Bolan stooped to check the old Muslim's pulse to make sure.

The man's neck had been broken.

A wallet lay alongside the body.

Bolan pried a quick look inside Elie billfold. It had been stripped of currency. The photo identification proved it to be the dead man's.

Bolan figured it three possible ways.

The enemy — anyone from the fighting factions in this civil war to sideliners like the CIA, Mossad or even Syrian Intelligence — could have spirited Zoraya away in an effort to locate Bolan. And not even the murder of her uncle had made Zoraya reveal Bolan in the hidden attic.

The enemy took her and left the uncle's empty wallet to mislead any Beirut police investigation, which wasn't very likely in the first place.

Too silent, too quick to awaken Bolan.

Damn, damn.

There was of course the likelihood that it had been wandering gunmen from a Muslim or Arab Christian faction who had not thought twice about snuffing a useless old man for the few Lebanese pounds he might carry.

And the final possibility.

Zoraya could have killed the old man.

Bolan wished like hell that he could rid his mind of these ungrateful thoughts about tough, brave, humane Zoraya, but he had a realistic sense of his importance to the real enemy.

Strakhov's KGB had a special unit assigned to terminate Bolan in revenge for Bolan's killing Strakhov's only son.

Considering the elaborate steps taken to frame Bolan for the CIA a while back, it only made sense they could consider and implement a similarly complex operation. But before terminating Bolan they would torture out of him what he knew of the operations of the U.S. intelligence community from his time as "John Phoenix." Zoraya's uncle could have discovered this and threatened to tell Bolan and, yeah, that would get the old guy killed.

Bolan did not have the time to pursue any of these possibilities. He had a Mossad agent to meet.

Unless that was part of the trap, too.

The shifting quicksand of this mission was as unpredictable as the future of Lebanon itself.

He stood up from the body and started toward the door leading out to the street.

The door burst open.

Bolan froze and dropped to a combat crouch, 93-R in hand, ready to kill.

Two veiled Muslim women, surrounded by seven scrambling children, burst into what they thought to be a temporary refuge.

Gunfire erupted outside.

The group regarded with wide eyes the dead body and the imposing sight of the warrior.

Bolan lowered the pistol, motioning them inside.

Seeing the gun, the refugees obeyed, breath caught in their throats, waiting for whatever would happen next. Their faces registered surprise when Bolan trotted out.

A military vehicle with two Muslim gunmen moved leisurely down the middle of the street, punks looking to prey on refugees, such as those who had dodged into the safety of the garage.

The gunmen saw Bolan. The driver braked and reached for his rifle. His buddy bandit scrambled to a mounted machine gun on the back of their vehicle.

Bolan holstered the Beretta and shifted to the AutoMag. A pair of well-aimed shots wasted the duo.

He had to kill another three Phalangists this time. He could have talked his way past, except that they opened fire on him before he had the chance. Bolan had no alternative if he wanted to live.

He arrived at the battered Saab he had bought from the family outside town. Bolan was sure no one had tampered with the decrepit vehicle.

He climbed in and started on his way.

Beirut presented a strange paradox. Although a civil war raged in its midst for control of the city itself, and the streets hosted an ever increasing number of refugees, you could turn a corner and find yourself stalled by rubble, bombed-out buildings and sniper fire. But you could also reverse your route and travel for blocks along peaceful thoroughfares just like those in any city anywhere.

Strange, yeah.

And very deadly.

From everything Bolan could see, today's action in the city equaled last night's fighting in intensity. Mortar and artillery shells fell with unsettling regularity. Dark smoke clouds blotted out the sun, intensifying the brassy heat.

There were no clearly demarcated battle lines between the fighting factions. Gunmen of both sides were everywhere.

At one point Bolan saw a group of about fifteen Lebanese soldiers walking along a road, an air of resignation about them.

They were turning their backs on the war and simply going home.

Bolan left the rattletrap Saab and rounded a corner on foot in his search for the designated pub.

The time was 10:28.

The bar was located midblock on one of the streets that appeared relatively normal and untouched by the fighting.

But even along there no one gave a second glance to the heavily armed soldier in blacksuit.

The businesses were mostly closed along the street, except for the taverns, which, as Zoraya had said, did a business almost as booming as the heavy artillery up in the hills.

Dozens of people in various stages of intoxication moved in and out of the pub in the ten minutes Bolan crouched around the corner of a building at the end of the block.

He recognized the Mossad agent and another man because of their sober intensity; this told him he had Uri Weizmann as surely as the guy's jacket matched the description Zoraya had given.

Bolan crossed the street and moved up the sidewalk, closing in on the Mossad undercover operative and his companion without letting them know it.

When they slipped into a Renault, Weizmann in the passenger seat, his associate behind the wheel, Bolan slipped into the back seat behind them, the Beretta in his left hand pressed against the base of the driver's neck, Big Thunder ready to shred the man from Mossad.

"Let's talk." Bolan nudged Weizmann with the barrel of the AutoMag. "You start."

"May I reach for identification?"

"Slowly. Very slowly." The man obeyed and held a thin leather packet open over his shoulder for Bolan to read.

The ID indicated he was Uri Weizmann, Israeli Embassy Staff personnel.

The silence grew louder inside the hot car.

Bolan read these men as unafraid, seasoned hellgrounders like himself.

Their grim expressions were blank masks.

"You realize anyone seeing me flash my ID in this neighborhood would make sure the mob in this street tore me apart," Weizmann snapped.

The driver grunted assent.

"The three of us would be dead."

"So put it away." Bolan pulled his guns back from the neck of each man, lowering the pistols but keeping them aimed below window level. "You're still covered." Bolan nodded to the driver. "Who's your friend?" he asked Weizmann.

"I am General Chehab," the Arab at the wheel said.

"Of the Lebanese army," Weizmann added.

"The general is in charge of presidential security. Naturally, when Zoraya told me you had information on a plot to assassinate the president..."

"I insisted on coming along," Chehab rasped.

"There have been two attempts on the president's life in the past month. Syrian agents, trained by the Bulgarians."

"So this time they got someone else to do their dirty work," Bolan said. "Last night at an Iranian base in Biskinta I found blueprints of the presidential palace at Baabda."

Chehab lost his cool. The Lebanese officer spun around and eyed the big guy in the back seat.

"My Phalangist units monitored the fighting. You?"

"With a little help from the Syrians. They don't want your president assassinated any more than you do. Not right at the moment, anyway. That's why Strakhov is in Beirut." Bolan concisely related the developments regarding General Masudi and the Disciples of Allah and what had transpired during the battle for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' base at Biskinta.