Chapter V
Ham explained, “Something has up TRAIL TO TROUBLE
and wrapped itself around our necks down here in Washington. This is one time we APPARENTLY they had deflated the didn’t go looking for trouble.”
notable Lena Carlson somewhat. She
“You went down there to get into the seemed uncomfortable.
fighting army,” Johnny said.
“Maybe, ” she said, “I did sort of wreck
“Well, we’re in something,” Ham as-things.”
sured him. “It’s started off like a house afire,
“Amen,” Ham assured her.
and it doesn’t make the least kind of sense.
“Maybe you’d pick up your faces if I re-But one thing is sure, we’ve been marked up deemed myself?”
for a killing and the gang that is after us al-
“Eh?”
ready has Monk.”
“I know where they have been hanging
“What are they going to do about their collective hats.”
Monk?”
Ham’s jaw fell. “You know where their
“We wish we knew,” Ham said grimly.
headquarters are?”
“They tried to kill Doc and me, so I don’t like
“That’s right.”
to think about Monk.”
Doc Savage gripped the young
“I’ll be superamalgamated!”
woman’s arm and they hurried out of the Ham said, “Doc has something to say.”
building and along the street.
Doc Savage, taking over the micro-
“We’ll have to move fast on this,” Doc phone, said, “Johnny, you and Renny and said. “Those fellows will guess that you’ve Long Tom get the planes’ equipment ready.
probably been watching them, and they’ll Get set to operate.”
change their headquarters on the chance
“Right-o, ” Johnny said. He sounded that you know where it is.”
pleased. “You want us down there in Wash-Lena Carlson nodded. “That’s right, too.
ington right away?”
From what I saw of them, they’re pretty
“Yes. You had better take individual sharp. ”
planes.”
The car which Doc and Ham were us-
“Does that mean Pat?” Johnny asked.
ing was a borrowed one, a coach model
“Is she there?”
which would have been on a junkpile if there
“I didn’t figure you would burst into had not been a war in progress. They got song. Yes, she is.”
going.
“Tell her to go home. ”
“Which way?” Doc asked.
“We did,” Johnny explained. “You want
“Go north, ” Lena Carlson said. “It’s out to know what she said?”
on the edge of town, a house in the suburbs.”
“Never mind,” Doc said. “But discour-Doc told Ham, “Get Long Tom, Johnny age her some way.”
and Renny on the radio.”
The bronze man switched off the radio.
The radio was a portable outfit. It was Lena Carlson was examining him thoughtfully.
so compact that it didn’t look as if it had the
“Who is Pat? Is she by any chance Patricia power to reach New York, but the set would Savage, who operates that beauty salon on work even the Pacific coast under most con-Park Avenue?”
ditions. Ham used the loud-speaker built into
“That,” Doc admitted ruefully, “is Pat.”
the set instead of the headphones, so that
“I’ve heard of her,” Lena said, “the way Doc could hear.
you hear about electric sparks.”
“I’ll be superamalgamated,” said the voice out of the radio. “We’ve been waiting to hear from you.”
THE house was new. It looked as if it had been built since the war. Although it was 20
DOC SAVAGE
new and in a nice suburban section, the de-
“I better tell her we’re not after the fam-sign was so standardized that one could tell ily silver, ” Lena said.
at a single glance the number of rooms and She went to the door of the house and the layout. Six rooms, two upstairs with two knocked, but she got no answer. The fright-baths, attached garage, basement stairway ened woman’s face did not appear again at opening off the kitchen. Even the shrubbery any of the windows.
looked as if it had come out of a standard-lot Doc Savage got the kite into position, catalogue.
jockeying it with skill which indicated he had Lena Carlson indicated the place.
done it before. He sent it point first into the
“Now,” she said, “you can see why I roof of the house in which they were inter-know so little about the gang. Show me how ested.
anyone could get close to that house without
“Turn up the amplifier, Ham,” he said, being seen. It’s as exposed as a fly sitting on
“and see if we hooked anything.”
a billiard ball.”
Doc Savage did not pass the house.
(In the old days when there was peace in
“Get down,” he said, as soon as it came in the Orient (China and Japan), the art of kite sight. Ham and Lena Carlson were down on fighting became a highly developed one. At the floor boards while Doc drove calmly into one time it was almost as popular as cockfight-a driveway of a house in the same block. The ing, and more elite. The idea was to wreck the garage of this house was open. He drove into other person’s kite, and the kite strings were it and stopped the machine.
coated with broken glass, so one could saw an
“Ham,” he said. “In the back of the car opponent’s kite string in two.—Ed.) is an equipment case holding the large stuff.
Get the kite out.”
THERE was movement in the distant
“Kite?” Lena said. Then she stared at house. They could hear feet stamping, ap-the object Ham was removing from the case.
parently on a stairway, then moving through
“You really mean a kite, don’t you?”
a hall, or through rooms.
It was a flat kite, and there was a bridle
“I think the noise was in here,” a voice gadget of light alloy which could be changed said, and there was the sound of a door simply by jerking the kite string. With this, the opening. Then the man said, “I don’t see any-direction of the kite could be changed something, Willis.”
what; it could be flown to the right or the left.
Willis said, “What do you think that The kite string was made of a slender, strong, noise was, Sam?”
twisted pair of wires.
