Run to Ground

A private army of killers bursts across the Mexican border into Arizona, seeking revenge for an attack on their narcotics stronghold. They discover their quarry holed up in tiny desert town and issue an ultimatum: surrender the target or die!

Seriously injured in the brutal firefight at the druglord's rancho, the Executioner is trapped in an ever-tightening circle of doom.

As the noose closes around him, can Bolan summon the strength to prevent the annihilation of his desert sanctuary?

To the men and women of the DEA, who stand a different and more deadly kind of border watch.

"I'm getting too damned old for this."

"You're twenty-eight."

"That's too damned old."

And he was right. At twenty-eight, with six years on the job, Roy Jessup was already sick of staring at the border, waiting for the wets to make their way across by moonlight. He had not expected high adventure when he joined the Border Patrol straight out of college...not exactly. Still, there had been all those movies: Charlie Bronson, Kris Kristofferson, Jack Nicholson, all fighting major-league corruption in the desert sunshine, running up their score against the smugglers and top
coyotes,
but it only went to prove that life bore no relationship to Hollywood. With six long years in uniform, Roy Jessup had not seen a gram of coke outside of parties, never fired his gun in anger, never stumbled into an adventure ripe and waiting for a tough young stud to bring the house down.

"Hell, you're just a kid," his partner growled.

Compared to Elmo Bradford, maybe it was true. The guy had twenty years in come November, and it showed. At forty-something, he was losing hair, and what he had was going gray so fast that you could almost see the change from one shift to another. When he buckled on his leather, Bradford's gut damn near concealed the pistol belt in front, and Jessup knew for certain that Elmo's blotchy nose and cheeks were not entirely due to working half his life beneath the Arizona sun. If Bradford cut himself, the younger man was sure the wound would bleed one hundred proof.

"I don't feel like a kid," Roy told him sourly. "I gotta look around for something else."

"What else? You gonna start in on that teaching bit again?"

Roy Jessup had his elementary teaching credential, kept it up to date, but he had never seriously thought of using it since he had done his student teaching in Los Angeles. There might be better districts, better schools, but at the moment he was not inclined to take the risk and gamble with his future.

"Jesus," Elmo said, chuckling, "you'll be better here in the desert, I promise. At least out here you know the enemy, awright? You know the wets just wanna come across, and after while you know that some of the
coyotes
wouldn't mind a little midnight one-on-one. But in the schools today, forget about it. Straight-A students flyin' around on crack and PCP, you know? One of the staff might cut your throat, you never know."

You never know. But Jessup knew one thing: his time in uniform was limited. He did not mind the paramilitary regimen, which was relaxed in the extreme along the barren Arizona border. He did not really mind the hours; it was too damned hot for working days, and nights held out the only hope of any action — thus far unfulfilled. He never gave a second thought to danger, even though he knew that it existed. If the past six years were any indicator, he would die from boredom on the job before he faced a threat to life and limb.

That boredom was the worst of it. Night after dreary night, they sat and watched the nonexistent borderline until their vision blurred and they began to see elusive phantoms drifting through the spotty forest of mesquite and cactus. They encountered wets from time to time, though nothing like the traffic other stations handled on the Rio Grande or coming into San Diego. On occasion, they would spot a drug plane minus running lights, skimming low beneath the radar, and they would radio the information back to base, for all the good that did. Without a destination or the aircraft's registration number, they were jerking off, and everybody knew it.

As for Jessup, he was tired of jerking off.

This midnight, they had parked beside a narrow blacktop ribbon south of Cowlic, east of Santa Rosa, in the barren no-man's-land of Pima County. At their backs, the Comobabi Mountains hulked against a velvet sky devoid of moonlight. It was as black as sin outside the cruiser, and Roy was about to try the night glasses again when pinprick headlights made their first appearance on the dark horizon.

"Lookee there, now."

Elmo reached across to get the glasses, and Roy let them go, knowing the cars were still too far away for a visual scan. They were still on the Mexican side, heading north, but distance could be deceiving in the desert, and especially after dark.

"How long you figure?"

"Twenty minutes, give or take, unless they turn around."

Roy Jessup felt a prickling sensation on his scalp, and there was sudden gooseflesh crawling on his arms despite the desert's warmth. At midnight, the temperature was close to seventy-five degrees, and twelve short hours earlier it had been one-ten in the shade, if you could find yourself a patch. However, the sudden chill he felt bore no relation to the outside temperature. There was something of anticipation in the feeling, but he recognized that there was something else as well.

