by Nick Carter
They roared over the hillock in the road and down the incline on bouncing springs. All they saw of the Volvo was a cloud of dust and a vanishing shape. "Go," Krol snapped. "I'll hold fire till we close."
The driver was a tough city Croat who had named himself Bloch after joining the Germans when he was sixteen. Young or not, he had such a vicious record for persecuting his own people that he retreated with his Wehrmacht buddies all the way to Berlin. A clever one, he survived. He was a good driver and he handled the souped-up vehicle with finesse. They flashed down the grade, cornered smoothly, and gained on the Volvo on a long straightaway that led toward a line of jagged hills.
"We'll catch them," Bloch said confidently. "We've got the speed."
Nick was having the same thought — They'll catch us. He watched the sedan delivery in the rearview mirror on a long straightaway as it slid out of the turn, fishtailed a little as it straightened, and picked up speed like a big bullet. There was an experienced driver and a very good engine — against the Volvo with an experienced driver and a good standard engine. The outcome was predictable. He used every bit of skill and daring he possessed to retain every inch that separated the two cars, which was now less than a quarter-mile.
The road threaded its way through the brown-sand, mixed-green landscape, bending around bluffs, skirting dry watercourses, crossing or weaving through hills. It was no longer a modern road, although a well-graded, serviceable one. It seemed to Nick for an instant that he had been here before, and then he knew why. The terrain and the situation were a duplicate of the chase scenes he had enjoyed as a boy at the movie serials — the Saturday cliff-hangers. They were usually made in California, in countryside just like this.
He had the feel of the Volvo nicely now. He whipped it over a stone bridge and made an easy, sliding turn to the right that used every bit of road to avoid losing any more speed than absolutely necessary. Around the next turn he passed one of the microbuses. He hoped it met the sedan delivery at the bridge and delayed it.
Booty had kept the girls quiet, as Nick observed and appreciated, but now that they were out of sight of their pursuers Janet Olson opened up. "Mr. Grant! What's happened? Were they shooting at us really?"
For an instant Nick considered telling them that it was all part of the park's entertainment, like the fake holdups of the stagecoaches and railroad trains in "frontier town" amusement attractions, then thought better of it. They should know it was serious, so that they could duck or run.
"Bandits," he said, which was close enough.
"Well, I'll be damned," Ruth Crossman said without a quiver in her smooth voice. Only the expletive, which normally she would never have used, betrayed her excitement. Stout gal, Nick thought.
"Could it be part of — the revolution?" Booty asked.
"Sure," Nick said. 'It'll be popping up all over this place sooner or later, but I'm sorry for us if it's sooner."
"It was so — planned" Booty said.
"Well planned, with only a few holes. Lucky we found some."
"How did you guess they were fakes?"
"Those trucks were a little too pat. The big signs. The flag. All so methodical and logical. And did you notice how that guy handled the flag? Like he was leading a parade instead of out working on a hot day."
Janet said from the back, "They're not in sight."
"That bus may have slowed them at the bridge," Nick answered. "You'll see them on the next straightaway. There's about fifty miles of this road ahead of us and I don't look for much help. Gus and Bruce were too far behind us to know what happened."
He zipped past a jeep rolling placidly in their direction, occupied by an elderly couple. They shot through a narrow defile and emerged on a wide, barren plain ringed by hills. The floor of the small valley was smeared with abandoned coal workings, looking like the sad parts of the Colorado mine country before the foliage grew back.
"What... what will we do?" Janet asked timidly. "Keep quiet and let him drive and think," Booty ordered.
Nick was thankful for that. He had Wilhelmina and fourteen shells. The plastique and fuses were in his underbelt but that would take time and the right location and he couldn't count on either.
Several of the old mine roads offered a chance to loop and attack, but with a pistol against a quick-firer and the girls in the car, that was out. The truck had not emerged into the valley yet; they must have been slowed at the bridge. He unbuckled his belt and down-zipped his fly.
