Alan E. Nourse - The Fourth Horseman (50 page)

The porch and yard lights were blazing, as they should have been, when Jack Dillman turned into the drive, but the house itself was totally dark. He edged forward until he could see the concealed parking slot. No blue Chrysler station wagon. No car at all except Carmen's little Honda sitting where it belonged in the carport.

Slowly Jack backed out of the drive, eased his car around the cul-de-sac and out onto the street. He had been so certain, so absolutely certain that now he felt a wave of total confusion.
If Hal had come over at all, he'd still be here, he wouldn't have wasted four good hours. And she wouldn't have been idiot enough to go walking someplace—and they wouldn't have driven anyplace, not with safe harbor right here. Ergo. . . .

He turned down the hill, driving faster now and inexplicably uneasy. He really hadn't had any business leaving old Bud holding the bag, even in the safety of the Tav. He hadn't had any business leaving the patrol at all. He parked by the bank again, started running across toward the Tav and then stopped sharply. The lights were off, the place totally dark. Half a block down the street he saw Bud's car parked at the curb on the town-green side of the street, under a street-light. Someone behind the wheel.
They must have closed up and tossed him out,
Jack thought.
But why so early?

He hesitated, M-l in his hand. Something about the tableau—the dark building fronts across the street, the empty green, the lone car parked with the figure behind the wheel, something about it was wrong. Something in Jack's mind shrieked
Take cover!
and he moved, sprinting for the building fronts across the street. In the same split second there was a flash of light and a cracking report from a low building rooftop to his left. Something hit the curb behind where he had been and whined away in ricochet. Two more cracks as he ducked across the street; he saw a chunk fly out of a telephone post. Then he hit the storefront, flattened to it, looking back for any sign of his assailant. "Bud!" he screamed. "Don't get out. Get down!'' He heard a clear echo of his words in the empty night.

Silence. Nothing moved. In a burst of motion he pelted down the street toward Bud's car, hugging the storefronts. A little short of the car he stopped. He could see, now: the glass of the driver's window showed a ragged hole and the figure was slumped forward, angling across the steering wheel.

He had just hit the trigger to his screamer when he heard the roaring sound, felt the ground shake as the two huge semi trailers roared down the street. The first turned into the Betterway store lot, roared across and swung to a stop directly in front of the big windows. The second truck halted with a squeal of air brakes a few storefronts back and Jack saw the figure of the rooftop sniper leap for the top of the semi. It was a long jump; the leaper caught with just one foot, sprawled on the truck top, rifle still in hand.

For Jack Dillman, thirty-year-old reactions moved him, rescued him. Without conscious thought he was on one knee in a doorway, sighting, squeezing the trigger, seeing the man on the truck roof topple to the street as the heavy rifle slammed Jack's shoulder. Jack dove for the shelter of Bud's car, caught the fallen man with another shell as he grappled for his rifle. Then the truck moved forward, its New York plates clear in the streetlight. Jack fired at the windshield point-blank, saw a chunk of it fall away, and then the truck swerved into the Betterway lot and roared across it, around the back toward the loading docks.

Many things happened at once, then. The first truck's rear doors burst open and people poured out—five, six, seven, it looked like. There was an earsplitting crash of glass as the front window of the store went. At the same time, down the block, another screamer went off and then another, and somewhere farther away sirens were sounding. Off to Jack's right a rifle cracked, followed by the crash of broken glass—a near-miss that went into the store. The shot was suddenly answered by a rattle of submachine gun fire from the truck—-and the night air exploded into a barrage.

The raiders had been ready. The first out had gone into the store and started loading; now half a dozen more poured out and deployed themselves with the truck for cover, commanding a wide semicircle across the store parking lot and the green. At the far side of the green a police car roared down a side street, skidded to a halt amid a spray of bullets and backed abruptly into a protected alleyway to unload three uniformed men.

