Лестер Дент - The Fantastic Island

"Don't go chicken, Rats," the bullet-headed leader snarled. "We can put enough lead in him to sink through the floor." To Doc, he ordered: "Hold your wrists together for the cuffs."

"All right," Doc said. "And when I do, watch what happens!"

Slowly … like the wings of an eagle closing … Doc swept his arms to meet in front of him. The eyes of every man in the room were on those closing arms. Doc meant that they should be. There was purpose in his dramatics.

While he was centering their attention on his arms, the toe of his right foot was deftly disengaging a novel metal packet from within his left trousers cuff. It was a packet scientifically designed to withstand the utmost in internal pressure, fashioned out of an alloy stronger than any other known metal.

The instant Doc succeeded in releasing the packet from the cuff, he kicked it away from him. The bullet-headed leader was alert for tricks and caught the movement out of the tail of his eye.

"Watch his feet!" he snarled.

- — — — — — — — — — — — —

It was too late for anybody to watch anything. A sharp, cracking explosion blended with an un-nameable sound — a sw-oo-sh reminiscent of blanketing fire damp gas ignited in a coal mine. Almost instantaneously, the room was choked with a yellowish smoke so dense that it appeared black.

For the space of a rasped breath, there was silence. Then bedlam. Shrieked curses, splintering wood, and crashing glass as automatics barked and machine-guns clattered. In their panic at Doc's nerve-racking maneuver, the men butted blindly, their guns making ruddy flashes in the smoke as they drove their bullets.

Doc Savage was in the clear. At the instant of the smoke explosion, he had rammed forward from his chair, ducking low with one thewed arm reaching for the spot where he knew Boris Ramadanoff to be and the other arching upward like a scythe toward the bullet-headed leader's neck.

Doc's packet had contained an organic chemical held under pressure. With the bursting of the packet, the chemical had expanded instantly in a gaseous state. Moisture in the air had acted to cause partial combustion of the chemical, thus generating the instantaneous cloud of smoke.

Then the unexpected happened. Boris Ramadanoff was not where he should have been in the chair. And the short-haired leader had shifted his position.

Doc Savage moved about very silently, endeavoring to find Ramadanoff.

"Open the windows and let this stuff out," rapped the chief of the raiding party. "Everybody be perfectly still so we can hear the bronze guy if he moves."

They could think quickly, these men. They had taken the one course which would most quickly result in disaster to the bronze man. Doc Savage changed his position using the utmost stealth . But even his remarkable eyes could not penetrate the smoke.

Some moments passed in utter silence. Then outside, police sirens began to wail in the streets. Neighbors must have heard the shooting and the excitement, and summoned officers.

"The cops!" ripped the man with the cropped head. "We gotta blow!"

With that, they made a concerted charge for the door. Doc Savage moved swiftly but chanced to brush someone. There was a pale burst of gunfire and deep crash of gun noise near his ear. His hands streaked through the smoke, knocking the gun out of the man's grasp and clamping a hold on the fellow's neck.

There was more shooting in the room. Wild shots.

"Out!" the mob-leader was howling. "The Law is comin'!"

Then amid a great rush of feet, they were all out of the room. They slammed the door. A number of shots were driven into the panel from the hallway outside to discourage pursuit.

Carrying the man he had captured under one arm, Doc Savage hurriedly searched the rooms.

Boris Ramadanoff was gone!

- — — — — — — — — — — — —

Doc Savage carried his prisoner to the fire escape and hurriedly descended. His purpose was to watch the rear of the apartment building. By now, the police were around in front. They would take care of the entrance.

Noting that from the spot where he had parked his coupe he could watch the court that gave to the rear entrance of the apartment, Doc Savage hurriedly carried his prisoner to the car. It was just as well to get the fellow out of sight of the police, thus avoiding the delay which explanations would necessarily cause.

The radio was still turned on in the coupe. Static crackled from its loudspeaker and mingled with that was the frantic crackle of words.

Doc recognized the voice. It was Long Tom, no doubt speaking from the transmitter of his car at the Redbeach Road address where Doc Savage had left him on guard. The electrical wizard's voice came in frantic bursts, almost inarticulate.

"Doc … centipedes … killing me … "

The words suddenly ceased coming.

That changed Doc Savage's whole plan of action. Any danger to Long Tom transcended in importance what might have happened to Boris Ramadanoff. Doc switched the coupe's engine on. With a squalling of tire rubber, it got under way. The car rocketed down the street, siren squalling. The use of the siren was permitted Doc by the police department. Doc depended upon it, of course, only in dire emergencies.

While he wheeled along, Doc called through the coupe's radio, attempting to renew connection with Long Tom. But he got no response.

He shifted his call back to Renny at Headquarters . Renny was listening in, feverishly awaiting directions.

Doc said, "Better get over here to 97 thStreet and stand by. Try to avoid trouble with the police. Leave your radio switched 'on' in your car so we can keep in contact."

"Right, Doc," Renny answered.

Doc replaced his microphone on the hook and turned his attention to the captive he had lugged into the car with him. He was "Rats" Hanley — the scrawny-chested, rat-eyed individual who had been going to clip the handcuffs on Doc.

Doc put pressure on him and learned from him that the bullet-headed man was Jans Bergman. And that Bergman worked for some one higher up. Gaining this information, Doc put Rats to sleep by pressing on a hidden nerve. Later, Rats would be sent to Doc's "Crime College"in upstate New York. There by surgical means, the crook would be cured of his criminal tendencies.

Doc's coupe crossed the Queensboro Bridge over the East River and continued along the Sound. Sea fog still hung heavy over the run-down estate, the decaying red brick house at 33 Redbeach Road, as Doc swerved his car in at the gate and rolled silently up the brush-grown lane.

There was no sign of Long Tom!

- — — — — — — — — — — — —

The bronze man spent no time in reconnoitering. With Long Tom's life threatened, even seconds were important. He leaped from the car and traversed the short distance to the house in great bounds. He tried the door. It was locked. He used Renny's pet method and one of his fists — propelled by prodigious arm and shoulder muscles — crashed through the solid oak panel.

Like closing vises, his hands caught the splintered wood and wrenched. He tore the door half down, then walked through the rest of it with forward-pressing force which shattered the entire door frame.

In the dim interior, he moved around. His footfalls sounded hollowly throughout the ghostly house. The place seemed to be deserted. He whipped out a flashlight, snaked its searing rays over floor and walls. Black corners leaped into white life.

In one room, he found evidence of a furious struggle. Furniture was overturned. Still-wet scarletwas on the carpet.