Continental Contract te-5 Read online

  Bolan grinned and left the chair momentarily to retrieve his machine-pistol, inserted his final clip of ammo, sat back down with the weapon in his lap, pulled the blanket over him, and continued his grim watch at the TV set.

  A few minutes later Cici delivered a tall glass of mixed vegetable juices, with "jus' a leetle brandy" blended in. It tasted terrible but Bolan dutifully addressed it and had it half gone when the TV play suddenly blanked off the screen and a dramatic voice began an unscheduled announcement.

  Bolan caught the words "L'Executioner" and "Bo-lawn." He sat up alertly and snapped, "What is it, Cici?"

  In a hushed voice, she said, "A moment."

  Then a picture came on, not very good quality and badly-lighted, but one of the nicest pieces of film Bolan had ever viewed. It was an interior scene, probably a police station, and a group of women were emerging from a passageway and entering a large room. Judy Jones was there, and Madame Celeste, and eight other weeping young women — Bolan counting closely. They looked like they'd been to hell and back, he decided, and probably they had, but thank God they were all there and proceeding under their own steam.

  Bolan found his own eyes misting over and he quietly commented, "Oh hell that's great. Where is this, Cici?"

  "Marseilles," she told him. "The police station near the waterfront, The announceire says an anonymous telephone call directed the police to an eempty ware-'ouse near the 'arbor. And 'e says they are all well and thankful to be free. They are to be 'ospitalized, jus' the same, for obsairvation." She turned to Bolan with glowing eyes and added, "This is wondairful, this thing you 'ave done — no mattair 'ow many rats you 'ad to keel to do it."

  The weight of the day was now showing in Bolan's face. With success came also the inevitable letdown, the slowdown of vital juices, the cessation of stubborn determination to push on whatever the price.

  Cici went to the TV set and switched it off, then turned to him with compassionate concern. "You mus' go to bed now," she told him. "It is done."

  It was not, however, quite done. As Cici was crossing the room toward Bolan, the front door opened and a wild looking man stepped into the house. He had a big fancied-up luger in his hand and a circular burn on his forehead and he announced triumphantly, "So I have snared our lion."

  Bolan stared at the man through his weariness, and only vaguely heard Cici's cry of, "Rudolfi, no!"

  Bolan said, "Get out of here, Cici." He tossed off the balance of the drink she had made him and threw her the empty glass. "Fix me another one of those."

  "Yes, a last drink would be most fitting," Rudolfi agreed. "Fix him another of those, Cici, but do not make it too large — he will not have time to finish it." His pleasure obviously knew no bounds as he told Bolan, "Well, would you not wish to bargain again, M'sieur Executioner? I have sat out there in the darkness awaiting you for many hours, thinking of the many deals we could make. But you sneak in from the sea, eh? I did not consider this — but just as well, the wait makes the banquet sweeter, eh? Tell me, Bolan — what do offer in exchange for your life, eh?"

  Tiredly, Bolan said, "It's okay, Cici, he just wants to talk. Go on and fix me that drink. I mean it, go on."

  Something in his eyes cinched the argument. She went hesitantly to the kitchen door and paused there, glaring at Rudolfi for a moment, then went on through and out of sight.

  Bolan told him, "I got those girls back."

  Nothing could rob Rudolfi of this supreme moment. He was exultant and almost giddy over his victory, in excellent spirits, and seemingly feeling no ill-will toward anyone, least of all Mack Bolan. He all but fawned over him, in fact, as he replied, "So? Very well. Perhaps this is something we may bargain on, eh?" The cat was teasing the mouse, hugely enjoying the imagined tortures seething through the other mind. "Would you give me back these prostitutes in exchange for your own life?"

  Bolan replied, "No, I went through too damn much to get 'em out. Think of something else."

  "But no, my friend, it is for you to do the thinking. I will give you until the count of five to think of something. Eh?"

  Bolan shifted wearily beneath the blanket. "I thought you were going to give me a last drink."

  "But of course! Cici! Bring Monsieur Executioner his final refreshment." Rudolfi laughed and advanced closer, savoring each ticking second of this, his greatest moment. "The armies of America did not stop you, as I knew they would not. They are street hoodlums, all guns and guts, no mind and no soul."

  "Oh you've got quite a soul," Bolan said weakly. "It takes more than guns and guts to send young girls to Africa. Yeah, you're quite a man, Rudolfi."

  The mad eyes blazed in brief anger, then settled back into a happy contemplation of the victim. He was saying, "Think hard, my friend, before..."

  Cici came in with the glass of juice, interrupting the gloating taunt.

  Bolan told her, "I guess I don't want that. Put it down, then pull off my blanket and get out of here. I want Rudolfi to see my wounds. Wouldn't you like that, Rudolfi?"

  The underground ambassador to France was smiling delightedly. "You think I will not shoot a wounded man? What manner of deal is that? What does Rudolfi get from a deal such as this, eh?"

  Cici was withdrawing the blanket. Her eyes fell on the machine-pistol in Bolan's hands and in a flash she understood his instructions. She tossed the blanket to the floor and ran lightly toward the door.

  Rudolfi was staring at the pistolet as though it were a swaying cobra. Bolan was telling him, in that wearied voice, "This baby has a dead-man trigger on it, Rudolfi. One little twitch of my body and it starts talking. At 450 rounds a minute, that means you wouldn't catch probably more than twenty or so slugs in the belly. Or you might get zipped if I twitch too much, just a short incision from the crotch to the throat. That's the only deal I'm offering you, Rudolfi. I'm ready when you are. Go ahead."

