The guy spun around, crimson spurting from his shoulder as the massive slug pulped bone, shredded flesh. The man fell, twisted across the seat, slumping against the helmsman.
With a snarl of anger and fear, the boat's pilot shoved the injured gunner away from him.
Within seconds, Bolan would draw even with them.
But they weren't clearing the way fast enough.
The Mafia vessel threw spray high into the air as it banked sharply to avoid one of the large, slower craft, a commercial tour boat coming home from a cruise along the night-lit skyline.
Bolan saw scared, concerned faces of tourist passengers lining the deck of the tourer.
He yanked his boat on the opposite side from his quarry. He cut his speed, knowing he could not continue zipping along at this hammer-down pace, not with civilian craft about.
The pilot of the Mafia speedboat had no such qualms. Bolan heard screaming as the wake from the Mob boat capsized a little skiff. What they were doing out there at night, Bolan didn't know, but that didn't matter. He pointed the nose of his vessel in that direction and throttled back as he approached the overturned skiff.
Two heads bobbed in the water. The men had reached their boat and were clinging to it.
"Are you all right?" Bolan shouted over the sound of his engine.
One of the men spluttered and shook his head to get wet hair out of his eyes. When he could see, his eyes widened when he found himself looking up at the man in a black outfit, who was holding what appeared to be a hand cannon.
"W-we're okay," he called back.
"Were there just the two of you in the boat?" Bolan asked hurriedly.
The man nodded.
Bolan glanced at the other speedboat.
It had put a sizable gap between itself and Bolan.
He looked back at the upset men in the water.
"Sorry," he called to them.
He fed power to his engine again, increasing the throttle only when he was far enough away from the overturned skiff not to cause any more turbulence.
The men in the water started shouting after him, but he did not go back, knowing there would already be rescue craft approaching those two unfortunates.
The speedboat chase resumed, this time only at a slightly slower speed as the two vessels wove among the night river traffic that got in their way.
Bolan was glad he had wounded the gunner when he had. He didn't want bullets flying around here where innocent people could be hurt.
People yelled and screamed at the speedboats as they rocketed past, wanting to know what was going on.
Bolan didn't blame them for their curiosity, but wished they would get out of sight, under cover.
He eyeballed his quarry as they raced past a barge loaded with refuse. He swung out to follow, momentarily losing sight of the Mafia speedboat.
It popped up again directly in front of him.
Coming straight at him!
He palmed the wheel and swung his boat hard to starboard.
The refuse barge loomed dangerously close.
Through the speedboat's windshield Bolan saw the face of the Mafia pilot, contorted with rage.
The guy had gotten tired of running, obviously.
Someone on the barge yelled, "Look out!"
Bolan missed the barge by inches, popping through the narrow opening between the barge and the oncoming speedboat.
He craned his neck and looked over his shoulder.
The gunmen kept going, headed back toward Lake Michigan.
Bolan whipped his boat into a turn and whizzed back past the barge, ignoring the shouted questions from the sanitation workers on board.
The air bit colder heading back toward open water again, and the high-pitched keening of his boat's engine on open throttle rattled his eardrums as the wind played roughly with his hair.
The chase had returned almost to that point where the river split into two channels.
This time he would catch them in the straightaway.
They were out of the marina area again, both boats pouring on the speed.
Bolan glanced toward the shore. He saw the flashing lights of police cars up and down the streets lining the river.
The other speedboat was some seventy-five yards ahead of him, just passing the Sun-Times building.
Ahead of it, coming their way, was a cruiser bearing the insignia of the Chicago Police Department on its bow and an angrily flashing light splashing the night.
A bullhorn-amplified voice boomed out over the river.
"You there! In the speedboats! Slow down and heave to! This is the police! I repeat, heave to!"
Neither boat slowed down.
Bolan kept the throttle pushed up as far as it would go. He slipped Big Thunder back into its holster and returned both hands to the wheel for some tricky maneuvering he figured was coming up.
Suddenly, the gunman that Bolan had wounded in the shoulder pulled himself up into a sitting position. The whole left side of his body was covered with blood, but he managed to lift his right arm. He held a gun in that fist.
"Dammit, no!" Bolan gritted.
The gunman opened fire on the police cruiser, the report of his pistol sounding small and ineffectual.
Cops in flak jackets lined the railing of the oncoming cop cruiser. They dived for cover as the bullets from the hood's pistol whistled around them. They carried automatic weapons and settled into firing positions in a matter of moments.
They opened up, sending a volley toward the mobsters.
Bolan saw the windshield of the other speedboat shatter under the barrage of autofire from the cruiser.
He throttled down.
Death spewed across that other speedboat; the pilot was flung back against his seat before slumping forward over the controls.
The gunman tried to rise against the tide of lead, then abruptly fell to the side against the gunwale before his body tumbled overboard into the water, disappearing into the oily filth of the choppy river.
The boat veered sharply toward the north shore, the weight of the pilot's body no doubt turning the wheel.
Its speed didn't slacken as it headed for the river's edge.
Bolan slowed his craft slightly to observe from a hundred yards away.
The runaway vessel raced full tilt into a vacant pier, plowing into the pilings, bursting apart with all the destructive force of a detonating bomb. The gas tank blew and fire and fury slashed the air, throwing everything into harsh red and orange illumination, hurling flaming debris, shards of wood and broken human body parts high into the air.
Grim-faced, Bolan watched the pieces of boat and human meat come pelting back down.
There would be no answers there.
The thought raced through Bolan's mind as he watched the fiery wreckage of boat and pier.
Emergency vehicles converged on the crash site from all directions.
The amplified voice from the police cruiser stabbed out in Bolan's direction next.
"You in the other boat! Stay where you are! Stand up and raise your hands or we will fire on you!"
Glancing up and down both sides of this stretch of river, he confirmed that police cars were almost everywhere.
The police vessel was between him and the lake.
He heard a loud siren from another direction. He swung his head around to check it out.
Another police craft, identical to the first, was advancing on him rapidly, this one from the direction of the river's split.
They had him boxed in.
He spun the wheel hard, slamming up on the throttle.
His boat swung in a tight turn, heading now toward the river's edge, toward lighted streets and skyscrapers piercing the night sky, his eyes scanning both directions for some sort of break in the police lines.
There did not appear to be any, but his hellground experience as a specialist in infiltration and penetration had taught him there was always a crack to slip through, all you had to do was find it.