The combat zone itself had once been the site of a small college, about a four-acre plot of land ab.u.t.ting the park and set off by a crumbling eighteenth century wall of fieldstone. The original building remained, a vine-covered brick structure of two stories, rather small and unpretentious in this age of super-architecture. Surrounding it were a collection of ten bungalow-style smaller buildings. These had obviously been built in more recent times, with no apparent attempt to gracefully bridge the centuries between the architectural styles.

The college itself had long ago ceased to exist. Somewhere around the beginning of the twentieth century the site had become the home of a local millionaire who had renovated and modernized the interior facilities. Little else had been done to the old building until the early 1950's when it once again became a seat of learning. The original cla.s.srooms were restored at that time, the bungalows added, and the "FairmountSchool for Special Children" came into being.

The new school had catered to handicapped children of well-to-do families, providing resident education and medical services "in a homelike atmosphere"-this latter claim being attested to by the new bungalow-style dormitories, each of which could house eight to ten children in a family environment. Each bungalow featured a kitchen, dining room, recreation room, a large formal living room and five double bedrooms.

Stefano Angeletti had picked up the property in 1965-"at a price they couldn't refuse" - and turned it over to son Frank in a bid to "put some legs under the boy".

The idea had been to create the cla.s.siest wh.o.r.ehouse in the East, catering exclusively to carefully selected VIP's in business, labor, and political circles. The old building had been lavishly renovated, walls removed, marble floors and bubbling fountains installed, and a veritable "Caesar's Palace" created.

The finished product was rumored to have cost the Don "more than a million bucks". Untold thousands more went into a refurbishing of the ten bungalow units, in which smaller "private parties" could be lavishly staged in satisfaction of virtually any offbeat s.e.xual appet.i.te.

The original idea had been Frank's. Don Stefano had put up the money, the influence, and the contacts to get the new club into operation. Frank had brainstormed the renovation and flapped about with the interior decorators. He had also personally recruited each of the dazzlingly beautiful hostesses and, as the story goes, "bed-tested every d.a.m.n one of 'em."

At the height of its popularity, the "Emperor's Key" private club was booking parties and business conventions from throughout the country. According to a cla.s.sified FBI report, the club numbered in its membership an impressive list of state and federal bureaucrats and elected officials.

These had been Frank Angeletti's most glorious days, a brief era when he had rubbed shoulders with some of the most powerful men in the nation.

The younger Angeletti had been operating beyond his depth, however, and the bright new bubble of success blew up in his face early in the second year of operation.

The "fall" had been typical of Frank's many other aborted ventures.

Without first consulting his father or anyone else, Frank the Kid had taken it upon himself to "clout" a local federal judge by adding him to the Emperor's secret membership roles and sending him his own personally monogrammed key with an invitation to attend the premiere performance of a new "very special live show in our Theatre-in-the-Round."

The invitation, as it turned out, was a sad error in judgment. Perhaps it had never occurred to Frank that not every man would feel honored by a VIP membership in the cla.s.siest wh.o.r.ehouse in the East, nor even recognize the honor when it descended upon him.

The unsuspecting judge turned out for the event, all right, but with his wife and daughter in tow. The fl.u.s.tered doorman didn't quite know how to handle the situation and he couldn't locate Frank the Kid for advice.

The judge and his ladies were eventually seated in the RomanGardens on a waterbed couch surrounded by tables of wines and fresh fruits just as the curtain was going up on "Sinbed the Great and his Harem of Bedspring Acrobats".

Sinbed was the only male in the troupe of ten but it immediately became evident that he was the only male needed and also the best acrobat in the bunch.

The judge and his ladies beat a frantic retreat just as Sinbed the Great was demonstrating his unique ability to service nine moaning lovelies simultaneously.

Thirty minutes later the joint was raided by a flying squad of county vice agents, and not even Papa Angeletti could salvage anything of lasting value from that disaster, even though he did manage to quiet the thing and keep most of the big name guests off of the official police blotter.

The Emperor's Key club disintegrated virtually overnight. Frank the Kid, a mere thirty-two years of age at the time, went on to bigger and better disasters. Papa Angeletti sighed and alibied, and kept hoping that some day "the kid" would find some legs under him.

From that time until very recently, the property in Northwest Philly had been in mothb.a.l.l.s.

Now it was a camp for Don Stefano's foreign recruits. They were billeted five to a house with all ten bungalows occupied. The old building was being used, once again, as some sort of school. It figured. Most of the guys spoke no English. If they were to avoid problems over their illegal entry, they would need some understanding of the language. They also would need carefully constructed new ident.i.ties. The Don was the sort to take care of little details like that. Sure. He was sending those dudes to school. For some of them, it was for the first time in their lives.

