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  He might be able to enlist an ally, although his better instincts warned him to stay clear of any tie-in with the Mob.

  There was a lot he had to learn about the New York expeditionary force, before the Executioner went public with his war.

  He had already taken out almost a dozen of the outside guns. It would be good to let them chew on that for a while, wondering where ancient Artie found the muscle to respond with such ferocity to their surprise attack. In time, they would come looking for the answers.

  And Bolan would be waiting for them, bet on it.

  To welcome them with open arms.

  Firearms.

  4

  Gray dawn was spreading rumpled wings across St. Louis, but around the old Giamba mansion it was almost noonday bright. The red and blue strobe flashes from patrol cars, ambulances and fire trucks were reflected off the crumbling facade of Artie's palace, and their high-beam headlights brought the shadowed grounds alive.

  They could not do the same, however, for the sheet-draped figures lined up on the gravel driveway. One of them had already been stowed inside the wagon; six more were waiting patiently to join him now, with no damned hurry in the world.

  Capt. Tom Postum, head of intelligence for St. Louis PD, surveyed the carnage with an expert's eye, his face impassive in the artificial glare. Beside him, a lieutenant from the orgcrime unit was examining the burned-out Cadillac.

  "No sign of Artie?" Postum asked.

  "Nothing yet. He's one of those that fried."

  Tom Postum shook his head. "He won't be. All of these were in the hit team, unless I miss my guess. We know Giamba didn't have a hard force on the grounds."

  The lieutenant looked puzzled. "So where is he then? And who laid out this crew?"

  Postum shrugged. "The old man didn't do it ail himself," he said reflectively. "I'd say some help arrived before these cocks could do their thing."

  "Pattricia?"

  Another shrug. "It's worth a look. Find out where Bobby was tonight, and where his boys were, if you can."

  "No sweat."

  "We'll need to make these cars, for what it's worth."

  "They'll all be rentals."

  "Yeah, but let's go through the motions anyway."

  "You read Scarpato into this, Cap'n?"

  "Any better ideas?"

  "None that make any sense."

  The young lieutenant waited while a team of paramedics placed another sheeted form inside the ambulance.

  "Man, I've never seen anything like this. Have you?"

  Tom Postum glanced at the lieutenant, nodding slowly. "Once or twice."

  And the captain from intelligence had seen it all, and not so long ago. Then, two Mob factions had declared war in his town, each determined to eliminate the other. And someone had intruded on the battlefield to even up the odds, to pull old Art Giamba's sizzling fat out of the fire.

  Mack Bolan.

  So yes Postum had seen this before, in spades.

  Sometimes he even saw it in his dreams.

  With close to twenty years in the department, he was recognized as both a seasoned veteran and member of the tough "new breed."

  The savages were keeping pace with current trends and new technology, and it required a grim new breed of cop to deal with them. Tom Postum and a team of others like him were determined that the future of the Mafia around St. Louis would not be a rosy one. They had been putting pressure on the Mob, applying their strategic heat with surgical precision since the Bolan blowout some years back. They had been making inroads, too, and scoring gains.

  But lately, it seemed to Postum as if the world was reversing on its axis, carrying him back to the bad old days. Another shooting war was brewing in his streets and he was right back where he started when the Executioner had come to town.

  No, scratch that. He was worse off than before, with all the changes in the Mafia that he had witnessed through the past six months. Giamba was the same old codger he had always been, with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. But Jules Pattricia, his one-time heir apparent, had been cut down first, and now his son, young Bobby, was on standby with his soldiers, waiting to step in if Artie fell.

  That meant another generation of the old Giamba family in St. Louis, providing they could hold on to their territory and their lives another week, another month.

  The SLPD captain worried just as much about New York, the soldiers who had turned up on his turf and who were raising hell right now, attempting to unseat Giamba in what had the earmarks of a bloody insurrection. Rumbles from Manhattan told Postum that the spearhead was without a headshed now, but if it cramped their style at all, it wasn't showing yet. If anything, Scarpato and his men were stepping up their raids, increasing pressure on Giamba to fight or flee.

  The thought of Vince Scarpato made the captain scowl. He had already interviewed the New York transplant twice, arrested him on more than one occasion for offenses that were bargained down to nothing in the lower courts. It was harassment, and Postum made no bones about it under questioning from his superiors. His goal was to evict the New York raiding party from St. Louis, and so far Postum was batting a perfect zero.

  A thought struck Postum, and he suddenly felt dirty. A traitor to his uniform.

  The captain had been close to wishing Bolan back, and never mind the hell the soldier had raised around St. Louis, the bodies he had left for Postum to clean up when he was through...

  But dammit all, the guy got results and Postum knew what made the soldier tick... at least, he knew the story of his family, the tragedy that had claimed their lives... and still, he wondered how the dude had carried on so long, alone.

  There had been mixed emotions in St. Louis when reports of Bolan's death came in from Central Park. The politicians and the brass downtown had been relieved, but there were rumblings among the street cops, that the country needed someone who would take the soldier's place, and soon.

