Lee Falk - [Story of the Phantom 14]

by The Assassins (v0. 9) (epub)

  He climbed to the bars, peering into the interior.

  There was a candle burning on a table. He could See a shadowy form moving about in a stone-walled cell. It was a woman.

  “Diana!” he cried.

  She turned, her hand to her mouth in shock.

  “Sbh!” he cautioned. “Don’t scream! It’s me! I’m glad you’re all right.”

  “Oh, yes,” she sighed, climbing up on the chair and grasping the bars. “You’re really here!”

  “You bet your life I am.”

  “I knew you’d find me. This is a dreadful place.”

  The Phantom gave a sudden painful gasp.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Something’s got hold of my ankle,” the Phantom said.

  A grip stronger than any man’s had hold of him, and as the Phantom turned to see what had grabbed him, a force that he could not withstand tore him away from the bars of the window and hurled him to the ground.

  “Where are you?” Diana cried out.

  The Phantom was on the flagstones, staring up in the moonlight at the ugliest gorilla he had ever laid eyes on. The gorilla was holding onto one leg. The beast growled throatily and started to pull at the Phantom’s body.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “It’s Toto!” screamed Diana Palmer in her cell. “He’s a killer. Kali must have turned him loose to hunt you down.”

  Now the Phantom understood the meaning of the huge chain hanging from the courtyard wall. That was Toto’s leash.

  With a quick twist and turn, the Phantom pulled himself loose from the grip of the gorilla and jumped to his feet, but the big beast immediately leaped at him again, letting out a loud roar of triumph.

  The Phantom feinted toward the gorilla, turned, and lashed out at the chin of the beast with his rock-hard fist. The gorilla, unused to boxing tactics, had plunged straight toward the Phantom.

  “Whew!” cried the Phantom, feeling the impact of the blow down to his toes. “This hurts me as much as it hurts you!”

  Toto staggered back, raising his hands to his face and howling loudly at the pain in his head.

  The Phantom drew up, glancing around hurriedly. “I can’t use my guns or I’ll bring all the Assassins on the island down on me.”

  Flight was the only answer.

  The Phantom leaped past the still-dazed gorilla and bounded toward the pathway cut into the rock promontory. Toto growled, jumped up and down, and took off after the Phantom.

  Quickly the Phantom fled down the trail, keeping his head half turned to study the progress of the gorilla. He saw the beast swing up onto the courtyard wall and scramble down the steep side of the cliff, narrowing the distance between the two of them perceptibly.

  The Phantom gained the beach and ran along it toward the dock. If he could get into the hydroplane, perhaps ...

  The hydroplane had been moved; the Phantom knew not where.

  He turned to find some other avenue of escape, but could only see the slobbering beast loping after him. Then his foot caught in a coil of rope on the sand, and he fell "to his knees. When he looked up, Toto was standing five feet away from him, glowering with those insane red eyes and making threatening sounds in his throat.

  The Phantom reached down, never taking his eyes off the beast’s, and picked up the coil of rope.

  At the same instant, Toto shuddered and straightened again, growling with anger as he leaped at the Phantom. He struck the Phantom in the chest, and the Phantom went over backwards onto the sand, clutching the rope in his hand.

  Toto leaped again.

  The Phantom kicked up both feet at the beast’s chest. Toto smashed into the Phantom’s legs, and the impact knocked the breath out of the gorilla.

  Gasping and beating his chest in agony, the great beast staggered backward and let out another howl of rage. Quickly the Phantom turned and flicked the rope, making a lasso out of it.

  Toto was crouching now, staring at the Phantom, watching him with curiosity. The gorilla began lumbering forward, huge hands clenching and unclenching. Saliva dripped from the corners of its mouth. It was growling deep in its throat.

  “I’ll only get one try,” the Phantom told himself as he. twirled the lasso over his shoulder and let it fly toward Toto’s head.

  Toto rushed in, red eyes blinking rapidly. The noose of the lasso settled over the beast’s head and dropped down around its shoulders.

  “Made it,” gasped the Phantom.

