The VW, Bolan decided, was in danger of becoming a hot vehicle. Maria Gambella had seen it; perhaps others had, also, during the recent series of strikes. So, regretfully, it was time for a change.

He returned the micro-bus to the same "dealer" and traded it in on a Ford Econoline, a dark green job with plenty of poop beneath the hood and a good van-configuration. For an extra twenty dollars, the guy made up nicely-artistic decals for the sides, ISLAND PARCEL SERVICE.

Then Bolan invested some more precious time in a second buying trip to the William Meyer arsenal, where he unloaded quite a chunk of money for various items of intensely pure warfare. Another thirty minutes were spent in loading and arranging the purchases in the van.

Next he set up a meet in Central Park with MacArthur and Perugia, the CIG people, in whom he confided the size and complexity of his immediate goals, though not the details. They rapped briefly on the problems confronting everybody from the inroads of organized crime, and Bolan hauled out maps and conducted a light briefing in which he emphasized the "non-combatant nature" of their participation in the coming operation. He marked up a duplicate set of maps and turned them over to MacArthur, along with an item of ordinance, then the three of them synchronized their watches and Bolan made ready to depart.

Perugia followed him to his vehicle and told Bolan, "I'd like to go with you."

Bolan gave him a sizing look and regretfully shook his head. "Sorry, Steve, no deal."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because you're a greenhorn," the Executioner bluntly told him. "And it's just too damn risky."

"I'll take my chances," the youth insisted. "I have a right to go."

"Whatright?"

"You're not Italian, are you?"

Bolan grinned and shook his head. "But some of my best friends are."

"And some of your worst enemies," Perugia pointed out. "That's the whole point. You have any idea how many Italian-Americans there are?"

"No I don't," Bolan replied.

"I don't either, exactly, but there've been about six million Italian immigrants alone, over the years. That ought to tell something." He grinned. "If you know anything about the average size of an Italian family, it should tell a hell of a lot. We make up a big chunk of this country."

"So?" Bolan asked, but he already knew where the kid was headed.

"So how many of us do you figure are mixed up in organized crime?"

Bolan smiled and said, "Save your breath. Anybody with half a mind knows that the Mafia is just a fluff of scum on the Italian community, so — "

"Well then there's a lot of half-minded people running around," Perugia told him. "I resent hearing Mafia jokes every time my name is mentioned."

Bolan said, "So would I. But that's no reason togo get your head blown off by a Mafia gun. Those people might be scum, but they're damned dangerous scum. They know their business, and it's no place for a greenhorn. I'm sorry, Steve. I won't take you."

"It's my fight," Perugia insisted.

"Then do your thing," Bolan suggested. "And leave me to do mine. You do the talking, I'll do the killing. Okay?"

"That's not what I — "

"I'm sorry," Bolan said, in a tone that left no room for rebuttal. He drove away and left the kid staring after him.

There was more than one reason why the Executioner was not taking any riders. He intended to blitz back through Manhattan on his way across, purely as a red herring tactic, and there was no room in those plans for a college kid.

And he did blitz. He knocked over a pool hall in Harlem and walked off with the day's lottery bag, then he hit a club on Manhattan's West Side which was owned by Manny Terencia, a Gambella underling, and executed two of Manny's soldiers. Next he invaded a law office on Park Avenue and terrorized the staff into producing records of payoffs to several "made" criminal court judges.

For his fourth and final hit of the series, he walked onto a midtown construction site, sought out one Jake Carabonzo, a loanshark contact and shylocker known as Payday Jake, handed him a marksman's medal, and shot Payday Jake between the eyes. As Bolan withdrew through a curious gathering of burly construction workers, he heard one of the hardhats remark, "Jake finally got his accumulated vigorish."

A few minutes later, Bolan had a telephone conversation with the same newsman he'd talked to earlier, gave him the details of the latest hits, and promised, "I am just getting started."

And he was, but not in New York Gty. He turned his sights toward Long Island, telling his troubled eyes in the rearview mirror, "The difference is getting narrower all the time."

Less than thirty minutes of daylight remained when Bolan reached the hardsite. He cruised past in a casual recon and noted that the gatehouse was manned. Two hardmen leaned against the iron gate, on the inside, talking. They swivelled their heads to watch the van go past, then resumed their conversation. Also, Bolan noted, someone was inside the gatehouse itself, probably several someones.

He went on beyond the property and pulled onto a high rise of ground for a binocular survey of that side, then circled back along a series of interconnected dirt roads to reach the observation point of his earlier visit.

Then he settled into a quiet surveillance. No dogs down there, he noted, but plenty of people. Bolan surmised that the dogs had been used for routine security, at times when the joint was not in use. Those dogs had been trained to attack any and all except their handler, that much had been patently obvious. So they would not be allowed to patrol when visitors were afoot. Bolan liked that idea, and he wondered also how the handler had rationalized the disappearance of the two which Bolan had dragged away. The continuing snowfall would have erased all signs within a very short while — so how would the guy account for the missing dogs? He smiled over that thought and continued his binocular scan in the waning daylight.

A number of vehicles were in the parking area.

Lights beginning to come on here and there within the lodge. Men idly patrolling the grounds on foot, trampling down the snow — with Thompsons draped across their chests — Bolan counted six, appearing cold and disgruntled. He wondered how long they'd been out there and how often they were relieved. Those things mattered. Alertness and vigor were important attributes for a defending force. The defense was required to sweat through the monotonous routine, unable to key up and stay tight when no clear threat was visible, forced to contend with personal discomfort — and the more tired and bored they became, the more they questioned the necessity for all this hardship.

Yes, those things mattered. In a game such as this, most of the options were with the offense, and Bolan meant to make full use of everything he could get going.

So he watched the patrols, continued a scan of the windows at the main lodge and those of the smaller buildings, and he began putting together a composite idea of the total scene down there.

In a large room off the ground floor veranda, a conference was in progress. Twelve to fifteen persons were inside that conference room. He arrived at this figure by counting the traffic in dinner trays which were being carried in, and the dirty glasses leaving, plus noting various seemingly insignificant details such as the number of bodyguards lurking about in the adjacent room, the number of "waiters" streaming in and out, the activity in the kitchen, and the lineup of waiting silver buckets with wine bottles chilling in ice.

So… twelve to fifteen… and only five New York bosses. Turrin had made no mention of other members of La Commissionetrekking in. So who, besides the bosses, was in there? Not underbosses, Turrin had made that quite clear — this stuff was strictly top level.