Bolan dropped the radio and threw caution to the wind, sending the Corvette speeding in pursuit, wheeling onto the narrow blacktop road only seconds behind the first car.

A sign went zipping by to his right: Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Park. Lock 17 Parking Lot.

The road curved and dipped up ahead. The Malibu's taillights were nowhere in sight. Bolan decreased his speed slightly, but continued on. So they were leading him toward the old canal and the Potomac River a few yards beyond. The river, with its strong undertow, would be ideal for disposal of an unwanted body. But the Malibu's destination was not to be that obvious. The narrow, seven-mile-long park was deserted at this hour and there were plenty of spots for an ambush.

They were waiting for him at the base of the first rise, just beyond a short underpass that cut beneath a stretch of old railroad track that ran along the canal's bank. They must have spotted him along that stretch of MacArthur, despite his precautions. Now they were parked at the point where the road widened for a parking lot. They obviously intended to zap the Corvette as it came out through the underpass. But they had not taken into account the glint of moonlight off the Malibu's chrome. Or the fact that their target was approaching from high ground. Or the capabilities of the man behind the Vette's wheel. Now it was too late.

Bolan tromped on the gas pedal and surged forward into the fray, again with lights off.

They were waiting for him. But they were not ready for him. Just before the underpass, Bolan yanked the wheel to the right. The sleek black sports car left the road and went sailing up the side of the embankment. Bolan kept the hammer down. Railroad tracks clattered underneath; then the car overshot and was momentarily airborne before coming to rest with a four-point landing and skidding to a halt slightly beyond and below the waiting ambush car.

Bolan grabbed the Uzi and catapulted out from the Corvette's passenger side, his black garb holding him to the darkness.

Two of the guys had been leaning across the Malibu's hood, taking aim at the underpass with handguns, while a third had been pointing a pump shotgun over the trunk. Number Four must have been down out of sight, holding onto their captive. Now they spun around as one to meet this unexpected maneuver, and one of the handgun boys even had time to pull off a wild round before Death came for them.

Bolan squeezed off only a short burst from the Uzi, but it was enough to take all three men in a withering hail that stitched from left to right at upper-chest level, the Uzi's muzzle flashes illuminating the darkness like some unholy strobe light.

Dead bodies were still jerking and falling when motion erupted from the nose of the Malibu. Bolan had sized it correctly. Heavy Number Four had been pinning the girl. Now he was straightening, forgetting about the blonde as he pawed for hardware beneath his jacket.

The woman kept her head. She dashed from the man's side, losing herself in the night.

The guy had his weapon halfway out when the Uzi burped again, almost discreetly. The force of the 9mm rounds smashed the man back against the car; then he pitched forward onto the grass alongside the road, his right hand still reaching under his left arm in a final statement of purpose.

The sudden silence was absolute. The car, the bodies — Bolan could see no sign of the lady.

Cautiously, he approached.

Wondering, as he did, just what the hell had gone down here.

Wondering about the mission.

Wondering what would happen next.

The mission was not supposed to be a complicated one. Nor an easy one, no. Not easy by any stretch of the imagination. But cut and dried, just the same.

Brognola had briefed Bolan only ninety minutes earlier. Bolan could still hear the cigar-chewing head fed's words.

"The man's name is General Eshan Nazarour," Brognola had told him. "An Iranian. High ranker in SAVAK, the Shah's secret police, until the revolution came along. The general lost both legs in a mortar attack on SAVAK headquarters during the final days of fighting, but he still managed to get out alive, which a lot of 'em didn't. For the last nine months, he's been lodged incognito on a forty-acre spread up in Potomac. He's got influential ties with plenty of big money in this town, and some of that money has been putting him up. But legs or no legs, the guy's a mobster, plain and simple, and the administration doesn't want anything to do with him.

"His visa expires at midnight tonight. He's sticking it out until the last minute, hoping his lawyers will be able to pull some strings — which they can't. The kicker is that we learned today that Nazarour has been marked for death by an Iranian assassination squad. At any time from now on. Any time today or tonight.

"Now we all know what it's like to have a foreign hit team prowling the country. It makes people edgy, right? But this time around we have hard data on the bastards and we're going to get them.

"The squad is a fourteen-man paramilitary commando unit — the best they've got — and they've been on his trail ever since January '79, when Khomeini's government took power. During the first week of trials, Nazarour was sentenced in absentia to death, on charges of torture, massacre of people, treason, and earthly corruption, and our intel says he's guilty as sin of those charges and a whole lot more. So this hit team wants him bad.

"I don't know how they tagged him here, but our spook in Tehran reports that they picked up his scent the day before yesterday. The agent gathered the intel after the team had already been dispatched from Tehran — they left within two hours after learning of the general's whereabouts. They've probably been in D.C. most of today, reconnoitering and setting up the operation.

"This won't be their first hit, either. The team is led by a man named Karim Yazid, who made quite a bloody rep for himself with the Cherikhaye Fedaye Khalq— People's Sacrifice Guerillas — in Iran before the revolution. The group was trained by Libyan military personnel, financed by a radical Palestinian group, and was the toughest in the Mideast. Yazid drew from the Cherikhaye Fedaye Khalq when he put his present outfit together.

"So far, they've racked up a total of thirty kills in the past three years of Khomeini enemies around the world. Four in the Mideast, ten in Europe and sixteen — count 'em, sixteen — here in America. That's what's got the CIA and the other agencies asking us for help. We've advised Nazarour of our intel, and he's gone stone hard. He's been paranoid as hell the whole time he's been here, and I got the feeling after talking to him on the phone that he suspects this of being some sort of American trick.

"He's refused to allow any of our troops or security personnel onto the grounds. But he has agreed to allow Colonel John Phoenix to act in an advisory capacity to his own security staff.

"As I say, he has his suspicions, but he's not taking any chances in case our information is on the level. He's aware of this hit team, of course, and fully appreciates their capabilities. He's being guarded by a private security agency provided by one of these big-money friends of his, but he must know that better security than he's got hasn't kept Yazid's outfit from hitting effectively in the past. And he certainly knows that his 'protection' wouldn't stand a chance against this team in the dark.

"So he's refused to budge from the grounds of that estate until dawn. Which is fine with us. Striker, that hit team must attack tonight. Either at the place in Potomac or just after dawn, en route to the private airstrip in Rockville where Nazarour is planning to catch a plane out of the country. If they don't hit tonight, they run the risk of having the general slip through their fingers and disappear again, as he's done a few times in the past.