Pulp Fiction | The Ghost Riders Affair (July 1966) by Unknown Page A

Just that clever. I put nerve gas antidote in your coffee on that mountain trail, but you pretended to be knocked out by that gas, though it barely affected me at all. It was a little late, but I realized what your chore was at that ranch—to keep me, or anyone, from interfering before your grandfather got his deadly plan into operation."
    "That's still my only objective, Mr. Solo."
    "Only it won't work."
    "If you move, I'll kill you," she said.
    "With that gun?" Solo inquired.
    Something flickered in her eyes. Then she straightened. "Test me, and see."
    "Isn't that the gun you threatened me with in Wyoming?"
    Scowling, Mabel nodded.
    "You should have used it on me, then," Solo said. "I removed the lead from your cartridge because I was afraid to trust you, even then. And you know what? I still am?"
    Mabel's voice rose slightly. "You're bluffing."
    Solo glanced at Illya, nodded, then moved forward. Point blank, Mabel fired.
    Solo kept walking. Illya followed him. Panic washed across Mabel's eyes. She fired again, pressing the trigger. The gun exploded but nothing happened.
    Solo snagged her arm, removed the gun from her hand. Expertly he reloaded it with clips from her own jacket.
    He pressed the gun into the small of her back.
    "Let's go see grandpa," he told her.
    The wailing whistles continued screaming through all the caverns. Guards ran ploddingly along the walks. Solo saw the four trains, idling, ready to move out in four directions.
    But they did not go near them. With Mabel walking just ahead of them, they moved upward to the control room.
    Two guards barred their way. Solo pressed the gun against Mabel's spine. She jerked her head at the guards and they went inside.
    Leonard Finnish heeled around from a control panel when Solo spoke his name.
    All the people in the control room came to attention, peering in desperate, near-sighted concentration at Illya, Solo and Finnish's granddaughter.
    Finnish squinted, gazing at them, locating the gun in Solo's hand. He breathed deeply from an oxygen flask, then laid it aside, laughing.
    He wheezed with laughter. "So you have broken free again, have you? Very commendable. But you are too late. Perhaps Mabel was unable to stop you, but it doesn't matter."
    "I'm sorry, grandfather," Mabel whispered.
    Finnish laughed again, in wheezing exultance. "It doesn't matter, my child. You have done well. You delayed our enemies just long enough!" He swung his arm toward a bank of monitoring screens. "Look at them!There they go! Racing on our own underground freeways! Four atomic-laden trains! Four trains on automatic pilot—four trains set to explode simultaneously. So you can see, Mr. Solo, you're late. Much too late!"
    Stunned, Solo and Illya stood watching the atomic-loaded trains rush toward their targets.
    Finnish peered at them, drinking deep satisfaction from their defeat. The he pressed a button. The guards rushed in from outside the control room.
    "All right!" Finnish said, breathing painfully. "They've seen enough. Take them out into the city where all can see and kill them. Put their bodies through the hatches into the river."
    The guards raised their guns, advancing.
    Illya grabbed Mabel, arm about her waist, using her as a shield between himself and the armed guards.
    He retreated, holding Mabel tightly against him. The guards ran forward, then paused, hesitant.
    They stared at Finnish, uncertainly.
    The huge man yelled at them, "Shoot!"
    Still the guards hesitated, unable to believe they heard.
    "Shoot!" Finnish raged, wheezing.
    Illya backed between the panel boards, searching.
    "Stop him! Shoot!" Finnish shouted.
    Mabel screamed, shaking her head. "Grandfather! No!"
    Finnish seemed not even to hear her. She no longer existed for him, except as a temporary obstacle.
    "Shoot! Stop him! I don't care how! Stop him!"
    The guards advanced, but still they hesitated. Gasping for breath, raging, Finnish lumbered toward the nearest guard, jerked the gun from his arms.
    Finnish turned,