by Lin Carter
They would have liked to have said good-bye to little Joey Weston, but the boy seemed to be sulking in hiding someplace; at least he wasn’t in his room.
The drive to the Omega airfield was completely eventful.
The takeoff was perfectly on schedule.
And in a small, cramped room near London, whose darkness was alleviated only by the pool of light cast on the top of an old-fashioned rolltop desk by a gooseneck lamp, a telephone buzzed discreetly. A gaunt, clawlike hand picked up the receiver.
“This is the Vulture speaking. Yes, Number Two?”
“Zarkon and the Omega men departed on schedule, Number One,” said the voice at the other end, his tones remote and slightly disturbed from time to time by the crackle of electrical interference on the line.
“Excellent!”
“According to the flight plan they submitted to the American Air Traffic Commission, their destination is still Heathrow Airport.”
Acknowledging the information, the Vulture hung up the phone.
A slight, cold smile touched thin, bloodless lips. And the Vulture very seldom smiled ...
“At last,” he croaked harshly, “an adversary worthy of my steel.”
CHAPTER 5 — A Few Surprises
Ace Harrigan took the giant jet airplane up to thirty-seven thousand feet and leveled off.
The former crack test pilot, who had been an air ace in a recent Asian war, was a frank, tanned, handsome young man whose dashing career and smiling good looks had turned more than a few womanly hearts. Handling the huge craft was simplicity itself to Ace Harrigan: he could pilot with equal ease any kind of aircraft in use, and was an excellent driver with any vehicle, for that matter.
Ace came by his facility with aircraft naturally. His father, the famous “Hop” Harrigan, had been a flyer before him, and was a distinguished pioneer in aeronautics, as well as a fighter pilot in the Second World War.
Leveling off at the awesome height of seven miles above sea level, Ace triggered the rockets which lent the dual-powered aircraft its name. These cut in flawlessly, boosting the air velocity of the super streamlined plane to a speed superior to that attainable by any other aircraft in the world.
It was then that Ace Harrigan noticed a red light flashing on the control console. The handsome air ace frowned and bit his lip. Trouble already! thought Ace to himself, not without a certain zest — for the thrill of adventure and excitement, which had made him choose the career of test pilot in the first place, had also led him to join Omega, where adventures were the ordinary routine.
The alarm light was connected to a special device which Zarkon had only recently installed aboard not only the Skyrocket, but also on every other vehicle — land, sea, and air — in Omega’s private fleet.
The instrument recorded vibrations: more specifically, heartbeats and the sort of metronomic ticking given off by timed explosive devices.
He thumbed a switch and a call light flashed in the main cabin where Zarkon was giving his lieutenants their instructions and explaining his plans in detail. Zarkon hurried forward to join Ace Harrigan at the controls of the super aircraft.
Zarkon’s bronzed features tightened just a little as he studied the indicator. The device was a cleverly modified extension on the stethoscope employed by physicians to monitor the heartbeat of their patients. Since the heartbeat of a human is as distinctive as are his fingerprints or retina patterns, the gadget automatically masked out the known heartbeat of all five of the Omega men.
“Think it’s a bomb, Chief?” inquired the pilot.
Zarkon shook his head. “Too irregular for that, Ace. Like a clock or watch, the timing device on explosive devices ticks with the regularity of a metronome. No; I think we have a stowaway on board.”
Ace blinked, looking incredulous. But he said nothing. The Master of Men seldom ventured a guess, but when he did, it was bound to be a sure thing.
“Give me Circuit ‘A,’ ” requested Zarkon.
TV monitors flickered into life, revealing a clear view of every corridor and compartment aboard the Skyrocket. The cameras themselves, carefully concealed in the lighting fixtures, were stationed high above each part of the plane.
Seeing a flicker of furtive movement on one such monitor, Zarkon sighed.
“I should have anticipated this,” he said to Ace Harrigan. Then without alarming the others, he went quickly back to the storage compartment in the tail, where the equipment cases had been securely bolted into place.
