Lou Nola was disappearing down the stairway to the ground floor. A guy dressed identically to the other bouncer was frantically urging a dishevelled, near-nude couple across the room and toward that stairway.
Bolan concealed the ’79 beneath his raincoat as he yelled at that guy. “Is that everybody?”
“That’s it!” the bouncer yelled back.
Bolan watched them to the safety of the ground floor, then he crossed to the ascending stairs and was about to send a firestorm to the third floor landing when some quiver of the psyche stayed the trigger finger and sent the feet, instead, up those stairs.
It had been a damned fortunate quiver, indeed.
A pretty kid who looked far too young to be working in a joint like this was in a small room at the end of the hall. She lay nude and unconscious upon a soiled mattress on the floor and she was in a hell of a mess. The room smelled of vomit and so did the girl, some of it encrusted in her tangled hair.
Bolan draped her across his shoulder and carried her to the second floor lounge. Smoke was puffing into the room from beneath the double doors to the baths. He lay the girl on a couch, stripped off his raincoat and wrapped her in it, then hoisted her again to his shoulder and went down the stairs.
Water was pouring through the ceiling and was already ankle deep in the lobby. The blast in the bathhouse had evidently ruptured a water line. The front door stood open and water was flowing outside.
Bolan had planned to level the joint. Maybe it would level itself, with the small help that he had given it.
A curious crowd was gathering at the edge of the park, across the street, as Bolan exited with his burden, much of the attention seeming to center on the scantily clad young women who stood in mute but agitated contemplation of the flames erupting through the second floor windows.
A nervously indignant Lou Nola scampered to Bolan’s side as he crossed the street, eyes shifting rapidly from the weapon in Bolan’s hand to the raincoat-draped burden draped across his shoulder.
“You should have left the kid,” Nola growled. “What the hell am I supposed to do with her, now?”
“I’ll take care of it,” Bolan growled back. “Call Marco. Tell him what happened.”
“He sure ain’t gonna like it,” Nola said quietly. “Roman Nights was his favorite toy. He ain’t gonna like it a bit.”
“That,” said Bolan, coldly, “is the whole idea, sport.” He pushed the guy aside and went on to his car, carefully placed the unconscious girl inside, and went away from there.
April Rose whispered in his ear: “Are you clear? Police and firemen are responding.”
“I’m clear,” Bolan assured her. “Let’s rendezvous. I have a casualty aboard.”
“Somebody we know?”
“Nobody we know,” he replied.
But it could have been. He glanced at the pathetic mess curled into the seat beside him and shuddered. Yeah. That was the hell of it, the tragic commonality of it; she could have been anyone’s kid sister.
As it turned out, the girl was the daughter of someone very special—very special, indeed. But Bolan would not learn of that until the morning flames of Saturday had run their course. For now, it was enough to know that the game had begun … and that someone else knew it, now, as well.
Buy Satan’s Sabbath Now!
About the Author
Don Pendleton (1927–1995) was born in Little Rock, Arkansas. He served in the US Navy during World War II and the Korean War. His first short story was published in 1957, but it was not until 1967, at the age of forty, that he left his career as an aerospace engineer and turned to writing full time. After producing a number of science fiction and mystery novels, in 1969 Pendleton launched his first book in the Executioner saga: War Against the Mafia. The series, starring Vietnam veteran Mack Bolan, was so successful that it inspired a new American literary genre, and Pendleton became known as the father of action-adventure.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1979 by Don Pendleton
Cover design by Mauricio Diaz
ISBN: 978-1-4976-8589-5
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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