Battle Mask

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Bolan glanced at Co

"You don't want to go out there, Mister!" Co

"Amen," said Bolan.

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"You're on your own, Mister!" Co

The staccato of the machine gun silenced abruptly. Bolan found himself lying half out of the car. Co

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.

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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. Co

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."

Co

"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 ru

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 very weak. Bolan fought down a wave of nausea and forced himself to concentrate on a way out of town. Little demons with tiny flamethrowers were working themselves into the bone above his eyes and sending pulsating bolts of hell down into his nose, flaring into his cheekbones, and along the jaw ridges. The throbbing slice along his ribs seemed pleasurable by contrast.

He remembered something Flower Child Andromede, one of his Death Squad dead, had said once: "Hell is for the living."

Mack Bolan knew where his new horizon was leading him.

It was the Horizon to Hell.

Chapter Nine

The imbalance

According to the official record, the October 5th bloodbath at Palm Village was sparked when the Chief of Police was stopped at an illegal roadblock on the eastern edge of that city. Aware that his small desert town had become the object of a search for the infamous Mack Bolan by a special detail of Los Angeles police as well as by "triggermen from an L.A. mob," Chief Robert (Genghis) Co

Upon questioning by reporters, Chief Co

Several newsmen, in filing their reports, hinted that the full story had not been revealed, pointing out the similarity of this initial battle at Palm Village with other known episodes involving Mack Bolan, the Executioner. The ensuing action in that previously peaceful city proved more typical of police-gangster confrontations and shootouts. Responding to Chief Co

"They (the book salesmen) opened fire first," said Sgt. Carl Lyons of the L.A. detail. "I wouldn't even have noticed them otherwise. Apparently they had heard the fireworks from Genghis Co