Chapter X.
DOC SAVAGE, for the third time in five minutes clamping a thumb on the call-b.u.t.ton for the steward, complained, "I wonder if this thing is out of order?"
Monk and Ham glanced at each other, silently agreeing with lifted eyebrows that Doc Savage was not fully satisfied with the way things were going. They suspected that Doc was wondering whether he had made a big mistake somewhere.
Ham said dryly, "Right after takeoff, the steward is probably pretty busy."
"I suppose so ... But five minutes!" Doc said impatiently.
Monk looked at Doc Savage levelly, said, "Doc, where do you think you made your mistake?"
Doc stiffened, tightened visibly for a moment. It was not his habit to show much emotion, and this-thesharp visible bite of apprehension, the startled irritation that his unease had been noticed-was unusual.
He first scowled, then grimaced, then grinned faintly and without happiness.
"With so much at stake," he said, "I probably shouldn"t have trusted a guess so completely, nor acted on it so fully."
Monk rubbed his chin slowly. "I"ll admit I don"t see the point of this charging across the country and grabbing a seaplane to Hawaii. I can see what you might be trying to do give someone the idea we know where that bomb is, and are busting ourselves to get to it in a hurry."
"You don"t think much of that idea?"
"No, I don"t."
"That"s too bad," Doc said. "Because it is what I"m trying to do."
"But n.o.body coulda overtook us, dang it!" Monk exclaimed. "The way we come busting across the country, n.o.body could have caught up with us-oh! Oh, wait a minute-you did intend for them to try to catch up with us and stop us, didn"t-didn"t you? So as to get a line on them. Or do you really know where that bomb is?"
"I have no more idea than you have where the bomb is."
"Oh! Then why not give them a chance to catch-"
"We did."
"Eh?"
"Stop and check for a minute," Doc suggested dryly. "Remember how long Renny took getting our plane ready? First, he moved it from the waterfront hangar to La Guardia, and that took time. Then servicing took more time. And we were killing time ourselves-you and Ham didn"t get reservations out of San Francisco instantly, if you"ll remember. Then there was a delay while we got our stuff together ..."
"Who was watching us?"
"Eh?"
"Who," Monk demanded, "was around to find out we headed for Hawaii? Or was anybody?"
Doc wore a dubious expression. "That"s what is bothering me," he said. "There is a chance, a bare chance, we might have covered our trail too well." He shrugged and stood up suddenly. "Well, if we did, we can let the newspapers know that we are in Hawaii, and see that the wire services handle the story.
That should make it less of a secret ... I"m going to look for the steward, and, incidentally, have a glance at the pa.s.sengers."
He went out.
MONK and Ham swapped discouraged looks after Doc had departed. "This whole thing," Monk said, "has been feather-fighting from the first. It starts out with n.o.body knowing for sure what"s what, and it keeps on that way. Personally, I d like to have something in front of me that I can see and strike out at.
d.a.m.n this jumping around in the dark!"
"Doc"s wondering if he made a mistake.""Sure."
"And," said Ham, "he"s got something up his sleeve we don"t know about."
Monk looked disappointed. "So you noticed that, too," he muttered.
Ham laughed. "What"s the matter, knot-head? Did you think you were going to have a chance to laugh at me?"
Monk was indignant. "Listen, you"re so bright-eyed and smart-answer me a question. What does Doc know that everybody had missed?"
"I don"t know," Ham confessed readily.
"Ha, I figured you didn"t!"
Ham eyed him narrowly. "Do you know?"
Monk looked secretive. "I got a right fair idea. But I"m keeping it to myself, where it"ll be appreciated."
"You have no more of an idea than I have," Ham said.
"Yeah?" Okay, I"ll give you just a hint: You remember that file of photographs Doc looked at? Turn that over in your mind, and see what comes out." Monk leaned back and grinned. "Nothing will, of course."
DOC encountered a slender man wearing a steward"s uniform. Doc halted. Alert, curious, intrigued, he eyed the steward, and presently he said, "Haven"t I met you before?"
