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  "If there's one thing makes me mad, it's bein' crossed up on some two-bit deal that…" Rostand broke off in midsentence. A bulky, hard-faced man in a white jacket was walking across the sun-drenched lawn toward them. He was carrying a white cordless telephone. "Call for you, boss," he said. "From Number One."

  Rostand reached out for the instrument. He fished a crocodile cigar case from the pocket of his bathrobe as he listened. His heavy brows drew together in a scowl; his lower lip thrust out sullenly; behind the smoked lenses his eyes grew mean. He took a cigar from the case and clamped his teeth over it.

  Nardi rose to his feet and approached with a gold cigar cutter. Rostand waved him away and signaled him to listen, holding the receiver slightly away from his ear.

  The bodyguard leaned his expressionless face toward his boss's angry features. A waft of Polo aftershave rose from the open neck of the bathrobe.

  Nardi heard the slow, deep voice in the earpiece. "The guy already loused up an important business deal in Central Africa and put the bite on certain friends of mine in Italy and the Union. Now my boy in immigration at Kennedy tips me off that he hit town day before yesterday, and when I tell him to run a check he comes up with the information that he had an onward flight booked for Jacksonville."

  "You mean he's heading this way?"

  "I don't think he takes his vacations in Florida," the voice from the receiver said.

  "That bastard!" Rostand exploded. "I ran across the motherfucker a coupla times… and he's still doing it to the Family. It's time the interfering son of a bitch was out of business… for keeps."

  "That's what you're going to do, Ugo," the voice said softly. "Put him out of business. If he don't come your way, you go find him. They tell me he's driving a green T-bird. But whatever happens, I want to hear news that he's been eliminated within the next twenty-four hours. Do you read me?"

  Rostand bit off the tip of his cigar and spit it into the pool. He replaced the cigar in his mouth, waving away Nardi, who proffered a gold lighter. "Leave it to me, sir," he said.

  "That's exactly what I aim to do," the voice rasped. "Make sure I'm not disappointed, hey." There was a click and the line went dead.

  Rostand handed the receiver to Nardi, who pushed in the telescoping antenna. Then the capo turned a rock-hard face toward the muscle man. "Well, howdya like that," he said.

  "I told you," Nardi said. "With this onshore breeze, if them waves get any higher, Sanchez is gonna have to use a different boat if he aims to land that consignment tonight."

  "I wasn't talking about the goddamn consignment, Frank. This Bolan. You better alert the local cops on the payroll and send out a coupla boys to keep watch. And if the bastard does come here… well, you know what to do."

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Wind roared through the treetops as the highway patrol sedan coasted to a stop outside the tall wrought-iron gates of West wood Towers. Then the driver jammed impatiently on the horn three times.

  A guy with a shotgun slung across the back of his leather windbreaker sauntered out from the brick gate house and stared through the bars. The sedan's headlights were on full, both scanner spotlights were illuminated and the amber roof light was revolving. The gateman shielded his eyes against the dazzling glare. "What the hell…" he called.

  "I have to see Mr. Rostand, fast," the driver shouted.

  "You have an appointment?"

  "Nah. No time. I said urgent."

  The guard pulled one of the gates open far enough to let him through. "Dammit," he grumbled, "we pay you guys enough to keep off our backs. Don't you have no phones at county police…"

  "I told you fast, I told you urgent — now I'm telling you it's important. For chrissake, open those gates and let me into the driveway."

  A second man had emerged from the gate house. The butt of a holstered revolver swung behind the open lapel of his bush jacket as he walked, but he carried no shotgun. He jerked his head at the first man and together they opened the gates. The car rolled through and stopped again.

  "We'll have to check with the house," the second guard said, trying to squint through the blaze of light into the sedan's interior. "Who is it, please?"

  "Chief Harris."

  The first guard went into the gate house. The second approached the car and shone a flashlight through the windshield at the uniformed trooper behind the wheel. "Wait a minute — you're not Harris! We know Harris," the guy exclaimed.

