Esteban and his companions rendezvoused with Rivera bearing their collection of assorted small arms from the hardware store. Rivera heard them out, dismissed the deaths of two more gringos as inconsequential. Something else had happened on the brief foray to town — he read it in the eyes of Jorge and Ismael — but he did not press them for details. In a few more hours, nothing they had done would matter in the least. It would be over, finished, and Rivera could relax.
Rivera's trademark was a mixture of audacity and caution. Always careful when it paid off, the dealer knew precisely when to gamble on the long odds, risk his life, if need be, in pursuit of wealth and power. He had risen through the ranks on nerve alone, and made his fortune in a business where strength alone was not enough to guarantee survival. Early on, he learned that cunning was essential in his chosen trade. While other dealers hid behind their walls and barbed-wire fences, trusting in their private armies, he had infiltrated their territories, sniffing out ambitious underlings, recruiting them as spies in hostile camps. The major dealers had ignored him, for the most part, totally preoccupied with their omnipotence until, one at a time, he had eliminated them. In five years time, Rivera had arisen from the gutter to command the largest private army in Sonora, dealing marijuana, heroin and cocaine to syndicates throughout the States. His reputation as a winner was established, but he knew that it could all be taken from him, just as he had taken it from others.
There had been other challenges before, but none as serious as that which he was facing now. On previous occasions he had seen the trouble coming, recognized its source, and moved to neutralize the danger in advance. Two dozen small competitors, and half as many larger ones, had come to grief because they thought that they could prey upon Rivera's empire, emulating his old tactics, using them against the king himself. But they were gambling on his own forgetfulness, the apathy that sometimes comes with power, and they had been fatally mistaken in their estimation of his cunning.
For Rivera had forgotten nothing, and he took no chances with his own subordinates. His payroll was extravagant, perhaps, but he was buying loyalty from the soldiers in his ranks, the lawyers and accountants who were necessary evils in a business such as his. He paid them more than they were worth, and let them know precisely what they stood to lose by crossing him, betraying him to his competitors. Whole families had disappeared upon the rare occasions when a traitor was exposed, and Rivera's personal ferocity, his thirst for disloyal blood, was legendary with his gunmen. Some of them had witnessed the punishments he had inflicted, and they spread the word, embellishing the stories until he emerged as something of a demon cast in human form. Rivera did not mind; the legends served a useful purpose, and his richly padded payroll was a form of cheap insurance, well worth the investment.
As his convoy reached the outskirts of Santa Rosa, he felt another legend in the making. Members of his entourage would talk about this day for years to come. Authorities might question him, and some of them, at least, would whisper his involvement as established fact, but there would be no evidence on which to base a legal charge. Rivera might inform a chosen few — his favorite bought-and-paid-for federates, for example — but the story would spread through the grapevine, and his potential enemies would stand in awe.
He had originally hoped for a more peaceful solution, but time was running short, and Rivera felt a sense of urgency. He had already stayed too long in the United States, and every hour added to the visit magnified his risk. Despite connections with the Mafia and Latin syndicates, despite the small-town marshals on his payroll, an arrest in the United States could ruin everything. Rivera did not have the pull with federal agents and the courts that he possessed in Mexico; he could not bring the heat to bear on politicians with their hands out, deep in debt to him for campaign contributions, "favors" of all kinds. A bust in the United States — especially on a charge as serious as murder, or the paramilitary seizure of a town — could land him in a cell for life, without parole. Without a diplomat's protection, nationality meant nothing to the Arizona State Police or FBI, and some of them, he knew, would shoot him down with relish, given half a chance.
It was essential that his business be concluded soon, before the silent cordon he had thrown around the tiny crossroads village could be cut. In spite of his precautions, there was still a chance that someone might escape from town, or see the roadblocks and find a way to call for outside help. There were many possibilities for error, and Rivera recognized that natural audacity was lapsing over into desperation. It would take a master's hand to keep the two apart, but he was equal to the task.
Rivera had expected something of a crowd, but now he saw that he had overestimated Santa Rosa. No more than a dozen people had emerged from shops and homes to investigate the sirens, while several others peeked timidly between drawn blinds. The rest, he thought, must be at work on nearby farms or in surrounding towns.
