Continental Contract te-5

by Don Pendleton

  "I will 'elp you," she quietly declared.

  "I was hoping you would," he admitted. "But in a very limited way. Do you have maps of the Riviera? Good ones?"

  "Yes. I 'ave survey maps, maritime maps, road maps. What do you wish?"

  "I want you to help me locate these people. On the maps, though, just on the maps. I have their addresses."

  She said, "The Riviera crowd is like one small community. I know most of these men." She was sifting through the photos. "I am ver' surprise at some, that they are in this collection. You are sure of your information?"

  He said, "I'm sure."

  "I 'ave the personal interest to 'elp you, Mack Bolan. I can 'elp in bettair ways than this. Cici knows Riviera like back of 'and. I will, at the ver' least, be your chauffeur."

  "Nothing doing," he growled.

  "Then I will 'ave to blow the wheestle."

  He said, "I believe you're serious."

  "Jus' try me for serious."

  He gathered the photos and carried them to the floor. "Get the maps."

  Cici jumped up and went out the door. Moments later she returned with a stack of maps. Bolan went through them carefully, selecting some and rejecting others, until he had the best representations of the coastal areas. Cici brought pencil and tape; Bolan cut and spliced until he had precisely what he wanted. Then he took a soft pencil and began a methodical cross-sectioning of the coastline from Monaco to Marseilles. In each section he taped a photo, three of them into St. Tropez, and ran triangulations from Cici's villa to surrounding areas. When he was finished he stood up and told her, "Okay, there's my battle order."

  "I see nothing but confusion," she admitted.

  "I can't afford to telegraph ahead to my next move," he explained. "What I mean is, I can't establish a track. I have to keep mixing it up, reversing ground, zigzagging." He looked at his watch, studying it. Presently he said, "We start with de Champs. If we can find him, I want to hit him at two o'clock sharp. The alternate target is Vicareau, right down the way here off the Moyenne Corniche. If I can hit either of them, I want to pop up next down here in Zone 4, below Nice. I'll hit Korvini there, or his alternate Bernard. Then double back to Monte Carlo and our syndicated gambling shill Hebert. Are you getting the picture?"

  Her eyes were a bit sick. She said, "Yes, I get the peecture."

  He went on relentlessly. "These are going to be daylight hits. That means you can see the blood as it explodes out of them. And it's not chocolate syrup or a trick bag of dye, it's the real stuff. They don't get up and have a coke with you when the shooting is over. Bits and pieces of them are missing and sometimes they flop about and yell and cry as they're going. I make it as clean as possible but sometimes..."

  "I told you oh-kay, I 'ave the peecture."

  "I let you handle that gun down there mainly so you could see the difference between make-believe and reality. Guns do more than look cool and make a commanding noise. They are very powerful weapons of death, and if you think the kick is hard from the butt end then you better hope you never get in the way of what's thundering out through the muzzle. The salesman wasn't kidding when he told you this piece would drop a charging rhino. The muzzle energy is close to two tons — nearly four thousand pounds of concentrated impact, Cici, and when those big .444's come tearing in, bone and muscle and everything else stands aside and lets it through. It doesn't make for pretty viewing."

  Very quietly she said, "What are you trying to tell me?"

  "I'm telling you that I am not under any circumstances taking you with me on a hit."

  "Not even when I promise to blow the wheestle?" she asked meekly.

  "Not even then. If you won't bug out, then at least resign yourself to staying put, right here, until I get back."

  "I would theenk you would want me where you could see me."

  "Why?"

  She delicately shrugged her shoulders. "I 'ave been dishonest with you, no? I do not onderstand if you tell me now that you trost me."

  He said, "Sometimes a guy just has to trust his instincts."

  "You trost the instincts then, not Cici?"

  He grinned. "Same thing, isn't it?"

  She smiled back. "I guess so."

  "Okay. Help me pinpoint these locations on the map. I need absolute accuracy, so don't let me down."

  "I weel not lat you down."

  Bolan hoped not. Together they put the finishing touches to the battle order, then he began gathering his equipment. "What's that other car in the garage?" he asked her.