  "Of course I'm not, asshole. I'm bringing a message from Harris. Look, if you don't believe me, here's the chief's shield. He told me to show it to you as proof that I was on the level. He has some character holed up that he thinks might interest Mr. Rostand and he wants advice, okay?"

  "What kind of character?"

  "Dangerous."

  The first man came out of the gate house. "The boss wants to know if it can't wait."

  "Like hell!"

  "Then you have to speak to him on the phone."

  The trooper sighed. He opened the door and clambered out of the car. He was a big man, his muscles straining at his uniform jacket and his arms too long for the sleeves. He strode to the gate house with the second guard and spoke on the phone.

  "Yes, sir, it's some kind of hit man. The chief figured you might want… No, he has him cornered but he was scared it might be a contract… Yes, on you, sir… He'd welcome your opinion if you'd just… Yes sir. Right away." He turned to the guard. "He wants me to go up there."

  The sentry took the phone, checked with Rostand, hung up the instrument and led the trooper back to his car.

  Behind the wheel again, the cop nodded to the two hardmen. "No offense, guys. I know you have a job to do. But next time…" He raised a languid hand and drove away.

  "Your door's not latched!" one of the guards called after him.

  "I know!" Mack Bolan shouted back, elbowing the door open a little wider as he dropped the two L-5 grenades onto the driveway. They burst with a hollow plop, spewing out dense clouds of white phosphorus smoke that blistered the skin and seared the lungs. With the strong onshore breeze, the noxious fumes would billow the few yards to the gate house and incapacitate the two hoods within seconds… and there would certainly be no question of them calling the house.

  Okay, two down. Now there were Rostand, the chauffeur-bodyguard and another five to go.

  The driveway looped for several hundred yards through the trees. Bolan wondered if the dogs were still with their handlers, or if they roamed free at night. It would be vital to know. They were probably loose. It would leave the house defense thin on the ground if four of those five gorillas were out on patrol.

  Yeah — there was one of the Dobermans now, red eyes blazing in the headlights' reflection as it stood snarling on one of the golf course greens.

  Bolan braked the police sedan to a halt on a graveled turnaround. He hoped Chief Harris and his driver, shackled hand to foot with their own cuffs in the woods half a mile away, would understand when they woke up. Bolan had parked the Thunderbird across the country road on a dangerous curve after making a phone call to police headquarters. Before trussing them up, they had revealed that they were on the mobster's payroll… and had been warned to watch out for Bolan. Bolan made his plans accordingly.

  He glanced quickly around, checking out escape routes before he went in.

  Archway to the coach house, left. Portico straight ahead. Shrubbery surrounding the pool at the far end of the facade, right. Dogs in the woods behind. The lawns leading to the shore were the obvious choice.

  Rostand's Mercedes was in the yard but the blue Maserati was missing. Did that mean that one or more of the soldiers was away? No time to check now. Bolan ran up the portico steps.

  The double doors were already open. A hard-faced houseman in a white jacket stood waiting in a wide lobby. "Second floor, left, third door on the right," he growled. "The boss is expectin' you, but he ain't pleased."

  Bolan noticed the telltale bulge beneath the left shoulder of the
guy's jacket. The warrior's right hand rested on the butt of the silenced Beretta, which he had substituted for Chief Harris's police pistol, holstered on his hip.

  "Thanks," the Executioner said, "but I'll be surprised if he is expecting… me!"

  The tip of the suppressor, projecting through the open base of the holster, tilted upward as he leaned down on the autoloader and fired.

  Three slugs whispered out of the silenced killer, and all at once the white jacket was reprocessed in Technicolor. The hardman inside it, minus a lot of his chest, thumped to the floor.

  Bolan ran up the curving stairway. No time to hide the body. He had to get to Rostand before someone raised an alarm. He could hear voices along the left-hand hallway. Yeah, behind the third door on the right. He tiptoed close and laid his ear against the cream, gold-lined panels.

  "Great if Harris has this Bolan bastard nailed, but we have to get rid of his errand-boy officer quick if Sanchez is bringing this boat in on schedule."

  "Why send the bum, anyway? I don't get it." A second voice, gravelly and harsh.

