Read Online Spy Killer by L. Ron Hubbard - Free Book Online Page A

them up for the instant which was needed.
    The taicho ’s gun flashed up. Kurt fired point-blank. Kurt reared up as the captain toppled to one side and caught the body by the shoulder. With a quick thrust he sent the taicho over the door and out.
    The smoking muzzle of the .45 covered the other two Japanese. They let go their guns as though they were white hot. Varinka threw the weapons onto the floor of the car.
    “Tobi-dasu!” cried Kurt again.
    The two soldiers jumped away from Varinka and swung out precipitately.
    The truck was coming up and the soldiers there had already seen the dead body of the captain on the ground. A rifle bullet ripped through the back window and bored a sparkling hole in the windshield.
    Kurt threw the car in gear and stamped on the accelerator. The touring car lurched and gathered speed. Varinka crouched low. A slug ripped the tonneau over her head.
    “Head south!” cried Varinka.
    Kurt whipped the machine around a corner and raced out along a rough road. A gate was before them. Two guards, seeing the pursuit of the truck, stepped out with leveled rifles directly in front of the car.
    Kurt jerked the wheel to the right and left. The Japanese jumped aside. The machine careened out through the twin towers and roared down a twisting road into China proper.
    Varinka climbed over the back of the front seat and settled herself beside Kurt. She smiled at him.
    He expected some kind of praise and was all ready to turn it aside. But she said, “I do not think that Anne Carsten could do that thing. I mean to catch the guns before they shoot.”
    Kurt stabbed her with a black-eyed glance, “Why bring her up?”
    Varinka smiled and folded her hands upon her lap. She was sitting quite at ease, although the car plunged down a winding grade at sixty miles an hour.
    “I thought,” said Varinka, “that you loved her.”
    “Hell, no,” said Kurt.
    She looked disappointed. “But she is my friend.”
    Nothing about how he had gotten there, nothing, about what they would do or where they would go. Kurt snorted. Varinka sat there baiting him about love.
    Wind whined through the hole in the windshield. The motor bellowed. Carts and droves of camels spilled off the road to make way for the juggernaut. The world was fully awake now, up and about its business. The morning sun yellowed the plain which stretched away from the hills deep into China.
    The truck was far behind them, lost in dust, much too slow to keep pace with Kurt’s masterful driving and the touring car’s Western engine.
    They rode for half an hour and then Varinka raised up to look behind them.
    “They have gone now. Lucky, eh? You can turn at the next road and head east.”
    “East? That’ll take us back into Japanese territory.”
    “You must head east,” said Varinka. “I have business.”
    “Say, listen, haven’t you had enough?”
    “Oh, no. I must never leave unfinished business. Head east.”
    Grudgingly, Kurt turned down the road which was far worse than the one he left. He was beginning to think that Varinka was crazy.
    He thought he knew it when the road started a little bit northeast. He was certain they would run into Japanese troops and the word would be telegraphed ahead of them. There would be no escape now.
    But he didn’t want to argue with the girl. He respected her too much.
    They came to another crossroads and to a ruined stone tower whose stones strewed its base. Withered creepers clung forlornly to the cracked structure.
    “Stop here and put the car behind this place,” said Varinka.
    “Stop here? What the devil do you want? What are you going to do?”
    “Oh, I think very soon some Japanese will come along this other road in a car, heading east. How good are you with a rifle, my Kurt?”
    “Good enough.”
    “Then take one of these and go behind that wall and when the Japanese come, we shall see. After that we go further east, to a certain deserted fort.”
    Kurt knew it would be useless to argue with