For his purposes, it was enough. The word would spread throughout the tiny crossroads town, and if the population was diminished from his own first estimate, that left him fewer witnesses to deal with, fewer people to interrogate.
He gestured absently with one hand, and Camacho killed the squad car's siren. Seconds later, someone hit a switch inside the wailing ambulance, and silence fell across the heart of Santa Rosa like a shroud. Rivera swung his legs out of the cruiser, straightened slowly to his full height, letting each of them examine him. It made no difference if they saw his face, since none of them were going to survive his visit.
He lit a cheroot, then reached inside the cruiser for the microphone that Hector offered to him. Jiggling the switch, he tested it, made certain that the squad car's PA system was engaged. Rivera held the microphone against his lips and spoke with slow precision, measuring his words.
"Citizens of Santa Rosa! Your attention, if you please!"
Rebecca Kent stood silently behind Venetian blinds and watched the dark man with the microphone as he addressed the town. Her heart caught in her throat at the sight of Amos Grundy's ambulance, the last vehicle in the line, its colored lights still winking silently even though the siren was shut down. She could not see the man behind the wheel, but knew instinctively that she would not have recognized his face. She did not want to think about Bud Stancell or the Grundys, and she forced herself to concentrate upon the stranger and his entourage.
The leader stood beside a pale green squad car bearing the insignia of the Border Patrol. No uniforms were in evidence, and Dr. Kent felt certain that its presence here was not indicative of an official visit. Like the ambulance, it had been commandeered, its legitimate passengers disposed of. She closed her mind to thought of where they might be now, what might have happened to them, listening to the stranger's voice.
"Citizens of Santa Rosa! Your attention, if you please!"
His voice was cultured, in an artificial sort of way, and redolent with strength. She felt as if his eyes, invisible behind dark glasses, might pierce her if he turned in her direction.
"I am speaking to you on a matter of supreme importance," he continued. "There is hiding in your town a fugitive from justice, wanted for the crimes of murder, arson and assault.
"This individual presents a danger to your town, your families," the stranger said, his voice a deep, metallic echo in the street. "As long as he remains at large, no person in this town is safe."
He waited, letting that sink in, and scanned the sidewalks from behind his shades. Rebecca saw a handful of her neighbors watching, waiting for the stranger to continue. All of them looked curious, confused, suspicious. None of them knew who or what the man was looking for, and the secret settled on Rebecca's shoulders like a heavy yoke. Whatever happened next would be her fault, as much as Bolan's, but she never once considered giving up her patient to the gunman on the street.
The leader spoke again. "I am requesting your assistance in the capture of this fugitive," he said. "The man is wounded, and in need of medical attention. Also, he does not possess a car, but may attempt to buy or steal one."
Silence, when he finished speaking. On the sidewalk, several of the locals whispered to one another, clearly sizing up the stranger and his entourage, concluding from the lack of uniforms, the presence of the Grundys' ambulance, that he had no official sanction, no authority beyond the weapons visible inside a couple of his backup cars. The mood was apprehensive, not yet hostile, but Rebecca knew her neighbors, and she realized they might not knuckle under passively. If they were pushed too far...
She stiffened as old Enoch Snyder took a long stride forward, his companions hanging back. Dressed in faded overalls, a straw hat cocked to one side, hands in pockets, Enoch was the quintessential prospector, prepared to stand up for his claim. With every eye upon him, Snyder cleared his throat, spit brown tobacco juice into the gutter and began to speak.
"I don't believe I caught your name," he said.
The stranger frowned. "My name is unimportant. I am looking for a fugitive..."
''I heard all that the first time," Enoch interrupted him. "Fact is, we've got a constable in town to handle any violations of the law, an' I'm not clear about your jurisdiction here in Santa Rosa. That's a federal car you're ridin' in, but you ain't federal, 'less I miss my guess. You sure ain't from the county, and I know damn well you ain't connected with the state police."
"We are from Mexico," the stranger told him.
"Maybe you should check your road map. You-all are parked in the United States right now, which means your badges ain't worth squat... assumin' that you got 'em."
"I am trying to protect your town."
