But . .. the wild card could turn out to be a Black Jack. Few men living had ever seen Mack Bolan's face clearly enough to recognize it the next time around.

Leo Turrin could, of course.

So could Wilson Brown.

It could get sticky, d.a.m.ned sticky. One slip, one wrong jerk of the eyes or catch in the voice and. .

h.e.l.l, he could try, couldn't he?

Maybe not.

Maybe he'd never try anything, ever again.

A police cruiser wheeled into the intersection just above Bolan's position and halted there, sealing the narrow street. Another had eased up just down-range from him, at the opposite corner. And suddenly the Executioner sensed movements on the ground all about him.

A spotlight flared, pinning him to the pole in the brilliance, and an electronically amplified voice wafted up from the darkness somewhere out there: "Mack Bolan, this is the law. You're sealed in. Throw down your weapons, one by one."

So okay.

He'd pushed the thing one d.a.m.n number too far.

"Don't crowd us, Bolan. We're going to take you, dead or alive. It's your choice. Five seconds, man. Don't crowd us."

Bolan was not crowding anybody.

He was simply hanging there, in the spotlight, seeing the end of a very vicious, very tiring and very brutal war.

It looked as though the hands of the universe had decided to rid themselves of Mack the b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

Chapter 9.

An Intervention.

Capture by the police could have but one meaning for Bolan.

He would be stripped defenseless and placed inside a box where his million and one enemies could take turns trying to potshot him out of there.

Sure, the law would give him all the protection at their command. He would be treated like a VIP and accorded the most stringent security that probably any prisoner would ever find. Bolan, after all, was quite an authority on the mob, its operations, its chain of command, its inroads into various legitimate business areas. A dozen crime committees and federal agencies would love to get into his mind.

Also, he had become something of a folk hero. Some of the most prominent trial lawyers in the country had publicly proclaimed that they would like to represent the Executioner if and when he should fall into police hands.

Somebody would probably want him to write a book from Death Row, and probably every magazine in the country-and maybe a few movie producers-would be fighting for exclusive exploitation rights to his personal "story".

Sure, it would be quite a circus, Except for one flaming fact.

None of it would ever have time to come to pa.s.s. Despite the security, the lawyers, the hoopla and the sensational public interest angle-despite it all -Bolan would not live through the first twenty- four hours in jail. Someone, somehow, would get to him. The mob had their ways. They would find a way to him. We're going to take you dead or alive. It's your choice. What choice? There was no choice for Mack Bolan. Except to die like a rat in a trap .. . or to die trying. He had elected, long ago, to die trying.

The little Doomsday Device was clipped to his utility belt, an inch and a half away from the hand that held him to the telephone pole.

He closed that gap between life and death, quickly and decisively, letting go and pushing off with his feet to arc over backwards in free-fall towards the ground, out of the hateful glare of that police spotlight-and in that same instant he found the doomsday b.u.t.ton and triggered the charge in the war wagon.

A shotgun had ba-loomed out there the moment he moved, and other weapons immediately chime in for the kill, but all-the night, the cacophony of gunfire, the death-reel in Bolan's brain-all of was eclipsed and set aside by the earth-shaking, blast of the war wagon as it went into self-destruct and lent its parts to the expanding universe.

Bolan had been going for a catlike back flip away from the pole, trusting entirely to instinct to bring him to earth in the most survivable position, feet down, crouched for impact absorption, his senses flaring out into the darkness for some split-second orientation and warning before the shock of contact came.

The shock of the explosion came first, however, and some frozen timeless compartment of the Bolan mind knew that he was too close and that he was being deflected in mid-air, hurled sideways by the concussive force of that blast-being hurled, perhaps, into infinite timelessness.

Then he was into something soft-solid, something that moved with him and cushioned, something that seemed to reach out and gather him in. His spinning mind seized around the idea of the hands of the universe reaching out to s.n.a.t.c.h him back even while some tenaciously clinging fragment of consciousness told him that the cushioning bosom belonged instead to a sweet-smelling tree in Spring blossom.

