It was a tight game of numbers. Bolan was not allowing himself any luxuries where Ben Lucasi was concerned. The guy was wily. Already, it appeared, the convoy had swung far out of its way in transiting the city along the south. They could have much easier cut across on Interstate 8 ... if indeed they were humping for Route 94. That would be the desert road running past the Sycuan Indian Reservation on the route to Tecate, a Mexican border town. Something rumbled deep in Bolan's memory, then, causing him to again send a query to Gadgets Schwarz.

"Gadgets, you said to look for high ground for these radio links. Doesn't Route 94 head east at the border?"

"Right. My present position is just west of Potrero, which is almost due north of Tecate, just a few miles over the border. You have that on your area map?"

Bolan replied, "Finger right on it. Trace eastward, beyond the Compo Reservation. Looks like a high peak over there."

Schwarz came back: "Right. That would be Tecate Divide, elevation more than four thousand feet. The trailers I've been tracking were parked here near Potrero as recently as today. The track fizzled out right here, though."

"Okay, stay alert. It looks like the play is running your way."

Blanca.n.a.les checked in a moment later to confirm that a.s.sumption. "Right, check three Detroit blacks off the interstate at Spring Valley, running south on 94."

Bolan replied, "Bingo. Fall in behind them and maintain track. I'm coming around."

"You'll have to heat bearings to do it. They're clocking eighty."

"I've got bearings a'plenty," Bolan chuckled. He moved the Ferrari into the upper ranges of the tach and closed quickly to the exit ramp, then rolled carefully through Spring Valley and onto the open road of the desert country. He could see the procession ahead of him, now the only lights on the road.

"Have you in sight," he reported to Blanca.n.a.les. "Drop back some, Pol. You're crowding them."

"Right. Didn't want to chance losing them going through town. I am easing off now."

A moment later Bolan was running-up onto the rear of the Corvette being piloted by Blanca.n.a.les.

"Coming around."

"Roj, man-go."

Bolan was burning rubber alongside the Mafia convoy, slumped into the racing backboard of the hot car to conceal his own face but reading occupants as he whizzed past.

"Here's the head count," he reported, when he was well ahead. Rear car, five. Lucasi and bodyguards, looks like. Middle, eight-gun car with jumpseat. Lead car, six. They look tough."

Schwarz immediately checked in. "I'm just dragging down here. Want me to run up to Barrett and pick up on it there?"

Bolan was a full mile ahead of the convoy now. He told Schwarz, "Affirm. a.s.sume station running slowly southward. Make them pa.s.s you, then tag along. Pol, you swing ahead at that point. Maintain with their lights just in view behind you."

Both men acknowledged the instructions and Bolan went on to scout the road ahead. He went through Jamul and, six minutes later, the tiny community of Dulzura. Just below that point he pa.s.sed the warwagon, tooting at Schwarz and receiving a return salute, then burned on southward toward Barrett.

This was rugged country, desolate but pretty in the moonlight, appearing abandoned and hardly touched by the human hand or foot.

A little side road running off eastward a few miles below Dulzura came up in his headlamps. He slowed, overshot the junction, then squealed about in a U-turn and returned for an inspection.

A weathered sign proclaimed that this was the road to Barrett Reservoir.

Bolan found the spot on his area map and closely studied the surrounding countryside. Then he descended from the Ferrari for a closer look at some other kind of signs.

The hunch seemed to be right on-target. Heavy-wheeled vehicles had turned onto that road not too much earlier. He found a place on the turn where a set of double-wheels had slipped off the roadbed into the soft shoulder.

He stood there in the cool night air, allowing his senses to flare and absorb the lie of that place, then he spoke into the shoulder-phone. "Road running east off 94, couple of miles above Barrett. It smells. Map shows possible connection over to U.S. 80. I'm checking it out. Let me know if track runs beyond this point."

Schwarz told him, "It might be hot, Sarge. They've been moving those rigs every few days. And listen, watch it. Guy at a truck stop down near Barrett told me those rigs are not being handled by teamsters. Says it's two guys in each cab and they look mean as h.e.l.l."

Bolan replied, "Roj, thanks." He returned to the Ferrari and sent it in a dangerously fast acceleration along the little back road.

If it had looked like no-wheres-ville out along the state highway, then this area was strictly twilight zone. Rugged, hilly, wild-with road to match.

It would be rough going for a couple of big semi-trailers. And Bolan's "combat feel" was flowing strong in his veins. If Lucasi had just ordered those rigs a'moving again, after hearing Tony Danger's report, then ... yeah, that could be blood he was smelling, for d.a.m.n sure.

