Originally published in the September, 1934 issue of Operator 5TM
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Copyright ã1934 by Popular Publications Inc. Copyright renewed (c) 1962 and assigned to Argosy Communications, Inc.
All rights reserved. Licensed to Vintage New Media
Operator 5 is a trademark of Argosy Communications, Inc.
By Curtis Steele
THE BLACK MENACE... ...exploded its bloody chaos first at grand D.A.R.
Ball in the nation's capital. Then one by one, a society's great leaders
were snatched away, to return useless, broken, inept men. The populace
seethed toward revolt against a government which was crumbling before
its eyes, and it fell to Jimmy Christopher, to quell the panic and unmask
the dread...
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CHAPTER ONE
JUNGLE JEOPARDY
THE GALA EVENT OF THE WASHINGTON
social season-the colorful annual ball of the
Daughters of the American Revolution-began
with a joyful fanfare of trumpets.
Blood-quickening music pealed through the
brilliantly bedecked auditorium. The thousands in
the great hall, voices hushed, turned to face a
tremendous, draped American flag. The grand
march started to the martial surge of the Navy
Band.
The Secretary of State, arm linked with that
of the gorgeously gowned matron who headed the
patriotic organization, led the majestic procession
across the glassy floor. Behind the impressive
pair strode the officers of the General Staff of the
United States Army and Navy, resplendent in
gold-braided dress uniforms; ambassadors,
plenipotentiaries and consuls followed,
representing, at this important function, all the
great powers of the world.
Vivid, gay and bright, the affair was a happy
manifestation of pride and loyalty to the
leadership of the United States in international
relations. These were to be hours of laughter and
dancing and celebration. Farthest from the minds
of those present in the great, music-filled
auditorium were thoughts of death and terror.
Yet, it came-barbaric murder!
Again and again across the smooth floor, the
stately procession moved, The parade of brilliant
and immaculate uniforms and dazzling gowns
made the grand march a breath-taking display of
colorful beauty. From the galleries, and around
the walls, thousands watched. Quietly and alertly
among them moved men who, unknown to the
others, were members of the Secret Service.
Yet even these tight-nerved undercover
agents could not dream that this gaiety would turn
to abject fright, that this laughter would give way
to shrieks of horror, and that into this joyful
gathering would sweep merciless, savage death.
A murmur passed through the crowd, and all
eyes turned toward a flag-draped box in the
center of the balcony. A man with snow-white hair
smiled and bowed as a wave of applause swept
through the hall. He nodded his thanks and
seated himself to watch the crowd.
He was the Vice-President of the United
States.
A troubled expression darkened his face as
the dancing continued, as the music swelled. He
glanced about uneasily. Something like fear
shone in his tired, blue eyes as he scanned the
faces of those in the box and in the doorway
behind him. Presently left his chair.
Two Secret Service men, detailed as his
special bodyguards, received a wave of dismissal
from him. They remained in the box while he
stepped toward a young man who was standing
inconspicuously just across the sill. The young
man stiffened to respectful attention as the
worried eyes of the Vice-President studied his
face.
He was in his early twenties, his face was
clean-cut and strong. His bright blue eyes flashed
with the alertness of youth; his forehead was high,
his chin firmly determined. He possessed a poise
that added stature to his years, and obviously he
was American through and through. He stood the
scrutiny of the Vice-President and bowed.
"You are not one of my regular bodyguards.
May I ask, then, why you followed me here? Why
you've kept me in your sight every moment?"
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"I am acting under orders, sir."
"Orders from whom?" the Vice-President
demanded.
The young man answered by briskly
removing from his pocket a flat silver case. His
thumbnail pressed upon a corner of it, and a
shining leaf of metal sprang up. The Vice-
President gazed curiously at the right hand of the
young man as the case was proffered toward him.
On the back of that hand shone a peculiar
scar-a black and white marking shaped
strangely like a spread-winged American eagle.
Its wings seemed to flex, as though straining to
take flight, as the young man's fingers moved.
"Perhaps this," he said, "will explain."
Inside the silver case reposed a credential.
The Vice-President's faded eyes brightened as he
read:
THE WHITE HOUSE
Washington
To Whom It May concern:
The identity of the bearer of this letter must
be kept absolutely confidential.
He is Operator 5 of the United States
Intelligence Service.
The signature affixed to the document was
that of the President of the United States.
Quickly Operator 5, otherwise known as
James Christopher, snapped the case shut and
returned it to his pocket. "I am at your service,
sir," he said.
The Vice-President was looking startled. "I
have heard of you, of course, Operator 5," he said
quietly, "from the President. You have served
your country with a most remarkable ability." He
extended his hand and Jimmy Christopher
gripped it firmly. "Yet," the Vice-President went on
cautiously, "the very fact that you have been
ordered to watch me gives me some concern.
What is the reason behind your instructions?"
Operator 5 bowed again. "I can only say that
I am following orders given to me by my
superior-as a measure of precaution."
"A precaution?" The Vice-President's
uneasiness grew. "Against what?"
"That, I regret, I am not at liberty to disclose."
"The Vice-President, sir, is asking you for
important information!"
Jimmy Christopher answered with quiet
firmness: "I'm very sorry, but my orders are
absolutely confidential, and I cannot violate them,
sir-not even to answer your question."
The Vice-President frowned indignantly, but
in a moment, his manner eased.
"Very well, young man. I respect you for that.
I am going down to the dance floor, and I should
like you to come with me," the Vice-President
invited.
The puzzled, worried expression returned to
the eyes of the white-haired man as he strode the
length of the balcony corridor. Operator 5,
following him quietly, noted it. The Vice-
President's steps were slow and weary; it was as
though he were moving on the verge of
exhaustion. There was an uncertainty in his
manner, a quaver in his voice, that spelled an
imminent breakdown.
He clung to the balustrade as he descended
the broad steps that led to the edge of the dance
floor with his two Secret Service men at his side.
There the Vice-President stood bowing to friends
who danced past-while Jimmy Christopher
watched him alertly.
The festive atmosphere was heightened now
by the addition of hundreds of couples to the
laughing throng. The music mingled with the hum
of many voices. It seemed an occasion far
removed from any possibility of danger: yet
Operator 5's eyes never left the face of the whitehaired
executive, except for swift, sharp glances
around the huge room.
He noted, among the dancing thousands, the
faces of prominent personages. Each officer of
the General Staff was known to him, though he
was unknown to them: his work, far-reaching in
importance as it was, was kept under cover of
strictest secrecy. He saw women high in
Washington society, diplomats of international
fame, industrialists and executives.
He noted Martin Evarts, the celebrated
manufacturer of steel, dancing with the pretty girl
who was his daughter, Eve.
A quiet step took Operator 5 to the side of
one of the Secret Service men guarding the Vice-
President.
"He seems changed, Adams," Jimmy
Christopher suggested quietly.
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The agent shot a quick glance and answered
warily:
"Yes. It's appalling. A month ago, he was an
entirely different man-strong, quick, as able as
anyone in Washington. None of the worn-out
jokes about vice-presidents could apply to that
man. Yet look at him now.
"His hair has turned white almost overnight.
He seems to be on the point of collapsing. His
strength is gone. His mind fumbles. It's not merely
overwork. Something has happened to that
man-something terrible. Whatever it is, it has
almost broken him-destroyed him."
"He seems like a living dead man," Jimmy
Christopher agreed very quietly. "Whatever
happened to him must have been-"
The interruption that cut into Operator 5's
soft words came suddenly. Startling and shrill, it
was the ear-piercing scream of a woman, echoed
by others. Then came silence-the silence of
terror.
Near the broad entrance at the end of the
auditorium, couples had been dancing. Brilliant
gowns and bright uniforms mingled there as
elsewhere. Most striking of the couples near the
doors were Senora Ferrero Sadiz, wife of the
Ambassador from Spain, dancing in the arms of
Rear Admiral Maddock of the United States Navy.
Senora Sadiz had seen one of the swinging
doors open slowly, and a face look through. The
sight of the face had brought a startled light into
the snapping black eyes of the Spanish woman;
then she had laughed softly. "Is it possible," she
had asked without a trace of an accent, "that
someone has come here believing this to be a
masquerade ball?"
"Let us hope not," Maddock had answered
with a chuckle. "But what do you mean?"
"I mean that strange face looking in through
the door. Surely someone has made a mistake-
or is it a joke? Entertainers, perhaps?"
The rear admiral swung the senora so that
he could glimpse the door. He saw the face and
his own expression became startled as hers. It
was such a face as one might never expect to see
at a formal function; a ghastly, hideous mask that
leered at them from the outer darkness.
Huge, square and coarsely modeled-black,
yet smeared with vari-colored paint, the head was
covered with inky, close-curling hair. The nose
was broad and flat, the mouth excessively fulllipped.
The eyes, shiny as black glass, peered at
the throng wildly. It was a face of utter
savageness which peered through the partly
opened door.
"That's rather strange," the rear admiral
observed to the lovely senora. "Even if that chap
believed this to be a costume ball, that's an odd-
" he broke off in astonishment.
The door swung wider, and a huge,
glistening black figure glided through. It was
naked except for a crudely woven loincloth; the
glistening body, like the face, was smeared with
pigment. The feet were huge and dust-covered;
the immense body rippled with the play of
powerful, lithe muscles. The black hands were
tremendous; and in one of them he was gripping a
broad-bladed, sharp-pointed knife.
"I say!" Maddock exclaimed. "Something's
wrong here. Excuse me a moment, Senora."
He stepped alertly toward the gigantic, paint
smeared figure. The shining black eyes centered
on him. He paused uncertainly, mystified by their
unblinking, fearless glare. Then he forced a laugh,
raised a hand to push the black backward through
the door, and began to speak: "See here. How the
devil you got in here dressed like that is beyond
me, but-"
A savage snarl broke from the lips of the
black. One glistening arm swung to strike down
the hand of Rear Admiral Maddock, as the other
snatched the heavy knife upward. With it, he
struck-a powerful, savage, murderous blow!
Breath exploded from Maddock's lungs as he
jarred backward. He peered down, stunned, at a
long, deep slash cut through his jacket. Red blood
poured out upon starched white. He flung up his
arms in an awkward, bewildered defense as the
black stepped after him swiftly, the knife slashing
again.
The second merciless blow caught the officer
on the shoulder. The bone of his arm crunched.
He dropped limp while red lines trickled across the
waxy floor. He lay still, with the massive black
hunched over him.
It was then that the Senora Ferrero Sadiz
had screamed.
The swift move of the black startled other
couples near the entrance. Abruptly, they stopped
dancing, peering in consternation at the still,
uniformed figure on the floor. They recoiled as the
huge black uttered a guttural, deep-throated cry.
As if at that signal, the other swinging doors
of the entrance flapped open. In them appeared
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other faces, other figures like that of the first
black. Features paint-smeared, black bodies
shining, huge knives glinting. Ten, twenty, of the
terrible apparitions appeared at the end of the hall
as if conjured into being by some demon's magic!
They stood just inside, their gleaming bodies
motionless, their weapons raised, their pigmented
faces turning slowly right and left as though in
search of a second victim-a score of savages!
Barbaric, savage tribesman-in the midst of
the most fashionable event of the social season!
The sight was at once so startling, so
incongruous, so incredible, that for one short
moment, the hundreds of dancers near the
entrance stared mutely. It was the reality of the
slashed body of the officer sprawled on the floor
that brought other screams ringing through the
vast hall-screams that echoed above the music
and sounded a chill note of terror.
Operator 5 peered through the parting crowd,
and saw the huge blacks, gripping knives,
clustered at the doors. Behind him, a voice
blurted: "Good God! What are they?"
Jimmy Christopher spoke ringingly over his
shoulder. "Stand by the Vice-President. Keep
them away from him! They're savages!"
The band of blacks stood motionless, their
eyes glinting at the crowd of people who retreated
in fright. Their broad nostrils quivered as though
they relished the salty odor of the blood on the
floor and hungered for more, as though they were
seeking the scent of a new victim. And as their
upraised knives shone, it was seen that each one
was wet with blood!
Behind them the doors stood open. Startled
hundreds saw a path marked by violent death.
Still bodies lay in the corridor. Others sprawled on
the steps rising from the street. Each bore the
fearful marks of blows struck by the bright-bladed
knives in the hands of the blacks.
They had literally slashed their way into the
hall; and now, weapons held poised to hack
again, they began a slow advance.
At their first forward movement, a
commanding shout rang from the lips of an Army
officer near them. In answer, uniformed men
swung to block the path of the blacks. Cold hands
swiftly unsheathed dress-parade swords. The
polished blades swung in a counter-threat and
suddenly, wildly, the blacks sprang.
From their paint-daubed mouths issued highpitched,
weird cries of attack. Their broad-bladed
knives hissed. Heavy, cleaving blows sounded.
Shrill screams carried through the hall again. The
dwindling music of the orchestra crashed
discordantly and stopped. Steel sparked against
steel-and again, death struck!
The merciless rush of the blacks came with
savage, agile power and wild viciousness. The
Army officers crowded to block their advance. In
the first, swift seconds of the grotesque battle, six
uniformed men fell. Again, terror shrieked from
the jeweled throats of women, who turned
frantically to flee- but who glimpsed a greater
horror on the floor.
The head of a lieutenant general rolled free
of his body-completely severed by a savage
slash of a primitive knife.
Mad pandemonium swept through the
auditorium. Shouting men and whimpering women
crowded desperately toward the exits. The
orchestra scrambled crazily from its chairs. The
great floor became swiftly cleared as hundreds
mobbed away. Toward the center of it, their black
feet padding, their glistening knives raised again,
their nostrils quivering, the barbarians herded.
Frozen at the edge of the dance floor stood
the Vice-President. Rushing hundreds had
cleared the space around him, except for the two
Secret Service men who had spun to his side at
the first outcry. They stood with hands poised on
the butts of their automatics as Jimmy
Christopher quickly advanced to a position in front
of them.
"Take him away!" Operator 5 commanded
sharply.
The Vice-President's two bodyguards saw
him totter as though with a heart attack. They
seized his arms and carried him back toward a
crowded door, thrusting their way through as he
sagged in their grasp.
Other Secret Service men struggled against
the crush of the fear-stricken crowd at the door.
Fighting to elbow their way into the open, they
sprang through with automatics bared. All around
the dance floor, they took their positions, weapons
leveled, facing the blacks, ready to combat any
further attack by the naked savages.
Operator 5 stood in a cleared space, alone.
Darkness clouded his blue eyes as he watched
the living menace of the blacks spreading. Moving
with queer, dancing steps, they formed a ragged
circle, their grotesque faces outward. Two of them
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peered straight at Jimmy Christopher, brandishing
their knives, their black eyes glinting like beads.
Operator 5's hand clicked loose the buckle of
his belt. He whipped it away, and it sprang out
straight. It was a narrow sheath of leather; he
flicked it off the thin, bright blade of a rapier. It
flexed in the light, slender, supple, a needlepointed
line of steel.
Suddenly, another savage cry chanted from
the throats of the blacks. They leaped across the
shining floor, toward one of the crowded exits.
Men and women cried out in terror and whirled to
flee from the renewed attack. At the first move,
thunder rocked through the auditorium-guns
blasting in the hands of the Secret Service
Agents.
A guttural cry tore from the smeared lips of a
massive black who led the attack. He half spun,
dropping his knife, clutching at his chest, as hot
lead burned his life away. Bullet-torn blacks
toppled as if stricken by invisible lightning. Swiftly,
remorseless as crazed demons, the savages cut
their way into the crowd at the wall.
Jimmy Christopher bounded toward the
center of the furor. He saw fire blaze from the gun
of a secret agent; he saw a broad knife spin out of
a black hand as the bullet struck it. Swiftly, the
black leaped, muscles bunching. He snatched the
gun from the Secret Service man's hand; he
wrapped bulging black arms around the man's
body. The savage bent his victim backward, while
a moan of agony sounded-a moan that ended
with a snapping crack. The secret agent dropped
with a broken spine.
A gun thundered as the huge black snatched
up his knife. He toppled sideward, a bullet drilled
through his temple.
Death lay behind the crowding blacks as a
threat of further death moved with them. Their
great hands gripped the arms of Martin Evarts,
the steel magnate, and the bare shoulders of his
daughter, Eve, who shrank at his side. The heavy
knives did not strike at the pair, but they were torn
away from the door and flung into the open. Paintsmeared
nostrils quivered, as though with the
certainty that the savages had found the victim
they sought.
Two of the weird tribesmen jerked from their
loincloths dark-colored skeins. Quick, whipping
movements spread the things into nets. Swiftly,
the nets were whipped down about Martin Evarts
and the girl. Helpless, as the blacks pinioned
them, they were enveloped in the mesh. Black
hands drew the edges together to form two great
bags. Black arms swung the bags onto black
backs.
Captured like animals in a jungle, the steel
magnate and his daughter struggled vainly to free
themselves as they were carried toward the broad
entrance.
Jimmy Christopher rushed toward the
entrapped pair. A giant black whirled upon him.
Gleaming teeth shone behind spread lips as the
savage slashed with his blade. Operator 5's light
rapier sparkled. It whipped magical power into the
air around the knife-power that pulled at the
thick fingers which gripped it. Again the great
black lunged and his knife streaked.
The swiftness of the razor-edged blade was
enough to cleave a man in two. The point slashed
through the fabric of Jimmy Christopher's coat as
he sprang back. His lunge with the rapier brought
a point of red upon the savage's gleaming black
skin, then whipped upward swiftly to clash again
with the hissing, primitive weapon.
Glittering steel played about the knife as it
spun through a vicious arc. Its weight bent
Operator 5's thin blade. He lunged again, and felt
the quiver of the steel in a hard-bunched muscle.
The pain of the strike brought a scream of fury
from the great black's throat. He leaped with the
knife gripped in two massive hands, swinging it
with all his power downward at Jimmy
Christopher's head.
Cold wind snapped at Operator 5's face. His
rapier became steel lightning. It whipped about
the knife and ripped it from the crushing black
fingers. In bestial wrath the giant savage sprang-
sprang unheeding, full upon the sharp point of
Operator 5's rapier.
Steel streaked through the barbarian's
shoulder. His howl of rage was deafening; he
wrenched so violently that the hilt of the rapier
was torn from Jimmy Christopher's grasp. The
great black hands groped as Operator 5 sprang
aside, snatching at a thick wrist. A sharp twist
brought another bellow of rage; a click came from
a vertebra of the savage's neck as Jimmy
Christopher struck it with stiff fingers.
The giant savage toppled, rigid as a statue.
Instantaneous paralysis gripped him. He dropped
heavily to the gleaming floor and lay still. He
would remain helpless in the clutch of the jiu-jitsu
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catalepsy until Operator 5 chose to release him by
another expert manipulation of the spine.
Jimmy Christopher sprang away with his
rapier again in his hand. The crowds at the inner
doors had pushed through. Cold, night air was
rushing through the auditorium from opened exits.
Nowhere was a single black visible now, except
those who had dropped before the Secret Service
men's bullets. They had herded out-taking with
them Martin and Eve Evarts, imprisoned within
the crude nets!
In the streets, there sounded the scraping
and stamping of many feet. The thousands were
mobbing through the avenue in a frantic
stampede. It was a mad melee, an unthinking
scramble to escape an unknown terror. The
snarling of motors sounded above a frantic babble
of hoarse voices. Cars were clashing together,
pushing through the whirlpooling thousands, as
their drivers strove desperately to escape the
scene.
Operator 5 poised on the steps, glancing
about swiftly. He saw frantic women with gowns
torn to shreds, uniformed men with jackets ripped,
girls with upthrown arms, hair fallen, eyes
widened in soul-destroying fear. On the steps
glittered jewels that had been torn off in the crush,
which lay now unheeded, unthought of. Madness
everywhere!
And nowhere any sign of the black savages!
A moan turned Operator 5 quickly toward a
doorway. On the floor, lay a man in evening
clothes-one whom Operator 5 recognized as a
Secret Service agent. His shirt-front was slashed
open; his left arm was hanging by a ribbon of
flesh, cut almost through Jimmy Christopher bent
over him swiftly.
"They've-got Evarts!" he gasped painfully.
"Easy!" Operator 5 warned. "Save your
strength!"
The agent's lips tightened in agony. "Never
mind-me. Get those damned blacks! Get!-"
A groan ended the words. Jimmy Christopher
rose from a man who had met terrible death. His
eyes strangely clouded, he ran into the vast
auditorium, and paused over the giant black who
lay rigid. The great room had emptied, save for
those who lay killed. Within a few swift, appalling
moments it had become a hall of horror, a
crimsoned charnel house.
The terror of the jungle had struck frantic fear
into the midst of laughter and dancing-and had
vanished!
CHAPTER TWO
DESTROYER OF MEN
IT WAS A CLOSED, LIGHTLESS SPACE.
Walls muffled away the outside world-walls that
trembled with the same steady rumble that shook
the darkness. No glimmer came inside it; no
sound penetrated the soft, continuous thunder. It
was a baffling, black void.
In it lay a man entrapped in a coarse net,
helpless, completely enmeshed by rough strands
that resisted the utmost strength of his hands to
tear them apart. He groped to the mouth of the
bag, and found it bound by tightly knotted rope.
Escape, he was forced to conclude, was
impossible.
He called in a whisper: "Eve! Eve, are you
here?"
A breathless voice answered as if from far
away: "I-I'm all right, Father. Are you hurt?"
"No. But can you get loose?"
The answer was: "I can scarcely move.
Please don't resist them, Father. They may kill
you."
"Never mind about me!" the man answered.
"I can take care of myself. I'll break the neck of
anyone who tries to hurt you, Eve!"
"I'm-all right."
Martin Evarts lay back in exhaustion. He
sensed other presences in the darkness-figures
that moved unseen, silently. He heard a sibilant
chorus of breathing, and drew into his lungs a
peculiar, sweet odor. He sensed that the blacks
were also within this closed space, hovering over
him and the girl, watching with eyes that could
penetrate the dark.
The reverberating rumble continued. Was
this, Martin Evarts wondered in bewilderment, the
inside of a truck? He had had no second to orient
himself while being dragged swiftly from the lightflooded
hall into eye-baffling darkness. His one
desire had been to aid his daughter; even now,
his first thought was of her. The fact that she was
unhurt and with him brought him some sense of
relief; yet his mind was dazed with the mystery of
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what had happened, of where they were, of what
was coming.
His desperate efforts to escape the net bag
had consumed his strength, though he was a
powerful man. His strong muscles had been
developed by back-breaking labor within the steel
mills which he had since risen to control.
He captained a complex organization of
corporations the very intricacy of which would
stagger the ordinary mind. He generated far-flung
enterprises, grasping with ease the complicated
functioning of a hundred divisions and subdivisions
of his industrial empire. His was a mind
which commanded respect from other leaders
whom the world held great.
Yet now his brain was fogged with
bewilderment, trapped in a maze of mystery.
A long time passed before the ear-pounding
rumble dropped to a lower pitch, then stopped.
Out of the darkness around Martin Evarts came
stealthy movements. Cold air surged into the dark
space as doors were flung open, but still there
was no light. Then came the soft padding of bare
feet on the ground, moving off into the unknown
depths of the darkness.
Then, again, silence.
Presently, new movements sounded. Harder
footfalls came close. Martin Evarts felt the mesh
bag gripped and then he was lifted, a helpless
captive. He sensed that his daughter was being
carried through the night with him. He was heaved
up steps, and through a doorway. Again brought
within a closed space, he was lowered to the
floor.
Footfalls moved away again, but something
tugged at the bag. Martin Evarts struggled up as a
door closed upon quick steps. He heard a
powerful motor churning somewhere beyond, and
the sound moved away. The new quietness
became even more oppressive than the first, as
long seconds crawled by.
Struggling to free himself, Martin Evarts was
astonished to feel the mesh yield around him. He
reached through a gap that had been cut in the
bag; he wriggled out. As he came to his feet, he
heard a quiet cry of Eve's voice, and felt her brush
against him. She, too, had found release from her
net.
Evarts exclaimed: "What the devil does this
mean? If there's any way out of here, I'm going to
find it."
He stepped forward with arms extended, and
his fingers touched a smooth wall. He sensed Eve
moving beside him as he followed it along.
Presently, he felt the frame of a door, and
fumbled to the knob. It would not twist. He
pressed hard against the unseen panels, and
found it firmly locked. He began to move on.
Power came out of the darkness swiftly to
clutch at his shoulder. An invisible hand seized
him, and dragged him back. When he jerked to a
stop, he swung his hardened fist violently toward
the unseen man who had grasped him-and
struck through empty air.
A latch clicked. Faintly, as if from far away,
Eve's voice called: "Father! Father, where are
you?"
"Eve! Are you all right!"
He threw himself against the door through
which he had been jerked, and heard a sound
from beyond. Again, the way was blocked. His
knuckles rapped desperately at the panels.
"Eve!"
No answer came from the other room. Martin
Evarts twisted violently at the firm doorknob. He
raised his fists to pound again, but his movement
froze as a low, muffled voice spoke out of the
darkness behind him: "Your daughter, Mr. Evarts,
will not be harmed."
Evarts whirled. He peered into impenetrable
darkness. He demanded wrathfully:
"Who spoke?"
A light gleamed. The glare flooded from a
bulb in the ceiling, blindingly bright. It dazzled
Evarts for a moment. He shaded his eyes; and
when vision returned to him, he saw that he was
in a spacious, furnished room. At the far side of it
sat a desk-and behind the desk, stood a man.
Evarts advanced angrily, and stopped. He
searched the face of the man who confronted him
across the desk. It was a face strangely
impassive, its expression implacable. Its lips were
parted fixedly; its eyes were dark-shadowed in
their sockets. In that face, there was something
very like death.
"I spoke," the figure said.
"Who are you?"
"That must remain a secret."
Still, Evarts studied the strange face. Words
had issued from those lips, yet the lips had not
moved. No vestige of the expression of the face
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changed. It was the horrible fixity of the features
that held Evarts spellbound.
"Be seated," the muffled voice came. "We
shall talk."
Evarts took a stiff step forward, coldness
waving over his body.
"See here, damn you! If you harm my
daughter-"
"I have assured you, Mr. Evarts," the
resonant voice interrupted. "Your daughter will not
be harmed in the slightest particular. I have no
desire to hurt her. She was brought here with you
only because it pleased me to demonstrate in that
way-my power."
Evarts peered more intently. "Who the devil
are you?"
"You do not know me, Mr. Evarts. You will
never know me. I choose that you shall not."
The voice spoke, yet the lips of the man
behind the desk did not move! The glittering eyes
shifted, yet the expression of them did not
change. The inscrutable features were those of a
living mummy, yet-
Then Evarts realized. This face was not
human. It was not a living face. The features he
saw were not flesh. He was gazing at a mask-a
close-fitting mask simulating the coloring of life, a
shell that reached down inside the wing collar of
the unknown man garbed in evening dress, its
edges hidden. Behind that mask-
"Be seated," the muffled voice commanded.
The man behind the desk lowered himself
into a chair, and as he did so, his head turned.
Evarts saw, in amazement, that the unknown's
mask was a shell completely enclosing his head.
It was topped by false hair, its coloring was
uncannily real; except for its ghastly immobility, its
true nature might have passed unnoticed. Within
that shell was a real face, completely covered-
except for the weird eyes that looked through.
Evarts squared his shoulders and remained
standing. He perceived, as his captor took the
chair, artificial nostrils in the mask, and openings
in the ears through which sound passed. He
noted that the man at the desk wore gloves of
flesh-colored rubber which gave his hands an
uncanny, unreal appearance. The man in the
mask sat erect, majestic, a strange, commanding
figure.
"Well?" Evarts demanded contemptuously.
How much ransom do you want?"
"Ransom?" came the muffled word. "I desire
no ransom from you!"
Evarts blinked in bewilderment. "Then why
the devil have you done this? Why have you
dragged my daughter and me here? What do you
want?"
The man in the metal mask leaned forward,
entwining his firm, rubber-covered fingers. "You
are a great man, Mr. Evarts-one of the greatest
in the United States-indeed, one of the greatest
in the world. You are an industrialist without a
peer. You command a remarkable mentality. It is
your brain which has made you great-or your
brain which might have made you a driveling
idiot."
Evarts exclaimed: "What? What're you
driving at?"
"I am merely stating, Mr. Evarts," the muffled
voice came confidently, "that you are one of the
most remarkable men in the world, that you have
won yourself a high position-and that you are
about to lose it all."
"Lose?"
"Listen to me!" The rubber-covered knuckles
rapped. "The world respects you, admires you,
honors you, is inspired by you. You are acclaimed
as a leader. Your leadership depends upon-so
little, Mr. Evarts. It depends upon the power of
your mind. If your mind breaks, you break with it."
Evarts blurted: "What nonsense!"
"Nonsense? You will not think so long," the
masked man answered softly. "I do not admit your
superiority to me, Mr. Evarts. I admit no man's
superiority to me. It pleases me to destroy. I
possess strength great enough to destroy all
civilization-of which you are a part."
Evarts' eyes widened. The voice was
speaking quietly, with the utmost confidence.
There was no suggestion of madness in it. It was
a level, solidly assured statement that he had
heard made. The very calmness, the very
insurmountable determination in the words, sent a
strange chill through Evarts.
He forced a laugh. "You speak as though you
have only to act, and the world will crumble!"
"I have only to act, Mr. Evarts," the calm
tones came again, "and you will crumble."
Evarts leaned forward. "Look here, if you're
trying to throw a scare into me, you're not
succeeding. I don't happen to be afraid of you.
You've committed the crime of abduction against
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me and my daughter, and with all your
bombastic-"
"Perhaps, Mr. Evarts," the masked man
interrupted firmly, "you have sometimes wished to
read the future?"
"Damned if I'll listen!"
"You'll listen!"
Swiftly, the man in the ghastly mask got to
his feel. His voice snapped with anger; and yet
the inscrutable expression of his false face did not
change. The glittering eyes grew brighter, and
that was all. Evarts peered at them-and listened.
"I am about to grant you," the masked man
declared, "the ability to read the future. I grant you
that because I myself will make the future you will
live-a future of crushing destruction!"
Evarts' lips curled. "Go ahead!" he bade
defiantly. 'Whatever the devil you mean to do.
