The wailing fire alarm echoing through the building suddenly ceased.

The sound of voices came to him from the racquet-ball court.

Two of Parelli's goons, each carrying a sawed-off shotgun, cautiously stuck their heads and gun barrels around the corner of the doorway to the racquetball courts, looking nervous and careful after they saw the pile of bodies near the lobby.

The smoke from that direction was dissipating but it still clouded their vision enough to give Bolan the edge.

He triggered a round and one of the live heads down the corridor disintegrated.

The other head pulled back in.

Bolan left the office and crossed to a nearby fire exit, giving the metal bar a kick when he reached it.

The door did not open.

Locked.

He fired a round that reverberated in the confines of the corridor. The slug shattered the locking mechanism.

Bolan exited through the side door, palming a fresh clip into the butt of the AutoMag as he strode along the darkened side of the building, past a smelly dumpster, in the direction of the parking lot. The hot barrel of the .44 was smoking in the brittle night air as the AutoMag probed the gloom, the steady eyes of the man behind it searching for targets.

2

Bolan reached the corner of the building at the edge of the parking lot.

What he guessed to be the remainder of Parelli's security force was occupied with restraining a fiercely struggling young woman. The parking lot had emptied of cars during the minutes Bolan had been killing people inside the health club. The center's patrons wasted no time in fleeing for cover.

Two of Parelli's hoods, looking like big bears in furry topcoats, had the woman in an arm-grasp from either side.

She was in her mid-twenties, Bolan estimated. He registered shining dark hair. She wore a down jacket and Levi's.

They struggled near an idling Lincoln Continental in which Bolan saw another man at the wheel, the back door of the Lincoln yawning open.