Don Pendleton: Save the Children

So far tonight, the up-and-coming Mafia scumbag had been spared his due, and now it looked as if a U.S. senator was tied in to the rumors of "something big" going down in Chicago.

Bolan saw no reason to discount what the woman had briefly told him.

But before Parelli's turn came, the Executioner had to elude a cordon of Chi-town cops.

Most of them would be drawn first to the Vette and the Lincoln and the bodies, sure, but with so many trigger-happy cops against one lone figure trying to escape, and who had no intention of fighting back, Bolan knew he would need all the luck fate could afford to toss his way during the next short minutes.

The situation reminded him of Nam as he kept heading north across the sand.

Deeper into the night.

Bolan wore a combat black skinsuit, specially designed to his specifications. With blackface cosmetic and the infrared night-vision device goggles blocking out the whites of his eyes, the suit rendered him as one with the gloom of this moonless hour.

He wore the AutoMag holstered and tied low to his right hip, old-west gunfighter style; the Baretta rode in its speed rig beneath his left arm, near a sheathed combat knife, and canvas pouches at his waist carried extra ammo for his weapons. A wire garrote, a climbing rope and an array of grenades on military webbing slung across his chest completed his gear.

It had not been luck alone that guided him along that Lake Michigan beach away from a police dragnet. It had been equal parts luck and the skills honed by experience in hellgrounds that stretched from Nam through time, and too many other bloodbaths since, to the here and now.

The big man in black crouched near a line of oak trees fronting someone's expansive yard, across a country lane from the Parelli estate.

Bolan had adhered to his established modus operandi upon arriving in the Chicago area earlier that evening. He had established a "safe drop"...

in this case a north-side motel room...

where he had stashed his artillery and equipment before renting two cars. The backup vehicle was left at the motel with his war gear, and he had used the Corvette for what he had intended to be his hit-and-git on the New Age Center, where his intel had said Parelli kept shop most every evening.

It was a close call for the Executioner on that stretch of beach off Lakeshore Drive.

It took Bolan almost half an hour to pull away, so tightly had the police cordoned off the area, but the night was on Bolan's side, as were his experience and expertise.

He passed within a dozen feet of one police car, and closer than that past some rifle-carrying cops who did not see the wraithlike shifting of shadows as the night-hitter blended in and through their ranks.

A cab ride had brought him to the safe drop.

Then directly to this snoozing stretch of millionaires' row in suburban Lake Forest.

The fortress that was the Parelli mansion looked to Bolan like some medieval castle across the frosty street. The ghostly scene shimmered through the lenses of the NVD goggles in the chilly November night.

Head weapon for tonight's hit: an Ingram Model 10 submachine gun equipped with a MAC sound suppressor for night work. The short, compact weapon hung on a strap across his left shoulder and under his right arm so that it could ride free when he wasn't gripping it. The SMG could be palmed into firing position instantly with one flick of the wrist.

He had parked his second rental car, another Corvette, a quarter of a mile away and approached his position, slightly south of the Parelli acreage, for a quick recon of the fortress he now knew he would have to penetrate.

Objective: termination of a Mafia high-ranker named David Parelli.

The Executioner had missed on his visit to the New Age Center.

Parelli had been lucky so far tonight, but Bolan intended delivering the guy some bad luck real soon, even if he had to tear the Windy City apart to find the punk.

At first, the Parelli property did not look too different from any number of similarly walled estates in this neck of the woods. The rich like their privacy.

But the aura of respectability ended when you got a closer look at the main gate, which reminded Bolan more of a penitentiary than of a millionaire's manor.

The drive to the gateway was angled so that any vehicle seeking forceful entrance could not pick up enough speed to ram through. Entrance onto this property was not gained; it was permitted.

Two sentries could be seen strolling back and forth just inside the gate.

From his vantage point, Bolan observed that each man toted a rifle slung over his shoulder. Those two sentries looked as if they were the only ones at the gate, and they did not seem particularly keyed-up or jumpy as a car happened to pass by while Bolan watched.

He read this one of two ways.

Either word of the attack on the New Age Center had not yet reached Parelli, which seemed highly unlikely, given that it had happened more than an hour ago and Bolan had served notice of his presence in Chicago by leaving one of the Executioner's calling cards, the marksman's medal; or, far more likely, the lack of beefed-up security here meant Parelli was not at home.

This did not deter Bolan.

He had to penetrate the Parelli mansion, find Parelli.

The wraith in blacksuit started to move out from cover of the line of leafless oak trees, then checked himself.

Headlights splashed across the wall of the estate as another car approached.

This sedan moved slowly enough for Bolan to get the license plate number.

He watched the car pull over and park alongside the wall about midway between Bolan's position and the front gate.

The driver, whoever he was, killed the headlights and engine of the car.

Bolan wondered what was going on. A new player in the game?

He eased himself past a collection of garbage bags that had been set out for the city truck the next day. He wanted a better look at this new arrival.

It seemed to him too soon for another run-in with the mystery lady who called herself Lana Garner, but the way this bloodhunt for a Mafia target was unraveling, Bolan could not be sure about anything.

He gained the southwest corner of the wall and moved soundlessly along its base, advancing on the parked car from the rear and to the right.

He paused, the silenced Ingram now snug in his grip. Through his NVD goggles, he made out the form of a single person in the car, sitting behind the steering wheel.

Male, though Bolan could not discern the man's facial features.

The faint strains of an old-fashioned ballad floated across to Bolan. He saw a brief flare as the man lit a cigarette and continued to stare at the gate. The two rifle-toters inside the compound glanced his way, then seemed to lose interest, as if they recognized the car and accepted its presence here.

The man appeared at ease inside his car, his overcoat collar snug around his neck, smoking his cigarette lazily.

On the back of the car, Bolan saw a bumper sticker that read: I Am a Policeman and Proud of It.

The nightstalker's gut tightened, angry, like a fist inside of him.

Was the dude in this car the worst wart of all, he wondered. Filth who abused public trust every bit as much as the bribed politicos who kept the system oiled to further their own aims for more power at the expense of others while criminals ran free to maim and murder?

The police in bed with the Mob?

But why would he advertise? Or was he a cop who numbered among his duties keeping an eye on the Parelli estate?

There was no way Bolan could be sure.

He faded farther back from the car, moving around the corner of the wall to distance himself from the guards and the man in the sedan.

He stepped away from the wall and unhitched the looped climbing rope with the three-pronged metal hook from his military webbing.