Bolan had half expected this, had sensed it, but that made this new bit of intel no easier to hear.

"Tonight," he repeated bleakly.

"I promise you, that's what Denise said!"

So that was the undercurrent of urgency that had been running through this latest Windy City blitz.

It all fell together, now.

The Parellis would have some central point where they held the kidnapped children until it was time to ship them on their way.

And it was damn likely that Denise Parelli and her son would be holding Lana Garner at the same spot, Bolan thought.

Something as important as this would require that at least one of the Parellis was on hand to supervise the operation, and Lana would have been taken there for questioning.

Mafia questioning meant the worst kinds of physical torture until the victims screamed what they knew and pleaded for death, for release from the untold agonies these human monsters knew how to inflict.

"Do you know where the shipment leaves from?" Bolan rapped.

Owens shook his head vehemently.

"Don't have any idea, but I can tell you who knows."

"Who?"

"Senator Dutton, that's who. He'd know." Owens's voice dripped scorn. "The rotten pervert. Denise told me how the family had been keeping him supplied with young stuff to get him in line."

So the senator had lied about its only happening one time with that girl in Washington.

From the sound of it, squeaky-clean Senator Mark Dutton was a full-time pedophile.

Full-time scum was more like it.

Owens was shaking.

Bolan nodded at him.

"All right," he said. "Get the hell out of here before I change my mind."

Relief replaced the fear on Owens's face.

He scrambled past Bolan, then hurried toward the door and out.

Bolan watched him go, then turned back to the red haired amazon who still wore the black leotard that hugged and showed off her shapely figure.

"There won't be any more trouble here tonight," he said. "But if I were you, Sheba, I'd leave."

"I'm thinking about it harder all the time," Sheba said fervently.

"And don't raise a fuss after I leave."

"You got it," she promised.

He backed away, pausing in the doorway briefly before he turned and left Sheba's office.

For a second, Sheba stayed where she was, staring at the now empty doorway, then she heaved a weary sigh and walked over to the desk. She opened the bottom right drawer and took out a heavy brown bottle.

There were times when a goddamn carrot juice health shake just wouldn't cut it, she thought.

And this was one of those times.

Bolan took the stairs down, and left the building by the alley exit. An explosion shook the pavement under his feet.

He broke into a run and gained the mouth of the alley onto Rush Street, where vehicle and foot traffic had thinned considerably since his visit earlier that night.

Bolan had spotted Randy Owens's Lancia on his approach to the closed-up club and massage parlor, which was how he had known he would find Owens with Sheba.

Right now, the Lancia was a blazing inferno, bright red tongues of flame licking the air, surrounded by a growing circle of people who were lifting their arms to shield themselves from the heat, helpless to get any closer to the barely recognizable pile of twisted, flaming metal.

Bolan could see a shape hunched over where the steering wheel had been. He could guess what had happened.

Sometime between Owens's arrival at the massage parlor and the time he, the Executioner, showed up, Parelli's men had made the scene and planted a bomb, which they wired to Owens's ignition.

The porno director had not been able to outrun the vipers he had bedded down with.

"Justice, Randy," Bolan told the fiery, tangled wreckage across the street.

He left the alley unnoticed and double-timed it back to where he had parked the Camaro.

Running gun battles on the streets and on the river, dead bodies all over the city, Detective Harry Laymon thought, any fool could tell that Bolan was back in town.

Laymon's throat felt dry. More coffee, that was what he needed.

As he and Griff walked back into the squad room set up for the Org Crime unit, he headed directly for the coffee maker.

Griff went to his desk and picked up the phone.

Laymon's eyes narrowed as he watched his partner dial.

The same number as before? he wondered. Something was eating at his partner, and whatever it was, it was starting to bug Laymon full-time, too.

Just what the hell was Griff up to? Laymon wondered one more time. The guy had been on the phone all night and still Laymon did not have a clue as to what it was about, which was unusual since he and Griff had formed something of an off-duty friendship as well, over the years that they had worked together.

They had just returned from the orphanage, where they had been dispatched to investigate the violence there.

They had found a lot of scared children and adults and dead bodies.

Bolan, for sure.

The description given to them by the wounded intern matched.

"He was like a stalking giant," the intern had said, even the pain not enough to mask the awe in his voice. "So it was Bolan, huh? I never believed one man could do all the things they say he's done. Now I believe!"

Griff had not taken an active role in the visit to the orphanage, Laymon remembered, but instead had stood around chewing on his dumb stomach tablets, his face expressionless, as if his mind was distracted by something else entirely. He had been the same on the drive back to headquarters.

Laymon sipped the strong coffee. He decided he could not put up with this any longer.

It was time for a showdown.

He swallowed the rest of the cup's contents, tossed the Styrofoam container into a wastebasket and stalked over to Griff's desk.

Griff hung up the phone as Laymon approached.

This did not surprise Laymon. Griff didn't want him to know whom he was talking to. Laymon's anger grew.

He leaned over Griff's desk and rested his palms on the cluttered surface.

"I think it's time we had a talk, old buddy."

Griff looked up.

"About what?"

"Come on, Les. Something's tearing you apart and I, goddammit, want to know what it is."

Griff shook his head.

"You're all wrong..."

"Don't give me that. You either tell me what's going on in that head of yours, partner, or we're taking a walk down to IAD to find out the hard way!"

That got through.

Griff, his face a taut mask, glared at Laymon.

"You think I've gone bad, is that it? You think I'm dirty?"

"I don't want to think that, Griff," Laymon countered quickly. "You've just been acting so damn weird lately, making these mysterious phone calls, and it's like you're not quite there half the time when I'm talking to you."

"You're supposed to trust your partner," said Griff, the sharpness of accusation and budding resentment in his voice.

"I want to trust you, Les. You're just making it so damn difficult, what with the Bolan thing going down and..."

Griff interrupted by putting his palms on the desk to push himself to his feet, his face only inches from Laymon's.

"It just so happens that I am ready to let you in on it, Harry. Or at least I was until you went all screwy on me."

"Me, screwy? What about you?"

"I had good reason for everything I've been doing. I can explain it."

"So let's hear it. I'm all ears."

Some of the other cops in the squad room were starting to look curiously at the obvious confrontation taking place between the two partners.

Laymon and Griff both pulled back, appearing to relax somewhat, but kept their voices pitched low enough so that no one else in the busy squad room could overhear them.