The deadly point punctured the eyeball, pierced the cortex and penetrated the cerebellum. The hardman cried out once and fell, clawing at his face. He twitched and then lay still.

Bolan was already on the other guy.

They rolled from the bed to the floor.

Anger and surprise and perhaps some extra stimulation from the liquor he had been forced to swallow lent Bolan a manic strength. His powerful shoulder muscles rippled as he heaved the attacker facedown onto the bed. An instant later he was kneeling on the guy's calves, hauling the top half of his body upright and jamming a forearm across his windpipe and beneath his chin at the same time.

The hood writhed, choking. The point of his elbow rammed backward into the Executioner's solar plexus, but Bolan held on grimly. A hand scrabbled for the soldier's groin. He slammed his hips against the killer's buttocks.

And now the palm of his free hand was cradling the back of his victim's head. Sweating, he exerted pressure.

On the rumpled bed, their distorted shadows thrown across wall and ceiling by the flashlight, which had rolled to the far corner of the room, the two men remained locked in motionless, almost noiseless, combat. Only their harsh breathing, an occasional creak from the bedsprings as one or the other minimally shifted position, a barely discernible click from tortured sinew or tendon, broke the silence.

Beads of moisture stood out on Bolan's forehead. His opponent's breathing grew more labored and hoarse as the pressure on windpipe and neck inexorably increased; his struggles weakened.

And then abruptly Bolan summoned a supreme effort an upward jerk of the forearm coupled with a sudden titanic thrust with the palm of the other hand. A dull crack echoed in the room.

The hood's body went limp in Bolan's grasp. He allowed it to slide to the floor.

He clambered off the bed, breathing heavily, and examined the two bodies.