Assault on Soho

Bolan had known for quite some time that he was not going to live forever. He had known that intimate association with death on many occasions, and he had long been prepared to die. But not like this. Not a slow and gradual scraping away. First it would be genitals, probably in one or two whacks, as soon as the muscles around the spine atrophied and collapsed and sent him plunging into range of. that shuttling blade. Then the weakness and further collapse would sag the abdomen down there, and layer by layer of him would be laid open until he was totally disembowelled and hacked in two.

Well, he would not take it that way. He himself had always tried to kill quick and painlessly, and he was going to go out the same way. He steeled himself and began preparing the command to his muscular structure that would send him all the way down in one disemboweling plunge.

And then he became aware of a movement at the doorway dead ahead of him. A

The big piece roared and Bolan saw Major Stone flopping along the desk with his pants down about his ankles; another thunderous report and Nick Trigger was lending parts of himself to the walls of the corner.

Then the Weatherby was clattering to the floor and A

Yeah, so it had happened, and he was entirely in her hands after all.

He mumbled, "Thanks, A

Epilogue

It has been a curious and a furious 40 hours in England. Bolan had launched an assault upon Soho, and Soho had assaulted him back. A symbol of the times, Edwin Charles had told him; and certainly that symbol covered a great deal more than "this crackling museum of ours." The domain of violence lurked deeply in every place where men flung themselves off into a shallow forgetfulness of the greater meanings of life, and it surfaced wherever greed and the lust for power were present.

Some good men had died during those brief hours, but so had a pile of rotten ones. Bolan had to figure that as a plus on the world's balance sheet.

An entire vault of damning pornographic films had been uncovered in the home of the late Mervyn Stone, and burned, and enshrined in a little urn in the entrance hall of the Museum de Sade. Bolan saw that as a conditional plus for the future of a great nation, and as a very graphic hint to the men whose images had been on that film.

Open warfare had erupted between dissident elements of the most corruptive criminal empire in history, and Leo Turrin read that as a very strong plus.

The mystery had unravelled to Bolan's satisfaction, and while this had no place as a plus or a minus, it did give him relative peace of mind. Major Stone had obviously been bleeding his "members" for a number of years, but not in a ma

All in all, Bolan had to score the battle as a definite plus for the upward movements of mankind, and as a shattering loss to the other side of the coin.

As regarding A

She was giving him that winsome look from the doorway. "You're too kind," she replied.

"Look, you just got co

"Well, I wouldn't have called him, you know, except that I was so stupidly positive that you were wrong about him. And I was frightened silly. I've been going to the Major with my problems for as long as I can remember." She raised her shoulders and dropped them in a dainty slump. "I thought he could help us," she added in a tiny voice.

Bolan was gri

A

Her face was screwed into an agonizing fit of indecision. Bolan chuckled and said, "Okay, what is it?"

She said, "Whether you want to hear it or not, Mack, I simply must get this out of my system. Honestly, I still wasn't certain as to just exactly what the Major had in mind until I walked in there and saw it. It's that military mastery of his, I suppose. He always did have me thoroughly cowed. And when he joined me outside the Tower, he told me that I mustn't worry about you, that he would save you if he had to put a gun to your head. Silly me, I believed him. It was that last thing you shouted at me from the steop that turned my mind to thinking, I mean to reallythinking."

"I told you all bets were off."

"No, you said that our pact was dissolved. And now. Let's get this out of my system also. Isit dissolved, Mack?"

He gave her a solemn inspection and said, "Don't you think that's best?"

She shook her head. "No. I remain in your hands, if you'll have it that way."

Almost painfully he said, "Plus."

"What?"

He showed her a long, tender smile and told her, "You're a plus. Keep it that way for the right time, the right place, the right guy."

"You are the right guy," she murmured.

"Wrong time and place, m'lady," he said regretfully, and walked past her and into the bedroom. He snugged into his gunleather and put on his jacket, then went over and cracked the blinds for a window recon.

"You're leaving now, aren't you?" A

He nodded his head, rather sadly she thought. "Yeah. That time has come again."

"Where will you go?"

"Home… wherever that is."

"And how will you get there?"

He smiled and said, "Through the jungle, m'lady. That's the only way." He picked up his gear and strode to the front door. When he look back she was standing just inside the bedroom and following him with a wistful smile.

He waved to her and she waved back. "Thanks, and all that," she called softly.

He gri

One thing he knew he would find: Through the Jungle very softly flits a shadow and a sigh. He is Fear, O Little Hunter, he is Fear!