Deathgame (4 page)

One of the unwashed, center windows of the bus was lit. Someone was sitting up, head tilted down, obviously reading.

Joe rolled down his window, as if that could help him see through the mud-smeared bus window.

Then he reached back and grabbed at Frank's arm. They hit a rut just then, and the car went swerving over toward the wheezing bus.

"Let go!" Frank yelled, getting the car back under control. "If you're going to start acting like a maniac, at least give me some warning."

But Joe was paying no attention to his brother. His eyes were locked on the bus window. "It's Biff!" he shouted, astounded. "It's got to be!"

"MAKE THIS GUY pull over!" Joe urged, never taking his eyes from the bus window.

"Cut off a bus while going down a hill?" Frank stared at his brother for a second, then shrugged. "Sure, why not? We've been driving like maniacs all night."

They were nearing the outskirts of a small town—little more than a widening in the road. The buildings were all dark, clustered at the foot of the hillside.

But Joe's attention was focused on that half-visible face in the bus. Come on, pal, turn toward me, he thought. He could see unruly blond hair, but the features were blurred by the film of dried mud on the glass. The head was still bent.

"Biff's probably checking up on the latest survival tactics," Joe said. "And he'll need them. I'm going to hit him over the head for all the grief he's given us."

Frank leaned on the horn as he speeded up to pass the bus. The driver didn't give Frank an inch, staying right in the middle of the road. The rental car's wheels whined on the gravel shoulder.

With a quick twist of the wheel, Frank swung the car in front of the bus. Then he began slowing down. In his rear-view mirror, he could see the bus driver glaring in disbelief as he hit his brakes.

The bus groaned to a stop. Joe leapt out of the car before Frank had completely stopped and raced up the hill to the bus. Its doors remained firmly shut.

Joe hammered on the glass. "Please, open up! It's an emergency!"

The bus driver merely stared down at him, scowling.

Frank joined Joe at the bus door. "Sir, we're assisting the police in searching for a missing person who may be aboard this bus. I'm Frank Hardy and this is my brother, Joe. We're detectives."

The driver pulled on the lever that swung the door wide. "Detectives!" He gave them a long, suspicious look. "You two look like a pair of punks to me. Now beat it."

Joe ignored the bus driver's command, leaping up the steps. He ran past the driver and down the dimly lit aisle.

Most of the seats were dark, except for the one halfway down. There, the ceiling light cut through the gloom onto blond hair and the face below it.

Joe halted. He felt as if someone had slugged him in the stomach. The air left him in a rush.

That face did not belong to Biff Hooper!

"You're not — " Joe began.

The man bounced up from his seat and launched himself forcefully into Joe. He was built like a fullback on steroids. The impact knocked Joe into a seat where a huge woman sat with a Siamese cat in her lap. Both the woman and the cat were asleep, and both awoke screaming and flailing when Joe hit them. Hands and claws raked at him.

"Help! Help! Help!" The lady's sentiments were echoed by the cat in the same high pitch.

Frank was standing near the bus driver, explaining the situation, when he heard the bedlam. He looked along the interior of the bus, wondering what was going on. Then he saw a massive, blond-haired figure charging at him.

Frank started to bring his arms up, trying to decide if there was anything he could say that would calm the man.

He had no chance. The figure bent low and dove at him, the blond head smashing into his stomach. Frank was hurtled into the bus driver's lap and sprawled out across the wheel. The bus horn began blasting.

The blond man jumped off the bus and tore off down the hill.

Joe freed himself from the woman and her cat. The woman had calmed down, but the cat was still clawing and screeching wildly as Joe dashed up the aisle.

The bus horn had stuck when Frank fell against it. Passengers were awakening. Everyone was shouting questions. Frank shoved himself off the bus driver, who was attempting, without success, to shut off the infernal racket of the horn.

Joe reached Frank, but didn't stop. He leapt off the bus and kept on running. Frank was right behind him. "What did you say to get that guy so upset?" Frank asked breathlessly.

"Didn't say a word. But he knew who I was. I'll swear to it."

They ran past their rental car. Ahead of them, at the bottom of the hill, the man ducked down a side road, taking a quick look back to see if they were following.

