Guilt by Association

by Gilbert, Morris

  “What the devil!” he exclaimed and let out a cry of pain as the gun exploded, shaking the still air.

  Dani had come out of the box and thrown herself at Lovelace’s gun hand, catching his arm, dragging it downward, and sinking her teeth into the flesh of his wrist.

  Ben sprang instantly forward just as Lovelace jerked the gun free and caught Dani across the temple with a grazing blow. But even as she fell, Ben was on him like a cat. Raising his right arm, he brought it down with a clublike blow that caught Lovelace right on the neck, driving him to his knees.

  It would have broken the neck of a lesser man, but the thick muscles of Lovelace’s neck cushioned the shock, and even as he fell stunned, he kept his grip on the Luger. His back was to Ben, who knew that the man was down but already recovering from the blow. Ben swung his foot in a vicious kick that caught Lovelace in the kidney and caused him to cry out in pain. The force of the kick threw Ben off balance, and he went down hard, almost on top of his enemy.

  They were under a framework of steel, with a corrugated roof, but the blinding snow still bothered Ben. He saw the Luger still held tightly in Lovelace’s grasp and made a stabbing grab at it, succeeding in getting both hands on the man’s wrist. At once Ben knew he had made a mistake, for he could not hope to match Lovelace’s animallike brutality.

  Knowing that he had no hope to outmuscle the man, Ben threw caution to the winds, dropped his grip on the man’s thick wrist, and stabbed, with his fingers spread wide, straight at the man’s eyes. Lovelace turned his head, but Ben got a glancing blow at the right eye, and no man can stand that without reflex action. Lovelace threw up both arms in agony and backed away until he was standing out from under the shed. For that one second he stood there off his guard.

  His left hand covered his face, and the other held the Luger at waist level. Ben instantly kicked upward, knowing that if he missed, he would be out of position and would certainly take a bullet.

  His toe struck Lovelace’s fist, and the power of the kick sent the gun spinning high. Both men watched the parabola of its passage through the cold air. Scrambling through the foot of snow that covered the flat roof, each tried to knock the other off balance. The Luger fell with a soft plop, within a foot of the edge, and in their frantic haste to get it, Ben and Lovelace staggered and fought. The two men gave tremendous lunges as they came within a few feet of it.

  At the same time both realized they were going to slide off the roof!

  Ben heard Lovelace utter a wordless cry of terror as he tried to stop, but could not. He himself rolled backward and made a wild grab, catching the built-up metal flange that ran around the edge of the roof, constructed to keep the hot-tar roof from dripping. It was only two inches high, but Ben’s hands gripped it like steel talons.

  A grunt caused him to see that Lovelace had done the same. Together they dangled by their fingertips, a hundred feet in the air. Lovelace’s eyes were wild with fear, and his feet were scratching and clawing at the wall, but heavy as he was, he made no progress.

  Ben looked down at the ground, then turned his face toward Lovelace. “You should have run away and joined the circus, like I did, pal.” He grinned. “Watch this!”

  Ben began swinging his body, pendulum fashion, from side to side as the other watched. Two swings provided momentum, on the third Ben gave a powerful kick that drove his feet up as high as Lovelace’s shoulders and firmly hooked them there. Lovelace opened his mouth and moaned as the extra weight dragged him down, but at once Ben put one foot on the ledge; with this leverage he was able to draw himself up, so that he came up to the roof and then sat there, legs dangling.

  “Help me!” Lovelace begged, his eyes pleading.

  Ben considered the man and said, “I’m thinking right now of a good man named Rosie—and another one named Alex. I’m thinking of a girl named Candi.” He paused and stared down with blazing hazel eyes, then shook his head. “Can’t think of any reason to let you live.”

  Lovelace seemed to shrivel, and the manhood ran out of him. He began to weep, and finally Ben got up and found the Luger. He reached down and caught hold of the man’s collar, complaining, “I’ll hate myself for this! Pull yourself up.”

  Lovelace strained and with Ben’s help came scrambling up, to crawl on the snow, expelling his breath in huge sobs. When Ben said, “Put your hands behind you,” he obeyed at once. Ben drew the short wires out of his pocket and tied the big wrists together as tightly as he could. Then he got up and ran to the shed.