And if Lucasi was in the panic which Bolan had programmed for him then, yeah, he had those rigs rolling while he raced with a gun-convoy to protect the movement.

A few minutes later Bolan knew that he had scored. His heart shifted into combat-pump as he spotted the twin set of headlamps on a curve far ahead, running b.u.mper to b.u.mper, two big diesel rigs laboriously navigating that back-country road.

He announced into his shoulder-phone, "Bingo. I have the target in sight. About ... halfway to the reservoir. Fall in close and protect my rear."

Schwarz reported, "They just pa.s.sed me, running h.e.l.l-bent. Pol is coming around now. Do we hit them out here or allow them to close some first?"

"Let them close," Bolan commanded. "Just stay on their tail. From the moment you hit the turn-off, run dark. There's plenty of visibility out here without lights."

"Affirm."

"Watch it, Sarge," Blanca.n.a.les growled.

"Name of the game," Bolan replied.

"I'll run on down about a half-mile beyond the junction, then double back."

"Okay," Bolan agreed tightly. "Watch this road.

It's a b.i.t.c.h."

He surged forward then, sending the Ferrari into a hot run-up on those lights ahead, then he fell back, tracking at about ten car-lengths.

"Target knows I'm here," he announced. "Report into the junction."

"Roj," from Schwarz.

"Wilco," said Blanca.n.a.les. "Running past now."

A moment later Schwarz reported, "Convoy turning east."

"Have them in sight," Blanca.n.a.les muttered. "Coming about and re-closing."

"Tracking eastward," Schwarz said seconds later. "Are you running dark, Pol?"

"Affirm."

"Let's mark positions. Landmark ahead. Falling-down cabin, off to right. Large boulder, scraggly tree in front. Pa.s.sing ... right ... now, mark! mark!

Ten seconds later, Blanca.n.a.les reported, "Mark. I'm off you ten seconds."

"Run it there," Bolan instructed.

So there was the line-up. Two diesel rigs, moving slowly hardly a car-length apart, Bolan pacing them ten car-lengths back. About two miles back and moving up fast, the three crew wagons, bearing a total of nineteen guns. A few seconds to their rear and running dark, Schwarz in the war-wagon; ten seconds behind him, Blanca.n.a.les.

Tight numbers, yeah ... d.a.m.n d.a.m.n tight. tight.

Bolan waited until the lights of the crew wagons were showing behind him. They would be spotting him now, running just off their precious cargo, wondering and fuming ... "Didn't that d.a.m.n sports car pa.s.s us back there a few miles?"

He was watching also the terrain ahead and to either side of the line of travel. A most advantageous spot was coming up, just ahead, where the road threaded low ground between pressing hillocks.

He released a fragmentation grenade from his combat belt, pulled the pin, and announced into the shoulder-phone, "Going!"

The Ferrari surged forward and up along the left flank of the mobile targets. He leaned across the seat and waved at the guys in the rear truck then moved smoothly on to run abreast of the lead tractor, tensely counting his numbers, pacing the targets into the needle, sliding far to the right and steering with his left hand ... and then the numbers were all used up.

The driver of the target vehicle was shouting something at him as he flipped the grenade, out and up, right into the guy's lap.

At that same instant he swung back to the controls of the Ferrari and sent her screaming ahead, putting three seconds of distance between himself and that doomed semi.

One of those frozen instants of time descended, a stretched-out and seemingly infinite present, present, with past forever behind and with past forever behind and future future looming threateningly and yet unapproachable. looming threateningly and yet unapproachable.

The driver of that leading crew wagon had already gotten the smell and was pressing forward, leading the other two cars into a wild pa.s.s around the rear truck.

The flash of the explosion illuminated Bolan's c.o.c.kpit and cast red streamers into his rear-view mirror. Something metallic whizzed past his open window and showering gla.s.s overtook him and rained on him.

The big rig weaved and veered off to the left, tried to climb the high ground over there and failed, jack-knifed, slid along on screaming rubber, overturned with a crashing-roaring-grinding and burst into flames.

The immediate aftermath of that event was sheer pandemonium. Two crew wagons and another big rig plowed into that mess, with a whole new ball game of screaming rubber, crumpling and rending metal, shoestring explosions, fireb.a.l.l.s, the screams and shouting of men trapped in that immovable present. immovable present.

Bolan's Ferrari had already come about and raced onto the high ground overlooking the hit site. He was grounded and commanding into his shoulder-phone, "Close with all speed," when the survivors down there began staggering clear of the fantastic pile-up.