  It was a feeling Postum knew too well, and one he fought against from day to day. He knew that Bolan's way was "wrong," according to whichever book you chose, and yet...'

  The bastard got results.

  The captain had been home, relaxing on a rare day off, when news of Bolan's "resurrection" reached him via television. Shock had jostled with confusion in his mind, but there had been a flash of something else.

  Elation.

  He had been glad to hear the Executioner was still alive and tearing ass, but that awareness made the lawman in him react with an instinctive guilt to the tacit "betrayal" of his oath.

  And he could rationalize a part of it, of course. The hellfire guy had saved his life last time around, extracting Postum from a burning vehicle before the fuel tank blew them both away. He owed the soldier one.

  The captain sometimes wondered how he would react if faced with Bolan now.

  It worried Postum that no ready answer came to mind.

  He shrugged it off, aware that he would do whatever was required of him to keep the lid on in St. Louis. At the moment, it was Art Giamba and Scarpato's men who were the problem.

  Mack Bolan wasn't in St. Louis.

  The captain turned back in the direction of the burned-out Cadillac and the sheet-draped forms.

  Artie had no hard force at the house. Postum would have known if the old mafioso was going hard, importing troops.

  The obvious solution was that Pattricia had somehow found out about the raid, sent a rescue force to pull his capo out of there before it was too late. It would have given Bobby one more chance to even up the score for his old man while he was at it.

  "I want ballistics on this yesterday," the captain told his sidekick. "We need to know how many different guns it took to do all this, their calibers, what blew the Caddy over there..."

  "You got it, Cap."

  "I want a tail on both Scarpato and Pattricia, around the clock. Don't make it any secret, either. If we need more men, you let me know."

  "There shouldn't be a problem after
this."

  The captain nodded, frowning. There was nothing like a public massacre for shaking loose the reinforcements a commander needed. Nothing like it, either, for producing heat to close the case before the public started howling in administrative ears.

  Tom Postum didn't mind the heat as long as he was free to work a case his way and bring it to a close without a crowd of second-guessers getting in his way.

  A uniformed sergeant was approaching, his stride determined, face grim. When he was within earshot he hailed Postum, drawing his attention from the gutted Continental with its line of bodies in the foreground.

  "Call for you, Captain. Looks as if you've got another one."

  "Another what?" Postum asked, the crawling sensation along his spine the only answer that he needed then and there.

  "Another one of these," the sergeant answered, sweeping a big hand across the killing ground. "Four down so far, and counting."

  "I'll be right there."

  The sergeant nodded, backtracked swiftly toward the cruiser with the message.

  "Sounds like Scarpato's got a real war on his hands," the young lieutenant said. "I guess old Artie's not the jelly roll we thought he was."

  "Don't underestimate the bastard," Postum cautioned. "He was fighting for these streets when you were still a twinkle in your daddy's eye."

  There was a hesitance about his tone, and the lieutenant sensed it, picking up on the vibrations. "But?"

  "But nothing. Maybe it just doesn't feel right."

  "Well, sir... if it's not Giamba..."

  "Yeah, who could it be?"

  He trailed the beefy sergeant back in the direction of the cruisers, knowing that he had a long damn day ahead of him, for sure. With four more down at yet another shooting scene, it would be noon before he finished with the lab crews and pathologists, the newsmen and the paramedics.

  He didn't like the feel of this one. Not at all. And it was more than just the thought of one more street war in St. Louis, all the wasted time and wasted lives. The captain had a city ready to explode, and he was sitting on the lid, doing his damndest to keep it in place. So far, his record of success was nothing to write home about.

  He needed time to think it out, to find out what was eating at his insides. But his time was running out, Postum knew, along with everybody else's in the orgcrime intelligence unit. If they let this thing blow up in their faces, if they were unable to prevent — or at least predict — the next grisly outbreak of violence, then certain people would inevitably start to "reassess" their function.

  Postum had devoted too much time to building up the unit to see it all go down the drain, and he was determined to stay on top of the developing war in his town. If that meant taking to the battlefield himself, so be it.

  And it was starting to look like the old days. In spades. For half a second there, before he reached the cruiser and the radio, he almost wished it was the old days again.

  But they would have to do it all themselves this time, without a hellfire warrior to step in and do the dirty work on their behalf. This time they would be forced to do it on their own.

  Tom Postum wondered, for the first time in his memory, if he was equal to the task.

  5

  Giamba phoned ahead from an all-night convenience store, alerting his new underboss to what had happened in the past two hours. Pattricia would be waiting for them both when they arrived... and that gave Bolan second thoughts about his hoped-for meeting with the younger mafioso.

  He was running short on time already, a stop at Bob Pattricia's now would put Bolan even further behind in a race in which he was already trailing.

  Add to that the risk of walking into hostile territory where he would be instantly surrounded, with no backup support and small hope of escape if it soured.

  In the end, he opted for unloading Artie in the next block up from Bob Pattricia's hardsite mansion. Before the soldier pulled away, he had Pattricia's private number firmly in his mind, along with Artie's reticent agreement to provide him with intelligence as it became available.