"We done all right without you, up till now."
"You have not faced this individual before. He is extremely dangerous."
"That why you brought the ambulance along?"
"In case of injuries..."
"You people down there do a lot of business with the Grundys?"
For a moment there was utter silence in the street, and then the stranger turned, barked something to the men still seated in the cars behind him. In another moment they were scrambling clear to form a skirmish line, all bristling with submachine guns, shotguns, pistols. Rebecca caught her breath and took a step back from the window, fearing that they were about to open fire. She nearly stumbled into Bolan, stifling an outcry.
Old Enoch had immediately fallen silent, but he held his ground, unmoving. Other citizens up and down the sidewalk were edging towards doorways or looking for cover. If the gunmen opened fire, Rebecca thought, none of them had a chance. She was about to watch a massacre, and there was nothing she could do to head it off, prevent the slaughter that was coming. If Snyder said another word, the stranger might unleash his wrath upon her neighbors. And after he was finished there, then what?
The old man took his time, examining the guns, the hard-eyed man who held them leveled toward the citizens of Santa Rosa. Slowly, with a fine contempt, he spit another murky stream into the street and took a long stride back to lounge against the grocery's brick facade. Rebecca Kent felt the tension gradually unwind her, sensing that catastrophe had been averted for the moment. But she knew that it was only a postponement, rather than a true reprieve. Her mind made up, she turned to Bolan in defeat.
"Your guns are in the first examination room," she said. "A cabinet underneath the sink."
Grant Vickers watched the sideshow through binoculars from his position at the southern end of Main Street. The approaching sirens had alerted him, but Vickers knew Rivera's reputation and had not been overanxious to respond before he checked out the situation. A glimpse of the Grundys' ambulance, the Chevrolet Camacho had been driving, told him everything he had to know about the noisy caravan. The presence of a squad car was distinctly ominous, but Vickers was concerned with number one right now. The border boys could damned well take care of themselves.
Old Snyder was a spitfire, but he backed down quick enough when guns were drawn. Rivera was the first one who had ever shut the old bird up, and Vickers gave him points for that, but he was worried now about the confrontation shaping up in Santa Rosa. If Rivera lost his cool, or if some local boy got itchy, made a careless move, they could be ankle-deep in blood before the sun went down. Grant Vickers didn't want that on his conscience, but he didn't want his own blood on the pavement, either. Somewhere, in between the two extremes of martyrdom and crass desertion, he would have to find a not-so-happy medium and try to make it work. Somehow he had to try to save the town.
There was no question of a face-off. Vickers had lost count of the armed men down there, and there might be others hiding in the ambulance. It was an army, and he was just one reasonably frightened lawman with a job to do. It didn't help that he had never faced a hostile gun before, and his involvement with Rivera through the past few years was icing on the cake. When a person accepted money from a man like that, his soul was pawned without a ticket. Vickers hoped there was a way to pull it out before the whole thing blew up in his face. With any luck at all...
He listened as Rivera stated his demand: delivery of the stranger in an hour's time or there would be unspecified reprisals. Vickers had no doubt that blood would spill. Rivera wasn't on the list of gracious losers, and he would not leave until he had his quarry, or until his anger had been spent upon the town. If no one gave the stranger up...
But what if no one had him? What if no one in the tiny, godforsaken town had seen him. If Rivera was mistaken, or if the elusive hit man had already found himself a place to hide, unknown to any resident of Santa Rosa, they were up the creek. There were abandoned mobile homes and houses on the outskirts of the town, a scattering of shops downtown that had been closed for eighteen months or more. A couple of the houses had been broken into by tramps or bikers, and there would be nothing to prevent a fugitive from holing up in one of them to lick his wounds and watch the hunt go by. If Vickers could persuade Rivera to begin a search of the outlying empties, he was betting they could bag the guy in question and avert a massacre, but touching base with his employer would not be as easy as it seemed. He lived in Santa Rosa, after all, and there were still proprieties to be observed.
Downrange, Rivera wrapped up his ultimatum with the announcement of a lesson for the populace of Santa Rosa. At a gesture, one of his gorillas revved the ambulance and put it through a backward U-turn, parking in the middle of the street with rear doors angled toward the small crowd on the opposite sidewalk. Rivera snapped his fingers, and a couple of his henchmen opened the doors, began unloading something heavy on the pavement.
