They were not destined to come together again, not in that way.

Yet Toby Ranger would always be a special leaf in Mack Bolan's epic book of life. He had known the woman in various roles, had appreciated and respected her in each. Perhaps he had even been a bit in love with her. But Bolan knew with perfect clarity that there was no room for love in the knife— edge world of a living dead man.

To ignore that reality would be to deceive her-and himself as well.

They worked together again when the Executioner paid a visit to Hawaii, teaming with Lyons, Anders, and Smiley Dublin, all by that time SOG-ERS, agents of the Sensitive Operations Group. When they were done, a proposed Mafia-Red Chinese link had died aborning. The five of them again combined talents in Nashville to bust up the music city drug operation of one Nick Copa. Finally, Toby's deep-cover penetration of Mafioso Tom Santelli's Maryland headquarters played a crucial role in Bolan's blitz on Baltimore, on the penultimate day of his one-week mop-up campaign that had ended the war on the mob.

But neither Bolan nor Toby had attempted to rekindle the physical closeness they had shared in Detroit. Yeah, they had been lovers, and always would be lovers, in the largest sense of the word. And maybe someday, in the best of all possible worlds toward which both of them had pledged their fighting that world, maybe, they could be lovers in a personal sense as well.

But the future would see to itself. Mack Bolan was concerned only with the Now.

Now Toby Ranger was in the maw of the carnivore, and those rapacious jaws were about to clamp shut.

That she remained alive and entire was the merest hope. But it was hope he would not relinquish.

He would get to her in time. He would redeem the life now forfeit to terrorist whim.

And then he would unleash his own reign of terror, would leave the kingdom of the traitor Frank Edwards a scorched wasteland.

From what Mack Bolan could see, treason had been extremely profitable for Frank Edwards.

The luxurious villa was located west of downtown Tripoli, in the garden suburb of Giorgimpopoli. Though ninety-nine percent of the country of Libya was desert, Giorgimpopoli was temperate and Mediterranean. The curving street was lined with graceful date palms; a hedge of cool green foliage fronted the estate; beyond it, a wide expanse of irrigated lawn stretched to the house itself, a two-story European-style home that bespoke wealth and quiet elegance.

There was a little guardhouse near the break in the hedge that admitted the long arching driveway, but there was no gate. As near as Bolan could tell, the middle-aged uniformed man who occupied it was unarmed. He was there for courtesy, not security; it was likely he did not even know what his boss did to support this expensive life-style.

Framed in the lens of the Litton Night Scope, the guard yawned. Likely he was nearing the tail end of his graveyard shift. Dawn was maybe an hour away.

Bolan slumped lower in the seat of the Jaguar sedan, parked across from the villa. He had been there for perhaps twenty minutes; in that time the guard's yawn was the most activity he'd seen.

This was no hardsite, that was certain. It was what it appeared to be, the expansive home of a wealthy man, secure in his station in life and his personal safety from unwanted intruders. Inside, Frank Edwards would have bodyguards, would have a garage full of cars; those were elementary precautions for a man in his dirty business. But in Libya, there was hardly any need for Edwards to surround himself with a private army. No other country in the world had so closely identified itself with the terrorist cause. No other country had thrown open its arms as widely to embrace the violent hordes.

In 1969, Colonel Muammar al-Khaddafi had led a military coup. He remained to this day head of the Revolutionary Command Council, prime minister, minister of defense, and commander in chief. His support of terrorism was documented fact. Khaddafi had provided money, training, and arms to virtually every terrorist group in the world, including Nicaragua's Sandinistas, the IRA Provisional Army, armed revolutionary groups in Egypt and the Sudan, and Muslim rebels in the Philippines. With proven oil reserves of 28 billion barrels, and complete control over how to spend the profits from this vast ocean of petroleum, Khaddafi was in a unique position.

He had been using that position from the past ten years-to subsidize death.

The late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, himself the victim of fanatics guns, once called Khaddafi "a vicious criminal, 100 percent sick and possessed of a demon." This president of Sudan, Gaafer Mohammed Numeiry, noted that Khaddafi had "a split personality-both evil." Other observers felt the two African Jeaders descriptions were admirably restrained.

So it was little wonder that Frank Edwards felt secure under Khaddafi's wing. Libya, Bolan knew full well, would be the perfect place for Edwards to base his "black" CIA. His experience, contacts, and expertise, combined with Khaddafi's sponsorship, would give the network almost quasi-governmental status.

If Edwards succeeded, the result would be awesome, almost unbelievable — but inescapable fact: the terrorist network would have an intelligence capacity nearly equal to that of the great free nations. Already the wheels were in motion. The only way left to destroy the corpus of the scheme was to cut out its heart.

Frank Edwards had to be neutralized, and the Executioner was itching to apply his own unique method of neutralization.

The world was a precariously balanced entity, Bolan knew. Yet in some way, there was a force-call it destiny, cosmic influence, the hand of a greater consciousness — a force that worked to preserve that balance. In a sterile apartment in Rome, a young woman needlessly dies, the last link to another young woman's post existence. But then the other woman's voice is heard, the link reappears, and the world is in balance again. When Bolan had finally contacted Aaron Kurtzman at the Stony Man Farm base, less than six hours before, Toby's call had already set wheels a turning. U.S. military aircraft did not enter Libyan airspace, by mutual agreement; in fact, it had not been so long before that under orders from Khaddafi, Libyan fighters had fired on American jets flying in international airspace over the nearby Gulf of Sidra. Two planes had gone down — but they sure as hell had not belonged to the U.S.

However, several American oil companies maintained exploitation and development contracts with Khaddafi. It would come as no surprise to anyone to learn that certain people associated with one or more of these companies and stationed in Libya had certain quasi-official connections with American Intelligence. It was that channel that Kurtzman pursued. The pilot of the unmarked twin-engine passenger jet had been young, professional, an excellent aviator, and admirably taciturn.

He had spoken exactly three sentences to Bolan: "Good evening, sir," "Fifteen minutes to landing, sir," and "Good luck, sir." Between the first and the second, Bolan caught a couple of hours of combat sleep. When he awoke the pain in his shoulder was down to a dull throb that was merely bothersome. The vague silhouette of a pipe-head pumping station was visible near the private desert airstrip where they'd landed. The man in the Nebraska Cornhuskers sweatshirt standing beside the open trunk of the Jaguar had less to say than the pilot. He shone a flashlight over the trunk's contents. Bolan looked them over and nodded. It would do.

It would have to.

The man in the sweatshirt slammed the trunk, handed Bolan the keys, and slipped into darkness.

Seconds later the Jaguar's headlights were slashing across the sandy wasteland, pointed north.