The Land of Terror ds-2

by Kenneth Robeson

  He saw the plane now. A seaplane, it was painted green.

  The seaplane pilot tossed a line. His craft was hauled carefully to one of the old piers.

  They dumped Monk in the plane cabin.

  The pilot, Monk saw now, had a crimson-soaked bandage about his forehead, and another around his left arm. He was a squat fellow, much too fat. He had mean eyes.

  Monk’s captors looked curiously at the pilot’s wounds.

  "How’d you get plinked?" one asked.

  The pilot vented a snarl of rage. He pointed at several bullet holes in the control compartment.

  "Doc Savage!" he gritted. "The bronze devil popped up after I thought I’d finished him! He nearly got me!"

  Monk grinned at this. He had iron nerves. If Doc Savage was after this gang, the villainous fellows were in for a brisk time indeed. Monk tested his strength against his manacles. They were too much for him.

  "Take the big guy to — you know where!" directed one of the men who had occupied the car.

  The pilot indicated a radio receiving set in the plane.

  "Sure," he said. "I know where he’s goin’. Kar gimme my orders over the short-wave radio set."

  He opened the throttle. With a moan from the exhaust pipes, the seaplane taxied about. It raced across the river surface and took the air.

  * * *

  MONK was prepared for an extensive air journey. He was fooled. The seaplane circled over Brooklyn, then across the harbor. It went nearly as far south as the Statue of Liberty. Banking north, it flew up the Hudson River.

  The craft descended to the water near the beginning of Riverside Drive. It taxied slowly along the surface, close inshore.

  Rearing up in the cabin, Monk was able to peer through the windows.

  Near by and directly ahead stood a couple of rickety piers. To one of these was anchored a large, ancient three-masted sailing ship. The black, somber hull of this strange craft was pierced with cannon ports.

  On top of the superstructure reared a big sign, reading:

  THE JOLLY ROGER

  Former Pirate Ship.

  (Admission Fifty Cents)

  It was the same craft upon which Doc Savage had cornered Squint and his companions. Monk, however, had no way of knowing this.

  From the smokestack of the cookhouse, or galley, poured dense black smoke. This smudge was rapidly settling to the water about the old corsair craft.

  Soon the vessel was completely hidden. The darksome pall spread to cover the river out a considerable distance from the ship.

  Directly into this unusual smoke screen taxied the seaplane.

  The floats of the craft were suddenly seized and held. Monk perceived several men had grasped the plane. These men were standing upon something. Monk craned his neck to see what it was.

  His little eyes popped in astonishment.

  Under the concealment of the smoke screen, a great steel tank of a thing had come up from the deep river bed. This was in the nature of a submarine, but without conning tower or engines and propellers.

  A steel hatch gaped open in the middle of the tank. Into this hatch Monk was hauled.

  The seaplane taxied away. The hatch closed. The tank of a submarine sank beneath the surface, submerging after the fashion of a genuine U-boat.

  The whole operation had been blanketed by the smoke screen. An observer would not have dreamed a man had been shifted from the plane to a strange underwater craft which now rested on the river bed.

  Kar’s men dragged Monk into a tiny steel chamber.

  For a minute or two, the loud, sobbing gurgling of water entering the ballast tanks persisted. The submersible rolled a little, then settled solidly on the river bottom. One of the gang now spun metal wheels. These, no doubt, controlled valves.

  The interior of the strange craft became quiet as a tomb, except for a monotonous drip-drip-dripof a leak somewhere.

  The men were taking no chance on Monk’s escape. Three of them stood apart and kept pistols pointed at him.

  One fellow picked up an ordinary telephone. This obviously was connected to a wire that led ashore, probably along the cable which must anchor this unusual vessel.

  "Kar," he said into the mouthpiece. "We got the big guy here now."

  So quiet was the interior of the steel cell that the metallic voice from the receiver diaphragm was plainly audible to every one.

  "Let me talk to him," Kar commanded.

  * * *

  THE receiver was jammed against Monk’s scarred ear, but tilted so the others could hear. They held the mouthpiece a few inches from his lips.

