Don Pendleton - Save the Children

The whole room was unnaturally quiet, in fact, and his experience with movie sets told him that the place was soundproof.

He put his hand out and touched the phone's receiver, then hesitated.

This phone could well be bugged, either by the cops or rival families of David Parelli, or by Sheba herself.

Whether the line was secure or not, though, he still had to get in touch with someone.

He had to find a place to hide.

Some place where the Executioner could not find him.

Or Bolan would find him, and then there would be hell to pay.

Bolan strode into Jimmy Kidd's like any other customer. He was not as well dressed as the other patrons, he saw as he looked around, but he did not look so rumpled as to stand out, either. The overcoat was a little smudged from where he had dropped it in the alley behind the warehouse, but he realized he could blend in easily with the other patrons.

The swirling haze of cigarette smoke seemed to hang like a curtain in the subdued lighting of the club. Rock and roll music throbbed from a jukebox, but the sounds were still only slightly more audible than the drunken, raucous conversations taking place all around him.

The name of this place had popped up from time to time in the intel updates Bolan received periodically on the current situation in Chicago.

This was reputed to be Mob connected, a rumor that had been verified by Tess.

According to the porn actress, David Parelli owned Jimmy Kidd's, as well as the adjoining massage parlor.

The bar was crowded, but Bolan found a space without having to shoulder his way in. He ordered a beer from an iron-eyed bartender.

There was a prickling on his back, as if a bull's-eye had formed there.

Several feet down the bar were two people who stood out even in this flamboyant crowd.

One was a woman, tall, flame-haired, wearing a leotard that revealed a heavily muscled hourglass figure.

The other was a blond man about half the size of the woman, wearing a sour expression.

The bartender brought Bolan his beer and set it on the hardwood surface.

"Randy Owens around?" Bolan asked.

"Don't know the guy," the bartender said offhandedly. He jerked his head in the direction of the small blond man and the large redheaded woman.

"Better go ask the boss. Anybody asks questions around here, Jimmy answers 'em. If he wants to."

Bolan left the beer untasted. He made his way through the press of people toward the blond punk who was obviously Jimmy Kidd.

He walked up to Jimmy Kidd and said, "I'm looking for Randy Owens."

Kidd stared at him, bug-eyed, and made noises with his mouth.

The redhead in the leotard turned and punched Bolan in the face.

Bolan saw the blow coming, but the sheer unexpectedness of it slowed his reaction time just enough to let the punch connect. He was moving his head out of the way when the woman's hard fist grazed his jaw. He took an involuntary step backward, regaining his balance.

By that time the woman was leaping into the air in some sort of martial arts kick, lashing out at him with a foot.

The kick caught him in the chest and staggered him once again.

She landed and tried to follow up with another spin kick.

Bolan caught her ankle in midair, lifted, twisted, heaved.

She went down head over heels, crashing hard on the floor.

Nearby customers scrambled out of the way.

Bolan glanced back at the bar.

Jimmy Kidd came up from behind the bar with a sawed-off shotgun, tracking both barrels at Bolan, his finger starting to curl around the trigger.

The guy wasn't thinking, Bolan knew. Even if Jimmy Kidd hit his target, the shotgun blast would injure innocent people at this range in this crowded bar.

Bolan swept aside the overcoat and the Beretta 93-R leaped into his hand, discreetly coughing once in the microsecond before Jimmy Kidd could fire that shotgun.

The 9 mm stinger drilled into the bridge of Kidd's nose, plowing on through into his brain, driving Kidd back forcefully, knocking bottles from the bar shelves, the barrel of the scattergun dropping as he staggered.

The dead man's finger tightened on the trigger and a blast erupted from the shotgun.

Kidd succeeded in blowing off his own feet.

Total bedlam gripped the bar.

Customers pushed and pulled and screamed in their struggle to get out of there before any more gunfire exploded. Bolan saw two bartenders diving for weapons underneath the bar.

He could not allow a firefight to erupt here.

Spotting a curtain of beads on the wall that opened into a corridor beyond, he forced a path through the stampeding mob and dodged into that hall.

The corridor wasn't a long one, and as he burst out of the other end, he saw that he had entered Sheba's massage parlor.

He glanced over his shoulder and spotted the bartenders pounding down the hall after him.

One of them snapped a shotgun to his shoulder and unleashed an ear-numbing blast.

Bolan dived to one side, putting the corner of the wall between himself and that shotgun.

The pellets slammed into the opposite wall, tearing out a gaping hole.

He twisted, and stuck the Beretta around the corner, triggering off a 3-round burst.

One of the bullets missed, but two of the shotgun wielders went down, one of them flopping loosely in a deadfall, the other trying to stem the flow of blood spurting from his destroyed neck.

That was enough to drive the others back to the far end of the hall where there was some cover.

People were popping out of the rooms along this hall, most of them half-naked.

The shooting was throwing the whole place into a panic.

Whores, some nude, some barely in the togalike outfits, scrambled for places to hide.

The customers, fearing a police raid, just wanted out, most of them clutching their clothes and trying to dress on the run.

Bolan surged to his feet and joined the crowd, weaving through the perspiring flesh until he reached the lobby of the place.

A young woman there was trying to get out from behind her desk and make a break through the front door like everyone else, but the surge of people coming from the cubicle area with the same idea had her momentarily pinned in.

Bolan managed to move up to her in the melee. He grabbed her by a shoulder.

"Where's Owens?" he rapped.

Her eyes flicked upward, indicating the upper levels of the building. Then she started thinking and regarded Bolan in confusion.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Somebody's after Owens," he shot back. "We've got to move him."

"He's up in Sheba's office," she said.

Bolan turned and rushed his way back against the tide of oncoming human confusion that parted meekly before the tall, broad-shouldered man with the Beretta and the grim countenance.

Bolan reasoned that Sheba's office would be on the top floor.

He took the steps three at a time, watching constantly for any sign of danger. He met a few people coming down these stairs, but they were simply more of the disheveled normal occupants of the place.

Bolan had seen the elevator in the lobby. He preferred the stairs.

Those he passed shrank back against the wall when they saw him coming, more than willing to let him race on past and away from them.

He paused at the second floor landing long enough to ascertain that there were no offices there. He continued on up the stairs.

When he reached the third floor, it took him only a moment to locate a large set of double doors that had to lead into an office.

Beretta ready, he drew back a foot and kicked the doors open.

Inside, Randy Owens looked up in shock from behind the desk, frozen in the act of dialing a telephone.

"Don't move," Bolan warned, leveling the pistol at him.