The Executioner closed the blinds on the front windows and tossed a white phosphorus grenade into each of the two main rooms.

The burning phosphorus splattered around both rooms the instant the grenades went off. It stuck to everything it hit and burned holes through anything flammable. The heat was intense and the flame impossible to extinguish.

The building was an older wooden one. The neighboring karate school was in a new concrete block structure that would not ignite easily. The safety of the building on the other side would depend on the Portland Fire Department.

As the flames took hold of the two rooms, Bolan went out the back door and drove away. So much for any outstanding loans.

He drove downtown and parked in the under-ground garage of the high-rise hotel he had checked into two days earlier.

He covered the weapons, made sure the Thunderbird was gassed full and went up to his room.

He stared out his window at the masses of evergreens marching up the hills.

The whole city was one green carpet, nothing like the brown semidesert of Southern California. Bolan realized how much he loved the Northwest.

But even here the cancer of the Mafia was destroying fine men and women.

He felt a special empathy for its victims, something deep and personal and painful. He could never undo the tragedy of his family, but he could strike out to prevent other tragedies.

Because he despised them so, loan sharks would always be among his primary targets.

The Executioner planned to tear up the Canzonari family's loan division until its blood turned the Willamette River into a red flood.

2

Also Charlotte Albers heard the phone's tenth ring.