She switched off the overhead light. "I hope you don't mind being room-mates with Rudi," she said. "He's been so lonely since you killed his friend Klaus."

"What you mean is, you don't trust me and you want someone to stand guard. Especially now that tomorrow is D-Day."

Tanya ignored Bolan's words. Instead she turned to face him where he sat on the edge of his damaged cot, and she began to unbutton her blouse. The room was semidark, washed with swaying shadows from the flickering hurricane lamp.

It reminded Bolan of being at the bottom of a lighted swimming pool. He watched quietly as she unfastened each button, not hurriedly, but not with deliberate slowness either-methodically, as if she were field stripping a rifle. When she had finished with the last button of her green combat shirt, Bolan confirmed what he'd known all Mong, that she wore no bra despite her ample breasts. Tanya took a few steps closer to him, as if waiting for him to make the next move. Her shirt hung open, revealing smooth dark skin and the soft swell of firm breasts. "We've decided to let you live," she said suddenly, her voice all business. "And, after completing our mission tomorrow, we will give you a percentage of the profits."

"How big a percentage?" Bolan asked.

There was an edge of anger in her voice. "Big enough. You should learn to be happy with what you get, grateful even."

Bolan let his eyes drift down to her open shirt. "And how do you want me to show this gratitude?"

"However I decide," she said, taking and her step toward him. There was the sound of a rapid knock on the door. Without waiting for a reply, Hermann pushed into the room. "Say, Rudi, I wanted to know..." He looked up, surveyed the room, lingered an extra moment on Tanya's open blouse, began stammering. "I... uh... Rudi was supposed... I'll j-just...." He started to back out the door.

"Idiod!" Tanya barked. "Come here!"

Hermann nervously closed the door and marched toward her. The buxom commander made no attempt to rebutton her blouse. Somehow that was even more demeaning to the German, as if his opinion was too insignificant to care about.

"Don't you know any better than to enter a cabin without being invited in?"

"Yes, but I thought Rudi was, well, I thought..."

Her hand shot through the air and slapped Hermann across the cheek. His head snapped to one side.

"I don't care what you thought. This is not Rudi's cabin. It is my cabin. All the cabins are my cabin. You are permitted to stay in one of my cabins because I choose to suffer your presence. Do you understand?"

He looked at Bolan sheepishly.

"Don't look at him," she yelled, slapping him again with both a forehand and backhand.

Blood swelled on his lower lip and trickled down his chin. "Now answer me."

"Yes, Commander Morganslicht. I understand."

"Interesting training technique," Bolan said.

"There's a little of the storm trooper in you after all." Tanya spun around, her eyes black and blazing. "You think my troops aren't loyal to me because I am forced to discipline them occasionally? How little you understand us, Sergeant Grendal. It is not like your own decadent army. I am a parent to my followers, treating them as I would my own children. And sometimes, like any parent, I must punish them for their own good and that of their family."

"Yeah, sure."

"You doubt me?"

"Nope. Just wouldn't want to turn my back on them if I were you."

She walked over to the hurricane lamp and carefully removed the hot glass cover. The shadows in the room shifted slightly. "Hermann," she said and he walked over to where she stood. "Give me your left hand."

Without hesitation, he stuck out his left hand which she guided by the fingertips until it hovered less than two inches above the yellow flame.

Hermann winced, his face clenching into a tight sweating mask of endurance. She held the hand there, all the time staring into Bolan's eyes and smiling. The sickening sweet smell of burning flesh wafted through the air. Bolan could hear the skin sizzling and blistering.

"Enough," she said, turning the hand away from the hungry flame.

Sweat dripped down Hermann's face, pain knotted his brow. He stood still, without a sound. Tanya flipped the burned hand over and showed it to Bolan. The flesh was charred in the center, still smoking around the crisp circle. It looked as if a small comet had struck his palm. "That is loyalty, Sergeant Grendal. The type your kind will never fathom. That's because with us, loyalty is repaid." She lifted Hermann's damaged hand lovingly to her mouth and kissed the blistered wound. Then she lowered it again, slipping it under her open blouse and pressing it itgainst her firm breast. Despite his intense pain Hermann stared greedily at her open blouse. Tanya smiled at him and patted his cheek. "Now go get this bandaged."

He left quickly.

"Naturally I used his left hand so as not to jeopardize his fitness with a rifle for tomorrow's assault."

"How thoughtful."

She replaced the glass bell on the hurricane lamp and turned back to Bolan.

"Your sarcasm does not bother me, Sergeant. I have been very good to these men. I have slept with most of them at least once. Does that shock you?"

"No, it bores me."

She stood staring at Bolan for a full minute without moving. Her face was a fixed mask etched in ice.

Bolan returned her stare without blinking. He tried to penetrate the frosty exterior to understand what went on inside her head. From observation he had determined that both the twins were certifiably crazy.

Thomas Morganslicht was probably born that way, or at least acted as if he'd always been nuts. But Tanya Morganslicht seemed to have chosen craziness as a life-style. And that made her the more dangerous. Finally she broke off her stare, though Bolan figured she could have kept it up for hours had she wanted to. She buttoned the front of her blouse and walked to the door, pausing only to say. "You will need your rest for tomorrow." Then she closed the door behind her.

Bolan stretched out on the surviving cot he tried to formalize a plan to free the hostages, foil tomorrow's mission, and devastate the Zwilling Horde until they were nothing more than a smoking hole in the ground. Simple, sure. The situation was an arousing one for the Executioner.

Thomas Morganslicht had hated him from the start.

After his humiliating beating, Rudi Blau would probably try to kill him at first opportunity.

And now he had alienated Tanya Morganslicht until tonight his only ally. Yeah, things were heating up all right. And tomorrow they would boil over. The question was, who would be scalded most?

18

General Fordharn "Cruiser" Wilson tightened the belt of his bathrobe as he walked down the long staircase. It was barely 05.00 but the bright morning sun was already seeping through an early fog all over Germany. He loved these crisp, clear German mornings, remembering fondly how many of their sunrises he had witnessed when he was younger. A smile spread across his face and he shook his head like a proud father at the young man he used to be. Ah, well, never again. Not with these kinds of responsibilities.

He tightened his bathrobe again and wandered through the living room into the kitchen. He was surprised to find his houseguest up already, fully dressed, shaved, sipping freshly brewed coffee while he read the morning newspaper.

"Up early, aren't you, Mr. Grimaldi?"

Jack shrugged. "Not for me."

"I see," the general said. But he knew better. He had seen the concern and worry on this man's face ever since he had returned from Munich without the remarkable Colonel Phoenix.

The general was intrigued by the devotion this mysterious colonel seemed to inspire. Hell, he'd even found himself willing to follow the man's orders. The general too had inspired men to fierce loyalty, back when he was a commander in Korea. Despite heavy casualties and biting cold, his men had followed him into the hell jaws of battle after battle. That's where he'd picked up the nickname "Cruiser," because he and his men plowed through the enemy like a runaway battlecruiser. Medals, sure, and plenty of citations, but the one thing he had earned there that really mattered was his men's respect.