You'll regret even attempting it!"
The man in the mask bowed elaborately.
"That," he said, "we shall see. You and I, Mr.
Evarts, are playing a game-a game of life and
death. You and I are matching our wits. It is a
contest you cannot avoid. It is an ordeal you must
face. We shall see whether you can face it-and
remain the man you are."
Again Evarts challenged: "Go ahead!"
"You will find that an ability to read the future
is in no way a comfort, Mr. Evarts. You will not
find it pleasant to know exactly the moment you
will die."
Paleness came to Evarts' face.
"For," the muffled voice continued calmly,
"exactly five nights from tonight, you will face
death. Exactly five nights from midnight, tonight."
Evarts forced another smile. "I'm hardly
worried," he declared. "You're talking like-"
"I am doom itself talking to you, my
esteemed sir!" the masked man exclaimed; and
again, through the holes in his immobile mask, his
eyes glinted. "You will be convinced that I am
speaking the truth. The deaths of your closest
associates will convince you beyond all doubt. At
midnight, four nights from tonight, your friend
Leonard Neill will die."
"For God's sake-"
"Three nights from tonight, your friend Philip
McAvoy will die."
"You're mad!" Evarts blurted. "What have
these men done to deserve death? Why do you
dare-"
"Wilson Mercer, another of your friends-at
midnight, tomorrow night, he will perish."
"Good Lord, you can't-!"
"Tonight-tonight, Mr. Evarts, at the same
hour of doom, your life-long friend, Franklin
O'Keefe, will come to the end. And one each
night, Mr. Evarts-each night at midnight," the
man in the inscrutable mask declared. "One each
night, until, five nights from tonight, you yourself
will face death. Each friend who perishes will
convince you that my commands are fate itself.
Face it, Mr. Evarts-face it and remain the man
you are-if you can!"
"It's not difficult to face the ranting of a
maniac," Evarts retorted. "You convince me only
that you're a fool!"
The masked man straightened slowly.
Through the eyeholes, his pupils shone like cold
metal. His voice came in almost a whisper. "You
will remember, Mr. Evarts-always, you will
remember. You may notice now-" one gloved
hand turned toward Evarts the face of an electric
clock which sat on the desk-"it is not long until
midnight."
Evarts glanced at the clock, and again, that
strange chill enveloped his body. He glared
defiantly into the eyes behind the mask.
"First, O'Keefe," the man at the desk
declared "Then Mercer. Then McAvoy. Then Neill.
You will remember them in order? Yes-you will
remember! As each one dies at the appointed
moment, you will not forget that on the fifth night,
at the same hour, you will yourself look into the
fleshless face of Death!"
Evarts peered at the implacable mask, and
he could not speak.
"Now, Mr. Evarts," the masked man
declared, "you may go. You have only to walk
through this door, and along the hall, to reach the
front entrance. You will find your daughter waiting
for you there. You may leave together, at once."
Evarts jerked toward the door and hesitated.
"By God, you-you are mad!" he declared.
"You-you dare-?"
Softly, the masked man said through
motionless lips: "I dare."
Evarts gave one last, anxious glance at the
inscrutable face turned toward him. He strode to
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the door and jerked it open. He peered along the
gloomy length of the hall, toward a glass-paned
entrance, beyond. In here Eve Evarts was
standing. A soft cry came from her lips as she
saw her father.
Martin Evarts hurried along the hallway. He
suspected a trick; he was alert for a rushing
attack, yet none came. No assailant showed
himself. He reached the girl's side at the outer
door. Her cold hand sought his as he twisted the
knob and jerked the way open.
His arm encircling her, he pushed out into
cold night air. He peered along a dimly lighted
street that he recognized at once. It was one of
the radiating avenues which led to the Capitol. He
ran down the steps and swung to peer at the
house he had left. The number above its door
indicated it was in the very center of Washington!
Evarts blurted: "Good Lord! He's crazy if he
thinks he can get away with that! Eve, stick with
me!"
He hurried along the sidewalk. He dashed
toward the lighted entrance of a house nearby.
When, in answer to his frantic ring at the doorbell,
a maid appeared, he rushed past her, anxiously.
In spite of her outcries, he snatched up the
telephone in the hall.
In a few swift words, he sounded a warning
that brought bedlam into the street.
Martin Evarts stood on the sidewalk, his
daughter close to him, as cars rushed to a stop in
front of the house to which the masked man had
brought him. Uniformed men sped to the door and
found it unlocked. One after another, other cars
appeared, other officials tramped through the
entrance. Evarts urged them into a thorough
search.
For now, strangely, uncannily, fear was
coming to him-fear of the masked man whose
muffled voice had pronounced a sentence of
death upon him.
Long moments passed while the officers
swarmed through the house. Their ringing voices
brought Martin Evarts to the sill of the entrance.
Mystification possessed him when he saw the
men tramping toward him, frowning, angry.
"Mr. Evarts," the man who commanded the
police protection of the District of Columbia
demanded testily, "they've got away!"
"What!" Evarts protested. "Do you mean to
say-?"
"I mean to say," the official retorted, "that
there's nobody in there-nobody at all!"
It was a thoroughly bewildered, thoroughly
uneasy man who returned to his hotel, shortly
afterward. Silent, worried, he rode with his
daughter toward his suite. As he strode toward
the door, key in hand, a smartly uniformed bellboy
paused to salute.
"I was just at your door, Mr. Evarts. A
telegram for you, sir."
Evarts' cold hand ripped at the yellow
envelope. He peered, white-faced at the few lines
of black type. As his daughter's hand crept to his,
he raised haggard eyes to the electric clock above
the floor-desk in the hallway.
It indicated twenty minutes past twelve
o'clock.
The message read:
DEEPLY REGRET TO INFORM YOU
FRANK O'KEEFE INSTANTLY KILLED IN AN
ACCIDENT ON LOADING TRACKS TONIGHT
MIDNIGHT
CHAPTER THREE
BOOMERANG DEATH
THE POWERFUL, STREAMLINED
ROADSTER turned its way into a gloomy section
remotely located on the outskirts of Washington.
Jimmy Christopher drew it to the curb in front of a
squalid building which was, to all appearances, a
cheap rooming house. Except for a dim bulb
shining over its entrance, it was dark.
The tough-faced, pug-nosed Irish lad who sat
beside Operator 5 peered at it wonderingly.
"Gee, Jimmy, I never saw this place before,"
he remarked.
"Sub-headquarters, Tim."
He would have revealed that fact to no other
person than Tim Donovan. The hard-muscled boy
was his unofficial assistant. Though too young to
enter the Intelligence Service, Tim Donovan had
aided Operator 5 in several cases of the gravest
importance. His loyalty and faith in Jimmy
Christopher was unbounded; he would stop at no
lengths to serve his friend.
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On his right hand, Tim Donovan wore a ring
specially designed by Operator 5-a ring of white
metal, picturing a white skull against a black
background, a copy of the golden charm on
Operator 5's watch-chain. It bore the numeral 5.
Intelligence operators all over the world had been
informed that by the sign of the ring Tim Donovan
could be recognized. He wore it with pride.
"Wait here, Tim," Jimmy Christopher
suggested.
"Listen, Jimmy," the boy said cautiously. "I've
been watching, and I haven't seen anybody, but I
think somebody's shadowing us right now."
Operator 5 glanced quickly up and down the
dark street, and slipped away from the wheel.
"Anything's possible, Tim. The devil only knows
what we're getting into. Watch sharp, and if you
see anything suspicious, go to the door and ring
the bell. Three times quick, then once-that's your
signal."
"Okay, Jimmy," Tim Donovan answered
uneasily. "Depend on me."
Jimmy Christopher slapped the boy's
shoulder and hurried to the bleak entrance of the
house. In many ways, the little Irish lad was as
close to him as a blood brother. Since that night a
year ago, when Tim Donovan, drenched in a
downpour, cold and miserably hungry, had saved
Operator 5 from a hired assassin's bullet, they
had been inseparable. They felt mutual admiration
for each other that nothing but death could ever
break.
A signal touch on the doorbell was answered
by the click of an electric latch. Jimmy Christopher
trod into a gloomy hall. He descended steps into a
dark corridor in which a line of doors opened. As
he neared one of them, a light flashed in his face,
then vanished. Another latch clicked, and he
stepped into a brightly lighted room.
No windows opened into it; its walls were
bare. Its only furnishings were a desk and two
ordinary chairs. Those men of secrecy who knew
of the existence of this place were a few specially
trusted agents of the United States Intelligence
Service. It was designated Sub-Headquarters G.
A man with hair as black as a raven's wing,
whose jet eyes smoldered in the deep shadow of
a heavy brow, rose quickly from the desk. His was
a tremendous responsibility-the direction of all
Intelligence activities in the United States; he was
known only as Z-7. His hard hand gripped
Operator 5's.
"My boy! God, what a devilish thing! You've
just come from the hall?"
Jimmy Christopher nodded. "There's very
little more to report than what I gave you over the
telephone, Chief. Is the savage still here?"
"Yes, in the next room. I have reports from
other agents, but all of them leave me absolutely
bewildered. How it could have happened, and
why-" Z-7 gestured hopelessly. "There's only
one ray of light. The latest report states that a
truck was found abandoned near the Capitol a
short time ago.
Operator 5 declared promptly, "That truck
brought the blacks to the hall, and then it took
them away again. If you've followed it up, Chief,
you've probably found that the truck is registered
in a false name-that it leads nowhere."
"Exactly." Z-7 exclaimed. "How the devil?-"
"Heavy tire tracks outside the hall, Chief,"
Jimmy Christopher answered. "I suspected a
truck immediately. The fact that it has been
abandoned means that tonight's move was
completed."
Z-7 asked tensely, "Is it possible that this
attack was made only for the purpose of
kidnapping Martin Evarts and his daughter?"
"It is a great deal more than it appears to be
on the surface, Chief," Jimmy Christopher
answered. "The very fact that Evarts was seized
in such a way indicates that beyond any doubt."
"But Evarts could have been taken from his
home, from his office, from his car-a dozen
different ways. The thing actually became
wholesale murder!"
"Wholesale murder, committed for a
purpose," Operator 5 declared quietly.
The telephone clattered as Z-7 studied
Jimmy Christopher's face. "You have a suspicion,
my boy?"
"If I have," Operator 5 answered, "it's
something I must keep to myself-at least for the
time being."
Z-7 lifted the telephone from a drawer of the
desk. He listened, answered in monosyllables,
and looked amazed. When he returned the
instrument his black eyes gleamed and he
blurted: "Evarts has been freed!"
Swiftly, Z-7 related the facts given to him
over the wire. Operator 5 listened intently. The
clouds in his eyes grew darker with each
astonishing revelation.
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"And nothing was in the house when it was
searched!" Z-7 concluded.
"No blacks-nothing! They've been spirited
to some other hiding place. Evidently, the masked
man simply left through a back door..."
"It shows, Chief," Operator 5 interrupted,
"that this thing was deliberately planned and put
into execution for a very definite reason. The
threats against Evarts' life mean a great deal
more than danger to one man, or even to a few
men. The blacks brought terror into that hall
tonight-and terror is the weapon wielded by the
man in the mask."
A faint buzz sounded, then twice more, in a
signal. The Washington chief pressed a button in
answer. Operator 5 rose, and they stepped
together into an adjoining room.
Inside it, two Intelligence men were facing a
huge black. The ebony-skinned giant, naked
except for his crude loincloth, was strapped into a
chair. His shoulder was plastered where the shaft
of Operator 5's rapier had pierced it, yet he
seemed to feel no pain. His supple muscles
bulged as he strained against the straps that
bound him.
The two Intelligence men mopped at their
faces. "No use working on him any longer, Chief,"
one of them sighed. "He doesn't seem to
understand a word of any language I've tried. He
hasn't spoken. God help us if he manages to get
loose from that chair-he's strong as six men!"
Operator 5 regarded the massive body of the
black with frank admiration. The man was a
superb physical specimen; his spirit seemed
unquenchable. Jimmy Christopher had ordered
him brought immediately to Sub-Headquarters G
and had, by a manipulation of the displaced
vertebra, released him from the jiu-jitsu paralysis.
The paint had been washed from his face
disclosing coarse, primitive features. The straps
that circled him whined as he bore his strength
against them.
"Watch him," Operator 5 warned. "He can
crack your spine like a stick if he gets the
chance."
Z-7 was opening the door on the farther side
of the room. With Operator 5, he passed into a
small hallway. They paused at a closet, and
carefully affixed black velvet masks to their faces.
They moved together toward another door, and
stepped into a third, bare room.
Again, three men were present. Two were
Intelligence Agents. The third, standing between
them, was a strapping six-footer, clad in tweeds,
his rusty hair bristling beneath the brim of a
slouch hat. He looked startled into the masked
faces of Operator 5 and Z-7 and his jaw squared
angrily. "What the devil does this mean?" he
demanded.
Operator 5 asked him quietly: "You are Kirby
Carveth?"
"I am. I demand to know-"
"You will learn why you have been brought
here," Jimmy Christopher promised him, "at
once."
At his gesture, the two Intelligence men
withdrew. Carveth straddled defiantly as the door
closed.
"Well?" he demanded. "Those two men said
they were acting in some official capacity. They
were damned vague about it. I demand an
explanation, right now!"
Kirby Carveth's personality was striking, his
manner one of independence and pride. There
was something like a threat in his glare.
"You have been brought here by the
Government of the United States," Operator 5
began. "You need-"
"Am I under arrest? And if so, what for?"
Behind his mask, Jimmy Christopher smiled.
"You are not under arrest, Mr. Carveth. We are
obliged to act in this unusual manner because we
are members of the Intelligence Service and our
operations must remain under cover. We ask that
you keep this incident in your strictest
confidence."
"Intelligence men?" Carveth echoed. "I'll be
damned! All right; what do you want?"
"You have established a world-wide
reputation for yourself as an explorer, Mr.
Carveth," Operator 5 continued. "There is
scarcely any corner of the globe you do not know
at first hand. No man living can equal your
knowledge of strange, little-known lands. Because
of that, we wish your help."
Jimmy Christopher opened his coat, and
from his belt withdrew a long, broad-bladed knife.
He extended its handle toward Carveth. The big
man took it curiously.
"Can you tell us of what part of the world that
knife is typical, Mr. Carveth?"
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"Yes. It is a dao. It is used by the natives of
the Naga Hills, in Assam, India."
"Will you come with us, please?"
Operator 5 opened the way into the adjoining
room. Carveth went ahead, his heels beating
hard. When he passed the far door, he stopped
short, peering at the tremendous black strapped
in the chair. His eyes widened; he muttered an
exclamation
"Where did you get that fellow?';
"Can you identify him?" Operator 5
countered
Carveth nodded at once. "Perhaps," he said;
"you notice a peculiar odor about him. It is the
smell of keora, or oil of spikenard-a precious
extract made from a highly scented flower and
used in idol worship in India.
"The knife and the odor both identify him as
a native of the Naga Hills, in Assam. How the
devil did he turn up here? If this were not America
it wouldn't seem so strange, but-"
Carveth stepped close. He spoke a guttural
word and the huge black stared at him implacably.
Again and again, the explorer uttered weird
syllables, without a glimmer of recognition coming
into the eyes of the savage. At last he paused,
and as he spoke again, the black jerked in
astonishment.
"The final proof," Carveth declared. "First I
tried out on him a few words of several tribal
languages alien to the Naga Hills. He did not
understand them. The last few words were his
language. You saw the response."
"Can you get information from him?" Z-7
asked eagerly. "Where he came from; who
commands him?"
Carveth spoke again, rapidly, gutturally. That
the black recognized the words was plain; yet no
sound passed the full, dark lips. Again and again
Carveth pressed questions upon him, but he
remained mute. The explorer straightened with a
wag of his shaggy head.
"You'll never get anything out of him," he
declared. "All the torture in the world wouldn't
make him open up. Trying to learn anything from
him is hopeless."
"There is no doubt that he is what he seems
to be?" Operator 5 inquired.
"None. Did you think he might be an ordinary
Negro pretending to be a savage? Not at all. This
black is a true native of the Naga Hills. He grew to
manhood in that jungle. His is the typical build and
mentality of the tribesmen. A few words I used,
idioms of other tribes not far from Naga, were
evidently unknown to him, indicating that he never
moved far out of his own country. Yet here he is
in Washington, an absolutely untamed savage.
And a damned ugly customer, in more ways than
one!"
Operator 5's eyes shone darkly through the
openings of the velvet mask as he escorted
Carveth back to the first room. The explorer
returned the knife to Jimmy Christopher.
"Look here," he said suddenly. "I don't know
what you're up against, but I can warn you that
that black is literally as much a part of the jungle
as any untamed carnivore. He is a highly
dangerous animal. His strength is incredible, and
his senses are as keen as a wild beast's.
"In India such savages are used by the police
for the tracking of criminals. Those men can
follow a scent as keenly as a bloodhound. They
track their way through the jungles and reach their
victims unerringly; God, I shouldn't want to have
any of them on my trail!
Operator 5 glanced significantly at Z-7.
Recalling the manner in which the horde of blacks
had seized upon Martin Evarts in the great hall,
he shuddered.
Kirby Carveth continued rapidly: "Death
comes swiftly in the Naga Hills-these savages
inflict it upon their enemies without thought,
without remorse. In the make-up of that
magnificent human beast there is not the slightest
vestige of morality or mercy as we know it.
They're superb human destructive machines.
"He is one of a weird people, from a land of
weird faiths He and his brother savages are
worshippers of the moon and of sacred fires.
They live their ordinary lives under a system
closely resembling communism, as we know it.
They are practitioners of demonology, of which
part is the rite of cutting off the heads of the dead.
You have heard, perhaps, of the Leopard Men of
the Naga Hills?"
Operator 5 nodded,
"Tales of Iycanthropy run rife there-tales of
the existence of werewolves, men who are able to
transform themselves into wolves and leopards
and hyenas, who prowl at night, driven by a
craving for raw flesh-sometimes human flesh.
That black is an embodiment of all the weirdness
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and horror of jungle savagery. God only knows
what this means, but look out for him!"
"Do you know of any way of tracing him?"
Jimmy Christopher inquired. "If he were released,
would he return to the hidden place from which he
came?"
Kirby Carveth's shaggy head wagged. "No.
He is as cunning as a fox. He would lead you
astray and lose you. He would be more difficult to
follow than a wild animal, because he possesses
a highly developed sagacity. How you may learn
where he came from-that's impossible to say.
"If you wish my services further, however,"
Carveth declared, "if I can help you in any other
way, I shall be only too glad to do what I can."
"Thank you," Operator 5 answered. "The
men who brought you here will take you back to
your hotel."
Carveth gave another curious glance at the
two masked faces, and opened the door
connecting with dark hallway. He was stepping
out when a strange, beating call sounded, a voice
that boomed from the room beyond, repeating a
single word.
"Yama! Yama! Yama!"
Carveth paused on the sill, peering back.
Operator 5 and Z-7 turned quickly as a connecting
door flung open. One of the two Intelligence men
who had been closeted with the black burst in
anxiously.
"He's shouting like a madman! He's staring
into space and singing out that name over and
over again! God, it makes my flesh crawl!"
Operator 5 peered through the two doors at
the black. The tremendous savage was straining
at the straps so violently that they threatened to
split apart. His head was raised, his black eyes
were staring upward, his broad nostrils were
quivering; his strained lips exposed gleaming
tusks as his throaty call came again.
"Yama! Yama!"
"Yama..."
The quiet repetition of the word from Kirby
Carveth turned Operator 5 and Z-7 toward him
quickly. The adventurer's eyes shone warningly.
He said, very quietly: "He is pronouncing a curse
upon you. He is imploring the spirits to strike. He
is calling upon the Black Diety of Yama-the tribal
God of Death!"
The door closed quietly as Kirby Carveth
stepped out. Jimmy Christopher watched the
black straining at the straps, and signaled the
agent back.
"Put more straps around him," he ordered
quickly. "Carry him into the rear room, chair and
all, and lock him in. Take no chances with him!"
As the black was shut from view by the
closing door, Jimmy Christopher stripped off his
mask. Z-7 gazed at him wide-eyed, during a
moment of silence.
"It's as I suspected, Chief," he said firmly.
"That black is an instrument of someone who has
put a devilish plan into operation. What that plan
is, I believe-"
Z-7 demanded anxiously, as Operator 5
paused: "For God's sake, if you have any inkling
of what lies behind this damnable business-"
Jimmy Christopher said quickly: "Chief, I
believe-" and then he broke off, listening.
In the room a buzzer was signaling. It rasped
three times, quickly-then once.
Tim Donovan's signal!
Operator 5 spun to the door. He sped along
the corridor and up the stairs as Z-7 followed. At
the entrance he paused, peering through the
grimy pane. In the street he saw his roadster, Tim
Donovan standing beside it. Beyond sat another
car into which the two Intelligence men were
escorting Carveth.
"Okay, Chief," Jimmy Christopher said
quietly to Z-7, who stood at his shoulder. "Tim's
seen something. Wait here."
He opened the door quietly and sidled out.
As he appeared, Tim Donovan came quickly
toward him. The boy was glancing breathlessly up
and down the street.
"What's up, old-timer?" Jimmy Christopher
asked quietly. "It's not like you to give a false
alarm."
"Gee, Jimmy!" the Irish lad blurted. "I don't
know exactly what happened, but-look!"
He turned his face, and the yellow light
disclosed a cut on his cheek. Tim dabbed a
handkerchief at the trickling red. Operator 5's
eyes clouded dangerously as he drew the boy into
the shadow.
"I-I was just sitting in the car, Jimmy," the
boy said quickly. "I thought I saw something
moving across the street. It was there, and then it
was gone. I got out to see and all at once
something flashed through the air out of the
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shadow over there. It flew straight toward the
building and I expected to hear it hit, but it didn't. I
gave you the signal, and watched again-but
there's nobody over there now.
"I've looked for the thing that hit me, but it
isn't anywhere around!"
Again Operator 5 scanned the street. Except
for the two cars, it seemed deserted. A few
streetlights gleamed, and trees cast distorted
shadows along the sidewalks. There were
numerous dark spots in which an assailant might
be crouching, yet-
"It came straight across the street, Jimmy,"
Tim said again tensely, "but it didn't hit the
building-it didn't hit anything. It just vanished."
Jimmy Christopher spoke tersely through the
door: "Take Tim in with you. I'm going to look
around."
"Jimmy-watch out!" the boy pleaded
earnestly. "You can't tell what it was!"
"If it's still here," Operator 5 answered briefly,
"I'll soon find out. Nobody's going to hurt you, Tim,
and get away with it!" He went down the steps
quietly.
CHAPTER FOUR
TRAIL OF TERROR
IN THE CAR ACROSS THE STREET, A
match flared as one of the men lighted a
cigarette. The starter ground while Operator 5
moved cautiously along the sidewalk. He stepped
into the shadows of a line of trees, swerved to
cross the street, and suddenly ducked.
Out of the gloom came swift, black, slashing
power. It was a blur in the darkness that traveled
swiftly, yet more slowly than a thrown object. The
spinning vagueness flashed out of nowhere,
hissing as it sped. It whirled at the level of
Operator 5's throat; he felt its tearing wind as it
whisked past.
He crouched, snatching at his arm-pit
holster, and watched it. From the doorway, Tim
Donovan's voice cried: "Look out, Jimmy! That's
it!"
The strange blur was hovering in the gloom
of the street, swinging away. It was not traveling
in a straight line, but in a curve. As Jimmy
Christopher's eyes followed its swift flight, he saw
it completely reverse its movement and begin
flashing back in the direction from which it had
come!
It was like a circling, wingless bird that sang
a song of sibilant death as it whirled.
Then another!
Jimmy Christopher sprang away as the
second, blurring object slashed through the
darkness. This time it whirled close to the
pavement, cutting across the spot where he had
crouched. As he leaped, startled cries came from
the doorway and from the car containing Carveth
and the Intelligence men.
He avoided the second burst of mysterious
power, and watched the first. It was winging back
into the darkness across the street, completing a
circle. Jimmy Christopher went after it at a bound.
He leaped into thick darkness, and into a swift,
desperate struggle.
Two black figures hurled themselves upon
him. Sharp-edged steel flashed in the gloom.
Operator 5 wrenched out of clawing hands that
tore at this coat, and fired. An ear-splitting cry
sang out of the darkness, and a body fell.
In the street behind Jimmy Christopher, men
ran. The two Intelligence agents and Kirby
Carveth had rushed from the car. Z-7 was
hurrying along the pavement, with Tim Donovan
scrambling anxiously ahead.
"Jimmy!" the boy cried frantically.
Operator 5 wrenched to the side as a vicious
blow swung through the darkness toward his
head. He drove out a stiff-armed blow that
thudded against solid flesh. A gun blasted a bullet
that spanged against the pavement. Jimmy
Christopher bounded for the hand that gripped the
weapon.
He clutched it, twisted sharply and heard a
moan of agony. An automatic clicked to the
cement. Operator 5's right leg hooked behind the
heels of his assailant as he thrust swiftly against
the man's chin. He dropped upon a squirming
figure and drove a hard blow that brought a
convulsive gasp.
He rose with his man lying helpless.
Dark figures crowded around Jimmy
Christopher. He leveled his gun downward as Tim
Donovan gripped his free arm. The boy cried
anxiously: "Jimmy-you all right?"
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"Okay, Tim," Operator 5 said breathlessly.
"There're two of them. Watch sharp!"
A flashlight gleamed in the hand of one of the
Intelligence agents. Its beam swept upon the two
figures-lying on the sidewalk. The first was a
grotesque sight-a powerfully-built black garbed
in a loose-fitting business suit. His barbaric face
was relaxed in death. A savage garbed in the
clothes of civilization-gripping in one hand a
strange, curved weapon of wood and steel!
The cone of light shifted to the other man.
His skin was swarthy, his eyes inky. He gasped
spasmodically, helpless under the effects of the
powerful blow which Operator 5 had delivered to
his solar plexus. Jimmy Christopher bent over him
in surprise and Z-7 exclaimed:
"Great Scott, it's-"
The Washington chief broke off, turning
quickly toward Kirby Carveth. The explorer had
lifted from the pavement the second of the weird,
curved weapons; he was peering now at Operator
5 and Z-7, seeing their faces unmasked. He ran
his thumb over the metal edge of the crescentshaped
missile, and shuddered.
"It would have sliced you in two if it had hit
you!" he declared. "It's a knife-edged boomerang!"
Jimmy Christopher straightened coldly.
"Another weapon from the Naga Hills?" he asked
quietly.
"No! That's the strange part of it! That fellow
there-the black who threw it-is not a native of
India. His build, his face, are entirely different. He
comes from Australia, and this weapon is typical
of the same place!"
Jimmy Christopher stepped back and spoke
crisp orders to the two Intelligence men. They first
lifted the powerless white and carried him toward
the door of Sub-Headquarters G. Z-7 followed,
noting that the fight had aroused no alarm in the
gloomy street. Tim Donovan remained with
Operator 5 until the two men returned for the body
of the savage.
"Carveth," he said quietly, "you've helped us
a great deal. We will take advantage later of your
offer to help us again. In the meantime, you must
swear secrecy concerning all this."
"Certainly!" the explorer exclaimed. "You can
count on me absolutely. But with these blacks
prowling after you, your life is in constant danger.
They kill without thought-and they're after you!"
"They are," Jimmy Christopher agreed, "after
me. Please wait for further word from us, Mr.
Carveth, and say nothing."
"Not a word, of course. But I'd give a lot to
know what's behind it!"
Jimmy Christopher said nothing.
The two Intelligence men had returned. They
escorted the explorer again to the car. Carveth
gazed back at Operator 5 curiously. The sedan
moved away as Jimmy Christopher entered again
the gloomy entrance of Sub-Headquarters G. Tim
Donovan was waiting inside the door.
"Gee, Jimmy!" the boy exclaimed. "What
does it mean?"
"It means, old-timer," Operator 5 said quietly,
"that we've got to watch ourselves."
He strode back to the first lighted room. Z-7
was there, facing the swarthy-faced man, who sat
limply in a chair, flanked by the two Intelligence
men who had guarded the captive black. The
prisoner's eyes were defiant, challenging. Z-7
turned away as Operator 5 peered intently at the
man's face.
They strode through the corridor to the
Washington chief's desk. Tim Donovan watched
Operator 5's face anxiously. Z-7 spoke a name in
a whisper.
"Oreos Pakas!"
"Pakas," Operator 5 nodded. "One of the
leaders of the Utopiasts."
The mention was of the political organization
known as the International Utopiasts. Enemies of
all government, more dangerously radical than
Communists and Nihilists, they had spread their
influence across the shores of the United States,
a power utterly antagonistic to the principles of
American democracy, an organization sworn to
destroy every vestige of centralized government.
Oreos Pakas, alien, organizer of secret
societies, who had been deported from his native
country, was known as one of the leaders of the
menacing movement.
"A Utopiast," Operator 5 added quietly,
"hunting me with an Australian savage! They must
have followed me from the hall, Chief. They
intended to get Tim out of the way, then cut me
down as I came out. It only strengthens my
belief."
He drew his wallet from his pocket. From it,
he removed several newspaper clippings. His
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eyes rose darkly to the Washington Chief's as he
spread them out.
"Immediately after you ordered me to watch
the Vice-President, Chief," he said quietly, "my
mind began linking up his case with others. You
gave me the job of discovering what had
happened to the Vice-President, what had
changed him almost overnight into an old man.
Whatever has happened to him, Chief, has also
happened to others."
"What do you mean?"
"Read these accounts, Chief," Operator 5
requested, and placed them on the desk. "The
first concerns William Lyman, the international
banker. A year ago, he was the most powerful
financial figure in the world. He was an alert,
strong executive who controlled empires of
wealth. Today he is almost penniless. He has
turned over his affairs to others. He is a broken
man."
Z-7 nodded. "Overwork, I understand."
"It might seem to be overwork, Chief,"
Operator 5 went on quietly, "if it weren't for the
fact that the change came so suddenly and so
completely, if it weren't that exactly the same
thing has happened to other men. Here are
accounts of three leaders in their fields who have
collapsed. It is more than a mere coincidence."
Z-7 curiously glanced over the clippings.