And Jessup knew that something else was fear.

Why should he be afraid? How many times had they staked out this highway, or some other lonely stretch of blacktop, stopping border runners for a little hands-on scrutiny? Not often, when you thought about it. Almost never, if you really put your memory to work. So why were four cars — make that five — approaching in a midnight convoy from the south?

Roy ran several reasons through his mind, in search of one to take the chill away. They might be pilots out of Luke, the local Air Force base and testing range, returning from an expedition into Mexico, half-crocked and carrying a dozen different kinds of clap. They might be Papagos, returning to the reservation after sampling southern hospitality. And then again...

They might be
narcotraficantes.
Sure, why not? It might be easier, more economical, to fly the shit across, but everybody knew that some of it came overland. He would not have expected such a convoy — it was too conspicuous, for one thing — but on second thought, that might indicate the shipment was too valuable to send across without an escort. That meant guns, and now the fading chill was back full-force.

They had two Smith & Wessons in the car, as well as a 12-gauge riot gun racked underneath the seat. Twelve extra rounds per man, and maybe half a box of double-ought tucked under maps and Kleenex in the glove compartment. If the convoy up ahead was armed in normal
narcotraficante
style, they would have automatic weapons, shotguns, maybe even hand grenades. Two border cops would never stand a chance against that kind of army.

Jessup jerked the leash on his imagination, smiling to himself and banishing the chill with concentrated effort. He was fantasizing now, projecting himself into
The Alamo
when, in fact, they were probably looking at some refugees from
National Lampoon's Vacation.
Frigging tourists, either lost or trying to pull off a fast one, smuggling a little low-grade grass, illegal fireworks, switchblades for the juveys back in Phoenix or Las Vegas. It would be a piece of cake, and best of all, it would provide a bit of interest in an otherwise excruciating shift.

It wasn't twenty minutes. More like ten, and Jessup thought the new arrivals must be really making time. Five cars, for sure, and he could see them with the glasses now, although the glare of headlights kept him from examining the passengers. There would be time enough for that when they were stopped, and Jessup hoped they might have girls along. You couldn't get away with anything on duty, but it never hurt to window shop. Hell, no.

The convoy was a hundred yards away when Elmo put the cruiser into gear and coasted down the sandy bank to park the vehicle on the center stripe of the road. He flicked on the high beams, left the engine running and had his door wide-open before the leader of the convoy saw them and slowed down from sixty-something to a crawl, eventually coasting to a halt no more than twenty feet away.

"Let's take it nice and easy," Elmo muttered, climbing from behind the wheel. Before he straightened up, he had the safety strap unfastened on his swivel holster, just in case.

Roy Jessup did the same, his thumb looped through the gun belt, close enough to quickly draw the Smith & Wesson magnum if he had to. Feeling foolish, knowing his precautions were in vain, he thought about the shotgun underneath the driver's seat, and left it where it was.

The lead car had its four doors open, and Jessup noted that the dome light must have burned out because he still had no clear view of passengers beyond the headlights. Sudden apprehension caught him by the throat as dark men started piling out on either side of the vehicle, but Elmo was the senior officer and he apparently saw nothing wrong with what was happening.

"You fellas musta missed the interstate," his partner said, chuckling, playing with them, knowing they could not have taken such a tiny, piss-ant road by accident. "I'd like to welcome you to the United States. Of course, I'll have to have a look inside your cars, you understand."

They understood, all right, but Elmo clearly didn't, and the darkness prevented him from catching sight of the rising weapons as they locked on target. There was no way he could have missed the muzzle-flashes, but he had no time to think about them as converging streams of autofire from several weapons blew him backward.

Jessup's apprehension turned to all-out fear and he bolted for the car, his mind consumed with visions of the radio, the riot gun,
escape.
If he could put the cruiser in reverse before they shot the tires off or inflicted damage on the engine block, he had a chance. He never gave a second thought to Elmo Bradford, who had obviously been very dead before he hit the ground.

Ten feet or less separated him from the vehicle and he was close enough to taste it when a voice behind him said, "Don't hurt the car." What kind of crazy fucking thing was that to say when you were killing people? Jessup had no time to mull it over because a giant fist slammed home below one shoulder blade, and he was falling, falling, with the echo of another gunshot ringing in his ears.

