RED HORSE

By Don Pendleton

The Executioner 226

PROLOGUE

Massachusetts State Trooper Francis McIlwraith thought he’d seen everything in his twenty-eight years cruising Bay State highways.

He was parked along a blighted stretch of Washington Street in the Roxbury section of Boston. It was night—a bitterly cold moonless evening with the bluish lights of the Prudential Building visible beyond the shabby storefronts and rows of aging three-decker homes. The old superimposed against the new, the twentieth century rising triumphant over the slow-to-die remnants of the nineteenth century.

As he reflected on this, McIlwraith understood that the Boston he had grown up in four decades ago wasn’t the Boston he was charged with guarding this day.

That Boston, which he could only dimly remember, was the Boston of Scollay Square, the Boston Garden and the noisy old Orange Line elevated train trestle that once kept this stretch of Washington Street perpetually in shadow.

The El was gone now. It no longer filled Washington with its intermittent rumble and rattle.

They’d turned his old grammar school into a reform school. Roslindale High was a condo now. The world turned. The past gradually faded, even in historic Boston.

The new Boston stood poised to take advantage of the next century—in ways that were bad as well as good.

McIlwraith was parked on lower Washington Street for one of the bad reasons.

Stakeout was normally a job for the Boston police, but it was a big city and the blue line was stretched to the breaking point. So the governor had ordered in the troopers. It was McIlwraith’s bad luck to catch storefront stakeout detail.

But he didn’t know just how bad as he sipped takeout coffee, his green eyes skating over the darkened street.

There wasn’t much foot traffic. A few furtive hooded figures drifted near, saw the unexpected blue-and-gray state police car parked where it shouldn’t be and quickly turned, melting into the night, trailing plumes of breath steam.

From time to time, the wind picked up that throat-clogging odor of wet burned wood that clung to the city like an evil smog. It made his stomach clench to inhale it. McIlwraith knew that odor from his childhood. A house had burned on his street, killing a child. He no longer remembered the boy’s name, but he remembered the odor. For years after the fire, the charred skeleton of the three decker had emitted that ugly smell each and every time it rained.

Eyes contracting, McIlwraith held the coffee cup to his nose to mask the awful clinging stink.

An old convertible slithered up the avenue a little past midnight. Running without lights, it moved through the alternating pools of light and shadow like a prowling tank, its battered body dulled by a coat of flat gray primer. McIlwraith recognized the make as a Cadillac Eldorado ragtop, vintage 1964. The car’s once-gleaming chrome was pitted with rust. It slowed as it drew alongside the storefront, newspapers plastered to the inside of the windows. McIlwraith dropped the coffee cup into a seat holder and tensed.

One of the vehicle’s windows was clearly down, which could mean a stolen car. Car thieves smashed in windows when they couldn’t jimmy the door locks.

Or it might mean a more violent crime was about to be committed.

As McIlwraith watched, a short thick tube protruded from the open window. It looked like a length of pipe, except it coughed once—a funny blooping sound—and the recoil knocked the fat barrel from view.

The expelled projectile caught a brief tracer-like flash of moonlight as it arced toward the recessed doorway, shattering window-glass with a janging report that was instantly drowned out by a more violent sound.

The night exploded, turning to hellish day.

Flying glass ripped back at the fleeing ragtop followed by trailing arcs of flames and showers of wood molding.

“Damn!” McIlwraith kicked the car into life. The big engine turned over, headlights blazing to catch the Cadillac as it roared by.

Automatically he turned on his light bar.

The lights pinned the two men in the front seat.

Their faces were obscured by black ski masks, but McIlwraith could see their jaws masticating furiously. One gave him a jaunty thumbs-up.

“Right in front of me,” the trooper grunted in disbelief. “The nervy bastards!” His own tires screeching, McIlwraith pulled a hard U-turn and fell in behind the speeding Eldorado. As he came out of the turn, the car began to vibrate. It was a pool car—a 1987 Ford Crown Victoria. The odometer read 152,334 miles. Nearly a decade of three eight-hour daily shifts had ground the once-responsive machine into a clunker. Pool cars were a running joke in the budget-strapped state police department.

It was no joke now. McIlwraith bore down on the accelerator, his light-bar strobing, his siren wailing.

The Cadillac tried to pull away, but its engine seemed to hesitate—no pickup.

McIlwraith let a cool grin warp his sun-blazed features. They were evenly matched.

He called for assistance.

“Nineteen-zero-eight, Code One. Rolling north on Washington Street. In pursuit of suspect firebomb car. Primer gray ragtop.

Tag One Charlie Adam Vincent. Looks like two black males, black ski masks. No other identification.” “Ten-four, nineteen-zero-eight.” No need to let the BP’S have this collar, McIlwraith thought. The whole city wanted the firebombers. And he wanted to be the man to catch them.

Streetlights flicked by. Washington Street ran the length of Roxbury, with busy intersections at every block. They’d hit a red light soon enough. And in Boston traffic, a light meant you stopped dead, because Boston traffic was Boston traffic. No quarter was asked forand none was given.

The Cadillac driver had to have had the same thought. Without warning he cut down Dudley.

McIlwraith sent his cruiser skating around the same corner. With luck, Dudley would be choked with double-parkers and oncoming traffic.

Rounding the corner, McIlwraith let out a low groan. The way was clear. Even the sooty snowpiles hanging on from the previous week’s storm were mostly out of the way.

With a spurt that spit gravel onto McIlwraith’s windshield, the Cadillac lunged ahead. There were horses under that hood, and they were coming to the fore. Like a big gray tomcat, the Cadillac skittered around a corner, ruby taillights glowering. McIlwraith tried the same maneuver, with predictable results. Between the bad rear suspension and a patch of slick ice, he wiped out.

Yawing, the cruiser tried to slide in two directions at once. The front bumper clipped a trash can standing sentinel in an empty parking space, while the rear deck broadsided a fat, dirty snowbank.

Turning into the skid, the trooper fought for control, regained it, and, using the momentum of his skid, wrestled the cruiser back onto the road and let the laboring engine all the way out. It growled in response, an elderly tiger, but a tiger still.

Eyes flicking both ways at each intersection, McIlwraith prowled for his prey. They weren’t getting away, he told himself. Not after three weeks of nighttime terror, and more than a dozen dead, some of them carbonized to charcoal mummies.

Not with all the innocent blood in the streets and the oppressive stink of fire choking the night air.

Not with Francis McIlwraith on the job.

At the state police academy, they taught recruits the rough-and-ready art of high-speed pursuit. Most techniques would carry a man safely through a wild highway chase, but this was the congested heart of Boston, where eighteenth century cow paths had been given nineteenth century names and sealed with twentieth century blacktop. And it was the dead of winter. All bets were off.

Still, McIlwraith had a few moves of his own.

He knew if the Cadillac booked in a straight line, there was no way he’d catch up, never mind overhaul it. He’d gotten into the habit of taking car keys from drivers at routine pullovers because odds were two-to-one the average stock vehicle could outrun his cruiser on a straightaway if a perp decided to cut out on him. But if the Cadillac followed the firebombers” past MO, it, too, would be on the prowl, slinking up and down the congested streets, trying to be inconspicuous as it sought fresh targets.

McIlwraith bet the latter. They were bold, and they were out to burn. Already sirens rent the night—the fire department, responding to the call from H Barracks Dispatch. He caught the hell-red glow of the storefront in his rearview mirror. They had deliberately baited him, as if to prove the law meant nothing to them. It made him grind his teeth with repressed rage.

As he cruised north, he spotted the Cadillac slinking southbound on Blue Hill Avenue. McIlwraith pulled a squealing U-turn and began to pace the battered ragtop.

It stayed on course, intermittently visible down the bisecting cross streets. He blasted ahead, tires whining, and cut down Savin Street to intercept it.

The cruiser screeched to a rocking stop, blocking the intersection. McIlwraith looked south. His face fell; there was no sign of the Cadillac.

“How the hell…” His eyes, dropping out of focus, saw his own angry reflection in the passenger window—and behind it, cold and menacing, the Cadillac was burning rubber.

“Goddamn,” he ripped out, stomping the gas.

The cruiser was roaring again, laying a circle of rubber and smoke.

This time it was a straight-line run. This time he’d nail them.

This time, the elusive Cadillac did an incredible thing. Approaching a red light at Intervale, it stopped, as polite as could be.

“I don’t like the looks of this,” McIlwraith muttered, but the Cadillac’s stationary rear deck was filling his windshield. He tapped his foot on the brake, bringing the cruiser to a cautious halt.

A moment elapsed, just one. The trooper blinked.

Did he have the right car? The plate number was the same. One-Charlie-Adam-Victor.

Picking up his dash mike, he contacted Dispatch. “Nineteen-zero-eight. Suspect car stopped at Intervale and Blue Hill Ave.” “Car on way, nineteen-zero-eight.” “Let’s hope so,” McIlwraith said.

Punching up the plate on his onboard Law Enforcement Agency Processing System, he got a NO RESPONSE readout. The plate was phony.

Unsnapping the flap of his side arm holster and taking the butt of his 9 mm SIG-SAUER P-226, McIlwraith prepared to step out of the vehicle. This was the part of the job that made his stomach tighten. No one respected the uniform anymore, especially this new breed of inner-city gangster.

He never finished exiting his vehicle. He’d gotten the door open and one black boot on the hard cold asphalt, when the soft top of the convertible began to lift.

It was an eerie sight in the cold and the darkness of winter.

Just as the dirty white canvas finished folding onto the dull trunk lid, McIlwraith saw the bore of the biggest gun barrel he had ever seen poking over its folds.

He registered it for only a moment, then a yard-long fiery devil’s tongue began to spit at him, and the street filled with the deep-throated percussive din of hammering autofire.

The cruiser’s hood, windshield and most painfully of all, the driver himself, collected approximately seventy-five heavy-caliber rounds in a nightmarish storm of hot metal that lasted all of ten seconds. McIlwraith literally came apart in his seat. Glass, chrome, steel, blood and bone ricocheted in a dozen directions.

The papers would later describe it as the coldest dawn in Boston history. There was talk of calling in the National Guard, a solution no one wanted because it meant municipal law enforcement had broken down.

As the city prepared to bury its honored dead, no one suspected that its savior was already on the move, a man in black with ice-blue eyes and a rock-steady gun hand. A man with many names, but only one mission. A man named Mack Bolan.

There is no nostalgia for a soldier returning to an old battleground.

Mack Bolan felt no twinge of emotion as he exited the American Airlines plane at Boston’s Logan International Airport, claimed the rental Buick LeSabre in the name of Mike Belasko, tossed his carry-on onto the passenger seat and fought the contentious Boston traffic through the Sumner Tunnel and onto the Central Artery.

A light snow was falling from a pewter sky that hung oppressively low over the city where freedom first took root. Long ago, Bolan had cut a bloody swath from the North End to South Boston and back again, emerging, to his everlasting surprise, both triumphant and alive. It was a very personal foray. The local media still referred to it as the Second Boston Massacre.

That was a lifetime ago, during Bolan’s Mafia wars. The city had changed since then. It had changed every time he’d come back. It was still changing, he saw, taking in the new office towers that crowded one another, transforming the skyline. The past hadn’t been buried; it had been outflanked by the new and made to surrender unconditionally.

More than that had changed, Bolan knew. The city that had a century ago bred Old World footpads with last names like O’Grady and O’Reilly had now ceded its dark warrens to a new breed of gangster, more bloodthirsty and vicious than any of their predecessors.

The Executioner had returned to Boston to challenge this new gangster for control of the streets.

In the South End, Bolan parked his vehicle and unlocked a private two-car garage. The door rattled up, and he shot the LeSabre into the empty grease-stained spot.

Beside it waited a black-and-white Shawmut Cab Company taxi registered to Mike Belasko.

A Chevy Caprice Classic, it sat rust-scabbed and forlorn, a layer of city grime on its white hood and door panels. The vehicle, familiar, unobtrusive, was the perfect urban camouflage vehicle.

Bolan exited the rental, locked it up and aired out the cab.

His equipment cache was right where his contact had been instructed to secrete it—under the taxi’s front seat.

In the dimness of the garage, Bolan donned his blacksuit, strapped on his shoulder rig and slipped his silenced Beretta 93-R pistol into its shoulder leather. Then he donned a concealing black leather duster. A navy blue watch cap pulled over his black hair completed his infiltration garb.

His big frame tucked behind the wheel, Bolan looked like a typical Boston cabbie. His Israeli-made.44 Magnum Desert Eagle lay on the seat next to him, folded casually into a copy of the Boston Herald. It was time for the Executioner to recon the scene of his latest campaign.

He keyed the ignition. Under the grimy white hood, a supercharged big block V-8 engine growled throatily.

Noisy Boston traffic swallowed Bolan at once. He drove alone Washington Street, icy eyes prowling. It was to be a soft probe of the war zone, but he knew soft probes had a way of turning hard.

The first burned-out storefronts started to appear as he slipped quietly into what the Boston police called Area B—Roxbury. The heavy stench of wet burned wood announced a bombed-out three decker, burned down to the studs. The still-standing frame had the ominous black alligatored look of roasted timber. Empty weed-choked lots—some fenced-off as if to prevent the spread of some black contagion—showed here and there. It was the part of Boston not found on the tourist maps. The brick-marked tourist paths of the Freedom Trail shied far from these litter-strewed streets.

There was precious little freedom in Roxbury.

It could be seen in the tight faces of the people on the streets, bundled up against the approaching evening bitterness and the whirling, eye-stinging snow. Here, people weren’t free from want. Here lived fear, hopelessness and the burden of the daily grinding struggle for existence. The temptations of easy money and hard drugs tugged at their hardscrabble existences.

Street gangs had co-opted entire streets, carving out imaginary turf and defending it with more ferocity than if they owned registered deeds.

Here also, honest men and women struggled to support and raise families, dreaming of better homes in safer neighborhoods while doing their best to make this one livable.

Now a new terror stalked the violent night streets of Roxbury.

It had started three weeks earlier with a midnight fire-bombing of a vacant triple decker on Francis Street—a crack house controlled by the Fisher Ave Boyz. That pointed the finger of suspicion toward their gang rivals, the Ruggles Street Blackhawks.

That night was soon punctuated with the crackle and snap of small-arms fire and the Boston City Hospital emergency room had begun filling up.

Yet the bombings continued: a storefront torched on Horadan Street, a clinic on Whittier.

With the war over gang turf heating up, the Boston police figured they had a firebug on their hands and the gang wars were merely a sideshow. But one night the arsonist struck in two spots at once, and the new read was either a copycat or two arsonists.

In the middle of the second week of terror, the arsonists struck in three places at exactly the same time for two nights running. The local authorities threw away the firebug theory. That was deliberate, calculated and coordinated arson.

And no one could reason out why. Empty apartment buildings were hit as often as after-hours variety stores. There was no pattern and no motive, just a mounting toll of destruction that inexorably turned the Roxbury section of Boston into a slow-motion, block-by-block Sarajevo.

Arson for profit was ruled out. Many of the buildings were either uninsured or underinsured.

Police intel fixed the blame on a street gang, but whether the Fishers or the Ruggles, no one could say. The possibility of a third option— one of the growing nationwide urban gangs had occurred to Bolan. That made it a war zone worthy of the Executioner’s intervention.

As he eased carefully into Mission Hill, Bolan’s eyes took in the colorful graffiti scrawled on the dingy brick of the apartment complex at the foot of the Hill—the infamous Mission Hill housing projects.

The crossed devils’ pitchforks of the Chicago Gangster Disciples were nowhere to be seen. Intel had nothing on the Disciples moving into Massachusetts. The Crips and the Bloods were likewise not known to be operating in Boston.

Bolan saw no sign of their spray-paint signatures, either.

But the Executioner knew that it was only a matter of time before the newest plague of organized crime came to Boston. And if any of them set up shop in the Athens of America, the local authorities would be among the last to know. The first would be the entrenched local gangsters themselves. They’d know because it would be their turf up for grabs and their guns blazing back at the interlopers.

Finishing his preliminary recon of the area, Bolan sent the cab circling back on another pass. Night was falling early. The yellow sodium-vapor streetlights came on, turning the softly falling snow into sickly spores that melted on the charred timbers.

Coming up on the corner of St. Alphonus and Hillside, Bolan spotted a huddle of three black teenagers, their faces harder than their years. One looked furtively about, saw only Bolan’s nondescript cab, and, in a quick flutter of fingers, a vial changed hands for a rolled-up tube of folding money.

Despite two years of hard work on the part of the combined local law and the Boston Housing Authority, the Mission Hill area had become the largest open-air heroin market in the northeast. And the traffic was strictly Fisher and Ruggles brands.

Slipping the Desert Eagle into his web belt holster, Bolan eased the cab to the curb where the buy was going down.

Popping his door, he stepped out, a tall imposing figure who immediately commanded attention.

And did. “Five-O!” one of the hoods barked.

The trio broke in three directions. Bolan had already picked his target—the seller. Ducking, his gray sweatshirt hood pulled tight around his head, the youth ran for the projects.

Before he got half a block, Bolan ran him to ground. The Executioner’s pounding boots seemed to intimidate the gangster. Three times he flung anxious looks over his shoulder, trying to gauge his chances for escape. He apparently decided they weren’t good. A chrome-plated.38 came out of his sweatshirt pouch.

Then the toe of his running shoe stubbed a hard shelf of old snow and he pitched forward on his face. The Saturday Night Special clattered away.

Bolan had him then. Reaching down, he yanked the gangster to his feet.

“Lemme go! I ain’t done nothin’!” “I saw it go down,” Bolan said.

“You Five-O?” “Do I look like a cop?” The struggling tough subsided. “You got cop eyes. Ice eyes. You’re Five-O for sure.” “Fisher or Ruggles?” The youth spit. Despite each hard word coming out of his mouth, he seemed to shrink into his baggy clothes, growing younger and younger, until he was more like a kid caught playing hooky than a drug dealer.

“Fishers ain’t shit,” he snarled.

“That makes you one of the Ruggles Boyz.” “What’s it to you?” “Just this. I know the Ruggles aren’t behind these fires.” “Damn straight we ain’t.” “And I don’t think the Fishers are behind them either.” The pusher’s eyes shifted everywhere except in the direction of the Executioner’s face. “Don’t know about that, Jack.” “You’d know if they were,” Bolan said tightly.

“Was I you, ice eyes, I’d let me the fuck alone. My homies ain’t run far and they’re strapped.” “I appreciate the warning,” Bolan said. He continued his interrogation.

“What’s the word on the street about these firebombings?” “I ain’t sayin’ nothin’. You arrestin’ me?

Read me my damn rights, or keep on steppin’.” The snow had been accumulating in the past hour and a steadily thickening layer was coating the city. It was the dry powdery sort that squeaked under even the softest tread.

Bolan detected a furtive squeaking sound at his back, and he saw the eyes of his captive flash as he scrunched down in anticipation of flying lead.

Bolan had the hood by one arm, his grip crushing.

Pivoting, he drew the silenced Beretta from shoulder leather.

The stalker was one of the other two youths. His cheap sneakers were tramping the complaining snow cover with each creeping step, his eyes bright in the shadows of his gray hood.

The soldier brought the 93-R into target acquisition.

The hood had a TEC-9 semiautomatic pistol. One hand on the butt, the other on the ruler-straight 50-round clip, he held it as if wielding a sickle. He apparently thought he was being stealthy, but he had to have realized his mistake when the silenced bore of the Beretta stared back at him.

With a howl, he began jerking the trigger and ducking simultaneously. The TEC pistol was equipped with a hellfire switch that brought the trigger back to prefire position after each snap shot, giving the weapon an extra edge. The trouble was, ducking and shooting didn’t go together. His first two rounds went wild. He never got off a third.

Bolan fired one sure Parabellum round, dropping the gangster in his tracks. He landed hard, the well-tracked snow absorbing his blood like a thirsty sponge.

Another hood slipped around a corner. Bolan sighted, thumbing the fire selector. The Beretta spit a 3-round burst, chipping brick in front of the peering face.

Recoiling, the hood dropped his pistol, grabbed his face and fell screaming onto the filthy snow.

“I can’t see! I can’t see!” “Come on,” Bolan said gruffly, tossing the Ruggles youth into the back of his cab. A thick slab of bulletproof glass partitioned the vehicle’s interior.

When Bolan got behind the wheel, the touch of a button locked the rear doors, a little extra feature he’d ordered. The cab lunged from the curb, took the first corner and climbed Hillside Street to Mission Hill itself.

On Fisher Avenue, he stopped where a long set of cracked concrete steps marched up to nowhere, testifying to a house that had once perched on the brush-choked slope of Mission Hill.

Bolan reclaimed his captive and marched him up the steps in the darkness. “You ain’t no cop,” the punk grumbled. A sliver of worry had infiltrated his belligerent tone.

Saying nothing, Bolan let the cold silence of the night work on the hoodlum’s nerves.

“You gonna jack me up?” Bolan compressed his mouth. The steps were full of snow. There were at least a hundred of them, leading to a snow-coated darkness above the streetlights.

At the top lay an overgrown patch of ground.

Peeling paper birches grew in profusion. The ground was depressed into a shallow concave that had long ago been the foundation of a house.

Bolan spun his captive and let the moonlight wash his hard face. “These arsons,” he began.

“What about “em?” “The word on the street is what?” he demanded.

“Nobody knows who they are,” the hood said in a fear-twisted voice. “They ain’t Fishers.

They sure ain’t Ruggles. They ain’t any of the other ‘Bury crews, either.” “So who are they?” “I told you. Nobody fucking knows.” “They work the neighborhood, so they belong to the neighborhood.” “If they do, nobody can say. I’m tellin” you the truth. We don’t know that crew.” “They have a name? Colors?” “Some dudes call them the gum chewers, on account they’s all the time chewin’ when they do their deeds. Ain’t that a laugh?” Bolan said nothing. He let the cold regard of his blue eyes drill the punk’s face.

The gangster licked his lips and said, “I heard “em called the Blood Horse by one dude.” “Why?” “Someone spotted one taggin” a horse’s head on a buildin’ before he blazed it up. The horse was red like blood, the brother told me.” “Ever see a red horse head gang sign before or since?” “No. That’s the crazy part, what I’m sayin’.

Crews, they show their colors to get respect and let folks know what they’re about. These crazy mothers, they paint their sign on a buildin’, then burn it down. What good is it to make the sign in the first place, is what I’m sayin’. Don’t do no good. It’s crazy.” “They deal heroin?” “Nah. They only deal death.” “And you?” “You already know the answer to that, Jack. We’re about dope and honor.” “Honor,” Bolan said, his tone contemptuous.

This time it was the hood’s turn to say nothing. His eyes looked everywhere except at his interrogator.

“Start walking,” Bolan said after a long silence.

“Where to?” “The same place you’ve been going ever since you joined the Ruggles.” “Yeah, where’s that?” “Nowhere,” Bolan said.

The youth grunted a laugh and half swallowed his muttered, “Chump.” Then he turned and walked up the hill to a brambled path that hugged the rounded summit.

Bolan waited until he had melted into the shadows before turning back down the long flight of steps.

This was Fisher Ave Boyz turf. The Ruggles youth would have a long walk home. If he made it.

None of it was adding up, the Executioner reflected. Street gangs operated within certain narrow MO’S. They sold drugs, fought over girls they’d never marry and turf they had no hope of owning legally. But mostly they died before they reached the age of twenty-five.

Street gangs weren’t about firebombings. They would resort to arson just as they committed other crimes —toward a purpose. The torching of the Fisher Avenue crack house had been deliberate, Bolan decided. But the crack house hadn’t been a target unto itself. The Blood Horse—or whatever the gang called itself—had hit it to stir up intergang rivalry. It was smart strategy. Set the pot a-boil, get the police chasing dead ends to confuse the true issue—all while the real enemy pursued its objectives. Whatever those objectives were.

Bolan got behind the wheel of his vehicle, his face grim. He knew little more than when he’d set out. But his warrior instincts told him he wasn’t looking for an urban street gang at all. That was just a cover, a cover that had been blown the night State Trooper McIlwraith had been butchered by what state police ballistics later determined were.50-caliber machine-gun slugs as he stepped from his cruiser.

No punk street gang packed that kind of armament. But the fact had been suppressed to keep the public from panicking. Only local law enforcement knew the truth: that the real pyromaniacs were packing heavy, real heavy.

But no one, not local law enforcement or the Blood Horse, knew that the Executioner was on the prowl. That was an edge Bolan was determined to keep as long as possible. At least until his hole card was ready.

Lark Youngblood was late. She hated being late. It was against her principles, not to mention the fact that the night DJ left the studio at the stroke of eleven whether she was there or not.

As he put it, “It’s your shift, not mine. So it’s your dead air, not mine.” Her car battery had quit. An arctic wind had been blowing over New England on and off for the past month now, killing winos, stray cats and car batteries with even-handed cruelty.

As she raced up Warren Street, she tried to hail a cab. It was only sheer desperation that made her even try.

Finding a cab after dark in Roxbury was a joke in itself. The cab companies had an unwritten policy: no pickups or drop offs in the “Bury after dark. It was known euphemistically as “a bad area.” It was hard to blame them, Lark had to admit, with all the cabbie killings over the years and all.

The cops owned the streets of Greater Boston, but had virtually surrendered certain pockets.

Roxbury was chief among them. Even now, with their beefed-up street presence, they were holding back the night only a little. They were holding back the nightly holocaust not at all.

So Lark ran as fast as her felt-lined boots could carry her, throwing sharp glances over her shoulder every time car headlights washed over her.

Wonder of wonders, a Shawmut cab came shooting down Warren.

Lark didn’t hesitate. An old boyfriend had once taught her the reckless art of flagging cabs that sometimes selected fares by the color of their skins.

Leaping over a crust of snow, she stepped into the cab’s path.

The cabdriver’s reflexes were sharp, and he stopped with plenty of room to spare. Not that Lark was in any real danger. She’d been dodging Boston traffic all her life.

“I need a ride,” she yelled through the swirling snow, expecting the cabbie to curse at her for her recklessness.

Instead, he said in a low voice, “Get in.” Lark obliged. The door slammed and the cab pulled away. Settling back in the cushions, she let the warmth of the heater filter into her quilted lavender coat.

“I’m going to Station WROX. Tremont and Bromfield.” “No problem.” Lark noticed he was big. She hadn’t discerned his face through the falling snow, but his eyes in the rearview mirror were like chips of blue ice floating in the dark cab’s interior.

“Quiet night,” Bolan said.

“I hope not,” Lark replied.

He cocked an eyebrow, which made his watch cap lift.

“I’m Lark Youngblood. Urban Beat is my radio show. Quiet nights mean a dull show.

Dull shows are death to my ratings.” “I see.” “I just hope I’m not late. Car trouble.” “Call-in show?” Bolan asked.

“What are citizens saying about the fires?” “They hate them.” “Not much surprise in that.” pretty oval face. “It’s got this town in a grip this damned cold front. People can’t sleep and since lying in bed grappling with their fears gets old fast, they call me instead. Some have started talking about moving out, but a lot can’t afford better.” “Any whispers about the perpetrators?” Lark smiled at the rearview mirror. “Why don’t you listen in and find out?” “I might do that.” She glanced at the cabbie’s picture ID license fixed to the back of the front seat. It read Mike Belasko. The face was a strong one, all lean muscle and sculpted bone. The eyes of the black-and-white photo were as piercing as those in the mirror. Some of their chill found its way into her bones, and Lark looked away from both pairs of unnerving eyes.

They were on Tremont now, where the lingering burned wood stench stayed in the sinuses. Traffic crept along sluggishly.

Glancing at her watch, Lark saw the minutes tick by. Her slim eyebrows drew together, forming a deep notch.

“Damn! Please don’t let me be late.” Bolan nodded. His eyes were raking the streets as the cab braked at a red light within sight of Boston Common, whose dark trees were still garlanded with Christmas lights. They would be coming down soon, as it was halfway through January.

Abruptly he froze. Lark’s gaze followed his. They came to rest on the driver of a battered gray Impala convertible idling at the same light.

A black ski mask enveloped his head. His jaws were working steadily, mechanically, like some chewing machine.

As if sensing the cabdriver’s eyes on him, the man turned. Their gazes locked and held for a long moment. They seemed to be measuring each other.

“Get out of here,” Belasko said suddenly.

“What?” Lark said.

“Walk the rest of the way. The ride’s on me.” “No way! I’ve got three minutes to make sign on. You can do it.” “Sorry. Change in plans.” The light changed and Bolan barked, “Now!” Lark hesitated.

“It’s important.” His voice was brittle.

“So’s my damn job. And I can have your license pulled for fare dumping.” The cab surged forward, falling in behind the Impala. Frowning, Lark said that the other lane was clear of traffic. “Slide around that pokey old junker, okay?” “Sorry.” It wasn’t an apology and carried no suggestion of compromise.

Two blocks along, the Impala’s right blinker signaled a turn. “I’m taking this next right,” Bolan said.

“Fine,” Lark said tightly. “A block is close enough. But you can kiss your tip goodbye.” “I told you, the ride’s on me.” She stared at him. “What kind of cabbie are you?” “One about to take this next right,” the Executioner said, coming to an abrupt stop.

Lark exited. She jumped a low snowbank to the sidewalk and stood peering through the falling snow as the dingy cab closed with the gray Impala and hung on its tail around the next turn and out of sight.

Bundling up, she hurried on her way. It took all kinds, she decided, considering herself lucky to have snagged a ride at all.

Bolan stayed tight on the tail of the ragtop Impala. It was painted a flat primer gray.

An old primer gray Cadillac convertible had been called in by the murdered state trooper. That plate had been 1-CAV. This one read 701.

But descriptions could be wrong and plates could be changed with a turn of a screwdriver.

The gum chewers, the Ruggles punk had called them.

It took four blocks before the Impala driver got skittish. He hung a right without signaling, waiting until the last possible minute. Bolan rounded the turn in steady pursuit, not crowding, but hanging back little more than a car length on the ragtop’s rusty chrome bumper.

Another few blocks and the driver would have no doubt he was being tailed, Bolan figured.

Hanging another right, Bolan stayed with him as if magnetized. Driving one-handed, he stripped the folded Herald from his Desert Eagle and thumbed off the safety. If he needed the big weapon, he’d need it fast.

Another turn and they were in the neon warrens of Chinatown.

Bolan’s mind flashed back to his recon maps. If the Impala continued straight, that meant the turnpike and a high-speed chase. Any other route meant the arduous struggle of Boston’s rabbit-warren surface streets.

Betting on the turnpike, Bolan abruptly pulled ahead and got in front of the Impala, then slowed. It was an unexpected tactic, and it worked.

The Impala suddenly angled off the road, taking a side street.

Throwing the cab into reverse, Bolan got the nose of his vehicle lined up and turned after it.

The Impala was traveling now, its ruby taillights glaring resentfully at him. With steady pressure on the gas, Bolan closed, the Caprice’s powerful V-8 engine surging.

It was a chase now, the cards on the table. It was all a question of the Impala driver’s reaction. Would he turn and fight, or jockey for a break and escape?

Bolan measured his foe as he followed. A steady driver. He had nerve. There was no sign of panic in his moves.

Turning onto Herald Street, they sailed past a police officer on horseback. The shivering cop seemed oblivious to the Impala, while Bolan’s cab was the ultimate street infiltration vehicle. No one would look at it twice.

If the Impala driver was spooked by the presence of patrolling law, it didn’t show. Bolan hung on his tail. Just as cool, just as unshakable, twice as determined.

The Impala took Stuart off of Harrison.

Where Columbus Avenue, Stuart and Arlington streets all intersected, the Impala slowed before a light. Bolan, sensing something, slowed, veering into the other lane. The state trooper had died with his cruiser stopped a car length shy of an intersection much like this one, Bolan remembered. He had no intention of coming to a stop directly behind the Impala.

At the light, he glanced at the other vehicle.

The driver was staring back, eyes dark, glittering like black opals in the holes of his woolen ski mask. His teeth showed as he chewed furiously. It wasn’t chewing gum, but something dark and leafy instead. Tobacco, maybe, but tobacco was a slow, methodical chew.

Ski Mask stopped chewing long enough to bare his teeth in what would never pass for a sincere smile.

“Brisk night,” he said conversationally, through his open window.

Bolan nodded. “Bone-numbing,” he replied.

“Yeah, I was just thinking that. It’s what my daddy used to call church weather. Got so cold you went to church just to get warm.” Bolan said nothing.

“Didn’t I see you back on Tremont?” “Could be.” “You following me?” Hand on his Desert Eagle, Bolan said, “It’s possible.” The fake smile froze. The eyes in the ski mask went dead and still. Then after a moment, the driver resumed his mechanical chewing.

“Don’t,” he said flatly. “Just don’t.” Bolan said nothing. The light changed, but the Impala stayed put. Its driver indicated the green light with a toss of his masked head.

“Take it,” he said. “I’m waiting on the next one.” Bolan stayed where he was.

“This guy thinks he’s hot stuff,” the driver said to no one in particular. “Hey, hot stuff, what makes you so hot?” Bolan locked with the driver’s gaze. It was a test of wills. With the light now green, traffic was sure to come up from behind, forcing the issue.

“What’s that? I didn’t hear you. I asked what makes you such hot stuff?” Suddenly Bolan caught movement out the corner of his eye. He read it as danger and snapped up the Desert Eagle.

The Impala’s rear window rolled down, and a second ski-masked man leaned out. He had a beer bottle in one gloved hand, stoppered with a hank of rag. The air was suddenly pungent with the scent of kerosene. Squirming his upper body out of the window, the man set the rag wick aflame with a butane cigarette lighter.

“See you in hell, hot stuff,” he yelled.

Bolan acquired the yellow flare in his sights and squeezed off a snarling 350-grain boattail round.

The bottle exploded in a flower of flame. The man behind the Molotov cocktail emitted a single bleat of screaming fear.

“Christ!” the driver yelled. He floored the gas. His passenger, fiery arms and legs flailing, tumbled out. He lay blazing, screaming inarticulately.

Bolan shot after the Impala. The human torch wasn’t going anywhere. They careered up and down side streets, punching snowbanks and evading patches of slippery ice.

