"Not any more," Lt. Warnicke said. He produced a folded cloth from his breast pocket, opened it, and placed it on the table.

Gibson leaned forward to glare at a metallic object which had been wrapped in the cloth. "What's that?" he asked.

"That," Warnicke told him, "is a military marksman's medal."

"Aw shit," the Captain said.

"One of the dead hoods is Greasy Waters. We pried that medal out of his fist."

It was an involuntary exclamation from Bill Phillips. "Mack Bolan!"

"You telling me that goddam guy is in our town now?" Gibson said angrily.

"'It would appear so," Warnicke replied with a sigh.

Sgt. Phillips spun about and went rapidly out of there, making fast tracks to his cruiser.

So Mack Bolan had come to town! And, all of a sudden, the pieces had come together in the Brushfire cop's head.

The Brushfire Squad was a special police detail which had been established for quick reaction against organized violence in this age of growing political anarchy — it was, in a sense, a combat team which was fully prepared to take up the defense of any threatened civic institution — or so they hoped. So far their activities had been confined mostly to a defense of their own police stations, but they had also investigated bomb threats, arson cases, campus violence and a variety of other radical threats against the city.

And if Mack Bolan's presence in town did not constitute a bonafide...

Phillips reached his cruiser and swung inside for a report to his operations center. "This is Bravo Three," he announced into the special radio net. "Possible Brushfire Alert, repeat, possible alert. I'm coming in for conference."

He returned the microphone to its bracket and put the car in motion, picking his way carefully across the disaster zone, and to himself he muttered, "Brushfire, hell. It's Little World War Three."