"Not formally," the steward said.
The steward, using his left hand, grasped and lifted a towel which was draped across his right hand, the act disclosing a dark automatic pistol which his right hand gripped.
He added, "Not as formally as we now meet. And, brother, how formal it will be depends on you. If you are ready to go and sit at G.o.d"s right hand, just make one wrong move."
Doc decided-from the fright, desperation and ferocity in the man"s voice and att.i.tude-that almost any move at all would be wrong. He studied the man, at the same time trying not to look too self-possessed, fearing that even a self-possessed look would cause the man to shoot him.
He said, "Ah, I think I recall you now."
"Yeah?"
The man-he was obviously no steward-seemed to have not the least idea what he should, or could, do next. He seemed to be stiffening visibly, and his color was changing from Morocco leather to toast brown to hazel to fawn to straw, at which point it shifted over to lightening shades of grey.
"Newspaper reporter," Doc said.
The man said nothing.
Doc added, "You were at the police station, after the house burned. You were present when the press was told that the dead man, Burt Chapman, was a federal agent killed in the pursuit of duty ... I imagine you hung around after that, and overheard Monk or Ham telephoning for reservations on this plane."No response.
"Having heard that," Doc continued, "you were able to move fast, board a regular pa.s.senger plane, and get out here ahead of us-in time to be on this plane."
The man lifted a lip without much enthusiasm. "Little late figuring it out, ain"t you?"
"Not necessarily," Doc said. "But I couldn"t very well tell you about it before, could I? Not until you fell into the trap."
The man said, "Shut up and ..." He went silent, scowled. "What"s that? Trap?" His lips thinned out against his teeth. "What"s that crack for?"
"I don"t mind telling you," Doc said, "now that you"re in it too deep to back out."
"Eh?"
Doc said, "We went to a lot of trouble to get you fellows on this plane ... But it worked out nicely, didn"t it?"
"Listen, d.a.m.n you-"
Doc said, looking past the man"s shoulder, "Okay, shoot him if he moves!" The man"s head screwed around on his shoulder with lightning speed as he tried to see who was behind him-there was no one-in the pa.s.sage. Moving fast, Doc got both his hands on the man"s hands, and on the gun.
SILENT, violent, fiercely contested, the struggle was longer than it should have been. The slight man, while wiry and tough, was no match for Doc"s strength, but the fellow managed to get wedged against the corridor wall, get himself forced down, so that he almost, but not quite, retained his grip on the gun. The gun did speak loudly, once, and the slide of the weapon, jacked back by the recoil, skinned and bruised Doc"s hand. Inside a compartment, beyond the bulkhead against which they were struggling, in a compartment into which the bullet had gone, a man yelled, "Dammit! This seat pinched...Oh! Oh my G.o.d! I"m shot! Look at my leg!"
Doc had the gun now. He was on his feet. The wiry dark man was on the floor, and began crawling. Doc clubbed him over the head. It seemed to have no effect. The man kept crawling. Doc hit him repeatedly, following beside him, trying to step on his legs and hold him, trying to seize him and hold him, all the time striking blows with gun and fist on head, neck, shoulders, back. The man made mewing sounds of hurt and fear, kept crawling.
Forward, a man appeared. It was Mr. Moore. Doc fired once. Mr. Moore, probably unhit, slid sidewise from view.
The wiry man Doc had been beating continued crawling until he reached the steps leading up into the control compartment. He crawled up the steps to the top step, where he gave a convulsive jump forward and upward, and fell back into the corridor, not moving after he hit the floor.
Two heads, two arms, two guns-Skeeter and Mr. Moore-showed in the control room door. On the faces, fierce hate, fear, desperation; and out of the guns, thunder and lead. Doc fired back He was not a gunfighter by inclination, and always distrusted his marksmanship, which actually was very good. Skeeter and Mr. Moore withdrew. Doc did not go on toward the control compartment, feeling quite certain that to do so would be suicidal.
Doc moved backward rapidly.Monk and Ham, crowding to get out of their compartment simultaneously, shoved angrily at each other.
