Countdown to Terror (11 page)

The sun still wasn't all the way up, but fingers of telltale gray were appearing in the east. Stony Strand's fishermen had been up and about for at least an hour. Charlie was invaluable. As a local boy, he was able to ask if any strangers were staying in the area.

One grizzled old salt nodded. "Someone's renting the old Garth place—you know, the cottage on the headland."

Charlie knew it all too well. "When we were kids, that was the town's haunted house. Somebody fixed it up to rent to summer tourists." He frowned. "They couldn't have chosen a better spot for themselves."

"Why?" Joe asked.

"You'll see."

They drove as close as they dared, hiding the vehicles behind a house that belonged to friends of Charlie's family. Then they marched on through the murky early morning light to the foot of the headland.

Wet fog blew in from the bay as they made their way across rocky terrain that looked as if it would be more at home on the moon. They had to place their feet carefully — the fog had made the naked rock slick underfoot.

Finally they reached the headland. A light breeze tore a hole in the curtain of fog, and Joe understood what Charlie had been talking about.

The cottage perched on a slight rise at the tip of the headland. To get to it, they'd have to move across a hundred feet of naked, broken granite. The neck of land was only fifteen or twenty feet wide in places. One man with a pistol could hold off a small army.

"This fog is a lucky break," Charlie said, kneeling behind a clump of boulders and peering out at the house. "They won't be able to leave until it begins to clear."

"You live around here. Can we use the fog to get closer to the house?" Frank asked. "Or will it lift too soon?"

"We'll have to try," Charlie said with a shrug. He started setting up his tiny force.

"Robert, Jack, and Doug, you're our best marksmen. Stay here behind these rocks and lay down cover fire if we need it. The rest of you will move up with me and the Hardys."

He glanced at Shauna, but she just smiled and shook her head. "I've had enough playing with guns tonight."

"Okay," Charlie said. "Load your firelocks."

His men grounded their guns, pulled out little paper cartridges, poured the powder down the muzzles, then pushed a bullet down with a ramrod. Placing a percussion cap under the hammer of the gun, they were ready.

"Takes a while to load those guys, doesn't it?" Joe said.

"It's worse than you think," Charlie said as he shoved a bullet home in his own gun. "To use this ramrod right, you almost have to stand up."

Joe looked at the uneven, rocky surface they'd have to move across. Anyone standing to reload would be a sitting duck. "You guys better hold your fire until we know it will do some good."

Rifles at the ready, Charlie and his troops set off down the headland in a ragged skirmish line. To the rear, the covering force hunkered down behind the boulders. Frank and Joe, crouching low, crept ahead of Charlie's force.

They made it almost three-quarters of the way to the house before they bumped into a guard.

The guy was sitting against a rock, half-asleep, when Frank came upon him. Caught by surprise, the man half rose, trying to bring up his Uzi.

Frank snapped out a kick that knocked the guy back against the rock, out cold. His gun clattered to the ground.

That was enough noise to wake up another guard closer to the house. He asked something in a foreign language while Frank groped for the lost weapon.

The man spoke again, a nervous edge to his voice.

Then the worst happened. The fog began to lift.

Charlie and his troops appeared through the thinning grayness like ghosts. The guard yelled and leveled his Uzi. But Joe popped up from behind a rock, his arm already swinging in a roundhouse right. Now they had two down, but that left two guards from the funeral home unaccounted for.

They soon put in an appearance, firing wildly with their machine guns. Charlie and company ducked to the ground, finding whatever cover they could among the rugged rocks. The three guys left in the boulders opened fire, driving the guards back indoors.

It was a weird sort of battle—the latest in automatic firepower against weapons that were antiques a century ago. The Assassins could spit three bullets a second at their enemies. Charlie's guys were lucky to manage two shots in a minute.

One of the Assassins took advantage of the long reload time to lean out the window and spray bullets around the rock where Charlie lay. Frank answered with half a clip from his Uzi, driving the guy back inside.

A moment later the other guard tried a charge, throwing open the door. The heavy bullet from one of Charlie's guys hit the door, sending the man staggering back.

The firing died down as a sort of stalemate developed. The Assassins couldn't come out of the house, but the Hardys and their friends couldn't get in.

"Is Frank Hardy there?" Singh's voice rang out in the sudden silence.

"Yes," Frank shouted back.

"So, you disabled our bomb. And all this shooting will surely bring the authorities. A pity." The rock Frank hid behind was spattered with machine-gun fire.

In fact, bullets were flying all along the headland from the windows of the house. It was as though the people inside weren't worried about saving ammunition.

Then Frank saw why, as the last of the fog cleared away. The guards were wasting bullets as a delaying action. They had to keep the attackers' heads down so the brains of the operation could escape.