Out flung arms instinctively closed around softly supporting young branches, and he swung on like some weirdly costumed ape, without seeing and without really knowing, moving swiftly from limb to limb and then down free and clear onto the ground.

He crouched there in well-cultivated shrubbery, willing his mind and his systems to stabilize, fighting an advancing curtain of inner darkness, which could only be unconsciousness or perhaps death.

That compartment of mind which knew seized upon the abundant stimulations of the immediate environment to drag him through crisis and into reality, tugged him into a recognition of leaping flames, excited voices and bawling commands issuing from an electronic amplifier.

And he knew with a jolt that he was alive and- by some miracle-functioning, separated from the threat out there by a low brick wall, screening shrubbery, and monumental confusion.

He wished the cops well, genuinely hoped that none of those soldiers on the same side had been close enough to run afoul of the war wagon's final contribution to Mack Bolan's war effort-and he left them there with his well-wishes and moved quietly out with the shadows into the no man's land of Don Stefano's home grounds.

Bolan was not afraid, but as cool as life resurrected.

He was "retreating to the front"-bolstered strengthened and revitalized by the certain knowledge that something far larger than himself had worked some sort of miracle.

The universe had intervened. The Executioner was alive and kicking in Philadelphia.

For the moment, anyway.

Chapter 10.

The Benediction.

The firefighters had come, found no remaining fires to extinguish, and departed-leaving only a cleanup crew and an arson/bomb squad at the scene.

Fifty wary and heavily armed cops were scouring every inch of ground in the immediate vicinity.

Just for kickers, a special squad was awaiting arrival of a search warrant to get them into the Angeletti property to extend the search into that unlikely area.

An emergency medical crew was on hand, smoking and drinking coffee from paper cups and wondering why they were there.

A police bomb squad, lab men and every d.i.c.key kind of specialist the department could dream up had arrived; and began fine-combing the street, the wreckage and a fifty-yard radius around the blast area.

The scene was sealed off completely and additional roadblocks were set up to contain a foursquare-block area of the surrounding neighborhood.

Emergency telephone and power company crews had been summoned, but orders had been left at the blockade to keep them out until further notice.

Sullen clumps of uniformed and plain-clothes policemen had returned to the ground-zero area to stand around looking helpless during these anticlimactic moments.

A disconsolate Chief of Special Details, Captain Wayne Thomkins, had been standing with hands in pockets for some five minutes, staring steadfastly at the ground between his feet.

FBI Agent Joe Persicone was kneeling a respectful distance from the twisted pile of hot metal which marked the remains of Mack Bolan's last known vehicle, staring at it as though he could unlock its secrets through some process of psychic osmosis.

Detective Ed Strauss, who had been added to the main body of Bolan Watchers upon their departure from the Emperor's. .h.i.t, vaulted over the low brick wall which bounded the private property on the south side of the street and strode up to break into Captain Thomkins' meditations.

Thomkins glowered at the young officer and growled, "Yeah?"

The detective spread his hands at shoulder level and replied, "Zero, nothing."

The Captain sighed and said, "Can't catch moonbeams in a fruit jar, can you?"

"Sir?"

"Forget it." Thomkins paced over to the wall and glared at it. "Should've found him right here," he said. "His back broke over this wall."

Strauss was measuring the distance with his eyes, mentally triangulating the drop from a point in s.p.a.ce where the pole had been, probably re-enacting in his mind's eye that spectacular free-fall into nowhere. His gaze traveled that imaginary path and he shuddered as it rebounded from the brick wall. "Yes sir," he quietly agreed. "That was my first impression. I saw the guy go sailing off that pole backwards and I remember thinking, 'Far out, what a way to go!' I fully expected to-"

"So what's your second impression?" Thomkins asked somberly.

"Sir?"

"Where'd he go?"

Strauss raised his hands in what was becoming a characteristic gesture as he replied, "h.e.l.l, I can't imagine. I've been thinking about those trees over there, just inside the wall. It's not inconceivable that . . ."

"Glad you said that," Thomkins growled in a somewhat softened tone. "Saved me from saying it. What'd he do, whip out his Batman cape and fly over there?"

