by Lin Carter
“I know that bird!” said Scorchy Muldoon in excited tones that made his voice go all squeaky.
As, indeed, he had good reason to. It was the man who had been his captor ... the one the rest of the Blue Men had called “Number Six.” He had seemed to be in a position of considerable authority in the Vulture’s gang.
But he would never give another order.
The choppers hovered, circled, studying the waves. Three or four more bodies were spotted, but they sank beneath the waves before any of them could be retrieved.
The sonar screens disclosed that the main structure of the miniature submarine (now, apparently, in three pieces) was sunken to the floor of the English Channel, together with whatever bodies had not risen to the surface.
Zarkon gave the corpse of Number Six a swift examination. The gang member had died from explosive decompression, as one might have easily guessed.
Marking the spot on their charts, the police helicopters returned to England.
Later, a diving bell recovered the fragments of the wreckage from the bottom of the sea.
The Vulture’s body was not among the other corpses trapped in the wreck. Of course, this meant little or nothing.
“The current is swift on the bottom,” said the harbormaster. “A body could be carried for miles in either direction without once surfacing. Also,” he added, looking a trifle somber. “Also ... there are sharks, you know.”
That would seem to wrap up the case. The mystery of the Blue Men was over. Once again, the forces of law and order in general — and the Omega organization in particular — had triumphed over the powers of criminality and chaos.
Scorchy Muldoon, however, looked remarkably gloomy. So much so that the morose expression on the redhead’s freckled face attracted the notice of his comrades.
Joey Weston ventured a question to Nick Naldini. He must have figured that, no matter how loudly or how often the two Omega men squabbled, Nick knew Scorchy best and was closest to him, and would have a good understanding of the pint-sized pugilist’s moods.
“ ’Scuse me, Mister Nick,” said the lad.
“Yeah, kid, what is it?”
“It’s ... Mister Scorchy,” confessed the newsboy. “How come he looks like he’s got a stomachache?” Nick shot a glance at Scorchy’s gloomy puss, and chuckled.
“Naw, kid, he’s feeling okay. It’s just that Scorchy feels let down and blue.”
“Because the mystery’s over, is that why?” asked Joey Weston. Nick shook his head and grinned.
“Naw ... because on this case he didn’t get a chance to bust any heads.”
CHAPTER 27 — The Secret of the Blue Men
The town in whose marina the Vulture had, however briefly, hidden his miniature submarine — which later proved to be of Japanese manufacture, incidentally, and of World War II vintage, thieved from a war memorabilia collector in the north of England — was much too small to have its own morgue, so the one in Southampton was used for the examination of bodies.
Returning to the southern coast of England, the fleet of Scotland Yard helicopters bore the corpse of Number Six to that city. The body was briefly examined, and the cause of death was exactly as Prince Zarkon had ascertained.
The body, however, had other secrets to disclose. The Omega men, together with Val Petrie and his chief lieutenants, were ushered within the precincts, summoned by Zarkon.
Morgues are cold and scary places. Cold, white, scrubbed, and immaculate, they store stiffs in cubicles which bear an uncanny resemblance to the frozen food lockers in your neighborhood supermarket. They have to be very low on anybody’s list of fun places to go for a few good laughs.
The visitors, in this instance, were too curious to afford the luxury of being squeamish. They were consumed by a desire to know what Zarkon had discovered.
They found the Nemesis of Evil in conference with a white-smocked coroner. The corpse was laid out on a long metal table. Surprisingly, it was still fully clothed.
Zarkon turned to greet them. Without further words he unbuttoned the jacket of the suit coat which Number Six wore. Murmurs of surprise and speculation followed.
Strapped to the man’s upper torso were items of apparatus whose purposes were not at once evident to the viewing. These were flat metal cases attached by wires one to another. Also fastened to the harness, positioned on the man’s upper chest, were flat air bottles. Small, thin, transparent, plastic nozzles protruded from the air bottles to just under the chin of the cadaver.