  Dani came out to meet him, and announced, “Ben, I’m glad you didn’t kill him.” As she smiled tremulously her gray-green eyes reflected his face. One hand touched his cheek, and she said softly, “We’re going to be all right.”

  “Sure.” He nodded. A little reluctantly he added, “Thanks to you. If you hadn’t gotten his attention, we’d both be on death row.”

  She put her hand on his arm. “I guess we make a pretty good team, don’t we, Ben?”

  “Beauty and the beast.” He grinned and looked around quickly. “We’re still in the lion’s den, though. Let me be sure our friend here stays put, and we’ll move along.”

  He secured the two men who were still out, then wired Lovelace to a steel support, after ordering him to take off his heavy overcoat. Slipping into it, he looked around. “That’s the other way out,” he said, pointing to a roughly built structure under the same roof as the supply door. There was a platform built of steel angle irons, and he motioned to the large electric motor that served as a winch for both elevator and supply box. “They brought us all up in this elevator and take the bodies out this way.”

  “Come along,” he got into the makeshift elevator, and when Dani was in, Ben threw the switch, and the elevator started down. “I figure Stone is down at the bottom of this silo,” he said. “He’ll be looking for Lovelace, not us, but just to be safe, you lie down.”

  The elevator moved slowly down. Leaning over, Ben saw a man standing beside a desk, staring into the monitor before him and talking loudly. “Maxwell Stone’s last speech,” Ben murmured softly; he turned sideways as the elevator dropped and came to a jolting halt.

  Ben caught a glimpse of Stone when the man turned to glance at the elevator. Certain he would be detected, Ben tightened his grip on the Luger. But people see what they expect to see, and Stone, who had not stopped speaking, merely turned back to the monitor.

  Ben stepped out of the elevator and stood right behind Stone, who shouted, “You have proven yourselves to be beyond rehabilitation! I have tried, but you refuse to admit what you are—therefore, I leave you to your fate!”

  Ben placed the cold muzzle of the Luger on Stone’s wrinkled neck, saying, “It’s time for a word from our sponsor, Maxie.”

  The mild words jolted Stone, and he wheeled at once, his face twisted in disbelief. He was below middle height and past middle age. His droopy face had the tired flesh of the old, and he had combed his thin hair over a bare skull.

  Stone stared at Ben. As Dani appeared at Ben’s side he swallowed and wavered, as if shaken by a blow. But he replied, “Ah, Mr. Savage! I see that you are a man of force and initiative! And Miss Ross—such a woman as yourself is not to be wasted.” He smiled, but it was like the silver on a coffin, for both Ben and Dani sensed the death that lay beneath the man’s surface.

  “You’re going to offer us a job with your outfit, Stone?” Ben inquired.

  “No! Not a job!” He shook his head so violently that his thin neck seemed too tiny for it. “No, I’ve been looking all over this country for people like you. I can promise you—!”

  “What are you offering for the three people you’ve killed, Stone?” Dani asked quietly.

  His mouth gaped and with sudden compassion Dani asked, “Was the girl who was killed your daughter?”

  “Yes!” Stone’s anger boiled over instantly. His eyes bulged, and he began to scream.

  “Tie him up, Ben!” Dani picked up the microphone and stared into the screen.

>   On the small screen Karen stood holding on to Betty. Bix and Lonnie, Sid and Karl stared up at the camera, their faces all frozen.

  “We made it!” she cried out.

  All six broke into a wild dance, crying and shouting. She let them have their holiday before directing, “We’ve still got to have help, so just hang tight.” A thought struck her, and she glanced at Ben, saying, “The investigative firm of Ross and Savage has things in hand!”

  Ben blinked, then returned her grin. “I always wanted to be your superior, but I guess being equal is good enough.”

  They wired Stone to a sturdy steel shaft, and he screamed at them insanely as they left.

  It was a beautiful day, and the heady feeling of freedom caught them. But the most beautiful thing was the new Jeep parked outside. “If it’s got a telephone,” Dani said, “we’re home free!”

