And, yeah, San Diego was going to be one hell of an interesting war zone.

It had not been a spur of the moment decision to penetrate the Winters place, but a carefully planned operation, entailing several days of patient scouting and fastidious intelligence-gathering.

The job inside the house would require only a few minutes to perform. But only because so much attention had gone into advance preparations.

Bolan had scouted the terrain by boat, by car and on foot — covering specific periods of both day and night — noting comings and goings, visitors, trying to get some feel for the household routine, the people who lived there, worked there, slept there.

Blancanales, meanwhile, had nosed around the area in a home-delivery bakery truck, seeking and cultivating talkative neighbors, tradesmen, and local characters.

Gadgets Schwarz had engineered a telephone tap from the primary cable junction and had 48 hours of electronic surveillance recorded on the gear inside the warwagon.

So, sure, the thing should have gone pretty smooth. Bolan had known exactly where to go and which areas to avoid. He had a diagram of the interior layout of the house — he knew the ins and outs of the place — and he knew how to accomplish the most good in the least time.

The idea had been to rig the joint for sound, all the places that mattered, anyway — the entrance hall, the study, the dining room and a private little secondary study which adjoined the general's bedroom.

And, yeah, it should have gone off like clockwork.

It did not.

Bolan's first stop was at the large combination library-study at the downstairs rear.

Dying embers glowed feebly in a huge rock fireplace.

The only other light was at the far corner of the room, where a hi-intensity beam lamp was brightly illuminating a small area of a gleaming mahogany desk and offering the stark profile of a lovely young woman who stood woodenly behind the desk.

She was a tall girl, mid-twenties or thereabouts, soft blonde hair lying on golden shoulders, wide spaced eyes with lots of depth which right now seemed to be reflecting hell itself. She was wearing a see-through sleep outfit, and there were many interesting revelations there.

Bolan knew at first glance that she was Lisa Winters, the general's niece. He'd watched her through binoculars earlier that day as she swam and sunned nude on the private beach below the house.

She looked even better in the close-up, despite the fact that she appeared ready to come totally unglued at any moment.

Howlin' Harlan was present, also — in a sense. His body was slumped in a large wingback chair near the fireplace. Both arms dangled stiffly toward the floor. Part of his skull was missing. A lot of blood had streamed down the face and dried there. Dark stains and splotches across the front of the fireplace showed where more of it had gone.

He'd been dead awhile.

An army Colt .45 lay on the floor beneath his right hand.

The girl was staring at Bolan as though she'd been standing there waiting for him to come in and take charge.

He went straight to the general and dropped to one knee in front of the chair, inspecting without touching the grisly remains of the fightin'est chicken colonel he'd ever served under.

Bolan growled, "Gadgets."

A cautious "Yo," responded via his shoulder-phone.

"Howlin' Harlan is dead."

After a brief pause, Schwarz's choked voice replied, "Roger."

"Mission scrubbed. Tell Pol. I'm rejoining."

"Roger."

Bolan sighed to his feet and swiveled about to regard the girl. She had not moved a muscle.

He said, simply, "Too late."

"Long ago," she said. Her throat was dry and the words came out withered and gasping for life.

"What?" Bolan asked, not sure he'd understood.

"It's been too late for a long time," she repeated listlessly. Her eyes raked him from head to toe with half-hearted interest. "What are you, a Del Mar commando or something?"

He replied, "Or something," and turned his back on her to examine the smouldering ashes of the fireplace.

"I burned it all," she told him, the voice rising and bristling with taut defiance. "So you can go back and tell that to whomever sent you."

Bolan muttered, "The hell you did." He was gingerly salvaging a sheaf of scorched and blackened papers.

"That's all you care about, isn't it!" the girl screeched. "The damned papers! They're all any of you care about!"

She was at the edge of hysteria. Bolan went on about his business, extinguishing the dying sparks and carefully stuffing the salvage into his belly pouch. Then he went to the bar, poured a slug of scotch into a water glass, carried it to the girl, and held it to her lips. She sipped without argument, then strangled and pushed the glass away.

"I don't need that," she gasped.

"When did it happen?" he asked gruffly.

"I don't know. I just — who are you? How'd you get in here?"

"Have you called anyone yet?" Bolan asked, ignoring her queries.

She shook her head.

'It's time to." He picked up the telephone. "Who do you want to call?"

"Carl, I guess."

"Who is Carl?"

"Carl Thompson, our attorney."

Bolan found the number on a phone list attached to the base of the telephone. He set up the call, waited for the first ring, then pressed the instrument into the girl's hand and steered it to her head.

He went away, then, pausing at the doorway long enough to make sure that she had made a connection.

As he faded through the doorway he heard her saving, "Carl, this is Lisa. The general shot himself. He's dead. Help me. God please help…."

Howlin' Harlan Winters had been "sealed" for good.

And, yeah. It was going to be a hell of an interesting war zone.

He had been an OD soldier — acigar chewing, cussing, emotional and one hell of an inspiring C.O. — a true leader whom men followed because he led, not because he'd been created by Act of Congress.

He hadn't always been the most popular officer in camp. Some men found it hard to measure up to Howlin' Harlan's image of the fighting man. They muttered and bitched and frequently promised themselves that they'd shoot him in the back some dark night, and a few openly entertained ideas of shooting themselves as a means of being rotated out of Howlie's command — but one and all respected the man; some openly and warmly loved Harlan Winters; others would have gladly given their lives for his.

He'd been a latter-day Patton, a real soldier's soldier.

Yet, less than a year into civilian clothes, he had died in utter defeat.

This was the part which Mack Bolan could not accept.

Sure, good men sometimes went wrong.

But not that wrong.

Bolan could not buy it. He could not read Harlan Winters as a suicide.

"So what's your reading, then?" Blancanales asked him.

"I don't know," Bolan muttered in reply. "I'm no cop. Even if I were, though, I'd have the same signs to read. The signs all say, sure, Howlie knew the world was closing in on him and he took the easy way out. My gut can't read signs though, Pol. And in my gut I know that all the signs are wrong."

Schwarz put in, "Mine agrees. Howlie didn't kill himself."

The three men had been working for hours over the charred papers which Bolan had salvaged from the Winters' fireplace.

Twelve sheets of typewritten correspondence had been fairly well-reconstructed; these seemed to be an exchange between Winters and a Pentagon official involving "Quality Acceptance Waivers" on several large shipments of war materiel which the Winters firm was producing under government contract.

Various other charred remnants provided intelligence which seemed to confirm the suspicion about Harlan Winters which Bolan had brought from Washington.