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.