Stolen Arrows. Don Pendleton

of boots on the dirty concrete.

      “Hey, you!”

      Turning slowly, Mack studied the group of six teenagers coming his way. They were shabbily dressed in torn clothing, but the damage seemed to be more deliberate than natural wear and tear. That assessment was compounded by the fact that they were wearing hundred-dollar sneakers and ten-dollar pants. Two were smoking, one was chewing gum with his mouth open and a third was an acne-scarred kid moving to the beat of the music thumping coming from his stereo headphones, a fancy CD player hanging from a wide leather garrison belt. However, despite their youth, each was smiling at the easy mark standing in front of them, a lone man in a secluded section of the subway without a cop in sight.

      Stopping a short distance away, the tallest of the group flicked his wrist and a switchblade snapped into existence at the end of a fist.

      “Give us your fucking wallet,” he said, sneering. “That fancy watch, too!”

      Still holding the phone receiver, Bolan turned sideways and lashed out with a shoe, the tip stabbing the boy hard in the stomach. The air left his lungs in an explosive grunt and the teen dropped his blade to stagger away, clutching his stomach and looking as if he was about to vomit.

      As the rest of the gang stared hard at their intended victim, the Executioner gave them a look from the pits of Hell. The would-be predators shifted uneasily under his stern gaze, and most began to back away, splaying their hands in a sign of surrender.

      “What are you waiting for?” the leader snarled, forcing himself to stand upright. “Kill that motherfucker!”

      “Striker, you still there?” Brognola said over the receiver.

      Bolan grunted in reply, watching the scene play out. How much authority the leader of the street gang held over his people would decide if blood would be spilled. Did they follow him out of simple fear, or respect?

      “Hey, mister, we didn’t mean nothing,” a bald kid said, backing away. “Be cool. No corpse, no crime, right?”

      “Wrong,” Bolan said, the one word hanging in the air between them like a rumble of thunder.

      “You punk-ass bitches leaving?” the leader snarled. “Then I’ll ace him myself!”

      Lurching forward, the teen threw an overhand haymaker at Bolan that would have broken bones if it hit. Dropping the receiver, Bolan went under the swing, then stood again with coiled-steel speed, driving two stiff fingers directly in the teenager’s armpit.

      Yowling in pain, the gang lord staggered backward, tears running down his face, the arm dangling impotently at his side like meat in a butcher’s window. Bolan swept back his sports jacket to expose the Beretta 93-R riding in a shoulder holster.

      “Go home,” he said in a voice from beyond the grave. “Now.”

      The rest of the gang simply turned and ran, one of them scrambling so fast he slipped on some trash and almost went over the edge of the platform onto the abandoned tracks below. Only the leader sneered hatefully in reply and staggered away, cradling his damaged arm.

      “Striker?” Brognola’s voice called through the receiver in concern.

      “Right here, Hal,” Bolan said, drawing the Beretta. Reaching up with the weapon, he used the sound suppressor to smash the exposed fluorescent lights overhead. As darkness crashed around the man, Bolan stepped farther into the shadows and leveled the weapon in preparation.

      “Okay, I just got a report from the President. Goddamn it, how did you know?” Brognola said irritably. “The NSA just relayed a message to the Oval Office that the thermal flash of the blast registered only one Zodiac. Not four, just one. Zalhares and his people nuked an entire cargo ship, plus a full wing of RAF jets just to fool us into thinking they were dead.”

      There was a movement behind the iron grating covering the sealed-off stairs; the gray muzzle of a gun stuck out a few inches at about waist level. Bolan did nothing, waiting for the kid to make the choice. In a rush of speed, the teenager stepped into plain view holding a Glock .45 pistol. Bolan fired once, the muzzle-flash of the Beretta brightening the shadows as the 9 mm Parabellum round smashed into the Glock. The damaged pistol went flying onto the train tracks with a loud clatter. Cradling his broken hand, the gang lord staggered away, sobbing and cursing at the same time.

      “If there hadn’t been a Keyhole satellite sweeping the area, it might have worked, too,” Brognola continued.

      “Not for me,” Bolan said, holstering the Beretta. “The Scion is famous for its traps, and for playing dead. That’s Zalhares’s favorite trick. Whenever possible, he strikes from behind.”

      “That’s not mentioned in his personnel file, but I’ll take your word.”

      For a brief moment Bolan gave a rare smile. “Smart man. What I need now is a good description of a Zodiac, with as much detail as possible.”

      “Better than that. The design was taken from the most popular briefcase sold by an upscale luggage manufacturer. I can tell you the exact number of the model the Pentagon used.”

      “Good. Start talking,” Bolan said, brushing some flecks of broken glass off his sleeve. Listening closely, the Executioner filed away the information as the big Fed told him the make and model of the matching briefcase, then how to arm and disarm a Zodiac. The process was slow and complex, but then these weren’t battlefield weapons where speed of operation was considered an imperative.

      “Got it,” he said at last. “Thanks, Hal.”

      “Stay hard, Striker. These people mean business.”

      “I’m depending on it,” Bolan answered. “A merc’s lust for money is what always brings them down.”

      Disconnecting, Bolan then lifted the receiver and dialed randomly to scramble the memory on the machine.

      Leaving the subway via the main entrance, the Executioner melted into the crowds and walked directly to a major department store downtown. He used cash to make a few purchases, then exited the building, pausing in a nearby alley to open the packages and throw away the wrappings. He then roughened the shiny leather of the new briefcase by rubbing it against a brick wall. When satisfied, Bolan returned to his car and plugged a small soldering iron into the dashboard outlet to quickly assemble an array of electronic components into a maze of wires and circuit boards that wouldn’t fool anybody trained in nuclear ordnance, but might do the job on the Scion.

      According to the CIA dossier, most of Zalhares’s people came from farms and had little or no education, aside from military training. They may not know a mock-up from a working nuke. More importantly, the weight should be about the same because of the addition of two blocks of C-4 plastique and a fully functioning radio detonator. Bolan might never have any use for the decoy, but it was always wise to plan for what an enemy could do, not for what they might do.

      Grabbing a cup of coffee and a sandwich at a corner deli, the soldier mapped out a battle plan while eating lunch. He was interrupted when a group of businessmen walked by carrying briefcases and, from out of nowhere, a raggedly dressed man darted from the curb to grab one of the cases, wrestle it away from the owner and take off at a run holding the prize. Furious, the owner shouted after the thief.

      The incident had just been a simple robbery; nobody was even hurt. But if done to the Scion, a city would be obliterated from the map.

      No longer hungry, Bolan left a decent tip for the old waiter and headed across town. New York City was the nerve center of international crime, and he could find out almost anything if he asked the right people, using the right kind of persuasion. The numbers were already falling on this, and it was time for him to start the hunt for Zalhares.

      CHAPTER THREE

      Central Park, New York City

      A gray-haired man was sitting on a park bench tossing bread crumbs to the cooing pigeons. His clothes were clean and well pressed,