  Triumph, and exultation, and every sign of living spirit sagged out of the man as he once again contemplated his own death. Bolan had known, and Rudolfi knew that he had known — and this, too, showed in the defeated face, the deadened eyes — the gutless, heartless, soul-less shell of a man who had no right to live and even less reason to die.

  The luger wavered, and Rudolfi began moving carefully toward the door, reaching back with the toes and planting them painstakingly in the quiet retreat.

  Before he reached the door, Bolan told him, "Next time I see you, Rudolfi, I'll kill you. And the next time I hear of young girls being snatched off to Africa, I'll come here from hell if I have to and I'll rip through this country like nothing you ever imagined."

  Without a word Rudolfi backed out of the door and carefully pulled it shut. Bolan left the chair, threw off the lights, and hobbled to the window.

  Cici ran over and joined him there. Bolan told her, "He's running down the drive. He won't be back. He just lost his last gut."

  "I was sure you would keel heem," Cici said in a choked voice.

  "I did," Bolan said tiredly. "The worst way possible."

  He tucked the pistolet under his arm and headed for the bedroom. "Anyway," he told her, "I couldn't zip him with you standing there looking on. I mean, I figured I owed you that, Cici. You have been working for the guy, haven't you?"

  She recoiled as though he had struck her across the face. "Non," she murmured, and helped him to the bed, pulled back the covers, and steered him down.

  "Well," he sighed, "when you get ready to tell me about it..."

  "I am ready now, Mack Bolan." She was whisking off skirt and blouse and preparing to slide in beside him. "I will keep you warm, and 'old you while you sleep, and when you are refresh — well, may-bee Cici will discovaire what you do othaire than sit and look, eh stand-in?"

  He was grinning weakly and holding out his good arm for her to slip into, and she was continuing her speech.

  "But for Rudolfi, I did not know until this vairy morning of 'is unsavory eenvolvements, you see. But I do know thees man for many years. My seester, you see,
Roxanne Loureau, she is 'is confidential secretary, among othaire things. And Roxanne 'as call me, you see — a vairy smart woman, my seester — she is suspect soonaire than anywan 'oo thees Gil Martin really is, you see — but she fears for her Rudolfi, not for Mack Bolan. And so she desires for Cici to get thees dangerous man out of Paris, you see, but she does not tell Cici 'oo this savage man truly is, you see. And when I found out, I know also now 'oo is truly thees terrible Rudolfi, and..."

  Bolan said, "Shut up, Cici. And welcome to Eden."

  "What means this?" she asked, rising above his face to peer down into his eyes.

  He pulled her on down, discovering that maybe he was not all that weary, after all — and gave her a nonverbal mouth-to-mouth translation of his message.

  Yeah, yeah. There was an Eden for every man, even for an executioner.

  It could not last forever, of course — but for a man who had learned to live for every heartbeat, a short visit in Eden could seem an eternity. For the moment, Mack Bolan was ready to live and willing to love. And so also, it seemed, was Cici Carceaux.

  Bolan should have known better. Through the window came a reminder from hell itself, in a crash of thunder and the sulphur smell of gunpowder and a nine millimeter projectile streaking so close to the flesh as to lightly singe his belly. The thunder rolled on and things were tearing into the mattress and pillows, something warm and wet was oozing across Bolan's torso, and Cici's breath left her in a soft little "Ohhh."

  His hand was groping on the floor for the pistolet even before his mind realized it and then he was firing from the bed, a blazing X pattern smashing the bedroom window and finding solid impact material just beyond. Something hit the ground out there and threshed about the firing ceased, and there was mind now only for Cici — Cici, raised to one elbow and dumbly contemplating a flow of blood from her abdomen — Cici, staring at him with the question of life in her eyes.

  Rudolfi's terrified voice was weakly shrieking pleas for help from somewhere outside Eden, but Bolan had neither time nor inclination to hear or heed. He made a compress of the sheet and pressed it harshly against Cici's wound, guided her hands to it and showed her how to hold the pressure, then he staggered through a red fog to the telephone and summoned emergency assistance. He gathered his clothes and put them on while Cici — brave little sex darling of Europe who was now paying the bill for Bolan's weakness — watched him with unreproving eyes and pleaded with him to get away from there.

  "There weel be anothaire time," she assured him.

  He knelt beside the bed and held her until the siren turned into the drive, then he solemnly kissed her goodbye and went out through the rear of the house. Rudolfi lay there on the patio, zipped from right shoulder to left hip, his time fully run out. Bolan stepped over him and went down the steps to the boat landing, started the cruiser, and headed into the Mediterranean.

  Behind him lay not life but death, not victory in any real sense but merely a prolongation of an impossible war. Ahead lay new battlefronts, an endless succession of Rudolfis and Lavagnis — this grim truth softened somewhat by the certainty that there would also be more Martins, Browns, Walkers and... yes, perhaps even another Carceaux. But no... He gave the cruiser full throttle and swept south toward tomorrow's front.

  No... there would never be another Cici Carceaux. He had come frighteningly close to canceling out the only one around — through his own softness, his own shrinking from an executioner's destiny and that near-fatal reach for Eden. It would not happen again. The only safe enemy was a dead one. A single plan of action lay now in Mack Bolan's future — the creation of safe enemies.

  He sighed, lit a cigarette, and turned to gaze back at the rapidly receding shore. He had learned an important truth back there. Yeah. There were no crossovers from hell to paradise.

  Goodbye, Eden.

  Hello, Hell.

  Lookout, Mafia. The Executioner is sweeping on.

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