"You still think I'm on the take, don't you?" Griff grunted. "You jump to too many conclusions, old buddy. Come with me."

"Where to?"

"To the captain's office."

Laymon stared.

"The captain's office?"

"That's right. I've got something to tell him."

Griff turned and stalked away, heading toward the closed door of an office on the other side of the squad room.

Laymon watched him for a moment, then hurried to catch up, more curious than ever, wishing he knew what the hell was going on and knowing he was about to find out.

Griff was knocking on the frosted glass door.

A gruff voice called to them to come in.

Griff cast another look at Laymon, then turned the doorknob and strode into the office.

Laymon followed him.

The harried-looking captain looked up from a desk covered with paper. He frowned, which made him resemble a basset hound.

"What do you guys want? It better be good and it better be Bolan. The commish just finished chewing my ass, again."

"It's Bolan," Griff promised, "and it's the ugliest damn story you ever heard..."

David Parelli stood at the window of the trucking company office, staring into the night.

"That's not very smart, David," his mother admonished mildly from the desk where she sat. "You never know who's going to be lurking out there."

Parelli did not step away from the window.

The brittle cold area outside looked like any other such suburban shipping business, closed at this hour. Tractor trailer trucks and loading equipment were parked here and there in the dim illumination that made more shadows than light, but there was no trace of movement.

"You mean Bolan," Parelli said flatly.

"That's exactly what I mean," Denise said. "He could be out there with a rifle right now, the sights trained on your head. I didn't take so much time and trouble raising you that I want to see your brains splattered all over the wall, David."

Parelli grimaced.

"I don't remember you taking so much time and trouble raising me."

She glared at him and sighed wearily.

The office was uncomfortably cold, she thought. She was glad this would be the last shipment of children for a while. It was a profitable sideline, and she liked to take a personal hand in the running of this operation, as she did in all family business, but the Bolan presence in Chicago had changed everything.

They were alone at the moment, the night man of the truck yard having gone outside to supervise the hooking up of a tractor rig to a long trailer.

A trailer that would soon be loaded with human beings.

For the moment, the living cargo was under guard in the spacious warehouse next to the office building.

There were more guards, around the perimeter of the complex, patrolling barbed wire fence.

She glanced at her watch.

11:45.

They were running right on schedule. The brats would be on their way no later than midnight.

"I'll be glad when this night is over," she heard herself saying to her son's back.

He turned to face her.

"I don't know why. Bolan will still be around."

She picked up her purse and took a cigarette from a solid silver case. She waited pointedly, the cigarette poised in her fingers, for David to come over and light it for her.

"He won't have anything against us on this," she said. "You and I are going to keep a very low profile for a while, David. Bolan never stays in one place for very long. He'll be gone soon."

"Yeah, well, don't forget, Bolan came to town to get me. We've got this town wired, the cops are after him, but... well, I just hope you're right, Ma. We've taken all the precautions possible."

"Wallace is dead, Owens is dead." There was no regret in her voice as she mentioned the porn director's name, "and Dutton knows that he will be, too, if he doesn't keep his mouth shut and keep on going along with us, just like the others we've put in our pocket in Washington."

Parelli lit his mother's cigarette, then one of his own, blowing smoke toward the tiled ceiling.

"We can handle Bolan because we've got the leverage."

"The Garner bitch," Denise agreed. "Yes, I think that could make Bolan see things our way and leave us alone. We'll see, won't we? So far, so good."

The office door swung open and a heavy-jowled man in a baseball cap poked his head inside.

"The truck's ready to go, Mr. Parelli."

"Right," David Parelli snapped. "About goddamn time, too."

"Anything else I can do for you, sir?"

"No, just see that everything gets under way as soon as possible."

The foreman nodded, touched the bill of his cap and left.

Denise wondered if they should have him killed, too.

The man wasn't one of their soldiers; most of the time he was just a legitimate employee of a legitimate business. He did know, though, that the owners of this business sometimes used it for other purposes... purposes that were not so legitimate.

Like tonight.

It was something to think about.

She stood up. She wore an expensive dark blue dress that clung softly to her sleek figure, topped by a fur jacket. Jewelry glittered on her fingers.

She pulled on a pair of white gloves.

"Let's go say farewell to the children, David. I want to talk to Miss Garner again, too."

"She's not going to tell you anything about Bolan," her son said.

Denise Parelli smiled.

"Perhaps she will."

He held the door open for his mother and they left the office, crossing the asphalt area between the office and the warehouse, walking quickly because of the cold, raw wind cutting across the complex.

One of the Parelli soldiers was waiting at the door of the warehouse, Uzi in hand. He opened the door and stepped back with a deferential nod.

Denise swept through first, David right behind her. As the soldier closed the door behind them, Denise paused to let her son take the lead. Here among the men, she had to allow her son at least the pretense of leadership, she reminded herself.

David stalked over to the hardguy in charge of the detail guarding the kids.

"Everything all right in here?" Parelli snapped.

"Yes, sir, no trouble," the head cock replied. He gestured casually with the barrel of the shotgun he held cradled in his arm. "This bunch won't give us no trouble."

About twenty-five small children were huddled in a group along one wall, appearing incapable of giving anyone any trouble. They looked cold, miserable, scared and wholly submissive.

All of them were under ten, most of them about eight or nine years old. They were dressed warmly enough for the chilly warehouse; a sickly child would bring less in the markets they were intended for.

None of them had been abused other than a little slapping around.

A haunted look in their eyes, a look of hopelessness and despair, indicated that they had already given up.

Good, Denise thought. Her customers did not want kids who were strong-willed, who would give trouble when told by adults to do things. Her customers, and their customers, wanted kids who would obey, no matter what the orders were.

"Gus says the truck is ready." David nodded to the hardguy with the shotgun. "I'll tell him to have it back up to the loading dock."

"Whatever you say, Mr. P."

There were a half dozen or so soldiers in the warehouse.

Denise could feel them watching her.

No one questioned her right to be there, but she knew they had to sometimes wonder why David always brought his mother along with him.

There was probably perverse gossip of all sorts among the men about her relationship with her son, she knew.

Let them talk.

After all, when you came right down to it, the gun carriers, the soldiers, were nothing more than cannon fodder...