Читать книгу The Terror in the Navy: A Doc Savage Adventure - Lester Bernard Dent - Страница 7

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Doc Savage’s three aids—Renny, Long Tom and Johnny—looked at each other questioningly after their chief had gone.

“What’s he up to?” Long Tom grunted.

“An interrogatory promulgation concerning what might be called an Ethiopian enigma,” said Johnny.

“I’ll bet Doc already has this covered from all angles,” said Renny. “He covers things like the dew.”

“Doc,” said big-worded Johnny, “is a compendium of Machiavellian callidity.”

“He’s what?” asked Long Tom.

“A lad who doesn’t overlook any bets,” translated Renny.

Long Tom snorted quietly. “Let’s give that balloon our attention.”

They crept forward, and before long could make out details. The balloon cable was of alloy wires wound around a core of two insulated telephone wires. The cable was attached to a winch turned by a gasoline motor. The winch was mounted on a heavy, ancient barge which was moored securely to the end of a dock.

A watchman sat on a box, his back against the winch. He was a blond man who looked as if he needed exercise. He was having difficulty keeping awake. At intervals, he reached up and slapped his own face.

The man was slapping his face when Renny leaped soundlessly from behind and grabbed his arms. Long Tom clamped a hand over the man’s mouth. They held the fellow helpless.

“We could double as spooks, eh?” big-fisted Renny chuckled.

Tall, bony Johnny leaned close to the prisoner. He used small words.

“What’s the idea of this balloon spying business?” he asked.

The man gritted, “You can kindly go——”

He did not finish, because Renny took the fellow’s whole face in one huge hand. It was almost as if the big-fisted engineer had palmed an apple.

“If I squeezed, I think it might pop like a melon,” Renny rumbled, referring to the head.

“Let’s get that balloon down first,” suggested Long Tom.

Doc Savage never used violence where it could possibly be avoided. This was a characteristic of the bronze man. His five aids, however, tended to the other extreme. They were not loath to use rough stuff occasionally.

They knocked their prisoner senseless to save the bother of tying him up.

They examined the balloon winch. There was no hand crank. They would have to drag it down with the gasoline motor, which would mean noise.

“No other way, though,” said Renny, “unless we can talk Long Tom into climbing the cable after them.”

“Don’t be silly!” sniffed the pallid electrical wizard. “We should have Monk for that.”

They started the motor, and the winch drum revolved, winding the balloon down.

Doc Savage’s three assistants kept a close watch. They held flashlights and peculiar machine pistols which Doc Savage himself had perfected, guns firing unconsciousness-producing “mercy” bullets at a tremendous speed.

The balloon seemed to get larger as it came down. It was like a fat wiener, not too well stuffed, with a basket hanging underneath. Its electric beer sign got brighter and brighter.

“This is as simple as catching catfish!” Renny grinned.

Then the wire cable came hissing down upon them, giving them a belaboring, and the winch engine raced madly.

The balloon bounded away into the night sky!

There was noise and confusion until Johnny, hopping about like a long-legged porch spider, got the winch engine shut off.

“Holy cow!” boomed Renny. “They unfastened the cable!”

Their prisoner, who had regained his senses during the excitement, snarled, “You guys ain’t the Slippery Slims you thotcha was!”

Renny promptly reached down, hit him, and the prisoner went to sleep again.

“Come on!” yelled Johnny, for once using small words. “We’ve got to keep track of that balloon! Get a plane! Get an airplane!”

The balloon was drifting down the river, toward the bay and, beyond, the open sea. But there was not enough wind to carry it very fast.

Doc Savage’s three aids raced for their car, which was hidden in a near-by alley. Pallid Long Tom stopped, grabbed bony Johnny, and gave him a shove back toward the wharf.

“You’re elected to stay and watch the prisoner!”

Johnny yelled, “But it was me that thought of using a plane——”

“A swell idea!” barked Long Tom. “And, as your reward for thinking of it, you stay where it is safe and watch that prisoner.”

Bony Johnny made disgusted noises, and the other two ran off in the darkness. Johnny liked excitement too well to fancy the prosaic job of guarding a senseless captive.

Long Tom, when he was out of hearing, chuckled, “We horsed that job off on him slick!”

Which would have thrown Johnny into a spasm, had he heard it.

Their car was one of Doc Savage’s special machines. Renny switched the radio on. It was an all-wave set, and happened to be tuned on a local broadcast.

An extremely late dance program had been interrupted, evidently, and a news bulletin was being read.

