Лестер Дент - The Fantastic Island

PRISONERS ON FANTASTIC ISLAND IN GALAPAGOS GROUP STOP CONTACT BORIS RAMADANOFF 33 REDBEACH ROADLONG ISLAND STOP GRAVE DANGER …

Long Torn whistled. "I'm beginning to get it. It's a long arm that reaches from the Galapagos to New York City. This centipede was meant for you, Doc! It was introduced into your elevator as an attempt upon your life."

"Perhaps," Doc Savage admitted. "Though the immediate intent was probably to render me unconscious as the first step in a kidnapping plot."

"How do you figure that?"

"A centipede's bite is rarely fatal. But we all seem to be tinder the thousand-legger's shadow. Consider … Johnny was first apprehended. Now Ham, Pat, and Monk are taken. And almost paralleling their message of distress comes this Galapagos 'calling card' in the form of a centipede."

Long Tom was silent for a moment. As a result of their unceasing war upon the most ruthless and cunning forces of criminal adventurers, Doc and his aides lived always in the shadow of danger. But at the moment, they had no active case under investigation. The developments of the last few minutes had struck with stunning suddenness.

"What do you make of it, Doc?" Long Tom questioned uneasily.

"Frankly," said Doc, "I don't make anything. It's a complete mystery."

"That address in the radiogram — we ought to turn up a clue there."

Doc nodded soberly. "I was on my way to 33 Redbeach Road when I ran into the excitement downstairs. Let me suggest that you see about getting this young man to his home, then jump in your car and join me at the Long Island address."

Doc descended in the private elevator to his subterranean garage, the existence of which was known only to a few people outside the immediate circle of his 5 aides. From among the number of specially built vehicles, Doc chose a low-swung coupe of gunmetal finish and expert streamlining. The car was, in reality, a rolling fortress with bulletproof glass, armored body, chrome-steel fenders, and bulletproof tires of cellular rubber construction.

Actuated by photoelectric cells, the garage doors opened slightly as Doc eased the car forward. The doors closed automatically behind him as he rolled along the ramp into the stream of uptown traffic. Toward Queensboro Bridge and Long Island he headed, the powerful motor under the beetle-backed hood propelling the car with silent, flowing motion.

- — — — — — — — — — — — —

Seeking 33 Redbeach Road took Doc Savage to a semi-deserted tide-flat region on Long Island Sound. He turned in at a brush-grown lane. Swirls of fog were rolling in from the Sound. An ancient brick house with sagging porch roof and rusted rainspouts loomed through the mist. The place had evidently once been a fine estate. But it now gave every evidence of having been deserted for a long time.

Doc parked under a dragging-branched elm which dripped water from leaves sodden with condensed fog. He did not get out on the steering-wheel side of his car. He slid over to the opposite side, stepped to the ground, and disappeared in a grove of wet birches.

Doc had no reason to doubt the authenticity of the Galapagos radiogram. He was not expecting trouble. But it was his policy never to take unnecessary chances.

After a few minutes of reconnoitering, he approached a side entrance to the decaying mansion and knocked. There was a long silence. Doc knocked again. Still nobody came.

Through years of patient training, Doc Savage had perfected his hearing to an animal keenness. He could hear sounds above-and-below the scale audible to the average person. Within this house which appeared to be as deserted as a snatched grave, he could hear movement — hurried, secretive, man movement.

Doc's bronzed features remained immobile. He simply waited there by the door. After a while, the knob turned from inside the curtained room and the door opened. A foreign-appearing man with short-cropped hair stood within the dimly lighted interior and invited him in.

"You are Doc Savage?" he questioned in broken English. "I have been expecting you. I am Boris Ramadanoff."

- — — — — — — — — — — — —

Doc stepped inside. But because he had been made wary, the thing which happened next was no surprise to him. With all his senses alert, he caught the creak of shoe leather against the carpeted floor and the virtually imperceptible movement behind a curtained alcove.

The bronze giant crouched and whirled as men flung in at him from 3 directions. His cabled hands streaked out, closing with a grip of iron on the shoulders of 2 of his attackers. He lifted them both from the floor, crashed them against each other, and let them drop.

They fell stunned in an octopus tangle of arms and legs. And with smoothly synchronized effort, Doc struck out with his appalling fists at 2 other of his attackers.

Just once with each fist did he strike. One man went down wailing, his face altered. The other — jarred into instant unconsciousness — went down too and never knew until an hour later that his jaw was broken.

Doc swerved as he caught a glint of the revolver drawn by the man with the cropped hair who had represented himself as being Boris Ramadanoff.

With a leap that in its force and precision could be compared only to that of a Nepal tiger, Doc landed halfway across the room. The short-haired man smacked the floor with a solid thud … and Doc was standing there with a firm grip on the revolver.

He was absolute master of the situation. There were 10 men in the room besides himself. Most of them lay stunned as the result of Doc's rough handling. The others cowered back, afraid to try another move.

From outside the house in the direction of the roadway sounded a burst of machine-gun fire. Echoes crashed flatly. Then a new noise broke with a harsh drumming. It was a fearful sound. Doc Savage recognized it as the bull-fiddle bellow of one of the superfiring pistols carried by his aides.

The superfirer was one of Doc's inventions. It resembled an overgrown automatic and pumped out a withering stream of so-called "mercy bullets" — hollow shells filled with a drug which upon the slightest penetration of the skin produced instant unconsciousness. It was Doc's code never to take a human life when he could in any way avoid it.

Wafting on the hooting echoes of the superfirer came a sharp, urgent sound of a man calling.

"Doc! Doc!"

The bronze man recognized Long Tom's voice. He could guess what had happened. Long Tom — according to directions — had driven up and he had run into a machine-gun ambush as he stepped out of his car. Fierce fighter that he was, Long Tom would never call for help unless the emergency was dire.

The safety of his men was a thing that Doc Savage put before every other consideration. On the instant, Doc gave up the advantage which he held over his enemies in the room. He wheeled, wrenched open the door, and plunged out into the fog with his great thewed legs carrying him in giant strides to Long Tom's aid.

Doc still held the automatic which he had taken from the man who had said he was Boris Ramadanoff.

- — — — — — — — — — — — —

Doc Savage carried no revolver or superfirer of his own. It was the bronze man's contention that dependence upon such a weapon robbed a man of ingenuity and made him helpless in the face of danger should he chance to be deprived of the accustomed weapon. Therefore, Doc depended upon his own strength and cunning to pull him out of desperate situations. Where strength did not suffice, he resorted to some chemical or mechanical trick which was usually effective and always baffling.

Doc did not scorn the use of a gun, of course, when emergency put one in his hands. He used one now. Pushing out through the dripping birch leaves, he came upon Long Tom who was caught behind a meager rock shelter in a threatened cross-fire of submachine-gun lead.