Читать книгу Dust of Death: A Doc Savage Adventure - Harold A. Davis - Страница 3
ОглавлениеTHE COMING OF TROUBLE
The plane slammed down for a landing in a way that stood the hair on end, and conveyed the thought that the pilot did not care much for his life. The ship sank out of the South American sky in a power dive that made a moan which could be heard for miles. It hauled out, went into a side-slip that seemed more than a ship could stand. Then it landed.
The landing told things. The pilot was neither reckless nor a fool. He was a wizard.
The man who got out of the plane looked as if he were about ready to die. Not that he was wounded, not that he had any affliction. He was just a pale bag of bones, and not a very large bag. His complexion was about as inviting as green bananas.
The man peered about. Then, quite suddenly, he shoved a hand inside his greasy flying suit.
The flying field was jittery with heat waves. The fighting planes—very modern military planes they were—over by the army hangars were like baked insects that had just crawled out of hangars that were ovens.
Trouble was coming from the hangars in the shape of a squad of uniformed brown soldiers. There was trained precision in their advance, even if they were in a hurry. Their faces were grim and their rifles clean—cocked.
The officer in charge of the squad was dapper, efficient, and, coming up to the flyer who had the look of an invalid, he presented a blue automatic, muzzle first. He spoke brisk and grim Spanish.
“This is a military airport, señor,” he said. “No landings are permitted here. You are under arrest.”
“Si, si, amigo,” said the puny-looking flyer.
He took his hand out of his flying suit and it held papers, official looking. He passed them over.
The officer took them and read them, and his eyebrows went up, then down, and his shoulders did the same. He spoke English this time and it was not especially good.
“Our consul, he ees not have right for you thees military field to use,” he said. “Eet ees not what you call—call——”
“Not regular, I know,” said the flyer. “But suppose you call your chief, contact some one high up in the war department. I did a little telephoning before I started.”
The officer did tricks with his eyebrows while he thought that over.
“I will see,” he said. “You wait.”
He took the papers, which the flyer had given him, and walked away briskly, going past the hangars and along the walk which led to the operations office.
The officer took quick strides, eying from time to time the documents which obviously held great interest for him. He shook his head, sucked his tongue, and spoke to himself.
“If this flyer’s identity is as these papers say,” he murmured, “it means great and amazing things are to come.”
He turned a corner briskly. The path, virtually an alley, ran between thick walls of shrubbery on either side.
“If this man is who these say he is,” the officer waved papers at himself, “the mystery of the Inca in Gray may be solved after all.”
A man came out of the bushes into the path behind the officer. He came swiftly without much noise.
The man was bent over and his hands were across his middle as if he had a permanent pain there. A beggar, to judge by his looks. His hair was long. His poncho ragged, his fiber sandals frayed. Unless the matter was given thought, it might not occur that the fellow was excellently disguised.
“Señor soldado,” the ragamuffin hissed, “I have something to tell, important.”
The officer stopped, turned and, surprised, let the tall, stooped bundle of rags come up to him. He was unsuspicious. In the South American republic of Santa Amoza civilians treated army officers with respect. Not being suspicious was the officer’s mistake.
The ragamuffin had a knife concealed in his hand. But the officer did not see that until he looked down at his chest and saw the hilt sticking out over his heart. Queerly, the army man kept his mouth closed tightly. But, after a moment, strings of crimson leaked from the corners of his mouth, a string from each corner at almost the same time. Then the army officer, in a slow, horrible way, got down on his hands and knees and lay on the knife hilt so that the point was shoved on through, and the point came out of the back of his neat khaki uniform.
He kicked as he died.
The killer was a thrifty soul. He got his knife. Then he got the papers. After which he scampered away through the brush, making as little noise as he could.
Beyond the flying field was jungle, where there was rainfall down here on the coast where sat Alcala, capital city of Santa Amoza. Once in the jungle, the slayer ran as if his shadow were a devil. After a time, he came to a house, a very miserable looking hovel and apparently untenanted, but which held a modern telephone.
The telephone set-up was remarkable. Not the instrument itself, which was ordinary, but the box of apparatus through which its circuit ran. The device was what is known as a “scrambler” and it was ordinarily employed by telephone companies on government lines where eavesdroppers were not wanted. Only the proper unscrambler at the other end would make intelligible what went over the wire.
“Word must be got to the Inca in Gray,” said the killer. “The thing we feared has happened.”
“What do you mean?” demanded a coarse voice.
They were speaking Spanish.
“Major Thomas J. Roberts just arrived at military field,” snapped the slayer. “I thought I recognized him. I used my knife on a fool officer, and got diplomatic passes which prove the man is indeed Major Thomas J. Roberts.”
“And who might Major Thomas J. Roberts be?” the voice over the wire demanded.
“Who was your father, my friend?” asked the killer.
“He was a man of Inca blood, of which I am proud,” rapped the other. “And what has that to do——”
“I thought he must have been an ox,” sneered the slayer, “for naught but an ox could sire a son so dumb. This man Roberts is more commonly known as Long Tom.”