They reached the side road at the same time and continued running.

"You see him?" Joe asked, panting.

"Yeah. Going over that hurricane fence at the end of the road. Looks like the other side is some kind of store parking lot!"

They ran past houses with broken-down wooden fences. In the street old, rusted hulks of cars stood on tireless rims. The scent of oil was in the hot night air. Junk-food wrappers littered the grass and sidewalks, and most of the houses were unpainted. Frank suddenly felt very far from Bayport.

They scrambled over the hurricane fence as the man reached the shadowy rear wall of the store. There were other stores near it, all dark, all obviously closed, some permanently boarded over.

There was the sound of breaking glass. "He must have used his elbow to smash in a back window," Joe said. "I think he just climbed into the store."

Frank and Joe reached the broken window less than a minute later. They hugged the wall of either side of the window frame. Both were breathing heavily. The interior of the darkened store was ominously quiet.

"He could be waiting for us," Frank whispered.

"There are two of us," Joe said in a loud voice, then without hesitating he went in through the broken window.

As Frank climbed in after him, Joe was looking at the shadowy counters which formed narrow aisles.

A sporting goods store: basketballs, weights, little golf gizmos, a rack of baseball bats.

Joe stopped beside the bats, hefted one in his hand.

The blond guy stepped out at the end of the aisle just as Frank joined Joe. "Glad you could make it," he said with an arrogant grin. "Though it would have been better for my team if you could have waited until we made the stop in town. They're going to be annoyed, missing out on your elimination. It's too bad, but some players just don't make it through the game."

Frank and Joe started cautiously down the aisle. Joe let the bat dangle from one hand.

"All right. Stop right there!" The man held up his hand. He held a grenade in it. "I bet you know what this baby can do. So no cute tricks."

"How'd you know we'd be checking the bus terminal?" Frank asked as he came to an abrupt stop.

"We checked you out at the airport. As soon as we learned you hadn't left town, we kept you under surveillance."

"The black van just beyond the street lamp?" Joe asked.

"You got it. We had a shotgun microphone aimed at your window and heard everything you said. So when you went to the terminal, we were all set. I was the decoy to lure you out of town."

The man reached up and pulled off his blond hair. It was a wig. "Now we've got you alone, and we can take care of you. All I have to do is make a phone call — " He broke off in midsentence and hefted the grenade. "You have no objections, right?"

As the man spoke, Frank and Joe glanced meaningfully at each other. They didn't need any further communication. They began to inch apart, in order to offer separate targets.

When the man realized what they were up to, he threw the blond wig down violently, pulled the pin on the grenade, and raised his arm, ready to throw it.

"Stop that!" he yelled.

It was as if he had shouted a signal. The Hardys dove wide in opposite directions. But they didn't get far in the crowded store. Frank crashed into a shelf full of catchers' mitts. Joe knocked over a rack of fishing poles.

"All right, wise guys, this will still get one of you." The man hurled the grenade directly at Joe.

Pushing himself up from the tangle of fishing poles, Joe saw the deadly green sphere tumbling toward him. It wasn't going to miss!

JOE FOUND IT difficult to really believe that something as small as a grenade could be so destructive. Yet, within seconds of the release of the pin, that little olive green ball would explode into a bundle of shrapnel, capable of digging an inch deep into walls.

He watched it come toward him. The man had thrown it in a straight line, no fancy high curve, just hard and fast, right down the center. If it hit him and then detonated, he would be dead.

Joe raised the bat in his hands. It was almost an instinctive act, born of years of playing ball back in Bayport with Frank, Biff, Tony, and the other guys. Biff often threw just such a straight hardball.

Joe had no room to swing, confined by the counters. Instead, he bunted.

There was a dull whack of metal on wood. Then, clack! clack! clack! with a monotonous tap on the linoleum each time the grenade bounced back in the direction of the man who had thrown it.

The man's hard face lost all its arrogance. It went slack with shock, and his eyes widened. He spun about and frantically started to run away.

The grenade bounced, clack!, and wobbled off to the left, away from the man, veering toward a glass-enclosed counter, bouncing, bouncing, bouncing.

