Howlin' Harlan Winters had been "sealed" for good.

And, yeah. It was going to be a h.e.l.l of an interesting war zone.

2:

ONE FOR THE MAN.

He had been an OD soldier-a cigar chewing, cussing, emotional and one h.e.l.l of an inspiring C.O.-a true leader whom men followed because he led, not because he'd been created by Act of Congress. cigar chewing, cussing, emotional and one h.e.l.l of an inspiring C.O.-a true leader whom men followed because he led, not because he'd been created by Act of Congress.

He hadn't always been the most popular officer in camp. Some men found it hard to measure up to Howlin' Harlan's image of the fighting man. They muttered and b.i.t.c.hed and frequently promised themselves that they'd shoot him in the back some dark night, and a few openly entertained ideas of shooting themselves as a means of being rotated out of Howlie's command-but one and all respected the man; some openly and warmly loved Harlan Winters; others would have gladly given their lives for his.

He'd been a latter-day Patton, a real soldier's soldier.

Yet, less than a year into civilian clothes, he had died in utter defeat.

This was the part which Mack Bolan could not accept.

Sure, good men sometimes went wrong.

But not that wrong.

Bolan could not buy it. He could not read Harlan Winters as a suicide.

"So what's your reading, then?" Blanca.n.a.les asked him.

"I don't know," Bolan muttered in reply. "I'm no cop. Even if I were, though, I'd have the same signs to read. The signs all say, sure, Howlie knew the world was closing in on him and he took the easy way out. My gut can't read signs though, Pol. And in my gut I know that all the signs are wrong."

Schwarz put in, "Mine agrees. Howlie didn't kill himself."

The three men had been working for hours over the charred papers which Bolan had salvaged from the Winters' fireplace.

Twelve sheets of typewritten correspondence had been fairly well-reconstructed; these seemed to be an exchange between Winters and a Pentagon official involving "Quality Acceptance Waivers" on several large shipments of war materiel which the Winters firm was producing under government contract.

Various other charred remnants provided intelligence which seemed to confirm the suspicion about Harlan Winters which Bolan had brought from Washington.

A few months after his retirement from active duty, the general had popped up as president of a newly-formed California corporation which was geared entirely to the needs of the military. "Winco" was actually a mini-conglomerate, a merger of a half-dozen or so previously obscure companies which had never been directly engaged in government-contract work. Winco, however, came to life with several sizeable contracts already in its corporate pocket.

The meteoric rise of the new organization, together with a variety of suspicious circ.u.mstances, brought it under the scrutiny of several governmental investigative bodies.

Each of the several investigations had been quickly and quietly halted, at the Washington level, mainly through the efforts of a syndicate honcho Bolan had left dead in Washington.

So, sure, Bolan had known a thing or two about his ex-C.O.'s civilian activities, even before San Diego. He had known, also, that one day he might be faced with the unavoidable task of descending as the Executioner upon the man who had created created the Executioner. the Executioner.

Howlin' Harlan had been Bolan's mentor, several life-times ago. The then-lieutenant colonel had been in Vietnam since before the Gulf of Tonkin escalation-first as a military advisor and later as a Green Beret specialist in counter-guerilla warfare.

Bolan had come into the combat theatre as an armor specialist and volunteer advisor in the effort to equip and train the fierce Montagnard tribesmen. Eventually he found himself with a small team of American advisors under the direct command of the already legendary Howlin' Harlan.

In such an operation there was no room for the military formalities which customarily serve as a wall between an officer and his men. Bolan and Winters became a pair, each hugely respecting the professional abilities of the other. The colonel was particularly impressed with Bolan's cool marksmanship and his steely self-command under combat stress.

Under the tutelage and direction of Howlie Winters, Sgt. Bolan became the original "execution specialist" in that theatre of operations. The first Penetration Team was formed around his particular abilities, designed to penetrate and operate deep within enemy-held territory for long periods without direct support of any nature- and Howlin' Harlan himself had gone along on the first few "shakedown cruises" of this potent idea in psychological counterwar. Those early excursions, in fact, had teamed only Winters and Bolan with a five-man support group of specially selected Montagnards.

These were the "proof" runs.

Later, the penetration teams were almost wholly American and they operated wherever enemy occupation and terrorism was present; later still, they were given missions to pursue enemy terrorists into sanctuary areas, though these a.s.signments rarely found their way into the official record.

Howlin' Harlan had not been the sort of man to be bound by legalities. "There are no rules of warfare," he'd often told Bolan. "The only rule of warfare is to win." win."

