Continental Contract te-5

by Don Pendleton

  He glanced at his watch as he ran through the chamber of death; the timing was great; hardly more than two minutes had elapsed since the first shot.

  Madam Celeste stood stiffly at the third floor landing. Bolan paused beside her and murmured, "Je regrette, Celeste, je beaucoup regrette."

  The woman spit at him. Bolan went on to the roof. Only the blonde Englishwoman was there to greet him. She said, "I don't believe it."

  "I do," Bolan replied, moving on across the rooftop.

  The woman was trotting along beside him. He asked her, "Where do you think you're going?"

  She told him, "You don't think I'm going back to that death house."

  "Where'd the others go?"

  "I don't know. They just... disappeared."

  "You thinking of going with me then?"

  "Well... I don't know where to go. The police..."

  "Yeah, there's always that, isn't there." Bolan slowed his pace and steered the girl around the clothesline area. Back across the rooftop, a shadowy figure and then another moved through the lighted doorway atop Madame Celeste's. The pursuit was on. Bolan took the girl's arm and hurried her along. The weird sound of French sirens seemed to be homing in from all directions. They reached the steel ladder of the end building and he told her, "Quickly, down."

  She said, "I-I don't know if I..."

  The sounds of running feet were moving across the rooftop. Bolan heard a gurgle and a whoomp that could only mean a neck on a clothesline. Someone out there in the darkness was swearing softly and with great feeling.

  The girl's hand was clutching his with a spasm of fear. He told her, "If you're going with me, Judy, it's now or never. The hounds are loose."

  She threw her leg across the parapet and lowered herself over the side, eyes wide on Bolan. He followed quickly behind her.

  Thus far the mission had been a huge success. He had blitzed a Mafia hardsite and come away alive, with perhaps an item or two of useful intelligence and, for the first time ever, a soft bundle of spoils.

  Now, if he could just make it back across a narrow area of hostile territory, maybe after all there would be a moment or two of R&R in gay Paris. But the Executioner was not setting any plans along that line. The Executioner had learned to live one heartbeat at a time.

  9

  The Paradox

  Bolan was standing at the window and watching the activity in the street. The blonde girl was seated on the bed, legs drawn up to her chest, head resting on the knees. Her breathing was almost normal again as she told Bolan, "This is like a nightmare."

  "Then I guess I live in one," he replied without turning around.

  "Why?"

  He shrugged his shoulders and kept his eyes on the street. "The French police are very efficient, aren't they? They'll be coming up here soon. I'll have to ask you to strip. This will have to look very convincing."

  "Yes, of course. But you didn't answer my question. Why do you feel compelled to live this way?"

  The street was alive with police. It was sealed at each end, numerous vehicles choking the narrow thoroughfare just below Bolan, men moving energetically all about. Bolan was grateful for the potentially hazardous haven just above it all; he knew that he would have not made it two blocks from the scene, not through all that down there.

  He stepped away from the window and turned to the girl. She was removing the pajama blouse. He told her, "I don't know any other way to live. It's like fighting Charlie, I guess. No clear reason for keeping it going, yet no safe and sane way to break it off."

  "You didn't have to come back here," she quietly argued. She dropped onto her back and extended her feet toward Bolan. "Pull, please."

  He pulled the pajama pants away from her and solemnly surveyed the nakedness spread before him. "You're lovely," he told her.

  "Thank You."

  He stepped away from the bed and removed his skinsuit, quickly folded it, and stowed it in the briefcase with the hardware, then locked the case and set it in the closet. When he turned back to the girl she was watching him with a calculating gaze.

  She threw back the bedcovers and told him, "You're lovely too."

  Bolan stood beside the bed and pulled her into his arms. "I warned you, we have to make it look convincing."

  "No problem there," she murmured, and pressed into an entirely convincing kiss. They went down together in the embrace. The girl got an arm loose and pulled the covers over them. She giggled something incoherent and wriggled against him.

  Bolan broke off and moved away. "Not that convincing," he protested.

  "Then you'd better think of something to talk about," she warned him.

