From beneath the gas-station canopy a slight grade led toward the exit strip, and a thin rivulet of the volatile fuel, reflecting in the harsh illumination, was trickling slowly down the slope.

The sedan was moving again. It was halfway across the staggered rows of pumps, veering from side to side as the headlamp beams swept the shrub-covered bank.

Bolan folded down the foregrip and wrapped the fingers of his left hand around it. The Beretta’s butt nestled in his right palm, and the index was curled around the trigger.

Prone in the shadows, he leaned on his elbows and sighted carefully. He thumbed the auto-catch and put a couple of 3-round bursts in a tight pattern at the base of a pump. The spirit gushed out; from where he lay he could smell the odor of the fuel.

The light beams had jerked his way when the shots rang out. Now livid flashes winked from the driver’s window.

Heavy slugs ripped through the branches above him. The sound of the burst was muffled, snatched away by the wind.

Bolan rolled farther down the bank, crouched behind a larger bush. For the moment, he had to forget the killer who would be trying to enfilade him: he needed all his concentration for the task at hand.

The mistral screeched through dry stalks and sang in the wires somewhere overhead, that fed electricity to the station. Occasionally headlamp beams from traffic on the expressway swept through the foliage, but the sound of the engines was lost in the wind.

Bolan waited.

Gasoline from the drilled pump had flooded out to flow down the grade. He could see the vapor shimmering above it in the glare from the approaching sedan. Back on single-shot action, he sighted the Beretta between the car’s front wheels and squeezed the trigger.