"So what are you thinking?" Turk asked him.

"I'm thinking what you said awhile ago was exactly right. I bet the guy has crawled into a hole to ride out the storm. I'm thinking your chances of finding him tonight are about one in a million."

Turk smiled and replied, "I guess you're right, Mr. Lavallo. But we got to ride those odds, eh?"

"Right, yougot to," Lavallo said. "Me, I'm going home and sleeping out this million-to-one pass."

"You do that, Mr. Lavallo," Turk told him.

The underboss hurried out, waving quietly to familiar faces along the line.

Turk turned a relieved grin to a crew chief. "Okay, get that hotel crew busy. There ain't nostorm, nowhere, going to keep me off of this Bolan's ass. We're going to nail this guy, Bernie. We're going to nail him tonight."

The storm signals were flying, for everyone but Larry the turkey-maker. He was brewing a personal storm of his own making.

For that matter, so was Pete the Hauler.

5

Jungle lesson

Bolan sat cross-legged on the bed, staring thoughtfully at the still form beside him. He gently nudged a shiny hip and said, "Hey... sleepyhead... time to rise and shine."

Her eyelids fluttered half open and she peered out at him through curling lashes. "Not asleep," she murmured. "Are you an angel?"

"Not hardly," he replied, grinning. "Do I look like one?"

She smiled back and gently stirred herself. "Not hardly. But if this is heaven, then you must be an angel."

He said, "Wrong on both counts. This is hell, lady. Or it's likely to be if we don't get moving."

Her eyes opened fully. "But I thought..."

"That we were home clean?" He shook his head. "This is just a rest area. We've got to be up and on. And the sooner the better." He rolled off the bed and went into the bath, returning immediately with his clothing.

"Gosh, you're a beautiful thing," she told him. "I think men should be required to run around like that all the time. It would sure brighten us girls' lives."

Bolan grinned and said, "That's carrying women's lib a bit far, isn't it?" He reversed his thermal skinsuit, turning the white inner surface to the outside, and began getting into it. "You'd better get it in gear. I'm leaving here in five minutes, with or without you."

"Five minutesl"she squealed. She leapt off the bed and dashed into the bath, calling back, "I thought you told me you had some sort of deal. About me, I mean."

He replied, "For what it's worth, yeah."

"Well just what is it worth?"

"It's a confusion factor, that's about all. I figure it may have bought us a couple of hours, and maybe a temporarily divided enemy camp. But we can't bet on even that."

"But surely we're safe herel"she cried. "I mean, after all, they can't search every room in Chicago, can they. Canthey?"

Bolan strapped on the Beretta and told her, "Sure they can. That's the whole game, at this point. I threw down the gauntlet, and it hit them right across the face. At the time, I hadn't planned..." He paused and changed the direction of his explanation. "I changed the battle plan a little — and now it's their offensive, not mine. And, yeah, they'll be searching."

"Well, what are we going to do?" She emerged from the bath and went to the parcels Bolan had brought in earlier. Her eyes collided with the Beretta and Bkipped hastily away.

He slipped into his shirt and muttered, "Does the gun bother you?"

"That's the first real gun I've ever seen," she said. "I had no idea they looked so... so menacing."

"The word is deadly," he told her. "And this one's a jewel. I picked it up in France. Worked in the trigger for a four-pound pull, which means she blasts if you breathe hard on her. She'll target eight rounds into a two-inch grouping from thirty yards, and it takes less than a second to reload. Carries nine-millimeter Parabellum hi-shockers, and she'll put a crease in a guy that would make a tommy-gun green with envy."

"Why are you telling me all this?" she asked quietly.

"Just want you to know what you're traveling with. If I suddenly yell down, that means you dematerialize and reassemble yourself on the ground or on the floor, wherever you happen to be. It means that the Beretta Belle is leaving her leather behind, and she comes out blasting, and we don't want any beloved flesh getting into her path. Understood?"

Jimi murmured, "Understood," and withdrew a scruff of silk from a paper bag. "Oh wow," she said. "Heart shaped panties. Where'd you say you bought these things?"

He said, "Don't change the subject. I want you to..."

"I liked that part about beloved flesh," she told him impiously. "And don't worry about me getting in your way. If you yell down, I'll just faint. Would that put me out of the way quick enough?"

Bolan said, "Not hardly. I could be working on the second load before you could topple over. When I say down, I mean this." He showed her what he meant, going from full perpendicular to flat horizontal in a heartbeat.

The girl's eyelids fluttered. She sank to her knees and showed him a teasing smile. "Now I know where you got your boudoir prowess," she said. "You learned it on the battlefield."

He got to his feet and barked, "Do it!"

Her eyes fluttered some more and she replied, "You're really serious."

"I've never been more serious in my life. It's a jungle out there we have to get through, Jimi. You have to know how to survive it." He pulled her upright and said, "Okay, now show me. Down."

Jungle Jimi went down, then she rolled onto her back and lay there laughing. "I can't wait to show the Foxy Ladies," she giggled. "How'd I do?"

"Okay," he growled. Again he pulled her upright, turned his back on her, said "Get dressed, dammit," and took two steps across the room. Then he cried, "Down" and flung himself to the floor in a lightning scramble, rolling back towards the girl with the Beretta out at full extension.

She was standing where he'd left her, frozen, the heart-shaped panties in her hands, gaping at him.

"Dammit, I just cut your legs off at the knees," he told her.

"I — I wasn't expecting you to say it," she explained.

"That's the whole point." He got up and found his trousers and put them on. "That's the way it happens, when it happens." He snapped his fingers. "Like that. And you better be flexed to react like that, if you mean to stay alive."

The seriousness of the situation was beginning to impress itself on her. She carried the clothing to the bed and began dressing. Her hands trembled, and she was having other difficulties. Bolan went over to help her. "What a rotten end to such a lovely honeymoon," she said miserably.

"It beats dying," he pointed out.

Tears sprang to her eyes. "Oh Mack, how can you live this way?" she wailed.

He dug out a bra and hung it on her. "If I don't live this way," he softly explained, "I die quick."

"But on and on and on. Isn't there any end to it?"

He fastened the bra and told her, "Sure, there's an end. But I'm in no hurry to get there."

"It's like the law of the jungle," she whispered. "Survival of the fittest, kill or be killed, no quarter, damn the torpedoes, all that."

"That," he whispered back, "is exactly what I've been trying to tell you. Now listen to me. The storm has hit. All the airlines are grounded. The highways are closing. Trains have stopped running. There's no way I can get you out of this town. And we can't hole up, that gives the mob all the advantage of the hunt. We have to go out there, and we have to keep moving, and we have to keep alive. Out there, Jimi, in that jungle. Are you fit to survive?"

Bolan had achieved the desired effect. The soft shoulders stiffened and fiercely she said, "You're damn right."