  "It is the American Sting Ray."

  "In good condition?"

  "Yes. You will use it?"

  "Uh huh"

  She asked, "What if the plan does not work? What if there is nothing any of these men can do to rescue these girls?"

  "They'll find a way, once the message is in loud and clear." He looked at his watch. "Which reminds me, can you get the Nice television channel here?"

  She nodded her head and went to the set and turned it on. "Why do you want the television?"

  "It's about time for the story to break." He continued rounding up his things and asked her, "Do you have a pair of good binoculars?"

  She replied, "Yes," and went to a closet, returning with a leather case.

  "Put it with the stuff," he requested.

  She giggled, a release of nervous excitement. "I thought you would look at the television with them."

  Bolan laughed and said, "Cici, I want you to..." He let the instruction dangle and followed her intent gaze to the television screen and to himself. He was there in a huge video blowup, backdropping a man at a desk who was reading something in that polished tone used by newscasters everywhere. "What's he saying?" Bohn asked the girl.

  She waited until the narration ended, then told Bolan, "It is the same as you have told me before. A high criminal will die each hour until the keednapped girls are returned. Thees man say that you are a bloodthirsty killaire, and that the police are determined to prevent you."

  Bolan grinned and said, "Fine." He had the miscellany of equipment in his arms, the big gun slung at his shoulder, and was going out the door. He turned back to tell her, "If you want to help, keep watching that channel. I'm supposed to get word there when the girls are surrendered."

  She ran out the door after him, hopped about nervously as he stowed the gear in the Sting Ray, then grabbed him in a wild embrace. He kissed her, gently pushed her away, and put himself in the car.

  "There is a lamp on the gate," she told him. "If in daytime and the lamp is burn, or night time and the lamp is not burn — this is warning of dangair within. Oh-kay?"

  "Oh-kay," he said, grinning. He cranked the engine and spun onto the drive. Moments later he was out the gate and on his way.

  First stop, just south of Monaco.

  Target, Claude de Champs, society hood.

  Weapon, Belgian Safari rhino-stomper.

  Mission, squeeze the enemy.

  Method, execution.

  The Riviera War was on.

  14

  On Target

  Wilson Brown came through the doorway with an awed look wreathing his broad face. "Man, did you hear what this Bolan cat is?.."

  "Sure, sure I heard!" Lavagni growled. His hand rested on the telephone, as though commanding it to ring. "I already got most of the boys headed for the airport. Now if Sammy will just check in..."

  Brown was not to be put down. "Well, that's just the grooviest thing I ever heard of," he declared. "Man, that Bolan cat is clear outta sight, he's..."

  "He's stupid!" Lavagni said. "Leave it to a schnook to get all lathered up over a bunch of whores. We got 'im now, Wils, don't you worry about that."

  "That's what makes it so groovy," the Negro persisted. "He must've known he was exposing his position. But that's just Bolan. Even over in 'Nam you could always depend on this cat to be the one draggin' in the sick kids and scared old women, even with a pack of Charlies chasing 'im. I think he actually liked those gooks. I re
member one time..."

  "Aw, shut up!" Lavagni yelled. "Don't gimme no hero stories about that bastard! Have you got yourself packed? We gotta be leavin' for Nice soon as Sammy checks in!"

  "I'm packed, man," the black giant replied, his eyes dulling and seeming to recede into their sockets. He went back out the door, muttering to himself, "... but that don't say I'm ready."

  * * *

  In an earlier age, Claude de Champs would have looked most natural in a powdered wig and holding a jeweled snuff box, perhaps at the court of Louis XIV, or dancing gracefully in the royal ballroom while his less privileged countrymen quietly starved in the streets. This would-be aristocratic Frenchman actually claimed a lineage from The Man in the Iron Mask — a claim difficult to dispute since the identity of the man so grimly punished by the king of France was never historically established.

