Lee Falk - [Story of the Phantom 14]

by The Assassins (v0. 9) (epub)

  “Say good-bye to them, if you wish.”

  “You’re a cold-blooded murderer! Leaving a bomb on that ship!”

  “Perhaps,” said Kali with a faint smile.

  “You’re the most despicable man I’ve ever met!” Diana could hear the engines of the airplane throbbing. “Are you a pilot?”

  Kali shood his head, and reached into his pocket for a cigarette to insert in his holder. “No. But my two men are. You have nothing to fear, my dear.”

  “And don’t call me ‘my dear’!”

  Kali shrugged. “If you insist.”

  “Just why did you decide to take me along with you?”

  The plane began to move through the water for takeoff. “Don’t flatter yourself by thinking it was your personality and intelligence, Miss Palmer,” Kali said in sardonic tones. “It was purely a matter of money. I’m most interested in your bank account.”

  “My bank account?”

  “Yes. The bank account of the famous explorer and heiress, Miss Diana Palmer.”

  “Where are you taking me?”

  Kali smiled faintly. “You’ll soon learn your destination. Don’t worry about it.”

  Diana clenched her fists in frustration. “What do you intend to do with me?”

  “Actually, I studied the passenger list ahead of time, and I made the decision not too long before we were to board the plane. It was a toss-up between you and Arnold Jenson, the international financier.”

  Diana frowned. “That must have been the big man who was so annoyed at the skyjacking.”

  “He has reason to be. But anyway, I decided that you would be easier to hold for ransom than he. And so I chose you.”

  “You mean you set up this whole thing just to kidnap me?” Kali shook his head slowly. “Not precisely, my dear.

  Mainly, we wanted the plane. You are, actually—how shall I put it?—an extra dividend.”

  Diana stared at Kali grimly, and then shook her head and sank her face into her hands. She knew that there was nothing she could do now. She would have to wait until they got to their destination—wherever that was.

  Kali puffed on his cigarette and wandered into the cockpit to speak to his pilots.

  Diana sank back and closed her eyes in bitter frustration.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  With a great deal of suppressed emotion, Captain Harmon stood by the railing of the small fishing boat and stared into the dark sky where the lights of the plane he had been flying were now disappearing into the distance.

  There would be an inquiry and, quite possibly, a great deal of company flak over the skyjacking. Their flights were short, except for the Bangalla run, and they had not been subject to the same kind of extortion and violence as the major airlines.

  “It’s a nightmare!” a voice growled next to him. “They can’t do this to us!”

  Harmon turned and tried to smile. He knew the man at his side was Arnold Jenson, an international financier. “But they have, Mr. Jenson.”

  “Well, it’s all your fault. You shouldn’t have let them get us out of that plane!”

  “They were armed, and we are not allowed to carry arms, sir.” Harmon tried to keep his tone steady. He had reservations about the rules of the airlines, and it was difficult to hide his own belief in a tougher policy, but he had to in order to keep his job.

  “Bushwah!” snorted the big portly man. “You could have shown a little muscle. They’d have caved in.”

  “Not likely. They worked out a very good scheme. The fishing boat waiting which made the takeover possible. Frankly, we just aren’t used to the kind of skyjacking you get on the big jetliners.”

  “It’s a bad situation, and I intend to make a great deal of noise about it, Captain.”

  “You’re welcome to,” Harmon rejoined. “If we get back to the States, of course.”

  Jenson’s eyes widened. “My God! You don’t think that monster really has a bomb secreted aboard this craft, do you?”

  “He was pretty definite about it.” Lieutenant Anders had strolled up during the conversation between Harmon and Jenson.

  “Well then,” said Jenson, “don’t you think we had all better tear this ship apart until we find it?”

  “The steward and stewardesses have been doing just that,” Harmon said. “I’m inclined to think the skyjacker was bluffing.”

  Jenson moved away from the railing. “I’m- going to take a look for myself. I don’t trust any of the namby-pamby personnel you have working for you.”