“It sounded as if something fell,” Sam To the tip of the kite—the sticks were grumbled. “I thought for a minute someone airplane metal tribes—Doc attached a pear-was hiding up here. But I don’t see anybody.”
shaped gadget with a sharp spike on the end.
Ham clutched Doc’s arm. “That’s two of
“Fortunately,” he said, “the house has a the men who were at the old building down-wooden shingle roof. ”
town. I know their voices.” He became more Lena pointed at the pear-shaped excited. “I wonder if Monk is there?”
gadget. “Mystifies me,” she said.
Ham got to his feet, picking up his
“Contact microphone,” Doc said. “Very sword cane.
sensitive and so sturdy you can almost hit it
“I’m going in there,” he added. “I’m not with a hammer. At least, it’s made so that it going to fool around.”
can withstand the force with which it will Doc agreed, “We might as well. We strike that roof.”
fooled around downtown, and were left hold-He put the kite in the air. There was a ing the sack.”
smart breeze, and the kite darted around.
Lena Carlson looked at them unbeliev-Doc maneuvered it carefully.
ingly. “How many do you think you are, any-The fact that they had calmly driven way?” she asked. “There’re only two of you.
their car into a strange garage was attracting There may be fifteen men in that house. And attention. A face, a woman’s face, was there’s something about them that makes me pressed to the window of the house to which think they’re trained fighters.”
the garage belonged. She looked alarmed.
“Trained?” Doc said. “You mean army Doc, Ham and Lena all smiled at her.
men?”
But the woman did not smile back.
HELL BELOW
21
“I don’t know,” Lena said. “They’re and it was a voice which both Doc and Ham fighters, anyway. And, there’re just two of recognized.
you.”
“Monk!” Ham shouted. “Monk is in that
“Listen,” Doc said.
truck!”
The others had no trouble hearing what he had heard. “Police sirens,” Ham exclaimed.
HAM dashed wildly into the street, Doc indicated the house to which the hauling out an unusual weapon which he car-garage belonged. “The lady of the house ried, a supermachine pistol of Doc Savage’s must have called the police. You can’t blame design. The little gun was too complicated her.”
and delicate for military use, but when prop-Another police siren joined the first.
erly cared for, it could turn loose an unbe-This one was very close. In the same street, lievable number of small bullets in a second.
apparently.
In operation, it sounded like a deep-voiced
“Come on!” Ham yelled. “Now’s the bull fiddle.
time to close in on that house. We’ve got The machine pistols could be charged help.”
with different types of bullets—smokers, gas, Doc Savage thought so, too. Ordinarily demolition, and most often a type of “mercy”
he would have preferred to use more caution, bullet which would produce unconsciousness but the arrival of the police would alarm the without harming the victim a great deal.
occupants of the house.
Ham had the idea there were mercy bullets in the pistol, but instead there were smokers. The little smoke bullets made a THEY went along an alley, moving fast, great cloud of smoke around the truck, but and headed for the house on the roof of the vehicle soon raced out of the pall.
which the kite lay. They saw a man standing Both trucks rounded a corner.
in front of the house, in the yard.
Ham expressed his feelings violently.
The man was staring up at the roof, at
“I’m sure having my troubles with smoke to-the kite and the kite string. He turned around day!” he complained.
and looked at the street. He ran, jumped, got Doc Savage had wheeled back. He hold of the kite string and examined it.
seized Lena Carlson, hauled her after him,
“Wire!” he yelled. “A wire kite string.
and climbed into their car in the garage. As Dammit, they’ve got a microphone on the he was backing out, Ham landed on the run-roof.”
ning board. He scrambled inside.
He ran into the house, bellowing the
“Chasing them is going to be a job,”
same information again.
Doc said. “There are so many routes they The house garage was a double one, can take.”
and now two delivery trucks, one the dairy Lena said, “I think I can help there. Go truck that had been in the downtown street, north three blocks, then west.”
popped out.
“Why?”
It careened into the street on two
“They did some driving around during wheels. A police car was in the street, and the time I was watching and trailing them,”
the cops who were looking for trouble, in-Lena exclaimed. “It was obvious they were stantly yelled and blew whistles. A man spotting get-away routes in case they needed leaned out of the dairy truck and shot at a them. The one they drove over the most is policeman. The cop jumped behind a fire hy-the one I just told you.”
drant, getting out his gun. From his gun came Doc Savage fed the engine all the flame and noise.
gasoline it would take. They gathered speed.
The dairy truck fired back at the cops
“Think of the tires,” Lena said, “and and all the policemen began shooting as they cross your fingers.”
scattered for cover.
The tires held. The speedometer The second panel truck came out of climbed to eighty-five, which was miraculous the garage. From it also there was shooting.
speed for such an old car. Doc took streets In the second truck, a voice was yelling, which paralleled the route they were going to and bellowing, making a tremendous uproar, intercept, and finally turned into the main boulevard.
22
DOC SAVAGE
“Good guess!” Ham yelled. “There go
“Get away from me, blast you!” Ham both cars.”
yelled, getting his breath. “And leave my shirt Then he ducked, and glass fell out of alone!”
the windshield at the upper right corner. The But she had already wrenched open noise a bullet had made rang in their ears.
his shirt. She looked surprised, and held up a
“Either that was an accidental hit,” Ham misshapen blob of lead. “You’ve got a bullet-gasped, “or they’ve got the world’s best proof vest,” she said.
marksman.”
“It sure wasn’t kickproof,” Ham said, Lena Carlson had been riding in front.
and went off into a fit of coughing.