"What is it?" Monk yelled.
"Our friends are aboard," Doc said.
"What do we do?"
"Whatever you can think of," Doc said. "There"s three forward, one laid out. There will be more-"
A man put his head through an aperture. He withdrew his head quickly, replacing it with his right hand, which contained a gun. The gun barked, disappeared, did not appear again.
Monk said, "I"ll be d.a.m.ned if that wasn"t the guy called Rice."
Ham had his back against the corridor wall, looking with disfavor at a long lead-smeared scar which the bullet had made in pa.s.sing rearward. He said, "It could not be. Rice was burned up in that house."
"He"s had a resurrection, then," Monk said. "Because if that wasn"t Rice ... He became silent to permit a very handsome, but also very large middle-aged lady to thrust her head out of a compartment and demand, "Is so much noise necessary?" She stared at them fiercely, added, "If you do not wish to sleep, kindly allow someone else to do so."
Monk told her they were awfully sorry. "Lady, we"re worse upset about this than you are," Monk said.
Mr. Rice took another shot at them. He didn"t hit anything, because he didn"t observe the formality of aiming. He merely shoved his hand around the corner, shot, and withdrew.
"The next time he does that," Ham said, "I"m going to shoot his hand off."
The very large, handsome lady had been staring at them. Suddenly she opened her mouth wide and shrieked with such volume that, involuntarily, they recoiled in fright.
ALL through the seaplane, a stirring, and excitement-tense, poised, frightened-came to. life swiftly, like a fierce animal awakening. It raced and leaped, grew wild and erratic, rampant with fright. Then suddenly the loudspeakers-there was a little radio speaker in each compartment, over each seat, for entertainment of the pa.s.sengers made a soft clicking noise, then gave out an airy rushing note, following which a bitterly determined voice said, "Everybody take his or her seat. Stay there ... Your attention, please! This is an emergency. Everyone take his or her seat and stay there. It is important!"
Doc said, "Ham!"
"Yes?"
"Go aft. See whether any of them are in the stern."
Ham went forward. He had a machine pistol in his hand. A great deal smaller than a Thompson or a Reising gun, weighing hardly more than the Army Colt Automatic, the weapon could spray a startling amount of lead. It used a .22-calibre Hornet cartridge, a special mushrooming bullet, could tear a man to pieces in a moment.
The loudspeaker addressed them angrily. "Attention!" it said. "Keep your seats, or you will be shot!"
Doc Savage shoved open the most convenient compartment door. The man and three women inside were white-faced, rigid in their seats. He said, "Keep your seats." They stared at the gun in his hand andobeyed.
Monk crouched in the pa.s.sage.
Doc said, "Better get under cover, Monk."
Monk did not shake his head, lest his eyes lose their fixed attention on the control compartment door.
"I"m gonna shoot that guy"s hand off, he shoves it out again."
Placidly, as if there was nothing wrong, the big ship flew onward. From its six engines power flowed, not noisily, yet noticeably, and as strongly as the flow of a river. Like a river indeed, the feeling of power penetrating to all parts of the craft, placing everywhere a sense of vital force, of speed, strength.
"Attention!" snarled the loudspeaker. "Move, and you will be shot. This is a holdup. It is piracy. We have twenty men aboard. They are armed. They will kill. Keep your seats. Obey orders."
Monk spit on the carpet. "Twenty men nuts!" he said. "How many would you say, Doc?"
"Five. Not more than six or seven," Doc said.
"That ain"t twenty, is it?"
"It"s nothing to laugh at," Doc said.
"I ain"t laughing," Monk said.
Ham called, "None of them in the stern. They"re all forward."
Silence-not a real silence, for there was the vital surge of the engines, the hissing of the loudspeaker-fell through the ship. It was a moment of tension, of waiting, of astonished wonder, of speculation about what sort of an incredible thing could be happening.
Monk"s gun swung up casually, lazily, became fixed and rigid; it vomited thunder and sprang upward. A man screamed from forward. Rice" voice. It was not a nice sound to listen to.