Save the Children (2 page)

Bolan turned from the litter of corpses and double-timed it toward the far end of the corridor where the receptionist had indicated he would find Parelli's office.

Bolan generally operated with far more to go on about the layout of a hit, but this time was different. This was a rush job. He had arrived in Chicago less than an hour before and had come directly to the health club.

Parelli was that important, yeah.

The Executioner came to the only door in the corridor that did not lead to one of the club areas.

This could only be Parelli's office.

The building around him echoed with shouts and movement as running men...

it was impossible for Bolan to tell how many in the poor acoustics of the club...

closed in from different points toward the lobby area and this corridor.

Less than sixty seconds had elapsed since he had dispatched the doorman at the front entrance. He knew he had perhaps half that amount of time remaining before Parelli's security force found him.

That suited Bolan.

He had come here for Parelli, sure, but if that mean young savage was already gone, as the receptionist had told him, then a few of Parelli's goons would have to suffice to convey the message Bolan wanted delivered.

Justice had come to Chicago.

He sent the office door flying inward and off its hinges with one fierce kick. He threw himself back against the wall to the side of the door to dodge any gunfire from within, waiting for a few moments.

He met no challenge there.

He flung himself into the darkened room in a somersaulting roll that brought him to his feet in a combat crouch against the far corner, Big Thunder tracking the gloom around him for something to kill.

Nothing.

Empty save for plush furnishings dominated by a desk that looked big enough to land an aircraft on.

He reached into a pocket of his jacket and withdrew a small object that burned cold in his palm.

A U.S. Army marksman's medal.

He tossed the medal onto the middle of the desk on his way out.

The wailing fire alarm echoing through the building suddenly ceased.

The sound of voices came to him from the racquet-ball court.

Two of Parelli's goons, each carrying a sawed-off shotgun, cautiously stuck their heads and gun barrels around the corner of the doorway to the racquetball courts, looking nervous and careful after they saw the pile of bodies near the lobby.

The smoke from that direction was dissipating but it still clouded their vision enough to give Bolan the edge.

He triggered a round and one of the live heads down the corridor disintegrated.

The other head pulled back in.

Bolan left the office and crossed to a nearby fire exit, giving the metal bar a kick when he reached it.

The door did not open.

Locked.

He fired a round that reverberated in the confines of the corridor. The slug shattered the locking mechanism.

Bolan exited through the side door, palming a fresh clip into the butt of the AutoMag as he strode along the darkened side of the building, past a smelly dumpster, in the direction of the parking lot. The hot barrel of the .44 was smoking in the brittle night air as the AutoMag probed the gloom, the steady eyes of the man behind it searching for targets.

Bolan reached the corner of the building at the edge of the parking lot.

What he guessed to be the remainder of Parelli's security force was occupied with restraining a fiercely struggling young woman. The parking lot had emptied of cars during the minutes Bolan had been killing people inside the health club. The center's patrons wasted no time in fleeing for cover.

Two of Parelli's hoods, looking like big bears in furry topcoats, had the woman in an arm-grasp from either side.

She was in her mid-twenties, Bolan estimated. He registered shining dark hair. She wore a down jacket and Levi's.

They struggled near an idling Lincoln Continental in which Bolan saw another man at the wheel, the back door of the Lincoln yawning open.

The three men and the woman tangled between the Lincoln and a Porsche that it had just pulled up next to.

Bolan knew the Lincoln had not been in the lot on his way in. He had the impression that the hoods in the Lincoln had surprised the woman in the act of something by or near the Porsche.

The only other car in the parking lot was the Corvette that Bolan had arrived in, apparently undisturbed where he'd parked it.

Police sirens yodeled in the distance, drawing closer but still at least a mile or so away.

Bolan readily recognized the hood who faced the woman as she struggled wildly in the grip of her two captors.

It was the doorman. He whipped his head around in the direction of the health club and shouted.

"We got one of 'em! Let's go!"

No one came from inside the building in response.

Bolan figured he'd killed the ones the chucker thought he was calling to.

The bouncer's face looked battered under the mercury vapor lights of the parking lot, blood smearing a broken nose.

The hood jerked back in the direction of the woman, who appeared finally subdued by the other two hulks. He demanded something of her that Bolan could not hear.

Bolan held his undetected position a moment longer, combat-crouched in deep shadow away from the mercury vapors. Big Thunder was firmly gripped in a two-handed firing stance, waiting only for a clear shot that would not endanger the woman.

She seemed to be losing some of her fight but Bolan grinned to himself when he saw her spit in the doorman's face instead of answering whatever he asked her.

The bouncer lashed out with an open palm that connected with her face loud enough for Bolan to hear. The blow was powerful enough to drive the woman to her knees in the snow.

The two hoods retained their viselike grip on her.