The game of cat and mouse was over. The enemy had shown his will to kill and in doing so had surrendered all right to mercy.

Pedal to the floor, the Executioner drew alongside the big Impala. They wove back and forth, bumpers gnashing, trading paint and spitting sparks down a clear stretch of Columbus Avenue.

Then they began trading shots.

The driver raised a Glock. Holding the weapon across his chest with his right hand, he opened fire with one eye on the road.

Bolan snapped his foot off the gas and hit the brake. The Impala broke ahead. The single 9 mm round snarled across the taxi’s hood to ricochet angrily off a drift-buried fire hydrant.

His foot jammed back on the gas pedal, Bolan raced ahead. Soon they were pacing each other, fighting for an edge, watching the turns.

Approaching a red light, the dueling machines struggled to outmaneuver each other. Bolan won.

With both hands on the wheel, his control was superior.

Another shot went wild as the big Impala, crowded by the more agile taxi, failed to make the turn and ran up on the pavement. It jolted to a rocking halt. Ski Mask threw it into reverse andwitha whining of tires, the vehicle slammed back.

Slewing to a stop, Bolan came out of the cab, Beretta up and ready. The Executioner wanted a live prisoner, if possible.

Dropping into a marksman’s crouch, he sighted on a front tire. Squeezing off a shot, he nailed it, popping off the hubcap, the rubber snarling as a piece of tread was chewed loose. Shifting to the other tire, Bolan flattened it, too.

The front end should have settled as air pressure escaped, but it didn’t. They were run-flat tires, Bolan realized, self-sealers.

The Impala pulled back, its wounded wheels struggling, and tried to go back the way it had come.

Bolan frosted the windshield with a third shot.

The flattened Parabellum round hung like a dead spider in a web, without penetrating—bulletproof glass.

Bringing up the Desert Eagle, the Executioner hammered at the dent. After three pounding shots, the heavy glass powdered, showering the driver.

Ski Mask trained his Glock through the empty window-frame, angling for an unobstructed shot.

Bolan beat him to it, with both guns in his fists.

The Glock jumped from Ski Mask’s hand as a Parabellum round seared his shoulder. The eyes behind the ski mask went incredulously wide, and the driver’s mouth moved as he cursed under his breath.

Then, with a determined grunt, he resumed his steady chewing and although in obvious pain, slammed his vehicle into reverse.

The car lunged back, the Glock skittering off the snow-dusted hood, and headed up the street.

The Executioner threw a hissing triburst at the fleeing vehicle. Clanking, the bullets bounced off the gray body. It was armored.

For once taken by surprise, Bolan jumped back into his cab and sent it racing after the Impala. He had shot to wound, but even so, the considerable stopping power of a 9 mm tumbler was nothing to shrug off. The driver had just let his wounded arm hang limp and jumped back into action. It was unnatural.

But there it was.

Bolan fell in behind the fleeing Impala. Ski Mask had to be losing blood at a furious rate, but except for a weaving unsteadiness in his progress, it didn’t show in his control. He executed his turns efficiently, sliding unpowered until he needed the engine’s pickup. His reflexes seemed to retain their sharpness. But he kept his speed below 25 mph. He had to, Bolan knew. With the freezing air rushing into his face through the shattered windshield, breaking into a dead run was out of the question.

It was just a matter of time—unless the Impala driver had an ace he had yet to play.

One nagging question hung in the Executioner’s mind: why would anyone armor a ragtop? It made no tactical sense.

They were racing along Atlantic Avenue, hugging the wharfs of Boston. The North End lay ahead and beyond it Charlestown and its Navy Yard.

Bolan figured against Charlestown. It was a working class white area infamous for producing Irish gangsters and low-rent stickup men who specialized in armored car robberies. On the other hand, the North End had been Boston’s Mafia enclave for generations.

There was time enough to figure it out later, Bolan decided, as he followed the Impala into an area of tightly congested streets, many of them infuriatingly one-way. The chase was nearing an end.

Near the Coast Guard station on the North End’s waterfront, the Impala suddenly squealed into a turn going up the narrow brick tenement-lined incline of Henchman Street. Bolan followed it to the crest of the hill.

Some instinct caused him to brake to a halt before his grille cleared the end of the street. He listened.

A soft wind blew, scouring particles of snow from gutters and building cornices. Traffic sounds carried from the nearby Central Artery, but the snow-burdened North End was unusually quiet— quiet enough that the steady crumping of tire-trampled snow would carry to his ears.

No such sound did. The Impala had stopped.

Leaving the V-8 engine muttering, Bolan slipped from his vehicle, leaving the door hanging open. Walking flat-footed so the toes of his boots silently pushed the settling snow aside, he crept toward the dull brick wall of an apartment building. His Desert Eagle pointing to the sky, he hugged the brick, listened, then dropped low to peer around the corner, snapping his face back before a lurking marksman could acquire his head as a target.

No bullet coughed back at him. The dull-gray Impala simply sat, its engine cycling, waiting.

Lifting his head, Bolan stole another look, this time from waist level. The Impala driver was a humped shadow in the back seat. If he had a weapon, it wasn’t visible. Bolan stepped out of his hiding place. “Show your hands!” he barked.

Ski Mask glared at him through the plastic rear window slot of the ragtop. Only his eyes showed; the rest was darkness.

“Can’t… lift… arms…” he moaned.

“Step out of the car,” the Executioner commanded.

“I’m hurt,” he moaned weakly, but his eyes looked expectant.

Bolan sized up the situation. The enemy had crawled into the back seat for a reason. It was a trap. His eyes raked the Impala’s rear deck.

There was nothing unusual there, no pipes or patches that might conceal a deadly surprise. The Executioner repeated his command. “Exit the vehicle. Now.” The enemy shifted with difficulty and the driver’s door eased open.

“Help me out. I’m losing blood.” To reach the door, Bolan would have to cross behind the rear deck. There was something about that flat gray steel rump that troubled his combat instincts. Yet nothing threatening was visible to his keen eye.

“Don’t move,” the Executioner ordered, taking a single step. The step turned into a vaulting leap.

He cleared the trunk and landed, sprawling, in the snow on the opposite curb. He had seen Ski Mask’s shoulders tense suddenly. The rest was automatic.

The back of the Impala’s trunk erupted ahead of a sudden snarl of autofire. Flame vomited out of a fresh-chewed hole and a stream of lead arced low, clanking into a fireplug. The cast-iron hydrant shattered like glass. Water gushed up, almost instantly turning to ice on contact with supercold concrete.

Bolan snapped the Eagle in line. A pair of sizzling rounds dented the Impala’s trunk without penetrating. The stuttering trunk gun fell silent, then screamed anew.

Sidling back on his belly through the snow, Bolan tracked the line of fire. The bullet stream disappeared into the frosty fountain of hydrant water, cracking brick and pavement after passing through the agitated water. That meant one thing: a fixed machine gun.

Knowing the enemy’s targeting limitations, Bolan came off the ground. Aiming low, he fired a shot that punched the open door, slamming it out of the driver’s grasp.

Without warning, the Impala surged forward.

Bolan drew careful aim at the half-open door. The Desert Eagle convulsed once. A cry of pain ripped back, and the door fell open all the way.

The Impala cut hard to the left, recovered, then one wheel jumped the curb. Running half on, half off the sidewalk, it followed the downward slope of the hilly street.

The Executioner returned to his cab and sent it racing in pursuit. This time he knew the Impala wouldn’t get very far. It was surprising the car was still in motion.

As he dropped onto the downslope himself, the preliminary grinding of metal under stress carried back to Bolan’s ears. He never saw the crash, only the aftermath.

Rolling toward Snowhill Street, the Impala picked up speed without an accompanying roar from under the hood. Ski Mask was probably unconscious when the Impala slammed into the corner of the brick apartment building. He might have been dead, although Bolan had aimed low with the idea of shattering a leg bone.

When the Executioner caught up with the Impala, flames crackled from under its hood. The driver was slumped over the wheel. Under the licking flames, the hard plastic began to lose its shape, while the body of the driver shriveled and blackened.

Leveling the Eagle, Bolan triggered a single mercy round. The hardman arched his spine, then slumped forward into the softening steering wheel.

Sirens wailed, nearing the neighborhood. Bolan jumped out of the cab, took a Ka-bar fighting knife to the Impala’s trunk lid and popped it.

Inside, a.50-caliber Browning M-2 machine gun lay on a spidery sliding track, its flame-blackened muzzle hovering just short of the bullet-hole tear in the rear deck. Air-cooled and box-fed, it rode on a jury-rigged bearing mount. A canvas bag was fixed to the other side of the breech to catch the brass empties. A few still smoked faintly.

With the approaching siren’s caterwaul filling the air, the Executioner left the conflagration to Boston authorities, fleeing the scene via Commercial Avenue.

The soft probe had gone awry, but two Blood Horsemen, who had dealt in fiery death, had been consumed by their own weapon of choice, so the scales stood in balance. And the night was still young.

They were loading the other ski-masked man into an Emergency Medical Services ambulance when the Executioner returned to the intersection of Columbus Avenue, Arlington and Stuart streets.

Three Boston police blue-and-white units were parked at the crosswalks, light bars throwing fragments of blue light in crazed circles as they blocked off four intersection approaches.

Behind police sawhorses, uniformed cops were waving traffic away from the crime scene as the ambulance crew wrapped the burned husk of the Blood Horseman who had tried to nail Bolan with a Molotov cocktail in a silver thermal blanket. They strapped him onto a flattened gurney, securing him with straps. The gurney was cranked up, then rolled to the open ambulance doors.

The fact that he was being loaded into an ambulance and not a meat wagon suggested that he hadn’t succumbed.

But with a boattail in him and his flesh burned, he was unlikely to live.

There was nothing here for the Executioner to do, and he rolled on. Two foes were vanquished, and he had nothing more to go on. But of late, the Blood Horse had been striking in teams, so maybe there was still time for the Executioner to get lucky.

Switching on his scanner, he began to monitor police radio traffic, but there was not much there, either, apart from a smattering of routine squeals.

A car was calling in the discovery of the scorched Impala in the North End. Bolan wondered if the authorities would clamp a press blackout on the crash—or at least on the unsettling fact that the Impala was equipped with a.50-caliber machine gun stored in its trunk.

As he rolled on Mission Hill via Columbus, the Executioner noticed the snow had stopped falling. With the wind dying down, the city seemed to have slipped into a white void. All was quiet. Even the sirens were momentarily still.

But not for long. A piercing old-fashioned siren sound filled the air, a fuller, more alarming roar than the clectionic wah-wah of Boston police vehicles. The ambulance bearing its inert load had to have gotten underway, Bolan decided.

As the ambulance hurtled on its way to Boston City Hospital, the wail grew in strength, setting nerves on edge, punishing the night with its angry song of alarm. Blue and yellow roof lights pulsated like a pinball machine, coloring the dirty brick and pristine snow alike. Soon, the vehicle loomed in Bolan’s rearview mirror, bearing down on him like a juggernaut.

The soldier eased over to the curb, letting it pass, and watched it thoughtfully. Two good kills, but one bad break. Charred bodies didn’t easily give up their identities.

Maybe one of those two would be different.

As the Executioner started to pull out into the street, a flash of flat gray ghosted by and his icy eyes went suddenly sharp.

A primer-gray Impala convertible. It might have been the restless spirit of the fried Impala even now being picked over by Boston city detectives—right down to the dirty white ragtop.

Bolan pulled in behind it but couldn’t make out the driver through the rear window slot. Depressing the gas, he began to overhaul the boxy gas-guzzler, determined to stick to its tail.

As if in response, the Impala accelerated.

Bolan dropped back, giving the driver breathing space. He showed no sign of being concerned with the cab on his tail, but pulled up on the wailing ambulance.

In the opposite lane, traffic swished by— newspaper-delivery trucks and other nighttime vehicles. Once, the Impala started to cut over with the intention of passing the ambulance when a Yellow cab came out of nowhere, horn blaring, and forced the convertible driver to relent. The Impala fell back in line.

Bolan checked his speedometer. The indicator floated around 40. He maintained a rock-steady two car lengths behind the Impala. The road was posted at 30 mph. Only the ambulance was legal.

The Executioner decided it was time to get ahead of the convertible. In making that decision, he was about thirty seconds too late.

With a surge of horsepower, the Impala roared into the oncoming lane, pulling even with the ambulance.

For a heartbeat, it was a dead heat. The ambulance driver honked his horn twice, as the Impala’s intentions became clear. Then, wresting every last horse from under the hood, the Impala overtook its prey and slithered in front, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision with a transport truck.

The truck’s unexpected appearance foiled Bolan’s planned countermove. After that, it no longer mattered.

The ambulance’s brake lights flared abruptly. With a low howl of tortured tires, it swerved, then began to fishtail, losing speed as the driver fought for control.

Up ahead, Bolan could see that the Impala was dropping down to the posted speed limit.

The Executioner saw his chance and took it. He roared into the oncoming lane, drew even with the ambulance and got a clear view of the Impala.

The canvas ragtop was folding back mechanically, exposing two men in black ski masks—one behind the wheel, the other on his knees on the back seat, facing the wavering ambulance.

The man in the back was fighting with the rear seat cushions. Then the center seat cushion divider dropped flat, exposing a vertical slot. He appeared to reach in with both hands, then haul back with his entire body.

A Browning M-2 machine gun slid out of the trunk through the back seat hatch. Holding its dual handles tightly, he wrestled it out. When the long black barrel cleared its cubbyhole, the gunner threw himself forward again.

The deadly gun lifted with a clank, its blunt snout poking over the gleaming trunk lid to fix the ambulance in its sights.

Bolan pounded his horn. Seeing him, the gunner swung the muzzle in his direction and yanked back on the cocking lever.

Accelerating, Bolan swerved. A single sizzling round perforated the taxi’s rear deck, shattering a taillight and causing the Executioner to slew three feet under the impact.

There were no side streets available along that stretch of road. Pulling in front of the Impala was the soldier’s only option.

He pinned the gas pedal to the floor, sliding smoothly and efficiently into the head of the line. His mouth thinned as the ugly drum-roll of the Browning machine gun split the night.

The burst was followed immediately by the sound of breaking glass and the tortured sounds of a fast-moving vehicle encountering unavoidable disaster at high speed.

Unable to intervene, Bolan saw it all in his rearview mirror.

In three seconds flat, the front of the ambulance became a swiss cheese of ugly black perforations. Rounds penetrated body metal in a procession of thuds, leaving holed craters. The driver’s face disappeared in a disintegrating shield of safety glass that turned bright red on the fly.

With no hand at the wheel, the front tires cut hard to the left and locked up. The emergency vehicle began a long slide into the inevitable. It careered out of control, swapping ends, tumbling into the other lane. It cracked a concrete light pole on its way to smashing itself against a graffiti-defaced brick wall.

The impact thud was sickening. The ambulance struck with its entire left flank, bouncing off with such force that it rocked up on two side wheels before hesitating briefly and finally falling over hard.

The back doors sprung open, disgorging two limp-necked paramedics and the foil-wrapped body of the burn victim.

The Executioner saw all that in the fleeting seconds after the burst of autofire had wrought its final destruction. Then he had his own problems.

In the back seat of the Impala, the gunner was swinging his Browning around and up. As the muzzle cleared the Impala’s windshield, Bolan knew what was coming and understood he was seriously outgunned.

He grabbed the next corner and accelerated into it, dousing his lights at the same time.

A deep-throated burst of autofire chased him down the street. Rounds spanged off brick, chips flying like spiteful wasps. Before the gunner could reacquire him in his sights, Bolan had barreled around the next corner and out of sight.

Grim-faced, the Executioner inwardly cursed his limited armament. The taxi, while a serviceable infiltration vehicle, wasn’t much of a mobile weapons platform. Not when he was up against the equivalent of a rolling two-place attack aircraft.

The cab traveled two long blocks, then Bolan turned the wheel back toward the crash site. Running with his lights off, he approached Columbus.

When the vehicle was about to pull into the zone of a sodium-vapor streetlight, he stepped on the gas and accelerated all the way across, giving the back-seat gunner no time to draw a bead.

The Desert Eagle tracked toward the Impala’s last position, but the Executioner saw it was now parked by the mangled ambulance. He held his fire, unwilling to risk hitting the injured.

The gunner was at his perch, covering all approaches with slow side-to-side sweeps of his weapon. In the fleeting moments he was exposed, Bolan spotted the Blood Horse driver rooting among the detritus at the crash scene.

The soldier shot into the shelter of the opposite side of Columbus and took the next right. That put him behind the brick warehouse where the ambulance lay on its side.

He headed right again, intending to pop out onto the street, this time with a clear line of attack. Before the move could be implemented, though, the Browning coughed a short string of bullets that dug up the blacktop at the end of the street. The warning salvo told him to get back or die.

The Executioner hit the brakes, threw the taxi into reverse and backed around the corner he’d just left, and not a minute too soon. The Impala ghosted by, tossing a withering stream of.50-caliber smokers down the short street. Bolan counted more than a dozen rounds cratering the asphalt, which cracked and disintegrated under the barrage. Dropping into first, he shot ahead, ran two blocks and came back on Columbus behind the ambulance. With the canvas lifted back to shelter its deadly secret, the Impala was a receding death machine when Bolan pulled up to the ambulance. Both EMT’S were dead, and there was no sign of the foil-wrapped body. Bolan had figured as much. The horsemen had recovered their dead.

Returning to his taxi, he sent it screeching around in a wide circle. There was no percentage in following the Impala. They would be prepared for pursuit, and they held the highest card in the deck. Bolan turned up the volume on the police scanner. The coroner’s wagon coming for the North End Ski Mask was probably only now arriving. If the Blood Horse gangsters were so determined to reclaim one of their fallen comrades, there was every reason to think they’d go after the other. And if they did, they’d find the Executioner hot on their trail.

It was the usual argument. Kevin Reynolds had had it a thousand times this month alone.

“I’m telling you,” he barked at the stone-faced Boston policeman, “the guy’s dead. You should have called for the meat wagon. I drive an ambulance.

If they’re breathing, I haul ‘em. If they die on the way, I finish hauling ‘em. If they’re stiff when I get here, they’re not my problem.

Savvy?” “The meat wagon’s tied up,” the cop said in a matter-of-fact cop voice. He had the general build of a refrigerator and about as much expression on his cold-reddened features.

“So? Crispy can wait.” Behind the wheel of the scorched Impala ragtop’s canvas roof—reduced to charred tatters flapping on a wire frame—the dead driver slumped against the wheel. His arms lay crooked in his lap, fingers twisted to carbonized claws.

“We have to tow the vehicle,” the blocky cop said.

“Fine. Tow the entire package, but I’m not budging. Rules say I don’t have to haul stiffs.” The cop kept his face expressionless. He knew he had to work with Emergency Medical Services again—probably before the night was over the way the town was these days—but he wasn’t about to withdraw his request.

“I’d appreciate it if you’d take this deceased off our hands.” “And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t ask me to do that,” Reynolds said, lapsing into his own version of official stubbornness.

The cop blew out a gust of breath that condensed in the still night air before drifting away. His gray eyes seemed to frost over. “I appreciate your cooperation,” he grunted.

With that Reynolds knew he had won.

Keeping his grin to himself, he turned back toward his waiting ambulance.

Climbing behind the wheel, he got his engine turned over and began to creep out of the North End. If there was a part of town he hated most, it was this. Not for the neighborhood—he loved Italian food—but as the original heart of Boston before the landfills expanded it, its streets were the narrowest, crookedest, most impassable in the city, if not the entire planet, and especially in winter.

Reynolds had come via Commercial, which was now blocked off by emergency vehicles. The cops had rolled back to let him in, but there was a fat chance they’d repeat the favor. That meant he’d have to go through the Gordian knot of the North End to get out of the crime scene. That, in the snow, was going to take some doing.

He labored his vehicle up Charter Street, keeping the illuminated white spire of Old North Church in sight. Once he reached Salem Street, it was a straight shoot to the Central Artery and anywhere he cared to go.

Before he got to Salem, a beat-up gray Impala backed out of an alley, blocking the way.

Reynolds leaned on his horn, but the old heap stayed put.

“Out of the way!” he yelled. “I’m hauling a very sick individual here.” The driver came out the other side. He wore a black ski mask. It wasn’t unusual attire in these past weeks of sub-zero weather, but even so, the sight of the black-masked face made Reynolds sit up in his seat.

As the driver approached, Reynolds saw that he was methodically chewing gum, which relaxed his guard somewhat. People looking for trouble usually didn’t chew gum.

The man came around to Reynolds’s window. He cranked it down, saying, “What’s the matter with you?

You’re blocking the goddamned way.” “Tough,” the man replied in a neutral voice.

Reynolds blinked. He heard the words distinctly, understood them perfectly, but still he said, “What?” “I said tough.” Suddenly the black snout of a pistol was in Reynolds’s face. “Let’s see your patient.” “There isn’t any patient,” Reynolds blurted.

“You just said there was.” “I lied. I mean, I fibbed. I wanted you to get out of my way. No offense.” “None taken,” said the man in the black ski mask, who then promptly shot Kevin Reynolds twice in the face.

The man reached up, jerked open the door and patted the quivering form all over until he came up with a steel ring of keys.

Going to the rear door, he tried several keys until one worked. Popping the doors, the ski-masked man climbed in, looked around, then kicked a folded gurney twice and broke a bottle of plasma against the floor in frustrated anger. Getting out, he returned to the wheel of his idling car. “What’s the matter?” his back-seat passenger asked through the slash mouth of his black ski mask.

“He’s not there.” “But the scanner said-was “He’s not there,” the driver said savagely.

“We missed him.” “Now what?” “Let’s cruise by the accident scene.” “I’ll break out the fifty.” “No. Let’s be cool about this. If the body’s still there, we’ll deal with it on the fly. If it’s not, we have our work cut out for us.” “Man, this night is turning into bust city.” “This night,” the driver growled, throwing the Impala into gear and leaning on the gas, “ain’t over yet.” Officer Carl Shaner was trying to raise a meat wagon. “X-ray has been dispatched,” he was told by dispatch.

“X-ray declined to carry,” Shaner replied.

“We are requesting a coroner’s wagon at this time.” “Affirmative, Adam-six. Will comply.” Replacing his cruiser mike, Shaner got out of his vehicle. Yeah, they’d comply all right, in their own good time and if nothing more urgent came up.

Striding back to the torched Impala, he found the detective in charge. “Dispatch promises us a dead wagon, but they won’t say when.” The detective accepted the information without a particle of expression altering his face.

“Thanks,” he said. He was looking into the trunk. An old-fashioned wrought-iron streetlight happened to hang directly overhead, and it filled the trunk with yellow light. The ugly weapon of machined steel gleamed under the glow.

“What do you make of it?” Shaner asked, figuring he’d have to kill time until the meat wagon arrived anyway.

“Never saw anything like it in my life.” Shaner directed his flash on the hole in the rear deck, directly over the trunk lock.

“Looks like it cut loose.” He looked around.

“But I don’t see any bullet holes in the vicinity.” “Citizens say they heard shooting awhile back. We’ll have to canvas the area.” “Will do,” Shaner said, thinking that that was all he needed—to roust the neighborhood in the dead of night.

Not that the neighborhood wasn’t already active. People were leaning out of their windows, while a few had even ventured into the freezing cold, bundled up in terry-cloth robes or with overcoats thrown over flannel pajamas.

Crowd control was keeping them away from the scene, but not so far away that the rubberneckers didn’t have a clear view of the charred remains in the Impala.

“Best we cover him up, now that the photographers are done,” Shaner said.

The detective nodded.

They were looking for a suitable covering when without warning the Impala erupted into a climbing ball of fire.

Everyone hit the ground. The Impala went whoosh, and a fiery fist shot into the sky, sending the crowd reeling back.

As he picked himself up off the ground, Shaner couldn’t believe his eyes. For the second time on this bitter night, the body behind the wheel was fully involved.

“Get a fire extinguisher!” the detective yelled.

“Who threw that firebomb?” Shaner shouted.

Guns drawn, the police broke in all directions, hunting for suspects.

A plump woman in pink plastic curlers pointed to the roof of an apartment building. “It came from up there. I saw it.” Others had seen it also, it turned out. A small fiery thing like a comet trailing a tail of yellow flame had dropped from above to break all over the corpse.

As they worked furiously, trying to bring the human torch under control with dry-chemical extinguishers, the body blackened, then shriveled, slowly curling up in the seat as its muscles and tendons withered under the merciless heat. It looked as if it were dying all over again, but the corpse was long past pain.

By the time they had it doused, it was a charred fetal larva of a thing curled up on the front seat, shriveled lips peeled back from scorched-black teeth, resembling nothing remotely human.

The pork roast stink of burned flesh filled the night and even the veteran cops found themselves retching.

In the end, they didn’t find any trace of the perpetrator.

A bystander, when questioned, told of seeing two masked men pile into an old primer gray ragtop.

Shaner heard this and said, “The death car is a gray Impala convertible. What’s left of it.” “Well, this guy says he saw another one.” Questioning the citizen himself, Shaner satisfied himself that it was a second gray Impala, as unlikely as that sounded. He reported that to the detective in charge.

The detective accepted the information with the same noncommittal expression as before, and an APB was broadcast.

Since the meat wagon hadn’t yet come, they fanned out to canvas the neighborhood, searching for more witnesses.

They found the ambulance that was thought long gone in the middle of Charter Street, the driver dead at the wheel, his face shot up.

Shaner found a cabdriver at the scene, too.

He had come upon the ambulance, and, finding his way blocked, had stepped out of his cab to see what the problem was.

“You see what happened here?” Shaner demanded.

“No,” said the driver, a big man in a black duster. He had ice-cold eyes, and his strong face wore a stiff expression that might have been from the flesh-freezing cold, but might also have reflected some deep controlled emotion.

“Someone wanted that body awful damn bad,” Shaner said bitterly.

“They succeed?” “Nah,” Shaner replied, blowing into his cold hands. “Dead guy wasn’t in the ambulance. This poor driver refused to carry a stiff. He died for nothing. So they got up on a roof and firebombed the body all over again. Can you beat that?” “Sounds like those arsonists.” “Yeah. This is the first time they’ve reached out of Roxbury. Man, when this breaks in the media the excrement will hit the propeller.” “I have a fare to pick up, okay?” “Sure, sure,” Shaner said, letting the cabbie go.

The man returned to his cab, and climbed in.

The cop followed him with his eyes. The man didn’t look much like a cabdriver. But these days a lot of people were out of work, and hacking was as good a way to turn an honest buck as any.

When the cab got turned around, Shaner noticed he had a broken taillight. Well, there were more important things to worry about tonight, he decided.

Let someone else pull him over for it.

Just in case, Shaner made a mental note of the departing cab’s medallion number: 1908. The number rang a faint bell in the recesses of his mind, but nothing came to him, so Shaner returned to the job at hand, cursing the night, the cold and most of all the specter of fire that was now all over the city.

Mack Bolan cruised the streets of Roxbury in search of the primer gray Impala without success. Its mission apparently accomplished, it had returned into whatever dark hole had spawned it.

With the city quiet again, the Executioner parked before Mission Church on Tremont Street, one of the rare twin spired houses of worship in the city.

Roxbury shivered under a steady wind that blew the loose snow about and drove all but the hardiest of souls indoors. Manhole covers smoked like active volcanos in the biting cold.

Police cruisers shuttled back and forth, searching, prowling, unable to cover every street and block, but making their presence known.

The word on the street was “Five-0 is deep tonight.” No drugs were sold, no gas stations stuck up.

Even the predators of the concrete jungle were afraid.

For once, the police owned Roxbury.

The cab’s police scanner roved the band, spitting out its intermittent catches. The police had had no more luck than the Executioner, it seemed. But it was nearing 4:00 a.m. and the fire department hadn’t rolled since the crashed Impala had exploded for a second time.

If the lull held, it would be the first night In three weeks the arsonists hadn’t struck at property.

Turning down the scanner, Bolan switched on the car radio. He fiddled with the AM band. On his second pass, he found a female voice he recognized.

“Go ahead, caller,” Lark Youngblood was saying. “You’re on WROX.” A raspy-voiced woman, her tone trembling, said, “Lark, the governor needs to call in the National Guard, is what he needs to do. People are afraid for their lives out there, what with all the firebombings. Why can’t anybody do something about it?” “What can the National Guard do that the police can’t?” Lark asked.

“They can shoot the bastards—excuse my French.” “Shooting never solved anything,” Lark said crisply. “We need to dig at the roots of this violence, pull them up whole and then it will all stop.” “Maybe so. But a shot-dead firebug ain’t much of a threat to anybody.” “We’re not being very constructive here. Thank you for your call. Go ahead, next caller.” An anxious man’s voice said, “I say shoot ‘em too. Bring in the damn Guard and just run over ‘em with tanks.” Lark’s voice became a noticeable degree cooler. “We have Boston police, mounted police, state police, MBTA police, even Boston House Authority Police all cruising the streets on the prowl for these people, and no one’s been able to catch them yet. What good will more guns and vehicles do?” “What good will doing the same damn thing night after night do? That’s what I want to know. I don’t want to get burned up in my own bed.” “No one does,” Lark said levelly, “but we can’t succumb to panic. Police suspect these pyromaniacs are one of the street gangs into a new kind of wilding.” “Hah! Everybody knows that.” “We need to reach out to our youth, wean them away from the guns and the violence, and then the fires and the drive-bys and the senseless street-corner snipings will just stop. It’s the roots we have to weed out, not trample the garden with tanks and booted feet, if we want our garden to grow again.” “The ‘Bury ain’t no garden these days. Maybe it never was. But I’d sooner walk through weeds than fire any day.” “Next caller,” Lark said wearily. “And I would like to hear something constructive. You’re on the Voice of Roxbury, WROX.” “I might just have what you need,” a clipped male voice said.

“Just in time to close out the show,” Lark said.

“My name is Kirk Weatherly. I don’t usually call in to programs such as yours, but this is a special case. Perhaps you recognize my name.” “I do indeed, Mr. Weatherly. You’re the developer whose vision transformed Roslindale Square from urban blight to modern miracle.” “That’s correct. And I’d like to see the same magic bloom in Roxbury. I have a special place in my heart for Roxbury.” Lark laughed musically. “You and me both.” “You see, the Weatherly family originally hails from Mission Hill. In accordance with a very long family tradition, I was baptized in the basilica of Mission Church. The family hasn’t lived there since the thirties, of course, but I have a vision for Roxbury’s future.” “We’re all ears.” “As you know, Roxbury has been coming back.

Especially the Mission Hill section. Many of the aging three-decker dwellings are coming down to make way for modern apartment buildings. This is a trend I predict will continue into the next century, until the Roxbury we know will be transformed into the Roxbury of the twenty-first century.” “But what does that have to do with our problems today, Mr. Weatherly?” Lark asked.

“Just this. We all understand the root of this problem lies in our disenfranchised youth. They grow up in dilapidated neighborhoods, see nothing to take pride in and so fail to take pride in themselves.

Sociologists claim the breakup of the family unit is the true root of the street gang, but I think that is only part of it. The decline of our aging neighborhoods plays a substantial role, just as I have said.” “So you’re saying put disadvantaged youth in better surroundings and they’ll feel better about themselves?” “Exactly. Conversely place good kids in bad areas and they’ll flounder.” “It’s an interesting theory.” “I predict these firebombings will pass,” Weatherly went on, “And when it’s over, a new Roxbury will emerge, better than the old. And to show my faith in Roxbury, I’m offering to purchase one of the scorched lots that have come to symbolize urban decay and fear and turn it into a park for the good people to enjoy.” “That’s a vote of confidence we need to hear!” “And if you’d like to hear more, I’d be pleased to continue this on your show another time.” “It’s a date. And I’m sorry to say it’s the end of another installment of Urban Beat,” Lark said. “Mr. Weatherly, I thank you for your call and your concern. My program director will be contacting you about appearing on Urban Beat. And now, the WROX news.” A chime pealed and a baritone voice broke in.

“Police are being unusually tight-lipped about a torched car discovered in the North End section of town earlier this evening. One man is reported dead and there are no suspects at this time. In other news…” A stiff wind sprang up to blow loose snow off the rooftops as Bolan left the curb and sent his taxi hissing up Tremont, his eyes busy.

Less than ten minutes later, he pulled up in front of the brownstone building that housed radio station WROX, and waited with his motor idling, watching the entrance door.

Lark Youngblood came out shortly after that, looked both ways and spotted the illuminated roof herald back-lighting the black letters TAXI.

Bolan rolled down his passenger-side window.

“You free?” she asked, leaning down to window height.

“Hop in,” Bolan said.

Her eyes fell on his face and narrowed.

“Wait a minute—is that you, Belasko?” “Thought I’d make last night up to you.” “Thanks, but no thanks.” She turned on her heel and stalked off.

Bolan eased the taxi down the street after her, talking through the open passenger window.

“It’s late,” he called.

“I can tell time.” Lark’s voice was coated in frost.

“And it’s church weather.” “What’s that?” she asked, seemingly without interest.

“Church weather. Ever hear the expression?” “No.” “It’s church weather when it gets so cold you have to go to church to warm up.” Lark said nothing.

“Why don’t you hop in?” Bolan invited.

“The ride will be on me.” “You just don’t want me to report you.” “I caught the last part of your program.” “Business that slow, huh?” “Business was brisk, but I made the time. You seem to be doing your part to calm the city’s fears.” “I try,” Lark said dryly.

They were approaching a corner, so Bolan pulled ahead and eased around it, blocking her path. Reaching over, he threw open the passenger-side front door. “It’s warmer in here than out there,” he pointed out.

Lark stood a moment, the heater warmth of the taxi wafting over to her. Her lips twisted one way and her eyes shifted the other, avoiding Bolan’s steady gaze.

“Oh, all right,” she relented. Hopping in back, she slammed the door after her.

Bolan shut his own. “Where to?” “Intervale Street. Know where it is?” “Sure. Runs between Warren and Columbia.” Lark grunted. “A lot of white cabbies wouldn’t know that little fact—or go there. I guess you don’t scare easy. I live on Warren, just off Intervale.” The cab took off and was soon flying down Washington Street where little traffic hummed, other than prowling police cruisers.