She crawled over into the back seat, and lay
“Back out of sight,” Doc told the girl.
on the floor.
“Get down on the floor boards where you
“I’m beginning to wish I had joined were. Ham, you too.”
something peaceful, like the Commandos,”
The girl got down. Ham said, “I’ll be all she said.
right as soon as I get my lungs acquainted with some air again.”
There was no more shooting for a Chapter VI
while. The two trucks ahead kept together, AMBUSH
and concentrated on speed, trying to lose their pursuers. They were not successful.
THERE was some shooting, evidently
“Airport,” Doc said. “They are going to quite a bit of it. They could hear the popping an airport.”
of the guns faintly over the noise their car
“But there is no civilian flying in the engine was making. Only two bullets hit their coast zone right now, because of the war,”
machine, and one of these hit Ham squarely Ham objected.
in the stomach.
Doc Savage glanced at his wrist watch.
When the bullet hit Ham, he barked
“There is an airlines plane fueled and loudly, and doubled over. First he wrapped on the line ready for the St. Louis flight right his arms tightly around his stomach, then now, ” the bronze man said gravely.
unlocked them and beat his stomach frantically with both fists.
Doc grabbed Ham’s arms to stop the IN the dairy truck, the man called Sam beating, and said, “If the bullet went through had also consulted his watch. He said, “Give the vest, that isn’t good for you.”
it more gas, Bummy.”
Lena Carlson had gotten up in the seat.
“She’s got it all now,” Bummy said.
“You’re shot,” she said. “Here, let me take
“We’ll make it. There’s the airport.”
care of him.” She began trying to hold Ham The other truck, a few yards ahead of still.
them, rocketed into the airport.
HELL BELOW
23
“Plan two, ” Sam said. “Use plan two.
paying no attention to the runways or the And let’s not pick any flowers.”
frantic signals from the control tower.
The runways of the flying field were It took the air, made a dangerous bank separated from the parking ground by a con-with a wingtip stabbing at the ground, and ventional factory-type steel wire fence which came back. Men were sticking rifles out of was closed by metal gates. The gates were the windows.
closed and locked.
The lead truck slowed just enough so that nobody would be damaged by the shock, DOC SAVAGE saw the plane coming.
and hit the gates squarely. Both front tires He was still in the car with Ham and Lena blew out and the radiator caved back on the Carlson, and he swerved the machine, sent it engine, but the gates burst open. The truck to a spot near a drainage ditch close to the skewed off to one side, rocking drunkenly, factory-wire fence.
and stopped.
“Into the ditch,” he said.
The men in that truck piled out with The ditch had about a foot of water, but their guns and began shooting at everybody it was narrow, and the steep sides offered in sight.
shelter. They splashed into it, then crawled The second truck went through the rapidly so that the men in the plane wouldn’t gate, straight for the big airliner which stood know exactly where they were.
in front of the passenger building. They did
“The water is muddy,” Doc said. “Sub-plenty of shooting from the truck, and the merge as much as possible, and they will not airline employees scattered.
be able to spot us as well.”
The pilot made a run for his cockpit, The big plane boomed overhead. A few but the truck stopped in front of the plane, so bullets smacked into the ground, some driv-that it could not move. The pilot came out of ing up water spouts in the ditch. But none of the ship with his hands in the air.
them came close.
A man removed the wheel chocks.
The plane went off into the distance More men loaded Monk Mayfair and like a cannonball and did not come back.
Too-Too Thomas into the airliner.
Ham looked around the airport, dumb-The others had flopped behind any-founded. “Do you realize,” he asked, “that thing that was handy, and were shooting.
they pulled that whole thing off in not much Some shots were coming back from the more than a minute. Why, it must have been armed guards around the field. But no one less than a minute.”
seemed to be hitting much.
Lena Carlson shivered. “I’m lucky, I Two men out of the truck climbed into guess!”
the plane. They were fliers, experienced on
“I don’t see anything lucky about it,”
big two-motored ships. They ran forward, got Ham said. “They got away.”
into the cockpit buckets, and looked over the
“I mean before,” Lena said. “They tried instruments.
to kill me three times, remember? As efficient They started the motors and began as they are, it’s lucky they didn’t get the job warming them up.
done. Then where would I be?”
The men from the other truck were now
“They got away with Monk!” Ham said.
picked up by a quick trip which the first truck He sounded despondent.
made back to the gate. None of the raiders Doc Savage got out of the ditch, string-were down, although two had been hit and ing water, and went to the car. He put the slightly wounded. Two airport employees short-wave radio into operation.
were on the ground, one of them motionless,
“Johnny,” he said into the microphone.
the other crying and trying to stem the flow of
“Or Long Tom, or Renny.”
blood from the wounds where a bullet had A feminine voice came from the loud-gone through both his legs.
speaker. “Don’t leave me out, if you please.”
The raiders loaded into the big pas-It was Pat Savage.
senger plane. The ship had capacity for all of Pat’s voice had some of the qualities of them, and more.
strength and ability which Doc’s voice had.
“Highball,” Sam said.
Doc ignored her, said, “Johnny, Long The ship moved slowly, gathered Tom, Renny! Come in, please. ”
speed, and went rocketing across the field, 24
DOC SAVAGE
“Johnny to Doc,” Johnny’s voice said.
Doc Savage told Ham, “You might get
“O. K. What is it?”
the ultraviolet projector.”
