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Omega gained the drive, accelerator on the floor, powering away. Behind him, a shotgun roared and pellets raked the Maserati's flank. Another moment, and they flashed around a curve, out of range — but not out of mortal danger.

  2

  Mack Bolan — the "Chicago Ace" — was used to living on the edge. A soldier since his teens, he knew the risks of battle, and he knew a hundred ways to mitigate those risks. The military had taught him martial arts, the warrior's trade, and he had picked up some unique skills along the hellfire trail. One skill, the fine art of role camouflage, had served him well in many of his campaigns — from the jungles of Southeast Asia to another kind of jungle stateside.

  In Vietnam, the Executioner had been a specialist at infiltration and assassination. Cut off behind enemy lines, he had often used role camouflage to save himself from almost certain death or capture. Crouching in a rice paddy, clad in black pajamas and a coolie hat, he had watched a Vietcong procession pass within seventy-five yards of his exposed position. Charlie had been searching for a tall American, and he was not looking for an enemy dressed in peasant garb.

  When his Asian war had been abbreviated, shifted to another battlefront, the soldier found a chance to hone his skills.

  With arrogance derived from years of uncontested power and dominion, mafiosi had come to expect their employees and potential victims to behave in certain ways. Those expectations had permitted Bolan to employ certain skills against the enemy with great success. From California to Manhattan, he had actually infiltrated "families," bringing fiery retribution to them from within. Finally, his impersonation of Omega, a lethal Black Ace of Bolan's own invention, had resulted in eradication of the Mafia's elite gestapo.

  He had brought their rotten house down, but several real Aces had escaped his wrath. However, they were blamed for much of Bolan's damage, were feared and hated even by their brother mobsters, hunted through the shaken underworld and finally forgotten when their threat was dissipated.

  But a single Ace, obviously, remained. Omega was available for special missions.

  It had been a risky proposition, infiltrating Ben Battaglia's stronghold. Bolan had assessed the odds, considered going in for blood and finally dismissed the frontal blitz as foolish. There were hostages to be considered; his line of fire might be all-inclusive. So he went in cold. A soft probe — no flames.

  And it had worked — to a point. Battaglia's isolation from the mainstream of syndicate activity, his insecurity had made the pimp an easy mark at first. But underneath the surface, a suspicion born of long experience with Mafia betrayal politics had alerted him to Bolan's double cross. There had been a trace of steel inside the slaver. Not enough to make him bulletproof, however.

  Role camouflage had served its purpose for Bolan once more. Now he would need a different set of skills to get away from the marketplace alive.

  His passenger was groggy. The sound of gunfire and the cold air rushing through the shattered windshield helped only a little to fight the drugs that dulled her senses. She was sitting up, looking around, dazedly seeking recognition of her new surroundings. "Where are you taking me?"

  "We're going home," he told her.

  But first they had to make it out of Ben Battaglia's net alive. The master pimp was dead, but he had punched the panic button and the trap was closing.

  Up ahead, a pair of mounted spotters had appeared along the fence, galloping to meet the Maserati. Each spotter was carrying an automatic carbine, lining up the target and squeezing off initial probing rounds.

  Bolan reached beneath the driver's seat and sprang the mini-Uzi from its hidden rigging. Specially designed to mingle firepower with concealability, the submachine gun measured only fourteen inches in length. Its magazine held thirty-two 9mm parabellum rounds. At any reasonable range it was a man-shredder, firing at a cyclic rate of 750 rounds per minute.

  Rifle slugs tore the air around the Maserati, the gunners finding range and elevation. A bullet whispered between the soldier and his passenger, exploding through the back window. At Bolan's side, the woman reacted on instinct, diving for cover underneath the dash. Bolan thrust the Uzi through his open windshield.

  A mounted figure drifted into range above his open sights, the rifle up and bucking. Bolan stroked the trigger, riding out the recoil, empty casings clattering along the dashboard. He saw the horse stumble, fall, its rider catapulting from the saddle. Close behind him, another rider was taken by surprise. He dropped his weapon, wrestled with the reins — and plowed his animal directly into that of his companion.

