Agent “X” stirred. Another sound had cut through his dazed consciousness—the persistent wail of a police siren, coming nearer and nearer. No sooner had the bandits’ car left the bank than a small, bright-eyed man who had been watching outside went to a drugstore telephone down the block. He sent in a hurry call to headquarters. He was a notorious police stool pigeon, an underworld rat named Clawdon.
As the sleek police cruiser roared up to the curb, Clawdon leaped on the running-board, spoke hoarsely.
“I just seen a gang of guys leavin’ the bank, chief. They must a done a job on it. I was down the block and seen the light here go out. Then I heard some one holler and came as fast as I could.”
A cop leaped out of the car and swore harshly as he stumbled against something and almost fell. The bank guard, his horizon-blue uniform sodden and stained with crimson, lay on the sidewalk. He had been callously left there by the bandits, the back of his head smashed in by a vicious blow.
“Geez! They moidered him,” screamed the stool pigeon.
One of the cops sent an emergency call into headquarters. The other went into the bank, with Clawdon, the stoolie, at his heels.
Agent “X” dimly heard the thud of their feet. But he was still too dazed to move. The awful hammer beat of those bullets had almost paralyzed his body.
He did not open his eyes until a second and third police siren cut hysterically through the air. A half dozen headquarters cars were converging on the raided bank. When Agent “X” became fully aroused to consciousness a group of harsh-faced cops were standing above him. One was prodding him with the end of a nightstick.
Clawdon, the stoolie, was staring down in bright-eyed speculation. As Agent “X” rose to a sitting position, the stoolie slipped out of the bank unobtrusively and disappeared along the night-darkened street.
A BIG man with a pale, aquiline face and black eyebrows that jutted menacingly above cold, piercing eyes shoved through the group of cops. He was Inspector John Burks, head of the city homicide squad. Murder as well as robbery had taken place. Burks, dealer in death, was on hand.
A grim smile twitched the corners of Agent “X’s” mouth. The man above him was one of his worst enemies on the force.
Burks stooped down, laid his hand not too gently on the Agent’s shoulder.
“What’s your name?” he challenged.
Before “X” could speak the inspector’s piercing eyes had detected the bullet holes in the front of the Agent’s coat. “Good God! This man has been shot a dozen times. Call an ambulance!” Then his face hardened, his fingers pawed the cloth.
“Wait. We don’t need an ambulance. He’s wearing a bullet-proof vest. He’s O.K.”
The words had a startling effect on the men around. They tensed. Agent “X” could feel their eyes boring into him with piercing suspicion. One, a sergeant of detectives, spoke harshly!
“I’ll bet he’s one of the gang, chief. Maybe they tried to knock him off so he wouldn’t squeal.”
The inspector thrust his jaw close to the Agent’s. “Speak up—who are you and what are you doing here?”
Agent “X” was silent a moment, then he waved his hand toward the opened vault.
“That’s more important, inspector. Find out who robbed this bank. I happened to be here when the gang came in. I was going to call the police; but they shot me down before I could do it. This thing I’ve got on wasn’t built to stand machine-gun bullets.”
He was fencing for time. He knew he was in a tight spot. The secret of his identity must not be uncovered.
“You happened to be here!” barked Burks. He reached forward, located the Agent’s gas gun, jerked it out. “You happened to be carrying that, too, I suppose, and wearing that vest!”
A slow smile overspread the Agent’s disguised face. He took a card from his pocket, presented it to Burks. It bore the name: “W. T. Garrison, Investigator, American Bankers Association.” Prepared for any emergency, he had even anticipated the possibility of being caught and questioned. But Burks did not seem satisfied. He fingered the card, continued to glare at “X.”
“If you saw these men,” he said, “maybe you can give a description of them. Who were they and how many were there?”
Agent “X” shook his head. “I couldn’t see their faces. There were a half dozen, I should say. I never saw them before.”
“You couldn’t identify them in court if they were arrested then?”
“No.”