Zarkon said:
“It was obvious from the very beginning of this mystery that the Blue Men had some extraordinary method of making themselves bulletproof. Menlo and I decided, before we reached England, that some manner of force field was employed in deflecting the bullets.”
“Sounds like a gimmick from the science fiction mags, Chief,” drawled Nick Naldini skeptically. Zarkon permitted himself a slight smile.
“As a matter of fact, Nick, force fields have been a staple item of that form of literature for half a century. But sealed force fields, ‘closed fields,’ as they are called in the technical literature, have been under experimentation for a decade. An electromagnetic field, usually spherical in form, is projected. The heterodyning fields overlap, sealing the sphere.”
“As soon as we had a list of the kind of components the Vulture’s gang were busy stealing, we knew pretty much what was up,” said Menlo Parker at this juncture.
Zarkon nodded gravely.
“But these men weren’t protected by a spherical field,” complained Val Petrie.
“You are quite right. I said that usually such fields were spherical; but not necessarily. A certain modification exists by which such fields can adapt themselves to the contours of a moving human body. In the case of the Blue Men, the field seems to have been projected about a third of an inch all around the body of a man wearing this kind of apparatus.”
“That’s why they walked funny,” observed Doc Jenkins shrewdly. “The field was under their feet, too.” Zarkon nodded.
“They walked like men on slippery ice, because the field was every bit that slippery underfoot,” said the Man of Mystery.
“Can these here fields be strong enough to stop a rifle bullet?” questioned one of the officers from Scotland Yard.
“They can indeed. The Vulture’s published papers indicate that the force fields he theorized about could be made as strong as the nuclear binding force itself. This is the force which holds the components of atomic particles together. It is one of the most powerful forces which exist in nature.”
“Okay, so you got a bulletproof force field,” piped Scorchy Muldoon. “How come the Vulture’s gang only used these here gadgets to rob electronics manufacturers? If it’d been me, I’d of been knocking over banks ...”
“The sort of components that make up the force field projectors are not easy to come by,” said Zarkon. “The more of them that the Vulture managed to get into his hands meant the more members of his gang who could be sent out. I have no doubt that, once he had enough men equipped with the force field projectors, the Vulture would have directed his criminous activities against financial institutions. Fortunately, his plans were nipped in the bud before that could happen.”
“So that’s why those birds talked in sign language,” mused Scorchy Muldoon. “When they had the fields switched on, they couldn’t hear nothing. Sound waves just don’t penetrate the force fields, right, Chief?”
“Right,” confirmed Zarkon.
“And the air tanks — and those transparent nozzles we noticed in the computer-enhanced enlargements of the video tapes — were needed because air couldn’t penetrate the fields, either,” said Val Petrie thoughtfully.
“Perfectly correct,” nodded Prince Zarkon.
Ace Harrigan had been chewing the matter over in his mind. Now it came to be his turn to give voice to a question.
“Okay, okay, Chief,” said the handsome aviator. “I can buy all that. But I still don’
t understand why these birds were blue.”
“The molecular binding force used in these projectors was so extremely powerful,” explained Zarkon, “that even the velocity of light rays was measurably slowed down. We ‘see’ because rays of light strike an object and rebound, impinging on the retinas of our eyes. ‘Colors’ are merely a way of indicating the slight variations in the vibrations of light. In the case of the projectors, the speed of light was slowed towards the blue end of the visible spectrum.”
“Um,” said Ace Harrigan.
And the case was closed.
The fleet of helicopters flew them all back to London, where the press had a field day. Headlines competed with headlines, shouting:
“BLUE MEN” DESTROYED IN SEA BATTLE
and:
ZARKON WHIPS “SCIENCE FICTION” GANG
and even:
“BULLETPROOF” CROOKS A SUCKER FOR DEPTH CHARGES!
while the staid and eminently respectable Times of London permitted itself a slightly tongue-in-cheek headline of much more modest proportions:
THE VULTURE’S WINGS ARE CLIPPED
If the press reporters had expected another interview with Prince Zarkon, like the one their colleagues back in Knickerbocker City had enjoyed at the very commencement of this adventure, they were destined to be disappointed.