  And he was gambling, the warrior knew, when it came down to trusting any mafioso, anytime. Giamba would have killed him in an instant if it had been to his advantage. But Bolan had a notion that the aging mobster would be looking for allies, and that he would be glad of one more gun — especially Bolan's — to bolster his failing ranks.

  The Executioner had no intention of allowing his crusade to be divered into some kind of bizarre Giamba rescue mission. He was in St. Louis to destroy the savages, and Little Artie would be ranked among the first to go if he betrayed the soldier's trust in any way.

  But for the moment, there were other targets, other problems, on the hellfire warrior's mind.

  The battlefield was chillingly familiar to him, as so many others were the second time around.

  The hostile sides were still the same — or nearly so — and any superficial changes in the names and faces of his enemies did not concern the Executioner.

  The cleansing fire strategically applied, and let them fry if they weren't fast enough to find their rabbit holes before the flames descended to consume them in their tracks.

  But if the killing ground and Bolan's enemies were still the same, what of the stakes? Exactly what was riding on the line this time in old St. Louis?

  Bolan shook his head and cursed the lack of battlefield intelligence that dogged his movements in the river city. What was the equation that had inspired another bold invasion from the east?

  Little Artie had grown weaker since Bolan had last been here — there was no doubt of that. What remained of his territory must have appeared like easy pickings to a cannibal of Ernie Marinello's appetite.

  But there was more at stake than annexation of St. Louis to the New York orbit. The soldier had a feeling that the rumbles pointed to the founding of a whole new family-rapacious, strong — that would replace Giamba's creaky structure with a sleek and lethal war machine.

  Before he dropped Giamba off, the Executioner had learned the name of Little Artie's New York nemesis: one Vince Scarpato. He led the expeditionary force for Marinello... but Scarpato was his own man now, cut loose from his foundations in Manhattan, rootless, with nothing left to lose.

  The name was not unknown to Bolan, though his mental mug files had no detailed background on the guy. He had begun his tour of duty as a button man in the Bronx, performing dirty work for this or that regime until he fell within the Marinello jurisdiction and was drafted into service. His reputation was replete with violence — murder, arson, rape, felonious assault — and he was leadership material within the brotherhood of blood.

  A cannibal, in need of Bolan's personal attention, sure.

  But not just yet.

  The soldier would do everything within his power to prevent the founding of another family in old St. Louis. He would spend his last drop of blood, if that was what it took to get the job done right. But he was not about to throw his life away on some fool's errand, charging blindly into hostile guns.

  Bolan's war was not about St. Louis, or New York, or any other single battlefield along the way. It was a universal struggle with universal stakes, and he could not afford to blow it all for the sake of getting finished quickly.

  And it was still the same old war, beneath the superficial changes, sure.

  Good versus Evil.

  Civilization versus the Savages.

  Right.

  It was the longest-running war on record, and it showed no sign of burning out, in Bolan's lifetime, anyway. His struggle had predated history, and it would certainly survive the passage of a single hellfire warrior. His dying, when it came, would hardly make a ripple, but he could damn well make some ripples while he had the chance.

  The Executioner could make some tidal waves, for sure, and sweep some savages away before his clock ran down. St. Louis was ripe for such an action, overdue, in fact, but first he had to have a better handle on his war.

  And Bolan's tactics
would remain the same. He would cling tenaciously to training that had carried him this far along the hellfire trail. It was the difference in his personal approach that kept his enemies off balance, and it never crossed his mind to change a winning style.

  Bolan fought his war in stages, each defined and clearly separate from the others, though civilians might have failed to comprehend the difference.

  Precision made it mandatory that he should identify the enemy before he struck, eliminating tragic errors and cutting off escape of stragglers or guilty front men masquerading as beleaguered innocents.

  After singling out his targets, Bolan sought a way to isolate them in the killing ground, preventing law-enforcement officers and stray civilians from being drawn into the line of fire.

  That done, he used the full range of his martial skills to finally annihilate his foe, allowing no one to escape the cleansing fire. His war was to the death. He also knew that the death would someday be his own. But Bolan took his own destruction as a foregone fact of life, and lived each day as if it were his last. He would be living large until they cut him down in battle. And with the stark reality of personal destruction came a liberation from the bonds of doubt and fear that hobbled other soldiers. There is no man so totally efficient, the warrior knew, none so dangerous, as one who does not fear to die.

  And Bolan was such a man.

  It was said that he had been hardened in the crucible of Vietnam, in his war against the Mafia and in his Phoenix phase, but such was not the case. In Nam, where he had earned the Executioner tag, Mack Bolan also had been known as Sergeant Mercy. More than once the Man from Blood had risked his life under fire to retrieve injured comrades and wounded civilians and had seen them safely back inside the friendly lines.

  And caring had driven him along the grim attrition road of his own private, endless war. What had begun in rage, a quest for vengeance in his own backyard, had grown into a war against injustice, evil and oppression of the weak, anywhere and everywhere beneath the sun.