The big guy turned suddenly to gaze straight back toward Bolan. It was Charley Fever, and Bolan felt his own hackles rise. He froze and stopped breathing. The big torpedo turned away and went on with whatever he'd been telling Castelano.

Bolan abandoned that spot to move in closer to the two men.

The radio conversation had to do with the departure of a caravan of vehicles that was forming along the "quiet exit" road. As Bolan got it, they were making a big deal of what should have been a routine operation. But apparently Charley Fever had a scent of something ominous overhanging that night, and he was taking no chances with his VIP charges. He was sending them out under convoy, running fast and without lights until they were well clear of the estate. A special force was being sent beyond the north wall to protect that withdrawal and to assure the security in that sector during the time that the gate was open.

Bolan had to give the guys credit. They ran a tight operation. Somehow he had to loosen it up.

He was not after their VIP friends, not this time.

He could take them later if need be, one at a time, at his own pace.

Bolan wanted their damned hardsite. He meant to level the joint, reduce it to rubble, show them what real warfare could be, get them running scared until they were falling all over each other and bringing their own individual houses down in the panic. He wanted to see Shockwaves traveling the entire length of this Detroit-based empire, which stretched around the world in every direction and into every country on the globe — an empire that controlled industries, international banks, and business cartels, multinational corporations, and even the politics of small nations. This Detroit mob was a festering sore in every vital organ of mankind. They were motivated by nothing but untempered greed and a psychotic lusting for power over other men's lives.

No, Bolan did not want their damn VIP "friends." But ... as long as they were here, he might as well use them to whatever advantage he could.

The police sirens had become a steady wail in the night and were now very close.

It was now or never.

Bolan chose now.

He freed a hi-explosive grenade from the utility belt, armed it, and sent it lofting in a loose arc toward the roof of the joint, then immediately grabbed another and baseballed it into the vehicle area.

The transistor radio in Castelano's custody was just announcing the news from the main gate that "the cops are here. What do we ...?"

Fire and thunder from the roof eclipsed that report. Bloodcurdling screams came down immediately, and another voice from that sector yelled, "Attack! Attack!"

Castelano and Charley Fever were a pair of statues cast in frozen surprise. Another explosion, this one at ground level, unstuck their reflexes and sent them scrambling toward the front of the house.

Charley Fever gave the house boss a shove in the opposite direction and yelled at him to "Get that caravan moving!"

That ungentle shove sent the skinny house boss teetering practically into Mack Bolan's arms, as the other man disappeared into the shadows beside the house.

The bulbous muzzle of a black Beretta, applied directly between the brows, straightened the little man upright, and a steely arm pulled him into the darkness of the rose garden.

A quiet voice of cold precision advised the house boss, "You've got ten seconds to convince me you love life."

Castelano gasped, "God! — what! — who... ?"

"Close that escape gate. Five seconds to live, Billy."

Perhaps Castelano had seen too much friendly blood for one night. Certainly the memory of it was etched into his awareness of the situation, and the screams from the roof could have been having their effect, also. Or perhaps he was simply a man who had become accustomed to taking orders and there was no logical alternative to the demands of the situation. Whatever his thought processes, the voice was controlled and convincing as he thumbed-on the transmitter and passed the word: "Alert countermand! Seal the walls! Nobody leaves!"

He received an excited "Ten four" from both gates, then turned a wavering smile to the big, cold guy in black. "Okay," he said calmly. "So what does that buy me?"

"A headache," Bolan replied and conked him with the butt of the Beretta. The little guy crumpled with a grunting sigh. The Executioner dropped a marksman's medal onto his chest, scooped up the radio, then moved swiftly into the tumultuous confusion of the moment.

He'd penetrated.

The rest was in the hands of the universe.

The radio was squawking with pleas from the main gatehouse for instructions and enlightenment. The law was throwing a fit and threatening to shoot their way in — and what the hell was going on in there with all the explosions and shooting?

Alarmed sentries were apparently running in from various points on the defense perimeter. An exchange of gunfire rattled across the northwest sector. A confused enemy engaging itself?

Somewhere out there in the night a guy with a portable amplifier was ordering the hard force to get back to their stations and damn it stay there.

There was a fire on the roof. People were dashing about up there, cussing and yelling and trying to put it out with bare hands and not much else.

From the area of the north wall was issuing riotous evidence of the success of Bolan's ploy with the "quiet exit." Angered voices were raised in emotional demands and auto horns began rending the night, as the noncombatant, fleeting VIPs panicked and began reacting as they would to any frustrating traffic jam at a tense time.

A new assortment of sirens was closing in on the area from both directions along Lake Shore Drive.

The radio bleated again, this time with instructions from the yard boss: "Get those people outta those cars! Take them to the boats — to the boats!"

It was instant panic, the sudden softening of a very hard site, produced by a phenomenon that veteran Bolan-watchers described in cookbook terms as "a dash of Bolan."

It must have been a highly invigorating seasoning for that pot.

Barely thirty seconds had elapsed since the invader tossed that first grenade. And he was now "playing it by ear" — seizing the moment and running with the play as it developed — relying on finely tuned instincts and combat reflexes to build a victory upon the groundwork of careful planning and exhaustive intelligence that had brought the warrior to this time and place.

In Bolan's own colorful understanding, this was a matter of placing his war "in the hands of the universe." This did not mean that he was depending upon mere luck to see him through. He did not badmouth mere luck, however, and Bolan could hardly believe his good fortune when someone killed all the lights in the joint, obviously from a master panel. Everything went off at once.

The darkness was his chief ally.

At this particular moment he did not need to see.

They needed to see.

Apparently the enemy did not know that they had been invaded. They were still under the impression that the aggressor was out there somewhere.

Bolan gladly played to that misunderstanding. He whipped out a disposable-tube rocket flare, aimed the little dazzler for ignition high above the lakeshore, and let it fly. In a matter of seconds, a brilliant glow would appear in the heavens and descend slowly by parachute across the hellgrounds. It would add to the confusion, if nothing else. Meanwhile, the Executioner had business inside that joint.

He seized a heavy metal lawn chair and heaved it through a darkened ground-floor window, diving in immediately in its wake, just as the flare shell popped into brilliance high upwind.