Chapter 4

"Good evening, Sgt. Alexander, this is Eagle... Do you have anything for us, tonight... Eight trucks, marked as Hancock Foods... Which road?... Excellent! Thank you, good night.

"It looks like there is a convoy of 8 trucks coming in from Sarnia tonight. At least, that's the rumor. Sgt. Alexander wasn't sure how reliable the information was, but his source usually has the right stuff. He did warn us to be careful. Shall we give it a try?"

Hawk was immediately enthusiastic, "Of course, we should go after such a fat target! Why not?"

Owl said, "I must agree. The information has always been correct in the past. It seems to me that the worst that can happen would be for the convoy simply not to show up."

"OK, but I have an uneasy feeling about this. Eight trucks sounds like too many to me, unless it's Kingpin restocking after our attack at the river. I'd like to err on the side of caution with this one. Let's get going."

They drove to a spot between Detroit and the bridge from Sarnia, Canada. There were only a couple of miles suitable for their ambush, and the Birdmen arrived in plenty of time to get Black Widow into position. As a concession to Eagle's newness to the machine guns at his disposal, Owl parked so that Eagle's guns would be the ones facing the oncoming convoy. They were all anxious to see how well these guns performed. This also meant that they were facing properly for a quick getaway, should that prove to be necessary.

They had to wait about 45 minutes until the convoy showed up. Owl commented, "They're about 30 minutes early. That's unusual for a heavily loaded string of trucks. My suspicions are now aroused."

Eagle removed the safeties from the guns and prepared himself to shoot once all of the trucks were visible. He commented, "The lead vehicle is an armored car. What do you make of that?"

Hawk said, "This smells like a trap, to me. Owl, get the engine running, just in case of trouble."

Owl started the engine just as the trailing armored car came into view. Eagle announced, "I'm going to give the leading armored car a burst of armor piercing rounds and see what happens." He triggered a dozen rounds of AP (armor piercing) bullets at the engine compartment of the lead armored car. As expected, these bullets scratched the metal shielding, but didn't penetrate.

This was the signal for all hell to break loose! The 8 trucks swung diagonally across the road so that their sides were facing Black Widow. The sides of these trucks appeared to fall away as they opened up, exposing the machine guns mounted on the truck beds. The 8 machine guns opened up on Black Widow, along with the 32 BARs and the 6 Tommy guns. So much lead came flying their way that it was most disconcerting, at first. However, the Birdmen relaxed a little when they realized that none of the bullets were AP, and the armor of their car could withstand the pounding of normal bullets, at least for a little while.

Eagle sprayed the 8 trucks with HP (hollow point) bullets and silenced most of the incoming fire relatively easily. He was able to mow down the MG crews and the BAR men almost to a man, though at the risk of overheating the barrel of that machine gun. He then went back to firing AP at the lead armored car, trying to find a weak point.

He wasn't having any success and that vehicle came charging toward Black Widow with what looked like the intention of ramming. If the armored car was able to "tee-bone" Black Widow, there was the potential of serious damage. Owl pulled away, and they were all thankful that he had already started the engine before the fight began.

By their very nature, armored cars are very heavy and difficult to accelerate very quickly. Though it may not look it, Black Widow was just as heavy as any other armored car and had as much trouble gaining speed as did her pursuers. Eagle was still firing his AP at the chasing vehicle, but they all knew that the effort was futile. He hoped that the mere fact of being shot at would have some psychological effect on the driver of the other vehicle.

When they reached 40 MPH, which was the maximum they would be able to maintain on this particular section of road, Eagle released some of the calthrops. They did no good, since the pursuing car used solid rubber tires, instead of balloon tires. The solid rubber tires had the advantage that they could not be punctured, but they had the disadvantage that they would come apart a sustained high speeds. Just 10 minutes at 60 MPH would have them shedding rubber tread. The tires on Black Widow were the normal type of air-filled tires, so sustained high speeds were practical.

Owl pressed Black Widow as fast as he dared and they seemed to fly down the highway with trees flashing by on both sides of the road. Eagle was getting desperate to stop the pursuing car, so he tried his smoke screen. They were now on a straight section of road, so they could go faster, but the driver of the pursuing car was safe as long as he didn't turn the steering wheel.

Now was the time to try out the oil slick. Eagle opened the valve and released a heavy spray of thick oil onto the road surface. This was what they needed! The driver of the chase car did not see the oil on the road because of the smoke screen. He drove onto the slick road at nearly 60 MPH and immediately felt his machine start to fish-tail. His only choice was to slow down, but it was too late.

The overheated tires intermittently gained and lost traction as the tread began to fail. This caused the armored car to swing back and forth as it sped down the slickened road, twisting more and more at each swing as the driver tried to compensate for the swings. Inevitably, the driver overcorrected and the vehicle began to spin completely out of control.

It was still traveling forward at over 40 MPH when one of its spins was terminated by a tree over 4 feet thick. The armored car was caught in the side, and it tried to wrap itself around the tree. The four individuals inside were reduced to little more than bloody smears on the inside of the car as they stopped much more quickly than the human body was ever designed to do.

Owl never slowed down as he drove away from the crash as fast as he could. He drove them home, and they tried to calm down after their narrow escape. It was the relief at still being alive that caused Helen to admire Karl's beautiful ass that day!

The next evening, they discussed the previous night's events. Karl said, "Last night obviously was an attempt to kill us, which I think means that we are starting to make a difference. What do you guys think?"

Helen said, "I think that you are absolutely right, Karl. I certainly don't want to back off our efforts. I want to keep going until we can pinpoint the evil genius behind this effort to poison children."

James added, "The only way we are going to find out who the boss is, is to work our way up the chain of command, eliminating the small fry until we finally get to the top. I think we should keep hitting the speakeasies until we learn what we need to know."

Karl said, "OK, that's settled. Now, what can we do to stop an armored car like we met last night?"

James offered, "When I was in the Great War, our answer to armored cars was a 37 mm cannon. But firing a cannon on a city street is a chancy thing, unless you are willing to destroy a lot of innocent property. I think that the best thing we can do is what we did last night, namely, run like hell and hope to trick them into doing something stupid."

Karl agreed, "Yeah, you're right. With a great driver like you, Black Widow can beat any other vehicle on the road!"

James responded, "Thank you, all of us great drivers like to hear about it on occasion!" That brought the expected laugh.

"It's time to call Sgt. Alexander. Let's see what he has to suggest for tonight... Good evening, Sgt. Alexander, this is Eagle... Any suggestions for tonight?... No, we don't intend to let last night's fiasco discourage us... A speakeasy, hunh? OK, what's the address?... Thank you, good night.

"It seems that several people in the highway department are unhappy with the damage we are doing to their streets. I suppose that we will have to be more careful where we dump oil and shopworn armored cars.

"I have the address of another speakeasy we can close down. Are you interested?" Two nodded heads prompted the suggestion that they meet at Black Widow in 20 minutes.

They were driving through a seedier section of Detroit when Hawk shouted, "STOP! THERE'S A WOMAN IN TROUBLE BACK THERE!"

Owl said, "There is no need to shout when you are sitting next to me. Where was she? I didn't see anyone."