Bruce Campbell Ken Holt 13 Mystery of Shattered Glass UC

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.Gerard was too quick for him.Twisting out of the way of the reaching fingers,he raised his gun hand swiftly upward and then down again.The short gunbarrel struck Torkling's forehead.Sandy had moved in the split second during which Torkling's hand startedtoward Gerard's throat.Instinctively seizing the advantage of Gerard'sdistracted attention, the redhead's finger had jabbed at his flashlightbutton."Stupid fool!" Gerard was barking, as Torkling slumped to the deck, under thevicious blow of the gun.Sandy's flashlight came on as the man spoke.With lightning speed Gerardturned toward it.Ken saw his features contorted into a mask of rage, eyesblinded by the beam, saw the gun that had struck down Torkling swinging aroundagain toward Sandy and himself.But the light that illuminated Gerard's menacing figure was no longer beingheld in Sandy's hand.DEADLY CARGO 159Sandy had hurled it forward with a powerful underhand throw.As if it wereracing along its own light path, the heavy cylinder sped toward its target.Gerard swerved, half raised his gun hand to ward off the rocketing missile.Sandy drove his shoulder against Ken.An instant later they heard the heavy flashlight crash against the forwardbulkhead.Gerard had evaded its blow.But Sandy's substitute weapon had serveda purpose.By the time it landed, Sandy had thrust Ken into the narrow spacebetween the second and third jeeps in the row at their backs, and had pushedin behind him."I'll get you!" Gerard's shout was a bellow of rage.His calm had entirelyvanished now, swept away by a murderous fury.Breathless, gasping, Ken and Sandy pushed through into the aisle between thedouble row of jeeps, while the echo of Gerard's threat reverberated around thehold over the hollow sound of the ship's engines and the whining creak ofwooden braces.They could no longer see Gerard from the darkness where theyhuddled, but the man's flashlight beam- a single wildly moving streak of lightin the hold's blackness-told them where he was and how frantically he wassearching for them.There was no doubt in Ken's mind that Gerard would fire his gun-fire ittwice-the instant he spotted Sandy and himself."He meant it! He's going to kill us!" Ken whispered hoarsely.Even as he spoke, Gerard's flashlight stopped its frantic stabbing at the darkand settled down to a slower, more deadly probing.And the man who held it wasmoving now-moving inexorably toward160 THE MYSTERY OF THE SHATTERED GLASSthe jeeps and the two figures he obviously knew were hidden behind them.Ken tried to force his panicky thoughts into some kind of order.He and Sandyhad to get help-that much was only too clear.But how could they signal foroutside aid? And how could they evade Gerard's menacing gun until help of somekind was available? Torkling would try again to restrain Gerard, if the firstPage 65ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlofficer regained consciousness.But Ken knew that might not happen for manylong minutes, perhaps for many hours.And in the meantime-The more logically Ken tried to think, the more, it seemed to him, thedesperateness of their plight showed itself.Gerard had all the advantages inthe unequal contest in which the boys suddenly found themselves.He had aflashlight.And he had a gun.If they could hurl something at him that would put a halt to his slow,prowling search, or if they could even destroy his light or knock the gun outof his hands, they might have a chance of escaping from the hold with theirlives.But none of those feats was possible without some sort of missile.And theyhad none.Sandy had made good use of his flashlight, but now that object wasbeyond their reach, somewhere near the forward bulkhead.And neither he norKen had anything on their persons which could be useful in this emergency.They needed something hard, something solid, something small enough to throw.Moving backward beside Sandy in the aisle between the two rows of jeeps, stepby cautious step, Ken touched the fender of one of the vehicles and wonderedfor a wild moment if he could rip off a piece of the metal and use it as amissile.The impossibility of the idea only proved to him how helplessDEADLY CARGO 161they were, and how little he was accomplishing with his efforts to devise ascheme of rescue [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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