Part 8 (1/2)
”Are Velvet and Biff holding the girl, Tip Galligan?” Doc questioned.
”Yes,” John Acre conveyed.
”Do you know where they are holding her?”
”Yes,” again.
”Will you guide us there?”
One blink.
”Is the hide-out north of here?” Doc asked.
The staring eyes remained fixed, conveying a negative.
”Is it south?”
John Acre's lids did not move.
”Is it west?”
”Yes,” transmitted the inert one.Doc Savage addressed his men. ”All right, brothers, away we go!”
WHILE the others carried John Acre to the high-speed elevator, Doc got a medical case from his great laboratory. As near as he could tell, John Acre seemed to be getting no worse. Whatever affliction the man had, it was unlike anything Doc had ever experienced in other patients.
In the bas.e.m.e.nt garage, all but Doc loaded into the large sedan. With Monk at the wheel, the big machine moaned out into the street. It hurled westward through deserted streets where snow scurried along like scooped sugar.
Doc rode outside on the running board-this, despite the bitter cold. His mighty bronze body seemed unaffected by the needling chill. No severity of weather was great enough to keep him from riding outside, as he always did when danger threatened.
The sedan neared the water-front section.
Inside the car, questions having to do with their route, were being shot at John Acre in rapid succession. By blinking ”yes” or ”no” to queries as to whether they should turn at a certain corner, he was guiding them.
Renny thrust his puritanical face from a window.
”The place we're headed for seems to be a warehouse, Doc,” he explained. ”It's not many blocks from where we keep our planes.”
”Have you placed the location accurately enough so that you can find it without John Acre's help?” Doc asked.
”I believe so,” Renny replied.
”Then we'll drop him at the airplane hangars,” Doc decided. ”We'll leave Monk and Ham there to guard him.”
Monk and Ham emitted a concerted squawk at this. They did not like the idea of being left out of prospective action, and they said so.
Doc pretended he didn't hear their complaints, because of the rush of the blizzard outside the sedan. Their objections did not mean mutiny. They would follow his smallest wish.
The structure which housed Doc's airplanes was almost as remarkable in its way as the bronze man's skysc.r.a.per headquarters. Outwardly, the building seemed only a warehouse. A sign on the front said: HIDALGO TRADING COMPANY.
Had any one investigated, they would have found the Hidalgo Trading Co. was one man-Doc Savage.
As the sedan approached the front of the warehouse, Monk, inside the machine, had an expectant expression on his homely face. Would this door open mysteriously as Doc drew near, as the others had?
It did. Noiselessly, in mystifying fas.h.i.+on, the big panel slid ajar. The entrance was large enough to permit the sedan to roll inside.
With a good deal of speed, John Acre's limp form was unloaded. Monk and Ham, grumbling, their usual quarrel forgotten in their mutual chagrin at missing out on a fight, were left behind.
Renny had the wheel now. Something like four minutes later, he swerved the sedan in noiselessly to the curb.
”The joint is over a block,” he said.
DOC SAVAGE opened the dash compartment in the sedan. From this he took two weapons whichresembled overgrown automatics. Circular magazines were prominent on them.
These were machine guns which Doc had himself perfected. They fired at terrific speed.
These superfiring little machine, guns discharged what big-game hunters call mercy bullets. The slugs were of a type that did not penetrate deeply, and which bore a chemical which produced sudden unconsciousness.
Doc handed the weapons to Renny and Long Tom. The bronze man himself never carried a gun. He had other fighting methods which exceeded in effectiveness any firearm.
They advanced through the whooping storm. The wind flapped trouser cuffs against their legs. It blew open their pockets, and snow poured in.
Renny s.h.i.+vered, kneaded his big fists together, and mumbled: ”A nice tropical country would sure look good to me!”
”How about South America?” Doc asked him. ”It's summer down there now, you know.”
Long Tom, squinting through the blizzard, said: ”I think it's this shabby dump right ahead.”
The warehouse was big. It looked as if it had been greased thoroughly, then exposed to a cloud of soot. The result was a coat of unwholesome grime. Bars over the windows were half an inch thick and two inches wide.
”Kind of makes you think of a jail,” Renny declared.
”You fellows better wait here a minute,” Doc suggested.
A phantom of bronze, Doc whisked away in the storm.
Renny and Long Tom waited impatiently. They knew Doc had gone ahead to reconnoiter.
”He always goes ahead like that,” Long Tom grumbled.
”Yeah, and lucky for us that he does,” Renny replied. ”I can think of several times when he's saved us from death traps by doing just that.”
”Sure,” Long Tom agreed wryly. ”But it causes us to miss out on a lot of stuff.”
Doc Savage, far ahead, had stopped against the wall of the warehouse. His keen eyes probed; his sensitive ears absorbed the minutest sounds. He heard nothing, saw nothing. There were no lighted windows.