The two barriers were hurled into the air as the tractor trailer barreled on through and away from the flaming chaos behind it. The big rig's diesel engine roared like the battle cry of some prehistoric beast... right into a swarm of flashing red and blue lights that seemed to be racing toward the Parelli property from every direction, as if following some sort of cue to block any escape route for the truck.
He hit the brakes, hearing the hiss of air blending with the whining sirens everywhere.
Slowly, the truck rumbled to a stop.
Police cars surrounded it while other official vehicles swerved around it and headed toward the fires.
Bolan heard heavier sirens bringing up the rear.
Fire-fighting equipment and ambulances.
Orchestrated, yeah.
He cut the truck's engine and opened the door. He swung down from the cab and strode to the back of the vehicle. He looked in on the frightened but safe kids.
Sitting on the dirty floor of the trailer with them was Lana Garner, her face wreathed in one of the happiest smiles Bolan had ever seen.
"You see," she said to the rescued kids, "I told you it would be all right."
Her eyes met Bolan's.
Whatever happened from here on out, these children were safe.
He heard the distinctive sound of pistols being cocked and looked carefully over his shoulder.
"I figured it was you, Bolan." Detective Lester Griff and another plainclothes officer had their service revolvers drawing a bead on him from less than ten feet away. "It's time we had another talk. You're under arrest. Drop your weapons."
21
Bolan stayed where he was.
"Don't you think you'd better find somebody to take care of these children?"
Griff turned his head, still covering Bolan with the pistol, and shouted to an officer running past. "Mitchum, get some guys over here to look after these kids!"
The cop nodded and took off toward uniformed men, many carrying rifles, pouring out from a cluster of squad cars.
Bolan had not expected it to end like this.
Lana emerged from the rear of the truck, gracefully swinging down to stand at Bolan's side, facing Griff and the other detective.
"You too, young lady, drop your weapon," Griff ordered, motioning to the Beretta 93-R Lana held at her side, pointed toward the ground.
"But you don't understand," she told Griff in an anxious voice, "we just rescued these children..."
"We'll come peacefully," Bolan said, going with what his gut told him was right.
He handed over his ammo belt and weapons to the second cop, who also relieved Lana of Bolan's Beretta.
Griff nodded.
"Over to the car," he said, indicating his vehicle with a flick of the weapon's barrel.
Bolan and Lana walked over to the unmarked police cruiser.
The four of them walked through the bustling activity of men with rifles comforting the children, while the ambulances stopped and medical personnel came running.
The fire-fighting equipment raced on toward the burning trucking business, and some sporadic gunfire carried from that direction as police encountered the remnants of Parelli's withdrawing forces.
"All right, Bolan, that's far enough," Griff said when the four of them reached the car.
Bolan looked quizzically at Griff, who seemed to be calling the shots for the uniformed officers, including Chicago police and a sprinkling of federal marshals.
Some cops were checking sprawled bodies.
Griff followed Bolan's gaze.
"What's the body count going to be?" he asked Bolan harshly. "Twenty-five or thirty?"
"Not enough," Bolan grunted. He felt a weariness settling into his neck and shoulders, the pressures of this night and all he had done catching up to him at last. "Do what you have to and get it over with," he told Griff tiredly.
The cop studied him intently for a long moment.
"What should I do, Bolan? You tell me. I know what happened here tonight. I've known about the Parellis and this child thing for more than a week now."
"If you knew," Lana blurted angrily, "why didn't you do something about it?"
"I did do something about it," Griff shot back. "I gathered enough evidence to get a search warrant for this place tonight. That's what I've been working on, on my own time." He nodded his head toward the other cop. "I even had my partner here thinking maybe I had gone bad."
"Not just your partner," said Bolan.
"The family has the Chicago PD wired, that's not news," Laymon put in. "Les decided to keep it under his hat in case they had ears in our unit."
"I did a lot of sneaking around," said Griff, "and some open surveillance because that was my job anyway. It got so the gate guards at the Parellis' home got used to me, which is just what I wanted."
"I wondered about that," Bolan grunted.
"A lot of people did," growled Griff with no sense of satisfaction, "but this deal was so damn hot I knew it would go off like dynamite right in my face if I let anyone know how close I was. I had to sit on it until tonight, until the last minute, before I broke it to the captain. Believe me, holding out and knowing what was happening almost drove me nuts, but I didn't know where the Parellis kept the kids before they brought them here for shipping, so I had no choice." His eyes narrowed on Bolan. "Then you had to come to town and destroy all the legwork I did."
Bolan glanced back at the carnage, and at the children being handed over to the medics.
"Looks like we got the same result, with maybe not so many skunks running after high-priced lawyers to keep them out of jail."
"And that's where we differ, cowboy," said Griff. "I go by the book, see, and the book says everyone gets their day in court. That means you, too. We call that democracy, and law and order."
"What about the book that says an eye for an eye?"
"The Chicago PD doesn't go by that one, I'm afraid," Detective Laymon said, and he looked sideways at his partner, "but I'm thinking that sometimes we should."
A uniformed officer passed by on his way from the tractor trailer truck to the line of ambulances, and he carried a little boy who twisted in his arms and waved when he saw Bolan.
"Hey, mister! Thanks!"
Bolan grinned and raised a thumbs-up sign back at him, recognizing the child as the one who had smiled at him from inside the truck.
Griff took a deep breath and sighed.
"Aw, shit," he muttered. Then he nodded to Laymon, who stepped forward, reading his partner's intent, handing Bolan's Beretta, AutoMag and Ingram back to the Executioner.
Griff looked around uneasily.
"You're wanted by every cop in the world, aren't you, buster?"
"That's right," Bolan admitted.
"For all kinds of charges."
"Right again."
"I even heard the Russians are after you."
"The KGB would shoot me on sight."
Griff holstered his pistol.
"Get the hell out of here, Bolan, and don't look back."
Laymon cracked a wide grin.
"There's enough confusion here for me and Harry to cook up a good story," Griff told Bolan. "We're on different sides of the law, big guy, but after what you went through for those kids tonight, I'm not the man to bring you in. Now beat it, damn you, and take this young lady with you. You may not handle it by the book, but you sure as hell handle it!"
A look of understanding passed between Detective Sergeant Lester Griff and Bolan then... two men from different sides of the fence, but on the same side, too.
A paradox.
The world needed men like Mack Bolan, Detective Lester Griff thought.
And women like Lana Garner.
The sergeant turned to his partner, praying that Harry Laymon would not be able to guess what he was thinking.
"Come on, Harry. Hell of a lot of mopping up to be done around here and we can't be in two places at once, can we?"
"No, we sure can't, Les," Laymon replied, playing along as if Bolan and the woman were not there. "Guess we better tell the captain that Bolan got away... like he always does."