F.B.I. Showdown: A Classic Suspense Novel. Gordon Landsborough

you all the time!”

      The guard got down, opened the big doors and they drove slowly out into the prison compound. Johnny covered him from the back while he slowly, reluctantly closed the doors on the loading bay. Then, even more slowly, much more reluctantly, he came and took his place next to the driver. He didn’t look healthy; perhaps he was thinking of what could be coming to them.

      The driver appeared a calmer, less imaginative man. Obligingly he started across to the big gates, with the armed guards above and all around. Crouching behind the baskets, muscles tautened ready to spring into action, they heard someone call, “Okay?”

      The driver said, “Okay,” and then the truck lurched into motion again. Egghead at once moved forward so that he could see through the windscreen, while Johnny crabbed along the top of the baskets and watched the receding prison gates.

      Egghead called, “Nothin’ wrong, Johnny?”

      Johnny said, “Nothin’ wrong.” He came back, almost purring. He said, “Eggy, that sure was a swell idea of yours! The way them guards is just standin’ around, we’ll be outa the state afore they wise to what’s happened.”

      Egghead said, “Not in this truck. We gotta get a car that can fly.”

      He was looking at the backs of the guards up front, wondering what to do.

      Ten miles out on the Petersburg Highway he gave the order to pull up. Then he made the guards get out. Now even the phlegmatic driver was looking uneasy. His mate started to say, “We did what you said, so you boys needn’t think of gettin’ rough. We’re still cooperative—mighty cooperative!”

      He was looking at those guns. The driver looked at them and said, “Yeah, an’ we’ll still do as you say.”

      Egghead, green-eyed and mean, snarled, “I don’t like them clothes you’re wearin’. I’ve a mind to make two vacancies on the prison staff.”

      Johnny said, “Aw, Eggy, let’s just stuff ’em in a basket. It gets everyone peeved if you kill a warder.”

      The driver’s mate said, “Brother, you don’t know how I welcome those words.”

      Johnny went and hoisted a couple of baskets out on to the side of the road. They made the guards climb in, and then strapped them down and shoved them out of sight into a ditch. That was better than tying them, and much safer.

      Egghead rubbed dirt all over his baldness, so as to make it less conspicuous. They drove another mile, then hid the truck among some trees. The longer it took the police to find the truck, the longer they would be in getting on their trail.

      They walked the few hundred yards through a cornfield and then an orchard, and then came out on a rutty back road.

      Johnny said, “Now, that’s luck,” because there was a smart coupé sitting beside the road waiting for them. They stood in the shade of the fruit trees and looked around for the owner. After a while Johnny spotted a movement up the hillside.

      He grinned. “The guy’s up there, neckin’. He won’t be thinkin’ much about his car, I reckon.”

      Egghead didn’t smile. He never did have any humour. Johnny said, “Give me a minute—I’ll take care of this.”

      A few minutes later, Egghead eased the car into gear and they went slowly down the lane.

      Johnny said, “Where to?”

      Behind them, in the grass on the hillside, the owner of the car lay sprawled on the ground, bereft of his ignition keys and consciousness. A crying girl knelt alongside him, dabbing at the blood on his bruised temple where the butt of Johnny’s automatic had struck him.

      Egghead said, “The heat’ll be on any time now. Reckon we’ll be safer over the Virginia border.” He pulled out on to the Petersburg Road, and gave the coupé its head. They sat low in the car, so as to keep their prison clothes out of sight.

      Hours later they were passing the sign that showed the state borderline. They were in Virginia.

      They felt safe for the moment.

      They didn’t know it was the biggest mistake they had made in their escape, taking that car into Virginia.