Harlan Winters had grown accustomed to winning, and his "death specialist" teams became known and feared in every enemy camp in Southeast Asia.

PenTeam Able had been the first, though-and that one was Bolan's team.

He had continued to receive the rougher missions. And Howlin' Harlan, now a full chicken colonel in charge of all the teams, often accompanied Able Team on some of the briefer penetrations.

Yes, they'd been a pair.

Together they'd subsisted on jungle roots and swamp gra.s.s, insects and wild animals, lying half-submerged in rice paddies or squatting semiup-right in ca.n.a.ls and enemy-infested junglelands. Together they'd scouted the Ho Chi Minh trail and mini-blitzed it at carefully selected points from one end to the other; together they'd invaded the terrorist sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia; together they had many times fought their way back across miles of hostile and aroused territory in hair-raising withdrawals to safe country.

Yeah. Bolan knew the inside of Howlin' Harlan Winters like he knew himself.

And no, h.e.l.l no, he could not accept this man's death as a weakling's act of self-destruction.

As for the other-the mob involvement-that idea had not been so irreconcilable with the image of the man. Winters had been the type of guy who made his own rules and constructed his own vision of morality. He had continually bucked the "political system" which he blamed for prolonging the war. Often he had ignored official directives and policy decisions from Saigon and Washington. On more than one occasion Bolan had suspected that his C.O. was falsifying reports on the PenTeam strikes.

Eventually "the system" had caught up with the maverick colonel. Quietly and with notable absence of ceremonial honors he'd been relieved of his combat command and rotated to a desk job in the Saigon headshed. All his troopers had known, though, that his rotation orders had come from the highest Pentagon sources. "Howlie" had become too much of a colorful personality; war correspondents had latched onto the guy and had, in effect, written him out of the war. The Vietnam thing had become a hot issue in the American press, and Howlin' Harlan Winters represented too much of a potential embarra.s.sment to the men in Washington.

Several months later, Bolan himself had come up for routine rotation. He took a month's leave in the states, then requested rea.s.signment to his old outfit. The request was promptly granted and Bolan returned to the war zone for another full combat tour with the PenTeams. He had never again seen Harlan Winters, however, until that confrontation with sudden and complete retirement in the general's study in Del Mar.

Bolan had not always agreed with everything Harlan Winters stood for. He had not always approved of his C.O.'s official conduct. But he had loved and respected the man for the soldier that he was and now, in San Diego, resolved to give the memory of a valiant warrior a decent burial.

He was fully prepared to acknowledge the almost certain truth that his old commander had been knowingly involved with the Mafia.

There were indications, even, that this involvement extended back into the general's GHQ stint at Saigon, during the post-combative period.

But he was not ready yet to bury Harlan Winters without military honors.

"So where do we go from here?" Blanca.n.a.les wanted to know.

Bolan quietly replied, "We go into enemy territory, Pol. Into the sanctuaries. We go in there and drag the colonel out. Okay?"

The other two veterans of Able Team exchanged glances, then Gadgets Schwarz cleared his throat and said, "Right. It's a rescue mission."

"For a dead man," Blanca.n.a.les sighed.

"For the memory of a good soldier," Bolan corrected him. "Howlin' Harlan deserves an Able Team effort. Right?"

"Right," Schwarz echoed.

"But no false reports," Blanca.n.a.les said quietly.

"We just bring him out," Bolan agreed. "The man that was there can speak for himself."

"Agreed," Blanca.n.a.les replied. "We'll give it one good rattle for the man."

The tentative siege of San Diego had not been lifted.

On the contrary, it had suddenly undergone ma.s.sive intensification.

Able Team was on the job.

3:

ON NOTICE.

The first gray fingers of dawn were pushing into the cloudless Southern California sky and darkly silhouetting the rugged rise of mountain peaks to the north and east.

Montgomery Field, a suburban airport favored by private and charter pilots, lay quietly brooding upon the approaching daylight.

Several men in white coveralls, employees of the flying service which operated the airport facilities, moved slowly among the small craft in the tie-down area in a routine inspection.

Runway lights and the field beacon were still in operation, and brightness spilled from several open hangars.

From the base operator's private terminal could be heard the clacking of a flight-advisory teletype.

Manuel "Chicano" Ramirez and Jack "Schoolteacher" Fizzi occupied a late-model LTD, parked near a service ramp in the shadows of the terminal building. The windows were down and Fizzi was lightly drumming his fingers on the roof of the vehicle, keeping time with a country-music tune from the car radio.

