"Nicked me in the leg and it hurts like hell," he grated. "I ran outside when I heard the explosion, trying to see what was going on. There was someone running away. He had some kind of machine gun." The guy reached up, grasping Bolan's arm. "Were you going after those guys?"
"That's right."
"Then don't waste time with me. I'll be all right."
The intern was obviously not hit bad and, from his concern about the kids, Bolan figured he... like Lana, like most of the personnel here and at Wallace's day-care centers... was innocent, a caring employee duped by Wallace.
The Executioner realized he had to find Lana. And he had to get out of here before the police arrived, which would not be long.
Those responsible for the carnage were only a moment ahead of him.
He clapped the man on the shoulder.
"Hang in there."
He set off at a run toward the front of the administration building, through the shadows between the wings, half expecting to trip over another body, but he encountered no resistance.
The pandemonium from the compound faded behind him.
He came around the corner of the building.
Most of the people in the lobby of the admin building had stayed there, except for one little blond-haired youngster in her pajamas. She was no more than five, a stuffed rabbit dangling from her dimpled little left hand.
Curious, the child had strayed away from the melee in the lobby and her absence had not yet been discovered by those inside.
She was staring off down the street. She turned intelligent eyes at the big man striding toward her.
"Are you with Miss Lana?" she chirped.
Bolan knelt to bring his face level with that of this small girl.
"Have you seen Miss Lana?"
The youngster nodded.
"She used to play with me whenever she came here to work," the girl informed Bolan in a perky voice. "She couldn't play with me tonight. They wouldn't let her."
Bolan heard his own sharp intake of breath.
"Where did they go?"
"They took her away. They were bad men." The child looked off down the street again longingly. "I wish she would come back. I like her. Are you a bad man, too?"
Bolan found his voice.
"Uh, no. Please don't be frightened." He gently took the child by the arm, guided her around and sent her off with a nudge in the direction of the lobby entrance. "You go inside now and don't come back out."
"Okay."
The little girl did as she was told.
Bolan hurried across the lawn toward the parked Camaro. He slid inside the car before anyone emerged from the lobby of the building.
The sounds of chaos echoed from back there and wisps of smoke and settling dust from the exploded grenade still wafted from the shattered window of Floyd Wallace's office.
He gunned Lana Garner's Camaro to life, knowing he had no chance in hell of catching up with whoever had snatched her. He knew the direction taken, thanks to the little girl, but he had no idea of the make of the car.
He knew only one thing with any certainty.
The Parelli family had Lana.
Bolan did not know who had ordered the hit on Floyd Wallace, whether it was David Parelli or his mother, but that did not really matter.
What mattered was that the family was doing its best to cover its trail now that they knew Bolan was after them.
And that told Mack Bolan that there was something in the wind tonight, as his gut had told him from the beginning. And it had to do with children.
It was going down tonight, the whole bloody tangled mess.
The Parellis.
Dutton.
Griff.
And they had Lana.
He steered the Camaro away from there at full speed, leaving the orphanage behind him.
The fuse was growing shorter.
There wasn't much fuse left, not by a damn sight.
And then this night of blood would really burst wide open.
And Chicago would rock to its very foundations, to its very core.
Courtesy of the Executioner.
16
Sheba needed a drink. Badly.
She sat at her desk in the office on the third floor of the massage parlor.
The place had been cleaned up considerably since Bolan had come blitzing through.
The broken glass had been vacuumed, her lifting weights had been put back in order and the blood had been mopped up.
Her jaw still hurt like hell from the guy's punch, though. She nursed the swelling bruise with a hand towel full of ice cubes.
Whatever else you could say about Mack Bolan, that son of a bitch was no damn gentleman, she thought sourly.
Sheba stood and walked over to a bar on the wall between her office area and the weight room.
There was no liquor; she kept the bar well-stocked with carrot juice, wheat germ and the like. She hadn't developed her body to this point just to ruin it by pouring poison into it, she reminded herself, though a drink right now would taste damn good, she had to admit. The free-for-all with Bolan had given her a case of the jitters she seemed unable to get rid of.
Every time Sheba closed her eyes, all she could see was Mack Bolan blowing Jimmy Kidd's brains out.
She spent a couple of minutes making a health shake, then lifted the glass to her lips and gulped down the concoction. She lowered the glass and ran her tongue over her lips.
Then she looked up and saw Bolan standing in the doorway.
Instinctively, she started to take a step toward the desk and the button that would summon help from Jimmy's downstairs.
The Executioner stood on her doorstep, looking big, immovable and menacing as hell. His hands were empty but the way his right hovered near the front of his jacket, she knew he would fill it with a pistol before she could make one wrong move.
And there was no one she could call for help, she realized. She had made the move out of habit. Jimmy was dead, and the cops had closed up the joint and sent everyone away but her... and one other.
She was not about to let him see how afraid she was.
"What the hell do you want?" she demanded. "You've caused enough trouble around here."
"Where's Randy Owens?" Bolan asked.
She reached up slowly and touched her jaw where Bolan had punched her.
"Go to hell."
"I'm trying to save his life."
"Yeah, sure you are."
"Do you know a man named Floyd Wallace?"
Sheba thought for a moment, then shook her head.
"The name sounds vaguely familiar, but I can't say I do. Why? And why don't you just go back where you came from, you big bastard?"
"Back where I came from..." Bolan said softly. "I can't do that, Sheba. It's not there anymore."
She didn't know what he meant by that, and she didn't give a damn. She just wanted him out of here.
"Look, I don't know anything about Randy except that he's not here. I don't know where he went. I didn't ask him and he didn't volunteer the information."
"How long ago did he leave?"
"N-not long."
"You're lying, Sheba. When Randy didn't have any place to run, he ran here. He's got even fewer places now. I'd say he's got no place. They're after him, Sheba."
She saw his penetrating gaze studying every inch of the spacious room.
He knows, she told herself in cold panic.
"Who's after him?" she sneered.
"The same ones who'll be after you when they find out you're hiding him," Bolan said. "The Parellis are cleaning house. They murdered Wallace less than an hour ago. Randy is next."
Running footfalls erupted from a curtained closet on the far side of the workout room as Randy Owens charged from where he had been hiding, dashing full tilt for another doorway across the room.
Bolan leaped forward, moving past Sheba like a human cyclone, closing the distance to Randy before Owens could even get a grip on that other doorknob. Bolan's shoulder plowed into Owens's body, knocking him backward. The Executioner grabbed Randy's shoulders and spun him. Owens staggered, then Bolan looped an arm around the director's neck.