Lark sat silently in the back seat. Bolan let her warm up before asking his question. “Ever hear of the Blood Horse?” “The what?” “Blood Horse. A fare told me that was the name the pyromania gang goes by.” Her slim eyebrows drew together. “Blood Horse… No, never heard of them. Are you sure that was the name?” “That was the name I was given.” “Well, we have the Castlegate X-Men, the Humbolt Cobras, the Ruggles, the Fishers, Intervale Kaos Crew and a few others, but the Blood Horse is a new one on me.” “if there was a gang, called the Blood Horse, you’d know about it?” “Belasko, I’ve lived on these streets all my life. If there was a crew called Blood Horse, word would get around. These kids, they strut their stuff.” She pointed at the road ahead through the bulletproof partition. “You see those Adidas running shoes hanging off the telephone wire?” “I see them.” “They mark the beginning of Blackhawk turf.

They wear Chicago Blackhawks caps. Five streets back it becomes Humbolt turf. They wear L.a. Raiders caps. If you’re even seen wearing a Raiders cap or sweats walking down the wrong end of Dudley, you can get shot.

Shot for wearing a damn cap you can buy in most any clothing store. Stuff white kids can wear in the suburbs without giving it a second thought.” She shook her head. “I just don’t know sometimes.” “I understand the gangs have been quiet lately.” “Yes, nearly two years now. Operation Clean Sweep cleared up the projects some. Heroin’s down. They still smoke crack, but it’s not as big as it was a few years ago. But it’ll be back. Right now little ten- and eleven-year-olds are poised on the brink of turning into strutting teens.

They’ll find their way to a taste of the forbidden fruit, cheap guns will fall into their hands, soon they’ll be dealing and shooting, and the nightmare will start up again. The cops will roar in, knock it down hard, but that’ll only be the tail end of a round-robin that will keep on going around and around long after we’re dead and gone.” In the rearview mirror, Bolan saw the young woman drop her head. Her teeth began to chew on her lower lip, and her dark eyes began to blink. A single tear ran down one cheek and collected in a corner of her mouth. She touched it with her tongue and said nothing.

“Lose someone to the streets?” Lark nodded. “Brother.” “Run with a gang?” “No. Never. Hannibal wasn’t like that. He had a basketball scholarship to BU. He was going to make something of himself one day. But these gang punks, what they can’t be, they hate. What they envy, they destroy. The weekend before he was to start his freshman year, they…” Her voice trailed off. She melted into silent tears. “He was my older brother,” she murmured quietly.

His lips compressing into a grim line, Bolan brought his eyes back onto the road and concentrated on the way ahead.

They were on lower Warren Street now.

Dilapidated three deckers predominated, some with their triple-tiered front porches sagging and peeling. A few were boarded up completely. Others shone with new vinyl siding and fresh-painted porch rails. The juxtaposition of homes falling inffdisrepair with dwellings of identical vintage gleaming like new was almost surreal. A quad set of headlights appeared far behind, yanking Bolan’s gaze back to the rearview mirror. They narrowed.

“What number?” he asked suddenly.

“What’s that?” “What number Warren?” “Three thirty-four,” Lark said absently.

Eyes flicking to the rows of homes, Bolan picked out the white letters of house numbers. They were in the sixties, far from their destination.

And in the rearview mirror, the quad headlights expanded as the deep vroom of a racing V-8 engine came to the fore.

Bolan bore down on his own accelerator. The taxi pulled ahead. One hand came off the wheel to strip the Desert Eagle of its concealing newspaper.

Eyes on the rushing road, he looked into the rearview mirror every few seconds. The trailing car was picking up speed, gaining steadily, quad lights making shimmering halos.

Abruptly Bolan sent the taxi ripping around in a wide arc, cutting into the opposite lane.

Fishtailing, he came out of the turn and bore down hard. The taxi leaped ahead, going the other way.

And swishing by was a primer gray Impala convertible.

Her face leaning into the partition, Lark demanded, “What’s going on?” “We’re being followed,” Bolan told her.

Lark looked around wildly.

“Followed by who?” “Gray Impala.” “How do you know they’re following us?” Before Bolan could answer, the Impala ripped around after them. Leaning out a window, a ski-masked figure brandished a brace of dark automatics.

Lark saw them and gasped, “Oh my God.” “Get your head down,” Bolan ordered.

Lark ducked. “Find a police car!” she cried, “The city’s full of them. Find a police car and pull up beside it.” Bolan said nothing.

Chances were even if he did that the trailing crew wouldn’t hesitate to mow down any uniforms who happened to be in the line of fire.

“Can you handle a gun?” he called through the bulletproof partition.

“What?” “I said, can you handle a gun?” “Are you crazy?” “I have an extra gun, and I need one hand on the wheel.” “Find a cop, I said!” Lark snapped.

“No time.” “I hate guns! Guns killed my brother!” Then the Impala bore down hard.

Under other circumstances, the Executioner would have braked and made a stand, but he had no such luxury this night.

Grim-faced, he took the handiest corner.

Too late, he saw the faded red-and-white sign twisted sideways so it couldn’t be read from the street: DO NOT ENTER. It was a dead-end street. Braking, Bolan threw the cab into reverse.

“Oh my God,” Lark moaned, her face jammed against the rear window.

The Impala squealed to a stop, blocking their retreat, its headlights blazing at them like some crouching four-eyed urban tarantula.

“Get down on the floorboards!” Bolan rapped out. “And stay there!” Sucking in a tight breath, the Executioner unleathered the Beretta and took up the Desert Eagle in his other fist. He cracked open the driver’s door, simultaneously sliding across to the passenger seat. It was a smart move.

Bullets peppered the partly open door, slamming it shut again, chopping the thick window glass into shards.

Bolan came out on the passenger side, threw his arms across the roof and began to trigger both pistols. The well-oiled mechanisms bucked and started to spit fire and thunder.

Parabellum shockers and more devastating.44 boat-tails snapped and bit into the Impala without penetrating. Glass splintered and broke; return fire broke off.

Bolan drove a ski-masked driver back into the armored shelter of his vehicle. He didn’t want a firefight, not here, not now. He shot to intimidate, clipping the car at every joint to inhibit return fire.

It worked. The driver, spurred by the growing wait of an approaching siren, sent the Impala rocketing back. It ran a block, came around squealing on smoking rubber, and Bolan went out into the street to fend it off.

As the Impala careened by, a ski-masked head poked out and yelled, “We’ll get you another time, Mr. Nineteen-oh-eight! Another time!” With that, the Impala vanished into the cold and the dark.

Holstering his Beretta, Bolan checked his passenger. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“Don’t come near me with that!” Lark screamed, shying from the gleaming Desert Eagle.

The Executioner holstered the Eagle as well, covering it with his duster. “Let me get you home,” he said quietly.

He took the wheel, backed up the taxi, then turned and headed down Warren Street. He passed the prowling blue-and-white unit. The driver gave them a glancing once-over and continued on, evidently not noticing the bullet hits on the black sections of the Shawmut cab livery.

Bolan had his shattered window down. It wasn’t noticed.

Stopping before number 334, Bolan got out.

He looked up and down the street, eyes alert for an ambush. Seeing no threats, he opened the rear door, reaching in with his hand.

“I don’t need help,” Lark said in a constricted voice, but when she came out, her knees went rubbery and Bolan had to assist her.

“I hate guns,” she said.

Bolan guided her to her front door. It was one of the big yellow-orange bowfront apartment buildings that stood sentinel over that part of town.

“It’ll be all right,” he told her.

Lark said nothing. Her lower lip was trembling.

She took it between her teeth as she fumbled in her purse for her keys.

“This damned city,” she said angrily.

A ground-floor window lifted and a deep womanly voice called, “Lark, is that you, child?” “Yes, Aunt Ora,” Lark sobbed.

A window rattled up, and the face of a black woman in her fifties thrust out. She took one look at Bolan and said, “Who the hell are you?” “Cabdriver.” Her nose wrinkled. “If you’re a cabbie, how come you stink of gunsmoke?” “I’d best be going,” Bolan stated.

Lark said nothing. She was fighting to steady her hand, trying to get the key into the lock. Bolan reached out and gently took her wrist. He guided the key until it turned.

The door opened, spilling light, and Lark stumbled in.

Aunt Ora was suddenly in the building’s vestibule. “Lark, what’s wrong, baby? You look like you’ve been dancing with a damned ghost.” “It’s nothing, Aunt Ora. Please.” “Don’t lie to me now. Have you been violenced against?” “I’m okay. Really.” The woman fixed Bolan with a withering gaze.

“Guns, all the time guns around here. If I had my way, I’d take all those useless things, put ‘em in a big pot and melt them down for scrap. You look kind of mature to be going around smelling of gunsmoke, mister. What you got to say for yourself?” “Good night,” Bolan said.

“Huh! And good night to you, too.” Lark’s low “Thank you” came out just before the door slammed shut with a hollow bang.

Bolan returned to his cab. Dawn was still a few hours off. The Executioner’s work wasn’t yet done, and somehow he knew that the gray Impala hadn’t packed it in for the evening.

As he cruised the streets, he wondered what had caused the Blood Horse gangsters to hold their fire like that. They were gunning for him for certain now, but they hadn’t closed in for the kill. And that was what the Executioner wanted: to smoke them out, not to chase around after them.

Next time they would face-off without an innocent person in the back seat. Next time it would be a different game.

Heath Street winds from the Green Line surface streetcar terminus at South Huntington Avenue to the sunken tracks of the MBTA Orange Line subway. It pulses through the heart of Roxbury, hugging the back of Mission Hill, cutting through the projects to wend its way through a Hispanic section of Roxbury.

At first light, a low-slung primer gray Impala convertible pulled up to the abandoned brewery on the Huntington end of Heath Street and a man got out. He wore a black sweatsuit, with a black ski mask concealing his features. His eyes were bright, and his jaws worked like a steam shovel stuck in first gear. From the end of one arm, he swung a short, thick crowbar.

Stepping up to the boarded-over wooden doors, he pried them open with three quick jerks of the heavy tool.

Pushing open the creaking doors, he motioned for the driver—masked as well—to bring in the Impala.

The big vehicle rumbled in. Its taillights winked off, and the driver stepped out. He carried jerricans filled with sloshing kerosene, and passing them to his companion, said, “Slop it around good now.” “This place don’t look like it’ll burn.” “It doesn’t have to burn down, it just has to go up.” When the containers were emptied, the driver dumped both cans into a pile of refuse and retrieved a blood-red square of cardboard from the glove compartment, along with a short can of aerosol spray paint.

Going to a spot over a pile of gas-soaked debris, he laid the square against the brick with one hand and shook the spray can vigorously with the other until the ball inside rattled metallically.

“Why do you have to do that?” the man demanded.

“Unit tradition,” the driver replied. “You know that.” “But suppose it doesn’t burn and somebody figures out what it stands for?” “This is Boston, not Benning. And it sure ain’t Mog. We clear a building, we leave our mark.” Three quick squirts through the cutout, and when the cardboard came away it left the profile of a horse’s head on the old brick. It gleamed blood-red and sinister.

“There. Done. Let’s roll.” “You ain’t forgetting something, are you?” “Ignition is your responsibility this time out.” “Fine by me,” the second man replied. He took a disposable butane lighter from a pocket, snapped it alight and inserted a steel pin into the plastic valve so the gaseous flame remained burning after he took off his thumb. Standing with one foot in the open rear door, he flung the flaming cylinder. It struck with a deep whoosh that sucked up debris in an angry bloom of yellow fire. Rubber burning, the Impala peeled out of the old brick monstrosity. Roaring up Heath, it took a left onto South Huntington and disappeared into the night.

From his vantage point at the summit of Fort Hill, Mack Bolan saw the bright orange glow growing behind nearby Mission Hill. He had selected that spot because it was the least traveled in all of Roxbury. Vacant triple deckers and duplexes stood boarded up and rotting on their granite foundations, windows sealed with plywood, awaiting rehab or demolition.

It was also the perfect place to rehab his taxi.

A few squirts of white and black enamel spray paint camouflaged the bullet hits on his charger. For night operations it would pass muster.

Keying the ignition, the Executioner started down the hill. He knew the city wouldn’t be free of Blood Horse depredations until the sun came up. The climbing smoke and sparks told him he had been correct.

The Fire Department beat Bolan to the site.

The narrow streets were already choked with emergency vehicles, so he got out and walked, blending in with a crowing crowd of citizens pulled from the warm comfort of their homes by the fire.

“What’s going on?” Bolan asked.

“What do you think?” a shivering man growled.

“It’s another damn fire.” “Think it’s the Blood Horse?” The man’s head snapped around. “Who?” “I heard the firebugs are called the Blood Horse.” “I never heard that. Where’d you hear that?” “Around,” Bolan said.

“Well, you must not get around the same places I get around,” the man grunted.

It was a two-alarm fire, enlisting engines and ladder trucks from opposite sides of town. The ancient building resembled a brick oven with fire leaking through chinks in the bricked-up windows and doors. It roared from the mouth-like main entrance where the big wooden doors hung black and flaming.

Firefighters were turning their high-pressure hoses on the furnace mouth, and as Bolan watched, he saw that they were winning. Understanding that no lives were at stake, he returned to his taxi.

Dawn was breaking. It was the end of a long night.

The Blood Horsemen who had lit up the brewery were undoubtedly long gone, managing to wrest a small victory from the bloody night. But two Blood Horsemen had fallen, and Bolan still rode free and unvanquished.

Returning to the South End, he parked the taxi and reclaimed his rental Buick, returning to the street in under sixty seconds.

Working his way to the Southeast Expressway, he headed south, dropping off the Neponset Circle exit and rolling into the seaside town of Quincy.

He followed Hancock Street until he reached the high school, then turned left.

As safe houses went, this one was unique. A former church, it had been subdivided into split-level apartments about the time the condominium market had gone bust. The Feds had snapped it up cheap. Now it served as a dorm-style temporary safe house for in-town agents and informants. With its squat crenellated bell tower, it looked more like a fieldstone castle than anything else.

Bolan understood it was unoccupied at the moment, which made it perfect as his local base of operations.

Parking in the blacktop side lot, Bolan got out and entered the building with a passkey, then selected apartment number 1, as per prior arrangement. The lock surrendered to another passkey.

The split-level apartment was furnished in Danish modern. An answering machine sat hooked up to a secure telephone, its message light dark. Beside it was a fax machine.

Removing his duster and combat rig, Bolan picked up the receiver and dialed a local number from memory.

The din of hammering and a blowtorch hissing preceded the guarded “Hello?” “Me,” Bolan said.

“We’re still working on it, Striker,” said John Kissinger, Stony Man Farm’s chief armorer.

“Delivery?” “Do you want it now or do you want it bulletproofed?” “I want it yesterday, Cowboy. As always.” The voice on the other end laughed heartily and said, “No can do.” “Keep working. If this mission goes critical, I’m coming to claim it, ready or not.” “Understood.” The line went dead and Bolan took a quick shower.

Once dry, he brought out his war book.

It would be a few hours before Hal Brognola reached his office. Bolan didn’t feel like sleeping just yet. He had all day to get some rest, so he reviewed his notes of the night’s activities.

It was clear Blood Horse weren’t some inner-city street gangbangers. They were too old to be that type. They were well armed, no junky TEC-9’S or cheap flashy wheel-guns for them.

Fifty-caliber heavy Brownings didn’t exactly come up from Alabama with the kind of cold pieces a Ruggles or a Fisher crew relied on.

Two matched armored Impalas meant a chop shop somewhere. It also meant someone had done a hell of a lot of preparation to find and fit out two identical vehicles for combat. Obviously the idea was to confuse the local law and assist in evasion and escape maneuvers. Not to mention harassment and destruction.

The essential questions remained: who were they and why were they?

The Executioner knew the answers lay out there in the hellzone of Greater Boston, but they could only be purchased by the local coin of the realm—bullets and blood.

Kirk Weatherly watched the sun come up on his spacious Harbor Towers luxury apartment on India Wharf, a Bloody Mary cupped in one hand. Wrapped in a smoking jacket of raw Burmese silk, he stood before the floor-to-ceiling picture window, gazing at the choppy gray waves of Boston Harbor.

The telephone rang, andwitha quick movement he downed the remains of his morning drink. Setting the glass on a coffee table, he grabbed the receiver, throwing himself on a twelve-foot leather divan.

“This is Red Horse One,” a smoky voice said. “Go ahead, One,” Weatherly replied. “We had some problems last night, Steeple.” “I’m listening.” “We lost Bellups and Dowdle.” Weatherly’s eyes narrowed. “Explain lost.” “We don’t know the details, but Dowdle caught fire. We extracted the corpse from an ambulance.” “Good. And Bellups?” “Cracked up his technical.” “Damn.” “He was dead at the wheel when we got there. The kerosene in the car must have gone up.” “You extracted him, too, I trust?” “Couldn’t. The law was all over him. So we reconnoitered the crash site and found a way to crisp him good and proper.” “No fingerprints?” “Guaranteed, Steeple. They won’t ID him.” “He was a good man.” “He died for the cause. We need to remember his woman when this thing starts paying off.” “Done.” There was a reflective pause in which neither man spoke. “I see by the TV the old Heath Street brewery went up last night,” Weatherly offered.

“It was the best we could do under the circumstances.

But it was number one on the target list, as per orders.” “That puts us behind schedule. You know the program.

Escalate. Escalate. Escalate.” “We’ll double up the targets for tonight.” “See that you do, Red Horse One.” “There’s another thing.” “Yeah?” “When we went to recover Bellups, we got jumped.” “Law?” “No, taxi.” “Say again.” “Some Dudley Do-Right cabdriver, I figure.” “A taxi driver!” “Well, he drove one of those two-tone Shawmut cabs. Came at us firing. We discouraged him with the folding fifty, though.” “He might be undercover law.” “We thought of that, too, so we ran him down later.” “Nail him?” “I wish.” Watching the sun redden the dawn sky, Weatherly sucked in a long breath. “I’m listening,” he said thinly.

“He was double-strapped, but that wasn’t what discouraged us. He had that talk-jock woman for a passenger. Youngblood.” “I see.” “I figured you wouldn’t want us to do her, too.” “You could get one and not the other,” Weatherly said.

“Not the way that damn cabbie was playing it.” “I think we need to find out who our determined Samaritan is.” “The cab number was nineteen-oh-eight.” Weatherly frowned. “Did you say nineteen-oh-eight?” “Yeah, why?” “You don’t remember that number?” “No. Should I?” “It’s been only two days, Red Horse One.” “Two days?” “The number of that state police cruiser you annihilated on Blue Hill Avenue was nineteen-oh-eight.” “Damn. You’re right. Weird coincidence.” “Too weird. I need to make a call.” “What do we do in the meantime?” “Trot out the Eldorado. It’s due for action again. Paint it and the surviving technicals.” “Any particular color?” “You know my favorite.” “Red it shall be. Catch you later.” Weatherly stabbed the switch hook with his index finger and cot the phone number of the Shawmut Cab Company from the local operator. “Shawmut Cab Company,” a brusque voice said.

“I’d like to make a complaint against one of your drivers.” The voice at the other end essayed a whistling sigh that all but said that it was too early in the morning for that crap.

“Did you get the driver’s name or medallion number?” he asked.

“Not the name. But the number was nineteen-oh-eight.” “That can’t be the medallion number,” the man insisted.

“It was the medallion number.” “Our numbers don’t go that high. You must have some other cab company.” “It was a two-tone cab. Black body, white doors, hood and trunk lid. That is one of yours, isn’t it?” “Yeah, the old-style Metro police-car livery. I keep hoping they’ll change it, but they never do. You wouldn’t believe how many times people mistake a prowl car for one of ours and try to flag it down.” “The medallion number is painted on the side of the vehicle as well as stamped on the medallion itself, isn’t it?” Weatherly said.

“That’s right. Our running numbers match the medallion number.” “And nineteen-oh-eight is the number I saw.” “You’ve got an extra digit. Could it be nine-oh-eight? Or one-ninety?” “No. I assure you the taxi number of the black-and-white cab that sideswiped me on Boylston Street at a little after ten last night was number one-nine-zero-eight.” “That’s impossible.” “I assure you it’s true.” “Like I said, impossible. Numbers don’t lie. We don’t have a taxi in our fleet with that number. The city’s never issued that many medallions, for that matter. And I can tell you that none of our vehicles have a license tag with that number on it. The tag number and medallion number are identical. State law. That’s just the way it is.” “You’ve been very helpful,” Weatherly said in a distant tone.

“If I have, I don’t see how.” Hanging up, Weatherly dialed a local number. While it rang, he made short work of the celery stalk from his morning drink with quick snaps of his strong white teeth.

The line picked up, and there was perhaps ten seconds of dead air.

“Steeple here,” Weatherly said. “Red Horse One. Over to you.” “That cab?” “Yeah?” “No such medallion number.” “Not a chance. I saw it with my own eyes.

Chased the bastard all over town. The number was nineteen-oh-eight.” “The same number as that dead trooper’s cruiser,” Weatherly said.

“I’m not hallucinating, dammit!” “This mystery cabbie. Did he appear to know what he was doing?” “Did he ever. Came after us the first time. We went after him on the second go-round. He was ready for us, too. Gave us both barrels. One silenced, the other some big, mother of a pistol I never saw before.” “A ghost cab with the medallion number of a dead state trooper,” Weatherly said slowly. “I think that adds up to one coincidence too many, don’t you?” “Yeah, it does.” “I have this hunch that you’re going to run into that phantom taxi tonight. And every night you run missions if you don’t take him out of action first.” “Done.” “Make a project of this guy.” “He’s a project.” “He’ll be looking for a gray Impala. That new coat of paint will give you the element of surprise.” “Okay. He won’t be a problem.” “And Red Horse One?” “Yeah?” “Get some R and R today. I think you’ll need it for tonight’s run.” “Roger. Ou.” The line clicked. Weatherly replaced the receiver and walked over to the panoramic windows.

The sun was entirely up out of the water now. A new day was upon the city, and it promised to be another cold one. Weatherly hoped so. A real cold one, for some more than others.

At precisely 9:00 a.m. Mack Bolan dialed a Washington, D.c. number from memory, contacting an old friend at his Justice Department office.

“Brognola.” “It’s me, Hal,” Bolan said. “Are you familiar with the situation in Boston?” “Yeah, Justice has been pulled in.

BATF too.” “I need some intel.” “Name it.” “One of the perpetrators should be in the morgue by now.” The head Fed grunted. “I won’t ask how you know that.” “He’s burned badly, and I doubt you’ll get prints. I want to know what he was chewing when he died.” “Chewing?” “The coroner will find a leafy substance in his mouth. Probably cooked, but identifiable.” “Shouldn’t be hard.” “Run two Massachusetts tag numbers. The first reads one-C-A-V, the other seven-oh-one. Also, find out from local law if they know of a street gang or arson crew that call themselves the Blood Horse. Their symbol is a red horse head. No description beyond that.” “Got it. Anything else?” “Yeah. Look into armory thefts. See if you can get wind of two missing fifty-caliber heavy Brownings. Model M-two.” “Brownings. That’s pretty serious armament for the street.” “This crew operates paramilitary style. And you’d be surprised at what leaks out the back of National Guard armories when no one’s paying close attention.” “I’ll get back to you.” Bolan gave him the safe house number and hung up.

The morning news was on, and Bolan watched taped footage of the brewery fire while the local reporter played up the two burned bodies angle.

“Authorities refuse to say at this time if these two Victims found so far apart were victims of the arsonists, or perhaps the very perpetrators who have been terrorizing the city. Stay tuned to News Four for more details. Back to you, Shelby.” Bolan hit the clicker. Not much hard information there. He decided a few hours” sleep was in order.

Brognola called back a little past eleven.

Bolan rolled out of bed, snapping into instant alertness.

“Striker?” “Go ahead,” Bolan said.

“Not much for you. No Blood Horse, according to the Boston Anti-Gang Violence Unit. No crew with a red horse head sign. But the ME did find a cooked chew of something in the dead man’s mouth. He has it down as tobacco.” Bolan shook his head, saying, “Tobacco is a casual chew. And it doesn’t speed up a man’s reflexes to the point where he can shrug off a Parabellum round.” “I can only tell you what they tell me. By the way, those two Massachusetts tags? They don’t exist. Someone made those from scratch.” “Any luck on the Brownings?” “No. You’re talking about inventorying every armory from here to Puget Sound. That’ll take time.” “Try localizing, to New England only. If nothing turns up, add upstate New York.” Brognola said goodbye, and the connection was terminated.

Lunch was a steak and pub-fries at a local Irish tavern, after which Bolan took a ride in his rental LeSabre.

There hadn’t been time to recon the streets of Roxbury by daylight when he’d first arrived. There hadn’t been time for a lot of things, including armoring his cab and taking other tactical precautions.

Bolan had been aware of the situation in Boston since the first ignition. He’d tracked it as it developed, but another potential mission had looked as if it would go critical first. Yet the minute the Executioner received intel that State Trooper Francis McIlwraith had fallen in a.50-caliber hailstorm, the other mission had gone on hold and Bolan had literally thrown this one together on the fly.

It was still being put together, but now seemed like a good opportunity to scope out Blood Horse territory.

Bolan took the rotary at the Boston end of the Neponset River to Gallivan Boulevard, cruising through North Dorchester past well-tended single- and two-family capes and three-bedroom colonials. Cities always grew outward from the center, Bolan knew. That was one reason why urban decay rarely touched the heart of a city. Business districts couldn’t be allowed to fall inffdisrepair, so office buildings were torn down when they outlived their usefulness and new ones erected on the old foundations. When the heart died, the lifeblood of a city dried up.

On the other hand, the surrounding wards were slower to change. People didn’t buy homes to tear them down.

They maintained them or rented or let them slowly go to seed. Either way they lived in them, or if absentee landlords, they lived off the rental income.

The working-class sections of Boston were the product of the Victorian era. They looked it.

Houses were packed tight, cheek-by-jowl, to accommodate the waves of immigrants all needing domiciles. As the city expanded, the immediate suburbs had been built up and annexed into the metropolis now called Greater Boston.

Just before Gallivan turned into Morton Street, Bolan saw the neat homes and apartment buildings turn increasingly decrepit.

Here was the older Boston, whose remnants refused to die.

At Blue Hill Avenue he turned right, and it was as if he had turned off into another country.

Crumbling three deckers, their triple-tiered porches sagging alarmingly, predominated. It wasn’t blighted yet, but it was old and going to seed.

As the cross streets clicked by, Bolan checked his war book maps. Blue Hill Avenue was the eastern boundary of Roxbury. Huntington was its western edge. Dorchester, Jamaica Plain and the South End—all working class neighborhoods that had seen better days—hemmed it in north and south.

Warren Avenue appeared on the left and Bolan tooled onto it, following it to Dudley. A turn-of-the-century Victorian bus depot dominated Jackson Square, looking as if it belonged in a museum. Brick office buildings boasted elaborate facades that had looked down on the days of hoop skirts and horse-drawn cabs.

Abruptly the breathtaking Boston skyline became visible at the end of the road, suggesting the promise of a better life.

Cruising past the redbrick sprawl of the Mission Hill Housing Development, Bolan slowed, looking for signs of trouble. He saw only people hurrying about, bundled up against the bitter midwinter cold. Many wore ski masks or leather face protectors. No one looked particularly like a Blood Horseman.

As he climbed the Hill, the bells of Mission Church began caroling the hour. Bolan counted the rings. Twelve. It was exactly noon by his watch.

The area was quiet, but the dead smell of burned wood began to seep into his vehicle. He found his way to Heath Street and followed it until he came to the old brewery.

It was deserted now. Yellow police caution tape was stretched across the gaping entrance that only a few hours before had been a roaring furnace. The fire had managed to seep out here and there to scorch the brick in up-licking tongues, but other than that, the old building still stood—as it probably had for a century and would for another. It had that indestructible look about it.

Bolan walked around the building, examining the walls closely. There was nothing scrawled on the old brick, not even graffiti.

Stepping over the yellow tape, he entered the cavernous interior. He had to duck his head to avoid hanging icicles formed by the cascades of city water that had brought the blaze under control.

The air hung heavy and cold, and it abraded the inside of his nostrils. Breathing shallowly through a wet handkerchief, the Executioner played a flashlight around the soot-blackened interior. The cracked slate floor was littered with ashes and brush that crumbled to powder when stepped on, and in some places hydrant water had frozen in slick patches.

The beam of the flash darted about. The walls were coated with soot and, donning a pair of black gloves, Bolan brushed at the walls, trying to expose the natural brick. Five minutes of that got him coughing, low and painful, but he kept at it, eyes intent.

At a spot about shoulder height, where the largest concentration of charred debris lay heaped, he exposed a tuft of dull red. He rubbed at it, and a second tuft appeared. The red brightened; it looked fresh. Farther down, it turned black and bubbly. Paint. Recent, too. Below the line of tiny black bubbles, the wall was so scorched that no amount of rubbing could bring out anything more.

Stepping back, he visualized what had survived.

Two red tufts. Horse ears, if one used one’s imagination. The ears of a horse in profile, not full-face. There was a suggestion of a stylized mane where the red shaded to black.

It didn’t seem worth the hacking cough he’d developed, but as he left the old brewery building, Bolan wore an expression close to satisfaction on his face.

The red horse’s head story was true: there was a Blood Horse. That might not be what they called themselves, but their mark was no myth. And if it wasn’t a myth, it had to have meaning. Bolan was going to find its significance.

Taking South Huntington to Huntington Avenue, he made his way to the heart of the insurance district and found a parking spot on Clarendon Street within sight of the mirrored chromium-blue blade of the John Hancock Tower. Buying a ticket, he rode the elevator to the observation deck. Ignoring the spectacular views, he went to the Summit Room, stationing himself at the long wall of glass that looked out over Roxbury and its environs.

There were no observation telescopes at this, the least interesting view of the great city, and, best of all, no tourists.

Bolan took a pair of Zeiss field glasses from his coat pocket and brought them to his eyes. He focused on the fire-blackened lots and bombed-out buildings that stood out against the snow-covered Roxbury hills like squares on a chessboard. Not a single fire had been set outside the area’s well-defined confines.

Roxbury was ground zero, no question about it.

Yes, the Executioner decided, someone was playing chess with the lives of a neighborhood, someone unknown, with an unknown purpose.

Arson without motive, death without reason.

Bolan gazed down upon the city he had chosen to protect and made a silent vow that very soon the Blood Horse would be broken forever.

Nightfall came at precisely 5:23, and that was when the alarm clock awoke Bolan.

He went to the living room telephone and saw the blinking message light.

The playback delivered Hal Brognola’s familiar voice.

“Striker, I have nothing on any Blood Horse or any street gang using a red horse head emblem anywhere in the country. The Boston ME reports chewing tobacco found in the John Doe corpse. At my request they revisited the subject. It’s not tobacco, but they didn’t know what it is. A sample’s been pouched to our toxicology lab down here, and I hope to have something for you ASAP. By which I mean tomorrow earliest. As you expected, the fingertips were completely burned off.

Sorry. Finally there was some leakage from the Springfield Massachusetts National Guard armory about eight months ago. Undetermined ordnance missing, but it includes not two but three M2 heavy Brownings. The feeling is it was an inside job, but there’s no proof. I’ve got to focus on something else at the moment, so I suggest you give Aaron a call. And Striker, be careful out there.” Dialing Stony Man Farm in Virginia, headquarters for the top-secret U.s.

counterinsurgency group Bolan and Brognola were affiliated with, the Executioner was put through to cybernetics expert Aaron Kurtzman.

“What can I do for you, Mack?” “A horse head in profile. Red. Any iconography or symbology at all. I’m fishing.” “When do you need it?” “Soonest.” “Okay. Horse faces left or right?” “Probably left, but not definitely.” “That distinction helps not at all. What number can I reach you at?” Bolan gave him the safe house telephone number.

“Done.” Bolan next called a local number.

“Still in the shop,” John Kissinger said over the sputtering hiss of an acetylene torch.

“Keep working, Cowboy.” Finally the Executioner suited up for the night’s run. The sound-suppressed Beretta 93-R went into his shoulder rig. Two spare extended magazines, each holding twenty Parabellum punishers, hung under his right arm in a double pouch. His web belt held the usual array, from a Ka-bar fighting knife to emergency battle dressings. The black duster went over everything, concealing his battle gear from view.

Stepping out, he inhaled the cold salt air.

Less than a quarter mile away, the Atlantic lapped at the sands of Woilaston Beach. It was another freezing night, fifteen degrees with an ocean wind that sent the wind-chill factor deep into negative numbers. In Roxbury, people were probably settling down for a long night in which the fear of fire was pushing out the numbing cold from their minds.

The Southeast Expressway took Bolan into Boston and the dark streets of the South End. The fresh snow of the previous night had already turned dingy. Plows had pushed it into the gutters, making piles that had frozen into dirty crusts.

At the garage, he swapped the LeSabre rental for the Chevy Caprice taxi. He looked it over. The local Stony Man Farm support troops had taken time to service it, he saw with satisfaction, putting in a new driver’s-side window. Even the broken taillight had been replaced with one just as dingy as its shattered mate. Dull brown Bond-O plugged the odd bullet hole.

Settling behind the wheel, Bolan dropped the big.44 pistol onto the newspaper on the passenger seat and folded it inffconcealment. It had been charged with a full magazine, and one round rested in the pipe.

Spare clips were under the seat and in the glove compartment.

The supercharged V8 engine sprang to life, making a confident mutter beneath the begrimed white hood. He ran her out into the night, and within ten minutes was cruising the streets of Roxbury.

The air was clear and the coldness had forced even the hardiest of people indoors. Conversely it had brought out the police in even larger numbers than before.

From the two-tone blue-and-gray state police cruisers to the flat silver capsule cars of Boston Housing Authority Police, they lurked around corners, climbed the icy hilly streets and passed in the night, eyes locking in recognition of their grim shared duty.

Bolan fired up the police scanner. The spit and crackle of routine radio traffic came and went—a domestic disturbance here, a burglary complaint there. Two stolen car reports.

Cabin fever combined with the deep-seated fear of fire was bringing out the worst in the city’s inhabitants.

So far, the Blood Horse hadn’t struck.

The Executioner knew that every prowl car had as its top priority a primer gray Impala ragtop.

