"Parelli," he said quietly. "Where's his office?"

The lobby was now devoid of bystanders.

The receptionist heard the question and turned frightened eyes in the direction of a doorway behind her desk.

"He... he left several... minutes ago. W-what's going on?"

Bolan stifled a curse.

He released the frightened woman with a nudge toward the demolished glass entrance.

"All hell has come to town," he told her. "Get away fast and don't come back."

"Th-thanks, mister," she said, but did not move. She seemed incapable of pulling her gaze, now more curious than frightened, from the imposing figure of the big intruder who was already turning from her.

Bolan unleathered Big Thunder. He stepped over to a fire alarm encased in a glass box on the wall behind the reception desk. He smashed the glass with one swift blow from the .44's butt.

An alarm suddenly began ringing, piercing through the billowing smoke.

The door behind the desk burst open and two guys rushed into the lobby. They had hood written all over them and the .45 automatics they toted confirmed their pedigree.

The Executioner tracked Big Thunder around on them in a two-handed target acquisition stance before either hardman could bring his own weapon around.

The AutoMag roared twice and a couple of deafening thunderclaps filled the lobby above the wail of the persistent alarm.

The two hoods were kicked backward off their feet and through the doorway amid a haloing spray of their own blood.

Bolan turned around to see the young receptionist transfixed in the haze from the smoke bomb.

"Beat it," he snarled harshly at the woman.

She beat it.

Bolan turned and stalked on through the doorway and down the hallway he found there.

He was hunting David Parelli, the man he had come to Chicago to terminate.

Bolan had been known as the Executioner even before he first set out to declare his "crazy" one-man war of attrition against organized crime in America.