From his vantage point, Jack could see the trouble all too clearly. The thing had been planned beautifully; the front truck all but hid the storefront, providing access to the interior for the loading crew and protection for their covering firepower. The truck was doubtless armored—he'd heard accounts of this; it could take a bazooka shell to punch a hole in it, and with snipers and machine gunners protected, the police and townspeople couldn't get close. A pitched battle going on, all kinds of sound and fury in front of the store—but the heavy loading was going on in
back
at the loading docks where the second truck had gone, where the side meat and flour and sugar and macaroni was stored and where nobody was interfering. When
that
truck got full it would move out and plow through anything that got in its way, leaving the front truck to follow with rearguard protection, carrying whatever incidental things there had been time to load into it.

There had to be a tip-off somewhere
, Jack thought. This was one of the gangs from the south, working out of the Bronx or Yonkers, hitting stores like clockwork. It wasn't coincidence that they had turned up here tonight just after two days' worth of food shipment had come in. Somebody tipped them—
and they were going to get away with it if somebody didn't get back of that store and cripple that truck. . . .

There was a little time—you don't fill a whole semi full of meat and flour in fifteen minutes. He was safe enough crouched in the doorway with Bud's car for cover, but he was a wide-open target if he moved. The street lighting and the big parking-lot floods had been to the town's advantage before, illuminating the downtown area so the watchers could spot trouble—but now that light was keeping him from where he wanted to go. In the floodlights, he was dead. If he could douse them, he might possibly get back to cripple that truck. . . .

He had fired four shells from an eight-round clip. He had two more clips in his pocket—why the extra he didn't know. He crouched back in his hidey-hole, sighted the streetlight above him and fired.

He'd been a top marksman in Korea, and those reflexes carve a crease in the brain that doesn't go away. He was back thirty years—and the light went out. He turned to the first side parking-lot light. Pop! It was gone too. Then to his amazement, two more went, with two sharp reports from his right. He had a friend. . . .

In the relative darkness he ran an evasive pattern back up the sidewalk toward where those reports had come from. Then he heard a voice: "Jack! In here!"

It was Angelo Curccio in a store doorway at the far comer of the green. Jack ducked in, backed against the door. "You're a good shot, Angelo."

"Yeah. So I discover."

"There's nobody in the back. They're making a big fuss out front."

"Yeah. I know."

"That ain't no accident."

"I know."

"You got shells? Let's get the rest of those damned lights."

Two minutes later their side of the Betterway parking lot was dark. "What do you have in mind, Jack?"

"We've got to kill that truck or it's going to take away three months' food. Let's work around."

Together they worked to the right, around against storefronts until they could see the rear loading area of the store. The fire barrage went on in front. Then Angelo stopped. "Hey. Wait a minute."

Jack stared across at the rear loading area. There wasn't one truck. There were two, side by side. "That delivery this afternoon—looks like the truck didn't leave, and we didn't notice it. They could have been loading all evening, and nobody saw them. They could be ready to bolt."

"Yeah." Angelo leaned alongside Jack to peer. "Then we gotta cripple both trucks. How?"

"Front axle. Tires. That's the only thing that will stop them. They'll run rims on the rear. Let's go."

They started across the darkened lot toward the trucks in a broken field pattern, crouching low, heading for the side of the building, where they would be momentarily out of sight. Men were still loading the truck nearest the loading dock, totally oblivious to anything but their work. Jack didn't see any gunmen covering the trucks under the huge spotlight over the loading dock, but he saw the light. No chance to get near the trucks with that light blazing away. The light had to go. But there was another obstacle before they could reach the loading docks: a small-truck ramp leading down to a basement unloading area, for bread trucks and beer trucks to get in and out fast when a semi was occupying the loading dock for half a day. If they went out around the ramp, they'd be wide open to fire, no cover of
any
sort. If they went down into it, they'd have cover at least momentarily and they'd be closer, able to see better to make a rush. . . .

He felt Angelo's hand on his shoulder, a hoarse whisper in his ear. "We're going to have to rush them to get those front tires. There's no other way."