And escape they would if the Hardys didn't do something about it. Beyond the house stretched a small pier.

And at the end of the pier was a seaplane, and the plane's props were already beginning to spin.

FRANK HARDY POPPED up, fired a quick burst from his Uzi, then ducked behind the rock again as the Assassins sent a hail of bullets his way.

He had slid behind a different rock, working his way back to Charlie and the guys from the Citadel. The problem was, the next stretch of rock behind him was bare and flat. There was no cover at all. How could he get across?

Joe must have seen the problem, because now he popped up to fire a couple of shots. That drew the enemy's fire his way as Frank dashed across the open space.

Covering each other, the Hardys finally managed to reach Charlie's position.

"Take this," Joe said, handing over his Uzi. "It will help even up the sides a little." He pointed at the pier, where even now three figures had appeared. "Use it to pin them down, to keep them from reaching the plane."

"What are you going to do?" Charlie asked.

"I'm going for a swim," Joe replied. "With luck, I may be able to convince that pilot to delay his departure."

"I'm doing the same," Frank said, passing his gun to another of the student soldiers. "Do the best you can till we get out there."

"You're going swimming—here?" Charlie said. "The undertow can kill you."

"The undertow isn't the only thing," Joe said with a grin. "You worry about keeping those guys from crossing the pier. We'll worry about getting to the plane."

"Of course, if they start shooting at us, we wouldn't mind a little covering fire," Frank added.

Charlie nodded, rising for a second to deliver a quick burst from his Uzi. The three figures on the pier scattered and hit the deck.

"You'd better get going," Charlie said. "The bullets in this clip won't last forever."

The Hardys made their way to a rocky ledge by the water, concealed by a big upthrust boulder. They took off their shoes and socks, then Joe stuck a foot into the water. "Cold," he announced. "And that undertow is — Whoa!" The force of the current sucked him right off the slippery rocks.

Frank slid in after him, bracing himself for the sudden cold. The undertow pulled hungrily at him, trying to take him out to sea. But that's where Frank wanted to go. He didn't have to fight to get back to land. As long as he headed for the seaplane, he'd be all right.

Of course, if the seaplane took off before he reached it, it would be a long swim to Maine.

Frank tried not to think about that. He just concentrated on the seaplane. Both he and Joe spent most of their time swimming underwater, rising only to catch a breath of air and to make sure they were heading the right way.

Once when he broke the surface, Frank heard gunfire. He glanced over at the pier. The three figures were making it closer to the plane. Could he beat them?

He struck out a little stronger as he swam.

Now he began to feel all the exhaustion he'd held back while he worked over the bomb. Fighting the undertow was a little trickier than he'd expected, too. It pulled at him like a hungry beast that wanted to be fed.

Frank sucked air and kept struggling. Then He reached up to grab on—and his hand slipped off. The undertow tore at him now, as if it were afraid he might escape. He was going down. . . .

A strong hand grabbed onto his collar, hauling him back up to the air. Joe Hardy grinned down at him, one hand on a strut of the plane, one still twisted in his shirt.

"Hey, big brother," he whispered. "You don't want to miss the party now."

They crept along the pontoon, concealed from the Assassins by the fuselage of the plane. It was very slippery going—one wrong move would leave them at the mercy of the undertow. Finally Joe reached the passenger door.

He pulled it open and swung in on the astonished pilot. By the time Frank got in, the pilot lay in the back of the plane, deep in dreamland.

Frank settled himself in the pilot's seat. "Okay," he said. "Let's see if those ground-training classes were worth the money Dad paid."

He checked the instruments, trying to find the engine controls. Outside on the pier, the shooting suddenly reached the proportions of a small war. The nasty rattle of submachine guns had a desperate sound.

The group on the pier had almost reached the plane now. Frank recognized them at once. Lupec, pale and staring, scuttled along. Tall, gangling Fellawi moved carefully, his hands cradling a lead box like the one he'd carried the night before.

Frank realized that must be the final assembly for the second bomb. He glanced in the back of the plane and saw a big crate. So, the rest was already on board.

Singh was the last of the three. He kept facing the headland, a MAC-10 in his hands, spraying bullets to keep the Citadel kids down. The whiteness of his gritted teeth showed against the dark of his mustache.

There was no more time to study the situation. Frank reached out, flicking switches, adjusting controls. The engines, which had only been idling, roared into life. The propellers began to turn in earnest now. Leaping against its moorings, the seaplane was ready to fly.

Frank let out the throttle on one engine, while pulling back on the other. He jockeyed the stick. Slowly, the seaplane began to swing around.

Singh caught the movement and turned around, his eyes becoming round when he recognized Frank and Joe in the cockpit.

He didn't have a chance to do anything else. The seaplane's wing swept over the pier, scraping Singh, Fellawi, and Lupec straight into the water.