At its sound, he bent forward, using the barrel of his pistol to brush aside the wet hair plastered to Hanley's forehead. It was almost a caress. The cold metal barely made contact with the skin.

Hanley shuddered. He knew what was coming. The gun barrel swayed before him like a cobra waiting to strike. Then it was over. Robert Hanley felt nothing as the bullet blasted through his forehead. It was over so quickly that he didn't hear the shot that killed him.

The killer straightened and looked distastefully down at his victim, nudging aside a few skull fragments with the toe of one Italian Loafer. He wiped the blood on Hanley's shirt, then slipped through the door, leaving it open in his haste.

Bolan bent to retrieve the briefcase, and sprinted back through the trees toward Hanley's house. When he reached the main lawn, he noticed that the front door was wide open.

Approaching it carefully, Bolan paused to place the briefcase against the base of a tree. He slid the Beretta out of its holster and sprinted to the broad stone porch.

Creeping softly, the gun extended, Bolan reached the doorway and spun through it. The house was deathly silent. Bolan watched the stairwell in front of him as he stepped deeper inside.

Hanley's body lay off to one side. Keeping an eye on the stairs, he knelt to feel for a pulse. There was none. The ugly hole in Hanley's temple told Bolan all he needed to know.

Bolan stepped back to the doorway. He strained to peer into the darkness of the trees. Whoever killed Hanley might still be out there.

Waiting. For him. He could be anywhere in the trees, just sitting on a clear shot. Bolan wouldn't give him one.

He bolted to the top of the stairs and stepped into a bedroom. It was full of stuffed animals. A kid's room. And the kid's father lay dead at the bottom of the stairs. Somebody would pay for that. Those two guys dead in the meadow weren't enough compensation.

Bolan wanted the guy who had pulled the trigger downstairs.

Bolan could see nothing moving as he peered through the window. If there was anyone out there, he was awfully patient. Good, Bolan thought. Let him wait.

Sprinting back down the stairs, Bolan searched for the floodlight switches. He found what had to be them behind the open main door. With a single swipe of his hand, the outside plunged into darkness. Now let that son of a bitch look out.

Bolan rushed to the rear door, slid the bolt back and stepped into the darkness of the patio.

Swiftly he crossed the rear lawn and melted into the trees. Moving silently, he circled back toward the front, stopping every few yards to listen.

If there was anyone in the trees, he could move only when Bolan moved. To keep the guy off-balance, Bolan staggered his pauses. He had nearly reached the driveway that marked the halfway point in his circuit of the house.

As he stepped into the clearing to cross the driveway, a slug whistled past his ear. Down at the bend in the driveway, where it swept to the left before meeting the road, Bolan saw a car. It was gone in an instant, but it looked like the Buick. The guy must have run for the car, then sneaked back while Bolan had been in the house.

The Executioner knew it was useless, but he snapped a burst through the trees at the end of the drive. The squeal of peeling rubber told him he had missed. He sprinted for his own car, knowing there was no way in hell he could catch the killer. There were too many roads winding through the woods and farms. The guy would be gone before Bolan had even reached the end of the drive. But he couldn't stay here. It was too late to do anything for Hanley, and there were other things to do. His own car was still where he had left it. He slipped in, keyed the ignition and... silence. Releasing the catch, he got out and opened the hood. Everything was intact.

Everything that was there. The distributor cap lay back like a dead octopus. The rotor was gone.

The killer was home free. Angry and dispirited, Mack Bolan walked back up the driveway to the house. He knew he had to call Brognola anyway, so he might as well do it from Hanley's. He wasn't looking forward to the conversation. He was looking forward to something else, though. Retribution. The bastards who had killed Hanley had done it for one of two reasons: either they enjoyed it or Hanley had known one of them.

Otherwise, there was no point in killing the man. Not when they'd gotten the papers they'd come for. Not when the guy didn't have a gun and couldn't defend himself.

Nope. This one was going to eat at him until he found the men responsible.

For Hanley.

And for the kid who collected the stuffed animals.

5

Paydirt, at long last. Rachel Peres was about to attend a meeting, one she had tried to be invited to for nearly a year. Working her way into the bowels of the antinuke movement had been tedious.

So many times, just as she thought she was about to reach the inner circle, she had come up against another wall. The movement was like an onion. The more she peeled away, the smaller it got. But there was always another layer, and another. But now she had made it.

Her feelings were contradictory on the eve of victory. She had met several people she liked, and some she didn't. Like any loose coalition, the movement was constantly shifting. People came and went.

Some saw and heard things they didn't like and formed splinter groups. Others simply never returned.

The one thing she was sure of was the constancy of a small group who never seemed to lose faith. And they never seemed to need money, despite the fact they didn't work for a living. If Peres could find out where their backing came from, she knew she'd have the lead she was searching for. And now she had it. The engraved invitation to become part of their inner circle.

Don Patterson, the man she had become the closest to, had set it up for her. The minute he'd opened his mouth, she'd known what was happening.

Don was a hanger-on, always at the fringe. But he knew everybody. He was innocuous enough, and he never lacked enthusiasm. That made him useful as a messenger and a gofer. Don was the ultimate tool. Whether he realized it or not, Rachel didn't know. She was sure it wouldn't matter to Patterson anyway. He only wanted to see and be seen, to get coffee for the movers and shakers. He couldn't have cared less if his exploitation were announced in a full-page ad in the New York Times. Rachel, too, had used Patterson. But her reasons were impersonal, even noble. Patterson was the key, and she had to unlock that final door before she could blow the whole business out of the water. Last night Patterson had called.

He had asked her if she wanted to meet Malcolm Parsons. She had jumped at the chance, but had kept her cool. Parsons was the heaviest antinuker around. He seemed to be everywhere at once. Not a week went by when his picture wasn't in the papers. He was always giving speeches, leading demonstrations, going to jail or getting out of it.

If she could get next to Parsons, she would be in a position to learn everything. Sure, she had hunches, suspicions, guesses. But Peres knew she couldn't put anybody away with that kind of ammunition. And if she was right, Parsons was dangerous. He was a manipulator. Parsons had organized several of the most disruptive demonstrations in the past year, including a thirty-four-day sit-in at the gates of the Willham power plant on Long Island. He had been behind a break-in at the NRC regional offices in New York City, during which low-level radioactive waste had been strewn around the offices and dumped into the file drawers. And that was when Peres had gotten suspicious. If Parsons had access to that kind of material, what else could he get his hands on? And how?