Their datelines showed that they had been
published within the past month. Each was an
account of a man who had suffered a remarkable,
devastating change, who had been forced to
abandon the prominence of his position.
One concerned the Rev. Joseph Markey,
minister of the largest church in New York,
foremost among all who had answered his calling.
The gigantic edifice in uptown New York, one of
the most remarkable sights of the city, had been
built especially for him. His following was
nationwide. He had been acclaimed as the
greatest of all religious leaders, and inspirer of
men. Yet now he had surrendered to a personal
destruction that had seized him.
The news account pictured him as a man
crushed and defeated. Aged beyond his years,
weary, voicing a cynicism entirely foreign to his
nature, he had preached a last sermon in which
he pronounced his belief that his life's work was in
vain, that religion was doomed, that his great
church was a hollow temple, that his congregation
were souls irretrievably lost. In despair, to the
dismay of the world, he had resigned.
The third account pictured the collapse of the
millionaire owner of a powerful string of
newspapers, Arthur Pegburn, whose name was a
household word. Pegburn had succumbed
suddenly to-so the newspapers had it-"ill
health." Unable to control his publications any
longer, he had been forced to turn them over to
his sons. His vitality, which had in the past
aroused admiration and respect, was gone; his
mind was dimmed, his very nature changed.
"Three great leaders," Operator 5 declared,
"who have become broken men."
Z-7 ejaculated: "Great Scott, you can't
believe-"
"I believe, Chief," Jimmy Christopher
declared, "that the cases of Lyman and Markey
and Pegburn link up directly with the attack on
Martin Evarts-that they all link up with the
International Utopiasts-the man in the mask and
the untamed savages. Fit the pieces together and
you have a picture of a deliberately planned
destruction striking at the leaders of the United
States!"
Z-7 rose slowly, his black eyes smoldering,
galvanized by the import of Operator 5's words.
"The United States is its leaders, Chief!" Jimmy
Christopher declared. "Its great men have always
made it great. Its power depends upon the
strength of the individual greatness of its citizens.
Destroy those men-and you destroy the nation
which they create and maintain!"
"Good Lord, Operator 5! Then the Utopiasts
are attacking us!"
Jimmy Christopher answered: "The Utopiasts
are certainly a party to this secret plan, but the
very nature of it proves it is a strategy of one
shrewd, daring mind, even more powerful than the
organization. The man whom Martin Evarts saw,
Chief-the man in the strange mask-who is
hiding here in Washington at this very moment,
preparing to strike again to crush down another of
our national leaders."
"How the devil can he hope to succeed with
such a devilish scheme?" Z-7 demanded
anxiously. "The very daring of it!"
"The very daring of it is his power," Jimmy
Christopher declared. "His use of the untamed
savages, opposed to educated, cultured men,
was gesture of contempt for the civilization he is
striving to destroy. He has already broken these
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three men, at least; he is acting now to break
Martin Evarts and he has even reached the Vice-
President!"
"Do you connect the Vice-President's
condition with these cases?" Z-7 asked. "If it's
true, then no one is safe from that man in the
mask!"
"Chief." Jimmy Christopher stepped closer.
"The man-breaker is organized. He has already
struck to destroy. He will strike again and again,
and each time he shows his power, another of our
national leaders will fall crushed. There is no time
to waste. We've got to act now!
"Yes!"
"You ordered me to investigate the case of
the Vice-President. I understand that, after
witnessing the attack tonight, he is in a state of
collapse, and under the care of physicians."
"Yes!"
"Then my latest orders may be expanded.
Chief, I want to carry through with this case. I
want the chance of running to earth the man who
is behind this damnable plan."
Z-7's eyes shone like black diamonds. "My
boy," he said fervently, "the case is yours. There
is no one better qualified to tackle it."
Their hands clasped firmly across the desk.
Operator 5 stepped back, his gaze darkly
clouded, thoughtful. Unconsciously, his fingers
strayed to the ornament dangling from his watch
chain-to the little golden skull, the grim symbol of
death.
CHAPTER FIVE
TWELVE STROKES OF DOOM
"HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMP DISAPPEARS!
Gene Lewis Missing! Police Hunting Kidnapped
Fighter!"
Newsboys shouted the startling headlines.
Jimmy Christopher heard the cries as he swung
his roadster to a stop in front of the great white
stone hospital. He entered the elevator with
copies of the papers under his arm. Before the
cage stopped, he read a few amazing lines:
"On the eve of his greatest match, the
Heavyweight Champion, Giant Gene Lewis, has
vanished. A frantic search is being made for the
champion, missing from his training camp since
morning.
"It is feared that, if the champion has been
kidnapped, he may fail to appear at Madison
Square Garden tomorrow night, and forfeit the
title.
"Jack Kruse, the contender, amazed at the
news, has offered a reward of $10,000 for Lewis'
return.
"No demand for ransom has been received
by Max Jander, Lewis' manager. If, as it is
believed, the champion was abducted, it is one
of the most amazing kidnapping cases on
record. How Lewis, who registered knockouts in
his fights with Baer and Carnera, could have
been overpowered and forced-"
Operator 5 stepped from the elevator cab
into a corridor, along which Secret Service men
were posted. He passed unquestioned to a
guarded door. As he entered a quiet room, a
uniformed man rose smartly to meet him.
"General Clayton?" Jimmy Christopher
inquired.
"Yes," answered the man who was physician
to the White House. "You are-?"
Operator 5 proffered a letter. General
Clayton read it, nodded, and opened a
communicating door. They stepped into a quiet,
darkened room, where two nurses were attending
a white-haired man who lay beneath spotless
sheets.
The Vice-President's eyes turned wanly to
Operator 5 as the nurses left the room. General
Clayton followed them out. Jimmy Christopher
remained alone with the second executive of the
nation.
"Why-why are you here?" the white-haired
man asked breathily. "What do you want?"
Operator 5 said quietly, "You and I, in my
small way, both serve our country. Our lives are
not our own. We cannot question the commands
of our duties... You understand?"
"Yes..."
"I am here for that reason-because official
necessity demands it. I am here"-Operator 5
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leaned closer and spoke in a whisper-"to learn
the nature of the thing that has happened to you."
The Vice-President's eyes grew round. "I-I
cannot speak of that!" he exclaimed harshly. "I-I
dare not speak of it!"
"Dare not?" Jimmy Christopher questioned
gently. "Why not, when your welfare concerns the
nation; when-"
"I can't bear to think of it!" the white-haired
man blurted. "If-if I brought it into words, it would
be too much to endure! You must not question
me!"
"I must question you," Jimmy Christopher
insisted. "You are second in command of the
government. It is for the welfare of our
government that I-"
"No, No! I beg of you! It will drive me mad to
have it brought back to me! I tell you, I cannot
speak of it! I-I cannot-"
A convulsive shudder passed through the
weak body on the bed. A strangling gasp came
through the fluttering lips. The Vice-President's
hand clutched in agony at his heart. Instantly,
Operator 5 sprang to the door.
General Clayton hurried to the bedside. He
worked swiftly, with deft, sure fingers. The
glittering needle of a hypodermic syringe plunged
into the trembling flesh of the Vice-President's
arm, and a sigh sounded in the tense stillness of
the room. Operator 5 watched color return to the
face of the white-haired man, and his lips pressed
hard.
"I'm sorry," the physician said soberly, rising.
"His life depends upon absolute quiet. His heart
cannot stand the excitement. You must go."
Jimmy Christopher said nothing as he moved
to the door. He stepped out, and his gaze lingered
on the drawn, haggard face of the striken
executive. As he moved along the corridor slowly,
absorbed in thought, the clouds in his eyes grew
dark.
From a telephone booth, he called a secret
number. The voice of Z-7 rang anxiously over the
wire from Intelligence Headquarters 13. Operator
5 reported, "It's impossible to question the Vice-
President further, Chief. That lead must come to
nothing. Whatever happened to that man was so
staggering that the mere thought of it threatens to
shatter his mind."
"Great Scott! Then-"
"Have you sent men to cooperate with the
New York police on the disappearance of Gene
Lewis?"
"Yes!"
"You have questioned Pakas-?''
"And learned nothing!" Z-7 declared. "The
man rants about the coming-to-power of the
Utopiasts, but shuts up like a clam when we try to
learn who is behind this thing. It is impossible to
get him to talk. The case seems hopeless!"
"Except for one lead, Chief," Jimmy
Christopher answered grimly, "only one. We've
got to follow it for all it's worth-Martin Evarts."
Operator 5 and Z-7 peered intently at the
man seated tensely on the opposite side of the
table, who leaned forward, pale and anxious, his
fingers drumming.
They had driven together from Washington to
the imposing stone residence in Pittsburgh in
which they now sat. They had passed armed
guards patrolling the high-spiked fence which
surrounded it, and other sentries posted at the
doors. They had found Martin Evarts in a state of
nervous anxiety. He stared at them now, and his
fingers tattooed.
"The death of Franklin O'Keefe, then,"
Operator 5 said quietly, "could not possibly have
been an accident."
"It was not an accident!" Evarts exclaimed
huskily. "It was made to appear so, but it was not.
That man was tricked into leaving his office by a
fake message-I've learned that much. Once he
came to the loading tracks, he was seized and
thrown upon them just as a freight passed. There
is no other way of accounting for the horrible thing
that happened to him."
"Killed," Jimmy Christopher observed quietly,
"exactly at midnight last night."
"Exactly at midnight! Exactly at the hour-"
Evarts' fingers tapped more rapidly as he paused
in anguish-rapped out an expression of the fear
gnawing at his heart.
"And tonight-?" Jimmy Christopher began
to ask.
"He-that human demon in the mask-
named Mercer for tonight-William Mercer, my
research chemist, one of the finest men living. I've
warned him, I've put guards around him, but-"
Evarts' bloodshot eyes turned to the clock
ticking on the table. It indicated a bit past eleven-
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thirty p.m. The nervous rippling of his nails on the
table grew sharper.
"Look here, Mr. Evarts," Operator 5 said
firmly. "You've got to keep a firm hold on yourself.
You're letting this thing get you-exactly as the
man in the mask wishes it to. You've got to fight it,
or-"
"I know, I know!" Evarts exclaimed. "I try to
control myself, but-God, it's too much to face!
These men are my closest friends. Frank O'Keefe
and I were puddlers together when we got our first
jobs in the mill. They've all devoted themselves to
building up the plant. It's impossible to believe that
they've got to die because that human demon has
pronounced a reasonless death sentence upon
them!"
"Not reasonless," Jimmy Christopher
answered. "The reason is your reaction at this
very moment. Unless you control yourself, you'll
go to pieces exactly as the man in the mask
wishes you to. You've got to fight yourself first, to
fight him."
"Yes, yes! I-" Evarts squared his shoulders
and clenched his fingers. Nervous pressure
surged within him as he strove to remain quiet.
"That's better," Jimmy Christopher
encouraged. "It's a terrible thing to face, but
you've got to face it. We'll do everything possible
to keep the doomed men alive. Besides your
guards, I have others watching Mercer's home
tonight. The two other men-where are they?"
"Phil McAvoy," Evarts answered, "is also at
home, under guard. He insists on keeping to the
job of superintending the mill during regular work
hours, but I'm having him watched continually.
Neill, our naval architect, is on a steamer tonight
returning from Europe. He will not land until after
the time named for him by the masked devil.
Thank God he, at least, is beyond reach!"
Jimmy Christopher rose. "It will reassure
you," he stated, "to be with William Mercer
tonight. We have time to reach his home before
midnight. Perhaps you'd better telephone him that
we're coming at once."
As Evarts took up the telephone, his fingers
resumed their tense drumming. He asked for
Mercer of the manservant who answered; he
waited anxiously, biting at the dry scales of his
lips. Suddenly he spoke sharply. "What? Not
there?"
Operator 5 turned quickly. Martin Evarts
drew out of the chair tensely. "Johnson, for God's
sake, he must be in the house! Look for him! Look
in every room, I say!"
Jimmy Christopher took the telephone from
Evarts' palsied hand. The steel magnate's face
had turned ash white. Operator 5 listened over the
silent line, while the search went on through
Mercer's house, while Evarts talked swiftly.
"Johnson says that Mercer thinks the
precautions foolish. He wanted to go to the lab
tonight and work. Johnson believes that Mercer
slipped out somehow and-"
"Mr. Evarts, sir!" a ringing voice came over
the line. "I'm quite positive that Mr. Mercer is not
here. No one saw him leave, but he must have
gone to the lab!"
Jimmy Christopher rattled the hook and cut
the connection. The number he called, given him
by Evarts, was that of the huge steel mills. When
the plant operator answered, he asked for the
research laboratory. In a moment, a voice
answered.
Operator 5 passed the receiver to Evarts
with a sigh of relief. "He's there, Chief," he
informed Z-7 as Evarts spoke breathlessly over
the wire.
"Lord, Bill-I warned you to stay in! You can't
take a chance like that! It's not nonsense, man!
Don't you realize? It's-" Evarts glanced at the
clock and his face flushed with quick
apprehension, "fourteen minutes of twelve!"
Operator 5 heard Mercer say: "I'm perfectly
safe, Mart."
"Listen! Lock yourself in that lab!" Evarts
commanded. "Make sure the windows are barred.
Don't let anybody in until we get there. We're
coming right away, Bill. For God's sake, do as I
say!"
Evarts left the telephone quickly. He hurried
out the door to the heavy sedan which was
waiting in the driveway, with Operator 5 and Z-7
following. A chauffeur snapped to alertness at the
wheel as they climbed in. "The plant!" Evarts
commanded. "And make it before twelve! Never
mind the traffic lights!"
The car swung away. Guards at the gates
opened the way, and the car sped along a wide
street. Soon it was running along a river road,
beyond which lay the black, rambling steel plants
for which Pittsburgh is famous. Flames poured
from high stacks and smoke clouded the sky.
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Operator 5, seeing the knobs of a radio in the
rear of the forward seat, clicked it on. Evarts
dabbed nervously at his moist face as the tubes
heated.
"Faster!" he urged the driver, and the car
streaked past a red signal. "That's like Bill
Mercer," he declared uneasily to Jimmy
Christopher. "He is absorbed in testing a new
steel we're developing at the plant. The hardest
known. A new batch came out of the annealing
ovens tonight, and he couldn't keep himself from
going to that lab and testing it. He's alone. He's
locked himself in, but-"
The twanging voice of the radio interrupted.
A breathless announcer was on the air. "Most
unusual broadcasts ever picked up, ladies and
gentlemen! Union Square is literally packed with
people. There are tens of thousands here,
crowded so closely that the mounted police can
scarcely make headway against them. One of the
hugest mass meetings ever called, and it is
becoming a riot! The crowd is shouting an ovation
to the speaker."
Operator 5 glanced uneasily at Z-7. Even
Martin Evarts forgot himself for a moment as the
roar of a mob surged out of the loudspeaker. "We
are observing the crowd from a building on
Fourteenth Street, ladies and gentlemen," the
voice in New York said breathlessly. "Mounted
policemen are charging into it trying to break it
apart. There goes an officer, torn from his horse,
and dragged down! His uniform is being ripped
from him! From all around there comes the sound
of breaking window glass. The mob is destroying
everything it can lay hands on! Near the speaker
there are red banners reading International
Utopiasts!"
The heavy sedan swung around a corner and
began to rush across a bridge as the running-fire
account continued, as Jimmy Christopher bent
forward to hear through the amplifier roar.
"The police are outnumbered! They are
powerless to disperse the crowd. The mere sight
of a uniform inflames the mob to a frenzy.
Policemen are being trampled down. It is a mob of
destructive maniacs! We have just received a
flash that reserves are being called from the
United States armories to quell the riot!"
Through the howling of the mob, a booming
voice was audible. "The speaker is talking through
a portable public-address system, inciting the
crowd to revolt. We are now turning a parabolicreflector
microphone toward him so that you will
be able to hear his words. This is the most
dangerous demonstration that has ever occurred
in this country. It looks like the outbreak of the
long-heralded revolution. If this spirit spreads, it
will endanger the whole-"
The booming voice increased to thunder. "On
every hand, failure, weakness, corruption! The
leaders of this nation are breaking under their own
responsibilities! They are being crushed by the
capitalistic machinery that will destroy you all
unless you rise against it! Down with false
leaders! Down with the weakling who rules us!
"This nation is crumbling before your eyes as
one by one the men who try to lead it hopelessly
fall! Rise to the strong, you people! Destroy the
fools who would be great-but fail!"
A swing of the sedan brought it toward great,
black gates as the booming voice diminished in
volume. The announcer returned, speaking again
of the fury of the mob. Jimmy Christopher turned
back clouded eyes toward Z-7.
"My boy, you've discovered the truth!" the
Washington chief exclaimed. "It came before our
very eyes without our knowing it, until you-"
"Merely discovering it," Operator 5 declared,
"is far too little, Chief. "Its source must be found
and choked off at once. Unless we do, that the
riot in New York tonight is merely a suggestion of
the terror that will sweep the entire country."
"You can't believe-!" Z-7 choked out the
words.
"Radicals have attempted to incite riots
before, Chief, and failed," Operator 5 said quietly,
as the great gates swung open before the sedan.
"The American people have confidence in their
government, trust based on individual leadership.
But if our leaders break-if that confidence is
destroyed-"
"The country will run wild. Without faith,
without leadership, the nation is doomed to
destruction!"
Martin Evarts ducked from the car as it
swung to a stop near a sooty brick building. He
paused briefly and glanced at his watch. His eyes
grew wide and he blurted, "Two minutes of
twelve!"
Jimmy Christopher stepped into the steel
magnate's path. "Mr. Evarts! Listen! You realize
what that riot means. You know the object of this
devilish plan. You're aware that you have been
chosen as a victim. You've got to hold onto
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yourself at all costs! No matter what happens,
never forget that this country is watching you!"
Evarts steadied himself, yet he trembled.
"I understand," he said breathlessly. "I'm
doing my best, gentlemen. But God! I'm human. I
can't forget my friends-the promise of that
human devil who-" He broke off and hurried
past. Operator 5 and Z-7 followed him up three
flights of stairs. Evarts led the way to a broad
door. He grasped its knob, found it locked, and
breathed a sigh of relief. Knocking, he called, "Bill!
Are you all right? It's Mart."
A voice answered from inside. "Hello, Mart.
Certainly I'm all right. I'll open the door in a
minute."
Evarts glanced at his watch. One minute
would bring the time exactly to midnight. He
waited nervously, hand on the knob. "Are you
alone, Bill?"
"Yes. I'm making the last test on the new
batch. Be with you right away."
"Are you alone?"
"Yes, completely alone. Everything's locked.
You're making too much of this thing, Mart." The
voice was quiet, as though the man speaking was
absorbed in performing a delicate task. "What
time is it?"
"Almost midnight!" the strain showed in
Evarts' voice.
There was a pause. "She's about finished,
Mart. Best test yet. We're getting it. How the devil
do you think anyone could reach me here,
anyhow?"
"Open the door!" Evarts implored.
From some distant spire, a bell tolled. Evarts
listened intently. One slow stroke of the gong
followed another. A clock was striking the
midnight hour. One. Two. Three...
A latch rattled, and the door swung open.
The man who appeared on the sill was clad in an
acid-stained smock. He was broad-shouldered,
handsome, smiling. Behind him the glass and
metal of a chemical laboratory sparkled; beneath
a porcelain evaporating-dish, a Bunsen burner
was flaming. William Mercer wiped his hands on a
towel and chuckled. "You see, Mart, it's midnight,
and I'm still alive."
"You shouldn't have come here, Bill!" Evarts
protested. "I want you to stay with us."
"You had best leave your laboratory and
return home, Mr. Mercer." Operator 5 said quietly.
"You have been placed under guard for an
excellent reason."
Six. Seven. Eight...
"Very well," Mercer answered. "I'll be right
with you.
He turned back into the laboratory as the
three men waited at the door. He turned off the
burner and shrugged out of his smock. He picked
up his hat.
Ten. Eleven...
Explosion!
It roared with terrific power as the twelfth
stroke of the gong sounded, a booming note that
became lost in the thunder of leaping flame,
shattering glass, rending walls and a bursting
roof! Instantly, horribly, the laboratory flooded with
unleashed power that blasted a shock through the
entire building. In the swift holocaust, Mercer
vanished!
Flame and spewing smoke burst through the
open doorway in a violent rush that enveloped the
three men waiting in the corridor. Martin Evarts
was flung backward by its power. Operator 5 was
whirled away. Z-7 was thrown sprawling against
the far wall. They spilled together in the rush of
disaster, and as the flames whipped away their
clothing, their skin shone red from the blasting
heat.
Sucking air soughed through the shattered
doorway through the broken walls, through the
ripped roof. The blinding brilliance diminished
instantly to the flickering light of flames leaping
from broken wood. A bent girder spilled down;
bricks dropped. Fumes and rolling dust thickened
the air through which destruction had struck.
Operator 5 sprang to his feet, tottering
dazedly from the force of the shock. A highpitched
cry rang from Martin Evarts' lips as the
steel magnate flung himself toward the door. Z-7
crowded behind, gasping in the stinging vapors,
as Jimmy Christopher groped. William Mercer
was lying motionless in shattered debris.
Evarts stopped short, eyes shining crazily,
shaking from head to foot. "Midnight! . . Midnight!"
Z-7 grasped Evarts' arms to restrain the
man's frantic rush toward his friend. Choking,
gasping, Operator 5 bent over the broken figure
on the floor. His examination was brief. He pulled
himself up. With Z-7, he tugged Evarts from the
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sagging floor of the room. Men rushed up the
stairs at the far end of the corridor, as they forced
Evarts away.
Martin Evarts faltered on bending knees.
"Oh, God! he moaned. Oh, God! Dead-at
midnight-at midnight!"
Operator 5 peered coldly, grimly, into Z-7's
haggard face, his eyes shadowed to blackness.
CHAPTER SIX
TRIAL BY TOUCH
A LIGHT FLASHED ON, BRINGING EYE
stinging brightness into the boxlike room. The
man was lashed to four rings embedded in
masonry. His ankles and wrists were bound with
tightly knotted rope. His feet were bare; he was
clad only in pajamas. He braced himself warily,
and peered about the walls which imprisoned him.
The unshaded bulb shining from the ceiling
of the cubicle showed him that the room was
separated into two parts by a strong partition
which rose only as high as his shoulders. He
looked across it, and a wordless exclamation
astonishment rushed through his lips.
In the other section, another man was
lashed, as he was, to four stout, iron rings-a
man whose skin was ebony-black, who was clad
only in a loincloth. The black man turned stoical
eyes and the expression of his crude features
showed no understanding as the prisoner in
pajamas demanded, "What the hell is this? What
are you here for? Speak up!"
His voice rang back from the blank walls. He
tugged violently at the rings to which he was tied.
His magnificent body tightened with wariness as a
sound came from a door opposite.
It opened, and a man appeared. He was clad
in immaculate evening dress. He entered quietly,
holding a folded newspaper in one strangely
smooth-skinned hand. He turned toward the white
prisoner a face that was an expressionless mask.
The pajamaed captive blurted: "Let me out of
here! For God's sake; let me out!"
The answer came in a muffled tone, "You will
be released soon. Have patience. You will need
it."
"Who the hell are you?" the prisoner
demanded angrily. "I'll-"
The strange hand raised. "Threats are a
waste of breath. You will remain here a short
while longer, though it may seem a long time to
you. Very long."
The man in pajamas peered bewilderedly
into the fascinating face of the other. He noted
that the lips did not move, though the voice
sounded forth. He saw shadowed eyes that alone
seemed alive in a face that was a mask of death.
"You may be interested in knowing," the
muffled voice came again, "how important the
newspapers consider you." The rubber-gloved
hands spread the printed sheet in front of the
white captive. Headlines streaked across it. The
prisoner read them swiftly.
LEWIS STILL MISSING; SEARCH FOR
HEAVYWEIGHT BOXING CHAMP FAILS!
"Does it please you, Mr. Lewis," the man in
the mask asked quietly, "to know that you merit
such notice?"
The Heavyweight Champion of the World
glared in defiance. His muscles bunched into hard
masses as he strove anew to tear away from the
wall. The eyes of the man in the mask seemed to
smile with contempt, yet no line of the ghastly
face changed.
"You may justly consider yourself physically
the most powerful man in the civilized world, Mr.
Lewis," the hushed tones came. "You possess
prodigious strength. You have trained intensively
for months to develop your body to its peak of
fitness. Your every muscle is perfectly disciplined.
Your every nerve is as firm as wire. You are
confident that you will have no difficulty in
defeating your opponent, Jack Kruse, though he
is a powerful man himself, and an expert fighter."
"Damn' right I'll kayo him!" Lewis blurted.
"And when I get loose from here, I'll break your
neck!"
"When you get loose from there-" Again the
shaded eyes seemed to smile with contempt. "-
you will be a different man, Mr. Lewis. Consider.
You have trained yourself to take brutal
punishment. You are able to absorb the force of
heavy blows-blows that might kill an ox-without
a blink of the lids. Yet, if the truth be known, you
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are a weakling, a puny child compared with the
black you see bound beside you."
Lewis smiled bitterly. "Give me a chance and
I'll show you!" he challenged.
"You shall have the chance," the man in the
mask answered softly. "A chance. But not to
demonstrate how powerful a blow you can absorb
and remain standing. Not at all. A chance to show
whether you can endure the punishment of
touches so light they would scarcely disturb a
feather."
"What in hell're you talking about?" Lewis
demanded. "You've-you brought me here to-?"
"To break you."
"Break me! Who the hell do you think you
are? Try and do it!"
"Observe," the man in the mask said with
supreme confidence, "the black tied to the other
rings. You are trained, and he is not. You are a
mass of perfectly coordinated muscles; he is
merely a savage to whom physical culture is
unknown. You are bodily perfection; he is a poor
example of his kind. Yet he, you will see,
possesses endurance far beyond your command.
Lewis snorted disbelief and irritation.
"He was brought here," the man in the mask
continued in drummy tones, "exactly when you
were. He has remained here a prisoner as long as
you have. In all ways your situation is equal to his,
except that you fancy yourself far superior to him
on every count. It will not please you, Mr. Lewis,
to find that this untrained, uneducated, ignorant
savage is a better man than you."
Lewis demanded warily, "What're you going
to do?"
"You shall see!" The man in the mask
brought his rubber-covered hands together
smartly. In answer, two doors opened. The two
men who entered were blacks in loincloths, broadnosed,
full-lipped, whose huge, bare feet padded
on the floor. They entered, each carrying a small
twig.
One advanced to Lewis. He untied the knots
that bound Lewis' left ankle to the ring. He twisted
the foot upward, to another ring at knee-level.
There, in spite of Lewis' efforts to kick free, he
bound it again. Immediately, the black sank to his
haunches, holding the light twig.
A glance over the partition showed Lewis
that the dark-skinned captive had been treated in
exactly the same manner. His left foot had been
raised and bound. Beside him, the second black
who had entered was haunched, twig in hand.
Again the man in the mask brought his hands
together. Simultaneously the black beside Lewis
touched the tip of the twig to the sole of the
champion's foot. It was the lightest possible flick,
it came again and again, in slow rhythm. Lewis
snorted his derision. "That's what I'm supposed to
stand, is it?" he demanded.
"A touch that a babe could scarcely feel," the
man in the mask nodded, his weird face never
changing. "Each succeeding one no harder that
the last. You laugh, Mr. Lewis? Very well-laugh.
In days to come, laughter will be beyond you."
The man with the impassive face turned. He
stepped out the door and closed it. Lewis peered
curiously across the partition, and saw that the
other black was likewise tapping the bare sole of
the foot of the savage captive. Each whisk of the
twig was deft and light, a gentle, slow beat.
Lewis stared down. "How long're you goin' to
keep that up?" he asked, and the tribesman
beating with the twig did not even glance up. "Go
ahead! I can take Jack Kruse's left hook. I'm no
man at all if I can't take that!"
Yet, as the minutes passed, a strange
uneasiness began to reverberate through him.
Again and again the twig touched the sole of his
foot with a regularity that never varied. Tap-taptap.
On and on it went, it echoed along his
nerves. Tap-tap-tap-tap. Steadily, again and
again, never changing, the twig touched skin that
seemed to become rawly sensitive. Tap-tap-taptap-
tap.
Lewis snapped, "Listen, that's enough of
that! Get away from there!" The tapping went on.
The nervous effect of the steady touches
crept upon him. Each blow was exactly the same,
scarcely a touch. Each was spaced exactly like
the one before. Like the slow ticking of a clock,
the touches jarred along Lewis' nerves.
"Hell!" he growled aloud. "A little thing like
that can't get me. I can take Kruse's left hook. I'm
no man if-" A shudder passed through him. He
flexed his foot in an effort to work the effect away,
but it came back. He tried to think of other
things-to think of Jack Kruse-the odds of five to
two in his favor-the big crowd that had bought
tickets for Madison Square Garden tomorrow
night. They'd give him an ovation. They'd yell for a
knockout. "Lewis!" they'd bellow. "Take him,
Lewis!" He'd-Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.
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He sucked in breath and held it, chin pressed
to his chest, until the pain in his lungs became
unendurable, but still the jarring of his nerves
remained most vivid in his consciousness. Taptap-
tap. A little thing like that-what did it matter?
Tap-tap-tap. It didn't even hurt, but-God! Taptap-
tap-tap! He peered at the captive black, and
saw that the dark-skinned man was standing
motionless, receiving the same tap-tapping on the
sole of his foot, but his face showed no sign of the
torment that was tearing at Gene Lewis' nerves.
Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap! Tap-tap-tap-tap!
It went on and on. Tap-tap-tap. A convulsive
shudder shook Lewis' huge body. Cold sweat
beaded his skin. He stiffened against the beating
torture vibrating in his brain. He writhed in a
desperate effort to tear away. Tap-tap-tap-tap!
"Oh-stop it! Stop it!"
On and on it went. Tap-tap-tap. "Stop! For
God's sake-stop!" On and on...
In a higher room, the man in the mask
listened. His eyes gleamed through the shell of
metal that encased his head. A chuckle came
from the stiffly parted lips. Through the floor,
came a scream of terror: "Stop! Stop!"
The man in the metal mask strode alertly
through a door into a richly furnished library. At
his step, another man, who had been pacing the
floor, came to a quick stop. They peered at each
other silently.