He tried to move, to reach his service pistol, but his flaccid arms would not respond to orders from his brain. Behind him came the sound of footsteps closing in the darkness, crunching over gravel, clicking on the blacktop. One of them was wearing taps, and he could not believe that anybody went in for that macho bullshit anymore.

Rough hands reached out and turned him over, lighting flares of agony along his spine. Above him, silhouettes like looming towers blotted out the stars.

"He's still alive," one of them said.

Another stooped in close, his stainless-steel automatic pistol filling Jessup's field of vision,

"Wanna bet?"

His car had given up the ghost at 2:20 a.m., and Bolan had been walking ever since. Three hours, give or take, and yet it felt like days on end. The fading darkness was his only proof of passing time, his movement and the constant pain the only proof that he was still alive.

The highway was a quarter-mile due west and running parallel to Bolan's track. Remaining with the car or following the asphalt ribbon would have been a suicidal gesture, worse than useless, but he kept the highway fixed in mind, just visible in his peripherals. Cars had passed on three occasions, their headlights lancing through the early-morning darkness, and the wounded man had lurched for cover, knowing they would not have picked him out without a spotlight, still unwilling to reveal himself. The highway and its destination were his secrets of survival. They could also get him killed... assuming that Bolan was not dead already.

There was no sign of Rivera or his gunners yet, but they would be along. They couldn't let him go, could not allow the fates or Mother Nature to complete the job they had started earlier tonight. Mack Bolan now knew enough about Rivera's operation to burn his friends on both sides of the border, and before it came to that, he knew, those friends would sacrifice Rivera in a bid to save themselves.

Unless Rivera found a way to plug the leak, and quickly.

It had been hot all day and warm all evening, but the predawn chill was biting at him. It never ceased to puzzle Bolan that the desert, baking like an oven in the daytime, could become a vast refrigerator after nightfall. Shivering, he blamed it on the chill, refusing to accept the thought that the loss of blood had sapped his strength and made him more susceptible to cold. If he allowed himself to dwell on failure, he might fall, and if he fell, the soldier was not convinced that he could rise again.

Nightbirds whistled round him, unintimidated by his presence. Beyond the range of Bolan's night vision, desert animals occasionally scuttled through the sagebrush, making Bolan hesitate, his free hand clutching at the weapon on his hip. Each time it was a false alarm, but he could not allow himself to grow complacent, take the safety of the night for granted. He was alone and badly injured, poorly armed, with hunters on his track. Surviving past the sunrise would be an achievement. Winning any sort of final victory would be a miracle.

The Uzi had been empty, useless weight, and he had left it in the car. The shoulder rigging for his Beretta 93-R had prevented him from keeping pressure on his wound, so Bolan had discarded it as well, although the pistol and its extra magazines now filled the pockets of his trench coat. Underneath the coat, his AutoMag, Big Thunder, rode the warrior's hip on military webbing, perfectly concealed but still accessible at need.

The bullet wound was in his side, and despite the dizziness and pain, he knew he had been lucky. The slug was in-and-out, from front to back, and had avoided bone and vital organs. Two more inches toward the center and it would have ripped open his stomach. Any higher, and the bullet might have shattered ribs, glanced off and into one of Bolan's lungs. He had been lucky, except that he was bleeding profusely and could not keep sufficient pressure on both wounds at once. His injuries might prove fatal if he did not find a medic soon. Rivera might just kill him yet, if he could keep the Executioner in motion, on the run, until he bled to death.

The target of his strike had been Rivera's rancho, thirty rugged miles due west from Nogales, equidistant from the Arizona border. The Sonoran desert was Rivera's best defense, but he did not rely exclusively upon geography. The sprawling rancho boasted barbed-wire fences, mounted sentries, motorized patrols, as well as a ranch house that was fortified like something from the Siegfried Line. The helipad and airstrip were patrolled around the clock by men equipped with automatic weapons, in case
the federates
felt compelled to stage a showcase raid without sufficient warning. If an enemy approached by land, Rivera had the option of escaping in his private jet, which sat protected from the desert sandstorms in a hangar near the airstrip.