"I know."

"If you could get down into that ramp, you could cover me. Then I could rush, get both trucks fast and keep on going. There's cars for cover on the other side."

"It could work if I could douse that big light," Jack said. "I'll kill it if I can, and run for the ramp. Then you go."

He edged to the corner of the building, rifle at ready. For an instant it seemed to him he was transported in time, slipped a cog back to thirty years earlier in a little town in North Korea, when he and another Angelo and a dozen other men were moving from building to building in pitch-darkness, facing sniper fire they could only pin down by the muzzle flares of their rifles, trying for an ammo truck that had to be blown. They'd gotten the ammo truck at the cost of four men, and then been pinned down in bombed-out rubble for three days before their backup finally came in. There'd been a big floodlight there, too, guarding the approach to where the ammo truck was housed. He'd taken that light. . . .

He stepped out from the corner, flinching at the light hitting his face, took fast aim and blew the light. Then he ducked and ran at top speed, low to the ground, for the ramp. He heard a rattle of fire as he reached it, heard slugs thunking the corner of the building, and dove headfirst into the slot of the ramp, rolling downward as he landed, right back onto his feet, his heart hammering. He froze, listening. No more fire, but they had the corner pinned; Angelo would have to wait a little. Angelo had
better
wait.

Jack glanced down the ramp, checking for a possible escape-way, and realized suddenly that there was a car parked there, not two feet down the ramp from where he'd landed. He peered through the darkness, caught the shadow of the grill work. He knew that car, a big Chrysler wagon. For an instant he thought someone was in it and ducked down, but one step and one quick glance told him different. Nobody in it—but it was packed to the roof, fairly stuffed full with flour sacks, rice sacks, large irregular lumps that looked like sides of beef. . . .

The discovery had taken only seconds, but it was enough. Jack raised his head over the far edge of the ramp, searching the gloom around the trucks for some shadowy movement. The men loading were cursing the darkness now and flashlights were appearing. He thought he saw a dark form around the rear corner of the outermost truck, but he couldn't be sure, and then it seemed to be gone. He brought the M-l up, rested the barrel on the edge of the ramp.
Okay, Angelo. Any time now. Go!

He heard footfalls and Angelo went, a gray blur in the darkness, out around the end of the ramp toward the trucks. Jack saw the dark form reappear at the corner of the truck and he fired instantly, saw the form crumble, his rifle going off in the air as he hit the ground. Then Angelo was between the trucks. Another black form moved; Jack saw a muzzle flare at the same time he felt a heavy blow to his right shoulder. He got two more shells off, then heard more rifle shots echoing from the loading dock, near the front of the trucks, but he couldn't get his arm to move to his pocket to get his other clip of shells. Vaguely he could hear somebody bellowing,
"Let's get this mother moving,"
vaguely heard truck motors starting up, saw one truck move and then veer insanely left into the very path of the other, the cab listing badly. And Jack was talking to his arm, repeating the words, "Let's get this mother moving," but his arm wouldn't move. Once again he saw the wagon parked down the ramp, realized his vulnerability, and groped with his left arm for a grip, hauled himself out of the ramp, out of the direct path of the car and onto the tarmac of the parking lot. And then suddenly everything was dim and spinning and he saw himself turning a giant cartwheel as he went over on his face on the pavement, and that was all he saw or heard.

Sometime later there were bright lights and voices and movement. A spotlight from the fire-station aid car was in his eyes and two men, vaguely familiar, were trying to hoist his considerable bulk onto a stretcher. His right shoulder was throbbing violently and his hand was still numb, but he could move the fingers and the arm again. The men moved back when they saw him tiying to struggle up onto his left elbow, move his right arm. "I think you just fainted or something," one of them told him. "The slug went through high in the biceps and under your shoulder. Must have hit a rib and ricocheted behind. Tore up some muscle and gave your brachial plexus quite a jolt but it didn't get bone, or anything vital. Lucky."