  "Well, say your piece!" Monk roared.

  "You will speak with civility!" snarled the voice from the phone.

  Monk blew air out between his lips and tongue, making a loud and insulting noise known variously as the Bronx cheer and the razzberry.

  He was kicked in the barrel of a chest for his performance.

  "I fear you are going to come to an unfortunate end very soon," Kar sneered silkily.

  Monk’s brain was working rapidly, despite his rowdyism. This voice had an ugly, unreal rasp. He knew Kar must be pulling his mouth out of shape with a finger as he spoke, thus disguising his voice.

  "What d’you want?" Monk demanded.

  "You will write a note to your friend and chief, Doc Savage. The note will tell him to meet you at a certain spot."

  Monk snorted. "You want me to lead Doc into your trap, eh? Nothin’ stirrin’!"

  "You refuse?"

  "You guessed it!"

  There ensued a brief silence. Kar was thinking.

  "Give me the addresses of the men you call Renny, Long Tom, Johnny, and Ham!" he commanded. "I learned from a chemical supply firm where you lived. That is how my men came to be waiting for you to appear. But I could not find where the other four of your friends reside. You will give me that information!"

  "Sure," Monk growled. "Just watch me do it!"

  Then his pug nose wrinkled as he thought deeply. He asked a question: "How did you know our names? How did you find Renny, Long Tom, Johnny, Ham, and I always join Doc Savage when he tackles trouble?"

  Kar’s voice rattled an ugly laugh.

  "The information was simple to obtain!"

  "I’ll bet it was!" Monk snorted. "Not many people know we work together!"

  "I already knew that Doc Savage has his New York headquarters on the eighty-sixth floor of a skyscraper," Kar rasped. "I simply sent one of my men to strike up a conversation with the elevator operators of that skyscraper. My man learned you five men were often with Doc Savage. He wormed your nicknames from the elevator operators."

  "What’s behind all this?" Monk questioned.

  Monk did not, of course, know anything about Kar’s sinister purpose. He did not even know of the existence of the weird and horrible Smoke of Eternity.

  "Doc Savage has interfered with my plans!" Kar gritted. "He must die! You five who are his friends would try to avenge his death. So you also must die!"

  "You don’t know what you’re tryin’ to do!" Monk declared.

  "I do!"

  "Oh, no, you don’t! You’d be runnin’ like hell if you knew what a terror Doc Savage is when he gets on the trail of a snake like you!"

  This drew a loud snarl from Kar. "I do not fear Doc Savage!"

  "Which shows you ain’t got good sense!" Monk chuckled.

  "Put him in the death chamber!" Kar commanded angrily.

  The telephone was plucked from Monk’s furry hands. He was hauled aft.

  Evidently Kar was enough of a judge of character to realize he could never force Monk to lead Doc Savage into a death trap. So he was going to get rid of Monk immediately.

  * * *

  ONE of the men twisted metal dogs which secured a hatch-like steel panel in a wall of the submerged tank. This swung back. It revealed a box riveted to the hull. The box had the dimensions of a large trunk. It barely accommodated Monk’s bulk as he was jammed inside.

  At t
he end of the box was another steel hatch. But this was obviously secured tightly on the outside.

  A small petcock protruded from the box ceiling. One of Kar’s men opened this with a key. He fitted a grille over it.

  A thin stream of water entered.

  The hatch into the tanklike craft clanked shut. The dogs rattled loudly as they were secured.

  Monk flounced about, wrenching at his manacles. He could not snap them with all his prodigous effort.

  He tried to stop the inrush of water through the petcock. He failed. The petcock construction was such that he could not block it, due to the grille covering.

  The water had risen above his ankles by now. The clammy wetness was like the creep of death.

  Monk beat the steel plates of the outer hatch with his shackled legs. They held. Nothing less than nitroglycerin could shatter them.

  Steadily, the water crawled upward. The minutes were passing with agonizing speed for Monk. He perspired. His brain raced. He could evolve no possible scheme of escape.

