Zitka was huffing with exertion and complaining about his feet and the rough pavement. "One to go," Bolan declared. He was pushing at a protruding foot and trying to close the car door.

"Let me get him," Zitka said. "I need to get into some clothes anyway. I'll make it fast." He hurried back toward the patio. Bolan walked over to his Corvette, took a handful of ammo from the glove compartment, and dropped it into his coat pocket. Then he returned to the Dodge, reloaded his weapon, lit a cigarette, and waited. The cigarette was less than half-gone when Zitka reappeared, dressed in jeans, a knit shirt, and deck shoes and carrying the third gunman.

A car swept up the drive at that precise instant, catching Zitka in the full glare of the headlights. It halted with a lurching bounce, as though the driver had floorboarded the brake pedal; doors on each side were flung open, and a flurry of human activity erupted around the vehicle. Jungle instincts moved Bolan into a flying dive across the Dodge just as the chatter of an automatic weapon laced the night air above the sounds of patio revelry. Projectiles were zipping into the Dodge in a full sweep from bumper to bumper. In the periphery of his vision, Bolan noted that the dead gunman who had been on Zitka's shoulder was now lying across the trunk of a parked automobile; Zitka himself was not in sight. Bolan's .32 was in his hand, but it seemed small comfort in the face of the burpgun that was methodically spraying the area about him. He rolled and crawled along the line of parked cars until he was directly opposite the attacking vehicle.