"You hear, Ehret?" came the muffled tones
of the man in the metal mask. "The most perfect
physical specimen of the white race is crying for
mercy-shrieking because he is merely being
touched again and again by the tap of a light twig.
You can hear his screams of agony-yet the
black has not uttered a sound.''
"Yes-yes!" breathed the other man. "I
hear!"
"He is breaking-slowly breaking. Cracking-
as this entire nation will crack when its leaders all
find themselves shattered shells of men." And
from below, another agonized shriek echoed...
The man in the iron mask strode quietly to a
desk and seated himself. The other faced him
with eyes gleaming. "No one saw you come here,
Ehret?"
"No one knows I am in this country!" A slow
smile formed on the cruel lips of Worden Ehret.
His was a name recorded in the secret archives of
the United States Intelligence Service, a name
which stood first on the rolls of the International
Utopiasts. He was their organizer, their leader.
The light of fanaticism gleamed in his eyes as he
faced the man in the metal mask.
"We are striking!" he declared. "The riot in
Union Square tonight is only a beginning! It will
spread to embroil the entire country. The United
States will experience an overthrow compared to
which the Bolshevik revolution in Russia will seem
nothing. As the leaders of this country crash, one
by one-our power grows!"
The masked man gestured with one rubbergloved
hand. "That does not interest me," he said
slowly.
"What?" Ehret exclaimed. "It is your work
which makes it possible! You and you alone are
opening the way! We might never succeed but for
your destruction of these key men! And you say it
does not interest you. I don't understand. When
this government collapses you will be paid the
sum of one million dollars as a reward. It is our
agreement!"
"Nor," the man in the mask retorted with out
emotion, "does the money interest me." The
muffled voice took on an edge. "It is true, we
made our agreement. You will reward me with
one million dollars in gold when the government of
the United States collapses. You recall the day we
met, in the Cafe Diabolo in Lucerne, when we
made our bargain?"
"I will never forget!" Worden Ehret exclaimed.
"You made a claim-an idle boast, I thought-that
you could crush any nation, any civilization. You
declared you could strike more powerfully than an
army of invasion, that you alone could produce
greater havoc than the bombardment of the
greatest navy in the world. I offered you the
sum-"
"You no longer think that it was an idle boast,
do you, Ehret?" the masked man interrupted.
Again, from below, through the door, came a
tight-throated scream of agony-a cry that
brought paleness to Ehret's face.
"No!" he exclaimed. "I no longer think that. It
is true! You have shown your power!"
"So," the man in the metal mask continued, "I
say that your revolution, your reward, does not
interest me. I am no hireling of yours, Ehret. I am
no tool of your faction. I am a supreme power in
myself. If I wish to-" and the inscrutable face
moved nearer, "I will crush you. I will stamp out
your party, as I have crushed others! If I wish,
Ehret!"
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Worden Ehret's face went haggard; the lines
of his jaw slackened.
"You grow pale, you tremble. You stare at
me in fear. It is well, Ehret. If you chose to be a
fool enough to defy me, I would act to destroy
you. You know I am speaking the truth. You admit
I am the supreme power!"
"Yes-yes!"
Ehret's voice was no longer confident; it was
humble. No longer was his manner that of a
conqueror; it was that of the vanquished.
The man in the metal mask straightened. As
a weaker cry of anguish echoed through the floor,
his shaded eyes glowed with cruel pleasure.
"This, you see, Ehret, is a game, a sporting
contest. I am pitting myself against the greatest
men in the greatest nation in the world. I
challenge them. I defeat them. I leave them
broken. It is life or death-destruction or power-
and I am supreme!"
Ehret stammered humbly, "I acknowledge
your power. I cannot doubt it. I have seen too
much already."
"You have seen nothing compared to what
you will soon witness, Ehret," the man in the
metal mask continued grimly. "A few men have
broken. Many more will break-many more. I shall
continue until each leader is a physical and
mental wreck, until I have completed my task of
destroying them all. And when the government of
the United States falls, Ehret, when your party
rules, you will remember that even then, I am the
power who created you. I am the force which can
destroy you if I wish it!"
Ehret answered in an awed breath: "Yes! I
will remember!" The man in the metal mask rose.
"How your movement progresses is a small
matter to me. Sweep yourselves into power! It is a
mere detail in my contest. I am absorbed only in
my challenge to men who hold themselves great. I
think only of wielding a power over men to crush
them! Now, Ehret... you may go."
Ehret hesitated awkwardly. "And if in your
challenge-er-you should sometime face a man
too strong for you? If in this contest, you should
meet power greater than yours and lose-?"
"I?" The man in the metal mask strode
forward swiftly. He brought himself to Ehret with
such vehement domination that the leader of the
Utopiasts cringed away. Through the holes of his
mask, his shaded eyes blazed. "I, meet defeat?
You are a fool, Ehret! I laugh at the possibility! I
have flung a challenge, and I shall triumph! No
man can face the ordeal I set for him and not
break!"
"There might be one--" Ehret faltered lamely.
"There is not one! I shall destroy them all! I
shall transform every one to mere shells, and
crush them! One? That man does not exist!"
Ehret took a slow, fearful step backward.
"This man you have mentioned. This man called
Operator 5-"
"I will destroy this man called Operator 5 as
easily as the rest-when I choose! I will break
him-mind and body and soul-break him into a
driveling weakling! Stronger than all the others he
may be-but he will crumble before me!"
Ehret peered in dismay at the unchanging,
ghastly face turned to his-at the blazing,
shadowed eyes. Completely dominated by the
force of the man in the metal mask,
overwhelmingly cowed, he found words beyond
him. He turned, terror shining in his gaze, and
quickly left the room.
The man in the mask slowly seated himself
at the desk. His rubber-gloved fingers clenched
and unclenched viciously. "Operator 5!" his
muffled voice rang with contempt. "As though
even he-"
A throat-tearing cry of excruciating torture
echoed from below. The man in the mask
listened, motionless for a long while, to the moans
of anguish. At last his rubber-encased finger
touched a pearl button on the desk. Through an
inter-room communication system, a voice
murmured.
The man in the metal mask grated a
command. "Withdraw. At once!"
Still he sat listening. At each agonized groan
from below, his hard eyes glittered. An electric
clock in the room spun its hands steadily. He
smiled cruelly. The time that passed was merely
minutes to him, but he knew it was eons to the
prisoner in the room below.
At last he rose. He descended stairs. He
opened a door. He peered at the man in pajamas,
ringed snugly to the wall.
The Heavyweight Champion of the World
was sagging weakly in his bonds. Beside him,
haunched, the black was tap-tap-tapping lightly on
the sole of the big man's foot with the twig.
"Oh, God! Stop-stop!" Lewis moaned
continuously, in hopeless monotone.
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The rubber-gloved hands of the man in the
metal mask came together smartly. The blacks
moved away from their two prisoners. Lewis
wilted against the wall, exhausted. Another
handclap, and the two blacks drew knives from
their loincloths. The keen blades cut the ropes.
"Observe," came the muffled voice of the
masked man. With bleary eyes, Lewis peered
across the partition. The captive black had also
been released. He was standing calmly, steadily.
Lewis saw, and a sob soughed through his lips.
"He has endured it," the masked man
taunted, "but you-"
"I'll kill you!" Lewis' fist swung toward the
masked man. He put all his strength into the blow,
but the man in the mask merely stepped aside.
Lewis' knuckles moved through empty air.
"An ignorant, untrained, black has proved
himself your superior, Lewis! Now you may go."
Lewis blinked at the savage who had
received the same punishment he had endured.
The sight of the composed, cool face was a
harder blow than he had ever suffered in the ring.
He ran wildly up a flight of steps. He burst through
another door into the cold night air.
As he fled into the openness of a street, the
headlamps of cars gleamed upon his staggering
figure. Brakes squealed as he dropped to his
knees. He sagged to the pavement and lay
sobbing, exhausted, shaking with weakness.
When startled men crowded around him, lifted
him, and carried him away, he was crying.
CHAPTER SEVEN
DANGLING TRAP
THE CHIEF OF ALL INTELLIGENCE
OPERATIONS in the United States sat at his
desk, in an inner room of Secret Headquarters 13,
in Washington, D.C., while teletype reports were
placed before him in rapid succession. He
snapped into a telephone. "Watch those men
every moment of the day and night! Evarts and
McAvoy, both! The responsibility of their lives
rests with you!"
He glanced at the pasted strips of the
teletype reports as a buzzer sounded. Operator 5
strode briskly into the room. Z-7 gripped Jimmy
Christopher's hand strongly and warmly.
They had returned to Washington early that
morning. Intelligence men, acting on their orders,
had been left to investigate the explosion in the
Evarts steel plant, while others maintained strict
watch on the threatened industrialist and his
friends. Without thought of sleep, Z-7 and
Operator 5 had resumed the investigation of leads
in Washington.
"I have just come from talking with General
Clayton, Chief!" Jimmy Christopher reported. "The
Vice President's condition is unchanged-it's
damned serious! He may have a slight chance of
recovery only after months of rest and treatment.
The news of his breakdown has leaked out. You
know what that means."
"Yes," Z-7 said softly. Then he struck the
desk. "By Jove! These disasters lead me into
almost fantastic theories. Isn't it at least possible
that this diabolical work of the masked man has
been going on quietly for years? Possible that he
began to strike long ago? You recall the collapse
of President Wilson-the uncanny death of
President Harding. It's not inconceivable that even
then, the man in the mask-"
Operator 5 frowned. "Possibly. But right now,
the man behind this devilish plan is striking
rapidly-at one after another of our leaders. If he
keeps on, It will not be long before he achieves
his purpose-whatever it is! We can't overlook a
single lead. Have you reports?"
"Yes." the Washington chief declared, "but
the reports are of almost no help. He fingered
among the messages. "Our men investigating the
explosion in the laboratory last night have
discovered wires leading along the fence from it,
to a spot almost a quarter-mile away. The wires
simply end. It's certain that batteries were
attached just before midnight by men who came
there in a car. A mere touch of the wires set off
explosives planted in the lab. There isn't the
slightest clue to who did it.
"Examining Mercer's home, we found other
wires and more explosives planted. They were set
to get him in several places-wherever he
happened to be. Yet, if he had obeyed your
orders, Operator 5, he might be living now. That
damnable plan-"
"Has marked McAvoy for the next victim. He
must be watched carefully, Chief!"
"I'm taking every precaution. Look here!
Gene Lewis was found in a state of collapse early
this morning on Fifth Avenue, in the Seventies. A
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squad alarm was sounded immediately when he
was found and the radio police swarmed into the
building where Lewis had been held. We know for
sure that the man in the mask had been there, but
he had vanished. My agents followed the police in
but there were no clues. Lewis is on the verge of
a nervous breakdown."
"Will he go through with his big fight tonight?"
"He says he will. My report states that he
considers the fight all-important. He feels he must
win to save himself from the destructive effects of
what happened to him. Here are copies of the
report. See for yourself what was done to him."
Operator 5 took up the yellow sheet, the door
of a communicating room opened. A shirt-sleeved
man left a clattering teletype instrument to bring
Z-7 another dispatch. His eyes were filled with
alarm as he placed it on the desk. "Another riot,
Chief!"
Jimmy Christopher read the report over Z-7's
shoulder. They stared together in silence at the
startling, black lines:
... 13WDC-NEWS FLASH NOW ON
PRESS ASSOCIATION WIRES... WORLDS
FAIR CHICAGO SCENE OF RIOTING...
THOUSANDS INCITED TO DESTRUCTIVE
FRENZY RUNNING WILD... SAME REVOLT AS
UNION SQUARE LAST NIGHT... DISCONTENT
WITH NATIONS LEADERS HAS THROWN
CROWD INTO PANIC... ENTIRE POLICE AND
FIRE RESERVES OF CHICAGO CALLED OUT
TO COMBAT SPREADING RIOT... TEARING
DOWN EXPOSITION BUILDINGS AND
SETTING FIRES... SYMPATHETIC RIOTING
THREATENING IN OTHER CITIES... POLICE
ARREST INTERNATIONAL UTOPIAST
LEADERS... SCORES KILLED IN WORLDS
FAIR STAMPEDE... FURTHER DETAILS
FOLLOW... 40-CI
Z-7 slapped the sheet to the desk. "Good
God! These riots mean that undercover
propaganda has been going on for months! A
wildfire of terror is spreading across the country. It
will grow steadily and swiftly worse unless we find
some way of crushing that damnable masked
demon who is working to crush our leaders!"
Jimmy Christopher leaned close. "We must
take every possible precaution. Most important of
all, we must protect the President."
Z-7 stared. "It would be an appalling
calamity, the most terrible blow that could be
struck!" The Washington Chief seized the
telephone.
As his words rang into the transmitter,
ordering protection of the Chief Executive, Jimmy
Christopher studied the reports on the desk. One
brought a new, thoughtful light in his eyes.
...13WDC... OPERATIVES WORKING
MIAMI HEADQUARTERS REPORT STRANGE
ACTIVITIES WITHIN EVERGLADES... HUNTER
PARTIES GO INTO SWAMPS AND FAIL TO
RETURN... F-9 FOLLOWED TWO UTOPIAST
SUSPECTS BY BOAT INTO UNEXPLORED
REGION... NO WORD IN FOUR DAYS...
STRANGE NEGRO BANDS REPORTED ON
ISLAND... DETAILS VAGUE... OTHER AGENTS
INVESTIGATING WASHINGTON OUTRAGE...
F-1-M...
"I've ordered an intensive search of the
swamps," Z-7 said to Operator 5, turning from the
telephone. "the mention of Negroes linked this
report with the attack of the savages at the D. A.
R. ball. It's possible there's a hideaway in the
Everglades where these blacks are kept until the
masked man brings them into use. If that's true-"
Again the communicating doors swung open,
and again the shirt-sleeved teletype operator
hurried into the room. He pushed a message at Z-
7 and exclaimed, "Another disappearance!"
Jimmy Christopher read across Z-7's
shoulder the dispatch the Chief held in trembling
fingers.
...13WDC... INFORMATION FROM N. Y.
POLICE. DR. GORDON HOLLBRAND MISSING
FROM HOME TWENTY-FOUR HOURS... DR.
HOLLBRAND'S SON WALTER, ALSO
PHYSICIAN, VANISHED TWO DAYS PRIOR...
INFORMATION WITHHELD BECAUSE
RELATIVES EXPECTED KIDNAPPING
RANSOM WOULD BE DEMANDED... NO WORD
FROM EITHER MISSING MAN... DR.
HOLLBRAND S SECRETARY, HENRY VANCE,
DESPERATE AND INFORMED POLICE...
BUREAU OF MISSING MEN ON CASE BUT
COMPLETELY BAFFLED... R-2, N. Y.
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Jimmy Christopher exclaimed, "Dr.
Hollbrand-the greatest surgeon in this country! It
means the masked man has struck again! It's a
new lead, Chief-a lead which we must follow
immediately!"
Z-7 gripped the telephone. His words
snapped. When his connection came through he
demanded harshly, "A cabin plane-at once! It-
is to take off immediately for New York!" He came
to his feet slowly, his black eyes glittering, his jawmuscles
bunching.
Radial Engines roared. The smart cabinplane
sped down the smooth runway, slashed into
the air and climbed. Beneath it passed the
glittering dome of the Capitol, and the white spire
of the Washington Monument, as it sped along
the airlane toward New York.
In the cabin sat Operator 5, Z-7, and the
freckle-faced Tim Donovan. Territory slid under
them swiftly as the motors thundered. Jimmy
Christopher sat absorbed in thought. His fingers
played absently with the golden death's-head on
his watch-chain, as miles whisked away.
In the cockpit, the pilot and co-pilot were
urging the plane to its peak of speed. Jimmy
Christopher saw the freckled face of Tim Donovan
turned to him, and smiled. The boy's slashed
cheek was plastered over; his expression was
one of grave concern.
"Good boy. How about getting our minds off
this thing for a moment? Want to put your wits to
figuring out a slick little trick, Tim?"
"Swell, Jimmy! Got a new one?"
"Here's a series of three, Tim, with the
effects similar, but each worked differently. Do
them one after another, and you'll have your
audience guessing their heads off. Ready for the
first?"
Jimmy Christopher drew from his pocket a
length of cord three feet long, and passed it
before the boy's eager eyes.
"There you are, Tim-ordinary twine. But it
ceases to be ordinary twine when I form it into a
magic circle, like this." Operator 5 brought the two
ends of the cord together between the thumb and
forefinger of his right hand. "Now we have a
magic circle that cannot be broken. You doubt it?
Well, get your knife out, Tim, and we'll see!"
The boy opened his jackknife eagerly as
Jimmy Christopher kept the string formed into a
loop.
"Now, right there in the middle, Tim, cut the
string in two. That's right." As the keen blade
parted the cord, Jimmy Christopher displayed the
new ends, while Z-7 watched in amusement.
Jimmy went on, "Apparently the magic circle is
broken, now-but watch!
"I gather the cord into my hand. I make a few
mystic passes. I call upon the spirits of the magic
circle and-presto!" He shook the string out,
holding it by one end. "There you are, Tim. The
two pieces have become one again!"
Tim Donovan's eyes widened as Jimmy
Christopher displayed the single piece of twine.
"Aw, Jimmy, you changed the piece I cut for
another one you had hidden in your hand!"
"Think so, Tim? Then find the other one.
Search me."
The little Irish lad's search of Operator 5's
pockets, and his inspection of the spread-apart
fingers was painstakingly thorough-but he found
no string.
"No foolin', Tim. It's the same piece, cut in
two and then restored magically. Nothing hidden
in my hands, no suspicious moves, no
substitution-but there you are!"
"Gosh, Jimmy," Tim Donovan gasped, "you
sure fooled me that time! How'd you do it?"
Operator 5 tugged at the ends of the string,
and it immediately fell into two pieces, parting at
the middle. Tim's eyes opened wider. "I still don't
see how you did it!"
"The piece of twine was prepared very
simply, Tim. This is the way to do it. First, get
some ordinary beeswax. Melt it in a hot-water
bath and add a little turpentine so that when it
cools it doesn't harden, but stays at a sticky
consistency. Get a piece of cord about this long.
Fray the ends so that they taper off like a camel's
hair brush. Roll a little of the wax into each end
thoroughly. Then you're all set.
"First, show the string. The prepared ends
won't be noticed. Bring the two waxed ends
together between your thumb and forefinger.
Then the loop is cut, actually making the string
two pieces. Unseen by your audience, you roll the
two prepared ends firmly together between your
thumb and finger."
"Sure, Jimmy, but-"
"Do this while you make the mystic passes,
and gather the cord into your hand. The soft wax
makes the two tapered, waxed ends stick
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together. When you spread the string out, the
place where the two pieces join can't be seen. It's
perfectly smooth, because the ends have been
tapered. It looks like the original length of string,
but in reality it is two pieces stuck together. It's
one of Kelland's favorite stunts."
"Gee, that's a slick one!" Tim exclaimed.
"You mentioned three tricks, Jimmy. How about
the others?"
CHAPTER EIGHT
AIR ATTACK
Sudden, crashing power jarred the plane as it
sped, shocking into Jimmy Christopher's words,
wrenching the fuselage, bringing a screaming roar
from the engines! It happened with amazing
swiftness, without the slightest warning.
Operator 5 sprang from his seat as Tim
Donovan whirled and Z-7 heaved up. In the
control-pit, the two pilots were wrenching
desperately at the stick, which wobbled loosely in
its socket, without effect. The nose of the shaking
plane was lowering. The earth was spreading. up
before the windows as the ship began a swift
drop!
The control-pit door swung open and the copilot
shouted back hoarsely. "Something hit the
props! They're wrecked! We're going down!"
Crowding against a window, Jimmy
Christopher peered out and saw black spots flying
through the air. They were spherical objects,
heavy steel balls, whipping at the end of glistening
cables joined to a master strand like the lash of a
gigantic whip. The main cable was reaching into
the air above. Operator 5 ducked low and saw a
plane hovering!
"That crate threw those things into the
props!" the co-pilot howled. "We can't pull up!
You've got to bail out!"
"Parachutes!" Operator 5 commanded
sharply. "Quick, Chief! Grab yourself one, Tim!"
The disabled plane was soughing downward,
in a rapidly accelerating dive. From beneath the
seats, Jimmy Christopher pulled parachute-packs.
As his swift directions, the Washington chief and
Tim Donovan jerked themselves into the
harnesses as the lurching of the fuselage threw
them from side to side.
In the control cabin, the two pilots were
throwing on other packs. They crowded from the
pit white-faced. Jimmy Christopher thrust Z-7
toward the cabin door as a swing of the plane
spilled them against the side. "Out, Chief! Jump
free! Count ten, then pull the ripcord!"
The terrific air pressure against the cabin
fought the jamb, staggering in the rush of the
wind. He struggled to the sill and peered down at
the spinning blur that was the ground. His
muscles bunched as he poised, hesitated a
fraction of a moment, and leaped.
The Washington chief tumbled into space.
The white spot of the pilot-'chute appeared as he
was whisked out of sight. Jimmy Christopher
dragged Tim Donovan to the open door as the
pilots helped hold it wide. "Out, old-timer!" he
commanded. The boy attempted to protest, but
Operator 5 desperately thrust him across the sill.
He gestured the two pilots out ahead of him.
As they sprawled into empty air, he hurled himself
across the sill. He plunged, twisting over and over
as he gripped the ripcord. The plane was
shivering, diving in a nose-first roll as he
plummeted away from it.
He jerked on the ripcord; the pilot-'chute
flicked out; the big umbrella swelled into a fatbellied
mushroom. Jerked in the harness,
Operator 5 came upright, swinging in a great
circle. He saw the four other chutes floating
almost idly beneath him.
Then suddenly, he jerked to attention.
A roar of motors greater than that of the
disabled ship came throbbing-thundering-
through the air. Short flashes of vision, as he
swung beneath the broad, silken circle, showed
Jimmy Christopher that the other plane had
followed the disabled plane, that it was now
swinging above the parachutes. It was an
autogyro, and as its weird vanes were spinning a
blur above it, it was dropping almost straight
down, and the ball-laden cables were pulled up by
a dark-helmeted flyer peering across the cowling.
Jimmy Christopher slipped his automatic
from his arm-pit holster. Because he was
swinging erratically, he could glimpse the
autogyro only for a brief interval, and it offered
him no target. In one brief moment when he could
see, he noticed another cable dropped overside
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swiftly-a metal strand to which a huge, threebarbed
hook was attached!
Jimmy Christopher's gun spat as the great
hook reached low and swung. The 'gyro was
banking swiftly, now. It veered and hovered
directly above the parachute carrying Operator 5.
The long cable sent the sharp-pointed hook
streaking through the air-straight toward Jimmy
Christopher! He saw it slashing down to a level at
which it would meet the fluttering silk bell
supporting him!
Desperately, he grabbed the shroud lines
and pulled. Air spilled from the chute. He began a
swift drop as the silk flapped loosely. The barbed
hook flashed through empty air directly above him
and swung on. By a margin of a few feet,
Operator 5 had escaped the teeth that would have
impaled his chute!
The shroud lines snapped tight as Operator 5
replaced them, and his fall slackened abruptly.
Swinging widely again, he watched the great
grappler flash away. It swung swiftly toward
another of the bells floating in the air where
Jimmy Christopher had been a few seconds
before. An alarmed cry broke from his lips when
he saw that the hook was nearing the parachute
carrying Z-7!
"Chief!" he screamed. "Spill out!"
With dazzling speed, the big hook
pendulumed crazily toward the umbrella which
supported the Washington chief. Suddenly, at the
very instant Z-7 began to jerk frantically on the
shrouds, its barbs slashed viciously into the silk!
Long, gaping rips appeared in the thin fabric as air
burst through. Z-7 dropped like a plummet-ten
feet-then he jerked to a jarring stop. With his
deflated parachute caught securely in the huge
grappling hook, he hung suspended, swaying.
Jimmy Christopher pumped bullets at the
hovering plane. Its pilot was not in sight, the man
in the rear pit had bent down, out of sight.
Glistening dully in the sunlight, the steel cable
began to wind upward slowly. Foot by foot, Z-7
was reeled in as he jerked his gun from his pocket
and blazed away at the plane which had hooked
him like a fish. Slapping sounds which echoed
faintly through the droning of the motors indicated
that the slugs were striking impenetrable,
bulletproof metal which encased the two pits of
the autogyro.
Four parachutes floated there helplessly
while the Washington chief was being whisked
upward. The engine of the autogyro shook the sky
with its deafening roar as it swung away, climbing.
In cold fury, Jimmy Christopher watched the
ground blur closer. He pulled at the shroud lines
to speed his descent. He directed himself as well
as he was able toward the white line of a cement
road. Low buildings were clustered thickly there;
behind them lay open yards. When he was near
the ground, he released the lines again, and his
speed slackened.
His feet touched dirt. He spilled the air from
the silken bell and jerked frantically out of the
harness. He glanced up to see if Tim Donovan
and the two pilots were safe. And as the autogyro
faded to a diminishing, winged form in the sky, he
whirled to a door.
Startled eyes followed him as he ran through
a drug store and crowded into a telephone booth.
He slotted coins quickly and yelled the number of
Secret Headquarters 13. H-4, one of Z-7's
lieutenants, answered. Operator 5 reported
breathlessly.
There was an excited confirmation and
Jimmy Christopher rushed from the booth to the
rear yard. Tim Donovan had reached the ground
and worked off his 'chute harness; the frantic boy
was running toward Operator 5. Together, they
peered into the bright blue sky.
Far away, high against the zenith, a black
dot-the plane that had captured Z-7 was
vanishing in the sky...
Operator 5 pushed briskly through into the
inner office of Headquarters 13 in Washington. H-
4 rose tensely from the desk. His tie was askew,
his hair ruffled, his face grayed with anxiety. "I'm
burning up the air trying to locate Z-7. No reports!"
Jimmy Christopher's hand strayed to the tiny
golden skull on his watch-chain as the telephone
clattered. H-4 answered it anxiously. He appeared
puzzled and then his eyes rounded with wonder
and he exclaimed, "Yes, sir! Right here, sir!"
Jimmy Christopher took the instrument H-4
offered him.
A grave, steady voice spoke over the wire.
"Operator 5? This is the President calling."
"Yes, Mr. President!"
"I have just been informed of the abduction
of Z-7. I know you are doing your best to locate
him. In the meantime, the Intelligence Service is
left without its leader. Take command, Operator 5.
You have an entirely free hand. Make every effort
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to locate Z-7; use every resource at our
command. Try anything!"
CHAPTER NINE
TIGHTENING COILS
JIMMY CHRISTOPHER STRODE ALERTLY
into the entrance of a staid apartment house in
the East Sixties of Manhattan. The uniformed
doorman bowed and greeted with, "Good evening,
Mr. Walsh."
On the eleventh floor, Operator 5 unlocked a
steel door, painted to imitate wood, with a key
which had no duplicate. In an adjoining room, he
swung a machine consisting of a drum, ratchet,
motor, and a small black box like a camera
attached to a flexible gooseneck, toward the
window. He opened the sash and unrolled forty
feet of rope-ladder from the drum.
With the black box looking out above him, he
lowered himself through dark space, down the
side of the adjoining building, to a balcony. He
flashed a torch upward, and the gleam struck the
lens of the black box. Immediately a photo-electric
cell caused a relay which rolled the ladder upward
and closed the window uncannily.
Operator 5 walked through a small
apartment, entered the corridor, stepped to a
door, and rang a bell above which an engraved
card read, "Carleton Victor."
A cool-faced manservant opened the door
and bowed. "Good evening, Mr. Victor," he said.
The identity of Carleton Victor, the
photographer extraordinary who maintained
sumptuous studios on Fifth Avenue, was a
convenient mask for the operations of Jimmy
Christopher. Few knew of his multiple identities.
Those renowned persons who came to Victor's
camera-flattered when he condescendingly
granted them sittings while other photographers
clamored for the privilege-suspected it least of
all. To his devoted manservant Crowe, Victor was
a gentleman of unique distinction.
"It is very good to see you back again, sir."
Crowe said as he bowed. "You granted the
President a sitting while you were in
Washington?"
"Yes, Crowe," Carleton Victor answered.
"I trust he appreciates the honor, sir," Crowe
remarked. "Oh, yes! A telephone call came a
moment ago from Mrs. Vandergrift."
"Thank you, Crowe."
A telephone call from "Mrs. Vandergrift" on
this day of the week indicated that a message had
come from Headquarters 13 in Washington. The
secret summons possibly meant helpful reports.
Operator 5 stepped into a soundproof closet
which contained no more than a telephone and a
chair. He called the secret number of
Headquarters 13.
H-4 answered. Carleton Victor spoke, "The
Secretary of the Founder's Club calling."
He clicked on a frequency distorter which
made eavesdropping impossible. Then he
identified himself: "Operator 5."
H-4 gushed into the phone, "We still have no
reports on Z-7. But we arrested two pilots who
landed an autogyro a short time ago at Roosevelt
Field, Long Island. Z-7 was not in that plane; the
two men claim to know nothing. They have no
cables aboard, and their log states that they last
took off from Detroit."
"Possibly their log entry is falsified," Operator
5 gritted. "They could throw the cables overboard
easily. They might have landed somewhere
between Washington and New York and
transferred Z-7 to another plane. Those men must
be held, H-4, and a confession obtained from
them, if possible."
"We are holding them. Another thing-no
clues have been found concerning Dr. Hollbrand.
I-one moment-a teletype report has just come,
hot off the wires from Miami Headquarters! It's a
follow-up on recent advice and states that the
Body of Operator F-6, who trailed suspected
Utopiasts into the Everglades four days ago, has
been found floating in the swamps riddled with
bullets!"
"Order the Miami operators to bear down on
that lead, H-4!" Jimmy Christopher snapped. "It
proves F-6 ran onto something important. If there
is a hideaway somewhere in the Everglades,
we've got to find it!"
Operator 5 opened the door of the soundproof
closet; Carleton Victor stepped out. He
entered the bedroom and glanced at headlines of
a late-edition newspaper while Crowe helped him
dress.
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Carleton Victor's face was grave as he
turned to the door with hat and coat. He paused,
peering at the cool-faced Crowe.
