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  Varzi's pink face suddenly paled. The lips stretched into a reptilian grimace, and his eyes were malevolent. "Don't listen to him, Anya," he said. "This madman's obviously trying to…"

  "What are these mines in Montenegria?" Bolan interrupted. "They're tin mines. There's a crisis in the world tin market right now. In London they ceased trading already. It's not too difficult to pick up stock cheap — if you're discreet. Ask Varzi who has a controlling interest in the tin mines in Baarmbeek, Indonesia, Bolivia, Malaya."

  "Shut your fucking mouth!" Varzi roared. "I'll have you…" He began a dive for the desk, but Bolan stopped him with a threatening gesture from the AutoMag.

  Ononu's face was a study in bewilderment. "But why…"

  "Because buying cheap and on the sly, using holding companies and front men in different countries so as not to jack up the price, your friend has made a corner in tin," Bolan said. "And carved himself a man-size slice of the copper and silver market as well. What do you think is going to happen when the Russian gold floods the market? Chaos! Every speculator's going to rush out of gold into… guess what?"

  Bolan paused to lend emphasis to his next words.

  "This bastard's going to bring himself the world's biggest one-time jackpot when that gold's unloaded on an artificially inflated market and upsets the West's economic balance. Because he'll have a virtual monopoly in those other metals and will be able to name his own price."

  The African was gaping.

  Bolan continued. "And you and the other fools have been helping him do it. He's tricked all of you. If you don't believe me, take a look in the other room. It's all there on paper. That's why the story's been complicated all along the line with talk about big business and industrialists."

  "You won't get out of here alive," Varzi said.

  "The truth," Bolan said relentlessly, "is that Varzi's not a double but a triple agent — and the third party is Lucino Varzi. The big joke is that he's been crossing not only you and the Mob and the terrorists and the drug barons, but also his Russian masters. He's actually been using the KGB without their knowledge — to prepare the ground for his own coup!"

  Before Varzi, flushing darkly now with fury, could answer, the door to the corridor swung open.

  Bolan whirled. Piotr Sakol stood there with a tall hardman on either side of him. All three of them held guns. The Russian's sallow face was set in a grim expression. "I think it would be advisable to drop that pistol, Mr. Bolan," he said.

  Three guns — Stetchkin automatics of the kind once issued to Soviet army officers — against one. He allowed the AutoMag to drop to the floor.

  Sakol turned to Varzi. "I think I heard enough," he said. Curiously, he spoke English with a French accent. "Betrayal and abuse of confidence are not qualities that find favor with the Central Committee." He raised his left hand, snapped fingers.

  Expressionless, the heavies on either side opened fire. Each of them emptied an entire magazine.

  Varzi crashed backward against the wall under the impact of the heavy slugs, remained pinned there for an instant as the hollowpoints continued to drum into his body, then slumped to the floor with blood pouring from a dozen holes piercing the white shirtfront and the mohair jacket.

  Ononu's crutch spun away. He twisted sideways and fell across the desk as the first shot penetrated his heart, the rest of the magazine pulverizing his head and shoulder so that the dark blood spurted across the tooled green leather desk top and dripped heavily to the Persian prayer rug below.

  Smoke drifted lazily beneath the ceiling light as the roar of the multiple explosions died away. Small streams of white plaster trickled to the floor from the holes gouged in the wall above Varzi's body.

  "What about this one?" the killer on Sakol's right asked, nodding at the Executioner. Bolan recognized the Southern drawl of the man he had heard talking at Rostand's Florida pier.

  Before Sakol could reply, Ruth Elias's voice spoke from the passageway. "Now that it's only one gun against one, Comrade, and I have the drop on you, I figure it's a good idea if you toss your automatic on the floor."

  The KGB goons stiffened. Sakol smiled thinly and dropped his gun. Bolan picked up the AutoMag.

  There were shouts and footsteps from the piazza below. Alerted by the shooting, Varzi's soldiers were calling off the search and returning to the rescue.

  Then Sakol spoke directly to Bolan for the first time. "We have no quarrel with you, Mr. Bolan," he said. "At least not tonight. Indeed, if only temporarily, we are grateful to you for exposing this thief." He pointed the toe of a carefully polished shoe at the bodies on the floor. "But since we all hope to get out of here and…" a faint smile"…the natives appear hostile, I suggest that for this one time we pool our resources."

  The Executioner hesitated only an instant. Then he nodded. "Just this once," he agreed. "Seeing that it's the commercial consulate and not the KGB!" He picked up the Stetchkin and handed it back to the Russian. Sakol reached into the pockets of his suit and tossed spare clips to each of the gunmen.

  "Look out!" Ruth cried suddenly from the passageway. She threw herself flat as a blast of gunfire erupted from the head of the stairs. Bolan shouldered the Russians aside and dragged her into the room.

