AUTHOR'S NOTE: I apologize up front if anything I write in this chapter is interpreted as insensitive toward Arab-Americans and/or Arabian people in general, all of whom I have deep respect for. But anyway, here's the next chapter....

FIVE

As night fell over Chicago, Tyrone Terrell relaxed inside his office in the former Propellant Packaging Corporation building. He enjoyed this position of power, having stepped over and rubbed out numerous rivals to reach the top. His organization was now churning out several tons of cocaine, marijuana and other heavy drugs a week, especially since he'd gotten his new labor pool over the last few weeks....
Terrell's intercom buzzed. "Uh, Ty, the Arabs are here to see you now," came the voice of his brother and top lieutenant Vinnie.
"Right," Terrell said. Then he frowned. "Vinnie, I don't have anything scheduled with any Arabs for at least the next four months!!"
"Well they seem rather adamant to meet you, and I can seem to get rid of them," Vinnie admitted.
Terrell sighed. "Send them in," he said. Vinnie opened the door a few seconds later and let in five guys in traditional Arabian robes and turbans. "Can I help you?" the drug kingpin asked.
"Yes you may," said the tall thin member of the group, bowing to him. "I am Sheikh Ahmed Hamid Samamed, and I wish to buy some of your slaves."

"Forget it Saddam, they're not for sale!" Terrell said curtly.
"Samamed, not Saddam," the "Arab" corrected him. "I have heard much from your associates, about how you've managed to increase your capacity tenfold with them. I wish to use some of them to increase the output of my oil smuggling operation overseas, if that is OK with you."
"No, it is not OK with me, because they are my slaves until I say they aren't, so beat it!" Terrell jerked his finger toward the door.
"You heard the man, time to mount up your camels and ride on out of here," Vinnie started herding them out. The short, fat member of the group pulled away. "I see you leave me no recourse, then," he told Terrell. He blew a strange blue cloud toward the drug czar. "What the hell are you....?" Terrell started to ask, but suddenly found himself getting rather sleepy......
"What did you just do to him!?" Vinnie demanded as his brother fell snoring to the floor.
"This," Jake blew another sleeping cloud in Vinnie's face, sending him out cold.
"Interesting use of knockout gas there, Jake," Mack told him as they started taking off their garments.
"Works every time," Jake said proudly. "Elwood, I think you'd know the way around here best."
"Right," Elwood led the others down into the pits of the old glue and shaving cream plant. He'd heard anguished cried from the moment they'd come into his old place of employment, and knew the kids were probably being held on the assembly line. What he and the others saw as they ran onto the catwalk overlooking the factory floor was appalling: at least seventy kids, none of whom looked older than thirteen, were literally chained in places all along the line and being whipped continuously by hulking guards as they did their best to sort out packages of cocaine and other narcotics as they came along the conveyor belt. Most looked like they'd be happy to die.
"This is a carnal sin in God's eye," Jake commented out loud, "But we're going to fix this right now." He blew out the biggest sleeping cloud yet, which settled down over each of the guards, and it took them mere seconds to keel over asleep.
"Good goin', Jake, "Elwood patted his brother on the shoulder. He ran over to edge of the railing. "Buster!" he called out into the throng of kids.
"Elwood!" came a familiar shout from the far end of the factory that Elwood wouldn't have mistaken anywhere. He rushed down the stairs toward its source.
"Oh Elwood I knew you'd come!" Buster gasped, hugging his guardian close.
"Hey, was there ever any doubt?" Elwood winked at him, "Come on, we're getting' all of ya outta here."
"But Terrell's got the only key," Buster pointed out.
"Don't worry about that, my son, leave it all up to me," Jake said, having come down to the floor. "Children," he announced to all the prisoners, "By the holy powers invested in me, I declare you forever free from this slavery." With that, he waved his hand, and all the children's chains came off. Cheering with delight, they mobbed Jake, who smiled and soaked it all up.
"Oh, that's your late Uncle Jake, by the way, "Elwood told Buster as he led him away from his spot in the line.
"Late?" Buster was confused.
"I'll explain it all later," Elwood told him.
At that moment, a revived Terrell and about a dozen heavy armed gunmen burst through the doors above them. Rocky, Zee, and Mack, still up on the catwalk, immediately threw up their hands in surrender. "All right you guys!" Terrell yelled at them, "I don't know how you got in here, but NOBODY crosses Tyrone Terrell and gets away with it! Kill them, men!"
Jake did a spectacular backwards somersault up onto the catwalk. "Go ahead Ty, make my night," he challenged the drug czar.
"Eat this, hotshot!" Vinnie fired a bullet point blank at Jake's head...but it went right through him. It did, however slow down as it did so and stopped completely as it exited out his back, clattering harmlessly to the floor. "Ow," Jake said mockingly. Stunned, all the dealers poured everything they had at him, but with the same results. "Ow, oo, eech, tike, eeooww, oof," Jake taunted them. He bent down, gathered up all the bullets, and fused them together into a giant lead ball, which he slammed down hard on Terrell's foot. "OOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!" Terrell yelled in real pain.
"You guys get the kids out of here," Jake called to the others, "I'll hold these losers off for you." Then he took a deep breath and let out a gale force wind that pinned all the dealers up against the wall.
"You heard Jake, let's get goin'," Elwood told the kids as he started for the emergency exit to the rear parking lot. He pulled out the Bluesmobile's remote control and started directing the car into place outside."
"Boy, that guy's amazing," Buster confided in him as they ran outside toward the famous car.
"You ain't seen nothing yet, kid," Elwood said, pulling trigger to open the Bluesmobile's doors. There was something very different about the car, he realized, as he hopped in. It still looked the same from the inside, but somehow there was now enough space to hold all the kids comfortably. Apparently Jake had done some retooling with the car's intrinsic dimensions.
"Are we just going to leave Jake in there?" Zee asked as he and the other adults climbed in.
"Don't worry, he should be out in no time," Elwood reassured him. Indeed, no sooner were the words out of his mouth than Jake materialized next to him. "Floor it, Elwood," he said. Elwood pressed down on the accelerator, and the Bluesmobile sped off, smashing its way out the factory's rear gate.
Back inside, Tyrone Terrell was livid. "Get to your cars!" he ordered his dealers, "We're going to make them sorry they were ever born!"

