Two big logs danced flames in the fireplace. Spread in front of that cheery scene was a thick white rug of soft, nubby material. It would never be pure white again. Sprawled upon it in grotesque attitudes of violent death were the naked bodies of a man and a woman.

He was, sure, Allan Nyeburg.

She was some pretty young loser who'd found the easy way the hardest. Pretty, once. Now she and her partner in death were virtually chewed to hamburger by an untold quantity of big mean .45 caliber dumdums.

Bolan reached between them to pick up abloody marksman's medal. Cute. But no thanks. The Executioner would not take credit for this one, not this way.

Easy hit, yeah.

And you really blew it — didn't you, Allan? You had it all going for you, guy. Had it all. Brains, education, looks, charm — even a halfway decent business base to build upon. Then a real cool lady and a daughter any man would claim — and you blew it, guy, you blew it! For what?

Bolan's gaze traveled along that misused young female body punched out there, and he wondered if Nyeburg had actually seen any of them.

His brother, the satyr.

Bolan had known alkies and junkies, compulsive gamblers and suicidals of very persuasion — but this was the first guy he'd ever known to actually screw himself into the grave.

He shook his head and went away from there.

Scratch another domino. Sorry, Margaret, but that's all the guy had ever been. A domino. With no chain — no chain at all.

And what a hell of a brew it was getting to be.

As he withdrew to his vehicle, Bolan found his thoughts centering around Margaret Nyeburg. Why Margaret? Why not the junior edition, with whom he'd shared so much of mind and flesh?

They were a contrast, those two — so alike yet so different — so together yet so apart. It was no simple matter of generation gap. There was something basically offkey.

His mind could not touch it.

Only his guts could.

He needed a talk with Margaret. Suddenly, almost desperately, that demand rose up from the animal side of his consciousness.

So okay. He would go for a parley with the cool lady.

He left the car at the end of the lane and continued on by foot. The mists were in full sway once again at waterside — now concealing, now revealing with a ragged bottom edge that seemed to raise and lower in unpredictable patterns. The lights from the beach house were dim, barely visible through the shifting fog but still a beacon in the gloom drawing Bolan inexorably toward some deepfelt if intellectually unrecognizable crisis — like a moth, he supposed, homing on a candle's flame, compelled by some universal force beyond comprehension to seek its own certain destruction.

Bolan recognized the feeling, and it was the reaction thereto that dictated the wary approach. With a momentary flashback of consciousness, he was in enemy country again and that was a VC hut perched at the edge of a ricefield. There was no way to know what awaited him there, but he did know that a pursuing enemy band were sniffing along his trail and already combing through the rice paddy at his rear. Certain death lay behind, an uncertain goal ahead. The hut could mean brief sanctuary or imprisonment, solace or pain, survival or extinction — but it was beckoning him and he went, all the while aware of the moth and the flame.

Of such incomprehensible directions are the destinies of men written and fulfilled, especially Mack Bolan's sort of man.

The "rear base" beach house was a simple, oblong structure with a single bedroom, bath, a larger area without walls that served for cooking, dining, lounging — small porch to the rear, a screened porch on the beach side.

He circled the building once, picking up no vibrations of life within or without, then went to the rear and quietly let himself in. Two small table lamps were softly lighting the living area. The door to the bedroom was closed. Diffused light spilled from the open bathroom doorway to illuminate the closet-size hallway separating bedroom and bath.

There was not a sound upon the place.

The night was young but the women could have turned in early — it had been a traumatic day for both.

That uneasy feeling was still ruling Bolan's guts, though; he moved softly along the wall of the large room and sprang the Beretta.

Margaret picked that moment to walk out of the bathroom, wearing absolutely nothing but a small towel wound about the head like a turban.

She spotted Bolan immediately and froze in mid-stride with a soft exclamation of dismay.

It was a body to make young men wish they were older and old men yearn for youth one more time around, glowing with the soft allure of mellowed maturity yet youthful in carriage and striking of form.

And Bolan knew, in a flash of understanding, at least part of the answer to the contrasts between mother and daughter. Dianna was a beautiful kid, sure — all fresh and sparkling and natural — but Bolan now understood that natural could also mean raw.

That lady standing there, for all her naked embarassment, was a rare piece of feminine art — refined and polished and fully turned beyond the raw by the craftswoman who lived within.

He told her, "Dammit, Margaret, I won't apologize for staring."

She replied, with a cool blend of embarassment and humor, "I should hope not," and disappeared back the way she'd come.

The experience had been hardly more than a flash — but it was a flash that illumined. Bolan would not soon forget.

She reappeared a moment later with a large bathtowel securely in place, cinched in at the armpits and covering to about midthigh. With a nervous laugh, she confessed, "You scared another strand of gray into my hair."

Bolan apologized for that and waved away her own quiet explanation for nudity. He had not, after all, prepared the ladies for an overnight visit away from home.

He guided her to a chair at the small dining table and sat her down, then pulled a chair for himself close alongside and told her, "I have grim news."

"I'm prepared for it," she replied, looking away, though.

"Allan is dead."

"I see."

"Not by my hand. Someone beat me to him. He was silenced."

Her eyes were moist when they returned to his gaze. "That's twice," she said simply, in a voice that nearly broke.

Bolan understood. Twice a widow. "Sorry," he muttered.

"Where is he?"

"Cabin, Sammamish area. Know it?"

She shook her head. "Allan had several secret places. How did he die?"

"Quickly."

She understood. "Do you have a cigarette, Mr. Bolan?"

He lit one and placed it at her hand. "I've never lived in your moccasins, Margaret," he said quietly. "If you want to scream and yell, go ahead."

She gave him a half-bright smile and took a pull at the cigarette. "The time for screaming and yelling is long past," she replied. "I had already decided to divorce Allan. Awaiting only the right moment. There's been so much... intrigue of late. Still... well, there is an ache. I can't help that."

"Wouldn't want you to," he commented gruffly. "Can we talk a little?"

"Of course."

"How long had Allan been in this thing? To your knowledge?"

"I suppose... about a year. It began with a business trip to New York. Suddenly Allan became involved in real estate, proxy purchases. Then the Expo thing, shipping, meetings with strange men. Life didn't become frantic until just the past month or so, though. Since then it has been mysterious telephone conversations at all hours, armed men lurking about — that pathetic child, Tommy Rentino, forever in Allan's shadow. Was he a bodyguard?"

Bolan shrugged. "If so, nobody figured your husband for being in much jeopardy. Tommy is not a very hard man."