Hal Brognola arrived at the communications room in much the same manner he employed to bust down doors of Mafia kingpins. "I got your message," he barked at April. "What happened? What's so goddamn urgent?" April's face was ghostly pale, whiter than he had ever seen it before. "What is it, April?" Hal Brognola said, softly now.

April took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders, forcing her body to resume its professional stance. Her voice was crisp and steady. "Update reports on the preliminary investigation into the Zwilling Horde kidnappings. It seems NATO and the CIA teamed up on this one and sent a couple of agents undercover. A man-and-woman team."

"What did they find out?"

"No one knows."

"They haven't checked in yet?"

She shook her head slowly and handed him a page just torn from the printer. As Brognola read, she could see his face change into an expression of disgust. When he was finished, he lifted his eyes to meet hers and shook his head resignedly.

"They discovered the bodies this afternoon, or at least what was left of them," April said. She was fighting against a quaver in her voice, determined to maintain her military demeanor. ""As the report states, there is sufficient evidence to indicate severe torture, including castration of the man and rape of the woman. A sharp knife or razor was used on both, particularly around the face. Fortunately they were both dead before some of the other atrocities were committed, including the gouging of the eyes. Unfortunately, they were alive for the rest".

Brognola crumpled up the report in his hands and tossed it savagely into a corner of the operations room.

"Well, some men don't scare that easily," he said.

"You mean Mack doesn't," said April, the sadness in her voice an almost tangible thing. "You mean that Mack will ignore the demented actions of animals because the mission calls for nothing less. Hal, sometimes we ask Mack to go against every natural law there is."

"April, listen to me," said Brognola, attending to some of the paperwork that lay before him on top of the low computer cabinet, his head bent with a stubborn concentration on other matters. "Striker has had plenty of practice breaking the law these past ten years. Let's pray he can bend a few natural ones now that the circumstances require it. Enough said. Now back to our duties. I cannot bear to dwell on things that neither you nor I can bend at all."

April looked at her superior with impatient acceptance. Pray was right. Pray for a sane world and a job that did not lick at the salt of death. Such a world, such a job, could happen at any time. Just as soon as hell froze.

Let us pray, she said in silence, for flames of ice and an end to war everlasting.

Could be that hell hath no fury like this woman's prayer...

Klaus brought his arm down with the fluid motion he had perfected over countless similar moves. The knife left his hand, spinning toward Bolan's back like an airplane propeller that had broken free. To Klaus it was an ordinary mathematical equation: Knife leaving his hand equals dead man, But Bolan was not an ordinary man. And this was far from the first time he had cheated fate.

Bolan exposed his back for only the fraction of a second he knew it would take Klaus to whip out and throw the knife. As the blade left Klaus's fingertips, Bolan dropped like lightning into a tuck, turn and roll. He heard the crash as the blade sliced through the window glass. He came out of his roll with one knee to the ground and both hands gripped around the Firebird. Bolan squeezed the trigger twice and watched the front of Klaus's chest collapse. Klaus staggered forward, his upper body a growing jelly of blood. Bolan fired two more direct shots into the dying man's lung and kidney. Then he swung the Firebird toward Tanya like a rigid finger of damnation. But she stood immobile, a bored expression on her face as Klaus crashed to the floor.

"Is this absolutely necessary, Grendal?" she asked petulantly.

"Hell, no," muttered Bolan, "not if I have no objection to a slice of steel sticking out of my back."

She stared at Bolan as the corpse at her feet bubbled blood in a pool between them. "Yes, well, I detest stupidity," she said with some difficulty. "And Klaus was stupid beyond my expectations."

"My view entirely," Bolan said with a bitter smile. He stood upright as his finger hovered teasingly over the trigger. He anticipated only a conciliatory move from her now, a furthering of their business deal. The killing here was done, most likely. Next was a play from her. Tanya looked at her watch, then at Klaus's crumpled body. Dark shadows of anger washed over her face and Bolan thought she was about to spit on Klaus. But it passed quickly and she was all business once more.

"All right, Sergeant. Let us go and inspect these arms you speak of. I must insist on that now." She walked over to the door and hesitated. "What about this fat pig?"

"I'll have one of my civilians come by with a body bag," said Bolan. "Money talks loud nowadays. Klaus will soon turn up in the Main River, the victim of a mugging."

She was already halfway down the hall when Bolan flicked the hotel room's light three times before closing the door.

Bolan had just created a hole in his enemy's organization. Now he had to make himself available to fill that hole.

A hellhole, that was for sure.

How cruelly she had helped him dig it.

"Hold it right there, sir," the man ordered, snapping his .45 automatic out of its side holster and aiming it at Mack Bolan.

"Easy, son," Bolan said from behind the wheel of the jeep. He kept his hands firmly planted on the steering wheel.

"May I see your identification, sir?"

"Sure thing, Corporal. Okay if I reach into my shirt?"

"Yes, sir," the young man said evenly. "But slowly, sir."

In the darkness, Bolan noted the other soldier standing inside the bulletproof checkpoint booth behind the corporal, grimly watching the action. The soldier's hands were below the booth's window. Without a doubt they were wrapped around an M3AI submachine gun. Bolan pulled a laminated slip of plastic from his pocket and handed it over. The corporal glanced back and forth between the photo on the card and Bolan's face several times before handing the card back. "Sorry, Sergeant. Thank you for cooperating."

Bolan smiled. "What the hell's going on here tonight? You fell as are edgier than a cat in a room full of rocking chairs."

The corporal shrugged. He returned his .45 to his holster, but left it unsnapped. "All I can tell you, Sergeant, is what they told us. That all guards are to be doubled until further notice. No one got in or out without a thorough check of ID, no matter how well we know them. Even General Wilson." The corporal motioned to his partner in the booth.

The metal guardrail in front of the jeep rose automatically and Bolan drove through with a wave of thanks.

Immediately he pulled the jeep around the corner of an old barracks building and parked in the dark shadows. "It's all clear," he whispered, quickly flipping back the rear seat. Tanya Morganslicht took a deep breath, shook her long black hair over her shoulders, climbed out of the hidden compartment of Sergeant Grendal's jeep.

"I heard what that soldier was saying to you." Tanya climbed into the front seat, her thigh brushing against Bolan's shoulder. Once seated, she turned to face him with an intense expression of controlled anxiety. "It is never wise for me to come here, you understand that," she said.

Bolan shrugged. "Suit yourself, lady. I can take you out again right now, same way we came in. But this is where I keep my goodies stored and I ain't risking sneaking them all out of here on your maybe. If you want to buy them sight unseen, that's okay by me, too. But make up your mind."