Don Pendleton: Run to Ground

It was an artificial peace, and swiftly broken as Rivera's gunners scrambled out from under cover, gawking at the ruined vehicles that were their only transport home. They would discover other cars and trucks in Santa Rosa, given time, but it was Bolan's task to keep them jumping, whittling the ranks, so that they never found the necessary time to mount a search. He raised his captured weapon, rattled off a 3-round burst, and heard the hammer fall upon an empty chamber. Feeding in his solitary backup magazine, he was prepared to spray the street again when hostile fire erupted on his flank and drove him back to cover.

Bolan realized that he was cornered. He could not retreat in the direction of the clinic, nor could he advance to the diner from where he was. His only avenue of exit was the alley in back, assuming that the gunners did not flank him first, and in the absence of a ladder he would have to jump.

Procrastination was a fatal flaw in combat situations, and the soldier did not hesitate once he had weighed the narrow range of his alternatives. He popped up, fired a burst in the direction of the diner, then pivoted to bring the gunners near the clinic under fire. Before they could react, he was already moving out, across the dusty roof and toward the alleyway that ran behind the buildings fronting Main Street, separating them from stucco homes that faced the desert to the west.

A glance in each direction, verifying that the enemy had not surrounded him completely, and the Executioner was looking for the best way down when something hit the roof behind him, heavily, and started rolling. Bolan spun around and saw the frag grenade as it began to wobble toward him. He could hear the doomsday numbers falling as the lethal egg rolled closer, and he did not need to calculate trajectories to know that he was in deep trouble. Escape was mandatory, and it could not be postponed.

He leaped, free-falling, and the shock wave struck him in midair. He was a tumbling straw man, trapped and buffeted inside a smoky thunder clap, with angry hornets buzzing past him, plucking at his clothing. Then the ground was rushing up to meet him, and there was not even time to break his fall.

Rivera came out of his hiding place behind the counter, and he saw the line of cars outside reduced to twisted, smoking hulks. They were on foot now, but he knew that other vehicles would be available. It was not the destruction of machines that worried him, but rather the realization of who had destroyed them.

The constable had turned against him with a vengeance, overriding years of purchased loyalty to sacrifice his life for the town, choosing fiery death above allegiance to Rivera. It was not a typical reaction, and the dealer was disturbed. If he could not control his underlings, if one whom he considered bought and paid for could betray him thus, what might the other citizens of Santa Rosa do? What might they risk to save their miserable pest hole of a town?

The nameless rooftop sniper had apparently been joined by yet another, this one with an automatic weapon. Betting the percentages, Rivera recognized the odds against a local citizen possessing a machine gun, and he knew that in all probability the weapon had been captured from a member of his own crew. That meant another casualty, and he was stricken by the rapid decimation of his forces, conscious of the fact that they could not hold out for long inside the diner, if the town should rise against them.

Moving closer to the windows, scanning through the smoke, he searched the street for a sign of Hector. Shadows darted in and out amid the drifting, oily clouds, but he could not pick out their faces or identify the men beyond a general knowledge that they were his men, his troops. They held the street, but they were fighting desperately to keep it, and Rivera wondered if it might be a losing battle. Should the other citizens of Santa Rosa be prepared to sacrifice themselves as Vickers had, Rivera's gunners could not hope to stand before them. They had been outnumbered from the start, and blind fanaticism neutralized the opening advantage of their weapons, their professional experience.

It struck the dealer that he might be marked to die in Santa Rosa, but he pushed the thought away. He had survived too many close encounters with the Reaper to be daunted now, and he would persevere, no matter what should happen on the street outside. His honor was at stake. Rivera had not worked so long and hard to give it up without a fight. He had not killed so many men to be intimidated by a village full of peasants in rebellion. If he could not wipe them out entirely, he could make the bastards pay a ghastly price for their resistance. Even if the peasants should defeat him somehow, in the end they would remember him in grief and rue the day when they had raised their hands against Luis Rivera.

The cars were burning out, except for their upholstery and carpeting, but now there seemed to be more smoke outside than previously. Glancing to the south, Rivera saw a tongue of flame, extruded from the shattered windows of an empty shop. Beside it, yet another store was burning, and he saw Camacho now, with several other pistoleros racing from a third shop as the smoke began to billow on their heels.

Camacho was obeying orders, under fire, and thus far he had been successful. If another shop or two was set ablaze, the rest might catch spontaneously, from their neighbors, and the arson team could cross to work the other side of Main Street. Soon enough, the town would lie in ashes, and if that was not enough to smother the resistance by its occupants, Rivera's gunners would have little problem mopping up amid the ruins. Provided that they had not been overpowered in the meantime.

Reaching underneath the jacket of his leisure suit, Rivera pulled the nickel-plated automatic from its shoulder rigging, drawing back the slide to verify a live round in the firing chamber. He would not go quietly, whatever happened. If the peasants overran his troops, they would be forced to face Rivera last of all, and some of them, at least, would not survive the confrontation. He would make them pay for their impertinence, and if his life was forfeit, he would not go down alone.

If all else failed, he had the hostages. The cook was old and weather-beaten, but the waitress was young and succulent. A sniper might think twice before he cut the woman down, and any hesitation by the enemy could be converted to a positive advantage, with sufficient skill and daring. Confident that he possessed both qualities, Rivera slipped his side arm back into its armpit holster, moving back to the rear of the restaurant.

From somewhere to the north, he heard the muffled blast of a grenade, immediately followed by the sound of automatic weapons. That would have to be his strike force; in the worst scenario, he could not let himself believe the peasants had explosives on their side. His men were rooting out the snipers, running them to earth, and once the opposition had been stifled, if indeed it could be localized, they would be free to finish with the town, escaping in such vehicles as they might pick up off the street.

The stolen cars might be a problem, if they tried to cross the border in a convoy, but Rivera knew that there were ways around the difficulty. They could find another town, patch through a phone call to his home, and have vehicles meet them on the highway. And if worse came to worst, he carried cash enough to buy a car or two, with title in his name, before they headed south again.

A crafty businessman, Rivera took great pains to be prepared for any given situation. He had let his guard down once too often here in Santa Rosa, but he would not make the same mistake again. The unexpected treason of Grant Vickers might work out to his advantage, inasmuch as it prepared him for the worst and made him conscious of the fact that he was not invincible. It never hurt to be reminded of one's own mortality, as long as the reminder was not fatal in itself.