"That's interesting," said April, her eyebrows raised in anticipation.

"I think the arms source has been too skillfully covert, too successful, for a bunch of embittered ex-soldiers moaning about social neglect. I believe we'll find some old friends from civilian life involved in this. I look forward to the unraveling of it."

"You mean the Mob, don't you?" April was barely able to conceal her pleasure at identifying the enemy. And it was an enemy already decimated by Mack, it just needed to be hacked back every now and again. Great. This would be an adversary he could get his teeth into, deep into the carotid artery once more. Things were looking up at last. Her body responded with exhilaration at the thought of it, extinguishing exhaustion.

"Hal," she said, picking up a wrapped stogie from the head fed's desk and handing it over to him in a celebratory gesture. "Have another cigar."

For the first time that night, Hal smiled with something approximating real delight. "I think I will," he said, grinding the dead butt of his previous one in the ashtray. "And yourself?"

"Thanks, but no," grinned April Rose. "I'm trying to give them up."

"Good for you," grunted Hal, enjoying himself for this fleeting moment. "Come on, let's get some more coffee and fill in the time with some calls of our own. I've got an idea a little detective work is required of us."

Bolan had known physical giants who had been weak and as easily intimidated as lambs. Now here was a guy in a wheelchair, whom Bolan sized up immediately as probably one of the strongest, toughest, craftiest men he had ever confronted.

Sure, Bolan had seen his kind before. A cannibal. Blood brother to the Mafia dons that Bolan had deceived during his previous "life." A guy whose driving wheel was the lust to exploit and gain for his own ends, no matter what the cost to others. That lust was fueled by a strength of will that would only be conquered by death.

And somehow General Nazarour knew that Bolan had brought Carol Nazarour back to the grounds.

How much else did he know? Bolan wondered.

Finally he responded to Nazarour's query regarding the general's wife.

"Why not ask the lady herself?" Bolan grunted. "I'm not here to play question and answer, General. Nor to take orders. I'm here to protect your ass until dawn." He glanced across the room at the second Iranian. "Rafsanjani. I want you to take me on a tour of the house, then take me to your security chief."

Rafsanjani paused, looking at General Nazarour.

The general seemed to be considering something. Then he nodded and some of his coldness thawed. He seemed to Bolan like a jungle animal relaxing. But an animal of prey nonetheless.

"Forgive me, Colonel. Perhaps I was a bit presumptuous. But I would ask you to consider my situation and not 'stonewall' it, as you Americans amusingly say. My life is at stake here. You are a military man. I am a military man. I observe signs of a struggle about the knees of your slacks. I must know what I'm up against. Have you engaged the enemy?"

Bolan changed tactics, too. It would do no good to alienate Nazarour. The odds tonight were already stacked.

"I engaged someone," Bolan nodded. "Some men tried to abduct your wife. I intervened."

The general's face remained impassive. "Were they Iranian?"

"Not that I could see. We shot it out over in the Canal Park. I killed six of them."

Nazarour's eyes blazed. "You might have learned something from them," he snapped. "You could have questioned them."

"I had no choice. Any idea who they were?"

"None. Unless they were working in connection with this assassination team."

"That's not very likely," grunted Bolan. "From what I've heard, this team doesn't need any help. Now if you'll excuse me, General, I'll be about my business."

Rafsanjani stood by the door, holding it open for Bolan but with his eyes on Nazarour.

Nazarour read the unspoken question and nodded. "Show him everything he wishes to see," he instructed his aide. "And send my men in here."

"Yes, General."

Bolan stepped out into the corridor, and Rafsanjani followed, easing the study door shut behind him. Bolan glanced up and down the hallway. There was no sign of Carol Nazarour.

"How did the general know that Mrs. Nazarour and I came back together?" he asked the aide.

Rafsanjani's eyes were cold as polished marble. "The general is master of this house," he replied coolly. "My allegiance is to the general. I owe him my life. I would do anything for him." Here he paused for effect. "Please wait, Colonel, while I see to the guards. Then we shall begin our tour."

The old house was as much a museum as a residence. It had been modernized, of course, in all the necessary ways. But the renovation was so skillful and so complete that Bolan found Rafsanjani's tour of the premises to be almost like stepping into the past. Civil war decor graced one room, while another room was furnished in a turn-of-the-century motif. And above it all hovered emanations of still something else.

Something decadent.

Bolan and Rafsanjani were at the southwest corner of the house, checking the metal mesh that secured a pantry window, when Bolan gave voice to his thoughts.

"Tell me," he said conversationally, as he and the secretary were leaving the pantry toward the stairway to the second floor. "Do you ever pick up certain...certain vibes, living in this place?"

Rafsanjani permitted himself a thin-lipped smile. He seemed to see Bolan in a new light. "My respects, Colonel. You are a man attuned to the metaphysical planes of existence. There is indeed an... aura about this old house." The Iranian spoke almost reverently. "Perhaps it is the evil that the house has absorbed from its inhabitants over the past century."

"When was it built?"

"Some five years before your Civil War. In 1855. The general had me thoroughly research the title of the house when we moved here earlier this year. There is new money and there is old money in Potomac, or so I am told. This house goes very far back in time. Much has happened within its walls."

"Much that was evil?"

"The man who built the house was an arms manufacturer," said Rafsanjani. "A profiteer. He went on to make a fortune by selling his wares to both sides of that conflict. The building was renovated around the turn of the century by a gentleman who was adept in financial maneuverings in the areas of railroads, oil fields, and coal mines. A subsidiary corporation of a major oil company now holds the title. Yes, I would venture to say that much evil has transpired between these walls during this past century. Many souls have been bartered for."

"And your soul, Rafsanjani," Bolan said quietly, his eyes carefully scrutinizing everything as they walked, "what of it? Has it been sold to the devil?"

This brought only another thin-lipped smile. They had reached the second-floor foyer. The stairway had been widened to provide space for a motorized conveyor equipped to handle a wheelchair. Rafsanjani moved briskly toward a door at the head of the stairs, acting as if a brief metaphysical discourse had never occurred.

"This is the general's room," he announced as he opened the door and stood aside for Bolan to enter. "I would request that you give it an especially detailed examination..."

Bolan gave a thorough inspection to the general's bedroom. The window faced the front yard of the house. A skilled commando — as the men in Yazid's group undoubtedly were — would have no difficulty scaling the wall below the bedroom window and gaining access that way. There was no other means of outside entrance, and the general would be safe enough up here if there was a guard to protect the stairway and upper foyer — and the entire exterior.