But they were high enough on the slopes that there were ten miles of untracked wilderness ahead of them. Going north the way Joey was heading, they could hike all the way to the Columbia River highway before they found a road. The guy must be planning to circle back.

Twice more Bolan charged ahead, following a faint trail of crushed ferns and the sounds of flight. Then he saw Canzonari cross a small clearing.

The Mafia specialist turned, snapped off a quick shot and disappeared into the woods.

His young prey was moving slower now, the Executioner could tell. He was a city boy, getting tired. Whereas the trail had been through the thick brush of the rain forest, now it met a game trail where deer moved for water and forage.

Bolan was sure that Joey would use the trail as the path of least resistance.

He charged along a small stream, around a bend, down a six-foot embankment, then stopped. Ahead, Canzonari lay flat on a rock to drink from the stream. Seeing Bolan, he rolled away, fired once and ran.

The Beretta spat out a 3-shot volley, and Bolan saw one bullet hit the hood's left arm.

Joey screamed. The sound faded as he vanished into a clump of maples.

Bolan jumped over a fallen log, and dropped to a crouch behind a young cedar. Joey was circling now. Bolan pursued the sounds, stopping every few feet to listen.

For ten minutes Bolan tracked his quarry deeper into the woods, finally spotting him briefly as he worked across a bald area of shale along a small ridge. Except to get over ravines and ridges, the young creep was doing as little climbing or descending as possible.

Twenty minutes later Bolan spotted him sitting against a fir. The guy was panting, near exhaustion. He sat with his handgun up, watching his backtrack.

Bolan worked around him, then aimed and fired the Beretta at the guy's weapon hand. The slug slammed into the slide just over Joey's trigger finger, ripping the .32 from his hand.

He roared in pain, then jumped up and stumbled toward the downed weapon, looking for his attacker.

He tripped and almost fell. He did not recover the small gun in the leaves and ferns. He bellowed in anger and plunged forward into brush and out of Bolan's sight.

Then he screamed.

The Executioner rushed over and looked. He saw only Oregon sky and a cliff. Twenty feet below Joey had landed in soft dirt and brush. He staggered to his feet and ran into deep cover.

But he was making no attempt to hide his trail, which swung around and headed back toward the highway. Bolan figured that hadn't been planned.

He realized that the younger Canzonari was injured and lost.

The terrain became a rocky and barren slope again, and Bolan saw signs of recent lightning fire. He was halfway across the slope when a rock rolled down ahead of him. Then came another and another.

Bolan looked upward and saw the flash of a shirt as more boulders crashed down the slope toward the Executioner, each dislodging others. Soon a minor rockslide was thundering toward Bolan.

There was no time to outrun it. Bolan darted behind the closest tree. It was barely two feet thick, but it prevented the heavy rocks from hitting him.

After the last rock rolled by in a cloud of dirt and pebbles, Bolan leaped forward and raced around the slope in time to see his target leave a cleared section and enter heavy timber again not far from the highway.

Bolan ran faster now, fired his .44 AutoMag twice just to let Joey know he was still around.

In the heavy timber, Bolan heard the sounds ahead. The sounds of exhaustion, gasping and coughing. He came around a bend in the trail. A few steps later, the Executioner stopped.

The chase was over.

Joey Canzonari lay on the ground, exhausted. He struggled to sit up when he saw Bolan before him. The mobster's face was bright pink from the exertion.

Sweat dripped from his nose and chin. His hair was wet and plastered against his head.

"You going to blow me away?"

"Why not? Isn't that the way you made your bones?"

"I'm only a bookkeeper and a computer man."

"Yeah, one of the innocents. And your hobby is killing girls and importing submachine guns for fun and profit."

"Who the hell cares?"

"Right. You have bigger worries. Like trying to convince me that you did not help torture Charleen."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Canzonari clutched his wounded right hand with his left, sliding both of them toward his ankle. Bolan seemed not to notice the movement.

"So what do we do now?" Joey glared at the Executioner.

Bolan lowered the 93-R. "Up to you. Do you want to go back and face smuggling charges on the guns?"

"Look, there's enough money for you to live like a prince for the rest of your life. Five million dollars!"

"You don't have that much, Joey."

"My father does. He can get it for you." Suddenly Joey pulled a snub-nosed .38 from an ankle holster.

The weapon barely cleared leather when Bolan lifted the Beretta and fired at the Mafia gunman.

The round slammed through Joey Canzonari's right cheekbone and was deflected upward into his brain. He dropped the .38 and fell against the bloodsplattered fir. A gray-brown pulpy mess spilled from his shattered head.

Bolan stared a moment, his finger still on the trigger.

Then he walked away from the corpse and slowly slid the 93-R back in leather.

The Executioner deduced his bearings from the snow-capped side of Mount Hood and walked back toward the cars.

Fifteen minutes later he saw Joey's car.

On the front seat was an attache case filled with money, probably some kind of downpayment on the submachine guns. It would make a good deposit in The Executioner's war chest. He threw the case in the crew wagon he had driven out and started toward Portland.

He drove to the Portland International Airport and parked outside the chopper service.

"Coming up in the world," Scooter Roick commented, eyeing the Caddy.

"Belongs to a friend of mine."

The pilot chuckled.

"Hey, looks like your little boat ride turned out fine."

"Fair. You have any problems?"

"Not yet." Bolan tossed him a stack of hundreds from the attache case. "Here's a little bonus for you."

"Must be at least five thousand dollars here! Anytime you need a jockey, call me!"

Bolan waved, got in the rented Thunderbird he had parked there that morning and put the attache case and his weapons on the seat beside him.

Heading downtown, the Executioner considered his enemy: the Mafia, an international organization of the lowest and most cold-bloodedly violent criminals in the world. Many lives before, he had vowed to wipe them out, or at least thin their ranks.

The Executioner knew that a well-placed bullet, indeed, a stray, could finish his own life anytime. He was flesh and blood, and one faltered step would spell the end.

But until then he would never waver in his mission, launched in anger as a vendetta to avenge his family. But Bolan had long ago understood that personal hatred had no place in his quest, and that his fight had become a commitment to duty and justice.

For Mack Bolan, other people's fear of death was a weapon in itself.

Unleashed against the Mafia organization, the fear could tear it apart, create gaps large enough for The Executioner to move in and wipe out the Mob.

The warrior's conflict had taken to many states of the Union, and also to diverse foreign shores. During the terrorist wars he had even struck at the heart of the hydra, Moscow.

Now here he was, in a place where the land was truly bigger than man; where the majestic beauty of the Northwest seemed to humble ordinary mortals.

Bolan's rental neared the hotel, and as he entered the ramp of the underground parking garage, the Executioner put his past behind him and thought no more about it.