so that his gun hand was free.
Bolan took a quick look around before crossing the road and stepping up to the front door of one of the innumerable shacks lining the road. He lifted his big hand and pounded three times on the door. He heard a hushed conversation break out momentarily before the voices fell quiet.
“Le Crème?” Bolan asked.
Bolan felt a sudden damp and realized it had started to rain while he was standing there. Despite the wet, he was still uncomfortably warm in his short-sleeve, button-down khaki shirt and battered blue jeans.
The door opened slowly and a bar of soft light spilled out and illuminated him. A silhouette stood in the doorway, and Bolan narrowed his eyes to take in the figure’s features. It was a male, wearing an unbuttoned and disheveled gendarme uniform.
He held a bottle of grain alcohol in one hand, and the other rested on the pistol grip of a French MAT-49 submachine gun hanging from a strap slung across his neck like a guitar. He leaned forward, crowding Bolan’s space. The big American made no move to back up.
“Cooper?” the man asked.
His breath reeked with alcohol fumes, and the light around him reflected wildly off the glaze in his eyes. His words were softly slurred, but his gaze was steady as he eyed Bolan up and down. The finger on the trigger of the MAT-49 seemed firm enough.
“Yes.” Bolan repeated. “Is Le Crème here?”
“Colonel Le Crème,” the man corrected.
“Is Colonel Le Crème here?”
“You have the money?”
Bolan lifted the attaché case, though he knew the man had already seen it when he’d opened the door. The gendarme ignored the displayed satchel, his eyes never leaving Bolan’s face. His hair was closely cropped, and Bolan could see bullets of sweat beading on the man’s forehead.
“Give me the pistol,” the man ordered.
“Go to hell,” Bolan replied.
The drunken gendarme’s eyes widened in shock and his face twisted in sudden, instant outrage. He snapped straight up and twisted the MAT-49 around on its sling, trying to bring the muzzle up in the cramped quarters.
Bolan’s free hand shot out and grabbed the submachine gun behind its front sight. He locked his arm and pushed down, preventing the gendarme from raising the weapon. The gendarme’s eyeballs bulged in anger, and the cords of his neck stood out as he strained to bring the submachine gun to bear.
“Leave him!” A deep bass voice barked from somewhere behind the struggling gendarme.
The man cursed and tried to step back and swing his weapon up and away from Bolan’s grip. The Executioner stepped forward as the man stepped back, preventing the smaller man from bringing any leverage to bear.
They moved into the room, and Bolan heard chair legs scrape against floorboards as men jumped to their feet. He ignored them, making no move for the butt of the Desert Eagle sticking out of his jeans.
The man grunted his exertion and tried to step to the outside. Bolan danced with him, keeping the gendarme’s body between him and the others in the smoky room. Bolan’s grip on the front sling swivel remained unbroken. Finally, the gendarme dropped his bottle and grabbed the submachine gun with both his hands. The bottle thumped loudly as it struck the floor but did not break. Liquid began to gurgle out and stain the floorboards.
“I said enough!” the voice roared.
The gendarme was already using both his hands to snatch the submachine gun free as the order came. Bolan released the front sling swivel and stepped to the side. The gendarme found his center of balance around the struggle abruptly gone and overextended himself. Already drunk, he toppled backward and struck the floor in the pool of alcohol spilling from his fallen bottle.
Cursing and sputtering, the man tried to rise. Bolan surveyed the room. He saw four other men in the same soiled and rumpled police uniforms, each one armed either with a pistol or a submachine gun. All of them were gaunt and lanky with short hair, except for the bear of a man with the gold braid epaulets of an officer.
The officer rose from behind a table and hurled a heavy glass tumbler at the gendarme Bolan had left on the floor. The glass struck the man in the face and opened a gash under his eye.
“I said leave him!”
The shock of being struck snapped the embarrassed man out of his rage. He touched a hand to the cut under his eye and held up his bloody fingers. He looked away from his hand and nodded once toward the man looming behind the table.
The officer turned toward Bolan. “My apologizes,” he said. “My men worry about my safety.”
“Understandable, Colonel Le Crème.” Bolan nodded. “I worry about my own safety.”
“Come now, you are in the company of police officers.”
“Yes, I am,” Bolan agreed.
“Foreigners are not usually permitted to carry weapons in our land.”
Bolan threw the attaché case on the table. “That should more than cover any administrative fees.”
“Is it in euros?”
“As you specified.”
Le Crème nodded, and one of the gendarmes at the table reached over and picked up the case. He had a sergeant’s chevrons on his sleeve. Bolan saw there were two very young girls pressed up against the back wall of the shack. Their eyes were as hard as diamonds and glittered as they took him in.
The sergeant pulled the case over and opened it. The sudden light of avarice flared in his eyes, impossible to disguise. Bolan shrugged it off. He was tempted to believe that if he’d been born into the kind of poverty these men took for granted he might have been just as greedy.
While the sergeant counted the stacks of bills, the colonel reseated himself. He snapped his fingers at one of the girls, and she jumped to pick a fresh glass off a shelf beside her. She brought it over to the table and poured the colonel a drink from an already open bottle. Bolan could feel the intensity of her gaze.
Le Crème regarded Bolan through squinty, bloodshot eyes. He picked a smoldering cigar off the table and drew heavily from it. His men made no move to return to their seats. Le Crème pulled his cigar out of his mouth and gestured with it.
“Sit down.”
Bolan pulled out the chair opposite Le Crème and eased himself into it. The two men regarded each other with coolly assessing gazes while the sergeant beside Le Crème continued counting the money. Le Crème lifted his new glass and downed its contents without changing expression.
“Shouldn’t a man like you be out hunting terrorists?” Le Crème asked.
“Shouldn’t you be down in Banfora with the fighting?” Bolan asked.
Le Crème shrugged. “That’s what the army is for. I fight crime.”
“Just so.”
The sergeant looked up from the money. Le Crème’s eyes never left Bolan. “Is it all there?” he asked.
“More,” the sergeant replied.
“Why?” Le Crème asked Bolan.
“There’s a bonus in there. The shipment came in at a few more kilos than we’d originally talked about.”
“Still tractor parts?”
“Yes.”
“Okay then, no problem. It’s St. Pierre’s day on the Customs Desk,” Colonel Le Crème said, smirking.
Bolan followed the line of Le Crème’s sight across the room to where the gendarme Bolan had scuffled with stood glowering.
“Any way you want it, Colonel,” Bolan said.
“Yes.