“They just stole the airline plane for St.
This ultraviolet projector was a strong Louis,” Doc said. “They have Monk aboard.”
source of light rays outside the visible spec-He gave them the department numerals and trum, equipped with a good filter lens. Doc a description of the plane. “Keep your eyes switched it on, and pulled down the curtains open. The plane took off for the north, and in the various rooms in the house.
was going north when last seen.”
Then the bronze man began going
“A fairly thick overcast extends south of over the floor, over the lower walls and the Baltimore,” Johnny said. “They are heading furniture with the ultraviolet light.
for that. They’ll get into it before we have a Ham knew the object of the search, but chance to overtake them.”
Lena Carlson and the police were puzzled.
“Try, anyway!”
It had been a practice of Doc Savage
“Sure, we’ll try.”
and his aides for a long time to have at least Doc started to put down the hand mi-one button on their clothing which was com-crophone, changed his mind, and said, posed of a chemical plastic. When used as a “Pat?”
pencil for writing, on almost any surface, it
“So you’ve decided to notice me,” Pat would leave a mark that was invisible to the said.
naked eye, but which would fluoresce under
“Where are you? Your own plane?”
ultraviolet light.
Pat sounded angry and said, “One of
“What’s the idea of the lantern, Dio-your helpful pals put my personal plane on genes?” Lena Carlson asked.
the fritz. He thought that would keep me at Ham Brooks explained about the in-home. I know who it was. It was Renny.”
visible writing which would fluoresce under
“What did you do?” Doc asked sourly.
the black light.
“Why, I just climbed in with Renny,” Pat
“What’s fluoresce?” Lena countered.
said. “I’m with him now. Say, is this Lena
“I can see keeping you posted scientifi-Carlson the beautiful and notorious cally is going to be quite a chore,” Ham said.
Madelena Smitz-Carlson? If true, you had
“Let’s leave out the details and just say that better watch out or you’ll find yourself shop-when something fluoresces, it glows under ping for rings.”
the effect of black light.”
Doc switched off the radio without
“Oh, like a firefly, you mean?”
bothering to answer.
“Could be, ” Ham admitted. “As I understand it, they don’t know exactly what makes a firefly shine, though.”
DOC SAVAGE, Ham and Lena Carlson Doc Savage made an unexpected went back to the house from which they had small trilling sound which was low and exotic, flushed the men. There was nothing they strangely musical and yet completely tune-could do at the airport, the police had taken less. It was a small, unconscious thing which over, and army officers were on hand. The the bronze man did in moments of astonish-army had come because there was some-ment.
thing too precise and military in the manner
“What’s that?” Lena asked.
in which the plane had been stolen.
“It’s Doc’s substitute for a grunt of as-At the house, Doc Savage unearthed tonishment,” Ham said. “But don’t ever kid nothing of value. He got plenty of fingerprints, him about it. He learned it from an old men-or rather the police got them and furnished talist and master of mental control in India a him with copies.
long time ago, and Doc has never been able The house had been rented—for a to get rid of the habit.”
startling price—three days before. The police Lena Carlson hurried forward to see picked up the landlord immediately for violat-what Doc had found that provoked the trilling ing the rent ceiling edicts, filing the technical sound.
charge of suspected complicity in the crime of attempted murder. None of the police had been killed when the men burst out of the THE message had been written on the house, but some had been wounded.
new varnished hardwood floor of the house.
The fluorescence was very faint until Ham HELL BELOW
25
went into another room and got a blanket and hund,” the bronze man said. “The words are came back and made the room considerably German. They mean the Hare and the Seal.”
darker than it had been. Then the scratching
“Nicknames,” Ham said.
on the floor was more decipherable.
“Obviously.”
It said:
“Ever hear of them?”
Doc evidently had not. The bronze man THEY HAVE TWO BOSSES, NAMED
was silent for a while.
DER HASE AND DAS SEEHUND. Subma-
“Ham,” he said, “go down to the war rine involved. Is big business. Monkey business, department and borrow a couple of enemy too. Am keeping big ears fanned out but learn-prisoners. Borrow a couple who have seen ing little except couple of new cusswords.
the light, and have been willing to talk to the Learned those when they found out Doc was on American military authorities.”
their trail. They are keeping me around because
“Where do you find such an article in Washington?” Ham asked.
of mysterious order from boss named Der Hase
“The War Department will tell you.”
to do so. Glad to know I am such a worthy character to this Der Hase. Am well and hope you are the same.
AS soon as Ham had departed, Doc Savage got in touch with the airport by tele-Ham Brooks read the message, and he phone and asked whether his aides had chuckled. His chuckle was so relieved that it landed as yet. They were just coming in, he almost held tears.
was told. “Put one of them on the wire,” Doc
“That’s old Monk,” he said. “Old Monk requested.
wrote that.”
It was Renny who came to the tele-
“How can you tell?” Lena asked.
phone. Renny Renwick was an eminent en-
“Nobody but Monk would write a silly gineer with a voice which habitually shook message like that.”
the surrounding scenery, and a pair of fists
“Is it his handwriting?” Lena asked, like suitcases, nearly.
amazed.
“Holy cow, Doc,” he said. “We didn’t
“That toad-scratching aspect of the see fuzz nor feathers of that plane that car-writing,” Ham explained, “was probably ried Monk off.”
caused by Monk’s hands being tied behind
“Is there much excitement at the air-him. The chemical-plastic button he used for port?” Doc asked.
the writing was doubtless one of the sus-
“There is still quite a bit.”
pender buttons off his trousers, in the back.