  Toto stopped. As the Phantom tightened the rope, the noose held tightly to the beast’s upper body. Quickly the Phantom picked up the remaining coil of rope and glanced hurriedly around. He had seen a tree with a thick lower branch some fifteen feet from the ground growing near the bottom of the embankment.

  Toto roared in outrage and tried to slither out of the imprisoning rope. The beast had forgotten the Phantom’s presence as this personal insult to its body baffled its tiny brain.

  It growled menacingly, reaching up to tear the rope in two. But the rope held its limbs so close to its body that it could not budge.

  It leaped up and down, stamping its feet on the sand.

  The Phantom hurled the coil high into the air and over the bottom branch of the tree, letting it fall to the other side. Quickly he moved under the branch and began pulling the rope so that the line was now snugged against the gorilla, drawing the beast toward the tree.

  Toto was fighting, snorting in puzzlement, kicking at the rope, and slobbering on the sand. The gorilla had now succeeded in drawing its limbs out of the noose, but as a result of that, the noose had settled around its trunk. As the Phantom pulled, the lasso settled around the upper chest of the beast, just under its armpits.

  The beast roared in outrage and began shambling toward the Phantom.

  “If the beast moves away from me, its weight can pull me into the air,” the Phantom observed, holding tightly to the rope and searching around desperately for something to snag the rope to.

  Toto bellowed and pounded his chest, moving toward the figure of the Phantom.

  The Phantom said to himself, “It’s like holding a tiger by the tail—you can’t let go.”

  It was at that moment that the Phantom saw the large oil drum on the end of the dock. Quickly he ran to it and tied the line tightly to its middle.

  He tried to push the drum over the edge into the water, but it was too heavy to budge.

  Toto came toward him in the darkness, growling, arms extended toward the Phantom. At that moment, the rope drew tight around its chest and held it frozen in place. Toto roared and beat at the rope.

  “If it figures out how to loosen that noose, I’m a dead man,” thought the Phantom, struggling with the heavy oil drum. Then, suddenly, the Phantom remembered he had more strength in his legs than in his arms. He lay down on the dock, doubled up, and kicked out at the drum with his feet.

  The drum toppled over into the water with a dull splash. The rope tightened, the weight of the drum pulled the line and snatched the big gorilla up off the ground, holding it suspended in the air just below the branch. The sound of howling and screaming filled the night.

  Kali was at dinner when he heard the first of the roars.

  “It’s Toto!” he cried, standing up. “Ibn! Abu! Jamal!” He waited for his men to assemble. “Hurry up. I sent Toto out for the Phantom. I think the beast has tracked him down.”

  “Yes, sire,” said Ibn.

  “Bring guns and lights. I want my men to see that this Phantom is only a man like them.”

  They ran out into the night.

  “There,” Kali exulted, “listen to those screams. He’s got the Phantom cornered.”

  Ibn said, “It’s time something rotten happened to the Phantom.”

  “Down by the docks,” Kali directed as they ran down the steep path cut into the rocky cliff.

  They came out on a patch of sand in the moonlight, and for a moment Kali could not make out the scene at all.

  “What’s happened?”
he cried out.

  Ibn’s bald head gleamed in the moonlight. He turned to his master with sardonic eyes. “Toto! Helpless as a baby! High in the sky!”

  Now Kali could see the giant gorilla, strung up by a rope to the branch of a high tree.

  “Who did that?” Kali cried aloud.

  Ibn chuckled ironically. “No man could!”

  “Only a ghost,” muttered Abu. “Or a Phantom!”

  Kali ground his teeth in frustration. “All right, you idiots. Get the cage and lower the beast into it. I’ve had enough of this.”

  Ibn and Abu ran over to the tree while Jamal summoned help to drag out the cage on wheels from the storeroom of the castle. It took them fifteen minutes to cut the rope and lower the struggling gorilla into the cage and lock it up.

  Then they hauled the sullen beast up the winding pathway back to the courtyard.

  Kali peered in the cage and shone a flashlight on the gorilla.

  Ibn let out a cry of astonishment. “Look!”

