Mack Bolan was leaving a Danish restaurant in Reykjavik, Iceland, when a second attempt was made on his life. The first had been less than two hours before, as he stood waiting for a taxi outside the Icelandair terminal at Keflavik airport, on a windswept peninsula jutting into the ocean twenty miles southwest of the capital.

Bolan had flown in from Copenhagen on a short-haul flight, the kind still known locally as "internal." The Executioner preferred to use the smaller airfields on his own time, as he was now, away from the rigors of his missions, from suspicious eyes.

Lately the warrior had felt increasingly that he needed some R and R to purge the mind, the spirit and, yeah, the body. He knew that battle fatigue could bring a weary soldier down. And Bolan's commitment to his duty, his destiny, had never been halfhearted in any way. In his present mode he might as well give up the fight and let the cannibals continue their savage march on gentle civilizers.

No damn way.

Mack Bolan knew the fight could wait, but for a short time, while a mentally exhausted warrior cleared his mind.

For a short time.

And this was why Bolan had decided on a self-imposed vacation in Iceland, on top of the world. In a way he felt on top of the world already, because the decision was made on his own, and not by any gentle prodding from allies like Hal Brognola.

In Iceland the environment was pure, Bolan felt, primitive. And a man could pit his strength, his wits, against the elements, become one with nature, making him whole again.