Fortunately for the stowaway, the compartment was pressurized.
“You may as well stop hiding,” said Zarkon, with just a trace of weary resignation in his voice.
A freckle-faced youngster with tousled hair as brick red as Scorchy Muldoon’s own hirsute adornment crept guiltily out from behind the cases. He wore jeans, sneakers (badly scuffed), and a knitted sweater.
It was, of course, Joey Weston. The game little newsboy, Zarkon was well aware, had hated the idea of being left behind on this latest adventure of his friends. But that the boy would have the temerity to hide in one of the equipment cases was an eventuality for which even Zarkon had taken no precautions.
“I — I’m real sorry, Mister Prince,” faltered the boy, flushing crimson as he met Zarkon’s level look. “An’ I don’t mean to cause any trouble, but I just I — I —”
Then Zarkon made a rare gesture of physical affection. He reached out and smoothed back the tousled red hair.
“What’s done is done,” said the Champion of Justice. “And we can’t turn back now. So we’ll say no more about it. But when all of this is over, we must have a little talk together. Now come along. I expect you’re hungry?”
The lad grinned, taking heart from the evident fact that the man he idolized with all the hero worship a boy’s heart can hold, was not truly angry.
“Yessir! I could eat a horse,” he confided.
The Omega men greeted Joey Weston’s unexpected appearance with surprise and pleasure. This was particularly true of Scorchy Muldoon, for the feisty little Irishman had conceived a great fondness for the plucky little orphan who had so ably assisted them on the Case of the Earth-Shaker. When Lucifer, that brilliant but deranged scientific mastermind, and Zarkon’s old adversary, had employed a secret method to trigger earthquakes and had attempted to hold the banks and other financial institutions of Knickerbocker City for a hefty ransom, it had been the ragged little newsboy on his bicycle who had tracked the gang to their hidden lair and had tipped-off the Omega men to Lucifer’s secret hiding-place.
“Ah, ye little tyke!” crowed Scorchy affectionately. “Sure an’ ye couldn’t stay away from trouble and excitement, now, could ye?”
At certain times, such as these, Scorchy’s brogue rose unbidden to his lips.
“Nossir, Mister Scorchy, I guess not,” admitted the lad.
“I imagine you’ll be hungry by now, kid,” drawled Nick Naldini in laconic tones which effectively concealed his own fondness for the orphan newsboy.
“Yessir, Mister Nick,” said Joey.
“Chandra Lal insisted on packing us a picnic basket big enough for ten, so dig in, kid,” advised the stage magician.
Joey certainly needed no further invitation. He dug in and helped himself to the delicious chicken salad, creamed potatoes, stuffed celery, ham sandwiches, and the other goodies wherewith their Rajput servant had stuffed in the picnic basket.
Hunger probably does make the best seasoning, as the saying goes. But Chandra Lal’s sauce ran it a very close second.
The Skyrocket’s flight across the Atlantic Ocean was a smooth and uneventful trip. At the extreme height at which the big plane flew — well into the stratosphere — they were so far above storms or bad weather of any sort that these conditions could not touch them or slow them down in the slightest.
The Skyrocket flew at such a speed that the flying time, otherwise a bit tedious, passed quicker than you might have thought.
The fact was, although it was no
t generally known, Zarkon’s combination jet-and-rocket plane could beat the usual flying time of the famous Concorde hands down.
When on the trail of supercrooks, time was often of the very essence. And Zarkon liked to get to where he was needed just as quickly as could be done.
While Zarkon spelled Ace Harrigan at the controls after a time, the five rehearsed Zarkon’s plans until each was letter perfect. They checked their weapons and equipment and discussed the mystery amongst themselves.
“I figure them blue boys are wearin’ bulletproof suits,” claimed Scorchy Muldoon. Naldini looked amused.
“And bulletproof faces, you Hibernian simian?” he drawled. “Remember, the constable shot one full in the throat.”
Scorchy flushed at the calculated dig on his ancestry, but gamely stuck to his idea.