The Blood Horse—whoever they were—also understood that their days of stealthy freedom were over. They were marked.

Two hours of tooling through the city ate up gas and time, but if impatience had begun to gnaw at Bolan, it failed to register on his face.

However, leery of passing the same patrol cars, and noticing the glances of the local law showing more and more interest, he took up a position on Fort Hill beside Highland Park, where the tall medieval-looking Cochituate Standpipe that was a Roxbury landmark stood sentinel.

It was a part of the city where the sun never warmed the streets for more than a few hours a day. The rows of three deckers and apartment buildings acted like blinds, blocking all but the direct noonday sunlight.

From the hill, Bolan had a commanding vantage point over the town.

A blue-gray helicopter attached to the state police air wing flew overhead. Bolan recognized the profile as a Eurocopter 350 A-Star. Flying low, it crossed the skyline on a north-to-south heading, then vectored back on a westerly tack. Purposeful, determined, it was a watchful but impotent dragonfly against the night.

After a while, it left the area, no doubt to refuel. But Bolan knew it would be back.

The explosion call came just before 8:00 p.m.

“All units. Ten-eighty. Bus shelter on Dudley.” Curt acknowledgements crowded the band. Bolan started up his vehicle and let it freewheel down the hill.

With the police converging on the bus shelter, the streets would be clear. The Blood Horse knew that as well as anybody. The Executioner knew it, too. Whatever their game, there was no tactical point to the Blood Horse taking out an ancient bus shelter, unless it was a diversion.

Bolan took Columbus Avenue and raced its length. If Roxbury had a main artery, it was Columbus. Wide and multilaned, it was the natural high-speed escape route for any perpetrator seeking to flee the area.

But he found nothing; the road was clear.

Doubling back, he passed the Academy Homes Housing project on his right. The high-rise brick complex of Bromley-Heath appeared on the left, the color of stagnant blood. Gang warfare had raged between the two projects for years now, but on this bitter night, even the gangsters feared to venture out.

Eyes on the road, his bouncing headlights leaping ahead of him like questing searchlights, Bolan drove with a grim precision.

He saw the state police helicopter first. It was coming his way, overflying Columbus, and, flying suspiciously low, its lights were playing down on the road. Then he saw headlights racing in his direction. They were too far off for him to discern the make and model of the vehicle, but it was a car, its lights a double set.

On a hunch, Bolan dropped back to thirty miles an hour and slid over into the right side of the lane.

The oncoming headlights grew larger.

The radio crackled. “State Police One.

In pursuit of suspect cherry red convertible.

South on Columbus. Passing Roxbury Community College.” When the double lights were huge in his windshield, Bolan blasted into the opposite lane, braking broadside, suddenly blocking both lanes.

Exiting the passenger side, the Executioner laid his arm across the taxi hood and lined the Desert Eagle’s sights in between the oncoming lights.

He fired once. The weapon bucked, spitting a round from the snapping muzzle and a smoking shell from the ejector mechanism.

A hole jumped into the dull grille, and hissing radiator steam vented angrily. He’d found a chink in the enemy’s armor.

The Impala veered left, then right. Bolan fired again. A.44 Magnum slug could cripple an engine if it struck a vulnerable spot. All the Executioner had to do was to find that spot.

But there was no time for a third shot. Seemingly intent on ramming the blocking cab, the Impala accelerated.

Bolan threw himself off to the side of the road, rolling under the guardrail, tensing for the inevitable crash.

It never came. At the last possible moment, the Impala driver regained control and flung his charger into the opposite lane.

Slip-sliding, it broadsided the steel guardrail, bounced off, then, tires howling, found traction. It slammed back into the correct lane, recovered its forward momentum and kept going.

The state police helicopter took off in hot pursuit.

Bolan reclaimed his cab and gave chase.

“Approaching Bromley-Heath,” the whirlybird pilot reported.

Then came a transmission that made Bolan’s jaw muscles tighten into two hard rocks.

“Suspect red Impala is lowering top.

Repeat, the top is coming down.” Bolan floored it, the powerful V8 engine roaring in response.

“They’re pulling into Bromley-Heath.” The taxi speedometer climbed to seventy and hung there.

“Over Bromley-Heath. I can see two males, ski-masked. One has… Oh my God!” A thin line of tracers lit up the sky. A quivering yellow needle, it touched the underside of the helicopter once, licking it.

The chopper bucked upward. A rotor blade cracked and flew off, sailing away in slow motion.

The aircraft had no chance. It dropped like a fragile blue egg, striking the dark blocky roofline of Bromley-Heath, where it gave up a boiling mushroom of fire that raged up at the sky.

When Bolan arrived at the scene less than a minute later, one of the apartment buildings was already involved, its roof ablaze with red-orange flame.

Sparks danced like angry fireflies in the hot updraft.

There was no sign of the red Impala.

A scream from within the burning building brought Bolan running out of his vehicle. Sprinting across the blacktop yards, he reached the heavy steel front door as a knot of people stumbled out, their faces twisted with fear. They weren’t dressed for the bitter evening cold, but neither were they dressed for fire.

The stench of aviation fuel made the brisk air pungent. As Bolan legged up the short concrete stairs, ribbons of fire began spilling from the roof.

“Oh my Lord!” a man screamed. “It’s all on fire!” The Executioner stepped forward, taking children from an overburdened mother’s arms, and urged the confused to safety. “Get as far away from here as you can,” he commanded. “Go on!” When the flood of evacuees abated, someone called out, “Where’s Mrs. Hawkins?” No one knew, but several people swore she had been seen in the halls just before the crash.

Bolan charged into the building. Pelting up the graffiti-defaced stairwell, he pushed past the fire doors at the second floor. Going from door to door, he pounded on them, yelling.

“Fire! Everyone out! The roof’s on fire.

Everyone out now!” But everyone, it seemed, had already evacuated the second floor.

He reached the third floor, and it, too, was empty. He moved on, calling out and pounding on walls and doors to no response.

Finally only the top floor remained, the one under the twisted ball of tangled metal and flame that had been an airworthy helicopter only a few minutes before.

Reaching that floor’s fire door, he spotted thin gray fingers of smoke already dribbling around the top edge to pool under the scabby ceiling.

Gingerly touching the steel, he found it wasn’t yet warm. But an ominous snap and crackle from the roof told him time was short.

Sucking in a deep breath, the Executioner pushed his way into the hallway. There, the smoke was already a haze that made his eyes sting and his breath catch. He tried the doors; most fell open easily. No one left their doors open in the projects, so it was a safe bet the occupants had evacuated. He worked his way down one side of the hallway, keeping low because that’s where the breathable air was settling.

Then he heard a woman screaming at the top of her lungs.

“Dion! Dion! Come out of there. We gotta get out, child.” “I’m scared,” a small boy’s voice shrieked.

“Unlock the damn bathroom door! You can’t hide in there, baby. The fire’s coming. Come on now!” Bolan tried the apartment door. Locked. He pounded on it. “Police!” he yelled. “Get out of there.” “My baby won’t come out of the bathroom,” the woman wailed.

“Open the door!” Bolan shouted.

The woman’s distraught voice turned away.

“Come on, Dion. Please, baby. Please come out for your mama.” Bolan realized that he couldn’t wait for the panicked woman to open the door. He zeroed in on the voices. They were off to the far right.

Lifting the Desert Eagle, he blew out the lock cylinder, then kicked high. The door swung inward.

Smoke gusted out, thin and gray, but growing thick and menacing, as it crawled along the ceiling.

“Where are you?” Bolan demanded, batting at the dense haze.

“Over here, mister!” The woman was around forty, her face was glistening with sweat. She loomed in the gray murk, a thick-muscled arm pointing to an avocado-green door.

“He’s in there. He won’t come out.” Her eyes fell on the Desert Eagle and she took an involuntary step backward.

Ignoring the woman, Bolan stepped up to the locked bathroom door and set his foot against the doorplate. He kicked once, twice.

The door caved in with a splintering crash and he charged in, gathering up a kicking boy he could hardly see but definitely felt. He was all frantic arms and legs.

“Let me go!” The mother fluttered her arms when they stepped out.

“Oh, Dion. My baby.” “Come on,” Bolan told the anxious mother, leading the way.

They reached the hallway, now an impenetrable haze. The mother beat at it with her arms.

“I can’t see. I can’t see!” “Follow the sound of my voice,” Bolan said, moving for the stairwell, “and keep low.” As soon as he reached it, he knew they were in trouble. It radiated heat like a hot-plate.

“Back!” he snapped.

“What’s wrong?” “The stairwell is blocked by fire.” The woman’s voice twisted up in a scared knot. “It’s the only way down!” Bolan moved as far from the hot stairwell as possible and found a door to an apartment. He slammed repeated kicks just above the door handle. On the third impact of his heavy boot, he could hear the wood splintering. The frame shrieked as its nails surrendered before his relentless kicks. Driving a hard shoulder before him, he smashed the door inward, the nail-studded frame board dragging across the threshold.

“Watch the nails,” he warned, stepping over the dangling board.

“How are we going to get out of here?” the woman asked, clutching her son.

“Save your breath and just do as I say,” Bolan replied in a reassuring tone.

They reached a window and the soldier grabbed the sash, which refused to budge. He saw it had been painted shut.

“Can’t you open it?” the mother gasped out.

Bolan again said nothing. Slipping his Ka-bar knife from its sheath, he used it to score the seams where the sash met the window-frame. He worked with a savage determination, at times reversing the knife to jar loose the sash with the heavy handle. The sash thumped. Paint cracked, then separated. Finally he got it up.

Cold air rushed in, biting, yet welcome.

Guiding the woman and boy, Bolan pushed their heads out to gasp in reviving oxygen.

Taking a small steel folding grapnel and black nylon line from his web belt, the Executioner hooked them together, saying, “We’ll have to climb down.” The woman turned and gawked at Bolan’s thin line. “Climb that?” “It’ll hold us. I’ll go first, with the boy, then come back for you. Get down on the floor until then. The good air should last.” “Just take my boy. I don’t care what happens to me.” “I’ll be back for you,” Bolan repeated, jamming the steel hook flukes into the soft sash wood, and dropping the line outside.

Scooping up the boy, he threw one leg out.

“Grab my neck with both hands,” he instructed.

“Okay,” the boy answered. His entire body trembled, and he threw a tear-stained glance at his mother’s face.

Then Bolan flung himself out. The toes of his black boots caught the brick, and hand-over-hand he descended, using the mortar seams as footholds.

The boy said nothing. He held on for dear life, while above his mother called down encouragement.

“That’s my boy. Hold on tight. Mama will be along.” With a double click of heels on blacktop, Bolan reached the ground and safety.

Ladder trucks were pulling up. The police were already on-site. One patrolman rushed in to collect the boy.

“I’m going back for the woman,” Bolan told the cop who took possession of the boy.

“Let the professionals do it,” the man replied shortly.

“No time.” “I can’t let you do that. Look at that roof.

It’s a pool of burning fuel.” Bolan glanced up. The edge of the roof was spitting fire and fury. The heart of the flames lay well back of the roofline, but it was creeping closer. Sparks danced in the cold air, while updraft smoke made whirling funnels that disappeared into the sky.

“I’m going back,” he said.

Bolan started for his dangling line. The roof was fully involved now, burning fuel drooling off the roof coping. Time was short.

Maybe it was the corrosive power of the burning fuel, or perhaps it was the age of the old building, but there was no warning. Like a fiery waterfall, the top-floor ceiling simply collapsed.

Under its destroying force, the woman was carried from sight. She uttered not a word.

Behind him the little boy screamed a choked, “Mama!” And deep inside Bolan a coldness grew as the conflagration assaulted his face.

He stood rooted for the longest part of a minute, eyes drilling the fire. His fists tightened reflexively, then he turned on his heel and stormed toward his waiting cab.

A few bystanders called out to him.

“You did good, man.” “Wasn’t your fault.” “Yeah. You a hero, man. You saved that little boy.” If the Executioner heard any of that, it didn’t show on his face. He got the cab in gear and backed out onto the street.

The night was young, and there was hell to pay.

Under an old railroad trestle in Jamaica Plain, a red Impala convertible sat blacked out and silent. Fire engines bayed distantly like pack hounds on the hunt.

“Where the hell are they?” the man in the back seat asked, tearing off his black ski mask. His face was shoe-polish brown.

Behind the wheel, the driver smoked patiently. His bored voice was unconcerned. “Give them a minute. Relax.” “I don’t like where we’re sitting still. We should be on the move. It’s going to be a long night.

There’s a lot to do.” “Nobody’s going to be looking for us here. All the cops are concentrated in Roxbury.” “Shit happens. You know that.” “Sure, but we’re the dudes who make it happen, not the dudes it happens to. Chill.” “Stow the black talk. I don’t like it.” “You’re the one to talk, sitting back there with your face all browned up with camo paint.” “I hate this crap, too.” “It washes off. After you’re rich, you can go back to passing.” The driver grunted a humorless laugh.

The back-seat gunner said nothing. When cigarette smoke drifted back to him, he started coughing spasmodically. “How can you smoke like that?

Bad enough the air outside stinks like charcoal. Every time I inhale, I think I’m sucking down a taste of Bellups or Dowdle.” “Hair of the dog,” the driver murmured, letting out a long stream of smoke from his nostrils.

Soon, a vintage red Cadillac Eldorado slithered under the shadow of the trestle, coming to a stop so the two aging vehicles sat nose-to-nose. Its quad headlights winked off.

The Impala driver reached behind his right shoulder and snapped a switch on a walkie-talkie strapped to his back. “You copy, Red Horse One?” “Copy, Red Horse Three. What gives?” “We bagged a state police chopper. Brought it down right on top of Bromley-Heath. Made quite a splash, too.” “Well done, Three.” “Also ran into that damn two-gun cabbie.” “Nail him?” “No. I figured to draw him into an ambush.

Figured wrong. He stopped to help at the fire.” “We gotta bust his Samaritan ass soon.” “That’s why I wanted to talk here, face-to-face without interruption. I got me a Georgia peach of an idea.” “Fine. Let’s hear it.” “We work this as a team. I’ll take point. You have the rear. Here’s how it’ll play…” Normally Steve Spillane would never have taken a Roxbury call after dark. It was an iron-clad rule with him. It was also company policy with Shawmut Cab: no driver was obligated to go into any part of the city or accept any after-dark fare where he felt unsafe. It was against the rules, of course, but the Boston police hackney squad made the rules. They didn’t have to live with the consequences.

There were two lines to Shawmut dispatch HQ, one for Roxbury, Mattapan and Dorchester residents, the other for the rest of the city. No Shawmut driver had to answer the so-called black line, though many did. Money was money, after all.

The trouble wasn’t with the black citizens of Roxbury and environs. Everybody knew that. It wasn’t even a completely black area. White people and Hispanics populated the area, too. It was the street gangbangers, dopers and petty stickup guys who made all the trouble.

As the police sergeant had explained at the mandatory safety course Spillane took when he first decided to drive a cab, “Urban predators don’t see your vehicle as transportation. To them, you drive a rolling cash register.” When he first heard that, a chill rippled up and down Spillane’s spine. Suddenly he had a new respect for the job he was about to undertake. And after he’d gotten through the first three sleepless nights, he decided to drive smart, or not at all.

Avoiding black-line calls was the first option he availed himself of.

But this night it was different. It was so bone-splinteringly cold that parking idle at various cab stands outside city T stops was just not cutting it. If he let the engine run, he only ate up gasoline and the cold got to his booted feet anyway.

Driving around hunting walking fares wasn’t much better. You still wasted gas. Boston wasn’t much of a town for people flagging down passing cabs anyway.

That was a New York thing.

So when the dispatcher announced that there was a pickup at the Wentworth Institute, Spillane reached for his mike with something close to relief.

“Six twenty-five. I’ll take it.” “It’s yours, 625. Good luck.” Spillane peeled out, passing a black-and-white metropolitan police unit.

In the dark it looked uncannily like a Shawmut taxi. A sudden memory made him shudder.

They still told the story of how once a Shawmut taxi had been mistaken for a black-and-white metro unit and the driver shot from a passing car.

Gangbangers. They never caught the shooter.

Spillane shook the thought from his mind as he eased into Roxbury. Passing a bank where an illuminated sign gave the temperature, he saw it was minus five. It made him shiver involuntarily, but this night the cold was his friend.

Everyone knew that when it got this bitter, even the drug-hungry stickup artists took the night off.

With all the fires, they had another reason to stay in their cribs. Spillane figured it was safe enough to pick up a random undomiciled fare.

By the time he slipped off Huntington to Ruggles, he had counted four different police vehicles. They made him feel even safer. After all, the pyromaniacs were torching buildings, not moving vehicles.

The fare was waiting for him outside the shadowy sprawl of the Wentworth Technical Institute.

Picking up on the street wasn’t a good idea at any time, but as he slowed, Spillane relaxed. The waiting fare was too thick-bodied to be a kid. Kids were the worst fares. Owning nothing, they had little enough to lose. The worst fare skippers were twenty and under.

Spillane judged the guy to be in his middle to late twenties. He was dressed for the weather, right down to the black ski mask.

As he pulled up, Spillane saw the fare was furiously chewing gum or something.

The cabdriver still had options. If he sized up the situation as hairy, he could call another Shawmut cab to take the fare off his hands. There were plenty of black Shawmut drivers who would do it, just as he took a lot of their fares to South Boston, a white enclave black cabbies preferred to avoid. Race had less to do with it than it might seem. It was strictly a safety issue.

The way the fare chewed his gum made Spillane a bit uneasy. It might mean a nervous or agitated fare. But what kind of druggie chewed gum, for Christ’s sake?

There was still time to hit the button that locked all four cab doors against unauthorized entry.

Spillane’s hand hovered near that button. But in the brief moment of indecision, the fare grabbed the door handle and yanked it open, throwing himself in.

“Whoo,” he said in a friendly, exuberant voice. “Man, is it ever cold!” He sounded black, or southern. It was pretty much the same thing to Steve Spillane, who hardly ever left Massachusetts, except to head up to Maine on vacation.

As the cabbie’s eyes went to the rearview mirror, he saw the rings of skin around the mouth and eye-holes of the ski mask were a milk chocolate brown.

“Where to?” he asked.

“Just drive.” “Sorry. I have to have a destination address.

Company rules.” The fare gave him an ingratiating smile.

“Take it easy, man. I ain’t planning on jacking you up. Take me to Forest Hills.” “Where in Forest Hills?” “Train station. Okay?” Spillane hesitated. The Orange Line subway terminated at Forest Hills. There were closer T stops on the Orange Line, there in Roxbury. On the other hand, many buses ran out of the Forest Hills hub. Maybe the guy was in a rush to catch a late-night bus.

“Sure,” Spillane said, wheeling the cab away from the curb.

Swinging back, he took Ruggles to Huntington. He bore down on the gas, racing his lights. The sooner it was over with, the better.

Aging rowhouses whipped by, their yellowish Chicago brick bow-fronts bulging as if buckling under the cumulative weight of their years.

“From around here?” Spillane asked his passenger.

“Georgia.” “Bet it doesn’t get this cold in Georgia,” Spillane said, trying to engage the passenger in conversation. It was part of his training: make a friend of the fare and keep your wallet and your life. A lot of street crime was impulse stuff and could go either way. Keeping the fare talking prevented him from working up his nerve in the long backseat silence.

It seemed to be working. The fare rubbed his hands together and said, “Man, will I be glad to get home for good.” He was looking out the windows, scanning the cross-street signs.

As the corner of Heath and South Huntington came up, the fare leaned into the much-scratched Plexiglas partition and grunted, “Take this next left.” “Heath Street? You said Forest Hills.” “Changed my mind.” “I need a destination,” Spillane said tightly.

Suddenly a silver pistol muzzle knocked against the partition. Spillane knew enough about guns to recognize it as a.44 Magnum Colt Python revolver. The bulletproof partition might deflect the first shot, but if two or three of those big rounds hit the same spot, the Plexiglas would cave like candy glass.

“I’m not carrying much cash,” Spillane said uneasily.

“Told you I’m not jacking you up. Now take the damn turn.” Spillane turned onto Heath, ghosting past the bombed-out brewery where yellow police tape flapped and chattered in the biting wind.

“That’s more like it,” the passenger said. “Now just do as I say.” Spillane eased one hand off the wheel to the pull-out switch on the steering column that lit the amber trouble lights mounted on either side of his roof herald. “Yeah, go ahead,” the passenger said easily. “Do it.” Spillane hesitated.

The Colt Python barrel rapped the cloudy Plexiglas. “I said go ahead,” he snapped.

“Hit your damn trouble lights.” Spillane swallowed before he could get the words out. “You want me to-was “Yeah. Exactly. I want you to.” “Look, if you’re looking to commit suicide, I want no part of it.” “Do as I say!” Taking a deep breath, Spillane pulled the trouble light switch. For once, he hoped they weren’t working. Every passing cop and fellow taxi driver knew that when the two flashing amber bulbs were on, it was a signal the driver was in danger.

“If you’ll just tell me what you want…” Spillane started to say.

“I want you to follow Heath all the way to Columbus.” Spillane guided the taxi at a careful speed. Every nerve screamed to hit the accelerator, as if it were somehow possible to outrun the passenger in back and his deadly piece of machined steel.

“Whoa! Douse the lights. Douse “em!” A BHA police cruiser angled onto Heath, and Spillane doused the trouble lights.

The fare kept his gun low and out of sight as he watched the cruiser hiss past. When it was gone, he said, “Okay, light ‘em up again.” The cabdriver obeyed. “Man, I don’t know what to make of you.” “I’m looking for one of your buddies. Maybe you know him. Drives cab number nineteen-oh-eight.” Spillane frowned. “There’s no such cab in our fleet. The medallion numbers don’t go above fifteen-fifty.” “Yeah, well, that’s what I hear, too. But there’s some joker cruising the ‘Bury in a Shawmut taxi with that number painted all over it.” “There’s no such cab, I’m telling you.” “If the staties were undercover in a Shawmut cab, would you know about it?” “No,” Spillane admitted.

“Then shut up. There, see that taxi? Get in front of him.” Spillane squinted. The running number was 55. “That’s not nineteen-oh-eight,” he said.

“Just run past him. Do it quick.” The cabbie did so. Sweat was starting to build under his armpits and in the gully of his spine. What the hell kind of fare had he picked up? Man, he should never have come into this part of town, he thought with deep regret.

The two cabs flicked by each other, and Spillane’s eyes locked briefly with the other driver’s. It was Harry Foley.

He knew old Foley well. The guy had been hauling fares since 1973. The other cab stopped dead, and, backing up, turned around. It was soon following Spillane. Over the radio, the dispatcher was sending cabs to destinations in a routine voice. Spillane ached to grab up the dash mike to call for help, but he didn’t dare. Life was too damn cheap in this part of town. The carjacker said, “Okay, okay, this is good. Just keep driving like you are.” “Look, if it’s money you want-was “I don’t want your damn money! Just keep driving. The fare had his eyes glued to the rear window, watching the trailing cab. By now, Foley would have called in the trouble lights. If he had, it was impossible to tell by listening to the radio. All that came over the air was the dispatcher’s side of radio traffic. Any of his grunted “Yeahs” and “Understoods” might be in response to the Foley call, though with Foley, you never knew. The guy took black-line calls all the time. He carried a crowbar in his front seat, and more than once he had used it to collect a fare. “Keep ahead of that guy,” the fare said suddenly, turning back in his seat just as Spillane was weighing his chances for survival if he just braked the cab and bolted. That option had fled, he knew. Homes and buildings flashed by. Suddenly the fare said, “Back seat Three, approaching Mission Support Road Charlie.” “What’s that?” Spillane asked.

“Mind the road and your damn business!” the fare snarled. Lowering his voice, he resumed speaking.

“Approaching Mission Support Road Charlie, Red Horse One. This is Back seat Three. Over.” The fare pressed one hand against a masked ear and tilted his head to one side. He was listening for something, Spillane understood after a moment’s observation. He had some kind of earphone concealed under his ski mask.

“Roger, Red Horse One. ETA ninety seconds.” Ninety seconds? Ninety seconds to what?

Spillane wondered.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a bright red Cadillac Eldorado, parked at the end of Bromley Street. He noticed it because although it was a vintage Caddy, the paint job was fresh. It gleamed a candy apple red, a Christmas color.

Thinking of Christmas made Spillane wonder if he would live to see the next one. He put that out of his mind as his fare snapped, “Step on it!” Spillane floored it.

Behind, the trailing cab raced past Bromley.

Then a deafening stutter of sound, whose vibrations made Spillane’s teeth rattle, shattered the night.

A tongue of fire hammered at the pursuing taxi, and it seemed to break apart on the fly.

Glass flew. The roof actually ripped up and was peeled back by slipstream. The window posts had been sheared clean by machine-gun fire, Spillane knew. Only a machine gun could make that hellacious racket. Only a machine gun could turn a moving cab to rolling junk in the blink of an eye.

And Foley… Spillane shut out the awful images his mind was beginning to create.

Out of control, the cab stumbled up on the sidewalk and slammed into a darkened variety store.

The hood folded like cardboard, pushing the engine block into the front seat with rib-splintering force.

Silence followed like an empty echo. Then the gas tank went up with a dull whoosh. The rear tires became ringed in yellow flame that started to spread.

“Oh God,” Spillane choked, thinking of Foley and his two kids. His knuckles turned white on the steering wheel. “Keep flying,” the fare snapped harshly.

“He’s my friend.” “He’s dead, and you don’t want to be. Take this right.” Spillane turned onto Centre Street.

He let the tears come. He hadn’t the strength or the will to hold them back.

In the back seat, he heard the warm Southern voice speak cold-blooded words to some unseen conspirator.

“Worked like a charm. Move to Ambush Point Lima. All we gotta do to smoke out old Mr.

Nineteen-oh-eight.” Hearing that, Spillane knew that the driver of taxi 1908 was as good as dead—and he probably didn’t even know it.

Mack Bolan was prowling the shadowy length of Washington Street when the police call came in.

“All units. Shots fired. Vicinity of Jackson Square. Approach with caution.” Bolan was heading in that general direction. He gave the big V-8 engine more gas.

Cutting across Marcella to Centre Street, he spotted a Shawmut cab coming his way and decided to avoid it. It was only a matter of time before some sharp-eyed cabbie noticed his unusually high running number.

The steering wheel responded under his firm grasp, then the Executioner noticed the other cab’s amber roof lights were blinking. The taxi driver was in trouble.

Bolan’s eyes flicked to the cab’s interior, and he caught a fleeting glimpse of the back seat.

There was no sign of a fare, which didn’t add up.

Bolan came out of the uncompleted turn and resumed his course. The shooting could wait.

Police units were undoubtedly converging en mass.

There would be few attack opportunities for the Executioner, but that cabdriver in trouble bore looking into.

He slowed as he approached the oncoming cab, and his eyes sought the driver’s. As the distance between them shrank, Bolan could see the man’s unusually white face, and the wide sick eyes that blinked rapidly in distress.

As they passed, the driver mouthed a single word that looked like “Don’t.” Bolan couldn’t hear it, but he knew he hadn’t mistaken the meaning.

Muscling the car around, he fell in behind the distressed cabbie. It pulled ahead, and Bolan matched its speed.

A dark face appeared at the rear window. In the alternating light and shadow of streetlights, it was hard to make out the figure at first, but then the face leaned close to the glass and two cold eyes floated in a dark oval—a ski-masked Blood Horseman.

Abruptly the face pulled back.

The cab shot ahead, tires hissing. Bolan stayed with it as it wove in and out of the twisted streets of Roxbury. It was only a matter of time before they crossed paths with an official vehicle, he knew. The Executioner planned to strike before that.

Accelerating, he pulled ahead. One finger tapped the passenger window button, and the glass hummed down. He extracted the heavy Desert Eagle from its concealing newspaper.

Easing up on the taxi’s bumper, Bolan paced the car for three blocks, then he swung his wheel left, simultaneously flooring the gas.

His taxi jumped into the other lane, charging abreast of the speeding cab. Bolan brought the Desert Eagle into target acquisition as he saw the cab’s passenger window was already down. The gleam of a big silver wheel-gun caught the light.

The Executioner began triggering rounds into the darkened interior. Three closely spaced shots rang out. One snapped back. It went wild, smoking past his hood. But the muzzle-flash showed a crouching figure, and Bolan drilled a.44 Magnum round into the dark mass. He was rewarded well with a hoarse scream.

Pushing the taxi hard, Bolan cut in front of the other cab and began to slow.

The other cab braked to a rocking stop and the driver jumped out. He had his arms up, saying, “Don’t shoot me! Don’t shoot me!” “Keep down!” Bolan snapped.

Holding the Eagle in a two-handed combat grip, he advanced on the taxi.

Streetlight fell across the cab, showing empty cushions. Bolan noticed a wet red stain on the top of the seat. That confirmed what the scream told him: the Blood Horseman had taken a hit.

Yanking open the door, the Executioner stood ready to fire another round. It wasn’t necessary. A gloved hand plopped out, jittery fingers relinquishing a Colt Python revolver. Bolan stepped on it, quickly kicking it under the chassis.

The Blood Horseman lay twisted on his back, eyes rolling up in his head. He was coughing reflexively, and each explosion of breath brought bright red bubbles to his gasping lips.

Reaching down, the Executioner stripped him of his ski mask.

The revealed face was brown, but streaked with pale white. Bolan rubbed the cheek with a thumb, and the dark skin color came away.

“Camo paint,” he murmured.

Then he noticed the ear-throat microphone combination.

From a safe distance, the frightened cabdriver called out, “Is he dead?” The Blood Horseman gave a final spasm, then his body slackened.

Bolan holstered the Desert Eagle. “He is now.” As the cabbie mustered the courage to creep closer, Bolan began to pat down the corpse.

No wallet and no ID, but strapped to his back in a waterproof pouch was a black walkie-talkie radio. Bolan retrieved it and the dangling earphone and throat mike.

“It was a carjacking,” the cabbie was saying. “He made me run with my trouble lights on. He was trying to ambush someone.” “Me.” The cabbie looked at Bolan more closely. His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “I don’t know you.” Then he saw the running number of the Executioner’s cab.

“There’s no such cab in our fleet. I told him that, but he wouldn’t believe me. Then Foley followed me and they cut him to pieces.” Bolan faced the man, drilling him with his blue eyes. “I saved your life.” The cabbie’s eyes were jerking from Bolan to the dead man and back again. “Yeah. Yeah, thanks,” he said distractedly.

“So keep me out of this,” Bolan said.

“What do I tell the cops?” “Just that a state trooper nailed the carjacker.

You didn’t see his face. Cruiser nineteen-oh-eight. Will you do that?” “Cruiser nineteen-oh-eight. Jeez, I figured you guys would leave no stone unturned after that poor trooper was killed. But this was practically a street execution. Not that I’m complaining.” Carrying the military radio, Bolan walked back to his cab, slammed the door shut and peeled out, rubber burning.

One more Blood Horseman down. No one knew how many to go. But he wasn’t going to stop counting until he ran out of Blood Horsemen or bullets.

The Executioner prowled down Heath Street at a careful pace.

The commandeered Shawmut cab had turned onto this road after Bolan had gotten on his tail. That meant the ambush car could be lurking on any shadowy side street up ahead.

The police scanner was busy with radio traffic. The news wasn’t good. A cabdriver had been found in his demolished vehicle, chopped to pieces by.50-caliber tank-killer rounds. It was a horrible way to die, but it had surely been quick. Little enough mercy, Bolan reflected grimly.

In the silence of his cab, the Executioner vowed there would be absolutely no mercy for the Blood Horse, either.

On the seat beside him the Desert Eagle lay next to the captured walkie-talkie. It was, Bolan saw, military issue.

That matched the Browning.

The Blood Horse were definitely paramilitary. But who were they? And why were they pretending to be a black street gang?

Yanking out the ear plugs with his free hand, Bolan turned up the volume.

After a moment, an anxious voice began to speak.

“Red Horse One to Back seat Three. Do you copy, Back seat Three? Come in, Back seat Three. We’re in position. What’s your ETA, Back seat Three?” Bolan maintained radio silence. Let Red Horse One sweat.

The streets were bare of traffic. Bolan dropped below the posted speed limit, letting the cab crawl along. There was no rush.

The radio voice was growing edgy. “Back seat Three, where the fuck are you?” “In hell,” Bolan said under his breath.

“Back seat Three, you’d better not have gone AWOL on me.” A new voice came over the air.

“Red Horse One. This is Red Horse Three.” “Go ahead, Three.” “I’ve got a statie on my tail.” “Where are you?” “Mission Support Road November. I need for you to run cover.” “Can’t. I’m lying in ambush.” “Where?” “Ambush Point Lima.” “Where on Lima? I’m gonna be boxed in soon.” “Pappa Golf is the cross street.” Bolan snapped up a map.

November was obviously Northampton. Lima had to be Lamartine. He found the designated cross street easily enough. Paul Gore Street.

“Red Horse Three, can you discourse?” “With what?” the voice snapped back. “My back seat’s on infiltration detail. You know that.” “Understood. Can you swing this way? We’ll plug you into the ambush. Make it a twofer.” “Got no choice, Red Horse One. I’m aiming your way.” Bolan saw that he was a quarter mile north of the ambush zone. The ambush car could keep. He pulled a U-turn and moved on an intercept course with the second Blood Horse car.

The streetlights clicked by. Houses, whole and fire-scarred, flashed past his side windows, but the Executioner had eyes only for the road ahead and the combat that lay before him. And in his mind, he tasted a name. Red Horse. He was fighting the Red Horse.

A siren screamed in the distance, and the sound drew nearer. Turning onto Northampton, Bolan saw the flashing light bar tracking closer, angry splinters of multicolored light orbiting it.

The Red Horse car was running ahead of it, without lights. The blood-red shine of its body crossed in and out of zones of light and shadow. It looked like a belligerent red torpedo coming at the Executioner’s taxi. Except for one thing: the Impala was running scared, and the Executioner was running determined.

Bolan dropped all four windows in preparation for the engagement. Flying glass could be as fatal as a bullet if it hindered his gun aim.

He left the Desert Eagle on the seat.