  Claude de Champs insisted, however, that the man in the mask was a secret son of the crown and half-brother of the grand dauphin, and he often visited the fort at Ste. Marguerite, near Cannes, to stare sadly into the tiny cell where his purported ancestor was imprisoned for eleven years.

  Copies of the iron mask were set into each side of the gates opening onto the de Champs seaside estate, and a massive coat of arms showing the mask beneath crossed swords dominated the ballroom of the castle-like villa.

  The Man in the Iron Mask had never had it so good.

  Nor would have Claude de Champs, except for his robber-baron approach to life. His first handle on personal wealth had presented itself during the German occupation in World War II, when the then young de Champs had discovered that collaboration with the enemy was far more practical and comfortable than resistance. Always the clever opportunist, de Champs had managed to greet the liberating Allied armies with a French underground rifle in his arms and a cache of looted art treasures to tide him through the post-war adjustments. This latter was parlayed into ever-increasing involvements with various illegal trade centers and, by the mid-fifties, de Champs was rather securely established in the higher levels of organized crime in France. As his personal fortunes increased, so also did his social ambitious. At the time that Mack Bolan was matriculating from high school to U.S. Army, Claude de Champs was travelling with the international jet set and had "discovered" his link with a glorious past.

  Perhaps this accounts for the Frenchman's personal disdain for the Executioner's ultimatum. As he told his friend and close associate, Paul Vicareau, in the final telephone conversation of his misspent life, "There is no reason for worry, Paul. This is the American way, to make the noise and apply the pressure. It is an empty threat. This man has been in France — for what? — one day? Two? He is being pursued from quarter to quarter and does not dare show his face anywhere. How could he know of us? How could he hurt us?"

  "Perhaps this is true," came the worried-cultured voice of Vicareau, a true socialite who had fallen onto hard times some years back, and thus into de Champs' area of influence. "Just the same, I would feel better if we could contact Rudolfi and have done with this mad adventure. Will you try once more to telephone him?"

  "Certainly, Paul, I promise that I will continue until I reach him. The important thing is that we remain calm. Fear alone could be our undoing. To act frightened at this time is to confess guilt. Do you understand?"

  Vicareau's sigh hissed across the connection and he replied, "Tell this to my wife, Claude. I regret the day that Viviane learned of my business involvements. She wishes to shutter the house and to hide in the cellar."

  De Champs chuckled. "You would do better to regret the day that you took a wife, Paul. Even as beautiful a woman as Viviane — there are too many ripening apples on the tree, no? I will tell you what — when the madman has been apprehended and put away, you will come with me on my yacht to Capri. Eh? But two virile men, in the prime of their attractiveness, with six of the most beautiful young women from Folies Bergere. Eh? Does this not appeal to even the husband of Viviane?"

  Vicareau tiredly replied, "Just find Rudolfi, Claude. I would not presume to argue with him as to his justification for this act — but his timing was extremely bad. Tell him to bring the women back."

  "Be assured," de Champs murmured, and broke the connection.

  He walked through his trophy room and a priceless collection of mementoes of his glorious ancestry, and stepped onto the balcony to survey his miniature kingdom. Could a common American hoodlum actually hope to challenge all this? These grounds were the showplace of the Riviera; the ballroom beneath him had entertained the royalty of Europe; his kitchens had pleased the delicate palates of the most prominent of international high society. De Champs was not quite so assured as he had seemed in his conversation with the panicky Vicareau. There existed, of course, a possibility of danger. But Vicareau and his whining... De Champs made a deprecatory sound deep in his throat and leaned against the railing to peer out onto the south grounds.

  He smiled, remembering the conversation with the bleating goat. No, de Champs would not shutter the windows and hide in the cellar, but... The Great Danes were prowling free within the inner fences. He would love to see the cocky American gunman try those fences; he would think that he had fallen into a pit of lions — as, indeed, the effect would be the same.

  Just below was Pierre, the dog handler. Pierre, too, would love to see his pets exercised. De Champs called down to him, "The beasts look magnificent." He laughed and added, "They have the hungry look."

