Chapter VIII

had been smashed. The smashing job was SEA TRAIL

an expert one.

 

However, Pat did find Renny’s flash-PATRICIA SAVAGE lay flattened out in light, and the bit of red celluloid from his card a desert gully and listened to the motors of case which he had put over the lens of the the big plane warming up again. The engines light. She got this.

had been shut off during the refueling, so Gratefully soon—not more than twenty now she knew that the refueling had been minutes later—she heard the drone of a completed.

plane engine. The craft circled the field.

Pat smiled grimly. She lifted her head Pat used her red light, signaled rapidly.

to watch. The night was dark, but they were She got an answer. She listened for the using flashlights around the plane, so that sound of the motors of the big plane, and she could tell what was going on. They were decided they had enough distinction for her getting aboard the plane.

to recognize them. It was Doc’s plane.

With clenched fists, Pat waited. It was Pat, with the white light, signaled, “Get hard waiting, but she could think of no way of down here, Doc. This is Pat.”

disabling the plane, so there did not seem to She sent the signals in a phonetic be much to do but wait.

spelling of Mayan, partly, so there would be She watched the plane go hiking no delay while Doc made sure she was Pat.

across the flat dry lake bed, pick up its tail Doc would know that few persons other than and lift heavily into the night sky. The pilot did his aides knew Mayan, so he would take it not fool around the vicinity, but went droning automatically as identification.

out over the desert.

Doc landed. Ham, Long Tom, Johnny Now Pat crawled closer to the gasoline and Lena Carlson were with him.

transport truck. It was not where it had Pat told them what had happened.

been—the covered spot where the truck had

“Now don’t tell me I’m a nuisance any been camouflaged earlier was much easier more, ” she said. “If I hadn’t jumped, both to reach. But the truck had been rolled out to Renny and I would be prisoners, and you refuel the plane.

fellows would be looking for a needle in a The plane had left three men behind.

haystack.”

They were talking. Their voices came plainly

“Your modesty becomes you,” Doc to Pat.

said dryly. “Why did you jump? Feminine She listened for a while, then relaxed.

contrariness?”

There was no sense in making an effort to Pat laughed. “My particular brand of it,”

capture these men, when such an attempt she said. “But it turned out all right.”

would be a long chance anyway. Because

“How do you figure it turned out all these men knew nothing of value, obviously.

right?” Doc asked, “They got Renny.”

The trio had been hired to steal the

“Oh, yes,” Pat said triumphantly. “But I truckload of aviation gas. They were talking fixed it so we could trail them.”

about that now. They mentioned the amount

“Eh?”

of money they had been paid, speaking in

“That’s right,” Pat said.

tones of awe. They discussed the division of the payment, and one man seemed to think he was entitled to an extra share. He was LENA CARLSON had been standing voted down immediately.

by listening, and now she entered the con-The men had a small car concealed versation.

under the camouflaging. They got in it, and

“That,” she said, “is ridiculous. Trailing drove away. Pat let them go.

a plane is ridiculous, unless they have a raShe hadn’t liked the looks of the men.

dio transmitter switched on in the craft, or The old-fashioned bad man, who wouldn’t something.”

harm a woman, was a thing of the past in the

“Ridiculous, eh?” Pat said.

West, she was afraid. There was too much at

“Certainly. I’ve done enough flying to stake to take chances.

know.”

She sat and waited. She wished she Pat eyed Lena Carlson. Apparently the had a radio, but the one in Renny’s plane two young women weren’t going to get along too well together.

 

HELL BELOW

33

“You’ve done too much talking in your

“Well, if it’s Adam’s beard, what’s the time probably, too,” Pat said.

difference,” Pat snapped. “Try lining up and Turning to Doc Savage, Pat asked, flying toward it. I would say an altitude of “You have infrared filters for the landing about five hundred here, and a climb of about lights?”

five thousand feet to the mile.”

Doc Savage was astonished. So were Ham nodded. The plane began to Ham, Long Tom and Johnny. “I’ll be supera-swing from side to side as it climbed, making malgamated!” Johnny said.

S turns slowly.

Doc asked, with frank admiration, “How Lena Carlson said, “This is a silly busi-did you get the stuff into their gasoline?”

ness. If you’re going to chase them, why not

“I took it with me when I jumped from chase them.”

