Don Pendleton: Save the Children

David Parelli's hand flashed toward the pistol holstered under his jacket.

"David, no!" his mother shrieked.

The mobster barely had the weapon clear of shoulder leather when Bolan triggered the AutoMag. The hand cannon bucked in his fist, the head buster picking Parelli up off his feet and depositing the young don of Chicago as a burbling, headless mess in the nearest corner.

More explosions were ripping through the night outside as the gas tanks of the line of trucks started fireballing to secondary explosions.

Denise Parelli stared down at the body of her son, then looked at Bolan.

Lana was huddled against him now, her face buried in his shoulder, his right arm around her as he held the Ingram in his right fist, not shifting it from the real boss of this inhuman operation.

"You've... killed him," Denise Parelli said in a barely audible whisper. "You've killed my little boy."

"How many children have you sent away, Mrs. Parelli?"

Bolan's voice was as cold as the night wind howling outside.

The real boss of Chicago seemed in a state of shock.

"David was innocent once. He was a sweet boy. He did everything his mama told him to."

"That was his mistake."

Then her face hardened, and Denise Parelli drew herself to her full height, gathered the fur jacket around her.

"I'm leaving," she announced imperiously, "and you are not going to stop me. I know something about you, Bolan. You're not about to shoot an unarmed woman."

Bolan felt Lana lift her head to gaze up at him, to see what he was going to do.

A flood of thoughts flashed through his mind.

The little girl in the warehouse being manhandled into the truck.

Compared to what would happen to her later if she wasn't rescued, that was probably nothing.

The children who had been forced to make the films Dutton and Parelli and all the other perverts like them watched, slavering in the dark with their sick fantasies.

Who knew how all those innocent kids had ended up? Badly, that was for sure.

Thousands of parents with parts of themselves ripped away callously, left to grieve and ask endless questions, never to know the fate of the ones most precious to them.

And the inhuman bitch responsible for all that suffering had arrogantly declared that he would not shoot an unarmed woman.

"In your case, I'll made an exception," the Executioner told her. But before he could trigger the Ingram, Lana Garner grabbed the weapon, still on the sling around Bolan's neck, and emptied the clip into Denise Parelli's body. The impact of the fusillade drove the female Mafia boss backward through a window, her tattered corpse half in and half out of the window, gushing rivulets of spreading blood.

Lana did not hide her eyes against Bolan's shoulder this time as she looked upon the shapeless garbage in silks and furs. Bolan gently pulled away the weapon and fed in a fresh clip.

"This is justice," she told Bolan.

"Come on," he said. He holstered the AutoMag and unleathered the Beretta, which he put in her hand. "You wanted in on the fight. You've earned a taste if you still want it."

"Just give me a chance at these scum."

He quickly showed her how to operate the weapon.

A hardguy came bursting into the office from outside.

"Mr. Parelli, they..."

He skidded to a stop as he saw the corpses.

The silenced Ingram came up and stuttered again, drilling the Mafia punk who was trying to withdraw. Three 9 mm slugs all but took the guy's head off his shoulders, pitching the standing corpse back out through the door.

Bolan grabbed Lana's hand and they ran out of there, vaulting over this latest kill without slowing.

Outside was an inferno.

All of the tractor trailer trucks were ablaze, the flames roaring high into the night sky, the heat tremendous.

Ignited gasoline had been blown out from the trucks in a circle as the fuel tanks exploded, the resulting fire reminding Bolan of a napalm raid in Vietnam as he and the woman hustled away from the office.

The flames had reached the maintenance garage, the front wall of which was already burning, but the building that housed the children was untouched, the tractor trailer rig still in place at the loading dock.

Men ran everywhere, machine guns ready, looking for the ones responsible for this destruction. Several of them staggered around like human torches, having been drenched by the burning gasoline when the trucks blew.

The Executioner and Lana Garner rushed toward the warehouse, losing themselves around the periphery of the wild confusion for nearly the whole distance, before one of the scurrying guards spotted them.

"There they are!"

Those were his last words. Even as the man swiveled his weapon toward the two running figures, Bolan snapped a burst at him with the reloaded Ingram. The man pitched backward, a death reflex triggering his weapon uselessly into the air.

A shotgun boomed up ahead and Bolan saw one hood standing on the loading dock next to the open doors of the truck. The thug started firing at Bolan and his companion but the guy's aim was thrown way off by his excitement at spotting them.

Lana assumed a crouched shooting stance. She triggered the Beretta in three-shot mode and the report was barely audible beneath the hellfire raging all around them.

The shotgunner jackknifed forward as the slugs punched into his guts, and he free-fell from the loading dock and did not move.

Bolan and the woman reached the dock, their shifting position still not pinpointed by the majority of hoods who were looking around wildly, searching for targets. Shouts punctuated the cacophony of terror, carnage and confusion that reigned in the compound.

Bolan left the ground in a leap, vaulting to the loading dock without bothering with the steps at the side. His momentum carried him forward, and he fell, the maneuver saving his life as an automatic pistol sprayed bullets through the air where he had been a split second before.

His silenced Ingram spit dirty orange flame, and ejected shell casings glinted in the conflagration. The Executioner returned fire from the ground and his slug sent a geyser of red out the guy's back.

Bolan propelled himself sideways as more rounds chewed into the concrete floor to his right.

Lana appeared at the top of the steps. She knelt and opened fire on the two men who had been concentrating their fire on Bolan.

The pair of hardguys had no time to swing their weapons toward her; they had expected the Executioner to be on his own, and the 9 mm bullets from the lady's Beretta sent both hoods toppling over each other. One of the men was only wounded. He started screaming.

Bolan finished the job with a tight burst from the Ingram and the screaming stopped. He fed his smoking weapon a fresh magazine.

Lana came over to join him.

For a moment, the man and woman stood back to back, each scanning for human targets and finding none.

Bolan saw two guys running toward the loading dock from the direction of the burning rigs. He triggered a burst that sent both hoods into tumbling falls from which they did not rise.

Then he heard the children crying.

Lana heard it, too. She lowered the Beretta and turned toward the truck.

The children were all inside, huddled as far forward as they could get, away from the sounds of hell.

Some of the kids were calm, almost too calm; many of the others were crying, shivering, some were screaming pitifully.

Lana ran into the truck, her steps echoing hollowly in the metal confines of the trailer.

Some of the children cringed away from her, but she fell to her knees and threw her arms around as many of them as she could reach, doing her best to bring some order and adult reassurance.

"It's all right, kids," she told them in a choked voice, tears running down her face. "It's okay now."