"Look who's turned into the expert, handing out advice and all, the big bad kinky cop from Central. You make me wanta puke, CaptainHamilton. Go on back't'town and count your envelopes. And after you got 'em all counted up, then you sit down and try to remember what you was and what you had before Jake Vecci took you under his wing. Go on, Captain, get your dead ass outta here."

Hamilton stifled his rage and flung himself back toward the cruiser. He climbed inside and told the patrolman, "Blow, man blow. And don't look back."

The Captain was already remembering what he'd been before Vecci sprung the fifteen hundred dollars for his first promotion, to Sergeant. He'd been a good honest cop, a guy who slept well at night and could look his kids square in the eyes without flinching. How do you tell a kid that even an honest cop will eventually buy himself a promotion, when that's the only way there is. Yeah, he already remembered. He had never for a moment forgotten.

And as his driver swung the cruiser onto the roadway, during that split second that his headlamps raked the area, Captain Hamilton caught a glint of something in the misty darkness far across the road, over in the park area. Cars — lots of cars, official cars with bubblegum machines on top, moving silently through the darkness with all lights extinguished.

Hamilton whispered to his driver, "Jesus Christ, it's a set! Let's get the hell out of here!"

They got, pausing only for a moment to pass hurried instructions to the cruiser at the end of the procession. But it was to be a short run for the Captain and his two cruisers — less than a half mile — to the State Police barricade which at that very moment was being emplaced across the route of retreat.

Everyone, it seems, had accepted the party invitations.

Bolan was inside the grounds and strolling casually along a beaten path in the snow, the Thompson cradled in his arms.

Someone coughed just ahead. Bolan halted and lit a cigarette, then went on.

A figure materialized in the gloom, a guy with a shotgun, slowly marking time and trying to kick some blood into his feet. Bolan growled, "Hi. Stay with it there, tough."

The sentry coughed again and replied, "What's going on, anyways?"

Bolan told him, "Just keep your eyes open. Joliet Jake and a hundred Loopers are right now standin' just outside."

The guy had obviously wanted to say something else, but Bolan had passed on by without pause. He skirted the brightly lighted portico of the building and went on toward the gate, staying close to the drive. Hardmen were all about the place, leaning against trees, squatting in the snow in groups of four and five and conversing in hushed voices.

Only once was Bolan challenged, by another guy with a chopper who was walking along the drive toward the building.

The hardman said, "Hey, what're you doing up here?"

Bolan pulled the hat lower over his eyes and replied, "Charlie sent me up. He wants to tell you something."

"Charlie Drago?"

"Who else?"

"Well where's he at?"

It sounded very much like the voice that had yanked coffee-loving "Milly" away from Bolan at the fence. Bolan told him, "Just go up to the front door, open it, and look inside. I'll bet that's right where he's at."

The hardman muttered, "Wise guy," and went on toward the building.

Bolan had gone about as far as he wished to go. He was roughly midway between the club and the gate when a pair of headlamps began sweeping in through the arched entranceway. He found a tree with no one lurking about it, got the Thompson ready, and ran his fingers along the radio-detonator box at his waist.

They came in bumper-to-bumper, moving slowly along the oval drive in a leisurely procession. Bolan allowed the lead vehicle to pass his position, then his thumb found the button on the control box.

A hardly noticeable flash from the roadway uprange was accompanied by a muffled popping sound, and Giovanni's was instantly plunged into darkness — club, grounds, everywhere but for that oval drive as illumined by the headlamps of the Vecci vehicles.

The lead car almost stood on its nose in a sudden braking, and the other three plowed into the confused stop at gentle speed but with a horrendous crashing of metal upon metal. Someone over there was cursing with an almost studied precision and all four pairs of headlamps were instantly extinguished.

Bolan cut loose then with the chopper — upon the clubhouse, not upon the procession of vehicles — the heavy weapon sending a withering pattern winging in along the line of cars.

An immediate return fire descended from virtually every direction — not upon Bolan, but upon that stalled lineup of crew wagons.

Car doors were banging and grunting men were flinging themselves this way and that into the snow. Above the roar of gunfire could be heard Jake Vecci's strident screams denouncing the treacherous bastards and exhorting his boys to "kill 'em, goddammit, kill every one of 'em!"

Volleys of gunfire were coming in from the road area now, and men on foot were pounding through the arched gateway and making a run for the little island of marooned vehicles halfway along the clubhouse drive.

Mack Bolan, the life of the party, was quickly fading into the background of action. He had come merely to open the affair, not to conduct it. The Executioner had more important business at hand.

One of the crew chiefs, a man known as Gussie Tate, had been wheeling the Vecci car as they entered that fateful driveway. Mario Meningbetti sat next to the wheelman; Joliet Jake next to him, at the door; seven soldiers in the two seats to the rear.

Vecci had just repeated his instructions to the wheelman to "Take it slow'n easy now, Gussie. Don't make it look like we're roaring in, see. We're coming gently, on gentle business. You gotta keep psychology in mind when you're working this kind of stuff."

Tate had just replied, "Yessir" — and Meninghetti's worried voice was about to make some comment when suddenly all the lights in the clubhouse were extinguished.

Instead of the comment he was working at, Meninghetti cried, "I knew it! Stop the goddam car, stop it!"

The loyal lieutenant was already shoving his boss toward the floor when Gussie Tate's heavy foot overreacted on the brake pedal. This action greatly aided Meninghetti's protective reaction — to such an extent, in fact, that Jake Vecci was literally flattened against the floorboards of the limousine. And then the other cars came in like so many derailed boxcars, backlashing the crowded and already unsettled occupants of the lead vehicle.

Joliet Jake was just lifting groggily off the floorboards, his eyes dazed and flaring, when the gutteral chops of the Thompson laced the night.

On this note, Vecci needed no instruction. He was out the door and rolling in the snow and screaming bloody murder, and all of his boys were piling out after him. And then all hell started cutting loose. Gussie Tate fell out of the car with a scream of pain and somebody very close to the subcapobegan threshing around and turning the snow red with his blood.

Boys were leaping out of cars all along the line and everybody was shooting up the night, and Jake had to wonder if anyone even knew what the hell they were shooting at — Jake sure didn't, and his own snub .38 was in his fist and roaring. He was yelling, "Get in there and wipe out them double-dealing bastards, I mean it! Kill 'em, dammit, kill every one of 'em!"

Then there was a hell of a racket coming from the street, and Vecci knew that Pops Spanno and the Cream of the Loop had joined the battle. He crept away on hands and knees, moving instinctively away from those cars and toward the smell of blood at that darkened clubhouse up ahead.