Sunscream

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.