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  Blancanales was hunched over the steering wheel and squinting through the windshield. “Looks like it,” he replied. “How’d they get so far ahead?”

  “Musta come down the perimeter, got on ahead of us,” Washington surmised.

  Harrington’s voice crackled through the radio at that moment, confirming the tentative identification. “We’re leading the parade,” he reported. “Have the grand marshal in view, coming up on my rear, middle lane, big Detroit black, English white right behind. I’m starting to throttle back. Get set for that box, Tracker.”

  “I’m moving up,” Bolan announced. “Hold the box until I’m through. Backboard, where the hell are you?”

  “Right in your blind spot, Maestro,” Washington reported.

  “Okay, all units except Tracker Two, we’ll all join the box and try for a grand slam. Listen carefully, there’s only time for this once, so get it straight the first time around. Number the lanes 1, 2, 3, and 4—left to right. The interchange is about three minutes away. Lane 4 leaves us there and swings toward the Harbor. Quarry is holding steady in Lane 2, my guess is for either the Santa Ana or the San Berdue. All right, here are positions. Backboard, you come up on my …”

  Washington was listening to Bolan’s calm instructions with a feeling of vague unreality. It just did not seem for real. Here they were, barreling along the damn Hollywood Freeway at better than a mile a minute, practically bumper to bumper in an endless stream of cars moving four abreast, on ramps and off ramps looming up in an almost monotonous recurrence, and in all this, Bolan was trying to set up a traffic trap for two of those hurtling objects. He shook his head and glanced at Blancanales. His partner was listening attentively to the instructions, his eyes flicking in an endless circle, right, left, dead ahead, into the mirror, right, left … It made Washington feel a bit light headed.

  “Okay, Horse,” Bolan was saying, “start your move. Drop down to fifty … good … good … one minute to interchange …”

  Washington saw the red Corvette squirt across two lanes of traffic and weave back into their lane several positions ahead. A huge van semitrailer, the vehicle referred to as the horse, was laboring along just ahead, in the far right lane. Three cars that had been following the horse reacted to its sudden slowing by whipping into the second outboard lane and passing. Washington caught a glimpse of the vehicle that was maintaining the “hole” between the two lanes of traffic—it was Bolan’s Corvette. He grinned. The two cars now between Bolan and Blancanales were the police vehicle, first, and the third Mafia car. The driver of the Continental was beginning to cast anxious glances to his left and right. Washington could visualize what was going to happen next, and his grin broadened.

  “Backboard, on station!” Bolan commanded.

  Blancanales stomped the accelerator and whipped the Mustang into Lane 3, pulled quickly abreast of Bolan, and stayed there.

  “Okay-Zitter.”

  The Mercury wagon being piloted by Zitka moved almost sideways into the extreme inboard lane, and now the four of them—Zitka, Blancanales, Bolan, and the diesel horse—were pacing the traffic into the interchange at a leisurely fifty miles per hour.

  The next few moments were tense ones and would have proved less anxious if one more vehicle had been available to maintain a two-car gap directly behind the horse. Split-second timing had made the insurance unnecessary, however, and they glided into the boxing zone with the trap perfectly set. The police car, seeing daylight between Bolan and the horse, and with the Giordano vehicle rapidly disappearing into the interchange, whipped over suddenly behind the horse. A puff of smoke belched from the twin exhausts as the Pontiac’s passing gear kicked in and it leaned toward the hole between Bolan’s right front fender and the left rear corner of the van.

  The Mafia rear-guard Continental had swung into the Pontiac’s wake, with the obvious intention of following right on through the slot. The slot, however, suddenly ceased to exist as Bolan eased forward with his front bumper directly abreast the horse’s rear wheels.

  Washington caught a fleeting glimpse of an infuriated face behind the wheel of the police car as tires squealed and the heavy car lurched back into position behind the horse, brakes grabbing in the abrupt forced slowdown. Washington heard but did not see the Continental smack the rear of the police car. It was a light tap, accompanied by more squealing of tires and the sounds of crunching metal and shattering glass.

  The horse was now curving gracefully onto the cloverleaf, the two vehicles following in jerky confusion. The vehicles of the Death Squad, less horse, picked up speed and hurried to close on the quarry.

