He heard the sound of the engine before he saw the lights. Then a sudden turn of the vehicle threw the lights directly at them, the twin glares rising and falling as the car fairly leaped over the speed bumps leading into the mall nearly a half mile down the road. It could have been joyriding teenagers, but something in the vehicle’s headlong desperation and purpose told Doc Brown that the worst had happened.
Marty stopped working the camera, looked out of the viewfinder at Doc Brown. The man’s face was ashen, his mouth open; his breath came in shallow gasps. Indeed, he exhibited every symptom of shock except a tendency to faint and that might be imminent. Locking the camera, Marty came around to the front, prepared to help Doc Brown any way he could.
“What is it?” he whispered.
Doc seemed not to hear him. His piercing eyes continued to follow the progress of the vehicle moving generally in their direction. A slight sideways turn revealed presently that it wasn’t an ordinary car or even a police cruiser. Square except for the long sloping hood, it was an ominous van, dark in color, with windows that seemed to have been blacked either by painting or the installation of dark curtains.
“You’re right, Einie…” Doc Brown finally said, stroking his dog’s head. “It’s them.”
“Who?” Marty asked.
Doc Brown seemed not to have heard him. “They found me,” he muttered. “I don’t know how, but they found me.”
? Chapter Four ?
Shortly after three o’clock on the afternoon of October 26, 1985, the swarthy man who was known only as Sam received the coded message from his superior officer. As he read it, his anger grew, until his dark moody eyes flashed vengefully.
“We’ve been taken in,” he said simply to the four men and one young woman who sat in the dingy motel room, awaiting instructions.
As he spoke, he slammed back the bolt of his AK 47 submachine gun, put the weapon on the table next to him and began searching in his brief case.
“We’re always being taken in,” said the young woman.
“We’re not ruthless enough. If the world knew we killed those who oppose us instead of negotiating and weaseling, we’d be unstoppable. Instead, we’re looked upon as clowns with guns.”
Sam had heard it before. His own career as an international terrorist dated back nearly thirty years and there had always been one member of the organization who wanted nothing but more killing. Sometimes it was the youngest member, anxious to show the others how tough he was; now, it was Uranda, a twenty-five-year-old ex-fashion model from Damascus who got her kicks by pumping bullets into other people’s bodies.
“Don’t worry,” Sam rasped. “We won’t be weasels tonight. There’ll be only one dead body, but it will be very very dead by the time we’re through.”
He pulled the pages from his briefcase. The
folder showed a color head shot of Doc Brown along with a ten-page, single-spaced resume of his past activities and habits, a map of his home and work area. Sam had received the folder a week before, when it appeared that Brown might not be as reliable as the organization hoped. Confirmation of Doc Brown’s duplicity came that morning, followed by the decision to eliminate him.
Sam put the color photo on the coffee table and indicated that the others should study it.
“What’s he done?” Uranda asked. “Not that it matters. He looks Jewish.”
“We hired him to build a nuclear bomb.”
The young woman’s eyes glistened with excitement.
“We stole plutonium and gave it to him. He delayed as long as possible and gave us the weapon only when we threatened him.”
“Well?” another of the group asked.
“The bomb was nothing but a casing filled with used pinball-machine parts,” Sam said.
Uranda rolled her eyes back, but a moment later, a look of happy anticipation engaged her features.
“We’ll kill him tonight,” Sam continued. “Headquarters has decided it’s not worth it to bring him in for questioning. You two tail him for the rest of the day. Chances are he’ll end up at the garage he uses for an office or at Twin Pines Mall. He’s been spending a lot of time there recently, usually late at night.”
“Does he carry any weapons?”
“A handgun at most. An old .45-caliber revolver. It may not even work.”
Now Marty watched as the black van hurtled toward them. His terror was complete, even though he had no idea who or what was heading their way. At that inopportune moment, something terribly perverse stirred in him—he was determined to know, if this was death unfolding, who was behind it.
“Who’s in that car?” he shouted.