Doc Savage: The Miracle Menace (40 page)

“Where’s Pete and Chris Columbus?” asked Gull, searching with anxious emerald eyes. “I don’t see them.”

Activity had come over the Cass menage; more than a dozen men were in view. That, as far as they knew, comprised the total of Cass’ men on the island. They wore dark Silent Saints garb, as befitted their role of sinister corruption in what was otherwise an honest organization. In their strange suits of burlap, they looked like crows whose color had faded.

The men were strapping on revolvers, opening cartridge boxes and stuffing shells into the pockets of their dark suits. Rifles were to be seen in numbers.

A man came out of a hut, staggering under a ponderous—for hand transportation—machine gun of the type used for mounting on Scarff rings in airplane cockpits. A drum of ammunition was in place on the weapon, and the man was trying to manage two more ammo drums.

Cass snapped, “Don’t bother with that. Too bulky for what we’re going to do.”

“Sure.” The man dropped the machine gun on the ground, obviously glad to get rid of its weight, and left it lying there with the ammo drums.

As Doc and the others watched, Ham, Renny and Johnny were marched off at rifle point. Two men dragged Monk Mayfair by his heels. His simian face was purple from numerous beatings.

“That was the poor fellow they were pounding on,” offered Spook.

Doc Savage said nothing. He was observing the behavior of the captors.

Voices began booming and echoing among the rocks. They seemed unnecessarily loud.

“We don’t need these snoopers anymore,” Ivan Cass was saying. “So we’ll administer a strong dose of lead sleeping tonic and roll rocks over them.”

“They’re going to be executed,” Long Tom said tightly.

“What about the one in the hidden darkroom?” a Cass underling demanded.

“That magician’s fool assistant?” barked Cass, driving his words through his teeth. “With Greene dead, we don’t need him anymore. We’ll collect him along the way.”

All of Cass’ men then crept away, Cass leading, and the brush swallowed them. They were being very quiet now.

Doc tracked the execution party with his eerie eyes. “They are being taken away from the others,” he intoned, “evidently to be shot at a spot where their bodies can be best disposed of.”

“We can circle around and ambush them!” Gulliver suggested.

Doc shook his head. “Long Tom and I will take care of the ambushing. You and Spook wait until they are out of sight, and attempt to free the other prisoners. Get them away from the cabin. We will join you by the beach once we have succeeded with our part of it.”

“What if you don’t?” Spook asked anxiously.

Doc did not reply to that. His mental machinery did not factor failure into his operations. The bronze man had supreme confidence in his physical and mental powers.

“It is our policy to refrain from killing,” Doc said, handing them the captured weapons. “If you must fire, shoot to intimidate or, at worst, to wound.”

Gulliver accepted both, explaining, “Spook is afraid of guns. And I’m not keen on flinging lead indiscriminately.”

That settled, Doc and Long Tom took their departure, merging into the scrub and rocks like expert woodsmen.

AFTER they were gone, Gulliver turned to Spook and said, “I hope you have some of that black pepper left. Might come in handy.”

Grinning sheepishly, Spook turned his pockets inside out, demonstrating their forlorn emptiness.

Gull frowned. “Well, stick close. We may not have to fire a shot.”

They began working their way to the fishing camp.

There was no outward sign of human activity when they came upon the camp. Only a number of buildings, camouflaged so as to escape discovery by a casual aerial flyover. They were clustered close together. The largest was a log cabin—not genuine logs, but the trick things that are turned out by lumber mills, a lap-board siding that resembled genuine logs, but without the bark.

It did not seem such a dangerous job to crawl to one of the structures and enter, but Gull and Spook lay in concealment and perspired for some time trying to get up the nerve. Spook felt tempted to go back, try to steal the other plane, and really fly away from the island this time. Gull thought of Daniel Boone and the other Indian fighters, hoping their feats would reassure him. They didn’t. It did give him a healthy respect for Indian fighters.

Gulliver waited until he believed the Cass organization could no longer be heard tramping away, then ran forward to begin searching. He scuttled to the nearest building, listened, heard nothing, and entered. He looked around the shack, saw nothing but bunks—and when he came out, the machine gun attracted his eye. He tried another shack, saw more bunks. One structure remained, in addition to the log bungalow. Gull cast glances at the rapid-firer, for the deadly weapon fascinated him. He peered into the remaining shack and relief flooded him.