Reaching into the glove compartment, he pulled out a stack of oil-stained maps and pressed a stud. An inner panel dropped down, revealing three racked M-26 hand grenades. He pulled one from its spring clip bracket. It felt satisfyingly heavy in his palm.

From the military radio, Red Horse One continued to talk through the running situation.

“Red Horse Three. What’s your ETA?” “Coming up on your position. Only one unfrly on my ass. Whatever you do, don’t miss.” “Don’t worry, Red Horse Three. You’ll make it home. Just like in Mog. Just keep your nerve.” “Roger, Red Horse One. Hold up! I got another car coming my way.” “Hostile?” “Looks like a black-and-white unit.” Bolan lit the taxi roof herald.

“Wait. I see it now. It’s just a cab.” “Watch yourself. It might not be just any cab.” “Roger that, Red Horse One. I’ve got my pedal to the metal. Johnny Law’s gonna eat Red Horse dust tonight.” Bolan dropped his speed by ten miles per hour, stayed in his lane, let the grenade lie in his lap and picked up the Desert Eagle.

Driving right-handed, he laid the weapon along the driver’s-side window-frame, aiming for the approximate center of the windshield. He fired once. The Eagle snapped off a.44 round that smashed the oncoming windshield into a sudden frost of broken glass.

“Damn!” a voice exploded from the radio.

Bolan fired again. Spider-webbed safety glass caved, then dropped inward, leaving a gaping icy-rimmed hole.

“What is it, Red Horse Three?” A strangled sound came in reply. Blinded by flying glass, the Red Horseman was fighting to hold on to the road. His vehicle slewed left to right as the pursuing state police car bore down on it.

“Three, say your position!” Red Horse One demanded.

Bolan dropped the Eagle, picked up the grenade, and, as the two cars closed on each other, traveling in opposite lanes, he pulled the pin.

The terror in the Red Horseman’s eyes was stark as the Executioner flung the live grenade into the gaping hole in the windshield.

Bolan forced the gas pedal flat, taking the next turnoff in a spurt of speed. Behind him, he heard a violent bang, which was followed by the brief eye-stinging flash that painted the surrounding neighborhood yellow-white. Then came a long screech of stressed rubber, the sound of body metal caroming off something harder than itself and the flat, final crump of a fatal collision.

Bolan cut up and down side streets at random to confuse any police pursuit. The state police car siren abated. It had no doubt pulled over to check out what remained of the Red Horse vehicle. The crash was called in over the state police band. “We have a DOA,” the officer reported. “Ten-four.” The Executioner pulled onto Lamartine Street and began to work his way back to the ambush zone. The chess pieces were starting to fall, one by one. Now it was Red Horse One’s turn.

Bolan had his war map out and his dome light on.

His eyes raced over the street grids. He was edging closer to Paul Gore Street. Red Horse One had expected the sucker-bait Impala to lure him into a.50-caliber death storm. By now they had to be figuring that Red Horse Three’s radio silence meant casualty or capture. Still, they’d be keeping a sharp lookout for a Shawmut Cab bearing running number 1908.

It might still be possible to take the ambush team by surprise, the Executioner figured.

He slowed even more, his mouth tightening. His eyes went to the broken line of roofs. It was a neighborhood of old brick rowhouses-turned-tenements where, in the summer, people would sit on their stoops. The iron jungle of window bars and fire escapes made the rowhouses resemble inner-city prisons. A dangling rusty iron fire-escape ladder gave Bolan an idea.

He eased into a side street and killed the engine.

Stepping out, he went to the trunk. Under the spare tire lay a deep recess covered in rags. He moved them aside and came out with a Beretta M-21 sniper rifle fitted with a Bushnell scope. He slammed a magazine into the receiver and pocketed a spare.

Wrapping the long rifle under his duster, he sauntered down the street, hands in slash pockets, counting off the cross streets in his mind: Hoffman, Mozart, Wyman.

The next was Paul Gore. If the Executioner understood Red Horse code, the ambush car lay in wait there.

His eyes ran along the opposite side of the street, where a liquor store and a coin-operated laundry nestled together. The liquor store was masked by a drop-down steel shutter, but the laundry sat exposed, moonlight glimmering on its front window.

Bolan shifted position several times as his eyes drilled the reflective glass.

A flash of red jumped into view when he stepped off the curb. He moved left, and the blob of red resolved into the distinct triangle of a Cadillac tail fin. A license plate was visible: 1-CAV.

There was no question. Red Blood One lay in wait on Paul Gore Street—a grimly appropriate name under the circumstances.

Bolan’s gaze went to the rooflines. There were many angles of attack up there. Slipping down a cramped walkway between two bulking town houses, the Executioner worked his way to the rear and uncovered his rifle. He threw one arm into its shoulder strap so the rifle hung off his right shoulder and out of the way.

Then, grabbing the thick black bars of a first-floor window, he started his climb.

A quick series of steps brought him to the lower fire escape. Keeping to the shadows, he moved stealthily up the rusty old steps until he reached the roof.

After that, it was a simple matter of taking hold of the roof combing and levering himself up.

The roof was flat, as were the next three.

The space between them was jumpable, and the Executioner cleared each gap with the confident grace of a combat veteran.

The final roof overlooked Lamartine on its south side, so Bolan got down on his knees and unslung the rifle. Angling it down, he used the scope.

The blood-red Caddy sat immobile, a sear of scarlet against the street shadows and piled snow.

The ragtop was in the up position. They were being smart, and were no doubt counting on their bait car to signal when the optimum time to expose the deadly Browning came.

Sighting through the scope, Bolan tried to peer into the window. The angles were too acute, but he guessed he could count on there being a driver and a back-seat gunner, just like in a vintage World War II air combat interceptor.

He adjusted his sights to a point just in back of the steering wheel. The driver was a clean kill anytime he wanted. The back seat would be a crap-shoot.

Tagging him would involve luck.

Bolan reached into a pocket and switched on the walkie-talkie, the earplug snug in his right ear.

The smoky voice of Red Horse One came through a crackle and hiss of static.

“Dammit, Red Horse Three. Don’t do this to me. Come in, come in, come in. Where are you?” The voice trailed off into silence, and Bolan waited.

Fully three minutes came and went without any sound from the earphone. Out in the night, sirens howled their discordant songs. It sounded as if the police were running in all directions, but none of them were coming to this quiet corner of town.

When the silence from the radio grew too prolonged, the Executioner extracted the radio and saw there was a second channel setting. He switched over.

“… what to do?” the voice of Red Horse One was saying.

A clipped voice Bolan didn’t recognize said flatly, “Pull out.” “We haven’t lit a single match tonight.” “Torch anything you want on your way out, but pull out. If we’ve lost a second technical, we have to regroup and restrategize.” “We can’t leave Three in the field.” “And I can’t stand here arguing with you. I go on in less than twenty minutes. Three is MIA and presumed lost. Get it through your head.

We have lost Three. Evacuate Roxbury.

Now!” A strained silence followed.

“Roger,” Red Horse One said dispiritedly.

“Steeple out,” the other voice stated.

The channel returned to static, and on the roof Bolan suddenly returned his unfired rifle to his shoulder.

Below, the Caddy’s engine rumbled to life, its headlights spearing the laundry-liquor store combination. Then it surged out of its place of concealment.

Bolan was turning to go when he heard a familiar sound he associated with combat in distant war-torn lands. It was the loud bloop of an M-79 grenade launcher, instantly followed by an explosive detonation. The laundry erupted in glass, noise and flaming debris as the red Caddy roared past it.

The Executioner was tempted to send a lead message after the ambush car, but he held his fire.

He had to take a Red Horseman alive. He had to get one of the crew to talk. That was the only way he’d get to the man who called himself Steeple, the general of the cavalry Bolan now knew called Itself the Red Horse. And Bolan was going to find him. No mistake about it.

Payback would just have to wait.

By the time the Executioner was back behind the wheel of his taxi, pursuit was a crap-shoot, but not impossible.

He piloted the cab back onto Lamartine and cruised past the flaming building. The upper floors were boarded up, which meant no citizens were in danger, as the laundry was closed.

The Red Horse were in retreat, with orders to leave their zone of operations. Bolan knew the quickest way out of the area was Columbus Avenue, which fed the Southeast Expressway via Columbia Road. From there the Red Horse could go either north or south. Remembering the other night, Bolan bet on north.

Reaching the Columbia feeder, he turned north and ran through Boston at high speed. Taking the Tobin Bridge over the Mystic River to Route 1—the main artery north—he failed to spot his quarry. He kept going.

Under his wheels, the steel connector plates made a whumping noise with monotonous regularity. It would have been annoying except that they were bound to slow the Red Horse Cadillac, too.

Bolan pushed the taxi to its limit. The powerful engine roared, making the tires hiss on the black asphalt between connector thumps.

Coming off the bridge, he spotted the distinctive vintage Caddy’s rear deck.

Bolan was already standing on the accelerator. He held his speed, gripping the steering wheel with both hands.

The road ahead was clear. If any state police were about, they didn’t show themselves.

The exits slipped by. Steadily, relentlessly, the Executioner closed the gap.

At the Saugus exit, the Caddy’s brake lights flared red and it veered off without diminishing speed.

Bolan started to do the same.

Somewhere on the turnoff, he went into a spin.

Black ice!

The cab spun, centrifugal force wrenching the wheel from the Executioner’s powerful grip. Through the spin, he tried to relax every muscle. It was up to the gods of war now.

The taxi spun three times, making overlapping circles, then slashed into a welt of sooty snow that absorbed most of the impact.

Bolan was thrown to the right, across the front seat, his head banging against the padded passenger armrest.

When the taxi had rocked to a complete stop, he opened his eyes and took stock of himself with his hands— no broken bones, and no contusions worth counting.

He sat up. The window glass was intact, but the passenger door was jammed against a solid wall of frozen snow. He tried the driver’s side. It pushed open, and he stepped out, eyes scouring the vicinity. He saw nothing unusual.

Bolan inventoried his machine. There were a few dents and scrapes, but the tires seemed to have come through intact.

Somewhere in the night, he heard a metallic clank. It was like another sound from the past, reminding him of a shell being slammed home in a howitzer, but not exactly. It lacked the distinctive hollowness of that particular sound. It sounded more like the cold clank of an M-2 Browning machine gun lifting into position on its bearing mount. It was followed by the warning sound of the cocking lever being hauled back.

Bolan dropped flat. He had the Beretta out of shoulder leather, sighting toward the sound.

The big.44 Desert Eagle gleamed in his other fist.

In the dark, his cab was a big target, but thanks to the black duster, Bolan knew he was only a low shadow amid other shapes.

He waited.

In the dark the red of the Caddy would be hard to pick out. Red was a low wavelength color, lending to disappear in shadows as completely as black or purple.

A glint of moonshine on chrome caught the Executioner’s roving eyes, and through the spindly wall of leafless shelter-belt maples, he saw a human shadow swiveling a long and sinister gun barrel left to right, tracking for target acquisition. He stood in the back seat, hands on the weapon’s grips.

Bolan figured the range. The 93-R had it covered.

Sighting carefully, he waited until the Browning was at the farthest end of the return arc, its deadly fifty-inch barrel with its perforated forearm showing in full profile. A flash of moonlight showed on its chassis plate.

Then Bolan fired a 3-round burst.

The man grabbed his shoulder and fell backward, one flopping arm snapping dead brittle branches off to his immediate left.

“Oh, shit! I’m hit!” Almost at once the driver scrambled back to take his place. “Lay still,” he snarled. “I’m on it.” The new gunner started to haul the weapon back in line. Odds were he had spotted Bolan’s muzzle-flash. The Executioner had the Desert Eagle up now, and he triggered it once.

A single.44 Magnum round struck the Browning barrel dead center, glancing off its hard rounded surface.

The weapon kicked around, throwing off its operator like a bucking bronco. A hoarse howl of pain and anger came through the trees and a man’s voice yelled anxiously, “Shit! You hit, too?” “No, but this guy’s a handful!” “Take off! Take off!” the second gunner screamed.

The driver seemed to think that was a good idea, and he didn’t waste any time reclaiming the wheel.

The Caddy charged out of the trees and roared away.

Bolan came up out of his prone position. It wasn’t the best acquittal possible, he realized grimly, but both sides would live to fight another night. And he still wanted a talking prisoner.

The Executioner went to see about extracting his vehicle.

There were other avenues to be pursued in the hunt for the Red Horse.

If officer Ray Zankowski hadn’t once been in charge of the Spirit of Boston police taxi safety program, he might not have looked twice at the black-and-white Shawmut cab as it came limping down Washington Street at two o’clock in the morning.

The cab’s running number was 1908. It was a number that had been imprinted on Zankowski’s memory.

Some cops had an eye for faces, others for names. Zankowski was good with numbers. It was just one of those things.

In this case, every Boston badge was thinking of the number 1908, A Shawmut cabdriver had escaped death, thanks to the timely intervention of a state police trooper driving a cruiser he positively identified as 1908.

The trooper hadn’t remained on the scene, nor had he called in the incident. That was suspicious.

Troopers were usually sticklers for procedure.

When he got the call to be on the lookout for a state cruiser numbered 1908, Zankowski had asked dispatch, “Repeat number.” “Nineteen-oh-eight.” “Someone’s fouled up,” he told his partner, Sam Morgan. “That’s the cruiser that was wasted a couple of nights ago. What was the officer’s name?” “You remember the cruiser number, but not the guy’s name?” Morgan asked incredulously.

Zankowski shrugged. “Sue me. What was the name?” “McIlwraith.” “Yeah. McIlwraith.” “Can’t be nineteen-oh-eight. That car was demolished. It’s at the state police impound lot. I saw it myself. Damn thing looked more like Swiss cheese than steel.” “What about this cabbie’s story? A state trooper swoops in, rescues him and disappears into the night like the Lone Ranger?” It was Morgan’s turn to shrug. “Search me.” But both officers had kept their eyes peeled and the number 1908 on their minds, so when the Shawmut Cab bearing the same running number ghosted past, Zankowski sat straight up.

“That cab is wrong,” he growled.

“What do you mean?” “Look at the running number.” Morgan looked, then whistled. “Coincidence?” “Not a chance. They don’t issue hackney medallions that high. Call this in. I’ll light her up.” Zankowski sent his caterwauling cruiser in pursuit as Morgan chanted out the particulars.

“Edward-six in pursuit of suspicious Shawmut cab. Running number one-niner-zero-eight. Westbound on Washington.” “Ten-four, Edward six.” “You sure about that medallion number?” Morgan asked Zankowski.

“Sure I’m sure. See the medallion?

Nineteen-o-eight? They don’t issue medallions above fifteen-fifty. That cab is wrong.” “Maybe this is our phantom pyromaniac,” he said.

Siren howling, Zankowski pursued the cab. It spurted away as if stung by a wasp.

“He’s running,” he warned.

“Stay with him.” Morgan brought the mike to his face. “Edward-six in pursuit of fleeing Shawmut cab at this time. West on Washington.

Request assistance.” “Ten-four, Edward six.” “I don’t see a passenger,” Zankowski said worriedly.

“This guy is not going to pull over.” “He can’t hold the road long at this speed.” “Yeah, but neither can we.” “We’ll see about that,” Zankowski said, giving the gas pedal his full weight. The cruiser spurted ahead, light bar slashing the night.

The Executioner spotted the police cruiser on his tail and went into evasive mode.

The night filled with a cacophony of electronic wailing as law-enforcement vehicles converged.

Bolan had no beef with the law. If boxed, he would abandon his vehicle and flee on foot, if feasible. If not, he would surrender.

There were open warrants out on him dating back to the days of the Second Boston Massacre.

Capture and identification would effectively end his campaign, even with the near-certainty that Hal Brognola could pull enough official strings to free him. This operation depended upon Bolan being free to prowl the streets without interference. He had no intention of falling into police custody.

Weaving up and down the streets of Boston, he led the pursuing cruiser into the South End. Up and down, in and out, he struggled along the most difficult alleys he could find, sliding up one-way streets, gambling that he could reach the end before an oncoming car turned in.

The police scanner helped. A backup car called its location. Bolan had his war map up on his dashboard, and his eyes flicked to the named street.

He took the next left, and the pursuing vehicle announced his change in direction.

There were three immediate threats, the Executioner decided, all rolling under flashing light bars.

But urban police vehicles with their aging heavy-package V-8 engines were no match for the supercharged taxicab. Street crime strained municipal budgets, and the first thing to suffer were motor pool vehicles.

And the first thing any motor pool skimped on were tires. Bald rubber was the rule, not the exception, for most big-city police cruisers— Boston included.

Bolan noticed the pursuing cruiser was slewing all over the road on the hard turns. The edge was his, no question.

Tracking the still-unseen other vehicles on his map, he lured the trailing vehicle along a twisting maze of turns until he heard the words he expected.

“Baker-four. Southbound on Harrison.” Bolan listened for the cross streets.

Calculating the police speed, he dropped his own. In accordance with local hot-pursuit restrictions, the pursuing vehicles likewise slowed.

The end of the street came up, and when he spotted the warning splash of an approaching police light bar, Bolan unexpectedly accelerated. The pursuing cruiser charged after him.

“Edward-six. He’s pulling away.” “Edward-two. We’re on him, Edward-6.” As approaching headlight glare illuminated the crosswalk, Bolan yanked the wheel hard left and went up on the corner, crushing a frosty hump of old snow.

The squeal of braking tires suddenly filled the street as Bolan jounced off the sidewalk, tires grabbing street asphalt again.

Back at the corner the converging police vehicles slid all over the road trying to avoid a head-on collision. They succeeded by the barest margin.

So did the Executioner, who straightened his vehicle and jumped for the next light. After that, two expert turns brought him to his storage garage.

Jumping out, he ran the door up, stashed the cab, and, before a full minute had ticked by on his wristwatch, rolled out again in the rental LeSabre.

Driving at a sedate pace, Bolan slid past the catch-up cruisers, his telltale watch cap on his lap, the duster in the back seat.

Police eyes flicked in his direction, registered nothing suspicious and kept searching. Their quarry rolled on, free and unsuspected.

The Executioner took up a position at Mission Park, on the summit of Mission Hill.

It gave him the high ground once more.

Down below, police light bars continued to speed by. After a half hour, the local law gave up the chase. The harsh orange glow of the blazing laundry showed to the south. The fire department was knocking it down with high-pressure hoses, turning the rising black smoke gray.

The fresh stench of burned wood drifted into the cold night air.

Bolan monitored the police scanner.

Except for the fire, the city seemed to have settled down. It was only a lull, he knew. Reaching for the car radio, he turned on the news.

The top-of-the-hour news brief covered the fire in a few terse sentences. The machine-gunned Shawmut cab story followed. There was no mention of the Red Horse vehicle Bolan had demolished with a fragmentation grenade. The cab hijacking was mentioned in passing. The police hadn’t yet connected all four incidents, but that was only a matter of time.

After the weather, a familiar voice came on, saying, “Welcome to Urban Beat. This is Lark Youngblood, and my special guest tonight is Boston real-estate developer Kirk Weatherly.

Welcome, Mr. W.” “Thank you for having me on Urban Beat,” said a clipped voice. “I would like to make an announcement before we get into our discussion.” “Feel free.” “Weatherly Associates is pleased to offer a ten thousand dollar reward for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of the pyromaniacs who are terrorizing Roxbury. These funds have been placed in a special bank account and will be immediately turned over to any citizen who can honestly claim it.” A brief clapping of hands came through the dashboard loudspeaker. “I’m sure other members of our listening audience are joining me here,” Lark said happily.

“Thank you. But my reasons are not entirely unselfish. You see, I have a stake in the future of Boston—and that includes Roxbury. I’ve been in real estate all my life, as was my father before me.” “For our radio audience’s information, your father was the illustrious Upton Weatherly, architect and philanthropist. The insurance district boasts many of his classic designs. You’ve followed in his footsteps, and found your own success. If I’m not mistaken, you’re one of the select business leaders who are members of the Boston business association known as the Vault.” “True. In addition to my development activity, I own many properties throughout the city, from office buildings to the grand old Queen Anne three deckers that are our heritage from the previous century. At the risk of seeming professorial, I think it’s important to share some of the things I’ve learned as a developer.” “I’m sure our audience will find you anything but boring,” Lark said.

“You have to understand that a town like Boston doesn’t spring up overnight,” Weatherly began. “It grows, neighborhood by neighborhood. The Boston of a century ago comprised the business district, the North End, the South End, Back Bay and the old West End. With the advent of the streetcar, suburbs like Jamaica Plain and Roxbury—former farm communities—were incorporated into what is now Greater Boston. We have had in the last century or so several waves of development. The most important was the early Victorian phase, which brought Boston to the turn of the century. That was the era of the three decker. By the early 1900’s, the city had grown as much as it could. There was no more room.” “In other words, Boston was filled up?” “That’s right,” Weatherly said. “One hundred years ago, when the three deckers were new, they were an elegant solution to the growing immigrant population that wished to remain in the city, close to their jobs. Apartment buildings weren’t very appealing. The city was already crammed with them. Working-class people like the Irish and the Italians wanted home ownership with a suburban feel. So the three-decker home, spacious enough to house a home owner and two tenants in their separate apartments, was conceived.” “I understand three deckers are coming back as starter homes,” Lark said. “HUD has a program to finance rehabbing through low-interest loans.” “True. But three-decker homes are simple wood frame structures. They can’t stand forever.

They weren’t designed to stand forever. They were a nineteenth-century solution to a problem that will be with us well into the twenty-first century.

“As Boston has developed, the challenge has not been building but rebuilding existing plots of land. Urban renewal, if you please. I can’t tell you the exact useful life of a three decker, but I can tell you that the people who are now renovating these ancient dwellings may in fact be throwing their money away. They are not long for this world.

The truth is that the carpenters who framed them thought they would last no more than twenty years. You can look that fact up in the library.” “Mr. Weatherly, you are talking about—what?—a half of all homes in Greater Boston just falling down?” “Falling down or subject to being torn down.

You see the aging porches everywhere, the sagging rooflines, the rotting gutters and windowsills.” “But there are historic homes much older that look fantastic. They aren’t falling down,” Lark pointed out.

“Historic homes are preserved by experts who catch the first roof leaks and foundation cracks before they threaten structural integrity. The three-decker neighborhoods of Greater Boston have fallen into —shall we be polite and say decline? As the more affluent move to the suburbs, the three deckers have come to be seen as starter homes for blacks and Asians. They are aging properties, and aging properties owned by the working class cannot always be kept up. There are needs that take priority over fixing a gutter.” “So where are you going with this?” “I said last night that Roxbury stands on the threshold of a brighter future. Just as the West End tenements had to be bulldozed in the interest of public safety, so, too, must the three deckers come down before much longer. Real estate is my passion. I take great pride in applying a historic eye toward Boston’s future.” “I think this may be time to take a few calls,” Lark said. “You’re on WROX. Go ahead, caller.” “Hello, Lark. I have a question for Mr.

Weatherly. I currently live in a three decker. Will it be falling down anytime soon?” Weatherly cleared his throat. “As I said, we don’t know the practical life of a three-decker home, but many have already been torn down to make way for apartment buildings. The future of Mission Hill, Roxbury and the other residential areas of the city is in brick, not wood-frame dwellings.” “I don’t like the sound of that,” Lark said.

“Apartments aren’t homes.” “They have their lamentable aspects admittedly, but consider that the three deckers originally replaced the single-family dwelling as an affordable compromise between a home of one’s own and living in a cramped tenement apartment. Today, with property prices and taxes as high as they are, it simply doesn’t make fiscal sense to tear down a three decker and substitute a single family home.” “Maybe I should move out of the city,” the caller said doubtfully.

“That is your option,” Weatherly returned.

“Next caller, please,” Lark said briskly.

“Sir, if what you say is true, where are poor folks going to live?” the caller asked.

“My father had a saying that ‘the poor have no give,”” Weatherly said.

“Say what?” “It’s another way of saying that people of modest means cannot be pushed too far. Their backs are already to the proverbial brick wall. Take these fires.

I understand people are already moving out of Roxbury rather than live with the fear of burning up in their beds in the night. There are people who can afford this and those who can’t.” The caller laughed bitterly. “I’m one of the can’t, I don’t mind telling you.” “So you will refuse to move, fires or no fires. You will stay because you have to stay. Then let me give you a little tip. A brick apartment building offers the best protection against such calamities as fire.” “That’s right. It does. Like that old brewery they tried to burn down. It’s still standing.” “And it will stand for another hundred years, I assure you, because it’s constructed of good, solid fireproof brick. And here we come to the next phase of my analysis of the future of our great city. The three decker is on the way out. No one will be building new wood tenements. The apartment building is Boston’s future, not only because it is fire resistant and economical, but simply because our urban population keeps growing. Even if they could last forever, the three-decker dwelling simply can no longer serve the needs of a growing urban community. The future of Boston lies in multifamily dwellings whether it be apartment buildings, town houses or condominiums.” “Isn’t the condo market pretty dead?” Lark asked.

“At the moment, yes, but I predict the condo will come roaring back.” “Mr. Weatherly, last night you talked about buying up a fire-blighted lot and creating a park.

I’m sure the citizens of Roxbury would like to hear more,” Lark said.

“Actually I’ve been thinking that over and I have a more intriguing proposition…” Mack Bolan drove the LeSabre along the street, eyes questing, one ear cocked for police scanner squeals.

Roxbury was quiet now. It had been for a while, but it was too early to call the Red Horse checkmated for the night. He found a quiet spot on Blue Hill Avenue and bought a cup of black coffee from an all-night doughnut shop.

He sipped it in the warm confines of his car as he listened to Urban Beat. The volume tuned low, the police scanner spit out infrequent calls.

“I don’t care about the future of this town,” an agitated caller was saying. “I’m moving out of Roxbury.” Lark broke in. “Hold on now, do you think that’s smart?” “Smarter than ending up the meat in a toasted mattress sandwich.” “You can’t run from these predators,” Lark insisted. “Why is it you didn’t run from the gangs back when they ruled the streets?” “I got news for you, honey. They still rule the streets. But all they got is bullets and mouths. I know how to duck. Getting burned up, that’s what I can’t stomach.” “Running is not the answer,” Lark said. “People create these problems. People can solve them.” Another caller added, “I’m for moving out, too.

It was bad enough with the fires, but if our houses are all going to fall down in another few years, what’s the damn point?” “Roxbury is on the upswing,” Lark pleaded.

“Kirk Weatherly has said that.” “I don’t give a damn about Roxbury. I live in Forest Hills. There ain’t no fires here, but you come take a look. A whole bunch of the houses have come down these last twenty years. They’re all three deckers, just like Weatherly says. I’m looking to live in someplace nicer, where the gangs don’t run and the fires don’t burn.” Lark sighed. “That’s your privilege. You’ve certainly caused people to think, Mr. Weatherly,” she added.

“I’ve only opened their eyes,” Weatherly replied smoothly. “The inevitable is approaching.

We must plan for our future if our future is to be secure.” “I don’t think I caught where your digs are?” “Harbor Towers. On historic India Wharf.” “That’s a high-rise. Expensive, too.” “I would hate to admit what it cost me, but it has a gorgeous view of the ocean.” “Do you expect to see more high-rises spring up?” Lark asked.

“In the heart of the city, yes, but not in the outlying neighborhoods. There are zoning difficulties.

That’s why Weatherly Associates specializes in apartment buildings. Bostonians aren’t like New Yorkers. They like to live close to the ground.” “We’re getting away from the immediate problem in Roxbury. The fires. Do you have any thoughts or solutions?” “That brings me back to my other theory.” “The one about disenfranchised youth needing decent surroundings?” Lark said.

“Precisely.” “Wouldn’t you say that our public-housing projects are modeled along the lines of the apartment complexes you’ve been touting?” “Not at all. Subsidized housing isn’t owned by individuals, but by the city. The city has no incentive to take care of property beyond basic maintenance. Landlords and management agencies, on the other hand, do. They view the property as an investment that will appreciate in value if maintained. So naturally they maintain X.” “You’re forgetting about the shame of the inner city,” Lark said. “Slumlords.” “Slumlords are often as not individuals who have allowed the demands of tenants and upkeep to overwhelm their financial resources. And let’s not let irresponsible tenants off the hook. Property requires maintenance. Real deterioration comes from abuse.” “I have to confess, Mr. Weatherly, that while I see the logic of your vision of twenty-first century Boston, I don’t much cotton to it, to use a down-home expression.” “Change is change. We have to make the best of it. A city has to grow,” Weatherly countered.

“This city right now is burning, and I’d really like to hear your theory on who these firebugs are.” “I have no idea, other than the obvious.

Urban youth, burning down what they can never hope to own.” “Police think it’s a gang.” “Yes. I’m sure the police are correct.

It is a gang.” “They say the gang is called the Blood Horse.” Dead air made the LeSabre’s dash speaker hum. Bolan took a sip of coffee as he listened.

“Is that so?” Weatherly said after a long pause.

“That’s the word on the street.” “I’m sure that when these perpetrators are apprehended, the terror will cease. Other than that, I have no more idea than you do why these crimes are being committed.” “Time for more calls,” Lark said. “The WROX call-in number is-was Spotting a pay phone, Bolan left the car.

He dialed the radio call-in line. The phone rang on the first try.

“Go ahead, caller,” Lark told him.

“The pyromaniacs aren’t called the Blood Horse,” Bolan said.

“How do you know that, caller?” “The name they go by is Red Horse. They spray paint a red horse head on every building before they torch it.” “Why haven’t the police said anything about this?” “The Red Horse emblem is burned off when their targets go up, leaving no trace,” Bolan continued.

“If it burns, how do you know?” “I just know.” “What else do you know?” Lark wondered.

“The perpetrators aren’t black. They’re white. The police are looking for a horse of the wrong color.” Kirk Weatherly’s clipped voice intruded.

“I think we have a crank caller in our midst.” Lark spoke up. “Caller, you sound like a levelheaded individual. If you know so much, can you tell us what this Red Horse gang is after?” “Why don’t you ask your guest?” Bolan said.

“I already did. He doesn’t know, so I’m asking you.” “When the authorities determine the significance of the red horse sign, it will them lead to the pyromaniac crew.” “I think we should move on to a more fruitful line of discussion,” Weatherly said.

“I’m with that. Thank you for your call.” Bolan hung up, and, returning to his Buick, he drove it onto the streets.

The night wore on, and the cold deepened, the skies remaining clear and cloudless.

From time to time Bolan tuned in the captured military radio, switching between the two active channels. If Red Horse One was prowling the streets, he was on radio silence.

The fire call came at half-past three. The Executioner caught it on the police scanner. It was a request for an ambulance. He piloted the LeSabre toward Ruthaven Street, one of the most troubled stretches of Roxbury.

It was a car fire, Bolan saw as soon as he pulled into view of the fire truck. Firemen were lugging soiled white hoses back to their equipment.

A red-eared cop, blowing breath condensation, waved him off.

Bolan braked instead and stuck his head out the window. “Anyone hurt?” “Nah. Just an abandoned vehicle someone thought would look better in black.” Bolan threw the Buick into reverse. A false alarm.

As 4:00 a.m. approached, the Executioner had decided the Red Horse were too busy licking their wounds to make another foray.

Returning to the South End, he cruised past the storage garage, circling twice before he decided it was safe to stow the Buick.

The Shawmut Cab Company taxi sat where he had left it.

Bolan got out and transferred his weapons to the cab. It was risky, but there was something he wanted to do.

A minute later, Shawmut cab 1908 returned to the streets, a stark black-and-white wraith.

“Last caller for the night,” Lark Youngblood said into the suspended mike in the soundproof WROX broadcasting booth.

A frog-voiced man spoke up. “I’ve been listening to my police scanner all night. There ain’t hardly been any fires set. Maybe these mothers ran out of matches.” Before Lark could comment, Kirk Weatherly interrupted her.

“I’m sure that isn’t the case. These urban terrorists will have to be brought to book before they cease.

Mark my word, the pyromaniacs, whomever they are, will strike again. And it is my fervent hope that one of you listeners out there will collect the reward I have posted. Thank you.” “Thank you, caller,” Lark said, snapping the switch that killed the phone line. “And that’s it for another edition of Urban Beat. I’m Lark Youngblood and this is the Voice of Roxbury, WROX. Until tomorrow night.” The program director shot her an okay sign through the control-room glass, and Lark stood to stretch.

“Oh, I thought tonight would never end.” “I think we got our point across, don’t you?” Weatherly said, throwing on his overcoat and scarf.

Lark made a wry face. “Well, I had hoped to settle people down some. Judging by the tone of the calls pouring in, I suspect you didn’t exactly put folks’ minds at ease.” “An informed citizenry makes informed choices,” Weatherly said smoothly.

She offered a cool hand, saying, “Well, thanks for coming in. I have to run to find a cab.” “Taxis are hard to find at this late hour.

Might I offer you a lift?” “Thanks, but I’m not exactly headed in your direction. I’m a downtown girl. You’re strictly uptown.” Weatherly smiled without warmth. “It’s no bother.

My car is outside. Let it be my way of making things up to Y.” Lark hesitated. “All right. It can’t hurt.” They walked into the narrow corridor past a broadcast booth where the next program was already airing, and into the night. The cold air hit them in the face.

Lark buttoned up her quilted lavender coat, saying, “I don’t want to think about the wind chill factor tonight.” Weatherly lifted a gloved hand. Across the street a long white stretch limousine threw out sudden headlight glare.

As it started around, it was cut off by a black-and-white taxi. The cab eased to a stop in front of them.

“Ride?” a familiar voice called through the open driver’s window.

Lark leaned down to look inside. “Belasko?” “Need a lift home?” Bolan asked.

“Hardly,” Weatherly’s frosty voice interrupted. “My car is just pulling around for us.” He gestured to the limo.

“You all right?” Bolan asked Lark.

“Fine. Look, I have a ride, okay?” “Understood.” “Be on your way, my friend,” Weatherly said, thrusting a crisp five-dollar bill into the open cab window.

It was ignored.

“Suit yourself,” Weatherly said, pocketing the bill. His eye went to the cab’s running number, and he frowned.

“That’s a very unlucky number— one-nine-zero-eight,” he said thinly. He leaned on the windowsill and stared into the cab.