Burks stabbed a finger at “X.” “It looks funny, Garrison. Private investigators don’t wear vests like that one you’ve got on—and they don’t happen to be around when robberies are being pulled off. More likely you’re in with the guys who did this, and they double-crossed you because they thought you’d squeal. You expected it might happen and got dolled up in that vest.”
Burks turned to two of his men. “Take him down to headquarters, boys. Hold him there till we’ve had time to investigate him.”
A big detective marched “X” toward the door. Two cops moved up on either side of him, guns in their hands. Burks rasped another order.
“Keep a gun at his head. That’s one spot bullets can reach.”
The cops obeyed, seizing the Agent’s arms. An electric company truck was replacing the light outside. A sizeable crowd had collected. They goggled at Agent “X” with curious eyes. A half dozen police were strung along the curb.
He let himself be shoved into a big headquarters car. This wasn’t the moment to attempt a get-away. But he had no intention of going to a cell in the station house. Many times the police had tried to arrest him. Many times they had failed. In a prison cell his usefulness as a criminal hunter would be thwarted. To save himself from this he carried many unique defensive devices in the inner linings of his coat.
The police car leaped away from the curb. A cop and a plain-clothes man flanked “X” on either side. The other cop drove.
“How about a cigarette?” the Agent asked casually, but the detective shook his head.
“You’ll have plenty of time to smoke down at the station house.”
“X” smiled grimly again. They had denied him the use of his special gas-filled lighter, cut off one avenue of possible escape; but there were many others. His fingers crept up to toy with the innocent looking fountain pen that reposed in his coat pocket. The cop who was driving gave a sudden exclamation.
“What do those guys think they’re doing?”
AGENT “X” stared ahead over the driver’s shoulder. Through the glittering windshield he saw a large and powerful black car lurch past and cut in ahead. The car stopped suddenly with a squeal of brakes.
The police car’s driver jammed on his own brakes, narrowly averting a crash. He was swearing now; but his curses ended in a surprised intake of breath. For three men had leaped from the car ahead. They were masked, and they carried guns in their hands. One was a sub-caliber, rapid firer.
Agent “X,” tense with excitement, recognized the gun as the same used on him in the bank. Its muzzle held the cylindrical silencer that reduced its reports to mere pops.
One of the masked men approached and spoke sharply.
“We want that guy you got. Hand him out!”
Dazedly the detective on “X’s” left opened the door. The cop started to lift his gun.
“Cut it!” the masked man snarled. “You’ll take a one-way ride to hell if you don’t. We got a typewriter here.”
This was gangster talk. The cops’ faces froze. A masked man reached forward, grasped “X” by the arm.
“Come on, feller, make it snappy.”
He was hauled out of the police car. His eyes were bright with excitement. These men had left him for dead. Now, learning that he was still alive, they had come back for him. Some one had tipped them off. Death glared from the muzzle of the machine gun aimed at his head. Another of the masked men pressed his automatic against Agent “X’s” neck.
“No funny business, or you get it sure.”
>
He was marched forward toward the other car which waited, its engine running. The man with the machine gun covered their retreat. Agent “X” was thrust into the big, closed sedan.
Then the cop who was driving the police cruiser ducked behind his dashboard and cut loose. Agent “X” admired his nerve. The blue coats had courage all right.
But the vicious, muffled thudding of the silenced machine gun sounded. “X” heard the slap of bullets against the police car’s windshield, followed by the gasping cry of a wounded man. Another burst ripped the headquarters car’s tires; made its engine hiss to a clanking stop. The machine gunner leaped into the sedan. Its door slammed shut. The sedan spurted away up the street, powerful engine roaring.
Chapter III
Plunging Peril
THEY did not speak until the car had covered several blocks. Then the man holding the gun to the base of “X’s” brain ordered abruptly:
“Take off his coat and that damned vest!”
