Hood of Death (13 page)

He glanced back. The grenade had slowed them up. They were approaching the wire gap well spread out, like an exercise group at infantry school. There were twenty or more men chasing them now. Two powerful flashlights stabbed into the murk, but didn't reach them. If the clouds uncovered the moon, he and Jeanyee would have had it.

He trotted, holding the girl's hand. She said, "Where are we..."

"Don't talk," he cut her off. "We live or die together, so depend on me."

His knees struck brush and he stopped. Which way was the trail? Logically it must be to the right, parallel to the course he had followed from the main house. He turned that way.

A strong light blazed from the gap in the wire and crept over the lawn, reached the forest at their left, fingered its way along the brush with a pale touch. Someone had brought up a more powerful light, probably a six-volt sportsman's handlamp. He pulled Jeanyee into the brush and pressed her to the ground. Pinned! He bent his head toward the ground as the light patted their hiding place and moved on, probing at the trees. Many a soldier has died because his own face glowed.

Jeanyee whispered, "Let's get out of here."

"In a moment I don't want to get us shot." He couldn't tell her that there was no way out. At their back was forest and bluff, and he did not know where the trail was. If they moved, the noise would be fatal. If they walked on the lawn, the light would find them.

He probed experimentally through the brush, trying to work along to where the trail might be. The low hemlock branches and second-growth set up a crackle. The light swept back, missed them again and explored in the other direction. If they moved in the brush, they'd draw it back.

At the wire they had started to come through one at a time, in nicely spaced rushes. Whoever commanded them had them all down now except the ones who advanced. They knew their business. Nick took out Wilhelmina, pressed his inner arm against the single spare clip fastened inside his belt over where his appendix used to be. It was faint comfort. Those short bursts had indicated a good man with the spray gun — and there were probably more.

Three men were through the gap and spreading out. Another ran toward it, a good target in the car lights. There was no use waiting. He might as well move while the wire was on his team, holding back their concerted rush. With the precision of a craftsman he allowed for the drop, the man's speed, and collapsed the running figure with one shot. He put a second bullet into one of the car's headlights, and it became suddenly one-eyed. He was aiming coolly for the strong handlight when the submachine gun opened up again, was joined by another, and two or three pistols started to blink flame. He hit the dirt.

The ominous whir-r-r-r-r sounded all around them. Slugs zipped through the grass, clattered on dry branches. They were peppering the landscape and he did not dare move. Let that light catch the phosphorescence of his skin, a chance glitter from his wrist watch, and he and Jeanyee would become animal meat riddled and torn by lead and copper and steel. She attempted to raise her head. He pushed it down, gently. "Don't look. Stay still."

The firing rattled to a halt. Last to stop was the spray gun which was stitching short bursts methodically along the forest line. Nick resisted a temptation to peek. That's my boy — a good infantryman.

The man Nick had shot groaned, a throat-tearing, misery-filled retch of pain. The strong voice shouted, "Hold your fire. John Number Two drag Angelo back behind the car. Then don't move him. Barry — take your three men and get a car and circle outside and hit those trees. Ram the car in, and get out and work along toward us. Keep that light going' along the edge there. Vince — you got ammo left?"

"Thirty-five — forty." Nick wondered — my good gunner?

"Watch the light."

"Right."

"Look and listen. We've got 'em pinned down."

So you have, general. Nick pulled his dark jacket up across his face, curled his hand inside it and risked a look. That cluster of orders should have most of them watching each other for an instant. In the Cyclops eye of the car headlight another man was dragging away the wounded man who was gasping out a blubbery choke. The handlight was moving along the forest far to the left. Three men ran toward the house.

An order was muttered which Nick could not hear. The men began to crawl in behind the car, like a patrol behind a tank. Nick worried about the three men who had come through the wire. If there was a doer in that bunch, he would be inching his way forward like a deadly reptile.

Jeanyee gurgled. Nick patted her head. "Quiet," he whispered. "Be very quiet." He held his breath and listened, tried to see or sense anything that moved in the near blackness.

