Chapter XVIII
Thundering Doom
THE Octopus’s words carried terrible finality. They seemed symbolic of all the threats the Agent had received during his perilous career—the logical end toward which his life had been drifting.
As he stood tense, waiting, eyes fixed on those ghastly instruments of torture, another figure shambled into the room. This was a small, skeleton-thin man with rheumy eyes and a sickly, parchmentlike skin. The man’s lean fingers curled, extended, fluttered senselessly. He tried to speak; but only an inane babble of gibberish came from his lips.
The Octopus spoke: “Fifteen seconds, Agent ‘X’ and Waldo makes his entrance into our little drama. He has been handicapped by nature, as you can see. But he has a taste for things mechanical. His hands can operate levers and switches with surprising dexterity. He has infinite patience and is docile to orders. As a boy he amused himself by plucking wings from flies and other insects. He is a congenital sadist. And as you have guessed, Waldo is our official torturer.”
The entrance of this fearful being, was the last touch of horror necessary, the final proof of the remorseless cruelty of this criminal group.
“The half minute is up, Agent ‘X.’ You have chosen your own fate. You refused to answer my questions. You refused to address the board as a gentleman. But now you will talk. My directors shall hear your groans, your babbled confession on the rack. Switch on the board-room microphone! Put this man to torture!”
The masked face of the Octopus disappeared from the screen in the torture room as his voice ceased speaking. Waldo, tittering and mumbling, went to the glittering machine in the center of the floor, the fearful rack. Agent “X’s” captors tightened the grip of the nippers on his wrists, pulled him forward toward the instrument of torture. He could feel the pressure of the black-clothed attendant’s gun against his spine.
Never had Secret Agent “X” seemed so utterly helpless. The Octopus had challenged him to use some of his strange defensive weapons. The Agent had come tonight armed with several new ones—but in his present situation they were powerless to aid him.
The Secret Agent’s shoulders drooped as he neared the rack. His head lolled. He seemed on the point of complete collapse, overcome with dread and horror.
Then, in a movement so breathtakingly quick that even his vigilant captors were not prepared, he flung himself straight forward on his face, risking a bullet in the back.
The nippers on his wrists cut cruelly. The Agent’s fingers curled up, wrapped themselves around the arms of the two who held the steel-jawed instruments. The forward lunge of his body carried his captors off their balance. Shrieking curses, they too fell. One of those with a drawn gun fired. The hot blast of that shot fanned the Agent’s neck. The bullet plucked at the wig he wore in his disguise of Van Camp.
Ignoring the grinding pain of the jawed nippers, the Agent twisted like a netted fish, drew his knees up, lashed out with his feet, catching one of the nipper men in the chest. The man gave a choking cry, let go his hold.
Agent “X,” action superbly timed to the fraction of a second, swung his wrist and flung the loosened nipper straight at the nearest gunman’s head.
THE metal crashed against the man’s chin. He dropped his automatic, fell back. The other man fired as Agent “X” seemed about to rise; but the Agent lashed sidewise instead. This second bullet brought a hideous scream from Waldo, the half-wit torturer, directly in front of the man who had fired.
Waldo clapped a hand over his thin stomach. Crimson spurted from between clawlike fingers. He tottered away from the horrible rack.
In that one reckless, breathtaking movement Agent “X” had flung the room into mad confusion. The other attendant with the nipper still clung desperately to the Agent. “X” struck him a savage blow in the face with his free hand. This man also released his hold on the nipper. It clattered to the floor.
The other gunman was crouched now. Appalled for the moment by the fact that he had shot Waldo, he swung his gun toward “X” again. The Secret Agent flopped over twice in a movement almost too quick to follow; a movement dependent on his amazing coordination of mind and muscle.
Bullets slapped against the concrete flooring, plucked at his clothing. His own hands swept up the pistol that the first gunman had dropped. With the same movement he fired; and a shot shattered the shoulder of the black-clothed man who was trying to slaughter him.
