He swiveled, snapping orders at Camacho, satisfied when Hector jumped as if he had been stung and hastened to obey. They must initiate a swift and stunning counterstroke before the enemy could organize and take heart from early victories. If necessary, he would burn the town and grind the ashes under foot before he let the people make a fool of him. In fact, a touch of fire might be the best idea of all.
He caught Camacho halfway to the door and issued further orders, watching Hector's face light up as he imagined Santa Rosa burning to the ground. It was the kind of thing Hector normally enjoyed, and he would have no qualms about destruction of the village, the annihilation of its residents. If anything, he would enjoy the sport.
Rivera moved back from the window, keeping Esteban beside him. The sniper had been spotted, soon he would be rooted out and killed, but there was still no point in taking chances. Any stray round crashing through the picture window might prove fatal, and Rivera had no wish to die — by accident or otherwise. He had too much to live for in Sonora, at the heart of his illicit empire.
Glancing at the waitress, he decided she would have to die with the rest of Santa Rosa. He could kill her now, but there was still an outside chance that he might need a hostage if he had to escape from the village, and together with the grizzled cook, she was the only ace he held. It seemed improbable, a morbid nightmare, but Rivera would not waste his hole card yet, before he had the situation well in hand and Santa Rosa was in flames.
When the town began to burn, its citizens would scatter, screaming, to their shops and homes. They would forget about resistance in their haste to rescue children, pets and prized belongings. They would be completely at his mercy, then, but there would be no mercy for the peasants who had dared to stand against Luis Rivera. Opponents were like insects, to be crushed and then forgotten, thoroughly eradicated. If any one of them survived, his raid on Santa Rosa would have failed, and he would be in grievous jeopardy.
There was no extradition treaty between Mexico and the United States, but the Americanos would not have to bring him back to make life difficult. A little diplomatic pressure, if strategically applied, might do the trick, compelling venal federates to forget about their bribes for once and launch a real investigation. The annihilation of a town, if traced directly to Rivera, just might be enough to put a temporary clamp on foreign aid, for example, while a case was built against him in Sonoran courts. Rivera would not normally have feared a prosecution — he was strong enough and rich enough to keep the sentence short, and he could run his empire from a cell as well as from his plush estancia— but this would be a different sort of prison time. If the United States employed its full resources to "persuade" his native government that stringent measures must be taken, there was ample evidence available to lock him up for life, without parole, in squalid quarters where his cash would do him little good. And it would not be long, if he was jailed, before the hungry sharks would start to circle, snapping pieces from his empire, claiming territories for themselves.
Survival hinged on Santa Rosa, and he could not escape that elementary fact, no matter how he tried. If anyone from Santa Rosa lived, he might be doomed. If two or three of them survived, he was as good as dead. There would not be a second chance, no way to make it up, repair the damage from afar. His life, his empire, everything depended on what happened in the next few hours, on the main street of a town too small to be charted on many road maps. If Rivera lost it here, he lost it all, and there would be no point in going home.
The dealer made up his mind swiftly. If he dared not lose, he would not lose. He would destroy his enemies, and let their dying stand as an example to the world.
He would prevail.
Johnny Bolan saw the roadblock from a mile off, a darker blotch against the heat haze of the far horizon, polished metal glinting in the sun. He pulled the Jimmy over, scrutinized the barricade through his binoculars, and saw that two cars had been parked across the road, their drivers and a third man lounging in the meager shade provided by the vehicles. None of them were in uniform, and none of them were Anglo. Johnny knew instinctively that none of them were lawmen.
They would be Rivera's men, detailed to seal off the town from the north, allowing no one in or out until the dealer's business had been settled, finally, with all concerned. The younger Bolan knew what that might mean, and he could not afford to let the barricade delay him any more than absolutely necessary.
Reaching underneath the driver's seat, he freed the Heckler & Koch VP-70 from its hidden rigging, easing off the safety as he placed it in his lap. The pistol's magazine held eighteen parabellum rounds, with number nineteen in the chamber; it was double-action all the way, and Mack had modified it personally to reduce the normally resistant trigger-pull. At any decent pistol range, it was a killer, and the extra loads would keep him firing when most adversaries had been forced to scramble for a backup magazine. With any luck at all, the piece would be enough. And if his luck ran out...
He pushed the train of thought away. Three men and two machines were standing in the way of a reunion with his brother, and he made his mind up that it would not be enough. With cool deliberation, Johnny put the Jimmy back in gear and rumbled toward the roadblock at a careful forty-five, both hands set firmly on the wheel. He guessed that they would speak to him, at least, and try to turn him back before they opened fire. If they didn't, he would deal with that eventuality when it arose.
The gunners scrambled to a ragged semblance of attention as the Jimmy closed to thirty yards, the leader stepping forward, both hands raised, to flag him down. No hardware was in evidence yet, and Johnny took it as a hopeful sign. If they were forced to start from scratch, the lag time would provide him with a lethal edge that they might never overcome.
He rolled the window down and waited for the leader to approach him, frowning with a simulated curiosity, the VP-70 in hand, poised below the windowsill and out of sight. The spokesman's companions were behind him, taking up positions for triangulated fire if they should be compelled to flash the hardware.
"What's the problem?" Johnny asked.
"We have been forced to quarantine the town, senor." The gunner jerked a thumb across his shoulder, indicating Santa Rosa, still invisible beyond the rise. "An accident with chemicals."
"No shit?" He gawked in what he hoped was a convincing imitation of concern. "My brother lives there."
"I understand, senor, but no one is allowed to pass."
"Well, rules are rules, I guess."
He raised the VP-70 and shot the gunner squarely through the forehead, blowing him away and tracking on before his two companions could assimilate the fact. The nearest stood his ground, one hand beneath his shirt and digging for his pistol. His partner sought security in motion, fading to the right and weaving while he wrestled with a handgun in the left hip pocket of his slacks.
John shot the nearer gunner first, two parabellum manglers ripping through his chest and lifting him completely off his feet. He was dead before he hit the ground. His sidekick stumbled, going down upon one knee, both hands outflung to break his fall, and it was all the edge that Johnny needed, granting him the time to aim and punch a bullet through the fallen runner's temple. He was quivering as Bolan stepped across his prostrate body, moving toward the cars. The keys were still in both ignitions, and he backed the larger vehicle — a Caddy — over to the shoulder of the road. When he had cleared a lane, he tramped back to the Jimmy and proceeded toward Santa Rosa.