Evil Machines Read Online Free PDF Page B

thinking on his feet and at saying things that were not strictly true. It was an ability that had kept him in good stead as both a bandit and as head of a department store in Swindon. ‘I’ve been lying low all this time, trying to think of a plan to get you out of jail!’
    ‘Really, boss?’ asked Pedro Del Camino, who was the most gullible of the three.
    ‘Yes! It’s the honest truth!’ lied Montague Du Cann. ‘And I finally formulated a foolproof plan, and have come all this way from England to try to spring you from jail!’
    ‘Well, you’re too late!’ snarled Antonio Gabriel Bernardino Martinez. ‘We’re already out!’
    ‘Then so much the better!’ said Montague Du Cann. ‘For now you can join me in my next bank raid!’
    ‘We’re already doing our own bank raid!’ snapped Fernando Salvador, the second-in-command. ‘We don’t need you! You double-crossed us!’
    ‘Yeah! That’s right!’ exclaimed Pedro Del Camino. ‘You got us to keep the police occupied while you ran away . . .’
    ‘You ain’t fit to live!’ spat out The Kid, and grabbed Montague Du Cann by the cravat and started to punch him . . .
    But at that moment, the doors of the saloon burst open and the bar tender appeared, holding a gun.
    ‘Hey! You three! You ain’t paid for your beers!’
    ‘Run for it!’ cried Fernando Salvador, the second-in-command.
    ‘Rats!’ exclaimed Antonio Gabriel Bernardino Martinez, dropping Montague Du Cann on the ground. And all three of them turned and ran off, while the bar tender sprayed bullets in their wake.
    Now the bar tender, as it happened, was not a good man. He had been born out of wedlock, and had suffered since childhood from a chronic disease of the ocular nerve, which gave him a pronounced squint. As a result, his character had been so deformed that he thought nothing of deliberately keeping the clock in the bar of the saloon ten minutes fast – so he could close early.
    He was genuinely a swivel-eyed, two-timing bastard.
    This was, however, good news for Fernando Salvador, Antonio Gabriel Bernardino Martinez and Pedro Del Camino as they sprinted across the High Street of the town of Española, for the bar tender was a poor shot, and the bullets went flying over their heads without hitting any of them.
    All this time, Montague Du Cann, formerly known as Juan Gonzales, had been lying stretched on the ground, where The Kid had dropped him. He didn’t dare move until the bar tender ran out of bullets.
    When he did, and shuffled back into the saloon, Montague Du Cann got cautiously to his feet and then started marching smartly down the road in the opposite direction. He had not gone more than a couple of hundred yards, when he froze in his tracks. There it was! A building
    whose image was burnt on his mind: the bank that they had robbed twenty years ago!
    It looked almost exactly the same as it had all that time ago. A strange urge came over him. He wanted to walk in there, pull out his gun and order everyone to lie on the floor, while he took the keys to the safe from the bank clerk. Oh! That feeling of power . . . of other people obeying you implicitly . . . It was almost as good as being the head of a department store.
    He shook the fantasy out of his head. He wasn’t going to rob a bank again as long as he lived. Besides, he didn’t have a gun.
    But at that moment, one was pushed into his hands.
    ‘What’s this?’ exclaimed Montague Du Cann, dropping the gun like a hot brick.
    ‘You’re robbing the bank with us!’ said Fernando Salvador.
    ‘Just like we did twenty years ago,’ said The Kid. ‘Only this time you’re gonna take the fall for us three. Not the other way round!’
    ‘Yeah!’ said Pedro Del Camino. ‘Get it?’
    ‘You’re crazy!’ exclaimed Montague Du Cann. ‘You’ll all get caught! You haven’t got a plan!’
    ‘We haven’t got no money! That’s what we ain’t got!’ said Fernando Salvador. ‘We ain’t got no choice!’
    ‘You