Читать книгу War Masters from the Orient - Emile C. Tepperman - Страница 6

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WHILE Tim Donovan was being carried across town by the obese Dmitri Osman and the woman, Lina, James Christopher—Operator 5, ace of the United States Intelligence—was facing three men in a room on the third floor of the Custom House Building, on Bowling Green, in downtown New York.

The three men were seated. Operator 5 was standing, talking to them vehemently, urgently. As he spoke, he gestured toward a girl who stood beside him.

"Gentlemen," he was pleading, "you must believe what this young lady tells us. She is Katerina Saratoff, the sister of a very dear friend of mine, who died so that she might come here to give me the message. For two weeks I have tried to get you to listen to her. Today I practically forced my way in here. I beg of you, gentlemen, give this young lady five minutes of your time!"

One of the three men rose, glanced at the others, and cleared his throat. He was a tall man in his late fifties, and his bearing was distinguished, sedate. He was the Secretary of War—the man who had the last word on the disposition of the fighting forces of the United States. He adjusted his glasses on his thin, aquiline nose, and spoke sharply:

"Operator 5, you must realize that you are interfering with the embarkation of four thousand soldiers. The war in Europe—"

"The war in Europe be damned!"

Jimmy Christopher broke in hotly. "Don't you realize, Mr. Secretary, that our own shores are in danger? What will you do when the enemy ships are sighted off our coastline?" He turned pleadingly to the two seated men. "You, General Falk, and you, Admiral Winston. Perhaps you will listen to me. This young lady has definite information that the Union of Asiatic States plans to attack the United States. You yourselves know that no news has come out of Asia for months. You know, also, that Soviet Russia has been fighting desperately, fruitlessly, for her life on her eastern frontiers. You have heard rumors that a new dictator has sprung up in Asia, who has consolidated all the yellow races under a single banner. Yet—"

The man whom Jimmy Christopher had addressed as Admiral Winston raised a hand. He was a comparatively young man, in his early forties. He was attired in the full-dress uniform of a rear-admiral of the United States Navy. It was he who was to take command of the convoy sailing that evening—and who was scheduled to assume full charge of the Sanctioning Powers' Joint Fleet in Mediterranean waters.

He was smiling indulgently as he said:

"All these things may be quite true, Operator 5. But I should like to point out to you that even if there is a new dictator in Asia—even if the Asiatic States have conquered Russia—they can constitute no very serious menace to us. Our fleet has been brought up to full war-time capacity. We can literally blast any attacking force out of the ocean. Just what do you want us to do about this Asiatic attack that you fear so much?"

"This is no laughing matter, sir!" Jimmy said urgently. "Miss Saratoff here, tells me that she and her brother covered eight hundred miles across Russia, in the wake of the retreating Soviet armies. She tells me that not a single pitched battle was fought, but that the Russian forces fell back constantly, leaving a clear path across Europe from Lake Baikal."

He turned to Katerina Saratoff, who had been watching him breathlessly, and said, switching easily into Russian: "Let me have the message which Feodor wrote quickly. Perhaps I can convince them now—"

He took the envelope which she extracted from her purse, and turned back to the three men, opening it and extracting the folded sheet of notepaper, covered with Russian hieroglyphics, written in pencil in a small, scholarly hand.

"This, gentlemen, is the letter which Feodor Saratoff wrote when he realized that he would never leave Russia alive. I won't take your time to translate and read it. But Saratoff hints here that the Dictator of the Union of Asiatic States has developed a new kind of warfare. He has advanced across Russia without fighting a single major engagement."

The tall man who had spoken first cleared his throat and stopped Jimmy Christopher. "No doubt these Asiatics bribed the craven Soviet commanders—"

JIMMY shook his head. "There is more than bribery behind this, Mr. Secretary. There is some peculiar force which this coolie—who calls himself The Leopard—has developed, and—"

General Falk, the Chief of Staff of the United States, who had been sitting silent all this time, suddenly snapped his fingers in impatience, and exclaimed: "Bosh! Let this Leopard cross the Atlantic. We will show him—"

He stopped as a knock sounded on the door. "Come in!" he barked.

The door opened, and a young naval lieutenant entered, saluted briskly, and handed a dispatch to Admiral Winston.

"Captain Loring's compliments, sir," he said, with a manner of barely restrained excitement. "The radio room on the Dakota just picked up this message in code, from the Destroyer, Macklin. We tried to communicate with the Macklin at once after receiving it, sir, but were unable to raise them again."

Admiral Winston frowned, took the dispatch and glanced at the others. Then he unfolded it and his ruddy face grew pale as his eyes traveled over the typed words.

Suddenly he looked up, and his gaze met Jimmy Christopher's.

"Operator 5," he said in a strangely altered voice, "it appears that part of what you have been telling us has come true!"

