So okay, sure, for a fifty second hit, the Executioner was ready. If it went by the numbers, great. If not… well, Bolan would meet that eventuality in its own time.

And now the moment was approaching the steady whine of powerful vehicles in laboring ascent assuring him that his intelligence had been accurate and that the skimwagons were right on time.

He pulled the pins to expand the fibreglass. tube, then he checked the pop-up sights and hoisted the LAW to his shoulder and lined-up on the runway And suddenly there they were, a pair of Cadillac limousines glistening in the moonlight and slowing into the hairpin ascent, gearing down fo? the hard pull into the runway. They were running about a car-length apart as the glow of headlamp— swept into the shooting gallery A muscle in Bolan's jaw tensed and he bent a cool eye into the sights, lining them up at dead center between the first pair of lights He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, his hand tightening into the firing mechanism atop the tube, and the rocket whooshed away on a long tail of flame and smoke.

The potent little missile flew an unerring beeline to the approaching vehicle, impacting just besidt the hood ornament and punching through into the engine compartment with a thunderous explosion The car seemed to lift itself off the ground on a column of fire, then it settled in a grotesque slide, sprawling acrost the road and hunching down like a huge beast kneeling with a mortal wound, the forward section engulfed in flames.

The reaction inside the closely following second vehicle was instantaneous and not a second too soon to avoid a fiery pileup, the big limousine lurching to a rocking halt and the gears meshing into reverse as a Thompson sub at either side began unloading into the rocks from which the assault had been launched.

Meanwhile Bolan had quit that place and was moving swiftly along the shadows of the embankment, the Stoner in his hands and ready to join the war. Without breaking stride he sent a burst through the windshield of the retreating vehicle. The retreat ended — the car arcing abruptly across the roadbed and coming to rest with its tail planted against the mountainside.

A gunner had leapt clear of the second Cadillac and had rolled to one knee. He was trying to stabilize a chattering rhompson in a firetrack on the charging man in black. He never quite made it. Bolan's next burst jerked the guy around like a rubber toy, punching him into a deflated heap at road-center.

The other Thompson briefly challenged the assault from the protected side of the stalled car, but a furious fusillade of 1,000 rounds per minute tore through the vehicle at window level and the duel ended in a death shriek with the sound of disintegrating glass.

Bolan was counting beneath his breath — seconds, not bodies — and he was twenty seconds into the hit when the alarms began sounding from the hardsite.

By the numbers. So far, so good.

The second vehicle was secured, with two dead in the front seat, two dead outside and a groaning man in the rear with the money case. Bolan took the money and a pistol away from the guy, pressed a marksman's medal into his hand in exchange, and tossed the money case onto the road.

"Hit the floor and don't look up," he coldly advised the wounded survivor. The man readily complied, and Bolan spun to look into the other mess.

A guy was staggering out of the target vehicle with his clothing in flames, Bolan took a step forward then grimaced and quickly sent a mercy burst from the Stoner into the human torch. The guy died quick and clean, liberated from the smouldering chunk of trash that fell to the roadway. Then something tumbled out of a rear door and began twisting about the ground just outside. It was a man, bloodied and still bleeding from a head wound. His hands were tied behind his back and a burnt rope was still coiled about one of his legs. A pantleg was afire, and the guy was feebly trying to smother the blaze with his other leg.

Bolan hurried forward, ripped the burning fabric away from the man and, with hardly a pause, went on beyond him, leaning into the demolished vehicle for a quick look inside.

The two front men were only about half-present, if that much. One had lost his head and a shoulder, the other his chest and adjacent areas, and both corpses were already charred and flaming in the intense heat. Two more bodies were sprawled about the rear section and beginning to ignite.

Bolan wrestled the heated money case clear and quickly backpedalled out of there, aware that the gas tank would go at any moment. The man With the bound hands was groaning with pain and trying to hobble clear on his knees.

Thirty seconds, and the numbers were still in pretty good shape Excited shouts were just now drifting down from the hardsite and somewhere up there the engine of an automobile coughed into life — the jeep, Bolan guessed.

He grabbed the bound man and dragged him across the road just as the target vehicle erupted into the iecondary explosion, sending a towering fireball whoofing into the sky.

The guy was muttering, "Hell, I don't think I can…" Bolan deposited him on the shoulder of the road and hurried down to take possession of the other case of skim.

Forty seconds. He could hear the jeep whining down the steep drive, rapidly closing. But the nission had been completed and the Executioner was ready to fade into the night. The scene of the encounter was Slightly lighted now and getting brighter by the moment. 'ts his eyes iwept the battle site in a final ©valuation they collided with the gaze of the kneeling man, and even through the blood-spatterings there was no mistaking the silent plea being .ent his way.

Bolan engaged himself in a microsecond of argument, then he growled, "You want to go with me?"

In a voice choked with misery the man told him, "They brought me up here to bury me."

The guy was in bad shape, and Bolan's timetable had made no allowance for such an encumbrance. He fidgeted and his eyes flashed to the curve ahead, then back to the kneeling man. Then Bolan stopped counting — the fifty seconds were gone, and all the numbers were cancelled.

He dropped the money beside his latest unrequested responsibility and walked slowly up the road. The jeep would be tearing into the curve any second iow. The ammo drum of the Stoner responded to his thumping finger with a discouragingly hollow sound, and Bolan had already written it off anyway. He had elected to go with the precision fire and superior stopping power of the heavy .45 Colt at his side; now the autoloader was up and at full arm extension, and Bolan was sighting into the point where the jeep would make its appearance.

And then there it was, braking into the curve and fighting against the ninety-degree swing, two guys in front and two in back, each of the rear men holding a Thompson muzzle-up in an entirely businesslike fashion and bracing themselves against the wild swerving of the little vehicle.

Bolan noted all this in the same flashing instant that his finger began its tickling of the hair-pull trigger. It was like a still photo, with the sizzling tracks of the big bullets caught there and preserved in the grotesque scene of leaping flames and broken bodies, the bullets themselves showing up as a line of instantly-sprouting holes in the jeep's windshield and mirrored in the concerned faces behind that glass. He saw the suddenly limp hands release the steering wheel and the wheel itself spinning back to the point of least resistance. Then the front wheels of the vehicle were humping up onto the raised shoulder of the road, the little car becoming airborne and sailing out into the void, disgorging flailing bodies in its flight.

Bolan did not see the jeep touch down again, but he heard it and drew a mental image of an end-over-end tumble down that mountainside as he returned the .45 to its leather and quickly retraced his steps to the hurting man. He hacked the sashcord from the liberated prisoner's wrists and told him, "We'd better get moving."