"Who in all this country, Crowe," he inquired,
"do you admire the most?"
Crowe bowed. "You, sir, of course."
Victor smiled. "I'm touched, Crowe. But
among our national figures, whom do you esteem
most highly?"
Crowe meditated. "Perhaps the President,
Mr. Hoover."
"Don't you know that Hoover is no longer our
President?"
Crowe seemed mildly surprised. "Isn't he,
sir? You see, I never read the newspapers. I have
no interest in anything save being a gentleman's
gentleman, sir."
"I take it, then, you have placed no bets on
Gene Lewis in the championship bout tonight?"
Victor answered.
"I don't believe I have ever heard of Mr.
Lewis, sir. I never bet, sir."
"Crowe," said Victor with a sigh "I envy you,
and bid you good evening."
His lips tucked in wryly at the corners as he
stepped into the corridor, leaving the estimable
Crowe blinking in bewilderment.
Operator 5 approached the door of a modest
brownstone house in the East Forties of
Manhattan. A key admitted him, and quick
footfalls sounded on the stairs as he entered. Tim
Donovan bounded toward him.
Operator 5 said gravely. "We've got to get
busy. The few leads we have don't promise much,
but we can't overlook any chance. I want you to
come with me tonight, Tim; I need you."
A girl hurried toward Jimmy Christopher. She
was a very pretty girl, with sparkling eyes, a pert
nose and a manner which bespoke firm
confidence. She flung her arms around Jimmy's
neck, kissed his lips, and backed away laughing.
"Now blush, Jimmy!" she said gaily. "I thought
you'd never come!"
Diane Elliot linked her arm with his as they
approached a mild mannered man who gripped
Jimmy's hand warmly. John Christopher, Operator
5's father, had once been Q-6 in the United States
Intelligence Service. In spite of a bullet imbedded
near his heart, which constantly threatened his life
and made quiet necessary if he were to go on
living, he sometimes overruled all objections and
assisted his son on a case. His eyes shone
eagerly as he surveyed Operator 5.
"Son, you're in deep. I recognize the signs. I
want to know all about it. Your work has to keep
me in touch with the service these days. I'm
aching for the old thrill of getting into action
again."
"Take it easy, Dad," Operator 5 smiled.
"You've got to take care of yourself, you know.
But Di-"
"What about me?" the girl asked eagerly.
Operator 5 had met Diane Elliot during those
strenuous days when the threat of war with the
Yellow Empire had menaced the country. A
reporter for the wide-flung Amalgamated Press
news service, she rated the most important
assignments. Though her purposes often
conflicted with those of Operator 5, she was more
than willing to sacrifice her own achievement in
order to maintain the secrecy of his work.
"If you'll want to help me, Di, I have a very
important job for you-perhaps a dangerous one."
"What?"
"I want you to hop a plane for Pittsburgh right
away. For a short time, you'll be the private
secretary of Martin Evarts. Watch sharp! There's
no telling what may happen. And I want frequent
reports."
Diane promptly snatched at her hat and
quickly powdered her pert nose. "On my way!"
she laughed.
Her quick footfalls sounded toward the
entrance as Jimmy Christopher smiled; his smile
faded when the door thudded shut. He said
briskly, "Dad, I'm off with Tim. I've asked to have
reports telephoned here to you, in case I'm away."
He turned and started to leave. The telephone
jangled. Operator 5 picked it up quickly. T-3, who
was in charge of Intelligence operations under the
R-2 division in New York, spoke. "Manhattan
Importing Company?"
Jimmy answered, "Operator 5."
"News flash just received from Los Angeles!
A riot has broken out in Pershing Square which is
mobbed with people carrying the banners of the
International Utopiasts. They're running wild-the
police can't cope with them!"
Operator 5's eyes darkened. "Keep me
posted, T-3," he ordered. "Headquarters L.A.
must follow down every lead. Have them stamp
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out the possibility of more riots by grabbing the
leaders. Concerning Z-7-?"
"No word! Not a clue!"
Operator 5 turned briskly from the telephone.
His low-lidded eyes shone darkly as he strode to
the stairs. The tough Irish lad standing nearby
peered at his anger-flushed face. "I've seen that
look in Jimmy's eyes before," he muttered.
"Nothing can stop him now-nothing!" And he
raced down the steps as Operator 5 hurried into
the dark street.
The broad entrance of a house on a sidestreet
leading off Central Park West opened
before Jimmy Christopher and Tim Donovan.
Light streamed out across the shoulders of a
young man with worry-lined face. He studied the
pair uncertainly.
"Our identities," Operator 5 answered, "must
remain secret, but I talked with you a short while
ago over the telephone. You are Henry Vance, Dr.
Hollbrand's secretary?" The man nodded
affirmatively.
Operator 5 followed Henry Vance into a quiet
hallway. Off one side of the hall opened a large
room, walled with cabinets, and cluttered with
diagnostic apparatus. It was the treatment room
of the renowned surgeon. They entered a study
where hundreds of tomes on medical practice and
surgery stood on heavy shelves.
Vance turned nervously to Operator 5. "What
is happening?" he demanded. "Is this the end of
the United States? In the history of the world, no
republic has ever endured long. He mopped at his
face. "It is only because this has happened to Dr.
Hollbrand that I'm upset."
"I'm here to help," Operator 5 declared
quietly. The firmness of his manner brought
reassurance to Vance. "I have full reports on the
disappearance of the two doctors, but I want to
check up. First, concerning Dr. Gordon
Hollbrand's son, Walter. He acted as his father's
assistant, didn't he? Days ago he was called from
his office on what was apparently an emergency
case. He did not return. Is that right?"
"Yes," Vance nodded. "There was no word
from him. Dr. Hollbrand believed him kidnapped,
and so he kept the news from the police in the
hope-"
"Yet, after Walter Hollbrand was missing
several days, Dr. Gordon Hollbrand himself
vanished. He was driving to the Park Central
Hospital, where he is head-of-staff, to take part in
an important consultation. But he did not arrive.
His car was found empty, abandoned, on Park
Avenue. As in the case of his son, there has been
no word-"
Operator 5's questioning was interrupted as
a buzzer sounded in the room. Henry Vance half
turned in astonishment. He exclaimed, "that must
be one of them now!
He jerked open the door of the hallway, and
paused. Its short length was empty; the entrance
was closed. A strange expression made his face
pasty and wan. "That's strange!" he said, huskily.
"The buzzer is connected with the front door. I left
it locked. No one has keys except the two doctors
and myself. Someone must have come in, but-"
"You're quite sure there are no other keys?"
Operator 5 asked quickly.
"Positive! No one could have come in except
one of the two doctors. Perhaps-"
The surgeons' secretary strode quickly to the
entrance and opened it. The stoop was dark and
deserted. Turning, he peered into the consultation
room. The lights clicked on as Jimmy Christopher
followed him in. It, like the hallway, was empty.
"No one came in," Jimmy Christopher said
quietly.
"The buzzer could not have sounded if the
door had not been opened! I'm positive that-"
Operator 5's warning gesture silenced him.
Jimmy Christopher stopped to peer at the floor in
front of the door-at the knob. He said, as if in
normal conversation, "Perhaps it was the buzzer
in the next house. Sound carries easily,
sometimes. Certainly, no one could have come in
here." Turning, he took a prescription pad from
the desk and wrote on it rapidly. He ripped off the
sheet and passed it to Vance. It read:
"Pretend you have made a mistake."
The secretary blinked. "Yes, I guess you're
right," he faltered. "I'm so nervous I'm hearing
things. Shall we go back to the study?" Jimmy
Christopher was writing again.
"Search everywhere to make sure nothing is
missing."
Vance nodded, and began opening cabinet
doors quietly and peering at the bottles neatly
arranged in rows on the shelves. Jimmy
Christopher moved toward a glittering X-ray
machine which stood against one wall. He made
deft adjustments of the knobs on the panel as he
talked. "It's going to be a good fight tonight. Lewis
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will come through all right-the odds are still in his
favor."
Vance took the cue, moving slowly from
cabinet to cabinet as Operator 5 swung the X-ray
machine so that the huge cathode-tube pointed
toward the locked door of the closet. Their
conversation became trivial as they sparred for
the time necessary to make the adjustments on
the big machine. Operator 5 next took a flat,
square aluminum case from a rack. He handed it
to Tim Donovan, who was very puzzled by the
proceedings. Then he wrote on the pad again, as
he talked nonessentials.
"Film holder loaded?"
Vance nodded an affirmative.
"Keep talking while I'm gone."
Jimmy Christopher stepped noiselessly from
the room, and into the study. He selected a spot
on the front wall which he calculated was directly
behind the closet door in the consulting room. He
whispered to Tim Donovan, "Hold it there, oldtimer."
He left the room quickly. Tim Donovan
remained where he was, holding the huge X-ray
film container against the wall. In the diagnosing
room, Vance was carrying on a monologue.
Operator 5 resumed the small talk as he returned
to the X-ray machine. "The big fight'll be going on
in a few minutes," he remarked.
He touched a switch on the black panel; the
cathode tube glowed and sputtered quietly for a
second. Then he wheeled the machine back to its
former position, and signaled Vance away. They
trod along the corridor together still talking, but as
soon as they entered the library Operator 5
asked. "Anything missing?"
"No." Vance said. "Dr. Hollbrand kept his
medicines in perfect order, and each is in its
place. That closet door should not be locked; it
wasn't, earlier today. What the devil are you
doing?"
Operator 5 smiled grimly. "Playing a
gamble," he answered succinctly. "Where is the
darkroom?"
He took the large plate-holder from the Irish
boy and stepped into a small, adjoining room
which was completely dark. He found a tank full of
developer. He removed the huge film from the
older carefully, clipped it into a frame, and
lowered it into the solution. He glanced at his
watch as he returned. "What is customarily kept in
that closet, Mr. Vance?"
"Only the doctors' hats and coats. It is
empty, now."
Tim Donovan was puzzled and impatient. He
asked, "What're we doing now, Jimmy?"
"Waiting, Tim," Operator 5 answered. He
smiled at the wondering boy. Then, to Vance's
amazement, and the boy's delight, he removed a
length of red silk ribbon from his vest pocket. Tim
smiled with pleasure.
"Remember the cord trick, Tim? I'll show you
the second of the series now, as I promised you.
Watch very carefully. See this piece of red
ribbon? I double it. I hold it with my left hand
closed so that a short loop shows above the
fingers. Now if you'll just bring those scissors from
the desk-"
"What the devil!" Vance exploded. "You
perform parlor tricks while-"
"While we wait," Jimmy Christopher finished
for him. "The devil only knows for..." he turned
back to the boy. "Thanks, Tim. You see the ribbon
in my left hand, the doubled end showing above
it? I put the scissors through the loop-I cut the
ribbon. Then, gently, I push the cut ends into my
fist, make a mystic pass, say presto and there is
the ribbon, Tim, completely restored!"
"Gee, Jimmy!" Tim exclaimed, as he took the
ribbon and examined it. "You didn't do that one
with wax. It's the same ribbon. I watched every
move you made, and you actually cut it."
"No, Tim. I only seemed to cut it. I'll show
you how it was done. With this-"
Tim's eyes opened with astonishment when
Jimmy Christopher calmly appeared to lift the tip
away from the forefinger of his right hand-while
the tip remained on the finger!
"A false tip, Tim. An old stand-by of
magicians, and something that can be bought for
a few cents from any magical supply house. A
little metal shell, flesh colored, painted to look
exactly like the tip of the finger on which it fits."
"Dog-gone!" Tim exploded. "How'd you use
it?"
"First I took a piece of ribbon about three
inches long, doubled it, and pasted the ends
together. I fastened the pasted ends to the inside
of the false finger-tip with a small bit of adhesive
tape. Then I tucked the loop of ribbon into the tip,
and stowed the tip in my vest pocket. Now the
trick itself.
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"I showed you my empty hands. Reaching
into the pocket for the ribbon, I stuck the false tip
onto the first finger of my right hand. You didn't
notice it. I doubled the long piece of ribbon, drew
the doubled end upward through my closed left
hand, and in so doing, left the false tip there."
"The doubled end of the long ribbon
remained out of sight in my fist. What you saw,
Tim-what looked like the double end-was the
small loop that came out of the false tip. I cut the
loop, then pushed it down into my fist and back
into the false tip. Having done that, I carried the
tip away, with no sign of the fake ribbon showing,
on my right index finger. Then the mystic pass-
and the ribbon is whole again because it was
never cut!"
"I get it, Jimmy! Say, that'll fool anyone
completely after the cord trick!"
"Right," Jimmy Christopher agreed. He
glanced at his watch and stepped quickly into the
darkroom. He lifted the film from the developer,
noted the dark markings on it, and dipped it into
the fixing solution. Then he returned to the study
again...
"See here!" Vance protested, almost angrily.
"Will you please explain what you're up to?"
Jimmy Christopher smiled placidly. "Another
trick" he answered. "We're not through waiting.
Watch very closely this time, Tim. No fake fingers
in this one. Nothing but my bare hands-and this
piece of red tissue paper."
He drew the folded tissue from his pocket,
and smoothed it. It was ten inches long and three
wide. He showed both sides of it, holding it
between thumb and forefinger by one corner, the
other fingers spread wide apart as assurance
against deception. "Now watch!" he said.
Slowly, Operator 5 tore the red strip across
once, twice, three times. He showed the separate
pieces. Then, deftly, he folded them up into a
small, red ball. "One puff of breath-" he suited
the action to the words-"and presto!"
He unrolled the ball of tissue and displayed
it-a red, unbroken strip. "Restored!"
"Gosh, Jimmy, you couldn't have done that in
either of the other ways!" The Irish boy exclaimed
excitedly.
"That's right. It's simple, too, Tim. The
preparation is easy. First you cut two strips of red
tissue, exactly alike. You fasten them together by
a little spot of mucilage in the upper right hand
corner, putting the drop of adhesive about half an
inch in from the edges. When the mucilage is dry,
you carefully fold one of the red sheets, pressing
it hard, until it is no larger than a dime. It becomes
a closely packed piece of paper hidden behind
one corner of the other strip."
When beginning the trick, Jimmy Christopher
explained, the paper was displayed on both sides
while the thumb hid the little folded piece. The
strip which had been shown was then torn. The
pieces were folded together as tightly as possible.
The strip that appeared at the end of the trick
apparently the same one-was the one which had
been folded at first. When it was displayed, the
one that had been torn up was again hidden by
the magician's thumb.
"Thanks for showing me, Jimmy!" Tim
exclaimed. "Those three are swell to work
together!" His face was beaming.
Operator 5 stepped into the darkroom again.
He returned with the glistening X-ray film and held
it to the light. Tim Donovan and Henry Vance
came close and saw curious vague light and dark
markings with a definite angular light figure in one
corner.
"These," Operator 5 declared, "though
they're blurred, are human ribs. I shot the X-ray
through the closet, thinking someone was hiding
in there-and there is! A man. This light part is
the butt of an automatic, holstered beneath the
arm-pit!"
"Someone's in that closet now!" Vance
exclaimed. "Neither one of the Drs. Hollbrand
would act that strange-neither of them would
carry an automatic! Why the devil don't we break
in and grab him?"
"I took this way of making sure someone is
there," Operator 5 said slowly, "for a definite
reason. Grabbing that man would gain us little. He
came here for some purpose-I want to know for
what. I want to know where he came from and
why. We've got to wait until
In the other room, the buzzer sounded softly.
Operator 5's eyes shone brightly. "Our visitor," he
declared, "has just left!"
CHAPTER TEN
SHELLS OF MEN
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OPERATOR 5 MOVED TO THE HALLWAY
door. Quick steps took him to the glass-paned
entrance as Henry Vance and Tim Donovan
followed. He snapped off the light, peeled back
the curtain, and looked into the darkness of the
street.
"See if anything is missing from the
treatment room now, Vance! Stick by me, Tim!"
Through the window, he saw a dark figure
hurry across the street toward a heavy sedan
parked on the opposite side. The furtive man
crawled beneath the steering wheel as Henry
Vance rushed into the room again.
"The closet's standing open-and one of the
cabinets. Yes-and a bottle is gone!"
Across the street, the motor of the big car
purred to action. Operator 5 eased the door open
silently and snapped urgently at the boy. "Out,
Tim! The roadster!"
As the freckle-faced lad slid through the
door, Henry Vance hurried to Jimmy Christopher's
side. "He took a bottle of tryparsamide!"
Operator 5 nodded. "Stay here, Vance. That
man is neither one of the Doctors Hollbrand. Who
he is-where he's going-we shall see!"
The sedan was moving away. Jimmy
Christopher leaped down the steps; Tim Donovan
ducked into the powerful roadster. The Diesel
engine sang as Operator 5 started the motor and
drew away from the curb. The gleaming tail light
of the sedan led him on a slow, careful chase.
It turned south on Broadway, and when it
reached a certain cross-street in the Fifties, it
swung to the right. Jimmy Christopher followed
carefully as it wound north onto Riverside Drive.
Its speed increased; traffic thickened, but he kept
it in sight. Then it turned again, and stopped in
front of a row of houses on a gloomy side-street.
Operator 5 swung past it smoothly, and
glided into West End Avenue. Just beyond the
corner where he was out of sight, he brought the
powerful roadster to a quick stop. As he walked
back onto the side-street with Tim, he saw the
driver of the sedan crossing the sidewalk.
He went on slowly, lifting a spectacle-case
from his pocket. He put on what appeared to be
an ordinary pair of glasses. They were far from
ordinary, however. The specially designed and
specially ground lenses were remarkable
binoculars. Operator 5 peered toward the door
which the furtive man was approaching.
He saw the greatly enlarged image of a hand
pressing a bell-button. Each flexing of the fingers
registered on his brain as he strode along. The
door opened, and the dark figure passed through.
Operator 5 nudged Tim Donovan.
"Over to Broadway, Tim! Quick!" He
removed the spectacles deftly, and scribbled on a
slip of paper. "This is the telephone number of
Headquarters R-2. Tell T-3 I want a dozen of his
best men as fast as they can get here! Move, oldtimer!
Tim Donovan darted away, the bit of paper
clutched in a moist hand. Operator 5 turned,
eased himself into the shadow of a basement
entrance, and watched the dark doorway
opposite. His lips formed silent words: "Three!
One! Three!"
No ray of light penetrated the heavy curtains
that draped the window. A greenish gleam from a
desk blotter reflected onto the inscrutable face of
a man seated there. He folded rubber-gloved
hands, and bent his shell-encased head to listen.
From a huge radio sitting against one wall, the
voice of an announcer spoke.
"The big fight will begin in a few moments,
ladies and gentlemen! Madison Square Garden is
packed! The preliminary bouts are over, and the
ring is cleared. The officials are waiting for the
appearance of Champion Gene Lewis and the
contender, Jack Kruse!"
The shaded eyes of the man in the mask
took on a glitter. He sat unmoving as the voice
continued.
"Rumors have been running through the
crowd, ladies and gentlemen, that the fight has
been called off, but we can assure you that it is
not so. Lewis is determined to go on with the
bout; the odds are still in his favor. There is
unaltered faith everywhere that the champ will
retain his title. It will be a severe blow if fifty
million Lewis fans turn out to be wrong!"
A harsh chuckle came through the
immovable lips of the man in the steel mask. A
cruel, satisfied glitter haunted the shadowed eyes.
"As a matter of fact, the announcer
continued. "Lewis must fight or forfeit the belt.
Physicians have examined him and found him fit.
The Boxing Commission has declared that the
bout must go on. Concerning his strange
disappearance, Lewis had said nothing for
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publication, except that he is more determined
than ever to win."
A knock sounded in the room. The man in
the mask spoke gutturally. A door opened, and
into the green glowing circle of the desk lamp,
came a thin-faced, stoop-shouldered man. He
extended a small brown bottle with a rubbergloved
hand. "I got it."
"You may go," the muffled, rasping voice
sounded. The thin-faced man retreated. The other
peered at the brown bottle, listening intently to the
radio as a louder roar boomed from it.
"Gene Lewis is coming into the ring!" the
announcer screeched. He seems to be in perfect
physical shape. A magnificent specimen of
manhood, he is bowing to the crowd that acclaims
him. Now the two fighters shake hands and retire
to their corners. I can see Lewis's face. He seems
troubled-yet grimly determined to win this bout!
The crowd is with him, as the first round begins!"
Again the man in the steel mask chuckled
obscenely. He rose and moved slowly toward the
door through which the thin-faced man had come.
The man in the steel mask opened the door
and the voice of the announcer faded away.
Another sound came to take its place. It was a
high-pitched whine, a monotonous singing note
that grew louder as the man in the mask
approached a door.
A breathless voice came through the panels,
words mixed with the piercing, sustained note.
"God, I can't stand that! Stop it! It's driving me
mad! Oh, God, please-please-!"
Cruel light shone in the shadowed eyes of
the man in the mask as he strode away. The air
still grated with the shrill, never-changing note as
he turned a key in the lock of another door. He
stepped through, into a bright glare.
There were two men inside the room. One,
gray bearded, his eyes shining brightly through
huge spectacles, turned slowly from a bed on
which the second was lying. He peered at the
man in the metal mask as the door closed.
The muffled voice spoke: "You have had
ample opportunity to diagnose your son's illness,
have you not. Dr. Hollbrand?"
Dr. Gordon Hollbrand-one of the greatest
surgeons in America-stood trembling with
repressed fury. His delicate, sensitive hands
formed into white fists.
The famous surgeon peered in consternation
at the wan figure lying on the bed. Beneath
spotless sheets, Dr. Walter Hollbrand, the elder
doctor's son, lay strengthless. With closed eyes
and pasty face, his breathing irregular, he gave no
sign of hearing his father's voice, nor that of the
man in the metal mask. "Surely," came the
muffled tones, "you, one of the greatest doctors in
the world, have had no trouble diagnosing your
son's ailment?"
"No, It is trypanosomiaisis! Popularly,
sleeping sickness."
"That is true." The masked man stepped
closer. "You have already attempted to treat him,
haven't you? Every possible assistance is at
hand. You have at your disposal here every
facility that the most completely outfitted hospital
in the world could afford. Nothing will hinder you in
your attempts to treat him."
"For God's sake-this is too much!" the great
surgeon exclaimed. "Let me call another doctor! I
love my son too much-far too much-"
The man in the mask laughed cruelly.
"You, the greatest surgeon in the world, are
failing before this most crucial test of your
career?" he drawled contemptuously. "Can you
admit such a thing?"
Dr. Hollbrand stood speechless, agonized.
"I repeat, doctor, the most advanced
treatments known to science are available to you.
You have in this room all the equipment and
supplies you need. There are the well-known
compounds of arsenic used to combat
trypanosomiasis. There is also atoxyl, tartar
emetic, Bayer 205 or Germanim. I believe, doctor,
you desired also a quantity of tryparsamide, which
is used in the treatment of this disease, too. I
have it for you here."
He extended the brown bottle toward the
nerve-shaken doctor. Hollbrand peered at it
uncertainly. "From your own office, doctor," the
man in the metal mask jeered. "We took the
liberty of sending a messenger with your own key
to get it. Every known treatment is at your
fingertips now. But-beware of what you do!"
"I know!" Dr. Hollbrand's answer was almost
soundless.
"Your use of the tryparsamide may be
successful. Yet it is very dangerous, indeed.
Unless you are extremely careful, your son's
vision will be affected. He may recover from
trypanosomiasis at the cost of his eyesight-to
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spend the rest of his life blind! It would be sad,
doctor, very sad, if your talented son had to
sacrifice his career and spend the rest of his days
in darkness because your chosen treatment
blinded him!"
"For God's sake-don't do this to me!" the
surgeon pleaded. "I am too anxious, too worried! I
can't-"
"Surely," the masked man droned
maliciously, "surely you are not losing faith in your
own skill, are you? You, the greatest of all living
medical men? You may choose to use the
treatment called Bayer 205 or Germanim instead.
You know, of course, that even then you face a
risk. It may affect your son's kidneys so that he
will be a very ill man, unable to pursue his career
the rest of his life. It's true, isn't it?"
"Yes! Yes!" Again the haggard man stared at
the motionless form on the bed. "For God's sake,
have mercy! Don't force me to this ordeal! My
son-! Another doctor-"
"A less skillful man than, you doctor? No!
You are the greatest. Upon you, your son's
fitness-his very life-depends. You, and you
alone, must cure him! I am amazed, Dr.
Hollbrand," the oily voice continued. "Think of the
great feats of surgery you have performed. Think
of the respect you have won. Think of the petty
physicians who think you are a demi-god! And
observe yourself! You are trembling, fearful,
uncertain. You aren't as confident as an intern
handling his first serious case. Pull yourself
together, doctor-" The masked man turned to
the door and opened it. "If you are great enough!"
He stepped out. His eyes gleamed
sadistically through the openings in the metal shell
which encased his head. They shone with
supreme contempt at the pitiful figure of the great
surgeon. He shut the door, bolted it, and strode
away.
Again in the air, the high-pitched note
sounded like the strident singing of a siren. It rang
through the next door as the masked man
paused. Steadily, piercingly the shrill tone knifed.
There was an undertone of breathless, exhausted
muttering. "Stop it! Stop it! Shut it off! It's more
than I can stand! Please shut it off-please oh,
please!"
Again the man in the mask strode on. A
muffled, throaty laugh of triumph sounded through
the painted, immovable lips.
The voice of the fight announcer was ringing
from the radio in the front room. The masked man
entered quietly and seated himself at the desk, his
rubber-covered fingers entwining, his steel-shelled
head bowed, listening to the blatant metallic voice
on the radio.
"Lewis is retreating to the ropes again! He is
staggering weakly. Kruse smashes through his
guard at will! The champ is cringing away from the
withering blows! He is taking terrific punishment!
"This is not the Gene Lewis we have known,
ladies and gentlemen! He is not the fighter he
once was! He is breaking under Kruse's
punishment like an untrained kid! The crowd
moans at each blow. Lewis is caving in. He is
trying hard, but the fight is gone out of him! He
never gave up before. Thousands of people yell
for him to stand up and fight, but he is breaking
before their very eyes! Breaking as they begin to
boo!"
From the motionless lips of the man at the
desk, the word echoed contemptuously:
Breaking!"
Another knock sounded on the door. In
answer to the masked man's muffled command, it
opened. Worden Ehret entered, his face
gleaming, eyes shining with triumph, a thick
packet of envelopes in his hand. He paused to
listen as the announcer's voice rose.
"Lewis is down! A fairly light clout on the chin
dropped him! He's trying to rise! The referee
counts! One! Two! Three! Four! Lewis drags
himself to his knees. He's a defeated man, and he
knows it. Seven! Eight! He's up. He throws his
arms at Kruse weakly-awkwardly. Another left
hook crashes through his guard! He's down
again!"
The shadowed eyes of the man in the mask
lifted and he said softly, ringingly, "Breaking!
Breaking like a ship on a reef!"
Worden Ehret shuddered. "You destroyed
him!"
Through the shrieking of the mob that roared
from the radio, the announcer's voice yelled. "He's
trying to get up! He's right here in front of me! I
can see his face-the face of a broken man.
Something has happened to Gene Lewis!
Something has ended his career. The count goes
on! Eight! Nine! Ten! The champ is out!"
The roar of the crowd suddenly hushed.
Faintly, in a muttering tone, a breathy voice came,
"Couldn't take it. Couldn't-take it." A gagging
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mutter from the lips of the defeated champion.
Millions of dismayed listeners heard it!
Ehret gasped, exclaimed, "A public idol has
fallen! You have ruined him! Listen to the crowd-
demoralized! Tinder for more riots!" He thumbed
the pack of envelopes. "Here are orders to my
lieutenants, for tonight's mail. Each will mean a
new riot."
The man in the steel mask stepped to the
radio. He was about to click it off when a new
voice spoke. "Ladies and gentlemen, an
extraordinary announcement! Word had just been
received from the White House. The President will
address you a little later. The entire nation is
requested to listen when he speaks!"
A snap, and the voice vanished. The man in
the metal mask turned his inscrutable face toward
Ehret. "His move is futile! Mere words will not
support this nation now! Ehret, our work goes on!"
The ghastly face grew nearer to Ehret's,
"And if the President does not speak! If-"
"That will mean terror! Good God! Is it
possible that you-?"
The sharp rasp of a buzzer interrupted
Ehret's amazed question. Three times, once, then
three times again it sounded. Footsteps moved
toward the front entrance in the hallway. The leanfaced,
stoop-shouldered man went to answer the
buzzing bell. He peered near-sightedly through an
oval peep-hole, and saw a shadowy head.
Uncertainty was in every move, as he twisted the
knob slowly.
A quiet, domineering voice commanded,
"Don't move!"
The stoop-shouldered man disobeyed the
startling order. His hand darted swiftly toward his
arm-pit holster. His automatic flashed before the
shadow-man on the stoop could make a move.
His finger squeezed the trigger and swift shots
blasted.
A weapon leaped as if by magic into the
dark-shadowed man's hand. His gun spat first,
even as stinging powder-flecks burned his face.
Three times flames darted from his gun, so swiftly
that there was a single report.
The stoop-shouldered man sagged wearily
against the wall with both arms disabled. Operator
5 stepped across the sill with a wisp of smoke
wreathing from the bore of his hot automatic.
Jimmy Christopher bounded along the dark
hallway. Tim Donovan followed through the open
door. Black figures darted across the street
outside, from doorways, from the shadows of
parked cars-Intelligence men. Guns glittered in
their hands as they crowded to the front of the
building.
Then a blasting flame flashed; a bullet
thudded into the wall. Jimmy's automatic coughed
again. An agonized scream knifed from the throat
of the man who cringed against the desk. His
revolver spun from his nerveless hand. Worden
Ehret stared wide-eyed for one moment. At his
feet lay the lead-scarred revolver and the
envelopes which had scattered from his laxing
fingers.
He leaped forward savagely, insanely. Jimmy
Christopher side-stepped agilely. He seized one
of Ehret's groping arms, twisting it sharply. Ehret
screamed. An upward thrust, and bone crunched
gratingly. Operator 5 stepped back, and Ehret
dropped, a victim of the jiu-jitsu.
Jimmy Christopher's thumbs pressed hard on
both sides of Ehret's neck. The radical's body
stiffened and consciousness left him.
