336

All the advanced driving skills that you learned from Cutter Jacks, and which you perfected during the months you patrolled the highways around McKinney, pay off now as you negotiate this hazardous section of mountain highway. However, the clansmen are equally proficient roadmasters and they are gaining on you, relentlessly closing the gap.

The more you think about your predicament, the more you realize how futile it is to try to outrun them. Even if you were able to defeat all the scouts, Mad Dog Michigan would simply send more and more until his lust for vengeance had finally been sated. Then an idea occurs to you that might just throw him off your trail for good. If you were able to convince the enemy that you were dead, it would put an end to their pursuit. You share your thoughts with the others and they agree with your reasoning.

‘You’re right, Cal. We’ll have to stage an accident and convince the clansmen that we’ve all been killed,’ says Captain Frankland.

Soon you reach a part of the mountains where a deep canyon borders the road. Here you bring the jeep to a halt and immediately set about preparing the ‘accident’. You push the vehicle to the edge of the road, and then light a rag, which Haskell has stuffed into the gasolene filler pipe. It ignites and once it is burning you give the jeep a push and send it careering over the edge into the canyon 300 feet below. After the resounding crash, you hear the clansmen approaching and you quickly take cover behind some boulders. To make it seem more realistic, Marine Knott drops his bloodstained tunic at the edge of the road before he joins you, seconds before the first clansmen appear on the scene.

Turn to 227.