  He switched off the light and pulled back the draperies. "Shoot your way to the stairs when I draw the fire from below," he told Sakol. "And these could help smooth your path." He unclipped the two stun grenades and handed them over. Then, opening the window, he went out onto the balcony and vaulted the fifteen feet to the flagstones of the sunken garden below.

  Varzi's men were crowded around the entrance steps and up the stairs leading out of the lobby. Bolan dropped behind a row of flowers and let Big Thunder loose.

  The stainless-steel hand cannon roared and two men fell. A third spiraled around and collapsed across the steps as Ruth Elias fired the silenced Beretta from the darkened balcony.

  The mafiosi crowded indoors, shooting blind as they retreated… to meet a heavy burst of gunfire from the head of the stairs as the three Russians advanced from the study.

  Bolan heard the flat, cracking explosion of a stun grenade, a brief volley of automatic fire and then another detonation. He sprang to his feet and raced out of the sunken garden, across the floodlit lawn and between the orange trees to the archway that led to the bridge. The guards were running across from the compound on the far side of the tunnel.

  The Executioner stood there like an avenging angel in black, pumping death across the void.

  Lead whistled around him as the hoods fired on the run.

  Big Thunder delivered its lethal message. One guy threw up his arms and pitched over the rail to plummet into the ocean one hundred feet below. The other two dropped on the footway.

  A final eruption of gunfire from inside the fortress had ceased. Three figures emerged from the floodlight and walked toward the arch.

  Sakol, the man with the Southern accent… and Ruth.

  "I lost a man," the Russian said matter-of-factly. "But the traitors lost everything. That is their destiny."

  He led the way across the bridge to the tunnel. The wind had freshened again and whitecaps grumbled against the rocks below. In the compound a black Mercedes 350 sedan was parked. Sakol opened the rear door. "I am obliged for your assistance," he said formally. "Perhaps I can offer you a ride back into town?"

  "Thanks…" Bolan touched the transceiver strapped to his shoulder"…but if I can find a way down these cliffs, I have a water taxi on call!"

  * * *

  Late that night the Executioner stood on the balcony of his hotel room, looking out across the lamplit quayside at the masts and rigging of the moored boats rocking on the swell. Velvet-dark, the sky above was diamonded with stars.

  For once, for a short while, he had fought on the same side as the enemy. Was the move justified? Did he have the right?

  On the whole, he figured yes. The vacationers and merchants and fishermen whose lives centered around this port —
and their counterparts all over the Western world — could continue a little longer in peace and stability.

  But next time?

  In his war there always was a next time… and it was likely that next time he and Piotr Anatolevitch Sakol would be fighting face-to-face rather than side by side.

  "Somebody's getting kind of cold with that window open," Ruth's voice said behind him.

  He turned, smiling, came in and shut the window.

  "Some body!" he repeated admiringly.

  She was lying naked on the bed, hands clasped behind her head. The one low-power lamp in the room sculptured the softly rounded mounds of her breasts, emphasized the subtle scoop of her waist and left a tantalizing shadow that ran from her crossed ankles to the tuft of dark hair between her thighs. She didn't look cold at all.

  "That's one hell of a sexy lady there," Bolan observed.

  She moved slightly, aware of his gaze and welcoming it, provoking it. She uncrossed her ankles, shifting her legs slightly apart. "If a guy was to promise not to kiss my mouth and not lean too heavily on my burns," she said, "I guess I wouldn't be able to resist his advances."

  * * *

  "What now?" Bolan asked Ruth the following morning as the three of them sat over breakfast on a hotel terrace flooded with sunlight.

  Ruth poured more coffee. "For me," she said, "a ferry to Naples, the train to Rome, then Fumicino airport and the El-Al flight to Tel Aviv."

  "Watch out for gunmen," Mettner said seriously.

  "That's why I have to go back," Ruth said. "We have to clean up the drug channels and the Libyan-based terrorist networks already financed by Varzi's dupes. I unearthed some names and locations before they jumped me. Do you think the Soviets will still unload their gold now the plan's blown?"

  Bolan sipped orange juice. "It'll certainly come on the market," he said. "But once Mettner's exclusive has been splashed, along with the evidence, I guess the world's stock markets won't be panicked; they should be stable enough to remain unshaken." He set down his glass. "Until the next time."

  Ruth rose to her feet. "I hate to leave," she said, "but there's this ferry. So… I'll just echo your own words. Until the next time!" She held out her hand.

  "This story," Jason Mettner said when she had left, "could have won me a Pulitzer prize. The Mafia, Red illegals, a Soviet plot, Israeli antiterrorist operations, a beautiful spy, a drug ring busted — it's got everything! What more could a newsman want!"

  He poured himself another cup of coffee.

  "I'll tell you," he said. "Just one more thing. Speaking professionally and for the record, one word, a single quote, from the guy whose courage and tenacity made it all possible. Come on, Bolan."

  The Executioner smiled. "No comment," he said.