He called the new face his "battle mask" — it gave him a definitely Sicilian appearance, and he used this new advantage with a vengeance in exploiting the enemy's greatest weakness: their own suspicion and mistrust of one another. He moved among them at will, sat with them at their councils, plotted with them his own demise — even romanced the Capo'sdaughter. And as he systematically set them up and knocked them down, the Executioner's understanding of this curious enemy deepened. He learned to think as they thought, to speak as they spoke — he became a master at deception and manipulation, aad the death blows began to reverberate throughout the entire empire of syndicated evil.

Stung now to a total response, the far-flung families of La Cosa Nostraassembled at Miami Beach for a summit meeting to discuss ways and means of responding to the Bolan threat. Bolan himself did not receive an invitation. He went anyway, and the summit meeting became a Mafia disaster on a scale never before experienced.

Bolan had many things going for him — nerves of steel, audacity, an utter contempt for death, moral outrage, the ability to discipline himself, military expertise — all of these, certainly, but perhaps the attribute which continued to spell success for this audacious warrior was an almost uncanny sense of timing. His hit-and-fade strategy had the Mafia bigwigs figuratively climbing the walls of their empire with frustration and desperation. Ordinary street soldiers throughout the country developed the nervous habit of continually looking over their shoulders, of going through doorways with extreme care and of sleeping in lighted rooms. The Mafia's businessmen doubled their retinue of bodyguards and sent their families on vacations out of the country. The face value of the murder contract let on Bolan pyramided as territorial chieftains added enticing bonuses to keep ambitious freelancers thick and alert in their areas.