Rising to his feet, captured gun in hand, Agent “X” was for the moment master of that terrible room. The blazing, burning light in his eyes made the two unwounded men cower back. This human whirlwind was more than they could cope with. But they were small human cogs in the Octopus’s vast machine.
The sound amplifying extension into the board room had been turned on—the instrument that was supposed to carry “X’s” groans and pain-wrung words to the gloating ears of the directors. Instead it had carried the sounds of the amazing battle he had staged. But even as he fought, the Octopus’s ironic words seemed to ring in “X’s” ears. “I have certain small devices myself which could handle the situation…. A gas more deadly—”
Motioning the black-clothed men aside, Agent “X” crossed to the door of room 13. He flung it open, listened. He heard shouts, the thud of feet. Already reinforcements were coming.
He left room 13, headed straight toward the sounds of approaching men. He remembered the markings on another door he had seen. This was the door labeled No. 7 with the crimson words “danger” above and below the number. What danger the chamber held “X” did not know.
He flung down the corridor, almost to the elbow around which the others were coming. He checked himself before door No. 7, went through with a sidewise lunge, closed the door after him.
Expecting to find himself in another room like the torture chamber, he was fooled. A long dimly lit tunnel slanted down from this door. It was like a miniature subway. He plunged along, realizing that it was taking him to another part of the old factory block. It seemed to be the northwest corner.
Ahead was a door with glass in it and iron grille work. He pushed against it. It was locked. Behind him now he heard the sound of feet in the subwaylike passage, the hoarse shouts of men.
He reared up, looked through the iron grille, saw a lighted room. He got a confused impression of vats, bottles, metal tanks, jars. A man in a stained white apron was at work before a low table.
Agent “X” rapped on the door, and the man turned. He had aquiline features, a stringy beard, glasses. The Agent rapped again more impatiently, and the man gave an irritated shrug and strode toward the door. When he was close Agent “X” broke the glass of the door with the muzzle of the gun he had taken. He aimed the gun straight at the bearded man.
“Quick—open!” he hissed.
The man gave one gasp of terror, started to run, thought better of it. He came close, a lock clicked and the door swung open. Agent “X” pushed through.
“Who are you?” the man demanded.
Agent “X” clutched the man’s throat, and sent him reeling out into the corridor with a vicious shove. He closed the door, locked it, and turned back into this new room of mystery. One studied glance and he saw what it was.
Here was a completely stocked chemical laboratory. His eyes roved the shelves of bottles, jars and carboy containers. Here were deadly, explosive elements. Acids that would eat metal. Dies for counterfeiting purposes. Sinister poisons.
A huge safe stood against the wall, its door ajar. On a table were some record books—data to be used in this laboratory of the Octopus’s criminal corporation. The safe caught the Agent’s eye, held it.
HE leaped across to it, opened the door wider, then raised his head a moment and stared upward. Ventilators led toward the ceiling of this underground chamber. Motor-driven, fans were set in the ceiling to carry noxious gases away to some sort of airshaft above. A ladder snaked up to the fans to make oiling and repairs possible.
This ladder held “X’s” gaze an
instant. His heart leaped. Then he saw that the metal ceiling and fans made an effectual barrier. There was not time to get through them—even supposing the airshaft offered a possible means of escape. Already the sounds of pursuit were plain. He could hear the shouting of men, the thud of swiftly running feet. The criminal “board,” frenzied at the Agent’s battle in room 13, were coming to hunt him down, reenforced with other employees of the place.
He turned from the ladder, flung open the only other door in the room. Another corridor showed; but signal lights were flashing along this. He saw dark figures racing toward him from its farthest end. He was trapped. Death was converging upon him from all sides.
He slammed the door shut, groped for a lock. There was none. And now the sound of feet was close to the grilled entrance through which he had come. This door was locked, but the glass in it was broken.
Even as he whirled the black snout of an automatic was shoved through. The Secret Agent flung himself aside as a gun spurted flame. The gun turned as a killer at the trigger tried to slaughter him.
