Without warning, with a quickness that took them utterly off guard, he fired smarting, blinding ammonia fumes straight into the eyes of the two sitting beside Carney.
They cried out. The man beside “X” turned around in amazement. He, too, got a dose of ammonia that temporarily blinded him as surely as though needles had been jabbed into his eyes. The back of the car became a fighting, clawing madhouse.
The driver and his companion turned in their seat. “X” put the man beside the driver out by bringing the barrel of his ammonia gun down on the man’s hooded head. He thrust his gun against the driver’s neck, hissed an abrupt order.
“Turn left through the fence—drive across the field!”
The driver seemed to think he was insane. “X” repeated the order, jabbing the gun harder against the man’s spine. With a cry on his lips, sounding muffled behind his weird hood, the driver pulled the wheel.
The big car turned off the highway. A wooden fence paralleled the road at this point. The car broke through it with a clatter. It shot ahead over a stubbly field, jouncing and rocking.
“Stop!” ordered “X.”
The driver jammed on the brakes. As he did so “X” went into action like a man gone berserk. He caught the DOAC beside him under the arms, heaved him from the car onto the ground. He tackled Carney’s guards next. They fought like wildcats, but, blinded, they had no chance against “X.” One he knocked out with a punch to the jaw. The other he heaved from the car as he had the first man.
HE forced the driver out next, climbing over behind the wheel himself. A second more and he threw the clutch in and shot ahead.
Carney sat like a man dazed, staring at “X” open-mouthed. Behind them in the night was confusion, noise. The other DOACs had learned something strange had happened. “X” heard the sound of another car crashing through the fence, following. He had a hundred foot start. He pressed the accelerator down, put on a burst of speed. The big car plunged ahead. Beside him the man whom “X” had knocked unconscious with a blow of his gun, swayed in his seat like a sack of grain.
“X” drove across the field furiously. At times the big car sank hub-deep where the earth was soft. “X” threw the engine into second. Then he opened the side door of the driver’s seat and unceremoniously pushed the unconscious man out to lessen weight.
He pulled out of the soft spot, went plunging and rocketing ahead. Beyond this field was the highway down which the farmer’s car had carried “X.” His sense of direction told him this. It was the keystone of his desperate plan to rescue Carney.
But a spotlight snapped on behind, across the field. It fanned the air for a moment, then came to rest dazzlingly on his own car. The sinister rhythmic beat of machine-gun fire sounded. Bullets whined in the night around them, plowed into the earth beside them, slapped into the rear of the car as DOAC marksmen fired. Mike Carney sprawled forward in his seat, getting down behind the rear of the car for protection.
Agent “X” thundered on, driving with fierce, reckless abandon. Then suddenly he gasped and stamped on the brake pedal. For something loomed directly ahead in the moon-bathed gloom. It was another fence, and this one, he saw just in time, was made of piled-up stone.
The car slued to a screeching halt, its radiator close to the uneven rocks. This wall could not be smashed through. It was a barrier that must be contended with—and, directly behind, roaring across the field, was a group of armed men, bent on the recapture of Carney and the murder of “X.”
Chapter VII
Night Pursuit
AGENT “X” flung the door open and leaped from the big car. He raced to the wall. Carney seemed to think he was trying to escape and yelled something, but Agent “X” paid no attention.
With the evil whine of bullets around his head, “X” shoved frantically at the rocks. It was an old wall, loosely piled, and stones toppled off under the quick thrust of his hands, others he pulled back toward him, leaping out of the way as they fell. Three machine-gun bullets struck the wall ten feet away and ricocheted off into the darkness. The DOACs couldn’t aim accurately in their speeding, jouncing car.
Deliberately “X” pulled other rocks toward him until the wall in front of the car had become a low mound loosely piled.
He got back into the driver’s seat, speeded up the engine, threw the clutch in slowly, and crept forward.
Like a tractor the front of the car reared up. Higher and higher it went till the headlights pointed directly toward the sky.