“My luck has changed at last,” Gull breathed. “It couldn’t go on the way it was.”

Saint Pete stood against the single pole which supported the roof of the hut, being held there by encircling ropes.

She gasped, “Oh—be careful! They just left!”

Christopher Columbus was likewise trussed on the floor, looking grimly helpless. Next to him sat ponderous Harvell Braggs, eyes squeezed tight, his heavy features the unforgettable beet red of frustration. He bore some startling resemblance to a pile of blubber confined only by a tight brown skin and some rather immaculate clothing. The human whale had been trying to exert pressure on the heavy ropes winding about his bulk. The ropes holding him were tight, sunken almost out of sight in his fat at points.

“You’re here too, eh?” Gull commented.

“He was a prisoner like myself!” Spook whispered.

“Fat chance,” retorted Gull. “He’s in league with Cass and the others.”

Two or three ripplings stirred in Braggs’ fat. He opened his eyes, mumbled, “Let me state for the record, gentlemen, that the reasons for my unwilling incarceration here are a complete mystery to me, for as I have explained several times, my only interest is to secure my very dear Columbus collection which was stolen from me.”

“Gosh, that was a windy sentence,” Spook muttered.

“—stolen from me at my island home in the Caribbean Sea—” the fat man continued “—and therefore you should be kind enough to permit me my liberty. Indeed, I do fervently wish I were back in my West Indies island home.”

“What about Cass?” demanded Gull.

“A crooked man. I have never met one more crooked. I paid him handsomely to assist me in my quest, and you can see what has become my unjust reward.”

Pete gasped again, “They just left—Cass—someone told them you were alive— They also know that Doc Savage has arrived on this island. Do you understand what that means?”

“I know,” Gulliver said grimly.

Spook said, “Somebody has been mind-reading—”

“Yes,” Gull agreed. “Somebody has been mind-reading all right. And that execution party was a ruse staged to lure Doc Savage into an ambush.”

Gull began freeing the prisoners. He took the girl first. And his eyes, searching anxiously, discovered with relief that she had not been harmed physically. Her exquisite features showed to some extent the strain she had been under, but it occurred to him that if anything she was more exquisite now. Her command of courage was remarkable; he freely admitted that it exceeded his own, although he had been surprising himself considerably during the last few days. Like most men who go through the world in this life trying to make a living and at the same time sandwich in a little enjoyment, Gull had never been for any protracted time up against a danger that demanded bravery. He had supposed courage was something you were born with. But he had changed his mind about that. Conditions governed your courage. If you were in a jam, and there was a way out, you took it. If somebody shot at you, you ran. Maybe that wasn’t courage. But it was sensible. On the other hand, if somebody shot at you, and you couldn’t run, you fought back. That seemed to be the sense of the thing about which the historians, poets and songwriters had so much to say. Perhaps it was a grubby way of looking at it, but Gulliver believed that was what it amounted to.

He got the prisoners all untied. The girl moved about readily. But Braggs roused his blubbery hulk laboriously, began stamping his feet to get the blood circulating again. He had been a prisoner all night, much longer than Saint Pete, and he was stiff.

“I’ll have to carry Columbus,” Gull advised. “We have no time to waste.”

“You’ve got a plan?” Braggs asked, grimacing.

“A kind of a one. We need to warn Doc Savage that he’s walking into a trapper trap.”

Braggs took a careful step on wobbly legs. “I can feel my feet again.”

Gull asked, “Have you secured any idea of what is behind the Silent Saints devilment?”

Harvell Braggs shook his head, showed his teeth in pain. “I confess I have not, nor can I imagine what my collection of Columbus relics, which you will recall my telling you were stolen, have to do with this present mystery, neither can I suggest an explanation for that strange creature called Christopher Columbus—”

“Is Chris in another trance?” Spook asked, indicating the unmoving Columbus.

