He moved quickly, his goal so close that it drew him on like a magnet. His tempo quickened but his heart stayed calm. He was in his element now, the perfect professional. He heard nothing but the noise of his tools on the lock, saw nothing but the outline of his fingers against the dull metal. The lock clicked in almost no time at all, and he tucked the picklock into his back pocket.

The door swung open and bumped into something against the wall. Glass rattled in the ancient wooden frame. He closed it softly, leaving it just ajar so he could pull it open with a snap of his wrist.

Feeling ahead in the darkness, he made his way through the tangled junk in the back room. Old furniture, cartons of paper, several paint cans arranged in a precarious stack. A tall box full of fluorescent bulbs. He almost screamed when his face broke through a spider web, and the broken strands tangled in his hair and tickled his neck and ears. He brushed angrily at them, smacking at the skin of his neck and cheeks.

He found the doorway to the middle room. Here, he knew, there were no windows. He clicked on a small flashlight and set his bag on the floor.

Dropping to a squat, he undid the flap and took out the rest of his tools. He worked quickly. This part was the easiest. He liked to tell himself that he could do it with his eyes closed. One of these days, just to see if he was right, he would do it. There was practically no risk, not if you knew what you were doing.

And he did. Better than anybody else.

When he was ready, he put all the tools back and hefted the package in one hand. It felt just about right. Not too heavy for the size of the box, but not so light that it would seem odd. Leaving the flashlight on the floor, he walked to the door leading to the front. He'd come to the hard part the crucial part.

To get the maximum effect, you had to be precise, even scientific. How to hide something in plain sight was the tricky part. You wanted your handiwork to stay right where you put it. Not only did it have to look as if it belonged, but it also had to look as though it had been right where it was forever.

People had to see it without realizing it; they had to take it for granted.

The front room was the largest. There was a little light spilling in from the street, just enough for him to move around without tripping over anything. A long coffee table covered with American magazines sat up front, under the broad plate-glass window. At either end, a low sofa, just big enough for two, or maybe for a mother and two children, filled the remaining free space along the front wall.

He got on his knees and looked under the table.

He could probably put it there, but that was too easy. Besides, the table looked heavy and it might interfere. The desk was out, because it would be in the way there.

What about right on the table, he wondered.

Maybe with a magazine on top of it, not to conceal it, but just to give it a touch of belonging.

Why not? He asked himself the same question three times. When he could come up with no good reason, he went for it. A copy of National Geographic was just the right touch. Sitting at an angle, it showed one corner of the brown paper. But that was perfect. You could worry this sort of thing to death if you let yourself. But he wasn't going to let himself.

He slipped into the back room, picked up his flashlight and grabbed his bag. He was moving smoothly, the uncertainty gone. Out the back door, which he pulled shut. Once more he had to make it past the rats and flies. Knowing they were there made it more repulsive.

He swallowed hard as he tucked the small flashlight back into his pocket. Moving quickly, almost sprinting, he slipped along the alley. He sidestepped the puddle of vomit and nearly slipped and fell.

Once he made the street, he allowed himself to breathe for the first time since reentering the alley. His heart was pounding again, but this time he relished it. Already he could imagine the result of his handiwork. Tomorrow around noon, he would wander by, just to make sure, and peek in to see if he could spy the corner of brown paper.

Then, across the street, his back against the wall of the newsstand, he could reach into his pants. He could already feel the smooth metal, warm from the sunlight on his pocket. He visualised the sudden rainbow of glass, pieces sparkling like fiery jewels as they arced high into the air, caught the sunlight and tumbled back to earth.

It would be good, and it would be the first of many.

Walt Wilson was a big man. His two hundred and thirty pounds looked out of place in the Brooks Brothers suit. His bull neck strained against a thirty-dollar silk tie, and his shirt, white on white, rustled every time he shifted his massive torso in the chair.

Mack Bolan watched him quietly. He had met Wilson before. The nickname "Rosebud" seemed out of place on a man so huge, but Bolan had never bothered to ask Wilson where it came from. He preferred instead to let the man have one secret.

And for that matter, to Wilson he was Mike Belasko, a friend of Brognola. So he had his own secret, and a high ace it was.

Nor did he envy Wilson his job. A troubleshooter for the Intelligence division of the State Department, Wilson had no place to call home and no base to call his own. Wherever it got hot, Wilson got sent. He seemed to thrive on the challenge, but Bolan knew just how old it could get, and how quickly it could age you. Wilson was on the edge of a downhill slide. The next crisis, or the one after that, could be the one that pushed him over the edge.

The two men sat across from one another with an ocean of gleaming walnut, smelling faintly of lemon oil, between them. At one end of the briefing room, a stark white screen descended with a pneumatic hum.

It clicked home, and Wilson nodded to his assistant, who killed the lights.

"First picture," Wilson said in a voice that seemed too high in pitch for someone so large.

Bolan wondered whether Wilson's tie might be a little too tight for his own good.

The projector's magazine advance hummed, a bright square of light splashed on the screen, was swept away by a click, reappeared, vanished with another click and was replaced by a photograph of three men. Bolan knew instantly that it had been taken from a distance.

Without waiting for Wilson's question, Bolan scrutinized the three. He knew none by name, although one, the leftmost on the screen, looked vaguely familiar.

"Know any of these rascals?" Wilson asked.

Even in the near dark, Bolan knew that Wilson was watching him closely. "Nope. One guy, the one with the grey hair, looks sort of familiar, as if I should know him. But I can't connect the face with a name."

"Next shot, Donny," Wilson piped.

The projector whirred and clicked, and the photo was replaced by a blowup of one of the three men.

Again, Wilson waited. "El numero uno." Wilson chuckled. "That is Juan Rizal Cordero. Ring a bell?"

"No," Bolan said.

"Well, he's the new kid on the block. We've been watching him for more than two years. He shows up at the damnedest places. Nicaragua, two years ago, was the first time we tumbled to him. Right after the attempt on the Ortega brothers. We lost him after that for nearly six months, then he pops up, of all places, in Beirut. Mossad backfilled our file. Seems he's been training the right-wing Christian militia there, sabotage and demo work, mostly. Then he comes out of the ground again last February, a regular tucking ground hog, he is, in Angola. Palling around with a bunch of Woolworth meres, soldiers of misfortune I call 'em. That was right before Savimbi's plane lost a wing after the ANC conference in Nairobi."

"You tie him to any organisation?" Bolan leaned closer to the screen, waiting for Wilson's answer.