A little before the twelve-time hour he turned into the road where his high-class hideout was located, came to an abrupt halt. Outside the hotel stood a line of official cars, a fire-pump and an ambulance. A number of uniformed cops were meandering around the vehicles. Tough looking characters in plain clothes were all over the scene.
Two of the latter appeared out of nowhere and confronted him hard-eyed.
“What’s happened?” asked Mowry, behaving like a Sunday school superintendent.
“Never mind what’s happened. Show us your documents. Come on, what are you waiting for?”
CHAPTER VII
Carefully Mowry slid a hand into his inner pocket. They were tense, fully alert, watching his movement and ready to react if what he produced was not paper. He drew out his identity-card, handed it over knowing that it bore the proper cachet of Diracta and the overstamp of Jaimec. Then he gave them his personal card and movement permit. Inwardly he hoped with all his heart that they would be easily convinced.
They weren’t. They displayed the dogged determination of those under strict orders to make someone pay dearly for something or other. Evidently whatever had occurred was serious enough to have stirred up a hornet’s nest.
“A special correspondent,” said the larger of the two mouthing the words with contempt. He looked up from the identity-card. “What is special about a correspondent?”
“I’ve been sent here to cover war news specifically from the Jaimec angle. I do not bother with civilian matters. Those are for ordinary reporters.”
“I see: He gave Mowry a long, sharp, penetrating look. His eyes had the beady coldness of a sidewinder’s. “From where do you get your news about the war?”
“From official handouts—mostly from the Office of War Information in Pertane.”
“You have no other sources?”
“Yes, of course. I keep my ears open for gossip and rumours.”
“And what do you do with that stuff?”
“I try draw reasonable conclusions from it, write it up and submit the script to the Board of Censorship. If they approve it, I’m lucky. If they kill it, well”—he spread his hands with an air of helplessness—“I just put up with it.”
“Therefore,” said the Kaitempi agent, cunningly, “you should be well-known to officials of the Office of War Information and the Board of Censorship, hi? They will vouch for you if requested to do so, hi?”
“Without a doubt,” assured Mowry, praying for a break.
“Good! You will name the ones you know best and we will check with them immediately.”
“What, at this time of night?”
“Why should you care what time it is? It is your neck—”
That did it. Mowry punched him on the snout, swiftly, fiercely, putting every ounce of weight behind the blow. The recipient went down good and hard and stayed down. The other fellow was no slouch. Wasting no time in dumbfoundment, he took a bow-legged but quick step forward, shoved a gun into Mowry’s face.
“Raise them high, you soko, or I’ll—”
With the speed and recklessness of one who is desperate, Mowry ducked under the gun, seized the other’s extended arm; got it over his shoulder and yanked. The agent let out a thin, piercing yelp and flew through the air with the greatest of ease. His gun dropped to ground. Mowry scooped it up and started the sprint of his life.
Round the corner, along the street and into an alley This took him by the back of his hotel and as he tore past he noted out the corner of one eye a window missing and a great ragged hole in the wall. Hurdling a pile of smashed bricks and splintered timber, he reached the alley’s end, shot across the next street.
So that was it. Somehow they had smelled him out, possibly as a result of one of those infernal registration checks. They had searched his room and tried to open his bag with a metal master-key. Then had come the big bang. If the room had been crowded at the time the explosion would have enough force to kill at least a dozen of them. It would be a blow sufficient to get their blood up for a month. If ever they laid hands on him…
He kept going as fast as he could make it, the gun in his grip, his ears straining for sounds of pursuit. Pretty soon the radio alarm would be going over the air, they’d close every exit from the town, blocking trains, buses, roads, everything. At all costs he must beat them to it by getting outside the cordon before it was formed-if it could be done.
As far as possible he tried to race through lanes and alleys, avoiding main roads on which patrol-cars would be running to and fro loaded with guns and eyes. At this late hour there were few people about, no crowds in which to hide. The streets were almost empty with most folk abed and an armed man sprinting through the night was mighty conspicuous. But nothing could be done about that. To mooch with an air of innocence was to give time for the trap to close about him.
Darkness was his only help, not counting his legs. He pounded through alley after alley, bolted across six streets, halted in deep shadow as he was about to jump the seventh. A car bulging with uniformed cops and plainclothes Kaitempi slid past, its windows full of faces trying to look everywhere at once.
For a short time he stood silent and unmoving in the shadow, heart thumping, chest heaving, a trickle of sweat creeping down his spine. Immediately the hunters had gone he was across the street, into the opposite alley and racing onward. Five times he paused in concealment, mentally cursing the delay, while prowl-cars, snooped around.
The sixth stop was different. He lurked in the alley’s corner as headlights came up the street. A mud-spattered dyno rolled into view, stopped within twenty yards of him. The next moment a solitary civilian got out, went to a nearby door and shoved a key into its lock. Mowry came out the alley like a. quick-moving cat.
The door opened just as the car shot away with a shrill scream from its dynamo. Struck with surprise, the civilian wasted half a minute gaping after his vanishing property. Then he let go an oath, ran indoors and snatched up the telephone.
Luck has got to be mixed decided Mowry as he gripped the wheel. There must be good to compensate for bad, a turn for the better to balance a change for the worse. Swinging the car into a broad, well-lit avenue, he slowed it to a more sedate pace.
Two overloaded patrol-cars passed him going in the opposite direction, another overtook him and rocked ahead. They weren’t interested in a dirty dyno trundling home late; they were hunting a breathless fugitive assumed to be still galloping around on two feet. He estimated that it would be no more than another ten minutes before the radio made them change their minds. It might have been better if he had shot the car’s owner and thus gained himself extra valuable minutes. But he hadn’t. Too late to regret the omission now.
After seven minutes he passed the last houses of Radine and headed into open country along an unfamiliar road. At once he hit up top speed to make maximum distance while the going was good. The car howled along, headlight beams dipping and swaying, the den-needle creeping close to its limit.
Twenty more minutes and he shot like a rocket through a long, straggling village buried deep in slumber. One mile farther on he rounded a bend, got a brief glimpse of a white pole across the road, the glitter of buttons and shine of metal helmets grouped at each end. He set his teeth, aimed straight at the middle without reducing speed by a fraction. The car hit the pole, flung the broken halves aside and raced on. Something struck five sharp blows on the back, two neat holes appeared in the rear window, a third where the windshield. joined the roof.
That showed the radio-alarm had been given, that forces had been alerted over a wide area. His crashing of the road-block was a giveaway. They now knew in which direction he was fleeing and could concentrate ahead of him. Just where he was going was more than he knew himself. He’d never been on this road before, the locale was strange and he had no map to consult. Worse, he had little money and no documents of any kind. The loss of his case had deprived him of everything save what was upon his person, plus a hot car and a stolen gun.