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sit on something that wasn't moving. He glanced at one of the rubbings as Henson called, "Beer okay? It's Japanese, but it's cold."
    "Fine," Bolan shouted back.
    The refrigerator door banged back with a rattle of bat ties in its shelves. The next thing he heard sounded like Armageddon. The blast momentarily deafened him. Smoke, boiled through the doorway as he jumped to his feet.
    "Henson," he called. "Frank, what..." He covered his mouth with a forearm and charged into the library. It was full of smoke and plaster dust so thick hi couldn't see. He ducked down to try to get under the worst of it, but did no better.
    The doorway to the kitchen was blocked with debris.
    He grabbed a piece of timber with both hands and tugged but couldn't dislodge anything. The dust was choking him as he backed away a step, then sprinted for the front door.
    He leapt from the front porch and careered around the corner, where he stopped in disbelief. The whole rear half of the side wall lay splattered across the lawn. Several beams jutted up at an angle where they had smashed into the roof of the Rover.
    Bolan climbed up onto the rear bumper and hauled himself into the wreckage. There wasn't a chance in hell Frank Henson had survived the blast, but he had to be sure. The ruined wall shifted under his weight. The whole room still boiled with swirling clouds of dust.
    Bolan realized the bomb must have been in the refrigerator, primed to detonate when the door was opened. He could just make out the ruined hulk, shaped like a bulging barrel, its top split and twisted into modern art.
    "Henson," he shouted. "Henson?" There was no answer. And as the dust began to settle, he knew there wouldn't be. Frank Henson had been splattered all over the kitchen.
    The settling dust began to crust on the bloodstains, hiding the bright smears with an orangy film.
    But he could still see where they were.

6
    Bolan closed the door quickly. His eyes scanned the interior, and nothing looked out of place. But that didn't mean a thing. He knew that if they had gotten to Henson, they could get to him.
    Breathing in slowly, holding it until his lungs were close to bursting, he checked the room carefully, his Desert Eagle at the ready. He peered in every conceivable place, from under the bed for a pressure switch to the medicine cabinet for a spring release.
    When he had looked everywhere, he relaxed. He needed to free his mind so he could consider the situation at hand.
    Cautiously he sat on the bed and examined the envelope. His name had been scrawled across it in black Magic Marker. The plain white envelope had been sealed with cellophane tape. It contained four sheets of paper. One was a grainy picture, apparently a Xerox of an old newspaper photograph, of Charles Harding. The second was a story, headline and all, about the incident at the airport. He scanned the story quickly, stopping at the underlined words, "an unknown American." Backing up, he read the entire paragraph and realised the phrase applied to him. There was no other mark on the page, just that short, thin line under the three words.
    The third sheet was a map, roughly drawn in blue pencil, of Ongpin, Manila's Chinatown.
    The map was highlighted by a single red dot at the intersection of Rizal and Santa Margarita. The last paper was a sheet of cheap typing paper. In the same hand as that on the envelope, the words "If you have to ask, you'll never know" had been scrawled with the same Magic Marker. Underneath the inscription wert the typewritten words, "twelve midnight." Bolan was mystified. Apparently someone wanted to meet him, someone who knew he had been at the airport that afternoon, and who also knew of his interest in Charles Harding. But who?
    His head hurt and he couldn't think straight. He needed some rest, but there was no time. He glanced at the clock radio next to the bed. It read 11:17 in sickly green digits. He had less than an hour. He debated whether or not to keep the appointment, but it