Night Probe!

"I'm flattered -the original ca

A light drizzle began to fall and Villon turned on the windshield wipers. The gun muzzle was pressed into the nape of his neck, the pressure never easing since they left the ferryboat.

Danielle sat beside him, holding a blood-soaked handkerchief to her face. Every few minutes she made little strange noises in her throat. She looked like a woman lost in a nightmare, a woman numbed by terror.

All questions and pleas had been met by icy silence. Gly opened his mouth only to issue driving directions. They were rolling through a rural area now, marked by the lights of an occasional farmhouse. Villon had no recourse but to do as he was told. He could only hope and wait for an opportunity to act, to somehow gain the attention of a passing motorist, or with luck, a cruising policeman.

"Slow down," Gly ordered. "A dirt road is coming up on your left. Take it."

With a sinking dread, Villon turned off the highway. The road had been recently graded, and it appeared well traveled by heavy construction equipment.

"I thought you were dead," Villon said, trying for a response. Gly did not answer.

"That British intelligence agent Brian Shaw said you crashed a stolen boat into the side of a Japanese cargo ship."

"Did he tell you my body was never found?" At last he had Gly in a talking mood. That was a start.

"Yes, there was an explosion…..."

"Tied down the helm, set the throttles to FULL and jumped clear five miles before the collision. With all the traffic on the St. Lawrence, I figured it was only a question of time before the boat struck another vessel."

"Why are you made up to look like me?"

"Isn't it obvious? After you're dead, I'm going to take your place. I, and not you, will be the new President of Quebec."

Five seconds passed before the staggering disclosure penetrated Villon's mind. "In God's name, that's madness!"

"Madness? Not really. Smart brains, I'd call it."

"You'll never get away with such a crazy scheme."

"Ah, but I already have." Gly's tone was calm, conversational. "How do you think I walked through Jules Guerrier's front door, past his bodyguard up to his room and murdered him? I've sat at your desk, met most of your friends, discussed political differences with Charles Sarveux, made an appearance on the floor of the House of Commons. Why, hell, I've even slept with your wife and with your mistress up there on the front seat.

Villon was dazed. "Not true…... not true…... not my wife."

"Yes, Henri, it's all true. I can even describe her anatomy, begi

"No!" Villon cried. He slammed on the brakes and snapped the steering wheel to the right.

The fates turned their backs on Villon. The tires failed to grip the damp earth, and the violent reaction he expected, he hoped for, never happened. There was no savage body-snapping motion from centrifugal force. Instead, the car slid slowly around in lazy circles.

Keeping his balance, his aim only slightly diverted, Gly pulled the trigger.

The.44 magnum shell shattered Villon's collarbone and passed through the windshield.

A scream poured from Danielle's mouth, and then died away into terror-choked sobbing.

The car gradually came to a gentle stop in the wet grass beside the road. Villon's hands jerked from the steering wheel. He threw his head against the backrest of the seat, tightly gripped the gaping wound and clenched his teeth in pain.

Gly stepped outside and pulled open the driver's door. He roughly shoved Villon toward Danielle and climbed in.

"I'll take it from here," he snarled. He crammed the gun barrel into Villon's side under the armpit. "Don't get cute again."

To Danielle it looked as if half of Villon's upper shoulder had been blown away. She turned and vomited on the door panel.

Gly made a U-turn and returned to the road. In half a mile a huge yellow-painted earthmover appeared in the headlights. Beside it was an excavated ditch ten feet deep and fifteen feet across. A high mound of earth was piled up along the opposite side. As Gly drove along the edge, Danielle could make out a large concrete pipe that stretched along the bottom of the ditch.

They passed a silent row of trucks and earth moving equipment. The engineer's office, a battered old converted house trailer, sat dark and empty. The construction crew had gone home for the night.

Gly pulled up at a place where the new drainage line was being covered over. He braked, judging the angle of the incline down to the roof of the pipe. Then he gu

The front bumper struck the circular concrete and sprayed sparks. The rear end slewed around until the car came to rest on its side, the headlights on a slight angle upward.

Gly took two pairs of handcuffs from his coat pocket. He clamped one to the steering column and Villon's left hand. He repeated the process on Danielle with the other set.

"What are you doing?" Danielle asked in a hoarse whisper.

He paused to stare at her. The raven hair was messed and the beautiful features were marred by the bloody tears. The eyes were those of a doe paralyzed with fright.

A hideous grin spread across his face. "I'm fixing it so you and your lover can spend eternity together."

"No reason to murder her," Villon groaned through the agony. "For God'ssake, let her go free."

"Sorry," said Gly callously. "She's part of the bargain."

"What bargain?"

There was no answer. Gly slammed the door and began climbing up the sloping embankment. He rapidly reached the top and disappeared into the darkness. A few minutes later they heard the sound of a heavy diesel engine knocking to life.

The engine began to strain as though it was working under a heavy load. The throaty roar of the exhaust drew closer and then a huge silver scoop crept out over the rim of the ditch. Suddenly it tilted downward and three-and-a-half cubic yards of dirt rained down around the roof of the Mercedes. Danielle let out a pitiful cry.

"Oh, Mary, mother of Jesus…... he's going to bury us alive oh, no, please no!"

Gly coldly ignored the pitiful plea and shifted the front-end loader into reverse, angling the bucket for the next bite of earth. He knew the position of every lever, their use and how to activate them. For two nights he had practiced, filling sections of the ditch so expertly that the dirt-moving crew had never noticed that an extra twenty feet of the open pipeline had been filled for them between work shifts.

Danielle fought frantically to break the chain on her handcuffs. The flesh around her wrists was quickly chafed into bloody shreds.

"Henri!" Her cry had become a gagging whimper now. "Don't let me die, not like this."

Villon did not seem to hear. The end would come sooner for him. He knew he was only a few seconds away from bleeding to death.

"Odd," he whispered. "Odd that the last man to die for Quebec liberty is me. Who would have ever thought." His voice faded away.

The car was almost completely covered. The only parts that still showed were a portion of the shattered windshield, the three-cornered star emblem on the hood and one headlight.

A figure moved to the edge of the embankment and stood in the light. It was not Foss Gly, but another man. He looked down: his face was frozen in deep sorrow, and tears glistened on his cheeks.