“The state trooper who was murdered two nights ago? His cruiser was numbered nineteen-oh-eight.

Did you know that?” “Is that so?” Bolan said.

“A very unlucky number for him. I trust you’ll not run afoul of any black cats.” “Or horses,” the Executioner said.

When Weatherly spoke again, his voice was pulled tight, like a quivering violin string. “What is your name again?” Bolan looked at him hard-eyed.

“McIlwraith.” Weatherly flinched. “That isn’t humorous.” “It wasn’t meant to be. Good night.” The cab leaped away without warning, forcing Weatherly to jump back.

“How rude!” Lark said angrily. “What’s got into him?” The cab slithered around a corner and out of sight.

The white limousine quickly took its place.

Weatherly opened the rear door and motioned for Lark to get in.

She noticed his face was drained of color.

When they were both comfortably seated in the back, the limo moved off and joined the sparse predawn traffic. “Do you know that cabdriver?” Weatherly asked after a while, his voice remote.

“I rode with him once. Why?” “He said his name was McIlwraith. But you called him Belasko.” “That’s his name. Mike Belasko.” Lark’s eyebrows pulled together in a deep notch. “He told you it was McIlwraith?” “Perhaps I was mistaken. What do you know of him?” “I flagged him down the other night. That’s it.” “He seems very interested in you.” “He knows my car just died. He only wanted to give me a lift home, is all.” “A fan of your show?” Lark shrugged. “I guess. I know he listens.” “Does he ever call in?” “Not that I know of. Why?” “Oh, it’s just that I thought his voice sounded vaguely familiar. As if he were one of your callers tonight.” Lark looked at the developer closely.

“Belasko’s all right.” When the limo pulled up in front of 334 Warren, the chauffeur came around to open the door.

Lark was surprised to see that the driver was a woman. She wore brown livery and the hair swept up in a bun under her dark uniform cap was startlingly blond.

“You do travel in style,” she told Weatherly as he helped her from the back.

Weatherly smiled thinly. “I enjoy the effect my possessions have on people.” “Thanks again, and good luck,” she said.

“I’m certain we’ll be meeting again, my dear.” From her front door, Lark watched the man disappear into the shadowy back of the limo. The door was shut and the blond chauffeur returned to her place.

The long machine left the vicinity with an eerie soundlessness.

Lark inserted the key in the lock, muttering, “It takes all kinds of critters to make a world, I guess.” Hanging back in the shadows, Mack Bolan watched as Lark was let off. When the limo started away, he followed at a discreet distance.

The vehicle was almost too easy to follow. It was only a few feet short of being a parade float and it cornered just like one—badly. More than once it had to stop and back up to negotiate one of Boston’s twisty streets before reaching Tremont Street and breaking into a dead run.

A police car prowling the other way caused Bolan to take a turnoff and find another route.

Checking his map, he found his way to the waterfront and was soon within sight of the twin towers of the Harbor Towers luxury high-rise apartments.

He was waiting on East India Row when the white stretch limo ghosted past and turned into the street-level parking area that served the high-rise.

Turning up the police scanner, the Executioner settled down to wait. Maybe something interesting would happen before the dawn.

Kirk Weatherly paced his bedroom floor as he listened to the cordless phone ring repeatedly.

Out the window, he could see the narrow stretch of hast India Row below and the cab whose white running number, 1908, stood distinct against the black rear fender.

“Come on,” he muttered darkly.

Finally a smoky voice answered. “Yeah?” “Steeple.” “One here.” “What took you so long?” Weatherly hissed.

“I was bandaging Markus.” “How bad?” “A through-and-through wound. No bones broken, but he’s shaking like a leaf.” “Let me guess. Another brush with Mr.

Nineteen-oh-eight.” “Yeah. He followed us to the Saugus off ramp, so we laid an ambush. We didn’t get him. He clipped Markus, then nicked the flexible fifty so it turned around and hit me. After that we hauled ass. The damn guy is hell on wheels.” “I know,” Weatherly said. “I had a run-in with him myself. In fact he’s parked outside my building right now.” “Jesus. How’d he get on your backtrail?” “I have no idea, but he’s camped outside like a cop on surveillance detail.” “I don’t figure him for a cop. He’s too reckless with his lead.” “Maybe he’s a state trooper working off the books.” “You mean on a vendetta kind of deal?” “It makes me very uneasy to see him sitting down there with state trooper cruiser number nineteen-oh-eight painted on his fender.” “We can swing by and nail him good, Steeple.” “In front of my building? No, not here, and not without knowing more.” “So what do we do?” “You know that radio talk-show girl, Lark Youngblood? She’s acquainted with our friend, it seems.” “From where?” “She says he’s a cabdriver named Mike Belasko. But when I asked, he gave the name McIlwraith.” “Oh, man, he’s got your number for sure.” “Let’s keep our composure, shall we? Here’s what I want you to do…” Dawn was breaking. The sun lifted out of the Atlantic like a slow climbing comet, and as its thin rays beat down upon the choppy gray of Boston Harbor, sea smoke arose to meet the first gentle flakes of a light morning snow.

The streets started to collect powdery snow in gutters and corners, and the wind blew it around like loose sand.

Bolan decided to call it a night when his windshield started to get coated up. Gathering his weapons, he stowed them in their holsters, then collected the police scanner and the captured Red Horse radio. He exited his vehicle, leaving the cab sitting where Kirk Weatherly would see it whenever he looked out his window. The Executioner no longer had any need for the wanted vehicle.

Bolan took an early Green Line streetcar to the South End and walked to the garage where he claimed his Buick LeSabre.

Emerging from the garage, he turned on the police scanner. The squeal came before he reached the Southeast Expressway. “All units. Shots fired Warren and Intervale. See the woman.” Acknowledgements jammed the band.

Tires complaining, Bolan turned back. He had a bad feeling about the squeal.

Shooting up Washington, he was soon joined by a speeding Boston police Dodge Ram utility vehicle. Wailing, it blazed angry splinters of light at him. Bolan frowned. If he pulled over, he would lose precious time, so he grabbed the next right, pacing the Ram on a parallel street.

Three blocks along, a blue Chevy Blazer careened into view, cut in his direction and swerved toward him, its horn blaring.

In that split second, Bolan saw the black ski mask over the driver’s face and threw his LeSabre across the road, blocking it. The Blazer slewed to a halt.

He stepped out, the Desert Eagle snapping up into firing position.

The driver spit a startled “Shit!” and started to back up. It was too late. The Dodge Ram slammed into view, blocking its retreat.

Bolan advanced. The back door opened, and two heads leaned out: a ski-masked Red Horseman, and held in a headlock before him was Lark Youngblood, a Colt Python jammed into the side of her head.

Bolan froze, while the police vehicle’s doors fell open and two uniforms took crouching positions behind them.

“Stand easy,” Bolan called.

The uniforms were having none of it.

“Drop your weapons!” one commanded.

That didn’t go over with Ski Mask. “Like hell,” he snarled. “You, Five-O. Tell this asshole to get out of our way!” “We can talk this out,” the cop called.

“We can have a nice early-morning firefight, too,” Ski Mask flung back. “I vote everybody do as we say, or the body count starts with this bitch.” Bolan stood immobile, his jaws tightening as he absorbed the situation.

Then abruptly he backed away and slipped behind the LeSabre’s wheel. As he threw the vehicle into reverse, the Blazer’s door slammed, and Ski Mask gunned his engine.

The soldier immediately dropped behind the dash and into the shelter of the Buick’s engine block. In the next instant, a single.44 Magnum mangler smashed into his windshield on the passenger side.

He heard the Blazer roar by and snapped erect.

Judging the Buick to be drivable, he threw it into first.

The police were starting forward, calling to him to halt.

Ignoring them, Bolan floored the gas, and the Buick surged away. The two policemen dropped back to their vehicle, and it was soon in hot pursuit.

All around sirens wailed. The Blazer was as good as nailed, Bolan figured, but he wanted to be the one who nailed it.

The vehicles zigzagged along the roads, with Bolan clinging to the Blazer’s rear deck. A discouraging shot took out his left headlight.

Forced to swerve every time the big silver pistol angled back at him, the Executioner steadily lost ground. Lark’s frightened face, looking back at him, was gut-wrenching.

Coming hard into a turn, Bolan saw the Blazer reversing, trying to ram him. Braking, he swerved, jumping the curb. The two cars tangled, then went spinning apart.

The Blazer came out of it best. With one fender crumpled, it limped away, body metal scraping against the rear tires.

Bolan threw his machine into reverse. It balked, then the engine died. He fired it up, tried again and got lucky. The Buick hummed into reverse. He twisted the wheel, then slammed after the Blazer.

He found it four blocks away, jammed into the curb, its doors hanging open.

They had obviously had a switch car waiting.

Bolan took in the street with quick sharp glances.

There were no pedestrians, and no sign of a fleeing car, either.

Five minutes of driving brought the Executioner nothing except two near brushes with cruising police vehicles. The net was drawing closer.

In the end, on the difficult streets, Bolan abandoned his LeSabre and blended in with the early morning going-to-work crowd.

Flagging down a cab, he asked the driver to take him to South Station. There, he entered the Amtrak concourse, loitering at the newsstand until he was sure he hadn’t been tailed, then took a second cab to Quincy.

It had been a long trying night. But there would be no rest for the Executioner. Not with an innocent pawn in enemy hands.

Mack Bolan fired up the coffeepot and worked the kitchen wall telephone as he waited for the pot to brew. The first call was a local one.

“Kissinger,” the chief armorer for Stony Man Farm said. Behind his voice came the din of men at work.

“Ready or not, here I come,” Bolan said.

“Another hour and we’ll have finished the last spot weld.” “You have your hour. No more.” “Right.” Bolan hung up. It was too early to call Hal Brognola, so he took a quick hot shower to drive the numbness from his bones.

When he emerged, he felt looser, his cold-stiffened muscles comfortably supple again. The coffee put black fire in his belly.

While he was draining the first cup, the kitchen phone rang.

“Belasko,” he said into the receiver.

It was Kurtzman at Stony Man Farm.

“Search completed, Mack.” “Let’s have it.” “Well, we have the Trojan horse, the horse head as a chess piece-was “What about military connections?” Bolan interrupted him.

“That’s a wider menu. You probably know most of this stuff. The original Special Forces Green Beret flash sported a black Trojan horse head. The 13th Airborne boasted a yellow winged unicorn, if you consider unicorns horseflesh.

The First Cavalry also has a black horse-head patch. The 61 still Cav patch sports a horse head in a stirrup, both black, on a yellow shield. During the Vietnam conflict, the division patch of the First Cav’s Regimental Combat Team Two had a blue horse. Then there is our solitary red horse, the 701/ Armored Cavalry Regiment.” “Describe it.” “A red horse facing left on a yellow patch bordered in black.” “The 701/ see action in Somalia?” “One second.” Bolan heard the tapping of fingers on a computer keyboard.

“Yeah. They were an Army National Guard unit. Put on reserve status after the Big One, they were called up to active duty in Somalia because so many of our forces were bogged down in peacekeeping operations. They were returned to reserve status after Somalia and disbanded at the end of 1993. Formerly headquartered in Fort Benning, Georgia. Unit motto is Facere Non Dicere—”To Do without Question.”” “Does a Weatherly show up on your screen?” “Weatherly. Weatherly. Yes, I have a Weatherly. First name Curt.” “Not Kirk?” “Curt. That’s with a C. Middle name Upton.” “Active duty?” “No. This Weatherly is dead. Bought it in South Mogadishu, Somalia, April 28, 1993.

He was clearing a suspected warlord ammunition depot when a sniper took him down. Posthumous purple heart and Medal of Valor. Buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery.” “Next of kin?” “No wife or kids, according to his records.” “One last question,” Bolan said. “Did the 701 still belong to the First Cav?” “Sure did.” “Thanks.” “Don’t you want the heraldry stuff?” “I have what I want,” Bolan replied. They ended the call.

Over the next hour, the Executioner worked methodically, stripping, cleaning and oiling his armament.

If fear for the life of Lark Youngblood troubled his warrior’s soul, it wasn’t reflected in his tightly concentrated face.

The pieces were falling into place. The Red Horse were cavalry all right—renegade cavalry.

AT NINE O’CLOCK SHARP, Bolan called Brognola at Justice.

The head Fed’s voice boomed out of the earpiece.

“Striker, I was just about to call you. The toxicology report just hit my desk, and it’s very interesting.” “Keep talking,” Bolan said.

“Your dead man was chewing the leaves of a succulent the lab technicians call catha edulis.” “Narcotic?” “You might say that. Catha edulis isn’t in the same league as cocaine by any stretch. It’s more along the lines Of a stimulant, with the properties of Benzadrine. You chew the leaves and shoots, and it revs you up. Chew enough and euphoria takes hold.” Bolan nodded. “A man under the influence would have heightened reflexes and a raised threshold of pain.” “That about catches it, yeah. The street name is khat. Here’s the interesting part. Until now no one’s ever heard of khat surfacing in this country.

The streets where this stuff is king are in-was “Somalia,” Bolan finished.

“Sounds like you’re a step ahead of the game.” “No, just dead even. But my next move should rearrange the board in my favor.” “Sounds like chess. Is that the game the opposition is playing?” “If it isn’t, they had better bone up fast, because I plan to sweep the board clean by this time tomorrow.” “No surprise there. I know how you play the game. Anything else?” “You might fax me that report.” “Done.” Bolan gave Brognola the number and terminated the call.

Moments later the fax spit out a half dozen plain paper sheets. Bolan skimmed them quickly.

When he came to the last page, his eyes studied a reconstructed khat leaf long enough to commit it to memory. It resembled spearimint. The broad, spider-veined leaf was distinctive, like a green Ace of Spades. He knew he’d recognize it again if he saw it growing in the wild.

He gathered his gear and tossed it into his overnight bag. Throwing the duster over his blacksuit, he checked the apartment one last time, then locked the door behind him.

After this night he wouldn’t be back again. One way or another, end-game was near.

Bolan drove back into the city, taking Gallivan all the way through the crowded working-class neighborhoods of Mattapan and Dorchester. At the Forest Hills overpass, he followed Washington Street to Roslindale with its neat duplexes and three-decker homes.

The garage was tucked into the butt of a dead-end street. The discolored sign over the doors said Macklin’s Garage. The sign looked ancient, but Bolan knew it would be gone by nightfall, never to be seen again.

He honked once, and one bay rolled up.

Sliding into an oil-stained slot, he exited the Buick. The air was heavy with the scents of acetylene and machine oil.

John Kissinger greeted him with a smile.

Grease-spotted coveralls encased his lean frame, and a welder’s helmet was thrown back off his sun-beaten face.

“Timing couldn’t be better,” he said.

Bolan looked past him to the Stony Man support team that was policing the area around a subdued two-tone sedan, stowing tools in metal carrying cases and wiping down all exposed surfaces with clean rags.

The waiting car was a big 1987 Buick Crown Victoria. The sides were navy blue, interrupted only by the flat gray front door panels on which were emblazoned the shield of the Massachusetts State Police. Hood, roof and trunk were a continuous flat gray band.

The roof sported a multicolor light bar. Four giant white block numerals were stenciled behind it, arranged so they could be read from the air. The paint job was dull with street soot, the body dinged here and there.

“Not too shabby for short notice,” Kissinger stated.

Bolan nodded in quiet satisfaction. “Run it down for me.” “Let’s start with the body. She looks like steel and chrome thanks to an artistic paint job, but under the blue-and-gray enamel lies a heat-resistant ceramic armor similar to the tiles on NASA’S space-shuttle fleet. Strong, resilient, but lightweight, it offers the bullet-turning properties of steel plate without costing heavy in the pickup and go department. It’ll take anything up to a tank round, and ask for more. The tires are metal-studded run-flats. Self-sealing, of course. The windshield and windows are bulletproof. A NASCAR roll cage and shielded fuel tanks are standard with this model.

Finally four-wheel drive and steering are available at the touch of a button.” “Power plant?” Kissinger popped the hood, exposing a gleaming engine. “We yanked a V-ten engine out of a Dodge Viper. She’ll do zero to sixty in three-point-two seconds and out-perform any stock machine you go up against. If by chance you tangle with a stray NASCAR racer, you’ll still have the competitive edge.” Nodding, Bolan slammed the hood.

Kissinger walked him around the machine. “Inside, you have all the regulation equipment. Your radio connects you with H Troop Dispatch. They like to be called H, by the way. The Mass State boys dispensed with police codes a few years back, so plain English works well for them. You can shorthand any emergency as a Code One. There’s an on-board computer hooked up to the LEAPS network in case you want to run wants and warrants. Extra magazines for your usual side arms are in the glove box.” “We’re all set here,” one of the men called.

“Okay,” Kissinger said. “Be right with you.” “I asked for special armament,” Bolan reminded him.

“Check the trunk for your equalizer. Everything else is there too, including chains.” “Chains?” “Haven’t you heard? There’s a storm brewing.

What they call around these parts a real nor’easter.

Fifteen inches are expected by midnight. Your run-flats will handle ordinary snow accumulations, but you might need your chains for when the going gets sloppy.” “That’s good to know,” Bolan said.

“But of course this is New England, and you know what they say about New England weather.” Kissinger answered his own riddle. “If you don’t like the weather, just wait a minute. It’ll up and change on you.” Bolan thanked his top armorer with a firm handshake.

Kissinger and his team piled into an unmarked Ford Econoline van, and Bolan ran the bay door up and down just long enough for them to leave the garage.

After the door closed, Bolan walked to the state police car. The running numbers on its fenders and rear deck proclaimed it to be cruiser 1908.

Should any Massachusetts State Trooper spot the otherwise unobtrusive-looking vehicle on the road, his blood would run cold.

Bolan hoped that would go double for the Red Horse.

Popping the trunk, he exposed a flat steel drum almost as big around as the trunk itself. A belt-fed M60 machine gun lay atop it.

Bolan carried it to the front seat and placed it on the passenger side. A steel cage partitioned off the back seat, but there was a slot set just above the passenger seat cushion. One end of a disintegrating link ammo belt packed with 7.62 mm tumblers protruded like a metal tongue. Bolan pulled it toward him. Feeding from the trunk via a back-seat cushion slot, it paid out freely.

The Executioner hooked it up to the M60, locked it down and let the weapon lie, the belt drooping over the passenger seat like an articulated brass python.

Returning to the open trunk, he removed articles of clothing from a package tucked in the wheel well. In the solitude of the deserted garage, he stripped off his black suit and donned the dark blue riding breeches with light blue stripes running up the outer leg scams. A gray uniform blouse went over his muscled chest. He tied a dark blue necktie around his throat.

When he stepped back into his black boots, the Executioner could have posed for a Massachusetts State Trooper recruiting poster.

Bolan dropped the Desert Eagle into the custom-made holster belt of his regulation Sam Browne belt. The Beretta rode in a shoulder rig under the blue tunic.

He hit the bay button and got behind the wheel.

The engine came to life with a quiet confident mutter. The door rolled upward, letting in a blast of cold air. When it cleared roof height, he drove the vehicle forward and slid out onto the street. The door reached the top of its cycle and started down again automatically. By the time it was once more closed and the garage empty, Bolan had turned back onto Washington Street to blend in with the early-morning traffic.

No one knew the name of the game, but Bolan had just rewritten the rules. There was a new piece on the chessboard—a piece the enemy thought checkmated and cleared away.

The enemy was wrong. Dead wrong.

Bolan stayed off the highways as he crossed the length of Boston. The last thing he wanted was a run-in with the state police. For that reason, he avoided Roxbury and environs. The concentration of police presence there meant all other areas were being lightly patrolled.

The snow blew thin and dry. It retreated before him, making troubled swirls in his wake. It wasn’t sticking to the ground yet. Gusts of wind swept it from walkways and rooftops, pushing it into fragile piles that were picked apart by more blasts of air.

Bolan drove first to the Harbor Towers. His battle-scarred Shawmut cab was still parked where he’d left it hours earlier. In the narrow shelter of East India Row, it had acquired a thin dusting of undisturbed snow.

Parking behind it, the Executioner exited the vehicle and strode toward the gray concrete high-rise.

He entered the spacious lobby and walked to the reception desk, his blue eyes glittering under the brim shadows of his state trooper’s hat. In keeping with the traditional police custom, his badge number was masked by a tiny black band of mourning.

“I’m here to see Kirk Weatherly,” Bolan told the security man at the desk.

“Are you expected?” “No.” “May I say who is calling?” “Trooper McIlwraith.” “Will Mr. Weatherly know the name?” “Mr. Weatherly will definitely know the name,” Bolan told the security man.

“One moment.” The man picked up a red telephone receiver, simultaneously pressing a console button.

Bolan watched him closely. The deskman frowned, his eyes avoiding Bolan’s, as he listened to the repeated unanswered ringing.

He replaced the receiver. “Mr. Weatherly appears to be out. May I take a message?” “Tell him Trooper McIlwraith will be back for him.” “I’ll do that,” the deskman said.

Bolan turned on his heel and left the building.

The sky had already darkened over Boston Harbor.

It looked like the promised weather was rolling in.

The Executioner reclaimed his cruiser and headed north.

It had been a long shot. After the events of the night before, Weatherly was unlikely to be found in his usual haunts. Bolan had thrown down the gauntlet, expecting the man to pick it up.

He had, but not the way the Executioner had figured.

Bolan had hoped to smoke out his opponent.

Instead, the Red Horse had gone for an innocent pawn.

Bolan wrestled with the stop-and-go traffic of the upper deck of the Tobin Bridge, thinking hard.

According to the FBI toxicology report, khat grew in bushes. An equatorial shrub, it had never been cultivated in the U.s., and it certainly wouldn’t grow wild in Massachusetts in the dead of winter. But for the narcotic leaves to pack their Benzadrine-like punch they had to be picked fresh. That meant a greenhouse.

It was another long shot, but it was all the Executioner had—that and the trail he had followed the night before until he was ambushed by Browning armor-piercing rounds.

Bolan took the Saugus off ramp on Route 1 and eased into the quiet residential streets of the town, a living dead man prowling in a ghost machine.

The sky was now completely overcast. A few fluffy flakes fell to the windshield, but not enough to bother with the wipers just yet. Slipstream swept them away.

Working from a street map, Bolan divided the city into four zones and with methodical patience began to reconnoiter every street, running a red pencil line through each road after he’d cleared it.

The town’s layout forced him to backtrack often.

By noon, he’d covered nearly half of Saugus.

The roads were busy, as people rushed in and out of corner groceries and supermarkets, stocking up against the coming blizzard.

Bolan’s eyes roved the neighborhoods, looking for the flash of bright red that would betray a garaged Red Horse vehicle, or the opaque glass checkerboard of a greenhouse roof.

Not far from the sprawling spidery Saugus Ironworks, he eased to a careful stop.

If nothing else, it was an unusual juxtaposition of buildings. Where a residential neighborhood of neat ranches and tract homes began to fade into bare-limbed woods, a maroon clapboard Garrison-style house sat apart. On one side stood a three-car garage that had the look of once having been a turn-of-the-century horse stable. In back, tucked partially behind the house, was a low greenhouse. The windows were opaque. The roof radiated waves of heat that shook the cold air.

Quickly sizing up the layout, Bolan threw the cruiser into reverse and parked it out of sight, one street over.

Exiting the vehicle, he worked his way around to the piney woods in back of the house.

Intermittent sounds that mixed hammering and the hiss of blowtorches were coming from the garage. That was good. Men busy at their labor wouldn’t be standing watch, and the sounds would cover Bolan’s approach.

Creeping forward, he gained the back of the greenhouse. It was tall enough to shield him from any lookout posted in the house itself. He fingered a pane. It was very warm to the touch. Going to the door, he found it locked. A stainless-steel lock pick cracked the padlock, and he was inside.

The air hit him in a steamy wave, and perspiration started to ooze from his face. He shut the door behind him.

The greenhouse was heated by overhead heat lamps and free-standing electric floor radiators.

Buckets of evaporating water lay everywhere, giving off muggy steam. A thermometer read one hundred fourteen degrees, and the interior glass was sweating.

In two rows of giant pots, robust bushes of green leafy khat soaked up the heat and moisture greedily.

Bolan picked a spade-shaped leaf, examining it carefully. It matched the specimen the FBI toxicology lab had reconstructed, right down to the spidery vein patterns.

There was no question now. He had found the headquarters of the Red Horse.

A burning red light caught his attention, and the Executioner went to it. He found a cordless telephone bolted to a cork panel, beside the temperature regulators. It was a two-line phone. Line One was lit. Carefully he lifted the receiver and brought it to his ear.

“… can’t handle prisoner interrogation and fit out new technicals at the same time. We’re short-handed, dammit,” a smoky voice said.

An older clipped voice Bolan recognized demanded, “Improvise, One.” “Torture isn’t my style, Steeple.” “I wasn’t referring to the girl. I meant the technical problem. You’ve called up the reserves?” “They’re on their way. But without more technicals, they’re going to be standing around with their hands in their pockets.” “Take your inspiration from your foes.” “Say again?” “Do it exactly like the warlords did in South Mog.” “You mean jury-rig new weapons’ platforms?” “What would it take?” “Not much. Steal a platform, switch the plates and install simple pintle mounts so we can shift the last Browning between units. We could be rolling on the “Bury by 1900 at the latest.” “Do it.” “It’s done. What about the girl? She’s sticking to her story like it was tattooed to her skull.” “She’s a liability.” “I know that.” “For all of us.” “You’re not going to give the order, are you?” “A good soldier doesn’t require orders every step of the way. Not when he understands his objective.” “Okay. We’ll leave it that way.” There was a long silence, then the clipped confident voice Bolan knew belonged to Kirk Weatherly said, “They’re calling for blizzard conditions by midnight.” “Cavalry specializes in operating in hostile environments.” “I want tonight to be a crescendo. Hit as much as you can. Cause as much panic as possible. Make up for lost time. We’ve lost the escalation factor, so tonight has to make up for it in terror and destruction. Remember your motto—Facere non Dicere.” “Any suggestions?” “It feels like church weather coming on. The poor find their comfort in church. Let’s take their last comforts from them.” “If you say so.” “Do I detect a note of disapproval in your voice, Red Horse One?” “I just hope our reserves don’t have any qualms.” “A soldier’s job is to destroy terrain in order to seize it. If your reserves are true soldiers, they’ll understand the necessities of warfare.” “Roger that.” “One last but important detail.” “Yeah?” “Mission Church is strictly off-limits.” “Understood. Where can we reach you?” “For the duration, you can’t. I’m hunkered down in my aerie. The office is closed. Officially I’m out of town.” “Mr. Nineteen-oh-eight scare you that much?” “The nervy son of a bitch all but tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘allyou’re it.” And he’s connected to this talk-show girl in a way I neither understand nor like.” “Just don’t bug out on us, Steeple.” “I wouldn’t dishonor my son’s memory or the unit in which he lived out his last glorious days.” “Good. I just wanted to hear you say it.” “Now that we understand each other, please attend to all mission details. Steeple Ou.” “Red Horse One out.” The line went dead.

Replacing the receiver, Bolan ran through his options.

Lark was in the house, maybe the garage. The first order of business would be to fix her position, the second to extract her.

Neither was going to be easy.

Leaving the greenhouse was like stepping from Nairobi, Kenya, to Nome, Alaska, and Bolan shivered as the cold hit him. The snow swirled thin and angry in the sunless sky. It had begun to accumulate on the ground.

Crouching in the lee of the greenhouse, he scrutinized the house. It was a two-story clapboard structure, with perhaps eight rooms. The high-set louvers betrayed the existence of a traditional New England attic under the peaked roof. A steel bulkhead offered entry to a cellar.

Bolan figured the cellar for the cleanest way in.

Moving low, he gained the bulkhead, which wasn’t locked. He levered one heavy galvanized steel leaf just high enough to allow him to slip in. Then, poised on what felt like a wood step, he eased it down with great care so that it shut without making a sound.

Crouching in darkness he palmed a penlight, covering the tiny lens with the web of his thumb. It glowed red through his flesh and he used that faint light to check out the surface of the door at the bottom of the steps.

It was white-painted wood, the lock of the padlock-and-hasp type. The lock was on the outside, which was unusual. That might mean a cellar with no direct access from within the house.

Extracting his lock pick from his web belt, Bolan went to work on the lock, taking his time so no telltale grating or scratching of metal betrayed his presence.

The padlock surrendered with a dull click, and he set the heavy steel device on the step with care.

Unleathering his Desert Eagle, he held it at the ready and took the loose hasp with his free hand.

Carefully he eased open the door a crack.

There would be no betraying light from the closed bulkhead, but the movement of the door might be noticed if the cellar was occupied.

It didn’t appear to be; the faint light spilling out through the crack was natural, not electric.

Inside, Bolan saw the dim shapes of an oil furnace and a big tar-stained servant drum.

A workbench crammed with old paint cans and garden tools filled the back wall. What little light there was leaked through the slit-like basement windows.

Easing the door open all the way, he slipped in. The cellar air smelled musty.

Distantly he could hear the muffled sound of men working with metal coming from the garage. Unexpectedly the furnace kicked in, making a dull blowing roar.

Bolan’s foot found a low concrete step and he balanced on it carefully, his eyes scouring the dusty cellar confines. Nothing moved. He let his eyes grow accustomed to the darkness, and when he felt sure of his night vision, he closed the door behind him and stepped onto the floor proper.

Floorboards creaked overhead as men moved around in the house. Their footfalls were unhurried, which told the Executioner his penetration was successful.

The Desert Eagle held high, he reconned the dank cellar.

Except for the foundation of the red-brick chimney, it was mostly open space with the furnace and other large objects crowded close to the granite-block walls that were hung with old dust-laden cobwebs.

Bolan moved to the chimney’s foot, set himself against it and made a circuit, leading with the Eagle.

Once around told him no one lurked on the blind side. Satisfied, he worked his way to the cellar’s far end, where the light was dimmest.

There was no stairway leading up into the house, so there was only one door to keep an eye on.

In a corner stood a high stall of rough unpainted wood, with a simple plank door. It was closed. Bolan recognized the enclosure as a long-disused coal bin.

Getting up on his toes, he peered over the rough-textured door.

Lark Youngblood was huddled in a dusty corner, in a pile of crumbling old coal, head bowed, chin tucked into the front of her quilted coat. One wrist was clamped in a steel manacle, the other ring locked around a pipe. She shivered once, then her body relaxed.

Stepping back, Bolan threw open the door.

Lark’s head came up, sharp and frightened. Her eyes—one was darker than it should have been—flew wide at the sight of the Executioner’s uniformed figure.

Bolan dropped to one knee before her, removing her gag with a quick businesslike slice of his Ka-bar knife.

“Quiet,” he said as the gag came away.

With her free hand, Lark pulled out a balled-up handkerchief that had been jammed up in her mouth. Her eyes were round with surprise. Her mouth was encrusted with a dark red that wasn’t lipstick.

“You’re a cop?” she whispered.

“I wear the uniform,” Bolan told her, grabbing her encircled wrist and exposing the lock.

“Hold still,” he said, putting down the Eagle and extracting his lock pick once more.

Lark put her blood-caked mouth to his ear.

“How did you find me?” she breathed.

“Luck.” She grunted. “Your luck is my luck.” The lock was stubborn. Bolan angled the stainless-steel probe this way and that, seeking the catch that would spring open the manacles.

“They kept asking me about you,” Lark said, “over and over. I tried to tell them the truth, but they wouldn’t listen. I guess they finally got tired of whaling on me, I don’t know.” Bolan nodded.

“But I found out the last name of the head of their group. It’s Steeple.” “Code name,” Bolan whispered.

“Oh.” The lock sprung with a thin click.

Taking Lark by one arm, the Executioner pulled her to her feet, then retrieved his gun.

She wobbled, suddenly clutching his coat for support. Bolan grabbed her about the waist before she could fall.

“My left leg is asleep,” she hissed.

“I can’t feel anything.” “Try to walk,” he urged, knowing circulation would return more quickly if she exercised.

Guiding Lark out of the coal bin, Bolan watched her bruised face. It was scrunching up in pain.

He kept one ear cocked to the house above. The intermittent creaking of floorboards had stopped.

“As soon as you have feeling back, we’re going to break for my cruiser,” he told her.

Lark nodded, her eyes squeezing tight as she struggled with the unpleasant sensation as blood flow returned to her leg.

Just then, the ringing clang of steel reverberated through the cellar, followed by a second, identical clang. It was too close to be a garage noise.

The bulkhead.

Heavy footsteps made the wooden steps groan, then came a clatter. Bolan knew the padlock he’d left on the steps had been kicked by the descending Red Horseman’s feet.

Shielding Lark with his body, the Executioner laid the Eagle’s sight dead center on the door and caressed the trigger.

Just before the thunder of the shot filled the confines of the cellar, he heard a dull click.

A bullet hole punched a door plank and a man yelled, stumbling back up the stairs.

Bolan fired again, drilling a second hole.

Two pencils of light beamed in to spotlight the concrete floor, but he paid them no mind. His eyes were on the door, still firm in its frame. The stopping power of the.44 Magnum rounds should have thrown the door wide-open. That they hadn’t meant only one thing: the Red Horseman had snapped the padlock back in place just before being driven off. That had been the click Bolan had heard.

They were locked in. The only way out was the way in, and it was blocked by the enemy. The Executioner and his companion were trapped.

Shouting from above and outside told of converging foes. There was no easy way out, and the locked door worked as much to the Executioner’s advantage as his adversaries”. He couldn’t leave the cellar; they couldn’t burst in. The two fresh bullet holes in the wooden door warned of the fate of any enemy who tried to breech the padlocked door.

Moving to the long workbench, Bolan grabbed two cans of spray paint. Both were red, he saw with no surprise.

Shaking them so the little metal balls inside rattled, he rejoined Lark Youngblood. “Take this,” he told her with quiet urgency.

She accepted one spray can. Her puzzled frown was all the question Bolan needed.

“Take that side of the cellar. Spray every inch of window glass. I’ll do the other.” The sudden light in her eyes told the Executioner that Lark understood.

They went to work.

The windows were filmed with dust, and cobwebs festooned the corners. Bolan gave the first window a blast. Paint hissed out like vaporizing blood, sending a solitary spider scuttling for safety.