This, too, hinted at a cold intent to execute him. “X” waited, measuring his chances of escape. They were slight at this moment. For the man with the sub-machine gun sat facing him, straddling one of the sedan’s small, collapsible seats. The snout of the rapid firer was inclined toward his face. A slight pressure on that curved trigger and his head would be torn to pieces.
The gangster on “X’s” left peeled off the Agent’s coat, unsnapped the fastenings of the bullet-proof vest. He removed the vest quickly. The muzzle of the sub-machine gun pointed straight at the Secret Agent’s heart. For once he was utterly helpless, his life suspended by a slender thread.
He could not see the men’s faces. They still wore their masks. He knew that these were not the only ones who had robbed the bank. The others must be somewhere ahead in the darkness.
One of the men held up the vest that had saved the Secret Agent’s life.
“Some gadget,” he remarked. “I never seen one like it before. We’ll have a bunch like this made.”
They did not question “X.” That surprised him. But abruptly one of the masked men took something from a side pocket of the car. It was a roll of strong adhesive tape. He gave an order.
One of the men held “X’s” wrists while the snout of the machine gun pressed ruthlessly against his flesh. There came the ripping sound of tape, the coolness of it against “X’s” skin. They were taping his eyes so that he could not see. Another strip was pressed firmly across his mouth.
The big car roared on, the men in it silent for the most part. Once “X” heard the thin, complaining note of a police cruiser’s siren far behind. The sedan turned sidewise, moving off at a tangent from the course it had been following. The police siren’s note faded out.
Agent “X,” his masterly sense of direction vividly alive, took note of each turn made. The hollow sound of the street crossings came plainly to him. He counted them. After a time he felt the car moving at an upward incline. There came the rumble of a long bridge. He had crossed every bridge into the city many times. Each had a different angle. This one was familiar.
The complicated route that the car took after leaving the bridge didn’t entirely confuse him. When it stopped at the end of nearly forty minutes, Agent “X” could make a guess at its approximate location.
It nosed over bumpy ground—and to “X’s” keen ears came a new sound. This was identifiable, too. It was the low, distinctive hum of airplane motors.
He listened carefully as the sedan’s door opened. The motors were synchronized. They were all on one plane; three of them. A big, tri-motor ship was warming up. He was at some hidden airfield at the outskirts of the city.
His pulses tingled. Here was more evidence that this was a huge, well-organized group.
Cool night air beat against his face. Mingled with the popping rumble of the plane’s warming motors came low-voiced orders, the crunch of footsteps. The sub-machine gun’s muzzle pressed firmly against his spine. Two men grabbed his arms, pushing him roughly forward.
THE beat of the tri-motor’s engines deepened. He could hear the swish of the idling propellers now, the click of the valves. Metal grated directly ahead of him. He was lifted, thrust into a small space which he identified as a compartment in the tail of the big plane’s fuselage. There was sheet metal all around him now. The pressure of the machine gun and the clutching fingers were withdrawn. Agent “X” was a prisoner in the body of a big plane about to take off in the night to some unknown destination.
He waited till the throbbing rumble of the plane’s motors deepened into a vibrant roar; waited till he felt the huge craft moving forward for the take-off. Then, in the stuffy darkness of the compartment where he had been thrust, his fingers went to work.
He peeled the tape from eyes and mouth, flexed his cramped lids and lips. No slightest ray of light penetrated the narrow compartment imprisoning him. It was windowless, ventless. The only air was that which seeped in around the edges of the door. It was a baggage compartment in what had once been a passenger air liner.
The sheet metal around him was vibrating now with a steady motion indicating that the great plane had taken off, was rising upward into the night sky.
Putting his ear close to the metal ahead he detected the faint sound of men’s voices in the cabin. He reached into his pocket and made an unpleasant discovery.
His pockets had been emptied. Everything had been taken out: wallet, keys, knife, and chromium tools. His tubes and vials of makeup material were gone. His captors had removed even the small, portable sound amplifier which had so often stood him in good stead.