  "We'll find out, Frank. Guy should show any minute. You're sure it's on the level that Sanchez switched to the outboard?"

  "That's what they tell me. I would hope. After the African fuck-up, we can't afford to lose this Mexican consignment."

  "Relax, Frank. Any case, Sakol's down at the pier, waiting to flag them in."

  "He better be," Frank said somberly. "Seeing as he's the organization man for the whole damned circus."

  Outside the door, Bolan frowned. Sakol?

  "He handled the Cuban consignment fine, Frank."

  "So what? It's his job. If you ask me, boss, we'd be better off on our…"

  "Shove it." Rostand's voice hardened. "Who the hell you think you are, questioning the status quo?"

  "Status what?" There was the sound of liquid splashing.

  "Cut that out," Rostand snapped. "You drink too much. Put that goddamn glass down and get out those figures. Sakol will want to go over the hit checklist as well as the market figures."

  Behind Bolan a door opened at the far end of the hallway and two hoods, talking loudly, walked out and headed for the stairs.

  Crouched with his ear to the door, the Executioner had no time to hide the fact that he was listening in.

  The conversation ceased abruptly. Two hands dived between two pairs of lapels. One of the hoods called out, "What the hell d'you think you're…"

  Bolan swiveled up the holster and fired again from the hip — a series of 3-shot autobursts that cut down those two gorillas like corn razed by a sickle. Unfortunately, one was a shade fast on the draw: before he collapsed across the riddled body of his companion, he had time to whip a police special from his shoulder rig and fire a single shot.

  The slug plowed through the wall-to-wall carpet covering the hallway, but the sound of the report was deafening.

  No more subterfuge now. Bolan kicked open the door, unleathering the Beretta as he moved.

  He leaped inside the room and flattened himself against the nearest wall with the long-snouted death-bringer at the full stretch of his arm, tracking left and right in search of targets.

  The room was lined with books. He saw wooden filing cabinets, a wall safe with the thick door open, leather chairs and a wide desk with a green top tooled in gold. An open folder on the desk spilled out papers.

  Behind the desk, Rostand was wearing a cream-colored suit, a black shirt and a pale blue silk necktie. Frank Nardi had been sitting beside him. He'd had time to rise halfway out of his chair, his right hand flipping aside his jacket as he reached for the gun in back of his waistband.

  "Don't try it!" Bolan growled.

  The bodyguard remained on his feet, bent forward, his hands now held loosely at his sides. "What the…" he rasped. "Who…"

  "It's Bolan," Rostand snarled. He hadn't moved since the door crashed open.

  "Both hands on the desk, palms downward," Bolan ordered. "You, Frank, toss your iron over here, then put your hands on top of your head. Move it."

  The combat Magnum thumped to the floor.

  "Do you really think you can get away…" Rostand began.

  "Shut up!" Bolan rasped.

  "Cool it, boss," Nardi advised. "Let the creep find out for himself."

  "If you're thinking of your gun muscle," Bolan said, "three guys decided to take a vacation already. And the two soldiers at the gate will probably need a vacation; right now they're suffering a little lung trouble. That leaves the last two, right?"

  He saw a covert glance pass between the two mobsters. Did this mean that the missing two were in fact out with the Maserati? Or if they weren't, they might be around the property someplace.

  Bolan decided to play it by ear, but to remain watchful.

  And watchful was right. Without moving the upper half of his body, Nardi surreptitiously slid a foot across the carpet to a small protuberance just below the corner of the desk. The button of an alarm bell, projecting through the floor.

  Bolan fired a single shot. The 9 mm parabellum round cored the bodyguard's instep. He pitched sideways with a yelp and collapsed against a chair as a scarlet stream pumped out past the splintered bones of his foot.

  "I've played this whole scene before — at Rinaldi's pad in Italy," Bolan said. "Okay, I know you operate an international drug distribution racket through Africa, Mexico, Cuba, wherever. The profits are laundered along with your regular contracts. I want to know who the drug money goes to — and who's the link man with your terrorists." A pause, and then, "Sakol?"