  The handler was wearing a pistol in a holster at his waist. He touched the butt of the pistol with the back of his hand and called back, "I am not too sure of them myself, M'sieur. They strain for the hunt."

  De Champs laughed again and raised his eyes to the south boundary of the Iron Mask Estate. A public road to the beach traversed that side of the property, fully five hundred meters from the house. A bright red automobile was stopped on the road and a barely visible human figure stood behind it. De Champs stepped into the trophy room for a pair of binoculars and promptly returned to the balcony and focussed the glasses on the vehicle. He called down, "Pierre, open the gate to the south field," and leaned forward over the railing for a tense binocular inspection.

  The car was an American sports model... a tall man leaning across the roof with some object... de Champs sharpened the focus, caught his breath in a sharp gasp, and the signal to flee clanged into his brain one heart-stopping moment too late. The last image registered on the retinae of Claude de Champs' eyes was a fierce face leaning into the eyepiece of a big gunscope and a tiny puff of smoke erupting from the muzzle of a long firearm.

  The hot chunk of steel-jacketed .444 closed the distance in something under three seconds, zipping in just beneath the binoculars and ripping through the soft flesh of de Champs' throat in a geysering explosion of blood and mutilated tissue.

  The binoculars fell into the Courtyard of the Iron Mask and the man himself was flung backwards and through the French doors and onto the exquisite cherry-wood of the Louis XIV era trophy room.

  And so died another pretender to the underground throne of France.

  Not even an iron mask could have saved him.

  * * *

  The Sting Ray was in traction and powering along the road even as the report from the big Safari model was still rolling across the fields. Bolan turned onto Moyenne Corniche, the fabulously beautiful coastal drive, and ran south to the nearest exit, then swung inland and began the encirclement of Nice, a small section of map lying across the steering wheel and guiding him. Twice he overshot dimly-marked back-roads junctions and once had to ease his way through a small flock of sheep blocking the roadway, but he came out on the southwest edge of the city with five minutes to spare on his schedule, then headed directly for the chateau of Alex Korvini.

  The photo on the dashboard showed a scowling man with hard eyes and heavy brows, a long corrugated forehead, square-jawed, grim-lipped. According to the Wilson data, Korvini had made it big from the misery of his countrymen in Italy in the grim
days following World War II, hi-jacking American free aid materials and selling them at inflated black market prices to those who should have been receiving the life-giving goods without charge. Since then he had been involved in veritably every underground avenue of international thievery and trade, including drugs and the wholesale disposal of stolen goods, but his steadiest and most lucrative form of income had come from petty frauds and illicit business deals involving U.S. servicemen stationed in Europe and those of the U.S. Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean. Korvini had been a French citizen since 1961, had never been arrested anywhere, and was regarded by his jet set friends as an astute international financier. Which, in fact, he was — with an almost unlimited backing of ill-gotten money.

  Bolan scouted the country estate with quick passes on two sides, then found the piece of high ground best suited for his hard drop. It was about a quarter-mile distance and allowed excellent coverage of front and rear entrances, both to the property and to the house itself.

  The chateau occupied a small knoll. Slightly behind, below, and toward Bolan stood a moderate-size barn. Through his glasses Bolan could see horse stalls, a small corral, an expensive American automobile parked in back, another in front of the chateau. A man in white dungarees and a blue denim packet stood at the front gate with a shotgun under his arm; another, similarly clad, guarded a small entrance at the rear of the property. Another pair of armed guards strolled about on the knoll on which sat the house.

  Bolan continued the distant inspection, raising the binoculars to sweep the surrounding countryside. As he watched, two vehicles entered an intersection about a mile beyond the estate and proceeded up the lane toward the front gate. Cops!

  He returned immediately to the scrutiny of the chateau. It must be soon or never. Windows heavily draped, upper levels shuttered. Some were learning. Suddenly the back door of the house opened and a stocky man ejected himself partially, said something to a nearby guard, and quickly went back inside. Bolan grinned, having caught a quick glimpse of shaggy brows and bumpy forehead as the man disappeared from view. Okay, he'd spotted the target — now to get him back into the open.