Everybody loved to gossip.

Bolan said, "That's worse than smack."

"Sure it is. On that much smack, he'd be dead long ago. Frankly, I don't get it. I even asked the girls what the hell he does with 'em. He screws 'em, that's what. Sure, sometimes a half a dozen different girls the same day. I still can't believe it. I wish one of those sex surveyors would come around and survey me. Boy, what I could tell 'em."

"You paying protection?"

"Aw no, no. We keep a low profile, nobody bothers us. No open solicitation, no street walkers. Good girls, clean and all."

"Nobody's tried to muscle you?"

"Aw hell, no. This is a quiet town. Where you from?"

"East," Bolan said. "People like you don't have a chance there. The mob runs it all."

"Oh well, hey, we've got no mob here." The guy was getting nervous. "Don't uh, don't get any ideas, friend. I mean, if you're thinking of some little muscle action on your own. You wouldn't last a day. I said I wasn't paying protection. That doesn't mean I don't have it."

"Relax," Bolan said. "I was just wondering if this superjohn of yours was actually paying or ..."

"Oh hell, he pays. Cash on the line."

Bolan thanked the guy and got out of there.

He did not particularly like the feel of the situation. His mind nibbled briefly at the idea of set-up but discarded it as too unlikely.

As for the Lake Sammamish area, it rang out okay. It fit the situation. Good place for a quiet pad where a guy could get away from it all when the need was there. Margaret Nyeburg, if she'd come entirely clean, did not know of such a place. Which made the ring even cleaner.

Bolan had early-on discarded the thought that Nyeburg may have gone to the island. It was out of his league, totally out of reach. Nyeburg was a face, not a head — and it mattered not at all that his face officially owned the place.

Nyeburg wasn't even made. Bolan's chief interest in the guy lay in the "domino chain" idea. He had to spark a chain reaction somewhere. Nyeburg seemed the likeliest domino in the line.

The guy had wasted no time getting out of sight.

Margaret had said that he'd received this early morning call which "lasted no more than thirty seconds."

Tommy Rotten didn't make that call; the kid couldn't coherently say that much in that space of time — certainly not enough to send Nyeburg in panic to the men in New York, which is immediately what he did — that five minute long distance conference.

A few minutes later, the guy was running out of his house in panic.

So who called and tipped him in the first place, if not the sole survivor of the gunfight?

Someone with clout. Clout enough to influence a police investigation. Clout enough to put the brakes on a Bolan-alert which would put the whole town in arms. Sure.

The mob never moved into virgin territory, not in force, without a bit of advance legal insurance. Somebody in Seattle was greasing the way. Allan Nyeburg probably knew who that somebody was — or, at least, he would know the next man in the chain, the next layer of responsibility. Bolan needed desperately to tip that domino. A heady brew was cooking in this "quiet" town. Something a hell of a lot more important than an island hardsite. Hardsites were never causes— they were effects. And something was brewing that would demand a hardsite — a fantastic damn hardsite — for back-up.

Cosa di tutti Cosi, sure — but how, what? What was the angle?

For the first time since L.A., Bolan felt behind the problem.

L.A. had been a disaster.

Seattle would be, too, unless Bolan could get out front— and damned quick. His combat guts were telling him so. When they talked, Bolan listened. And, at the moment, they were speaking in many tongues.

They, too, were brewing.

At least, now, he had a line on the next domino.

Wooded area, right. Narrow winding trails for roads, hills and dales, trees and water, wildlife. Paradise. A misty night without moon or stars, a chill in the air that soaked to the bone, utter pitch blackness that could give a guy vertigo if he didn't have some reference to reality.

Not paradise, no, not this way.

Bolan's reference was his own feet in wet grass, the chirrup of tree-dwelling insects, a sense of oneness with the night.

Sure, the night was his brother. Bolan should have been an Indian — several hundred years ago. He would lay in tall grass and wait for his brother, the bear, to hit the trail for food or water — then Bolan the Bold would rise up, bone knife in hand, to stalk and liberate the holy spirit from his brother and apologize for returning it to the universe unfulfilled. From that victory would come food for the tribe, a warm robe for the night chill, bones for tools and more weapons — a victory dance with honors from the old men.

But Bolan the Bold was not an Indian.

He did not lay in wait for his brother, the bear.

His kill would bring no profit his tribe would applaud, his victory no honors.

He was a soldier without convention; he stalked his brother, rapacious man; his final victory would be his ultimate defeat; he would be buried in dishonor.

That was reality, and that was another sort of reference.

He'd left his vehicle far to the rear, responding to a sense of caution born long ago and reinforced on a Seattle waterfront less than twenty-four hours earlier.

Whatever the game, it was being played for high stakes.

He accepted the stakes, not even knowing what they were, and played the game by that sense of value. He would not be trapped by a layered defense this time.

And he was not.

The unmistakable burping chatter of Thompsons in fast unload came from three hundred yards in, two at once in sustained bursts that shattered the calm of the night and slew paradise for certain. The muted glow from the cabin up there was still no more than an indistinct shimmering of the mists.

Bolan had not even come close. And as he circled warily toward the road, armed with only the 9mm Beretta and stalking now only the uncertainties of the night, he saw the flare-up of automobile headlamps and heard the whine of the vehicle as it spun out of the graveled drive, the screech of tires finding purchase on asphalt pavement.

A lot of things came together in the combat mind during that infinitesimal moment of decision. Then he was crashing through the underbrush in a dead run through blackest night, on an intersecting course and damning himself for failing to awaken to truth five minutes earlier.

He got there several heartbeats ahead of the fleeing headlamps and fired on the run, dispatching a full clip without breaking stride — then diving and reloading as the shattered vehicle swerved abruptly and headed across the road to the woods on the opposite side.

It smacked head-on into a tree, veered off and swung around to break itself open upon another.

Yeah — his brother, the car.

Flames erupted immediately, spreading quickly and flashing up to engulf the wreckage in an all-consuming bonfire.

Bolan found an ejected body ten feet from the flaming pyre, entirely dead and minus a foot. It was a familiar body. He'd soft-touched it on an ambitious island some sixteen hours ago.

Stay soft, he muttered, and continued the evaluation.

There was no saying for sure, but what evidence lay quickly available disclosed a hit crew of but three men. A small crew, and Bolan was certain this time there were no layers. An easy hit. Sure.

He ran on up the road and into the cabin.

It was nice. Bolan himself would enjoy this cabin. One big room, with a loft. Fireplace across one wall, small kitchen and dining area, the rest living space in knotty pine and open-beam ceiling, casual furniture scattered about.