"All right!" Vinnie pumped his fist in excitement, "I've always wanted to be in a big chase, Ty. Ever since we saw those serials on TV as kids......"
"Just get your gun and follow me!" his brother snarled, hefting his own AK-47.
Back inside the Bluesmobile, Buster scratched Armstrong behind the ears. "Wow Elwood, you've got a dog!?" he exclaimed.
"Yep, and he'll be playin' backup harmonica for us as soon as we put the band back together again," Elwood said.
"What's wrong with this guy?" one of the boys asked, pointing at the still-out cold Cabel on the Bluesmobile's floor.
"He saw the light and still needs some time to get over it," Jake explained to him.
"HERE THEY COME!!" a girl screamed, pointing out the back window. The sound of machine gun bullets ripping around the Bluesmobile acknowledged that. Elwood did a quick tabulation of their pursuers in his rearview mirror. "Three sedans and a limo," he said to himself. "Okay everyone, buckle up. "We're goin' into escape mode." And with that, he put the pedal to the metal.
"Uh Elwood, why do we have to go so fast?" Zee asked nervously as they swerved wildly around a corner, "We could call the police, you know."

"The police'll just take us in, pal," Rocky told him, "And besides, there's no way they'll be able to catch us in here. Nobody can catch the Bluesmobile."
"Watch the bridge!" cried a boy, pointing at the windshield. Ahead of them, the drawbridge over the Chicago River was rising fast as a boat went underneath.
"Thanks," Elwood told him. Then he gunned toward it. "Elwood, are you out of your mind!?" Zee shouted, "You're going to kill all of us!"
"We're not gonna die," Elwood said, "We're on a mission from God." The Bluesmobile hit the bridge at ninety miles an hour and just managed to make the jump successfully. Behind them, Terrell's limo driver started to apply the brakes when he saw what was ahead of him, but his boss but his gun to his head. "Keep going!" Terrell ordered him. Gulping the driver complied and just managed to make it, as did two of the other three dealer cars. The last one, however, failed to get enough horsepower and missed the far span by a few feet, falling on top of the boat going underneath the bridge.
Inside the Bluesmobile, the kids were now thrilled that they'd done something dangerous and lived to tell about it. "Do it again!" some of them asked Elwood.
"Ya want us to do it again?" Elwood asked.
"YEAH!!" was the unanimous response. Elwood looked to his right and saw a large public park he and Jake had frequented as kids. "Whatdya say Jake," he asked him now, "Should we show these guys the pool?"
"Works for me," Jake said. Elwood swerved into the park, ,smashing some benches as he went. See that pool down there?" he asked the kids, point to the large Olympic length one at the bottom of the ravine ahead of them, being drained for the season, "How about we jump that next?"
"GO FOR IT!!" the kids told him. Elwood accelerated forward, and the Bluesmobile broke through the retaining fence and rocketed over the pool, landing safely on the other side. Behind them, Terrell's limo also managed to make the jump safely, but the two other dealer cars weren't as lucky, the first landing right in the middle of the pool and the other crashing into one of the diving boards.
"One more to go," Elwood said, assessing their pursuers. Terrell himself now joined his brother and two gunmen as they fired away at the Bluesmobile. Some of the bullets were getting dangerously close to the fuel tank, and Elwood knew they had to ditch them very soon. He now saw up the block an abandoned two-story department store. "Are you thinkin' what I'm thinkin', Jake?" he asked his brother. Jake put his hand to Elwood's head. "I am now, Elwood," he said, "Hit it." Elwood nodded and roared through the boarded up front of the store. "Good thing this has got cop shocks," he said out loud as they rocked up the escalator.