“X” leaped to the wall of the room, pressed the light switch, plunging the place in darkness.
The gun in the killer’s hand continued to thunder. Bullets snapped and crackled around the laboratory. A glass jar broke with a jangle and a liquid of some sort gushed out. The Agent smelled the pungent odor of benzine. Then he heard a thud against the door. A battering device was being used. It was only a question of minutes before they broke in.
Eyes burning like coals in the darkness, Agent “X” stepped toward the shelf where the benzine had gushed from the bottle. He did a thing that seemed utter madness in that room of explosive chemicals. He struck a match, tossed it onto the shelf. Self-destruction to avoid torture seemed to be the Agent’s intention.
THE tiny flame of the match caught a benzine-soaked paper. A plume of flame whipped up. An exultant cry came from those behind the door. As the blinding flame of the benzine made wavering light in the room. Agent “X” stepped toward the big safe. Like a wraith he slipped into it, crouched back, holding the door.
Flame from the benzine licked upward. A bottle above popped. Something hissed like water from a hose. The contents of the bottle caught and a streak of livid flame shot up the full height of the shelf, a greedy, twisting snake of destruction.
As it reached the top of the shelf, a huge carboy of inflammable chemical burst open and sprayed the room with a drenching sheet of flame.
Agent “X” shut the safe door and crouched there in the darkness. A thundering explosion shook the room outside. He could feel the safe rock on its casters. It took him back to war days, this volleying and battering. Some one seemed to be striking the safe with a great hammer now.
It began to grow warm inside. Sweat trickled down the Agent’s face. In avoiding death in one form he had courted it in another. But the safe, with its thick steel walls offered the only protection anywhere in sight. His quick wits had saved him from the Octopus’s fury. And the men in the corridor outside would think he was being blown to pieces.
The thundering noises continued. The heat increased and the air became so stale and so infused with the reek of burning chemicals that it seemed no living thing could survive. The Agent soaked his handkerchief with a solution of ammonia salts which he carried in a small vial. He wrapped this around his nose and mouth, an improvised gas mask. But his lungs were beginning to ache with the bad air, his heart was laboring. An old wound in his side, a wound received long ago on a battlefield in France, ached, too. The scar of that wound was drawn into the outlines of a crude “X.” It seemed once again the symbol of the Secret Agent’s indomitable will. He was fighting a battle now, a battle against the smothering, reeking death that threatened to overwhelm him at any moment.
Chapter XIX
Criminal Cunning
WHEN it seemed he could stand his steel prison no longer, the bombardment outside began to lessen. Even then he dared not open the door of the safe, fearing vapors of poisonous chemicals would rush in. The heat must have been terrific to make the safe as warm as it was. Only its fireproof qualities had saved him.
He waited seconds more, waited till it was a question of dying inside the safe or risking the air outside. Then he reached forward and pushed against the door.
Abruptly he was aware of new and terrible danger. The heat and the jarring explosions had made the door wedge. He brought his full weight against it. Still it would not move. It seemed almost as though the heat had welded it to the sides of the safe.
With blood pounding in his ears, with death coming closer every instant, Agent “X” began a new and fearful battle.
He thrust his feet against the back of the safe, pushed with all his might, struggling to keep his faculties from slipping into the black void which yawned. But only when unconsciousness was creeping over him did the door move a fraction of an inch. Another stupendous heave, bringing into play all the reserve strength of nerve and muscle—and the jammed door came free.
Blasting heat struck his face. But the air was relatively pure. The flames and explosions had consumed the chemicals in the room. Many of the poisons had counteracted each other.
The interior of the room was a complete wreck. The battering series of explosions from which the steel walls of the safe had saved him, had wrought havoc. He saw the sides and front of the safe were pitted.
Debris cluttered the floor at his feet. The unlocked door had been blown open. The glass in the other had let noxious fumes out, driven the killers back. But the steel and concrete walls of the room had withstood the shock of the explosions and had probably muffled the roar. The room was far underground. Agent “X” listened tensely for some human sound. There was none.