In three confident passes, he had the glass covered. Going to the second window, he repeated the process. The light in the cellar turned reddish and weak.

The third window was inside the coal chute. As Bolan approached, he saw a tan cowhide snow boot press into the drifted snow that half obscured the glass from the other side.

A knee dropped into view and Bolan whipped out the Eagle. When a ski-masked face appeared, he tapped the dirty glass with the muzzle. Eyes widening in fear, the masked face suddenly jumped away and the Executioner gave the glass a blast of paint, blotting out the incoming light.

Turning, Bolan saw Lark finish her second window. She was limping toward the third when a new face showed in the filmy glass. Across the cellar, the spying Red Horseman’s eyes met the Executioner’s hard gaze.

“Get down!” Bolan rapped out.

Lark threw herself flat. Leveling the Eagle, Bolan sighted and triggered a shot.

A.44 Magnum shocker punched into the granite framing the window, making a spiteful crack. Rock dust spurted, and bits of granite stung the reddish air. The windowpane shook in its frame, but held.

The new face jumped away.

Moving in, Bolan hit the glass with sprays of red enamel. Dropping the can, he rejoined Lark on the dusty concrete floor.

“They can’t see in to shoot,” he explained.

Her haunted eyes fell on the faintly smoking Desert Eagle. “Please…” she murmured.

Holstering the weapon, Bolan helped her off the ground and over to the chimney base. Quickly calculating angles of fire, he guided her to the side where a blind shot from the windows or a ricochet wouldn’t hit her.

“Wait there,” he ordered. “Stay low.” Lark obeyed. Looking up, she said, “Where are you going?” “The same place you are. Out of here. Sit tight and be ready to move on my order.” Nodding, Lark covered her head with her arms. She obviously knew what ricocheting lead could do.

Taking a position on the other side of the chimney, Bolan watched the windows. Light still filtered through them, but it was a weird gory gleam.

If a man moved across the window, the pane would darken enough to give warning.

Brief flickers of shadow told of moving feet. A man called out, saying nothing understandable.

Knowing any attack would be telegraphed, Bolan’s eyes raced from red window to red window.

As he saw it, the problem for the Red Horse was twofold. They couldn’t storm the door without taking casualties, and although shooting blindly through the windows was a Red Horse option, once the glass dropped out of the frames, the Executioner could return fire with impunity.

That would trigger a cat-and-mouse game of trading shots in which police interference was virtually certain.

Minutes passed. The furnace cut out, leaving an uneasy silence hanging in the strange crimson twilight.

In the end, Red Horse One must have come to the same conclusion.

While sounds of moving men continued to come from the grounds, a smoky voice called down through the floorboards.

“Listen up down there.” “I’m listening,” Bolan said, fixing the voice’s position carefully.

“Nobody’s fooling anyone else.” The Executioner said nothing. The voice came again, in from a new position.

“We can reason better if we have names.” “Yours is Red Horse One,” Bolan said, stepping back five paces after speaking.

Silence followed Bolan’s statement.

He let it hang in the air until Red Horse One broke it himself.

“And you?” he asked in a stiff tone.

“McIlwraith. State police.” “Nice try, but no sale. That horseshit is damn stale. You’re state police, sure. But you’re undercover, not a damn ghost.” “What’s your proposition?” Bolan asked.

“I see it this way. You can’t get out and we can’t come in. But my team can take up positions and lay down some pretty hellacious fire through these windows, even firing blind. How likely are you to survive that?” “I’ll take my chances.” “Ask your mouthy friend if she feels the same way.” A sudden movement caught the corner of Bolan’s eye.

It was Lark. She gave him a thumbs-up sign. He nodded.

“What’s the other option?” Bolan called back.

“Surrender. Open a window and slide out your hardware. Then we unlock the door.” “Then what happens?” “What happens in wartime. Interrogation and detention.” “And execution?” Bolan countered.

“There are no guarantees in war.” “It’s not much of a choice.” “Ask your friend if she wants to buy more oxygen or breathe her last in a cold damp cellar.” The constant shifting of Red Horse One’s voice told the Executioner that he kept changing his position each time he spoke. It was a sound tactic. Bolan had been doing the same, but where he moved on concrete, making no sound, Red Horse One’s weight caused the supporting floorboards to creak and groan.

“Give us a minute,” Bolan said.

“Make it a fast minute,” came the smoky voice. Then the floor gave a groan.

Taking a kneeling position, the Executioner lined up the Desert Eagle on the approximate spot. Holding the gun in a two-handed Weaver grip, he carefully squeezed the trigger.

The big gun boomed in the confines of the cellar, knocking a hole in the underside of the floor.

A man cursed, and feet pounded. Swiftly Bolan got off another shot.

No return fire came. Instead, doors banged and feet pounded down steps. The grounds outside became frantic with movement.

“Pull out! Everybody, pull out.” It was the voice of Red Horse One, Bolan realized with stoic disappointment.

The Executioner jumped up from his crouch. In three quick strides, he reached the shelter of the chimney.

“Whatever happens, stay calm,” he told Lark.

A car’s engine growled. It sounded like the ragtop Caddy’s noisy V8.

“They’re running away,” Lark breathed, hope in her voice.

“Wait for it,” Bolan said.

On the eastern side, scarlet glass began to break. There were no gunshots. A rock tumbled in instead.

Two of the windows shattered. Under the jangle and crack Bolan heard the clang of metal, the bulkhead doors falling back.

“Where’s that damn blooper?” Red Horse One called.

“Right here,” another voice said breathlessly.

“Get set!” The loud blooping of an M79 grenade launcher came from the direction of the door. Instantly the door imploded in a shower of flame. A sudden hot breath swept through the cellar, boiling with white smoke and spitting bits of fire.

Phosphorous.

Over the crash and roar, Bolan heard the clanging of the bulkhead leaves dropping back into place.

The only way out was ablaze with phosphorous.

The chimney protected them from the hellish stuff, but there was no way through the white-hot fire rapidly consuming the doorway.

Outside, the roar of departing vehicles swelled —only to be swallowed by the spiteful snap and spit of fire.

The hot white smoke began to blacken and Bolan, knowing he was taking a chance by exposing himself to the broken windows, lifted Lark off the floor.

No rounds came biting at them. The breaking glass had been a diversionary tactic.

Lark took one look at the crackling conflagration and said, “I’m willing to jump through if you are.” “Bulkhead’s down. We’d never make it.” “Are you sure?” “Come on,” Bolan said.

Gaining the coal bin, the Executioner pushed Lark in ahead of him, closing the door behind them both.

Lark had sense enough to drop to the floor where the good air would last longest.

“What good will this do?” she asked.

“Buy us time,” Bolan bit out.

“For what? To die?” The soldier said nothing; he was taking in the window and the floor. The window was too narrow to pass a human body. Just the same, he found the latch and gave it a wrenching pull. With a complaining creak it opened inward. Cold reviving air came in, buying them more precious seconds.

Dropping to one knee, Bolan said, “Cover your ears.” Looking confused, Lark nevertheless obeyed. She clamped her hands to her ears as Bolan lifted the Desert Eagle, aiming for the joint between two floorboards. He fired once.

The big bullet struck the meeting place.

Wood squealed and snapped, and a squarish hole appeared. Shifting his aim, Bolan fired again.

The gun boomed, making Lark’s crouching body shake. In rapid succession, Bolan emptied the clip, ejected and slammed home an extended clip. Methodically he chipped at the growing hole above his head. Going in, the bullets punched quarter-sized holes that lifted palm-sized segments of the hardwood floor as they exited. In the closed space the din of the weapon was bone-jarring.

Bolan finished emptying the clip and rammed in his last one.

The wood above was old; the creaking and groaning from before had told him that. Each bullet gouged and softened it further.

When his last clip ran dry, Bolan holstered the smoking Eagle and extracted his Ka-bar knife.

The hole was by no means useable, but it was a start.

The tip of the blade went into the wood with a mushy thunk, sinking in a solid half inch. Bolan began to attack the material, cutting, ripping and gouging.

Where the wood proved stubborn and resisting, he let it be. Where it was soft and workable, he attacked it with determination. More than once he had to drop to the ground and press his face to the dusty floor to suck up breathable air. The fire was racing up the side of the house now. It crackled, growing in volume and ferocity.

It was a race against time. As the hot smoke darkened and sought his laboring lungs, the Executioner began to understand that even all of his battle-tested strength wasn’t going to be enough.

Mack Bolan threw his six-foot-plus frame to the concrete floor and took in three deep breaths, charging his lungs with hot oxygen. Not an inch from him, Lark Youngblood’s sweat-streaked face looked back with wide bruised eyes.

“It’s not working, is it?” she groaned, a tremor in her voice indicating her growing terror.

Bolan took a last deep breath, and, combat knife in hand, started to rise again, knowing it might be his last chance to carve their way to safety and survival.

Lark’s grasping fingers grabbed his coat, pulling him back. “They threatened me with an ax,” she gasped. “Would an ax help?” “Where?” Bolan demanded.

“It was… behind the workbench. But… I don’t know… if it’s still… there.” She was coughing now, her words coming out in fits and jerks.

The Executioner came off the floor and bolted through the coal-bin door, making a blind run for the workbench. But the smoke defeated him. Hacking, he dropped to the ground and sought the cool heavy settled air. Then he began to crawl.

Completely blinded, he managed to find the bench with his groping hands. He quested about urgently, upsetting tools and other cellar detritus.

The hard smoothness of a short-handled ax filled his fist with its reassuring heft. Bolan took a second to find the sharp blade with his other hand, and satisfied he had a tool he could use, crawled back, breathing shallowly.

The gaping coal-bin door helped guide him back and, without bothering to prepare himself because air was running out faster than before, Bolan got to his feet, swinging.

The heavy ax bit wood, chewed, and he twisted it free. Chopping again, Bolan hacked out another splintery chunk. He swung blindly, wildly, striking with the blunt side as much as the blade. Each blow worked. Wood shards dropped down and the hole grew as the choking black smoke coiled toward it, disappearing into the cleaner air above.

Exhausted, Bolan dropped flat. “It’s now or never. Step onto my back and reach up.

Yell when you have a firm grip.” Lark clambered atop the Executioner’s broad back. Her feet dug into his muscles and she stood.

“Now!” she said, choking in the smoke.

Bolan arched his back. There was no air in his lungs, no time for more instructions. She either did the right thing the first time, or it was all over for them both.

The soldier knew the maneuver had worked when the sharp pressure on his back abruptly vanished.

Coming to his feet, he found the hole. His lungs were burning from lack of oxygen. They screamed to inhale, but there was no air to draw in, only choking, poisonous smoke.

Bolan levered himself up, got his elbows onto the floor above, and, using them for support, exerted all of his might. Somehow, he made it. He was on automatic, blinded, lungs paralyzed. But once he felt the firm flooring under his hands and knees, he knew he would live.

Rolling blind, he reached a place where the smoke was only a bitter haze and let his tortured lungs drink their fill. The air wasn’t pure. He coughed spasmodically, but more good air entered than bad.

“Belasko!” Lark gasped.

Bolan stumbled toward her, hacking and reeling, until he was beside her. “This way!” Lark’s fingers found his hand and he helped her to her feet. Together they ran from the blazing house into the cold light of day.

They managed to get about fifty yards before their laboring lungs gave out. On the cold hard ground, with snow falling on their gasping faces, they lay on their backs, gulping air, coughing and waiting for their smoke-stung eyes to clear as the house burned with a growing fury.

When they could see and breathe without pain, they stood.

Bolan saw Lark’s dusky face was a mask of soot and sweat, her nostrils ringed in black from exhaling sooty smoke. He assumed he looked no better.

The house was fully involved now, flames racing up one side of the structure. Fire poured out of the building’s chinks, the slit-like cellar windows, even the chimney pot.

Bolan went to the garage but found only tools and grease stains. Whatever armament the Red Horse still possessed, they had carried it away successfully.

Going to the greenhouse, he found it locked. They hadn’t had time to raid their stash.

“Come on,” Bolan said, rejoining Lark.

“There’s nothing more for us here.” A loud boom sounded behind them. Red glass shards spit from the cellar windows. The greenhouse roof shivered under the shock, dropping panes of glass.

The crackle of fire grew in intensity. The spreading cellar fire had ignited the oil drum.

They reached the state police cruiser two streets over as the far banshee wail of a fire engine pierced the afternoon air, drawing closer.

Bolan opened the passenger door. At the sight of the M60 machine gun laying across the seat, Lark recoiled. Catching herself, she reached in and set it on the floorboards, then climbed in, saying, “After what I’ve been through tonight, nothing will bother me again.” The Executioner closed her door, then claimed the steering wheel. The big V-10 engine came to life. He backed down the street, turned and headed for Route 1.

They drove in silence for a while, their windows open, not minding the bracing cold as long as the rushing air let them breathe clean again. After a while, Lark found a handkerchief and used it on her sooty face. The cloth turned completely black before she could finish and she tossed it away.

It was Lark who finally broke the silence.

“Thanks,” she said quietly.

“It’s my job,” Bolan replied.

That statement made her turn in her seat.

“Wait a minute! Why are we running? Why aren’t you calling this in?” Bolan said, “No time.” “You told me your name was Belasko, but you tell other people it’s McIlwraith.” “Psywar.” “Psy what?” “Psychological warfare,” Bolan explained.

“An intimidated enemy is an off-balance enemy.

An off-balance enemy is easier to defeat.” “You sound like a grunt, not a cop.” “War is war,” Bolan said.

“War is hell,” Lark countered. “And now I know what both are like.” “I’m going to need your help tonight.” “Doing what?” “Tonight, the Red Horse are going to strike a major blow. I have to stop them tonight or they’ll own the city.” “Call in the cavalry.” “They are the cavalry.” “What are you saying?” “You saw for yourself the Red Horse is no street gang. That was a cover. They wanted the citizens of Roxbury to think they were a homegrown problem to confuse the issue. They’re a highly disciplined and organized paramilitary force with a clear objective.” “They’re damn firebugs, black or white.” Bolan shook his head. “Arsonists, not firebugs. They don’t burn for the sake of burning. They’re after profit.” I don’t see any pattern. They torch homes, stores, public housing, even that useless old brewery.” “The brewery didn’t burn.” Lark made a bitter face. “So they picked one bad target.” “The brewery was targeted to demonstrate that brick housing is safer than wood.” “That’s what Kirk Weatherly said.” “The operational methods of the Red Horse are clear—to incite fear and to intimidate through wholesale terror. Their ultimate objective is to drive people from their homes.” Lark snorted. “They can’t burn down all of Roxbury. They don’t have enough men or matches.” “They don’t have to. Fear feeds on itself like a fire feeds on oxygen. If enough people leave a neighborhood, more will follow. Soon the neighborhood will stand empty, the houses unsellable.” “You’re full of the “how,” Belasko, but where’s the “why?”’” “To understand the Red Horse, you have to know their leader.” “I don’t want to know him, thank you. He’s done me enough harm.” “He calls himself Steeple. You overheard that much.” “Yeah. So?” “Steeples are found on churches,” Bolan went on. “The Red Horse had a saying—”It’s church weather.” It sounded like a local expression, except no one had heard of it. It stood to reason it had another meaning.” “You mean it was code?” “Who benefits if Roxbury is abandoned?” Bolan asked.

“Nobody. They’d have to tear it down and start over, I guess.” “Just as Kirk Weatherly warned on your program.” “Yeah. I hate to say it, but that stuffed shirt was right on the money.” “No,” Bolan said. “In the money.” Lark blinked. “You aren’t saying what I think you’re saying.” “What is another word for church?” “Pew?” “No. Kirk.” “What?” “Kirk Weatherly. Church weather. It was a code signal with the Red Horse who figured no one would connect one of Boston’s most influential developers with a wilding street gang bent on what looked like random destruction. It wasn’t random, it was arson, a crime often committed to turn declining properties into fast cash.” Lark’s face turned sick. “He was on my show selling his scare talk, getting people all worked up. And I fell for it.” “If you check Suffolk County registry of deeds records, they should show that Weatherly Associates has been quietly buying up the burned-out lots and torched shells, block by block, square by square, until the entire chessboard belongs to him.” “I don’t have to check. He made that very offer on my show last night. The bastard! He promised to buy any distressed Roxbury property at what he called fair market value.” “Depressed market value,” Bolan corrected, realizing that he had to have missed that beginning segment of the show.

Lark eyed him narrowly. “Belasko, can you prove any of this?” “There’s more,” Bolan said. “Kirk Weatherly had a son named Curt who was killed in Somalia. He belonged to the 701/ Armored Cavalry Regiment. Their unit patch was a red horse head. The father recruited members of his son’s old unit to do his dirty work for him. They modeled their operation on the street tactics of a Somali warlord whose armed gangs terrorized the streets of Mogadishu in light trucks turned into mobile weapons platforms by bolting antiaircraft guns and other heavy armament on them.” “Yeah, I remember. They called them technicals.” “Technicals is the term the Red Horse use to describe their machine-gun-equipped cars,” Bolan said, “cars that ran with fake plates that read seven-oh-one and 1-CAV, in a twisted version of unit pride. The same unit pride made them paint their unit patch on the buildings they burned.” “Okay, Belasko. I believe you, but can you prove it?” “No, but you can broadcast it.” “Not without proof. I’ll get thrown off the air.

The station’ll be sued.” “After tonight, there’ll be no more Red Horse and no more terror. You can help by spreading the truth and calming the city.” “Look, if you want to come on my program, I’ll give you all the airtime you need to tell your story.” Bolan shook his head. “My work is on the streets. Weatherly gave the order to torch the churches tonight.” “Churches!” “First they torched the empty boarded-up shells.

Then they escalated to the stores and the homes in a systematic campaign of terror designed to deprive the citizens of all shelter, all comfort, all civilization. Now they intend to exploit their cruel church weather password. Churches going up in flames all over Roxbury will be a sight the city will never forget.” “So people won’t wait until morning to pack up and leave. They’ll tear off in their pajamas and bare feet.” “I’m going to engage the Red Horse on the streets,” Bolan told her. “You fight them on the air.” “It’s a deal.” Lark leaned back in her seat, the rush of bracing air making her dusty braids sway. “Kirk Weatherly. Mr. Bostonian himself. Whew!” They were approaching the Tobin Bridge. The air was busy with swirling flakes, and they looked impossibly clean against the grimy green girderwork of the two-tiered span. Off to the right and down on the ground stood a sprawling gravel pit covering acres of land. The snow made it look new, almost beautiful.

“I was wrong about you, Belasko,” Lark said quietly.

Bolan kept his eyes on the road.

“That is your name, isn’t it? You just call yourself McIlwraith to spook the Red Horse. You just took that dead state trooper’s name, didn’t you?” Bolan made a grim mouth. “As long as the Red Horse rides free and untamed, call me McIlwraith.” “That isn’t the answer I wanted, but I guess it’s the answer I’ve got to live with.” She tapped the M-60 with her foot. “You going to do to them what they did to McIlwraith?” Bolan’s voice turned to flint. “The Red Horse understand only two things—violence and death.

They’re like ravening wolves. Beyond redemption, beyond rehabilitation.” They were on Boston’s Central Artery now.

Bolan took the Roxbury exit, and they were soon cruising the streets. Slow-moving plows were busy, clearing the snow as fast as it accumulated.

“They must expect one slamming storm,” Lark said. “Hardly an inch on the ground and look at them go at it.” Bolan dropped her off on Warren, and she hesitated at the car door. “Am I going to see you again?” “I’ll call you,” Bolan told her.

“You promise?” “If I live.” With that, the Executioner pulled away from the curb and was soon lost in the snow.

Lark Youngblood watched him go. She knew she would probably never see him again, never know who he really was. The thought made her shiver.

Boston is a forest of churches.

A hundred years earlier, its only skyscrapers were steeples, their stone fingers rearing up to the sky, pointing the way to heaven for saint and sinner alike before modern office towers dwarfed them into insignificance. But in the outer precincts, spires and steeples still stood tallest.

Roxbury’s houses of worship were among the most varied in the historic city, ranging from big stone churches to simple storefront Baptist halls.

They stood in the proudest and poorest sectors of Area B—sanctuaries against the troubles of an uncaring world.

Mack Bolan knew from the start he couldn’t protect them all.

Night had fallen. The steady snow continued to descend from a leaden sky, turning the blackened lots and burned shells as white and pure as ivory, as if canceling out all successful Red Horse moves to date.

The Executioner moved through the winding streets in his armored cruiser. The Orange Line trains still rattled through Roxbury, but on the streets, the rumbling snowplows and heavy oil trucks making emergency deliveries of heating fuel were the only vehicles braving the weather.

The city was holding its breath for the promised nor’easter. So far, all was quiet. The furious winds from the north had yet to howl down.

The police, already strained by too much overtime and Red Horse depredations, were stretched more thinly than ever. A weather emergency had been declared statewide and as the deceptively peaceful snow mounted, one by one state police cruisers were pulled out of Area B to handle the inevitable highway collisions.

For Bolan, that was good news. The local law was looking for a blood-red ragtop Caddy and for state police car 1908. The fewer cruisers on the streets, the more freely the Executioner could run.

Bolan had his war map out. All major Roxbury churches were indicated in red. He had gotten the information through a helpful telephone voice from the local historical association.

He first swung by a revolutionary war-era church on Cedar Street where George Washington had worshiped during the War for Independence. It was a wooden structure, and would burn easily. A likely target, he decided. But as he ghosted by, it lay quiet and peaceful under the silencing snow. Satisfied, Bolan rolled on.

Eliot Congregational on Humbolt was a big stone edifice. Bolan figured it for a low-risk target and mentally crossed it off his list.

The Second African Meeting House at Moreland and Warren looked deserted, as did Charles Street AMH near Elm Hill.

Saint Ignatius’s tall cross-topped steeple dominated its end of Dudley Street, its A-frame roof and clapboard sides slowly turning white.

Inside of an hour the Executioner had scrutinized them all, with the exception of Mission Church, which had been declared inviolate because it had blessed a human monster many years earlier.

By 8:00 p.m., with the Mission Church bells carrying through the stillness, the snow was a pall blanketing the city. Accumulations were substantial, but not yet impassable. Bolan fell in behind a snowplow, an old pickup with a bent steel plow fixed to its nose.

As it cleared the street before them, he noticed a mound of snow filling its bed. It was old, dirty snow, crusted and icy. The flakes coming down were dry and powdery. It didn’t make sense. The priority was staying on top of the new snow, not dumping the old.

Keying in the on-board LEAPS system, Bolan ran the plate. It came up NO RESPONSE.

No such plate had been issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles.

The Executioner decided against hitting the siren.

Staying close, he shadowed the plow. The mastermind of the Red Horse had instructed Red Horse One to outfit new Somali-style technicals. That meant pickups and flatbed trucks. The snowpile could easily conceal a Browning or some other big weapon.

Bolan had the walkie-talkie on low. He boosted the volume. Only dry static emanated from the speaker.

They were on Washington now, approaching Egieston Square and Our Lady of the Angels Church.

Because of the curtain of snow, Bolan knew that the pickup’s driver couldn’t make out the cruiser’s running number in his rearview mirror. The dry powdery stuff clung to any surface, and that included his white license plate with its telltale red numbers of 1908.

Reaching to the floorboards, he lifted the M-60 onto the seat and sent the passenger window humming down with the touch of a button. The M-60 was equipped with a bipod. Its legs hooked over the window so the muzzle poked out just enough for a clear field of fire.

Feeding off a conveyor belt of 7.62 mm rounds, it would be a match for anything the Red Horse hardmen had in their arsenal. And in the bitter sub-zero cold, the muzzle would be slow to overheat.

Depressing the gas and muscling the wheel, Bolan pulled out from behind the plow, pacing it so that he could clearly see the back of the driver’s head.

The man took instant notice. His head swiveled, and the Executioner saw that he wore a black ski mask. The driver’s eyes went wide at the white numerals now apparently visible on the cruiser’s front fender. Bolan guessed that he hadn’t yet noticed the protruding muzzle of the M-60.

Touching his throat mike, Ski Mask mouthed anxious words. They echoed distinctly through Bolan’s captured walkie-talkie.

“This is Red Horse Five. Approaching target. Your Mr. Nineteen-oh-eight is pacing me. Do I abort? Repeat. Do I abort, Red Horse One?” “You have the son of a bitch outgunned. Execute mission. We’re busy here.” That was all Bolan needed to hear. Riding the gas, he took one hand off the wheel and wrapped it around the M-60’s molded pistol grip. It was time for the Red Horse to taste their own bitter poison.

When the plow’s cab dropped past his windshield, the Executioner squeezed the trigger.

The disintegrating ammo belt came to life.

Rattling through the receiver, it began to come apart, shedding links and smoking cartridges.

The din of autofire filled the front seat as a white-hot tongue of stuttering flame vomited a stream of 7.62 mm tumblers. It drowned out the jangle of safety glass and the punch of individual bullets penetrating steel.

Gunsmoke curled upward to pool against the roof’s upholstery.

Bolan knew his rounds had found their target when the frosting of snow on his hood suddenly acquired a cherry red spattering. He kept his eyes on the road as he released the trigger. Pulling ahead, his gaze flicked to the side mirror.

The pickup’s cabin was a crimson ruin. With no living hands on the wheel, the wobbling front tires edged toward the curb. The shuddering steel plow blade took the brunt of the low-speed collision.

The pickup actually bounced back, slowly turned in a half circle and came to rest.

Braking, the Executioner exited his cruiser, the Desert Eagle in his fist.

Ignoring the cabin, he went around to the back. The pile of dirty snow had come apart and a man in black sweats and a matching ski mask was digging himself out of the mess. He didn’t take notice of Bolan until the soldier challenged him.

“Freeze!” That caught the man’s attention. He had a grenade launcher slung over his right shoulder, and Bolan figured it to be stuffed with a 40 mm incendiary round. It was nothing to take chances with.

The man’s gloved fingers scrambled to yank the stubby one-rounder into line.

Bolan sighted the Desert Eagle on the Red Horseman’s chest and broke his breastbone with a.44 Magnum hollowpoint. The mushrooming round flung him back, knocking him out of the truck bed.

He was dead when Bolan reached his side. The Executioner took possession of the grenade launcher.

A quick check of the snow pile showed no hidden armament.

Returning to the cruiser, Bolan left the scene. When he had some distance, he radioed dispatch.

“This is nineteen-oh-eight. Investigate accident at Ecyleston Square.” “Are you responding, nineteen-oh-eight?” “Negative,” Bolan replied.

The cruiser number seemed to belatedly register on the dispatcher. His tone of voice changed to one of doubt. “Repeat car number again.” Bolan ignored him. If the Red Horse were monitoring the police bands, it would tell them all they needed to know.

He made a beeline for Fort Hill and took up his now-familiar observation post beside the Cochituate Standpipe. On the front seat, the Red Horse radio crackled and spit static.

After ten minutes, the smoky voice of Red Horse One emerged from the speaker. “Red Horse Five, come in.” Bolan picked up the walkie-talkie.

“Mission accomplished,” he said.

“What do you mean—mission accomplished? Where’s the damn fire and where are you?” “Snuffed,” Bolan said.

Static filled the cruiser’s interior.

“Unidentified Red Horseman, say your number.” “Nineteen-oh-eight.” The loudspeaker spit a venomous response. “Who the hell are you, dammit?” “Nineteen-oh-eight, on the job.” “I’m going to find you, Mr.

Nineteen-oh-eight.” “Try Fort Hill,” Bolan suggested.

“And I’m going to catch your meddling ass in a.50-caliber shitstorm.” “I can be at Bravo Hotel and Item in five minutes,” the Executioner said evenly. The speaker hissed for a full two minutes before Bolan gave up on a response. It had been a long shot, baiting Red Horse One to go mano a mano at the spot where Trooper McIlwraith had been slain, but it had been a shot worth taking.

Switching to the backup channel, Bolan listened. That channel was dead, too.

He gave it another twenty minutes before easing off the hill and taking to the ground-level streets again, hunting Red Horsemen.

Avoiding the area of Egleston where emergency vehicle lights shimmered blue and white against surrounding buildings, Bolan tried to think a move ahead. Checkmated, the Red Horse couldn’t abandon the game. The board had been all but cleared of local law by the impending blizzard.

They would never see a more perfect night. The longer they delayed, the more the accumulating snow would hamper their operations. The Red Horse would have to strike very soon if they were to strike at all.

Making a circuit of the most likely targets, the Executioner checked out each church in turn. He found nothing suspicious. All was quiet. The plows he encountered all checked out, too. The plates were registered, and there were no ski masks behind the wheel, just men doing their jobs.

Bolan stayed on the move. He ran with his window up and the M-60 stowed, knowing he could snap it into place at a moment’s notice. At strict five-minute intervals, he switched radio channels, trying to catch a Red Horse transmission. It had been a gamble to let them know he was on their frequency, but the upside was that it deprived them of secure communications.

The Executioner needed to keep the threatened fires to a minimum, at all costs.

Tony Bonfiglio had one eye on the snow and the other on his watch as he maneuvered the Blue Coal oil truck through Roxbury’s tangled streets. It was the kind of night he hated. The big truck was difficult enough to handle on good roads, so it gave him the cold chills to climb the steep hills where traction was treacherous.

Trundling down Humbolt, Bonfiglio scanned the house numbers, seeking his next delivery stop. In another hour or so, he would have to call it a night, but the boss would call it, not him.

The address turned out to be a vacant lot. It sometimes happened—a mix-up in clerical or someone’s idea of a joke. He didn’t give it a second thought as he left his cab to make absolutely sure.

Someone was waiting for him when he returned. That someone had a black ski mask on his head and a 9 mm automatic in one mittened fist.

Bonfiglio knew exactly what to do. They had training seminars for that kind of situation.

“Look, I don’t carry cash. It’s all billed out of the main office. But if you want my wallet, it’s yours.” “Truck keys,” the man snapped.

“You crazy? You’re hijacking my truck?” “Keys!” “in my pocket,” Bonfiglio said resignedly. “I’ll pull them out slowly so there’s no misunderstanding. Okay?” “Okay,” said the man in the black ski mask.

He allowed Bonfiglio to reach into his pocket, then he emptied his clip into him the second a key ring was exposed.

Yanking the keys off the shuddering body, the Red Horseman claimed the wheel and started the oil truck on its way.

Touching his throat mike, he said, “Red Horse Four. Package acquired. Delivery assured.” “Good job, Four. Maintain radio silence until staging area gained. One out.” “One out.” Bolan absorbed the transmission with a grim expression. He was climbing Parker Hill Road, seeking a different observation post.

The Red Horse were about to make their next move.

The package in question could be anything—a bomb, a target, even a diversion.

Frowning, Bolan came off the hill. If they stuck to their original target package, he had an even-money chance of intercepting their next move.

The Executioner drove grimly, eyes locking on passing vehicles. The plows checked out. He steered clear of the prowling police vehicles by tracking their check-ins through his police radio.

An oil truck was parked in front of the Saint Ignatius’s clapboard facade when Bolan slipped past it.

The truck was empty, he saw. There was no driver behind the wheel, and the hose was still coiled in its spring reel.

He slowed, eyes flicking to the rearview mirror.

The walkie-talkie was silent. He switched to the other channel. It, too, hissed idly.

Bolan had decided to investigate when a voice came from the walkie-talkie.

“Red Horse Four. Package Delivered.” “Roger, Four. Say when safe.” “Approaching confluence of Delta, Hotel and Bravo-Hotel.” Bolan’s eyes flashed to the map. That was four blocks up, where Dudley, Hampden and Blue Hill Avenue merged.

He floored the cruiser. High beams on and light bar flashing, he wanted the enemy to know he was coming.

He wanted them to hesitate. A few seconds of edge might mean the difference between fire and failure.

Up ahead, a man in a heavy overcoat, his chin tucked into his fleece collar, walked briskly along Dudley.

Bolan hit the siren.

Turning, the man eyed him and broke into a run.

His face was red and exposed.

Bolan leaped ahead, jumped the curb and cut him off. Exiting the vehicle, he threw his Beretta across the hood and said, “Freeze!” The man went for a side arm.

The Executioner triggered a triburst that perforated the man’s belly, throwing him off his feet and into the snow.

With quick determined strides, Bolan reached the fallen man’s side. Yanking his head off the snow by the hair, the soldier let the man see the cold fire in his icy blue eyes.

“Talk.” The man glared venomously. “Screw you.” Bolan pulled off the wounded man’s throat mike and earphone. He gave the wires a hard tug, and a walkie-talkie and a black ski mask came out of a pocket.

“You’re Four,” Bolan told him. “Where is One?” The Red Horseman coughed. “You want my serial number?” he asked with a sneer.

Taking the man first by one wrist and then the other, the Executioner cuffed his hands behind him in the accepted procedure and dragged him to the waiting cruiser. He threw him in back and made a tight circle in the snow getting the cruiser back onto the street.

Arriving at the parked oil truck, Bolan reclaimed his prisoner.

“What’re you going to do?” the man gasped when Bolan threw open the back door. He was clutching his belly, his teeth clenched tight.

The Executioner reached in, took him by the collar and dragged him bodily to the oil truck.

The man collapsed in the snow, his eyes wild.

The oil truck with its hundreds of gallons of highly flammable fuel oil loomed above him like a dirty steel cliff.

“For Christ’s sake, do you know what’s going to happen?” “Answer. Is it a bomb?” “No!” “Then what?” The man spit blood toward Bolan. The Executioner unlocked one circlet and clamped it to the old truck’s chassis. That got the Red Horseman’s attention.

“Drive-by! It’s going to be a drive-by.

They’re going to shoot up the oil truck. Now get me out of here.” Bolan picked up the Red Horseman’s radio and jammed it against the man’s face.

“Tell One you have a problem. Tell him to hold his fire.” Bolan thumbed up the volume.

“Red Horse Four to Red Horse One,” the wounded man gasped.

“Are you clear, Four?” “No. No, I ran into a hitch.” “Say again?” “Hold off. There’s a problem.” “Explain problem.” “No time! Just hold your fire, dammit.” “Clarify answer, Red Horse Four. You know procedure.” The man jammed his face into the radio. “It’s nineteen-oh-eight! He’s-was Bolan shut off the set. “Wait here,” he said coldly.

