Sunscream (8 page)

In the distance a whistle shrilled.

It was echoed, louder, from closer at hand. Three piercing blasts. The seaborn detail had arrived; Jean-Paul had instructed them to go ahead.

Inside the house a dog barked. The sound was at once drowned by a staccato burst of automatic fire from the far side of the meadow. Bolan could see the muzzle-flashes winking in the shadow beneath the trees lining the driveway.

A shutter banged open and was slammed shut. Voices shouted inside the building. Glass shattered and fell, and a single ricochet screeched off the stone facing to the frame house.

The attackers unleashed another volley. It was repeated from the edge of the wood fifty yards to Bolan’s left. And now there was an answering fire from the ranch. Flame stabbed the dark on the shadowed side of the building. Louvers were smashed aside, and guns sprouted from the shutters. Revolvers, automatic rifles and at least one SMG were aiming at the muzzle-flashes of the assault force.

Mack Bolan waited in the cool semidarkness of the shepherd’s hut, watching the action.

The men from the sea were advancing up the driveway under cover of bushes that grew beneath the trees. The leading guns were within a hundred yards of the house now. Fire from the defenders redoubled: there were a lot of guys shooting from all windows on both floors, although automatic fire was shredding some of the wooden structures and making the position untenable. Bolan heard a high-pitched scream of agony, but whether it came from inside or outside he couldn’t say.

Suddenly the seaborne detail’s heavy machine gun opened up, the hard stammer of the belt-fed rounds punctuating the lighter crackle of machine pistols and SMGs. Beside it there was an abrupt glare, an express-train shriek and a streak of fire arrowing toward the ranch. Bolan knew the sound. Someone had fired a rocket grenade from a Russian RPG-7 launcher.

The shoulder-borne, bazooka style weapon fired a five-pound missile with directional fins that opened as soon as the grenade left the launch tube and the rocket booster ignited.

There was a thunderclap report as the deadly projectile hit the ranch-house stoop, burst on impact and ripped open the heavy double doors. Moments later a second grenade exploded in the hallway beyond. In the momentary flash of the detonation, Bolan saw masonry fall and splintered wood spin through the air, trailing spirals of smoke.

It was then that the attackers played their trump card. Somehow, from somewhere, Jean-Paul had acquired an ex-warplane 20 mm cannon and a single feed belt alternating high-explosive, armor-piercing and incendiary shells. Mounted on a modified tripod, the weapon roared to life, stitching the night with tracers that homed in on the gap blasted by the RPG-7.

The HE shells laid waste the front half of the house’s lower floor. The armor-piercers, unsuited to this kind of assault, sheared through furniture, interior walls and anything else in their path until inertia and gravity overcame their speed and they dropped to burst somewhere in the back.

But the incendiaries did the real damage. A score of them, burning on impact for one-seventieth of a second at 2,000 degrees Celsius, screamed through the hole and ripped into the pine walls and wooden staircase at the rear of the hallway, setting them alight instantly.

Within seconds, flames, fanned by the draft sweeping in through the gap, were seething upward to set the floor of the upper story ablaze.

But the remnants of the Balestre gang were not without their own surprises. Indoors, men were yelling, but from one of the outbuildings at the side of the ranch an ancient four-wheel farm wagon loaded with bales of hay trundled into the moonlight. There were flames here, too, small ones that licked the tinder-dry bales... and spread… and increased... and then boiled skyward until the whole load had become a blazing torch.

A torch that was accurately directed down the slope, increasing speed as it hurtled with murderous aim at the place where the machine gun, the RPG-7 and the cannon were hidden; a torch that was piloted by the four hoods with SMGs who had started it rolling and were now racing behind it, sheltered by the flames and shooting as they ran.

Firing from the hip, they scored some hits among the attackers, but it was the blazing wagon that wreaked havoc.

Crashing into the undergrowth where the gun crews were hidden, it tipped over onto its side, spilling the burning fodder right and left. At once the sun-dried brushwood flared up; desiccated leaves on the lower branches of the trees caught fire; a ring of fire forty yards in diameter consumed the fringe of the wood and swelled outward across the grass of the pasture.

Ammunition buried beneath the flaming hay discharged like exploding firecrackers. A rocket grenade, ignited by the fierce heat, streaked a fiery trail into the sky and then self-destructed.

Once again Bolan savored the paradox of his situation, ready to fire but owing allegiance to neither side. If the Marseilles mob won, and he had helped them do it, this would obviously consolidate his position as Sondermann, the hit specialist, and prove his “loyalty” to J-P. If the defenders gained, on the other hand, it would surely widen the rift among the various Mafia factions and make the KGB tie-up less likely... which after all was the reason for Bolan’s Sondermann masquerade in the first place.

From the branches of a tree behind the shack, Bolan heard the ripping-calico snarl of the gang boss’s Uzi. Two of the gunmen stumbled and fell, jerking uncontrollably as their lifeblood soaked the moonlit grass.

And then the towering figure of Delacroix emerged from the fire, his singed hair smoking, tiny flames still traversing the shoulders of his flak jacket. Oblivious to the danger, the giant started swinging his knobkerrie, crushing the skull of one of the remaining hoods and dealing the last such a terrible blow on the temple that he dropped like a stone.

Delacroix beat out the flames with his bare hands and called in a hoarse voice, “Okay now, boss? Let ’em have it?” It was the first time Bolan had heard him speak.

“Go ahead,” Jean-Paul’s voice replied from the branches above.

The giant shouted an order. Immediately a dazzling beam of light sliced through the night from a spotlight located halfway along the driveway, illuminating every detail of the burning house.

The place was rapidly becoming an inferno. The whole upper floor was ablaze, and flames roared skyward beneath a pillar of black smoke that streamed out and up through the blasted porch.

