Two of Camacho's men had fallen in the first exchange of fire. That left him only two, and they were staying safely under cover now, reluctant to expose themselves and tempt the gringo. Scowling at their cowardice, Rivera's crew chief risked a hasty glance around the Dumpster, scanning for his enemy, retreating quickly as a flicker of movement at the far end of the alley caught his eye. He waited for incoming rounds, then crouch-walked backward to the Dumpster's other end, abruptly popping up with pistol leveled to surprise the gunman.
Nothing.
The top flaps of a cardboard box were fanning in the arid breeze where he had imagined human movement seconds earlier. Camacho scowled, aware that he had almost wasted precious ammunition on a paper target while his enemy was safely hidden, waiting for the sound and muzzle-flash to offer him a target. Ducking back, Camacho knew that he would have to break the stalemate soon or risk disaster in the form of a surprise attack by other townspeople.
Behind him, from the general direction of the street, he could hear heavy firing, concentrated near the diner where Rivera would be waiting for him to report. Unless the other troops were emptying their guns at shadows, they must be meeting stiff resistance, and he wondered how much longer it would be before the angry citizens of Santa Rosa found him in the alleyway, cut off, with only two men to assist him. What had seemed a simple hunting party at the outset had degenerated into something desperate, something deadly, and Camacho had begun to wonder if he would survive.
It was the first time he had questioned the pronouncements of Luis Rivera, and the first time in at least decade that Camacho had been doubtful of his own ability to do a job. It had been simple: find the gunman, capture him and take him home for questioning at the estanda. As time went by, and they encountered marginal resistance, he had drawn another relatively simple job: burn down the town. But now, instead of herding frightened peons to their deaths like sheep to slaughter, he was pinned down in an alley, smelling garbage, fighting for his life. Camacho wondered, briefly, where he had gone wrong, and gave it up at once in favor of considering a different strategy against his enemy.
He snapped his fingers twice, attracting the attention of his two surviving gunners, who cowered on the far side of the alley. They were less than twenty feet away, but now they squinted at him, as if he were standing on the far side of a giant chasm. He directed them to rush the enemy's position, root him out. Camacho would be right behind them, bringing up the rear. He would be present at the kill.
They gawked at each other, whispering, and then they shook their heads in unison, a negative response for which Camacho was completely unprepared. He felt the color rising in his cheeks, restrained himself from shrieking at them with an effort. In the place of angry words, he raised his automatic pistol, trained it on their faces and repeated his instructions in a somber tone. The pistol's cold, unblinking stare left them in no confusion as to the alternative should they defy his orders.
Hector kept his finger on the trigger as they tottered to their feet, aware that they might turn on him, trusting in the strength of two-on-one to save their lives. He was prepared to kill them, if he had to, but it would not solve his problem. Rather, it would leave him all alone to face his adversary, and that was precisely what Hector wanted to avoid.
His men were cowards, anxious to retreat and save themselves. Camacho, on the other hand, was simply exercising the prerogatives of his command, employing solid logic. Two-on-one might take the gringo, although it was doubtful when Camacho thought about his swift response to five-on-one a moment earlier. If nothing else, the rush would force him to reveal himself, and when he rose from hiding to annihilate the others, Hector would be waiting for him, safely under cover, with his pistol primed and ready for the kill.
It was a simple plan, and therefore nearly foolproof. Any latitude for failure would be interjected by the sorry soldiers under his command. He waited, gestured with his pistol when they hesitated in the starting gate, then watched with satisfaction as they set out, one behind the other, running awkwardly, crouched, shouting, firing blindly toward the far end of the alleyway. A pair of Dumpsters stood together there, and Hector's enemy was bound to be behind them, certainly, unless...
No time for supposition now, as Hector stood erect, his pistol braced in both hands, elbows locked and resting on the hard edge of the garbage bin. He sighted down the automatic's slide with both eyes open, ready for minute adjustments when the gringo showed himself, prepared to empty out the whole damned clip in rapid fire and send his adversary off to hell without a face to call his own.
He waited, smiling, knowing that his time had come to shine.
The wound in Bolan's side had opened when he landed on his hands and knees in the alleyway, but he was scarcely conscious of the pain as he waited for the enemy to rush him, finish off the job. He had exhausted the supply of ammunition for his captured automatic weapon, and he had discarded it before the hunting party overtook him in the alley, firing wildly, closing fast. It had been luck as much as skill when had Bolan dropped a pair of them with hasty rounds designed to frighten more than kill, and now he waited for the final rush, a pistol in each hand, fresh blood like sticky perspiration soaking through his denim shirt.
He heard them coming, knew that they were making for the Dumpsters, counting on him to be there, relying on the greater cover to conceal their enemy. They would not spare a second glance for ancient, battered trash cans farther down the alley, where the Executioner sat, his back against a picket fence that bordered brown, withered grass, the small backyard of a deserted mobile home.
He pushed forward and stood, tracking with the Beretta in his left hand and Big Thunder in his right. Two men, already closing fast at twenty yards, were about to realize their last mistake too late, as Bolan's furtive movement brought their eyes and guns around toward unexpected target acquisition. They had bet their lives that he was behind the Dumpsters, and it was the soldier's moment to collect, in full.
He lightly stroked the 93-R's trigger, ripping off a 3-round burst that caught the foremost gunner in the chest and knocked him backward, off his stride and off his feet. He jerked and twitched for a moment, like a viper with a severed head, and then lay still. His partner, meantime, leaped across the new obstruction, desperate to stay in motion, counting on the Dumpsters for his own protection. He pegged a shot at Bolan, missing him by yards, undoubtedly aware that he could never make it, that his life was measured out in fractions of a heartbeat.
Bolan put a 3-round cluster through the runner's throat and nearly took the man's head off in the process, the lethal impact spinning his assailant right around and hurling him against the wall of an adjacent shop. Rebounding, Bolan's late opponent left wet traces of himself behind, like abstract artwork on the dusty stucco, drying quickly in the desert heat.
Four down, but there had been another, and before the thought had time to form, he was aware of subtle movement there, behind another Dumpster, halfway down the alley's length. A head and shoulders were revealed, hands interlocked around a pistol aimed at Bolan from a range of fifty feet. He squeezed the trigger of his AutoMag three times in swift succession, heard the heavy boattails clang against the siding of the Dumpster, drilling through, and then the silhouette of his assailant seemed to sag, collapsing, disappearing by degrees. The hands veered skyward, swinging up the pistol into close alignment on the sun, while head and shoulders kept on sinking, out of sight. Another moment passed, and the lifeless hands had disappeared as well.