Bolan's target had not been the hangar or the fortress ranch house. After icing careless sentries on the north perimeter, he concentrated on the Quonset huts where heroin, cocaine and marijuana were prepared for shipment into the United States. Rivera's chemists and assorted flunkies sometimes worked around the clock to get a shipment ready, but the sheds were dark that night as Bolan had approached to lay his plastic charges, placing the incendiary packs for maximum effect. He would have been content to torch the goods and pick off Rivera another day, and he was prepared to disengage, when fate and refried beans had intervened. A sentry long on flatulence had made an unexpected run for the latrines, encountering a black-clad specter in the process. He was dead before his bowels let go, but not before his dying finger loosed a warning shot and brought down the whole damned army on Bolan's head.

Getting in had been a breeze compared to getting out. Rivera's troops were armed and dangerous, and they were thirty men to Bolan's one. He had already shaved the odds by half a dozen when a rifle bullet knocked him down, but swift elimination of the sniper had not camouflaged the desperation of his plight. Still dazed and losing precious blood, he had been fortunate enough to commandeer a car — Rivera's own Mercedes — for his getaway. The tank was built with personal security in mind, but errant ricochets had found their way beneath the undercarriage, doing mortal damage to the power plant, and after twenty miles or so, the Merc had died. That left approximately another ten miles to the border, and he had spent the past three hours following the highway at a distance, leaking precious blood into the desert sand.

A sudden wave of dizzy nausea brought Bolan to a lurching halt. He fought the blackness that was threatening to overwhelm him, drop him in his tracks. If he collapsed now, it was over. Finished. For a moment he was tempted to surrender, let the darkness carry him away, but that would mean a victory for Bolan's enemies, and while he lived, the soldier would not make it easy for them. No damned way at all. If he was dying, he would tough it out the hard way, make the bastards work for it. Rivera and his people might waste hours trolling the highway, checking roadside service stations, picking over Bolan's bullet-riddled car. He still had time, if only he could focus on his destination.

Before his strike, the Executioner had memorized assorted maps of northern Mexico and southern Arizona, fixing highways, access roads and settlements in mind for future reference. If he was still on course, then he should reach the nearest hamlet soon. It was a tiny desert crossroads, population well below one hundred in the latest census, but the name eluded Bolan momentarily, the memory evoking jumbled images of church and flowers.

Santa Rosa.

He had driven through the town prior to scouting Rivera's stronghold, and the trip had taken barely twenty seconds. He recalled a service station and garage, a diner and a hardware store, a combination pharmacy and post office, a grocery store, a small saloon adjacent to the permanently vacant "motor inn." A scattering of weathered mobile homes and fading stucco houses on the outskirts finished off a classic portrait of the great Southwestern boom town gone to seed.

Was there a doctor in the tiny town? If not, he would be forced to raid the pharmacy for medical supplies, obtain some wheels and hope that he could make it to a larger settlement in time. Before his time ran out. Before Rivera's hit team overtook him on the road.

And if he found a doctor, then what? There were laws regarding gunshot wounds that required an immediate report to the authorities. He could demand the medic's silence, back it up with hardware while his wounds were stitched and cleaned, but he was not prepared to kill a man of medicine to keep him off the telephone. As soon as Bolan left the doctor's office, probably before he had the chance to find a car, the local law would be alerted. He did not remember seeing a jail or sheriff's station, but the town might have a marshal or a deputy in residence. In any case, he would be forced to deal with that eventuality when it presented itself. Anticipation was of value only if it helped a warrior to prepare himself, and at the moment there was nothing for the Executioner to do except continue to walk while he had the strength.

The doctor might not be a problem after all. If Bolan never reached the town, there would be no report to file, no deputies to be avoided. He could lie down here in the desert, surrender to the waves of dizziness that came from loss of blood, and wait to see if final darkness or Rivera's gunners overtook him first.

With iron will, the soldier thrust his morbid thoughts aside and concentrated on the sandy soil in front of him. Another step. One more. Another. It was light enough to see the rocks and cactus clearly now, allowing him to move with greater confidence, and soon the rising sun would start to drive away the chill that penetrated to his very bones. The sun would help, he thought — at least until its heat began to sap his remaining strength.

But that was hours yet, and Bolan knew instinctively that it was not a problem. Long before the desert sun could reach its zenith, he would be in Santa Rosa...or he would be dead.

And, then again, he might be both.

