'Well... maybe it hasn't gone out yet. But I was just talking to the station manager. They've had two calls from Paris and one from Marseilles, asking you to lay off until they have a chance to spring the merchandise. You didn't get that?'
Woodenly, Bolan replied, 'No, I didn't get that. But change that story I just released. Instead, I'm accepting their assurances that the merchandise will be sprung... but only until eight o'clock... then, same story.'
Sharp said, 'For what it's worth, slugger, I admire your footwork. Just don't quote me on that.'
Bolan chuckled. 'Thanks for the immoral support. Maybe I'll see you around some day.'
'I'll cover your trial maybe.'
Bolan laughed and replied, 'It will never come to that.'
'Can I quote you?'
'Sure. I wouldn't live ten minutes after an arrest. You know that and every Mafioso in the world knows it. Penning me up would be an automatic death sentence. So I'll take it standing up, thanks, and in a place of my choosing.'
'You talk as though you're expecting to get it.'
'Well, sure. I may be a windmill-fighting fool, but I'm no idiot. It has to come sooner or later. I'm just banking on later, that's all.'
The newsman sighed. 'This had developed into quite an interview. Thanks, I appreciate it. But tell me this — do you expect to get out of Monaco?'
'I didn't tell you that I'm in Monaco.'
'Didn't have to. The whole world knows it. At least, the French police are assuring one and all that you are, and that you'll never get out. They've got a little maginot line around the entire principality. How do you rate your chances?'
Bolan's mind was working furiously. 'Didn't I tell you that I was blitzing at eight o'clock? Does that sound like I'm hopelessly contained?'
'Well, you did say...'
'I said a tactical withdrawal. You make out of that what you can. But don't give any aid and false comfort to the enemy. I'm blitzing at eight if they haven't produced, and they'd better understand that.'
'Then you are not in Monaco.'
'Hell I'm not saying where I'm not. Let the cops figure it out.'
Bolan hung up, cutting off another question from the newsman. Then he returned to the car and got away from that immediate area. Several new items of thought were now bothering him. Uppermost, why the hell didn't Cici deliver that message? What kind of a damn two-headed game was she playing, anyway?
Secondly, why were cops so damn talkative? Didn't they realize that every hired gun the mob could command would be pouring into the tiny principality, an eight square mile area already jammed with tourist and fun-seekers?
Lastly, and perhaps most troubling, how could he deliver on his rash promise for the eight o'clock blitz? He was hoping that he would not have to deliver, that the wide publicity being given his grandstand play would filter into the underground trail, wherever and whatever it was, and that the girls would be turned over. But what if they were not? Could Bolan even survive until eight o'clock?
Well... he would give it one hell of a whirl. Where would be the most unlikely place in all of Monaco for Mack Bolan to turn up? Aside, of course, from the royal palace. Where else, but the fabled casino at Monte Carlo, where an execution had taken place less than an hour earlier?
Bolan checked his tie in the mirror, smoothed his hair, and made ready for the most scalp-tingling gamble of his career. He would lay it all on the line at Monte Carlo.
Six o'clock at Monte Carlo was like midnight at Vegas. The evening crowds were in the streets — ladies who could have come directly from Cardin or Dior, and men in formal wear, plus hordes of tourists in casual dress who seemed to be there mainly to gawk and exclaim — sidewalk cafes without standing room available — here and there a yachting hat and a dude in denim and deckshoes — and everywhere, on this particular evening, sharp-eyed detectives and uniformed policemen suspecting every male in sight of being Mack Bolan in disguise, until irrefutable identification proved otherwise.
Thanks to tightrope timing, Bolan himself was not challenged once during the hundred yards or so of his walk from the parked car to the casino entrance. Just outside the door stood a congregation of uniformed cops. Bolan passed right through them and received his first challenge inside, by two gracious men in formal wear. It was a routine thing, the showing of passports to gain admittance.
Bolan was prepared for this, also. He opened his coat wide to get to the wallet, allowing his sideleather and hardware to come into plain view, then flashed the folder rapidly past their eyes, which were already distracted by the sidearm display, and said, 'Police.'
He was passed right through and not even required to pay the five franc entrance fee.
Inside the big gaming room was business as usual. Bolan found the spot where his latest target had gone down. The window across the way had already been replaced and the mess at the telephone desk cleaned up. A small throw-rug now covered the carpeting on the spot where Hebert had stood — to conceal the bloodstains, Bolan surmised. He casually made an inside inspection of the angle for that hit and realized that it had been a mighty tight one. Six inches one way or the other and it would have been impossible. Something seemed to be on his side.
He kept moving, pausing here and there to drop a few francs at a roulette table or card game, trusting his instincts to spot the plainclothes cops and to keep his distance from them. At a little after seven o'clock he went back through the lobby and into the admission-free room of slot machines. Here the traffic was thicker and the clientele more casually dressed. He pushed through snatches of conversations in a myriad of languages, found an open machine, and began unhurriedly feeding it.
At about twenty minutes past seven, he went to the cashier's desk for more coins. As he was moving away, a large black man stepped up to the counter and grinned at him. Bolan's brain clanged and seized on an instant recognition. His eyes kept the secret, he returned the smile, and he went back to the slot machine.
A moment later the big guy was standing beside him, feeding a coin into the next machine. The familiar basso voice advised him, 'Just keep looking straight on ahead, Sarge, you're being scouted.'
Without turning his head, Bolan said, 'You're a sight for homesick eyes, Lieutenant. Who's scouting me?'
'Some guys.' The black man fed in another coin and pulled the handle. 'You're in a hell of a spot, aren't you?'
'Yeah. Did you bring me a crying towel?'
'No, I just brought myself. This is weird, Sarge. It's your voice, it's you, but it's the wrong face.'
'How'd you spot me then, Lieutenant?'
'You kidding? Kids outside are already selling souvenir pictures of you.'
Bolan grunted and watched the combination come up on his machine. 'You're a long way from home... football season and all.'
The Negro made a small payoff hit, chuckled gleefully, and scooped the coins into a huge paw. 'My football days are gone forever, Sarge. Claymore mine, 'bout two months after we parted company at Song Lai. I been wearing a synthetic foot for about a year now.'
Bolan said, 'Damn! That's tough!'
'Don't give me no pity. I already gave myself all of that I can stomach.'
'Guys do that.'
'Yeah, I even forgot who I am, I guess. I just been another nigger for a long time now.'
Bolan said, 'You never were a trigger, Lieutenant,'
Brown played with the coins in his hand and swiveled about to peer toward the head of the room. He sighed. 'I been watching your maneuvers, Sarge. I been remembering what it was I used to like about you.'
'We always worked good together, Lieutenant.'
'Yeah. I'm over here with a Mafia crew, let's get that out right now.'
Bolan's hand jerked to the slot and he dropped in another coin. Through a suddenly constricted throat, he said, 'Yeah?'
'Yeah. I'm supposed to be luring you outside for a quick and quiet snatch.'
