Read Online Assassin's Express by Jerry Ahern - Free Book Online

it in a roll, starting for him, but Frost was already on his feet, one pistol in each hand. “Why the routine?” Frost snarled.
    â€œI had to be sure—”
    â€œWhy the hell you take my clothes, tie me—”
    â€œI had to search you first, damn it. This is the big league, Captain Frost—you know that as well as I do. I heard about the hospital thing on a radio broadcast; then on the next broadcast there wasn’t a word about it—the government put the lid on it. They don’t want local cops arresting you or me—they want to get us and kill us!”
    â€œWhere are my clothes?”
    â€œOver there in a heap in the corner,” the woman half-shouted, pointing with her right hand.
    Frost glanced down to the little medium-frame automatic—there was a movie-style silencer on it, long, thin, sausage-shaped. The gun was a Walther PPK 9-mm short; .380 in the U.S. Frost started across the room toward his clothes, setting the guns down on a workbench. The building they were in was apparently a garage.
    â€œYou cool now, Captain Frost?” the woman went on, behind him.
    Frost pulled up his pants and zipped them. He looked down at his bare feet. Frost turned around toward her, his right hand sailing out ahead of him, the palm of his hand open, his knuckles backhanding into Jessica Pace’s right cheek. She screamed, a sharp, little scream, her head snapping back, her body collapsing away from him, landing in a heap on the floor by his feet. She pushed herself up on her hands, her legs splayed out, the right side of her face darkening and red.
    â€œNow I’m cool,” Frost told her. Not bothering with his socks, he stuck his feet into his sixty-five-dollar shoes, caught up his clothes and guns, and started for the side door.
    â€œYou bastard,” he heard her muttering behind him.
    Frost turned and looked back at her, his hand on the knob, the door half-opened inward. “Yeah, well—if you make it to Washington alive, kid—it’s this bastard that’s gonna be gettin’ you there!”
    The one-eyed man walked through the doorway, slamming the door closed behind him—it was the only way not to hear her cursing at him....
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    There was a healthy bruise where he’d backhanded her across the face and Frost studied it for a moment as Andrew Deacon’s aunt brought two cups of coffee and set them on the white wooden kitchen table on the screened-in back porch, then left. “We can’t leave right away, Frost,” the woman said flatly to him.
    â€œWhy—we’ve—”
    â€œThe car won’t be back until tomorrow morning—that’s why. If you want to haul that trailer with us because you think it’ll make us look less conspicuous, then we need the big Ford. Period!”
    â€œAll right,” Frost acquiesced; “then we leave in the morning.” He looked past her, not liking her, watching the sunset.
    â€œAnd why the hell you wanna go south... we’d be better off—”
    â€œI know the southerly route pretty well,” Frost told her, his own voice sounding angry and tired to him. “If we get spotted-when we get spotted—I want to know my ground pretty well. You’re just the luggage on this trip—I’m the transporter. Remember that.”
    â€œWould you young people like to come in for dinner now?”
    Frost turned and stared toward the doorway. It was Andy Deacon’s aunt, standing there, smiling. “Sure,” he said, shrugging his shoulders and smiling at the woman. “Ahh,” and he looked at Jessica Pace. “What’s that expression about the condemned man and the hearty meal?”
    Frost didn’t wait for an answer.
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    The second floor of the house was really an apartment separate from the first floor—the woman, Deacon’s aunt Beatrice, had mentioned at dinner that her daughter had lived upstairs until she’d