For six months they prospered. The merchants wanted help controlling the kids on the long block, and if the Pro club told the teen gangs to quit harassing a certain shop, they did or found themselves beaten up.

One shop owner did not understand this form of American free enterprise and refused to pay fifty dollars a week for protection.

Carboni, the biggest of the Pro team, volunteered to have a “talk” with the slender Puerto Rican immigrant who was trying to make a living to support his six children, two sisters, an uncle and three cousins.

The young Carboni called him out in the alley and explained that all the other merchants gladly paid the money to prevent the small gangs of punks from ripping up their stores. The Puerto Rican had learned the money system and could count out change in dollars and cents perfectly, but did not know much English. His fifty English words were not ones Vince Carboni wanted to hear.

Carboni slapped him around a little and the Puerto Rican went for a knife in his pocket. Then Carboni got mad and began to take the “goddamn greaser” apart with his bare hands. The knife got knocked away before it drew blood, and Carboni, who was more than six feet tall and had done enough work in a gym to have developed powerful arms and shoulders, pounded the slender body until it sagged to the ground.

He picked up the unconscious form to give him one last pasting. He swung his big fist at the storekeeper, who was on the verge of consciousness, then swung harder, his scarred knuckles pounding into the man’s jaw.

The crack of bones breaking came softly, but Carboni heard them. He left the body in the alley and swaggered away. Damn! He had broken the little guy’s neck! He’d killed the son of a bitch!

The police did not interrogate the Pro group. Everyone on the block knew that the Puerto Rican had refused to cooperate, but nobody said a word. Carboni went around to the store owners the next day and signed up six more. They quickly made verbal agreements and turned over two weeks in advance of the new seventy-five-dollar fee.

There was no more trouble with the shop owners for almost a year. Carboni took over the leadership of the Pro team as it moved into burglary and then into the armed robberies of a few liquor stores.

When Carboni held his first .32-caliber revolver, he knew he had found his true calling. He practiced until he was proficient with the little gun, then got a .38 and a year later a World War II .45 automatic, used and battered.

When he was nineteen he was invited to work for a loan shark who occasionally needed “persuasion” power with some of his customers. That marked the beginning of a long and fruitful association with the Mafia and the people who now would pay Carboni five million dollars for the removal of their most persistent threat, Mack Bolan.

Vince Carboni looked up and saw that he had reached the cornfield. He glanced back as he moved up to the side of the road, then peered over the low crown. He could not see the bastard Bolan anywhere. He crawled across the ditch, then rose and ran into the cornfield.

No shots.

He felt better. Now, he wanted to get to the farmhouse, set up a trap for Bolan and collect the five million. He would be a legend in the Mafia, the man who blew away the Executioner!

Fifty yards away, Mack Bolan was tying a makeshift bandage around his upper left arm, which was still bleeding. Although he knew where Carboni was, he had not been in a position to shoot. As he tied the bandage with his right hand and his teeth, he watched Carboni bolt through the corn.

The Executioner frowned as he realized Carboni was heading for another farmhouse. He had to get there first and set up a little surprise for him, a deadly one.

Figuring Carboni would penetrate the field deeply enough to remain hidden, and that that would also mask his view of the road, Bolan rose from the ditch, adjusted his equipment and began a jog along the shoulder. The farmhouse was a little more than half a mile away. He should be there in about three and one-half minutes. Carboni could not make that kind of time through the corn.

Bolan ran up the driveway of the farmhouse and was approaching the back door when a shotgun was pushed through a hole in the screen door, and pointed directly at him. He was no more than ten feet away.

“Don’t even breathe hard, young feller. We know all about you. Got it on the telephone. You’re the bastard who shot down young Billy Olsen in cold blood. In my time I’d just blast you straight to hell and bury you in the cornfield.”

Bolan was staring at the shadowy figure of a man about seventy-five years old. “Sir, you’ve got the wrong man. I’m chasing the same man you’re talking about.”

“Not likely. Said you was a good talker. Now put down them weapons and lie down on your back. Do it now. My trigger finger ain’t as steady as it used to be.”

Bolan’s mind raced. Probably buckshot in the gun, which would cut him in two if it hit him. There was nothing nearby to hide behind. There was no bluff left. All he could count on was that the man had slow reflexes.

“I’m not the man you want!” Bolan shouted. “He’s coming right down there by your barn.” Bolan turned and pointed, dived and rolled the other way, then jumped up and zigzagged behind a picket fence around the inner yard. The shotgun roared, but it was aimed high, probably deliberately. Bolan dashed toward the barn and was soon out of range of the buckshot. No more shots sounded.

Bolan looked at the cornfield. He saw no movement. His gaze swept the area as he would a section of no-man’s-land, watching for enemy troop movements. He repeatedly scanned the section nearest the road, moving his eyes like the sweep-line reader on a cathode-ray tube.

He saw a subtle but definite movement of the slender tassels of corn. He watched a wave of motion as though a man was working through the corn toward the barn.

Two cows behind the barn moved slowly into view, chewing their cud. They wandered near the fence toward the spot where the man should emerge from the corn.

Then he appeared. Crouching, Carboni rushed out and ran hard for the barn. The cows were in precisely the wrong spot, shielding Carboni from any shot Bolan could make.

Bolan ran around to the side of the barn and slipped inside. He figured Carboni would come in the building for protection, maybe to pick out an ambush spot. He crouched beside a row of milking stalls and waited.

For a minute there was silence. Then a door squeaked and a shaft of light penetrated the darkness. A silhouette crossed the shaft of light and then the light disappeared as the door closed.

Through the blackness, the Executioner saw that the man whose only job was to kill him stood less than twenty feet away.

Then he heard someone outside the door. Again it opened, again a glaring shaft of light penetrated the blackness, again a dark figure stepped inside and closed the door.

“Now where the hell are you? Seen you come in here, you ornery critter.”

It was the old man. Bolan wanted to warn him, but didn’t, lest he give away his position. Then the time for warning was gone. Carboni’s big .44 AutoMag roared twice. Instantly Bolan raked the area where the AutoMag had fired with a 12-round burst of parabellums.

The back door slid open and before the Executioner could move away from the milking stalls to fire again, Carboni had crawled out. Bolan moved cautiously toward the front of the barn where the old man must be. He opened the door slightly to let in some light and found the farmer on his back, his hands over his chest.

Blood dribbled from his lips.

“I tried to tell you, old-timer,” Bolan said gently.

“Oh,” the farmer said. “Well, it’s too late now.” His head turned slowly to one side as his lifeless hand slid to the straw-covered floor.