The Avenger 30 - Black Chariots (14 page)

“It looks like Kraus, sir.”

“No, it’s not Kraus.” Danker glanced around at the four armed men placed around the hangar. With his head turned sideways, he stroked his cheek for a moment. “I’ll find out what these idiots are up to.” He handed Kurt the glasses and went striding to the nearest newly landed chariot. “Have I not instructed you numerous times not to—”

All at once the Avenger was out of his cabin. He had his unique .22 pistol aimed at Danker. “Don’t make a move,” he said in his calm voice.

The thin, dark man’s hand had been moving toward the gun at his side. He froze now. Not merely because of the gun the Avenger was holding on him, but because of the look in the other man’s eyes. “You would be the Avenger, would you not?”

“Yes, I’m known as the Avenger.”

Danker made a slight bow. “My name is Danker.”

Smitty had his cockpit open. He heard the name and made an angry sound in his throat.

“You are audacious indeed,” said Danker to Benson. “To brave the lion in his den, as it were.”

“We can talk later, Danker,” said Benson curtly. “Right now I want you to tell your men to drop their rifles and pistols.”

Danker chuckled. “A ridiculous request,” he said. “Especially since I hold your Miss Gray a prisoner. She will be killed instantly unless you drop your own gun, Avenger.”

“A bluff,” said the Avenger. “One that isn’t going to work.”

“Oh, really? I have but to raise my hand and—”

“Don’t let him kid you, Dick.” Nellie, with Jennifer behind her, stood framed in the doorway which had just opened in the hangar wall.

Danker winced when he heard the voice behind him. “Idiots, a staff composed of nothing but idiots!”

But then Jennifer, watching what was going on between Danker and Benson, stumbled. She knocked Nellie down.

While the little blonde was still on her knees a guard with a pistol dived and pressed his gun to her side.

“Now, out of that ship, or I’ll have her slaughtered before your eyes,” said Danker.

Benson obliged, hopping to the hangar floor.

“Now I bid farewell to all you fools.” Danker climbed into the chariot, closed the cockpit and less than a minute later the ship was rising up through the still open roof.

The man holding the gun on Nellie happened to let his eyes follow the ascent of Danker’s getaway ship.

Nellie acted. She fell out flat, rolled sideways, and bowled the gunman over.

His gun went off, hitting no one. She kicked it from his hand before he could fire again.

“You okay, Nellie?” called out Smitty.

“Yes, you dope.”

“Okay, I’ll be seeing you soon.” The giant slammed his own cockpit. He took off after Danker.

The Avenger raised his pistol. “The rest of you, your chief has run. It’s time for you to quit.”

They apparently agreed with him. Rifles and pistols clanged to the floor.

“I do not carry a gun, Herr Avenger,” explained Kurt. “However, here is my knife.” He threw it down.

Nellie got up and ran over to the Avenger. “Dick, where’s Cole?” she asked. “Do you know?”

“Isn’t he here?”

“No, the ship he was in never arrived,” said the little blonde. “And because of a storm or something they didn’t go looking for him and his pilot until this morning, I think.”

Jennifer walked slowly over to them. “I’m sorry I almost messed things up for everybody,” she apologized.

“This is Jennifer Hamblin,” said Nellie. “Do you have any word about her uncle?”

“Yes, do you?”

Benson said “He’s fine, Miss Hamblin. He’s on his way to recovering from the drugs Danker used on him. I’d guess that by now he’s safely back in Manzana. Don Early’s no doubt seen to that.”

“Will he . . . I mean, they don’t think he’s a traitor?”

“We explained some of it to the sheriff by phone last night, lass,” said Mac, who had disembarked from his flying machine. “I dinna think there’ll be any trouble. Though he mot have to answer a good lot of questions.”

“I knew . . . I was certain he wouldn’t have joined them on his own.”

Nellie was looking glum. “Seems like everybody’s okay except Cole.”

“Yer not supposed to be any great fan of his, Nell,” reminded MacMurdie.

“I don’t have to be enamored of somebody to worry about them,” said Nellie. “I’m worried about Smitty, too. What’s he going to try to do?”

“Bring back Danker,” said the Avenger.

“It appears Danker is the one who killed Smitty’s friend,” explained Mac.

“This has all been—” began Nellie.

An airplane engine sounded overhead.

“Not an Air Corps ship,” said Benson.

“Excuse me,” volunteered Kurt. “It is one of our planes, Herr—sir. The one which went to hunt for Dirks and the young man this lady is interested in so much.”

“I hope they found him,” said Jennifer.

Instead of coming down for a landing, the plane suddenly climbed. It went roaring perpendicularly up until it had gained considerable altitude. Then it executed a loop-the-loop, came diving down for the opening, pulled up short of it, and looped away again.

“Do ye know,” said Mac, watching the stunting plane, “I would nae be surprised if Cole himself were at the controls of that thing.”

“Why doesn’t he just land, then?” said Nellie impatiently. “This is no time for showing off.”

The plane came back, killed its engine, and glided down through the opening. It touched down on the hangar floor, bounced once, rolled almost to the far stone wall, and then stopped.

Half a minute later Cole got out of the ship, grinning at them all. “Hello,” he said, “my name is Corrigan. Is this Los Angeles?”

“Must you always be such a . . . such an idiot?” said Nellie. Despite her anger, she ran up to him and gave him a hug.

“Ah, pixie,” he said, “I suspect you’ve had too much desert sun, to be acting in such a sentimental—”

“Nerts,” said Nellie, letting go. “You’re impossible.” She turned away, walked a few steps, then turned back to face him. “But I was worried about you, Cole, and I’m happy you’re alive.”

