Save the Children te-94

by Don Pendleton

  The water was calmer here than in the lake, the river wide, flat and dirty.

  Both boats gunned up the long straightaway toward the Michigan Avenue bridge.

  Bolan mentally reviewed the geography of the area, picking out the right place for what he felt certain was an imminent confrontation.

  On the other side of the downtown area, the river split into two winding channels that flowed north and south.

  If the boat up ahead reached that split, chances were good that it would give Bolan the slip.

  That meant he had to take them now.

  He poured on more power.

  The engine of his craft began to labor, but the distance between the two vessels was narrowing. Not more than fifty yards separated them now.

  Bolan saw that the injured gunner was no longer in sight; the guy must have slipped down onto the floorboards of the boat, he decided.

  The second was twisting around in his seat now, lifting something, lining it up on Bolan's speedboat.

  Grenade launcher!

  The alarm went off in Bolan's head and he jerked the wheel all in the same instant.

  With a whoosh, the grenade left its launcher and tore like a blazing comet through the night air toward him.

  Bolan had the speedboat almost standing on its propeller as he zigzagged back and forth in an attempted evasive maneuver.

  The grenade hissed past him, missing by several feet to starboard. The explosive plowed into the water and detonated, geysering a high fountain of water into the air.

  Bolan felt the shock wave from the blast, but it caused no harm other than a sharp, high-speed lurch.

  The distance between the boats was down to forty yards.

  He slid the AutoMag from its holster again and lifted himself high enough in his seat to rest the stainless-steel barrel atop the boat's windshield.

  The gunner in the lead boat dropped the grenade launcher and came up with a rifle.

  Bolan was starting to wonder just how many weapons they had up there in that craft.

  He triggered off a round from Big Thunder and was close enough now to see splinters fly as the slug impacted into the rear of the boat.

  He wanted to disable the craft, to take at least one prisoner, but was not so sure he'd be able to.

  If a round caught the gas tank, it would blow for certain, taking with it any chance of questioning these men who had tried to kill him.

  Noise and flame leaped from the muzzle of the gunman's rifle.

  Bolan heard the spang of the ricochet and saw the long ugly mark on the cowling of his speedboat where the slug hit.

  Damn good shooting for a scared man in a fast-moving speedboat.

  Bolan triggered the AutoMag again, not trying to hit anything, intending to keep that gunner too busy looking for cover to return any more fire.

  Thirty yards between the boats now.

  When he got close enough, he intended to take out the man at the controls, which would slow down the other vessel long enough for him to overtake it.

  Twenty yards.

  So far they had been lucky in not encountering any other traffic on the river.

  The Michigan Avenue bridge was coming up quickly.

  Both boats zoomed under the span.

  Bolan glanced over at the south shore of the river, his attention caught by flashing lights.

  Police cars were appearing on Wacker Drive, drawn by the inevitable reports of the battle at the yacht club and the speedboat chase down the river.

  Ten yards between the boats.

  He could see the hatred on the face of the man with the rifle as that punk raised his weapon for another shot.

  Before that could happen, Bolan triggered the AutoMag again.

  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.

  He steered the boat to an unlighted dock with a paved walkway leading up to a large office building on Wacker Drive. He leaped out of the craft.

  Uniformed officers came running toward him from both directions, yelling at him to halt.

  He plucked a smoke grenade from the combat webbing on the blacksuit and tossed it into their midst.

  The knot of cops flattened when they saw the object flying toward them.

  The grenade spewed out its thick smoke as it bounced across the ground.

  Bolan swung the other way, jogging almost directly toward another group of officers who started spreading out in different directions for cover when they saw the big man in black loping toward them.

  The cop in the lead stopped in his tracks and swung up his service revolver.

  "Stop!"

  Bolan's heart was trip-hammering against his rib cage. He heard coughing behind him. He glanced over his shoulder without slowing his pace.

  Several policemen from the first group staggered out of the smoke cloud, coughing, rubbing at their eyes.

  One of those cops unleashed a shot at Bolan.

  The slug screamed close by over his head.

  Too close.

  One of the second group of officers took a nosedive as he heard the bullet whipping by, even though it didn't hit anything.

  "Dammit, hold your fire!" The strident command came from the cop who had ordered Bolan to freeze. "You might hit one of our guys!"

  Bolan had been counting on this.

