About a block down the road were a half-dozen fir trees that had never been cleared. The Executioner parked his green Mercury under them and looked at the back of the dealership.

The warehouse had no rear windows, and no activity was apparent at either end. He walked through the tall grass of the vacant field, hopped a four-foot chain-link fence and dodged behind a large combine that was too far gone to repair. It looked as though it had been cannibalized for parts.

There was not much activity in that section of the back lot. Bolan watched the warehouse door. After a few minutes a big diesel engine strained as it pulled around the back, and a truck-sized door in the warehouse, the one nearest him, rolled upward.

The vehicle backed in and several laborers began unloading the heavy boxes with an overhead crane.

Other trucks arrived with three boxes on each.

The last truck brought only two; the driver said, "That's the last of it." He pulled away and the large door rolled down. A man-size door opened and six laborers came out. Ten minutes later four crew wagons rolled into the yard and eight men emerged from each one. Bolan knew who they were. They were the visitors, was top weapons men from each of the families on the West Coast, there to pick up their consignment of weapons.

Greed and a hunger for murder had brought these men here. Their eyes would be glazed with a fever for the guns. The hollow men from the Mob would be careless of anything else that went on in the industrial wasteland of which the Johnson Farm Equipment site was a part. To them, the only things truly visible were the two facts uppermost in their minds: get the deal over with; and get it over with fast.

Three minutes after they filed through the door, Bolan stepped from behind the combine and walked to the door as if he belonged there. No one challenged him. He entered swiftly, took in the setup at a glance, and disappeared behind an assortment of farm machinery that had evidently been displaced by the weapons shipment.

The men who had just arrived were clustered around one of the wooden crates. Its sides had been ripped off, revealing parts of farm machinery, and also cases of arms and ammunition, rockets, rifles and MP-40 submachine guns. A light shone above them.

Bolan moved through the semidarkness to get closer to the assembly.

A voice rose above the general hubbub. "He told us not to open any of the boxes until he got here!"

"So what? He ain't capo. So we open a few. What's to hurt?"

Boards were pried away with crowbars, and one Mafia hit man held up an MP-40.

"Wow! What I woulda given to have this baby last night!"

A dozen of the Mafia hoodlums echoed his wish.

Bolan knew he couldn't wait for Joey Canzonari. He moved closer, lifted the four grenades from his webbing and picked his targets.

He threw the explosives, two on the side where most of the men stood, one in the middle, a fourth on the far side. The first two exploded with a shattering roar. Men screamed. Small arms fire sounded.

The last pair of fraggers caught the men rushing away from the first explosions.

In all, more than half the men were goners, and many of the rest screeched in pain and agony.

The Executioner settled behind a bulldozer and fired over it. Every man who held a gun became a target.

Nobody knew where the silenced shots came from. Six men hid behind the big box. Bolan picked off three of them with two bursts from the silenced Beretta.

"I'm getting the hell outa here!" a voice screamed.

"Yeah? Where you going, dumb ass? Get on the floor and find out who's shooting." A man rose and ran for the far door. Bolan brought him down with two slugs of a 3-round burst.

More random firing sounded. Then a commanding voice rang out, "Cease fire, dammit! Don't shoot unless you got a good target. Look for the bastard!"

Bolan spotted the man who had spoken.

The man continued, "Hold your fire until we get a fix on the..." His final words were cut off as one carefully aimed round jolted through his forehead, spilling his brains.

Bolan worked quietly toward the door. The explosions might bring the police, or might not, this place being some distance out of town.

He took a smoke bomb from his webbing and pulled the pin. He threw it as far as he could into the warehouse. It went off with a pop, and heavy, thick smoke rolled out.

"Fire!" somebody screamed.

Bolan found the way to the door was blocked by a heavyset Mafia soldier looking the other way and waving a .45. He turned when Bolan coughed, and swung his gun around. The Beretta sneezed twice and the hulk died where he stood, his finger too slack to pull the trigger.

The Executioner jumped for the door, exited and darted behind the big combine outside.

A sleek black Cadillac wheeled up, and its driver jumped out and ran for the warehouse, his weapon ready. A younger man stepped from the back seat, noticing the smoke pouring from the structure.

"Joey?" Bolan called.

The young man spun around, stared at the combine. The Executioner revealed himself, and Joey Canzonari jumped behind the wheel of his Caddy and skidded away.

Bolan ran toward one of the four crew wagons.

The keys were still in it, as per Mafia practice whenever a fast getaway is anticipated. He leaped in, started it, and gunned after the gangster. Joey was a quarter of a mile ahead, speeding through a red light.

Bolan was not sure where the guy was going, but he chased loyally. They turned onto the broad highway to Sandy. The only place to go from there was south over secondary roads toward Salem or around the Mount Hood Loop highway.

The cars slashed through the early-afternoon traffic at seventy-five miles an hour. Then the road narrowed and signs promised Alder Creek and Brightwood. They were on the quiet Mount Hood tourist highway. Bolan wondered when and where the Mafia Don's son would stop and fight.

The two vehicles wound upward into the Mount Hood National Forest. Bolan decided to put the other car off the road for a final confrontation. He raced alongside and nudged the other rig, hearing sheet metal scrape. But the other Cadillac was as heavy as his and could not be budged. Joey raised a pistol, but before he fired, Bolan hit the brakes and eased back.

Next he crept up on the bumper of the Caddy, nosed against it and tromped on the gas. The car shot ahead faster. Bolan pulled back from the swerving rig and took out Big Thunder. It was time for a sure thing.

He aimed at the left rear tire, waited for a straight stretch of road and fired. The heavy slug blew a four-inch gash in the tire.

Joey's Cadillac swerved to the left, bolted across the oncoming traffic lanes, nosed through a ditch, climbed six feet up a stand of Douglas firs and rolled over into the ditch.

The Executioner parked on the shoulder and ran toward the overturned car.

Twenty feet away, he stopped and readied the Beretta 93-R.

Water hissed from the crumpled radiator.

Bolan approached the rig and looked in the upside-down rear window. He could not see a body inside. He looked on the passenger's side.

No one there.

A twig snapped in the brush above him. Bolan jerked up and saw the flash of a yellow shirt as someone darted into the undergrowth.

The jungle fighter dropped to the ground, crawled through the fern and light brush to a two-foot-thick fir and stood behind it. Now he was in his element. Now he was in Vietnam.

Faint footsteps sounded ahead. The Executioner lifted the Beretta and advanced to the next thick tree. Again he held his breath and listened.

The footsteps were clearer now and came from straight ahead. Bolan tried to visualize the map. They had not yet come to the little town of Rhododendron, so they were several miles west of the peak of Mount Hood, which rose to over eleven thousand feet and carried a snowcap year round.