Flashpoint Read Free Page B

girl!"
        A rattle of machine gun fire brought silence again. Men who had started to surge out into the aisle shrank back into their seats quickly. I jerked the red emergency-exit handle, releasing the locking pins. The window section sagged, and I took hold of the handles at the top and bottom and pulled the panel toward me. I dumped the entire window section in Duke's lap as dry, hot desert air flowed over me. I crawled out the opening onto the wing, feeling as conspicuous in the bright sunlight as a snowflake on a coal pile.
        On hands and knees I scrambled farther out onto the wing so I could see under the tail of the 727. The private plane was turning in a short arc, pointing back up the runway. I could see the registration number NR 81332 painted on its fuselage.
        I stopped crawling when I could see the rear stairway extending from the tail section to the ground. The white-coated bartender who had held the knife at the girl's throat during the march through the plane was two-thirds of the way down to the ground. I dropped prone on the sloping surface of the wing and fired at him three times. He flew sideways off the stairway and sprawled on the sandy soil. He tried to get up, fell back, and tried again. He didn't make it, but I could see him still moving.
        The second man started down the ladder. He had the canvas sack slung over his shoulder, and its bulk concealed nearly all of his body. Right behind him on the stairway was the machine gunner. I snapped off a shot at the first man's fast-moving feet, but nothing happened.
        At the sound of my shot the machine gunner stopped on the stairway. He raised his weapon above the handrail and aimed it in my direction. I squeezed off another shot at the man with the sack. He did a stutter step, then plunged to the ground. The sack rolled away from him.
        The machine gunner let go a burst at me. I had an indelible impression of a bronzed, strong-featured face with an eagle-beak nose above the winking snout of the machine gun as slugs chewed up the wing between me and the emergency-exit window.
        I pulled back farther onto the wing's broad surface. When the sound of the machine gun died out, I inched forward again. The machine gunner had slung his weapon over his shoulder by its sling when he hit the ground, had grabbed up the canvas sack, and was running for the waiting plane. I crossed my right hand over my left wrist to try to sight in on him with my.38. I let go the shot, but at that distance I might as well have tossed a pebble. The man threw the sack into the plane and jumped aboard it. The plane roared down the runway and cleared the strip in what looked like less than six hundred yards.
        The dusty desert air was suddenly quiet. I looked down at the distance a drop to the ground from the top of the wing would require, then decided against it. A broken ankle I didn't need. I slithered back along the bullet-chewed wing and ducked back into the plane.
        The gamblers had all surged to the rear. I had to claw my way through them. Near the stairway-exit a group was crouched around the stewardess. There was blood everywhere: on the wall, on the floor, and bubbling from three jagged slits in the girl's throat. One look was enough to tell that no one was going to be able to help her.
        I shoved through the group and climbed down the stairway. Half the gamblers were already outside the plane. Candy, Sal, and Tim were kneeling beside the white-coated bartender who had walked through the plane holding the knife at the girl's throat. Flat on his back in the loose sand, the man spat up at them contemptuously.
        Sal lunged for his throat, but the muscular Candy brushed Sal to one side. A barber's razor appeared in Candy's right hand. He leaned over the man on the ground, and his arm rose and fell half a dozen times in a whipping motion. A purple mist and then great gouts of blood spurted through jagged openings