rampant. I wouldn't want that to happen here. You planning on staying in my town long, Mister?'
Bolan said, 'I was just leaving.'
Conn heaved to his feet. 'Give you a lift?'
Bolan exchanged glances with Brantzen. The surgeon gave a tight nod. 'Just follow my instructions to the letter and you'll be all right. A dry icepack will control swelling and reduce pain. Keep it dry, though. And leave the covers until they fall off. If you notice any inflammation around the edges, get to a doctor immediately?' He jumped to his feet and pulled Bolan's suitcase from a corner. 'I'll help you outside.'
'I'm parked out back,' Conn advised. He went out the door first, leading the way. Bolan followed close behind, gingerly feeling of his face.
Brantzen overtook his patient, moving alongside as they strolled across the lobby. He thrust a pair of oversize sunglasses at Bolan and said, 'You might want to use them. They'll conceal most of the patchwork.'
Bolan grunted his thanks and added, in a low voice, 'Is this guy for real?'
'I don't know, 'Brantzen replied in a hoarse whisper. 'He's an odd one. Never could figure him. I believe he knows who you are, though.'
'Sure he does,' Bolan quietly muttered. 'Well . . . guess I'll just play it by ear. Thanks again, Jim. And take care of that envelope for me, eh?'
The surgeon jerked his head and said, 'I was talking to the hospital less than an hour ago. The old man's going to make it.'
'Great. He'll need the money.' They paused in the doorway. Conn had gone ahead and was opening the car door on the passenger's side. Bolan gripped his friend's hand and said, 'Jim . . . I don't know how to thank you.'
'You thanked me years ago. Just keep an eye on Genghis Conn. There's no telling what he has in mind.'
'I'm getting a good feeling about Conn,' Bolan said, then he seized the suitcase and walked quickly to the car. Conn took the suitcase off his hands and placed it on the rear seat. Bolan tossed a farewell wave to his benefactor, then slid into the front seat of the police car.
Conn went around and climbed in behind the wheel. 'Where to, Mister?' he asked quietly.
'That's your decision,' Bolan replied tautly. 'Your town, Chief, is crawling with undesirables.'
'Don't I know it.' Conn sighed and started the engine.
The jackhammers were beginning to work over Bolan's face. He stared through the window with a sinking feeling as the big car went into motion and New Horizons slid to the rear. Horizons, Bolan was thinking, never stood still for a moving man. He wondered what lay beyond his next one.
'I'll drop you outside of town, Mister,' Conn was saying. 'I don't give a damn where you go from there. You can go to hell if you want to, just so it's out of my town, and just so you take your hell along with you.'
'No worry there,' Bolan quipped. 'Hell has a way of following me around.'
'I guess you invited it, Mister.'
'I guess I did.'
The Executioner's hell also had a way of lying in wait for him. The police car had swung around the rear corner of the New Horizons and was straightening into the tree-shaded lane running along the south of the property when a white Chrysler lurched from a secluded driveway and bounced to a halt directly in their path. Another big car pulled across the lane some fifty feet behind them as Conn burned rubber in an arcing halt. Two men leapt from the porch of a house directly opposite Brantzen's clinic and ran a zig-zag pattern across the lawn, pistols poised.
'That Goddamn Braddock!' Conn snarled.
Bolan's jacket had already dropped away, revealing the small chattergun. 'They're not cops!' he snapped, slumping in the seat and getting a good grip on the door latch. The sudden movement sent shivers of agony into his fast-awakening face.
Conn's gun hand was fighting the flap of his hoister when a submachine gun appeared over the hood of the Chrysler and a high-pitched voice sang out, 'We want your passenger out on the street where we can get a good look at him. Slowly, slowly. Come out with both hands in sight.'
Bolan glanced at Conn and pushed the door open.
'You don't want to go out there, Mister!' Conn hissed.
'Amen,' said Bolan.
