"Good idea."

"Keep your sentinel tuned in. I may want to beep you for a later report. Also stand ready to give Gadgets some close support. He's on a tight one."

"Yeah, I heard."

Twenty minutes had passed since the receipt of those reports. Bolan was getting edgy. Marsha Thornton was five minutes late for their rendezvous.

He got out of the car and went around to check on Tony Danger's air supply. The guy gave him one of those pleading looks when he opened the trunk door, but he seemed to be breathing all right.

Bolan told him, "Pretty soon now, Tony. Then well see."

She arrived a minute later, leaving her car in the regular parking area and stumbling breathlessly into the shadows to redeem a raincheck issued to one of the few men who had, lately, treated her with dignity and understanding.

At the moment, Bolan was finding it difficult to go on understanding. She was still wearing the damn bikini, except that she had added a skimpy top to complete the almost non-existent ensemble.

But then she explained, "I'm late, sorry. Max came home, first time this month he's been in by midnight. I had to lie to him. He thinks I'm on the beach."

Bolan told her, "Maybe it was the last lie. Guess that will be up to you. Tony Danger tells me the film is on board the Folly. Ill want you to make sure it's the real thing."

"But he told Max he'd sent it to New York."

"Sure, that took the heat off him and put more of a screw into your husband. But a guy like Tony likes to keep his goodies close by. Anyway, he's seen the light, and he wants to let you off the hook." He pulled her to the rear of the car and opened the trunk. "There's your passport from hell," he told her.

She said, "Oh wow," in a voice just a decibel above a whisper.

Bolan instructed her, "Get in the car and sit tight. If you hear a ruckus, take off."

She showed him saucer eyes and a pained smile, then stepped inside the Ferrari.

Bolan hauled his prisoner from the trunk, set him on his feet, then shoved him toward the docks. "Breathe very carefully and live awhile," he suggested.

The caporegime, such a strutting peacock a short while earlier, was now at the verge of collapse. These guys sometimes went this way,

Bolan reflected. Beneath those cocky, bullyboy exteriors often beat the fluttering heart of a perpetually frightened little kid — born into despair, reared in panic, matured with violence and an outward show of disrespect for everything feared, which meant every thing. These were the guys who died blubbering and pleading — because they had found nothing to justify their lives and even less to crown their deaths. It had something to do with visions of immortality, Bolan suspected; these guys had no visions whatever beyond their own grubby little noses.

He had to half-carry, half-shove the terrified prisoner to the docks. As their feet touched the gangway, a soft voice from the Folly's deck exclaimed, "It's that guyl"

The Executioner's death voice quickly warned those aboard, "Stand loose, sailors. I've got a cannon down your master's throat."

They boarded, Bolan slamming Tony Danger against the cabin bulkhead with a knee in his belly, the muzzle of the Beretta resting directly between the twitching eyes.

He ripped the tape-gag away and commanded, "Tell 'em, Tony."

It took the guy several tries to find his voice. When it came, it was a death rattle. "Do as he says! Don't dick around!"

Turtle Tarantini stepped out of the shadows near the main cabin. He was giving Bolan that same fawning look of respect accorded him earlier, under far different circumstances, and it offered Bolan a variation on his numbers.

"Welcome aboard, Mr. Bolan sir," the Turtle greeted him, the voice shaking just a little.

Bolan snapped, "Where's your crew?"

"Right here, sir. Behind me. You better tell 'em it's okay to come out. We're not armed, sir."

"Step forward and stand to the rail for a frisk. I've got nothing hard for you guys, unless you give me something."

The other two showed themselves, moving carefully, then one by one they came to the rail opposite Bolan's position and presented themselves for the weapons shakedown.

Each one he frisked and sent over the gangway with the instructions, "Don't even look back."

Then it was just Mack Bolan and the guy who, with perhaps some weird presentiment, had named this sleek pleasure craft Danger's Folly.

The man who had fully learned the true meaning of folly was cringing against the cabin bulkhead, wild eyes framed around the black barrel of the Beretta.

Bolan gave him plenty of time to get the feel of imminent death, then he pulled the pistol away and sheathed it. "Get the film," he commanded.

The guy staggered into the main cabin, Bolan close behind. He slid back a wall panel, fumbled with the dial of a safe, and a moment later dropped a small film cannister into Bolan's outstretched hand.

"That's all?" Bolan asked.

"I swear."

'If it's not, I'll be back to see you."

"I swear!"

"Let's go," Bolan said.

They returned to the car — Tony Danger puffing and weaving on unsteady legs.

Marsha Thornton stepped out to greet them.

The deadpan gaze slid the full length of Tony Danger and she said, quietly, "Just look at that."

Bolan opened the can of film and passed it over to her. He also handed her a pencil-flash and told her, "Make sure it's the one."

She examined several frames, quickly, distastefully. "Yes. That's it."

"Burn it." He gave her a butane lighter.

"Right here?"

He nodded. "Right here."

She stripped the cannister, unreeling the film into a loose pile on the cement drive.

As she worked at it, Bolan shoved his prisoner to the side of the car and told the girl, "When you get home, tell your husband all about it. Tell him the hold is gone, except what he built himself and wants to keep for himself. But tell him this. If he stays held, I'll have to come back. And I'll have to break all the holds, my own way. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

She murmured, "Yes, I understand."

"Tell him also that I've located the missing radio gear." He glanced at Tony Danger, then placed a cigarette in his mouth and leaned toward the girl to light it. "I'm going to hit it tonight. I'm giving him that much break. He will understand, just tell him that."

Marsha Thornton, not at all deadpanning anything now, assured the Executioner, "I'll tell him. Thanks."

He said, "Stand back. You'll never get it lit that way."

He pulled her aside, thumbed off a firestick, and tossed it into the pile of film.

It went up in a puff of brilliant incandescence, writhing and shriveling into the nothingness from which it had come, and he told the girl with the glowing eyes, "Now take off. And don't look back. Don't ever look back on this."

She brushed his cheek with moist lips and ran toward her own vehicle.

Bolan told Tony Danger, "You're some rotten bastard, you know that?" Then he crammed the guy into the Ferrari and they returned to town in silence.

Bolan pulled up in front of the police station.

The returning prisoner, baffled but uncomplaining, told the big cold guy beside him, "Listen, Bolan, I — "

"Get out of my car, guy," the frosty voice commanded.

Tony Danger got out and the Ferrari shot forward into the night.

A moment later Bolan pressed the call button on his shoulder-phone, summoning the Politician to a conference.

He told him, "Find Gadgets and get on him right away. I fed Tony the bait and dropped him off. It's All Systems Red now, so let's get into close order."

"I've got something hot from Lisa Winters," Blancanales reported.

"Save it 'til we regroup. I've got to spring this trap."