  Kali leaned closer. The bald man was pointing at the collar around the gorilla’s neck. Imprinted on its metallic surface was a familiar design: the death’s head.

  “The sign of the Phantom!” cried Jamal in terror.

  “It was the Phantom!” said Abu in horror.

  “The Phantom is not a man. He is the Ghost Who Walks.” Jamal’s teeth were chattering.

  “He has the strength of ten tigers,” Ibn muttered, a disbeliever convinced.

  “Search the grounds for him,” snapped Kali, realizing that his men were beginning to succumb to panic.

  “Yes, yes,” muttered Jamal, turning to flee into the shadows. Ibn followed.

  “Come back, come back,” shouted Kali. “Fools! He’s only a man.”

  In the radio shack by the Crusader castle, the Assassin on duty awoke with a start and began jotting down the letters of the code he was listening to on the headphones. Although many messages were broadcast with voice transmissions, others were sent in code.

  The operator knew that this code message had been posted by Agent Samson, who was stationed in a country near the island. Agent Samson was one of Kali’s men who had been planted there some months before.

  The radio operator quickly decoded the message and held it in his hands, studying it. Then he folded it up, stuck it in his belt, and ran out of the shack.

  He found a sullen and frustrated Kali pacing beside his unfinished dinner in the refectory, muttering to himself and gnashing his teeth.

  “Urgent message, sire!” said the radio operator.

  Kali glared at him. He took the note and read it. Immediately his face cleared.

  “So, Prince Tydore has left the United States and returned to Tydia. That means he’s not far from us now. I think the Prince hasn’t really escaped us yet.”

  “Yes, sire.”

  Kali smiled at the radio operator. “As soon as I dispose of the Phantom, I’ll take care of the Tydore business. Things are looking up, Hassan.”

  “Yes, sire,” said Hassan.

  “Back to your transceiver, man,” snapped Kali.

  “Yes, sire.”

  Hassan hurried out of the castle and crossed the bare ground outside between the castle and the radio shack. The shack was built at the very highest point of the rock promontory.

  The Phantom watched with amusement as Kali and his men arrived to observe Toto swinging in the air and bellowing with anger. He had swum away from the dock and once again made for the steep cliff upon which the castle was built.

  He wanted to get back quickly to Diana’s prison cell so he could try to work out some way to free her.

  It was not to be—just yet.

  As he made for the courtyard, he could hear three Assassins running toward him in the darkness. He hid behind a part of the courtyard wall, hanging down over the cliffside out of sight.

  When the three men had left, he climbed up once again, only to hear Kali huffing and puffing across the courtyard with Baldy, Crewcut, and another man.

  As he moved out of the shadows to follow them to the castle, the Phantom saw a slit of light appear quite abruptly in the darkness on the rock promontory past the castle.

  His eyes instantly focused on a tiny cottage or hut built far away from everything else. The light inside the hut momentarily revealed a radio transmitter and tuner. The hut was, he realized instantly, the radio shack, the communications center. Oddly enough, the man went around the side of the castle and entered one of the doors leading to the room in which Kali and his men were standing.

  The Phantom crouched outside the window and could see Kali clearly.

  He heard the words he spoke to the radio man, whose name was Hassan. He heard Hassan’s answers.

  “Hmm,” mused the Phantom. “So Prince Tydore is nearby, is he? That means that Tydia is not far from the island. I have no idea really where we are. But if Tydia is close, I can find out exactly where it is and I can figure out where we are.”

  As Hassan hurried from the castle door up the rocky walk to the communications shack, the Phantom followed quietly, keeping himself in the shadows of the rocks.

  When Hassan had entered the radio room and shut the door behind him, the Phantom crept up to the window and peered in. Now he could see not only the transmitters, but a map on the wall showing a section of the continent and a dozen islands nearby. One of them must be the island of the Assassins.

  He moved to the door and opened it silently.

  Hassan felt the movement and turned to stare at him in astonishment that turned to abject fear.

  The Phantom said, “Don’t make a sound.”

