contemplated his own death. Bolan had known, and Rudolfi knew that he had known — and this, too, showed in the defeated face, the deadened eyes — the gutless, heartless, soul-less shell of a man who had no right to live and even less reason to die.
The luger wavered, and Rudolfi began moving carefully toward the door, reaching back with the toes and planting them painstakingly in the quiet retreat.
Before he reached the door, Bolan told him, 'Next time I see you, Rudolfi, I'll kill you. And the next time I hear of young girls being snatched off to Africa, I'll come here from hell if I have to and I'll rip through this country like nothing you ever imagined.'
Without a word Rudolfi backed out of the door and carefully pulled it shut. Bolan left the chair, threw off the lights, and hobbled to the window.
Cici ran over and joined him there. Bolan told her, 'He's running down the drive. He won't be back. He just lost his last gut.'
'I was sure you would keel heem,' Cici said in a choked voice.
'I did,' Bolan said tiredly. 'The worst way possible.'
He tucked the pistolet under his arm and headed for the bedroom. 'Anyway,' he told her, 'I couldn't zip him with you standing there looking on. I mean, I figured I owed you that, Cici. You have been working for the guy, haven't you?'
She recoiled as though he had struck her across the face. 'Non,' she murmured, and helped him to the bed, pulled back the covers, and steered him down.
'Well,' he sighed, 'when you get ready to tell me about it...'
'I am ready now, Mack Bolan.' She was whisking off skirt and blouse and preparing to slide in beside him. 'I will keep you warm, and 'old you while you sleep, and when you are refresh — well, may-bee Cici will discovaire what you do othaire than sit and look, eh stand-in?'
He was grinning weakly and holding out his good arm for her to slip into, and she was continuing her speech.
'But for Rudolfi, I did not know until this vairy morning of 'is unsavory eenvolvements, you see. But I do know thees man for many years. My seester, you see, Roxanne Loureau, she is 'is confidential secretary, among othaire things. And Roxanne 'as call me, you see — a vairy smart woman, my seester — she is suspect soonaire than anywan 'oo thees Gil Martin really is, you see — but she fears for her Rudolfi, not for Mack Bolan. And so she desires for Cici to get thees dangerous man out of Paris, you see, but she does not tell Cici 'oo this savage man truly is, you see. And when I found out, I know also now 'oo is truly thees terrible Rudolfi, and...'
Bolan said, 'Shut up, Cici. And welcome to Eden.'
'What means this?' she asked, rising above his face to peer down into his eyes.
He pulled her on down, discovering that maybe he was not all that weary, after all — and gave her a nonverbal mouth-to-mouth translation of his message.
Yeah, yeah. There was an Eden for every man, even for an executioner.
It could not last forever, of course — but for a man who had learned to live for every heartbeat, a short visit in Eden could seem an eternity. For the moment, Mack Bolan was ready to live and willing to love. And so also, it seemed, was Cici Carceaux.
Bolan should have known better. Through the window came a reminder from hell itself, in a crash of thunder and the sulphur smell of gunpowder and a nine millimeter projectile streaking so close to the flesh as to lightly singe his belly. The thunder rolled on and things were tearing into the mattress and pillows, something warm and wet was oozing across Bolan's torso, and Cici's breath left her in a soft little 'Ohhh.'
His hand was groping on the floor for the pistolet even before his mind realized it and then he was firing from the bed, a blazing X pattern smashing the bedroom window and finding solid impact material just beyond. Something hit the ground out there and threshed about the firing ceased, and there was mind now only for Cici — Cici, raised to one elbow and dumbly contemplating a flow of blood from her abdomen — Cici, staring at him with the question of life in her eyes.
Rudolfi's terrified voice was weakly shrieking pleas for help from somewhere outside Eden, but Bolan had neither time nor inclination to hear or heed. He made a compress of the sheet and pressed it harshly against Cici's wound, guided her hands to it and showed her how to hold the pressure, then he staggered through a red fog to the telephone and summoned emergency assistance. He gathered his clothes and put them on while Cici — brave little sex darling of Europe who was now paying the bill for Bolan's weakness — watched him with unreproving eyes and pleaded with him to get away from there.
'There weel be anothaire time,' she assured him.
He knelt beside the bed and held her until the siren turned into the drive, then he solemnly kissed her goodbye and went out through the rear of the house. Rudolfi lay there on the patio, zipped from right shoulder to left hip, his time fully run out. Bolan stepped over him and went down the steps to the boat landing, started the cruiser, and headed into the Mediterranean.
Behind him lay not life but death, not victory in any real sense but merely a prolongation of an impossible war. Ahead lay new battlefronts, an endless succession of Rudolfis and Lavagnis — this grim truth softened somewhat by the certainty that there would also be more Martins, Browns, Walkers and... yes, perhaps even another Carceaux. But no... He gave the cruiser full throttle and swept south toward tomorrow's front.
No... there would never be another Cici Carceaux. He had come frighteningly close to canceling out the only one around — through his own softness, his own shrinking from an executioner's destiny and that near-fatal reach for Eden. It would not happen again. The only safe enemy was a dead one. A single plan of action lay now in Mack Bolan's future — the creation of safe enemies.
He sighed, lit a cigarette, and turned to gaze back at the rapidly receding shore. He had learned an important truth back there. Yeah. There were no crossovers from hell to paradise.
Goodbye, Eden.
Hello, Hell.
Lookout, Mafia. The Executioner is sweeping on.
