Doc Savage: The Ice Genius (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Book 12) (19 page)

The casual clap nearly disjointed Johnny’s loose skeleton. His magnifier jumped out of his lean fingers and he was forced to go hunting for it.

It was during this operation that Johnny started swearing. He rarely resorted to conventional profanity, and it would have taken an erudite man equipped with an unabridged dictionary to verify that the withering stream of invective dripping from the rail-thin geologist’s parted lips could be so classified, but the vehemence with which Johnny erupted in curse words convinced the others that it was so.

Long Tom muttered to no one in particular, “I’ve never seen the gawky string-bean so worked up before.”

Ham clucked, “I have.”

“Yeah, when?” Renny wondered.

“Last month, when I told him that he missed out on exploring those weird ruins down in the Caribbean. The ones the Navy blew to pieces when they shelled that dead volcanic cay. Johnny sounded exactly like that, except he turned around and kicked a chair first.

After a while, Monk asked, “When do we take off?”

Doc Savage told him, “There is no hurry about that. I am sure we will be permitted to remain for a while. It may be possible to monitor events as they move toward a conclusion.”

This seemed to brighten the faces of his assembled aides. Having come all this way, they were in no hurry to depart. They also understood that if danger threatened, action might result.

When they emerged from the conference to step out onto the tarmac, the Mongolian commissar rushed up to meet them.

“We have reports of a Japanese aircraft, a transport plane, searching the skies in the vicinity you described. It is escorted by a number of unmarked warplanes. They appear to be searching for something.”

“Yes?”

“Our wireless operators have been listening in on their radio communications. We have a good idea what they are looking for.”

“Go on.”

“They are looking for you, Comrade Savage,” advised the Commissar.

Chapter XXIV

COUNTERATTACK

THE REACTIONS OF Doc Savage and his five men would have been predictable to anyone who knew them.

Renny Renwick spoke first. “Holy cow!” he roared, causing the Mongolian commissar to visibly flinch. The latter placed blunt fingers in each ear, lest the verbal thunder repeat.

Monk muttered, “For the love of mud!”

Long Tom Roberts narrowed pale eyes and looked as if he wanted to haul off and sock someone.

Johnny Littlejohn was still in the aircraft, searching for his missing monocle. But the Commissar’s words reached his ears, and he stuck his startled head out the door, blurting, “I’ll be superamalgamated!”

“Damnable turn of events,” murmured Ham Brooks, giving his sword cane a wringing.

For his part, Doc Savage said nothing. If his trilling escaped him, it was brief and lost in the commotion made by his excited men. The bronze giant was taken aback by this news, as was evidenced by a brisker whirling of his golden orbs.

Addressing the Mongolian functionary, Doc asked in a steady voice, “Are you certain of your facts?”

“Indeed, my information is unimpeachable,” replied the Red officer, nodding.

Doc Savage told him, “There is no reason that the Japanese air forces would be looking for me, other than the fact that I discouraged their warplanes while they were flying into your territory.”

“This may be,” admitted the Commissar. “But they continue to swarm over Mongolian soil. Unless they are planning an incursion such as they attempted along the Khalkha River two years ago,” he added, “these Japanese pilots appear determined to hunt you down.”

Doc said simply, “I have no explanation other than the one I have offered.”

The Commissar studied Doc Savage intently for a time.

“There is a way to flush out the truth,” he murmured at last, “as my ancestors flushed out the wolves of the steppes during the winter hunts.”

Doc returned the Mongol’s steady gaze.

“And that is?”

“For you to return to the zone of their operations, and see what happens when they locate you.”

A subtle silence followed this pronouncement. The bronze giant remained impassive, as was his habit, but the faces of his men lit up with a curious anticipation. The Mongol official’s challenge to Doc Savage promised action. That this action was laced with danger, if not sudden death, mattered not one whit. The five adventurers had flown a great deal of distance, and had not yet had their fill of violent amusement.

Going back to the days when they first met, this was the glue that held them together. Adventure in its rawest form. It was like meat and drink to them.

They were wise enough to hold their tongues while Doc Savage considered the proposition.