Harvell Braggs looked to see if Spook Davis was being funny, and saw he wasn’t. “Christopher Columbus has not moved a muscle,” Braggs said. “But he is alive, as I’m quite sure, for I saw Cass feed him, just as one would feed a helpless baby or a—”

He named several other things which Christopher Columbus had been forcibly fed, including milk being poured into a milk bottle.

Pete put in, “There was something in that milk, for after giving it to him, he seemed to become dazed, then they asked him all manner of questions.”

“About what?” asked Gull.

“A gold table that was lost in the Caribbean long ago.”

“A myth!” Braggs said quickly. “There is no such treasure. You can take my word on it as an authority on the Great Navigator’s life and fortunes.”

“They also wanted to locate a strange old house on the Missouri woods,” added Saint Pete. “They seemed to believe that it was very important in some way.”

No one contributed anything to that latter assertion, but the expressions on the faces of Saint Pete and Harvell Braggs were uncomfortable. Both seemed to know more than they were letting on.

Gull tousled his soiled white locks thoughtfully. “Do you want to help us?”

Harvell Braggs’ jaw rose and sunk in his many chins as he nodded vehemently. “I most assuredly do wish to contribute in any way possible to such measures as you may care to take and I will say further that my willingness cannot be overestimated, for I have suffered—”

“Right,” Gull said. “Got any idea of how their establishment here was laid out?”

“I arrived by night,” Braggs stated. “All was dark. I saw nothing useful.”

At the bungalow door, Spook hissed, “All clear!”

Gulliver hefted limp and loose-limbed Christopher Columbus over one muscular shoulder and they started out into the thinning fog.

Braggs took one of the rifles; Saint Pete clutched the shotgun.

Stepping off the porch, Gulliver’s emerald gaze swept the area. He suddenly stopped, took on the immobility of stone and his mouth did not loosen nor his eyes move from straight ahead.

Gull cleared his throat, swallowed. “Spook,” he hissed. “I thought you were watching.”

“I was.”

“What happened to that machine gun?”

The perforated snout of the weapon in question suddenly protruded from a jumble of boulders off to the right and a nasty voice called out, “There is more than one trap being laid today.”

The underbrush shook on all sides, and other men emerged, weapons in hand.

“I’m suh-so suh-sorry, Gull,” Spook Davis mumbled.

“Not as sorry as we’re about to become,” Gull said grimly.

Chapter XLII

CURTAINS

DOC SAVAGE DID not follow the execution party down to the beach.

Instead, he broke off his trailing and gestured for Long Tom to follow him to higher ground. Puzzled, the slender electrical genius changed course, taking care not to tread dry brush under his feet. For his part, Doc moved with the soundless stealth of a phantom. Even the ever-active island rats failed to perceive his passing until he was almost atop them. Once, a jackrabbit bounded out of the way, startled. Doc was forced to make slight noises of warning after that, lest frightened animals give away his presence.

The bronze giant soon led him to the rock ledge that concealed a well-equipped photographic darkroom. It was still blocked by the large stone Doc had earlier placed there.

“Why are we stopping here?” Long Tom wanted to know. “What about the others?”

“Trap,” said Doc, wrapping corded arms around the boulder and moving it to one side. It made a distinct sound dropping into place, indicating its extreme weight. The bronze man had handled it easily, however.

Long Tom tugged at an oversized ear. “What makes you say that?”

“Did you hear what Cass and the others were saying they intended to do as they were organizing?”

“Every word.”

“Exactly.”

Long Tom’s eyes grew crafty. “They were talking loudly so that we would be sure to hear every word.”

“Baiting a trap,” said Doc. “Therefore, we must bait a better one.”

Doc placed his weight against the false door painted to look like natural stone. It pivoted, disclosing the gloomy interior.

“What if they decide to kill Monk and the others?” asked Long Tom.

“They will refrain from doing so until they are certain that they have snared us, too. They know we are on Rat Island. They will also assume that we are armed.”

“I get it. They want the secret of our supermachine pistols. If everyone ends up dead, they might never figure them out.”

“That is my hope,” said Doc.

They were inside the darkroom now. Doc employed his spring-generator flashlight for illumination. Long Tom produced his, gave it a vigorous winding to get it going.

Two thin beams swept around the dim interior. They examined the camera equipment carefully.