Operator 5 whirled. His Intelligence men
were crowding through the house. Hoarse cries
echoed from above. He strode swiftly to the
stairway leading to the basement. Tim Donovan
sped after him, into the gloomy corridor below.
The high-pitched note was still singing in the air-
a steady, ear-piercing whine.
Operator 5 shouldered a door, found it
locked. He pulled out his chain of master keys-
the implements he had fashioned, by many nights
of work in his shop. The third one he tried drew
the bolt. He stepped into bright light.
In the room a bearded, haggard man bent
over a still and lax body on a bed. The lean man
scarcely heard Operator 5 enter. He half-turned, a
glittering hypodermic syringe in his hand. It
dropped from his trembling fingers and he raised
palsied hands to cover his pallid face.
Operator 5 stepped back and signaled men
who were hurrying into the lower corridor. "The
Doctors Hollbrand," he said.
The even, strident whine in the air led him
toward the next door. The panels trembled with
the rasping, harsh note. A cry of agony sounded
through them.
The door was locked. Operator 5 used his
keys again. Tim Donovan pressed at his side as
the bolt clicked. They pushed through-and
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stopped short. Then they both shouted the same
word: "Chief!"
A man lay slumped on the floor, staring wildly
clamping his hands over his ears, as his wet lips
worked. It was Z-7! "Stop!" he groaned. "Turn it
off. Oh, God-turn it off!"
The whine in the air shrilled from wall to wall,
a piercing resonance that numbed the ears.
Operator 5 peered up at a grille in the ceiling. A
loudspeaker cone was visible. The unremitting
tone was issuing from it.
Jimmy Christopher's automatic spat. Bullets
crashed into the mechanism and it moaned into
silence. Z-7's hands dropped limply. He lay
gulping and trembling, glazed eyes turned
upward.
An Intelligence man rushed close. "We've
searched the whole place. We've got six
prisoners. None of them was masked-none of
them is the man we want! If he was here, he
slipped out somehow. He's gone!"
Carrying Z-7, peering into the tortured face of
his Chief, Operator 5 brushed past unhearing...
CHAPTER ELEVEN
OPERATOR 5 COMMANDS
THE CLOCK TICKING QUIETLY ON THE
desk indicated 11:50 p.m. Ten minutes until
midnight...
In his sumptuous office, Martin Evarts sat,
his fingertips drumming nervously. He glanced
uneasily at the four, quiet men stationed about the
room. Two were seated near him, two more were
guarding the door. All of them were Intelligence
agents, working under Operator 5.
"Ten minutes," Evarts muttered dully.
Opposite him sat a man with grizzled-gray
hair and tanned face, one of Evarts' dearest
friends, Philip McAvoy-the man marked next for
death at midnight. He smiled slowly, a bit wanly.
The knob of the door rattled. The Intelligence
men whipped about, reaching for their automatics.
Evarts jerked to his feet; even MccAvoy looked
startled. There was no sound until a girl rose from
a desk in the corner where she had been sitting.
Diane Elliot had stayed at Martin Evarts'
side, constantly. After she had replaced the steel
magnate's secretary temporarily, she had
telephoned frequent reports to the New York and
Washington headquarters of the Intelligence
Service. She came to the glass-panel door and
asked through the door, "Who's there?"
"George Ferguson," the answer came. "I just
wanted to tell Mr. McAvoy that the new batch of
steel is going through the bloomers."
"Come in, George!"
The Intelligence agents eyed the door alertly.
Diane Elliot recognized the man who entered. He
reported frequently to McAvoy and Evarts on the
progress of the new hard-steel being developed in
the experimental laboratory.
Ferguson blinked sooty eyes. "Looks like
we've missed it this time, Mr. McAvoy," he said,
twisting at his cap. "The boys are handling it
proper, but it's flakin' pretty bad. Maybe you'd
better look."
"Certainly, George," McAvoy answered
promptly, rising.
Martin Evarts grasped his arm. "Phil, you
must stay here! Until after midnight, you can't
leave this office!"
Evarts peered at his watch. "Wait eight
minutes, Phil! Just eight! For God's sake, it's too
dangerous-"
"Not for me," McAvoy answered. "Come on,
Mart. Buck up. Let's go!"
He stepped into the corridor after George
Ferguson. The Intelligence men were joined by
the other two who had remained on guard outside
the office.. Diane Elliot followed with Martin
Evarts. They filed down the steps which led into
the open court and crossed to the door of the
great blooming mill.
The girl watched Evarts closely, as he
glanced continually at his watch. They all entered
the hot, rumbling, black-shadowed interior of the
mills. At the far end, a red glow shone on leatheraproned
men, bare above the waist, who worked
at the rollers.
The party stopped close to the clattering
machinery. Each Intelligence man was watching
Philip McAvoy alertly. McAvoy was least disturbed
of all. He watched intently as the thin, glowing
lengths of steel snaked through the rollers, as
they were pressed thinner and thinner at each
passage. The sparkling strands, gripped by the
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leather-aproned men in huge pinchers, whipped in
and out, radiating intense heat.
"Flakin's bad," Ferguson said. "Somethin's
not quite right."
McAvoy stepped closer. Evarts blurted, "Phil,
for God's sake, be careful!"
"Lord, I've done this every day for years,"
McAvoy answered. "Pull yourself together, Mart!"
He crouched beside the sizzling rollers, watching
the steel pass through them. Glimmering red light
played on his face. Leaning across, he watched
the writhing band crawl from the opposite side.
Muttering and trembling, Evarts glanced again at
his watch.
Minutes passed while McAvoy inspected the
glowing steel. Diane Elliot saw fear mounting in
Evarts' eyes. The Intelligence men were ringed
around the machinery now, hands on guns, tightnerved.
Among the clatter and rumble of the
machinery, they heard Evarts' husky mumble.
"One minute. One minute!"
Seconds lagged past. McAvoy still worked
over the machinery, giving crisp orders to the
foundrymen. A renewed grinding came into the
maelstrom of noise. He glanced up to see a huge
overhead crane traveling on suspended tracks
toward the machinery. A sooty-faced man in the
cage manipulated the controls.
"Okay," McAvoy announced to the steel
workers. "Well, that's better!" He turned to Evarts.
"Well, how about it, Mart? It must be midnight"
There was a sharp clanking. Suddenly,
silently, swiftly, dark lightning struck!
Philip McAvoy sprang aside in alarm, as
Martin Evarts shrieked. He saw the crane crawling
directly overhead. He saw the giant, blunt hook
swing loose from its moorings, swinging hundreds
of pounds of iron! A weighty pendulum, it crashed
suddenly against McAvoy. Martin Evarts uttered
another throat-tearing scream. His watch fell from
his fingers.
The tremendous power of the swinging
crane-hook flung Philip McAvoy hard against the
hot, revolving rollers. He clung desperately to it an
instant, white-faced. Its momentum tore his hands
away. The grip of the grinding rollers caught his
clothing, and he was dragged backward pulled
into the rollers between them as he clawed to
save himself.
"Oh, God-God!" Martin Evarts staggered
back as the body of Philip McAvoy disappeared
into the rollers, and a ghastly, sizzling sound grew
loud. He dropped to his knees.
On the superstructure of the crane, a black
figure moved swiftly. The man crawled over the
railing and dropped to the floor. Intelligence men
sprang toward him. They bore down on the
overalled man as he whirled to flee. Their hands
gripped him hard; their automatics slashed quick
blows at his head. The operator of the crane
groaned and fell.
The steel magnate sank on slowly bending
knees as two Intelligence men whipped about.
They grabbed his arms and supported him as he
began to sag. His head lolled; his eyes closed.
"We've got him, Mr. Evarts! Stand up, man!"
Martin Evarts hung limp in their arms.
Diane Elliot backed way from the glisteningred
rollers. As the Intelligence men carried Martin
Evarts away, she bent for the watch that had
fallen from the steel magnate's hand. Her face
blanched as she looked at it-and she ran.
She hurried out the great door as shouts
rang behind her; she sped into the executive
building, into the office of Martin Evarts, and
snatched up the telephone. As her call hummed
through-a call seeking Operator 5 she peered
again at the watch in her trembling hand. Behind
its cracked crystal, its hands indicated exactly the
hour of midnight!
A strained voice sang over the secret wire. It
rapped out breathlessly, "Special call from
Pittsburgh! We're relaying it through the board
here in Washington. Hold the line!"
Operator 5 held the receiver tightly. He heard
Diane Elliot's voice, a broken whisper. As he
listened, the tendons whitened in his hands.
"He was killed instantly, Jimmy-on the dot,
at midnight!"
"I had men guarding him!" Jimmy
Christopher snapped. "Why the devil-"
"They couldn't stop it, Jimmy! It happened
too suddenly! They did get the man who did it.
They're bringing him in now. Here's an operator-
"
A man's voice came over the wire. "Operator
5-This is P-9 talking! We did our best. But there
was no way of stopping that hook once it started
for McAvoy! We're making him talk. He's ranting
about Utopianism."
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Operator 5's jaw clenched hard. "I want to
know who hired that man! Squeeze it out of him!
Watch Evarts-"
"Evarts fainted, but he's okay now. He keeps
calling McAvoy. He's-"
A clatter sounded, and Evarts' husky, hard
voice came over the line. "Neill's next-then me!
He'll do it! You can't stop him! Nobody can stop
that devil-!"
"Hold onto yourself, Mr. Evarts!" Jimmy
Christopher snapped. "Keep under cover! Stay in
your home! I'll put a hundred men on guard over
you!"
"It will do no good!" the hoarse voice
answered. "Oh, God! I can't stand it!"
The telephone rattled again and Diane Elliot
spoke. "We've called a doctor, Jimmy. Mr. Evarts
is under guard."
The frantic, muttering voice of the steel
magnate was still audible. "Midnight-midnight-
midnight!"
Operator 5 cut the connection. He rattled the
hook and called a local number. E-4, from a subheadquarters
in Manhattan, identified himself.
"We're working hard to make those devils
talk, Operator 5. Ehret won't open his mouth. He's
defiant-says he has nothing to fear. The
others're talking-they're all Utopiasts-but they
don't know who the man in the mask is-they've
never seen him without it!"
"Your job," Operator 5 commanded, "is to get
from Ehret who he is!"
Jimmy Christopher rose from the desk. The
darkness in his eyes deepened as he opened the
door to an adjoining office. He stepped into a
room, part of the suite of Secret Intelligence
Headquarters R-2 in Manhattan.
Tim Donovan was watching the wan face of
Z-7. The Washington chief was slumped in an
easy chair, breathing laboriously, his eyes closed.
A physician was pressing a stethoscope over his
heart.
The doctor wagged his head, removed a
small case from his bag, and prepared a
hypodermic. Z-7 jerked in alarm as the needle
pushed through his skin.
Z-7 blurted, "Take it away! I can't stand it!"
The needle was withdrawn quickly. Z-7's breath
beat rapidly. The doctor clicked his case shut and
started for the door. Operator 5 followed him.
"Physically, he is in good shape," the doctor
explained. Suffering from nervous exhaustion, but
not seriously. More than anything else, his
morale, his spirit is broken. Self-confidence has
been destroyed. It is worse than any illness."
Jimmy Christopher nodded understandingly.
"His faith in himself must be restored, or else-"
"Or else, he will remain a wreck, incapable of
performing his duties-a human ruin."
Operator 5 returned to the room where Tim
Donovan was trying valiantly to cheer Z-7. "You're
all right, Chief!" he said. "Gee, a swell guy like
you-sure! We've got 'em on the run-we're
going to lick 'em!"
Z-7 laughed mirthlessly. "It's no use, Tim. I'm
no good. I've gone to pieces. I'll never-" He
broke off with a sigh. "There's nothing I can do but
resign."
"Nonsense, Chief!" Jimmy Christopher
exclaimed. "You can't let a little thing like that get
you!"
"A little thing like that!" Z-7 said bitterly.
"That's what did it-a mere sound! I wasn't man
enough to lick it! I've considered myself equal to
the responsibility of commanding the Intelligence!
But I'm not man enough-"
"You're the same man you always were,
Chief!" Jimmy Christopher protested. "You can't
fail us!" Jimmy Christopher shook Z-7's shoulder
angrily.
"Fail?" Z-7 repeated in an empty tone. "I've
already failed myself!" He jerked up. "He's broken
me! He strapped me into a chair, and started that
damned oscillator going. He ran the pitch up and
down, recording the effect of each tone on a
kynometer. He found the one that went through
me like a knife! He told me it would break me-
that I wasn't strong enough to stand it-and I
laughed at him.
"There was nothing but sound in that room-
that same tone-on and on. It drilled into my
brain, ran needles through my ears. It made every
nerve in my body vibrate. I begged for mercy-
begged! I was-a weakling!"
Operator 5 seized Z-7's shoulders. "Listen!
I'm going to put you back on the job! I'm going to
prove you're the same man you always were-the
best man in the world for your job!"
Tim Donovan gazed anxiously into Operator
5's eyes. Jimmy Christopher strode to the desk
and sat down.
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"We've got new leads. We're making
headway, Chief. Little by little, we're breaking the
organization of the man in the mask. The time's
soon coming when he'll break as his victims
have!"
On the desk lay the envelopes Operator 5
had brought from the invaded house-those
dropped by Worden Ehret. The messages were
written in cabalistic codes. He studied them
intently, drew a pad close, and began working
with diagrams and frequency slides. He studied
silently until the door opened and an operator
placed a dispatch on his desk.
Then he scrawled an answer.
... F-1-M... CONTINUE ON EVERGLADES
LEADS TO FIND HIDEAWAY REGARDLESS OF
DANGER... R-2-NY.
The message made his eyes cloud .
... R-2-NY THRU 13WDC... OPERATORS S-
8 AND A-2 INVESTIGATING DEATH OF F-6
ALSO DEAD, BODIES FLOATING IN SWAMP,
RIDDLED BY BULLETS... NO CLUES... NO
SIGN OF HIDEAWAY... SEARCH HOPELESS...
F-1-M
He resumed work on the code in Ehret's
messages. Tim Donovan watched him intently as
he worked. The boy saw words built out of
fragments, forming whole sentences, as the
cipher gave way to Operator 5's analysis. All the
while, Z-7 sat motionless, slumped exhausted in
the chair, while Jimmy Christopher glanced
anxiously at him again and again.
"It's coming, Chief!" he exclaimed. "These
are orders Ehret was to send to his lieutenants in
propaganda work, urging them to incite further
riots. We have the names and addresses of all
the leaders of the movements!"
Jimmy Christopher's lips pressed hard. He
typed a message quickly and pressed the button
calling the teletype operator.
"Snap this on the wires! It goes to every key
city in the country. Fill in each blank with the
names and addresses on these envelopes. It's
urgent!"
Operator 5 turned gleaming eyes toward Z-7
as the assistant hurried to comply. "Within a few
hours, Chief, we'll have every one of Ehret's
lieutenants in custody. I've ordered every
available agent out, in every city where Utopiasts
are instigating riots. We're rounding them up-the
Utopiast movement will be stamped out!"
Z-7 sighed. "But that human demon in the
mask-he is the real danger. He is even more
powerful than the Utopiasts. He has learned our
secret systems. He knew that I chartered a plane
to fly to New York. He had men following us.
Trying to corner him, to crush him, is hopeless!
God-that sound! It won't go out of my ears! It
drills my brain-!"
Z-7 raised haggard eyes. His head shook
despondently. "You don't know that man,
Operator 5, you've never faced him. I have, and
it's broken me..."
Jimmy Christopher sat there, peering grimly
at his ashen-faced chief. He jerked a drawer
open, removed a file-folder and fingered through
records. He scribbled rapidly on a page, then
summoned the assistant from the
communications room. "Radio this to Captain
Jansen on the Atlantic Queen en route to New
York," he directed.
PLACE ARMED GUARDS AROUND
LEONARD NEILL STOP CONFINE HIM TO
CABIN UNTIL SHIP DOCKS STOP KEEP HIM
SAFE STOP HIS LIFE DEPENDS ON IT STOP
The signature was a code the master of the
Atlantic Queen would know as that of the man in
command of the United States Intelligence
Service.
Within a few minutes, the answer was in
Jimmy Christopher's hands:
ORDERS FOLLOWED IMPLICITLY STOP
NEILL GUARDED STOP NO WAY HE MAY BE
HARMED. KURT JANSEN, MASTER ATLANTIC
QUEEN
Yet within twenty-four hours, there was an
urgent clattering over the wireless. CQD-CQD-
CQD! The distress signal whined on the sixhundred-
meter band at a few seconds past
midnight. CQD-CQD-CQD!
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At the alarm, every broadcasting station in
the East and the Middle West switched off its
power. Programs were canceled. Out of night skywaves,
came the staccato message.
ATLANTIC QUEEN SINKING RAPIDLY-
EXPLOSION ROCKED SHIP AT MIDNIGHT-
SEAMS BURST-PASSENGERS TAKING TO
LIFEBOATS SCORES KILLED HUNDREDS
INJURED BY BLAST-DECKS AWASH-CQD
CQD-CQD-
Then a pause-empty air-until another message
came feebly.
EXPLOSION OCCURRED DIRECTLY
BENEATH STATEROOM BY LEONARD NEILL,
NAVAL ARCHITECT, WHO DESIGNED SHIP-
NEILL AND GUARDS KILLED INSTANTLY-
CAN YOU SAVE US-CQD-CQD-CQD-
Then silence again-heart-rending silence,
until the Conte Brissart, which had left its course
to succor the stricken Atlantic Queen, flashed
word.
PICKING UP LIFEBOATS OF ATLANTIC
QUEEN-SHIP GONE
Operator 5, in Headquarters R-2 in New
York, peered coldly at the messages before him-
blazing letters of flame, the dread words stung his
eyes. Leonard Neill, killed instantly at midnight.
In the operating room of the Park Central
Hospital, brilliant lights gleamed beneath silvered
shades. Under the glare, white-uniformed nurses
and interns moved quietly and efficiently. Steam
wreathed from shining sterilizes where razoredged
instruments boiled.
Broad doors swung open, a wheeled table
was pushed under the brilliant lights. A great
laywer lay under the spotless sheets, nearly dead.
Miles Sorenson was known from coast to coast;
his career was a monument to his legal genius.
His collapse had been featured across the nation,
in black scareheads. Specialists despaired of
saving him from death by a malignant tumor of
the brain. Dr. Gordon Hollbrand alone had dared
attempt the delicate operation.
Tension was in the air, and the great surgeon
entered slowly. He stepped toward basins of
antiseptic, and began scrubbing his arms and
hands and fingers painstakingly. Scores watched
from the amphitheater.
Dr. Hollbrand paused, holding his hands
before him. They were trembling. He looked up at
the faces in the gloom above the lights. Men sat
in circular rows of seats, peering down. He
recognized his colleagues, physicians of high
standings, men whose every presence was an
honor. They had come to see the famous Dr.
Hollbrand perform a miracle of surgery which they
dared not attempt.
He saw concern in their eyes-concern
because his fingers trembled. Fingers that once
had been firm as rock, incredibly deft, now were
stiff and shaking.
Dr. Hollbrand grimly finished cleaning his
numb hands. He slipped into a sterilized jacket,
moved toward the table, and peered into the worn
face of the man whose life depended upon his
skill. Nurses and interns gathered around him.
Dr. Hollbrand did not move as the anesthetic
was administered. His patient was ready. He
extended his cold fingers, and felt the hot steel of
a scalpel placed in them. He bent, lowering the
incredibly sharp blade to the forehead of his
patient. He said, "Now!"
Each move must be quick, certain. Once the
skin parted beneath the blade, once the repanning
began, there could be no hesitation.
He jerked up, staring, panting, trembling from
head to foot. His voice, when he spoke, was a
broken-hearted scream. "I can't! I can't! I dare not!
It's beyond me! Anyone else-not me!"
An astonished mutter rose in the
amphitheater, the great surgeon recoiled from the
table. He whirled away from the operating table,
his white garments flapping swiftly. He ran
through the doors and along the corridor, still
gripping the scalpel. He flung himself down the
stairs and stumbled toward the door of his office.
There a man was standing there. Dr.
Hollbrand paused, facing his colleague. He said in
a throaty whisper :"Yes?"
"It is terribly difficult to tell you, Dr. Hollbrand.
You must bear up. No man could have done
more."
Dr. Hollbrand winced. "My son is dead!" He
pushed into his office and slammed the door shut.
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For a moment, the man outside hesitated; then he
turned away gravely.
From the office there came a soft, dull
thump. The doctor outside pushed the door open
swiftly. He peered at a limp form lying face-up on
the floor. The shining handle of the scalpel shone
above the stiff white of the great surgeon's
garment. It was deep in his heart...
A yellow envelope was placed in Operator
5's hand as he left his roadster at the airport. Tim
Donovan came to his side quickly as he ripped it
open. He read the message; his eyes darkened.
He hurried, with the Irish lad at his side, to a
cabin plane on the runway. They climbed in. The
roar of the engines shook the spreading wings.
Through the gleam of the floodlights, the ship
sped away.
Tim Donovan peered into Operator 5's darklined
face; a shudder passed through him. A
merciless light was in Jimmy Christopher's eyes,
a stony hardness on his face. The plane drove
deep into the darkness. The motor-drone was
softened by sound-proofed walls. Quietly, from a
radio within the cabin, a brassy voice spoke.
"We interrupt the program, ladies and
gentlemen, for an important announcement. The
President of the United States will address the
nation this Friday night at ten o'clock on a subject
of vital interest to every citizen."
Jimmy Christopher uncrumpled the sheet
which had been handed to him as he left his
roadster. He read it again.
AX-47... SPECIAL ATTENTION
OPERATOR 5... FOLLOWING DEATH OF SON,
DR. GORDON HOLLBRAND COMMlTTED
SUICIDE TONIGHT AT TEN P.M.... R-2N.Y....
The co-pilot of the plane stepped to Jimmy
Christopher and saluted smartly. "Your
destination, sir?" "Pittsburgh-top speed!"
Operator 5 said tersely.
CHAPTER TWELVE
DEATH'S FACE
GUARDS STOOD AT THE GREAT IRON
gates of the high fence which enclosed Martin
Evarts' home. Intelligence men patrolled the
extensive grounds. Sentries watched every door.
Under drastic orders from Operator 5, every
precaution was being taken to guard Evarts' life.
Inside the house, other Intelligence men
watched every window. The library was guarded
most carefully of all. Inside that large room, Martin
Evarts sat at his desk, hands opening and closing
into cold fists, his eyes haggard, peering at a
clock. It was eleven twenty-five p.m.
Diane Elliott watched the clock, also. Her
face showed the strain of her long vigil. Since the
news that the Atlantic Queen had sunk had been
relayed to the mansion, she had not allowed
Martin Evarts out of her sight. Worn, filled with
dread, she was waiting now for word from
Operator 5.
The steel magnate's daughter was in the
room, too. She sat anxiously beside her father,
her arm across his shoulders. She felt him
tremble. "Father, you ought to get some sleep,"
she said, quickly.
"Sleep!" Evarts choked. "It's impossible!
Sleep now? When every minute brings me
closer-" He jerked up, strode to the door and
tried it. He made sure its bolt was secure in the
socket. Then he moved to two other doors, testing
them. He circled the room, inspecting each
window-catch, drawing the heavy draperies
closed so that not a chink of light shone out. His
steps were jerky.
"Please, father," Eve implored. "No one can
reach you. It's impossible-"
"I know... I know I'm cracking up, he wants
me to. But I can't forget Bill Mercer and Phil
McAvoy-both killed before my very eyes,
horribly, on the stroke of midnight! God! It's nearly
midnight, now!"
The shrill sound that exploded in the room
spun Evarts about, making him gasp. He
retreated in abject fear, staring...
"It's the telephone! Who's calling?"
Diane Elliott lifted the receiver. Her eyes
shone confidently as she answered, "Operator 5
is calling." She listened to Jimmy Christopher's
quick words.
"I've just arrived at the airport, Diane. I'm
driving directly out. Make sure Evarts is guarded
carefully. Check every man. I'll be there before
midnight."
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Diane reported briskly to Martin Evarts as
she took up a house telephone. She rang each
distant instrument quickly, giving brusque
instructions. When she had finished, she turned to
the steel magnate. "Every guard is in place.
Operator 5 will be here before midnight, Mr.
Evarts. He's on his way now."
Evarts mumbled an unintelligible answer. He
gazed haggardly at the little clock on the desk.
The seconds were ticking away inexorably. It
would be midnight in twenty-seven minutes.
Twenty-seven minutes...
Four Intelligence men stood on guard at the
huge gate to the driveway that circled to Martin
Evarts' mansion. Two were stationed on the
sidewalk; two were sheltered in the shadow of the
high hedge. They all glanced warily at their
watches and scanned the road.
The headlights of a car appeared. The bright
gleam swept near. The heavy car moved more
slowly as it approached the gate. To the
astonishment of the men on guard, it swung off
the road and stopped with its bumper a foot from
the stout bars.
Out of the blackness a quiet, muffled voice
spoke. "Open the gate, please."
"Can't do that. Who are you? What do you
want?"
The voice answered with a distorted ring. "I
have been called The Man-Breaker," it said. "I
have come for Mr. Evarts!" There was a sudden,
soft crashing of glass, putting a period to the
startling words.
The stunned Intelligence men stepped back
quickly, jerking at their automatics. In their
surprise, they sucked in breath. Instantly, a sharp,
stinging sensation bit into their lungs. They were
surrounded by vapor that sprang from the ground.
Through the gleam of the headlamps, a man
in the front seat hurled two spherical objects.
Again glass crashed softly, and the pair of
Intelligence men who ducked from the shadow of
the hedge choked and tottered. They fell into the
grit of the driveway and lay motionless. Two men
wearing gas-masks slipped to the gate. One of
them inserted a long crowbar into the loop of
chain, fastened with a strong padlock. He twisted,
used his weight, and the links snapped.
The gate swung open. The two men returned
to the car. Dark figures were hurrying from
positions around the fence. Moonlight glittered on
bared guns.
A shot blasted from the gun of a secret
agent; a bullet spanged against the metal of the
car. It was echoed by dull explosions as the
spheres fell to the ground and burst. All around
the sedan, vapor swelled thickly. The cloud drifted
over the choking, gasping Intelligence men, as the
gas overpowered them. Dim figures sprawled to
the ground.
Fog swelled to dim the lights, as secret
agents backed to the door and fired point-blank
into the car-without effect. Through the dimness
of the haze through blurred eyes, they saw dark
figures springing from opened doors. They fired
wildly as unconsciousness claimed them.
Six men, gas-masks fitted to their faces,
ducked from the dark interior of the car. Each
carried a wicker basket filled with the fragile glass
bombs. A number of them darted off across the
grounds and vanished in the swirling mist.
Then another figure, carrying a black bag,
alighted. He was dressed in immaculate evening
clothes. A gas-mask was on his head. Through
the goggles, darkly shaded eyes shone.
He mounted the steps deliberately, moved
past the unconscious Intelligence men who lay in
the mist, and laid a hand upon the door knob of
the entrance.
In the center of the huge library, Martin
Evarts stood rigid, staring around, trembling
hands half-raised to his white face. Choking
words tumbled through his colorless lips. "Those
were shots-" Evarts screamed hoarsely. "He's
come for me! He's come for me!"
Quick steps took him behind his desk. He
jerked a drawer open and pawed out an
automatic. He unlocked the safety-catch and
gripped the butt coldly. Eyes shifting fearfully, he
listened.
A voice sounded through the door. "Steady,
Mr. Evarts!" the voice of an Intelligence man
shouted. "we're here."
Diane Elliot jumped from her desk. There
came a soft, crashing noise, almost immediately
followed by dull, thumping sounds-like men
falling to the floor!
Footfalls tapped faintly in the corridor that
flanked the library. They came with slow rhythm
and paused outside the door.
Evarts gasped, green with fear. "The
entrance was locked, but he's come in! He's
outside that door now!" His voice raised to a
screech. "Keep him out! Don't let him come in!"
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Diane Elliot lifted the receiver of the
telephone, and rattled the switch. There was no
hum on the line. It was dead...
Martin Evarts stared. The door-panels jarred,
suddenly. The wood splintered around a bright,
steel-edge. Another blow drove through-then a
third. The sharp blade flashed through widening
cracks, and a section split inward.
Martin Evarts cried out in terror. He jerked
his gun upward and pulled the trigger three times,
swiftly. Three holes drilled through the panels
above the hand. It jerked slightly each time-and
that was all. The rubber-covered fingers drew the
bolt back.
Gun raised, recoiling, staring, Martin Evarts
watched the door open to reveal the grotesque
figure of a man in evening clothes wearing a gasmask
on his metal-encased head.
In each rubber-gloved hand, the Man-
Breaker poised a silver ball. They flashed from his
fingers as he stepped across the sill. There were
two dull crashes.
Swirling vapor spewed into the air around
Martin Evarts and his daughter. The lights grew
dim.
Diane Elliot sprang away from her chair as
the man in the gas-mask appeared in the
doorway. At the first sting of the choking mist, she
ran across the room, saw, in a hasty glance,
Martin Evarts stagger and drop the gun from his
hands. The magnate's daughter sagged into a
chair. Diane snatched open the door of a closet
and stepped into pitchy darkness.
Sounds came from the library, vague and
quick. Heels beat upon the floor, approaching,
then retreating. Diane Elliot heard the muffled
hum of a motor. It moved away, silence
remained...
Operator 5 thrust his foot hard on the brakepedal
at the gate of Martin Evarts' estate. The
gate stood wide open and, dark figures were lying
about, motionless. Something like steam was
clinging to the lawn as a slow soft breeze swept it.
Jimmy Christopher glanced quickly at the yawning
entrance to the mansion, and thrust hard on the
accelerator.
Tim Donovan cried out as the car streaked
toward the open door of the house. "Jimmy!
Those're Intelligence men-knocked out! Smell
that stuff in the air!"
Jimmy Christopher snapped: "Chlorosite!" He
brought the car to a swift stop near the entrance
of the house, removed a silver case swiftly from
his vest-pocket, and took four small, white ovals
from it. He handled a pair of them to Tim
Donovan. They were filters of wafer-thin
porcelain, impregnated with a counter-active
preparation which Operator 5 had developed in
his own laboratory. They plugged them into their
nostrils.
