A black Corvette cruised through the freezing November night, the twin funnels of light created by its halogens sweeping the neighborhood as the car turned off a secondary residential street on the north side of Chicago.

A big man sat behind the wheel of the sportster, and the glow from the dashboard cluster only served to further etch the features of an already grim visage like sculpted granite. His steely gaze probed the darkness ahead of the lighted area carved by the car's twin beams.

Mack Bolan guided the sleek vehicle into a parking lot almost filled with similarly sporty cars.

He braked the Vette, then backed into a parking space as close as he could to the canopied main entrance of a sprawling, single-level structure.

He cut the sportster's engine and headlights and paused for a moment.

No one knew it yet, but Death had come to the New Age Center.

Mack Bolan watched a couple in their twenties leave the center through double glass doors, one of which was held open for them by a hulking doorman.

The couple did not notice the man behind the Vette's steering wheel. They passed Bolan hurriedly, moving toward their own vehicle somewhere across the lot, chattering happily. In the high-intensity illumination of the parking area, he quietly observed the puffs of frosted breath escaping like smoke signals in the frigid air.

Bolan shifted his attention from the pair as they disappeared beyond a line of cars.

Through the Vette's windshield he eyeballed the doorman at his post just inside those double glass doors.

The guy reminded Bolan of a cartoon character who sold cleaning solvent on tv commercials: T-shirted; thick, corded arms folded across a massive chest; head shaved bald, a single gold hoop earring dangling from the lobe of his left ear. The giant, stuffed into tight-fitting Levi's, was as tall as Bolan, plus thirty pounds.