The woman's raven hair fell across her face. Her head dropped.

For an instant Bolan thought he'd been too late, that she was now unconscious or dead, that he'd waited too long to fire.

He realized she was alive when she screamed.

The bald giant reached one hand and grabbed a handful of her shoulder-length hair, brutally tugging her head back. He produced a switchblade knife, which he flicked open, bringing the point around to hold against the lady's jugular. He repeated his demand, again inaudible to Bolan.

The kneeling woman watched the knifeman with wide, fearful eyes. She shook her head, refusing to answer.

She was low, right where Bolan wanted her.

The blade man did not release her hair. He moved the knife along her neck, tracing lower as she shuddered in the grip of the other two. He ripped open her down jacket as if oblivious to the police sirens closing in.

Bolan could see the knife tracking lightly across the lady's chest.

Baldy repeated his question to her.

Bolan opened fire.

The bald head disappeared under the impact of the 240-grain boattail slug.

The two hardmen holding the woman reacted with the automatic reflexes of seasoned street soldiers, the one on the woman's left releasing her, falling back, pawing for hardware beneath the bulk of his winter coat.

The man inside the car shouted something.

The punk on the woman's right retained his grip on her upper arm with his left hand and dipped for hardware with his right even as he turned and propelled her into the Lincoln.

Bolan tracked his sights on the guy who almost had a pistol out.

Big Thunder erupted again.

The round hurled the guy against the Porsche parked next to the Lincoln. His body pitched across the Porsche's windshield as he fell to the other side.

The other hardman bodily tossed the woman into the back of the Lincoln.

The limo screeched away from there before the man was fully inside, the car door slamming shut behind him under the car's momentum.

The crew wagon picked up some steam, swerving into a tire-shrieking one-eighty, the driver playing the wheel and pedals like an Indy champ.

The big machine rocketed toward the street.

Bolan left the shadows of the building for a better line of fire.

The Executioner triggered the AutoMag three times, pausing between each shot only long enough to ride out the hand cannon's mighty recoil.

Sparks of each of those projectiles spanged off the Lincoln's bulletproof body.

The speeding tank fishtailed into a skid onto the street and zoomed out of sight, heading north, by which time Bolan had already made it down the terraced incline separating the building from the parking lot.

He jogged across to the Vette, taking only one precious moment to glance beneath its hood and body. He found no suspicious-looking wires or packages planted to detonate when he pulled away.

In the confusion of his lightning strike on this Mafia front, the car he had arrived in had apparently gone unlinked by Parelli's responding security team.

He leaped behind the Corvette's steering wheel and gunned the car to life, popping the clutch and rocketing away from the parking lot in pursuit of the Lincoln.

The Vette swerved slightly, sliding across the spreading pools of slick blood from the remains of the dead doorman and the other hood.

The Lincoln's taillights were still visible a block or so away.

Bolan upshifted, speeding away from the New Age Center, which looked somehow unreal behind him in the night, what with corpses strewing the parking lot and tendrils of smoke still pluming from the broken glass doors of the lobby.

He steered with one hand, holstering the AutoMag. Then he unleathered the Beretta, setting it down beside him as he fingered the spoke of the steering wheel to take a corner on squealing tires. He floored the gas pedal in hot pursuit along the deserted residential streets.

He had committed to memory the license plate number of the Porsche in the parking lot, having glimpsed the number for a few seconds only as the Vette's headlights had swept across the front of the Porsche.

Bolan had intended this hit on the New Age Center to accomplish just one thing: the elimination of David Parelli.

Federal and state Org Crime divisions had a handle on the mob scene in Chi, maybe not enough to slay the dragon but enough to keep chipping away. There were other areas of operation that Bolan felt would benefit more by his presence at this time than Chicago.

Except for Parelli and those vague rumblings of a particularly solid power grab that wild young turk boss was said to be planning, if not carrying out, this very night.

Bolan had come to stop it, to take Parelli out.

Simple. Yeah.

Hit and git, just like Nam.

Except that there was no Parelli.

There was only a by-the-numbers display of what the media had long ago dubbed the Bolan Effect in action.

And there was one fighting woman, identity and pedigree unknown, in the back seat of that Lincoln.

And the way those goons had been treating her, Bolan did not give the woman much hope of leaving the back of that Lincoln alive.

Unless he got to her in time.

The Executioner spent his life fighting for those who could not defend themselves. The men and women who were the victims. Like the lady being kidnapped in the Lincoln.

This simple hit was going wild and there was not a damn thing for Bolan to do but follow the train wherever it led him.

Ahead, the Lincoln managed to gain some distance on a straightaway, the taillights winking as the driver braked to negotiate another intersection and speed out of sight.

The accelerating whine of the Corvette's engine enveloped Bolan's senses. He could feel the sweat breaking out across his forehead.

