"Sticker" was a gutsy guy named Leopold Turrin. Leo was Mack Bolan's closest friend and, along with Hal and April and Jack Grimaldi, his most valuable Stony Man ally independent of Able Team and Phoenix Force. At one time, during the initial struggle at Pittsfield, Bolan had sworn he would execute Leo Turrin, Mafia underboss with the "girls franchise" in western Massachusetts, blood nephew to Sergio Frenchi, the boss of the Berkshires. But Bolan had learned just in time that Leo "The Pussy" — Sticker — was an undercover federal agent, a soldier of the same side. Leo became a total convert to Bolan's cause, an invaluable insider. So began a lifetime commitment to advise and assist Mack Bolan and his men along their every brawling mile, a commitment that would be forged the stronger by the kind of betrayal and bereavement that could hit the Stony Man program at any time and expose them all to the highest winds of horror.

Officially, Leo was in London to advise the Criminal Investigation Department of Scotland Yard on a growing organized crime problem experienced in the United Kingdom. The request had come through channels for the best available help on the problem. Sticker was the best available.

To protect the undercover Fed, arrangements had been made to fly him to Britain on a military jet, pass him through customs and immigration with his face wrapped in bandages, and install him in a "gilded cage" — a secure area of the U.S. Embassy.

The unofficial reason for Leo being in London was Shillelagh. For some months now, indications of disturbing problems in the British counterterrorist efforts had filtered through to American intelligence. The agency responsible for the British efforts was COATUK — the Committee on Anti-Terrorism in the United Kingdom. The committee had representatives from CID, the Secretariat of State for Northern Ireland, MI5, and the SAS.