He passed a wad of rumpled bills to the attendant, slid behind the Jimmy's wheel without his change, and put the vehicle in motion, headed east. Two hours, give or take, and there would still be daylight left when Johnny reached the killing ground. Still time to find his brother... or, at least, determine what had happened to him, the direction his killers might have taken. Not that there was any doubt about Rivera; he would run for home when he was finished, and the younger Bolan would eventually find him there. It might take time, but he had time to spare. It might take everything he had, in worldly terms, and it would still be cheap at half the price.
But helping Mack was the priority. If John could reach him while he lived, before it was too late, then he would find a way to pull his brother out of Santa Rosa, more or less intact. If battle had been joined before he reached the tiny crossroads, he would wade into the middle of it, strike whatever blows he could against Rivera's team. He might find unexpected allies in the populace, and then again...
It didn't matter, Johnny knew, if anybody stood with them or not. Together, he and Mack could choose their ground and make a stand their enemies would not forget. Together, they could take apart a strike force many times their size.
Together...
Johnny pictured Mack, stretched out and lifeless on some dusty sidewalk, while the locals gawked and fought for scraps of clothing from the famous dead. A three-ring circus, with Rivera in the role of ringmaster, calling the tune as his brother's corpse lay in state beneath the broiling sun.
Except that it would never be like that. The citizens of Santa Rosa would not have an opportunity to join the hunt, assuming that they had the urge. If they were cognizant of what was happening and free to talk about it, someone in the outside world would certainly have gotten word by now. The hamlet's several lines would not be engaged all day long if everyone in town was busy hunting Bolan in the streets. That left one possibility, and Johnny knew it was the truth before he ever set foot in the little town. He knew that Santa Rosa was besieged.
Rivera would be taking every possible precaution to ensure success and ward off interruptions. Taking down the phone lines would be basic, child's play, and it would prevent the citizens of Santa Rosa from communicating with the outside world when things got tight. Roadblocks were a possibility, although they might be subtle, letting unofficial traffic in and no one out. The heavy hardware would be closer in, downtown, prepared to move on contact with the Executioner. If John was cautious, if he kept his wits about him, there was still a decent chance that he could get inside the first perimeter, make contact with the enemy's main force before they knew that he was coming.
And if they tried to stop him on the highway, he would find a way inside, in any case. He would not let them turn him back when he had come this far, endured this much, to reach his brother's side. He was prepared to charge the gates of hell, if necessary — and, the warrior knew, it just might come to that. But hell was only frightening to those who feared the flames, and Johnny Bolan had been burned before. He recognized the heat, accepted it, and it held no more terrors for him.
He was ready for anything Rivera might have waiting on the streets of Santa Rosa. And if death was waiting for him there, as well, so be it. Every man had an appointed hour of destiny, but few were privileged to choose the ground, the cause in which they fell. It came as a relief to know that he would not be swept away by circumstance, the victim of some random accident or careless Sunday driver. Death was too important to be left to chance.
If it was time, the younger Bolan meant to make his final hours count for something. And Rivera would remember him, whichever way it went in Santa Rosa. He would rue the day when he had taken on the Bolan brothers, even with an army at his back.
The fire was waiting. John could feel its heat already, drawing closer, and he craved it now, to keep him warm.
16
Sitting in his cruiser on the northern edge of town, Grant Vickers knew that there was nowhere left to run. His effort to negotiate a cease-fire with Rivera had been doomed from the beginning. There was nothing he could do to save his town from ruin, nothing he could do to save himself. But he could still resist, make things a little tougher for Rivera on the road to final victory. With any kind of luck at all, he might get one clean shot off at the man himself.
With luck.
The lawman's luck had been all bad, so far, and he did not anticipate a change, but it did no harm to be ready, just in case. With leaden fingers, Vickers freed the 12-gauge pump gun from its dashboard rack and retrieved the box of surplus shells from the cruiser's glove compartment. He worked the Remington's slide, chambering a live round, then withdrew another magnum cartridge from the box and fed the shotgun's tubular magazine. It gave him seven rounds, for starters, and if he could not hit someone with a shotgun, at the range he had in mind, he might as well give up.
He set the riot weapon's safety, laid it to the side, and set the open box of cartridges beside him on the seat. There would be no question of reloading if he stumbled into any kind of ambush situation, but it never hurt to be prepared. And if he played his cards right, he might lay an ambush of his own. Rivera might get careless and drop his guard enough for Vickers to attempt a kill. It was a long shot, granted, but it might be their salvation if he came up empty on more practical ideas. And in the meantime, there was Becky Kent, her teenage patient, and the clinic to be watched, protected.
Scanning with binoculars, the lawman watched Rivera's gunners scatter from their tight perimeter around the diner, fanning out across the street. It was beginning, and he didn't care if there was a stranger hiding out in Santa Rosa. It was his town, not Rivera's, and he carried the law, in his badge and in the swivel holster on his hip. It didn't matter that he had spent years ignoring portions of his duty; he was ready now to take a stand, and if he was too late to win, at least he knew that it was not too late to try.
They were beginning at the southern end of Main Street, going door-to-door from all appearances, and at their present rate they might not reach the clinic for an hour. Then again, Rivera had had ample time to scan the local telephone directory or question hostages inside the diner. He might know about the clinic, give it top priority, in case the wounded stranger had succeeded in his search for medical assistance.
If there was a stranger.
If he had ever been in Santa Rosa in the first place.
Vickers put the riddle out of mind. It did not matter in the long run if Rivera was correct or not. The bastard had already killed five people, maybe more that Vickers didn't even know about, and he was bent on wiping out the town to keep his bloody secret safe. The question of the stranger had become superfluous, irrelevant to everything that was about to happen. If he found the guy right now, this instant, and delivered him into Rivera's hands, the dealer would no doubt proceed with his annihilation of the town.
It was a no-win situation, but surrender only made Rivera's job that much, easier, and Grant was in no mood to make things pleasant for his enemy. He was about to light a fire beneath Rivera, and he hoped the dealer would go up in flames. If not, at least his pride might get singed around the edges, and he would remember Santa Rosa as a town where one man found his guts and made a stand.
One man.
It had a solitary ring about it, chilling Vickers to the bone. And there was no one he could turn to for assistance. Maybe, if Gib Schultz or Bud Stancell had still been alive... But they weren't, and there was no damned use at all in crying over spilled blood. The other able-bodied men in town were working on surrounding farms, some of them traveling as far away as Tucson for the daily grind, and by the time the first of them returned from work that evening, it would all be over. That left Vickers with a pool of children, housewives and a few old men to staff his army, and he knew it wasn't worth the time or effort to begin recruiting now. Whatever he accomplished, he would have to do alone, and that was fine. The lawman thought that he deserved no better, and the thought did nothing to improve his mood.