"I'll pretend I didn't hear that, guy," Bolan told him.

Blancanales put the sedan in motion, away from the airport and onto Lafayette Freeway, heading north to cross the wide Mississippi into St. Paul proper. They spoke little as they drove, each man occupied with private thoughts on that stormy Minnesota night.

Mack Bolan was trying to remember when he had last seen his old friend look so harried, so drained. Not in Asia, certainly, where Rosario's vitality and savvy with the natives had quickly earned him the nickname "Politician." Nor later, when Pol joined the Executioner's domestic war against a common enemy. Not even at the bottom, the very worst of it, after the massacre at Balboa in the bad old days.

Bolan decided that his friend had never looked worse, or had better cause.

Perhaps — just maybe — there was something he could do to change all that.

Blancanales, meanwhile, for all the strain evident on his face and in his posture, seemed to draw some sort of solace from the mere presence of his best and oldest friend. Already he seemed to be regaining a touch of the old fire, as if Bolan's welcome arrival from his last mission in Turkey had sparked some internal mechanism and set the wheels turning again.

Bolan noted the subtle changes and was thankful for it.

Holman Field was twenty minutes behind them when Pol broke the silence with a clipped, curt warning.

"We've got a tail," he snapped.

Bolan glanced back over his shoulder through rain-streaked darkness.

"No question?"

Blancanales shook his head. "Negative. The last three turns were for his benefit. He's sticking tight."

A block behind them, headlights hung on their track at an even, measured pace. When Pol accelerated, the twin lights edged nearer; when he stroked the brake lightly, they fell back.

A tail, yeah. No question about that.