At length, the bronze man stated, “I accept your challenge.”

The Commissar bestowed upon Doc Savage a broad smile.

“I’ve heard tales of your bravery,” he said warmly. “It is good to see with my own eyes that none of it was exaggerated. I will obtain permission for you to embark upon your foolhardy mission, along with my wishes that you discover the truth behind these strange maneuvers or, if you should die, that your deaths will be swift and glorious.”

“Thank you,” said Doc.

Then, the Commissar bustled off to the nearest telephone to obtain the necessary official permissions.

DOC SAVAGE turned to his men and said, “As I informed that official, the reason for the Japanese interest in our activities baffles me.”

Renny slammed his two blocky fists together, producing a sound that was amazingly like concrete being struck by a sledgehammer. “Holy cow!” he boomed out. “Let’s get to the bottom of this crazy stew!”

To which Monk Mayfair added, “Renny’s right. Somethin’s up. We should dig into it.”

There were no dissenters. Doc had not expected any objection. He knew how his men felt about the situation, and its unfinished complexion.

“We have three objectives,” he told them. “The first is to smoke out the Japanese raiders. The second is to recover Cadwiller Olden, if that is possible.”

Johnny piped up, new life in his scholastic voice. “And the third?”

“Unraveling the enigma of the man from the ice.”

The big-worded geologist threw his hat into the air and grinned alarmingly like a pleased skeleton.

Piling into the aircraft, they made preparations for a hasty take-off.

Doc Savage had already warmed up the engines when the Mongolian commissar came rushing up once more, waving his arms excitedly.

“The leadership gives its blessing for allowing the Japanese warplanes to find you.”

“What does your leadership expect me to do once this happens?” returned Doc.

The short-framed Commissar produced his biggest grin.

“The leadership,” he told Doc Savage, “sincerely hopes that you destroy every plane and pilot that has the misfortune to encounter you.”

Doc nodded. “What will your Air Force be doing about this matter in the meantime?”

The Commissar was unusually frank. “In a time of war, with the enemy approaching our capital of Moscow, we cannot afford to lose any planes in any action that is not a declared war. Nor can we violate the neutrality pact the Kremlin signed with Tokyo only last spring. Our pilots have therefore been instructed to stand down. In the hope that you will do our dirty work for us, you see.”

“Understood,” said Doc, clapping the plane door shut.

The Commissar hastily withdrew.

Props began ticking over, exhaust bayonets coughing malodorous smoke. Soon, they were roaring. As the big plane trundled about, Doc Savage pointed the nose and four yowling motors into the Mongolian wind, which was blowing from the south, the direction they were bound.

Doc Savage sent the plane racing down the tarmac, and into the air with less than half the runway normally needed for such a take-off. It was evident from the bronze man’s flying that he was in a great hurry to meet up with the searching Japanese fighter planes.

Chapter XXV

TALE OF TIMUR

IT HAD TAKEN some hours of hard work to scrub out the carburetors of the stranded Japanese pursuit aircraft, but the pilots were diligent in their duty, and they understood their peril. The longer the planes sat immobile and unprotected in the vast Mongolian scrubland, the more likely that a Mongolian Air Force patrol would happen upon them.

On the ground, they would be sitting ducks for an aerial attack. But finally, the work was completed.

Captain Kensa Kan watched his warplanes take off, one by one, and wing north. They spread out, putting great distance between their wings in another effort to avoid detection.

Their orders were to seek and locate the Doc Savage plane.

Captain Kan did not tell his pilots what to do should that happen, other than to radio back its location.

That matter momentarily settled, the Captain returned to the Mongol camp where the diminutive man who called himself Monzingo Baldwin sat under guard, along with Chinua’s Mongol horde and the mysterious man who had been excavated from the ice cave.

The latter had fully returned to consciousness and was complaining in a wheezy, croaking voice.

Captain Kan strode up to him, looked down upon his hideously ugly countenance, and listened to the bullfrog voice as it manufactured angry words.

The croaking made the warrior’s precise words difficult to follow, for the Mongol tongue was not the natural one for Kensa Kan. But after following it for a time with his ears, the Japanese made out the gist of the old man’s ravings.