There were gasps of astonishment from the Secretary of War and from General Falk. Winston motioned them to silence, and read aloud from the dispatch:

HAVE SIGHTED FLEET OF FORTY SHIPS THIRTY-EIGHT DEGREES NORTH LAT SEVENTY DEGREES EAST LONG. CANNOT ASCERTAIN NATION FOR THEY ARE FLYING BLACK FLAG WITH FIGURE OF RED LEOPARD. HAVE COUNTED THIRTY CONVOYS AND TEN SHIPS OF WAR. STANDING BY FOR ORDERS.

JOHN DENNY COMMANDER DESTROYER MACKLIN

For a moment there was startled silence in the room. From outside came the blare of trumpets and the roll of drums as marching men debauched from Broadway onto the docks and prepared to embark.

The Secretary of War snatched the sheet from Winston's hand, reread it himself, handed it to Falk.

Jimmy Christopher whispered in Katerina Saratoff's ear a translation of the message, and her dark eyes suddenly snapped fire.

She said in Russian to Jimmy:

"It is the Leopard! I shall pray now, every moment, that the Holy Virgin give you strength and wit and courage to avenge the death of my brother!"

Jimmy said to her somberly: "If my guess is right, Katerina, it will take more than prayer to lick this Leopard. From Feodor's letter, I should judge that we are going to be invaded within twenty-four hours!"

He turned from the girl to hear Admiral Winston say to the Secretary of War:

"This Leopard is in for a huge surprise. I ask you, sir, to give me full command of the Atlantic Fleet. The troopships will have to wait for their convoys. There are more than a hundred warships along the Atlantic seaboard, and I can have most of them here within a few hours. I will go meet this Leopard, and blow him to Kingdom Come!"

"You have full authority, Winston," the Secretary said without hesitation. "The fleet is yours!"

Winston beamed with satisfaction, snatched up the telephone on the desk, and began to snap instructions. Jimmy Christopher approached the Secretary, said low-voiced:

"There is another matter, sir, that I must call to your attention." There was no trace of elation, of the I-told-you-so attitude in Jimmy's manner. These men had laughed at him only a moment ago, and his prediction and warning had come true, dramatically. Yet he refrained from calling it to the Secretary's attention.

"In Feodor Saratoff's note, here, he warns me that the Leopard has placed agents of his in key positions with our armed forces, as well as with the large industrial plants throughout the country. Perhaps—"

The Secretary put a kindly hand on his shoulder. "Do not concern yourself about that, Operator 5. Within a few hours, this Leopard will have become a thing of the past. With ten warships, he cannot hope to oppose our splendid fleet. Either he will turn tail and head back to Asia, or he will be annihilated."

"That may be so, sir," Jimmy Christopher insisted stubbornly. "But it might be well to make some preparations to receive him in the event that he manages to break through our fleet. The four thousand men who are embarking now are about the only effective armed forces in the East. The training camps have only raw youths—"

The Secretary laughed. "You are far too pessimistic, Operator 5. The Leopard will never break through."

Jimmy was about to protest further, but at that moment Winston put down the telephone, turned from the desk, his face beaming with excitement.

"Everything is arranged!" he exclaimed. "Within three hours every available squadron will be ready for action. We will teach the Leopard a lesson that he won't soon forget. I am ordering the embarkation to continue. As soon as we have disposed of those tubs from Asia, I will sail for Europe as originally planned!"

Jimmy Christopher frowned. "Why not keep those men here, Admiral? You can return after the engagement, and go on with the embarkation. It's little enough protection for New York if anything should happen to the fleet. And you must remember that the Leopard controls some peculiar instrument of warfare—"

"Bah!" The admiral snapped his fingers. "Those Soviet soldiers were nothing but rank cowards; and their officers were probably bribed. I'll concede that your information about the Leopard's arrival was correct—but even then, it's nothing to get worried about. It's ridiculous to think that ten battleships and thirty tubs full of yellow soldiers could constitute a serious threat to America!"

The Secretary of War was nodding in agreement with the naval officer. "Your zeal is commendable, Operator 5. But I think that you may well leave the handling of this business to Admiral Winston from now on."

Hopelessly, Jimmy Christopher turned away from them, took Katerina Saratoff by the arm. There was no use arguing with these men. As he led the girl out of the room, none of them paid him any attention.

Outside, Katerina said to him: "I am afraid, Operator 5—afraid for your country. Those men are fools. They do not understand that the Leopard would not come against them were he not sure of victory. The Leopard knows how strong your fleet is; and he is not a fool. He has some plan to destroy it—I am sure!"

Jimmy shrugged. "What can I do, Katerina? Those men hold the country's fate in their hands. They are the highest officers in the land; I am only a number in the Intelligence Service!"