Read Online Save the Children by Don Pendleton - Free Book Online Page B

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