Don Pendleton: Continental Contract

Vicareau's sigh hissed across the connection and he replied, "Tell this to my wife, Claude. I regret the day that Viviane learned of my business involvements. She wishes to shutter the house and to hide in the cellar."

De Champs chuckled. "You would do better to regret the day that you took a wife, Paul. Even as beautiful a woman as Viviane — there are too many ripening apples on the tree, no? I will tell you what — when the madman has been apprehended and put away, you will come with me on my yacht to Capri. Eh? But two virile men, in the prime of their attractiveness, with six of the most beautiful young women from Folies Bergere. Eh? Does this not appeal to even the husband of Viviane?"

Vicareau tiredly replied, "Just find Rudolfi, Claude. I would not presume to argue with him as to his justification for this act — but his timing was extremely bad. Tell him to bring the women back."

"Be assured," de Champs murmured, and broke the connection.

He walked through his trophy room and a priceless collection of mementoes of his glorious ancestry, and stepped onto the balcony to survey his miniature kingdom. Could a common American hoodlum actually hope to challenge all this? These grounds were the showplace of the Riviera; the ballroom beneath him had entertained the royalty of Europe; his kitchens had pleased the delicate palates of the most prominent of international high society. De Champs was not quite so assured as he had seemed in his conversation with the panicky Vicareau. There existed, of course, a possibility of danger. But Vicareau and his whining... De Champs made a deprecatory sound deep in his throat and leaned against the railing to peer out onto the south grounds.

He smiled, remembering the conversation with the bleating goat. No, de Champs would not shutter the windows and hide in the cellar, but... The Great Danes were prowling free within the inner fences. He would love to see the cocky American gunman try those fences; he would think that he had fallen into a pit of lions — as, indeed, the effect would be the same.

Just below was Pierre, the dog handler. Pierre, too, would love to see his pets exercised. De Champs called down to him, "The beasts look magnificent." He laughed and added, "They have the hungry look."

The handler was wearing a pistol in a holster at his waist. He touched the butt of the pistol with the back of his hand and called back, "I am not too sure of them myself, M'sieur. They strain for the hunt."

De Champs laughed again and raised his eyes to the south boundary of the Iron Mask Estate. A public road to the beach traversed that side of the property, fully five hundred meters from the house. A bright red automobile was stopped on the road and a barely visible human figure stood behind it. De Champs stepped into the trophy room for a pair of binoculars and promptly returned to the balcony and focussed the glasses on the vehicle. He called down, "Pierre, open the gate to the south field," and leaned forward over the railing for a tense binocular inspection.

The car was an American sports model... a tall man leaning across the roof with some object... de Champs sharpened the focus, caught his breath in a sharp gasp, and the signal to flee clanged into his brain one heart-stopping moment too late. The last image registered on the retinae of Claude de Champs' eyes was a fierce face leaning into the eyepiece of a big gunscope and a tiny puff of smoke erupting from the muzzle of a long firearm.

The hot chunk of steel-jacketed .444 closed the distance in something under three seconds, zipping in just beneath the binoculars and ripping through the soft flesh of de Champs' throat in a geysering explosion of blood and mutilated tissue.

The binoculars fell into the Courtyard of the Iron Mask and the man himself was flung backwards and through the French doors and onto the exquisite cherry-wood of the Louis XIV era trophy room.

And so died another pretender to the underground throne of France.

Not even an iron mask could have saved him.

The Sting Ray was in traction and powering along the road even as the report from the big Safari model was still rolling across the fields. Bolan turned onto Moyenne Corniche, the fabulously beautiful coastal drive, and ran south to the nearest exit, then swung inland and began the encirclement of Nice, a small section of map lying across the steering wheel and guiding him. Twice he overshot dimly-marked back-roads junctions and once had to ease his way through a small flock of sheep blocking the roadway, but he came out on the southwest edge of the city with five minutes to spare on his schedule, then headed directly for the chateau of Alex Korvini.

The photo on the dashboard showed a scowling man with hard eyes and heavy brows, a long corrugated forehead, square-jawed, grim-lipped. According to the Wilson data, Korvini had made it big from the misery of his countrymen in Italy in the grim days following World War II, hi-jacking American free aid materials and selling them at inflated black market prices to those who should have been receiving the life-giving goods without charge. Since then he had been involved in veritably every underground avenue of international thievery and trade, including drugs and the wholesale disposal of stolen goods, but his steadiest and most lucrative form of income had come from petty frauds and illicit business deals involving U.S. servicemen stationed in Europe and those of the U.S. Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean. Korvini had been a French citizen since 1961, had never been arrested anywhere, and was regarded by his jet set friends as an astute international financier. Which, in fact, he was — with an almost unlimited backing of ill-gotten money.

Bolan scouted the country estate with quick passes on two sides, then found the piece of high ground best suited for his hard drop. It was about a quarter-mile distance and allowed excellent coverage of front and rear entrances, both to the property and to the house itself.

The chateau occupied a small knoll. Slightly behind, below, and toward Bolan stood a moderate-size barn. Through his glasses Bolan could see horse stalls, a small corral, an expensive American automobile parked in back, another in front of the chateau. A man in white dungarees and a blue denim packet stood at the front gate with a shotgun under his arm; another, similarly clad, guarded a small entrance at the rear of the property. Another pair of armed guards strolled about on the knoll on which sat the house.

Bolan continued the distant inspection, raising the binoculars to sweep the surrounding countryside. As he watched, two vehicles entered an intersection about a mile beyond the estate and proceeded up the lane toward the front gate. Cops!

He returned immediately to the scrutiny of the chateau. It must be soon or never. Windows heavily draped, upper levels shuttered. Some were learning. Suddenly the back door of the house opened and a stocky man ejected himself partially, said something to a nearby guard, and quickly went back inside. Bolan grinned, having caught a quick glimpse of shaggy brows and bumpy forehead as the man disappeared from view. Okay, he'd spotted the target — now to get him back into the open.

Bolan went to the Sting Ray, checked his weapon, and returned to the hard drop. The vision field of the scope was highly intense, reducing to about a five-inch real-diameter focus. He targeted-in first on the back door to the chateau, then tracked slowly across to the nearest guard on the knoll, read his range, corrected to six-inches above target, tracked back to the door, again ranged and corrected, selecting a door-hinge as the spot in his crosshairs.

He swung the track several times, practicing the route and getting the feel of the swing, then he settled into the piece, laying-in prone, and found his mark on the knoll.