“Inquire around and look over the situa-He could get to that button, with his hands tion,” Doc said. “It might be that someone tied.”
recognized one of the raiders, or one of them
“He certainly wrote a long message might have dropped something that would be and said very little,” Lena said.
a clue.”
“That’s Monk. He must have had plenty
“Right,” Renny said.
of time, and not much to say.”
“Call me back by radio.”
Lena frowned. “Der Hase and Das
“Right.”
Seehund. Who are they?”
“Are Long Tom and Johnny in yet?”
“Was about to ask you the same thing,”
“No. They got started a little later, and Ham said.
their ship is not as fast as mine, ” Renny ex-
“I never heard of them. Why should plained. “They’ll be showing up soon.”
you think I had?”
“Good,” Doc said.
Ham shrugged.
“Wait, don’t hang up,” Renny said.
Lena said sharply, “I don’t know why
“Doc, Pat came down with me. She just I’m involved in this. I have no idea what it’s barged in, and when I told her we didn’t want about.”
her mixed up in this, she said go to the devil.
Ham shrugged again, more elaborately.
What do I do?”
Doc Savage was examining the note Doc sighed wearily.
written on the varnished floor with invisible
“Try telling the police or the Army Intel-chemical script. “Der Hase and Das See-ligence she is a notorious international spy, a regular Mata Hari,” Doc suggested. “Maybe 26
DOC SAVAGE
they will lock her up and keep her out of our
“I just remembered about it, and went hair.”
out there and found it where some dust had
“That won’t work. All the cops know Pat been scuffed over it,” the man said. “To tell by sight.”
the truth, I was looking around for a cop
“If they did not, she would probably when I saw you, and I thought I’d show it to smile at them and hypnotize them,” Doc said you.”
wearily. “Think of something.”
“Good,” Renny said. “What did you say
“I’ve got a headache from thinking,”
your name was, Reeves?”
Renny said.
“That’s right.”
“It is probably nothing to the headache Renny beckoned to an airport execu-we will have if you don’t think of something tive who was passing a man in the mechani-that will work,” Doc assured him.
cal end. He indicated Reeves, asked, “You know this fellow. ”
“Yes,” the airport man said. “Hello, RENNY RENWICK, at the airport, hung Reeves.”
up the telephone receiver, looked at the tele-
“He work here?”
phone and complained, “That was a lot of
“Sure,” said the airport official. “What’s help.” Finally he grinned at himself.
wrong? He done something?”
Pat was in their hair, all right. And all of
“Not at all, he’s been helping me,”
them knew, Doc as well as the others, that Renny said. “I just wanted to check on his there was not much they could do about it.
identification. Thank you. And thank you, As a matter of fact, Pat wasn’t quite the Reeves.”
calamity they pretended she was. There Renny headed for his plane. He en-were times when she had been a consider-countered Pat Savage on the way.
able help, but there were other times when
“Come on, Pat,” he said. “We’re taking she had complicated matters.
off.”
Renny was thinking of that when the
“What’s up?”
man in the white coveralls accosted him.
“I hear a hen cackling,” Renny said,
“They told me you were a Doc Savage
“and I’m pretty anxious to get there before associate,” the man said. “I’m Reeves. I’m a she lays the egg.”
mechanic, a grease monkey here at the field. ”
Renny eyed him. “What have you got THEY took off in Renny’s private plane.
on your mind?” Renny was not too impressed Renny went through the business of getting a by the man, and he did not want to be both-clearance and filing a flight plan after he was ered by somebody who just wanted the dis-in the air, a matter that kept him busy and tinction of having talked to a Doc Savage red-faced for some minutes.
associate.
“Dang the official red tape,” he com-
“Found this,” the man said. He fumbled plained. Then he switched on the private in a pocket. “It help you any?”
short-wave radio, and began trying to raise It was a folded bit of yellow paper.
Doc Savage. He got Doc without much trou-
“Where’d you find this?” Renny asked.
ble.
“Over by where they smashed through
“Doc,” he said, “something came up. I the gate in the car, them guys who stole the am heading for the Arizona desert country.”
plane,” the man said. “They tumbled out of
“What on earth?” Doc said, sounding their car after it was wrecked by hitting the surprised for once.
gate, as you may know. I happened to be
“One of those raiders dropped a tele-standing where I could watch them. I saw this gram,” Renny explained.
fly out of one of their coat pockets, but I didn’t He got out the telegram, which read: think much about it at the time. There was so much going on that I don’t think I hardly no-TANK TRUCK AVIATION GAS BE AT
ticed it.”
LIGHTNING FLATS FOR USE ANY TIME.
It was a telegram.
LIGHTNING FLATS IN ARIZONA. SIGNAL
Renny glanced over it.
BLINKING RED LIGHT RAPIDLY.
“Holy cow!” he said. He looked up.
H. I. JACK.
“Why didn’t you give this to the police?”
HELL BELOW
27
Renny read the telegram to Doc, and
“Four months,” Doc Savage said.
added, “Holy cow, I couldn’t take a chance.
