Now this will be a punch in, pure and simple. No telling how many active troops we'll be leaving behind us. We'll have to punch right back out again probably, and if the blues show, we're going to be in a hell of a tight situation. So let's keep it fast and furious, and the sooner we get moving the better.

"Let's get everything out of the truck and into the punch vehicles. Let's get moving, let's go go go!"

Sergeant Carl Lyons slowed his car to a leisurely pace and snatched up his hand mike. "CHP says no movement into Balboa, Captain," he reported. "I just passed a road running off toward the cliffs. Think I'll investigate."

"I'm only a couple minutes behind you now," Braddock's unhappy tones came back at him. "Wait for us there."

Ten-four." Lyons threw down the mike and swerved abruptly across the median in a fish-tailing U-turn, then powered into the northbound lanes. A moment later he was leaning into a curving exit and passing beneath the highway in an easy glide toward the beach. Over in the darkness he could detect a rugged point of land rising to the horizon. He braked to a halt and swiveled about in the seat for a view of the highway, then spoke again into the microphone. "Right where the highway breaks slightly inland into the hills," he directed. "A small cove to the right, narrow blacktop leading down."

"Okay," Braddock replied.

Lyons was gazing toward the promontory. Faint lights shone over there, on the far end of the outcropping. Then a bright flame shot up high into the air, toward the beginning of the promontory, and an instant later the explosive roar reached Ly-ons's ears. He was already stepping on the accelerator as he told Braddock, "Paydirt! You can't miss it now! Just follow the flames!"

Zitka leaped from the speeding MG and hit the ground in a tight roll. A man ran out of the gatehouse just as the careening vehicle smashed into the steel gate with an instantaneous clap of thunder and whooshing flames. The jeep swung in a tight arc past Zitka as he scrambled to his feet and sprinted back down the road. The deep rattle of the big fifty mingled with the secondary explosion of the MG's gas tank and the excited cries coming from beyond the flames.

Harrington raised his gun to track onto a man who was running along the wall; the gun burped briefly, and the running man disappeared beyond the wall.

The panel truck swerved around the curve and cautiously approached the flaming wreckage in the gateway; then gears meshed, and the deep whine of low gear propelled the truck into the crackling pile. Harrington had scrambled out of the jeep and was standing against the wall, his gun chattering, to cover the maneuver. The truck whined on through the debris, pushing it along in a grinding scream of protesting metal, while the jeep circled about and fell in to the rear. Harrington leaped aboard and remained standing in the front floor, his weapon raking the gatehouse in an incessant sweeping. Men were running and shouting, and the sound of gunfire issued from deeper inside the grounds. The windshield of the jeep shattered, and Harrington abruptly sat down.

Two men stood behind the gatehouse, firing at the truck with revolvers. They crumpled and jerked to the ground under the heavy staccato of the fifty caliber. Flames were shooting from the hood of the truck as Hoffower flung the door open and bailed out. The jeep moved swiftly along the narrow drive. Loudelk's sedan spurted through the gateway and quickly closed on the jeep; then Bolan's Porsche roared in. Hoffower had darted across the drive and was kneeling in the grass, his .45 spitting flame toward the wall. The Porsche slowed momentarily, and the door swung open; Hoffower jumped in and slammed the door, and they spun out with a shriek of rubber.

The jeep was leading the fast-moving procession, its automatic weapons rattling angrily. Tracers were leaping out from the big fifty, probing the terrain ahead. Shouts and curses could be heard on both sides, rising above the explosive reports of gunfire.

If Beverly Hills had boasted a company, Bolan was thinking, this place easily supported a battalion. The window just behind his head shattered. Hoffower immediately announced, "I'm hit," in a quiet voice. He swiveled in the seat and pushed the .45 out the window in his left hand and began firing at running, shadowy figures on their right flank. Bolan risked a glance at his partner. A red groove traversed one side of his face, oozing blood.

"Grazed," Hoffower amended as he ejected a spent clip and snapped in a replacement.

The jeep was now running about, broadside to Bolan's travel, and the fifty was tracering up Bolan's left flank. They had reached the circular portion of the drive, in front of the house. Bolan swung in behind the sedan just as Loudelk and Zitka bolted from the vehicle. Flame was spitting at them from several basement windows, and Harrington's chopper was replying. The death squad was caught in a cross fire, with enemy reinforcements gathering quickly to both sides of their soft position.

"Take the house!" Bolan cried.

Loudelk and Zitka sprinted to opposite corners of the house, grenades in their hands. Bolan stepped to the ground with a chopper in one hand and a satchel charge in the other. He twirled the charge overhead, then let it fly. It hit the massive doors at the front of the house with a deafening roar, and licking flames immediately brightened the landscape. Bolan tossed another charge into French doors on the second floor, and the explosion blended with lesser ones coming simultaneously from the sides of the house.

Harrington was dueling with enemy fire from both floors and the basement; Andromede was checking the advance on their rear with the big fifty. Deadeye Washington had snatched up a chattergun and was making a run for the front door. A burst of fire from an upstairs window caught him full in the chest, and the big fellow went to ground with his weapon chattering. Bolan, also in motion toward the door, had to spin past Washington's failing body. A pain shot up from his heel, and he realized that he was hit also, but he was up the steps and charging through the flaming doorway with Harrington pushing close behind, and the heel was forgotten. He charged into a large room just as a clump of men were descending a circular stairway. Bolan chopped at them; two fell, and three more raced back up the stairs.

Harrington's burper was swinging toward an arched doorway at the rear, and another two men were flung to the floor. The burper went silent; Harrington shook it, then tossed it aside and released the straps of his six-guns as he moved swiftly toward the stairway.

Bolan glanced at him and snapped, The basement!"

Harrington nodded and swung back to Bolan's side. The house was burning, the flames beginning to roar on the top floor. They found the basement stairs in an alcove beyond the main room, just as a pair of men ran into the house through the front door. Harrington said, "I'll cover!" and stepped out with both guns blazing. Bolan wondered vaguely about the other four of his squad and about the fact that two enemy had managed to get inside, but there was no time for speculation. He was already halfway through the doorway to the basement stairs.

He dodged back as a bullet thwacked into the wood alongside his head, then leaned around the curve and dropped a grenade over the staircase. He followed the explosion with a headlong plunge down the stairs, sweeping indiscriminately with the chopper. There was no return fire. A bookcase along one wall burst into flame, eerily lighting the underground scene. Dead bodies were flung about, and nothing moved. At the bottom of the stairs lay a man who Bolan had watched earlier that night through his sniperscope. Deadeye had said, "That's Varone there, the little one."