Deathgame Read Online Free PDF Page B

game."
    Frank and Joe started cautiously down the aisle. Joe let the bat dangle from one hand.
    "All right. Stop right there!" The man held up his hand. He held a grenade in it. "I bet you know what this baby can do. So no cute tricks."
    "How'd you know we'd be checking the bus terminal?" Frank asked as he came to an abrupt stop.
    "We checked you out at the airport. As soon as we learned you hadn't left town, we kept you under surveillance."
    "The black van just beyond the street lamp?" Joe asked.
    "You got it. We had a shotgun microphone aimed at your window and heard everything you said. So when you went to the terminal, we were all set. I was the decoy to lure you out of town."
    The man reached up and pulled off his blond hair. It was a wig. "Now we've got you alone, and we can take care of you. All I have to do is make a phone call — " He broke off in midsentence and hefted the grenade. "You have no objections, right?"
    As the man spoke, Frank and Joe glanced meaningfully at each other. They didn't need any further communication. They began to inch apart, in order to offer separate targets.
    When the man realized what they were up to, he threw the blond wig down violently, pulled the pin on the grenade, and raised his arm, ready to throw it.
    "Stop that!" he yelled.
    It was as if he had shouted a signal. The Hardys dove wide in opposite directions. But they didn't get far in the crowded store. Frank crashed into a shelf full of catchers' mitts. Joe knocked over a rack of fishing poles.
    "All right, wise guys, this will still get one of you." The man hurled the grenade directly at Joe.
    Pushing himself up from the tangle of fishing poles, Joe saw the deadly green sphere tumbling toward him. It wasn't going to miss!

Chapter 7
    JOE FOUND IT difficult to really believe that something as small as a grenade could be so destructive. Yet, within seconds of the release of the pin, that little olive green ball would explode into a bundle of shrapnel, capable of digging an inch deep into walls.
    He watched it come toward him. The man had thrown it in a straight line, no fancy high curve, just hard and fast, right down the center. If it hit him and then detonated, he would be dead.
    Joe raised the bat in his hands. It was almost an instinctive act, born of years of playing ball back in Bayport with Frank, Biff, Tony, and the other guys. Biff often threw just such a straight hardball.
    Joe had no room to swing, confined by the counters. Instead, he bunted.
    There was a dull whack of metal on wood. Then, clack! clack! clack! with a monotonous tap on the linoleum each time the grenade bounced back in the direction of the man who had thrown it.
    The man's hard face lost all its arrogance. It went slack with shock, and his eyes widened. He spun about and frantically started to run away.
    The grenade bounced, clack!, and wobbled off to the left, away from the man, veering toward a glass-enclosed counter, bouncing, bouncing, bouncing.
    Then two feet from the counter, it exploded!
    Heat and smoke erupted. Both Hardys hit the floor, hands over their ears. The blast was thunderous in the confined space. They didn't even hear the ceiling fall in.
    Frank lay in the midst of the baseball glove display. Baseball players' signatures danced before his eyes. He was positive the explosion had rendered him deaf, until he heard Joe calling.
    "Frank! Don't let him get away!"
    Joe ran into the smoke. Frank shoved his way clear and staggered to his feet. He tapped his ear with the palm of his hand, trying to clear his head. He looked up for an instant, and did a double take. He could see stars.
    The blast had ripped a huge hole out of a section of roof, and now gray smoke billowed through it in a rush.
    Frank had taken half a dozen steps into the smoke when he ran right into his brother. Joe was standing still.
    "What's the matter?" Frank asked, trying to take small breaths so that he wouldn't inhale the smoke too deeply. "I thought you didn't want him