Chapter 5

Falcon really looked spiffy in her new costume. The four of them were headed to Black Widow to intercept a booze convoy coming in from the north. Again, the bridge to Sarnia, Canada, was the crossing point. The convoy was made up of a leading armored car, 4 trucks, and a trailing armored car.

Black Widow had been reworked again, and jobs had been reassigned. Owl was the driver, with Falcon as gunner in the front seat. Hawk was the gunner in the back seat, with Eagle as operator of the smoke, oil, calthrops, etc. and as navigator and vehicle commander.

They had taken up their ambush position facing away from the convoy so that they were ready for a quick escape. Once all of the trucks were in view, Hawk opened up with the incendiary bullets and raked the trucks' cargo compartments. All 4 burst into flames.

The rear armored car came rushing around the burning trucks, and the lead armored car accelerated toward Black Widow with three BARs firing almost continually. Hawk trained her guns on this threat as Owl got them into motion. This armored car was not a formidable as the ones they faced during the ambush attempt on them, so the APs she fired at it were effective. The bullets tore into the engine compartment and put enough holes in the motor to stop it in its tracks. Just because she was pissed, she fired a short burst of AP through the passenger compartment. This silenced the BARs immediately.

The rear armored car was getting close enough now to be a concern, so she turned her attention to it. By this time, both vehicles had reached about 50 MPH and were tearing down the highway like two juggernauts. Eagle noted that this armored car had balloon tires, so he released a few calthrops. Both tires on the left side of the chasing car were punctured at nearly the same time and the tires went flat so fast that the driver could not keep control of the vehicle. The car swerved to the left and rolled. It was still going over 40 MPH when it hit a tree. There was no doubt that the 4 passengers failed to survive the "accident."

Owl drove them home. On the way, Eagle said, "I'm sorry there was nothing for you to do, Falcon, on your first run. I hope that we can make it more interesting for you, next time."

Falcon said, "I appreciate your concern, Eagle, but I was thrilled to be a part of the action, even though only as an observer. As long as we can hit back at the criminals, I'm happy."

As soon as they got back to "Eagle's Nest," both couples rushed to their respective bedrooms to relieve some of the tension.

That evening, when they met for breakfast, Karl remarked, "We may start to feel more pressure, soon. Sgt. Alexander said that the convoy we hit last night belonged to The Purple Gang. You know that they don't take kindly to people causing them problems."

Martha said, "Personally, I don't care who the booze belonged to. I'm happy that we destroyed it. I'm glad to see that they are no more bullet proof than anyone else."

"Well, we can expect more ambushes like that one set up by Kingpin, except set up by The Purple Gang.

"Sgt. Alexander gave me a new lead. He didn't know exactly what they did, but Wylie Industries was reputed to be a major player in the bootlegging industry. I think that we should take a look at it. It could be interesting."

They met at Black Widow 20 minutes later and left to investigate Wylie Industries. It was a fairly large operation out on the far side of Dearborn, so it took an hour to get there. They didn't want to lean too hard on the traffic laws when they didn't have to; it didn't pay to draw the wrong kind of attention.

Wylie Industries was a large, well lit operation that appeared to run 24 hours a day. They were not sure how to approach this facility, since they didn't know what they specifically were looking for. They decided that their best bet for moving around undetected was up on the roofs of the various buildings. Most of them were close enough together that they could get from one to the other with their grappling hooks and cable slides.

Owl found a good place to park, and they were able to scale the fence without attracting attention. They climbed to the roof of a 3-story building and looked for a good way to get inside. They made a point of staying away from the edge of the roof where they could be silhouetted against the sky. They found an access door from the roof and went into the building. This floor was nothing but offices, so they went down and found the same thing on the next two floors. This building was empty of people, so they went back to the roof.

Eagle said, "It looks to me like Wylie Industries is at least partly legitimate, since they appear to have so many employees working in mundane offices. That is a good cover for illegal activities. Let's see what's in the next building."

They looked at three more buildings without finding anything that looked illegal; about all that they could say so far was that Wylie Industries manufactured a lot of chemicals. The fifth building they looked at was a bit more of the type they were looking for. The place reeked of alcohol. There was fermenting vat after fermenting vat in rows throughout the building. Maybe they were diverting some of this alcohol into bootlegging operations.

Finally they came to the place where it all made sense. Falcon said, "Look at those trucks. They're labeled isopropyl alcohol, but I am familiar with the smell of rubbing alcohol from my years as a nurse, and that's not what is going into those trucks! I swear that it is grain alcohol that they are loading."

Owl noted, "Yes, isopropyl alcohol and rubbing alcohol are the same thing, and there is no law against shipping or selling it. But, if they are shipping grain alcohol, ethyl alcohol, in trucks labeled isopropyl alcohol, they could be trying to get around the cops and feds. My guess is that the only way we can be sure is to follow one of these trucks and see where it goes."

The mislabeled trucks were moving out at a steady pace, so they shouldn't have any problem finding one to follow. They rushed back to Black Widow and moved to where they could spot a truck they wanted to follow. They only had to wait a few minutes for a mislabeled truck to show up.

They followed the truck as it left Wylie Industries and headed west on the highway. They followed for nearly 30 miles before the truck did the unexpected. The truck turned off the highway and followed a back road for about 4 miles until it came to a large barn-like building. The driver pulled up to a large door and tooted his horn. A man came out of the building and talked to the driver for a few minutes. He went back into the building and shortly thereafter, the door was opened and the truck entered the building.

Owl parked among some trees, and they got out to investigate the activities in the large building. They sneaked up and peered through a window. They saw the truck being unloaded into a large storage tank, but they couldn't see anything else from their present location. They had to get into the building.

They moved a little farther along the wall and came to a partly opened window. It was easy to push the window open far enough for them to crawl in; they hid behind some drums labeled "food coloring." From there, they could see two production lines. One was filling bottles labeled with the name of a popular Scotch whiskey and another was filling bottles labeled for vodka.

Owl snorted, "Holy cannoli, would you look at that! Somebody is making a fortune, here."

Almost at that moment, there was a shout behind them, and several goons ran up brandishing clubs. It was obvious that this was the plant security team, and that they didn't want to use guns in here for fear of the damage bullets would do to their profits.

Falcon drew a short section of weighted pipe and the other three drew their nun-chucks. Even though the odds were 5-to-4, the goons really had no chance as Falcon forcefully poked her man in the belly with the baton and struck him behind the ear when he bent over.

Eagle danced around with his nun-chuck flying and caught a thug a hard blow to the throat which collapsed his windpipe. Eagle struck another thug on the bridge of the nose hard enough to drive bone into his brain, killing him on the spot.

Hawk presented her opponent with virtually a solid wall of flying nun-chuck before she killed him with a hit to his left ear.

Owl was more business like as he used his nun-chuck to poke through his goon's eye and into his brain. Nothing fancy, just poke, you're dead!