by John Blaine
Hartson Brant looked at his associates soberly for a moment, then he smiled.
“Let’s go!” he said.
It was a battle cry. Weariness dropped away from the group at the table. Zircon rose to his feet, hobbled over, and clapped Rick soundly on the back.
“You and Scotty stick with me, Rick. We’re working together. Where is your bench?”
Rick pointed to the other side of the lab. “Over there.”
Zircon scooped up the papers that had been on the table before him. They were covered with diagrams and equations. “We’re on our way,” he bellowed. “Hartson, get some sleep.You too, Keppner. It will be hours before we’re ready for further discussion.”
Rick and Scotty hurried with the big scientist to their workbench. While Zircon sorted his papers, Rick plugged in soldering irons and rigged up the testing set with which the bench was equipped. Scotty opened drawers and laid out an assortment of tools, then he went to the stock pile across the room and picked out several sheets of aluminum.
Rick hunted the lab until he found a high stool. He placed it for Zircon to sit on. The scientist nodded thanks and sat down, holding a sheet of paper.
“All right,” he boomed. “Here’s the first step. Scotty, cut and shape a chassis from that aluminum.
You’ll find the dimensions on that top piece of paper. Rick, get these parts from stock.”
He handed him a list. Rick glanced at his watch. It was justhalf past six in the morning.
It was afternoon before he had a chance even to look at his watch again, and then only because it was necessary to take time to eat. He munched on a sandwich and gulped steaming coffee, meanwhile rechecking the almost complete circuit in the base of the aluminum chassis Scotty had built. Zircon was working out a problem while eating his lunch. Scotty cleaned up the bench between bites.
At another bench, Weiss and Bertona were at work on a delicate bit of equipment that used tiny acorn tubes and printed silver wire. Hartson Brant and Keppner, little refreshed after a morning’s sleep, were at the drawing board with Terhune.
Rick was groggy. He had concentrated over the circuit, intent on following orders to the letter. He didn’t even know what they were doing, because Zircon was too busy to explain. He did as he was told, and the work progressed rapidly. From raw metal and assorted parts they had built up what looked like one section of a radio set. But no radio set had ever had such a peculiar combination of tubes and controls.
Zircon swallowed the last of his lunch. “Hurry up, boys. There is still a lot to do on this part, and we have another complete stage to build up.”
Rick downed the last of his coffee.
“What are we waiting for?” Scotty demanded.
Rick worked automatically, following Zircon’s directions like a machine. Next to him, Scotty operated an electric drill, fixing a panel on which instruments would be mounted.
Zircon’shuge fingers, skilled as a surgeon’s, worked right next to Rick’s in the growing mass of wires. Time passed and the intricate job progressed.
The smell of hot metal and scorched insulation made Rick cough. He realized that his throat was raw and that he badly wanted a drink. He took a moment while Zircon was examining a circuit diagram and hurried to the front of the lab. As he drank a glass of water, he noted that a fourth person had joined Hartson Brant, Dr. Keppner, and Terhune.
It was Steve Ames.
Rick heard Hartson Brant say, “You’re asking the impossible.”
“I know it,” Steve returned gloomily.
Rick hurried over. “What is it?”
Hartson Brant looked wearily at his son. “Steve wants us to finish by tomorrow morning.”
“But why?”
“Because Goss and his gang are together again, and I think they’re ready to strike,”
Steve said. “They were spotted all together in a stolen car by a Maryland State Police cruiser. The cruiser recognized it as a stolen car and chased it, not suspecting the gang was inside. The officers in the cruiser had just time to get a good look before the whispering box hit them. They ran off the road and smacked into a tree. Both of them are in the hospital. I talked with them half an hour ago. Their descriptions of the men in the car fit the ones we put out on the teletype circuits. It’s Goss and Company, all right.”
“Why do you think they’re ready to strike?”
“I’m assuming it. When I said forty-eight hours last night I knew it was a generous estimate. Now that we know the gang has reassembled, I’m sure of it. According to my calculations, they may strike between eleven-thirty and eleven-forty-five tomorrow morning.”
Rick looked at his watch. It was almost seven in the evening.
“How can you fix the time?” he persisted.
Steve shrugged. “I’m guessing, but that’s the time I’d choose. The employees in the building go to lunch atnoon . They start to get ready for lunch at eleven-forty-five by cleaning up their desks, wandering around to find someone to eat with, and things like that. Now, people who come to the building on business usually come before eleven-
thirty. After that, since lunch is so close, they haven’t much time to transact their business. If the gang strikes at any time between eleven-thirty and eleven-forty-five, they miss thenoon rush of employees and they also miss the morning visitors, most ofwhom have gone by that time. Also, if they get away by eleven-forty-five, they can miss thenoon traffic.”
“But why not just before closing time?” Rick asked.
“That could be, too,” Steve admitted. “The same thing would apply. Only I think we’d better be ready for morning, just in case.”
“No matter,” Hartson Brant said. “We’re wasting time by talking. Steve, if it’s humanly possible, you’ll have your counterweapon in time!”
CHAPTER XX
Screaming Susie
Dawnlightfiltered through the drawn blinds of the laboratory, but no one noticed it.