  Harmon exchanged a glance with Anders. “Mr. Jenson is a bit upset about the situation, Anders.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Sure. But I’m paid not to show it.”

  Anders grinned. “Let’s get moving, Dan. Maybe we can locate that bomb.”

  Harmon raised an eyebrow. “Possibly.”

  The steward stripped off his shirt and trousers and dove into the water, swimming around the hull of the vessel. He surfaced finally and called up:

  “I’ve been all around the boat, Captain. I can’t see anything on the hull.”

  “Right,” said Harmon. He glanced at his watch. “Only three minutes to go.”

  The tempo of the search speeded up, and Jenson hastily opened all the crates and barrels in the hold but discovered only a modicum of food supplies.

  No bomb.

  Harmon was moving quickly through the cabins to make sure no area was missed.

  The second hand on his watch continued its relentless sweep around the face.

  Twenty seconds to go.

  Thirteen.

  Four.

  One.

  Without incident the jetliner carrying the Phantom landed at the airport outside the city in which Diana Palmer lived. The Phantom was dressed in the costume he usually wore when in the presence of civilized people—pulled-down hat, dark sunglasses, and belted trenchcoat. He took a taxi to the city and registered at a hotel for the night. He would go to Diana’s in the morning.

  At a newsstand in the hotel he read the headlines:

  AIRCRAFT LOST AT SEA

  37 Passengers, Crew of 6 Feared Lost in Midocean PLANES SEARCH AREA

  The Phantom frowned. He had been at the porthole of the jet when they had passed a plane on the way over. He wondered curiously if it was the one that had vanished.

  He took the paper to his room and read it more carefully. Actually, there was not much information in the story at all. Radio contact had been lost when the liner, one of Union Airlines’ fleet of amphibians, reached the middle of the ocean.

  After contact was lost, there was nothing else for anyone to go on. The passenger list had been impounded by the authorities, and the airline was now notifying relatives of the missing passengers.

  The Phantom rose in the early morning, ate a hearty breakfast, and took a cab out to the Palmer house in the suburbs.

  He tipped the driver and strode up the white steps to the front porch of the large old-fashioned house. A moment later he faced David Palmer, Diana’s uncle.

  “Hello, Mr. Palmer,” the Phantom smiled, holding out his hand.

  Uncle Dave, looking tired and old, blinked and smiled, then removed the pipe from his mouth. “It’s Kit Walker!” he said in pleased surprise. “Dorothy! Come here! It’s our old friend.”

  The Phantom smiled and waited for Diana’s mother to ap pear. When she approached he was surprised to see that her eyes were red from crying and her hands were shaking.

  “What’s wrong?” the Phantom said.

  Palmer stared. “But I thought you knew. I had no idea you didn’t. Otherwise, why did you come?”

  “I am at a loss.” The Phantom searched Palmer’s face and then turned to Mrs. Palmer. “What on earth is it?”

  “It’s—it’s Diana!”

  “What about her?”

  “She’s lost at sea in that plane crash!”

  The Phantom stared. “You mean she was on the plane that vanished?”

  “Yes,” said Palm
er. “And there’s no news of it yet. It must have simply fallen out of the sky.”

  The Phantom stepped back, numbed with shock. No wonder Diana’s family were upset. Diana, in that plane!

  “I thought you knew about it and had come to hunt for her,” said Uncle Dave hopefully.

  The Phantom cleared his throat. “I certainly didn’t know about it, but I’ll do the best I can.”

  “Good.”

  Diana’s mother straightened up and smiled faintly. “Well, we certainly don’t want to keep you standing outside. Do come in. I’ll get you some breakfast.”

  “But I’ve already eaten, Mrs. Palmer.”

  “Nonsense! That was hotel food. I’m sure you want a good healthy country breakfast.”

  The Phantom allowed himself to be dragged into the house with a minimum of protest. He was secretly longing for one of Mrs. Palmer’s marvelous breakfasts.