"A superb athlete could . . . well, maybe. I don't know, Cap'n. I just said it's not inconceivable."

Persicone stood up with a sigh and joined the debate.

"It's a purely academic question," he suggested. "We have to accept the obvious. Bolan fell right into the blast and was annihilated."

"You know better than that," Thomkins replied acidly. "That's a cop-out and you know it. You were right at my elbow. You saw the whole thing as clearly as I did. And you saw the guy falling away in the other direction, away from the blast."

The FBI man lit a cigarette and blew the smoke inward the gutted truck. "Eyes can play tricks," he said. "Especially at a time like that. All we saw was the guy falling out of the spot. We were all so tensed up we were ready to jump at anything. We projected a path of fall, away from the spot, which was the only light available at the moment. But away where? Away down, that's where; it was the only route the guy had. Then the blast came, and suddenly we had a lot more light than our eyes could handle. Face it, we lost the guy the instant he left that pole. By the time our eyes adjusted to all that light-and our minds, I might add, to the whole unsettling event-well, all I'm saying is that we thought him into that path-of-fall. We don't know what the h.e.l.l we saw."

"I know what I saw," Thomkins insisted.

"Look, Wayne, look-we were a half a block away. You've got to consider the darkness, the angle of vision, the sudden blindness from the blast. Let's let logic make the decision. We did not find a broken body, not even any blood. We covered every inch of the surrounding area, we searched the trees, we've looked into every conceivable fall-zone. Now, I don't care how superb the athlete or anything else-no guy is going to get up from a fall like that and simply walk away, or even crawl away. So . . we are left with one inescapable conclusion."

"I'll buy that conclusion," Thomkins growled, "when I can find something factual to pin it to."

Persicone smiled faintly and said, "You're a stubborn cop."

"Thank you," Thomkins replied.

Strauss said, "With your permission, Cap'n . . . I'd like to have the firemen a.s.sist me with-I'd like them to lift me in that bucket of theirs:"

"Yeah, go ahead," the head cop agreed. "Just don't try any swan dives outta that bucket."

Strauss grinned and hurried away.

The two men watched his departure for a moment. Then Persicone quietly declared, "That's a good man."

"Yeah," Thomkins agreed. "He doesn't buy your theory either, Joe."

"He's got a personal interest in this case now," the FBI man pointed out. "Bolan left him with egg all over his face."

"Not just him," Thomkins observed sourly.

An embarra.s.sed silence enveloped the pair. Thomkins returned to his eyes-on-toes meditation. Persicone began pacing back and forth between the shattered telephone pole and the brick wall.

Presently a fire captain ambled up, grinning. He snapped a curious glance at the pacing FBI agent, then told Thomkins, "It's subject to lab verification but I think I can tell you what triggered the explosives. My boys are putting some pieces together. Looks like a remote-control detonator,"

"Radio?"

"Yeah. Solid-state miniature."

The cop said, "Okay, that fits our theory. Put some more pieces together, will you, Cap? Find me some toes and fingers, even an eyeball or a t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e. Find me a piece of the guy that pushed the plunger."

"If he was in that truck," the fireman replied, "you can probably forget it. It's a miracle n.o.body else got hurt. It appears that the blast went up more so than out, which accounts for the small-area containment. Your bomb boys agree with us on that. It's possible to plan an explosion that way; maybe the guy did. Anyway, if he went up with it-well, forget the pieces."

The fire captain threw another glance at Persicone and walked away.

The FBI man stopped his pacing and told the cop in charge of the Bolan detail, "I'm not telling you your business, Wayne."

"Okay, don't."

"Yeah, stubborn, yeah."

Another silence ensued, during which the two of them interestedly watched a young detective who was being swung high overhead in a fire department emergency rescue rig.

While this was in progress, the two-way radio on Thompkins' belt summoned him, and delivered the information that the search warrant was awaiting him near the Angeletti front gate.

"Okay, hold it right there," he instructed the caller. "I'll be over there in a couple of minutes."

"Waste of time," Persicone commented, with a faint smile.