Booty quipped, with just a slight quiver in the words, "Talk about the time and place!"
Nick grinned. He hitched the flat khaki belt around, unhooked it, and pulled it free. "Take that. Booty. Look in the pockets next to the buckle. Find a flat black thing that looks like plastic."
"I've got one. What is it?"
"Explosive. We may not get a chance to use it, but let's be ready. Now go along to the pocket that doesn't have a black block in it. You'll find some pipe cleaners. Hand them to me."
She obeyed. He felt with his fingers for a "pipe cleaner" without the telltale end knob that distinguished the electrical thermo-detonators from the fuses. He selected a fuse. "Put the rest back." She did. "Take this one and feel around the edge of the block with your fingers for a little wax blob. It covers a hole if you look closely."
"Got it"
"Poke the end of this wire into the hole. Penetrate the wax. Careful, don't bend the wire or you can ruin it."
He couldn't look, the road was twisting through the old mine dumps. She said, "Got it It went in almost an inch."
"Right. There's a cap in there. The wax was to keep a chance spark from getting in. Don't smoke, girls."
They all assured him nicotine was their last thought right now.
Nick cursed the fact that they were going too fast to stop as they whizzed past a collection of weatherbeaten buildings that would have suited his purpose. They were varied in size and shape, had windows, and were reached by several gravel roads. Then they dropped into a small depression with a sag and lurch of springs, passed an evil-looking pool of yellow-green water, and shot up into more of the old mine slag heaps.
There were more buildings ahead. Nick said, "We've got to take chances. I'm going near a building. When I tell you to go, you go! Everybody got it?"
He guessed the strained, choking sounds meant yes. The reckless speed and realization were reaching their imaginations. Fifty miles of this would develop terror. He saw the truck pop into the valley, a bug moving into the unfertile, arid-looking landscape. It was about a half-mile away. He braked, jab-jab-press...
A wide side road, probably a truck exit, led off to the next group of buildings. He skidded into it and gunned the two hundred yards to the structures. The truck would have no trouble following their cloud of dust.
The first buildings were storehouses, offices, and shops.
;He supposed that in the old days the operation had to be self-contained — there were about twenty of them. He braked again on what looked like the abandoned street of a much-abused ghost town, drew up at what might have been a store. He yelled, "Come on!"
He ran to the side of the building, found a window, high-kicked in the glass, cleaning the shards from the frame as best he could.
"In!" He lifted Ruth Crossman through the opening, then the other two. "Stay down out of sight. Hide if you can find a place."
He ran back to the Volvo and drove on through the settlement, slowing as he passed rank after rank of drab cottages, undoubtedly once the quarters of the white workers. The natives would have had a compound in the bush of thatch-roofed huts. When the road started to turn he stopped, looked back. The truck had turned in off the main road and was picking up speed toward him.
He waited, wishing he had something to armor the rear seat with — and time to do it. Even a few bales of cotton or hay would make your back less itchy. When he was sure they had seen him he went on along the road that led up a winding incline toward what must have been workings; it looked like an
artificial hill with a small tipple and shaft house at the top.
A broken line of rusty narrow-gauge tracks paralleled the road, crossing it several times. He reached the top of the artificial hill and grunted. The only way down was the way he had come. That was good, it would make them overconfident. They would decide they had him, but he'd go down with his shield or on it. He grinned, or thought his grimace was a grin. Thoughts like that kept you from shaking, imagining what could happen, or going cold in the belly.
He roared in a half-circle around the structures and found what he wanted, a sturdy little oblong building near the tipple. It looked lonely, ruined but solid, a windowless oblong about thirty feet long. He hoped its roof was as strong as its walls. It appeared to be of galvanized iron.
The Volvo came up on two wheels as he wrenched it around and alongside die gray wall; out of sight, stop. He jumped out, climbed to the roof of the car, and onto the building's roof, moving with as low a silhouette as a serpent. Now — if those two were only true to their training! And if there weren't more than two... There might have been another man hidden in the back but he doubted it.