  She peered inside, then turned to give Ben a brilliant smile. “Bingo!” After a few tense moments, her head went back and she said thickly, “Dad? It’s Dani! Yes, I’m all right, but you’ve got work to do. Call the FBI. . . .” She spoke rapidly, sketching the situation, including Vince’s condition. “Dad, better hurry. Stone’s got a young army around here,” she warned. “Yes, yes, I will. What? Yes, Ben’s right here with me. He’s all right.”

  She hung up the phone, took a deep breath, then got out. She started to speak but somehow couldn’t.

  Ben glanced at her white face. “Sometimes the shock hits you after the trouble’s over. We’d better get inside; some of Stone’s army might spot us.” Inside he went to the mike and told the others what was happening. “Just have to wait,” he said finally. “I expect it’ll be five or six hours before the cavalry shows up. But we can get the rest of you out one at a time.”

  For the next hour he worked the winch, bringing them up to the roof, then down to the control room. Vince was placed gently onto the bed beside the desk. He was conscious and able to whisper, when Dani bent over and put her ear to his lips, “Knew—you’d do it!”

  She patted his hand and nodded, but he became unconscious almost at once.

  Three hours after Dani made the call, Ben said suddenly, “I hear something!” They all ran to the door, peering around one another. Ben glanced up and said, “Look—army helicopters!”

  They all stepped outside as a flight of clumsy-looking choppers swooped down. The first hovered over the roof, while others circled, with guns bristling. One touched down fifty yards from where the prisoners stood; a door opened, spilling out a squad of riflemen with weapons at their shoulders.

  Soon they were all in the helicopter, rising above the silo, higher and higher, until the one-time prison shrank to the size of a small box. The chopper lurched, changed directions, and the silo vanished as they skimmed over the icy tops of the firs. The sparkling snow below, dotted with the deep-green trees, stirred something in Dani, and she leaned over Ben’s shoulder, saying quietly, “Merry Christmas, Ben!” She took a deep breath and repeated her words with a fervency that amounted to a deep-seated prayer: “Merry Christmas.”

  He turned toward her and said nothing for a moment. Finally he smiled and answered, “And God bless us—every one!”

  19

  “Maybe We Can Make Something of Each Other!”

  * * *

  Happy New Year, Daughter.”

  Startled at the unusual formality in his voice, Dani looked quickly at her father. The family had been seated around the antique claw-footed oak table, nibbling at snacks and waiting for midnight. When the rockets began bursting in the sky and the faint rattling sound of firecrackers came from down the road, the rest of them had gone to the bay window.

  She studied his face, thin and pale from the lack of sun, but somehow stronger than ever, for his illness had planed away just enough flesh to reveal the strength of the bone structure and throw his essential steadiness into prominence.

  “Happy New Year, Dad.” She smiled and kissed his cheek. He held her hand, looked up at her, and confessed quietly, “For a while it looked as if it wouldn’t be so happy for any of us.”

  Dani nodded. For a week the media had besieged her and her family. Reporters from newspapers, journals, television anchormen, agents looking for first rights, like locusts they had descended both on the office and the house.

  From the moment Maxwell Stone had been indicted for conspiracy to murder, the entire country could not get enough details. The bizarre setting of the strange prison, the collapse of Stone’s military “empire,” the story of the survivors, and most of all the dramatic escape captivated the world! Lovelace, Rachel and Stone’s pictures became familiar to America as the three were trotted off to jail to await trials.

  Dani had tried to go to the office, but discovered that she had no hope of conducting business as usual until the white-hot interest of the press and the public died down. “Well, Dad,” she’d said later, “if we ever are able to get down to business, we’ll have plenty! Angie’s got a list two feet long of clients who’ve just got to have Ross Investigations work for them!” However, as soon as the ephemeral interest of the public was drawn elsewhere, both expected that most of those sensation-seeking clients would vanish.

  “It’s been a hard week,” Daniel’s words drew her back to the present. He looked down at her hand, studied the strong, lean fingers, then suddenly looked up. “We thought we’d lost you, but God is faithful!”

