Don Pendleton - Save the Children

"How... how did you..."

Owens looked stunned that his fate had caught up with him so quickly. So easily.

Bolan knew he had only fleeting minutes before the melee downstairs straightened itself out enough for someone to figure out where he had gone.

"Put down the phone, Randy."

Owens did as he was told.

"Sure," he said shakily. "What do you want to know?"

"You neglected to mention the last time we spoke that you're a porn king and that David Parelli finances you," Bolan growled, the Beretta's snout unwavering from the bead he had on Owens's forehead.

"I... I don't know what you mean." Owens smiled weakly. "I see Parelli's mother, uh, socially, so what? That don't mean I know the family's business."

"Cut the crap, Randy. He's your boss. I know he finances your movies."

"It's... just a business arrangement," Owens said quickly. He looked like a man on the run, a sort of rumpled desperation about him. "I don't have anything else to do with Parelli, I swear!"

"What about kid porn? What do you have to do with that?"

Owens gaped back at him, his mouth working, but a moment passed before he could say anything.

"K-kid p-p-porn?" he finally managed to gasp out. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about! I've never gone near that stuff! Hell, it's hard enough working with adults!"

Revulsion made a bad taste in Bolan's mouth, but he could sense Owens was too shaken to lie. If Owens knew something, thought Bolan, he'd spill it to save his own life, or to send Bolan off on a wild-goose chase.

"You're sure?"

Owens was nearly scared to death.

"I swear! Honest, I never worked with kids. I've never touched a child, I swear, man!"

Bolan tried a shot in the dark.

"Tell me about Senator Dutton."

"Who?"

"Mark Dutton."

Owens blinked.

"The senator?"

His voice sounded genuinely puzzled. "I see him on TV sometimes, but..."

"I want a link between Dutton and Parelli," said Bolan.

Owens swallowed hard, his attention riveted on the Beretta's muzzle.

Bolan could hear the sounds of the commotion diminishing downstairs.

It would not be long before someone showed up here.

"I don't know nothing," Owens insisted frantically. "The senator's at some fund-raising dinner tonight, why don't you ask him?"

"I plan to," growled Bolan, "but I want Parelli most of all. Where is he, Randy?"

Owens shook his head. "I'd tell you if I knew, you must know that. You've got to believe me! I'd tell you!"

Bolan believed him. Grudgingly. He had needed to confront this guy with what he knew about abused children and a senator who drove a Porsche and who was protected by Mafia gunmen.

But something in the Executioner's gut told him that Owens was speaking the truth... as far as he knew it.

Owens had seemed like the surest bet Bolan could play, but, Bolan believed the guy facing the 93-R, and that made this bet a bad one.

He lowered the Beretta.

"Take my advice, Owens. Stay away from Denise Parelli. There's going to be more blood spilled in this town before the night's over and it could be yours if you get in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Owens swallowed audibly.

"What about the drugs you hand out on the set?"

"Hell, they do that in Hollywood, guy. All those actors are on some kind of shit!"

"I don't like you, Owens, but I don't blow people away just because they make me want to puke. I'm giving you a chance. Do like I told you. Get out of Chicago."

Bolan backed toward the door, then a sixth sense warned that someone was coming at him from behind.

He eased off on the Beretta's trigger at the last instant when he saw that the person standing there was unarmed.

The tall, redhaired Amazon had her hands on shapely leotard-encased hips and stood there openly glaring at him.

"We've got a score to settle, you big son of a bitch," she snarled, low and threatening. "Just you and me."

Great, thought Bolan.

"Put up the gun," she snarled. "You won't need it. I told everybody to stay downstairs until after I got finished with you. I don't like getting pushed around."

Owens blubbered from behind the desk.

"Sheba, don't be stupid! This is Mack frigging Bolan! Get some help up here. Now!"

"Take it easy, Randy boy," Sheba soothed. "We won't need any help. Not unless this guy feels like shooting a woman, and I've got old ice eyes here figured as a tough guy gentleman of the old school." She looked at Bolan and the Beretta without flinching. "Right, big guy?"

Bolan lifted the Beretta and lined the sights on Sheba's heart.

He said nothing.

He didn't have to.

The look in his eyes told her.

Sheba paled and dived backward out of the doorway, out of his line of fire.

"Get him!" she shrieked.

That had been the woman's plan, Bolan realized in that instant: get him to lower his weapon, then call in the boys she had waiting with guns in the hallway.

Bolan heard pounding footsteps in the hall.

He shot a glance over his shoulder.

Owens seemed to be glued in the chair behind the desk, his features twisted with apprehension and mounting panic.

Beyond Owens was a window and, outside the window, Bolan saw a metal fire escape.

He swung around in time to see a .45-carrying goon pop his face around the doorway. He squeezed off a silenced round that drilled the guy in the shoulder and made him drop the pistol.

Two long strides put Bolan across the living quarters of Sheba's office.

He leaped onto the desk, and in one smooth motion he followed through, vaulting over a whimpering Owens. Bolan lowered his shoulder and dived through the window behind the desk, shattering the glass, landing unhurt on the fire escape beyond.

In the rapidly gathering twilight, he saw flashing police lights racing from downtown.

The cops were on their way, drawn by the shooting.

It was a night of hide, seek and kill.

He leathered the Beretta and bounded down the steps of the fire escape as shots began whining through the broken window after him.

He touched only three or four of the treaders in the first flight, then grabbed the railing and swung himself around in a tight turn when he reached the landing.

Men poked their heads out through the window and fired down after him, projectiles ricocheting wildly from the metal stairs, throwing sparks into the night as bullets whanged off metal.

At the next landing, Bolan leaped over the railing, then dropped the remaining few feet to the alley.

He jogged toward the lights of Rush Street.

Someone emerged to block his way.

Sheba.

Even in gloom of lights from the street, her red hair shone like fire.

"I want you, big man," she snarled.

Then the amazon came at him in a lightning-fast martial arts assault.

A lot of weight lifters were no good in a fight, Bolan knew, but this woman had done more than just pump iron, obviously training herself in the martial arts, combining speed and agility with her strength.

Sheba was a tornado of punches and kicks.

Bolan, moving with speed and skill of his own, blocked one punch but another connected. He took a blow on his left forearm, then quickly stepped in closer before she could do anything about it. He brought a swift uppercut almost from the ground.

The haymaker slammed into Sheba's jaw, knocking her backward, the impact lifting her several inches off the ground before she came crashing down to sprawl on her back in the alley.

She didn't move.

He hesitated just long enough to make sure that Sheba was still breathing.

She was.

A bullet whined close past his left ear from above.

Sheba's men descended the fire escape noisily, guns in their hands.

Bolan drew the AutoMag and fired three times. The sense-numbing reports echoed in the confines of the alley, three heavy slugs snuffing out three threats.