Mike Carney yelled again, crouching lower in his seat behind “X.” For a breathless instant the under part of the car’s chassis struck a stone. Metal grated, and it seemed that they would be stuck there. Then the rear tires gripped a rock, got traction, and the car shot ahead again. The front dropped sickeningly as the rear end flung skyward. Carney was hurled against the back of the seat. Agent “X” gripped the wheel desperately. The rear wheels, dropped off the rocks with a bone-shaking jar.
Then the car, with gathering speed, lunged ahead through the scrub trees, breaking and bending them. It ploughed through bushes with a sound like rushing ocean waves, broke at last into the open with a long, level stretch of road ahead. “X” had won his way to freedom, got himself and Carney out of the clutches of the DOACs. He pressed the gas button down, sent the big touring-car roaring ahead.
Looking over his shoulder, he could still see the spotlight on the pursuing car, screened by a barrier of bushes. The DOACs hadn’t even gotten over the wall. He doubted that they would, till they had flattened it still more.
Night wind streamed past as Agent “X” drove furiously ahead. It wasn’t pursuit by the DOACs he was seeking to avoid now. It was the State troopers, local police, and special detectives who would scour the country in search of those who had taken part in the raid on the prison. Before turning Carney over to the law again, “X” wanted to question the big racketeer. He looked around. Carney met “X’s” gaze searchingly.
The Agent still wore his DOAC hood. His disguise as A.J. Martin, newspaper man, had served him often and well. No use letting Carney see him now as Martin. The big gangster might spread whispers through the underworld that would prevent “X” from appearing as Martin again.
The Agent, watching the road ahead, saw an opening among some trees. A dirt road branched off here. “X” twisted the wheel, sent the car in, out of sight of the main highway. He slid to a stop and turned to face Carney.
His eyes, bright and penetrating, focused on the gangster. Carney began to look uneasy. He bunched his shoulders and fear showed on his face.
“What’s your racket?” he growled. “You must have something on your mind! What is it?”
“X” answered quietly. “Don’t go up in the air, Carney. I’m not after your money. But I figured what would happen if the DOACs got you.”
“How did you know they were coming after me?”
“I got tipped off.”
“If you ain’t one of ’em, where did you get that headpiece you’re wearing?”
“From a DOAC who was killed.”
Carney seemed to debate this, staring sharply at Agent “X.” Then he spoke again, sneeringly. “You’re telling me you got me away from those mugs just because you wanted to do a pal a good turn?”
Agent “X” shook his head. “That was only one of my reasons, Carney. I had another. You’ve got a lot of friends on the shady side of the law. The chances are you’ve heard rumors. Do you think the DOACs are just a bunch of gunmen? Or are they something else? Give me a little information and I’ll help you stay away from the big house.”
CARNEY shook his head again, fear shadows deepening in his eyes. “I don’t know much about the DOACs—but I do know this! You can’t put me where they can’t find me. There’s only one spot in the country where I’ll be safe now—that’s back in jail—and that’s where I’m going till things blow over.”
Agent “X” gave a short, humorless laugh.
“You weren’t very safe in jail tonig
ht.”
The gangster had a ready answer. “That was the warden’s fault. I told him the DOACs meant business, but he wouldn’t do anything about it. That’s why the DOACs got in. Now he’s had his lesson. If I go back he’ll see that it don’t happen again. There’ll be enough guards posted to keep out an army. I know when I’m well off. And there’s a reason why I don’t want to get bumped. Maybe you’ve heard about a little lady I’m interested in?”
Agent “X” nodded.
“Greta St. Clair, your fiancée. The papers ran a story about her, Carney, when you were put in stir. Miss St. Clair took a house in sight of the jail and said she’d wait ten years if necessary for you to get out; didn’t she?”
Carney leaned forward, touching “X’s” arm. His voice was hoarse now.
“That’s the only thing I’m afraid of, mister. They’ll try to work on me through her, see? I can’t have that happen. It would drive me nuts.”
Again Agent “X” nodded.
