And if that happened, Turrin didn't know how he would react. The marshals wouldn't recognize him, wouldn't know that he was on the payroll, and his own reaction might become superfluous if they were shooting first and asking questions later. Leo knew he might be driving toward his death, but he could no more turn his back on Bolan now than he could voluntarily stop breathing. They were in this thing together, both of them for Hal.

A nagging apprehension had already taken root in the back of Leo's mind, subverting his determination with the message that their mission was a bust, that Brognola's family had no chance whatsoever of surviving their encounter with the Mob. They might be dead already, and most certainly they would not be released to Hal, potential witnesses at large who might exonerate Brognola, turn the spotlight back upon the syndicate. It would be lunacy to let them go, and while the leaders of the syndicate were always savage, sometimes less than brilliant, they were far from being idiots. The man who released Brognola's family, with everything to lose and nothing positive to gain, would have to be a fool.

If Bolan bought it in the coming hour, at his meeting with the President, Hal's family was doomed. It would require a special touch to bring them out of this alive, and Bolan had that touch, in spades. The little Fed had seen him shake the very walls of Castle Mafia, not once but time and time again. His reputation was enough to rattle certain ranking mafiosi, and the ones who weren't afraid of him had never seen the guy in action.

It would be Turrin's job to see that Bolan was not betrayed before he left the starting gate. And if his sit-down with the Man turned out to be a gun-down with a troop of marshals in attendance, well, then Sticker would be forced to offer some diversion while the Executioner withdrew, intact. It was that simple. Sure.

Like juggling bottles full of nitroglycerin, or playing hopscotch on the high wire, minus safety net.

If he was driving Bolan into peril, it was Leo's task to see him safely out the other side, no matter what it cost him privately. It was the least he could do for someone who had saved his life, more times than he could count. He owed the warrior that.

And if the sit-down fell apart, it would be time to pay his debts in full.

The former capo prayed that Hal was right in his assurance of a safe, protected meet. If he was wrong, how would Brognola live with the knowledge that his plight had sent the soldier to his death? How would he live at all if Bolan bought it at the sit-down, if he never had the chance to attempt to rescue Helen and the kids?

Too late to think about it now. In a few more minutes they would be coasting into range of the rendezvous. Another block, and there would be no turning back. He fought an urge to park the station wagon, or to turn around and power out of there before the trap could close around them. Too late.

Committed, Leo held the station wagon steady, eyes alert for any sign of tail cars in the rearview mirror. He was in for the duration, and with any luck at all, he would be sitting down with Angelina later in the evening, thankful that his world was safe and sound, his family secure.

But he could not escape the nagging apprehension that his luck was running out.

Leo Turrin parked the station wagon on a narrow side street off the western fringe of Rock Creek Park. Directly opposite and half a mile away on the far side of the park, stood the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Somewhere in between, inside the park itself, Mack Bolan had a scheduled meeting with the Man.

In preparation for the sit-down, he removed the sleek Beretta from its shoulder rigging and handed the weapon to Turrin.

"You might want to think about that," Leo grumbled.

Bolan shook his head. "I'm here to talk."

The little Fed did not appear to be convinced. "Well, listen, if you're wrong..."

"Do nothing," Bolan told him flatly. "If it sounds like I've run into trouble, start the car and drive away."

"Goddammit, Sarge..."

"Whichever way it goes, you're out of here in thirty minutes. Understood?"

"I should be going in there with you."

"Thirty minutes."

"Yeah, all right, I get the message."

Bolan rested one big hand on Leo's shoulder. "Watch yourself."

"Let's try, 'I'll see you later.'"

"Sure."

He closed the station wagon door, waited for a taxi and a family sedan to pass before he crossed the street. The park was green, inviting, but the Executioner could not suppress a certain apprehension. It could be a jungle as easily as it could be a playground, and he knew that Leo could be right. The marshals might be waiting for him, riflemen positioned for effective cross-fire. It would be so easy, if the President had set him up.

No altruist, the soldier still believed in certain basic values. Duty. Justice. Honor. And responsibility. Those ancient concepts had determined Bolan's course of action when he had returned from Vietnam to find his family in ruins. Those same ideals had brought him back to Washington, the scene of other conflicts in his neverending war, and they would keep him here until his job was finished — or until somebody dropped him with a well-placed bullet.

It could go either way, right now or in the coming hours. Bolan knew the odds, and he had been prepared for death since his arrival in the Southeast Asian hellgrounds. Nothing that had happened since had shaken his resolve to see his duty through.

But there were other duties, too. Responsibilities to friends, and to the country that had nurtured him. His parents had deserted other homelands for the shining promise of America, had borne their children here, and they had seen their dreams turn into dust, the promise nullified by savages who lived outside the law. Mack Bolan had a duty to that dream, to generations yet unborn, and he would serve their cause with every fiber of his being.

His meeting with the President was an unwelcome interruption of the soldier's newest life-and-death campaign. Each moment counted now, for Hal Brognola's family. But Hal had called the play and seemed intent on going through with his end of the bargain. Bolan would accommodate his friend to a point, but the Executioner did not believe that anything would come of his discussion with the chief of state. They understood each other well enough, and neither of them would be able to back down, reject his own responsibilities in favor of a compromise.

The President was not Mack Bolan's enemy, per se. He had responded to the Stony Man debacle with restraint, compassion and a willingness to see the Phoenix Program forge ahead once the battle smoke had cleared. It had not been the President's idea for Bolan to sever all — or almost all — official ties. The Executioner had simply realized that he could not wage war effectively beneath the government umbrella, bound to systems and superiors that made his lightning war a clumsy juggernaut.

Early in his war against the Mafia, the media had spoken of Mack Bolan as a "one-man army." There were implications that he thrived on loneliness, existed for the thrill of battle and sustained himself, like Dracula, on the blood of fallen enemies. The truth was rather different, but in one respect, the media reports were accurate. He fought a one-man war — when and where he could — and there had been no room for armies of supporting personnel in Bolan's scheme of things. The vision of an army at his back had been intoxicating, coming off his long last mile against the Mafia and reeling from a week of constant contact with the enemy, and he could not deny the victories that had been captured by the Phoenix Project. Neither could he venture to deny the costs. From the initiation of his private war, the soldier's greatest fear had been the sacrifice of allies who enlisted in his fight. The bloody roster haunted Bolan's dreams. So many lives cut short in pursuit of one man's own quixotic quest. How many times had Bolan sworn off the enlistment of another ally in his war? How many times had brutal circumstances forced him to recant that pledge? The list of dead and wounded, from his first campaign in California to the Stony Man disaster, was as long as Bolan's strong right arm. There had been others since his exit from the program, might be more before the day was out, but now the soldier had some measure of control regarding those who joined his war.