Doc Savage - Devils Of The Deep Part 8

"We found the right place, at that," Ham exulted.

"You sure did, buddy. You sure did," a calm voice said behind them.

They spun. Three men stood facing them, men who had slipped out of the hallway leading to the bedrooms. Each of the men held a gun, and seemed to know what it was for.

"JUST put 'em up, buddy. Put 'em up," advised the man who had spoken first. He was a tall man, with battered features. He appeared bored about the entire proceedings.

When he'd been a.s.signed to this job, he'd been told that all Doc's men were tough. These punksweren't tough. They'd walked right into a trap. And now there was nothing they could do.

That was the gunman's mistake. Ham darted a quick glance at Monk. "Looks like they've got us, doesn't it?" he asked in English. He added several other words rapidly, and in Mayan.

"Cut out the double talk, buddy. Cut out the double talk," the tall gunman advised.

"O. K.," sighed Ham. His arms started up. One of those arms held his sword-cane. The sheath dropped off that cane as Ham pressed a b.u.t.ton. The point of the sword flicked out twice with lightning speed.

The tall gunman tried to pull the trigger of his automatic. He couldn't. The point of Ham's sword had barely flicked the gunman's wrist, but that had been enough. That point was covered with a fast-acting anaesthetic.

The tall gunman dropped. The man beside him fell also. The third man tried to swing his gun for a shot at Ham. He didn't get it because Monk hit him just then. Monk put all his pent-up feelings of a week into that blow. His luckless victim sailed clear across the room.

It was then that the rest of the ambushers appeared.

They poured out of the corridor to the bedrooms. They rushed in from the kitchen.

The fight that followed was good, judged even by Monk's standards.

The hairy chemist had one of the best times of his life. No matter where he swung, there was always a target. That target usually went down.

Loud, howling noises came from Monk. He couldn't fight well unless he yelled. Ham said nothing at all.

He merely backed up against a wall and went to work with his sword-cane.

The only trouble was there were too many in the attacking party. Both Monk and Ham realized that. But they enjoyed themselves while it lasted, which was more than their opponents could say.

The driver of the big sedan had smoked half a dozen cigarettes before his pals finally emerged from the apartment house. They carried a huge trunk. Monk and Ham were both in that trunk.

"Took you long enough," the driver complained.

He never did quite understand why one of his pals, without a word, slugged him in the jaw as hard as he could. But, then, the driver didn't know what the others had been through.

Monk and Ham never had been knocked out. But they had been knocked down. And when that happened, a little man who had stayed out of the fight previously had jumped in.

The little man had given each a shot from a hypodermic. In the hours that followed, first Monk, then Ham would have faint periods of consciousness. These were never very long or very clear.

But some way they had the impression that they were first in an automobile, then in a plane.

The plane ride seemed to take a very long time. After that there was the sensation of heat. The hot, pressing type of heat that comes from the tropics.

They were moved from the plane, and soon after the feeling of heat disappeared. Instead, it seemed they were in some sort of clammy place.For a time all impression of movement about them ceased. Light ceased, also. They knew they must have fully recovered from the drug they had been given, but they did it in their sleep.

Monk was the first to come out of it completely. When he did, he didn't believe it. He thought he was dreaming.

He found he was looking into the face of Alice Dawn.

Chapter XI. THE RAIDER REPORTS.

NEITHER Doc nor Long Tom were worried about Monk and Ham the first day. But when two days pa.s.sed and the pair had not returned or reported, Doc left Long Tom working alone in the big warehouse.

Doc had several ways of getting in touch with his aids under ordinary conditions. One of these was an infra-ray signal that worked through a wrist watch. Another was a "hot foot" device built into the shoes they wore, and operated by a short-wave radio signal.

He tried these without success.

The bronze man then made several telephone calls. In each case his conversation was the same.

In a very short time calls flooded back. Doc had asked the co-operation of New York City's taxicab companies. There was hardly a driver in the city who did not know the bronze man and his aids.

The calls soon provided a perfect record of trips Monk and Ham had made. The last trip any taxi driver reported had taken the pair to an uptown apartment house.

The bronze man went there.

Doc Savage himself did not mind personal danger. He had risked his own life many times. He knew that sooner or later he would risk it once too often. That did not worry him.

He did worry about his aids.

The bronze man knew before he entered the apartment building that Monk and Ham had not left it under their own power.

There was only one set of footprints visible for each. Both of those led into, not out of, the building.

The average pa.s.ser-by was not aware of those footprints. Doc saw them because of special eyegla.s.ses he wore.

The soles of the shoes worn by all the bronze man's aids were impregnated with a special powder that filtered through and clung to whatever it touched. It took several days for signs of the powder to vanish.

Invisible to the naked eye, it left a clear print when seen with the aid of ultraviolet rays.

Doc went directly to Apartment 410. It took him less than ten seconds to open the door. One glance inside was sufficient explanation as to why Monk and Ham had not returned.

The room looked as if a cyclone had struck it. The apartment itself was deserted.

There was no clue to show where Monk and Ham had been taken or whether they were alive or dead.

The bronze man's gold-flecked eyes were agate-hard. Given time, it undoubtedly would be possible topick up the trail of the pair.

But there was no time. Terror was striking again and again on the seas. It had to be stopped.

Doc returned to the warehouse on the Hudson River. A miniature riot arrived at the same time.

ONE of the fishermen from the pier next to the warehouse was the cause of it all. He didn't intend to be, however.

The fisherman was squat and heavy-set. He had seen Doc Savage leave, and after a while had decided it would be a good time to see just what was going on inside the Hidalgo Trading Co.'s place.