“When Renny asked, and found out the man With that big plane, or with any plane the way had been employed there that long, he would it is in wartime, they’ve got to land at some not be suspicious.”
out of the way place for gas. Maybe this is Long Tom Roberts, the electrical wiz-the tip-off.”
ard, was a thin man with an atrocious com-
“Where are you?”
plexion. His sallow coloring didn’t mean a
“In the air headed for Arizona and the thing as to his health, but he could stand place.”
alongside a mushroom and make the mush-
“We will join you, ” Doc said.
room seem rosy-cheeked.
“Good. Here is where I got the mes-Long Tom said, “I had a heck of a time sage.” Renny explained about the man at the with the telegraph companies. They wanted a airport, the fellow who had found the tele-special edict from the president, and a per-gram.
sonal threat from Hitler, apparently. Anyway, Doc Savage made no comment on that, they finally got busy and put a currycomb except to check on the man’s name. Then through their files.”
Doc asked, “Pat with you?”
“And?” Doc asked.
“Yeah. What am I going to do with
“No messages from Arizona,” Long her?”
Tom said. “They checked by wire with the
“Put a parachute on her,” Doc said, Arizona relay offices, and the Arizona point of
“and drop her over a nice wilderness some-origination, and there was no such message where.”
sent.”
Renny chuckled, and the radio conver-
“Trap,” Doc said.
sation ended.
“It doesn’t look good,” Long Tom admit-
“I’m very popular, am I not?” Pat said.
ted.
“My own cousin, dropping me in a wilderness.
Doc turned to Lena Carlson and asked, Nice stuff.”
“What about your contribution?”
Renny said, “We’ll have to drop off in
“Well, all I can say is if you’re not satis-Kansas City and pick up an Arizona chart. I fied with the time I made, you should have don’t know where this Lightning Flats is in seen the amount of work I did,” Lena Carlson Arizona.”
said.
“It sounds interesting, anyway,” Pat
“What did you find out?”
said.
“You asked me to learn where these Renny was fiddling with the radio.
men could get a truckload of high-test gas,”
“Holy cow!” he said.
Lena reminded him. “I was supposed to
“What’s the matter?”
check the whole country in no time at all,
“Blamed radio,” Renny said. “Seems to comparatively speaking. Anyway, I got the have gone on the fritz.”
job done after a fashion. I will say that your
“That’s strange,” Pat said.
name worked wonders with the government people I talked to.”
“Did you get any results?” Doc asked Chapter VII
patiently.
LIGHTNING FLATS
“Sure. A truckload of high-test aviation gas was highjacked in Arizona, but in eastern DOC SAVAGE, in Washington, told Arizona, which is nowhere near this Lightning Ham Brooks, Johnny Littlejohn and Long Flats.”
Tom Roberts, “The trouble with investigating
“What happened to the truckload of is that it takes time.”
gas?”
Lena Carlson looked a little irritated,
“They’re hunting for it. The thieves got but the others did not take it as criticism.
away with truck and gas, both.”
Ham said, “The guy had been working
“I’ll be superamalgamated!” Johnny at the airport about four months. His record said. “That makes it look as if they’re going to wasn’t too good. About borderline, I would refuel in Arizona, anyway.”
say, not bad enough to be fired and not good Doc turned to Johnny. “Any contact enough to make them think much of him.”
with Renny and Pat on the radio yet?”
“None,” Johnny said.
28
DOC SAVAGE
“We had better get out to the airport,”
“They paid me so much money to do Doc said, “and talk it over with that fellow it!” he mumbled.
who said he found the telegram.”
“The telegram was a phony?”
“Yes. But I didn’t realize—”
“Who were the men who hired you?
THE man who had found the telegram What do you know about them?”
was in the locker room, getting out of his
“Nothing, ” the mechanic said, and he work clothes. It was not quitting time, and he sounded sincere.
looked uneasy when he saw them.
Just to make sure that he was not lying,
“I wasn’t feeling so good,” he told them.
however, they worked the fellow over thor-
“I guess it was the excitement got my nerves.
oughly with words, and Ham did some more I’m taking off the rest of the day.”
impressive flourishing with his prop hypo He was a somewhat flabby looking needle. In the end there was no doubt but man, and his uneasiness grew.
that the mechanic had told them all the facts Doc Savage took the man by the arm.
in his possession.
“Want to tell us all about it?” Doc asked.
“I didn’t realize it was wrong!” he kept The man jerked wildly to get away.
wailing.
“What’re you talking about?” he gasped.
“The only thing you didn’t realize,” Ham Doc said, “Ham, the truth serum. We told him grimly, “was that you’d get caught.”
might as well give it to him here and now and Long Tom growled, “Let’s try to over-have it over with. ”
take Renny and Pat. We’ll do our best to in-Ham then produced an impressive tercept them by radio. They may have to set hypo needle. As a matter of fact it was one of down for fuel somewhere.”
the huge needles used by veterinaries to treat horses and cows. The mechanic took one look at it and bleated uneasily.
IN the meantime, Renny Renwick and
“Truth serum!” he yelled. “What you Pat Savage had decided to make a nonstop mean?”
high altitude jump to Lightning Flats, in Ari-
“Makes you talk,” Ham assured him.
zona.
“Sometimes it is such a shock to your system Pat had gone through the chart case in that it kills you, but we’ve got to use it any-the plane. She flourished a chart triumphantly.
way. We haven’t time to fool around prying
“Why don’t you clean out your chart information out of you.”
box now and then?” she asked. “Look here.