  The river water now covered his mouth. He had his head rammed tightly against the roof plates. It could go no higher. Over his upper lip, the deadly liquid sloshed.

  After the fashion of a diver, Monk determined to take a couple of quick inhalations, then draw in a lungful of air. He was going to hang on as long as he could.

  But with the first indraw of air, water was sucked into his lungs.

  Gagging, choking, he sank helplessly to the bottom plates.

  Monk was drowning! There was nothing he could do to save himself; no way to inform Doc to get aid.

  However, while Monk had been taken captive, during the time required for the trip up the river, Doc Savage was not idle. Monk’s failure to appear was evidence that something was wrong — and Doc never let anything stay wrong for long!

  * * *

  Chapter 8. THE TRAIL

  "

  I’M afraid, brothers, that Kar has got his hands on Monk," Doc Savage said slowly.

  "Nothing less could have kept the big ape from showing up here," agreed Ham, the waspish, quick-thinking lawyer. He made an angry, baffled gesture with his innocent-looking black swordcane.

  Below the eighty-sixth floor window of the skyscraper office, the inspiring panorama of New York City spread. They were beautiful, impressive things, those gigantic, gleaming spires of office buildings. From that height, automobiles on the street looked like little, sluggish bugs moving along.

  Doc lifted a bronze hand. He got instant attention. Ham, Renny, Long Tom, and Johnny knew this signal meant Doc was about to start his campaign of action.

  To Long Tom, the electrical wizard, came the first commands.

  Doc gave Long Tom the address of that tenth house in a row of dwellings that were all alike. He told the exact secret wall recess.

  "I want you to trace that phone wire," Doc explained. "It was not installed by the regular telephone company. Kar must have put it in himself. It leads to some secret lair of Kar’s. I want you to follow it to that lair."

  "Sure," said Long Tom. "I’ll use a — "

  "I know what you’ll use," Doc interposed. "The apparatus is right here in my laboratory. You can find it!"

  Long Tom hurried into the great laboratory room. He selected two boxes. They were replete with vacuum tubes, dials and intricate coils. They might have been radio sets, because one was equipped with head phones. But they weren’t.

  One box held an apparatus which created a high-frequency electric current. When this current was placed upon a telephone wire, it would make no sound audible to the human ear. But it would throw an electrical field about the wire. This field extended a considerable distance.

  The other box was an "ear" for detecting this field. Using it, Long Tom could walk about with the head phones upon his head. The phones would give a loud squeal when he brought the "ear" within proximity of the wire charged with his peculiar current.

  The wire might be buried yards underground, but the "ear" would detect its presence anyway. Nor would brick walls interfere with the sensitive detector.

  Long Tom hurried out with his equipment. He took a taxi for the tenth house in the row of similar houses uptown.

  * * *

  "NEXT, Johnny!" Doc addressed the tall, emaciated geologist and archaeologist. "There is an island in the South Seas, some distance from New Zealand. It is known as Thunder Island."

  Johnny nodded. He took off the glasses he wore and fiddled with them excitedly. These glasses were peculiar in that the left lens was extremely thick. This left lens was in reality a powerful magnifying glass which Johnny carried there for convenience. Johnny’s left eye was virtually useless since an injury he had received in the World War.

  "Go to the largest college of geology in New York City," Doc directed Johnny. "You will find there a collection of rock specimens from Thunder Island. They were turned over to the institution by Jerome Coffern, after an expedition he recently made to Thunder Island. I want those specimens."

  "Mind telling me why you want them?" Johnny inquired.

  "Of course not!"

  In a few quick sentences, Doc Savage told of the existence of the horrible stuff called Smoke of Eternity.

  "I am not sure what the Smoke of Eternity is," Doc explained. "But I have an idea what it could be. When the substance dissolves anything, there is a weird electrical display. This leads me to believe it operates through the disintegration of atoms. In other words, the dissolving is simply a disruption of the atomic structure."

  "I thought it was generally believed there would be a great explosion once the atom was shattered!" Johnny murmured.