Then two feet from the counter, it exploded!

Heat and smoke erupted. Both Hardys hit the floor, hands over their ears. The blast was thunderous in the confined space. They didn't even hear the ceiling fall in.

Frank lay in the midst of the baseball glove display. Baseball players' signatures danced before his eyes. He was positive the explosion had rendered him deaf, until he heard Joe calling.

"Frank! Don't let him get away!"

Joe ran into the smoke. Frank shoved his way clear and staggered to his feet. He tapped his ear with the palm of his hand, trying to clear his head. He looked up for an instant, and did a double take. He could see stars.

The blast had ripped a huge hole out of a section of roof, and now gray smoke billowed through it in a rush.

Frank had taken half a dozen steps into the smoke when he ran right into his brother. Joe was standing still.

"What's the matter?" Frank asked, trying to take small breaths so that he wouldn't inhale the smoke too deeply. "I thought you didn't want him to get away."

"He won't," Joe said in a somber voice.

Joe pointed. Frank looked through the smoke. Debris from the collapsed roof littered the floor in a huge pile. A human hand was thrust up through the wreckage. The fingers did not move. The grenade's metal pin was still wrapped around the man's forefinger.

"The authorities will be here pretty quick," Joe said, stumbling away. "We'd better put in a call to Sheriff Kraft. We may need him to verify who we are."

They found their way out into the night as the first sirens sounded.

The fire was an orange-and-gold inferno seen through a billowing haze. The firefighters' sooty faces looked grotesque in the light from the burning building. Shafts of water raised great arcs of gray smoke.

Frank and Joe were sitting alone in Sheriff Kraft's squad car. The store owner had arrived ten minutes before and kept repeating, "Grenades, grenades; we don't stock grenades," to anyone who would stop to listen.

Sheriff Kraft approached his car wearily. His hat was tilted back on his head, and he had bags under his eyes. He didn't speak at first but leaned in and picked up a thermos and some cardboard cups.

"If you're anything like me, you could stand a cup of coffee," he said, sounding exhausted. Joe nodded numbly.

"Most people don't almost get themselves killed twice in one day." Sheriff Kraft poured some coffee into one of the cups and handed it to Joe.

Joe blew softly on the steaming coffee. "I see they brought the body out."

Sheriff Kraft handed Frank a cup. "I know it makes you feel bad, son. But it wasn't your fault. That man was playing with death, carrying that grenade. You couldn't have known it would blow up the stored ammunition in the hunting sales area."

"Is that what it did?" Joe asked.

Sheriff Kraft sipped his own coffee. "You didn't know?"

"We couldn't see much after it went off," Frank said. "Joe stumbled on the body."

"Well, there's no identification on the man. Bus driver doesn't know who he was. In fact, he's still up the hill, trying to get that blamed horn unstuck. Sounds like a banshee!" Sheriff Kraft brushed a hand through his thinning hair.

He sipped his coffee, careful not to get any on his short mustache or beard. The steam from the cup fogged his glasses.

"We've got two deputies patrolling the area, looking for the black van. Couple of folks saw it, but they said it took off when the store exploded. Looks like the whole town came out to see what happened."

Joe stared moodily into his cup of coffee. "Well, it's obvious that Brand set up that surveillance on us."

Sheriff Kraft wiped the edge of his sleeve across his glasses to clear them. "Mind telling me how you came to that conclusion?"

"Who else have we asked about Biff?" Joe argued. "I think Brand realized we weren't going to give up the search, so he had us bugged to learn what our plans were. And when he heard us discussing going to the bus station, he had his Biff impersonator head out there fast." Joe stopped suddenly. "I probably shouldn't have told you that."

Sheriff Kraft smiled grimly. "I see." He gave them a long look. "I think you boys watch too many movies and TV shows about southern sheriffs."

He took a sip of coffee and looked up at the smoke. "Well, being a lawman was what I always wanted to be. The sheriff's face grew serious. "I know you probably think I'm against you two meddling with this Ultimo Camp thing," he said.

"Maybe you even think I've got you labeled as troublemakers." He tossed the dregs of his coffee into the gutter and then looked from Frank to Joe.