The man did some struggling, some A map which shows Lightning Flats.”
bouncing around, some sweating. Ham knew Renny examined the map. He found by the signs that he was weakening, so Ham that Lightning Flats was a desert section clicked the needle noisily, and filled it with which apparently had no distinction other orange pop from a bottle which he had than being flat, arid, and as hot as the hinges thoughtfully provided with an impressive skull of that place, probably.
and crossbones label.
It was then that Renny decided on the Words began coming out of the fright-nonstop flight.
ened man.
“I’ve got the fuel,” he said. “And old
“They told me it was a gag,” he whined.
Monk is in that other plane. So we’ll not
“I didn’t know it was anything like it was.”
waste any time.”
“Who told you?”
He took the plane up above thirty thou-
“Them guys. They paid me to give the sand where the air currents were favorable telegram to one of your gang and say I had enough to add another hundred miles an found it. I was to give it to Savage or one of hour to the near pursuit-plane speed of his the others. They told me it was a joke.”
craft, and they unrolled miles for a few hours.
Long Tom said ominously, “Now look, Pat pried into the radio to see what brother, let’s cut out the lying right now. You was wrong with it.
know danged well that shooting wasn’t a joke,
“Look here,” she said, indicating a soft and you gave the telegram to Renny after the black mess of stuff in the radio mechanism.
shooting, so let’s not have any more joke talk.
“What is it?”
You knew it wasn’t any rib.”
“It’s wax,” Pat said, “mixed with graph-The man grew pale.
ite dust apparently, to make it a conductor of HELL BELOW
29
electricity. A lump of it was put in the radio,
“Give me the flashlight,” Renny told her.
and the heat of the radio tubes melted it a
“We were supposed to signal with a blinking few minutes after the radio was switched on.”
red light. Isn’t that what the telegram says?”
“Hey, that’s sabotage!” Renny rumbled.
Pat found a flashlight. “It doesn’t have
“When the radio was switched on for a test any red lens.”
on the ground, it would test O. K., then go out
“I thought of that,” Renny said. “I have a while after it was in the air, after it had been one of those card holders in my billfold, and it on for a time.”
is made of red celluloid. I’ll just hold a sheet
“That,” Pat said, “is the hole the polecat of it over the flash lens.”
came out of.”
While Pat handled the plane controls,
“What do you figure it means?” Renny Renny tried out his idea.
asked.
“Holy cow!” he said immediately. “I got
“I don’t know,” Pat said. “But to me, it a bite. Look! Down there by that structure I means I’m going to keep at least one eye noticed.”
open.”
It was another red light, also blinking Renny scratched his head and finally rapidly.
muttered that he didn’t know when the dirty
“All’s well in sneaky town,” Renny said, work had been done, although it might have chuckling. “Now we land and have a surprise been done in Washington while they were party.”
refueling the plane.
Pat said, “I don’t like this.”
“We got something else to think about,”
“What don’t you like? They don’t know he added. “Down there is Lightning Flats.”
we are enemies, and we’ll be right up on He upended the plane, sent it boring them before anything goes wrong, before down in a steep dive until about five thou-they know there isn’t any butter on their sand feet, close enough to the earth so that bread.”
they could distinguish the general contour of Pat shook her head.
objects.
“It’s too open and shut,” she said. “I It was a flat place in the desert, nothing keep thinking about the doctored radio.”
more interesting than that. The desert itself Renny was enthusiastic for a fight.
wasn’t particularly picturesque, for it had few
“When we get down there, we’ll doctor of the colorful qualities of the Painted Desert.
somebody,” he said.
There were hills. They didn’t seem to be
“You’re getting as bad as Monk where much as hills seen from this height, but a fight is involved,” Pat told him. “You’d better Renny knew they were large hills.
stop, look, listen, and whistle at the cross-It was dusk, too, nearly dark, and in roads.”
that light in this clear air, measuring distance
“Maybe, ” Renny said, “you’d like to with the eye could lead you astray.
cancel your ticket for this trip.”
“Looks peaceful,” Renny said.
“Eh?” said Pat.
“So does a stick of dynamite,” Pat said.
“You weren’t invited, you know.”
“Sometimes one looks just like a harmless
“You,” Pat said, “get my goat at times.”
candle.”
“I can remember the times,” Renny told
“See anybody?”
her, “that you’ve brought out a cold sweat on
“No. ”
me, too.”
“They couldn’t hide a plane down Pleased with himself, he put the plane there, ” Renny said.
into its landing bank, the usual triangular ap-
“True,” Pat admitted. “But trouble proach which he used. He straightened out doesn’t always come in planes.”
for the landing glide.
A noise, a rush of air, made him turn his head.
RENNY dropped the plane lower, ex-
“Hey!” he bellowed. “Holy cow!”
amined the place some more, and finally said,
“I think I’ll check out,” Pat said, “and
“I think I see a hump of dirt that is either a watch from the side line.”
Navaho hodag, or a structure of some kind.”
She jumped, the parachute pack dan-
“Hodags are round,” Pat said. “This gling on its straps, her hand on the ripcord.
one isn’t round.”
30
DOC SAVAGE
Renny twisted his head around and He knew enough about the speed of watched to make sure she landed safely. By his plane to be quite sure that he had beaten that time, he had overshot his landing, so he the stolen air transport to the spot.
hauled up the nose and went around again.
Renny rolled his plane up to the con-That time he set the plane down without cealed truck, stopped it.
trouble.
