Hostage Tower Read Free

raise the barrier to the compound.
    Graham vaulted back into the jeep, gunned the motor to speed into the compound and slew to a halt in a spray of gravel near the launch-pad. Three startled soldiers, waiting for the helicopter to come back from the range with the four crated laser-guns on board, jumped like scalded tomcats when Graham screamed, ‘Get away from there – now!’
    â€˜Ten-shun!’ barked the corporal in charge, and all three snapped into rigidity.
    Graham saluted, and said, ‘Get your men away from this area. There’s a leak in the nuclear generator shielding out at the range. The radioactivity could have spread to the guns, or even the helicopter. My orders are to take the chopper away.’
    â€˜Who – who are you, s-sir,’ the corporal stammered. Graham had already raced back to the jeep and extricated the anti-radiation suit he had brought with him. Climbing into it, he shoutedabove the roar of the settling helicopter, ‘General Brick, Third Army Special Weapons Division. Now move it, soldier – move it!’
    Graham reached back into the jeep and pulled out a geiger counter, and what looked like a steel brief-case. The helicopter’s rotors were beating the air, and the pilot looked anxiously out at the charade on the tarmac. Graham ducked under the sweeping blades, and wrenched open the door.
    â€˜Out!’ he ordered the pilot. ‘Radiation scare. You could have got a dose. The Emergency Med. Unit’ll be here soon to check you over. I’ll take the chopper away. Don’t switch the motor off.’
    The pilot needed no second bidding. He scrambled out of the seat and dropped to the ground, almost colliding with Graham.
    â€˜Will you be all right, sir?’ he screamed.
    â€˜The suit will protect me,’ Graham shouted. ‘I’ll fly the chopper to the far end of the range and quarantine it. Look after your
self
, man.’
    The blare of a motor-horn from the direction of the guardroom drew the eyes of all four men on the ground away from the helicopter, where Graham was already revving the engine.
    Two jeeps packed with men hurtled towards the launch-pad. A burst of machine-gun fire came from the leading vehicle. The three soldiers and the pilot scattered to hit the deck, and the jeeps pulled up short of a stack of gasolene cans a hundred yards from the chopper. Graham throttledviciously, and another spurt of tracer fire arced towards him.
    Bullets pinged off the shell of the helicopter, and one tore a track across the shoulder of his anti-radiation suit, but he felt no pain. A third salvo stuttered out, and Graham, who had been about to take off, swore brutally. He snapped open the clasp of his brief-case and drew out a heavy, ugly Schmeisser machine pistol.
    He could barely see the two vehicles in the pool of blinding light, so he hit the easier target.
    A vast swell of sound erupted as the gasolene cans exploded. The GIs were safe behind their jeeps, but there was now no possibility of stopping Graham.
    Behind a concealing wall of smoke and flame, the helicopter rose into the air, taking the false General, and four crated but fully operative Lap-Laser-guns, away to do the bidding of Mister Smith.
    The troops on the ground fired madly at the departing plane to ease their frustration, until the officer in charge resignedly flapped his hand in a gesture of dismissal.
    â€˜Who the hell was he, sir?’ asked his sergeant.
    â€˜Christ knows,’ the captain returned wearily, ‘but he sure wasn’t General Brick, because I’ve just been talking to General Brick in the officers’ club. Somebody walked off with his dress uniform, and it wasn’t his batman, so it must’ve been that sonofabitch up there.’
    He tipped his peaked cap back on his head, puthis hands on his hips, and whistled out a tight-lipped sigh. ‘Can you imagine the crap that’s going to be flying around when the brass find out