On the California desert he located another battlefield friend, now a cosmetic surgeon, who gave Bolan a new face and at least the prospect of a new orientation to life. Again Bolan opted in the direction of duty, and he used the new face as another combat tool, infiltrating the inner family of Julian George with a quiet ferocity that left this Southern California kingdom in reeling ruin. (The Executioner: Battle Mask.)

With the new face now as much a liability as the old one, the one-man army followed a trail from the dry sands of the southwest to the glittering beaches of Miami Beach to crash a nationwide Mafia summit conference attended by all the families of La Cosa Nostra. A new dimension was added to the Bolan Wars at Miami, and a new determination was forged in the mind of the man now universally feared and respected by the underworld, Mack the Bastard Bolan. (The Executioner: Miami Massacre.)

In this new determination, the mission was to remain alive and to carry the war continually to the enemy — to keep them frightened, to harass their programs and sneer at their delusions of grandeur, to hurl their omnipotence back into their teeth and reduce it to a trembling impotence — these were the desired effects of the new dimension of Bolan's war.

Meanwhile, remain alive. And this was not easy, with every law enforcement agency in the nation geared to his apprehension and with armies of bounty hunters swarming his trail. In this interest, Bolan unintentionally found himself in France and involved with a continental arm of the mob, and soon all of Europe (plus an American expeditionary force) was trying to crush him. (The Executioner: Continental Contract.)It was here that Bolan came to the realization that, "To be truly alive, you have to be ready to die for something. Harder still, there are times when you have to be willing to kill for something."

Bolan found that he was both ready to die and willing to kill. In an act of compassion and loyalty, he rejected the compelling tug of "Eden" and the loving arms of a dazzling French movie star to rescue a group of Parisian joiegirls who had befriended him and were subsequently suffering from the vindictiveness of a local Mafia chieftain. Putting his war where his heart was, Bolan exposed himself to the most comprehensive threat to his existence yet undertaken as he launched a series of lightning assaults against the combined forces of international headhunters. His battle magic and utter scorn for personal danger blazed a trail of destruction across France and Bolan learned that there are "no crossovers between Hell and Eden."

When again we encountered Bolan, The Executioner, he was in England and searching out a homeward path. His search, however, quickly became Assault On Soho, and Bolan discovered that, "... I am living in an invisible domain of violence that follows me wherever I go." He also found that all pathways home were crossed with extreme jeopardy, and swinging Londontown very quickly began to throb to the Executioner's battlecry. Diverse forces were closing in on Bolan in England, and he learned the hard way that the Mafia held no monopoly over evil.

Nevertheless he overcame the coalition of underground power in London and dealt another mortal blow to a cancerous tentacle of Mafia influence, but not without taking on a new appreciation of fear, and disgust for this spreading menace.

He returned to New York with the personal commitment to "bust this kingdom of evil if I can live that long." But New York turned into a nightmare and an orgy of bloodletting that shook even this combat veteran to the very depths of his being. (The Executioner: Nightmare in New York.)

It was here that he encountered the master plan of Cosa di tutti Cosa, or the total domination of American life by underworld interests. In his own unique way, Bolan postponed the realization of that master plan even while accepting the fact that he could never, by himself, totally destroy the Mafia. It was a war of impossible dimensions which one man alone could never hope to win. Thus began the new phase of the Bolan Wars, the war of frustration. If he could not cut out the heart of this cancer, he would at least sever an arm here and there, keep them off balance, and keep hacking at them until the world awakened to the reality of this many-tentacled giant bent on devouring it.

Thus also, Chicago. If New York had been a nightmare, then Chicago must surely be the grim awakening, the model city for The Thing of All Things, Cosa di tutti Cosa, theThing already come to pass. For Mack Bolan, Chicago was the inevitable next scene of confrontation with the mob. Certainly he was knowledgeable regarding that triumvirate of power described by bestselling author Ovid Demaris in hb masterful work on Chicago, Captive City:

"Today it is nearly impossible to differentiate among the partners — the businessman is a politician, the politician is a gangster, and the gangster is a businessman."

So what sort of man is it who single-handedly challenges such a power combine? Is he indeed the same naive soldier who returned from the battlefront of Vietnam to bury his own beloved dead — and then to avenge their deaths? Could anysensitive and normally intelligent man undergo the gory violence and continual jeopardy of the Bolan Wars without also undergoing a radical alteration to his personality? It would seem not. Bolan had been growing into his own destiny-1 — certainly into a deeper understanding of the dimensions of his conflict — and most probably into a finer appreciation of the reasonsfor this war.

Shortly before his entry into Chicago, he penned this thought in his personal journal: "... it's going to be a wipe-out... them or me. I have lost the ability to judge the value of all this. But I'm convinced that it matters, somewhere, which side wins. It matters to the universe. I consign my fate to the needs of the universe."

A man's character ishis fate. The same could be said of a city, or of a nation.

But what sortof man would willingly and alone walk into The Chicago Wipe-Out!

Whatever else he might be, Mack Bolan, The Executioner, is that sort of man.

In a matter of seconds, Bolan knew, the Chicago War would be on. The face in his crosshairs was the one he had been patiently awaiting for two hours on this crisp winter afternoon beside Lake Michigan. Faces had come and gone through the hairs of the 20-power, but this was the one he had wanted. Once it might have been handsome, or at least it might have possessed a potential for comeliness. Now it showed the indelible tracings of an inner rot, of power and greed too long unrestrained — a face that had seen death and brutality and atrocity far too many times to remain comely in the mirror of humanity — and, yes, this was a face to launch the War for Chicago.

For a second The Executionerhesitated. Some deep uneasiness over this hit was gnawing for a quick mental review of the situation. Two days of patient and cautious recon had failed to produce any intelligence which would dissuade him from making the strike at this particular time and place. The big lakeshore estate was reasonably secluded. There was no evidence of a hardset defense — the staff of this Mafia jointappeared both modest and relaxed — a small force of hardmen. Bolan had counted only four identifiable gunbearers — one at the gate in front, one acting as a doorman, the other two alternating on relief. The inside crew was made up of a cook, a bartender and a waiter. The guests seemed to bring their female companions with them; there was no whore-corpsin residence. The two-story joint had six bedrooms on the upper level. The lower level was taken over by the kitchen and dining room, lounge, game room, and a large library that probably served as a conference room.