Renny’s plane,” Pat explained. “That was Nobody answered her. Doc said why I jumped, and why I took the stuff sharply, “There! We went through it!”

along—there had been mention before, you Ham nodded. He had seen. He banked know, of high-test gasoline, and that meant back cautiously.

refueling their plane. So I took this stuff A luminous green material as nebulous along—Renny had a supply of it as part of as the tail of a comet appeared in their path.

the equipment in his plane—when I jumped.”

It came out of nothingness, and it stretched Doc said, “How did you get it into their ahead in a powdery stream that had a few gas, though?”

waves in it.

“I didn’t put it into their gas. I put it into Pat turned to Lena Carlson. “I put a the truck tank, and they filled their tanks from chemical in the gasoline of the other plane,”

the truck, so everything is hunky-dory.”

Pat said. “The chemical, when burned in the

“Gosh, I hope they use the gas out of motors, leaves an exhaust trail which is ordi-the refilled tank right away,” Long Tom said.

narily invisible, but fluoresces in the presence

“Otherwise, if they filled a tank that isn’t feed-of infrared light. Our infrared projectors are in ing for a while, we’ll play heck picking up the the wings.”

trail.”

Astonishment held Lena Carlson silent Pat said, “Flying this distance, from for a while.

Washington here, in a commercial plane,

“That’s marvelous,” she said finally.

their fuel supply would be pretty well ex-

“Why doesn’t our army and navy use it—why hausted. I thought of that, and watched. They don’t they have spies get the stuff in the en-filled all the plane tanks.”

emy gasoline supply?”

Doc Savage said, “Come on. Get in the Pat shrugged. “It was tried. The trouble air, and fast.”

is, the enemy only has to add a tiny amount They piled into the big ship—the plane of a counteractive agent to their gasoline, was about the size of a B26 army job, but and the thing is worthless.”

since it was an experimental job, it had many

“Everybody get busy,” Ham called.

bizarre features—and got off the ground.

“Following this trail in the sky isn’t the cinch it Doc Savage turned the controls over to would seem to be.”

Ham Brooks. “Switch on the special filaments Lena Carlson nodded. “I can see that.

in the lights,” he said.

The varying air currents will push it all out of Ham obeyed—with the result that the shape in a little while.”

wingtip lights seemed to become extinguished.

 

“What’s the matter, the lights burned THEY were exhausted when, an hour out?” demanded Lena Carlson.

and a half before the official sunrise time,

“Keep your bustle straight,” Pat said.

they came to the end of the air trail. They had

“And watch.”

not, somewhat to their surprise, headed to-Doc asked, “Pat, which route did the ward the Dirty Man Ranch for the last hour.

plane take.”

Lena Carlson had been positive the

“I lined it,” Pat said, “as making directly Dirty Man was their destination.

for that tall rock over on the horizon.”

It turned out, however, to be nothing of Ham laughed, said, “That tall rock just the kind. Not just now.

happens to be one of the biggest mountains Lena had explained, “It would all tie up.

in Arizona.”

Old Too-Too Thomas has been managing 34

DOC SAVAGE

the Dirty Man spread for years. He built it up had landed on a reef. The surrounding ocean from nothing, on capital furnished by my fa-was miraculously calm.

ther, and by myself.”

Figures stood on the wings, waving at

“I thought you were his partner?” Long them.

Tom said.

“Only three,” Long Tom said, counting

“I am, legally.”

them. “I wonder where the others are?”

“What kind of a place is Dirty Man?”

“Did one of those look like Monk?”

“It’s the kind of a place Too-Too Tho-Ham demanded anxiously.

mas would like. You saw him.”

Long Tom said, “The way you worry

“A hard country, eh?”

about Monk, nobody would think you two

“Made of trouble and glory, if you get have been acting as if you were about to de-what I mean,” the girl said. “It’s big. Hundreds capitate each other for years.”

of square miles of mountains and range Ham, his nerves driving him into a around, inhabited by the toughest kind of sudden rage, snarled, “Did you see Monk, I Yaqui Indians, who are all afraid of Too-Too asked you!”

Thomas. But the Indians aren’t afraid of any-

“Take it easy,” Long Tom muttered.

body else, and they run strangers out of the

“No, I didn’t see Monk.”

country so fast it isn’t funny. I don’t think They circled back, and the figures on anyone but Too-Too Thomas could operate the airliner windmilled their arms, signaling Rancho El Dirty Man for any length of time.

for help.

He has the Indian sign on the Yaquis, you

“Wait a minute,” Pat said. “I think one might say.”

of them is signaling by semaphore with his

“You think,” Long Tom asked, “be-arms.”

cause Too-Too Thomas is half owner of the Doc Savage kept the plane in a slow Dirty Man, that the trouble centers around the circle in which it held its altitude not far above ranch. ”

the sea, and watched the man signaling.

