Two guys were barricaded inside the kitchen, directing revolver fire into the parlor from behind an overturned oaken table. Three guys were returning that fire from behind heavily padded furniture in the living room. A riddled corpse was sprawled in the no man's land between those guns, and neither side showed signs of budging. Bolan caught a fleeting glimpse of Ike Ruby's bald head as he popped up to peg a shot at the invaders.

Bolan announced his entry into the battle with a short burst from the chopper. The deadly stream hit one of the invaders broadside, ripping him open from armpit to hip and punching him sideways across an ornate coffee table. The firing spluttered to a halt as four pairs of eyes swung toward Bolan's position, each side evaluating the new arrival in terms of personal jeopardy and need. Ike Ruby recognized help and cackled in triumph, rising from a crouch with his pistol barking an assist for the new ally. The hardmen in the parlor recoiled and tracked about, weapons seeking a new target in their desperate race for life.

Bolan was faster, stitching the first guy across the chest with a zipper of steel-jacketed slugs and sweeping him aside. The last hardman broke cover, crouching, his shotgun swinging uncertainly between targets for a fatal half-second too long. A deadly crossfire of machine gun and revolver slugs spun him like a top, blood spurting from a dozen mortal wounds as he corkscrewed to the floor. A dying finger clenched reflexively and his shotgun boomed toward Ruby and the houseman.

Peripheral images crowded Bolan's vision. On the right, Ruby's houseman going over backward in a spray of crimson, clapping reddened hands to his exploding skull. To the left, a looming form blackening the doorway, sunlight gleaming dully on gunmetal.

It was the big black from outside, an M-16 clutched in businesslike fashion against his hip. Bolan and the black man poised in that confrontation for a moment frozen in eternity, faint recognition crackling between them like electric current. Then Bolan was back-pedaling and plunging to the floor as flame spluttered from that deadly muzzle and a stream of 5.56 tumblers chewed up the doorway. Bullets raked the walls, showering Bolan with adobe chips and splinters of wood. For a long second he was pinned there, unmoving, as the leaden wand of death stroked the air above him. Then it tracked on, seeking other targets in the room beyond, thumping through heavy wood to rip a scream from human lips in there.

It ended as suddenly as it began, and Bolan was in instant motion, the chopper nosing ahead of him as he reentered the silent hellgrounds. Outside, through the open doorway, the rasp of spinning tires on gravel telegraphed the end of the engagement. Taillights were winking through the front gate even as Bolan gained the porch.

He let it go, returning to the slaughterhouse within.

Bodies were draped around the furniture, but Bolan ignored them as he went in search of Ike Ruby. He found him stretched out behind the shattered remains of the oaken dining table. Slugs had stitched him across the chest, and each pained breath brought blood welling up from mangled lungs to soak his torn pajama top.

The guy was dying hard. His vision was going in and out of focus as he squinted up at Bolan, words of warning rasping in his throat. Ruby obviously thought Bolan had been sent by Kaufman to help out, and he was determined to get his message out before it was too late.

"Tell ... tell Moe ... couldn't reach Weiss ... couldn't tip him off ..."

The guy's head was lolling crazily about, breath wheezing in his throat and burbling through the holes in his chest at the same time. "Tell Moe."

"I'll tell him," Bolan assured the corpse, and then he quit the place, quickly retracing his path to the warwagon.

Ruby's dying plea echoed in the Executioner's mind as he fired the warwagon and left the neighborhood behind. Tell Moe that I couldn't reach Weiss. A fragmentary message, sure, the garbled last words of a delirious and dying man, but suddenly as clear as crystal to the Executioner.

Another piece of the Arizona jigsaw puzzle dropped jarringly into place. A picture was forming in Bolan's mind, a confused and admittedly incomplete picture, to be sure, but a chilling one all the same. The game was assuming unexpected proportions, and new players were coming out of the woodwork on every side — most recently a dark and deadly face which Bolan vaguely recognized but could not immediately identify.

Bolan drove on, his jaw set in grim determination, mind intent on the dying concern of Ike Ruby. The Executioner had a message to deliver. To a United States senator named Weiss.

Senator Abraham Weiss liked to describe himself in campaign speeches as a self-made man. It sounded good to the voters. Of course, there were always a few spiteful and politically motivated critics to dispute the claim. Weiss liked to describe those critics to the voting public as scavengers, with their stories of how he had inherited the family business from his late father, without investing either his own money or original creative ideas. That was nonsense. Hadn't it been Abe who, mere days after his father's funeral, had expanded into marketing and shipment, too, forging close ties with the local Teamster leadership? And wasn't it Abe who had used his business and political connections to place brother David on the Board of directors of Greater Southwestern Savings and Loan, thereby broadening the Weiss empire into real estate investment?

The same bleeding hearts and sob-sisters who blasted Abe Weiss for his business investments were constantly harping about his political connections. They were always pointing to his friendship with Moe Kaufman as if there was something wrong with one lifelong pal contributing to the other's campaign fund. They blamed Weiss for following Moe's suggestion that he run for County Supervisor back in '49 and blasted him for delivering a eulogy at old Gus Greenbaum's funeral in '58. But what the hell, hadn't Gus been a fellow servant of the people and former mayor of Weiss' own home town? The sniveling vultures especially loved to pick at Abe for accepting Kaufman's financial support In three successful Senate campaigns, making wild charges about corruption and conflict of interest.

Weiss publicly dismissed those charges with the contempt they deserved, always ready to explain his swelling bank account as the result of life insurance dividends, and the resultant patronage to Kaufman's handpicked men as mere coincidence. What could be more natural than for lifelong friends to see each other socially from time to time, whether at home in Phoenix or during an expense-paid visit to one of Moe's hotels in Vegas? What really upset his opponents, Weiss told reporters, was his longtime stand against creeping socialism and his staunch defense of innocent businessmen facing criminal harassment by agents of the Justice Department's task force on organized crime.

Mack Bolan was familiar with the accusations against Weiss, and with the senator's protestations of innocence. More importantly, Bolan was familiar with the facts behind the charges and countercharges. Abraham Weiss was a "made man" from the word go, most lately the prime mover behind a Senate inquisition aimed at Hal Brognola and his fellow federal warriors against the Mafia. Bolan could discern the fine hand of puppet-master Moe Kaufman in those Star Chamber proceedings and in other Capitol Hill maneuvers which "coincidentally" served the interests of the Phoenix mob.

Ike Ruby's dying words had been merely the confirmation of a certainty, yet they added sinister new dimensions to the Arizona game. For if Moe Kaufman felt it necessary to "tip Weiss off" about impending events, there might be much more at stake in Phoenix than an old-style street war between ethnic antagonists.