"It"s burned flesh," the bronze man explained.
The corridor, concrete-walled, was narrow for perhaps ten feet. Then there were steps, twenty or so. After that the pa.s.sage widened.
It seemed to be a long subterranean corridor, off which opened various steel doors. The electric lights were brilliant, and some of the doors stood open.
When feet stirred ahead, Doc Savage quickly drew Monk through one of the doors that was dark.
Men approached, and Senor Steel"s voice sounded. He spoke in a cold, clipped fashion, describing the exact location of Doc Savage"s plane, and particularly the spot where Jep Dee had been left.
"Get Jep Dee," Senor Steel ordered. "Shoot him on the spot. The plane is not so important. We will fly it out to sea somewhere and sink it."
Six men strode past in the party that was going after Jep Dee.
Doc Savage produced a handful of gla.s.s bottles which he had taken from the equipment case on his plane. He gave these to Monk.
"Gas?" the homely chemist whispered.
"You have to be careful with this stuff," Doc warned. "It works through the pores of the skin, and it"s pretty bad. If you have to throw it, get away from the stuff. Don"t let it touch you, or you won"t feel much like fighting."
Monk said, "There won"t nothin" make me feel like not fightin", the mood I"m in!"
THEY listened, finally thrust their heads into the lighted corridor. There was no one in sight. But voices came from what seemed to be a larger room fifty feet or so distant.
The door of that room was not open. But there was a barred aperture in the steel panel.
Doc Savage went forward silently, took a chance, and looked through the opening. It seemed to be safe enough. No one inside was interested in the door.
It was a large room of naked concrete, like a great bas.e.m.e.nt. On the far side was a circular door of steel-a vault door.
Every eye was on this.
Senor Steel was working on the combination of the vault. He got that door open. Inside that was another door, locked by key; and centrally located in that, a round lid.
Yanking the lid open quickly, Senor Steel popped a large bottle through. They could hear the bottle break.
Senor Steel closed the lid instantly.
Monk, close to Doc Savage"s ear, breathed, "A gas chamber on the vault."Monk"s chemistry knowledge had told him that. There was a chamber between doors of the vault, an air-tight one, probably filled with some form of deadly gas; and the bottle of chemical which Senor Steel had broken in the chamber would neutralize the gas, render it harmless, so that the vault could be entered.
After a while, Senor Steel opened the other vault doors, three of them.
"Give me the stuff I sent up recently," he ordered.
The "stuff" was jewels. Several hundred thousand dollars" worth, judging from the scintillating cascade that poured from Senor Steel"s hand when he dipped into the small casket which was handed him.
He walked into the vault with the jewels, and they had a brief glimpse of an array, seemingly hundreds, of yellow metal bars in neat stacks.
"Looks like the inside of a mint!" Monk breathed.
Senor Steel came out and locked the vault, operated levers which probably charged the chamber again with gas.
"Get old man Goncez off the slab," Senor Steel snapped. "We"ll put one of Doc Savage"s men on. This overdressed one with the big mouth."
He meant Ham.
Chapter XVIII. WHEN DEAD MEN FIGHT.
THE slab was of iron, and there were iron bands to hold ankles, and others to hold arms. It stood on four legs in the center of the large concrete room. Steam pipes made a mattress on the iron slab, and these led to a gas boiler which stood to the left. The boiler burned gas of the ordinary steel-bottled kitchen variety; and it was making heat now with a low moaning sound.
Old Goncez was perhaps seventy. It was doubtful if he would live. He looked as if he had been scalped, but probably that had been done with red-hot irons. There was a place in the boiler for heating irons.
Goncez could not move when they tossed him aside. He was not tied, and no one told him not to move; he was just past doing anything.
Rhoda Haven was in the room, and Ham, Johnny, Tex Haven.
They seized Ham.
Rhoda Haven made a gasping sound of horror and jumped forward. They grabbed her, and there was a short struggle.
Then Rhoda Haven began talking. Not exactly screaming, but almost.
"We"ll give up!" she cried. "We"ll stop. We won"t bother you-"
Old Tex Haven said savagely, "Like h.e.l.l we"ll stop!"
The girl paid no attention to her father.
"We won"t bother you again!" she went on crying at Senor Steel. "Let us go and we won"t come near this cache again, or ever try to make trouble for you. You know us-you know we keep promises."
Senor Steel said coldly, "I don"t know anybody well enough to take their word."
The girl said: "You used a million dollars of our money. We financed and managed the revolution that put you in power. We"ll forget that. Won"t that satisfy you?"
Tex Haven said, snarling: "Won"t nothin" satisfy the skunk. We was goin" to run Blanca Grande with an honest government and develop the country, and we"d have made millions and not harmed anybody, and made work for plenty of people. But Senor Steel wasn"t satisfied with that. He had to run us out and start grabbing everything in Blanca Grande. Look at the country now. Half the population starving. More misery in Blanca Grande right today than in any ten other countries."Senor Steel laughed.
Then he jerked his head at the strong room where he had put the jewels.
"But look at the profit," he said. "Over eighteen millions."
"Heard it was fifty," Tex snapped.
"Exaggerated."
Old Tex Haven showed his teeth in an unpleasant way. They had taken his corncob pipe away from him, and that had not helped his mood.
