America has seen her share of doctrinal dissension. The Founding Fathers were refugees of persecution — Catholics in Maryland, Quakers in Pennsylvania, Puritans in Massachusetts — building a sanctuary for their own unorthodox beliefs. Some who sought a new world of tolerance would launch inquisitions of their own, but in the end they were all Americans, united in the pursuit of freedom. Together they forged a Bill of Rights, beginning with a guarantee of liberality, the fundamental right to worship, to believe, without fear of government harassment.

Along the way, there were some who willfully mistook their freedom for a kind of license. Bigots and borderline fanatics, celebrity saviors with a keener eye for profits than prophecy, the Constitution sheltered all of them.

There is a line that divides holy men and harmless cranks from other, more sinister practitioners. When the mask of worship crumbles to reveal corruption, when minds and lives are twisted and manipulated, primal laws of preservation and survival supersede the Bill of Rights.

Mack Bolan was a master at survival, dedicated to protecting and preserving Man the Builder. He carried the cleansing fire to Asia in his youth and brought it back home to purge another band of savages. That fire consumed his old identity and he rose from the ashes as "Colonel John Phoenix," then embarked on another bloody mile of War Everlasting.

Bolan knew there were limits to a single warrior's capabilities. He also knew a fighting man could lose a battle by concentrating on his limitations. Defeatism had no place in his personal philosophy.

War was the game; survival was the game's real goal. The Executioner was staying hard, staying large.

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North of San Francisco, the fog rolls in at night like silent smoke across the water, rising from the bay and crawling inland. It devours everything, muffling sounds and making simple movements a ghostly dance. The chill it carries creeps inside a man, penetrating flesh and bone, fastening upon the soul.