for me at that villa we’re both going to die. I hope you realize that.”

  “What is this set?”

  “Ambush, trap.”

  “There is no ambush at Cici’s villa.”

  Bolan hoped not. He wanted to believe her, and not just for reasons of the heart. He needed a headquarters which would offer him easy access to the resort towns along the Riviera, a strike center which would put him within range of places like Monaco, Nice, Cannes, St. Tropez, Monte Carlo, Juan-les-Pins, St. Jean-Cap-Ferrat—the campgrounds of international high society and fellow-travelers. The villa, as described by Cici, seemed perfect for Bolan’s plans, and worth the calculated risk involved.