Maybe.

He glanced toward the access strip leading from the expressway.

Bolan frowned. A cord with small triangular flags was strung across the entrance to the rest area.

There had been no cord when Bolan arrived.

That meant they had been waiting for him. It also meant that there was a third killer at large. The guy who had positioned those flags would be on his way to join the battle. And unless Bolan moved now he would be enfiladed.

Behind him there were four more rows of pumps, and then a strip of hardtop bordering a shrub-covered bank that separated the station from the expressway. He slammed a fresh magazine into the Beretta.

The thug with the shattered ankle was firing from the far side of the BMW. The hardman with the Uzi was up and running. Bolan waited until the gunner was almost beneath the canopy, braced his weapon in the classic shooting stance and dropped the killer with a 3-round punch.

The third man was approaching now. His silhouette was lost against the dark mass of shrubbery, but Bolan could hear his footsteps swishing through long grass. Maybe thirty yards away.

Bolan raced toward the seventh row... the eighth... the ninth. Panting, he dropped behind the concrete ledge. He had to make those bushes before Number Three was within accurate target range.

Halfway to his feet, he froze. A big sedan with no lights was crawling into view from behind the candy shop.

Bolan was momentarily stymied. He had not counted on any reinforcements for the hit team. He dismissed it, as another question crowded his mind.

Were they waiting for The Executioner... or for Kurt Sondermann, the dead German he was impersonating?

It had to be the hit man, Bolan thought. A helicopter had ferried him from Interpol headquarters in Geneva to the place where the German had been killed. But even if anyone had known Bolan was in Geneva, had seen him board the chopper, there was no way they could have ferreted out its destination.