Sunscream (12 page)

Bolan swung the Jaguar off the highway and parked it discreetly in a multistory parking lot on the outskirts of Civitaveccia, forty miles west and north of Rome. He took a cab to the town center and walked to the docks.

It was a blisteringly hot day and the tourists on the waterfront were dressed in the minimum, but Bolan wore a spotless white coverall that sheathed him from wrist to ankle. Stitched to the breast pocket was a yellow shield bearing a rampant horse in red, with the word Ferrari above it. To complete a picture immediately identifiable by any Italian, he had allowed a day-old haze of stubble to blue his jaw.

A freighter from Marseilles had docked early in the morning, and its cargo was being unloaded. Among the merchandise was an automobile. It belonged to Baron Etang de Brialy, the Parisian underworld boss, who was to take delivery of it in Rome the following day and then drive south to Reggio de Calabria on the Strait of Messina.

From here, along with the other Mafia chiefs, he was to be ferried in a private yacht, not to Sicily but to the island of Stromboli, where Sanguinetti owned another property.

After the intensive newspaper, radio and television coverage of the past few days’ excesses, all hell had broken loose along the Riviera coast, and Jean-Paul had figured it would be tempting fate to reorganize a gathering of so many high powered Mafia men in one place until the heat was off.

Italy and Sicily were out of the question since Tommaso Buscetta, late in 1984, had broken the Law of Silence and blown half the Mafia operations there and in the United States so wide open that all the law had to do was step in and snap on the handcuffs.

An island in the middle of the ocean, with no roads, no police and no regular transport service to the mainland seemed an ideal place to thrash out the final terms of the amalgamation with Colonel Antonin.

Bolan, Smiler, Raoul and Delacroix, together with a score of side men owing allegiance to other bosses, were to make their own way to Reggio di Calabria.

Right now, Bolan was ahead of schedule. He had gained twelve hours by driving through the night instead of stopping off to eat and sleep at a motel. During those twelve hours he intended to “borrow” Etang de Brialy’s car, use it on a private operation, and then continue on south in his own Jaguar.

The car was a 400 hp, twin-turbo Ferrari GTO, a sleek road racer whose center-mounted 3.8 liter V8 engine could power the car from 0 to 60mph in 4.8 seconds.

The 190 mph roadster was painted lemon yellow with a broad black stripe running from the nose, over the squat roof to the stubby tail. With Paris license plates, it was not the kind of vehicle to escape attention, even in race-mad Italy, the home of supercars. That suited the Executioner just fine.

There were gasps of admiration from dockers and tourists alike as the Ferrari was swung from the freighter’s hold and lowered gently to the wharf. Nobody thought for a moment to dispute Bolan as an official driver from the Ferrari factory at Maranello when he strode forward, unsmiling, and waited for the longshoremen to free the five-spoke alloy wheels from their chains.

Owner’s instructions were to park the car in a dockside lot and leave the keys with the harbormaster, from whom Etang de Brialy’s driver would collect them the following morning. But nobody questioned Bolan’s authority when he said that plans had been changed: he was to deliver the car to the Baron in Rome immediately. A fistful of 10,000-lire bills distributed left and right served to validate his authenticity further still.

Bolan sank into the perforated black leather driving seat and twisted the key. There was a momentary hum from the roadster’s Weber-Marelli injection system, and then the engine crackled to life. Bolan raised a languid hand in farewell and allowed the Ferrari to rumble slowly toward the dock gates.

He drove south until he hit the outskirts of Rome, bypassing the city on the parkway that circled the center. On the famous southern expressway beyond, he floored the pedal and howled up through the gears until the tachometer’s red needle was nudging the 7,500 rpm danger line. Then, easing the stick into fifth, he settled down the low, wide sportster at just over 150 mph and prepared to enjoy the ride.

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.