  "Hell," he said.

  "I suppose you're wondering about me. That is, about my... activities."

  "None of my business," he assured her.

  "I'm a writer."

  "Congratulations. Direct research, eh?"

  "Not exactly. Call it direct living. After years and years of schooling, I found that I had learned all the clever ways of saying things, but that I had nothing to be said,"

  "Yeah." He took her hand off his hip and held it. This was certainly the most unlikely conversation of his unlikely life.

  "You don't believe a word of it, do you?"

  "Does it matter?"

  "Yes. I didn't come to Paris for... for this. I mean... prostitution. I came to taste life."

  "How's the taste?"

  "Horrible. And, at the same time, wonderful. You should understand, though. In Paris, prostitution isn't... well, it's not all that... well, many girls in Paris supplement their income in this manner. But it's dangerous for amateurs... in many ways, only one of which is the police."

  "And Celeste offered you protection."

  "Yes. I'm a... an extra. Well dammit! Whether you approve of it or not, it's the most logical way for a foreigner in Paris to keep from starving. At least this way I am free to come and go as I please. No one man is keeping me, I owe nothing to anyone."

  Bolan smiled. "Hey, I'm no one to judge."

  "Yes, that's true, isn't it."

  He told her, "Some day you can write The Confessions of J, or something."

  "Yes, and I'll get filthy rich."

  "Your name isn't really Jones, is it?"

  "No."

  His smile broadened. "Pen name, eh?"

  "No." She giggled. "Bed name."

  Bolan started to say something in the same light vein, then he checked himself and his eyes tracked to the door. He whispered, "Okay, this is it."

  The girl had heard not a thing but moments later knuckles rapped lightly on the door and the voice of the hotel manager softly called, "Monsieur Martin?"

  Bolan counted to five, then gruffly replied, "Hey, dammit, do not disturb! Can't you read your own damn signs?"

  "Excusez-moi, Monsieur. The police wish to enter."

  "Goddammit, you told me this was a quiet hotel!"

  "M'sieur — s'il vous plait. The police..."

  Bolan yelled, "Go to hell!"

  A key turned in the lock, the door swung open, and Bolan raised belligerently to a seated position on the bed. The girl came up to an elbow and drew the covers about her shoulders. From the hallway the manager spluttered, "A thousand pardons, M'sieur Martin."

  A plainclothes cop stepped cautiously into the room, then another. They gazed around, glanced skitteringly at the couple on the bed, then said something in rapid French to the manager. He advanced into the room and told Bolan, "There 'as been another shooting, M'sieur. The police desire to question you. They do not speak the English. I will translate."

  Bolan growled, "You translate their asses right out of here! The American consul will hear about this, you bet on it!"

  One of the detectives had gone to the window. The other was standing rather uncomfortably at the foot of the bed, darting quick glances at the girl. The one at the window said, "Passeport, s'il vous plait."

  "And what if I don't please?" Bolan replied sulkily.

  "Pa
sseport!"

  Bolan told the manager, "Inside coat pocket, in the — I'll get it." He threw back the covers and swung his feet to the floor.

  The detective quickly waved him back. "I speak English," he told Bolan. "Never mind the passport. We regret this invasion of your privacy, Monsieur, Madame. Just a few questions, please, and we will leave you alone."

  Bolan said, "Fair enough."

  "You heard the shooting of course."

  "We heard something. Little while ago. By the time I got up to look, it was all over. We, uh, weren't really interested... comprenez-vous?"

  The detective's lips moved in a suggestion of a smile and he replied, "Yes, I understand. You saw nothing, then?"

  Bolan's eyes flashed deliberately to the girl. "Inspector,'' he said in a confidential tone, "I wouldn't have seen King Kong if he'd been climbing in my window."

  The corner had obviously been turned. Several routine questions followed, obviously of the breakaway variety, and the police made a graceful retreat.

  The door closed behind them and the girl let out her breath in a soft whoosh. "They did not speak directly to me once," she whispered.