  He sprinted for a nearby office building, its many windows dark at this hour except for the lobby and back entrance onto the terrace fronting the river.

  The walls of this skyscraper were smoked glass, with a double door in the middle of the first floor.

  Bolan headed for the parking lot on the far side of the building.

  If he could get hold of a car...

  He heard the police pounding after him.

  The night was alive with shouts and movement, the occasional innocent bystander scurrying out of his way. The sounds of more sirens barreled toward him from all sides beyond the building.

  This time they had him boxed in tighter than along Lakeshore Drive.

  These would be some of the same men, he reasoned, and they would be out in full force, for blood...

  * * *

  He gained the parking lot with those cops no more than seventy-five yards behind him.

  Mack Bolan looked around wildly. The odds were against him finding an unlocked vehicle. He ducked between two cars and crouch-walked along the row of autos until he came to the last car. It was parked closest to the wall that bordered the lot.

  The Executioner knew that he was running out of time. The pursuing police would fan out around him in the parking lot the moment they arrived there.

  If they found him where he crouched now, there was no way he would be able to avoid a shoot-out with the cops. And it was something that he didn't even want to contemplate. Still Bolan had no intention of losing it all in Chicago.

  He dropped flat onto his stomach and bellied under the car, knocking the back of his head on the undercarriage a couple of times in the process.

  He wasn't there for longer than a couple of heartbeats when he heard an engine gun to life to his right. He turned his head and spotted white-lettered wheels rolling slowly backward out of a parking space.

  Bolan wormed out of his cover to see a young woman behind the steering wheel of a Datsun 300 ZX.

  He raced toward the side of the crawling vehicle and yanked open the driver's door.

  The woman turned a panic-stricken face toward this looming figure in black. The sheer terror told Bolan that she feared for her life.

  It saddened the warrior instantly, because it was a reflection of what "civilized" society had become. He meant the woman no harm, but as far as the lady was concerned, she was a goner. After all, this was Big City, U.S.A.

  Bolan spoke urgently, and it was only then that he saw a measure of relief cross the young woman's face.

  "I need to borrow your car, miss. I won't hurt you."

  She swallowed and slipped out from behind the wheel. Bolan jumped into the Datsun and slapped the gear lever into reverse. The entire encounter had taken less than a minute.


  The Japanese sportster roared backward when he floored the gas pedal. Bolan caught a glimpse of a uniform in the rearview mirror.

  One of the cops was right behind him.

  He slammed a booted foot down on the brake pedal, rocking the Japanese sportster to a stop.

  The cop, who had been running full blast when he saw the car suddenly backing toward him, wind-milled his arms to keep his balance. His palms slapped against the trunk of the stopped Datsun to keep from falling.

  Bolan stomped on the gas, shifting.

  The Datsun jumped forward, right out from under the cop leaning on the trunk.

  The guy fell, and as Bolan pulled away, he saw the officer getting to his feet, dusting off his hands.

  A squad car, top lights flashing, careered into the exit Bolan had been heading for.

  He sped down one aisle of the lot with the cruiser on his tail, siren wailing.

  When he reached the end of the row of parked cars, Bolan spun his steering wheel and felt the tires shuddering on the pavement, the Datsun threatening to roll over as he turned 180 degrees into the next aisle.

  Behind him, the police vehicle did not handle the turn as well, the driver's side crunching into a low brick wall that bordered the parking lot.

  The wall ran around three sides of the lot, Bolan saw as he headed back toward the exit. On the fourth side, the one bordering Wacker Drive, a hedge about the same height took the place of the wall.

  Another cop car closed in on that exit, squealing tires smoking beneath the streetlights as it slid into position to block that exit.

  Bolan floored the Datsun's accelerator, angling the car left to drive full speed straight for the hedge.

  The shrubbery gave way, parting under the nose of the Datsun as Bolan had hoped it would, with no hidden posts or fencing to stop his run.

  He felt a surge of relief as the Datsun rocketed through to the other side.

  A sidewalk ran along the other side of the hedge, with cars parked at the curb.

  Bolan pumped the Datsun's brakes, yanking the steering wheel hard at the same time with a finger on the horn.

  The car raced along the sidewalk, away from the office building and the parking lot, the few pedestrians diving out of the way when they heard the insistent warning of the horn.

  At the end of the block was a gap in the line of parked cars.