“And so what, insulting dog?” demanded the other. “Is this Long Tom Señor Diablo himself?”
“He is worse,” declared the ragamuffin. “He is the assistant, one of the five assistants rather, of the one man our master, the Inca in Gray, fears.”
“Continue, man of many words and little information,” directed the voice on the wire.
“Doc Savage!” said the killer. “Long Tom is the assistant of Doc Savage.”
There was silence. It was a long silence, as if the man on the other end of the wire had been hit a hard blow and was recovering. Then he began to swear, and his profanity was like the explosions of bundles of firecrackers. He started in a loud scared voice and swore until he ran out of breath.
“Wait,” he said.
The killer waited. It was all of five minutes. Then the other was back on the line.
“The Inca in Gray will direct this personally,” he said. “This Long Tom will be disposed of.”
“Good-by, son of an ox,” the killer chuckled and hung up.
Back at the military flying field there was excitement. For the body of the knifed officer had been found. It was orderly excitement, grim. For these soldiers of Santa Amoza were well trained—and long trained, for the war had been going on for four years already.
“Long Tom” Roberts was in the office of the field commander, standing stark naked, for he had been stripped as they searched him. He looked more than ever like a man who was waiting for a coffin. But there was nothing moribund about the Spanish he spoke. It was good Spanish. He used plenty of it, pointedly, loudly.
“Call Señor Junio Serrato, war minister of Santa Amoza,” Long Tom bellowed. “He’ll okay me. He knows I’m coming.”
They finally did call Señor Junio Serrato, war minister, and what he said must have been emphatic and plenty. For the flying field officials turned suddenly apologetic.
“My treatment of you is to be regretted greatly. But you must understand our country is at war,” the field commander himself said. “And the mysterious murder of the officer——”
There was much shrugging, in the middle of which Long Tom Roberts left. He took a horse-drawn hack driven by an old woman who looked like the Yankee conception of a witch. All gasoline was commandeered for military use in Santa Amoza and all ablebodied men were in the army. Long Tom eventually got into town.
Alcala after the fashion of South American cities, was a bright-colored town, made brighter by the flags which hung in profusion. Bright sunshine made the white houses whiter and filled the streets with heat waves. Tourists would have ecstasized over the place.
But there were no tourists. There was war!
It showed in something besides the numbers of uniformed men. There was a grimness, chill in the faces, a thing as distinct as the snow-capped Andes, which could be distinctly seen inland.
Long Tom surrendered his conveyance, because marching squads of soldiers frequently held him up and he could make better time walking.
The walking, Long Tom concluded in short order, was a mistake. There were beggars; war makes beggars. Tattered and filthy and pleading, they tagged at his heels. He tossed them coins, knowing that was a mistake, for it drew more of them like sugar in the midst of flies. He tossed more coins, but they grew bolder, more insistent. They scuttled alongside him, tugged his clothing.
The presence of the beggars was not strange, for tropical cities are commonly infested with mendicants.
But suddenly it was strange. It was sinister. It had a purpose.
One whining rogue, ragged and dirty as the rest, shuffled up, arms held loosely at his sides, bare feet scuffing the dust of the unpaved street. Then, unexpectedly, his long arms were wrapped around Long Tom’s slight figure.
“Spy!” screamed the beggar. “He is a spy!”
The mob burst out in a roar. The suddenness with which it happened showed this all had been arranged. Unclean hands closed upon Long Tom. There seemed to be dozens of them.
“Spy!” they shrieked. “Kill him!”
“Kill him!” a score echoed.
Then Long Tom—he who resembled an invalid—picked up the first beggar who had seized him. Using the victim as a club, Long Tom bowled over fully half a dozen others. It was a feat the burliest wrestler would not have blushed to recount.
In the next few seconds, Long Tom demonstrated some of the qualities which qualified him as an assistant to that man whose name was legend to the far corners of the earth—Doc Savage. Long Tom used his fists at first, and they landed with noises only slightly less than pistol shots.
A ring opened around Long Tom, in it the bodies of those who had become senseless. The mob roared, circled the man whose mild appearance was so deceptive.
“Kill him!” it bawled. “A spy!”
Then they closed in, and many knives appeared. They tore a stoop from in front of a house, and hurled these sizable rock fragments. Long Tom got one in the chest and it put him down.
Lying there, gasping, he drove hands into his pockets. They came out with small glass bulbs. He broke these in the street, and they made wet splashes which vaporized away almost instantly. It was gas, odorless, producing quick unconsciousness if breathed—a product of Doc Savage’s inventive genius. Long Tom held his breath so as not to get any of it. He got up and ran.
Into a door, Long Tom dived, not knowing where it led. He was lucky. It admitted into a patio, and he climbed a palm tree to a roof, crossed that, got into another street, after which it was doubtful if a man in the mob could have kept up with him. He could hear them yelling.
“Spy!” they screamed. “Kill him!”
“Whoever hatched that murder scheme,” Long Tom grumbled as he ran, “was clever.”
