Interesting, just the same, Bolan reflected: Jean-Paul was already unsure of the Corsican capo. He could use that later.
“The guys at sea, where do they run to? Balestre’s hideout near Calvi?”
“I would think.”
“This mess must be cleaned up,” Jean-Paul said. “Fast. The Russian’s already sore about tonight. We were supposed to have sewn up any possible opposition before he showed. Now he’s staying for a couple of days instead of splitting tonight... and the slate has to be clean before he signs. So I guess it’s a surprise party at Calvi tomorrow night.”
He turned to Bolan. “You string along, Sondermann. We can use all the muscle we got. But first there’s a couple of solo deals I want to talk to you about. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
He took Bolan’s arm and piloted him away from the cellar.
“You got the retainer okay?” Jean-Paul asked as they climbed to the garden floor.
“Sure,” Bolan lied. There had been very little money in the hit man’s pockets or baggage. He guessed that whatever had been advanced to Sondermann would remain forever unclaimed in some discreet account in Hamburg or Switzerland.
“The terms are still agreeable to you?”
Bolan nodded.
“Good. You’d better get back then. I’ll brief you tomorrow night. A car will call at your hotel. I’ll have one of the guards run you back to Cassis in the launch.”
“Forget it,” Bolan said. “My car’s just across the water. I’ll take the rubber dinghy.” He grinned. “I don’t think the owners are going to need it again tonight.”
Bolan left the dinghy at the foot of the bluff, dressed and drove back to the city. He found a pay phone on the old port, fed in coins, dialed eleven digits.
A girl’s voice answered at once. “Yes?”
Bolan quoted an identification number and a password. The girl gave him a Paris number to call.
He memorized the number, waited half a minute and dialed it. The number, which was changed twice every day, was answered on the eighth ring. Bolan identified himself again, quoted the code number of the person he wished to speak to, waited while he was further checked and then patched in to a scrambler line.
“The ball game has started,” he said when finally he was put through. “We have to meet and it’s a red. Tomorrow, Number One on the list. No, make it midday. I expect to be killing some Corsicans in the evening!”
7
Mack Bolan took the early railcar east from Marseilles to the small shipbuilding port of La Ciotat. A sultry humidity had hazed the air and turned the sea from Mediterranean blue to a dull pewter color that merged with the sky.
Still, the long curving strip of shore that lined the bay beyond the old town was crowded. Oiled vacationers lay packed like sardines on the blistering sand. The water was busy with swimmers, windsurfers and pleasure boats. It seemed a far cry from the murderous exchanges less than twelve hours ago at La Rocaille.
Bolan intended it to be. Of the handful of passengers who had left the diesel railcar at the station, none, as far as he could see, had followed him to the beach. And he was sure no one had followed him when he boarded a bus bound for Bandol, farther along the coast. But there were such things as walkie-talkies and phones. He had already been tailed from Lyons to the gas station ambush and noticed nothing. And he still didn’t know how many different teams might be gunning for him.
But today it was vital that none of the hoods, that nobody at all, knew of his rendezvous.
He left the bus at Bandol, dodged through a crowded fruit market and installed himself at a sidewalk cafe. There he ordered and paid for a drink, walked through to the men’s room and left by a back entrance without returning to his table. After that he threaded his way around two floors of a department store and jumped another bus as the doors were closing.
The bus took him back to Aubagne, on the outskirts of Marseilles. From here he took a cab to Aix-en-Provence.
Telder was waiting for him in the fossil room of the city’s natural-history museum. “Chamson’s too well-known in these parts,” the Swiss Interpol chief said. “We agreed that I should come alone.”
“Good,” Bolan said. “I’m pretty sure I wasn’t tailed. But if I was, I think I lost him.”
He glanced around. Bolan and Telder were the only visitors professing interest in the glass display cases.
“I’ll give it to you straight,” Bolan murmured. “There’s a KGB plot to weld all the world’s Mafia families into one supersyndicate of international crime, armed, funded, supplied — and probably directed eventually — by Moscow.”
Telder pursed his lips in a soundless whistle. “To what end?”
“To undermine the power of all the Western police forces, of shooting and bombing and looting every country into a state of total anarchy. With the resulting chaos and panic... well, they figure the whole system will collapse, making way for a Red takeover.”
“And the four murders we were investigating?”
“Gang bosses who didn’t want to play ball. They were killed in a hurry to stop them from forming some kind of rival, non-KGB coalition.”
Telder’s eyes widened, but he remained silent. He was pretending to take notes from a caption inside one of the showcases. “What are the mafiosi supposed to get out of the partnership?” he finally asked.
“Money,” Bolan said. “More than they ever dreamed of, even in their slime-bucket business. And I think they’re dumb enough to believe they’ll be allowed to exist, even to warrant special treatment, after the takeover!”
“Stupid asses,” Telder said. “They’d get special treatment, all right. A private room in the Lubyanka. Can you imagine the comrades setting up a directorate for social-realist crime? Hell, they don’t even admit they have any crime!”
“They’ve got crime,” Bolan said soberly. “For export only. It’s labeled KGB.”
The Swiss smiled faintly. “Very well. What do we do about it?” he asked.
“There’s nothing you can do about it,” Bolan said. “You and Chamson, that is. No public crime’s officially been committed... yet. There’s only one line to take, and I’m the fall guy in the hot seat. It has to be done from the inside. And right now that’s where I’m at.”
“Done how?” Telder queried. “Killing all the family chiefs who are in on the deal? Even unofficially, I can’t give a go-ahead on that.”
Bolan shook his head. “They would be replaced, anyway. Same goes for the Russian masterminding the scheme. No, the only way is for the Mob as a whole to be unwilling to go through with it. That would choke off the KGB, make them see it’s a no-go situation.”
“But you said the Mafia already had agreed?..”
“Sure, for the moment. But to make it work, they have to be solid for this one-Mob, one-leader routine. Like the Nazis under Hitler. Without that, the KGB won’t play. So the way I figure it, the Mob must be disunited.”
“But how?” Telder asked again.
“Play one family against another. Arrange it so they’re gunning for each other rather than the law. There were enough dissenters left to raid La Rocaille, even without leaders. It shouldn’t be too difficult to play on existing rivalries and find a few more. It’s been done before, back home. Working from the inside, I think I can do it here.”
“But it’s got to be quick. The whole deal has to fall apart while Antonin’s still down here.”
“You’ll need help, then,” Telder said. “What can we do?”