the whole idea out the window.
This time the frontal assault, the elimination of enemy key men that Bolan favored, would be useless: there would always be others to take their places. No, the Soviet conspirators had to see the Mafia fighting family against family; they must be made to see the alliance as totally unstable... and therefore unreliable. Only then would they withdraw their support.
And, yeah, the Executioner was the only man who could do it.
From his position of trust he had to engineer a series of deceits and apparent treacheries that would split the syndicate apart like an overripe melon.
Okay, that position was now well established. After the disappearance of three men and the public murder of a fourth, Bolan in his role of the German hit man was well in with the high command of the Riviera Mafia.
But it was only now that the really hard part began.
And there were dangers.
The ever-present threat of a confrontation with Antonin.
The fact that now, as an accepted man in the organization, Bolan would be expected to take part in group operations, in crimes that would be difficult to avoid without blowing his cover or faking them as he had done with Telder.
The Telder operation had been impressive: it was Raoul’s reluctantly admiring report, and the newspaper accounts of this and the other three disappearances, that had finally raised Bolan’s stock ace high in Jean-Paul’s book.
The only tough spot, Bolan reflected, was choosing the moment when Raoul’s attention was distracted so that he never got wise to the fact that the magazine Bolan slammed into the rifle wasn’t the same one that the mobster himself had loaded.
The clip Bolan had shoved in — hidden until then in his pants pocket — carried only one live round and two blanks.
The live round shattered the glass roof of the assembly hall, all right. But it wasn’t, as Bolan had said, to minimize the danger of deflection and make it easy for the next two: it was to tip off Telder that the operation was all systems go and alert his audience that something dramatic was on the way.
All the Interpol man had to do then, once he heard the distant reports of the second and third shot, was hurl himself backward against the wall behind the platform and press the gelatin ball concealed inside his jacket that so convincingly covered his chest with “blood.”
The specially prepared ambulance would then rocket up to the school complex and whip the “body” away before professional medics could make it and blow the plan.
But apart from reinforcing his image as an ace contract artist, all this did was get Bolan off the hook for a while.
His score was zero so far on the seeds-of-discontent chart; he was not even sure what approach to take, what kind of discord to sow. And time was vitally short. Because of the attack on La Rocaille and the need for the expedition to Corsica, Antonin had agreed to wait a little longer for the final response, when the plan would be wrapped up for better or worse. But the Executioner had to start operating in a matter of days — perhaps even hours — if his own plan was to succeed.
What plan, Bolan thought wryly. It would be easier if he had one.
It was the day after Telder’s “murder,” and now Bolan sat above the sea in the Jaguar XJS he had been awarded as a bonus after that successful coup and pondered the problem. He was due to report at Jean-Paul’s house, along with Smiler, Raoul, Bertrand, Delacroix and half a dozen other hoods in the early evening. Something had to be worked out — even if it was only in general terms — before then.
It was hot inside the low-slung car. The afternoon sunlight was glaring and fierce.
Mentally Bolan ran over the unrelated points he had filed away as potentially useful.
Jean-Paul was no birdbrain but he was an autocrat: he didn’t go for anyone except himself making the decisions — and he could lose his cool if they did. The mobster from Marseilles was not one hundred percent certain that he could count on unstinting loyalty when the guy in question was the Corsican boss, Ancarani.
Ancarani himself, together with Lombardo, the capo who ran Toulon, and the Italian Scalese seemed slightly dubious of the KGB offer.
Smiler was an enemy, and would remain one, because Bolan had humbled him in front of his own men.
Raoul’s sadism was likely to fog his judgment in a critical situation.
Coralie Sanguinetti blew hot and cold — but Bolan’s gut reaction was that she would be on his side if she didn’t regard him as a professional killer. And even believing that, she had thought enough of him to sense his mistrust of Antonin and fabricate an excuse to keep him out of the Russian’s way.
Coralie was therefore likely to view any Russian participation — even indirectly — in her father’s business with disfavor.
Could any of these disparate factors, proven and unproven, be threaded together strongly enough to fashion a cord? A cord that could be made into a noose?
Chain, Bolan thought, was a better image. A chain is really as strong as its weakest link, and there
The obvious one was the Ancarani-Scalese-Lombardo trio. Could their doubts be linked with Smiler’s hostility and the temperamental idiosyncracies of Raoul and J-P himself in such a fashion that they threatened the balance of the coalition?
Bolan thought maybe they could.
But he would, after all, flip the problem back into the Pending tray until the meeting with the mobsters was through. Could be a more positive pointer would emerge there.
As for Coralie... well, she was the wild card!
Bolan fired up the Jaguar’s V12, 225 horsepower engine. Backing the heavy speedster up onto the road, he lowered the visor against the setting sun and blasted off west, toward the city.
“This weekend,” Jean-Paul said, “I don’t have to tell you guys — it’s the busiest of the whole year on the roads. Damn near the whole of France at the wheel: July vacationers going home; August families with kids on the way down here. Something like one hundred thousand automobiles on the move during these forty-eight hours!”
He paused and looked over his audience: Bolan and ten hardmen lounging in the white leather chairs that furnished the sun room overlooking the glittering sea those holidaymakers paid so much to be beside. Most of the mobsters wore puzzled expressions. “More than eighty percent of those folks,” J-P explained, “will be using the north-south expressway. All of them will go through the pay station at Aix. Those driving down from Paris and Lyons will hand over six, seven bucks each. The ones heading home from Nice and Cannes will part with four or five at the tollbooths on the other side of town. Any of you smart enough to work out eighty thousand times five dollars?”
Delacroix, the giant who’d gotten burned during the Corsican raid, still wore bandages on his hands. Now the huge white paws rose and fell in a bewildered gesture. His simian brow furrowed in concentration. “Sure is a lotta bread,” he agreed. “But I don’t see what good that does us — I mean, with those armored trucks they have, the money is moved quicker’n fast. Ten minutes from the pay station an’ it’s in the vaults of the city bank.”
“Not this weekend,” J-P said. “The whole damn consignment, takings for both days, is going to Monte Carlo.”
“Monte Carlo! But that’s a hundred thirty miles!” one of the hoods exclaimed.
“That’s right.”
“Do you know this for sure?”
“Of course I know,” snapped J-P. “Why do you think you’re here? It’s inside intel, from a contact in the bank.”
“Okay, okay. But why?..”
“Something to do with a French government loan. The Monaco principality is supposed to be low on funds, so they want a big sum — in cash — to cover themselves in case the luck runs with the punters at the casino. I guess some smartass figured this was the quickest, easiest way to get it to them.”
“And we’re gonna hit the convoy transferring the loot?” Smiler asked.
