Lavallo hurried past his own doorway and pushed into Palmer's office. City Jim, that was the one to call. These goddam punk cops had to get their heads out of their asses and nail that goddam guy.

He fell into Palmer's swivel chair and began hastily going through the scattered papers on the desk. Who the hell did Rudy call? What crew did he put on that dollie? Call City Jim, that was the thing to do. First, though; first he had to find that crew and call them off. Did that bastard say tiedin lifeand death!

Lavallo shivered violently and intensified his investigation of Rudy's desk. God, he didn't want to be tied to no turkey. God no. Not until that horsed-up, blacksuited dummy was out of the way. Lavallo had to believe that guy. He'd do it. He'd do just what he promised he'd do.

He'd better get in touch with the council, though. He'd better talk it over with the bosses. But shouldhe? Couldhe keep them out of it? Hell, he had to, he hadto. They'd probably say, "Bring usthat dollie, Pete the Hauler, and let usdecide what she's worth."

The king of the highways lurched to his feet and made a dash for the toilet, both hands clapped across his mouth. Them goddam ulcers. That goddam Bolan. Fuckin' no good sluts playin' around with older men. Why'd they have to?..

He made it to the basin just in time, and there disgorged an untenable collection of rage and sorrow and greed and fear — especially fear.

Pietro Lavallo had no ulcers.

He was suffering from inner rot.

As night draped itself across the huge city beside the lake, two major storms also appeared to be in imminent descension. One was approaching from the northwest, in the form of snow and high winds and plummeting temperatures. The other was materializing within the city itself, and took the form of worried officials, bustling police movements, and multitudinous stirrings in diverse places.

The lights at City Hall continued to burn brightly into the night, specifically in and about the offices of the mayor and commissioner of police. Standard riot forces were ordered to duty in civilian clothes, uniformed patrols were beefed up and re-deployed, and special motorized units were stationed at key points.

Never a city to disregard its own romantic flavors, Chicago's radio disc jockeys that evening interspersed their regular format with funeral dirges dedicated to various fictitious and Runyonesque characters: Sammy Slink, Willie the Weasel, Tommy Torpedo, et al— and two local television stations pre-empted network programming to run special "background commentaries" on the life and times of one Mack Bolan.

The Executionerhad come to town, and all of Chicago seemed to be aware of his arrival. That other storm, advancing slowly from the north, drew hardly any notice at all — except from the luckless city employees who were ordered into all-night street service.

In a private room above a Michigan Avenue tavern, a small group of quietly sober men were planning a storm of their own. Unofficially referred to as "The Quad Council," these four represented the invisible power structure which had welded the city and its environs into an impregnable stronghold of criminal corruption. Its members were referred to only as City, Labor, Industry, and Syndicate.

In this meeting were worked out the various lines of responsibility, the "action interfaces," and the dimensions of effort to be thrown into the upcoming war. From this meeting were fielded generals with strange sounding names leading troops with even stranger talents, and a general of all the generals was named to directly oversee the war effort on behalf of the Quad Council.

This lord high enforcer was one Lawrence "Turkey" Rossi — usually known as Larry Turkor, simply, Turk. The term Turkey, in general Mafia parlance, is used in relation to a particularly gruesome method of torture-interrogation or torture-revenge in which the victim is systematically reduced to a mindless mass of mutilated and writhing flesh, or "turkey," though conscious and screaming for mercy right into the moment of death. Its practitioners develop a high degree of skill, and Larry Turk had received his nickname in recognition of his own high development of this delicate art, acquired during his earlier years of advancement along the rungs of power.

This appointment to lead the counter-war against Bolan represented a new challenge, and perhaps a new pinnacle of achievement, for the ambitions of Lawrence Rossi. Forty-one years of age and a two-time "graduate" of the Illinois State Prison at Joliet, Larry the Turk had arrived at the high moment of a vicious career. And it must have seemed to him that all roads from this point led straight up.

On this night of the storm, however, the turkey-maker was to discover that even the most sublime roads always travel in more than one direction. Even in Chicago.

Bolan let himself into the motel room and deposited his parcels on a table by the door. The room was lighted only by a sliver of illumination from the bathroom door and the glow from a television screen.

The girl was sprawled casually across the bed on her forearms, her attention, absorbed by the television set, a bath towel draped carelessly over her bottom. The Foxy Lady costume lay on a luggage rack at the foot of the bed.

Bolan took in the towel-draped highrise and quickly shifted his focus to a less disturbing scene, the murmuring television. His own image was being displayed there as a blown-up artist's sketch while an off-camera voice was giving a resume' of the New York battles.

The blonde head swivelled slowly about and she regarded him quietly across a rose-petal shoulder which was glowing fetchingly in the reflected light from the television screen. The voice was small and maybe a bit weepy as she told him, "I thought you'd deserted. I've been lying here feeling sorry for myself."

"Had to stop and see a guy," Bolan explained.

"Yes, I know." A shadow seemed to move across her eyes. "They just reported the... man... at the trucking company. They said it's connected to the executions at Lakeside. Is it?"

He said, "Sure," and tossed a flat box onto the bed. "Better check the fit."

She ignored the box. Again that shadow crossed her eyes as she asked, "Did you really slit his throat?"

Bolan shrugged. "Dead is dead," he muttered, and strode into the bathroom. He called back "Get some clothes on," and banged the door shut.

Sure he'd slit the throat, and he'd punched hot metal into a dozen other men this day — beautiful lady. He had noted that look in her eyes, that dawning revulsion — somehow he had never become accustomed to that look. He supposed he never would, no matter how often he saw it. Well, so what? — he had it coming, didn't he? It was a proper reaction.

So too someone had to be the butcher. Bolan could live with it. A guy with a genius for math should not shrink from numbers... a dancer should dance, a singer should sing, a painter should paint, and an executioner should... Bolan knew what he had to do. He knew where his talents lay, and let the revulsion fall where it would. He could live with it.

He flung away the entire train of thought and began undressing for the shower. The Beretta and sideleather went on a towel rack just outside the shower stall, and Bolan went in beneath the stinging spray, lifting his face directly into the invigorating assault. He remained there a long time, eyes clenched, breathing through his mouth, luxuriating in the bombardment — and then he became aware that the door to the stall was open and be felt eyes on him.