Men walked out from under the truck Lightning Flats apparently was an old camouflage cover. One of them waved so-lake bed which had dried as smooth as a ciably. They did not seem to be armed.
concrete highway. Because of its high speed, Renny shut off his motor.
the plane which Renny handled landed hot,
“This the spot?” he called.
and he nursed it along, sending it toward the The men stopped.
end of the lake where the light signal had
“Hell!” one of them said. “That guy ain’t been returned.
one of the outfit.”
He would, he decided, sit in the plane Renny laughed loudly, gleefully. He with a gun and take the enemy by surprise.
shoved the snout of his machine pistol The plane cockpit was armored.
through the window slit.
“You bet I ain’t,” he said. “I’m a wolf in sheep’s clothing, that’s what I am.”
BY the time he reached the other end They stared at him in horror.
of the field, Renny had his machine pistol
“You boys,” Renny added, “had better ready, and had opened the cockpit windows.
jump for a star. Come on! Try to grab one!”
He opened the windows only a slit, enough to There was an explosion, a very loud shove the machine pistol barrel through, be-one. Sand, fire in a sheet, came from under cause the windows were also bulletproof.
Renny’s plane. The plane itself gave a big Straining his eyes, separating objects jump straight up and changed its shape in the rapidly increasing dusk, he saw that somewhat. The plane fell back to earth.
the structure he had seen from the air was The men dashed forward and hauled not a hodag, nor one of those round struc-Renny out of the wreckage.
tures of logs covered with sod which the Na-The man who had thrown the big gre-vahos sometimes used for a winter house.
nade approached also. He had been con-This was a tank truck, a big transport cealed cleverly under the ground, in a shal-truck covered with a camouflage of sage-low pit scooped out and then cove red over brush and tumbleweeds.
with paper which was the same color as the The refueling truck, Renny thought.
dried lake bed.
This is where they were going to refuel, all Other men had been concealed in the right.
same fashion in the earth in the neighbor-hood. They were shouting questions, demanding to know if their help was needed.
HELL BELOW
31
Evidently it was quite a job to conceal them, use of a direction-finder in locating a radio and they were not breaking out unless they transmitter.
were needed.
“Plane’s only about fifty miles away,”
“Is he dead?” the grenade thrower the man said. “They’re going to land, refuel, asked, staring at Renny.
and we’ll all pull out.”
“Probably just overcome by surprise, ” a Before long, Renny was watching the man said, chuckling.
stolen transport plane from Washington drop down on the dry lake bed.
He watched the ship pull up close, and RENNY was affected by something the gasoline truck roll to the craft and refuel it.
more substantial than surprise. His head had Then Renny, still tied hand and foot, banged against the side of the plane cabin.
was tossed into the cabin of the airways craft.
But it was not serious.
He found Monk Mayfair there.
He was tied hand and foot, and was
“How are you?” he asked Monk.
kicked in the ribs when he regained con-
“Indignant,” Monk said.
sciousness.
“How come they haven’t shot you?”
“Who used the parachute?” they de-
“They got orders not to.”
manded. “Who jumped just before you
“Yeah? Who from?”
landed. And why?”
“Somebody,” said Monk, “called Der Renny thought: Pat wasn’t smart—she Hase. That’s German talk for the Hare, or the couldn’t have known this was a booby trap.
Rabbit.”
She was just lucky. And how lucky! From
“Where is this Der Hase?”
now on, she’ll be hard to hold. I won’t be able
“At the place we’re heading for.”
to tell her a thing, without her pointing to what
“Where’s that?”
happened this evening and laughing in my
“You now know, ” Monk said, “as much face.
as I know about it.”
A man kicked Renny again and re-Renny looked around, and saw another peated, “Who used the parachute?”
figure, that of a leathery, weather-beaten,
“My personal gremlin,” Renny said.
elderly man who looked as if he had reached
“And brother, that’s closer to the truth than old age on a diet of cactus and sage.
you think.”
“Who’s Methuselah, here?” Renny This wisecrack brought him another asked.
kick in the ribs. But they did not get more in-
“You big-fisted, sad-faced lump of gris-formation from Renny. He just howled indig-tle,” said the old man sourly. “I’m twice your nantly and mentioned specific parts of anat-age and twice as active right now. When omy, such as ears and arms, which he was you’re my age, I’ll be six times as active.”
going to snatch off his captors individually
“Who’s he?” Renny asked Monk.
before this thing was finished.
“Name’s Too-Too Thomas,” Monk ex-The captors sent off an expedition of plained. “And he’s the key that unlocked all of four men to search for whoever had used the this for us. He’s the match that fell in the parachute.
gasoline barrel.”
They came back empty-handed and
“Old-timer, where they taking us?”
uneasy.
Renny asked.
“Too dark to find anybody out there,”
“If you fellers had talked sense to me in they said.
Washington, ” Too-Too Thomas muttered,
“The thing to do,” a man decided, “is
“you wouldn’t be asking silly questions now.”
get out of here.”
A man walked back into the cabin. He
“What about our plane from Washing-had a short automatic.
ton?”
“All this talk is getting tiresome,” he
“Get on the radio. See about it.”
said. “Give us a rest, huh?”
They used a portable radio—it was a very modern and efficient set operating on various wave lengths to which it was switched in succession by a synchronized clockwork arrangement, which was the latest method of defeating eavesdropping and the 32
DOC SAVAGE