Chapter 22
Surrender
Ten men, armed with machine pistols, stepped into the light, ringing the disguised group of campers.
"What are you people doing here?" barked one of the newcomers.
"Lookin' for silver, mostly," operative Hopkins answered. "But if we're trespassin' on a claim you gents already filed, we'll gladly move on in the mornin'. Say, how would you like to join us for some grub?"
"Try the coffee," Monk said.
"Shut up!" ordered the first man who spoke. He had an ugly face made uglier by a crooked scar that ran from his forehead, along his nose to the corner of his mouth. He jerked his head, and three of his men moved in to search the party and their gear. The three pulled handguns from each of Hopkins' group and pocketed them.
"Gather your gear! Put out that fire!" ordered Scar Face.
While the group of false prospectors complied, Renny whispered to Hopkins in his quietest voice, "I thought you said prospectors would be ignored."
"I was wrong, I guess," the operative answered meekly. "Did I mention that some campers disappeared up here a few weeks ago?"
Renny scowled and prepared to make a retort when Scar Face again shouted for silence. Monk kicked out the campfire, and the armed group marched the campers away, leading with two handheld lanterns.
To the steeple of rock that Hopkins had mentioned only a short while ago.
"C'mon, hurry up," complained one of the guards. "I hate being out here while all those planes are going over."
"The planes go over all the time," another scoffed. "We're safe here."
"I still don't like it."
Indeed, the sound of aircraft had sounded all day and during the evening. The proximity of Buckley Field meant a close approach by many craft flying to the coast and back.
Monk paid no attention to the planes. He stared goggle-eyed at the creek along which the group stood. In seeming response to Scar Face having picked up a stone and striking the side of the rocky steeple, a bubbling rose from the depths of the basin-like pool formed by the flowing waters. The disturbed waters roiled as though some great beast were rising to the surface. Then something stood up from the water with a splash, close to the creek bank.
Scar Face directed his light toward it. The water rolled off, and a door opened. "Get in."
"An elevator shaft!" gasped Hopkins.
"Holy cow!" said Renny.
The prisoners went down in two groups escorted by armed guards. Scar Face directed two of his men to stay topside and hide the prospectors' car.
The cabin of the elevator went dark but for the carried lantern when the door shut. None of the prisoners could tell how far down they were conveyed. Renny figured that, since there were obviously no cables, the elevator worked on some hydraulic principle.
The group reunited in a large stone chamber, ringed by the armed men. Through a door cut into the stone strode Barlowe, his knife-slash features showing the bruises from his tussle with Doc Savage. "Whaddaya got here?"
"Say they're looking for silver," Scar Face answered.
Barlowe looked them over. Then his face darkened into an ugly scowl. "These ain't prospectors!" He dashed forward and backhanded Black Cat Jackson so that her false beard and hat flew across the room and her long black hair tumbled down. Monk and Renny made moves to run to her aid, but suddenly found themselves facing the barrels of their captors' guns.
"No prospector ever wore boots like that," laughed Barlowe, and operative Hopkins uttered a little growl. Barlowe went to each captive and yanked off his fake beard.
"Doc Savage's crew!" he shouted.
"Indeed." The words came from a dark figure who walked into the chamber at that moment. "If his crew is here, you can expect Savage to be nearby."
"The Blind Man!" gasped Black Cat.
Monk glared at the new arrival, who wore very dark glasses. One side of his face was badly scarred by burns. Monk stared at this face for several moments. "Hey," the simian chemist said.
"Yeah," Renny's voice rumbled with amazement, "I recognize him, too."
"But," Monk sputtered, "but you're dead!"
*
Doc Savage flew through the cooling night air. His wings snapped in the wind.
"Flew" wasn't entirely accurate, as the bronze man plummeted downward after leaping from the airplane that had transported him from Buckley Field. And his wings were actually fabric extensions that ran from the cuffs of his sleeves to those of his one-piece jumpsuit's pant legs and between his legs as well. He wore no parachute, but controlled his fall by extending and bending his arms to fill and collapse the flaps of his "parasuit." In effect, he was able to turn and glide on the air currents, decreasing to some extent the tug of gravity thanks to the lighter-than-air gas trapped in special pockets lining the jumpsuit.
