Chicago Wipe-Out

Take one percent of eight million... how do you propose to handle eighty thousand people?'

Bolan said, 'I don't. That's where you come in.'

'A-ha. So I docome into it.'

Bolan grinned. 'Sure. You're the man with the knowledge. You've been feeding info to the crime busters for three years or more. What has it actually accomplished? Try feeding me, for just a minute or two. I won't demand evidence, statistics, legal briefs, depositions, testaments, nothing. I simply want names. I want ninenames, Leo.'

The attorney was showing Bolan a twisted smile. He said, 'You want me to become an accessory before the fact — an accomplice to mass murder.'

'Call it what you like,' Bolan told him.

'What you want me to call is nine names.'

Bolan nodded. 'I want the Chicago Four, the cartel. I want the two syndicate bosses. I want to know City Jim's real name. And I want the two guys who are finking on the federal and state levels.'

Stein's eye was revealing his surprise. He murmured, 'You know quite a bit already.'

'Not enough,' Bolan said. 'I need the names, Leo. I need to know the people.'

Stein sighed. 'You want me to finger nine men for execution.'

'That's what I want. The same nine who fingered you.'

The lawyer looked away for a moment, then he opened a drawer of his desk, withdrew a metal box, unlocked it, and produced a small leather notebook. He placed the book on the desk and told Bolan, 'I really don't approve of you. You know that. But I have to admire you. And I think you deserve support — from somequarter — hell, from everyquarter. But I just don't... well, call me gutless.'

Bolan snorted, outraged at the suggestion. 'We should have a country full of such gutlessness,' he growled.

'Hiding here,' Stein muttered, '... like a groundhog, burrowing into the earth for protection. And now that I have a chance to really...'

Quietly Bolan observed, 'You don't look all that groundhogish to me. Personally, since you brought it up, I'd say you're a bit too brazen about the whole cover. You shouldn't be engaging in a public business. Anyone could walk in here on the most routine business and spot you. You need to be...'

The attorney halted Bolan's monologue with a chuckling protest. He threw a photo on the desk and said, 'Know this guy?'

Bolan was looking at the image of a youngish man with curly black hair, good strong facial lines which — while not entirely handsome — were ruggedly appealing. Gleaming eyes revealed an inner sensitivity, a humaneness and good humor that partially softened and dimensioned the man. 'No,' he said. 'Who is he?'

'Me,' Stein replied quietly. 'Two years ago.'

Bolan's eyes met the one good one; he smiled tightly and said, 'Okay, yeah, I see you in there now.'

'The point,' the attorney said, 'is that not even my own dear departed wife would know me now. Tell me, Mack — is it a blessing or a curse?'

Bolan fingered his own rugged features, altered by quite a different method. 'I guess it's a bit of both,' he muttered.

'Yes... well...' Stein lifted the notebook and dropped it back to the desk. 'It's a bit of groundhog too, I'm afraid. I'm sorry, but I won't incriminate myself.' He again lifted the notebook and this time slapped it noisily against the desk. 'Call it gutlessness, or call it, simply, too damn much reverence for the law. I'm just another kind of learned fool, Mack — first cousin to the academician. But... law is my bag, and...'

Bolan got to his feet. 'I respect your principles, Leo. Thanks, uh, for the coffee.' His gaze swung to the door. 'And thanks for taking the girl off my hands. Put her in good ones, eh?'

'I almost wish someone would steal this damn notebook,' Stein said, ignoring Bolan's parting speech. 'I don't know why I keep it locked up. I've sent copies to every damn crime committee in the country — several times, in fact. And still it's business as usual for our one-percenters.' He sighed. 'I guess I'd consider it good riddance if someone just lifted it, took it off my hands.' He again slapped the desk with the book and let it lie there. 'Stand still a moment, I'll send your young lady out — but don't expect me back. I detest tearful farewells.'

The shattered man wheeled past Bolan, paused, turned back to fix his visitor with the one-eyed stare, and said, 'Good luck, Mack. God, be careful. Don't end up like this.' Then he wheeled about and rolled quickly out of the room.

Bolan picked up the leather notebook and secured it into the pocket of his jumpsuit. Thanks, Leopold Stein, he said to himself. If I end up half the man you are, I'll consider it one hell of a victory.

And then Jimi was running through the doorway and into his arms. 'I don't mind staying now,' she said breathlessly. 'He scared me at first, but — well, Missy told me all about it. They threw acid on him, and bombed his home — oh, all sorts of terrible things. I believe they killed his wife, too — Missy's mother — but she only hinted at it, and I didn't want to pry. And — oh Mack! — that whitehaired old man is only forty-seven years old!'

Mack Bolan knew better. The guy was — about a million years old. And Bolan was gaining on him fast.

'You take care, Foxy,' he sternly told her, and he kissed her hard and warm, and then he went out to close some more years between himself and Leopold Stein.

8 The penetration

Bolan had come to Chicago prepared for all-out war. This professional soldier was well aware that an army is more than mere numbers of men — it is a force, and that force is composed of men, weapons, munitions, mobility factors, provisions, intelligence, and a fully dimensioned capability for loosing destruction. And Mack Bolan, it has been noted, was a one-man army.

He had acquired the Ford van — a small Econoline model which he thought of as his warwagon — at the height of the New York action, and he had brought it into Chicago several days earlier. The first few days upon the new scene of combat had been given to the development of Bolan's 'force.' He had quietly gathered intelligence, acquired weapons and munitions, outfitted the war-wagon to its maximum capability, and planned the initial attack which would formally 'open' the war. His planning beyond that point had been limited to a generalized 'play it by ear' approach.

The reverberations now rattling his inner ear were setting the pace and the direction of these further actions. The message issued to Gene the Wheelman had not been dictated by a boastful posturing not with any sense of flamboyant melodrama. The message was a deliberate combat tactic, and it was issued to produce a specific effect — an effect which this one-man army was determined to exploit to the limit.

Also Bolan had not been kidding about his friendship with the storm. A tireless strategist, he had been studying weather maps and forecasts since his arrival in the windy city. The selection of this particular day for the launching of the Chicago War was directly related to the unfolding weather picture — and this winter storm was indeed, in Bolan's view, his friend and the mob's enemy.

And now he had ditched the commandeered Mafia vehicle, he was in possession of a precious notebook crammed with deadly intelligence, and he was in his war-wagon and moving xmerringly upon the heartland of the enemy. The time to strike was now, and The Executioner was in wipe-out mode.

* * *

If Chicago was shivering in the grip of an icy winter storm, the night club belt along South State Street seemed blissfully unaware — or flagrantly disrespectful — of the condition. The entire district was in full swing, the accumulated mass of garish neon overcoming the blinding effect of the heavy snowfall as it swirled in on this tenderloin of mid-America — and it would seem that this was the chosen Mecca to which large numbers of Chicagoans trekked to forget the bleakness and discomfort of a city under storm. Indeed, it appeared that this belt of frenetic human activity enjoyed some sort of special treatment from the city which it so admirably supported —