  Bolan helped him in his fall with a short, precision burst. He had an image of the rider's face and chest exploding into bloody fragments, then the twisting, writhing heap of man and animal dwindled in his rearview mirror and faded fast.

  The hounds would be in hot pursuit by now, and they would have the exit closed against him. They were in the pincers, but with planning and a little luck...

  A Lincoln made the curve behind him, with a pair of matching Cadillacs in tow. There were seats for twenty soldiers if they crowded in.

  There were enough guncocks to do the job, but they had to catch him first. It was over when the final body fell, and not before.

  A last lazy turn, and then the drive ran arrow-straight along its final quarter mile. Bolan saw the gatehouse. Foot soldiers were milling all around it, forming a ragged skirmish line. The wrought-iron gates were shut and chained together, but Bolan kept the hammer down and held the Maserati steady on her course.

  He had foreseen the possibility of a withdrawal under fire and prepared himself for it. A savvy warrior always kept his flank protected, and Bolan was an expert at survival in the hellgrounds.

  He found a button underneath the dash and pressed it, flashing a silent signal ahead of him. The message was received, registered, and out beyond the range of human eyes a trigger mechanism was activated by remote control. Bolan was waiting, counting down to impact, when a fiery comet fell upon the gatehouse, detonating in an oily ball of flame.

  The sentry post disintegrated. Shattered masonry and smoking shrapnel sliced through the ranks of Bolan's enemies. The dead and dying fell together. Orders were forgotten as matters of survival took priority. A single shot was fired at Bolan, then the gunner bolted, sprinting toward safety.

  The twisted ruin of Battaglia's gate was swinging in the smoky breeze, its hinges shattered by the blast. Bolan hit the grillwork just off center and felt the Maserati's hood and fenders buckle as he burst through. A heartbeat's hesitation, hellish grinding as the gate was dragged along their flank, and then they made the open highway, running free and clear.

  He led the Lincoln and her flankers by about half a minute. They could never overtake his charger on the straightaway, but he had no intention of allowing them to trail him home. He would have to take them out.

  In his rearview mirror, Bolan saw the Continental reach the open gate and rumble through, a Caddy close behind. Bolan keyed the dashboard switch a second time, dividing his attention between his tail and the flat Kansas highway stretching out in front of him.

  He saw the comet coming, rattling across his track from north to south, homing on the doomsday signal. It was going to be close. The second Cadillac was closing on the gate, her driver taking time to navigate around the smoking bodies.

  Caution doomed the wheelman and his passengers. They were at the gate when Bolan's bird impacted on the Caddy's nose, erupting into smoke and flame. In another instant, the gas tank followed in a searing secondary blast, incinerating flesh and twisted steel.

  That would hold them for a while; the burning hulk would act as a plug to keep his enemies inside the fence.

  The Maserati's radio was tuned to a preselected frequency. Bolan turned it on, cranked the volume up and was rewarded with a ringing silence from the dashboard speakers. He was sending rather than receiving — a Mayday message to friendly, waiting cars.

  Brognola would be listening, his force of federal marshals in position around th
e farm. The ring was closing, and the buyers at Battaglia's auction were about to be presented with a different kind of tab.

  The Executioner dismissed them. He knew the women would be cared for when the smoke cleared. In the meantime, there were other battles left to fight, and his opponents were behind him, gaining ground.

  The woman was sitting up again, the effort costing her. Bolan pushed her firmly back into her crouch.

  "Stay down," he snapped. "We haven't lost them yet."

  "Be careful," she replied.

  Sleepy as her voice sounded, there was something in her tone that let him know she was not just concerned about herself.

  Bolan eased back on his accelerator, heard the engine winding down a notch. The Lincoln's driver saw his chance and surged ahead, riding up against the Maserati's tail before he cut across into the other lane. The tank was pulling beside him, and Bolan felt the hostile eyes upon him, gunners sizing up the opposition.

  With a sidelong glance, Bolan saw the power windows dropping and automatic weapons poking into view, muzzles tracking onto target. Bolan felt the numbers falling. He knew that any wrong move would be his last.