Vickers took another look through his binoculars, then closed his eyes and groaned. There would be no more time to waste, he realized. It might already be too late to head off the bloodbath; there might already be too many witnesses.
Rivera and his men were pulling out the stops, going for broke, and they had left no doubts concerning their intentions. If he still had any hope at all of heading off disaster, Vickers had to act before somebody in the town panicked and took it on themselves to even up the score. If there was time. If there was any hope at all.
Rick Stancell had been drawn from the garage by ululating sirens, startled at the sight of the Grundys' ambulance bringing up the rear of a motley parade. There had not been sufficient time for them to get to Tucson, let alone return, and that meant someone must have stopped them on the highway. Rick observed the squad car at the head of the procession, realized its driver and his passengers were not in proper uniform, and knew that something had gone desperately wrong in Santa Rosa. He thought of Dr. Kent's phone, and his own back at the service station. Dead. And suddenly his father's beating seemed a part of something larger and more sinister, a threat not only to the Stancell family, but to the town at large.
Rick listened from the sidelines as the tall Hispanic stranger made his statement, sparred with Enoch Snyder, finally calling up the guns. It was apparent that the town was under siege, perhaps cut off from any contact with the outside world, but Rick's predominant concern was for his father. Dr. Kent had made it clear that he was desperately in need of treatment that the local clinic could not offer, and prolonged delays while strangers played their macho games in Santa Rosa might prove fatal. Rick was tempted to approach the leader of the raiding party, make a personal appeal, but something told him that he might as well be talking to the wall.
The dark man finished threatening his audience and smiled. In stilted, formal tones, he offered them "a lesson," something to consider if they were tempted to defy him. At a gesture, one of his companions backed the ambulance around until it stood directly in the middle of the street, its double rear doors pointed toward the combination grocery store and post office. At a finger snap, two gunners trotted to the van, swung back the doors and reached inside. Rick froze in shock as work boots wriggled into view, pursued by khaki legs, the swollen paunch of Amos Grundy. The gunmen dumped his body on the pavement as though it were a sack of grain, reaching back inside to haul his brother out and place them side by side. The flaccid postures, ragged wounds and crusty, drying blood left no doubt that both men were dead.
Rick held his breath, already sick with horror as a third limp body was wrestled from the inside of the ambulance. He did not have to see the battered face, now vented with a bullet wound above one eye, to recognize his father. The remains of breakfast came up and Rick was doubled over, retching, by the time Bud Stancell's body hit the pavement in the middle of the street.
He could hear a woman sobbing somewhere behind him, two men cursing softly beneath their breath. The world was spinning, tilting crazily beneath his feet, and for a moment Rick was frightened that he might collapse, lose consciousness, before he had a chance to break away. The blinding rush of panic-rage was fading, and while he longed to lock his hands around the stranger's neck, move on when he was finished there to throttle each of his companions in their turn, Rick knew that he could never hope to reach his target in his present state. A rush from where he stood, barehanded, would be tantamount to suicide, and he was suddenly committed to survival. Long enough, at least, to pay back something of the debt he owed to nameless men whom he had never seen before this afternoon.
He straightened slowly and with difficulty, and turned his back upon the hollow shell that once had been his father. There was nothing he could do to spare his father from the pain and the indignity he had suffered in his final hours, but there might be something Rick could do to even up the score. His father kept a .38 at the garage, in case of robberies, and while there had been no occasion for its use, he had kept the weapon oiled and loaded. Rick had failed to check to see if it was still in place this morning, but if it had not been taken by the men who had attacked his father...
There was still a chance that he could have some measure of revenge, and while he knew that it would never be the same again, it might just be enough to keep his mind within the borderlines of sanity. But first... he thought of Amy Schultz with sudden longing, totally divorced from sex, and knew that he should see her, just once more, before he took a last, irrevocable step against his enemies. Avoiding glances from the other citizens of Santa Rosa, stepping wide around the hands that sought to stroke him in condolence, Rick struck off in the direction of the hardware store.