got most of the people behind you. You're a national hero . . . know that?'
Bolan grinned again. He lightly massaged the grip of his pistol and swivelled sideways in the seat for a clear view to the rear. 'You'd better get this vehicle moving faster than this,' he said worriedly.
'She's gulpin' all the gas she can handle. Like me, she ain't exactly in her prime.'
Bolan peered despairingly at the speedometer. They had not even achieved the speed of flight. He threw off the safety of his pistol and began searching the road ahead for a place to fight. The Executioner's flight appeared to be drawing to a close.
Chapter Three
The horizon
It was shortly past midnight when the ancient Ford pickup rolled to an indecisive halt at the junction of a country lane, just west of Palm Village. The tall figure descending from the passenger's side of the cab dragged a suitcase from the bed of the truck, then stepped clear and threw a silent salute to the driver. A darkly weathered face smiled back at him, and the old vehicle chugged away.
Limping slightly, Bolan headed down the tree-arched lane into inky darkness. He halted about ten yards from the intersection, moved behind a tree, and sat quietly on the up-ended suitcase, patiently waiting.
Moments later another vehicle came to a halt in the intersection, then eased onto the shoulder of the main road. The headlights were quickly extinguished. A car door opened and gently closed, then another. A muffled voice declared: 'Yeah, he stopped here, all right. We'll check it out. You stay on th' truck.' The smooth acceleration of a powerful engine signalled the departure of the second vehicle.
Bolan arose with a quiet sigh, clipped a pencil flashlight to a low-hanging tree-branch, turned the tiny flashlight on, carefully positioned the suitcase, then moved swiftly and silently behind the line of trees and toward the intersection. Two men were moving cautiously toward him, one to either side of the lane. He sensed, rather than saw or heard, their approach, freezing behind a large elm and allowing them to pass. The men had obviously spotted the faint glow of the pencil-flash and were closing on it with great care.
Their quarry smiled grimly as his stalkers moved downrange between him and the light, their shadowy forms taking on bulky substance against the lighter background. He stepped soundlessly onto the pavement and tagged along, bringing up the rear in the apex position of the three-man triangle. The two were perfectly outlined now as they moved on in a half-crouch, pistols thrust forward and ready.
One of the men made an excited sound as the shadowy form of the grounded suitcase loomed up beyond the light. Both pistols exploded into sound and flame, and the suitcase toppled over onto its side with an ominous thud.
'Hold it, hold it!' an excited voice commanded. 'We got 'im!'
'Then why's the damn light . . .'
'Turn around,' suggested a calm baritone behind them.
Then men whirled as one, weapons roaring again even with no target in sight. A stuttering chatter overrode the other sounds, and extinguished them. A pained voice exclaimed, 'Oh God, Frankie . . . oh God!' Bolan's weapon stuttered again, very briefly. He stepped forward, gingerly probed the bodies with an extended foot, and said 'uh-huh' with evident satisfaction.
Bolan wasted no time over the dead. He retrieved the pencil-flash and the suitcase and returned quickly to the junction of the main road. There he concealed himself behind a small bushy growth and began another quiet wait. He lit a cigarette and calmly dragged on it, filling his lungs and holding the smoke for several seconds, then exhaling in short bursts of calculatingly released tensions. On the third inhalation, the eastern horizon began glowing with the suggestion of approaching headlights. Bolan carefully crushed the cigarette beneath his foot and examined his weapon.
Moments later a speeding westbound automobile braked into the junction with a squeal of tires, hunching to a halt just inside the lane and slightly downrange from Bolan's position. With engine idling and headlamps in full glare along the overshadowed lane, the driver of the vehicle stepped onto the roadway and called out softly, 'Frank? Cholli? Be careful! He wasn't in th' truck!'
Bolin had moved onto the lane and was approaching the vehicle from the rear. 'Wonder where he could be?' he whispered harshly.
The man said, 'I dunno, he . . .' He stiffened suddenly, reaching into the car and trying to swing toward Bolan in the same motion. The stock of a sawed-off shotgun became entangled in the steering wheel. Grotesquely off balance and fighting frantically to free the shotgun, the man screeched: 'No, Bolan, wait! I give . . .'
What he planned to give was lost in the explosive bark of a single report from Bolan's weapon. The bullet punched through an upflung hand and crunched into the bone between the eyes. The man crumbled, his limp body sagging onto the door, then flopping to the asphalt below. Bolan rolled him clear, dropped the shotgun across the body, and stepped into the car. He backed to the intersection, picked up his suitcase and threw it into the rear seat, then swung onto the main road and proceeded easterly toward Palm Village.
Entering the residential outskirts of the city some moments later, Bolan came upon the battered pickup truck in which he had recently been a passenger. It was now even more battered, having apparently veered off the road, climbed the curbing, and come to rest against a tree. A human form lay on the grass beside the wrecked vehicle. A police cruiser was parked nearby and a uniformed officer stood at the edge of the road, excitedly waving Bolan on through with a flashlight, though there were no other vehicles on the road. Slowing through a gathering crowd of curious, nightclothed people, Bolan overheard a man exclaim: 'Why, it's old Harry Thompson!'
Another voice observed, 'Someone's taken a shotgun to 'im.'
A hot rage clutching at his chest, Bolan halted alongside the policeman. Careful to keep his face in shadow, he said tightly, 'Anybody hurt?'
The young officer then nodded his head in exasperation and said, 'Please, keep moving. We gotta keep this road open for the ambulance.'
'Still alive, then?'
'I think so. Move along, will you? I can't let this road get jammed up!'
'There was some shooting about a mile back,' Bolan said, his tone chatty. 'Might be some connection to this.'
'We'll check it out,' the officer assured him. 'Will you please move . . .'
Bolan applied pressure to the accelerator and left the scene quickly behind. His fingers were white on the steering wheel, the only outward sign of his inner raging. His anger was directed mostly toward himself; he'd had no right to involve the old man in his war. Sorrow was a luxury Mack Bolan could not afford. He cleared his mind of the old man, directed the car on to the business district, and abandoned it in a darkened public parking lot. Setting off on foot for the eastern edge of the city, he frequently shifted the suitcase from one hand to the other and halted occasionally to rub his swollen ankle.
It was well past midnight when he found the neat collection of modest buildings and the flower-bordered grounds of New Horizons Sanitarium. He inspected the inconspicuous sign with interest, hoping that the name would prove symbolic for him. The phrase 'new horizons' was a familiar one to Bolan: Jim Brantzen had used it often enough in speaking of his surgical specialty. Brantzen himself, however, was not an easy man to read. Although he had cut through Army custom and formalities to establish a strong friendship between a comissioned officer and a non-com, there had always existed that silent barrier between the two minds, Bolan had saved Brantzen's life — not once, but twice — and there existed also that quiet bond of unspoken indebtedness. Still . . . Bolan was not certain that he would be greeted here with open arms. He would be requesting an illegal operation — surgery, that is, to escape apprehension and prosecution under law — and it would be asking quite a lot of any member of a respected profession, friendships and debts notwithstanding. There was also the matter of personal hazard via the Mafia. Bolan had just been given a jolting reminder of the danger he brought into each life he touched, no matter how casually. What right had he to . . . ?
He stared at the neat signboard and pondered the agonizing question. Could he construct a horizon for himself upon the graves of his friends? Already seven graves lay at Bolan's feet, perhaps eight now. A distant siren sounded across the night stillness. Bolan shivered and stepped away from the New Horizon sign. Then a light