“Tell me everything you knew about the DOACs,” he said. “I may be able to help break up their gang and help the girl, too!”
Carney took a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his face. He spoke huskily. “I can’t tell what I don’t know, guy. I got a few suspicions; but that’s all.”
“And what are those suspicions, Carney?” asked “X” softly.
“There was a guy got out of stir just after they put me in,” Carney said. “His name was Di Lauro. He used to be a half-cracked anarchist nut. Then he tried to get tough with a gun. I heard he’d been paroled and skipped. He used to talk a lot about the hell he’d raise when he got out of stir. He said something about a secret gang of some kind. Maybe he’s the guy back of it, and maybe he ain’t.”
AGENT “X” stored the name away in his mind. Di Lauro. A half-cracked anarchist. Some fanatic might have conceived of that as a cunning way to build up a following. “X” started to speak; Carney beat him to it.
“That’s all I know. I been in stir a year and a half now. A guy don’t hear much in jail. But whoever you are, you seem on the up-and-up. Do me a favor! Go see Greta—and tell her from me to watch out every minute. I won’t see her again till visitor’s day at the jail.”
“You’re determined to go back then?”
Carney’s eyes probed the shadows around them fearfully. He leaned closer, spoke in a whisper.
“Determined to go back! Say—they tell me guys have been found with lead poured in their mouths! That ain’t no mob stuff! I may be wrong; but I figure it’s the DOACs who done it. They think I got a lot of dough salted away. If they get me they’ll be pouring hot lead on me to make me talk. I ain’t got no dough. I’m a poor man, and I don’t want to be put on the spot for something I ain’t even got!”
“X,” looking at Carney, knew the man was lying. There was a look of craft and cupidity in Carney’s eyes. Fear of the DOACs and desire to hang onto his ill-gotten fortune, hidden somewhere, made Carney look upon his prison cell as a refuge.
The Agent shrugged. “I’ll see that you get back then,” he said. “And I’ll tip off that girl of yours to look out. Then I’ll see what I can find out about Di Lauro.”
“You’re some kind of a dick, ain’t you?” asked Carney shrewdly. “Don’t tell anybody what I told you. Maybe Di Lauro ain’t the guy.”
“X” was silent as he backed the big car around. It was now long after midnight. He had the problem of getting Carney back to jail. That was no easy matter. The DOACs had spies everywhere. It would be better to telephone the prison and have an escort meet Carney. But “X” didn’t want to come in contact with the forces of the law himself, be questioned and perhaps held for the part he had played tonight. He spoke to the gangster again.
“Lie down in the car,” he said. “Pull that robe over you. You’ll be out of sight. I’m going to find a phone.”
“You’ll be pinched if you’re seen in that hood,” said Carney.
“I’ll take it off—before I phone,” said “X.”
Carney obeyed instructions, got down in the rear of the big car, drawing the soiled and moth-eaten lap robe over him. Agent “X” went back into the highway, and drove on in the same direction he had followed before his conversation with the gangster. In a half hour he saw the lights of a town ahead. He stopped beside the road, spoke to Carney:
“Wait here. I’ll be back in a minute.”
He plunged into the bushes, and under cover of the darkness he drew off the DOAC hood; removed the disguise of A.J. Martin.
The sandy-haired wig, part of his make-up as the newspaper man, came off. He put that and the DOAC hood in a deep inner pocket. He slipped a close-fitting toupee over his head, and changed his features until they were utterly unlike Martin. It was another of his remarkable stock disguises that he had learned to make even under cover of the darkness.
He walked quickly back to the car again, a dark-haired man with nondescript, blunt-looking features. When he climbed into the seat of the driver Michael Carney looked up, regarding him with hard, shrewd eyes.
“Lie low,” the Agent said harshly. “We’re going into town now. There may be DOAC spies around. It will be tough if they spot you.”
“What about the car?” said Carney uneasily. “You swiped it from them. They may spot it.”
“X” had thought of that, too, but he shrugged.
“It’s a chance we’ve got to take,” he said.