Zarkon firmly declined to be interviewed.
Back in their hotel rooms, the Omega men were packing their gear and preparing to fly back home.
“Danged shame that equipment was ruined by seawater, Chief,” muttered Menlo Parker gloomily. “I’d of given a pretty penny to see just how the wiring was done. But the salt water and the explosion both, screwed the works up so now we can only guess how the projectors worked.”
“It is a loss to cumulative scientific knowledge,” admitted Zarkon. “But even the Vulture’s papers seem to have been destroyed in the bombing of the miniature submarine. A pity.”
Scorchy Muldoon suddenly turned crimson. His eyes widened.
“Oh ... my ... gosh,” he said inadequately. His pals glanced at him with inquiry.
“What’s got your goat, Low Pockets?” demanded Nick Naldini nastily.
Scorchy had just been packing his duds. He held in one hand the borrowed blue jeans the Vulture’s men had given him to wear when they — he and Joey Weston — had been taken prisoner and stripped to the buff. In the back pocket of the jeans he found and now drew forth a small notebook, which he handed to Zarkon.
“Forgot all about the danged thing,” he mumbled, scarlet with embarrassment.
Zarkon and Menlo Parker quickly scanned the rows of equations. Menlo looked delighted.
“Everything seems to be here, Chief,” he chortled gleefully. “Even the wiring diagrams! Now we know how the Blue Men worked the bulletproof trick!”
“And you had it in your pocket the whole time, eh?” murmured Nick Naldini to Scorchy.
“Don’t rub it in, Nick,” groaned Scorchy. “I had other things on me mind at the time —”
“What mind?” inquired the long-legged ex-vaudeville artist in tones of pointed sarcasm.
The usual verbal squabble ensued.
Safely out of the immediate combat area, Doc Jenkins and Menlo Parker exchanged glances of private amusement.
“Guess things are gettin’ back to normal,” chuckled the huge man to his diminutive colleague.
“Yep,” grinned Menlo. “Those two’ll be at each other’s throats, at least until we’re off on another case.”
“May one come along quick,” sighed Ace Harrigan prayerfully.
CHAPTER 28 — “Fooey” Is Foiled Again
The British Navy loaned a diving bell for the purpose of retrieving from the bottom of the English Channel whatever wreckage was left of the Vulture’s miniature submarine.
Once this task had been accomplished, and nothing further was to be learned, Prince Zarkon and the Omega men, together with Val Petrie and his officers from New Scotland Yard, departed from Southampton in the helicopters.
They returned to London.
Getting back to their sleazy little hotel in the side streets off Piccadilly Circus, one of the first things that the Omega men did was to grab a quick, hot, hearty meal in the small pub which had become their favorite hangout.
Miss Cathleen McCullen went pink with pleasure to see them once again.
“Sure is good to have you boys come in again,” said the pretty little Irish waitress warmly. “Seems we’ve been entertaining celebrities all this time and didn’t know it!”
Zarkon smiled quietly. When he paid the bill he added to the required sum a tip hefty enough to enable Cathleen McCullen to enjoy two weeks’ holiday in Brighton — or wherever — with plenty left over.
The girl flushed and thanked the Master of Omega for his generosity.
“Guess you fellows will be winging your way back to the States now that you’ve solved the Blue Men mystery,” the waitress said wistfully. “Well, we’ll sure miss you here in the pub.
“Especially you, Aloysius,” she added demurely.
Scorchy Muldoon went scarlet with pleasure, and grinned hugely.
Nick Naldini got a coughing fit and kept it up until a glare from Scorchy succeeded in quelling the spasm.
Once back in their hotel Prince Zarkon and his five lieutenants and little Joey Weston finished packing up their things in preparation for their departure.
