Читать книгу The Suicide Squad - Targets for the Flaming Arrows - Emile C. Tepperman - Страница 4

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"WHAT'S this I hear about a flaming arrow?" Stephen Klaw demanded, the moment he got into Dan Murdoch's room at the Berkshire Hotel.

Dan Murdoch was in shirt sleeves. The window was open, but he had the blind pulled all the way down. He was examining a charred stick of metal, about three feet long. There was an arrowhead point on it, and that, too, was blackened as if from a bath of fire.

Murdoch grinned, and exhibited the stick.

Klaw took it, and turned it around curiously in his hands. "A steel arrow!" he exclaimed. "Where did you get it?"

Murdoch chuckled. "It came to me out of the blue!"

"You mean someone shot at you?"

"Nothing else but!"

Klaw's eyes began to glitter. "I take it we're on a case?"

"You bet!" He picked up his coat from the bed, exhibited a rent in the left sleeve. "That's how close it came. It grazed me and hit a brick wall. The next second it burst into flames. There was a small magnesium pencil bomb fitted in the shaft. It burned like the devil for about thirty seconds, and that's all that's left!"

Stephen Klaw said thoughtfully, "If it had hit you, there'd be nothing left of you but blackened bones and a few teeth!"

They were interrupted by a knock at the door. The knock was immediately repeated, three times in quick succession, then three times slow.

"That'll be Johnny!" said Murdoch.

He went over and unlocked the door.

Big, red-headed Johnny Kerrigan entered. "What's all this about?" he growled. "Why this hocus-pocus about meeting in secret, Dan? You registered under a phony name!"

"Take it easy, Johnny," said Murdoch. "It's by order of the State Department. We're going after the Flaming Arrow!"

"Ah!" said Kerrigan. "Now you're talking! When do we start?"

"Don't get ants in your pants," said Murdoch. "We're waiting for the Chief. He's coming here with Under-secretary Hedges of the State Department. This is no pushover, guys. The Flaming Arrow is 'way over the class of anything we've ever handled. Take a look at this arrow, for instance. It was shot at me, less than an hour after I had talked with the Chief over long distance, and he had assigned me to the case."

Hedges was nervous and jumpy. "You'll have to excuse me, boys," he said after he had been introduced. "I've been on edge for ten days. And so has everybody in Washington. Twice in the last ten days we've come within an ace of getting valuable information on the Flaming Arrow; and twice, it was snatched from under our noses by the Flaming Arrow agents, once in Berne, and once in Stockholm. Yesterday, our most valuable man in Europe was killed by a flaming arrow before he could transmit details to us. The arrow that killed him burst into flames and destroyed everything in his room. The only new thing we learned from him was that the grand coup of the Flaming Arrow is planned for September first. This is the twenty-seventh. That gives us only four days."

Hedges looked at Murdoch, and the arrow in his hand. "As for you, there's nothing you can do. It's quite apparent that you are known to the Flaming Arrow. The fact that he made this attempt on your life is sufficient to impair your usefulness. As for you two!" he nodded to Kerrigan and Klaw, "I'm afraid that in asking you to undertake this job, I'm giving you a suicide assignment. But your Director here tells me that it's just such assignments you welcome." He permitted himself a faint smile. "I understand that you are known in the F.B.I. as the Suicide Squad."

Neither Kerrigan nor Murdoch nor Klaw made any reply. Though it was perfectly true that they were called the Suicide Squad, they took no special pride in it. Theirs was a devil-may-care philosophy of life, based on the theory that all three of them had long ago forfeited any right to expect to enjoy old age, ripe or otherwise.

Johnny Kerrigan had once punched a senator's son in the nose; Dan Murdoch had once shot a croupier to death in a crooked gambling joint; and Stephen Klaw had once told the chairman of a Senate investigation committee to go to hell when he had been asked why he had shot to kill in a fight with a band of gunmen.

Any other three federal agents would have been dismissed for these offenses. But the records of Kerrigan, Murdoch and Klaw were such that even a Senatorial indignation would not have stood against popular demand. The Chief of the F.B.I. had taken advantage of their records to effect a compromise. He had arranged for them to be placed on special duty, where they would never be in danger of coming in contact with anyone whose feelings were likely to be hurt. From that time on, the Director had made it a practice to assign them to such cases as would ordinarily have demanded a call for volunteers.