Rivera's gunners might have found his car. They might have pushed ahead to lay an ambush for him at the crossroads, loitering in Santa Rosa for the first appearance of a stranger desperate for blood and medical attention. They would not have any clear description of him, but they wouldn't need one. Santa Rosa was a fly speck on the map; it saw few motorists, and even fewer lone pedestrians from nowhere, boasting bullet wounds and packing pistols. If Rivera's scouts were waiting for him, he would stand out like an alien from Jupiter, and they would have him in a flash. But if he reached the hamlet first there was a chance, however slim, that he could pull it off. With little more than sheer audacity to carry him, he knew that it would be a near thing, either way, but it was not in Bolan's nature to abandon hope. While life and strength remained, the Executioner would not surrender.

Sudden writhing movement in the sand before him stopped the soldier in his tracks. His hand was on the AutoMag before he recognized the speckled gila monster waddling across his path, a kangaroo rat hanging limply from its bulldog jaws. The lethal reptile flicked a glance in his direction and continued on its way as if the man did not exist, intent upon its meal, survival in a world where there were only predators and prey, with nothing in between.

The chunky lizard posed no threat to Bolan, and he let it go. He was the prey this time, with hungry predators intent on running him to earth and finishing the kill before he had an opportunity to share his information with the world. It was survival of the fittest, but at a level far removed from simple maintenance of any food chain. And at the moment the Executioner was none too fit.

As if to emphasize his weakness, Bolan reached the border of a shallow gully, carved by flash-flood waters sometime in the distant past. No more than six feet deep, it posed an obstacle to Bolan in his present weakened state, and he could feel his energy escaping through his ragged wounds. The gully ran in each direction to the limits of his sight, considerably deeper on his left and closer to the highway on his right. Avoiding it might take him miles out of his way, and Bolan knew he did not have the stamina to strike off in a new direction, leaving Santa Rosa for a stroll around the open desert. He would have to cross the gully, and do it while he had the strength.

With effort and considerable pain, he sat down on the lip of the ravine, legs dangling in space. The bottom of the gully was a six-foot drop from where he sat. He had to gauge the distance, brace himself to take the pain of impact, keep his grip on consciousness no matter what. If Bolan lost it here, he lost it all, and he was not resigned to death yet.

A sudden drop might finish him, and so the soldier wriggled forward slowly, inch by inch, until he was supported on his elbows with his legs and buttocks stretched out on the slope of the ravine. When he was ready, Bolan simply raised his arms and slithered down the bank, his trench coat bunching up around his hips and snagging sagebrush all the way. He landed in a crumpled heap, legs folded under him, and waited for the flares of pain to gradually subside. His touchdown startled several quail from cover and they scattered skyward, beating at the dawn with frantic wings.

Phase one had been the easy part, and Bolan knew it would be harder climbing out than it had been falling in. He waited out the giddy rush that followed in the wake of pain and crossed the bottom of the gully on his hands and knees, ignoring stones and thorns that tore his palms. He did not need to turn and look to know that he had left a crimson trail behind him in the dust.

The gully's northern bank was not as steep — no more than forty-five degrees — and Bolan noted little burrows scattered up and down its face, which he could use as handholds for his climb. The burning pain had momentarily receded to an angry whisper, and he knew that there was no time like the present to begin.

Slowly, hand over hand, Bolan tackled the slope, ignoring fresh alarms of agony that emanated from his wound. New blood was warm and wet against his skin, and he ignored that, too, aware that he would die in the ravine and rot there if he let the pain and blood deter him. Twice he lost his grip and slithered backward, eating sand, and twice he started over. When he finally dragged himself across the lip of the ravine, he was exhausted, and he knew he dared not stop to rest.

So close. He was so close that he could taste it now, and if he lay there, let the weariness devour him, he had no chance at all. His coat was open, and Bolan saw the bright, fresh blood that soaked his skinsuit, further evidence that he was slowly dying, being drained of his lifeblood. There still might be a chance, but only if he stood, continued walking. Only if he made it into Santa Rosa. Soon.

He made it to his feet, somehow defying gravity and the shining motes that swam before his eyes. For several seconds Bolan felt light-headed, and he struggled to resist the sweet, seductive darkness that was waiting for him just behind his eyelids. Gradually the feeling passed and Bolan found that he was still standing. Satisfied with that, he used the highway and the rising sun as reference points for geographic north and started to walk. One foot placed before the other. One step at a time.