It was an exhilarating experience. Bolan was a skillful driver and his big hands, tweaking the three-branched wheel only fractionally as the Ferrari streaked past the lunchtime traffic, held the car steady as an arrow in flight.
Behind his head the throaty aspirations of the inter-cooled IHI turbochargers, the whine and chatter of thirty-two valves and twin overhead camshafts mingled with the bellow of exhaust from the big-bore tailpipes to exult in the achievement of man the engineer.
Bolan wished he could leave it at that. But it was man the animal that his business was with. The Camorra, he had read, was believed to be behind a nationwide child prostitution racket in Italy, a scandal that involved boys as well as girls. It was a subject on which he found it hard to keep his cool.
His own crusade against the Mafia had started after a compassionate repatriation from Nam had brought him face-to-face with murder and suicide in his own family. And that had been the direct consequence of his kid sister’s turning whore in a desperate attempt to find enough cash to pay off Mafia loan sharks.
Bolan shook his head sadly. Sure, the battleground changed, but the story remained the same. And it would, he knew, always be the same. But while he was alive, he’d do his best to change the plot. And with any luck he could at the same time toss another wrench into the proposed alliance of the KGB and European Mafia.
Valmontone, Montecassino and Caserta dropped behind the roaring Ferrari. Soon the autostrada looped down toward Naples and the impossibly blue bay beyond. The Ferrari GTO had made the 129 miles from Rome in exactly one hour.
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.
He tiptoed back to the kitchen. A vacuum cleaner was parked just inside. He unscrewed the hose with its chromed metal tip and carried it back to the open doorway.
The doorway was in deep shadow, the patio outside vibrating in the hot glare of the sun. Bolan balanced the hose on a bookshelf just inside the doorway, arranging it so that the metal tip projected a couple of inches out from the shadow.
He approached the girl from behind. She was lying on her back with her eyes closed, a tall empty glass nearby. She sat up with a gasp when his shadow fell across her face — a platinum blonde with long tapering legs and a bronzed body the color of polished olive wood. She was wearing the briefest of bikinis in silver satin.
Bolan gestured with the gun. “Don’t make a sound,” he warned. “Walk over there and get into the pool.”
Her eyes were wide with terror. “I... I can’t swim.”
“You don’t have to. Stay at the shallow end.”
“No, but... my swimsuit will get wet. It will be ruined.”
She flicked an apprehensive glance over her right shoulder.
Bolan followed her movement and saw a blue canvas awning under which double glass doors led to another part of the villa. That must be where the big shot was holed up, Bolan guessed.
“Look,” he murmured, “I’m in a hurry. All you have to do is get in the pool and sit in the shallow end with just your head showing.” He looked across the pool.
“But if you step out of line my partner over there will see you.” He pointed to the tip of the vacuum hose where it gleamed out of the shadow. “That’s a cannon he has there. One squawk out of you, and he’ll blow your pretty head away. Okay?”
Wordlessly, trembling, she went to the ladder and lowered herself into the tepid water.
Bolan found Scalese in a bright, airy room with picture windows overlooking the sea. He was wearing a flowered Hawaiian shirt and white shorts above thin tanned legs. His silver hair was crimped close to his skull and his face was as lined as a yellowed sheet of music.
The Executioner took in the inlaid Renaissance cabinets, nineteenth century oil paintings, a tiger-skin rug, before the gang boss spoke.
“What’s happen? Who are you? How the hell you get inna here?” He was holding an unlit cigar. He didn’t seem angry, only faintly surprised.
“The racket,” Bolan said grimly. “The kid prostitute racket. You’re the brains behind it, the guy places the orders, right?”
Scalese picked a gold cigar cutter from a desk and guillotined his Corona. “So what of it?” he said, shrugging.
“In Paris,” Bolan said carefully, “we don’t go for that. The baron does not approve.”
“Whatsa matter wit’ you? You crazy or something?” The sallow forehead corrugated even more as Scalese’s eyebrows rose. “It’s no business of his. Or yours. What do I care for Paris? I run my family the way I want.”
“If we’re going into business together, we wouldn’t want to be associated with the kind of scum who seeks out deprived kids, tempts them with offers of money, exploits them...” the words trembled in Bolan’s mouth “...and then ruins them for life.”
“You tell your baron he go fuck himself. So what if a few punk kids get laid a coupla years early? They’ll be on their backs soon enough, anyway, and this way they getta some money, too. What so corrupt in that, tell me?”
Bolan had seen the surreptitious jab at the desk button when Scalese picked up his cigar cutter, was aware of the turning spools of the tape deck beneath the windows: if they were being recorded he wanted the connection between the baron, the yellow Ferrari and what was going to happen to Scalese to be clear. “The Baron won’t stand for that kind of filth.”