Thus had been formed the Suicide Squad. Together with a couple of other wild and irreconcilable hellions, they had made a blazing swath of gunfire through the underworld. There had been five of them at the start; then only four; then three; Kerrigan and Murdoch and Klaw. Tomorrow there might be only two, or one, or none...

But one thing was certain: if the Suicide Squad was wiped out, it would not be without bloody cost to the party of the other part.

Now, here in this room in the Berkshire Hotel, they were being offered the kind of assignment they lived for; and they were eager to get their teeth into it. Especially since the arrow had been launched at Murdoch.

"Let's get down to cases, Mr. Hedges," Stephen Klaw said impatiently. "If there's only a matter of four days between us and the end of the country, let's not waste any more time talking!"

Under-secretary Hedges nodded. "All right," he said curtly, "I'll give it to you straight. The United States Government wants the Flaming Arrow within four days. We don't know who he is, and we don't know his plan for September first. But we do know that the Flaming Arrow is responsible for the three disasters which occurred on the same day last month, one in Oregon, one in Texas and one in Maryland."

Hedges paused, looking from one to the other of them. "And we are further convinced that those three pieces of sabotage were just rehearsals for the big coup four days from now."

"So all you want us to do," Johnny Kerrigan said, "is to lay this Flaming Arrow by the heels, without knowing who or what he is!"

Hedges spread his hands helplessly. "I can't tell you very much more, I confess. We have learned only fragments. We know that the Flaming Arrow is smuggling two groups into this country for his big show. One of those groups consists of specially trained Nazi youths; the other group consists of a wild and savage tribe of men recruited by the Japanese in Korea, and raised on a secret island in Formosa, where they have been educated for years, solely for the purpose of enrollment with the Flaming Arrow. The ramifications of the Flaming Arrow's spy organization must go pretty deep, for he was able to learn apparently, that you, Murdoch, had been assigned to the case. So there is every reason to believe that you three men will be walking to your deaths. Yet I must ask you to dig around, to use your connections in the underworld, to use anything and everything that may come to your hand, in one supreme effort to smoke out the Flaming Arrow within four days..."

Hedges was interrupted by the quick, sharp ring of the telephone on the night table.

Dan Murdoch frowned. "It may be for you sir," he said to the Director of the F.B.I. "Nobody knows that I'm here!"

The Director shook his head. "Nobody knows Hedges and I are here, either. We didn't tell a soul where we were going!"

Murdoch shrugged, and picked up the phone. "Yes?"

The voice at the other end was that of a woman.

"Please don't ask any questions, and don't waste time," the woman said hurriedly. "Listen to me closely if you want to save your country."

"Go on!" Murdoch said, suddenly tense. He had caught the note of urgency in her voice.

"I dare not take the time to explain anything now. But if you want to pick up some information about that certain party whose arrow you have, then be at the Dardanelles Restaurant tonight at six sharp. Come alone. Promise?"

"I promise," said Dan Murdoch solemnly.

"I accept your word. If you break it, you will only bring death to yourself as well as to me. Good-bye!"

There was a tight smile on Murdoch's dark and handsome face as he laid the receiver gently down in its cradle.

"A break!" he whispered. "An unexpected break!"

Swiftly, he told them what the woman had said.

"You lucky stiff!" Kerrigan exclaimed.

But Under-secretary Hedges was not so enthusiastic. "It may be a trap, Murdoch!" he warned. "In fact, it must be a trap. Don't you see? The Flaming Arrow tried for you once and failed. Now he's using this woman to lure you to your death!"

"I certainly hope so!" Murdoch said fervently.

Hedges threw up his hands in disgust. "What kind of men are you three?" He turned appealingly to the Director of the F.B.I. "Look here, you've got to forbid Murdoch to go there. Do you understand? Tell him now that he's not to go near the Dardanelles Restaurant!"

The Director smiled grimly. "Sorry, Hedges. You've given them their assignment. I've given them carte blanche. I make it a rule never to interfere with the Suicide Squad once they've started on a job. It's like trying to take a bone away from a bulldog!"