  "That was largely disproved by recent accomplishments of scientists who have succeeded in cracking the atom," Doc corrected. "I have experimented extensively along that line myself. There is no explosion, for the very simple reason that it takes as much energy to shatter the atom as is released."

  "But why the specimens from Thunder Island?" persisted Johnny.

  "The basis of this Smoke of Eternity must be some hitherto undiscovered element or substance," Doc elaborated. "In other words, it is possible Gabe Yuder discovered on Thunder Island such an element.

  "The man is a chemist and electrical engineer. From that element, he might have developed this Smoke of Eternity. I want to examine the rock specimens from Thunder Island in hopes they may give me some clew as to what this unknown element or substance is."

  "I’ll get the specimens!" Johnny declared.

  He hurried out.

  "Hm-m-m — Renny!" Doc addressed his other two friends. "I want you two to hurry down to Monk’s penthouse place. See if you can find him."

  These two also departed, Renny moving lightly as a mouse in spite of his elephantine bulk; Ham twirling his sword cane.

  Doc Savage tarried only to enter the laboratory. From his clothing he removed the crumpled capsule of metal that had contained the Smoke of Eternity which had wiped out the body of poor Jerome Coffern.

  Doc concealed the capsule by sticking it to the bottom of a microscope stand with a bit of adhesive wax.

  Quitting his headquarters, Doc journeyed the eighty-six floors downward in an elevator. He got into a taxicab. The driver, he directed to take him to a point on Riverside Drive near where an ancient pirate ship was tied up.

  Doc Savage intended to examine the old corsair bark at his leisure. His suspicions were aroused. The fact that the ill-savored Squint and his companions had found modern guns aboard, the familiarity they had shown with the strange craft, indicated they had been there before.

  Aboard the buccaneer vessel, Doc hoped to find something that would lead him to the master fiend, Kar.

  * * *

  THE moment he came in sight of the Jolly Roger, Doc’s golden eyes noted something a bit puzzling.

  Some distance down the river drifted a smudge of particularly vile black smoke. No factory smokestacks along the river were disgorging such stuff. Nor were any water craft, which might have throw
n it off, to be seen.

  The slight breeze was such that this darksome pall might have been swept from the vicinity of the Jolly Roger.

  Too, far up the river, was a seaplane. It taxied along the surface, receding.

  Doc strained the telescopic quality of his vision. He recognized the seaplane as the same which had attempted his life in Central Park!

  Doc was thoughtful. His suspicions were now stronger.

  But he had no way of knowing he was viewing the after-signs of Monk’s being taken aboard the submersible tank hiding place!

  Down to the pirate vessel, Doc hurried. A springy leap from the ramshackle wharf put his bronze form aboard. A leaf settling on the deck planks would have made more noise than he did in landing.

  Doc glided to the superstructure. Pausing, he listened. A stray rope end, swinging in the breeze, made brushing noises up in the labyrinth of rigging.

  Another sound, too! A man muttering in the vicinity of the galley!

  Doc backed a pace. His sharp gaze rested on the galley stovepipe. The faintest wisp of dark smoke drifted out. The smoke was like that pall hanging downriver.

  Instantly, Doc became a wary, stalking bronze hunter. He slid aft, then went down a companion. He made for the galley. He was shortly framed in the galley door.

  Beside a rusty old cook oven stood a strange contrivance.

  This was larger than the oven, but built along similar lines. It seemed to be a furnace for burning resinous, smoke-making material. A big pipe from this led the smoke to the galley flue.

  A printed sign above the contraption read:

  OLD-TIME PIRATES

  USED SMOKE SCREENS

  Modern warships were not the first to employ smoke screens! Below is an apparatus used by the rovers of the Spanish Main to throw off clouds of smoke intended to baffle the aim of pursuing men-of-war.

  If visitors desire to see this smoke-maker in performance, an attendant will put it in operation.

  There is a small charge of one dollar for this.

  * * *

  DOC Savage’s mobile, strong lips made the slightest of appreciative smiles. Whether old-time corsairs had actually used smoke screens was immaterial. This was probably faked, like most of the other stuff aboard the ship.