He heard sirens, closer, louder than before, piercing the engine's din; a look in his rearview mirror showed him two police cruisers skidding onto this street about two blocks behind him, wasting no time in giving chase.

Bolan navigated the Vette into another squealing turn moments behind the Lincoln, hoping like hell he could coax more speed out of the Corvette before that crew wagon got away and those pursuing cops closed all the way in.

The earsplitting howl of tortured tires on pavement filled his head.

He steered the Vette into the turn without slowing, the Lincoln leading the chase down a secondary commercial street now.

Most of the small businesses and gas stations along this stretch were closed at this hour except for the occasional convenience store.

The driver of the Lincoln fed that vehicle all the power at his command, as did Bolan...

as did the police cruisers zeroing in from behind, their rooftop flashers spiraling surreal blue-and-red patterns across the night, their sirens wide open.

Bolan heard the squeal of their tires as the cop cars, abreast of each other, shuddered into the rough turn through the intersection and continued on along this street, chasing the Vette and the Lincoln like hounds after hares. Bolan knew the men in both those patrol cars would be radioing in for backup, which would arrive from all directions at any moment.

That was when things would get real hairy. The cops would be satisfied with what they could get. In this case, maybe it would be the Vette and a Most Wanted fugitive named Mack Bolan, even if the Lincoln with the fighting lady disappeared into the night. Then Bolan would be in a situation he always tried his best to avoid: a confrontation with police, whom Bolan regarded as soldiers of the same side.

The officers in those two cars behind, gaining on the Vette with every block this four-car-chase gobbled up, were simply doing their duty. Bolan had long ago sworn to himself that he would never fire on, or risk the life of, an honest cop doing his job.

He did not consider the police his enemy. Anything but. One of the supreme ironies in Bolan's life was that he was hunted by the guardians of the very civilians he fought to protect.

The tank was about a block ahead of the Vette now, making the most of this straightaway.

The police cruisers were gaining. Bolan considered his options when another look in the rearview told him the odds were being cut down for him.

A pickup truck waiting to pull out of a 7-11 parking lot had held its place first as the Lincoln jetted past, then as the Vette flew by. Now the driver stupidly decided to try and get across the street before the cop cruisers sped by.

The pickup's driver misjudged the speed of the pursuing squad cars.

One of the cruisers sailed by unscathed, but the front fender of the second clipped the bumper of the pickup. It was a grazing blow that did no great damage to either vehicle, Bolan could see, but both the truck and the cruiser slewed into wild spins. The police vehicle slammed sideways into a light post that snapped in two and fell across the cruiser's hood. A plume of steam shot high into cold night air.

Bolan saw the drivers of both vehicles emerging unhurt to survey the damage as the chase continued away from them. The delay caused the other cop car to slack off its speed long enough for the men inside to ascertain in their own rearview that their side had suffered no casualties.

Bolan saw this squad car pour on the power again, climbing back up to high speed, but those few seconds had given the man behind the Vette's steering wheel enough time to widen the distance between himself and his pursuers.

The Vette's superior power plant closed the distance between Bolan and the Lincoln, which at that moment raced into the curve leading north on Lakeshore Drive, heading away from Chicago's downtown business Loop. This principal artery was usually more traveled than the secondary streets but still not that busy tonight.

Howling exhausts again pierced Bolan's eardrums as he fought to keep the Vette from drifting off the road and onto the stretch of sandy beach running along Lake Michigan.

Bolan goosed the Vette up past one hundred miles per hour, finally shortening the spread between him and the Lincoln to three car lengths. He continued steering with his left hand while with his right he reached across to grab the Beretta 93-R, flicking it onto 3-shot mode.

He knew he could not fire into the Lincoln but there was a chance the luxury vehicle's bulletproofing did not extend to its tires.

At these speeds, Bolan understood he was risking the life of the woman held hostage in the crew wagon...

if they hadn't killed her already, he reminded himself grimly.

But the wheelman of that Mob car was more likely a pro criminal driver who would, Bolan hoped, manage to keep the Lincoln from rolling and killing or seriously injuring those inside.

Bolan's only chance, he knew, was to cripple the Lincoln and carry the fight to those holding the woman captive, and the numbers of this game were just about used up.

Right now the police net would be closing in rapidly from all sides. There would be less than two minutes before Lakeshore Drive was roped off to car traffic in either direction. Chicago street cops were nothing if not damn efficient.

Bolan started to take aim out the Vette's side window at the rear tires of the Lincoln when he saw a Mafia hardguy in the back seat lean out his side of the big car. The wind whipped the man's hair and coat as he lined up the snout of a pump shotgun at the Vette.

Bolan saw it coming. He ducked, powering the Vette into an evasive swerve, but not fast enough.

The shotgun's boom was muffled beneath the whining engine sounds that filled the night.