Don Pendleton: Save the Children

'"Lo, Hal."

"Any word from our man?" asked Brognola.

"Afraid not. I was hoping this might be him."

"I'll get off the line to keep it clear in that case," Brognola grunted. "I'm worried about him this time, Bear."

"You and me both, buddy," Kurtzman growled. "One guy taking on the whole damn Chicago Mafia would be bad enough odds, but with the police and so many intangibles..."

"I know," Hal said grimly, "and the word out of Chi is that holy hell is busting loose. The streets are running red with blood."

"Let's just hope it's not our guy's."

"Yeah, let's."

"Phone me the minute you hear anything."

"Likewise, Hal."

"Will do."

They broke the connection.

Kurtzman replaced the receiver and leaned back in his wheelchair, watching the phone as if that might get Bolan to call in faster. But he knew that the situation in Chicago would prevent Bolan from phoning in.

"Give 'em hell, big guy," Kurtzman said to the silent instrument.

There was a large-living spirit on the loose in Chicago this night, delivering justice and retribution to those who had escaped them for far too long.

Bolan.

The eternal warrior, thought Kurtzman.

Ever on guard.

Ever vigilant.

Weary of war.

But unable to stop because there was always a task at hand.

Kurtzman wondered what Mack Bolan was doing at this moment...

Mack Bolan bellied beneath thorny berry bushes that were frozen solid.

Stray fragments of moonlight shone on the icy terrain.

How quickly a suburban industrial park with its vast complexes and fenced-in perimeters became a hell-ground, he thought.

He had shed the overcoat and was combat-ready in blacksuit again, his face smeared with camouflage cosmetic. The NVD goggles were in place, and Big Thunder rode low on his right hip. The Beretta nestled in shoulder leather beneath his left arm, military webbing with ammo, grenades and the like draped across his chest, the MAC-10 looped from its strap beneath his right arm.

The Parelli-owned trucking and shipping company was separated from other similar concerns by open acreage across which Bolan had jogged until he came to within thirty feet of the perimeter.

Lamp standards inside the property cast circles of illumination here and there, but there were still plenty of patches of relative gloom and it was toward one of these that he made his way.

He reached the fence.

He used a set of tiny but effective wire cutters to clip a hole large enough for him to squeeze through.

He came erect and darted forward, crouching next to a wall of a warehouse that sat next to the one-story office building.

Tractor trailer trucks were parked everywhere like dozing metal beasts.

The low rumble of one truck's engine, idling somewhere on the other side of the warehouse, drifted through the still night air to his ears.

As did the scrape of shoe leather of someone approaching.

A sentry. Bolan hit the ground, then rolled into the legs of the guard who now came around a corner of the building.

Bolan jerked the guy's legs out from under him with his left hand.

The man fell next to Bolan, and before he had time to cry out, a pair of fists, fingers intertwined, slammed into the base of his skull.

The rifle-toting man went limp.

Bolan waited a few more seconds to be sure the man was patrolling alone, then he stood up and looked around.

This was the place, all right.

He had expected guards, but he did not think they would be expecting him. They would not know yet that the senator was dead at Bolan's hand... that the senator had talked... and would think the well-kept secret of this terrible operation had died with Floyd Wallace and Randy Owens.

Bolan went back to the corner of the warehouse where he could get a better view of the compound next door.

A high chain link fence topped by several strands of barbed wire ran all the way around the truck yard.

Inside were a dozen more tractor trailer trucks, parked in two neat rows near another building with a high door. The door was closed at the moment, but Bolan guessed that this building was used for truck maintenance.

The warehouse that interested him the most was the one with a truck, its idling engine the one he'd heard, backed up to the loading dock.

He glanced at his watch.

Ten minutes to midnight.

He'd made it in time, but not by much.

He saw movement inside the warehouse through the open door. Taking a small pair of compact binoculars from a slit pocket of the blacksuit, he unfolded the instrument and put it to his eyes.

The scene inside the warehouse leaped into focus.

He felt the rage inside him burn more than ever. The kids were there, all right.

He could not tell how many of them because his field of vision was restricted, but he could see at least half a dozen... a variety of races, frightened, scared, crying... being marched toward the truck by two hardmen carrying shotguns.

One of the children, a little girl about nine, lagged behind too much to suit a guard.

The slob reached out and gave her a shove that staggered the child.

She tried to catch her balance, failed and fell to the concrete floor.

The guard reached down, grabbed her arm and hauled her roughly to her feet. His mouth worked, and though Bolan could not hear from his position, he could guess at the filthy language that the guy was heaping on the little unfortunate.

Bolan's first impulse was to unleather Big Thunder and go in shooting, but a cooler part of his mind, the part that belonged to the savvy combat specialist, told him firmly to wait.

Charging in like that would not accomplish anything except to get some or all of those kids killed in a cross fire.

He needed a distraction.

He faded away from the corner of the warehouse.

Three minutes later, there was movement in the shadows to the rear of the truck yard.

Several mercury vapor lamps cast a high-intensity glow over the front part of the compound, but the spill of light did not reach to every corner here in the back, where Bolan found a small gate in the rear fence.

Two sentries with Uzis had been positioned nearby.

Bolan was not interested in that gate. He would go in another way. The sentries had to be neutralized, though, and the way the two guys were standing under that light, he could not take them down with the Beretta. Someone else was liable to see them fall.

He moved to the fence in a patch of almost total darkness and reached out to rattle the chain link.

One of the guards stiffened and looked around as he heard the sound.

"You hear that?" the guy grumbled to his companion, his words barely audible to Bolan.

The other guard shook his head.

"I didn't hear anything."

"Yeah, well, I did. I'm gonna go check it out."

Carrying the subgun ready in his fists, the punk started walking slowly down the fence line while the other guy shook his head and muttered to himself.

Bolan stood stock-still until the man was about five feet away, then shot him in the throat with the Beretta.

The guy dropped his Uzi and grabbed for his neck, trying futilely to stop the sudden spurting with his hands, his knees buckling underneath him. He slumped to the ground, twitching once or twice before lying still.

The other sentry heard the clatter of the falling subgun and the silenced whisper of the Beretta that was not loud enough to be identifiable at that distance in the open air. He tensed, pointing the muzzle of his own weapon at the shadows into which his partner had disappeared.

"Jerry!" he called softly. "Jerry, what are you doing down there?"

Jerry didn't answer.

The guard waited another moment, then nervously started toward Bolan.