The shock of the explosions had gone upward. Agent “X” glanced toward the ceiling again. Then his pulses quickened. For three of the fans in the airshaft had blown out, forcing a rent in the sheet metal ceiling.
He stepped out into the room excitedly. The floor was so hot it scorched the soles of his feet. On all sides of him was heat, stench, ruin. But the iron ladder against the wall still showed in the eerie light of the smoldering chemicals.
The Agent leaped toward it, sidestepping a sticky, sooty mass that still bubbled and smoked. He grasped the ladder, drew his hand away. The metal was so hot it burned his flesh.
He tore his handkerchief in two, wet both halves with more of the ammonia solution, grasped the cloth in his palms. Heedless of the pain he ascended the ladder toward that rent in the ceiling.
With hammering pulses, the Agent reached its top, drew himself up through the rent to the crossbeams of the ceiling, stood a moment. It was suffocatingly hot here. The fumes of the chemicals, still smoldering below, blinded him, made him choke. He moved nearer the wall of the big air shaft, cupped a hand over his eyes. Then he clicked on a small flashlight.
There was no continuation of the ladder here. But a water pipe led up along the brick walls of the shaft. It was held fast by clamps set in the mortar. The Agent seized it determinedly. A man less agile, less certain of the interplay of nerve and muscle, could never have made that climb.
Several times he stopped when it seemed he could maintain his grip no longer. He clung desperately, knees braced against the rough brick wall, hands painfully singed, clutching the pipe. To let go now meant death, a sickening drop that would crash him on the beams of the laboratory ceiling far below.
He did not know what awaited him at the top of the pipe. But the coolness of the air increased. This shaft went right up through the heart of the factory building.
The Agent climbed on through age-long seconds. Somewhere, far below him, he heard sounds of human activity now. With muscles almost paralyzed from the long tension of holding and climbing, the weight of his body seemed to have increased many times.
Then, in the darkness, he saw a ghostly something. He clung with one hand, reached out. The lighter spot against the blackness of the smoky brick wall was a window. It gave into s
ome attic room of the big factory. It was unlocked.
The Agent raised it, risking instant death as he clung with one throbbing hand. It took a painful effort to get the sash up. Then at last he thrust an arm across the sill, gripped the edges of it, clutched with the other.
In a moment his head and shoulders were through. He paused, elbows wedged in the narrow frame, then heaved himself over on to the floor inside.
FOR almost five minutes he lay in what amounted to a coma. During that time the splendid, dynamic forces of his body seemed to go through a process of rejuvenation. It was this ability of the Agent’s to take punishment that had brought him before through situations so fearful that it seemed flesh and blood could not endure them.
He rose to his feet at last. He was alone in this dusty loft. He crept back to the window, thrust his head out and listened.
Far down, through the rent in the metal ceiling of the laboratory, he could see the dim play of light. It might be the smoldering chemicals flaring up again. It might be the glow of a hand torch. He could not tell which. But there were no sounds of pursuit.
And why should there be? It was against all reason to suppose that anyone could have survived that holocaust in the laboratory. Rising clouds of soot and chemical fumes would obscure any tracks he might have made. The Octopus’s men would not suspect the escape.
A grim, hard light appeared in the Agent’s eyes. Somehow, he had to locate the place from which the Octopus had made his television broadcast. And he suddenly remembered an article among Van Camp’s possessions which had surprised him at the time. Now he suspected its significance. And he must get possession of it—ahead of the Octopus’s men.
Stealthily he began looking for a way down from his lofty hideout. He found a steel stairway leading to the next floor. There were elevators in the building; but these had long since been out of commission.
The Agent descended floor after floor, listening always for some sound. Ten floors above the street he took from his pocket a small instrument that looked like a folding, vest-pocket camera. It was the tiny, portable amplifying device which he had often used in his work with criminals.
Secret Agent “X” – The Complete Series Volume 2 Page 39