Another mumble of voices and the handlight winked out The single headlight on the car was extinguished. Nick scowled. The mastermind would advance his gunners now without lights. Meanwhile, where were the three whom he had last seen lying prone somewhere in the sea of darkness out there in front?

A car started up and roared down the road, paused at the gate, then turned to race across the meadow. And here come the flankers! If I had support I'd radio for artillery, mortar fire and a support platoon. Better yet, send me a tank or armored car if there's one to spare.

The motor of the car with one headlight roared. Doors on it slammed. Nick's fantasies were interrupted. Frontal attack too! Damned efficient. He slipped his one remaining cigarette lighter-type grenade into his left hand and cradled Wilhelmina in his right. The flanking car dipped its headlights as it churned through a brook, bobbed up and was crossing the near gravel path.

The headlight of the car beyond the wire flamed on and it accelerated toward the gap. The handlight came on again, probing at the trees. It stabbed its glow along the brushline. There was a crackle — the submachine gun rattled. Rattled again. Nick thought,
He's probably firing at one of his own men in there, one of the three who came through.

"Hey... I" It ended in a gasp.

Might have got him, too. Nick slitted his eyes. His night vision was as superb as carotene and 20/15 eyesight could make it, but he could not find the other two.

Then the car hit the fence. For an instant Nick saw a dark shape forty feet in front of him as the car's light swung in his direction. He fired twice and was sure he had scored. But now the ball begins!

He shot out the headlight and squeezed lead at the car, stitching a pattern just across the lower windshield, his last shots guided by the handlight before it was switched off.

The car's engine whined and there was another rattling crash. Nick guessed that he might have winged the driver and the car had circled back into the fence.

"There he is!" the strong voice shouted. "To the right. Up and at 'em."

"C'mon." Nick pulled Jeanyee upright. "Make 'em get us on the wing."

He guided her forward to the grass and along it, away from the attackers but toward the other car which was a few yards from the tree line, about a hundred yards from them.

And then the moon came out from behind the clouds. Nick crouched and whirled toward the gap, snapped the spare magazine into Wilhelmina and peered through darkness which was suddenly not nearly as concealing. He had a few seconds. He and Jeanyee were harder to see against the forest than the attackers on the artificial skyline. The man with the handlamp foolishly turned it on. Nick noted that he carried it in his left hand, as he placed a bullet where a belt buckle should be. The man crumpled and the light spewed its rays along the ground, adding to Nick's visibility of the dozen shapes coming at him. The leader was about two hundred yards away. Nick dropped him. Thought,
And Stuart wonders why I stick to Wilhelminas! Pass the ammo, Stuart, and we'll get out of this yet.
But Stuart couldn't hear him.

Moonlight shooting! He missed one, got him on the second. A few more shots and it would be all over. Pistols winked at him and he heard whir-r-r-r-r again. He pushed Jeanyee along. "Run."

He pulled out a small oval globe, pressed a lever in its side and threw it at the skirmish line. A Stuart smoke bomb, quick spreading, thick concealment, but dispersed in a few short minutes. The device
wooshed
and for a moment they were hidden.

He ran after Jeanyee. The car had stopped at the edge of the forest. Three men tumbled out, pistols raised, dim menaces in the murk. They left the car's lights on. Guns at my back and guns in my face; Nick grimaced. And just two more cartridges in mine!

He glanced back. A man stumbled out of the gray-white mist, a dull shape. To save a bullet, Nick tossed his second and last smoke grenade and the shape was obscured. He turned toward the car. The three men were spreading out, either not interested in killing Jeanyee or saving all their fire for him. How important can you get? Nick went toward them in a crouch — two of you go with me and that's the end. I'll get close for this moonlight-carlight target work.

B-VOOM! From the forest, midway between Jeanyee and Nick and the three advancing men, a heavy weapon boomed — the full-throated roar of a rifle of decent caliber. One of the dark shapes went down. B-VOOM! B-VOOM! The other two shapes dropped to the ground. Nick could not tell if one or both were hit — the first man was screaming in pain.

