He said, "All right, I have the picture. Now let's talk about the lady cop. What was your Mack Bolan assignment?"

"None, but to report your death. Or your escape."

"And everything between you and me has been strictly on the level."

"This I swear, yes."

He said, "Okay, I believe you. Now. Other than the headhunters, exactly what is waiting for me out there, Evita?"

She shrugged daintily. "I do not know. I know only that they are very determined that you die in Puerto Rico."

"Yeah, I got the same reception in Vegas," Bolan muttered. "The Bolan kill is on. They don't even want me in court. They just want me dead."

"They?"

"The feds. The political heat is on."

"This is not just," she whispered.

"Sure it is," he told her. "Nobody gave me a hunting license." He shrugged. "A guy takes his ride and pays his fare. It makes no sense to scream about the high cost of riding. Anyway, this is the way I want it. I don't want a free ride. That would make me just another contract killer."

"You are a man unique," Evita murmured.

"I am a man realistic," Bolan argued. He smiled. "Don't forget Adam and Eve. If they hadn't paid their fare the world would have seen nothing more than a population explosion of hairless apes. The human race is more than a tribe of naked apes, Evita."

"That is most profound," she commented, eyes sparkling.

He kissed her, with tenderness, and then he quickly went down the ladder and began getting into his clothing.

Evita followed a moment later, as he was harnessing into the Beretta's sideleather. She watched him briefly, warmly, then she sighed and began rounding up her own things.

Bolan grabbed her from behind and kissed her again, then he picked up a Thompson and went outside, clad only in the black skinsuit.

The sun was setting at 20 degrees north latitude. He stood quietly on the high ground for a couple of minutes and watched the surrounding countryside and thought of Evita while his ears tuned themselves to the sounds of the land.

She was a hell of a gal. The name itself was the Spanish diminutive for Eve. Little Eve. Not her, hell no. BigEve. Very soon now he would be saying goodbye… to this land, to this woman, to the eternal part of himself which he would be leaving there.

Yes, there were rewards for living large. There were also heavy taxes. He thought of another Big Eve, a Cuban lady soldier he'd met and left forever at Miami Beach… large Margarita. She had died large at Miami Beach, and she'd left a hell of a large marker in the memory of Mack Bolan.

He remembered her stirring poetry, also… stirring for a guy in Bolan's shoes.

"The world dies 'twixt every heartbeat, and is born again in each new perception of the mind." Yeah. Right on, Margarita. "For each of us the order of life is to perceiveand perish and perceiveagain."

The battleorder, Margarita. Life is a battle, from womb to grave, if there is any meaning to it at all. "And who can say which is which — for every human experience builds a new world in its own image — and death itself is but an unusual perception."

Right on, little soldada.

You too, Evita, little policia, right the hell on. He left the hill and circled to the far side of the cabin, continuing the soft recon. Another twenty minutes and it would be dark enough to move out, to keep the rendezvous with Juan Escadrillo, and to go on to the next horse of the carousel.

He stopped to inspect the jeep, then stiffened suddenly and released the safety on the Thompson. A vehicle was coming along that road.

Bolan threw a quick look toward the cabin, then stepped into the timber and moved swiftly along a parallel course with the roadway.

The Executioner felt another unusual perception coming on.

It was, he knew, time to go out of fairyland.

Chapter Eight

The choice

It was a Chevy, one of the small economy models, about two years old, and it was carrying a fresh accumulation of plateau dust. It also carried four men, each of whom seemed very much out of place on this Puerto Rico back-road.

They were total strangers to Bolan. They were also, he quickly deduced, strangers to the land. The vehicle had come to a quick halt at first sight of the cabin, then quietly reversed its track and came to rest around a bend in the road.

As four men stepped outside and stood conversing across the roof of the vehicle. They spoke quietly, too softly for Bolan's ears to pick up more than a word here and there — but definitely English words.

The car was radio equipped. One of the men leaned inside and said something into a mike. A responsive squawk from the radio receiver confirmed that English was the language in use, but again without sufficient clarity for Bolan's understanding.

The problem, from Bolan's standpoint, was the question of identification. If the guys were cops, he could simply fade out. Evita would be left in good hands and Bolan himself would be in no worse shape than at any time since he'd hit the island.

If they were not cops though…

One of the men was pulling a sawed-off shotgun from the rear seat. Another was spinning the cylinder of a heavy revolver and checking the load. The guy at the radio swung back to the outside and passed a soft command to the others.

They split up.

One remained with the vehicle. Another advanced along the road toward the cabin. The other two went to opposite sides and disappeared into the brush.

They were closing on the house.

Bolan would have preferred to take them while they were bunched up. If the guys turned out to be some of Lavagni's scouts, there could be hell to pay now. A guy on the short end of the odds could not afford to allow such a situation to get out of his direct control.

Bolan had done so.

But there was that nagging question of identification… another of the built-in handicaps to the Executioner's war effort.

He moved on deeper and circled back for an approach from the rear, then he stepped onto the road and came in with the fiery red sun setting directly behind him.

The guy was leaning against the car, his attention focused in the direction of the house, when the quiet jungle cat moved in behind him and the heavy steel muzzle of the Thompson dug into his spine.

He stiffened, and froze there, and Bolan could almost feel the tumbling energies of that suddenly electrified mind.

"Okay, okay," the guy said, in a voice with all the moisture suddenly gone out of it. "Don't, for God's sake."

It was a matter of blind reaction versus conditioned instincts, and Bolan had his identification. The guy was no American federal cop; he was no kind of cop.

Without wasting another precious second of time, Bolan whipped the stock of the heavy gun up and against the back of the soldier's skull in a lashing slap. The guy crumbled without a sound and sprawled face down in the dust. Bolan turned him over and gave him another vicious jab to the throat, then he stepped over the lifeless remains and hurried on along the road toward the cabin.

Big Eve was alone up there and definitely not about to fall into good hands.

The one with the shotgun was moving into the yard as Bolan rounded the bend, another was stepping out of the bushes to the right.

The front door to the cabin was standing open, and he saw a flash of motion across that open doorway.

"Hold it!" Bolan yelled, more for Evita's benefit than for anything else.

The guy in front whirled, bringing the shotgun around with him, and the Thompson's opening argument caught him in mid-turn and laid him down in a convulsive sideways sprawl. The shotgun boomed, sending its double-oughts spraying harmlessly into the air.