"They're almost on us!" a girl pointed out, pointing to the limo, which was no more than ten feet behind them and closing.
"Don't worry, we'll get rid of them in a second," Elwood turned right at the top of the stairs and made a beeline for the window at the far end of the store. Zee realized what was about to happen. "Don't do it, Elwood!" he pleaded the driver, "We'll never survive!"
"Relax, bub," Buster told him, "We're on a mission from God, you know."
"And here's the proof," Jake said, and with that, he teleported to outside the window and started generating clouds with his fingers. As the Bluesmobile smashed through the window and started to fall toward the ground, he caught it on the clouds. He then sprouted his wings and flew off with the car.
Behind them, Terrell's driver saw he was about to go off the edge and tried to stop, but was too late; the limo went through the hole in the window and fell two stories to the sidewalk, where it landed upside-down. Inside the wreck of his once-sleek limo, Terrell cursed to himself. "Men," he told his associates, this is not the end! We're going to hunt them down and make them sorry they were ever born!" He noticed Vinnie was looking in a strange way at his wrist. "So what's the matter with you?" he asked curtly.
"They broke my watch!"

About a half hour later, Jake finally set the Bluesmobile down in front of Mother Stigmata's hospital. "Okay kids," he told the orphans as they poured out of the car, "We'll leave you off here. The nice Penguin in here will see to it you're taken care of."
"Can we do this again sometime?" a boy asked him as he went inside the hospital.
"Maybe," Jake winked at him. The angel them walked over to the front door. "So Buster, it's a pleasure to meet you up front at last," he told the kid, shaking his hand.
"Nice to meet you too, Uncle Jake," Buster said, seemingly more at ease than other people at shaking the vaporal hand of a dead man. "Who's this wimp?" he asked, pointing to Zee, who was staring straight ahead, a noticeable wet spot in his pants. "Oh that's my natural brother Zee," Jake explained, "he's going to need some getting used to this lifestyle."
"And this is Rocky 'the Mountain,'" Elwood introduced Rocky to the youth. "Hop in, we gotta get outta here before the Penguin sees you're here and hands ya over to yer dad."
"He's back!?" Buster looked very worried at the thought of his father.
"Don't worry, I ain't gonna let him get ya," Elwood reassured him.
"Thank you, Elwood," Buster was very relieved, "I'd hate to go back to the drinkings and beatings." Then he brightened. "Before we go, Elwood, I've got a friend I think would be good for the band," he said.
"Oh really?" Elwood said, "How good is he?"
"She, actually," Buster cupped his hands and called, "Katrina, they'll take you now," to a sad-faced blond girl who'd been hovering around the Bluesmobile's rear bumper.
"A Blues Sister!?" Elwood hadn't been anticipating any female comers.

"She sings beautifully, Elwood, and she's got great dance moves," Buster argued, "And she's got nowhere else to go; these jerks picked her up right off the streets."
Elwood examined Katrina closely. From as far as he could see, she didn't have what it took to be a member of an elite blues band, but the pained expression of longing she was now giving him, combined with the fact that Buster really looked up to him....
"Okay, she can come along," he agreed.
"Thanks Elwood," Buster smiled, "You won't regret this."

"I hope not," Elwood said. He watched as Katrina forced a small smile and silently climbed into the back of the Bluesmobile. "Don't she speak?" he asked Buster.
"Yeah she speaks, she just takes time getting adjusted to strangers," Buster explained.
There was a yawn next to Katrina. Cabel was finally coming to after his ordeal. "Hey guys," he said to the Brothers, "Did I miss anything?"
"No, not really," Mack said, giving the others a wink.
"All right, let's get rolling," Jake said, hopping back into the Bluesmobile, "Tomorrow we put the band back together."