  Bolan’s elated voice came through the radio: “Beautiful, beautiful—that’s playing it by the numbers.”

  “That’s playing it by your quivering ass,” Zitka shot back.

  “Playing, hell,” Harrington sang in. “Where the hell am I headed? How do I get this big sunabitch back on the track?”

  “Follow the cloverleaf on around,” Bolan snapped back. “Just follow the signs and come on around. We’re taking the … yeah, the Santa Ana. Rejoin with all possible speed. How did our friends make out?”

  Harrington was chuckling into the radio. “They’re out of the game. Locked bumpers, looks like. Madder … than … hell!”

  “Better than we hoped for,” Bolan replied. “Okay—good show, boys. Resume positions and tally-ho.”

  Washington grinned at Blancanales and shook his head. “Hell, this is some damn outfit, isn’t it?” he commented quietly.

  Blancanales nodded as he fell into formation several positions behind the Corvette. Zitka’s Mercury was burning rubber up the inside lane to close on Loudelk.

  “Light me a cigarette,” Blancanales requested. “I’m afraid to take my hand off the wheel. I’m afraid it’ll shake off at the shoulder.”

  Washington guffawed, lit the cigarette, and shoved it between his partner’s lips. “Yeah, man, it’s some damn outfit,” he repeated. “Sure glad I joined up. How ’bout you?”

  “Just wait,” Blancanales murmured. “Do you know how close we came to having a twenty-jillion-car smashup?”

  The big Negro was grinning merrily. “Wait for what, man?”

  “Wait ’till we finish this mission. If I’m still alive then … well, yeah—I guess I’m glad I’m in.”

  “If you’re dead, man, you won’t know the difference. You better be glad now, while you got time.”

  Blancanales flashed his companion a sudden smile. “You’re right,” he said. “It’s a hell of a squad.”

  Chapter Six

  THE AMBUSH AT THE BUTTES

  “Has that station wagon been behind us all the way or hasn’t it?” queried the nervous young man with the briefcase.

  “Off and on, sure he has,” Giordano replied smugly. “You just now catching on?”

  “Well, I thought at first … well, there was this Ford sedan back there for a while, and now the station wagon is back. It looks like the same one.”

  Giordano chuckled and slumped contentedly into the plush upholstery. “Games,” he said. “They like to play games. Okay. Let ’em play.”

  They had left the freeway some minutes earlier and were powering smoothly through gently lifting countryside on a smooth blacktop road, the big cars eating the pavement at a steady eighty-mile-per-hour clip. Soon they would drop onto the desertlike flats bordering the city of Riverside and swing north into the rocky buttes. Giordano’s groves lay in there, in a sheltered valley between the stark rock formations. Grapefruit, lemons, tangerines, and avocados were grown there, but hardly in sufficient quantity to support the rich Giordano appetites. Actually, the groves had proved to be an excellent deduction for income-tax purposes; Giordano made money by losing money in his farming operation. As a legitimate business venture, the farm was a minor item in the varied Giordano interests, but it tied in neatly with his more secretive activities, serving as a sort of central clearing house for an underworld empire.

  The Rolls was slow
ing for the turn onto the backroad approach to the groves. Giordano frowned and punched the intercom button. “What happened to our hide-and-seek pals?” he growled.

  “He kept falling back,” the driver reported. “Lost sight of him about a mile back.”

  “Pull onto the back road and stop,” Giordano commanded.

  They made the turn. The heavy car came to a smooth halt. The black Continental proceeded on for several hundred feet, then halted also and backed down to within a few yards of the Rolls.

  “Keep your eyes open,” Giordano snapped. “Dumbhead can’t even play hide and seek. Soon as you see him coming, start up again, but slow. We don’t want him to lose us.”

  The driver poked his head out the window and shouted instructions to the car ahead. They waited. Giordano chafed. He lit a cigar after several minutes and growled, “Dumbhead! Dumbhead! How could he lose us on a country road?”

  “Maybe he had car trouble,” the young man ventured.

  “Aaagh! So where the hell is Bruno! Eh? Where the hell is Bruno?” He punched the intercom button. “So where the hell is brilliant Bruno, who knows the goddamn route, eh?”