Doc wore a protective helmet fitted with special goggles that enhanced the available light, brightening the surrounding darkness for night vision, plus acted like a pair of binoculars. With this device he had been able to view the invasion of his associates' camp by Barlowe's armed men.
Marking the location of the camp in his memory, Doc aimed for the lake itself as his landing point. At the last possible instant he collapsed the sails of his suit, stretched his hands before him and entered the water with the grace of a high diver. The armed men and their captives were just then leaving the darkened camp -- two hundred feet lower on the Table Lake plateau -- and did not hear the bronze man's splash over the other night noises or buzzing engines of crossing airplanes.
Making shore, Doc ripped the wings from his jumpsuit and hid them under stones and brush. He swiftly made his way to the empty camp, then trailed the group to the spire or rock, where he witnessed the calling of the underwater elevator and the carrying away of the prisoners.
The two men left on the surface -- charged by Scar Face to hide the suspected prospectors' car -- headed down the trail to do their work. Before they got very far, Doc had subdued them and relieved the two men of their weapons.
The bronze man scrambled to the top of the rocky spire that Scar Face had hammered to summon the elevator. At its peak protected by a projection of stone, Doc found an opening. Using his spring-generated light, he discovered that the opening was part of a circular shaft, four inches in diameter, bored down through the rock and lined with a metal pipe. He heard voices distorted and muffled by the pipe rising from below. Clearly this pipe ran to the underground chamber connected to the elevator.
Doc held a hand over the opening and felt air being drawn downward into the pipe. So this bore served not only as a sort of doorbell for the elevator but also as part of a passive ventilation system.
There had to be more air holes, though, for just this one would be too small to serve an entire installation that surely was large enough to deserve the work required to engineer such an elaborate entrance system.
From his perch, Doc scanned the surroundings through the light-enhancing goggles. He stopped at the two boulders that formed a notch through which was funneled the stream forming the waterfall that dropped six feet to the basin pool.
The bronze man descended the spire. He and Hopkins had discussed fully their plans before the operative led his party to Table Lake. So Doc knew, thanks to memorizing Hopkins' detailed maps, where the agent had planned to lay his tripwires. And where Doc had directed him to cache a duffel filled with supplies that the bronze man had given him
Doc quickly found and retrieved that duffel now. Next, he clambered to reach the fall of water. He ducked through the rush of water to find a small niche in the rock behind the water. He crawled inside to discover a widening in the rear that formed a low tunnel. At its end, on the floor, was cut a rectangular opening topped by a metal grille. From this shaft Doc felt air rising and washing over his face.
After securing a loop of rope from the duffel to a projecting rock, Doc lifted the metal grille from its rectangle and lowered himself through the narrow shaft.
*
Barlowe's men had escorted their prisoners along a corridor carved from the mountain stone to a single dark cell. They were herded inside, then the door slammed shut, dropping darkness upon them like a curtain.
Renny pulled a tiny but powerful spring-generated light from a hidden pocket and switched it on. A mournful voice floated from one of the room's black corners:
"Will I never escape that mistake of nature?"
"Ham!" Monk erupted happily and rushed over to bring the attorney into the light. Ham looked none the worse for wear -- a few tears and smudges on his clothes, some scuffs on his shoes, and a black eye -- and Monk's tune changed immediately. "You overdressed moron! You idiot shyster! Causing all this trouble just to save your hide!"
The two renewed their squabbling in earnest until operative Hopkins shouted for peace and quiet. That's when Ham noticed Black Cat Jackson.
"Hey!" Ham rubbed his eyes. He wasn't sure whether to be delighted or very angry. "What're you doing here?"
"Looking for my husband," the dark beauty replied.
"Husband?" Ham had a confused and disappointed look for a moment. Renny and Monk brought the lawyer up to speed about Jackson and her father, Curly Wolfe.
"Have you seen Hiram?" Black Cat asked.
Ham shook his head. "I'm the only prisoner I know of, until you guys arrived. And I haven't seen everyone working for this outfit, but I didn't see anyone resembling the description of Hiram you just offered."
"Maybe there's another cell?" suggested Curly Wolfe.