Ramirez, the wheelman, a heavy man with a lumpy face and s.h.a.ggy hair-expensively attired but rumpled and obviously disrespectful of $200 suits. He was about forty and well known in the police files of several nations. At the moment, the Chicano was slumped behind the wheel of the car, eyes closed, seemingly dozing.

Fizzi was in his late twenties. He had attended a small eastern college for two years, then traveled west to seek his fortune. One year to the day after his arrival in California, Fizzi began a one-to-five tenure at Folsom Prison for Grand Theft-Auto. For the next twenty months he had worked in the prison's rehabilitation program as a teacher of illiterate cons. Apparently he had learned more than he taught at Folsom. His "connection" with Ben Lucasi, overlord of Southern California organized crime, was arranged within a few weeks of his release from confinement.

The Schoolteacher was always sharply dressed, almost tensely alert, his hair longish but carefully groomed in the new mod look. The image projected was the new look in junior executive. It was a false image.

The big man behind the wheel lifted his head sluggishly from the back rest and growled, "Wha' time is it?"

"Time enough," Fizzi replied. "He's ten minutes late."

"Hate these f.u.c.kin' milk runs," the other complained.

"Me too." The handsome one sighed, adding, "This will be the last for awhile." He turned off the radio. "Maybe they hit some bad weather." "Go ask the guy inside," Ramirez suggested. "Aw no. He'll be here."

Two men wearing the white coveralls of the flying service rounded the corner of the terminal building and approached the vehicle. "Ask these grease monkeys." "What the tell do they know?" Fizzi growled. "He's been late before. Just cool it."

The men in white were making a casual approach, laughing softly between themselves until reaching the LTD, then they split and came down opposite sides of the car.

The one moving along the driver's side was about medium height, somewhat thickset, dark hair and skin, smile-wrinkles setting the expression of the face.

The man at the other side was tall, broad-shouldered, athletically built-a bit younger than his companion-with chiseled features and eyes that dominated the entire appearance. "Ask 'em," the wheelman insisted. Fizzi growled a profanity and thrust his head outside just as the tall man drew abreast. "Hey, jock, what's the weather report for the mountains?" he asked in a snarly monotone.

"Stormy," the big guy replied in a voice of sheerest ice. A silencer-tipped black auto appeared in his hand from seemingly nowhere, to graft itself to Fizzi's outthrust forehead.

A gasp from the other side of the car signaled that the same unsettling event had occurred over there. The young triggerman very carefully relaxed his tightening muscles and his tone was entirely respectful as he said, "Okay, all right, okay. Let's cool it. What's the beef?"

The tall man issued another quiet single-word response: "Outside."

It was like a voice from some deepfreeze, not calculated to encourage inane argument.

The guy backed off, just a little, the ominous tip of that black pistol unwaveringly remaining on target though, his free hand opening the door and swinging it wide.

Fizzi slid carefully to the outside, keeping his hands in clear view. As though acting out a conditioned reflex, he then turned his back on the big guy, spread his feet, raised his hands, and fell forward against the roof of the car in a "frisk" stance.

Somewhat the same scene was being enacted at the opposite side of the vehicle.

Ramirez was growling, "Where's your warrant? I wanna see a warrant."

"What're you guys-feds?" Fizzi wanted to know as the tall man relieved him of his weapon.

That same icy voice replied, "Sort of."

Before he quite realized that it was happening, Fizzi then found that his wrists were securely taped together at his back and the guy was applying a wide strip of adhesive to his mouth. An instant later he and Ramirez were curled into the trunk compartment and the guy was shoving something into his fist-something small and metallic with irregular edges.

Then the trunk lid was closed and he was sharing the cramped darkness with Ramirez.

He maneuvered the little metallic object into his palm and rubbed his fingers along the outline -and suddenly Fizzi knew what that object was.

He also knew who the big b.a.s.t.a.r.d was.

And he knew, with a flooding sense of relief, that he was one lucky G.o.ddam triggerman if he was really going to get off this easy.

Not many guys ever met Mack Bolan and lived to brag about it.

Yeah. Jack the Schoolteacher was one G.o.ddam lucky son of a b.i.t.c.h.

But why? for G.o.d's sake why why had the guy left him breathing? had the guy left him breathing?

A sharp little red and white Cessna came in just ahead of the sunrise to execute a standard landing approach in the Montgomery Field traffic pattern. It touched down smoothly on the main runway, completed a short landing roll and crossed over to the service area, halting at the gas pumps just uprange from the waiting automobile.

One Sammy Simonetti, the lone pa.s.senger, stepped outside, then leaned in for a final instruction to the pilot. "After you've ga.s.sed up, put her away. We won't be going back until tonight late."