If he could just escape...
He held the woman closer, concentrating on her cheap perfume and trying to ignore the smoke. If he allowed it to grow thicker, offering him better cover, the gunmen on the street might not detect his hostage soon enough to stay their hands. If he was going, it had best be done at once.
"This way, chiquita." Nudging one plump breast with the muzzle of his automatic, he propelled the waitress toward the door of the diner.
Mack Bolan slid the 93-R back into its shoulder rigging, hefting the big .44 in his fist. The trash fire he had built beside the air-conditioner was burning down, but it had done its job; from where he stood, the Executioner could see smoke curling from the windows of what seemed to be a rest room, and he knew the atmosphere inside the diner would be getting thick by now.
He tried the back door, found that it had not been locked, and entered in a combat crouch, ignoring spastic pain that emanated from his wounded side. The smoke was sharp inside his nostrils, and it burned his eyes, but Bolan took his time, maneuvering along a narrow corridor that linked the exit and employee rest rooms with the kitchen and the diner proper. Probing with the AutoMag, allowing it to lead him, ready to respond in case of any challenge from the enemy, he sought Rivera in the dealer's own command post.
He had heard the burst of firing moments earlier, on Main Street, followed swiftly by a single shot inside the diner. It had been the latter that propelled him into motion, worried that Rivera would begin to sacrifice his hostages in desperation. Bolan had no firm idea of the employee head count for the diner, but he estimated that there must be two or three, at least. One shot, so far, meant hope of rescuing survivors.
As he edged into the diner, Bolan made out figures moving through the smoke. A man and woman, from the look of it, and if he was not very much mistaken, that must be...
"Rivera!"
At the sound of his name, the dealer whirled, a woman clutched in front of him to form a human shield. Rivera held an automatic pressed against her cheek, the hammer back, his finger on the trigger.
"So." There was a note of triumph in Rivera's voice. "I knew you were alive."
The soldier came erect, advancing slowly through the smoke. "That's one of us."
"You have embarrassed me," the dealer said.
"It was the least that I could do."
"I have no choice but to kill you."
"You've been trying that all day."
"This time I will succeed."
"The woman has no part in this."
Rivera smiled, a canine grimace. "But we mean so much to each other."
"Let her go."
"Not yet. I have to ask you something, gringo."
"Ask."
"Who sent you after me? Who pays you?"
"No one paid me. It's a freebie."
"All of this, you do without a hope of payment? Have I harmed you in some way?"
"That's right."
"What have I done to you that you should take such risks?"
"You breathe. You walk the earth with human beings. You infest the planet."
"You are an idealist?"
"A realist," the soldier told him flatly. "I don't start a job unless I have a decent chance of getting through it."
"You have failed."
"I'd say you need to look around."
"You cannot hold me here."
"I don't intend to hold you anywhere."
"You are — how is it called? — a vigilante?"
"I'm a soldier. You're the enemy. It's simple."
"So. And there is nothing more to say?"
"I can't think of a thing."
Rivera's move was sudden, swift, but Bolan had been waiting for it. As the dealer shoved the waitress out in front of him, retreating toward the door, he raised his shiny automatic, snapping off two rounds at Bolan through the smoke. By that time, though, the warrior had already gone to ground; he felt the slugs slice air above him as the AutoMag responded, bucking once in hard, reflexive fire.
The heavy slug ripped through Rivera's shoulder, nearly severing his arm. The impact drove him backward, through the open door and out onto the sidewalk. Somehow he regained his balance, staying on his feet and staggering away, his limp, left arm in bloody tatters while the right one fought to bring his pistol into target acquisition. Lurching off into the smoke, he fired three more quick rounds at Bolan through the vacant windowframe. And he was gone.
The Executioner was on his feet and moving toward the door when hell broke loose outside. A pistol started cracking out in rapid fire, immediately answered by Rivera's automatic, both side arms eclipsed and silenced by the roaring of a 12-gauge, semi-automatic shotgun. Bolan froze, relaxed, aware that there was no more hurry, that Rivera wasn't going anywhere.
He stooped to help up the waitress, aware of panic in her eyes. "It's all right, now," he told her softly, and he meant it.
It was very nearly finished for the Executioner in Santa Rosa.
Epilogue
"See to it that he gets some proper rest this time," Rebecca Kent told Johnny Bolan sternly. Turning toward the Executioner as she began to stow her instruments, she softened slightly. "Doctor's orders."
"How can I refuse?"
The younger Bolan cleared his throat. "I'll get the Jimmy."
"Fine."
When he was gone, Mack Bolan faced the doctor with a solemn smile. "I owe you one," he said.
"You owe me nothing. It's my job."
"Okay." He hesitated, and the silence stretched between them like a frail suspension bridge. "About the girl... we've got a CB, and I'll send the cavalry first thing, soon as we're clear."
The doctor nodded thoughtfully. "Those things I said before, about the way you live..."
"Forget it, Doc. You called it right. I lead a miserable life."
"I don't believe that anymore. You help. You stand with people when they seem too weak to stand alone."
"You do a decent job of standing up yourself."
She blushed. "I haven't got your courage. I couldn't do... the things you do."
"The world needs healers, too," he said.
"About Grant Vickers... was he... I mean..."
"Brave?" the soldier finished for her, knowing it was not precisely what the lady had in mind. "I'd say he qualified. Whatever else he may have been or done, the guy came out a winner."
"Thank you."
Bolan heard the Jimmy grumble to a stop out front. "That must be me," he said.
"I don't suppose..."
He saw the question in her eyes, and knew the only answer that would serve. "I shouldn't think so."
"No."
The lady did not follow Bolan to the door, and it was just as well. The world had need of healers and of warriors, but they were different breeds. The healers settled, found themselves a home and served their neighbors with the skills they had learned, the talent God had granted them. A warrior, on the other hand, must be forever moving, seeking out his enemy, another killing ground.
The enemy was waiting for Mack Bolan, and he did not have to ask about the setting of his next campaign.
The goddamned war was everywhere.