  He lifted his foot off the gas and simultaneously hit the brake, standing the Maserati on her nose. Before the engine had a chance to stall, he shifted down and cut the steering wheel to port, accelerating again and swinging out to take his enemy on the driver's side.

  Ahead of him, the gunners had been surprised. They fired a straggling burst across the sportster's bow, the bullets slicing empty air. They were not prepared for him when he approached them on their blind side. Some of the gunmen were turning, swinging weapons around to greet him, when he brought the curtain down.

  Bolan had the mini-Uzi up and was sighting onto target acquisition as he passed the Lincoln. He could see the driver gaping at him — and he held the submachine gun's trigger down. A dozen feet away, the driver's window shivered, glass dissolving, and the face became a crimson mask, devoid of all humanity.

  The Continental started drifting, lifeless hands upon the wheel. Bolan left them to their fate, accelerating away. The Lincoln swerved, lost traction and started rolling. The Cadillac collided with the crashed Lincoln: metal kissed metal.

  The Executioner swung the Maserati over on a grassy shoulder and brought her to a halt. In a second he was EVA, feeding a fresh clip into the little stutter gun as he retraced his steps to search the track for enemy survivors.

  Four gunmen were scrambling from the disabled Caddy, abandoning the driver who was slumped across the wheel, his face a bloody smear from impact with the windshield.

  As Bolan approached, he swung up the Uzi and selected his first target. The burst was short and surgically precise, parabellum manglers blasting a gorilla clean across the Caddy's trunk.

  A pair of gunners turned to meet the threat, their weapons still in hand and seeking targets. Bolan hit them with a blazing figure eight, which started at their knees and ended level with their shooting irons, a dozen steel-jackets ripping flesh and fabric into bloody tatters. Both of them died on their feet and fell away in opposite directions, never finding time to trigger any counter fire.

  A bullet whistled past Bolan's ear, and he was diving out of range before he heard the shot itself. Flattened on the pavement, he let off another burst, probing for a hot spot and finding it beneath the crew wagon's hood. The car blew, shock wave washing over Bolan. Hungry flames devoured the Cadillac, reaching swiftly to the Lincoln.

  He was waiting, ready, when a burning scarecrow burst from cover, reeling out and into open view. Bolan put a single mercy round between the panicked eyes, dropping his final adversary in a twitching heap upon the tarmac.

  He put the funeral pyre behind him, slid behind the Maserati's wheel and cranked her up again. He was out of there and running true before he felt the woman watching him.

  "Is it over?" she asked.

  "For the moment." Bolan dredged up a weary grin and passed it on. "It's good to see you, Smiley."

  3

  Smiley Dublin in the flesh, every luscious inch of her intact. Bolan had expected worse, much worse.

  It had been a while, and seeing Smiley now triggered images of his past.

  He remembered the Vegas strike early in his war against the Mafia, when he had first encountered four lovely young performers called the Ranger Girls. They were the hottest act on Glitter Gulch, yet doubled as dynamic agents of the federal Sensitive Operations Group. Smiley was among them, and together with her sisters of the badge — Toby Ranger, Sally Palmer and Georgette Chableu — she had provided welcome aid and comfort to the Bolan war machine. There had been dragons to slay in Vegas, and he was gratified to discover allies there.

  The second time their paths had crossed was in Hawaii, where Chinese Communists and mafiosi were combining forces in a demonic extortion scheme. It was the Cuban missile crisis reenacted on American terrain, and Smiley was on the inside, working undercover. Between them they had consigned the enemy to cleansing fire and wrestled victory from the Hawaiian battlefield. In the aftermath of battle, they had clung together briefly, sharing tender moments and restoring one another for the wars to come.

  Long, bloody miles lay between Hawaii and the plains of Kansas. Perilous miles along the hellfire trail of everlasting war. Lately, Bolan had not dared to hope that they would meet again. He had approached Battaglia's ranch prepared to wreak a brutal vengeance in the woman's name. But, instead, he had brought her out of there alive.

  It was a victory to balance out the losses.

