Don Pendleton - Sunscream

Coralie was therefore likely to view any Russian participation — even indirectly — in her father’s business with disfavor.

Could any of these disparate factors, proven and unproven, be threaded together strongly enough to fashion a cord? A cord that could be made into a noose?

Chain, Bolan thought, was a better image. A chain is really as strong as its weakest link, and there were weak links here.

The obvious one was the Ancarani-Scalese-Lombardo trio. Could their doubts be linked with Smiler’s hostility and the temperamental idiosyncracies of Raoul and J-P himself in such a fashion that they threatened the balance of the coalition?

Bolan thought maybe they could.

But he would, after all, flip the problem back into the Pending tray until the meeting with the mobsters was through. Could be a more positive pointer would emerge there.

As for Coralie... well, she was the wild card!

Bolan fired up the Jaguar’s V12, 225 horsepower engine. Backing the heavy speedster up onto the road, he lowered the visor against the setting sun and blasted off west, toward the city.

“This weekend,” Jean-Paul said, “I don’t have to tell you guys — it’s the busiest of the whole year on the roads. Damn near the whole of France at the wheel: July vacationers going home; August families with kids on the way down here. Something like one hundred thousand automobiles on the move during these forty-eight hours!”

He paused and looked over his audience: Bolan and ten hardmen lounging in the white leather chairs that furnished the sun room overlooking the glittering sea those holidaymakers paid so much to be beside. Most of the mobsters wore puzzled expressions. “More than eighty percent of those folks,” J-P explained, “will be using the north-south expressway. All of them will go through the pay station at Aix. Those driving down from Paris and Lyons will hand over six, seven bucks each. The ones heading home from Nice and Cannes will part with four or five at the tollbooths on the other side of town. Any of you smart enough to work out eighty thousand times five dollars?”

Delacroix, the giant who’d gotten burned during the Corsican raid, still wore bandages on his hands. Now the huge white paws rose and fell in a bewildered gesture. His simian brow furrowed in concentration. “Sure is a lotta bread,” he agreed. “But I don’t see what good that does us — I mean, with those armored trucks they have, the money is moved quicker’n fast. Ten minutes from the pay station an’ it’s in the vaults of the city bank.”

“Not this weekend,” J-P said. “The whole damn consignment, takings for both days, is going to Monte Carlo.”

“Monte Carlo! But that’s a hundred thirty miles!” one of the hoods exclaimed.

“That’s right.”

“Do you know this for sure?”

“Of course I know,” snapped J-P. “Why do you think you’re here? It’s inside intel, from a contact in the bank.”

“Okay, okay. But why?..”

“Something to do with a French government loan. The Monaco principality is supposed to be low on funds, so they want a big sum — in cash — to cover themselves in case the luck runs with the punters at the casino. I guess some smartass figured this was the quickest, easiest way to get it to them.”

“And we’re gonna hit the convoy transferring the loot?” Smiler asked.

“With more than one hundred miles of road to choose from? Damn right we are.”

“Okay,” the hood called Bertrand said. “But if we’re about to shack up with the other mobs... if there’s gonna be so much more bread flyin’ around once the Comrades buy in... do we really need to take the risk? Or is this a joint operation?”

Jean-Paul shook his head. “No way. This is strictly a one-off. For us alone. As to why... well, it’ll be a while before the arrangement with the Russians pays off. And in the meantime, we have a slight liquidity problem. It’s only temporary but, among other things, that Corsican raid cost. In any case, it seemed too good a hit to miss, right? If any of you guys think it’s a dumb idea...” He left the sentence unfinished.

Apparently nobody did. Bolan least of all because it had given him an idea of his own.

The heist was well planned and expertly carried out, Bolan had to admit. The site Jean-Paul had chosen was one of the tunnels that pierce the mountain mass above the ocean between Nice and the principality.

There were three advantages to the site. First, the expressway ran on the landward slopes of the mountain, and there were no towns or villages for several miles; second, the eastbound and westbound sections of the road were routed separately instead of sharing one wide tunnel; finally, the site chosen was only a couple of miles from the Monte Carlo turnoff, so the armed guards protecting the consignment would already be relaxing, figuring their trip was almost over.

Raoul, Bertrand, Smiler, Delacroix, Bolan and J-P himself were the inside men. Of the remaining six in the team, two were drivers and the other four had the task of removing the money.

Most of the money would be in bills equivalent to five and ten dollars, but there would be a sizeable amount in ten-franc coins, parceled in heavy sacks of one thousand. Smoothness and efficiency in the disposal of the loot was therefore going to be vital.

It was midafternoon when the armored truck with its four motorcycle outriders, two in front and two behind, approached the long upward grade that led to the tunnel. The cash would be in the casino strong room before the big-time roulette and baccarat players began to drift in at dusk.

It was a sultry day, the heat haze spreading inland from the sea and over the hills. Traffic was light. The tourists were either crowding the beaches or packing before they left their rented vacation villas and returned home. Most of the heavy commercial transport running between France and Italy had already passed.

But there was a forty-ton semi parked some way from the tunnel entrance on the emergency strip, with its hazard lights blinking. The driver was squatting by the front suspension, tightening something with a wrench. When the convoy was still several hundred yards away he climbed into his cab and the rig rumbled back onto the roadway and headed for the tunnel.

It was more than half a mile long. When the two leading bikers rode in out of the heat, the semi was still some way short of the exit. The armored truck and the other two cops followed. They were halfway through when it happened.

A sudden hiss of compressed air brakes... a squeal of rubber... and the front section of the huge truck skated across the roadway to graze the curved tunnel wall with a shriek of tortured steel. At the same time, the light, unloaded rear trailer jackknifed, swinging wide to hit the opposite wall and completely block the exit.

Double doors at the rear of the trailer had been flung open before the armored truck skidded to a halt and the two cops could draw their Brownings. From inside the trailer Jean-Paul and Delacroix fired heavy-caliber rubber bullets at the bikers, knocking them from their saddles. Simultaneously Bolan launched three gas grenades from an M-203 tube attached to an M-16 rifle — one between the fallen bikers, one beside the cab of the armored truck, the third toward the back of the vehicle, beneath the floor.

The fragile canisters were of a type unfamiliar to Bolan, but J-P had told him they should knock a man out for thirty minutes and leave no aftereffects.

They sure acted fast. Both cops were inert by the time Bolan and the two mafiosi, wearing gas masks and woolen balaclavas, thumped down the tailgate and raced toward the armored truck.

The gas, visible as faint wreaths of smoke in the yellow overhead lights illuminating the tunnel, coiled around the truck’s cab. There was a driver and a guard armed with a Belgian FN machine pistol inside. But the windows were down because of the heat and both of them were out by the time the three hardmen sprinted up.