Don Pendleton: Save the Children

"I don't remember you taking so much time and trouble raising me."

She glared at him and sighed wearily.

The office was uncomfortably cold, she thought. She was glad this would be the last shipment of children for a while. It was a profitable sideline, and she liked to take a personal hand in the running of this operation, as she did in all family business, but the Bolan presence in Chicago had changed everything.

They were alone at the moment, the night man of the truck yard having gone outside to supervise the hooking up of a tractor rig to a long trailer.

A trailer that would soon be loaded with human beings.

For the moment, the living cargo was under guard in the spacious warehouse next to the office building.

There were more guards, around the perimeter of the complex, patrolling barbed wire fence.

She glanced at her watch.

11:45.

They were running right on schedule. The brats would be on their way no later than midnight.

"I'll be glad when this night is over," she heard herself saying to her son's back.

He turned to face her.

"I don't know why. Bolan will still be around."

She picked up her purse and took a cigarette from a solid silver case. She waited pointedly, the cigarette poised in her fingers, for David to come over and light it for her.

"He won't have anything against us on this," she said. "You and I are going to keep a very low profile for a while, David. Bolan never stays in one place for very long. He'll be gone soon."

"Yeah, well, don't forget, Bolan came to town to get me. We've got this town wired, the cops are after him, but... well, I just hope you're right, Ma. We've taken all the precautions possible."

"Wallace is dead, Owens is dead." There was no regret in her voice as she mentioned the porn director's name, "and Dutton knows that he will be, too, if he doesn't keep his mouth shut and keep on going along with us, just like the others we've put in our pocket in Washington."

Parelli lit his mother's cigarette, then one of his own, blowing smoke toward the tiled ceiling.

"We can handle Bolan because we've got the leverage."

"The Garner bitch," Denise agreed. "Yes, I think that could make Bolan see things our way and leave us alone. We'll see, won't we? So far, so good."

The office door swung open and a heavy-jowled man in a baseball cap poked his head inside.

"The truck's ready to go, Mr. Parelli."

"Right," David Parelli snapped. "About goddamn time, too."

"Anything else I can do for you, sir?"

"No, just see that everything gets under way as soon as possible."

The foreman nodded, touched the bill of his cap and left.

Denise wondered if they should have him killed, too.

The man wasn't one of their soldiers; most of the time he was just a legitimate employee of a legitimate business. He did know, though, that the owners of this business sometimes used it for other purposes... purposes that were not so legitimate.

Like tonight.

It was something to think about.

She stood up. She wore an expensive dark blue dress that clung softly to her sleek figure, topped by a fur jacket. Jewelry glittered on her fingers.

She pulled on a pair of white gloves.

"Let's go say farewell to the children, David. I want to talk to Miss Garner again, too."

"She's not going to tell you anything about Bolan," her son said.

Denise Parelli smiled.

"Perhaps she will."

He held the door open for his mother and they left the office, crossing the asphalt area between the office and the warehouse, walking quickly because of the cold, raw wind cutting across the complex.

One of the Parelli soldiers was waiting at the door of the warehouse, Uzi in hand. He opened the door and stepped back with a deferential nod.

Denise swept through first, David right behind her. As the soldier closed the door behind them, Denise paused to let her son take the lead. Here among the men, she had to allow her son at least the pretense of leadership, she reminded herself.

David stalked over to the hardguy in charge of the detail guarding the kids.

"Everything all right in here?" Parelli snapped.

"Yes, sir, no trouble," the head cock replied. He gestured casually with the barrel of the shotgun he held cradled in his arm. "This bunch won't give us no trouble."

About twenty-five small children were huddled in a group along one wall, appearing incapable of giving anyone any trouble. They looked cold, miserable, scared and wholly submissive.

All of them were under ten, most of them about eight or nine years old. They were dressed warmly enough for the chilly warehouse; a sickly child would bring less in the markets they were intended for.

None of them had been abused other than a little slapping around.

A haunted look in their eyes, a look of hopelessness and despair, indicated that they had already given up.

Good, Denise thought. Her customers did not want kids who were strong-willed, who would give trouble when told by adults to do things. Her customers, and their customers, wanted kids who would obey, no matter what the orders were.

"Gus says the truck is ready." David nodded to the hardguy with the shotgun. "I'll tell him to have it back up to the loading dock."

"Whatever you say, Mr. P."

There were a half dozen or so soldiers in the warehouse.

Denise could feel them watching her.

No one questioned her right to be there, but she knew they had to sometimes wonder why David always brought his mother along with him.

There was probably perverse gossip of all sorts among the men about her relationship with her son, she knew.

Let them talk.

After all, when you came right down to it, the gun carriers, the soldiers, were nothing more than cannon fodder...

Bolan fodder was more like it, she told herself... and their opinions and idle speculation were worth less than nothing.

"Where's the woman?" Parelli snarled at the man with the shotgun. "I want to talk to her."

The guy jerked his head toward a small door in the wall opposite where he had lined up the children.

"We've got her tied up in the can."

"Get her out here."

"Right away, Mr. Parelli."

A moment later, one of the soldiers led Lana Garner from the small, smelly rest room.

Holding her right arm so tightly that she winced in pain, the hood led her over to where Denise Parelli and her son stood waiting.

Lana had been treated more roughly than the children, Denise could see at a glance. Her blouse was torn in several places, her right cheek bruised. A small trickle of dried blood encrusted the corner of her mouth.

She stared defiantly at the Parellis.

"I don't care what you do to me, I won't tell you a thing!" she blazed at them.

Denise smiled.

"My dear, what could you possibly know that would be of interest to us? There's only one reason you're still alive and it really has nothing to do with you."

Lana shook her head, more angry than afraid as she stared at the Parellis while the hood maintained his iron grip on her arm.

"You're crazy if you think holding me will stop Mack Bolan. He's going to find you and he's going to kill you!"

David slapped her brutally with an open hand across the mouth, spinning her around. The blow drove her to one knee. She would have fallen to the cement floor if the hardman had not yanked her back to her feet.

"You shut up about Bolan, bitch. That bastard's a dead man if he gets near this place. And there isn't much chance of that, is there? He doesn't have a clue where we are, now does he?"

She opened her mouth to shoot back a hot retort, then paused abruptly, grinning at him savagely.

"Oh, no you don't. You're not going to trick me like that! You just want to find out how much Bolan does know about you. You want to know if he's located this place. Well, you can just wait and find out, you slimebag!"