Chapter 9
Deadly Flight
With Lt. Sherman's help, and armed with authority granted by Admiral Ryan, the dour engineer soon was airborne aboard a small seaplane fitted with floats.
Even though Renny could easily have handled the craft, he left those duties to the pilot, Captain Pucula, and surveyed the world outside the windscreen.
Lt. Sherman had explained that a small flotilla of ships lying off the coast had sent a desperate radio message that the sun had turned to blood and the sky red and their ships were starting to melt around them.
Turned to blood? Renny twisted his neck and surveyed the sky. Bright. Squint-making bright, horizon to horizon.
"There!" the captain called out, and jutted his chin forward. "There they are!"
The giant engineer turned his head and leaned forward. And suddenly the glare of the sky was gone, replaced by a crimson wash. The sun, like the source of this scarlet staining the sky, was a round bloody blister hanging over the scene.
And the scene: Six ships. Rather, what had been six ships. There wasn't enough left of any one of them to suggest what sort of craft it might have started out the day as. Only the ruins of the lowest decks were left -- listing badly, taking on water, and still steadily melting away under the horrid red glare of the sun.
Capt. Pucula sat quietly observing the destruction. His lips were a thin white line, and his chin trembled.
For maybe the first time in his life, Renny breathed what could actually be described a whisper: "Holy cow..."
The pilot directed the plane in a circle around the swiftly disappearing ships below. There wasn't a sign of a single survivor.
The pilot finally broke the silence within the aircraft's cabin: "You know how many troops and crew were aboard those tin cans?"
"I know," the engineer answered.
"You know how many people in how many families . . ."
"I know," Renny repeated. "That's enough."
Renny stirred his gaze from the ocean below, quickly examined the craft carrying him through the air. "Any trouble with the controls?"
The captain answered with a negative. "We seem unaffected by the sun -- or whatever this melting thing is." He took a quick but thorough survey of the instruments. "Gauges all check out."
Renny was silent a moment, during which he peered upward at the sun again, then asked, "How's your fuel?"
Capt. Pucula remained silent a moment as well, checked the appropriate gauge, then nodded. "Enough. You're thinking of setting her down there, aren't you?"
"Yep."
The pilot jerked his head. "All right."
"Let's wait a bit," Renny cautioned. "See what happens with the sun."
What happened with the sun was that slowly its vermilion glare evaporated and it regained the same bright hue it earlier displayed. By that time, the last remnants of the Navy ships below had disappeared into the sea.
The giant engineer gestured to the flashing waters. "Let's go."
Capt. Pucula took her down. "If anything feels weird, if I notice the slightest -- "
"Back upstairs," Renny agreed, "quicker than soonest."
The pilot brought the plane down on its floats nicely. He kept the engines going, ready for any sign of the melting terror to strike his craft. After a few minutes in which both men kept a hard eye out for the merest suggestion of trouble, Capt. Pucula said, "I think we're clear."
Renny opened the cabin door, clutching a canteen that he'd brought along.
"I wouldn't jump in for a swim," the pilot noted.
"Not my plan, either," the engineer said.
He stood on the nearest pontoon and clutched the doorframe, balancing against the plane's bucking on the waves. Renny squatted and held the open canteen in the ocean water to fill the container. In a minute, he was back in his seat.
"Anything more?" the pilot asked. He thought he'd never seen a man's face look so morose as Renny's at that moment. He had no notion that the more depressed Renny looked, the more intensely he was focused on the adventure at hand.
Renny looked across the waves, empty of any clue that not long ago a number of ships carrying a great human cargo were surging through these heavy waters.
"Nothing more," he said.
Capt. Pucula soon had the plane airborne and headed back to base.
Dimples was explaining to his captive audience -- Monk and Ham -- that he'd earned his moniker after a stray bullet passed through both his cheeks during a robbery. "When them holes healed up, I had dimples. And a new name to boot!"
"We're here," Black Cat announced.
Thank goodness, Ham thought. He didn't want to hear any more personal anecdotes from Dimples.
