The Executioner could not storm that town. The whole community was too tightly interlaced with the rot, knowingly and unknowingly ... a "cure" could very easily kill the patient, if not undertaken with delicacy.

Bolan had no wish to subject that lovely old town to an indiscriminate washing with hellfire.

So ... yes ... any incursion into that complex paradise would have to be done softly and cautiously — in the beginning, anyway.

And he would need the brainy remnants of his old death squad.

Blancanales was an expert at acquiring and organizing military intelligence, at blending like a chameleon into any environment.

Schwarz was an electronics genius who could design and build the most sophisticated surveillance devices from scratch.

Both men also knew how to account for themselves in a firefight.

Howlin' Harlan Winters, though … now there was something else. A totally unknown quality in this new war. Friend or enemy? Bolan could not say. The shadows he'd dredged up in Washington were sending up faint little cries from the depths of his mind … careful, careful. But … the Colonel had pinned a couple of decorations on Mack Bolan's chest during that other war ... and they had faced death together on more than one occasion. What would they be facing in San Diego? Dishonor?

Possibly. Maybe even national dishonor.

The man in black shook his head with a perplexed narrowing of his eyes as he gazed out across the lights of the city.

Well, dammit. ...

Some things a guy simply had to play by ear and heart.

San Diego, then.

Death, dishonor, hell itself ... come what may ... San Diego had joined the Executioner's hit parade.

They were Dobermans, a matched set, and the two of them hit the hurricane fence together, each with all four feet scrambling for a hold on the steel mesh, great slavering heads lunging over the top of the barrier, lips curled back in the attack, dripping fangs slashing toward a taste of the man on the outside.

Bolan was damned glad that fence was there.

With a shivering gut, he realized that those sentry dogs fit the rest of the place, and he found himself wondering if there wasn't a better way to begin the probe into San Diego.

The house occupied a sparsely populated stretch of highrise coastline just north of Torrey Pines State Park. It was not a spectacular place — not exactly in the millionaire class — but it seemed to offer the sort of comfort and seclusion which might be sought by a retired combat officer turned industrialist ... with something or someone to fear.

An English tudor style, it probably combined all the charm of an earlier age with the most lavish conveniences of the late twentieth century — and it was not a bad way for an old soldier to fade away.

As for the super-security — this seemed to fit the new image of General Harlan Winters — the image which had lately become so disquieting to the world's foremost Mafia-fighter.

A row of stubby, wind-stunted trees marked the circular periphery of the cliffside property. Set just inside this natural barrier was a double row of hurricane-fencing spaced about ten feet apart, neither row being of forbidding height but high enough to discourage the casual trespasser.

As a further note, bright red signs were placed along the outer fence with the warnings:

DANGER GUARD DOG RUN

In this regard, Rosario "Politician" Blancanales had earlier made his scouting report to Bolan: "He keeps a couple of ornery Dobermans penned up in a little demilitarized zone surrounding the house. You don't go through there without permission, unless you want to get eaten alive."

So Bolan had come prepared for the Dobermans.

"Crossman air pistol, hypo darts," he had decided. And he'd instructed Blancanales, "Check the dosage carefully. We just want to put them down for a half-hour or so, not forever."

So now here he was at Howlin' Harlan's Del Mar beach house and it was time for the first probe into the trouble at San Diego. The weather was one of those fantastic Chamber of Commerce specials — a night almost as bright as day with the moon and stars seeming to hover at fingertip distance, the entire area wearing the heavens like a close-fitting bonnet — the breeze coming in off the Pacific like a lover's moist kiss.

Yeah, a night for romance, Bolan thought wryly — not warfare.

But warfare it had to be.

The saliva-dripping snarls from the Dobermans were not exactly moist kisses, and their rebounds against the heavy fencing were becoming frantic under the kill-instinct.

The tall man in combat black cooly checked the load in the Crossman, then he thrust the muzzle through the steel mesh of the fence and sent a syringe through. It caught the nearest dog in the tender zone just inside the shoulder. He sat down quickly, as though someone had thrown a de-activate-switch inside his head, whimpering and licking at the offended zone.

The other one went down just as quickly and peacefully.

Blancanales moved out of the tree cover and bent his back beside the fence. Bolan took the boost and went over quickly. As he touched down inside, the Politician showed him a droll smile and murmured, "I think there were just two."

Bolan whispered, "Funny, that's funny," and knelt to examine the tranquilized animals. He withdrew the darts and ruffled the fur in the areas of entry, then passed the Crossman and the darts through to his companion. "Okay, I'll take it from here," he growled. "Get on station and stay hard."

Blancanales tossed an exaggerated salute and abruptly disappeared into the trees. Bolan crossed the dog run and scaled the interior fence, then made a cautious advance across the grounds, blending with the landscape and the shadows wherever possible.

He was in blacksuit. Hands and face were also blackened. At his right hip was the formidable .44 AutoMag — beneath the left arm, the black and silent Beretta. Slit pockets on the lower legs held a variety of small tools. Several miniaturized electronic gadgets were carried in a belly-pouch.

Halfway across the grounds, Bolan paused in the shadow of a flowering shrub to establish contact with the warwagon, left several hundred yards behind under the command of Herman "Gadgets" Schwarz.

"I'm inside," Bolan reported in a husky whisper. "How's it sound?"

A tiny voice purred up from his shoulder in reply: "Great, coming in five-square on all channels. It's a go."

Bolan went.

This was to be a soft probe, an intelligence mission — not a hard hit.

Howlin' Harlan had once been a friend.

The problem now was one of re-identification. Harlan Winters, Brigadier General, U.S. Army retired. Friend or foe?

Either way, Bolan knew, Winters could well be the most dangerous problem so far encountered in this eternal damned war of his.

He could very well become the final problem.

By all the indicators, Howlie was a high-priced front man for the syndicate. Bolan had known of those indicators even before his arrival in San Diego.

Indicators, of course, were not always accurate.

If the general was really in a mess, Bolan could not turn his back on the man.

On the other hand ... if Howlie was as dirty as Bolan suspected ... then he could not turn his back on that, either.

Yeah, it could become a twenty-karat mess.

Therefore, friend or foe, the seal on General Winters had to be complete, positive and one hundred percent authentic. And it had to be done without the general's knowledge.

So this was more than a simple soft probe. It was a target-verification mission.

Howlin' Harlan Winters, once one of the most respected strategists in Vietnam, had to be outflanked and sealed.