  "Homicide cops," Bolan explained. "You have to understand the French. See no evil, know none, that's the philosophy. They didn't want to get sucked into a morals case. That's why he didn't look at my passport. He knew the manager already had. He would have been required to ask for yours, too, and he might have learned something he didn't want to know about."

  "Then you handled it beautifully," she told him.

  "Thanks. There simply was no other way."

  "You handle all things beautifully, don't you?"

  "I try."

  "How are you going to handle this?"

  "This what?"

  "Well... here we are, aren't we?"

  Yes, there they were. Bolan took her in his arms and told her of that very special sanctuary found only in a woman's embrace. She explained to him the very special difference between professional love and the spontaneous variety. Together they found that human bond that temporarily erases anxieties, placates mortal fears, and reaffirms the joys of being alive and young and together. And some time later, when their stories were fully told, she was lying languidly on the disarrayed bed and watching him with half-closed eyes as he quietly got into his clothes.

  "Yes, you handle things beautifully," she murmured.

  He told her, "That isn't hard when you're handling beautiful things."

  "Mack... don't waste yourself on an insane war."

  "It isn't insane," he replied. "You said something about tasting life, Judy. Listen... I don't know about women... but a man hasn't begun to live until he's found something to die for."

  "I... guess I understand that. And I think I'm... ready to try my novel again, Mack."

  He smiled at her, his teeth gleaming in the subdued light. "I'm glad to hear that." He went to the closet for the rest of his things.

  "It isn't going to be The Confessions of J, either."

  Bolan placed his gear at the door and went over to kneel at the bed. He kissed her lightly on the lips and said, "No?"

  "No. I think I shall call it No More To Die."

  "What's that mean?" he asked, smiling solemnly.

  "I don't know, except that I've been dying for years, and for no good reason whatever. I suppose I'll have to write the book to find out what it means."

  He kissed her again and quickly stood up. "You'll find out," he said gruffly.

  "Do you realize how very profound you are, Mr. Bolan? You've found the mystical secret of paradoxical logic. You are truly alive, aren't you?"

  He went to the door without replying, opened it, picked up his things, then said, "Au revoir, Judy."

  "Don't say that. Say a tout a l'heure — see you later."

  "I hope so," he said.

  "Me too," she whispered.

  He went out and down the stairs and onto the street. It was shortly past two o'clock. All was quietly deserted out there now. He went up the street without challenge, got into his car, and headed for Champs d'Elysees.

  Sure, he was truly alive. A man who lives in the constant shadow of death is always very much aware of being alive. He knew nothing of paradoxical logic or the strange workings of psyche that led a refined English girl into French joie service, but he did know that he had made a possibly fatal mistake of weakness back at that house of death.

  He had left a survivor. He had humbled the guy and allowed him to beg for his life, then compounded the shame by walking away and leaving him alive. No man who was tough enough inside to survive in the world of Mafia could live for long with that kind of humiliation eating at him. The Rudolfi guy would have to vindicate his own aliveness now. He would have to answer to his own high priest of human pride and manliness, and the reply would undoubtedly be along the lines of what the English girl had termed paradoxical logic. Rudolfi would have to kill because he regarded himself as unfit to live. Of such questionable fodder were born the world's holy wars. Bolan understood this. Rudolfi would have to kill Bolan, or else lose his own right to live. This type were the enemies who mattered. Bolan understood this, also.

  He only partially understood the English girl, God love her. Searching for her soul in a French whore house! He tried to relate her search to his, but quickly gave it up as a hopeless intellectual exercise. He quite frankly did not understand the female mind. Women lived for different reasons than men. They were nest-builders, civilizers. Even in prostitution they labored toward an affirmation of life, consciously or not.

  Bolan, too, affirmed life — but in that paradoxical way. His supreme affirmation would be in his own death — and that awaited him around every corner.

  He sighed and tried to bring his mind out of the depths into which it had been plunged by the set-to with Judy Jones. He sent the little car along Quai Voltaire and across the Seine at Pont du Carrousel, then swung up Quai des Tuileries past La Place de la Concorde and onto the Champs.