  After he had eaten again, the Phantom drew Diana’s mother into a discussion of the plane trip.

  “Where was Diana going?”

  “To see you.”

  “To Bangalla?”

  “Yes. She said she hadn’t heard from you and wanted to visit you.”

  “I see.”

  “And you? What brought you to America?”

  The Phantom flushed. “I wanted to see Diana.”

  Diana’s mother’s eyes widened. “Why?”

  “Because we’re old friends. I—I simply wanted to be sure that everything was all right.” The Phantom smiled nervously.

  Mrs. Palmer’s eyes seemed to sparkle. “You came over to see her because you missed her, didn’t you?”

  “Possibly.” The Phantom blinked. “But that’s not getting us any nearer to finding her, is it?”

  “No.”

  The Phantom reached for the phone. “I’m going to call the authorities at the airport to see if the plane has been found.”

  It took the Phantom longer than he had thought it would to contact the man in charge of the air search for the missing ship. He was Federal Aviation Agency Inspector Blount.

  “Who is this?” asked Blount impatiently.

  “I’m the—the fiance of one of the passengers,” said the Phantom. “I’m anxious to know if you’ve found out anything about the crash.”

  “Crash?” Blount repeated. “Who said anything about a crash?”

  “I assumed the plane had vanished into the ocean, of course.”

  “We have no evidence to that effect,” Blount replied testily. “Then you have evidence that the ship is, all right?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Blount shouted. “We just don’t think the ship went down.”

  “Then where is it?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to discover,” Blount explained. “It was sighted still flying some hundred miles from the spot where the ship lost radio contact.”

  “Ah?”

  “But we haven’t been able to verify it. However, as soon as we do—

  “Thank you,” said the Phantom.

  “Hold it,” said Blount. “I’m getting a call on another phone. Will you hang on?”

  “Yes.”

  In a minute Blount came back on. His voice was excited. “Look, we’ve just had a flash from one of the search planes. All the passengers with the exception of four are on a fishing boat.”

  “I’m looking for Miss Diana Palmer.”

  There was a pause while Blount was searching through a list in his hands. “I’m sorry, Miss Palmer went with the skyjackers.”

  “Skyjackers!” the Phantom repeated in surprise.

  “Yes. The ship was taken over by sky pirates and flown away after the passengers were loaded onto a boat.”

  “But, Miss Palmer—”

  “She left with the skyjackers. The skyjackers are listed on the passenger manifest as Henry Kali, Manly Doyle and Horace Rudd.”

  “But—”

  “Some of the passengers think Miss Palmer was kidnapped and is being held for ransom.”

  “Good Lord!”

  “Yes. Well, that’s all the information I can give you now. The search planes have picked up the survivors, and they are being flown back here. Perhaps you’d like to speak to them later.”

  Uncle Dave and Mrs. Palmer were standing there with pale faces when the Phantom hung up.

  “You heard?”

  They said nothing.

  “Diana’s been kidnapped. She’s being held for ransom.’'

  CHAPTER FIVE

  In a makeshift interrogation room set up in the customs shed at the city airport, Captain Harmon and Lieutenant Anders supervised the comforting of the passengers before turning their attention to Federal Aviation Agency Inspector Roger Blount.

  “Was your flight in satisfactory?” Blount asked with a faint smile.

  Harmon grimaced. “Better than the one out, sir.”

  Blount chuckled. He was a large man, with blue eyes and black hair. He had the appearance of an ex-policeman, which he was, but he had gained an executive directness and authority about him from all the years spent in the investigative end of the aviation business.

  “Well, now. Shall we sit down over here out of the way of the others?”

  Blount referred to the reporters and television camera crews who were interviewing the passengers at the other end of the big shed. Arnold Jenson seemed to be the center of all media activity, waving his arms and gesticulating in front of the cameras and slapping his fist into his palm to emphasize his points.

  The three of them settled down by a wooden field desk which had been set up by the wall.

  Blount opened a tape recorder and plugged it into an outlet in the wall.

