Torrance by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788636759
Publisher: Canelo
Published: 2020-05-12T00:00:00+00:00

Twelve

Thursday 1040 – 1500

Rossi and Quinn helped Irina and the sultan climb up to where Cochrane waited to clasp their hands and haul them up onto the roof of the garage. Torrance glanced across to where MacRae sat, blood running out between the fingers of the hand he had pressed to the wound in his side. He braced himself to dash across, but no sooner had he broken from the cover at the side of the garage than a bullet whip-cracked past his head. He instinctively threw himself back behind cover. The enemy fire was just too heavy.

He tried the back door to the garage and found it locked. There was no keyhole, so he supposed it was bolted from the inside. He smashed the glass in the window of the door with the butt of his Thompson and reached through, groping for the bolt. A moment later he staggered inside. Slinging the Thompson across his back, he stared at the cars. Both were things of beauty, but the Duesenberg would provide more cover than the Alfa Romeo.

He slid behind the wheel. He had forgotten to open the garage door. He imagined standing there, in full view of the advancing Japanese, while he made sure the door was pushed all the way up and over. Perhaps not. Of course, the only alternative was not going to do the Duesenberg’s paintwork any favours, but since it was about to get riddled with bullets anyway that seemed a moot point. He pulled out the choke, pressed the starter button, pushed the gas pedal halfway down and cranked the engine. It fired at once, from the word go running as smoothly as only a Duesenberg’s engine could. Whatever had become of the sultan’s chauffeur (what was it they called them out here, syces?), no one could accuse him of neglecting his duties.

He lifted his gaze to the ceiling of the car. ‘Forgive me, Fred Duesenberg, wherever you are!’ he murmured, and jammed the gas pedal all the way to the floor.

There were only a few feet between the Duesenberg’s bonnet and the back of the garage door, but the door was a flimsy thing of lightweight wooden panelling and the Duesenberg’s bumper was made of steel and had two and a half tons of metal powered by a seven-litre straight-eight engine with the dual overhead camshaft and the optional supercharger to back it up. Even at barely one mile per hour, it was no contest: the door splintered into several pieces which the Duesenberg pushed aside or nosed her way under without losing a fraction of her speed, which had almost reached three miles per hour by the time she had lurched her way across the stable yard to slam her bonnet into the side of the house.

By then Torrance had already thrown himself sideways across the passenger seat. He was showered with glass as a bullet smashed through the window. Another bullet punched clean through the door on the driver’s side: apparently coachwork was not as bulletproof as he had hoped.

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