Yes, it was an imposing joint — and Mack Bolan was also a man to not overlook important details. The road frontage covered about fifteen hundred feet, bounded by an iron fence and flashily broken at dead-center by an arched gateway and stone gateposts bearing huge coats-of-arms. The county plot-plan showed a trian-gular-like ground layout, with about three hundred feet of river frontage on the backside of the property. The plot was roughly one thousand feet deep. Bolan estimated the placement of the building at about a five hundred-foot recess into the grounds, reached by an oval-shaped drive from the main road. The joint was ablaze with lights when Bolan arrived on the scene, as were the grounds in certain areas — probably parking lots — flanking to either side.

He would have liked to had a daylight recon of the joint. He knew how deceptive could be the facades of the night, and especially on a night such as this one. The precipitation of the storm front had now degenerated to a light freezing drizzle. Visibility was fair but the ground was a mess of treacherous snow drifts overlain with ice; the roadway itself had incurred very little traffic and evidently no attention whatever from county road crews — not within the past few hours, anyway.

Huddled in a bumper-to-bumper lineup just below the arched entranceway stood a procession of limousines... "crew wagons" — with a Chicago Police Department cruiser in the tail position. Clouds of vapor were rising from twenty or so idling engines and all but the lead vehicle were displaying parking lights; the car in front had headlamps at full blaze. The police cruiser's roof beacon was flashing brilliantly in the falling mist.

Bolan's war-wagon sported a roof flasher, also — the yellow-light type specified for unofficial emergency vehicles. He pulled alongside the cruiser and slid across the seat for a window-consultation with the law.

The door glass of the cruiser descended halfway and Bolan boomed over, "What — is the road out up there?"

"Naw it's all right," was the reply. "Go on by."

"Kinda late at night for a funeral procession, isn't it?"

"Aw, it's just a VIP party for Giovanni's. You know the routine."

Bolan laughed. "Yeah, I know. How 'bout getting an escort for the Edison Company? What a hell of a night, eh?"

"Yeh. I guess the ice is playing hell with the lines, eh?"

The cop was trying to get a better look at the van, which could not have been better disguised by deliberate intent, covered as it was with frozen-on splatterings of dirtied snow from the Chicago streets.

Bolan was replying, "Yeah, and I had to draw no-man's-land out here to patrol. What's up on the other side of this joint here?"

"Damn if I know," the officer told the Executioner. "This isn't exactly my beat either."

Bolan chuckled, then said, "Well, I guess I'll find out the hard way," returned to his place behind the wheel, and sent the van into a cautious advance along the line of cars.

The windows of the crew wagons were frosted over on the inside, and only here and there had anyone bothered to wipe away the condensed moisture. But Bolan was head-counting on the basis of normal complements per car — two men in front, two in the jump seats, three in the rear — total seven men including the wheelman times twenty cars — and, yes, it was an impressive force.

The lead car was a crew wagon, not a police cruiser. Bolan speculated that someone, probably one of Vecci's lieutenants, had accompanied Captain Hamilton inside the joint to smooth the way for the grand entry of Vecci's party. And Bolan was thinking that Joliet Jake was behaving much more optimistically than Bolan himself would under similiar circumstances. If there was anything a ranking Mafiosofeared more than prison or death, it was ambitious competition within his own family group. The mob was forever being rocked from within by unscrupulous maneuverings and greedy intrigue, contrary to all the romantic ideals of solidarity and "brotherhood" espoused by the organization. Any "boss" had earned the name and arrived at that high station by virtue of his own expertise in treachery and double-dealing; he therefore lived in continual suspicion of those around him who had not yet arrived at that level of leadership, and particularly feared those in higher positions who might be inclined to "bring up" someone in direct competition with himself.

So, yes, anyone from the Loop who was crashing that conclave at Giovanni's was on a delicate mission indeed — and Bolan himself was not out here upon any idle business. Not at all. The Executioner had come to join the party... and to see that negotiations proceeded favorably.

Favorably, that is, for the Chicago wipe-out.

Bolan crept on past the Mafia hardsite, stopping twice during the transit to leave the van and let the enemy see him eyeballing the power lines running past the property. During the last such "inspection," a voice called over to him from the darkness beyond the iron fencing: "Hey Mac — watcha doing?"

"Checking the cables," Bolan called back casually. "They're getting pretty heavy with ice."

"Oh, yeah, good idea."

Bolan stood in the middle of the road and lit a cigarette.

"Well, how do they look?"

Bolan told the chatty hardman, "I've seen better. But I guess they'll make it okay if the wind'll just stay down."

"Oh yeah, that could play hell, couldn't it."

Bolan said, "Yeah."

The guy was half-frozen, if the shivers in his voice were any indication. Bolan wondered how many more were patrolling those grounds, and how long they were required to stay out in that frigid weather. It could make a difference in the alertness and efficiency of the defending force; half-frozen warriors weren't worth a hell of a lot.

Casually, Bolan told the guy, "I got some hot coffee in th' truck. You sound like you need some."

"Christ, I'd give ten bucks for some. Make it twenty."

Bolan chuckled and said, "Just a minute," and went into the van. He emerged with a tall thermos and carried it to the fence. The man who stepped out of the night to join him there wore a long black topcoat, a snap-brim hat pulled low, and a wool muffler wrapped about his face. The muffler was frozen stiff and the guy's eyes looked like two burnt holes in a blanket.

Bolan poured the coffee and thrust the little plastic cup through the bars of the fence. The hands which gratefully accepted it were ungloved and stiff with cold.

Sympathetically, Boian said, "Tough damn night to be out, eh. Are you guarding this joint or something?"

The hardman replied, "Yeah." He sipped the heated stimulant and added, "Christ, you're a life saver. I wasn't kidding. I'll give you twenty bucks for this."

"Forget it," Bolan replied. "Do they make you stand out here all damn night?"

"It's startin' to look that way," the guy chattered. "Uh, you got a heater in that truck, huh?"

"You bet. And I'm wearin' three layers of thermal clothes too."

"What's that thermal?"

"Like insulation. Keeps the body heat in, the cold out. I'm not cold at all, not much, just my face. My face feels like it's dead."

"Well I'm going to tell these boys about that thermal, that sounds like the cat's nuts on a night like this."

"You got other guys standin' around in there freezin' their asses?"

"Yeah. You say your face is dead, listen my ass and everything that goes with it is dead. I bet I'm shriveled up to a half a inch. I bet if I pissed right now it would spray all inside my stomach."

Bolan laughed and the hardman laughed and a voice from the darkness called out, "Milly, what th' hell're you doing?"

The guy swiveled about and called back, "Just checkin' things out over here."