fingerprint might be damaging. And that hundredth time they would go over the thing themselves, to eradicate clues, taking as many minutes to the job as their caution thought necessary.
The coupé rolled up toward the rear of the innocent-looking parked truck. Smitty slowed and was ready to stop.
“If we can just find a little sign as to where these skurlies might have gone from here—” Mac began.
And then the truck seemed to become one compact engine of death and destruction.
The rear doors swung open, and not one, but two submachine guns blasted at the coupé. Not one, but three grenades were tossed at the coupé.
The windshield was of bulletproof glass; but while it didn’t break, it certainly cracked. In five seconds it was covered with white patches and so irradiated with a million little cracks that you could no more see through it than you can see through frosted glass.
Smitty was blind, as far as seeing ahead of the car was concerned.
Then the three grenades went off!
One, landing right beside the car, exploded with a roar that could be heard for blocks. The coupé, weighing nearly three tons, leaped like a feather, sagged to the left and almost tipped on its side, then subsided.
The other two didn’t make much noise, but from them came a thick cloud of chlorine gas! And, because the day was windless, the gas just hung there.
The coupé, under its harmless-looking exterior of shabby paint and used respectability, was built like an army tank. That was why Smitty liked to use it.
But even the coupé could not stand this sort of concerted attack. It would be disabled in a few seconds. But Smitty meant to use those seconds well.
There was no time for him to yell a warning to Mac, but the warning wasn’t needed. There was rarely need for words between The Avenger and his aides, or one aide and another, in a tight fix. They worked like parts of a harmonious machine.
So Mac instinctively hung onto the edge of the seat with his left hand as the coupé, with Smitty’s foot to the floor on the accelerator, roared like a wounded rhinoceros straight ahead!
Smitty couldn’t see anything, but he remembered where the rear of that truck was; and that was the target of his mad plunge.
He made a bull’s-eye!
The heavy snout of the coupé jammed into the rear of the truck with a roar almost as loud as that of the grenade explosion. And with the moment of impact, Mac had the door on his side open and was rolling out.
His right hand had darted for the door handle, when his left clung to the seat edge in Smitty’s dash ahead.
He hit the street a half-second before the giant was out his side, but that was all. Both were on their feet together and leaping ahead so that they would have the blank side walls of the truck between themselves and whoever was inside.
The object of that charge with the coupé had been to knock everybody in the truck off his feet and to cork the rear opening so the men would be penned in there.
It only half succeeded.
The two saw, as they raced past, that the interior of the truck was like an overturned ants’ nest, with no telling how many men scrambling over each other to try to get to their feet again.
But the coupé’s snout had not plugged the rear of the truck body. The doors were still open, and there was ample room to get out over the coupé’s hood.
Which the men proceeded to do!
Smitty saw, cursing their luck, that there were at least a dozen of them, picked up somewhere en route from the gasket factory to this spot.
The men split up, half streaming toward the front of the truck to get at Smitty, the other half taking the other side to get Mac. And one remarkable thing about them was that they made no sound. There were no excited calls from one to another to do this or that thing; to get those men; to do anything at all.
They acted like deaf-mutes.
The men were firing as they ran. Smitty and Mac both jerked this way and that under the impact of slugs, but neither
The coupé rolled up toward the rear of the innocent-looking parked truck. Smitty slowed and was ready to stop.
“If we can just find a little sign as to where these skurlies might have gone from here—” Mac began.
And then the truck seemed to become one compact engine of death and destruction.
The rear doors swung open, and not one, but two submachine guns blasted at the coupé. Not one, but three grenades were tossed at the coupé.
The windshield was of bulletproof glass; but while it didn’t break, it certainly cracked. In five seconds it was covered with white patches and so irradiated with a million little cracks that you could no more see through it than you can see through frosted glass.
Smitty was blind, as far as seeing ahead of the car was concerned.
Then the three grenades went off!
One, landing right beside the car, exploded with a roar that could be heard for blocks. The coupé, weighing nearly three tons, leaped like a feather, sagged to the left and almost tipped on its side, then subsided.
The other two didn’t make much noise, but from them came a thick cloud of chlorine gas! And, because the day was windless, the gas just hung there.
The coupé, under its harmless-looking exterior of shabby paint and used respectability, was built like an army tank. That was why Smitty liked to use it.
But even the coupé could not stand this sort of concerted attack. It would be disabled in a few seconds. But Smitty meant to use those seconds well.
There was no time for him to yell a warning to Mac, but the warning wasn’t needed. There was rarely need for words between The Avenger and his aides, or one aide and another, in a tight fix. They worked like parts of a harmonious machine.
So Mac instinctively hung onto the edge of the seat with his left hand as the coupé, with Smitty’s foot to the floor on the accelerator, roared like a wounded rhinoceros straight ahead!
Smitty couldn’t see anything, but he remembered where the rear of that truck was; and that was the target of his mad plunge.
He made a bull’s-eye!
The heavy snout of the coupé jammed into the rear of the truck with a roar almost as loud as that of the grenade explosion. And with the moment of impact, Mac had the door on his side open and was rolling out.
His right hand had darted for the door handle, when his left clung to the seat edge in Smitty’s dash ahead.
He hit the street a half-second before the giant was out his side, but that was all. Both were on their feet together and leaping ahead so that they would have the blank side walls of the truck between themselves and whoever was inside.
The object of that charge with the coupé had been to knock everybody in the truck off his feet and to cork the rear opening so the men would be penned in there.
It only half succeeded.
The two saw, as they raced past, that the interior of the truck was like an overturned ants’ nest, with no telling how many men scrambling over each other to try to get to their feet again.
But the coupé’s snout had not plugged the rear of the truck body. The doors were still open, and there was ample room to get out over the coupé’s hood.
Which the men proceeded to do!
Smitty saw, cursing their luck, that there were at least a dozen of them, picked up somewhere en route from the gasket factory to this spot.
The men split up, half streaming toward the front of the truck to get at Smitty, the other half taking the other side to get Mac. And one remarkable thing about them was that they made no sound. There were no excited calls from one to another to do this or that thing; to get those men; to do anything at all.
They acted like deaf-mutes.
The men were firing as they ran. Smitty and Mac both jerked this way and that under the impact of slugs, but neither
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