  “Hey, come on over here and look at the fireworks!” Rob called. He came over to where Dani stood, noted the grip his father had on her, and pulled her away. “Aw, come on, Dad, let’s not have any sticky sentimentality around here—okay?”

  Allison came over and pinched his arm, and with a sly grin interjected, “You mean like the kind you showed, Rob? You know, when Dani first came home and you slobbered all over her? Disgusting, that’s what it was!”

  His lean face flushed, and he turned and grabbed her. Despite her screams of protest, Rob threw her over his shoulder. “That’s it for you! I’m starting the new year by tossing you in the fishpond!” He carried her off, ignoring her kicking and screaming, and the others smiled as the sounds grew faint, then were cut off by the slamming of the front door.

  “I hope he doesn’t really do it,” Dani worried. “It’s pretty cold tonight.”

  “He won’t.” Daniel got to his feet, went to the window, and looked out. Allison ran by, screaming, hotly pursued by Rob, and Dani said quietly, “I guess I spent more time in the silo thinking about those two than anything else. They both need so much love and assurance, and I began thinking that maybe I’d never be around to give it to them.”

  Her mother put her arm around Dani’s waist. “They grew up quite a bit during all this—both of them. Oh, they’re still going to have some growing pains, but it brought them both up pretty short.”

  “I worried about you, too,” Dani said. “One thing kept coming to me: I thought about how I never really told you how much I love you.” She put her arms around them both, gave a healthy squeeze, then laughed. “So if I ‘slobber’ over you—as Allison so delicately puts it!—just mark it down to belated loving behavior.”

  Daniel said fondly, “You’ve always been a fine daughter, Dani. Never given us any trouble.” Then his tone changed and he asked, “What are you going to do now?”

  “Why—go back to the office!”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t,” he suggested. “I know you hated to leave seminary, Dani. You long to go to Africa.” He shook his head. “That’s your dream, and I don’t want to stand between anyone and what she really wants—especially when it’s a call from God.”

  Dani let his words die away, and for a long moment she stood there, lost in a private world. Then she shook her head, her long hair swinging freely over her shoulders. When she spoke, it was with a determination that both her parents had learned to respect. “I know what you’re telling me, Dad. You don’t want to be a burden, and all that, but it really isn’t like that. There wasn’t a great deal to do in
the silo, so I spent a lot of time thinking—about what I’d done, what I’d become, and what I’d do if I ever got the chance. It was like being in a religious order, in a way. All cut off from the world, with lots of time to pray! And I thought some things out.”

  “What kind of things?” Daniel asked at once.

  “Well, about the mission field. Someday I may go to Africa, but I’m not ready for a thing like that now. I’ll probably do some more seminary work, study some more. But I discovered one thing: I knew a lot about God, but I didn’t know God Himself very well!”

  She broke off to relate her experiences on the plane, coming home from seminary. She spoke of her difficulty ministering to the passenger with a terminal disease, then of the other times in Stone’s prison when she had failed.

  “We all fail like that!” her father protested.

  “I suppose, but finally what I knew God was saying didn’t come in an audible voice, but just—just seeped into my heart!” She broke into a laugh that lit up her face, and said, “My professors would have a fit if they heard me say that—seeped into my heart! They’d want me to say, something like ‘An epiphany broke through and fragmented the ground of my being’!”

  “What is God leading you to do?” her mother asked.

  “To be still and know that He is God,” Dani said simply. “And that means settling down to work. To make Ross Investigations the best agency in America. The verse that kept coming to me over and over was: ‘. . . Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.’ I think God was telling me there’s nothing ‘sacred’ about going to Africa. Just putting on a pair of shorts and a pith helmet and calling yourself a missionary won’t put you on good terms with God. So no pith helmet for Dani!”

  “It’s going to be a trenchcoat and a slouch hat over the eyes, eh?” Her father smiled. “A private eye for the glory of God?”

  “Sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it?” Dani said, but her eyes were very serious. “I think God has said in effect, ‘Dani, you be an investigator. Be a detective for My glory. Help those who are helpless. Keep your hands clean. Serve Me by being a servant to people who need help.’”