“A late national radio press flash,” said the announcer. “The United States battleship Oglethorpe less than fifteen minutes ago struck a rock on the Pacific Coast near San Francisco and is sinking. Hope of saving the Oglethorpe has been abandoned. Many lives are believed to have been lost.”

Renny and Long Tom were grimly silent after that.

“Holy cow!” Renny muttered suddenly. “That’s the third major naval disaster to-night!”

He moved the radio receiver knobs, shifting it from the broadcast band to the short-wave one, on which Doc Savage did his radio transmitting and receiving.

Long Tom was leaning forward, giving the tuning his close attention, when a bark from deep-voiced Renny startled him.

“Holy cow!” Renny rumbled. “Look! What’n blazes is happenin’ to our balloon?”

The entire street suddenly became white with light.

Both craned their necks out of the car. The machine promptly hopped the curb, grazed a telephone pole, and upset a stack of ash cans.

“Watch where you’re goin’!” Long Tom yelled.

Renny got the car back into the street, stopped, and they both looked out again.

“Who the heck can that be?” Long Tom exploded.

That was an airplane, a little streamlined trick which looked cute from that distance. From the manner in which it was swooping back and forth in the heavens, it could out-travel many a professional racing job.

The pretty little plane was visible because it was bathed in the glow from a parachute flare. The plane must have dropped the flare directly above the balloon.

Little whiskers of fire ran out from the nose of the plane.

“Machine gun!” Long Tom grunted.

“Riddling our balloon!” Renny boomed.

“Well, it’ll make it come down quicker!”

The balloon, it appeared, was sinking. The basket swinging beneath the bag was in shadow, so it was impossible to tell what the occupants were doing.

Renny and Long Tom drove recklessly down the waterfront streets, keeping under the bag. It became evident that the balloon was going to fall in the bay, just off Battery Park, on the lower-most end of Manhattan Island.

“We gotta find a boat and get out there when they come down!” thundered Renny.

They failed to find a boat, excepting a dory, which was padlocked and chained, and anyway, was minus oars.

“We’ll swim!” Renny decided.

All of Doc Savage’s aids were excellent swimmers.

“We don’t want to be under the bag when it hits the water!” warned Long Tom.

They might have saved their apprehensions, however, for the basket touched slowly, and the rest of the bag remained aloft for some time.

Renny and Long Tom swam to the bag, impulsively grasped the dangling lines, and hauled themselves up. They looked, Renny swinging the beam of a flashlight, and both became very silent. They climbed into the basket, peered around, then jumped out and swam clear as the bag collapsed.

“If they had been in there, they’d probably have shot us, anyway,” Renny said gloomily, treading water.

“But how’d they get out?” Long Tom snapped. “Where’d they go?”

“Only one explanation,” Renny said. “Parachutes!”

“Parachutes!” Long Tom gritted. “We should’ve kept a spotlight on the balloon!”

The little plane circled rapidly overhead, went off down the river, and approached against the wind. It was equipped with floats, and the pilot made a skillful landing.

Renny and Long Tom trod water and watched the plane approach. At the first sign of danger, they intended to duck beneath the surface.

Pat Savage shoved her attractive head out of the plane’s cabin when the craft was closer and greeted, “Do you boys often go swimming after midnight with all your clothes on?”

“Phooey to you!” said Long Tom.

Pat brought her plane alongside, and they climbed aboard.

“Where’d they go?” Renny wanted to know. “The two in the balloon, I mean.”

“Mystery to me,” said Pat.

“Hm-m-m-m.” Renny wrung water out of his coat skirts. “Where’d you get this plane?”

“Built it to enter races next summer,” said Pat.

Long Tom snapped suddenly, “Look here, Pat! Doc wouldn’t like to have you mixing in this! If Doc were here, he would tell you to clear out.”

“And telling,” snapped Pat, “is all the good it would do!”

“Look!” Renny grunted suddenly and pointed. “What’s them things?”

Two collapsed masses of silk were floating in the water, buoyed up by patches of air imprisoned under the cloth. Parachutes!

“That explains how they got out of the balloon,” said Renny disgustedly. “Left it before you dropped those flares!”

They gathered the parachutes aboard, aware they might serve as clues. Then Pat taxied her plane up the river.

“Kinda head for that pier to starboard,” Long Tom said. “We left Johnny there, guarding a prisoner.”

They alighted on the barge and looked about and called. Then they became alarmed. Excited dashing about followed for some time.

At last they found Johnny’s somewhat shapeless hat lying in a dark spot. Long Tom picked it up. He dropped it almost instantly, and held his hands out in front of him.

“Blood!” he said hoarsely. “On the hat!”