He said: "The skunk that was your father must have crossed with a fox. You"re slick. You had eighteen million dollars you had looted from Blanca Grande, and you had to keep it somewhere. You couldn"t keep it in European banks."
"No," Senor Steel agreed cheerfully, "I couldn"t keep it in European banks. They"ve made it against the law to take money out of most of those European countries. Anyway, their currencies aren"t stable."
Tex said: "And you couldn"t use American banks because the United States government figures you should pay for some of the American oil companies your government confiscated."
Senor Steel laughed.
Tex continued: "It was slick of you to pick an island inside United States waters, like this one. You knew no foreign government would be seizing it for an air base or something."
Senor Steel shrugged. This was praise. He was pleased.
Tex Haven said: "You brought a lot of your political prisoners here, you polecat. Old Goncez, here, is an example. I hear you"ve got almost forty more in the dungeons. Well, that"s going to be your undoing. You can"t torture people on that scale and get away with it. Matter of fact, you"ve slipped. Jep Dee found this island. Others will find it."
This wasn"t praise. Senor Steel did not care for it. He pointed at Ham.
"Go ahead and torture that fellow," he ordered.
Tex Haven finished, "If I"ve got to watch a torture, how about giving me back my pipe?"
Someone came over and slapped him several times, great long-armed slaps that made loud noises.
RHODA HAVEN put her chin up and made her mouth tight. She had been shaken for a moment, when she tried to plead their way free, but now she had hold of herself, would take her medicine. Like old Tex Haven, she was made of human oak and human steel, and she had picked her career of soldier-of-fortuning, had liked it, knowing always what the wages might sometime be, and now she would accept the end.
Tex Haven shook with rage, but could do nothing. He wanted his pipe.
Johnny and Ham were calm, if not happy. They had been in tight spots before, not that practice made them any the less susceptible to fright-but previous danger had taught them that the thing to do in a case such as this was keep the mind so busy trying to figure a way out, that it would have no time to dwell on what seemed certain to happen.
Death, in this case. Senor Steel would order them killed eventually, of course. Now, he was just worried about written records that Doc Savage might have left.
Monk was scared. He wasn"t even in danger-yet. But he was more worried than anybody. His arms were trembling, and he had to keep his teeth clamped to prevent their chattering.
Monk was terrified for Ham. They were about to put Ham on that steam-torture horror.
The homely chemist"s skin seemed to get as tight as a drumhead.
"We gotta go in there!" he gritted.
"Yes," Doc agreed, "we better."The bronze man reached up and unscrewed one of the light bulbs that illuminated the corridor. He had his pocketknife ready the instant the bulb came out, and he plunged the blade into the socket.
A small devil of blue-green fire popped and hissed as the blade short-circuited the socket, and molten metal fell like jewels. Fuses blew.
There was darkness, blacker than it seemed any darkness could be.
Doc Savage and Monk Mayfair went into the concrete torture vault.
And screaming started somewhere else in the cache-weird screams by many voices, as if there were fear of darkness.
THE bronze man did not start fighting. Monk had sense enough not to cut loose with his fists, either, which was a remarkable piece of self-control for Monk, wanting to fight as he did.
The men in the vault would not know an enemy was attacking. Not for a moment or two. They would think the lights had failed.
While they were thinking the lights had only gone bad, Doc Savage cut Johnny and Ham loose. He b.u.mped into people, of course. They swore at him, cursed each other. There began to be some noise in the place.
"Stop this racket!" Senor Steel yelled. "One of you fools light a flashlight. Where"s the idiot responsible for keeping these lights operating?"
His tone promised something unpleasant for the idiot who tended the lights.
The grisly wailing from elsewhere in the cache was louder.
Doc Savage found Rhoda Haven. She was close to her father. They were trying to free each other.
The bronze man said, low-voiced, "It"s Doc Savage. I"m cutting you loose. Make for the door."
He had told Ham and Johnny the same thing, and no one else had heard. He did not intend to be heard this time. But Horst was close. He caught the words.
"Doc Savage!" Horst screeched. "Doc Savage is in here!"
Senor Steel spoke rippingly.
"Shut up!" he rapped. "Doc Savage is dead!"
For a dead man, Doc Savage began to do a good deal of damage. He found Horst, struck him, knocked him against a wall. He hit another man.
Two more men got Doc"s ankles, and he went down, but did not stay down. He broke someone"s arm before he got up, and the arm owner started screaming steadily in a high, yip-yipping voice, like a dog.
His shrieks were a flutelike accompaniment for the wails somewhere else in the cache.
Doc got to the door.
"Out?" he asked.
Ham, Johnny and the Havens, he learned, were in the corridor. Only Monk was still in the big room.
"Monk!" Doc rapped loudly. "Get out of there! I want to use gas!"
Monk didn"t hear. Or he didn"t want to hear. From the sounds-knuckles crushing flesh, a bone popping now and then, and screams-he was having the fight he"d wanted for hours.
"Lock the door!" Monk howled. "Don"t let any of "em get away from me!"
There were at least a dozen men in the room. Monk, the optimist, didn"t want any of them to get away."The big dope!" Ham gasped anxiously.
Ham thought as much of Monk as Monk thought of him, but the only time he"d ever admitted it was once during an operation, when he was under anaesthetic; and he"d claimed he was not responsible at the time.