“Don’t you think it’s obvious?”

Pat cried, “He says the others are un-But as they got into Lower California, conscious or injured inside the plane. Says then turned sharply out to sea, she wasn’t so gas failed.”

positive.

Doc Savage said, “We will have to land,

“Why are we flying out to sea?” she regardless of the possibilities of trouble. They kept asking. “Could it be that the air currents might not be lying.”

have swept the trail way out here?”

“What makes you think they are lying?”

“No. There is hardly any wind. Look at Lena Carlson asked skeptically. “It looks the sea.”

strictly O. K. to me.”

The sea, as they all could observe, Doc made no comment. He brought was calm. It was amazingly calm even for the the plane in slowly, set it on the surface—the Pacific, which is a tranquil cow among plane was an amphibian suitable for opera-oceans. There was hardly a swell at all, and tion from either land or water, so taking off in the bright moonlight the water looked as again from the surface of the sea should pre-slick as if greased.

sent no complications, as calm as the water They saw the plane easily.

was. He gunned the motors, first one then The trail of fluorescent particles led the other, to guide the plane more readily, down to it. The plane had apparently sought and sailed up to the other plane on the reef.

to land on a narrow strip of reef, hitting the

“How are they?” Doc asked.

water first and then side-slipping onto the bit

“Pretty bad,” the man called from the of land to keep from sinking.

top of the plane, “they are inside.”

“Look!” Ham yelled, pointing at the Doc Savage, Johnny and Long Tom plane. “Doc, you want to land?”

were on the wing of their own plane, along

“Circle a few times,” Doc suggested.

with Lena Carlson. Ham Brooks was han-

“These fellows have shown themselves to be dling the controls, jockeying the ship closer to tricky.”

the beached plane.

 

Then, unexpectedly, Pat Savage cried out in horror. She pointed at the water.

THEIR big ship cannoned over the sur-Lena Carlson saw, gasped, “A shark! A face of the sea, and they saw that the airliner big shark!”

 

HELL BELOW

35

“Made of steel,” Doc Savage said ing your prayers, or are you going to climb grimly, and tried to reach the cabin of their aboard?”

plane.

“We are feeling very meek,” Doc told He was too late, because the subma-him.

rine was coming up under them fast. It had The bronze man and Ham Brooks got been lying down there, concealed by the aboard the submarine. They were tossed blackness of the water, lurking, waiting.

lines.

Now the submarine came up. It hit the The others were unloaded off the im-plane hull; hit it hard.

paled plane.

It came up so that the forward mounted Pat and Lena Carlson created quite an deck gun hit the ship, and impaled it. And as impression.

the submarine rushed out of the water, snort-

“Ah, Fräuleins,” one man said as he ing, bubbling, compressed air whistling and straightened his necktie.

spurting, the plane was lifted partly out of the Some moments were spent in an ad-sea and held there as if it was a duck which miring inspection of Pat and Lena. Then a had been seized by a shark that had a mouth walrus, or what could have passed for the in the middle of its body.

head of one, put its head out of the side Doc Savage and Ham were both hatch of the conning tower and spoke point-thrown into the sea. The others managed to edly in accented English. The words were stick with the plane, except Pat, who fell off American, but the accent was definitely Teu-on to the deck of the submarine, where she tonic.

managed to land without too much of a shock.

“Vot is it, a tea party?” the walrus head Pat, as soon as she hit the submarine asked. “Do you want to get below, or shall we deck, got up and worked frantically with the submerge and you swim?”

deck gun, a piece of about five-inch caliber,

“What,” asked Long Tom, “was that?”

in hopes of getting it ready to operate, and

“According to its hat,” Ham told him, “it pointed at the deck of the submarine.

is the commander of the submarine.”

But men came out of the sub hatches,

“I thought sub commanders were all and seized her. There were many men, all Prussian ramrods with acid for blood, ” Long efficient. They showed Doc Savage and Ham Tom said. “This guy looks like something out Brooks, who were in the sea, some grenades.

of a funny paper. ”

“Kommen,” a man said. “Kommen Sie The walrus head advanced from the os bald wi e moglich, bitte.”

conning tower hatch. It was followed by a

“Hey, they’re Hiller’s boys,” Long Tom body equally as comic, round and jovial, but called.

probably quite muscular and efficient.

 

“Get down below, ” the skipper said, “or somebody gets der pants kicked.”