"There is the good news. The government has an agency for exactly such situations: children separated from their parents and the like. I took Selim there first thing this morning when they opened and did not leave until I had their assurance that they would ascertain the whereabouts of the little one's parents. They were displaced during the fighting." Bolan felt a weight of responsibility lift from his shoulders. He straddled the wooden chair next to the bed and faced Zoraya.

"I'm glad to hear that. And I appreciate your getting word to me the way you did through Chaim's uncle."

"I had to tell Chaim's control officer about General Strakhov at Zahle and the Disciples of Allah in case you did not return. And... Chaim's partner told me more about you, Mack Bolan. They call you The Executioner."

"What else did they tell you?"

"Chaim's uncle has been detained for questioning regarding your presence here and how you got into Lebanon."

"And what are your orders from Chaim's partner?" She held eye contact with him.

"To report the moment you contact me."

"And your uncle?"

"My uncle knows nothing of any of this. Mossad cooperates with your Central Intelligence Agency. They must try to stop you. But I had heard of The Executioner before this. Your name is legend, you see, even in such a wasteland as this, Mack Bolan."

"And now?"

"I am your friend," she replied without hesitation. "I knew you would return; that you would not die in Biskinta."

"Or Zahle," he added dryly. He stood up, reached inside his blacksuit and sat next to her on the edge of the bed. He unfolded the blueprints retrieved during the battle at the Iranian base and spread the plans out on the blanket. "I need you to translate something for me, Zoraya." He directed her attention to the Arabic lettering along the bottom of the sheet of paper.

She read it, then looked up with question marks in those Mediterranean eyes.

"These... are floor plans of the presidential palace at Baabda."

Bolan refolded the blueprints.

"That clinches it, then. I've got to contact Mossad with this and I'll need your help."

"I will do anything to help stop this war, as I told you. But Mossad... are they not your enemies, too?"

"I've got an angle on that. Tell Chaim's partner that you've got me and I wish to talk with him. Tell him I've got information on an assassination plot, but start the conversation off by saying he's not to let on to whoever he's with. Most likely he'll be with a Company man and the moment they know it's me they'll try to trace the call. Even if Chaim's partner agrees to meet me alone, the CIA wouldn't let him. They want me real bad."

"Because of what you will do?"

"Because of what I've done and what they think I am. Can you do this for me?"

"Of course. You will wait here?" He nodded and watched her lower the hidden stairs.

"Be careful, Zoraya."

She nodded, then left him, closing the partition behind her.

Bolan stretched out on the bed, then palmed the Beretta in his right hand.

This would be a good spot for an ambush, in which case he had read Zoraya one hundred percent wrong. It was a chance he had to take.

He rested his head on the pillow, relishing these few moments away from the fray. He appreciated the opportunity to recharge his inner batteries for what stretched ahead.

Zoraya returned minutes later and reclosed the secret opening.

The distant sounds of war could have been a thousand miles away.

"Chaim's partner will meet you in ninety minutes at a pub off the Avenue des Frangais."

She recited an address that Bolan committed to memory.

"Such establishments, you see, do a wonderful business at times such as these. Those who cannot escape the city drink while they wait to live or die. He will be there at ten-thirty." She briefly described what the Mossad agent told her he would be wearing. "He says he will recognize you."

"I bet he will. What's his name?"

"Uri Weizmann. He and Chaim were very close professionally and as friends. You can trust him, Mack, believe me."

"Thanks, Zoraya."

She paused, then said, "There is... something you can do for me in return, Mack Bolan."

He gazed up at her from the bed.

"Tell me."

"If you would just... hold me," she said quietly. "I feel... so alone. Just hold me, Mack... please... nothing more..."

Bolan read the sad, lonely look in her eyes and extended his arms.

She stretched out against him atop the covers of the bed, resting tousled midnight hair into the crook of his arm. No, there was not one thing erotic about it at all, only a need for the touch of someone humane and good to somehow balance out everything else and, yes, Bolan needed that, too. They held each other for a long time in the solitude of the attic far away from the war.

They comforted each other and reaffirmed themselves as decent human beings who could care and share gentleness.

Somehow, they were all together again at Stony Man Farm, and his heart soared with happiness for the first time in a long, long time because April was there with him.

April Rose and Konzaki and "Bear" Kurtzman.

Andrzej Konzaki, legless since Vietnam, armorer extraordinaire of the Phoenix program, exuded physical stamina from his wheelchair as he recounted a ribald joke to Kurtzman, the Farm's computer mastermind.

Kurtzman pretended the joke wasn't funny, but that was a joke, too, between the four friends on the patio on one of those rare occasions when The Executioner allowed himself to slow down between missions for some R and R-to be human again.

Bolan and April stood away from the patio and picnic table where the four of them had just devoured the steaks Bolan had prepared. The Virginia night had a pleasant coolness. Constellations spangled in the indigo heavens away from the illumination of the patio of the "rustic farmhouse" that was in fact the command center of Bolan's antiterrorist group.

Bolan stood behind April, the love of his life who was also the coordinator, the "warden" of this secret base. His arms enfolded her, the scent of her natural fragrance titillating his nostrils, his senses.

April uttered a contented sound from deep within and Bolan knew how she felt.

Everything was perfect.

The thud of an impacting mortar shell in the near distance awoke Bolan with a start. In a flash he crouched into a shooter's stance next to the bed, fanning the silenced Beretta 93-R around the attic above the garage in Beirut.

Empty.

Zoraya had gone.

Bolan blinked the sleep from his eyes and reprimanded himself, irked that he had allowed it to happen. But he had been forced during the past hours to push himself beyond endurance of even a combat-toughened pro. At least the lapse into deep sleep had occurred in the safety of this refuge.

Where was Zoraya?

And then for just one heartbeat, enough of his dream of April came back to burn through his gut like a bullet, and he brushed at a tear on his cheek. He blinked it away and the iciness of the trained executioner took over.

April and Konzaki were dead, killed in the same KGB-ordered commando raid on Stony Man Farm that had left Kurtzman a wheelchair case for the rest of his life.

Bolan moved to the secret-stair panel and glanced at his digital watch as he moved.

It was 9:55 A.m.

He had not been asleep more than ten minutes.

He still had time to make the meeting Zoraya said she had arranged with the Mossad man, Weizmann, at the pub across town — a town falling to insurgents; Bolan could feel it, sense it.

He slid open the partition and lowered himself to the garage of Zoraya's uncle.

The place was empty except for the hulks of stripped vehicles and the body of the old man — Zoraya's uncle lay sprawled on his side across the cement floor near the door, his neck twisted at an impossible angle.