He lay flat. You never broke the skyline in a spot like this or you were through. He heard the truck come onto the plateau and slow. They would be looking at the cloud of dust where it ended at the Volvo's last hard turn. He heard the truck approach and slow down. He took out a pack of matches, held the plastique ready, the fuse horizontal. Made himself feel better by squeezing Wilhelmina with his arm.
They had stopped. He guessed they were two hundred feet from the shack. He heard a door open. "Down," a voice veiled.
Ja, Nick thought, follow your pattern.
Another door opened, neither one slammed closed. These boys were precision workers. He heard the scuffle of feet on gravel, a growl that sounded like, "Flanken."
The fuses were twelve-second firers, add or subtract two depending on how neatly you lit the end. The scratch of the match sounded awfully loud. Nick lit the fuse — it would burn now even in a gale or under water — and rose to his knees.
His heart sank. His ears had betrayed him, the truck was at least three hundred feet away. Two men were moving out from it to circle the building from either side. They were intent on the corners ahead of them, but not so intent they weren't watching the skyline. He saw' the burp gun carried by the man on his left swing up. Nick changed his mind, flung the plastique at the burp gun carrier and dropped as it growled, a bitter rattle like fabric tearing. He heard a yell. Nine-ten-eleven-twelve-boom!
He had no illusions. The little bomb was powerful but with luck they d still be in action. Scuttling across the roof to a point well away from where he had just appeared, he peeked over the rim.
The man who had carried the MP 44 was down, squirming and moaning, the chunky weapon five feet ahead of him. Evidently he had tried to run to the right and the bomb had gone off behind him. He did not look badly damaged. Nick hoped he was shocked enough to stay dazed for a few minutes; the other man was his worry now. He was nowhere in sight.
Nick crawled forward, saw nothing. The other one must have gained the building's side. You could wait — or you could move. Nick moved as swiftly and quietly as he could. He flopped over the next rim, on the side the burp gunner had been heading for. As he had guessed — nothing. He scuttled to the rear edge of the roof, put Wilhelmina over at the same time as his head. The scarred black ground was empty.
Move! By now his man would be creeping along the wall, perhaps turning that back corner. He went to the forward angle and peeped over. He had guessed wrong.
When Bloch had seen the shape of the head on the roof and the sputtering grenade had spun toward him and Krol he had propelled himself forward. The right tactic; get away, get under, and get in — if you can't drop with your helmet toward the bomb. The blast had been surprisingly powerful, even at eighty feet. It had shaken him to the roots of his teeth.
Instead of going along the wall he had squatted at its center, watching left-right-up. Left-right-up. He was looking up when Nick looked over — for a moment each man looked into a face he would never forget.
Bloch had a Mauser balanced in his right hand and he was good with it, but he was still slightly stunned, and even if he were not, the outcome could not have been in doubt. Nick fired with the instantaneous reflexes of an athlete and the skill of the tens of thousands of rounds, burned slow-fire, rapid-fire, and in every position including hanging over roofs. He picked the pinpoint on Bloch's upturned nose where the slug would land, and the nine-millimeter slug missed it by a quarter-inch. It opened up the back of his head.
Even against the impact, Bloch fell forward, as a man usually will, and Nick saw the gaping wound. It was an unpleasant sight. He dropped from the roof and ran around the corner of the building — cautiously — to find Krol slobbering but reaching for his weapon. Nick ran forward and picked it up. Krol stared up at him, his mouth working, blood drooling from the corner of his mouth and one eye.
"Who are you?" Nick asked. Sometimes they will talk under shock. Krol didn't.
Nick searched him swiftly, finding no other weapon. An alligator-skin wallet had nothing in it but money. He went swiftly back to the dead man. He had only a driver's permit issued to John Blake. Nick said to the cadaver, "You don't look like a John Blake."