Bolan was satisfied now that he had their numbers and their defensive layout. The sun was dropping into the west and the shadows were growing long across the grounds of the gradiGghia encampment.

He tied off the last of his dummy cable and descended the final pole of his grid. By no coincidence, it was placed directly across the street from the joint's main gate.

He crossed over and, as he removed the climbing spikes from his ankles, struck up a one-sided conversation with one of the troops, a bright-eyed guy of about twenty-five who was lounging about just inside the gate and trying his best not to look like a sentry.

Bolan wagged his head toward the pole he had just abandoned and told the guy, "Warm day for winter, eh? Guess it'll snow tonight."

It was Spring. The sky was clear and unruffled. The temperature was hovering near the seventy mark.

But the guy smiled, jerked his head in a reply somewhere between yes and no, and spread his arms.

Bolan smiled back, said, "h.e.l.l, I guess You're a dumb s.h.i.t, you know that? I think I'll kick your teeth out."

The guy kept on smiling. He said, "That's what I say," with beautiful articulation, showed Bolan gleaming teeth, rubbed his chest, and ambled away.

The guy was no dumb s.h.i.t. He'd handled it beautifully, reading Bolan's face instead of his words, and the response would have been perfect for most small-talk.

But he obviously had understood not a word. And there were fifty more just like that dude inside those walls.

The combat freeze was seeping into Bolan's chest, trying its best to arrest the heartbeat and paralyze the lungs.

It was going to be a mean mother this time.

The Executioner returned to the war wagon and stripped off the coveralls, then began field-checking his weapons.

A daylight strike.

Fifty very mean dudes who had everything to gain and nothing to lose, This one would have to be played directly on the numbers.

There would be no room whatever for the slightest fumbling or miscalculation. There would be room only for death-either his or his enemies.

Bolan the b.a.s.t.a.r.d meant to make it them. Or die trying.

Chapter 5.

On the Numbers.

I'm Going in to meet the gradigghia. This isn't just a wild-a.s.s charge to prove who's the meanest. It's probably the most crucial maneuver of my war. It may even decide who'll be running this country for the next few years.-a page from Mack Bolan's journal

He dropped in over the wall, coming from the street side in full combat regalia, landing behind a bungalow and almost directly over one of the hastily dug defenses.

A head popped from the foxhole, the guy's mouth opening to scream out the alarm. There was nothing in his hands but a small shovel.

The silent Beretta phutted once and the cry of alarm was b.u.t.toned into collapsing jaws, choked, drowned and reduced to a gushing whimper. Black death moved swiftly on.

He'd launched the a.s.sault at the best possible moment, when most of the troops were inside the old building getting stoked up on a hasty meal and a last-minute combat briefing.

The outside guard numbered less than ten, with just about all of these engaged in the final preparations for the coming night.

He carried the .44 AutoMag flesh-shredder strapped to his right hip, the whispering Beretta in snap-draw leather beneath his left arm, the little auto chatter-pistol dangling at waist level from a shoulder cord.

Fragmentation grenades and incendiaries were clipped to his belts. Smoke sticks occupied the slit pockets below his knees. Coils of dough like plastic explosives were wrapped about his neck.

A one-man a.s.sault force had to also be a pack mule. In a show like this, he got but one jump-off and he had to have it all together the first time around.

Bolan had it all together.

Thirty seconds inside the walls he already had plastic "goop" clinging to four of the bungalows, with ninety-second fuses attached and counting down.

By thirty-five numbers past jump-off he was moving between the two central bungalows. At that same moment Shotgun Pete came striding out of the courtyard at the side of the main building, a sandwich in his left hand, the right hand enjoying the subconscious back-of-the-hand stroking of concealed hardware.

The guy gaped in mid-bite, then threw the sandwich over his shoulder and broke b.u.t.tons getting the coat open as he spun into the confrontation with advancing death.

The range was about fifty yards. Bolan instinctively went for the heavy piece, the AutoMag arcing up and exploding into the hair-trigger response even before reaching full extension.

Shotgun Pete's spinning motion was arrested as though he'd run into some invisible wall and he died at thirty-nine numbers, the itchy right hand mutilated by a big 240-grain bullet that blasted on through and ripped the heart right out of the guy.

The roaring report of the .44 brought immediate response from several quarters.

Not a spare number was available to the tall grim man in black, however. He ignored the angry yapping of the several handguns which were challenging him, and continued the charge.