Zarkon spoke to Val Petrie on the telephone. Additional bodies had been recovered from the bottom of the English Channel. All were easily identified as small-time crooks with records as long as your arm.
The body of the Vulture was not among the corpses recovered from the sea, although there was no reason to doubt that the mastermind behind the Blue Men had also perished in the depth when the helicopter had dropped depth charges on the miniature submarine.
Nothing else of note was recovered from the wreckage.
A later phone call from Sir George Gideon confirmed the grateful thanks of the British nation for Zarkon’s part in ending the brief but unsettling reign of terror.
“I see no reason why we can’t fly back to Knickerbocker City this afternoon,” said Zarkon to his aides. “True, there are some loose ends to be tied up and some leftover paperwork to be taken care of here, so one of us should remain behind, however briefly, to settle matters at this end —”
“I volunteer, Chief,” said Scorchy Muldoon quickly.
His pals looked at him curiously. For Scorchy never volunteered for much of anything, unless a good fistfight was in the offing. Then Nick Naldini grinned nastily.
“I get it, Chief! Scorchy’s got a date with that cute Irish waitress back at the pub!”
“So what if I do?” demanded the bantamweight boxer in tones eloquent of belligerence. “I’ve a right to me own private life, after all. Just becuz she wouldn’t give a long-legged galoot like you a tumble, don’t mean I can’t git lucky!”
The others grinned at Scorchy’s flushed face and defensive tone of voice. Zarkon quietly agreed that Scorchy Muldoon could stay behind to finish up the paperwork at this end, before flying back home to Knickerbocker City by a commercial air flight.
“Sure’n’ it may take a day or two, Chief, all that there paperwork,” declared Scorchy tentatively. “You know how it piles up .
Nick snickered evilly.
Zarkon quietly agreed.
After all he had been through as a prisoner of the Blue Men, Scorchy probably needed a bit of relaxation ... and the pretty Irish waitress with eyes as blue as the lakes of her native Killarney seemed willing to give the little boxer some of her free time for just that purpose.
Which was only fair and fitting, considering ...
Thus it was that, without any fanfare, any interviews, and all unknown to the watchful and prowling gentlemen of the press, Prince Zarkon and the Omega men departed from Heathrow in their rapid plane, the Skyrocket, and began the trip home.
All except for Scorchy Muldoon, o
f course.
Whistling a cheerful tune, and dressed fit to kill, Muldoon picked up a dozen roses at a small florist shop and fetched a cab to Miss Cathleen McCullen’s tiny apartment in the East End of London.
The night was his. He had tickets to a famous comedy playing in the theater district, and reservations at a fashionable dine-and-dance spot, and Scorchy meant to enjoy the evening to its fullest possible extent.
The records indicate that he did just that.
About twenty minutes after Prince Zarkon and the four Omega men, and the little newsboy, Joey Weston, departed from Heathrow Airport in their private jet plane, a commercial airliner pulled in.
Therefrom departed a gorgeous, long-legged blond girl with an expression of fierce determination on her lovely features.
This was Miss Phoenicia “Fooey” Mulligan, an adventure-loving heiress who had successfully managed to horn in on more than one of the adventures of the Omega team, and who was dead set on sharing this one.
Fooey Mulligan, as had been explained, was absent in Connecticut visiting friends on a horse-raising ranch when the mystery of the Blue Men had erupted across the front pages of all major newspapers. She had, in fact, been so busy having fun with her society-page pals that she had only recently discovered that her heartthrob, Zarkon, and his colleagues were busy with another mystery to solve.
Having once learned of this, Phoenicia had wasted no time at all in booking a flight to London so that she could get in on the fun.
Alas, as has been told, she was just a little late.
From the airport, she called New Scotland Yard. Sir George Gideon was off on business but young Val Petrie took her call.
“Miss Mulligan, I’m terribly sorry, but the case of the Blue Men is solved, and His Highness and the others of his team departed from Heathrow less than an hour ago,” he said.