  He saw at once that he had scored. Nardi, cursing on the floor, glanced swiftly at his boss and then shot a look of pure hatred at the Executioner. Rostand's eyes dropped involuntarily to the folder on the desk, and then quickly up again. "Sakol?" he repeated, shaking his head. "I don't…"

  "Cut the bull," Bolan grated.

  He paused again. The whine of a high-performance engine sounded over the rumble of surf and the wind whistling through the trees.

  The Maserati returning?

  Rostand and Nardi also heard the noise. Once more they exchanged glances. Nardi's pain-contorted features even relaxed momentarily into a half smile, rapidly suppressed. The whine came nearer, there was a sudden brisk crescendo as the driver shifted down, and then nothing but a low grumble of exhaust while the engine idled. The sportster had arrived at the open gates; in seconds the hoods would find the half-asphyxiated guards.

  There wasn't going to be much time.

  Hugo Rostand tried to cut it short altogether. Stealthily pressing his leg against a spring concealed in the kneehole of the desk, he released a shallow drawer that slid out slowly and silently twelve inches below his right arm. In the drawer, loaded and charged, was a gun.

  Rostand moved very fast for a bulky, middle-aged man. His right hand, snatched from the desk top while the Maserati momentarily diverted Bolan's concentration, streaked down to the drawer and came up wrapped around the butt of a big-bore Detonics Combat Master.

  Bolan had no choice. He fired two rapid rounds. Rostand fired one. The .45-caliber slug from the Combat Master barely missed the Executioner's head and smashed into the wall. While the roar of the report still numbed the ears, the 9 mm stingers from Bolan's Beretta slammed into the racketeer's chest.

  Even at the silenced, subsonic muzzle velocity, the impact was enough to send Rostand and the swivel chair in which he sat crashing back against the draperies covering the window. His head flopped forward on the gory ruin of his chest. Then the limp body twisted sideways and slid to the floor.

  Nardi dived for the Combat Magnum that was still on the floor at Bolan's feet. Bolan stamped on the outstretched hand and shot him through the head. A fan of gray brain tissue complicated the pattern of the Turkish carpet.

  Bolan turned to the door. No more questions answered in here. That was too bad… but half a minute of eavesdropping plus a couple of guilty glances had, in fact, told him most of what he had come all this way to fi
nd out.

  He shoveled together the papers on the desk, scooped up the folder containing them and shoved it under his arm. On the far side of the house he heard a squeal of brakes as the Maserati pulled up outside the portico.

  He had to act fast before the two hoods — if there were two-recovered from finding the body of the guy in the white jacket.

  Bolan seized Nardi's collar and dragged the dead man out into the hallway.

  There were two heavies down in the lobby all right. One was still stooped over White Jacket's body. Both held police specials.

  Bolan picked up the bodyguard's inert form and hurled it over the stair rail at the standing hood. It caught him just as he was raising his gun arm, and the two of them, the living and the dead, crashed to the floor in an ungainly heap.

  Bolan vaulted lightly over the rail, dropped fifteen feet to the lobby and sprang up catlike, the Beretta sneezing out the last few rounds in the magazine at the second astonished mobster.

  The mafioso collapsed before he had time to fire a shot.

  By the time the other man heaved himself out from under Frank Nardi's body, Bolan was out of the lobby, down a service passageway and through the kitchens on his way out into the gardens.

  Wind gusting up the grassy slope tore at his hair and clothes as he ran. There was a light bobbing among the waves near the pier, and nearby a green signal lamp winked. Behind him the remaining gorilla shouted.

  Faintly against the buffeting of the wind Bolan heard shots, but none came near him. He sprinted, swerving left and right, toward the boats.

  He saw shadowy figures moving on the pier. Was the mysterious Sakol among them?

  A long, narrow launch of a type unfamiliar to him was now moored beyond the fifty-foot cruiser. At the far end of the planking, some small craft heaved up and down on the angry swell. As far as he could make out, a guy standing in the bow was trying to hold it close to the pier, but it was not tied up.

  Men shouted in several languages. The green light still flashed on and off.