  “Someone’s coming up!” the driver announced.

  Giordano’s head snapped to the window. He squinted down the road they had left minutes earlier, then made a disgusted sound deep in his throat. “A truck! A goddamn truck!”

  A huge blue-and-white diesel van was sweeping up the road toward their position, a thin column of dark smoke ejecting from the overhead exhaust. Giordano watched its approach, his disgust growing. Two men were in the cab. As it thundered by, the driver sounded a salute on his air horn.

  “Some ambush,” Giordano muttered. “Two dumbheads. One can’t even play tag, and the other can’t remember the route two times in a row.” He punched the intercom button. “Awright, go on. Go on, go on!”

  Bolan had fallen off into a leisurely forty-mile-per-hour advance moments after leaving the freeway. Blancanales had remained at the cutoff to await the horse, which was several minutes behind.

  “Heading into my kind of country,” Loudelk had reported. “Good place for a hit.”

  “Play it cool,” Bolan instructed. “Rotate the track.”

  “Okay. I’m falling back. Come on up, Zit.”

  “Roj. Those bastards must be doing ninety. This old wagon is shaking apart.”

  “Just eighty,” Loudelk reported. “Can’t you overtake me? I’m dropping off to seventy … sixty. You’ll have to push ninety, Zit, or you’ll lose them.”

  “I’m doin’ a flat hunnert right now!”

  Bolan grinned and stayed out of it.

  “Bye-bye, Birdie,” Loudelk sang a moment later. “You’re looking great. Hang in there, white eyes.”

  “Okay.” Zitka’s voice was strained with excitement. “I have them in sight. Don’t get too far behind, Brother. Those cats are flat moving out.”

  “Affirm. What’s that up there on the left? Buttes?”

  “Yeah.” Moments later: “Uh-oh. There’s a fork up here. They’re swinging north, into the buttes.”

  Bolan jumped into the conversation at that point. “Tailor made for you, Brother. Pick a good spot to eagle for us. Say when and where.”

  “Affirm,” responded Loudelk’s cool whisper.

  “Somebody better get on me then,” Zitka advised. “This old bomb may not hang together much longer.”

  “Coming up,” Bolan reported. He power shifted the little car into a smooth leap forward, the tach climbing steadily toward the max line.

  The voices of Harrington and Washington took over then, signaling the Horse’s arrival on the Riverside cut-off. Bolan picked up the radio and said, “Welcome aboard. Close on me with all speed.”

  “Gotcha,” Harrington replied.

  “Have you been following the play?”

  “’Firmative. Understand, north at the buttes wye.’

  “You know this area, Guns?”

  “Like my own little sandbox.”

  “What’s up in those buttes?”

  “Not much. A few citrus farms. Couple of ranches.”

  “Okay. Continue closing. Tracker, I’ve got you in sight now. What the hell happened to Brother?”

  “Dunno. Saw a cloud of dust in my rear view a minute ago. Think he took a dirt road.”

  “Tracker Two, report,” Bolan commanded. “Bloodbrother!”

  An agonizing silence followed. Bolan was now deep into the buttes and casting anxious glances onto the terrain to either side of him. The Corvette hurtled on, maintaining the visual track on Zitka. Presently Loudelk’s smooth baritone boomed in loud and clear: “Eagle is on station. Situation magnificent. Instructions.”

  “Do you have quarry in sight?” Bolan snapped.

  “Affirm, and half the country from L.A. to Riverside.”

  “Report terrain conclusions!”

  “Dirt road, leading east, about … three miles beyond present position of quarry. Greenery at end of road—trees, I guess. No other exits visible.”

  “Break off ground track!” Bolan immediately commanded. “I want a wilco.”

  “Wilco, and just in time,” Zitka responded. “I’m heating up.”

  Bolan slowed his vehicle. “Where are you from my present position, Eagle?” he asked.

  “You passed me ’bout a minute ago.”

  “Good. Maintain eagle watch and report developments. Backboard, you and Horse pour on the coals, get up here as quick as you can.”

  “Roger.”

  Zitka had pulled the Mercury onto the shoulder of the road and was standing beside it. Bolan stopped and picked him up, then resumed a leisurely advance. He thumbed on the transmitter and said, “Backboard, one of your transfer to the wagon. It’s on the side track just ahead of you.”