Their attention was focused on the apparatus on a lab table.
Rick eyed the thing doubtfully. The individual parts had worked when tested, but he couldn’t believe that it would actually function to neutralize the whispering box.
“Check from stage to stage,” Hartson Brant requested.
Weiss plugged his testing device into a socket. Zircon finished making a connection, then motioned to Rick, who plugged the power cable into another wall socket.
The counterweapon was made up of four separate units, or stages, mounted in a frame.
The bottom unit was the power supply. The next unit was the section that analyzed the frequency of the whispering box. It had a built-in microphone of a special type, borrowed from the United States Bureau of Standards to pick up the sound. The third unit was the complex control that selected the proper counterfrequency. The top section, revised during the night by Keppner and Hartson Brant, was the silent-sound apparatus they had built previously, with the help of Fanning. A quick examination had shown that the traitor had not sabotaged the unit. He had probably realized that any attempt to ruin it would immediately point him out as the gang’s informant.
Weiss got busy with his testing, going from unit to unit. The others watched in silence.
At last he turned to the watching group. “All the circuits are functioning properly.”
“Let’s try it,” Steve Ames said impatiently.
“In a moment.”Hartson Brant moved to the front of the apparatus and began adjusting the controls. Rick watched as he checked the power supply to be sure the proper voltages were reaching the other units. Then he set the sensitive volume control for the detector stage, hesitating over the adjustment. “I’d better turn it down for this test,” he said. “When we install it for use against the whispering box gang, we’ll open it wide so that it can pick up the sound from the box at a considerable distance.”
The scientist finished his adjustments and stood up. “I think we can test it now,” he said.
Scotty swallowed. “What happens if it
doesn’t work?”
“In that case,” Zircon boomed, “we’ll all be stretched out on the floor for a while, like so many codfish dumped on a pier.”
Weiss chuckled dryly. “We have a certain degree of confidence in our handiwork. Back, get the whispering box.”
It looked deceptively innocent sitting on the lab desk. The horn on the front, which Bertona had diagnosed as a directional device, might have been the lens shade of a simple camera. The handle on the top, with a push button at its front end, might have been just a carrying handle with a shutter release at its end. Rick picked it up, careful to keep his thumb away from the handy button.
Keppner took it from him and brushed the last speck of Scotty’s mud out of the horn. At the back of the box was a little opening, like a hinged door. Keppner opened it, disclosing a chamber that held two carbon dioxide cartridges-the kind used to charge home seltzer bottles. When the trigger button was pressed, a cartridge was punctured, releasing the compressed gas. The box could be fired twice, and reloaded quickly. Rick wondered how many of them had been made. He knew of two, probably there were
others.
“Who fires the shot?” Scotty asked.
Terhune, the draftsman, who had limited his conversation to mere greetings until now, spoke up. “Why not one of the two it has been used on the most?Rick or Scotty.”
“Good idea,” Zircon approved.
“Let them match for it,” Steve Ames suggested.
“No,” Rick said quickly. “Scotty should turn it on. He’s the one who got it away from Nails.”
Weiss agreed with Rick. He took the box from Keppner and handed it to Scotty.
The boy accepted the weapon, a little gingerly. There was some doubt in his eyes as he looked at the counter-weapon, gleaming in its unpainted aluminum cases. “Sure this will work?”
“We’ll soon know,” Hartson Brant said, smiling. “Go ahead, Scotty.”
“Here goes,” Scotty said, and pointed the horn at the counterweapon. His face
tightened, as though he were trying to stop up his ears by sheer will power. His hand tightened on the grip and his thumb found the button.
He fired the whispering box.
Rick never forgot the result. He didn’t hear the shrill voice of the whispering box. The whisper was drowned out by the most awful scream he had ever experienced. He didn’t exactly hear it, it was much too loud for that. He felt it. He felt as though every bone in his skull were vibrating like a drumhead. He vowed later that his entire spine had thrummed like a tuning fork.
It was only for a handful of seconds, and then the scream ran down like a failing phonograph and was silent.
Keppner spoke first, his voice sounding a little faint because Rick had been slightly deafened by the blast. “Loud,” he said, with fine scientific detachment “Loud, but quite harmless.”
There was a mass sigh of relief. As Hartson Brant had said, when the theory of a counterweapon was first described to Rick, the counterfrequency had nullified the whispering box, beating against the wave from the box and producing an audiblesound that was the mathematical difference between the box frequency and that emitted by the counterweapon.
Steve Ames patted the gleaming aluminum and his face was one big smile. “If this thing only had a fresh coat of paint,” he proclaimed feelingly, “doggoned if I wouldn’t consider marrying it!”
“That’s our girl,” Scotty said.“Screaming Susie.”
The name stuck. From then on, the counterweapon was Screaming Susie.
The fatiguing hours were over. Steve Ames took the responsibility at that point. “Let’s get moving,” he said tersely. He waved at Pete Davis who had come to investigate the noise. “Get a couple of men, Pete. Bring the station wagon around, too.”
To the scientists, he said, “Now we have to connect this thing.”