Carrying the Mauser and the burp gun he went to the truck. It appeared to have escaped damage from the blast He opened the hood and unsnapped the distributor cap and put it in his pocket In the back he found another burp gun and a metal box with eight magazines and at least two hundred extra rounds. He took two magazines, wondering why there wasn't more armament Judas was known for his love of superior firepower.
He put the guns on the rear floor of the Volvo and rolled down the hill. He had to call twice before the girls appeared at the window. "We heard shots," Booty said in a high-pitched voice. She swallowed and lowered her tones. "Are you all right?"
"Sure." He helped them out. "Our friends in the little truck won't bother us anymore. Let's get out of here before the big one comes."
Janet Olson had a small scratch on one hand from a sliver of glass. "Keep that clean till we get something to put on it," Nick ordered. "You can catch all kinds of things around here."
A droning babble in the sky drew his attention. From the southeast, the way they had come, a helicopter appeared, following the road like an exploring bee. Nick thought, Oh no! Not that — and fifty miles from nowhere with these girls!
The whirly spotted them, flew over, and went on to hover near the truck standing silently on the plateau. "Let's go!" Nick said.
As they reached the main road the big truck nosed out of the defile at the end of the valley. Nick could imagine the two-way radio conversation as the helicopter described the scene, settling to peer at "John Blake's" body. As soon as they decided...
Nick raced the Volvo away toward the northeast They had decided. At long range the truck fired at them. It sounded like a fifty-caliber, but probably was a European heavy.
With a sigh of relief Nick twisted the Volvo into the turns leading up the escarpment The big track had shown no speed — just firepower.
On the other hand, the eggbeater up there gave them all the speed they'd ever need!
Chapter Eight
The Volvo whipped up the turns to the top of the first mountain like a mouse in a maze with food at the end. They passed a tour caravan of four vehicles on the way. Nick hoped the sight of them would cool the lads in the helicopter temporarily, especially if they carried gunship armament. It was a small two-place bird of French make, but good modern weapons don't weigh much.
At the top of the grade the road wound near the edge of a cliff with a lookout parking area. It was empty. Nick drove near the edge. The truck was grinding doggedly up the hills, just passing the tour cars. To Nick's astonishment the helicopter was vanishing toward the east.
He considered the possibilities. They needed fuel; they were going to get a distributor cap
to get the truck and body away from there; they would circle and set up a roadblock ahead of him, boxing him between it and the big truck. Or all these reasons? One thing sure, he was up against Judas now. He had taken on a whole organization.
The girls were regaining their composure and that meant questions. He answered them as much as he thought best as he drove swiftly toward the western exit of the giant forest preserve. Please — let there be no construction blocks on the way!
"Do you think the whole country is in trouble?" Janet asked. "I mean, like Vietnam and all those African countries? A real revolution?"
"The country is in trouble" Nick replied, "but I think we tangled with our special dose. Maybe bandits. Maybe revolutionists. Maybe they know your folks have money and want to kidnap you."
"Hah!" Booty snorted and looked at him skeptically, but she didn't butt in.
"Give us your ideas," Nick said sweetly.
"I'm not sure. But when a tour escort carries a gun and maybe that was a bomb you had back there we heard — well!"
"Almost as bad as if one of your girls carried money or messages to the rebels, eh?"
Booty shut up.
Ruth Crossman said calmly, "I think it's wonderfully exciting."
Nick drove for over an hour. They passed Zimpa Pan and Suntichi Mountain and Tshonba Dam. Cars and microbuses passed them now and then, but Nick knew that unless he met an army or police patrol, he should keep civilians out of this mess. And if he met the wrong patrol, and they were politically or financially with the THB mob, that could be fatal. There was another problem — Judas was prone to outfit small detachments in the uniforms of the local authorities. He had once set up an entire Brazilian police post for a robbery caper that was smoothly successful. Nick didn't see himself walking into the arms of any armed squad without plenty of preliminary identification check.
