It worked for Kennedy. It got him qualified enough to honcho a mission like this for no less a vip than Mr. Leonard Jericho himself.

Kennedy smiled at the reflection in the dark glass.

Yes, it worked and here you are. You're sitting on a cargo worth enough to get you into a life of comfort forever.

Enough time had passed.

Kennedy stalked across the office and locked the door from the inside. Then he went directly toward what appeared to be a bare niche in one wall.

He was thinking that there was one man, a newcomer, here tonight who might understand the truth about what kind of a man Kennedy really was. If such was indeed the case, then that man might have ideas of his own. The thought did not sit well with the boss merc.

Kennedy stepped up to the niche in the wall, then stooped down and used his right-hand thumb to press on a part of the floorboard where wall met floor.

The wall section slid sideways to reveal a steep narrow flight of stairs.

Movie stuff, smiled Kennedy.

The wall slid noiselessly back into place behind him. Kennedy briskly continued down the stairs.

He was thinking about the big, quiet man with the steely blue eyes.

Kennedy knew that a direct confrontation between himself and Michael Rideout could only end in death. They were equals with regards to capabilities. The big man had a look of deadly competence, the quiet look of a true hellgrounder.

Kennedy had convinced himself that "Rideout" was not the guy's real name. And that a confrontation with the big guy was somehow inevitable. It was coming soon.

Tonight.

Along with everything else.

8

Mack Bolan, on combat duty in Vietnam, led his Penetration Able Team on many successful classified missions behind enemy lines. Bolan was a penetration specialist, a penetration master.

That was how he appreciated immediately, by taking position in the background from where a soft surveillance could be maintained, the interesting information that security at the Jericho villa in Bishabia was very tight.

The Executioner felt a respect for Kennedy in the manner in which Jericho's top merc had deployed his manpower to guard this villa. Subliminal quivers in the psyche called Bolan to quick-pass a number of emplacements that were planned to bite inward as well as out. This was the whole nine yards here. It tickled something in his combat instinct, he felt the tremor of the game now.

The death look they wore indicated that the soldiers in this base were lethal even if they were also non-notable, the wolf pack fit to devour at any moment, savages in every respect.

After he outfitted himself in the armory in desert camouflage fatigues, and armed himself with a Galil, some grenades and a holstered Browning hi-power, Bolan made his way across the villa's courtyard, past the Hueys and up the tall ladder to the parapet, toward the villa's southeast corner. Mike Rideout was obediently following Kennedy's orders.

Bolan eyed Kennedy's heavily armed troops as he did so. In addition to a few AK-47s, Galils and Largos, he also noted several new Beretta Model 70 assault rifles that Bolan knew to be capable of spitting out 5.56mm death-dealers at a blistering 700 rpm.

Some of the mercs wore munitions belts heavy with grenades. Two men seen by Bolan wore .357's on their hips Western-style, the way Bolan now wore his Browning hi-power.

The only other small arms he could see were several SIG 9mm Parabellum P210 autos. Some of the mercs carried these in underarm shoulder holsters.

"Rideout" had drawn duty with a U.S. merc named Teckert, who sat perched behind a belt-fed Cartouche light machine gun, tripod-rigged atop the wall's ledge. A sheet held up by four posts protected each of these gun posts from the sun.

Teckert was a man of few words.

So was Bolan.

They got along fine.

Nothing moved beyond the villa walls. Utter stillness reigned.

At one point a Swede merc named Hohlstrom came along the parapet. Teckert introduced Hohlstrom to Bolan. Hohlstrom barely nodded. His eyes were dark marbles. His expressionless face was hard beneath a high intellectual brow and a pate of thinning hair.

Hohlstrom said nothing to Bolan.

Hohlstrom and Doyle exchanged grunted monosyllables, then Hohlstrom lumbered on. This was a world where a man kept his counsel unless he knew well the man to whom he was speaking.

A few minutes later another merc approached along the parapet. Apparently, Kennedy had roving sentries in addition to those at set stations, like Teckert and Rideout.

This merc was a German national named Bruner. Teckert and Bruner knew each other; there was a brief, low-keyed exchange between the two mercs as Bolan eavesdropped.

"So what do you think of this scene, Teckert? Easy money so far?"

"So far."

"Reminds me of the time we took Brother Khaddafi's wages at Aozou in Chad. Remember?"

Teckert spat over the wall.

"I remember. I hate these frigging desert jobs."

"But do you remember the women of Aozou?" prodded Bruner with a guttural laugh.

Teckert grunted. "Yeah, I remember. Too bad we had to torch that village."

Bruner snorted. "You should not think, my friend."

And he moved on.

Yeah, thought Bolan. These are the bad ones. These are the purest enemy.

Don't think, huh? Very soon, Mack Bolan was going to force them to think, even though it would be their last lesson.

He was going to teach them an essential paradox of warfare. He was going to show them that men are never more in danger than when they believe themselves secure.

And that they — or rather he, Mack Bolan — would never be more secure than when in the very greatest danger.

That required some thought. Mack Bolan's kind of thinking.

"Be right back," grunted Bolan to Teckert. "Time for a pitstop."

Bolan ambled off toward a nearby ladder leading down from the parapet.

Teckert said nothing to stop him. He continued gazing out from behind the Cartouche machine gun at the dark wasteland beyond the villa walls.

Bolan kept his easy pace until he had climbed the ladder to a point out of Teckert's line of vision. Once he could not be seen, Bolan moved with speed and economy of movement.

Even in the light-hued desert camo fatigues, Mack Bolan was a wraith in the darkness as he descended to the base of the wall. He carried the Browning and, on its strap over his shoulder, the Galil assault rifle.

This corner of the villa was removed from the hubbub in the courtyard. Bolan found himself in mottled shadows. He melded with the lighter shades, reversing the tactic he used with his skintight combat blacks. His movements were of silence and cunning, pure stealth in the pale night.

He strode along the far end of the courtyard, toward what looked like the main residence.

He turned right at a generator shack that was feeding power to Jericho's villa.

It would have been a pleasure to plant some plastique in the generator shed. But Mike Rideout was not in a position to be carrying that kind of material.

Bolan moved on, angling toward the part-time residence of Leonard Jericho.

Bolan figured the odds were as good as not that Eve was being held in this villa outside Bishabia. Therefore an intel probe was required.

He cut into the shadows under a stone arch. He was near a side door to the private residence. He could see a faint light glowing from a window along the wall.

Bolan tried the door handle. The door was unlocked, as he had expected it to be. Security around here came from guns, not locks. What could not be contained by heavy guard deserved to be trapped into temptation.

Bolan slipped soundlessly into a darkened foyer.

His every sense was alert as if to sniff out a trap. The only light in the hallway was a rectangle of illumination midway down the corridor, coming from a half-open door that corresponded with the light Bolan had seen from the outside.