  Hassan’s voice gurgled in his throat. His eyes widened.

  The Phantom smiled at his shock and started to move forward.

  At that instant the muzzle of a gun barrel pressed into the Phantom’s right temple. “Don’t move, or I’ll kill you,” a voice said.

  The Phantom turned his eyes slowly.

  He saw Baldy grinning at him from the side, his eyes beady in the flickering light of the radio shack.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The Phantom assessed the situation instantly. He knew that Baldy had made the cardinal error in close-range fighting tactics. By holding the barrel of the weapon in his hand against the Phantom’s temple, he obviously hoped to frighten the Phantom into submission.

  At the same time, however, he put himself within range of the Phantom’s own potential counterattack. Had he covered the Phantom from ten paces away, he could easily have forced the Phantom to do as he wished, still having time to fire and stop him if he attacked.

  By remaining within range of the Phantom’s counterattack, he put himself in mortal danger.

  Instantly, the Phantom’s right elbow swung high in the air, slamming up against the underpart of Baldy’s right arm. At the same moment, the Phantom pulled his head away from the gun barrel by swinging his neck and shoulders to the left and down. Simultaneously, his right hip smashed up into Baldy’s midsection, and his right leg kicked around to knock the man’s legs out from under him.

  The gun fired, the slug tearing a hole in the ceiling of the flimsily constructed shack. The Phantom felt powder bums on his flesh, but he had pulled far enough away so that the shot did not do any serious harm. The echo of the shot reverberated in the confines of the room.

  Hassan jumped up and stood frozen.

  The Phantom leaped aside as Baldy rolled forward, slamming his head against the wall. The weapon fell from his limp hand. Quickly the Phantom reached for it and held it steadily on Hassan.

  “That shot will rouse them, and they’ll be here in mo ments. Quick, or I’ll end your life instantly. Show me Kali’s island on that map.”

  Hassan blinked and paled.

  The Phantom moved quickly, gripping Hassan’s neck at a pressure point.

  Hassan grimaced.

  “I don’t like to hurt people, but with you, it’s a pleasure. More, Hassan?”

  “I—I—” Hassan f
elt the grip tightening and waved a hand toward the map. “There.”

  The Phantom glanced at the map. He could see the island that Hassan indicated. Near it he could make out a land mass.

  “And that’s Tydia?”

  “Yesss,” hissed Hassan.

  “The call letters of Radio Tydia—quick!”

  “T678,” gasped Hassan.

  The Phantom tightened his grip on the pressure point. “Thanks.”

  Hassan’s eyes turned up in his head, and he sank to the floor to lie quietly beside Baldy.

  Hastily the Phantom sat down in front of the controls, set the transmitter band, and called out the correct letters. He kept his eyes on the doorway, peering out into the night, waiting for the Assassins to come running in response to the shot fired.

  “Calling T678,” he said.

  He was answered immediately.

  “I can only say this once,” the Phantom responded. “Pay attention! The message is for Prince Tydore, from Mr. Walker. I am on the island of the Assassins, located forty-seven miles on a course of one-six-eight from your capital. Mayday. Mayday.”

  v The Phantom switched off the transmitter, rose from the seat, and ran out through the open door.

  Already he could hear the steady pounding of running feet as the first of the Assassins rushed into the radio shack and cried out in shock at the sight of the two men on the floor.

  “Get Jabal Kali! Ibn and Hassan are injured!”

  Adjoining the dungeon chambers of the Crusader castle and the prison cells were the torture chambers used by the ancients to extract information from their enemies and to dispatch them to eternity.

  Past the torture chambers was a large room with a low ceiling that extended into the gloom of the underground world below the castle. This was the room of Seva, the goddess of the Assassins. In the middle of the room stood a large idol constructed to conform to both the human and divine attributes of the goddess.

  The face of the idol was round and fat, attached to a thin body that ended in a pedestal of sandstone. The sandstone surface was splotched with blood collected from centuries of sacrifices. In front of the pedestal lay a stone death couch equipped with leather straps and chains to secure recalcitrant sacrificial victims.