The van's gas tank exploded, shooting a tidal wave of roaring fire from one end of the van to the other.

Thomas's flaming body was hurtled through the windshield, where it snagged on the sharp glass, trapping his burning flesh in the flames.

"Babette!" Bolan called, and she pulled herself to her feet and ran to him, a sickened expression on her face.

"Oh, God. Oh, my God," she moaned as she watched Thomas's impaled and writhing body sizzle into something unrecognizable.

"Never mind him," Bolan snapped. "It's better than he deserved."

Bolan retrieved his holstered Beretta from the smoking corpse, then pulled Babette to her feet and led her down the road at a slow jog. Yeah, he thought, glancing over his shoulder at the flaming van and scattered bodies, at Tanya's limp and lifeless shape, sometimes the debts do get paid. In full. "And his enemies shall lick the dust," said Bolan to himself, quoting Psalm 72, the Psalm for Solomon. That is certainly true, he thought, turning to face the open road, in the drizzle just starting, the foul weather of Europe so full of the feeling of history, as he went on with his fate mile. Mission complete in full. Now back to Jack. And to America, thank God. A thick conspiracy had been unraveled in the space of a few heartbeats. That is all it took. Months of planning, and terror, and humiliation had preceded Mack Bolan's arrival, had unawares-awaited the tumbling of the numbers. For when the Executioner hit, he hit fast. The complications were reduced to threads of traumatized tissue in seconds. Hit and git.

The American way. Forget those goddamned complications.

The Mack Bolan Legend

Nothing less than a war could have fashioned the destiny of the man called Mack Bolan. Bolan earned the Executioner title in the jungle hell of Vietnam.

But this soldier also wore another name — Sergeant Mercy. He was so tagged because of the compassion he showed to wounded comrades-in-arms and Vietnamese civilians.

Mack Bolan's second tour of duty ended prematurely when he was given emergency leave to return home and bury his family, victims of the Mob. Then he declared a one-man war against the Mafia.

He confronted the Families head-on from coast to coast, and soon a hope of victory began to appear. But Bolan had broken society's every rule. That same society started gunning for this elusive warrior — to no avail.

So Bolan was offered amnesty to work within the system against terrorism. This time, as an employee of Uncle Sam, Bolan became Colonel John Phoenix. With a command center at Stony Man Farm in Virginia, he and his new allies — Able Team and Phoenix Force — waged relentless war on a new adversary: the KGB.

But when his one true love, April Rose, died at the hands of the Soviet terror machine, Bolan severed all ties with Establishment authority.

Now, after a lengthy lone-wolf struggle and much soul-searching, the Executioner has agreed to enter an "arm's-length" alliance with his government once more, reserving the right to pursue personal missions in his Everlasting War.