“Wait? Where am I going to go all shot up and cuffed like this?” Bolan started away. The implication hit the Red Horseman like a hammer blow.

Don’t leave me, for Christ’s sake!” The man’s cries echoing in his ears, Bolan slid behind the wheel of cruiser 1908 once more. The engine was still running. That simple precaution saved his life.

The roar of a fast-charging car reached him as the Executioner put the cruiser in motion again.

A quad set of lights raced up the darkened street. Bolan moved on an intercept path.

He saw the rippling canvas ragtop lifting above the windshield and changed his mind. Instead, he accelerated. He knew what was coming, and knew he couldn’t stop it.

Crossing in front of the church, the Caddy turned left, its top all the way down and the flexible.50-caliber machine gun up and in firing position. A Red Horseman hung off it, gun and gunner swaying against the hard turn.

It slithered up the street, out of sight, its engine roaring.

Bolan concentrated on putting as much distance between him and the oil truck.

The stuttering hammer of the Browning preceded the firefly play of tracers against the oil truck tank.

The impact literally opened up the vehicle while knocking it off its tires.

Then all hell broke loose and spread madly outward.

The Executioner flung his racing cruiser around a corner just as the night exploded behind him.

A fireball like a raging fist of fire lifted over the rooftops, instantly melting snow to water and turning night into day.

Bolan gave no thought to the catastrophe he had been unable to prevent. Red Horse One was within striking distance, and he would pay.

Dropping the passenger window, he lifted the M-60 into position. This time they were on even terms: both armored, both packing heavy.

Shooting down the length of Dunmore, he threw the cruiser across the intersection, blocking the road.

Far away, quad headlights grew, driven by a roaring V-8 engine.

Taking up the M-60, the Executioner waited for the ragtop to come into range.

The Caddy driver lit up his high beams.

Bolan angled the M-60 toward one set.

The light had to have disclosed the M-60’s steely gleam. The Caddy abruptly screeched to a halt.

A thousand yards or more separated the two vehicles. The Caddy driver revved his engine.

Bolan grabbed the walkie-talkie. “Buy or fly,” he warned.

Abruptly the back-seat gunner threw his weapon high, the dark muzzle clearing the ragtop’s windshield. Its clank was audible even at that distance. The muzzle erupted into a snapping flashing flower of death.

Bolan held his fire, knowing the range was great.

Big.50-caliber smokers arced across the distance, falling short by yards. They landed hissing and smoking in the snow.

The breath of gunsmoke blew down the street, and Bolan threw a long burst in return, hammering the night. The Caddy flew into reverse—not that it was in any danger. As expected, the Executioner’s lead fell well short of the Red Horse technical. He lifted the M-60’s gun barrel. There was no sign of the cherry-red warning glow of overheating. Bolan nodded; a barrel change every five hundred rounds was recommended.

He figured he could double that in this cold.

“You’re going to have to come a lot closer to make that fifty earn its keep,” Bolan said into the walkie-talkie.

“The night is still young,” Red Horse One said.

Then he threw the Caddy into full reverse, cut the wheels and flung his vehicle all the way around.

Dropping the M-60, Bolan grabbed the wheel with both hands, intending pursuit.

He had muscled the cruiser into line and was starting after the dwindling ruby taillights when a red fire truck roared down a cross street, siren wailing. It was followed by a ladder truck, its air horn blaring an ungodly warning. His way was blocked.

Bolan took a side street and tried to work his way around the converging emergency vehicles, but the streets were alive with ambulances and blue-and-white units. He grabbed the dash mike.

“Nineteen-oh-eight. Seeking red Cadillac Eldorado convertible. Vicinity of Hampden and Dudley. Any unit.” The band was overflowing with terse emergency calls. It was doubtful if his request was even heard over the urgent cross talk.

The Executioner figured Red Horse would break for Columbus Avenue. He cut up and down one-way streets until he reached the spectral ribbon of road.

He was too late. There was no sign of the Red Horse vehicle in either direction. Fresh snow showed no tire prints.

Thwarted, Bolan withdrew to Mission Hill, taking up a position at Mission Park.

Down below, the affected area was a blazing patch of hell. The church was doomed. Already the steeple was a black cone under the leaping orange flames. At the very top, the simple gold cross stood against the night, just out of reach of the greedy fingers of fire.

Then, as Bolan watched in grim silence, the crucifix caught, darkened and blazed up in a way calculated to send a chill over the inner city.

The Executioner let his eyes go elsewhere.

Roxbury lay spread out below. One square was turning black. The enemy had made a successful countermove; his next move was coming.

Bolan tried to think two jumps ahead. With the emergency vehicles tied up at the blaze, the Red Horse had a free hand. He figured that their next move would be as far from the fire as possible. His eyes went to his war map.

Suddenly a boom broke across the city.

Bolan’s eyes jumped from his map. Over on Humbolt, a fireball lifted slowly. It spread, leaving rooflines ablaze.

Jaw muscles tightening to rock, the Executioner returned to the hell zone.

It was another oil truck. A blackened burning hulk now, it had crashed into a boarded-up three decker, obliterating it. The vehicle stood in the rubble of fallen blazing studs, burning fiercely, its tires melting to stinking goo.

There was no church in sight.

White-knuckled hands gripping the cruiser’s wheel, Bolan drove on. The Red Horse had changed the rules of the engagement. The churches were no longer in play. They were hunting oil trucks now.

But the Executioner was still hunting them.

Speaking into his mike, Bolan said, “Nineteen-oh-eight. Be advised firebombers now targeting oil trucks. Pull over all oil trucks and secure from attack.” “Nineteen-oh-eight, this is H. Where are you?” “Be advised Red Horse Cadillac Eldorado is at large in Roxbury at this time, and it’s armed with a.50-caliber machine gun.” “Nineteen-oh-eight, state your location.” “Rolling,” Bolan said, cutting the transmission.

On Tremont, he spotted an idling oil truck parked before a brownstone apartment building.

Its hose was in the snow and snaking around the side.

He killed his headlights, crawling toward the vehicle.

The police band was alive with emergency calls.

The latest fire was drawing all available responding vehicles. Grabbing the mike, he said, “Nineteen-oh-eight. I have an unguarded oil truck on Tremont. Repeat, unprotected oil truck on Tremont.” Bolan waited, repeating his call at intervals. It was being ignored by the police dispatcher. They had probably decided his calls were a Red Horse hoax. But that didn’t mean someone wasn’t listening, or planning to respond in their own way.

Bolan prowled slowly, awaiting that response.

It was a blue Jeep Cherokee and it ran without its lights, snow swirling ahead of it. The Executioner spotted it in his rearview mirror and figured it for a likely Red Horse vehicle.

There was one way to prove it.

He headed toward the oil truck, blocking it.

The approaching Jeep suddenly revved its engines and charged.

A window was down. Out poked the blunt pipe of a M-79 grenade launcher. Bolan rolled up his passenger window and held his position. If the Red Horseman figured the 40 mm round would do for both vehicles, he’d figured wrong.

The muzzle coughed, and the grenade struck Bolan’s door directly on the Massachusetts seal. Boiling fire soaked that side of the cruiser, enveloping the windows and turning its frosting of snow to hissing steam.

But, being fireproofed, it was otherwise unaffected. Bolan rolled in pursuit, the cruiser trailing leaping rags of yellow flame.

To the Red Horsemen, it had to have seemed like the devil himself was following them.

An anxious voice came from the Red Horse walkie-talkie. “Red Horse One.

This is Red Horse Two. Red Horse One.

This is Two. Over.” “Maintain radio silence, dammit.” “One. This is Two. Nineteen-oh-eight is on my case and he’s on fire!” “Say again.” “I torched the bastard’s cruiser, and now I’ve got a rolling comet on my backtrail. I can’t shake him. Copy. He’s on fire, and he’s trying to crawl up my ass. What the hell do I do?” “You die,” Bolan said. Accelerating, he closed in on the Jeep. A touch of a button brought his passenger window humming down, letting in cold air mixed with biting snow. He set the M-60 in place, then took the pistol grip.

The Red Horse driver clearly knew what was coming. He hit the gas as hard as he could, but the rattling four liter engine was no match for Bolan’s hard-charging V-10.

Trailing flame and seeking vengeance, the Executioner pulled even with the fleeing machine. He hoisted the pistol grip, dropping the muzzle in line with the driver’s frantic masked face. Red Horse Two tried to concentrate on the road, but his fear-struck eyes kept going back to the M-60’s muzzle. Bolan let him have a good look at it, then said, “Checkmate.” The M-60 chewed a yard of writhing metallic link belt, spitting metal in all directions.

The metal that mattered buzz-sawed the Jeep’s interior to pieces.

Bolan veered away as the Red Horseman’s vehicle went out of control. It careened, swapping ends, and ran headlong into a light pole, snapping it like a bread-stick, finally telescoping into a concrete stoop. The silence that followed was deathly.

The Executioner left without a backward glance as he took a cross street, putting distance between himself and the demolished enemy vehicle. Slipstream carried away the last flames on his cruiser’s body, leaving black patches.

He swung around, passing the oil truck. The driver was hastily coiling his hose.

Bolan stopped and said, “Get out of Roxbury as fast as you can. warn your dispatcher to pull his trucks back to the garage.” “What’s going on?” “Just keep moving. If you see a Red Cadillac convertible, avoid it at all costs.” He didn’t wait for a reply. He had places to go.

Red Horses Two, Four and Five were casualties. That left Red Horse One and maybe Three, if there was a Three.

Bolan picked up the walkie-talkie. “Red Horse Three, come in.” Static filled the air. He switched to the other channel. “Red Horse Three, come in.” No reply came.

“Red Horse One, over,” Bolan said evenly.

“That you, Nineteen-oh-eight?” “Ten-four.” “You don’t die easy, do you?” Bolan said nothing.

“What do you want?” “Two is off the board.” “What are you talking about?” “It’s down to you and me.” “Just who the hell are you?” “You know my name. It was burned into your brain that night in Blue Hill and Intervale.” “Big talk, McIlwraith, if that’s what you want to call yourself. You don’t scare me.” “Then meet me at Bravo-Hotel Hill and Item. We’ll go again. Winner take all.” The air hissed. Outside snow fell in gentle but unrelenting waves.

“You’re on.” “Five minutes,” Bolan said, flattening the gas pedal to the floor.

The Executioner took Huntington to the Boston end of Roxbury and cut over to Blue Hill Avenue. He had no way of knowing from what direction Red Horse One was coming, but that way he could run the entire length of the street, clearing it before reaching the fateful intersection.

He paused at Mt. Pleasant, revving his engine. Then, at a smooth clip, the Executioner ran the gauntlet.

The three deckers and apartment buildings flicked by, the street seemingly deserted. The red-orange glow of the scattered fires made the rooftops hazy with a hellish light. Smoke boiled into the night to beat back the falling snow, and streetlights blurred by like fence posts.

The Executioner was running with his lights off and his front windows down. Like a missile nose cone after reentry, the cruiser was black where the spent fire had scorched it. It looked like it had emerged from Hell itself, and in a way it had.

Bolan saw the Red Horse car approach when Intervale Street came into sight. The Caddy was also running without lights.

When Bolan hit his high beams, the Caddy responded in kind.

Eyes blinded, they accelerated in unison. Now the name of the game was chicken, which was fine with the Executioner—as long as he won.

Bolan held his speed. The Caddy’s engine lifted in song. Its lights swelled, filling the soldier’s windshield. He pinched his eyes to slits and kept the wheel as steady as a rock.

The Caddy driver had nerve, Bolan had to give him that. He waited until the last possible second before swerving. He went right, playing into the Executioner’s hands.

Holding his course, Bolan took up the M-60 and fired a long burst, hammering the blood-red machine from front fender to taillight.

In response, a short burst of.50-caliber rounds ripped into the cruiser’s back seat, mangling the rear cushions and snapping at the prisoner containment cage. The mesh held, and so did the M-60’s belt. Other shells spanged off the ceramic roof.

Their brief snarling over, the two machines blasted apart.

Bolan was the first to recover. He brought his vehicle skidding around.

“What the hell are you made of?” Red Horse One demanded through the speaker. “Iron?” “Steel,” Bolan replied.

Like two knights jousting, they went at each other once again.

Bolan elevated the M-60’s muzzle. The first time he had aimed for the armored sides. It was simple psywar. He had intended to break the Red Horse before he killed it. There was no pretense this time. They came at each other on parallel tracks. It wasn’t chicken; it was life or death.

The Executioner held the M-60 firmly.

One long burst would cut the Red Horse vehicle across its window lines, obliterating driver and back-seat gunner.

He saw the machine gunner drop to the floorboards, under the sheltering armor, holding his flexible weapon one-handed and blind. Bolan knew the Red Horseman would need eyes to unleash.50-caliber death with accuracy.

As the two death machines converged, the Executioner prepared to complete the kill.

At the last possible moment, Red Horse One cut his wheel sharply toward Bolan.

The two machines gnashed fenders, spun and ricocheted away.

Bolan’s studded tires had the superior bite.

He came out of his spin first, but he had to relinquish the M-60 to regain control.

The Caddy came around and slid up on Bolan’s side of the cruiser. The flexible fifty was swiveling about, seeking him with its smoking black muzzle.

They had found a chink in the Executioner’s armor; the M-60 couldn’t be aimed out the driver’s side.

Bolan ducked as the heavy machine gun blew in his driver’s-side rear window, flinging thick glass chunks all over the front seat. The red ragtop roared on, and the soldier gunned his engine and fell in behind it.

“This is where it all began,” Bolan said into the walkie-talkie.

“Shut up!” “This is where it will end.” “Like hell,” Red Horse One bit out.

The Executioner gave his powerful engine all the gas he had. The Caddy was going flat-out, but Bolan hung on its tail. In the back seat, the Red Horse gunner was struggling to get his gun around. He had lined up on the cruiser’s hood.

Bolan cut the wheel left, then hard right. A short burst burned past one fender, missing by centimeters. He straightened, holding the road, then he saw the gunner line up again. Bolan gave him the opportunity.

When he saw the man’s shoulders hunch, he braked hard. The cruiser spun, and the smoking line of fifties dug up asphalt. The gunner cut loose again, apparently intending to walk his lead to the target. Bolan knew that was a waste of precious ammo the Red Horseman couldn’t afford.

The Executioner saw the flashing muzzle go dead.

The gunner leaned into it again, his thumbs digging at the unresponsive grips. As he frantically detached his ammo box, Bolan resumed pursuit.

Closing hard, he gave the Red Horsemen no quarter. Engine racing, he rapidly overhauled the Caddy. The machine gunner was trying to get a spare box hooked up on the fly.

Bolan lowered his driver’s window and spit a scorching.44 Magnum round at him, hitting the man’s knee. With a guttural scream, the gunner dropped into the shelter of the armored trunk, leaving the fifty to swing wildly.

“Get back up there!” One was shouting.

“I’m hit, goddammit!” the gunner yelled.

“Do you want to be dead? Get moving!” A ski-masked head poked up warily.

Laying his fist on the window molding, Bolan triggered a hollowpoint that broke the ruby glass on one fat taillight.

That kept Back Seat on the floorboards.

Bolan had time enough to take care of him later. They weren’t afraid yet, not afraid enough.

They were on the Southeast Expressway, barreling toward Boston’s southern suburbs.

The road was clear except for the occasional plow grumbling behind a moving wall of snow. That suited Bolan just fine. There were no houses, and thus little risk of casualties. It was just the Red Horse and their executioner.

Bolan pushed the laboring V-10 engine to its limit. The steel studs gripped the road and held it like tiger’s claws.

“Get off my ass!” Red Horse One was shouting. “Just get off my damn ass!” The Executioner ignored the walkie-talkie.

The time for taunts and challenges was past. This was the last mile.

He lit the light bar and let the siren wail.

Steadily the cruiser pulled up on the fleeing Cadillac, closing the gap. Red Horse One, knowing he had no cover against the M-60, wove in and out of lanes, trying to prevent Bolan from passing. It cost him speed he needed, speed that meant the difference between escape and destruction.

Red Horse One was screaming. Bolan could hear his lung-ripping howls. He cursed his wounded back-seat gunner, hectoring him to retake his idle weapon.

Under the lashing abuse, Bolan saw Back seat clamber up to seize control of his machine gun.

He had an ammo box under one arm, but getting it hooked on was another matter.

On the front seat lay the short-barreled M-79 grenade launcher Bolan had taken off Red Horse Five. Picking it up, he accelerated. They were racing through Quincy now. Granite outcroppings framed the road on both sides.

The Executioner came around on the passenger flank of the fleeing ragtop. If the Red Horse team took that as a lucky break, they took it wrong.

Driver’s window down, Bolan held the M-79 across his chest. Back Seat was still fighting with his ammo box. His frantic eyes zipped between the Executioner and his uncompleted task. They caught the glint of the M-79 muzzle just as Bolan said, “See you in hell.” The weapon coughed once, and Bolan cut away hard.

The Caddy’s entire back seat went up in a whoosh of yellow fire. In the front seat, Red Horse One clawed off his suddenly flaming ski mask and flung it away.

Hunkering over the wheel to protect his back from the bonfire that was his entire rear seat, One struggled to hold the road. Trailing smoke and tatters of fire, he had to know it was a losing battle.

Dropping back, Bolan moved over to the other flank.

In the back, the gunner was hung up on the spidery track of his wildly swaying weapon. The fifty was swiveling, but he wasn’t. All he did was turn black and burn bright.

Switching to four-wheel drive, the Executioner gave the racing V-10 gas, and cruiser 1908 began to gain on the fleeing Red Horse technical.

The smoky voice of Red Horse One came from the walkie-talkie, cursing over and over, almost inarticulate in his fury.

“Get off my damn ass!” he screamed as he saw Bolan come up on his side of the car.

“This is for McIlwraith,” Bolan said, loud enough to carry over the crackle and roar, “and for your other victims.” Then he clamped his trigger finger on the M-60’s firing lever.

The machine gun blazed, cutting a line of rounds through the blackness. The continuous stream touched the burned body of the back-seat gunner and sent pieces flying every which way. Bone fragments bounced off the window and the back of Red Horse One’s flinching head. He snapped around.

Bolan saw his face clearly for the first time. His mouth and eyes were ringed in shoe-polish-brown camo paint, making him look like a frightened raccoon. His expression was wild, animal-like. Then his eyes went round as he saw the stuttering stream of 7.62 mm man manglers inching toward his exposed skull.

Red Horse One stomped his gas pedal in a futile attempt to wring more horsepower from his laboring V-8. Still, Bolan gained on him, the M-60 chattering on, eating cartridges and spitting death.

“Who are you? Who are you? Who are you?” he screamed over and over as the bullet track closed in on his skull. As it singed the thick hair at the back of his head, Red Horse One threw himself forward.

Bolan eased back slightly, cutting his wheel enough to crowd the other car. They were coming up on the Quincy-Braintree intersection where the Southeast Expressway and Route 128 forked.

Seeing his gun barrel beginning to glow, Bolan released the trigger. Biting slipstream quickly cooled it down.

Red Horse One thought he saw an opportunity and removed a gleaming Colt Python from his jacket. Holding the wheel with one hand, he tried to angle the weapon back at his tormentor.

He got off one clean shot, which made a smear on the cruiser’s fender.

Bolan squeezed the trigger again, and the M-60 resumed spitting violent death. The bullet track forced the Red Horseman to drop his pistol and grab the steering wheel two-handed.

His fingers like claws on the wheel, Red Horse One lifted his head and saw the fork, the wall of New England granite looming between. He was on a collision course.

Reflexively he stomped the brake, not thinking of the consequences. The soldier held the still-hammering M-60 steady—and Red Horse One’s head exploded like a pomegranate, spitting bits of bone like seeds.

The blazing red Caddy plowed into a granite outcropping and disintegrated in a furious ball of flame.

Bolan slackened his speed, came around and passed the blazing pyre on his way back to Boston. Through the flames, two black figures, their arms out-flung in sudden death, withered and shrunk in the inferno.

No mercy round was needed there, and none deserved.

Besides, the M-60’s barrel had finally melted.

But for Bolan, there was one last piece of unfinished business before the Red Horse could be buried forever.

Kirk Weatherly watched the sulfurous orange glows from the southwestern windows of his Harbor Towers apartment.

Roxbury was burning. Past the darkened office towers of the financial district his father had helped build, scattered hot spots radiated domes of light that turned the falling snow the color of burning embers.

The smile on Weatherly’s face was thin and humorless. After this night, the exodus would begin. The least desirable place to live in all of Boston would be on its way to being the most coveted, and Weatherly Associates would start snapping up three deckers and brownstones for ten cents on the dollar.

The name of Kirk Weatherly would take its rightful place beside those proud Weatherlys who had come before him. They had helped build this city. They had modernized it before the days of restrictive zoning laws, meddling neighborhood preservation committees and rent control.

Weatherly mixed himself another Bloody Mary as he watched the hot spots grow brighter. Behind him a TV set was turned on to the news, the sound off.

Live coverage of the fires was into its second hour, but he gave the TV only a passing glance.

He preferred to watch the historic transformation of Roxbury from the only vantage point that counted: the aerie of its architect.

No one would suspect, he mused, that Kirk Weatherly, scion of the Weatherlys of Boston, had wrought such carnage. Even as Weatherly Associates snapped up the distressed lots and dwellings, no one would question it. After all, that was what Weatherlys had done for generations—bought land cheap and sold it dear.

Yes, let Roxbury burn. And all who had turned it from the fashionable streetcar suburb it had once been to a hopeless slum would be scattered to the winds. A new Boston was coming. Progress was coming. Kirk Weatherly was coming.

Snow fell and hot glowing sparks rose up to meet it. Weatherly couldn’t see the sparks from that distance, but he could imagine them, rising up on columns of smoke and hot air, sending the squalor into the scorched earth from which a new Roxbury would spring, like fresh seedlings after a devastating forest fire.

There would be apartment buildings and town house condominiums, and single-family garrisons and colonials in the new Roxbury. And on the summit of Mission Hill would be a manor of his own. It was long past time for the Weatherly family to return to its roots once the riffraff and other undesirables were driven out.

As he watched, savoring his drink and the view as if they were part of one heady experience, Weatherly saw that one of the hot spots was growing dim. No matter. His Red Horsemen would start more. The night was still young and they owned the night.

Glancing at his watch, Weatherly realized it was almost time for Urban Beat. He wondered if he should call the substitute host and pour more oil on the fires of fear. Frowning, he decided not. There was no sense in overplaying his hand. Let them call him for a change. After this night, the media would hang off his every sound bite.

A second hot spot dwindled as he watched.

That was strange. Where were his Red Horsemen? Where was the escalation in the fires?

Going to a desk drawer, he removed a compact black walkie-talkie and turned it on. The speaker hissed steadily.

They had to be using the other channel, he thought, switching over. That channel was also inactive. The teams were maintaining radio silence, no doubt. They were professionals. They knew what they were doing.

Weatherly set the unit on the broad windowsill and let it hiss. He was all alone, so if he happened to enjoy listening to police radio traffic, that was entirely his affair.

“Burn, baby, burn,” he murmured, his satisfied gaze returning to the panoramic view.

Then the third and last glow shrank, dwindled and was tamed.

Weatherly watched the snowy skyline expectantly, like a child waiting for a Fourth of July fireworks display.

Nothing happened.

Picking up the walkie-talkie again, he cleared his throat, then said, “Red Horse One, this is Steeple. Report.” A hissing buzz came back.

“Red Horse One, report. This is Steeple.” The hissing continued undisturbed.

Flicking over to the primary Red Horse channel, Weatherly repeated his call, his voice growing urgent.

“Steeple calling. Any Red Horse answer.

This is Steeple. Any Red Horse within the sound of my transmission, reply at once.” But there was no reply.

Striding over to the television, Weatherly turned up the sound.

A young blond reporter was doing a stand-up report in front of the simmering shell that had been Saint Ignatius Church.

“… at this time, we understand all fires have been put out and authorities are holding their breaths for any further action on the part of the arson gang now being identified by radio station WROX as the Red Horse.” A police official stepped into the shot, and the reporter introduced him as she shoved her mike up to his face.

“With me is Area B Commander, Richard Skindarian. Commander, what can you tell us about these reports of crashed vehicles?” “We believe at least two of these crashes are so-called Red Horse vehicles.” “How do you know this?” “While I can’t go into details at this time, the drivers were all dressed in identical black sweatsuits, suggesting a link. Also, armament found in the wrecks strongly suggest these weren’t people out for a joy-ride in the snow.” “Thank you, Commander.” The reporter faced the camera. “This is the situation here in Roxbury at this hour. Three fires, all brought under control.

As the death toll continues to mount, hope is being held out that the terror gripping the city for nearly two weeks is at an end. Over to you, Chet.” Snapping off the sound, Weatherly went to a clock radio and turned it on. The dial was set at WROX.

The voice of Lark Youngblood came through clear, strong and unafraid.

Weatherly dropped his glass, and it broke at his slippered feet, discoloring the cream-colored rug like a bloodstain.

While the news coming out of this terrible night may be encouraging,” she was saying, “it’s too early for Roxbury to breathe easy yet. The power behind the Red Horse is one man’s greed. Until it is smashed, the terror cannot be considered over.” “Who’s the fear-monger now, Miss Youngblood?” Weatherly said with a sneer.

“Furthermore, WROX has it on excellent authority that the state police, who lost a brave man early in the Red Horse campaign, have determined the identity of the mastermind behind it all.

We have been asked to withhold this information until an arrest can be made.” Wheeling on the window, Weatherly snatched up the Red Horse walkie-talkie.

“Red Horse units. Call in. This is Steeple. All fire teams report. This is your commander. This is a direct order. Any Red Horseman receiving this transmission report at once. At once, do you understand?” The speaker spit a crackling spark of sound.

Down on East India Row, a car suddenly doused its headlights. It hadn’t been there a moment earlier.

Through the falling snow, Weatherly eyed it carefully.

It was parked on the exact spot where Shawmut cab 1908 had been abandoned. But it wasn’t the cab. Weatherly had called the building manager and ordered it towed. A wrecker had hauled it away before the storm had started.

Leaning into the glass, he tried to see better.

On the roof, four numbers showed white and indistinct. His sharp nose pressing into the glass, Weatherly struggled to read them.

A gust of ocean wind sent the snow swirling and created a momentary void.

The numbers stood out against the vehicle’s gray roof. They glowed starkly white and accusing: 1908.

Abruptly the driver’s door opened and a man stepped out. He was a tiny figure as seen from this height, but he wore the unmistakable slate gray Smoky the Bear hat of the Massachusetts State Police.

Weatherly’s long face turned pasty white.

He staggered back from the window.

“They betrayed me. My own men gave me up.” The telephone rang and Weatherly whirled on it, his hand trembling as he hesitated to answer.

The line rang and rang, each ring sounding more shrill.

The thought crossed his mind that it might be his attorney.

He picked up the receiver and croaked out a dry “Hello?” “This is the lobby desk, Mr. Weatherly. There is a state trooper asking to see you.” “I gave strict instructions that all visitors were to be told I’m out of town!” Weatherly flared.

“Sorry, sir.” Weatherly swallowed hard. “Ask him his business.” A faint murmur came through the line, but Weatherly couldn’t catch any snatches of conversation.

A moment later the lobby guard came back on the line.

“Mr. Weatherly, Trooper McIlwraith says he is here to collect the bounty.” “McIlwraith? Bounty?” “That’s what he said. You did offer a reward for anyone providing information about the Roxbury arsonists, sir.” “I know what I did,” Weatherly snapped harshly. “Tell him I’m out.” The deskman lowered his voice. “Mr.

Weatherly, he knows I’m talking to you.” “Tell him to come back in the morning. I’m indisposed. Tell him this is a bad time.” “Yes, sir.” The silence on the line was long and strained.

The man’s sheepish voice came back and said, “Mr. Weatherly, I’m very sorry, but he refused. He’s on his way UP.” “Stop him.” “Sir, he’s a state trooper. I can’t-was Weatherly slammed down the telephone.

Black eyes jerking left and right, he tried to think.

There was only one way in and out of the tower and that was by the elevators. Escape was impossible. But it was only one man. There was still a chance; all wasn’t lost. It might be the end of the new Roxbury, the end of the Weatherlys of Boston, but there were other places to live. The family trust fund would support him nicely in the Cayman Islands or Switzerland. He had gambled and drawn inferior cards. It wasn’t the end of life, only of his old existence.

Fumbling through his desk drawer, Weatherly found the Colt Python revolver, a gift from Red Horse One—may he roast in hell or rest in peace, depending on how he had served his unit and its commander in the end.

The box of shells broke apart under his shaking fingers. He had gotten three into the chamber when the door bell buzzed.

“One moment,” Weatherly called, snapping shut the cylinder and stuffing extra shells into the pocket of his silk smoking jacket. They felt reassuringly heavy. The gleaming revolver weighed down his trembling hand, but the harder he gripped it, the less his hand shook.

Going to the door, he called, “Who is it?” A hollow voice spoke up. “Trooper McIlwraith.” Weatherly swallowed twice before he could get out his words.

“I checked. There is no Trooper McIlwraith. Please identify yourself.” “Trooper McIlwraith,” the voice repeated.

“Trooper McIlwraith had no brothers in uniform or out. You cannot be Trooper McIlwraith.

Trooper McIlwraith was murdered three nights ago.” “I’m back. To collect the bounty.” “And there is no Mike Belasko with Shawmut Cab Company. You’re a cheap fraud.

Unless you properly identify yourself, I refuse to open my door.” “I’m not going away.” “If you persist in harassing me, I’ll have no choice but to call my lawyer.” “You are outside the law and beyond its protection.” “Like hell!” Lifting the big Colt Python in a two-handed grip, Weatherly aimed the sight on the door’s peephole and emptied three rounds into it.

It wasn’t the best shot-group he was capable of, but under the circumstances it wasn’t shabby. One round made a second peephole over the first, the second went wide and the third punched a hole below and to the left of the suddenly cracked peephole glass.

The Colt Python curled bluish smoke as Weatherly listened for the thud of a falling body.

There was only silence.

“Is anyone there?” he called.

No voice came back.

Breaking open the action, Weatherly fumbled in his jacket pocket for fresh shells. The empty cartridges plopped onto the rug, smoking and spent.

He was slipping a shell into a chamber when he heard the thunderous boom of a gun shot. The door lock was blown inward. It struck a far wall mirror, shattering it.

A high kick threw open the door. Framed there was a tall man in the winter uniform of a Massachusetts State Trooper. His round hat brim partly shaded his face. His features were cut in stone, like a granite statue.

“Who are you?” Weatherly demanded.

The trooper stood there, arms at his side. A huge steely pistol smoked in his fist, its long barrel held parallel to the blue stripe running down his trouser leg. He made no move to lift it.

“Who are you, dammit?” The trooper looked at him with eyes that glinted like chips of blue ice, but didn’t answer.

“I asked you a question. Who are you?” Snapping the cylinder back into place, Weatherly started to lift his Colt Python into firing position.

“For the last time, who on earth are you?” he screamed, finger tightening on the trigger.

“Your executioner,” the trooper said, snapping his big gun into line. He triggered it, slamming Weatherly backward so that he smashed into a wall and slid to the floor trailing blood.

Bolan strode over and looked down at the body for a hard moment. Then, removing his trooper’s badge, he dropped it on the dead, sightless face. He left the building without a backward glance.

EPILOGUE

Lark Youngblood was fielding calls when her program director flashed the names of the next callers in line on her display terminal. The third name caught her attention.

“Belasko,” she whispered.

Punching the button that brought his line on the air, she said, “You’re on WROX. Go ahead, caller.” A voice she recognized said, “The Red Horse have been broken.” “How do you know that, caller?” she asked.

“All Red Horse technical units are out of commission, and the mastermind behind the arson spree is dead.” “Who is he? Can you tell us?” “His name is Kirk Weatherly. It was his scheme to burn down Roxbury in order to rebuild it in his own image. He was wrong, as all tyrants are wrong. A civilization cannot be built from the blood of the innocent. No matter how many guns the wolves possess, there are always bigger guns in stronger, more principled hands. Let the next wolf in line take that to heart.” “I hope he does,” Lark said fervently. The line went dead. “Thank you, caller—whoever you are.” A chime pealed and the voice of the news reader came on.

“This is the WROX News. It would appear the city has avoided two potential disasters on this busy evening. A new outbreak of firebombings has been quenched by the quick action of the Boston Fire Department and the promised nor’easter has taken a western track and will miss the Greater Boston area altogether.” The new day dawned on a city that had escaped the worst fate any city could face: conflagration.

A coating of pristine snow frosted rooftops and sidewalks. The plows rumbled, scouring blacktop and asphalt. The bitter stench of burned wood still lingered in the air, and in Roxbury the snow was black from falling soot, but a cleansing wind blew down and swept the worst of it away.

By noon, the sun was out and the snow had begun to melt. People came out of their houses, shedding their heaviest winter coats. Children played in the streets, rolling the fresh snow into fat balls and piling them atop one another to build snowmen.

Spring was still months away, but the promise was enough to lift depressed spirits.

As the metropolis picked up its pieces, clearing mangled cars and collecting bodies for disposal, combined Boston and state police detectives carefully assembled the pieces of the terror that had been the Red Horse.

When it was all over, two pieces were found that no one could fit into the puzzle—or ever explain.

The first was the state police badge found on the body of Kirk Weatherly. It was an exact replica of a badge that had been reliably reported interred with the trooper who had been killed in the line of duty.

The second piece was a state police cruiser. It was discovered parked outside the Harbor Towers apartments on Boston’s waterfront, where the body of the Red Horse mastermind was found.

When they realized the significance of the number 1908 emblazoned on the vehicle’s fire-scarred body, the authorities began looking for the phantom trooper.

The man who had left those items behind was never accounted for. His name was never logged in any official report, or reported in any newspaper or television broadcast. But every Boston badge knew—or thought they knew—his true identity.

Later that day, at Massachusetts State Trooper Francis McIlwraith’s memorial services, that secret knowledge was a proud shine in their eyes as the traditional twenty-one-gun salute split the clean air.

But nothing was said over the grave of a man who could now rest easy, his duty fulfilled.

The End

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