Don Pendleton - Sunscream

Bolan wrenched his neck again, remorselessly forcing his nose and mouth beneath the surface, holding the man there until the bubbling deathscream subsided and the body went limp.

He left the corpse in the trough and hurried, still panting, up to the house. The flames were dying; the fight was over.

Jean-Paul was sitting on the steps. He looked up as the Executioner approached. “Good shooting,” he said. “Once those two were down it was just a matter of time.”

Bolan grinned. It was the first time since Vietnam that he had fought a battle under another’s orders... and the first battle in which he had fired only three shots.

“How many did we lose?” Bolan asked Jean-Paul.

“Three under that blazing hay wagon. Two when we rushed the house. One on the driveway. And there’s two wounded, one badly.”

“So counting those two, if Smiler junks the car, that still leaves ten to make it across the Agriates, take the dinghies and get back to the trawler?”

“That’s right,” the gang boss agreed cheerfully. “It all works out fine in the end, you see.”

“There’s one more question,” Bolan said, rising to his feet. “You said this was a sheep farm. Where are the sheep? And the shepherds?”

Jean-Paul laughed. “Summer pastures. They take them up into the mountains for three months while the weather’s hot. I wouldn’t want to run the risk of this kind of operation if there were animals around that could get hurt.”

“Perhaps now,” Jean-Paul said to Bolan the following afternoon, “we can go ahead with the amalgamation I was telling you about. There are a few details for you to take care of, and then it should be plain sailing all the way.”

They were sitting in the enormous sun lounge of the mobster’s house, which was cantilevered out from the cliffs to the east of Marseilles. A high stone wall surrounded the property, and closed-circuit TV monitored the electrically operated gates, but otherwise there seemed to be no special protection for the acre and a half of rare shrubs and exotic flowers landscaped around the steel-and-glass building. A white Mercedes convertible stood outside the closed doors of a three-car garage.

“What details did you have in mind?” Bolan asked.

“Four contracts,” Jean-Paul said. He had given Bolan a brief rundown on the KGB project and the difficulties they had encountered. “Four guys who could still louse up the deal by shooting off their mouths in the wrong place.”

“Who?”

“A lawyer, a newspaper columnist, a cop and a local television personality who’s obligated to me and wants off the hook.”

“You want to give me the details now?”

“Okay. Sooner the better. But what about your shoulder?”

“No problem,” Bolan said. “It was hardly even a flesh wound. It’ll be okay tomorrow. In any case, the Husqvarna kicks the other shoulder!”

There was a look of admiration in Jean-Paul’s eyes as he watched the hired hit man.

“The lawyer’s name is Maitre Delpeche. Too damned smart for his own good. He made the mistake of advising an adverse party while he was representing me, at the same time, on the same case.”

“He lives here in Marseilles?” Bolan asked.

“Oh, sure. The TV guy’s name is Michel Lasalle. But he works out of the local Number 3 channel studios down here. You’ll have no trouble locating him; he loves to be seen in public. You probably heard of the columnist. Georges Dassin. He’s syndicated, likes to run after high-school girls — pays them to pose for nude photos! Trouble is, he was once a foreign correspondent in Moscow and he knows Antonin. If he sees the Russian here — and the guy has his sources — he might just put two and two together and run some damn fool piece trying to stir the cops on our payroll into action, and that could be embarrassing.”

“Who’s my cop?” Bolan asked. “A guy who’s not on the payroll?”

Before Jean-Paul could answer, the sound of a diesel engine in low gear penetrated the glass. J-P stood and crossed to the window. “It’s a cab,” he said. “Looks like Antonin himself sitting in back. What the hell does he want this time of day?”

Bolan cursed under his breath. The last thing he needed was a confrontation with the Russian. The guy had been dubious, something stirring in his memory, the second time he’d seen the Executioner at La Rocaille. This time, wearing no wet suit, Bolan was certain he would be recognized.

“Maybe I’d better go,” he said hastily. “You’ll have business to discuss... and, anyway, there are a couple of calls I have to make...” he glanced at his Rolex “...before five.”

“You can phone from here,” the mobster said. “Besides, I’d like you in on this if he’s going to talk about...”

“I don’t have the numbers here. And they’re unlisted,” Bolan improvised. “You want quick service on these contracts, I have to get back to my hotel, check out those numbers, and...”

“Darling?”

The two men swung around. Jean-Paul’s pretty dark wife, Severine, was standing in the doorway. “J-P, darling, may I borrow Herr Sondermann for two minutes? Coralie’s with me and she’s got a problem with a passage of Hegel she has to translate for one of her test papers. If Herr Sondermann wouldn’t mind?..”

“Of course, I’d be glad to help,” Bolan said quickly. He looked enquiringly at the gang boss.

“Oh... very well.” Jean-Paul shrugged. He found it hard to refuse his young wife. “Don’t keep him long.”

Walking through the black-and-white checkerboard marble hallway, Bolan saw through the armored glass entrance doors that the Russian was getting out of his cab.

But he wasn’t paying the driver; he was asking him to wait. Bolan hoped the quote from Hegel was a long one.

Following Severine along a corridor that led to the back of the house, Bolan passed Raoul, one of Smiler’s lieutenants, in a white linen butler’s jacket, on his way to answer the doorbell.

Coralie was in a den, sitting at a table strewn with textbooks and papers. “Surprise,” Bolan said. “What seems to be the linguistic trouble?”

“As you’re being paid, anyway,” the girl said dismissively, “I didn’t see why you shouldn’t do some work for me.”

“Coralie!” Severine sounded shocked.

“It’s okay,” Bolan said, smiling. “Mademoiselle Sanguinetti and I are old adversaries!”

In fact there were very few translation difficulties in the Hegel passage, but Coralie managed to keep the questions coming until they heard the distant slam of a car door, and Antonin’s taxi drove away.

She accompanied him back to the sun room to apologize to J-P for the length of time she had kept him.

“Why did you do it?” Bolan whispered as they crossed the hallway. “That was a put-up job, wasn’t it? You had Severine come in and ask for me deliberately, to keep me out of the way of the Russian? Thanks — but why?”

She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “I think they call it woman’s intuition,” she said demurely. “I saw your face when you had to pass near him the night of my father’s... party. I figured anyone who looked that apprehensive must be in need of care and protection.”

Before Bolan could think of a suitable reply, they were back in the sun room.

“It was of no importance,” J-P told Bolan when the girl had made her excuses and left. “Antonin’s going to be away a couple of days, that’s all. He wanted me to know: he’s been recalled for consultations.”

“To Moscow?”

“Hell, no. To his base. They fly him here in a chopper from one of those so-called Soviet factory ships — they’re electronic surveillance vessels really — outside the twelve-mile limit.”