"The wind has thinned the stuff-but be
careful!" Operator 5 warned the boy. "It's a
powerful hypnotic-it'll knock you out in an
instant!"
He leveled his automatic as he slipped from
the car. Then, as the amazed boy followed,
Operator 5 stepped into the corridor, and stared
at the four men who lay there, bathed in a clinging
mist-motionless, dead to the world. Silver
fragments of glass glittered on the carpet. Light
shafted from an open door. Broken wood lay
scattered about.
Operator 5 stopped inside the threshold of
the library. The fog in the air was thicker; the
room was empty. A huge automatic lay on the
floor. Operator 5 picked it up. From a distance, a
call came. "Jimmy! Jimmy!"
Operator 5 wheeled toward the closet door
behind the desk. He opened it to find Diane Elliot
lying in a heap on the floor. She spoke as Jimmy
lifted her.
"Don't talk here!" he barked at her. "Hold
your breath!"
Operator 5 carried Diane Elliot quickly out
the entrance and into the cold night air as Tim
Donovan trotted anxiously at his side. The wind
was brushing the last of the clinging vapor from
the grass. The girl breathed deeply, while Jimmy
Christopher held her up.
Finally, she caught her breath and spoke.
"He came-the man in the mask-he took Mr.
Evarts away!"
"Where, Di? Where?" Operator 5's voice was
tense and excited.
"I don't know! I got into the closet to escape
the gas, but even the little I got was too much for
me! I heard them go-that's all."
"Tim! Into the car!" Jimmy Christopher
snapped The little Irish boy bounded down the
steps. Diane clung to Operator 5's hand. "Get to a
telephone, Di-call ambulances!"
He steadied Diane into the car, and slipped
behind the wheel. He swerved down the driveway
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to the gate. Diane hurried out of the car and ran
along the sidewalk toward the lights of the next
house, as Operator 5 sent the car singing over
the pavement.
"Where're we heading?" Tim Donovan
questioned. "Where did the man in the mask
take-?"
"It's a gamble, Tim! A chemist was killed in
his laboratory-the manager of the blooming mills
was killed on his own rollers-the head of the
steel plant-where? His own plant, probably.
That's the way the mind of the masked man
works, Tim. But it's a gamble!"
Corners whisked past, and Operator 5
glanced at the clock on the dash. It was six
minutes before the hour. Six minutes until
midnight!
The shafting headlights of Operator 5's car
swung sharply along a high, sooty fence. They
shot through a huge open gate. On the ground, a
thin mist was flowing with the breeze; in the grit,
two dark figures were lying inert. Jimmy
Christopher sped through, white-knuckled hands
gripping the wheel.
He braked swiftly, and slipped from the seat.
The ground was covered with a fine cinder dust
that rained continually from the spewing
chimneys. A black trail of tires was freshly marked
in the stuff, following the long brick wall.
Operator 5 sprinted, and Tim Donovan ran at
his side. They swung past a corner, and stopped
short. Red light flared through grim windows,
lighting the space between the wall and the high
fence. In the glow was a sedan. Its doors were
open. It was empty!
Operator 5 turned quickly to the shining
windows, and peered into a blinding glare. Within
a huge space, shut off from the rest of the plant
by heavy meshscreen walls, was an electric
furnace, its gigantic arc blazing furiously. Three
dark figures were outlined in sparks.
One-a girl-lay limp and motionless upon
the scale-covered cement. The second, propped
to a sitting position, was Martin Evarts. The third
man was bending over him, waving a dripping
wad of cotton under the magnate's nostrils. His
face-a face uncannily expressionless-was bent
dose to Evarts.'
Operator 5 turned abruptly from the window.
Yards away, a heavy, metal door was framed in
the sooty, black wall. He twisted at the knob, and
flung himself against the door. It was firmly
locked.
Jimmy Christopher whirled back to the
window and thrust hard at the window-sash. It
didn't move. Heavy bolts held it in place. He
cracked the butt of his automatic against the
pane, but a stout wire mesh in the glass resisted
the strong blows. Entrance through the window
was impossible. Bullets fired through that pane
would lose their force and fly wild.
Jimmy Christopher ran to the huge, black
sedan. A glance showed him that the key had
been removed from the ignition lock. He tugged at
the handle of the hood; a stout lock resisted his
efforts. He could not reach the motor to disable it,
to hinder the masked man's means of escape. He
stepped back, leveled his automatic, and sent two
bullets spattering against the side of the hood.
Scarred dents showed, but the metal was not
pierced-but four more quick shots deflated the
tires. Operator 5 drew back grimly. The red light
shining from the windows gleamed brightly in his
eyes as he twirled his gun in his hand. "Tim! Take
this! Guard that door! If the man in the mask
comes out, shoot to kill!"
Operator 5 whirled away. Tim Donovan
watched him spring along the wall of the building,
seeking another door. The boy slipped toward the
blazing windows, glanced through, and saw the
man in evening-clothes-the man with the
inscrutable face-force Martin Evarts upright. Tim
Donovan stepped back. Gun leveled, eyes fixed
on the black door, he stood guard...
Jimmy Christopher shouldered through a
huge door around the corner. The vast interior of
the plant was a mass of shadows, except for the
bright-red shine in the far corner, behind the
heavy mesh walls. Operator 5 ran toward the
gleam.
Four dark figures were crowded together in
the open. They were garbed in overalls. They
bent over two men who lay motionless in the
black grit.
Only one iron-framed door opened through
the heavy wire-mesh walls. Steel arms crisscrossed
it, thrust sturdily into strong steel sockets.
Operator 5 twisted frantically at a handle which
would not turn. He wheeled to shout at the
shadowed figures: "Open this door-quick!"
One of the men in overalls hurried toward
him. "We can't open it either! It works with a
combination. It's the experimental furnace.
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Nobody here knows the combination but them."
He pointed. "They're dead!"
Jimmy Christopher peered grimly through the
black lines of mesh. In the glare of the gigantic
arc, Martin Evarts was standing straddled,
swaying exhaustedly. His daughter lay at his feet
in a faint. Confronting him was the man in the
mask, his powerful chest bared now to the heat of
the furnace. Muffled words carried through the
roar of the arc:
"You have an appointment with Death, Martin
Evarts!"
Jimmy Christopher snapped an order. "Get
cutters!"
The foundryman loped away as Operator 5
skirted the wall of mesh. Within the enclosed
space, the man in the metal mask was pulling on
a chain running to overhead pulleys. He tilted the
huge crucible of the furnace. It dipped slowly-
and a stream of molten steel poured out.
A scream of anguish tore from Martin Evarts'
lips. He tottered toward the far door-the door
which Tim Donovan was guarding on the outside.
The man in the mask whirled, raising a slice-bar in
his hands. He thrust the bar into the pool of
molten steel, and bounded after Evarts. He
dragged the steel magnate into the heat.
The man in the mask took no notice of
Operator 5. With supreme confidence, he thrust
Evarts to the brink of the furnace. The agonized
man could not resist. He tottered there, and the
man in the mask seized the slice-bar. Its end was
sparkling white. He thrust the blazing point at
Martin Evarts' chest.
Steps pounded behind Operator 5. "Here're
the cutters!" he shouted.
Jimmy Christopher seized the sharp bladed
instrument, thrust its jaws into the strands of the
mesh The steel teeth bit through the wire. A sharp
click sounded as they snipped slowly.
Martin Evarts stared horror-stricken at the
masked face. The sizzling end of the slice-bar
pushed toward his body. He retreated-a slow,
shaking step-to the very brim of the pit where
the molten steel was boiling.
The muffled voice rasped again. "I promised
you death-at midnight! It is midnight now!
Listen!" From far-away, through the roaring of the
gigantic arc, the slow, tolling notes of a deepvoiced
bell came faintly.
One! Two! Three!
Jimmy Christopher thrust the blades of his
cutter against the mesh frantically. He snapped
strand after strand. Martin Evarts tottered
backward. Operator 5 saw the fluid steel welling
up to overflow, to engulf the unconscious girl. He
saw the masked man grip the hot iron and force
Evarts relentlessly into the heat...
Six! Seven! Eight!
Martin Evarts' lips parted in a soundless
scream. He swayed helplessly on the brink of the
pit of molten metal. A guttural chuckle came
through the fixed lips of the metal mask. "One
more step! You have lived by steel-you will die in
steel! At midnight, as I promised!"
Eleven! Twelve!
The sudden mocking laugh boomed. The
man in the metal mask straightened. He tossed
the hot slice-bar aside. His taunting words rang
out. "I have brought you face to face with death.
But I will not kill you! You will live a life worse than
death-a broken man!"
Martin Evarts moaned. He flung himself
forward, stumbling. He sprawled upon the sooty
cement-unconscious.
The man in the metal mask whirled. Jimmy
Christopher watched him draw on his vest and
coat quickly. He rushed toward the door. Operator
5 tore out a broken section of mesh, and pressed
the cutters hard against a tough strand.
"Tim!" he shouted. "He's coming!"
The man in the metal mask jerked the door
open. In the darkness outside, Tim Donovan
stood on steady, spread legs. Red light glared as
the door swung wide. The shadowed figure
appeared before him. The inscrutable face turned
toward him. Tim commanded ringingly. "Get
back!"
The man in the metal mask faced the boy.
His dark-shadowed eyes gleamed. He fastened
the buttons of his coat calmly and his shellencased
head lowered. He took a slow step
forward-then another.
"Get back!" the Irish boy screamed. Another
step... Tim Donovan fired. He aimed point-blank
at the chest of the masked man, and pulled the
trigger. He saw the Man-Breaker wince. A tear
appeared in the fabric of the evening coat. And
the masked man stepped closer!
Tim Donovan cried out. Frantically, he raised
the automatic to fire again. He pulled the trigger a
second time. The report was powerful thunder.
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The bullet spanged. It smashed full into the face
of the masked man. The shell-encased head
jerked. Scarred metal gleamed under one darkshadowed
eye.
The Man-Breaker continued to step forward!
Operator 5 sprinted through the great doors
around the corner. He ran at top speed along the
wall, into the blinding glare of swinging
headlamps. Eye-numbing shafts of light turned
upon him as he raced. The motor whirred high.
Spinning wheels ground in black grit. Like a
juggernaut, the heavy sedan rushed at him.
He sprang away desperately. The heavy
bumper of the big car scraped against the brick
wall as he jerked himself onto the sill of a shining
window. Black lightning streaked past him. He
dropped and ran back. He saw the sedan swerve
swiftly and streak through the gate with flapping
tires.
He glanced swiftly along the black wall.
"Tim?" In the crimson glare shining from the
windows, there was no sign of the Irish lad. He
sped to the gate, peered through, and saw a
gleaming red tail light disappearing in the
distance. He rushed through the entrance of the
building.
His alarm sang over the telephone line. "Car
with New York license 45-98-32! Stop it!" He
turned from the instrument as overalled men
came tramping into the office. Two of them were
carrying Eve Evarts; she was still unconscious.
Two others helped Martin Evarts to a chair.
Tears were rolling down the steel magnate's
pallid face. His hair and eyebrows were burned
away. He was quaking, breathing spasmodically,
staring with blank eyes. Operator 5 gazed upon
the shell of a man whose soul had been
consumed by unconquerable fear.
Long minutes later, a report came humming
over the telephone line. "Car carrying New York
license 45-98-32 found abandoned two miles from
the Evarts steel mill-empty."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE GREAT CHANCE
AT THE DESK IN SUB-HEADQUARTERS
G, of the United States Intelligence Service in
Washington, Operator 5 sat tensely, swiftly
reading teletype reports that were placed before
him in rapid succession. The grim light in his eyes
grew harder as he tossed each one aside.
In the chair opposite, Z-7 sat despondently.
His lack-luster eyes held no hope. He made a
slow, weary gesture. "I'm afraid it's not use!"
Operator 5 snapped, "I'm not giving up,
Chief! I'm following this case through to the end-
the ManBreaker's-or mine!''
A buzzer sounded. Operator 5 answered,
and the door opened. He rose, surprised at
seeing the man who entered anxiously-Ex-
Operator Q-6. "Dad! Good Lord, you shouldn't
have come!"
John Christopher seized his son's hand.
"Never mind about me, boy. I started as soon as I
got your message about Tim. I couldn't stay away
at a time like this. Is there any word?"
"None, Dad," Jimmy Christopher answered
despairingly. "The Man-Breaker took Tim with
him. He transferred to another car and slipped out
of Pittsburgh without being seen. It's impossible to
say where he's in hiding. There's not a lead."
The buzzer sounded again. Operator 5
answered on the inter-room telephone. A voice
said, "Your man is here, sir."
Jimmy Christopher rose, and walked through
the corridor with Z-7 and Q-6 following. He
entered a bare room where three men were
waiting. Between two Intelligence agents, stalwart
Carveth was standing. The explorer seized
Operator 5's hand. "I came as soon as I got word
you wanted to see me," he declared. "I'll help any
way I can."
"Thanks, Mr. Carveth. Please come with
me."
The explorer's heels hammered heavily as
he followed Operator 5 through another corridor to
a rear room. They paused at a window set into
the wall, reinforced by criss-crossing iron bars.
Inside the next room, the huge, captive black was
crouched. Unbound now, he was imprisoned in a
strong-walled cubicle with only one door.
"God! A dangerous animal!" Kirby Carveth
exclaimed. "Strong as a lion-cunning as a fox!
Thank God he's still a prisoner!"
"You told me when you were here before,
Mr. Carveth," Operator 5 said quietly, "that if he
were released, he would not lead us to his
hideaway."
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"That's right. These savages are devilishly
shrewd. He would know your purpose at once-
that you were trying to trail him. He would lead
you far astray. He would lead you into a trap and
kill you without mercy."
"Yet, if he became my friend?" Jimmy
Christopher queried.
Carveth stared. "What do you mean? A
savage will worship a stronger man as an idol-a
man whose superiority he can not question, but-
"
Operator 5 drew a key from his pocket. He
said, very quietly, "I'm going in."
Kirby Carveth blurted a fearsome
exclamation. Z-7's face grew pasty. John
Christopher protested, "Jimmy!"
"Great God, man, you don't dare do that!"
Carveth ejaculated. "He'll break you in two! He'll
crack your spine-like snapping a match!"
"You're insane to think of doing it!" Z-7 cried.
"Face that savage-? With a dozen men,
perhaps-"
"It's suicide!" Carveth exclaimed.
"It's our only chance." Jimmy Christopher
grated. "There is no other hope. That-or
surrender."
"This black came from some hideaway."
Operator 5 continued. "That hideaway's probably
somewhere in the Everglades. It must be the
secret headquarters of the Man-Breaker. Maybe if
he is forced, the black will be able to lead us
through swamp-trails no white man could possibly
follow. He is the key to the whole puzzle-and I'm
going to use him."
"You're mad!" Carveth blurted: "It's-"
"Dangerous?" Operator 5 broke in. "It is. But
it's dangerous, anyway. Greater than any danger I
face in that cage, is the danger which threatens
the leaders of this country at the hands of the
Man-Breaker. No chance is too desperate, now."
Through the barred window of the closed
room, drawn faces peered fearfully at the huge
black.
He stood stooped, his massive shoulders
hunched, tremendous hands swinging open, thick
legs straddled. His swaying movements ceased
abruptly when Operator 5 thrust the key into the
lock of the cell door. His sleek muscles tightened;
he poised to rush. His thick lips bared shining
tusks as the door began to open.
Jimmy Christopher stepped toward the
tribesman. The lock of the door snapped shut
behind him, imprisoning him in the room with the
black. Slowly, he raised one hand-a hand
holding a short, iron rod.
The black was utterly confident that he could
crush this white man in his two hands. The delay
of a moment was nothing. He gazed curiously at
the rod. He recognized it as a weapon-a tool he
could use to beat the white man's brains out. He
reached for it slowly, stealthily.
Jimmy Christopher offered it to him openly.
The instant it came into his fingers he uttered a
guttural cry of pained astonishment, and dropped
it.
Jimmy Christopher stooped, and picked it up
again. It was hot. It seared the fingers; yet
Operator 5 showed no discomfort as he offered it
to the savage again. The black sucked a stinging
hand, glaring a merciless threat at Jimmy
Christopher. Yet, when he saw the white man
hold the rod unflinchingly, he paused, bewildered.
The hot metal was agony in Operator 5's
fingers, but not the slightest tremble betrayed it.
He stood unmoving until the black extended his
hand for the rod again. Strong curiosity-wonder
that the white man did not feel the invisible
force-prompted him. He seized it.
Again, he howled with sudden pain. He
hurled the bar against the cell wall. Broken plaster
dropped from the terrific impact. The iron thudded
to the floor and the black took a swift, advancing
step, uttering a snarl of rage.
His throbbing black hands shot out. Powerful
fingers gripped Operator 5's throat. They dug
deep to his windpipe with amazing power-lifecrushing,
in their terrible strength.
For one moment, Jimmy Christopher stood
with hands at his sides, making no move to
protect himself. For one moment, he endured the
torture of the hands clamped about his throat. The
cruel face drew close, and hot breath panted...
Then, Jimmy Christopher raised his hands
slowly. He curled his fingers about the stiff, black
arms. Their strength was too great to combat; any
attempt to tear them away would be futile.
Operator 5 made no attempt. Instead, he pressed
his fingertips firmly in between the smooth
muscles; he tightened them swiftly, and he
stepped back.
The black's numbed fingers slipped from
Operator 5's throat. The glistening arms remained
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extended. Paralyzed by a skilled jiu-jitsu, grip, all
strength ebbed from them. Amazement crossed
his face as he tried in vain to flex his fingers.
The effect of the jiu-jitsu grip passed.
Savagery gleamed again in the eyes of the black.
Fury parted his lips as he leaped. He sprang with
the swiftness of a panther, wrapping his powerful
arms about Operator 5. One crossed the small of
Jimmy Christopher's back; the other crashed
against his chest. Operator 5 was bent backward
until he felt that his vertebrae must splinter, his
spine crack.
As unendurable agony seized him, he thrust
his arms upward. His stiff fingers drove hard to a
point on the black's chest, over the heart. A
startled grunt answered the thrust. The black's
arms dropped limp. He staggered and reeled to
the wall-a mass of unresponsive muscles.
Panting, awe-stricken, he slumped to the floor,
staring up with white-rimmed eyes.
Jimmy Christopher stood motionless. His
body throbbed with pain; the human beast
crouched for a desperate rush. He let the
tremendous, black body hurtle toward him-let
the crushing arms encircle him again...
This time he moved more swiftly. He drove
out a sharp blow that sent the black reeling and
gasping. He followed with long strides. He spun
the savage about, and his knuckles drove hard to
a spot between the black's shoulders. A displaced
vertebrae clicked sharply. As before, Jimmy
Christopher had disabled the huge black with this
jiu-jitsu blow, had sent him toppling to the floor,
rigid as a board. The savage lay there, stiff from
head to foot, unable to breathe, staring about with
dull eyes.
A click sounded in the room. Kirby Carveth
came to Operator 5's side, breathlessly. He bent
and spoke guttural words rapidly, the language of
the Naga Hill tribes. Awe heightened in the fallen
man's eyes. Carveth turned. "I'm telling him that
you are his master. That you're the strongest,
bravest; that he's a child in your hands. I am
commanding him to obey you as a god among
white men."
Dizziness swept through Operator 5's brain.
Nausea, brought by the pain he had suffered,
gripped him, but he stood steadily, peering at the
face of the black.
Operator 5 stooped. With one jerk, he turned
the black face-down. His fingers pressed hard on
the displaced vertebrae. Another grating click
sounded. The black sagged against the floor,
panting and quivering. Then he scrambled to his
knees and bowed before Operator 5. Breathless
words poured from his lips.
"He is calling you Master," Kirby Carveth
translated. "He is begging for mercy, imploring
you to command him, so that he may please you
with obedience. This magnificent brute is now
your slave!"
"Tell him I will return and command him. Tell
him he must obey or die." As he spoke, Operator
5 moved to the door. Carveth stepped out first.
The black was still groveling as Jimmy clicked the
latch. Z-7 and John Christopher crowded toward
him as he leaned against the wall.
A door crashed open. A shirt-sleeved
communications assistant burst wild-eyed into the
corridor. He strode in stiffly, gazing from Z-7 to
Operator 5. Breath failed the communications
man. His lips moved soundlessly. Z-7 gripped his
shoulders and shook him. His voice rang out,
"The President has been kidnapped!"
The words were a dazing blow. Z-7 peered
inarticulately. Operator 5 straightened, eyes dark
as midnight, his fingers straying unconsciously to
the little, golden symbol of death dangling from his
watch-chain.
Jimmy Christopher spoke sharply. "Snap
through orders that no word of this must leak out!"
He sped along the corridor. In the tension of that
moment, he forgot the pain that throbbed through
his body. He jerked open a door and paused,
peering at the pasty face of Z-7.
"Come with me to the White House, Chief!"
his words rang. His heels beat a tattoo toward the
secret Headquarters.
The car carrying Operator 5 and Z-7 swung
off Pennsylvania Avenue to the iron gate of the
White House grounds. Secret Service men
opened the way, sluggishly, moving as if drugged.
Beside the historic dwelling, large patches of the
lawn were fuming. The sting in the air brought a
single, sharp word from Jimmy Christopher's lips
as he braked to a stop.
"Chlorosite!"
He stepped through the east entrance with Z-
7. The Secretary to the Chief Executive hastened
to meet them. He was pale as death; his hands
fluttered nervously. "Thank God you've come!" he
said breathlessly. "The impossible has
happened!''
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Operator 5 snapped ringingly, "Stay here,
and tell us what happened!"
The Secretary followed them as they hurried
through the lower corridor, between the priceless
portraits of the presidents. As he passed each
door, Jimmy Christopher glanced in at men
stretched on the floor, with others working over
them. The air was still like the aftermath of a
devastating battle.
General Clayton, the White House physician,
hurried out of a room strewn with stricken
Intelligence agents. Operator 5 caught his arm.
"They have been disabled with chlorosite,
General. The antidote is the fumes of pure grain
alcohol."
The physician muttered thanks. "There are
more than fifty men unconscious here-felled as if
by a plague!"
Jimmy Christopher listened to the breathless
account of the Secretary as he shoved his way
outside. "The President stepped out onto the lawn
for a breath of air. A squad of Secret Service men
was with him. It's impossible to say exactly what
happened then. A car lurched through the gate-
men were lying on the grass-then the auto
hurtled out again. I caught a glimpse of the
President's face. He was unconscious. I
telephoned you!"
Operator 5 peered over the stretch of lawn
which still fumed with gas, and glittered with
fragments of broken glass shells. He strode into a
room where Intelligence men were being treated.
Several of them were sitting dazedly in chairs,
reviving from the effects of the powerful hypnotic.
Jimmy Christopher shook a response from one.
"Did you see the men in that car?"
"No. Lord-I scarcely knew anything before
that stuff got me!"
Jimmy Christopher walked back to the study.
Z-7 was rising from the telephone. The secretary
to the President followed Operator 5 in
bewilderment, wringing his hands. "It is impossible
to keep this from the people!" he exclaimed.
"Have you forgotten the President's radio address
at ten o'clock tomorrow night?"
Jimmy Christopher's knuckles rapped the
desk. "Exactly! That's why this has occurred. It's
not only a plan to destroy the Chief Executive-to
break him as other men have been broken-but it
was timed exactly to terrorize the nation!"
The secretary shouted, "He must speak! All
the millions in this country, from coast to coast,
are waiting for his word! He must be found-he
must be brought back in time!"
Operator 5's eyes clouded. He stepped
behind the desk from which the President ruled
the United States. He lifted a telephone and
spoke quietly:
"Headquarters 13, please. Order an autogyro
to be ready at once. Flash Miami to send men into
the Everglades at once, to the spot where the
dead Intelligence agents were found. Have them
establish lightbeacons and wait for me. Have
them bring a cage of the carrier-pigeons."
Jimmy Christopher clicked the hook. "Sub-
Headquarters G. Ask Kirby Carveth to be ready
for an air trip at once. Take him to the autogyro
which is waiting for me. Give him side-arms. I'm
coming immediately."
Operator 5 lowered the telephone grimly. He
looked deep into the Washington chief's dull eyes.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
SWAMP SECRET
THE HEAVY DARKNESS THAT
PRECEDES the dawn hovered over that vast,
reeking, mysterious stretch of swamp and jungle
of the Everglades. Into the stillness of the sky,
came the resonant purr of an engine. Against the
heavens a black, winged shaped moved dimly. It
flitted like a great bat, sometimes hovering,
sometimes streaking, rising and falling. It was a
drifting ghost above the stagnant wastes.
Over the cowling of the lightless plane,
Operator 5 peered into blanketing darkness. He
swung from side to side on a course charted
across the depths of the swamp. He gazed on
perilous territory which remained almost
untouched by the civilization that surrounded it.
Out of the steaming jungle, the dim glimmer
of a light appeared. Operator 5 maneuvered to a
position above it, and noticed two more lights
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which formed a great triangle with the first.
Immediately, he veered to lower the autogyro.
The agents who had awaited Operator 5's
arrival stared in amazement as the huge Naga
hillsman climbed out of the fuselage. Kirby
Carveth followed, speaking gutturally to the black.
Jimmy Christopher stepped into another boat, and
again oars flashed.
Operator 5 called his men around him. He
asked questions and made hurried plans.
"There're snipers hidden somewhere near
here," one of the agents explained. "Someone is
constantly on the lookout. They shoot to kill-on
sight. Besides that, there are dangers from
crocodiles and water moccasins. Every step you
take in these jungles may be your last!"
Operator 5 said flatly: "We're going deeper."
He turned to Kirby Carveth. The explorer stood
beside the huge black. He spoke gutturally, and
the savage listened respectfully. His answer was
hushed, he peered around, alertly.
Operator 5 issued crisp orders to his men.
"We are going with the black. God only knows
where this will lead. Carveth and I will stay close
to him; you will follow at a distance. No matter
what happens, press on as long as he leads us."
Jimmy Christopher followed the huge savage
through wet, clinging growths. Kirby Carveth kept
at his side. Behind him, Intelligence men followed,
portaging their canoes. Lights swung through the
gnarled trees, shafting upon dripping moss that
draped from the slimy branches. Water
shimmered across the ground, and out of the
depths of the swamp, sounded the movements of
creatures startled by men and light.
The three men reached a line of murky
water, and the black pointed across it. Canoes
were shoved out. Paddles flashed in the light of
the torches.
The water stirred with the lashing, horny tails
of crocodiles. Giant jaws opened hungrily; great,
gaping pink mouths shone in the light, rimmed
with gleaming teeth. The air stirred as unseen
things whisked past. There was no sound of
human voice; paddles dipped rhythmically as the
canoes shot on.
Presently, Operator 5 saw sodden land loom
close. He followed the black across soggy terrain
entangled with snaky growths. A mist writhed
from the water, continually seeping through air
that scarcely stirred. Slithering creatures dropped
from wet branches and twined away in the
undergrowth. Shoes sucked in thick slime. A
putrid odor rose from the ground, and lights
played.
The black plunged deeper into the dripping,
putrescent jungle. There was no evident trail, yet
the savage's animal-like instinct led him forward
unerringly. A path finally opened through slimy
grass-a wellworn, recently used path. The black
quickened his pace; Operator 5 and Carveth
hurried after him.
A single light in Jimmy Christopher's hand
probed the thick darkness. The trail widened. The
odorous grass was trampled flat. The ground
rose, and long stretches of it were carpeted with
thick green moss. The giant black raced on, his
body glistening in the gleam of the flash.
Suddenly a muffled cry rang from his lips. At
the same instant, his sleek black body vanished
from Operator 5's sight. He disappeared into a
yawning pit that opened abruptly under him. His
falling body thumped from the black depths.
"A trap!" Carveth gasped. Operator 5
stopped short on the very brink of the pitfall
gashing the trail. His light played on the broken
moss that had disguised the hole. In oozing earth,
the giant black was sprawling, dragging himself
up, clawing spasmodically at the wet walls.
Operator 5 stepped back quickly. "Around it!
The hideaway must be-
Branches rustled above him. He sprang
away, as Carveth cried out another warning. Out
of the night, heavy, snaky strands whipped down
onto their bodies. They struggled in moist rope
woven into a closemeshed net. Its heavily
weighted edges flapped to the ground, and stones
tied to it dragged into the soft earth.
A surging attack descended on Operator 5.
The flashlight spilled from his hand, and its
winging beam shone upon glistening black bodies.
The dark horde leaped silently, savagely, onto the
captives of the net. Overwhelming manpower
crushed Jimmy Christopher down. He tried to
reach his arm-pit holster, but hands gripped him
firmly, pinioning him helpless in the ooze.
From far behind, paddles dipped. The
canoes of Intelligence men were driving against
the swampy shore. Operator 5 saw their lights
flashing, heard their feet moving through the
sucking ooze. They were following the trail...
An ear-splitting tattoo of explosions shattered
the silence of the swamps. The long, vicious burst
of a machine-gun rattled! Mixed with the spitefull
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clatter, came the shrill cries of trapped men. The
spitting of automatics joined the roar as a hail of
slugs slapped into mud.
For a long, shuddering moment, the guns
kept up their devastating fire. Hoarse voices
groaned in mortal anguish. Then, as suddenly as
it had begun, the drumming ceased. Silence
reigned on the shore of the bayou again. The
silence of death...
The clamor of a telephone bell awakened
Diane Elliot. Her sleepless vigil over Martin Evarts
had exhausted her, and fully dressed, she had
fallen into a doze. Now, as she raised the receiver
of the telephone, a voice exclaimed. "Di! Can you
come right away?"
"Jimmy!" the girl exclaimed. "Yes, of course!
Where are you?" The girl scribbled rapidly as the
street and number was given. "We've got to have
your report on Martin Evarts. It's important "
The girl drew on her coat hurriedly, snatched
her impertinent hat, and dabbed a puff at her
nose. She rushed into a taxi. As it whirled away,
she began to wonder what had seemed faintly
strange about the voice that had spoken to her on
the wire.
When the taxi stopped, the driver demurred.
"This ain't no place for you to be comin' alone,
miss."