  “Roger,” Washington replied. “I’ll take it.”

  “Horse, keep closing until further instructions.”

  “Roger.”

  “You cooled it right, Maestro,” Loudelk came in. “They just pulled onto the dirt road and stopped. Like they’re waiting.”

  Bolan grinned and allowed the Corvette to begin coasting to a halt. “Good show,” he told Loudelk. “Maintain watch.” He swiveled about and looked behind him. “I can see your smoke, Horse. Keep rolling. Quarry has gone to ground about three minutes ahead. Proceed on beyond them, then come about at first convenient spot and hold. Backboard, fall back to the wye with both vehicles and look innocent. Report all passings onto this road.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “Backboard, roger.”

  “Now,” Bolan said to Zitka, “we will separate the foxes from the hounds.”

  Emilio Giordano was in a very nasty mood. Nothing could possibly be right at the ranch on such a day. He fired two of the freight handlers who were engaged in a playful slap fight at the loading dock; then he chewed on the ranch manager for not having an up-to-the-minute inventory of the warehouse. A few minutes later he physically attacked the nervous young man with the briefcase and told the world at large, in loud and certain terms, what he was going to do to Bruno “when and if he ever finds his way here!”

  Bruno and the other four occupants of the rear-guard Continental did show up about thirty minutes after Giordano’s arrival. The grillwork of the expensive automobile was misshapen here and there, and the glass was missing from the headlamps.

  “We got into an accident,” Bruno reported, his voice muted in the face of his employer’s towering rage.

  “We got into an accident,” Giordano mimicked in a mealy-mouthed twang. “You son of a bitch you! I oughta kill you! I oughta kill you!”

  “Christ’s sake, ’Milio, it could happen to anybody,” Bruno protested.

  “It don’t not supposed to happen to you!” Giordano screamed in tongue-twisting rage. “What if those bastards’d jumped me? Huh? Huh? Where was Bruno when those bastards jumped ’Milio, eh? I oughta …” He stepped forward and delivered a stinging slap to Bruno’s face, then hit him with th
e other hand.

  The bodyguard stoically accepted the indignities, though paling somewhat with suppressed anger. “I couldn’t help it,” he muttered. “We got into a tangle on the freeway, and we got hooked onto a cop’s rear bumper.”

  “A cop? A cop?”

  “Yeh. That’s why we were delayed so long. Had to show our licenses for the hardware; then they had to make out this full report on the accident, and … well, the cops were pretty damn pissed off, too. I thought for a minute there—”

  “Spare me,” Giordano groaned. “Spare me the dumbhead details. Get inna car. Get inna goddamn car! We’re goin’ back. We’ll start all over again.” He summoned the briefcase bearer with a wave of his hand, then shoved him roughly toward the Rolls.

  The ranch manager was standing nearby, a strained expression on his face. “Lookit this,” Giordano fumed, turning to the manager. “I go to all this planning, I even bring my shakin’ bookkeeper with twenty-five thou just to make the armed guard look legit for the cops, we come all the way out here—and for what? For what? For Bruno the Brilliant to lock bumpers with a cop car? Huh? Is that what it was all for?” His rage was quickly wearing itself out. “How much is in the exchange box?” he asked the manager.

  “Seventy thou,” the manager replied. “You want to pick it up?”

  Giordano nodded. “With my luck today, sergeant dumbhead will wander in here lost, an hour after I leave, and decide to knock the joint over.” He swiveled about and called Bruno. “Hey, Brains. Go get the box.”

  Bruno got out of the car and followed the manager into the office. Giordano called after him, “Try’n carry it to the car without having an accident, eh?”

  Minutes later, the small caravan was headed back along the dirt road, the white Rolls sandwiched between the two black Continentals, and this time with Bruno’s vehicle leading. The bookkeeper sat quietly alongside Giordano, the briefcase on his lap, a small metal box between his feet.

  “Hey, kid, I’m sorry I lost my temper, eh?” Giordano said quietly.

  “Sure, Mr. Giordano. I understand.”

  “Just one of those damn days, I guess,” Giordano muttered. “Guess it couldn’t get much worse, eh?”