The rear crew-wagon had careened into a broadside halt across the road, practically roasting in the white-hot heat of the gasoline-fed fires.

Guys were scrambling out of there and waving choppers around, looking for something to shoot at. Bolan recognized Lucasi's big house captain, the Diver. He was yelling at two other guys, "Cover our rear!" "Cover our rear!"

Bolan gave them something more pressing to cover, sighting down with the impressive Auto-Mag, squeezing off three deliberate rolling booms, seeking and finding an ignition point beneath the engine hood of that as-yet undamaged vehicle. He got an ignition and a small fireball which quickly whoofed into the fumes blanketing that area, following immediately with a full-scale explosion which lifted the heavy vehicle clear of all four wheels and resettled it at an entirely different angle, engulfed in flames.

A human torch was staggering around down there near the spot where he'd last noted the Diver; Bolan felled him with a mercy-round near the top of the torch. This drew immediate return fire from two heavy choppers which sliced up the embankment just below his feet; then the lighter snare drum-roll of machine pistols entered the argument as Blanca.n.a.les and Schwarz acquired station.

Bolan left the remainders to them.

But for one.

Big Little Ben Lucasi was on his knees at the side of the road, blood trickling down the side of his neck, tormented eyes gazing with disbelief at the flames and wreckage marking the final disposition of his late-budding bid for international importance.

Bolan walked slowly down the embankment to stand over the little would-be Capo. Capo. He said, coldly, "You c.r.a.pped out, Lucasi." He said, coldly, "You c.r.a.pped out, Lucasi."

The glazed eyes shifted slowly to the tall figure in black which towered above him. They shrank, then blazed again in a curious mixture of defiance and defeat.

"I knew you'd get to my territory sooner or later," Lucasi muttered. "So go ahead. Kill me."

Bolan replied, "All right."

And he did so, the muzzle of the AutoMag making contact with Big Ben's little skull at that critical point directly between the eyes. He squeezed off once, sending 240 shattering grains exploding into that corruption, at a muzzle energy of a thousand or so foot-pounds.

Odds and ends of bone and brains flew off into that immovable moment and what was left of Big Ben Lucasi was sent backwards for a slide into the spreading flames.

Bolan holstered the AutoMag and spoke to the flames.

"Goodbye, Howlie," he said quietly. "Bon voyage." "Bon voyage."

EPILOGUE.

The three warriors regrouped at the front fender of the Ferrari as the flames below were burning themselves out.

Gadgets Schwarz quietly commented, "End of track. I defy anyone to say even what was in those trucks."

Bolan said, "Just as well. It's a decent place for a burial."

Blanca.n.a.les told them, "It doesn't end here, though. It's what I've been wanting to report. Lisa Winters told me that Tony Danger had them all over a barrel. Something about a wild party on a yacht, and some pictures Tony was holding over their heads. She said-"

'It figures," Bolan Interrupted tiredly. "The messes people make of their lives."

Blanca.n.a.les said, "Well now wait. Tony Danger is the guy that blasted the colonel. He went out there to make a swap, supposedly. Howlie was going to turn over the records on that missing gear in exchange for those pictures. Instead, he blasted the colonel and burnt the papers. I guess Howlie went down fighting, though. It was his own gun that did him in. I think he was planning a little surprise play of his own. Lisa said they were fighting over this gun ... it turned out to be the colonel's. Anyway-"

"Anyway he's dead and gone," Bolan said. "And the game is is over. I already consigned Tony Danger to the San Diego cops, for better or for worse. And I-" over. I already consigned Tony Danger to the San Diego cops, for better or for worse. And I-"

"That part's over too," Schwarz put in. "I was monitoring the police frequencies. Heard it while I was coasting along Highway 94. Shoot-out at Maxwell Thornton's house. Police trap. Tony Danger is dead, two other contractors critically wounded."

Bolan sighed and thumbed reloads into his AutoMag's clip. "So it's fully ended," he said wearily. "I believe Thornton will take my deal. Especially after...."

Blanca.n.a.les was staring at the pile of destruction just below them. He said, "Yeah. So where to, now?"

Bolan gave him a surprised look. He said, "I was on my way to Philly when I received your message."

"What's going in Philly?" "A guy named Angeletti." Blanca.n.a.les whistled. "That "That guy. It's going to be a mean one, Sarge. Gadgets and I can-" guy. It's going to be a mean one, Sarge. Gadgets and I can-"

"You can go home," Bolan said firmly. "I have to work Philly on my own."

The two death squaders understood. Schwarz said, "You know how to reach us, any time you need to."