“Then they got bulletproof plastic face masks, you road show Dracula,” he growled. This last appellation was in reference to Nick Naldini’s remarkable resemblance to the actor John Carradine, famous for his film characterizations of the bloodsucking Transylvanian count.
Nick glanced at Menlo Parker. The skinny little scientist was busy scribbling equations on a pocket pad, then crossing them out with an irritable expression on his wizened features.
“How about it, Menlo? Could transparent plastic face masks be made bulletproof?” inquired the cardsharp.
“Not at point-blank and close range, and under a strong light,” snapped the older man peevishly. “The cop would have seen highlights and reflections, even on a plastic mask. Besides, the plastic would have to be thin — too thin to ward off a bullet.”
Ace Harrigan went forward to relieve Zarkon, and as soon as the Master of Destiny returned to the main cabin to rejoin his five lieutenants and the little newsboy, there was a call on the SRT.
“Assistant Commissioner Sir George Gideon calling for Prince Zarkon,” said the Scotland Yard operator.
“This is Zarkon. Please put Sir George on.”
He listened for a brief while, bronzed features intent. Then, thanking the official on the other end, he replaced the instrument.
“More trouble, Chief?” inquired Doc Jenkins.
“The Blue Men have struck again,” said Zarkon. “Another warehouse, also storing electronic components, but this time in the Whitehall district of London. Again they were fired upon and again they got away without injury,” he said.
His eyes were inscrutable and brooding.
“There’s somethin’ else, isn’t there, Chief?” inquired Scorchy Muldoon, who was well acquainted with his leader’s moods. Zarkon nodded.
“This time there were seven of them,” he said thoughtfully.
CHAPTER 6 — Yellow Death
IT had been raining earlier and the runway at London’s Heathrow Airport was wet and slick when the Skyrocket entered its landing pattern and touched down.
Since Zarkon’s press release had revealed the approximate time of the Omega team’s arrival, the British press were out in force. Usually, the Ultimate Man kept his movements and plans as secret as possible; never before had he preannounced such an event, for he had always declined interviews and shunned publicity. This, however, would seem to be a different occasion.
The reporters were discussing it, while waiting under umbrellas for the great rocket plane to taxi into sight from the far runway.
“Why do you suppose Prince Zarkon announced his plans, before leaving Knickerbocker City?” the Daily Express murmured to The Times.
“It does seem unlike His Highness, doesn’t it?” remarked The Times. “Perhaps he simply wanted to reassure the British public that there was no cause for further panic with the Omega men, as it were, on the job. Or, it might well be, he hoped to scare the Blue Men into hiding, for his team are among the most formidable crime-fighting units in the private sector.”
“Sounds reasonable enough,” replied the Daily Express. “My editor has promised me a bonus, if I manage to secure an interview with Prince Zarkon.”
“Quite candidly, so has mine,” smiled The Times.
Unfortunately for the finances of both reporters, such was not to prove the case. For even as they hovered hopefully behind the police barriers, a string of limousines with opaque tinted windows and a motorcycle escort entered the field and drove out to the parked plane.
Some moments later, all sirens blaring, the escorted limousines departed for downtown London. The Times heaved a dispirited sigh.
“Not to worry, old man,” said the Daily Express cheerfully. “I happen to know that Zarkon and his team have booked an entire floor in a certain excellent hotel in Oxford Street —”
“Not the Cumberland Towers, is it?” inquired The Times with a slight smile.
“Oh ... you found out, too?” murmured the Daily Express, a bit crestfallen. The Times smiled comfortingly.
“Come on, old man, we’ll share the price of a cab.”
Obviously for security reasons, the limousines drew up behind the great hotel and discharged their passengers and equipment and luggage in secrecy, behind a living barricade of policemen. The freight elevators ascended to the exclusive seventeenth floor.
Fifteen minutes later, after the departure of the motorcycle patrol and the limousines, a van pulled up at the freight and service entrance of the Cumberland Towers. The guard on duty ambled out to see who was delivering what.
He received the shock of his life.
