Don Pendleton - Sunscream

Bolan drove south of the sinister cone of Vesuvius, left the expressway at Castellammare, and piloted the car around the mountainous hairpins of the Sorrento peninsula.

Girolamo Scalese, the Camorra boss, lived in a huge white villa high above the ocean between Positano and Amalfi. Bolan approached it from behind, crossing the ridge on Route 366, and parking the Ferrari some way from the gates. He wanted the car to be seen and recognized but he did not wish it to be damaged.

The villa, built around a central patio big enough to accommodate a jumbo-size pool, was shaded by palms. It was surrounded by stone terraces brilliant with geraniums and purple bougainvillea. An arch in the twelve-foot stone wall enclosing the property was filled by electrically operated wooden gates with a small window.

Vines clung to the hillside east of the house, and beyond these there was a view of Amalfi, the pastel-colored buildings set into the cliff like bright books on shelves.

Bolan stared down at the glitter of expensive cars along the coast road, the sprinkle of beach umbrellas on the volcanic ash shore, the white patterns etched by pleasure boats into the distant azure heave of the ocean. He shook his head.

Too bad that the slime-bucket scum who could afford to live in a place like this had acquired it through exploitation, intimidation and corruption.

If he played it right, perhaps they would be sorry they did live here.

Wearing his blacksuit now, he eased himself out of the Ferrari’s cockpit and walked to the gates of Scalese’s property.

The sun beat fiercely on his face, half blinding him where it glared off the sea. In the center of the roadway the macadam, softening in the heat, sucked at the soles of his shoes.

He had decided on the frontal approach. The wall was topped with broken glass and there would certainly be sensors, electrified alarm wires and probably killer dogs on the far side. A wrought-iron bellpull hung from a bracket beside the gates. He jerked it and heard a jangle someplace inside.

The window snapped back and a brutish, heavy-jawed face stared out. “Whatta we got here?” the gateman exclaimed, seeing Bolan’s black-clad figure. “Batman?”

“Superman,” Bolan said evenly. “I want to see Scalese.”

“On your way, smartass. Nobody gets to see the boss.”

“I have a message for him from Renato Ancarani. Personal,” Bolan said.

“Phone it in. You ought to know that nobody...”

“Your phone’s tapped by the carabinieri.”

“Bullshit. The boss pays good money he should keep his line free of snoopers.”

“He didn’t pay enough. This is important.”

“So is privacy.” The gorilla was scowling. “Now beat it.” The window slammed shut.

Bolan walked to the Ferrari. Sixty seconds later he was back. He rang the bell again.

The window opened. The gateman’s face was red with anger. Before he could speak, Bolan said swiftly, “I got credentials.” He held up an envelope in his left hand.

Still scowling, the hood leaned his face near the opening, squinting at the envelope. “What credentials?”

“These,” Bolan said. With fingers splayed, his right hand shot forward with lightning speed, temporarily blinding the man, the impact of the blow also stunning him.

There was a high-pitched whinnying noise and the face vanished. Bolan reached for the grappling hook and the coil of rope he had brought from the car. He swung the hook over the gates. Seconds later he dropped lightly down from the arch inside the entrance.

The gatekeeper was writhing on the ground, clutching his face and whimpering like a baby.

Bolan unleathered Sondermann’s Beretta, silenced now, from its shoulder rig and sent it crashing along the side of the man’s head. He stopped moaning and Bolan dragged the body out of sight behind a clump of palmettoes.

He had reasoned that the gateway, being guarded all the time, would be free of sensor beams. Evidently he had been right, for no other hardmen appeared. He glanced swiftly around.

Between walled terraces covered in exotic shrubs a flagged driveway curled away and then dived beneath the house to an open four-car garage containing a Silver Shadow Rolls-Royce, an Alfa Romeo sportster and a large station wagon. With his back to the entrance a heavyset man wearing nothing but jeans was polishing the Rolls.

Bolan holstered the Beretta. Keeping to the inside of the curve, he sidled as near as he could before making his move. He was eight feet from the open doors when the guy looked up.

“What the hell?..”

Bolan rocketed forward and launched a flying jump kick at the chauffeur’s jaw. The man backed off but not quickly enough: half the force of the Executioner’s blow was expended by the time it homed in, lower down, on the guy’s chest, but it was enough to knock him back against the big limo’s hood. For an instant he sprawled and then, as Bolan landed on the balls of his feet, he squared off and adopted a karate position, one arm held out, the other close in to the body.

Okay, Bolan thought. We play it your way. He could have finished it with the silenced gun but the cold fury that had fueled his actions ever since he read of the Camorra child racket still seethed within him: his gut reaction was to kill with his bare hands.

The mafioso attacked first. A feint to one side, and then a double heel-of-the-hand assault aimed at the temples. Bolan parried it with upthrust forearms, jumped back and thudded in a crossbody shuto stroke as the man lurched forward.

The chauffeur gasped, reeling against the Alfa. But he pushed himself away before Bolan could spring and launched a deadly seiken punch, a ram’s head blow with all his weight behind it, that caught the Executioner over the heart and sent him down.

Bolan rolled as a heavy kick caught him in the ribs. He was halfway to his feet when his adversary ran in with a tae kwon do kick to the head. Bolan dropped back, seizing the out-thrust foot as it streaked toward him. He twisted it and sent the guy hurtling on, propelled by his own impetus, to crash against the wall and slide to the floor.

Shaking his head groggily, he pushed himself upright and advanced menacingly, one fist held cocked for a murderous roundhouse punch that was designed to kayo Bolan for good.

Bolan rode it, dropped a high side kick to the sphenoid and then, as the hood staggered, finished it with another slashing shuto stroke to the throat. The plank-hard edge of his hand smashed his opponent’s windpipe. The chauffeur fell, gargling his own blood.

Bolan ran for the stairway leading to the villa from the back of the garage.

The fight hadn’t been too noisy, but the dying chauffeur had twice been thrown against an automobile and that must have been enough to alert the two gorillas catfooting down toward him.

One carried a leather-covered blackjack; the other was hefting a Beretta like Bolan’s. He looked as if he knew how to use it, but the Executioner’s gun spoke before the guy could press the trigger — a 3-round burst more discreet than the popping of champagne corks. More lethal, too.

He wristed the auto-loader from right to left, as he triggered the trio of skullbusters. One shot was wasted: the slug gouged a chip from the concrete stair between the two men. The other two scored five on five, tumbling the two hardmen and engraving a crimson abstract on the white wall as they fell.

Bolan spread his arms, catching the two bodies before he lowered them silently to the floor. He made the top of the stairs and found himself in a short passage leading through to the patio. Passing an empty kitchen gleaming with copper and stainless steel, he paused at the patio doorway and looked across the pool at a girl stretched out sunbathing on a striped mattress.