Donald Hamilton - Helm 15 - The Damagers by Donald Hamilton

Author:Donald Hamilton [Hamilton, Donald]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-09-22T21:36:04+00:00

Something was very wrong right now.

Chapter Seventeen

I’ve been in the business too long to disregard that lookout-buddy-they’re-closing-in-on-you feeling. Playing with my trick watch, I stalled, standing more or less sheltered by the island of pay phones in the center of the parking lot.

Question: What the hell is haywire here, anyway?

Answer: Dorothy.

She was still sitting on her piling, apparently fascinated by her fingernails. So why was she pretending she hadn’t seen me hang up the phone? She wasn’t the patient type; you’d think that, after being kept waiting while I made iny call, she’d be on her feet ready to go.

Nothing moved in the wide, lighted, empty parking lot designed for busier times of the year, or around the restaurant behind me, or in the grove of trees with its picnic tables ahead of me on the bank of the canal. I reminded myself that I couldn’t safely assume that, just because the opposition hadn’t gone the sniper route before, they’d renounced it forever. Of course I could be simply suffering from a case of secret-agent midnight paranoia. We’re always seeing snipers in the dark. The trouble is, of course, that quite often they’re actually there.

I said, “Okay, Dorothy, let’s get aboard.”

“Well, it’s about time!” she said.

She rose, brushed off the seat of her linen slacks fastidiously, tucked in her silk shirt neatly-and turned and dove into the canal. It was rather shocking. You don’t expect a handsome, neatly dressed lady, who’s just taken you to a fancy restaurant and treated you to a fine duck dinner complete with cocktails and wine and polite conversation, to end the evening by jumping into the water with all her clothes on.

On the other hand, it made some kind of sense: if there was to be shooting she’d want to get the hell out of the line of fire, anybody’s fire. Clearly she’d weighed her choices and decided that the C. and D. Canal was the safest place around, and to hell with her clothes and hairdo.

I sprinted after her. I mean, my fastidious dinner companion wouldn’t have deliberately got herself all wet putting distance between us unless something very dangerous was about to happen in my vicinity. Training and instinct told me to hit the dirt because a rifle bullet was about to come from somewhere, looking for me. Dropping flat was the textbook response; but the fact was that I’d make almost as easy a mark prone under the lights in the bare parking lot as I did upright. So I ran; at least I could give the guy a moving target instead of a standing one.

I also yelled, “Okay, Ziggy, take him!”

I had no real hope that the girl, if she was even within hearing, was in a position to help me, but the idea that I had reinforcements at hand might make the marksman a bit nervous

Then the gun in the trees went off, sounding like a salvo from a battleship’s main battery. It threw a flame you wouldn’t believe,

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.