“This ugly old toad is threatening to cut off my head,” the Captain told Cadwiller Olden.

Olden responded, “If he is who he is supposed to be, his threat is no joke. By reputation, Tamerlane is supposed to have piled the heads of his victims as high as houses. I studied his life once. He was—is—a remarkable general of men. History records that when Tamerlane laid siege to a certain town in Turkey, he promised no bloodshed if its citizens surrendered without resistance. After they did, he had three thousand prisoners buried alive. When the conquered survivors complained, the Great Sultan pointed out that he had kept his oath to the letter. No more.”

Kensa Kan made a bitter face. “It remains to be seen if his identity is what you all believe it to be.”

Chinua spoke up then. Somehow he had divined the trend of the exchange, although it was not spoken in his native language. “This is truly Timur, a great warlord of an earlier day. Let no tongue speak otherwise.”

The sincerity of the bandit chief’s words impressed the Japanese officer. He was almost prepared to believe that the miserable shaking creature was in actuality the terrible scourge of the ancient world.

In the croaking man’s own language, the Captain told the ugly one, “I am Captain Kensa Kan of Japanese intelligence. I am told that once, long ago, you sought to conquer China.”

“Only my imminent death prevented this from coming to pass,” croaked out the shivering specter.

“Yet you are not dead,” retorted Kan. “Explain this to me.”

A hideous smile crawled along the grotesque features of the icy individual.

“I fell ill on the march,” he barked out. The memory seemed to cause a terrible shudder to rack his rangy frame. “I was taken to a palace in Otrar, where doctors tended to me for many weeks. But to no avail. Seeing that my demise was inevitable, I bade my officers to pack me in ice in the hopes of breaking my fever. This failed to work as I wished. Sensing that death was near, I told them to complete the packing of my body in ice, in the hope that death could be staved off forever. It came to me in a dream to do this. I saw my great ancestor, Genghis Khan, in this vision. He told me to do as he bid. So I commanded my men to obey this vision of the Great Khan. It was done, and so I closed my eyes and slept.”

“Until this day,” murmured Captain Kensa Kan.

“You see me here, vital and breathing. Now bring me hot tea!”

The officer reflected on the tales he had read of the terrible scourge that was Tamerlane. Wounded at a young age, he was said to have limped all through adulthood, hence his famous name, Timur
il-Lenk
—Timur the Lame.

“Stand up,” commanded the Captain. “Let me see how you walk about.”

With some difficulty due to the long period in which his muscles were confined to a single position, the old Mongol clambered to his feet, and commenced stamping about in a slow, halting circle.

The icy one walked with a hitching limp so pronounced that it was clear that one leg was permanently maimed.

Observing this, the Japanese captain wore a stiff expression of dawning belief. He reflected upon the histories that insisted that Timur had claimed to be descended by blood from Genghis Khan, in order to cement his legitimacy as a leader of the Mongol people. History called that a calculated lie, one concocted for political reasons, for Timur was neither Mongol, nor of the same faith as the Mongolian people, then or now. He had been a Moslem.

Thus, his fanciful vision was probably a further fabrication. Oddly, this added to the Captain’s reluctant willingness to believe the old man’s representations.

“I believe you, great Khan of the past,” he said at last.

Timur came to a shaky stop, and regarded the Captain with his canine yellow eyes.

“I was not a khan, but an emir,” he husked.

The assertion served to cement the Captain’s growing acceptance of the other man’s identity. In life, Timur
il-Lenk
was not called Khan, but Emir. A prince, not a king of the Mongol horde.

His body still shaking, Timur asked of the Captain, “How many years have passed since my entombment?”

Kan said directly, “Not years. Centuries. Five in number.”

The unwinking yellow eyes began fluttering, as if unwilling to believe the report.

Finally, Timur found his voice. “What of my empire?”

“Broken and sundered into pieces. Scattered to the winds.”

Now the old man’s eyes ceased fluttering. They grew cold and steady, the way a viper’s orbs do when regarding prey.