Seven Blue Men climbed out of the van. They lugged heavy sealed canisters and hose attachments. Paying no attention at all to the armed security guard, they headed for the unloading platform.
“Gor blimy, h’it’s the Blue Men!” quavered the guard in despairing tones. He went for his revolver, but his hand wavered, remembering how ineffective the use of firearms had proven on earlier occasions.
A blackjack behind the left ear, wielded by one of the Blue Men, succeeded in sending him into slumberland.
They dragged him behind a fire door and proceeded to the elevator. Had any eye been witness to them as they strode purposefully along, several odd things might have been noticed concerning their appearance, the most obvious of which was the uniform powder-blue color of the men from head to foot.
Another was the fact that their business suits were rather ill-fitting and capacious.
Another was that they conversed by hand signals, not by spoken words.
Entering the freight elevator unopposed, they rode up to the seventeenth floor and got off.
Here, the decor was, if anything, even more expensive and tasteful than elsewhere in the famous hotel. This floor was generally reserved for visiting Presidents and Princes. Plush carpets were thick and lush underfoot, the lighting was indirect. Freshly cut flowers bloomed in vases of cut glass or Georgian silver.
The Blue Men paid no attention to their surroundings.
Approaching the door to the main suite, the seven blue monsters unlimbered the equipment they had brought with them. Tubing, attached to pencil-thin nozzles, was inserted in the keyholes of the doors. Shuttlecocks were turned, releasing the contents of the metallic canisters into the interior of the suite. A hissing sound was distinctly audible.
Some minutes later, the cocks were shut and the Blue Men opened the doors with passkeys.
Within, the air was fogged by thick swirls of a poisonous yellow vapor.
Cyanide ... one of the deadliest gases known to science.
Methodically, the Blue Men walked unharmed through the fogs of yellow death and searched the entire floor, room by room.
They found nothing. No men nor luggage. The elegantly furnished suites which composed the entire seventeenth floor of the Cumberland Towers were empty and untenanted.
Expressionlessly, the Blue Men left the rooms and went down the freight elevator again, gaining the street level without mishap. They loaded the now-empty canisters of poison gas into their van and drove away to make their report to the Vulture.
A few miles away, in a cheap, fifth-rate hotel on the s
leazy side streets off Piccadilly Circus, Zarkon and the Omega men watched what was happening back at the Cumberland Towers by means of television monitors installed earlier that day by officials of Scotland Yard. The cameras had, as aboard the Skyrocket, been cunningly concealed from view in the ceiling lighting fixtures.
They watched the entire scene with rapt concentration. Once the Blue Men had vanished back down the corridor for the freight elevators, Scorchy Muldoon heaved a heartfelt sigh of relief.
“Cyanide! Those murderin’ b — ... if we’d stayed in that hotel, sure an’ we’d be goners,” he commented.
“Precisely,” said Zarkon.
They ran the sequence again, studying the film. Then Zarkon telephoned Scotland Yard and instructed them to seal off the seventeenth floor and arrange for a disposal squad in protective garments and gas masks to clear away the deadly yellow vapor.
“So what good does all this do, Chief?” inquired Nick Naldini. “Why’d’you let them get away?”
“Who says the Chief let ‘em get away?” snapped Menlo Parker testily. “Don’t you think the cops planted a ‘tracer’ on the van while them bozos were inside the hotel tryin’ to kill us with poison gas?”
“Umm,” said Naldini, flushing. Scorchy chuckled at his rival’s discomfiture. He was about to make some smart remark, when Zarkon, at the phone, silenced him with a swift gesture.
Hanging up the phone, Zarkon looked moodily at his lieutenants.
“They got away,” he admitted.
Scorchy’s blue eyes goggled incredulously.
“Got away, Chief? What about the tracer —?”
“Scotland Yard was monitoring their flight from a high-altitude helicopter,” said the Omega Man briefly. “Unfortunately, the Blue Men switched to some other vehicle on the country roads south of metropolitan London. The Yard men found the van empty. No fingerprints. A stolen vehicle, hastily repainted.”