Secret Agent X – The Complete Series Volume 1 (Annotated)
Page 57
“That can wait until later.”
“We were told to go out and halt this ship, the Kelantan. She wouldn’t stop. She fired on us—brought down one of our planes. What were you doing then? How do we know you’re not a spy, too?”
“You don’t,” said the Agent quietly. He knew that, in spite of his army uniform, nothing he could say would convince them. There would be questions asked when he arrived on shore. They’d want to see his papers, find out how it happened that an army officer knew the secret naval code that had brought the planes out. He couldn’t afford to reveal his identity even though he now had the Browning plans. His career wasn’t ended yet. He was still Secret Agent “X.”
He watched breathlessly as the gray planes stopped the Kelantan with another well-placed bomb. The Malays ran for cover, their machine gun abandoned, but the ship was sinking by the stern, its bow reared up. It listed, water pouring through a gapping hole in its plates that the bomb had made—and suddenly it slid bottomward, air bursting through bulkheads and whistling up through the waves above. The Kelantan and its murderous crew were gone forever.
The plane “X” was on rose from the water, heading back toward land. There was a cabin in it. Two pilots sat up front. The flight commander began questioning “X” in the cabin. A member of the crew stood by. Sam Barkley’s body rolled grotesquely as the big plane lurched and dipped.
The gray shore line came out of the landward mist, then the plane sailed over Chesapeake Bay. But, to the navy man’s questioning, Agent “X” answered only in monosyllables. Then, as the plane began to glide downward, he did a strange and sudden thing. He whipped his harmless gas gun out, sent a puif of vapor into the faces of the two men in the cabin.
As they collapsed, Agent “X” reached above him and pulled a ’chute pack from a rack. He slipped quickly into the harness, thrust the side door open against the wind blast.
An instant he poised, then leaped, his tumbling body forming a black receding dot. It was a delayed jump. He didn’t want the other planes to see him, or, if they did, he wanted to be too far down for them to catch. He didn’t pull the rip cord till he had fallen nearly two thousand feet and the water was a thousand feet below him. Then his ’chute blossomed out. He had figured carefully, and the high wind off the sea bore him toward land.
Later that same morning a mysterious message reached the high Government official known in the secret files as “K9.” The message was in code. It was brief and to the point, and it came from a town near Baltimore.
“Browning plans recovered,” the message said. “All is well. On way.”
There was another sentence telling Department of Justice agents to go to a certain address in Washington. Fast cars filled with armed operatives hurried to the spot. There they found a notorious spy named Michael Renfew, a man the D.C.I. had long been wanting to catch because of his subversive espionage activities. They also found a dead Malay whose presence Renfew could not or would not explain.
At almost the same moment Senator Blackwell received a telegram which helped to lift the gray pallor of fear from his face.
“Don’t worry,” it said. “All is safe—and secret.” It was signed “Black.”
The senator had his daughter back now. She had arrived by auto; brought from Baltimore by friends of the family.
Silently, devoutly, Senator Blackwell blessed the name of Captain Stewart Black, the dapper officer from General Staff who seemed to be a clairvoyant and the very soul of discretion, all in one. He did not know that the man behind it all, the man he had to thank, was Secret Agent “X”—master of mystery, and man of destiny.
Table of Contents
Secret Agent "X" – The Complete Series Volume 1
© 2012 Altus Press
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Torture Trust
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
The Spectral Strangler
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
The Death-Torch Terror
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Ambassador of Doom
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI