The vehicle with the siren raced down the long farm driveway. That was when Bolan saw that it was a police car or a sheriff’s rig. The officer was driving directly into eternity. Carboni would waste him the second he stepped out of his car.

As a warning, the Executioner fired the Uzi near the rig. The car made a fast U-turn and careered toward the barn. When it stopped, the driver darted into the barn.

Now Bolan had another problem. Holding the Uzi in both hands, he ran downstairs and into the kitchen. No sign of Carboni.

At the back door he paused, then jumped on the crawler tractor, started the motor, kicked it into reverse and raced the engine as he let out the clutch and moved to the rear. Bolan was not sure if he took any fire from the front or not, but there had been no shots fired from the barn. He drove the big tractor directly at the open barn door and stopped just before the rear track touched the wood.

In one swift move he leaped off the tractor seat and surged into the barn.

“Don’t move,” a woman called unsteadily.

The Executioner looked around and saw a uniformed female deputy sheriff holding her service revolver with both hands.

“No problem,” Bolan said. “I’m on your side. But we’ve got a desperate killer out there somewhere. He gunned down the old man who lives here, and I’ve been trying to dig him out.”

The woman frowned. She was young, scared and not sure whether to believe him. Slowly she lowered and then raised the gun.

“How do I know you’re not the killer?”

“Would I risk my neck to come back down here and tell you what’s going on if I wanted to shoot you?”

She took a deep breath and shook her head, her short hair bouncing under her garrison-style hat.

“No, I guess not.”

“Right. I’m Scott, with the FBI. The killer out there is Mafia and he’s already murdered three times today. I don’t want him to add us to his list.”

“What can I do?” Slowly she lowered her gun.

“Get back in your patrol car, sit low in the seat and gun out of here and radio for some more units. We need some help before it gets dark.”

“I can do that.” Her brown eyes were coming back to normal. A small grin showed. “Hey, I was scared when that round whizzed by the car.”

“That was mine. I didn’t want you pulling up in front of the house and Carboni blowing your head off.”

“Thanks. I better get moving. Where is he, this Carboni?”

“That I would like to know — around the house somewhere.”

She nodded, went to the barn door and turned. “Thanks for warning me.” She ran to the car and spun gravel off the yard as she powered out of the driveway to the road.

Bolan went to the barn door and stared at the house. A rifle shot splintered the doorframe just over his head. He fell back out of sight and felt a splinter that had gouged his cheek. The shot came from the right side of the house. Almost the same spot where Carboni dropped off the porch. Maybe he had broken an ankle. Or was that too much to hope for?

The Executioner pulled a fragger from his harness and planned his route. His homemade tank was good for attacking, too. He darted out the door to the safety behind the raised blade and fired up the diesel.

He was going blindly now. Then he lowered the blade so he could stand to check his direction. When he was thirty feet from the front corner of the house, he pulled the pin and threw the hand grenade. It went off with a roar, shattering three windows.

Bolan pulled the last fragger from his webbing and powered the tractor forward again, watching alternately ahead and behind, aware that an attack from the rear was a possibility.

The big tractor plowed across the lawn to the front of the house.

The shot came from far to the right, from a field of wheat that was golden brown, dusty dry and ready to cut. The slug broke a window in the house. Bolan stopped the tractor, shut the engine and slipped behind it.

He released the magazine from the Uzi and checked it. There were four rounds left and another in the chamber. Worthwhile taking it along. He had seven rounds left in the Beretta and ten for the .44 AutoMag.

Knowing the extent of his ammo, the Executioner ran around the tractor and headed toward Carboni.

A slight wind picked up as he ran into the field. The weather was warm and dry. With every step Bolan mashed down wheat, but there was no other way. He saw Carboni running to the left and followed in that direction. Had the hit man given up on his target or was he luring Bolan into some kind of a trap?

If it was a trap, it had to be a good one. Bolan had no idea how the Mafia goon could set up anything out here.

From the gait of the man ahead of him, Bolan knew he was wounded worse than before. One of the parabellums must have hit flesh.

Bolan ran faster, his own arm wound almost forgotten as he held the Uzi. It was his long-range try. If that failed he would discard the heavy weapon and move in with his pair of handguns.

The wind increased, and Bolan wondered if there was going to be a late-afternoon thunderstorm. His watch showed 5:15. Lots of time before dark. He saw clouds scudding with the strong winds.

The Executioner came over a small rise in the wheat field and looked for his target. The man was not in sight. Bolan stopped running and scanned the general area where he had last seen Carboni. The wheat came nearly to Bolan’s waist. Carboni could be down somewhere in the eighty-acre field, out of sight and crawling toward a ditch.

The wind blew stronger in Bolan’s face and he wished he could smell out his enemy. Ahead he saw the grain waver and tremble in one spot. He sent two rounds from the Uzi there and waited.

Nothing.

He scanned the northern part of the field again.

Lightning flashed a dozen miles away, and the roll of thunder came faintly.

Momentarily standing above the wheat, Carboni saw Bolan and dived again. Bolan saw him and surged toward him through the high wheat until he felt as if he were running through water.

He was close now to Carboni, and had out the big .44 AutoMag, watching and waiting.

The wisp of smoke rose to his left, then another rose in front of him, and in five seconds a solid wall of flame was consuming the stalks. The wind whipped the fire into a frenzy. Almost at once the flames were eight feet high and roaring toward Bolan.

The Executioner turned, but suddenly flames appeared ahead of him. He turned again — more fire.

He was surrounded by fire.

He heard a weird, wild laugh from Carboni, who stood on the already burned and blackened stalks, screaming in delight.

Bolan wanted to run, to leap through the flames. He could pull his shirt over his face and hair. The flames roared closer. His small island of unburned wheat was shrinking drastically.

The Executioner heard the crazed laugh again as he prepared for his dash. There was no guarantee that he would make it. The ravaging fire would suck up all of the oxygen in the air. He must try to hold his breath until he was out of the flames.

The wild laugh came once more and Bolan unleashed two shots from the .44 AutoMag in that direction, then held the big gun and backed up six feet to make his dash.

He was ready. Was this the way he was going to buy the farm? If it happened, it happened. He began to run.

As he moved the wind shifted, and he stopped, unsure what effect it would have on the flames. The fickle wind changed again, now blowing in the opposite direction.

Lightning split the cloudy sky, hitting a tree about half a mile away.

The flames ahead of him died down for lack of fuel, blowing back on the blackened wasteland. The fire behind him raced forward, but all he had to do now was jump over the crawling, low flames to the smoking ashes of the ruined wheat field.

Carboni’s wild laughter had turned to screams of terror. Bolan saw him ahead, charging around in the middle of a circle of fire. Carboni was trapped.