EXCEPT for the lights along the sidewalks, the town seemed dead. It was after two o’clock. The streets were deserted. Not even an all-night drug store was open. But “X” drove on swiftly till he found a hotel catering to transients. A light burned in the lobby of this. A night clerk was on duty, yawning over his desk.
This hotel looked like a good spot to leave Carney until the prison officials could pick him up.
The Agent went in and the clerk directed him to a telephone booth. Agent “X” dialed long distance and called the state prison; He and Carney had put many miles between themselves and the prison town in their wild night ride. The Agent’s announcement that Carney was safe and ready to return to his cell caused a furore in the warden’s office. The warden, roused from his bed by the raid and still on duty, spoke with brittle excitement.
“Who is this calling?”
“Never mind, warden. Get an escort together. Come here as fast as you can and pick up Carney. Hotel Franklin, Dennistown.”
The baffled cursing of the prison warden was audible as “X” hung up the receiver.
The Agent strode outside, climbed into the car and drove it directly to the door of the Hotel Franklin. The quiet of the streets was undisturbed. “X” spoke to the gangster.
“I’ve phoned the warden to come and get you here at the hotel. That seems like the best way out.”
He accompanied Carney to his room on the second floor, said an abrupt good-by and left, knowing that the gangster, cringing with fear under the DOAC menace, would remain in his room till the prison escort came.
“X” drove his car to the highway along which the prison escort must come. There he backed into a grove of screening trees, and waited till he saw headlights far down the highway.
Many cars passed—the last dozen filled with armed State troopers. The prison warden was taking no chances this time. He had learned his lesson.
Twenty minutes went by, and the cavalcade of cars repassed, going the other way, Carney hunched between two burly prison guards. Agent “X” smiled grimly at the sight of a felon returning to prison voluntarily because it was his only refuge against a threat that had put terror into his criminal heart.
SIX hours later, a gray-haired man, whose card bore the name “T. Galaway, investigator for the governor,” walked up to the prison gate. An early morning sun shone down on the scene of last night’s destruction. The slain, guards had been taken away. Those among the hooded raiders who had fallen under bullets from the prison walls had been removed by the DOACs.
Stone masons were already at wo
rk on the watchtowers that had been smashed by the bombs. A cordon of State troopers stood guard around the grim walls of the prison. All the inmates were locked in their cells. There would be no exercise in the prison yard for days to come. Warden Johnson was ruling his walled empire with military discipline.
A score of newspaper reporters clamored outside the prison gates. More were arriving every instant. Their press cards had gained them entry through the line of State troopers. But Warden Johnson refused to grant them an interview.
He was busy in his office, answering long-distance phone calls, consoling families of slain guards, supervising the prison repairs, interviewing state, federal, and local detectives who were gathering information about the hooded raiders.
When Galaway’s card was sent in, however, Johnson’s reaction was immediate. He told his secretary to admit Galaway at once. Expecting a call from the governor’s mansion any instant, Johnson was nervously apprehensive. Blame, he feared, would attach to the fact that he had not heeded the DOACs’ threat against Mike Carney. The lives of the guards might have been spared if he had done so.
Galaway, tall, austere, with a look of penetrating intelligence in his eyes, was ushered into the warden’s private office. The warden received him uneasily.
“Sit down. Have a cigar, Mr. Galaway.”
“I don’t smoke, thank you.”
The warden became still more uneasy under Galaway’s intent gaze. There was dynamic, almost hypnotic power in the scrutiny of this tall stranger. Johnson fidgeted in his chair, rolled his cigar between lips that were unnaturally dry.
“I hope the governor understands that we did all we could in the raid last night,” he said. “My men were hardly prepared for such a desperate attack by armed criminals. You’ll explain to him that from now on we’ll take extra precautions. Through the co-operation of Major Manley I’m to have a detachment of State troopers stationed here indefinitely.”
T. Galaway made a deprecatory gesture with his long, lean hand.
Secret Agent “X” – The Complete Series Volume 2 Page 48