The heat from that towering fireball singed the hairs of Holzer's head, and all he could do was lie there and grunt, aware of being alive and thankful.

A hoarse voice close to his ear whispered, "Spit in her eye, Holzer."

The message did not register at first; he was transfixed by the staggering proximity and undeniable majesty of flaming death. When he did turn groggy eyes toward he sound of that voice, here was no one there.

He began crawling, and he called out, "Stryker! Are you okay? Stryker!"

That was when the sergeant from East Detroit came running up. "Oh, Jesusl" the cop yelled. "Is anybody in there?"

"Just John Holzer," Holzer replied. "I'll be in there for the rest of my life, amen."

"Who was that you were yelling for? Who was with you?"

Holzer struggled to his feet, surprised that he could stand. His hands were cut where he had grabbed the shattered windshield — but the damage was negligible and seemed to be his only visible injury.

"Who was with you?" the East Detroit cop yelled again.

"God," Holzer mumbled. "God was with me, man."

Dumb? Dumb screaming providence, that's what it was!

She had hesitated for one frozen moment, the image of Bolan strong upon her peaking perceptions of this possibly final glimpse of life — hesitated... then again plunged the accelerator to full stomp and leaned into the wheel with everything she had.

The car leapt the curb at full throttle, becoming airborne momentarily, the rear end heeling over and striking the front corner of the armored vehicle, then swinging wildly out of that impact — pivoting while poised on front wheels only, the transmission freed and whining in full rev.

Then the rear wheels slammed into soft lawn and the wild gallop resumed, totally out of control now, goaded on by the unrelenting pressure of a tiny foot upon a willing accelerator — a mustang snorting its defiance against entrapment, rearing and pawing the earth in a plunging circle toward certain doom.

She was into the house before she saw it, crashing through boards and glass and plaster, pushing couches and chairs and draperies ahead — and, sure, it was like a mad dream of a crazy women's libber — FUCK HOUSEWORK in ten-foot flaming letters on a poster no artist could draw.

She briefly experienced the sensation of flight and knew that she had been flung from the belly of the arrested beast.

And she found herself in bed beside a startled elderly man who kept croaking, "What? What? What?"

Toby muttered, "You're dreaming, go back to sleep."

Her back hurt, and as she scrambled away from there, she felt like an oversized Raggedy Ann — all flopping legs and arms — but she seemed to be moving fairly well, so she kept going.

Through the shattered wall she could see cops in riot togs moving cautiously forward, while another cop, out of her range of vision, was insisting, "A woman, I'm telling you. Or a blond hippy. I saw the occupant clear as ..."

Toby was moving swiftly in the opposite direction, giving not a damn about how clearly the officer had seen her.

She let herself out the back door and ran across the yard, hurtled a low fence, dashing through the adjoining property and emerging on the next street east at full flight.

She did not stop running until she saw the bulk of that familiar vehicle parked in the alleyway several blocks along, though her belly was busting and her lungs were afire.

Her first reaction to sighting the war wagon was one of elation, but that disappeared under the immediate onslaught of a new anxiety.

Why was it still there?

He should have been miles away by now!

She slowed to a walk, clutching tortured sides in crossed arms and struggling for breath, and when she reached the vehicle she crumbled to the ground and wailed, "Well, damn it, just damn it!"

A gruff voice from the darkness commanded, "Off your tail, and on your feet, partner."

Yeah, sure, it was her guy — in one piece but slightly frayed here and there — a tail burnt off his coat and blood on his hands, but, God, what a big, beautiful bastard he was.

"What kept you, Captain Tortoise?" she panted. "That was a hell of a long two minutes!"

He picked her up and carried her into the van, placed her on the bunk, and tenderly inspected her parts.

"Damn it, Toby," he said solemnly. "Just damn it."

"I'm all present and accounted for, sir. Aren't I?"

"You sure are," he said.

Yes, she sure was. But the warrior wasn't.

"Captain Tearful!" she cried in genuine surprise and flowing concern, viewing his face clearly for the first time since the reunion — and she pulled the man's head onto her breast and held him there.

"Go ahead," she crooned. "Let it out, let it go."

"Can't," he muttered in a choked voice. "Guess I'm just not man enough yet."

Even so, it was cosmic magic — of a different sort. And Toby the Lady Fed had never felt more a woman.

Toby drove while Bolan changed into combat rig. They talked through the opening between cab and van.

"How were things in 1492?" she inquired with forced lightness.

"Enlightening," he replied. "And ominous."

"Well, how about giving a girl some ominous enlightenment."

"If I tell you at all, Toby, I have to tell it all. I don't know how to color it."

She cast a dark glance over her shoulder. "I've never asked you for colors."

He cinched up the black suit and gave it to her straight. "Crazy Sal sentenced Georgette to fifty days in the chamber."

"The chamber? What's that?"

"The guy back there claims he doesn't know any more than that. And maybe he doesn't. If it's what I think."

"Okay, what do you think it is?"

"Let me tell you the other first. The guy at 1492 is a big international money front for the Detroit mob. He handles literally hundreds of millions of dollars a year — some of it mere trading paper, but quite a bit in cool black cash. The entire movement is half legit, half business as usual for the boys. And that last half covers all the sins. If you have the cannibal instinct, you know, you can eat a lot of people in the legitimate business world."

"And God knows," Toby sniffed, "even the straight ones are cannibal enough."

"What a difference, though," Bolan said. "Sure big money carries all sorts of filth with it regardless of who's handling it, but these mob people have their own distinctive flair for hot rape. And their own cute games. Like 1492, case in point. This guy isn't satisifed to simply influence the bouncing bucks with free sex. He likes to capture them with a club. The club, of course, being that same free sex, only it turns out to be expensive as hell. You were right about the party girl jet set, A street-corner hooker is Saint Joan by comparison with these kids. The 1492 girls are cannibals of a different stripe, and the power they carry between their thighs is awesome to contemplate — when you know the international figures they're playing hotsy with. Of course, the mob can't afford to let that kind of power become independent or competitive. They need to own these girls, own their very souls."

"You're talking about industrial blackmail."

"With a variation or two, yeah. Political blackmail, also. Which is why 1492 handles soul recruiting the way it does. They take the girls with a club, too. Corrupt them with terror and shame and everything else they can lay on them, then send them into the jungle to bring home some hard-to-get stocks, or a new company, or whatever else is hot in the marketplaces at the moment — maybe even a small, but developing, nation here and there."