  The skies had cleared, traffic was extremely light, and he found himself enjoying the quiet drive through early-morning Paris. It was with a feeling approaching regret that he pulled into the hotel garage.

  He left the car with a sleepy-eyed attendant and took the elevator directly to his floor, bypassing the lobby, and was thinking of the contrast between left-bank and right-bank Paris as he entered his suite. It was like two separate worlds. With all this luxury, he was thinking, the crumbling little hotel on Rue Galande had held something for Bolan that all this elegance could not supply. He went into his bedroom and switched on the light — and abruptly changed his mind regarding Champs d'Elysees accommodations.

  The girl in his bed was wearing nothing at all from the waist up. What he could see was solid elegance, and he could guess about the other areas. She sat up abruptly and held her arms out to him, her eyes straining for an adjustment to the sudden light.

  "Gilbear," she crooned in a gently chiding tone, "I 'ave wait all night for you."

  Oh hell, Bolan told himself.

  Her eyes found the adjustment they sought. She did a startled little double-take at Bolan and jerked the sheet up to cover the delectably bare torso.

  "But you are not Gilbear," she quietly decided. "And so, 'o are you?"

  Oh double hell, Bolan thought.

  And he was not using paradoxical logic.

  10

  New Parameters

  The chateau at the edge of Paris was ablaze with lights, but there were no sounds of revelry in the big house this night. A large charter bus was parked in the circular drive; groups of heavily dressed men walked restlessly about the lighted grounds or stood in quiet circles and spoke of solemn things.

  Inside, in a large game room with a cathedral ceiling, Tony Lavagni perched atop a bar stool conversing in low tones with a statuesque French woman, the lovely Roxanne Loureau — confidential secretary and mistress to Thomas Rudolfi — a charming woman whose good breeding showed in her every gesture.

&n
bsp; Gathered about a billiard table but obviously not overly interested in the game were five of Arnie Castiglione's most trusted hardmen. Each of these captained a crew of ten guns, all of whom had been personally handpicked by Castiglione himself.

  This was a no-nonsense company of pros which had descended upon the Republic of France. The dismay and cold fear which lurked in the depth of Roxanne Loureau's eyes revealed that she, too, recognized this truth. Speaking in precise English, she told Lavagni, "I am certain that Mr. Rudolfi will be along most any minute now, Mr. Lavagni. But perhaps it is unreasonable to expect you to wait longer. Perhaps you would like to get some rest and..."

  "The night's shot already," Lavagui growled. "Look, we didn't just drop in for protocol purposes. I need to make sure that Monzoor's covering us — I mean, you know, official-wise."

  "But I have given you the necessary papers."

  Lavagui grinned at her. "It takes more than that, and you know it. We want the right words in the right places, so's we can all go home when the job's finished. I ain't leaving no boys of mine in no bastille."

  The woman was gazing at a list of names in her hand. "If they all are here, then have no worry. They will be protected."

  Lavagui said, "I'd like to hear Monzoor tell me that."

  "It is the same that I have told you."

  Lavagni could almost believe it. This was a woman to be respected. He was telling her, "Just th' same, I'd like..." when the screech of tires on the drive diverted his attention. He slid off the stool at the same moment that the huge Negro, Wilson Brown, stepped in from outside.

  "This must be him," Brown rumbled.

  A Ferrari sports car had lurched to a halt just beyond the door. Rudolfi got out and stood beside it, gazing speculatively at the tour bus. He left the Ferrari's door standing open and walked around for a look at the front of the bus, then entered the chateau through the main entrance.

  Roxanne excused herself and went through the passageway to the entrance hall. She reacted visibly at sight of Rudolfi. His right hand was bandaged and his hat was pushed back to clear the forehead where an angry circular blister marred the handsome features. Some sort of medicated ointment had been applied to the burn, only adding to the ugliness of it. Silently Rudolfi removed the hat and gave it to the woman. A small area of scalp atop his head had been shaven clean and an adhesive bandage applied there. His eyes were wild.