But one thing the gangsters had overlooked—not knowing yet with whom they dealt. In the sole of the Secret Agent’s shoe was a combination file and hacksaw, its blade made of tempered steel and a strip of glass-thin black diamond set in special cement.
Before removing this from its hiding place Agent “X” felt along the walls and ceiling of the compartment. It was made of soft, lightweight corrugated duralumin, riveted together. By pressing against the metal which was hardly thicker than tin, he located the points where it was fastened to the framework of the big fuselage.
Then, his face keenly intent in the darkness, he took the implement from his shoe and set to work. He punctured the duralumin floor with the point of the instrument. The razor-thin blade sliced through the metal as “X” drew it back and forth. The roar of the plane’s engines covered the faint, rasping sound it made. He worked with energetic speed. No telling how soon the plane might land—though at the moment it seemed to be climbing steadily. The pressure in his ears told him it had already reached an altitude of several thousand feet.
He made parallel cuts in the metal floor of the compartment, then cut crosswise at top and bottom and took the panel out. A space was disclosed beneath his feet. He reached down, groped in the darkness with tense fingers. His hands encountered a metal cable that moved snakily beneath his touch. It ran through pulleys that had pivotal fastenings. There was another cable at the other side of the hole he had cut. These were the plane’s controls, going to rudder and elevators.
AGENT “X” worked with his hacksaw again. He cut out another panel in the compartment’s flooring, as far forward as he could. Then he sawed several narrow strips of duralumin, tapering the ends. The thinnest strips could be used like flexible wire. They would suit his strange purpose nicely.
He put his hacksaw away temporarily and hunched forward, bracing his knees. He judged that the plane had left the city far behind now. Below must be a stretch of small towns and open country. He took a grip on the cable of the elevator control, wrapped his fingers around it, suddenly pulled with all his might.
The abruptness of the maneuver drew the control away from the pilot’s grasp, made the big plane’s nose dip down—and Agent “X” shoved a strip of metal between the cable and one of the pulleys, wedging it in.
The plane had now gone into a steep dive. He wrapped a strip of the duralumin around the cable and the pulley, holding it
in that position. The quick tugs on the forward section of the cable indicated the pilot’s frantic attempts to free the controls and right his ship.
Agent “X” left him no time to recover. He seized the rudder cable next; jerked on that as he had on the other, felt the big plane swing its nose around. It heeled over on one wing, threatening suddenly to go into a deadly flat spin, and again Agent “X” wedged the control so that the pilot up forward was helpless.
The Secret Agent sat back on his heels, waiting tensely. The pitching and rocking of the ship threw him off his balance, hurled him against the wall of the compartment. The engines were cut down for a moment as the pilot sought desperately to free his wedged controls. Above the rumbling pop of the idling motors and the rising sigh of wind in the wings, Agent “X” heard the shouts of excited, frightened men. He heard stumbling feet up forward, heard a crash as a loosened seat or table struck one wall.
The great plane careened, did a falling leaf maneuver; hung for an instant dizzily. Then it slid off on one wing, plunging toward the earth far below, as though all the fiends of destruction were driving it down to its doom.
Chapter IV
Wings of Destruction
IN the rocking, shuddering compartment of the plane’s fuselage, Agent “X” thrust his feet through the holes he had cut in the flooring and braced himself. The tail assembly thrashed from side to side as though the ship were a plaything of gigantic forces.
“X” heard the rising voices of men in the cabin. One of them screamed in terror. Thudding sounds pounded above the vibrating whine and mutter of the motors. Some one shouted an abrupt command.
Agent “X,” every muscle in his body taut to avoid the danger of being pitched against the metal walls, took out his hacksaw again. Quickly he cut a hole through the thin sub-flooring of the compartment A spurt of night air, chill as ice water, struck his face. But below, all was darkness.
He bent down, gripping a tubular steel brace, adjusting his eyes to the air blast that increased as the ship dropped.
Secret Agent “X” – The Complete Series Volume 2 Page 29