"Or maybe he's still helpin' these nazis," Monk squeaked.
Before Black Cat could protest, Renny interrupted. "The only way we'll find out is by gettin' out of here," he rumbled.
"Why are they keeping us alive, do you figger?" Hopkins asked.
"We're bait," Ham said. "We're here to lure in Doc. These guys can't wait to kill him."
*
When Doc dropped to the floor, he found himself at the intersection of four corridors. He quickly explored each. All were either cut directly through rock or their walls, floor and ceiling were covered with mortared stone.
The first passage led to quarters equipped for housing roughly two hundred men. Evidence showed that far fewer were actually living there, which helped explain how the bronze man could slip around so easily without detection.
The second corridor led to the room with the elevator entrance. Ten guards stood there, and the bronze man retreated silently.
The third corridor ran to a vast cavern serving multiple purposes. Part was devoted to work space, with tools and equipment similar to that Doc had located in the Hudson River warehouse that Barlowe had blown up back in New York. Clearly this material was used to repair and modify the mini-subs and to assemble the infernal vibrating boxes that acted as a catalyst for the bleeding sun chemical when attached to a ship.
Another section of the cavern was given over to a cleverly engineered lock for launching a mini-sub into the lake waters through the wall of the lakebed. One of the gang's subs sat now in a launching sled whose rails led toward a sealed hatch -- which enclosed, no doubt, the submersible chamber. Doc suspected this chamber worked similar to the tanks of a full-size Navy submarine that would fill or empty for the sub to sink or rise.
The final section was devoted to stacks of pressurized cylinders holding the bleeding sun mixture. Doc supposed these were carried to the surface at night by the sub, which met a truck or other transport at the lake's edge for carrying the cylinders to the spy ring's hideouts.
Doc swiftly investigated the cavern. He found evidence that it was filled with explosives, just like all of Barlowe's boltholes. But before he could dismantle any devices, he was forced to hide from a group of five armed men who entered. Doc slipped out, quiet as a bronze ghost, during one moment when all five had their backs to him.
Doc took this opportunity to investigate the remaining corridor. This fourth passage branched two ways. One section led to a large storage room. Here Doc found sealed vats containing the bleeding sun mixture.
The second branch widened to a larger cavern before continuing, but Doc went no farther. In the larger area milled about twenty armed men. They stood outside a closed door to a room that -- judging from the racket emanating from the other side -- held at least Monk and Ham, and likely imprisoned the rest of Doc's party as well.
Doc, hidden at a corner, scanned the crowd. So far he had no proof that Barlowe or the Blind Man were present. But the bronze man still had to free his crew and shut down this installation.
Doc Savage crept back the way he came.
*
Scar Face scowled. He couldn't help it -- his scar made ALL of his expressions a scowl. But this time, he meant it.
He stood among the men in the cavern with the elevator. He'd heard stories about this seemingly amazing bronze man, so he'd warned his crew to be alert for any surprise attacks attempting to free the prisoners.
But Scar Face scowled not out of fear from the bronze man or at any dissatisfaction with his own cold-blooded crew. He was frustrated that Savage hadn't yet tried anything. Scar Face knew that Barlowe and the Blind Man held a deep-seated animosity for Savage, and that the Blind Man had some further feeling about Savage that Scar Face couldn't quite work out. Was it a touch of fear?
Scar Face shrugged. Who cared about any possible failings in the Blind Man? Scar Face took his orders from Barlowe, who was utterly fearless. And Scar Face had no doubts about his abilities or those of his men. They would cut down this bronze man mercilessly. Just let him begin his attack.
The alert sounded from the elevator. Must be the two men Scar Face had left on the surface to disable and hide the vehicle of the fake prospectors. He pressed a button by the door, and the elevator ascended.
A few minutes later Scar Face heard the door open behind him.
"Hello."
Scar Face spun around, machine pistol up, when he heard this voice. Almost as a single body, his men turned and trained their guns at the figure standing before them in the elevator chamber, flanked by the two groggy-looking men Scar Face had left behind. They sat on the floor of the chamber. The standing man had his hands lifted in surrender.
"I'm Doc Savage."
docsavage.info
Written By:
Duane Spurlock
based on notes by:
Kenneth Robeson
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