“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You, Davis. You’re just dirty as hell. Do you want to give up all this and turn state’s evidence against Nazarione and his killers? If you do, we can save you from the death penalty.”

“You’re insane. I’m a cop. Six awards for valor, three commendations. I didn’t come out here to be insulted.”

“Don’t leave just yet.” Bolan drew Big Thunder and put one heavy .44 round from the AutoMag into the police car’s engine, then another. “Your wheels just died on you, Davis.” He struck a match, lit the remaining nineteen matches in the book and threw the flaming cardboard torch into the dark stain of gasoline on the tarmac.

There came an immediate whooshing sound as the gasoline and the vapor burst into flame. The trail of fire raced around the U shape he had poured.

Davis screamed and fired two shots from a handgun. Bolan, wedged behind a tree, pumped up the sprayer, triggered the nozzle and sent a stream of gasoline into the closest trail of flames. Quickly he laid down a gasoline line in front of the car, closing the box of flames around the car.

Davis fired again, missed and yelled.

“What the hell you doing? I came out here to help you!”

“You came out here to kill me and collect the reward from the Mafia commission. It isn’t going to work.”

Bolan sent a dozen shots of the gasoline at Davis, who stood beside the car. In a few seconds his clothes were soaked with gasoline.

“Now, Davis, you try to run through that ring of fire and you go up in flames. Let’s get practical. You answer some questions and I might not kill you.”

“Go to hell, Bolan! I’ll get inside the car.”

“Then I’ll shoot at the gas tank and set the car on fire.”

Davis had started to get in the car. Now he stopped. Through the snapping of the flames, Bolan heard Davis sigh.

“Okay. What questions do you have?”

“When is the takeover try on the police department?”

Davis inhaled sharply. “How did you know about that?”

“Doesn’t matter now. When is it?”

“They haven’t told me for sure yet. It’s soon.”

“How many cops does Nazarione have on the take?”

“How many... probably three hundred or so. He doesn’t tell me that.”

“Why was Chief Smith killed?”

“Because he was not the kind who could be turned around to our way of thinking.”

Bolan used the sprayer again to increase the fire surrounding the car, then sprayed Davis again before he slid inside the car.

“Just a reminder, Davis. You’re not fireproof.”

“Fuck you, Bolan.” The cop fired two shots; both missed. The Executioner moved behind the tree. He knew he had to get around behind the rig and spray a new line yet stay out of the light.

He walked deeper into the brush, then ran to one side and sprayed the fire line again. The gasoline burst into flames in the air and worked back toward the nozzle, but Bolan stopped the stream.

Two more shots came, one nicking the metal sprayer tank.

The fire line vanished for six feet across the back of the U.

Bolan ran toward it. He sensed the cop making a dash for it, too. There was not enough time for the Executioner to run there and reestablish the flames.

Instead he turned and drew a new line closer to the car, directly in front of the running cop. The thin line of fire and the lawman got to the same point simultaneously. After a second, Davis’s saturated clothing burst into flames.

Davis screamed.

Bolan stopped squirting and stared.

Davis became a six-foot torch. The flames shot up his pant legs and across his jacket in one whooshing vapor explosion. His hair sparked like fireworks in tiny balls of flames, then burst into fire as he screamed and tried to beat it out with his hands.

Somehow he had lived through the vapor explosion when the oxygen in the air around him had been sucked into the fire. Now he staggered and fell, trying to roll. His screams came one on top of another.

As he rolled, the fire snuffed out under him, but as soon as the air hit his clothing again the gasoline reignited and burned fiercely, as only a petroleum fire can.

Davis rolled again and again. His hand came out, seeking help.

For a moment in the firelight, Bolan saw the captain’s face clearly. His eyebrows were gone, his hair was blackened stubble, his ears were on fire. Now his eyes made one last frantic appeal. Then his hand fell, and his lungs filled with the inhaled gasoline vapor. Flames danced over his body. The vapor in his lungs exploded and Capt. Harley Davis’s chest erupted outward, blowing vital organs onto the pavement and snuffing out any life that had persisted through the twenty seconds of the immolation.

Bolan returned to the woods beyond the parking lot. Already the fire was going out. Scraps of clothing on the body only smoldered once the gasoline had burned away.

The Executioner dropped the sprayer and moved through the woods toward the second parking lot. Hearing sirens, he ran, started his Buick and drove out the far park entrance and continued slowly back toward town.

Davis had had a choice. He could have cooperated if he had wanted to. Essentially he’d killed himself. Bolan had only made it convenient for him to do so.

Somewhere along the drive, Bolan peeled from his hands the thin surgeon’s gloves he had worn during the confrontation and threw them out the window.

He still did not know when the takeover would be attempted, but realized it would be gradual. The public would not stand for a coup. The Mafia had its fangs so deeply into the department now that the takeover was almost complete. But Bolan figured they were planning a day or an event to wrap it up. He would find that out tomorrow.

He drove back to his small hotel and slept until dawn.

Mack Bolan crouched behind a tree next to the Nazarione estate. He had been up with the morning sun, checked with Nino Tattaglia and found out that the Mafia turncoat still did not know when the final thrust of the Mafia’s takeover of the police department would occur.

Bolan had to know today. So he planned a lightning raid on the godfather’s own fortress by daylight. He knew just enough about the layout to get by. If he was lucky, and no one tried to be a hero, he would succeed.

Then there was his ace in the hole. He watched a guard patrol the cement fence. The sentry made the circuit every twelve minutes. Such punctuality could get him killed. Bolan waited until he had passed, then looked into the parking area behind the mansion, where four crew wagons sat.

Nothing big was scheduled for this morning, or the wagons would be in front ready for loading. A mechanic came out, tinkered with one of the engines for a minute, then slammed the hood and went into the big house.

The Executioner looked at the cars, hoping that at least one of those in which he had planted the radio-detonated bombs was in the group below. There was only one way to find out.

It was time. Bolan took out the small black box, opened it and thumbed a toggle switch to the On position. There was no one around the crew wagons. He put his finger on the red button and pushed.

Immediately the peaceful neighborhood was rocked by a pair of explosions from the parking area. One of the crew wagons lifted off the ground and came down with its rear wheels on top of another Cadillac. The second blast tore another crew wagon in half, throwing the engine and front section ten feet across the yard, leaving the rest of the body and rear wheels where they had been.

While the debris was still falling, men ran out of the house and garage. People were everywhere. The guards charged into the area, their handguns out and ready.

As Bolan hoped, the sentries had left their posts, and he scaled the wall and hid behind the shrubbery that would give him cover and a safe route all the way to the mansion.