  He thought of sweet Georgette Chableu. The beautiful Canadian had taken on the Mafia in Motor City and disappeared — like Smiley — in the middle of her covert operation. Bolan had arrived too late to save her, but he had released her body from the degradations of the turkey makers and destroyed the local syndicate in his unbridled rage.

  Today, he had arrived in time, and it felt good, damn good. Today had been for Smiley and for the memory of Georgette.

  As Bolan ruminated, he sat at the wheel of the Laser Wagon. He was heading east, 450 cubic inches underneath the hood propelling him along the endless prairie highway. Battaglia's farm was history. It was time for Bolan to be thinking of the future.

  They were entering Missouri when he felt another presence in the cab. Smiley slid into the seat beside him. The mobile home was self-contained, and she had found the shower and swapped the rain jacket for a jumpsuit out of Bolan's closet. The suit was too large, an almost clownish fit, but Bolan never felt the urge to laugh. In any attire Smiley Dublin was a lot of woman.

  "Hi," she greeted him.

  The soldier looked her over admiringly, delighted that the old familiar sparkle was returning to her eyes. "Hi, yourself."

  "I owe you one."

  "Forget it. Ben Battaglia was a running sore. I cauterized it."

  "Guess I don't have to ask how you found me."

  "Friends keep in touch," Bolan told her. "You were missed."

  A silence fell between them. Smiley finally spoke. "I'm glad you're in the picture."

  Bolan frowned at the highway. The picture, as painted by Hal Brognola, was an ugly one. Attractive girls and women, ages ranging from fifteen to twenty-five, were disappearing from the Midwest area. Hell, it could be a national phenomenon, but interjurisdictional communications left a lot to be desired, and many of the missing had been pegged as runaways, dropouts from society. There were 100,000 people listed as missing every year in America, and usually the disappearing act was easily explained by relatives or creditors. And then there was the other kind, those who would still be lost without a trace except for blind coincidence, perhaps the hand of fate.

  A private plane with seven passengers, bound for Mexico and points south, had deviated from its flight plan out of Dallas and wrapped itself around some power pylons in a failed attempt to fly beneath the border radar nets. Everyone aboard had been killed on impact or in the searing fire that followed, but autopsies had revealed a wealth of info
rmation. The pilot was a veteran border-hopper, with convictions on his sheet for smuggling marijuana and cocaine. His passengers were female, and Texas coroners discovered evidence that all of them had been heavily sedated prior to death.

  The Stony Man organization had discovered something else: five of the six had been reported missing from Kansas City and Chicago in the previous six months. And there had been a clincher in the form of registration on the plane; it had been purchased by a small subsidiary of Heartland Produce — a firm originally organized and wholly owned by one Benedetto Battaglia.

  Enter Smiley Dublin.

  She had penetrated Battaglia's operation as she had the enemy encampment in Hawaii, feeding back a string of promising reports. She had been getting close, but something had gone awry. Smiley vanished, and alarms had started going off in Washington.

  Enter Mack Bolan.

  And exit Ben Battaglia.

  The festering sore had been cauterized, certainly, but the malignancy remained. It would be Bolan's task to search the cancer out, destroy it. To accomplish that, he would require a starting point.

  It was debriefing time, a temporary respite from the battlefield. The soldier and the lady were a million miles away from R&R.

  In the end, he did not have to ask.

  "Battaglia was easy," Smiley said, "or at least I thought he was. He couldn't help believing that I found him irresistible."

  Bolan caught a note of self-deprecation in the tone, as if she half expected him to criticize her mode of infiltration. Nothing of the sort had crossed his mind. A soldier — male or female-used the weapons that were made available by nature or design.

  "What went wrong?" he asked her.

  Smiley flashed a rueful grin and shook her head. "The classic killer: overconfidence. He caught me rifling some files, that's all."

  Her faraway expression and Bolan's knowledge of Battaglia and his kind assured the soldier that it would not have been "all," by any means. The slaver would have wanted answers in a hurry, and the questioning had clearly been an ordeal. But Bolan did not have to ask if she had given anything away.