Conn released his door and cracked it open. 'Get ready to hit the deck.' Then he was throwing himself sideways toward Bolan and his foot was grinding the accelerator into the floorboard. The big car spurted forward in a wild semi-circle, windshield and window glass shattering under a steady drumfire of heavy-calibre-bullets as the chopper cut loose on them.
'You're on your own, Mister!' Conn cried, just as the police car plowed into the Chrysler.
The staccato of the machine gun silenced abruptly. Bolan found himself lying half out of the car. Conn, his door jammed against the Chrysler, was firing his revolver through the shattered windshield. A new volley of fire, this time from the rear, tore through the police car. Conn grunted and said, 'Shit, I'm hit.'
Bolan drew his legs clear and rolled under the car, passing beneath both vehicles and scooting into the open on the far aide of the Chrysler. A large man with a gashed forehead was staggering out of the driver's seat and almost placed a foot on Bolan's chest. Bolan shot him in the mouth as the man gaped down at him, and he had to dodge the falling body. The Mafioso with the machine gun was kneeling against the curb, blood trickling from a compound break at the left elbow. He tried to bring the big gun up with one hand. Bolan zippered him from groin to throat with a quick upward sweep of his chattering weapon. He slung his own gun, then, and crawled carefully toward the fallen submachine gun.
Conn was lying in the front seat of the police car, firing sporadically to the rear, from around the doorpost. The two men who had approached from the house were holding cautious cover behind a line of trees some thirty feet to Bolan's left flank; one of them was shouting instructions to the rear vehicle. Bolan scooped up the submachine gun and lay a heavy fire pattern into the distant car, spraying for and finding a hot strike. Flames began licking around the hood, then there was a whooosh as fire enveloped the entire vehicle. A blazing figure staggered clear just as the whole thing blew in a roaring explosion.
Conn yelled 'Bingo!' and began plunking shots toward the trees. Bolan abandoned the machine gun and moved out in a flanking maneuver with his lighter chattergun. The two men broke their cover, fleeing toward the house. Bolan was vaguely aware that Genghis Conn had moved with him, leaving his wrecked vehicle and moving rapidly across the street to the line of trees.
The resuming chatter of Bolan's light weapon was eclipsed by the sudden balooom of a shotgun. One of the fleeing men crumpled in midstride and crashed to the ground in a lifeless heap. The shotgun roared again and the second man was flung about in a flopping tumble. Conn stepped back into the street, smoke still curling from both barrels of the shotgun, and stared silently at Mack Bolan.
Bolan slipped a fresh clip of ammo into his gun and walked slowly toward the lawman. 'Good shooting,' he said quietly, ' . . . for a peace officer.'
Conn grinned and his eyes turned to a quick appraisal of the battle zone. 'Damn, that. was quick;' he said in an awed voice. The right side of his khaki shirt was wetly red.
'How bad are you hit?' Bolan asked him.
'Not as bad as it feels, I guess,' the lawman replied. 'I'll just step back over to Doc Brantzen's and let him take a look.' He was moving toward the police cruiser. 'Think that Chrysler will run?' he asked Bolan.
'It looks all right,' Bolan said.
'Okay. What I said goes. You're on your own. I'll give you a one minute jump. Then I'll have to call in. But listen . . . show up in my town again, I'll shoot you on sight.' He was easing himself carefully, into the cruiser and searching for the radio microphone. 'Off the record, Mister, I admire your guts. But I wouldn't give two cents for your future, new face or no.'
Bolan said, 'Thanks,' and dragged his suitcase from the rear seat, tossed it into the Chrysler, pulled carefully away from the cruiser, and made his exit with a squeal of tires. In his rearview mirror, he saw Jim Brantzen running across the grounds of New Horizons, heading for the police car, a medical bag in his hand.
Bolan took the corner with a fishtailing swing, straightened out, and unleashed the power of the big car. The pain and the excitement had gotten to him. He ran a hand inside his shirt, probed carefully along his ribs, and came out with reddened fingers. In addition to everything else, he had been hit. He felt unreal, giddy, and suddenly