“A simple matter,” Hartson Brant said. “We can install it in a few moments.”
“And then we can all go to bed, except for Steve and his men,” Keppner said with relief.
Rick and Scotty exchanged glances. Rick knew his thought was in Scotty’s mind. Go to bed now? When the whispering box gang might meet Screaming Susie this very day?
Not on your life!
Susie wasn’t large, but because of her content of transformers and other equipment, she was heavy. Pete Davis and three others carried her with the tender caution they might have used in transferring a wounded comrade to a hospital bed. They took her down to the waiting station wagon and tucked her inside with loving care.
Hartson Brant said, “It will take only one of us to install it and make adjustments. I’ll go along and the rest of you can go to bed.”
The chorus of protests ended with all of them piling into the station wagon and Steve’s car. The two-car caravan sped through the awakening streets of the city.
Rick didn’t know where they were going. He had forgotten to ask Steve. In a short time, however, they drew up before a brick dwelling. He looked at it in surprise, then reflected that he shouldn’t be surprised at anything that might happen. Still, one of the modern government buildings near by would seem a more likely place.
Stevelead the way into the house, down to the cellar, and through a wooden door into a brick passageway. He called back over his shoulder, “This passage is with the
compliments of the man who was undersecretary of the treasury in President Buchanan’s time. He had it cut so he could go from his home to his office without getting rained on.
The city has a lot of places like this. It’s one of the reasons I chose this building for a trap.”
They followed the passage for what seemed five hundred yards, but was probably less.
There were electric lights, strung along the way on a single pair of wires.
At the end of the passage, Steve took them through an opening in a cement-block wall.
Rick looked around him as they stepped into an enormous modern basement. Then they were hurrying up a flight of stairs, through a door, down a long corridor, and presently to the front of a modern governmental office building.
“Here we are,” Steve said. “I brought you the long way around in case any of our friends from the whispering box gang have an eye on this building. Now, where do we install it? It mustn’t be in plain sight.”
After a few moments discussion, a place was decided upon. In one corner of the building lobby was a booth set up for the sale of government publications. It was a temporary structure of board shelves covered with the brown, heavy, but loosely woven fabric called monk’s cloth. The fabric was draped down to the floor to conceal the unpainted wood. During office hours, the counters would display the various
publications of the Government printing office. Now, it was bare.
Screaming Susie was placed on the floor, directly behind the front-counter drape. The fabric wouldn’t impede the ultrasonic wave she emitted, and it would conceal her effectively. In a short time a wall plug had been found, an extension run, and current supplied to Susie. Hartson Brant retuned her, turning the control of the hidden microphone wide open. Now let the whispering box whisper! If it came close enough for Susie to hear, she would drown it out with one loud blast!
The scientists made a final recheck.
“Now,” Hartson Brant said wearily, “who’s in favor of getting some sleep?”
Rick had expected to makehimself comfortable, to wait until the whispering box gang arrived. He looked at his father, surprised. Didn’t he want to be in at the finish?
Hartson Brant smiled. “There is still time for a few hours sleep before Goss and his friends appear, Rick.Unless Steve has guessed wrong.”
“It’s a good bet,” Steve said. “If anything does happen, I’ll call you right away.”
Scotty looked at Rick doubtfully, as though asking for a cue. Should they go to the hotel for a nap or remain?
It was Rick’s heavy eyelids that decided him. “Well go with the rest, Scotty.”
“Okay.
” The quickness with which Scotty agreed was a testament to how tired he was.
They went back the way they had come, to the waiting cars one street away from the entrance. The time would pass rapidly. Before long, the hour would come when
Screaming Susie would have to show her worth under fire.
CHAPTER XXI
Tricked!
Rick’s eyes wouldn’t stay unglued. From the moment he had opened them at the hotel, they had tried to close again. He couldn’t remember ever having been so sleepy.
Scotty, Hartson Brant, Zircon, and Keppner seemed to be in about the same condition.
Weiss and Bertona had refused point-blank to get up. The only one with any pep was Gizmo McLean, who had been waiting in front of the hotel when the weary group
ofSpindrifters came from a hurried breakfast. Gizmo was parked around the corner next to one of the JANIG cars. Only the possibility that they might need him and his cab had kept him from joining them in the lobby.
Steve Ames had met the group as they came up from the building’s cellar and assigned them to shadowy corners of the lobby. “Remember you’re here as spectators,” he warned them. “My boys will do all that’s necessary.”
There were four of the JANIG men in the lobby itself. Half a dozen others were outside at various vantage points. One was on the roof of a building across the street with a rifle.
At both corners of the block were cars ready for instant action. And, their ace in the hole, Screaming Susie, waited silently behind the cloth drapery.
The counter was busy now. The clerk sold copies of the publications to people who drifted through the lobby or paused on their way out of the building. The traffic wasn’t very heavy. Rick had no trouble seeing every person who passed through.
Steve had chosen his trap wisely. The rear and side doors of this particular building were always locked from the outside. Of course, Goss might have a confederate in the building to open a door for him, but Steve had placed a guard at every entrance. If the whispering box gang entered the building at all, it would have to be by the front door.