“I share your sentiments.” He looked around the hangar. “Where’s Smitty?”

“The lad took off after Danker,” said Mac, “the both of them a-flying in chariots, no less.”

“So that’s who I saw,” said Cole. He held out his hand to Benson. “I take it we’re coming to the conclusion of this case, Richard.”

“Very shortly,” answered Benson.

“I hope so, since I’m considerably anxious to find out what it’s all about,” said Cole.

“Some answers,” said the Avenger, “we may never get.”

Smitty shortened the distance between himself and the escaping Danker as they droned along a few hundred feet above the desert.

He knew the disk-ship he was flying would travel faster than the one he was chasing. During the long wait for the storm to subside, the giant had gotten to tinkering with the craft. He’d made—just for the fun of it then—a few changes. One such resulted in the increased speed he was getting now.

Danker was heading farther out over the desert, away from Manzana.

“He’s only got enough fuel for a short haul,” reflected Smitty. “These babies only carry enough for a few hours’ flying time, and Dick’s already used some of that one’s.”

Up ahead of him, about a quarter-mile now, Danker’s ship made a sudden sideways move, gaining altitude.

“Doggone, I think this guy’s looking for a fight.”

Danker’s chariot was coming back, high to Smitty’s left.

The small observation planes were not fixed up with any kind of weapons, Smitty knew that.

But at such a low altitude Danker could open his cockpit. He did now, when he was above the giant’s disk.

A slug whammed against the upper surface of the chariot.

“Hot dog, this is just like the Lafayette Escadrille dogfights I been reading about in the pulp mags,” said Smitty.

He caused his ship to make a snapping half loop. This brought him up over Danker. Then Smitty dropped the craft. His ship bumped Danker’s. Bumped it again.

There was a crackling sound from down under. “Hope that’s part of him and not part of me.”

Smitty climbed away.

Circling back, he saw that Danker’s cockpit cover had burst in half.

The thin, dark man sent another pistol shot at him.

Smitty headed right down for him. “Show you something about tiddlywinks,” he said.

The lip of his chariot came down on the rim of the other man’s disk.

Danker’s ship flipped over in the air, began spinning.

Before Danker could get control of it, the ship smashed downside-first into the sand.

Going down lower, Smitty circled the wreck.

He saw Danker come struggling out of the ruin of the chariot on all fours. The man tottered to his feet and shook a fist a Smitty. Then he raised the pistol, but before he could fire any more, he passed out and collapsed on the sand.

“I kept my word, Ralph,” said Smitty aloud. “I got the guy who did it.” He landed his chariot. “Now I’ll turn him over to the law.

Don Early was wearing his raincoat, although it wasn’t raining. “I think I’m getting a cold,” he said to Richard Benson. “I keep feeling very chilly.”

The two men met in front of the sheriff’s office in Manzana. “These desert nights can do that,” said Benson.

“Wanted to thank you,” said the government agent, “for lending a hand.”

“It was Smitty’s idea, really,” said the Avenger, “our getting into this business.”

“It helped us out. Those damn chariots had been eluding me for weeks.”

“I suppose,” said Benson, glancing up at the hot afternoon sky, “you can’t tell me what it is those foreign agents were trying to photograph.”

“Right, I can’t,” said Early. “Pretty important, though.”

“Very well, no further questions about that,” said Benson. “Although I would like to know what’s going to happen to Dr. Hamblin.”

“Was just talking to his niece about him over at the hospital,” said the young agent. “Hamblin will be released in a few days. Doesn’t look like there’ll be any long-range damage to his mind, though he may be a little fuzzy for a bit. Got a specialist in from Los Angeles.”

“Will he be allowed to return home with Jennifer?”

Early buttoned the top button of his raincoat. “People in Washington are going to want to talk to him, but he’s not going to be locked up or anything,” he said. “By the end of the month he should be back in Boston. With a few extra people keeping an eye on him. We don’t want anyone else going into the chariot business.”

Benson nodded. “And Danker?”

“He’s a big one. I have to admit I had no idea he was even in this country, let alone right underfoot,” said Agent Early. “He’ll be tried for espionage, the works.”

“Good,” said the Avenger. “We’ll be leaving tomorrow.”

Early watched him for a few seconds. “Going back to Manhattan, are you?”

“Yes, to our New York City offices.”

Early ran a palm over his closecut hair. “Not going any place else? Mean, you wouldn’t be making a side trip to, say, Arizona or New Mexico?”

“Not at all,” answered Benson. “Is that where you’re heading next?”

“Can’t tell you that,” said Early. “But I’m happy to hear you’re all going to be in New York for a while.”

“Yes, our paths aren’t likely to cross for some time.”

Early smiled a relieved smile.

It started raining when they were a block from the Manhattan hospital. Cole unfurled the umbrella he’d been swinging like a cane. “Rain. You remember rain, don’t you, princess?”

Nellie said, “Vaguely. Although a few days in that desert out there can make you forget.”

“Which reminds me,” said Cole, grinning, “now that we’re back in the concrete canyons of Gotham, you can start being your old unsentimental self again. I know that in California you showed a surprising concern for my fate, but it was—”

“Stop,” she said. “Let’s forget about that and concentrate on our visit with Josh and Rosabel.”

They climbed up the steps of the glass-and-red-brick hospital. Cole shut the umbrella, shook it off, and opened a door for the little blonde.

Before they could inquire of the nurse at the reception desk, Josh came hurrying down a side hallway toward them.