Charley Fever left them there and quickly went downstairs, extinguishing lights en route and calling out instructions to the house guard.

A breathless messenger met him at the first landing and reported the happenings outside. Charley sent the guy on up to carry the news to the top, then he descended to the glass-littered mess below.

Some nut in a boat... getting his jollies with a high-powered rifle. That was how it sounded. It wouldn't be Black Johnson's niggers... not this way. But it was no time for snap judgments, and the security of a joint such as this one was not based on that kind of thinking.

Actually, Charley Fever had no direct interest in the security at SCYC. The joint ran itself, with its own force and its own honchos; but Charley Fever was responsible for the skin of old man Vincenti, and there was no way to restrict the authority of that position. He found the housekeeper and gave him instructions for the staff, then he went through the clubroom and across the darkened threshold to the porch.

The shooting had stopped. The house boss, a skinny veteran named Billy Castelano, was standing stiffly near the steps, peering down at something in the darkness below.

Charley Fever stepped into something slippery and nearly lost his footing — then the odor hit him, and he knew that he was standing in human blood. Only then did he notice the crumpled form lying off to the side, less than a pace away.

"What the hell... !" he exclaimed.

"It's Tommy Noble and Harry the Gook," Castelano explained through stiffened lips. "Don't look, Mr. Fever. Most of their head is gone."

"They got it in the head?" Charley Fever muttered. "Both of them?"

"Yessir. Whoever it was sure knows how to shoot. And he must know it. To go for the head, from way out there..."

"How far out there, Billy?"

"Far enough that these boys never knew what hit them. They was dead before the sound got here."

"I didn't know anybody had got hit," the chief torpedo said, his voice subdued. "I thought it was just..." The voice got lost in the machinery of thought, then returned with "... in the head, uh?"

At that moment the yard boss materialized from the shadows of the lawn to call up, "Maybe you better go back inside! We don't know what the hell is going on here, yet!"

Castelano jerked about and retreated across the porch, but Fever held his position to call back, "What's it look like, Mickey?"

"Hell, I dunno," the yard chief replied. "All the incoming was from a boat." He moved a couple of paces closer to add, "They turned tail and ran before we even got set. Joe and his boys are chasing them out on the lake. Don't worry, nothing can outrun the Chris Columbus. He'll catch the bastards."

"How many bastards you figure?"

"God, I don't know that, Mr. Fever. They only fired about seven or eight rounds. Some of those were at the gig. Sunk it. Tony Dollar and Pete Dominic were on their way out when the shooting started. They're okay, I guess. I saw Joe stop and pick them up."

"How many dead men we got around here, then?" Charley Fever wondered aloud.

"Three, sir. I guess you saw Tom and Harry. Also this new guy from the old country, this Roccobello kid."

"He get it in the head?" Charley Fever asked quietly.

"Yessir. They all did."

"Yeah, they all did," the boss torpedo echoed, his voice soft and curiously flattened. He joined Castelano at the door and pulled him inside. "Go upstairs and tell Sal I said he should stay in the strong room until he, hears from me. Also, he should call his legal eagles, get them out here quick. Cops'll be swarming in here soon, you can bet on that, and maybe even those fancy feds will take the excuse to horn in."

"Hell, we're a legit security outfit, sir," Castelano protested. "We got a right to defend the joint."

"Sure you have," Charley Fever replied smoothly. "But the cops also have a legit right to investigate any shootings, so you scoot and tell Sal. We don't want the bosses and their friends subjected to that crap, do we?"

"Right. I'll get the cars over on the quiet exit, too. Some of these amid won't want to be around here when the bulls arrive. Check, sir, I'll take care of the details."

"Do that," Charley Fever said with a thin smile. He watched the house boss hustle away, then he turned to his own thoughts.

Charley Fever had heard every one of those incoming shots. They all came from the same gun, and a hell of a big one. But one gun. That meant one gunner. And three good boys shot squarely through the head — dead before the bodies dropped — dead before they even heard the shot that killed them.

That took some damned good shooting.

At nighttime, yet.

Sure, it sounded just like...

He lit a cigar, then stared thoughtfully at the dying match as lights began coming back on throughout the house. Joe Venuchi was going to be coming back with his goddamn hot cruiser crew pretty soon, empty-handed and sheepish. Charley Fever knew that, and he didn't need to look into any crystal balls for an answer like that.

"Well, shit," he said softly.

Then Sal Vincenti's good third arm retraced his steps across the messy porch and went down to the lawn to wipe the blood from his shoes.

This was first blood, he was thinking.

But a hell of a long ways, bet on that, from the last.

For damn sure, deadeye Bolan had been here tonight. Yeah. And the hell was just starting.

Mack Bolan's war philosophy could be summed up in three rhyming words:

Locate...

Penetrate...

Eliminate!

Minutes into his first battle for Detroit, he was well along with that second stage of endeavor. He had been scouting this site for several days, studying it by day and by night — from land, water, and air. He had obtained building plans, landscape sketches, coastal surveys — everything that could add to his understanding of the problem. He had also studied old newspaper files, mug shots, police bulletins, and various items of quiet intelligence. He knew this enemy, and he knew their turf. He knew, also, the immensity of his task. This was no wild, amateurish adventuring into certain death. It was a carefully planned and flawlessly executed penetration of an enemy stronghold by a professional combatman. And, yes, the Executioner knew precisely where he was and what had to be done.

Except for the lakeshore side, all boundaries of the property were protected by a ten-foot rock and mortar wall. It was constantly patrolled by armed "security police" in uniform. The only landward entrance to the estate was via an interlocking system that Bolan called "the chute" — two heavily manned electronic gates positioned in a tandem arrangement fifty feet apart, with high walls and catwalks above joining the two gatehouses. A third gate was designed for exit only. It was cleverly concealed in the north wall and could be opened only by a special system of interlocks from within.

The lakeshore boundary was nearly as impenetrable, but the defenses here were almost purely human. By day and by night, armed sentries in yachting outfits prowled the boat basin and walked the seawall above the artificial beach. A secondary defense line consisting of two-man patrols walked the manicured grounds from sunset to sunrise, and there were other, less obvious, human emplacements scattered about those sprawling grounds.

There were small watchtowers on the roof of the building, as well as ominous evidence of fortifications inside.

Bolan had estimated the standing force that protected this hardsite at about eighty men, with most of that number going into the outside defenses. Except in emergency situations, the normal duty-watch consisted of twenty-five to thirty men under arms. A house crew of perhaps ten men took care of the housekeeping and doubled as inside guards. Apparently, lower echelon yardmen handled the routine chores of grounds maintenance in conjunction with the security duties. There were no "soft" employees at this joint. It was a hardsite, pure and simple.