Detroit Deathwatch

vehicle, but he gave it the old college try, suddenly painfully aware that he was interfering with a closely coordinated trap set.

He hit brakes and wheel together and locked them in, spinning dizzily for a moment, then recovering to careen into the intersection and plunge eastward along the side street.

Well, almost.

His front wheels jumped the curb, and he plowed through shrubs and saplings for about two hundred feet before wrenching loose and going into a skid toward the other side.

He hit a fence over there, and his bumper must have caught on something immovable. It popped him around like the snap of a whip, pushing him into a sidewise skid that quickly became a roll, and Holzer in his seat strap inanely thought of those kid days at the fair and the rollo-plane when he chucked up meatballs and spaghetti in a spray onto the onlookers below — at the same moment wondering if that was to be his dying thought, the sole flashback of a life he had thought so memorable … what a hell of a way to go.

He blacked out. For how long, he could not guess — probably no more than a matter of seconds. He came out of it with the awareness of flames strong in his consciousness and mixed with the stark realization that he was pinned immobile in a collapsed vehicle that could blow sky high at any moment.

In the licking of flames he saw a devil dancing in the street just outside — but then he immediately decided that this was merely another 'death flashback.' It was not a devil dancing.

It was Mack Bolan, that same face that had grinned at him so winningly and framed the words: 'Let's see, it's John Holzer, isn't it?'

Yeah, and even at that it was better than meatballs and spaghetti in upchuck.

But the vision was not holding to the script. What it was saying was, 'Don't move. Stay calm. I'll get you out.'

Shit! No flashback!'

The goddamn guy was out there, in the flesh.

Holzer tried his own mouth and found it working. And, of course, it came up with something appropriately stupid. 'How'd you get here so quick, Stryker?'

'Just happened along,' the big, cool bastard replied. 'Listen now. It's a bad situation. The windshield has come down on you. There's a jagged edge poised right at your jugular vein. I can't move it. The roof is buckled in. The gas tank could go any minute. If I raise that roof, you're liable to get it in the neck. If I don't raise it, you're sure to either fry or fly. So I've got to raise it. Soon as you can get your hands free, protect your throat all you can.'

'Got you,' Holzer said, surprising himself with his own detachment. 'How're you going to raise it?

'The only way I know,' the guy said.

And then he was in there with Holzer, on hands and knees in that wreckage. Holzer could see the veins popping in the guy's neck, could almost feel the surge of vital juices flowing into challenged muscles as the guy groaned and strained to straighten himself.

'Watch it!' the guy grunted.

And then John Holzer felt the impossible occurring, the roof moving off of him, an arm loosening — and the guy strained on.

'It's coming,' Holzer whispered. 'Hold it ... wait! ... my throat — ungh — okay, got it. Shit, man, let's go.'

Thinking back on it, Holzer realized what a fantastic feat it had been; at the moment it seemed as easy as smoothing a piece of rumpled Reynold's Wrap.

Suddenly the guy had him by the armpits, tugging him loose, pulling him free, grunting and damning and dragging in a mad frenzy — and then it went, the gas tank.

The heat from that towering fireball singed the hairs of Holzer's head, and all he could do was lie there and grunt, aware of being alive and thankful.

A hoarse voice close to his ear whispered, 'Spit in her eye, Holzer.'

The message did not register at first; he was transfixed by the staggering proximity and undeniable majesty of flaming death. When he did turn groggy eyes toward he sound of that voice, here was no one there.

He began crawling, and he called out, 'Stryker! Are you okay? Stryker!'

That was when the sergeant from East Detroit came running up. 'Oh, Jesusl' the cop yelled. 'Is anybody in there?'

'Just John Holzer,' Holzer replied. 'I'll be in there for the rest of my life, amen.'

'Who was that you were yelling for? Who was with you?'

Holzer struggled to his feet, surprised that he could stand. His hands were cut where he had grabbed the shattered windshield — but the damage was negligible and seemed to be his only visible injury.

'Who was with you?' the East Detroit cop yelled again.

'God,' Holzer mumbled. 'God was with me, man.'

22 Fulfilled

Dumb? Dumb screaming providence, that's what it was!

She had hesitated for one frozen moment, the image of Bolan strong upon her peaking perceptions of this possibly final glimpse of life — hesitated... then again plunged the accelerator to full stomp and leaned into the wheel with everything she had.

The car leapt the curb at full throttle, becoming airborne momentarily, the rear end heeling over and striking the front corner of the armored vehicle, then swinging wildly out of that impact — pivoting while poised on front wheels only, the transmission freed and whining in full rev.

Then the rear wheels slammed into soft lawn and the wild gallop resumed, totally out of control now, goaded on by the unrelenting pressure of a tiny foot upon a willing accelerator — a mustang snorting its defiance against entrapment, rearing and pawing the earth in a plunging circle toward certain doom.

She was into the house before she saw it, crashing through boards and glass and plaster, pushing couches and chairs and draperies ahead — and, sure, it was like a mad dream of a crazy women's libber — FUCK HOUSEWORK in ten-foot flaming letters on a poster no artist could draw.

She briefly experienced the sensation of flight and knew that she had been flung from the belly of the arrested beast.

And she found herself in bed beside a startled elderly man who kept croaking, 'What? What? What?'

Toby muttered, 'You're dreaming, go back to sleep.'

Her back hurt, and as she scrambled away from there, she felt like an oversized Raggedy Ann — all flopping legs and arms — but she seemed to be moving fairly well, so she kept going.

Through the shattered wall she could see cops in riot togs moving cautiously forward, while another cop, out of her range of vision, was insisting, 'A woman, I'm telling you. Or a blond hippy. I saw the occupant clear as ...'

Toby was moving swiftly in the opposite direction, giving not a damn about how clearly the officer had seen her.

She let herself out the back door and ran across the yard, hurtled a low fence, dashing through the adjoining property and emerging on the next street east at full flight.

She did not stop running until she saw the bulk of that familiar vehicle parked in the alleyway several blocks along, though her belly was busting and her lungs were afire.

Her first reaction to sighting the war wagon was one of elation, but that disappeared under the immediate onslaught of a new anxiety.