Black Cat had driven along a narrow alley and pulled up to the back door of an apartment building. The sedan carrying the rest of the gang had parked out on the street, and the crew piled down the alley to pull the two prisoners from the car and hustle them into the building.
Black Cat directed them up the back stairs to the third floor. Gravel Voice knocked at a door indicated by the dark beauty, and a surprised face greeted them when the door opened. The whole gang pushed into the room.
The man who had opened the door had been alone until Black Cat and her crew arrived. His right eye blinked uncontrollably for seconds at a time. "What's going on?" he asked.
"It's okay, Twitch," Gravel Voice answered. "We hadda leave the house."
"Any problems around here?" Black Cat asked.
Twitch replied in the negative. "Hardly anybody in this place besides us and the super. A couple or three folks on the fifth floor, I think. At least one of 'em works at night."
Black Cat followed up with another question. "Where's Barlowe?"
Twitch shook his head. "Ain't seen him or the other boys in a couple of days. I think the Blind Man sent 'em out."
"Know where?"
Twitch had no answer. Gravel Voice gave Black Cat a hard glare. "Don't you know?" he asked.
Black Cat replied with a frown. "I have an idea, but I'm not sure. The Blind Man is cautious, you know. He doesn't tell everybody everything."
"Yeah," Gravel Voice said with a smirk. "I know that."
Ham and Monk, still bound and gagged, were seated on the floor in opposite corners of the room. Both listened intently to each word their captors uttered in the hope of gleaning clues to the mystery that had swept them up. Even with Doc possibly dead, the two aides were dedicated to fighting their way through to answers to their questions.
It was at this point that Gravel Voice gestured toward the two prisoners. "Whatta we do with these two?"
"We'll hang onto them for now," Black Cat said. "We're not sure about that bomb -- it could very well have been someone besides Doc Savage who was blown to kingdom come by Smalley's bomb." She shook her head in frustration. "Or the damn thing may have just gone off by itself. Last we knew, Savage was still in Norfolk."
But Doc had returned to New York earlier that day. And as a matter of fact, he clung to the brick wall just outside the window of the apartment within which Black Cat and Gravel Voice argued at the moment.
Earlier, Doc had used his disguise as a wandering drunk to approach the car Ham and Monk had left parked at the corner close to the house the Gravel Voice gang had used. Even convincingly disguised, Doc remained alert and observant. He'd picked out the gang's lookout easily. But the bronze man had not been able to determine the whereabouts of his two missing aides without scouring the neighborhood -- an activity that likely would have made even Dimples suspicious.
So Doc had paused in his meandering to seemingly swig drinks from the bottle he had picked up. Meanwhile, he unobtrusively examined the parked car for any clues. In doing so, he noticed two wires leading from the hinge of the driver's side door -- evidence of Smalley's clumsily devised booby trap. Further scrutiny uncovered the bomb itself clinging to the undercarriage.
Doc decided the best way to draw out anyone connected with this trap was to set off the explosive.
Doc crossed the street and found some cover behind an outbuilding set back from a small house. When Dimples had focused his attention in another direction, Doc launched his bottle at the car, unerringly striking the wires at the door hinge, and the car went up in flame and thunder.
Doc saw Dimples quickly scramble to a specific house. A few minutes later, he watched the gang members prod Ham and Monk out to a car, then saw the two loaded cars take off.
Doc hurried to his own vehicle and shadowed the gang to this apartment building. Carefully making his way along the alley, he scaled the side of the building, checking windows as he scurried upward until he located the gang.
The bronze man silently debated his next move when he heard Gravel Voice assign Twitch and Dimples to lookout duty for the building's front and back doors, respectively.
Doc scrambled back down to the ground. He was retracing his path back along the alley when he was stopped beside Black Cat's car.
A gun barrel tapped his ribs.
"That's far enough, big man," said a voice behind him.
Written By:
Duane Spurlock
based on notes by:
Kenneth Robeson
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