The trouble was that he set off an automatic alarm before he got very far and started to run out the way he came in.

He arrived at the door at the same instant a giant of a figure blotted it out. The fisherman had the advantage of speed and momentum. He knocked the giant back and scurried frantically for the adjoining pier.

The giant was Renny, otherwise Colonel John Renwick, another of Doc's five aids. Renny, a famous engineer, was still more famous for his size and for his hamlike fists.

Renny said "Woof" first. Then he bellowed. His voice was as big as his body. It could be heard three blocks, at least, through heavy city traffic.

He set out after the man who had run into him. Renny could run as well as bellow. The fisherman sent one terrified glance over his shoulder and saw he wasn't going to get away.

So he dived into a watchman's shack at the head of the pier, slammed and locked the door behind him.

Renny didn't even stop. His big frame smashed into the shack, knocked it over. Instantly his huge arms shot out, lifted it up again, then one of his big fists cracked out.

The door broke. Most doors did when Renny hit them. The fist went right on through and caught the cowering fisherman by the coat collar, yanked him out.

"What were you doing in there?" Renny roared.

The fisherman didn't get a chance to answer. His fellow anglers, whether through the spirit of good-fellows.h.i.+p or another and deeper purpose, had rushed to his aid. They piled on Renny's back.

The big engineer swung one huge fist. It happened to be the fist that held his luckless captive. When Renny let go the man sailed on out into the river.

Renny spun to do some more fighting. To his surprise, he saw his attackers of a moment before in full retreat. Then he saw the reason.

Doc Savage had arrived.

"If I'd known fun like this was going on, I'd been here sooner," Renny grinned.

The bronze man's features were set in an expression Renny had never seen there before.

"I am afraid Monk and Ham are gone," Doc said quietly. Renny lost his grin. His features also became hard and deadly as Doc explained briefly all that had occurred.

"I came as soon as you called," Renny said. For once his bellowing voice was muted.

The bronze man nodded. Renny had come swiftly. The big engineer had been on a dam project in southern California when he had been called in.

The last member of Doc's band arrived only a few hours later. Johnny, or rather William Harper Littlejohn, was the archaeologist of the group. He had been in Mexico.

Long Tom filled him in on details.

"I'll be superamalgamated," Johnny said harshly. Johnny was tall and so skinny he might have been mistaken for a scarecrow. He was addicted to long words and usually had a monocle in one eye. But that in no way interfered with his fighting ability.

"I'll aid in the extermination of the enemy with complacency," Johnny added.

"You got some ideas, Doc?" Renny asked harshly.

The bronze man did not answer for a moment. Then his gold-flecked eyes whirled strangely. "I know who we are after. We will find him," he said.

Long Tom's head shot up. It was the first time the electrical expert had ever heard the bronze man make such a flat statement. Long Tom felt an uncanny thrill. He only hoped those they sought would not be found by others.

THERE seemed no danger of that; at least for the moment. The periscope had shown both the sea and the air to be clear before the hunted submarine came to the surface slowly.

The sea was flat. The sun beat down hotly. Nothing was to be seen except a small island dead ahead.

That island looked like scores of others that dotted the sea. It apparently reared straight up from the bottom of the ocean. It was small, and covered with thick vegetation. It appeared uninhabited. Navy planes had flown over it without noticing anything unusual.

The speed of the submarine slacked as it neared the island. More and more of its steel plates came into view. A man appeared at the top of the conning tower. He was a tall man with a vivid scar on the side of his face, a scar that gave him a perpetual leering expression.

The man, submarine and all, vanished. Or rather they appeared to vanish.

Actually they slipped into a narrow channel that led to a lagoon directly in the center of the island. The channel was covered over. Part of the cover had been formed by nature. Some of it had been helped by man.

It made a dimly lighted tunnel.

The submarine did not go all the way to the lagoon. It halted just out of sight.

Pete Mills' hard face relaxed slightly. He lighted a cigarette with evident enjoyment, the scar on his cheek twisting oddly.

Then he looked down, spoke harshly: "All hands remain on board until I return. If the boss says O. K.,you can take a stroll in the moonlight-after it gets dark." He laughed at what he evidently considered a joke.

He stepped from the submarine directly to a small wharf. The wharf appeared new. Hoisting machinery was at one side. Moored to the wharf were several large speedboats.

Pete Mills paid no attention to these. He stepped from the tunnel onto a wide path. But that path wasn't visible from above either. Shrubbery had been cultivated so that it formed a perfect screen.

After a ways the path turned downward, ended at a doorway set in ancient, weather-beaten stone. The door opened as Pete Mills neared, closed again after he had entered.

For a moment the scarred-faced man could see nothing in the gloom, but he seemed to know where he was going. He walked forward, then turned to his right, entered a large room.

With a sigh he lowered himself into an easy-chair. The stiffness went out of his body. He relaxed.

"Home again, boss," he said conversationally. "Only got four this trip, but the haul was big." He paused, smiled reminiscently. "One of them had a couple of good-looking dames on board."

"You didn't bring any women here, did you?" a voice asked sharply. The speaker was not in sight. The voice seemed to come from a wall.

Pete Mills smiled. "Of course not, boss," he mocked.

Neither Pete Mills nor the unseen "boss" behind the wall knew they were overheard.

Alice Dawn had been at the far side of the big room when she heard Pete Mills approaching. She had dropped out of sight behind a divan.

THE voices went on. Alice Dawn didn't hear the next few remarks. She had her hands pressed up tight against the flaming red hair that covered her ears.

Then she heard orders being given for unloading cargo from the submarine. Still later she heard the "boss"