  “This is informal, you understand, but will be used as a basis for the investigation to be held later.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Harmon.

  “Right,” Anders added.

  “We’ve already got your verbal reports over the air on the rescue plane. We know all the details of the skyjacking itself. Now I’d like to go over some small points.”

  Harmon glanced at Anders. “Go ahead, sir.”

  “First of all, I don’t want you to feel that you are being hounded, Captain Harmon. We are simply trying to get to the bottom of the entire episode. I hope you’ll take this interrogation in that light.”

  “Yes, sir.” Harmon tried to sit up straight. He was exhausted from the ordeal he had been through.

  “It won’t take long,” Blount said kindly. “Now, then. This Henry Kali. We’ve made a trace on him, but we haven’t been able to locate anyone by that name at the address given. We assume the name is a false one.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that, sir.”

  “The same is true of the other two men, Manly Doyle and Horace Rudd.”

  “They were tough-looking characters,” Anders volunteered. “All three?”

  “Well, no,” said Harmon. “Kali was a fashion plate, years out of style. Mustache, monocle, cigarette holder, slicked-back black hair. He had some kind of accent, but I couldn’t quite place it. Could you, Steve?” He turned to Anders.

  Anders shook his head. “Not German or French. Didn’t seem Scandinavian. I couldn’t make it out.”

  “Did the two other men speak much?”

  “Not enough to make out their origins. Kali was the talker and, obviously, the leader.”

  “That’s just about what we expected.” Blount frowned thoughtfully. “All right. We have our men going over the fishing boat. You say there was a bomb threat?”

  Harmon cleared his throat. “Not exactly a bomb threat, sir. When the airliner was about to take off, this Henry Kali leaned out the open porthole and told us that there was a time bomb aboard the boat and that it would go off in exactly five minutes.”

  “I see,” said Blount. “Rather a sadistic joke, wasn’t it?”

  “If the bomb never did exist, I’d have to say yes. If, on the other hand, the bomb was there and malfunctioned, then I’d say he was simply warning us.” />
  “But five minutes isn’t enough time to find and defuse a bomb,” Blount protested.

  “Yes. I thought of that.” Harmon frowned. “Well, I really don’t know why he did it. As you say, it must have been a twisted sense of humor.”

  Blount stared at the tape recorder a moment. “Unless, of course, he wanted to take your mind off the airliner itself.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I mean, in the darkness, you would have been watching it more closely if you hadn’t had your minds on the time bomb aboard, wouldn’t you?”

  Harmon’s eyes widened. “I suppose so, sir. What exactly do you mean?”

  “I’m simply proposing theories. Captain. Now, in your first debriefing, you stated that the airliner took off and circled around to continue in a southeasterly direction.”

  “Yes. About one zero nine degrees, wouldn’t you say, Steve?”

  Anders nodded.

  “Then it did continue on a direct course—as far as you remember?”

  “We were occupied with the bomb search, of course. It really vanished very quickly, you know.”

  “But it didn’t veer from that course during the time you had it in sight?”

  “No, sir. I see what you’re getting at. You think it might have been a feint. Headed southeast for a spell, and then turned northeast, or whatever?”

  “It’s just a thought.”

  Harmon shrugged. “No way of telling, is there?”

  “Not really.” Blount took a deep breath. “So much for the bomb that either didn’t exist or didn’t go off. Now. I have mentioned three of the four people who left on the airliner. Three A.K.A.’s, three aliases.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We have records of Miss Diana Palmer. She’s a well-known heiress and explorer, among other things. A very active woman. Unspotted reputation.”

  “A very pretty girl, too,” Harmon said gallantly.

  “Well, the point is,” Blount chose his words slowly, “we’re trying to find out exactly why she went off with the skyjackers. Do you think she was in it with them?”

  Harmon frowned. “No way. Steve and I were talking about that on the way back. We think Kali knew who she was and grabbed her as a kind of hostage in case he had any , trouble.”