“Say, how did you get in here, anyway?” Scalese asked.
“You need better security,” Bolan said.
The Camorra boss turned back to the desk and picked up a small bronze conversation piece, a shepherd leaning over a tree stump. The shepherd’s head had been cut and hinged to accommodate a cigarette lighter. “I hope you don’ hurt none of my boys getting through.” He swung around to face Bolan, raised the statuette level with his chest and flicked the lighter. He held the flame to his cigar.
Bolan was alert for any sudden moves. He was off the mark and diving the instant the hidden shutter opened in the base of the bronze piece.
The deadly steel dart ripped the lobe of his ear as it hurtled past him. Bolan rammed Scalese’s chest with his shoulder and carried the two of them back over the polished top of the desk. A black letter case, an inkwell, a jeweled paper knife and a Venetian ashtray crashed to the floor. The two men landed in a heap beneath the windows.
Scalese was quick for his age. A stiletto was already in his hand as he twisted out from under the Executioner. But anger had fueled Bolan’s strength and determination. Ignoring the menace of that flickering point, he went straight for the man’s arm.
The blade slashed the strap of his shoulder rig, pricked blood through the sleeve of his blacksuit and scratched his hand before his fingers closed in on the bony wrist.
Violently, he jerked the arm down against an upthrust knee. The weapon clattered away; the bone snapped dryly as a dead branch in winter.
Scalese screamed.
Bolan picked him up by his ankles and swung him. He whirled the mafioso around like an Olympic athlete winding up a hammer throw, then crashed the old man’s head against one of the picture windows.
Scalese’s skull shattered the glass. The pane exploded with a jangling concussion.
Once more Bolan swiveled. At the completion of the turn, he hurled the Camorra chief savagely out through the broken window.
Blood laced the air as Scalese’s ribboned body dropped fifteen feet in a cascade of razor-sharp fragments to a terrace planted with olives and fruit trees.
He lay groaning feebly, with streams of scarlet fanning out from his broken body to sink into the sunbaked earth. Even if he lived, Girolamo Scalese wasn’t going to be propositioning underage kids for quite some time.
Bolan turned back into the room. A swarthy gorilla in a cream-colored suit was standing in the doorway, his right hand diving between his lapels.
In one fluid movement Bolan scooped up the fallen paper knife by the point and thrust it with murderous aim at the hood. The sharp blade sank into the guy’s throat and he subsided to the floor with a bubbling moan.
Bolan jumped over the body and raced for the patio. Another mobster, attracted by the noise of smashing glass, was running along the passage toward Bolan. The big guy wasted him as he ran, a single shot from the Beretta impacting below his breastbone, pulverizing liver and spleen.
On the far side of the patio, between Scalese’s quarters and the kitchen wing, three more hoods were approaching the Executioner. The girl was still in t
he pool, her blond hair and frightened face incongruous above the surface of the blue water.
“Keep your head down!” Bolan yelled.
He unhitched a small plastic grenade from the black-suit harness, pulled the pin and threw it across the pool.
A momentary flash dimmed the blaze of the sun. A cracking thunderclap of an explosion. More glass shattered and fell. Masonry dropped and broken tiles slid into the patio from the roof.
A shower of blood stained the walls.
Bolan reholstered the Beretta. “You can come out now,” he told the blonde. “Don’t look behind you... and get the hell out of here.”
He walked around to the kitchen passage and descended the stairs to the garage.
At the end of the driveway he pressed the button to open the electrically operated gates and regained the Ferrari.
Turning the roadster so that he could go back the way he had come, he backed up into the villa entrance. The hood with the paper knife in his throat could still be alive; there might be other guys on Scalese’s payroll in other rooms; the girl might be watching. Whatever, he wanted to be quite sure somebody saw him leaving in that yellow-and-black car.
With their reports, and the evidence on the tape, whether Scalese himself lived or died, Baron Etang de Brialy was going to have a lot of explaining to do when the story broke on his arrival on Stromboli.
And nobody was going to believe some fool story about his Ferrari having been stolen. Not when it would be found tomorrow right where it should be, in the dockside parking lot, with the keys in the harbormaster’s office!
Bolan wore a satisfied smile as he floored the pedal, heading for Naples and Rome.
16
Sanguinetti’s yacht was in the Onassis class. Below the streamlined stack that funneled the vapors from its twin 1200 hp diesels into the sky, three promenade decks accommodated a dining room, a lounge, a bar and sleeping quarters for thirty-two people. Two of the latest powered self-righting lifeboats were stowed aft of the wheelhouse and bridge, and there was a small helipad with a Dassault chopper above the crew’s mess hall.
Sunscream te-85 Page 12