"Come this way," Nick said, grabbing Jeanyee's arm from behind. The man with the rifle might be for or against, but he was the only hope in sight, which made him an automatic ally. He pulled Jeanyee into the scrub and crashed toward the firing point.

CRACK-WHAM B-VOOM! The same weapon with the muzzle blast close and pointed their way! Nick held the Luger low. CRACK-WHAM B-VOOM! Jeanyee gave a little gasp and shriek. The muzzle blast was so near it washed over them like a gust from a hurricane — but no wind could shake your eardrums like it. It was firing past them, toward the smokescreen.

"Hey," Nick called. "You want some help?"

"Well, I'll be damned," a voice answered. "Yeah. Come and save me." It was John Villon.

In a moment they were next to him. Nick said — strictly Alastair, "Many thanks, old boy. Bit sticky there. You wouldn't have any nine milly Luger ammo on you?"

"No. You out?"

"One left." A lie. You never knew.

"Here. Colt Government auto. You know it?"

"Love it." He took the heavy gun. "Shall we go?"

"Follow me."

Villon went through the trees, twisting and turning. In a few moments they came to the trail, the trees above showing an open slash against the sky, the moon a broken gold coin on its rim.

Nick said, "No time to ask you why. Will you guide us back over the mountain?"

"Sure. The dogs will find us though."

"I know. Suppose you go ahead with the girl. Ill catch you or wait for me not more than ten minutes at the old road."

"My jeep is there. But we'd better stick together. You'll only get..."

"Get going," Nick said. "You bought me some time. My turn to treat."

He ran down the trail into the meadow without waiting for an answer. They had bypassed the car in the trees, and he was on the opposite side from where its occupants had hit the ground. Judging by the quality of the men he had seen tonight, if any of them were in one piece after that rifle raking they were crawling into the trees looking for him. He ran to the car and peeked in. It was empty, its lights glaring, its motor purring.

Automatic shift. He half-mooned backwards, used low to get underway forward with full throttle — moved the lever immediately up to
drive.

A man cursed and a gun blazed not fifty feet away. A slug whanged on car metal. Another pierced glass a foot from his head. He huddled down, did a double serpentine turn, crossed the gravel path and swooped down and up through the brook.

He followed the fence, reached the road and turned toward the main house. He drove a quarter-mile, cut the lights and jammed on the brakes. He jumped out and from the cornucopia of his jacket took a small tube, an inch long and hardly as thick as a pencil. He carried four of them, common incendiary fuses. He grasped the little cylinder at each end with his fingers, gave it a twist and dropped it into the gas tank. The twist broke a seal and acid flowed against a thin metal wall. The wall lasted about one minute and then the device would flare — as hot and penetrating as phosphorus.

There was a slight downgrade to the parking lot Not as much as he would have liked. He wished he had time to find a stone to hold down the accelerator, but behind him a car's lights were racing at the gate. He was going about forty when he flipped the gear selector into neutral, tilted the heavy car toward the parking lot and jumped out.

The fall shook him up, even with all the tumbling roll he could generate. He ran into the meadow, heading toward the trail out of the valley, then dropped to the ground as the headlights roared by in pursuit.

The car he abandoned had rolled between a line of parked cars for a considerable distance, scraping off front ends of assorted vehicles as it careened from side to side. The sounds were interesting. He turned on his recorder as he trotted toward the forest.

He listened for the
whoosh
of the gas tank explosion. You never knew about an incendiary cap in a closed tank. He had left the tank cap off, of course, and theoretically there should be enough oxygen, especially if the first blast ruptured the tank. But if a tank was chock full or especially built of solid or bulletproof metal all you got was a small fire.

Oriented by the house lights he found the trail entrance. He listened carefully, moved watchfully, but there was no sign of the three men who had been with the flanking car. He went up the mountain silently and swiftly, but not recklessly, alert for an ambush.

The tank let go with a satisfying blare — an explosion wrapped in mush. He glanced back and saw flames shooting into the sky.