"There's nothing that would change my mind."

"Not even if I told you I have reason to believe that some of Farnsworth's friends are still among us? Still at the CIA?"

The warrior stiffened, one hand on the door handle. Lee Farnsworth was the ranking Agency official who had set the wheels in motion for the strike on Stony Man. He was — had been — responsible for April's death, for all the others, and upon identifying Farnsworth as his enemy, the warrior had eliminated him without compunction. After handing in his resignation from the Phoenix Program, he had executed Farnsworth in the Oval Office, with the President and Hal Brognola looking on.

"Who are they?"

"No names yet, unfortunately, but if you were back in-house..."

"That's negative. I've got a job to do already."

"Well, if you should change your mind, the option's open — but distinctly limited in terms of time."

He got the message loud and clear. If Bolan chose to spurn the offer of another governmental sanction, he could not expect a free ride over and above the business with Brognola. Fair enough. He had been warned, and it was more than he had any right to expect in the circumstances. Bolan recognized the President's dilemma, knew that he could not appear to countenance a wild-assed vigilante tearing up the streets of Washington and sniping at the CIA. Once he had settled with Brognola's enemies, if he was still alive, it would be open season on Mack Bolan once again.

"Good day, sir."

There was something close to anguish in the eyes that met and held his own. "You think about it, son. Don't throw your life away for nothing."

"Sir, it never crossed my mind."

The Secret Service agents watched him closely as he climbed out of the limousine, their shades incongruous in the descending dusk. They let him pass, but Bolan cleared the trees before he began to relax completely, part of him expecting lethal rounds to slam between his shoulder blades at any instant.

He was clear for now, but in his heart and mind the Executioner was far from being free. The mention of Lee Farnsworth and his friends at the CIA, had opened wounds and stirred old ghosts to life again. Those spirits traveled with the soldier, reaching out to touch him, whispering their message as he cleared the park.

Their message of revenge.

And there was suddenly a great deal more at stake in Wonderland than Hal Brognola's family, his twenty years at Justice. Suddenly, the memories of Stony Man, of April Rose, Konzaki and the rest were back full-force. He could not shake them off, and there was only one way that he knew of to appease their hunger.

They would need an offering of blood, and once he had secured Helen, seen Brognola's children safely home — God willing — he would turn his full attention to the hunt for Farnsworth's cronies in the Agency.

There is another Washington concealed behind the spit and polish of the nation's capital. In place of monuments to presidents and heroes, shabby houses testify to broken dreams; children run the streets by day and night, collecting into gangs for self-protection, striking out in anger at society's indifference. The alternate reality of Washington is rich in violence, boasting crime rates that have placed the seat of government among the ten most lethal cities in America. From time to time the mayhem overflows its teeming reservoir and laps against the steps of Congress, leaving bloody stains on Pennsylvania Avenue.

The "other Washington" does not appear in tourist guidebooks or society reviews. It may be found more often on the local nightly news in living color: scenes of savagery and desperation broadcast into stately homes ten blocks — and worlds — away. But for the most part, it is locked away behind the television screen, securely penned inside the magic box. Its horrors are transitory, simply and efficiently eradicated with a touch of the remote control.

Mack Bolan's blitz began within that other Washington. He nosed the rental Ford through streets where garish neon scarcely seemed to touch the shadows, hostile faces swiveling to watch him pass. A decade earlier, the faces would have been predominantly black, but there were Hispanics sprinkled in among them now, and Orientals, cast-off exiles from the island states of the Caribbean. A ghetto still, the other Washington had lost its ethnic unanimity, and with the change had come another rise in violent crime.

One thing about the ghetto had not changed. Its vice was still controlled by absentees who pulled the vital strings on gambling, narcotics, prostitution and pornography. The masters of corruption still went home at night to Georgetown, Arlington, Bethesda, leaving ethnic underlings to bear the heat of periodic crackdowns by police. It was a one-way street as far as profits went, the money flowing out and fattening the coffers of the syndicate. The ghetto was a major source of gangland income, and the Executioner had opted to begin his blitz by striking his opponents where it counted. Directly in the pocketbook.

The numbers bank was one flight up, above a pool hall christened Whitey's by some long-forgotten wit. Bolan drove around the block and parked the car in an alley, underneath the pool hall's rusty fire escape. No passersby had taken notice of him yet, and Bolan planned to have his business finished well before the vagrant street waifs could search out and strip the car.

He spent a moment double-checking armament before he locked and left the car. The silenced Beretta was primed and ready, nestled in fast-draw leather under Bolan's arm. The silver .44 AutoMag, Big Thunder, rode his hip on military webbing, canvas pouches stuffed with extra magazines for both guns circling his waist. He was in blacksuit, having shed his street clothes prior to strapping on the pistol belt, and hidden pockets held stilettos and garrotes, the tools of an assassin's trade.

The soldier was anticipating trouble, counting on it, but he meant to choose the time, the killing ground. There would be lookouts in the pool hall proper, ready to blow the whistle if a strange white face appeared. They would immediately realize that he was not from Gianelli's stable, and while Bolan was secure in his ability to handle sentries, he was hunting bigger game this evening. A firefight in the pool hall would delay him long enough for his primary targets to escape, and so the Executioner was opting for an alternate approach.

The fire escape was fitted with an access ladder, hinged to let it fold up underneath the bottom landing, but the rust of years had covered everything, and Bolan could not risk the screeching noise the ladder would produce on being lowered into place. Instead, he scrambled atop the rental's trunk and leaped to catch the platform overhead, suspended momentarily in space before he found the railing with his fingers, pulling up and over with the agile movements of a jungle cat. The hardest part behind him now, he knew the only other problem would be getting out alive.

Secure from prying eyes until he reached the lighted window that he had selected as his point of entry, Bolan took the metal steps by twos, the lethal 93-R in his hand, prepared to meet all challengers. When he was halfway up, the soldier hesitated, scanned the alley one more time in search of errant witnesses, found none and forged ahead.

The target window stood half-open to the night, and Bolan watched the men inside, taking stock and catching fragments of their conversation. They were four in all — three black, one white — and there could be no doubt as to the man in charge. Without a second glance, the warrior knew that Whitey's was precisely what the name implied, regardless of the clientele downstairs.

A burly mobster sat behind the battered desk, counting stacks of money, riffling the bills between his fingers, thick lips moving as he verbally kept track. His shirtsleeves were rolled up around his elbows, baring massive forearms bristling with hair and mottled with tattoos. His sport coat had been draped across the back of a chair, and he wore a snub-nosed Smith & Wesson .38 beneath his arm.