He waited, letting that sink in, and scanned the sidewalks from behind his shades. Rebecca saw a handful of her neighbors watching, waiting for the stranger to continue. All of them looked curious, confused, suspicious. None of them knew who or what the man was looking for, and the secret settled on Rebecca's shoulders like a heavy yoke. Whatever happened next would be her fault, as much as Bolan's, but she never once considered giving up her patient to the gunman on the street.

The leader spoke again. "I am requesting your assistance in the capture of this fugitive," he said. "The man is wounded, and in need of medical attention. Also, he does not possess a car, but may attempt to buy or steal one."

Silence, when he finished speaking. On the sidewalk, several of the locals whispered to one another, clearly sizing up the stranger and his entourage, concluding from the lack of uniforms, the presence of the Grundys' ambulance, that he had no official sanction, no authority beyond the weapons visible inside a couple of his backup cars. The mood was apprehensive, not yet hostile, but Rebecca knew her neighbors, and she realized they might not knuckle under passively. If they were pushed too far...

She stiffened as old Enoch Snyder took a long stride forward, his companions hanging back. Dressed in faded overalls, a straw hat cocked to one side, hands in pockets, Enoch was the quintessential prospector, prepared to stand up for his claim. With every eye upon him, Snyder cleared his throat, spit brown tobacco juice into the gutter and began to speak.

"I don't believe I caught your name," he said.

The stranger frowned. "My name is unimportant. I am looking for a fugitive..."

''I heard all that the first time," Enoch interrupted him. "Fact is, we've got a constable in town to handle any violations of the law, an' I'm not clear about your jurisdiction here in Santa Rosa. That's a federal car you're ridin' in, but you ain't federal, 'less I miss my guess. You sure ain't from the county, and I know damn well you ain't connected with the state police."

"We are from Mexico," the stranger told him.

"Maybe you should check your road map. You-all are parked in the United States right now, which means your badges ain't worth squat... assumin' that you got 'em."

"I am trying to protect your town."

"We done all right without you, up till now."

"You have not faced this individual before. He is extremely dangerous."

"That why you brought the ambulance along?"

"In case of injuries..."

"You people down there do a lot of business with the Grundys?"

For a moment there was utter silence in the street, and then the stranger turned, barked something to the men still seated in the cars behind him. In another moment they were scrambling clear to form a skirmish line, all bristling with submachine guns, shotguns, pistols. Rebecca caught her breath and took a step back from the window, fearing that they were about to open fire. She nearly stumbled into Bolan, stifling an outcry.

Old Enoch had immediately fallen silent, but he held his ground, unmoving. Other citizens up and down the sidewalk were edging towards doorways or looking for cover. If the gunmen opened fire, Rebecca thought, none of them had a chance. She was about to watch a massacre, and there was nothing she could do to head it off, prevent the slaughter that was coming. If Snyder said another word, the stranger might unleash his wrath upon her neighbors. And after he was finished there, then what?

The old man took his time, examining the guns, the hard-eyed man who held them leveled toward the citizens of Santa Rosa. Slowly, with a fine contempt, he spit another murky stream into the street and took a long stride back to lounge against the grocery's brick facade. Rebecca Kent felt the tension gradually unwind her, sensing that catastrophe had been averted for the moment. But she knew that it was only a postponement, rather than a true reprieve. Her mind made up, she turned to Bolan in defeat.

"Your guns are in the first examination room," she said. "A cabinet underneath the sink."

Grant Vickers watched the sideshow through binoculars from his position at the southern end of Main Street. The approaching sirens had alerted him, but Vickers knew Rivera's reputation and had not been overanxious to respond before he checked out the situation. A glimpse of the Grundys' ambulance, the Chevrolet Camacho had been driving, told him everything he had to know about the noisy caravan. The presence of a squad car was distinctly ominous, but Vickers was concerned with number one right now. The border boys could damned well take care of themselves.

Old Snyder was a spitfire, but he backed down quick enough when guns were drawn. Rivera was the first one who had ever shut the old bird up, and Vickers gave him points for that, but he was worried now about the confrontation shaping up in Santa Rosa. If Rivera lost his cool, or if some local boy got itchy, made a careless move, they could be ankle-deep in blood before the sun went down. Grant Vickers didn't want that on his conscience, but he didn't want his own blood on the pavement, either. Somewhere, in between the two extremes of martyrdom and crass desertion, he would have to find a not-so-happy medium and try to make it work. Somehow he had to try to save the town.

There was no question of a face-off. Vickers had lost count of the armed men down there, and there might be others hiding in the ambulance. It was an army, and he was just one reasonably frightened lawman with a job to do. It didn't help that he had never faced a hostile gun before, and his involvement with Rivera through the past few years was icing on the cake. When a person accepted money from a man like that, his soul was pawned without a ticket. Vickers hoped there was a way to pull it out before the whole thing blew up in his face. With any luck at all...

He listened as Rivera stated his demand: delivery of the stranger in an hour's time or there would be unspecified reprisals. Vickers had no doubt that blood would spill. Rivera wasn't on the list of gracious losers, and he would not leave until he had his quarry, or until his anger had been spent upon the town. If no one gave the stranger up...

But what if no one had him? What if no one in the tiny, godforsaken town had seen him. If Rivera was mistaken, or if the elusive hit man had already found himself a place to hide, unknown to any resident of Santa Rosa, they were up the creek. There were abandoned mobile homes and houses on the outskirts of the town, a scattering of shops downtown that had been closed for eighteen months or more. A couple of the houses had been broken into by tramps or bikers, and there would be nothing to prevent a fugitive from holing up in one of them to lick his wounds and watch the hunt go by. If Vickers could persuade Rivera to begin a search of the outlying empties, he was betting they could bag the guy in question and avert a massacre, but touching base with his employer would not be as easy as it seemed. He lived in Santa Rosa, after all, and there were still proprieties to be observed.

Downrange, Rivera wrapped up his ultimatum with the announcement of a lesson for the populace of Santa Rosa. At a gesture, one of his gorillas revved the ambulance and put it through a backward U-turn, parking in the middle of the street with rear doors angled toward the small crowd on the opposite sidewalk. Rivera snapped his fingers, and a couple of his henchmen opened the doors, began unloading something heavy on the pavement.

Vickers took another look through his binoculars, then closed his eyes and groaned. There would be no more time to waste, he realized. It might already be too late to head off the bloodbath; there might already be too many witnesses.

Rivera and his men were pulling out the stops, going for broke, and they had left no doubts concerning their intentions. If he still had any hope at all of heading off disaster, Vickers had to act before somebody in the town panicked and took it on themselves to even up the score. If there was time. If there was any hope at all.