The neighborhood was black, silent and
squalid. The houses that lined the gloomy street
were poorly kept. Diane saw the number of the
house shining above a dark doorway, paid the
driver, and sent him off. She climbed the steps
and knocked.
A swarthy man opened the door for her.
"Step in, please. Operator 5 is waiting."
The door closed tightly behind Diane. She
began to move along a dark hallway, then
hesitated. She turned into arms that grappled!
She struggled vainly as her arms were
roughly raised and she felt cold steel clamp hard
around her wrists. Her ankles chilled with
something that pressed hard around them. The
gripping hands stopped; footfalls moved away. A
door shut, and a latch clicked home in its socket.
A blinding light gleamed from the ceiling.
Diane Elliot peered about the bare room. She
found herself fastened to the wall by iron straps.
Her frantic efforts to pull herself free were of no
avail. Breathless, she called Jimmy Christopher.
There was no answer.
She peered at a strange, metallic object, flat
and round, hanging from the ceiling by a black
cord. It appeared to be a microphone. A section of
the opposite wall was shaded from the light by a
black awning. Its surface shone like silver. A lens
faced her from under it. She was studying these
details when a noise made her look up.
In the ceiling of the room, a trap door
opened. Sounds came through it as if a huge
spoon were mixing something in a metal
container. A cone-shaped device appeared next,
like the end of a great funnel. As Diane Elliot
watched, a thick, white liquid began to pour from
it.
It streamed to the floor, spreading slowly.
Smooth, white and cloying, the paste spread until
it reached the feet of the imprisoned girl-a cold,
clammy stuff that mounted bit by bit to envelop
her ankles...
In the living room of a brownstone house in
the East Forties of Manhattan-the home of John
Christopher a girl moved about restlessly. She
bore a striking facial resemblance to Operator 5.
She was his twin sister, Nan. She was alone-
and anxious...
The door-bell rang. Nan hurried to the
entrance and flung it open. A man, face
shadowed, stepped to the sill.
"Miss Christopher? I'm C-8. Your brother has
asked me to bring you to him. Can you come?"
Nan seized her wrap. "Take me to him!" she
implored. "Please hurry!"
The cab whirled along side streets and
skimmed runners. Nan drew scant information
from C-8. When they stopped in front of an
undistinguished house in the west Fifties, he
mumbled, "Sub-Headquarters." She hurried
through the door first.
It was a swift, sharp struggle. Overpowering
hands gripped Nan Christopher and flung her to
the floor. Her cries were muffled by tight-pressing
fingers as her wrists and ankles were bound. She
was carried roughly. Her captors left her alone,
then, and she lay on a hard floor, staring around
bewildered.
It was a small room. The door was closed. In
the ceiling, a section of silver screen shone,
shaded from the light. Near it, a crystal lens
scrutinized her. Dangling at the end of a black
cord hung a flat, circular object. There was silence
until something struck the girl's body lightly and
rolled quietly across the floor.
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She squirmed to see a curved tube, like a
snout, extending from the leaden downpour. But
the pellets continued to rain on her. They came
constantly, swiftly-a black hail that drifted
against the close walls and around her body.
Hundreds, thousands of them clattered down,
mounting. . mounting steadily...
The girl lay helpless in a raising flood of
beaded lead...
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
GAME OF DEATH
MURKY SUNLIGHT SHONE INTO THE
steaming depths of the swamp. A cleared space
stretched beyond the window, reaching to thickly
growing trees, stunted and vine-twined, glistening
wetly, stirring with the movements of unseen
creatures. Above the poisonous-looking foliage,
steel spires supported platforms. Sentries stood
on the platforms tripoded machine-guns ready to
swing death on any hostile approach to the shore.
During the darkness that had preceded
dawn, a constant muttering chant had sounded, a
sing-song from the throats of many blacks, prone,
worshipping the dull moon that lined the illimitable
jungle. Now they were visible, herded in a huge
corral, moving above thatch-roofed huts-black,
human beasts guarded by white men stationed
around the high fence with rifles.
Far down the shore, half hidden under slimy,
green foliage, the tin roof of a covered pier
gleamed. Occasionally a powerful throbbing
sounded from it. Someone was testing the engine
of a fast motorboat. There, too, men with rifles
stood.
Operator 5 observed the details of an
apparently impregnable fortress through the
strong bars of the cell.
In utter darkness, he had been carried to this
room and searched. His automatic had been
taken from him, his pockets emptied. Thorough as
the search had been, his most trusted weapon
had been overlooked. He had been stripped of all
possible defense except that one...
He turned quickly as a sound came from the
door. The bar was removed; the knob twisted.
The door opened slowly, and the man who
stepped in was garbed in a smartly tailored
business suit. The hand on the knob was
strangely smooth. The face that turned to Jimmy
Christopher had a weirdly fixed expression.
Operator 5 faced the Man-Breaker.
The shell-covered head bowed. "I bid you
good morning, Operator 5. I am honored by your
presence. I consider you a most eminent guest."
Operator 5 nodded. "Thank you."
"First" The man in the mask stepped closer.
"I must warn you that you will find no opportunity
to leave this island. I have prepared for your visit
a long time, and I assure you there is not the
remotest chance of your escaping."
Jimmy Christopher smiled, with his lips.
"You have seen the watch-tower," the
muffled tone continued. "It is one of many. There
are scores of them, each manned by sharpshooters
and expert machine-gunners. Any
outsider who approaches this island-if he is
unfortunate enough to find it-will never live to
reach the shore. The three Intelligence agents
who attempted it-F-6 and S-8 and A-2-are
dead."
"I believe you."
"Every moment of the night and day, the
bayou is watched. The men on guard are also
instructed to kill anyone attempting to escape.
They know all my men. The sight of a strange
face is the signal to shoot. I should regret it very
much if you should attempt to escape. You see, I
have made other arrangements for you.
"No doubt you are curious about your
companion and your men and the black you
captured and made your slave. The Naga
Hillsman was buried alive in the pitfall. He was
unfaithful; he had to die."
Bleak darkness came to Operator 5's eyes.
"As for Kirby Carveth," the muffled voice
continued, "I assure you he is well and unharmed.
Unfortunately, I could allow the others who
followed you to approach no closer. All of them,
Operator 5, now testify silently to the skill of my
tower guards. All of them are dead..."
The clouds gathered more darkly in Jimmy
Christopher's eyes.
"Now, if you will follow me" The man in the
metal mask moved through the doorway,
supremely confident. Operator 5 hesitated. then
grimly followed. The masked man led the way
along a quiet corridor into a tremendous library,
furnished in impeccable taste, cool and
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comfortable. Operator 5 paused, frankly
astounded.
Jimmy Christopher faced the masked man
grimly. "You have not brought me here to
entertain me," he declared.
"Quite right, Operator 5!" The masked man
stepped close.
"You are a clever man, Operator 5. You have
learned much about me. You have destroyed the
Utopiast movement, yet that is of no moment.
You have seen me break great men at will-many
of them, including the Heavyweight Champion of
the World, the most famous surgeon living, and
your own chief. They succumbed easily. But you,
Operator 5, are of finer mettle than they."
"You intend, of course," Jimmy Christopher
observed quietly, "to break me."
"Of course... I find you an antagonist worthy
of my skill. I have brought you here as a
challenge. We have matched our wits, and now
we stand in each other's presence-enemies.
Enemies to the death. I know all your
accomplishments, Operator 5, I appreciate you as
a man with only one superior-myself."
The muffled tone took on a ringing quality, a
sharp edge. Disguised as it was, it was the voice
of a supreme egoist, a man of unutterable selfesteem.
The shadowed eyes behind the steel
mask were defiant.
"Let us meet in the supreme test. The one
who wins retains the prize of life. The one who
loses accepts the penalty of death. Do you accept
my challenge?"
Jimmy Christopher laughed.
The man in the steel mask clapped his
rubber-gloved hands. A door opened at the side
of the sumptuous library. A turbaned Morrocan
appeared. "A chessboard, Abi."
Shadowed eyes peered at Operator 5.
"You are a skillful chess-player. You match
yourself against the greatest experts in the world.
When Casablanca held the championship, you
defeated him decisively after only six draws.
When Casablanca lost his claim to the Russian,
Dr. Alekbin, you defeated the winner in turn... I
am a great chess-player, myself. "One game,
Operator 5-and the stakes are life and death!"
The man in the mask turned as the Morrocan
entered with a chess-table. The servant arranged
pieces of finely carved ivory on the inlaid board.
The masked man paused before a huge console
radio on the corner of the library.
"We shall amuse ourselves with music."
Jimmy Christopher noted that a small, silver
screen rested above the radio. A click of the
switch left it unchanged, but soft, slow strains
issued into the room-the music of a string
orchestra.
The masked man returned to the table. "Be
seated, Operator 5" He removed a black pawn
and a white one from the board and, holding each
in a rubber-gloved hand, put them about behind
his back. He extended his hands and said,
"Choose!"
Operator 5 tapped the right fist. Slowly, the
man in the mask turned it. There lay on his
smooth palm-not a pawn-but a ring. It was a
ring of white metal, it had a white skull against a
black background; on the forehead of the skull
was the numeral 5. It was the ring Jimmy
Christopher had given Tim Donovan-the ring
which the little Irish lad had promised would never
leave his finger!
The inscrutable face was turned full toward
Operator 5. "Do not allow yourself to become
upset," came the muffled voice. "You need peace
of mind for our game of chess."
"Where is Tim?"
"That," the masked man answered, "Must
remain unknown to you... Your choice was a bad
one Operator 5. In my other hand, you see, is the
white pawn. The white moves first. Let us be
seated."
Jimmy Christopher's jaws clamped. He knew
that the masked man had deliberately displayed
the ring to destroy the calm clarity of his brain.
Dread filled him and he realized the danger he
faced. He tried to force the anxiety from his mind
as he took the chair facing the man.
They bent above the board. Jimmy
Christopher strove to force his mind free from all
anxiety. He watched each shrewd move the man
in the mask made; he studied each strategic
situation as it developed. He realized that this
adversary was very expert, that the Man-Breaker
was piling small advantages on small advantage
to achieve an overpowering position. Soft music
continued to issue from the radio as the pieces
advanced on the board.
"Do not forget," the masked man said quietly.
"Life for the winner. For the loser-death!"
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Abruptly, the music ceased issuing from the
console. Operator 5 glanced up at streaks of light
appearing on the silver screen. They were a
confused blur that took shape slowly as an image.
He glanced away as the masked man's hand
moved toward the white queen.
Operator 5's breath stopped as the fingers
lowered. He had planned his trap cunningly. A
move of the white queen would, at his next play,
allow him to capture that piece, weakening the
white forces. It would mean certain success. The
rubber-covered fingers dropped toward the queen!
Quietly the masked man said, "J'adoube!"*
He shifted his castle quickly to a position that
menaced Operator 5's entire stratagem!
Chilled, Operator 5 answered the move. The
masked man had deliberately jarred his taut
nerves; he strove to erase the deadly effect. He
planned carefully. A move of his knight would
weaken his defense temporarily, but it also
promised greater strength if the danger could be
skillfully passed. The knight moved.
The flashing light on the silver screen drew
Operator 5's gaze again. His eyes widened; he
jerked from his chair. He stared at the image on
the screen.
"You are probably familiar with the principles
of wired television," the man in the mask said,
calmly. "It is now highly developed. You are
looking into a room hundreds of miles from here."
Operator 5 was looking into a room in which
a girl was shackled to a wall-Diane Elliot!
Her face was easily recognizable. She was
straining desperately and hopelessly. She was
surrounded by a white mass that had risen to her
waist. A thin stream was pouring down before her,
raising the surface higher and higher... She
looked up. Uncannily, her voice sounded in the
room. " Jimmy! Jimmy-where are you?"
Operator 5 sprang toward the image. "Diane!
Can you hear me?"
The lips of the image moved. "Yes! Where
are you? Jimmy! It's hardening around me! Oh,
Jimmy-please-!"
Diane's voice ceased, though the image
remained on the screen. Her lips moved
soundlessly. The man in the mask spoke. "She is
in Washington, Operator 5. You wish to know
where? Here is the address where she can be
found-"
The rubber-gloved hand extended a card
toward Operator 5.
"She is in some danger, I regret to say," the
intoning voice came. "The white substance is
merely ordinary plaster of Paris. She is being
literally encased. When the plaster reaches her
chest and hardens-"
The image vanished. Operator 5 whirled in
speechless fury toward the man in the mask.
"I beg of you, don't become excited," came
the inexorable voice. "We have reached a most
crucial point in our game of chess. In fact-"
The man in the mask stepped to the table.
He moved his white queen swiftly. "Check!"
Again, Jimmy Christopher realized the
cunning of his opponent. Chilled to the heart, he
peered at the card on which the address was
written. He thrust it into his pocket, and strode to
the table. The screen was still blank.
"It is your move, Operator 5!" the Man-
Breaker pushed in his oily satisfied voice.
Jimmy Christopher's master-stroke came
swiftly. He raised shining, dark eyes to the
smoldering ones glinting through the metal mask.
His voice rang. "Stalemate!"
The masked man rose slowly. He stood in
cold fury. His rubber-gloved hand angrily swept
the delicately carved pieces to the floor.
"Our first contest, Operator 5, is a draw. But
we have not finished!"
"Let us go on to the next!" Jimmy
Christopher suggested firmly.
Again the masked man's gloved hands
clapped. The Moroccan entered, swept up the
fallen pieces, carried the table away, and
returned. He said with heavy accent: "Your men,
effendi, are waiting."
"I have them here. I will distribute them later.
Abi, bring foils!" The masked man turned.
"Operator 5, you are an honored graduate of the
famed Salle d'Armes of the great Scherevesky,
who is a peerless master of epees. I, in turn, also
trained with Scherevesky. Let us match our skill
with rapiers!"
The Moroccan stepped into the vast library
again, carrying two magnificently fashioned
fencing foils. He advanced, and the masked man
gripped the corded handles. He uttered another
command, and the servant stooped, flinging up a
trap door in the floor, then another.
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One by one, the Moroccan raised the lids
until Operator 5 and the man in the steel mask
stood surrounded by a ring of emptiness cut
through the floor. Beneath lay darkness, and into
the room came slowly drifting fog. In the
blackness below were movements and a lashing
of water.
In the muddy cavity around, blackish water
lay gleaming on the scaled backs of gigantic
crocodiles. The huge reptiles glared with beady
eyes, throwing open their gigantic jaws, exposing
sharp-pointed teeth.
"To the loser," came the muffled voice
through the steel mask, "Death! The circle on
which we stand, Operator 5, has a diameter equal
to the proper length of the fencing strip. If you
should step beyond the edge-if a blow of the foil
should send you toppling-"
"Position!" Operator 5 snapped.
The foils flashed in the light through the ritual
which brought them to guard. They exchanged
the last courtesy, grimly facing each other. The
foils clicked...
"Wouldn't it be more sporting," Operator 5
asked quietly, bringing himself erect, "If you would
remove your armor?"
The shaded eyes gleamed as the masked
man pulled off coat and shirt. He removed the
tight-fitting mesh from his chest.
The blades moved to clash, then poised in
mid-air. On the screen in the corner, light flashed
again. Operator 5 peered at it haggardly. He saw
the flashes coalesce into an image. He lowered
his epee.
The image that appeared was of a small
room, seen from an angle above. On the floor, a
girl was lying bound-Nan Christopher! She was
surrounded by blackness, half covered by it. A
thin, dark stream was pouring down upon her.
Operator 5 moved to the edge of the circular
section of floor. "Nan"! he cried.
The girl's eyes turned toward the camera and
widened. Her voice came clearly through the
loudspeaker, crying her brother's name in
anguish. Jimmy Christopher's hand tightened
white on his rapier-and suddenly, the image
vanished. He whirled to the masked man. "You
damned devil! What are you doing to her? Where
is she?"
"Unfortunately, she is in New York. The black
stuff is lead shot, Operator 5. She's in no danger
now. Should the shot continue to pour in until she
is covered-should the lead shower continue
even longer-she will be crushed."
Operator 5's blade flashed and clicked to the
steel of the masked man's weapon. "On the
desk," came the muffled voice, "you see the two
cards? One of them has the address in New York
where your sister is. Knowing that address will
avail you nothing. The other card states the
whereabouts of the President of the United
States. I fear he is not comfortable at the
moment. Possibly, he is extremely disturbed. He
is in Washington, not far from the White House.
Of course, he will not be able to speak at ten
tonight." The Man-Breaker laughed.
Jimmy Christopher's swift Degrassi lunge
was adroitly parried. He followed with an instant
recovery. The points traced sparkling moulinets.
Operator 5 leaped into a powerful force attack.
Back and forth across the island in the floor they
moved, while horny tails lashed the water below
and red jaws gleamed wide and hungry. The
masked man slashed viciously, forcing Jimmy
Christopher's heels to the edge.
A sharp snap sounded. The man in the mask
drew back swiftly. He gazed at his rapier; it was
snapped halfway along its length. The broken
point lay glittering at his feet. He hurled the
useless stub away.
Jimmy Christopher said, "Let's go on!"
He extended his foil handle first to his grim
adversary. The rubber-gloved hand gripped it.
Quickly, Operator 5 loosened the buckle of his
belt. His hand snapped away, gripping the handle
of his secret rapier as the thin leather sheath flew
from the bared blade. He executed a smart
salute. "Your foil is a bit longer than mine, but our
match is not ended!"
Operator 5's steel blended into invisibility. Its
darting moves became faster than the eye could
follow. The man in the mask retreated frantically,
slashing wildly to avoid the onslaught of deadly
steel. He pressed desperately to restrain the force
attack-and went back.
A swift lunge! A quick recovery on the part of
Operator 5! Two men standing motionless. A
small spot of red shone above the heart of the
man in the mask. He stood erect, his arms
dropping. The magnificent foil fell from his fingers.
His shell-encased head lowered.
Operator 5 stepped forward swiftly as his
opponent toppled. The huge figure was falling as
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he snatched at the steel shell. A splash came
from below as Operator 5 gripped cold metal.
The gloom beneath the floor was torn by a
sudden, savage thrashing. Gleaming bodies
rasped together wildly. The starved beasts in the
slime clamped their jaws on the victim who had
fallen to them, white bellies up, teeth tearing
flesh...
Operator 5 stepped back, cold and numb, He
peered at the thing he held in his hands. It was
the inscrutable face of the Man-Breaker. Now the
eyes were empty; light shone through the parted
lips. Disembodied, empty, a face of evil.
Operator 5 leaped across the yawning circle.
He flicked a switch in the wall which brought a
new gleam into the cavern below. He peered
across the edge and drew back in horror. Black,
voracious beasts slithered through slime that was
surfaced with red. He snapped the light out. And
he gazed again at the thing he held-the mask of
the Man-Breaker!"
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MILLIONS WAIT
JIMMY CHRISTOPHER MOVED QUICKLY
around the large room. He made sure that every
window-curtain was tightly drawn. He listened at
each door. He strode to the huge desk in one
corner.
Lifting the two white cards from the blotter,
he read the address where Nan was held
prisoner-the other where the President might be
found, if-
From a huge wardrobe, he removed a suit
similar in pattern and color to that the Man-
Breaker had worn. He slipped into it, and fastened
the sheathed rapier around his waist. He stood
before the mirror and placed the metal mask upon
his head.
He stepped back into the huge library,
wearing the mask. He moved to the desk, and
opened the drawers hurriedly. He removed a huge
automatic from one, and pocketed it. In another,
he found a pack of sealed envelopes, each with a
number on it.
Ripping them open, he read their contents,
one after another. They were orders from the
Man-Breaker to his lieutenants. Pieced together,
they formed a daring, shrewdly schemed plan for
the kidnapping of the Secretary of State in
Washington!
Operator 5 found paper and other envelopes
in the desk; he uncovered a portable typewriter.
He pounded out a series of messages, each
exactly alike, reading:
LEAVE YOUR PRESENT STATION AT
ONCE AND REPORT IMMEDIATELY TO THIS
ADDRESS-
The street number he gave was that of an
empty house in Washington owned by the
Intelligence Service.
When he replaced the typewriter, he had a
sheaf of duplicate orders. He folded them quickly,
sealed them in new envelopes, and marked each
like the original. He paused, then, and looked at
his hands.
He returned to the huge dressing-room.
Searching through the drawers, he found a box
containing thin rubber gloves. He drew a pair on,
fastening them snugly at the wrists. He walked
back to the library, adjusted the mask, and
clapped his hands.
The door opened promptly. The Moroccan
stepped in and bowed. Jimmy Christopher's
muffled voice imitated Man-Breaker's. "Our guest,
Abi, is no longer with us," he said.
Scarcely breathing, he realized that this
moment was the crucial test of his plan. The
Moroccan moved to the traps, and closed them
quickly. He drew a rug into place, and salaamed.
"Your men are still awaiting your orders, effendi,"
he said.
"First, Abi, bring the boy."
"Very good, effendi." The Moroccan
withdrew. Presently, the servant parted curtains
and stepped into the room with Tim Donovan.
The pale boy walked slowly toward the
center of the room. Operator 5 peered through the
eyeholes of the mask-and saw Tim's glare of
defiance.
"Abi," he said softly, "the orders. Distribute
them at once. Direct the motorboat be made
ready for my use immediately."
"Very good, effendi." The Moroccan
withdrew. Operator 5 looked at the little Irish boy's
fighting face. He brought his rubber-covered hand
forward, opening the fingers slowly. Tim Donovan
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peered at the glittering object he revealed. The
golden skull!
Tim Donovan gasped. "What've you done
with Jimmy!"
The soft voice answered, "Steady old-timer.
Watch yourself. I'm right here."
The boy stepped close. His hands gripped
Jimmy Christopher. He raised eyes that gleamed
with tears.
"Don't talk!" Operator 5 warned.
A soft knock sounded on the door. It opened,
and the Moroccan stepped in. "The motorboat is
waiting, effendi."
Operator 5 pointed toward the door.
Tim Donovan obeyed quickly. Operator 5
followed him along a corridor, to a door which
opened into fading sunlight. He walked rapidly
along the path which wound down to the
boathouse. He found a powerful boat rocking
gently in the water, and two riflemen standing
guard.
He gestured Tim Donovan into the boat,
paying no attention to the surprised eyes that
stared at him. Settling to the wheel of the boat, he
curled the fingers of one hand about the butt of
the automatic. He threw the engine into gear and
the craft shot into the sunlight. One after another,
the sentinel towers moved past. Any one of them
could blast a death-dealing power on the boat
trailing through the bayou...
Over the secret wire to Secret Intelligence
Headquarters R-2 in New York, a quick voice
spoke: "Send twenty men to the address I'm
about to give! It means life or death to Nan
Christopher."
Over another line, at Secret Headquarters 13
in Washington, the same voice said brittlely,
"Take this address! The President is there! Send
a squad at once to this second address! Diane
Elliot must be taken from there at once! I am
coming to Washington immediately by plane!"
Men gathered in the President's White House
study. On the desk, sat a microphone. In one
corner, technicians worked over a remote control
unit. An announcer moved back.
"The President is due to go on the air in
twenty-five minutes," he said. "Is he usually here
by this time?"
The secretary to the President grew pale. He
said huskily. "Of course. He will be here in time
for the broadcast. I have his address here. He has
only to come in, sit down, and begin reading. Be
patient."
His own words mocked him. The
whereabouts of the President was still unknown!
In front of a squalid house in a sordid
neighborhood of Washington, a car screeched to
a stop. Operator 5 climbed out. He ran up the
steps. He stepped into the corridor, and saw Z-7's
haggard face.
Ex-Operator Q-6 stepped out. His hands
seized his son's. He exclaimed, "We've been
waiting for you!"
Operator 5 nodded, and asked anxiously:
"What the devil is wrong? I telephoned the White
House as soon as I reached the airport. The
president-"
"Is not here, Jimmy! This house is empty.
We searched it thoroughly. There is no sign of the
President!"
Jimmy Christopher ran up the stairs. He
hurried through the surrounding rooms. Each was
empty. He ran down another flight, Z-7 and John
Christopher following, into a suite of rooms below
the street level. As he strode through them, he
paused suddenly. "Listen!"
They stood motionless. Z-7 looked
bewildered. John Christopher watched curiously.
They could hear nothing.
Operator 5 said softly, "That buzzing
sound-it's coming from below." He circled the
room, tapping the walls. He came to the center of
the floor again, dropped to his knees, and
examined the boards. He asked, frenzied, "Have
you been through the next house?"
"Yes!" Z-7 answered. "It's empty!"
Operator 5 led the way to the door of the
adjoining house. Intelligence men had already
forced its lock. Jimmy Christopher descended
immediately to the lower rooms. Z-7, John
Christopher, and two Intelligence men followed
him.
Operator 5 swung open the door of a closet
and looked at blank walls. He stepped into the
narrow space, bent forward, examining the
corners. When he drew back, his eyes were
shining like stars. "Fake wall," he declared.
"There's a space beyond. We'll break it down!"
He flung himself against the rear wall of the
closet. Crumbling plaster at its edges betrayed the
cracks of the disguised panel. The two
Intelligence agents crowded in the space to help
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Operator 5. Together they threw their weight
against it-twice, a third time.
Something splintered behind the wall. A
crack widened. Operator 5 led another rush
breathlessly; the three hurled themselves against
the panel again. Another crash sounded-the rear
wall of the closet fell away. He swung up his
automatic. Operator 5's gun spat flame into the
gloom. A sharp cry sounded, followed by the thud
of a falling body. At the entrance, a figure
appeared, rushing out.
Jimmy Christopher fired and advanced. The
Intelligence men pressed at his side, their guns
roaring a challenge to the bullets that spanged out
of the dark. Advancing, Operator 5 felt something
hot and smooth strike his face. He raised his
hands to feel a hot, incandescent bulb. He twisted
the switch and a glare shot along a narrow-walled
corridor.
Two men, huddled far back, fired as the
globe flashed. Operator 5's lead sang. His two
Intelligence men bounded forward. A thunder of
explosions shook the walls. Jimmy Christopher
saw one of the two attackers sprawl face
downward. The other sagged into the corner.
A door was in the inner wall. It was locked.
As Operator 5 pulled out his master keys, he
heard a loud, ominous buzzing penetrate the
panels. He threw the door open, started through,
then stopped. Flies swarmed out of the opened
door-droning, green-glistening, venomouslooking.
They hummed around Operator 5's head
as he brushed his way into a room which was
alive with the clouding insects. Crouched in the
midst of the swarm, a man huddled, his head in
his arms.
Scuffling sounds of a fight came from the
hallway. Through the door, Operator 5 glimpsed
Z-7 driving hard fists at the desperate man who
had first crowded out through the secret entrance
to the underground rooms. He was rushing to
assist the Washington chief when a straightarmed
blow by Z-7 felled the man.
Operator 5 turned back as a breathless voice
said, "I was going mad! Those flies were
unendurable! I was afraid-"
"You're all right, sir!" Operator 5 answered.
You-the President of the United States-break
under the irritation of mere insects! You must go
to the White House at once, sir!"
In answer to Operator 5's snapping order,
the two Intelligence men escorted the President to
a waiting car.
In the President's study in the White House,
the radio announcer lowered himself tensely
before the waiting microphone. He peered
anxiously at the Secretary. "It's time to go on! It's
ten!"
The Secretary fumbled the sheets of the
President's prepared speech. "Make your
announcements," he directed. "Fill in the time, for
God's sake! I hope the President will be here
soon!"
"You hope-"
The monitor at the remote control board
turned to signal the announcer. Station
identifications had been called over the
nationwide network. Millions were listening for the
President to speak. The tortured announcer
steadied himself, and brought his pale face to the
microphone.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the radio audience,
we are addressing you from the President's study
in the White House. In a moment, the President
himself-"
Outside the study, feet scraped. Somewhere
beyond, a door slammed. Secret Service men
moved aside alertly. Into the doorway alert, brisk,
steadied by thoughts of his responsibility-strode
the President of the United States!
The President paused just inside the door.
He turned to the tense young man who followed
him. He gripped Operator 5's hand.
As he took the chair behind the historic desk,
he brushed aside the prepared speech his
secretary offered him. "My friends! I bring to you a
message of patriotism and loyalty. I bring you an
assurance of the greatness of this nation. We
shall march forward-always forward-strong with
unbroken strength..."
Reports poured to the desk of the inner room
of Headquarters 13. Jimmy Christopher read each
rapidly over Z-7's shoulder. His blue eyes shone.
"The job is done, Chief! The Utopiast
movement is broken. We've rounded up every
lieutenant of the Man-Breaker. Our leaders cannot
fail us now!"
He snatched up the telephone when it rang.
A girl's voice came over the wire. "Nan!" Are you
all right, twin?"
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"Of course I'm all right. When will you come
home?"
"Soon, Nan! Dad and Tim and Diane and I
will be home before another twelve hours. Good
Girl! Be seeing you!"
He smiled at Diane Elliot, who was sitting
opposite him. She showed no signs of the trying
experience which she had endured. Her smile
was bright, her eyes proud, as she gazed at
Jimmy Christopher.
They all peered at the grotesque shell on the
desk-the mask of the Man-Breaker. John
Christopher said quickly, "I've scarcely had a
chance to talk to you, son. I know that you outfenced
the man in the mask-sent him into the
trap he'd set for you. But you didn't see his face?"
"No," Operator 5 answered. "Not a glimpse.
There was nothing left of him within five minutes
after he fell into the pit of crocodiles. But there is a
way-
With a diamond-pointed bit he drilled a hole
through the crown of the metal mask. He placed it
in a pan filled with fine sand, and stirred melting
wax in a pot over a gas-flame.
"This mask, Tim," Operator 5 explained
indulgently, "was carefully molded to fit the face of
the man who wore it. It must have been made
from a plaster cast. I am reversing the process,
now. I am using the mask as a mold to reproduce
the face of the ManBreaker. It's the only way of
learning his identity."
A few minutes later, when it had cooled, he
carefully lifted the metal shell. It left a waxen head
standing in the bed of sand. They bent forward,
studying it, staring at it in wonderment.
"The face of a man who challenged a
nation-and almost won," Operator 5 said.
It was the glistening image of a powerful
face-the face of Kirby Carveth...
THE END