Dark man shapes were running frantically right and left. Other figures were motionless on the stoop, one slumped head-downward over the sill of a shattered window.

“Sondermann!” Jean-Paul yelled. “Fat boy and the man in red! Coming out now!”

Staring through the nightscope, Bolan saw a group of defenders, firing what looked like Skorpion machine pistols, swarm through the charred doorway and fling themselves behind a stone balustrade that confined a terrace below the entrance steps.

They would be invisible to the attackers along the driveway and at the edge of the wood, Bolan figured, but from where he was he could see the heads and torsoes of several men.

Among them was a rugged type wearing a red nylon parka. Near him crouched a short, fat guy with massive shoulders and thick arms. The two of them seemed to have taken charge of the survivors: the man in red was waving his arms at men out of sight in the yard between the house and the shearing barn; Fat Boy was looking over his shoulder, shouting to someone in back of the house, where gunfire from Smiler and his companions now added to the pandemonium.

Bolan squinted again through the sight until the cross hairs settled between the shoulder blades of the guy in the parka. He held his breath.

Concentrated.

Squeezed the trigger.

The report of the big gun was deafening. His shoulder throbbed from the massive recoil. The bullet hurled the man in red across the terrace and tossed him like a rag-doll on the steps.

Bolan snicked the Husqvarna’s bolt and swung the barrel slowly sideways until Fat Boy was in the center of the scope. The cross hairs sank until the junction was steadied above his shoulders on the column of his throat.

Bolan fired again. The 150-grain slug slammed into the guy’s neck and almost tore his head from his body. He catapulted back against the stoop post and slid lifeless to the ground.

“Okay!” Jean-Paul shouted. “In for the kill now!”

Someone near the house fired a long burst from an SMG, and the searchlight faded to orange and died in an explosion of smashed glass. Now there were men running toward the house from all sides, zigzagging among the long pasture grass, firing as they came. Half a dozen spilled from the bushes lining the driveway; a couple more gave them covering fire; a survivor of the RPG-7 crew ran with Delacroix; Smiler and his companions raced around the corner of the barn. The sound of gunfire rose to a crescendo.

Jean-Paul dropped from his command post in the tree and followed. Bolan, obeying instructions, left the Husqvarna in the ruined cabin and brought up the rear. He unleathered the 93-R deathbringer, flipped off the safety catch and ran.

He was level with the sheep pens, dodging between the troughs when the hidden gunman fired.

He must have been lying low, waiting for the chance to bring someone down from behind. Bolan was less than ten yards away when the gunner triggered a 3-shot burst.

The Executioner owed his life to a tussock of coarse sheep grass, which tripped him the instant the killer fired.

He pitched forward as the triple report rang in his ears, momentarily deafening him. He felt the wind of the heavy slugs stir the hair on top of his head... and at the same time a searing pain across his left shoulder.

Bolan hit the ground, rolled over and lay still.

The Beretta, knocked from his grasp by the unexpectedness of the attack, had spun out of reach. If he moved, the hidden gunman could hardly miss a second time. He used the oldest trick in the trade: he played possum.

Lying on his back at an unnatural angle, the injured arm doubled beneath him, he allowed his jaw to drop, breathing as shallowly as possible and forcing his eyes to remain open. He hoped that any movement he made would be mistaken for a trick of the red light flickering from the burning house.

Ten seconds passed... twenty... half a minute.

Slowly a bulky silhouette rose into view from behind a fallen tree to one side of the pens. Cautiously, his gun close to the hip to minimize recoil, he advanced on Bolan’s supine figure.

Bolan held his breath, hearing the shots and the shouting at the ranch as if from a great distance. He knew that he was very near death. If the gunman was not satisfied...

The man stood over him, staring down.

Would he fire a final shot, just to make sure?

Inserting a toe beneath the Executioner’s waist, he began levering the body over onto its face. So it was to be the neck.

Pain streaked through Bolan as he moved, but he kept on rolling, fast, and the shot was deflected as he went for the guy’s wrist. Stooping over a man he thought was dead or dying, the killer was off balance and unprepared, and it was not too difficult for Bolan to take him by surprise.

The hood was big and strong. But a man in fear of imminent death is desperate. Bolan worked on his attacker with the strength of a crazy man. Ignoring the pain in his shoulder, he hurled the two of them across five yards of rough earth and bent the mafiosi backward over one of the troughs.

The shallow wooden trench was still half full of the chemical-smelling dip. Bolan locked his good arm around the guy’s neck and forced him around. Then the Executioner struggled with all his strength until the man’s head was down and his face touched the disinfectant.

His head went under the surface of the tar water and a shrill bubbling sounded over the distant gunfire. His legs kicked convulsively and he scrabbled to bring up his gun arm, but Bolan felt for the thumb and bent it back until it snapped and the killer screamed under the liquid.

Bolan increased the pressure on the neck lock, freeing the hand on his wounded arm to feel for the weapon. The hardman’s fingers were nerveless and Bolan pried them away, jerking the gun clear. It splashed into another trough behind them.

The hood bucked violently, kicking his legs and twisting his body so that he fell entirely into the trough.

The killer’s arms flailed uselessly, his hands clawed for a purchase, his breath gargled in his tortured throat as the fluid in the trough foamed and splashed.

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.”

“You were going to tell me,” Bolan said, “about the contract for your cop.”

“Oh, yeah,” Jean-Paul said, “The cop. His face has been seen around here too much recently, A wise guy, asking questions. I figure he’s dangerous to the project, so he must go. You can waste the others any way you want, but this one I want shot down in public. As a warning to others.”

“What’s his name?” Bolan asked. He could see the muscles in Jean-Paul’s jaw working before he almost spat the word.

“Telder.”