"I- uh-could set up a quick meeting."
"I want some fun and frolic before I go back to the jungle rot," the tall man mused. "I don't want to get tied up."
"I guarantee you all the fun and frolic you can handle," Plasky replied quickly, reaching for the telephone.
Bolan's hand stopped him. "Then there's this other thing," he said.
"What other thing?"
"This strained customer relation thing. I say the Bolan debt is settled."
"Of course! Of course it's settled!"
"I want the note."
Plasky dug into the folder, produced an imposingly legal-appearing paper, and slid it into Bolan's hand. The tall man glanced at it, then settled back in his chair with a grunt, folding the paper and placing it in a pocket. Plasky's stubby forefinger stabbed into the telephone dial.
"Do you believe in fate, Bolan?" Plasky asked, obviously highly pleased with the turn of the morning's events.
"Yeah. You'd never believe how much I believe in fate, Mr. Plasky," the tall man replied.
And The Executioner smiled.
2 - The Plan
Mack Bolan had no illusions regarding his self-appointed task. He was no starry-eyed crusader. Neither was he a vengeance-ridden zealot. "No monkeys on my back," was his realistic motto. He did not necessarily believe in dying for just causes; he simply felt that a man would do his duty as he saw it. Perhaps this was a family trait, and perhaps it was just as subject to erroneous application as the recent actions of his sister, his brother, and his father. But Mack Bolan's duty seemed rather clear-cut to him at the present.
He saw a cancerous leech at the throat of America, and he saw the inability or the indisposition of American institutions to deal with it. He saw, also, that he was both equipped and positioned to strike a telling blow to at least one small tentacle of the monster growth. To a man like Mack Bolan this was a clear call to duty. But there were no illusions. He was aware of the hazards, of the odds against his success. He was in violation of the law himself, of course. Already, in the eyes of his society, he was a five-time murderer.