Don Pendleton: Continental Contract

"I'll kiss him with an amen then," the huge Negro muttered.

Bolan was at the self-serve coffee bar helping himself to an early morning refresher when the stewardess came in and told him, "Orly Airport in about twenty minutes, Mr. Ruggi."

He said, "Thanks," and wondered what else she had on her mind. She had not walked all the way back there simply to tell him that.

"Are you traveling with Mr. Martin?" she asked casually, confirming Bolan's assessment of her motives.

"No," he replied. "I'd never heard of the guy. Who is he?"

"Come on, you're kidding," the girl said. "You're his double, aren't you."

"Double for what?"

"Come on now, Mr. Ruggi."

Bolan relented and grinned. The girl was standard overseas-airline sleek, chic, leggy, with jet black hair, smooth skin — pretty, interesting enough for any man, the Gil Martins included. "How do you know he's not my double?" he asked, using a teasing tone.

She was not to be teased. Eyeing him thoughtfully, she raised a hand and fingered his sideburns. Bolan caught the hand and held it — this was getting out of control. "We don't really look that much alike," he said gruffly.

"Side by side, no," she replied, laughing softly to gloss the moment of tension. "But..."

Bolan said, "Drop it, please. It's not what you think."

"No, it's not," she replied, still speculatively eyeing him. "I had it all wrong. He's the ringer. I should have known, he's too blah. You bring him along to run interference for you, don't you."

The ex-GI from Pittsfield had not been trained for jet-set maneuverings; the man of him, however, knew that he was being rushed. The whole thing seemed entirely out of character for an airlines stewardess, in Bolan's view at any rate, and he was having trouble reading the signs. He gave her back her hand, forced a laugh, and said, "You're wrong all the way. Seriously. Would you like to see my passport?"

She shook her head, apparently deciding to ignore his protestations, and said, "Are yon staying in Paris long?"

"Couple days, maybe."

Her eyes gleamed with sudden mischief. "Your double is going on to Rome, or so his ticket says."

Bolan said, "Frankly, I don't give a damn where he's going. How can I convince you"

"Orly is my turnaround port," she said quickly. "I'll be there until Friday."

Okay, he thought, so the signs were becoming infinitely more readable. "That's nice," Bolan replied.

"I usually stay at the Pension de St. Germain when I'm laying over."

"Why?"

The girl seemed flustered by the direct question. "Well it's cheap and it's clean. And I like the St. Germain area, I guess you're a Right Banker, though — Champs Elysees or bust." She showed him a rueful smile. "On airline pay, it's the pensions or bust for darned sure."

"What's a pension?" Bolan asked, though he already knew.

"It's a boarding house."

Bolan said, "Oh."

"Not exactly," she quickly added. "They're family type hotels. You get room and three meals for about 30 francs a day, and that's where all the action is, you know, Left Bank."

Yes, Bolan knew. "Thirty francs a day is cheap?"

She wrinkled her nose. "That's only about five dollars."

The game could go on indefinitely. Bolan decided to end it. "Yeah, that's cheap," he agreed. "Okay, maybe I'll try your Left Bank."

"Pension de St. Germain," she reminded him.

"Okay."

"I'm Nancy Walker."

Bolan smiled. "Sounds like a brand of whiskey."

"No, wine," she flashed back, vamping him with an ultra-feminine smile, "Heady, romantic, nice to the taste and absolutely no hangover."

She left him standing there, open-mouthed and re-fleeting that the Gil Martins of the world certainly had it made. He finished his coffee and returned to his seat, arriving there as the seat belt announcement was being delivered.

Bolan buckled in and watched the man across the aisle. Yes, he decided, there were certain superficial similarities — he could see how the stewardess could have been misled into her erroneous conclusion. Martin was a surly type. He had spent the entire trip absorbed in a paperback book, sporadically dozing, awakening, and grimly returning to the reading, then dozing again — totally anti-social and ignoring repeated approaches by the stewardess and the passenger alongside him.

Bolan suddenly grinned to himself, a vision forming in his mind. Maybe, for a short while, Gil Martin, who the hell ever he was, would know how it felt to not have it made. If Bolan could be mistaken for Martin, then why couldn't Martin be mistaken for Bolan? If the French gendarmes were waiting down there at Orly, with copies of those composite photos of Bolan's new face to guide them, there could be a real comic opera down at the customs gate.

Things could be swiftly set straight, of course, with no more damage than the ruffling of a celebrity's tail-feathers, but the diversion could be enough to get the Executioner into Paris. It was something worth hoping for.

Bolan's fingers toyed with his false plumage and his mind toyed with this new hope. It would be nice, he reflected, for a while to simply have it made, to play and laugh and luxuriate in relaxed human companionship. Not that much hope, buddy, he chided himself. That's Paris down there, not Oz or Wonderland. Your hands are alive to kill, not to lovingly stroke a pulsing female form. You're the Executioner, damn you, not the playboy of the western world. Yeah, but it would be nice. For a while. The Executioner in Paris, gay Paris.

Bolan abruptly flung the idea from his mind. That was hell down there, not Paris. Only the strong and the resolute walked through hell. He meant to make that walk. And exit standing. A war awaited him, commanded him.

Goodbye, Paris. Hello, Hell.

After a brief delay in the holding pattern and an instrument landing through a dense ground fog, they were down, and off, and streaming inside the terminal building, Bolan keeping Gil Martin in sight, sleepy-eyed inspectors amiably waving them on through Passport Control with not even a glance at the precious documents. Bolan could hardly believe it, then he did not believe it at all. An inspector stuck out a hand as Bolan drew abreast and said softly, "Vetre passeport, s'il vous plait."

Bolan sighed and produced the little folder. "Okay," he said in as bored a reply as he could manage, "Le voici." He had not used his French for some years, except in the rather limited and infrequent brushes with French-speaking Indo-Chinese, but he was happy to be able to handle the small formalities with as little fuss as possible.

Gil Martin had been stopped also, Bolan noted with some satisfaction, and was not faring quite so well; he obviously handled French not at all, and an English-speaking inspector was being dispatched to the scene.

Bolan's inspector was smiling at him and comparing his face with the image on the passport. Bolan fingered the growth at his face and lightly commented, "La moustache, les pattes; c'est un difference, eh?"

The inspector chuckled and replied, "Vive le difference, Monsieur Ruggi. Combien de temps comptezvous rester?"

He wanted to know how long Bolan would be in France. "A few days," Bolan told him. "Quelques jours."

The inspector smiled again and returned the passport. "Bon visite, Monsieur."

Bolan thanked him and went on toward the customs section. A porter intercepted him and tried to take his bags, insisting that he could smooth his way and save him money. Bolan declined, kept his bags, and selected a fast-moving line. The inspection seemed to be little more than a formality, with most of the delay being caused by the confusion of the passengers rather than by the officials. Bolan lit a cigarette and casually looked back for a progress check on Gil Martin. The look-alike had finally cleared Passport Control and was hurrying into the customs area, following closely on the heels of a porter who was carrying an overnighter and a matching larger bag. To an untrained eye, this was the status on Gil Martin; to Bolan's eyes, much more was developing. Martin was quietly and inconspicuously being surrounded by a crew of plainclothes cops who, even without Martin's knowledge, were maneuvering him toward one of the private inspection rooms. At the last minute, Martin seemed to realize what was happening. He balked at the doorway and raised his voice in an angry argument but was pushed on through, the door closing behind him and sealing in the heated discussion.