At thirty yards out he baseballed a fragmentation grenade through the big window at the front of the joint, following immediately with an incendiary blast. The quick one-two punch jarred the old building, sending flames and smoke huffing through the shattered window.

At forty-seven numbers he turned the chatter- pistol into a retort to the growing menace of the handgun defenses, forcing two guys on his right flank to dive for cover behind a bungalow and catching a malacarni on his left who was sprinting in for closer range with a figure-eight burst that removed him from the range utterly and forever.

Mixed somewhere into those numbers a shotgun barrel emerged from an upstairs window of the old building, and Bolan found himself moving through an atmosphere suddenly thickened with spraying buckshot.

Luckily the person behind the gun had not bothered with choke-settings; the few pellets which found target were insufficient to the task at hand.

Bolan shrugged away the stinging strikes, emptying his clip in a blazing sweep of the four windows facing him up there. The shotgun clattered to the courtyard, accompanied by a rain of shattered gla.s.s and nothing else-but there was no more static from the upper level.

It was seventy numbers into the strike. The AutoMag was effectively persuading a noisily alarmed hard force to remain with the burning building when Bolan suddenly broke off the attack and began his withdrawal along the reverse course, back between the bungalows and along the wall to the precise point where he had entered.

A hot pursuit was materializing behind him, with guys pouring in from everywhere. On top of that, a familiar figure was on his knees and peering into a foxhole directly in Bolan's path.

At eighty-five and counting, he sent a 240-grain magnum bone crusher exploding into the forehead of Big Swagger as the latter raised startled eyes from an inspection of Bolan's first victim of the strike; then Bolan was over the wall and crouching behind it, eyes on the GP Quartz at his wrist.

Silently his lips formed the word "ninety" as right on the numbers the four bungalows he'd gooped for doomsday found the end of their ninety-second fuses and lifted themselves into oblivion -a goodly number of malacarni, Bolan presumed, tagging along in a sudden departure from hot pursuit.

He sheathed the AutoMag, crossed casually to the war wagon, and unhurriedly drove away from there.

At the intersection with Germantown Avenue , he met and yielded to a screaming procession of firefighting equipment and police vehicles. When they were all safely by and tearing along Bolan's backtrack, he again consulted his wrist.w.a.tch, blotted a spot of blood from his cheek, and muttered, "Bingo, right on the numbers."

From Bolan's journal: I have met the enemy and I guess they're mine. But let's not get too c.o.c.ky about it. Ten more seconds in there and I'd have been a dead dude. And it's not ended yet.

No, the Philadelphia hit had not ended yet, nor had it even found a pause. Already the Executioner was racing toward the next round with the Angeletti Mafiosi.

Chapter 6.

Without Numbers.

Stefano Angeletti had been seated at the small dining table with his son Frank and two of his lieutenants, Carmine Drasco from South Philly and Giles Sticatta from downtown, when the fireworks started.

On the wall above the table hung a large, hand- painted sign in a foreign language which, translated, urged everyone within sight of it to:

SPEAK AMERICAN.

THINK AMERICAN.

BE AMERICAN.

The soldiers who were seated at the long table just opposite were obviously being intimidated by the instructions. They were eating in absolute silence, devouring stacks of roast beef sandwiches and washing them down with cheap wine as the Capi at the small table went through their final review of the strategy for the night.

Only a moment earlier, Frank Angeletti had caught the eye of one of the Sicilian crew bosses and, breaking his own rule, growled a command in the old tongue: "Scrusci-scrusci."

Literally translated, the phrase meant "squeaky shoes" but in old-country Mafia slang it referred to a reliable scout, one who could be counted upon to recon a dangerous situation.

The man got up and went out, taking his sandwich with him.

Immediately thereafter the h.e.l.l began, with a single rolling boom from a high-powered firearm.

Frank the Kid froze with his wine gla.s.s halfway to his lips, eyes glazing as they sought rea.s.surance from the others at the table.

Papa Angeletti was raised off his chair and stared speculatively toward the front of the house.

A wave of quiet exclamations was surging along the long table of soldiers.

Then the building shook and a great explosion banged open the door at the front of the room, sending in whoofing smoke and powdered plaster.

Before anyone could react to that unsettling development, angrily popping sparks of white-hot chemicals sizzled through the opening and sent the soldiers scattering in all directions from their dining table.

As fast as that, the place was a disaster area-the table overturned, chairs scattered about and excited men scampering to escape the popping incendiaries.

Don Stefano was screaming, "Awright, that's it! Get out there, out there!"