Doc Savage: The Ice Genius (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Book 12) (25 page)

Captain Kensa Kan, standing next to the pony, tore his eyes away from the flapping horsetails and asked, “Are you certain that Doc Savage will fall into this trap, Olden-
kun
?”

“Positively,” said the little man brightly. “Doc Savage is a student of history, as am I. If all these tents don’t convince him, the horsetail standards will. These were the flags of the Golden Horde in the days of Genghis Khan. That brass-faced phony will fly over this location and recognize that here is the headquarters camp of Tamerlane. He will land at the closest flat spot, which is the valley on the other side of the hills, and steal up on the place.”

The Captain nodded. “No doubt Doc Savage will arrive by night, with his engines silenced. He will infiltrate this area, looking for the lame one.”

Gesturing to a nearby hill, Olden added, “And we will watch him from up there. Once Doc Savage and his men have entered the camp, we will detonate the dynamite packed inside every one of these tents. No matter from which direction he comes, that nosy meddler will be pulverized.”

“It is a good plan, Olden-
kun
,” nodded the Captain.

“With Doc Savage permanently out of our hair, we can proceed with our plans.”

The Captain regarded the miniature man on the dun pony and said, “You are a clever little fellow.”

Olden smiled, his perfect white teeth gleaming in the dying sun. He inclined his head in the gesture of a polite bow.

Under his breath, the murderous midget said, “Cleverer than you think.”

The winds blowing through the camp made the felt tent sides flutter and snap, drowning the muttered utterance.

Frowning, the Captain asked, “What did you say, Olden-
kun
?”

“I said,” murmured Cadwiller Olden, “I am as clever as you say. I take pride in my cleverness. It was cleverness that got me through life.” The midget’s face grew thoughtful. “I imagine cleverness will carry me through to the end of my days. Trickery is my stock in trade.”

Nodding curtly, the Captain suggested, “Let us repair to the highest hill so that we are ready when the Doc Savage plane arrives.”

“If I know that bronze blunderer,” said the midget, “he’ll be showing his Indian face by sundown.”

THE EXPECTED plane arrived only an hour past the last light, when the diamond-point stars were just emerging to freckle the cobalt sky.

It flew overhead, making a hissing sound that was characteristic of the bronze man’s plane engines when they were silenced. Had they not been scouring the skies with field glasses, neither Captain Kan nor Cadwiller Olden would have spotted it. The aircraft showed no lights.

The great ship ghosted on by, causing the faces of the watchers to grow long and disappointed.

“Perhaps the bronze one did not see the yurts in this light,” suggested the Japanese officer.

Cadwiller Olden’s features became like a wrinkled walnut. “Not a chance, my friend. Savage’s planes are equipped with all kinds of clever gadgets for seeing at night. Infra-red projectors and ultra-violet gimmicks. He misses nothing.”

“You know this man well, I see,” said Kensa Kan.

“I know Doc Savage like I know my big toe.”

“Your big toe,” returned the Captain coolly, “does not cover much territory.”

Olden winced. “You watch. He’s just being cautious.”

They trained their field glasses on the retreating aircraft. It was soon lost from sight. They waited in the cool of the early evening for it to return. The cobalt sky overhead darkened to black velvet. More stars put in an appearance.

Time passed. Five minutes became ten, and ten turned into twenty.

“It is beginning to look as if the all-seeing American has his blind spots,” suggested Kan.

“Keep your shirt on.”

Captain Kan looked puzzled.

“Be patient,” clarified Olden.

Their patience was rewarded, albeit later than they imagined.

The aircraft came hissing back; this time it flew higher. As they watched, something indistinguishable fell from the passing ship.

They watched eagerly, tracking the tumbling bundle with their lenses.

Soon, a black blossom showed faintly against the stars.

“Parachute,” said the Captain, hissing the word with sibilant satisfaction.

“Maybe more than one,” warned Olden.

But the midget was mistaken. Only one parachute drifted downward. The pilot, whoever he might be, was very, very good, because the man at the end of the dark parachute bell was falling smack in the middle of the false Mongol encampment.

Straining up on tiptoe, balancing atop his saddle of wood, Cadwiller Olden tried mightily to discern who was dropping from the sky, but the starlight was too poor.

“Only one man,” murmured Kensa Kan.

Olden smacked his perfect lips. “Doc Savage. I’ll bet my life on it.”

“It is a large man,” noted the Captain. “It could be the engineer, Renwick.”

There were two pieces of apparatus on the ground where they were hunkered. One was an electrical device that led away in the form of an insulated electrical cable. The other was a friction igniter, its black handle jutting up from the electric detonator box.

“Let us see who is our visitor,” said the Japanese, flipping a switch.

Floodlights popped into scalding life. They made the parachute canopy stand out against the night sky like an evil flower.

Fixing the figure in his glasses, Cadwiller Olden jumped up and down for joy. “Doc Savage! He’s wearing dark goggles, but that’s him.”

Without another word, Captain Kensa Kan knelt, grasped the black handle in both hands and applied sudden downward pressure.

The results were impressive the way an earthquake is impressive.

The entire cup of the valley jumped up in a flash of flame and a clamor like a thousand thunderclaps. Clouds of dirt detonated with tearing violence and large rocks were hurtled skyward. The noise was thunderous.

The effect on the parachuting form was extreme.

The force of the explosion expelled a rush of air in all directions, flattening tents, knocking over the horsetail standards like saplings in a typhoon. The parachute bell was thrown about. Spilling air, it collapsed.

The catastrophe would not matter to the falling figure. Force of the explosion savagely tore at him, removing limbs in a haphazard fashion. These fell away.

Neither man witnessed this. They were hunkered down in a trench where the force of the massive blast would do them little harm, although clouds of yellow-brown dust and grit and speeding stones peppered them relentlessly.

The dun pony ran away, screaming.

IT was quite some time before they could lift their dust-smeared faces and peer downward. Even so, the air was smotheringly thick and everything below obscured.

The flood-lamps had been demolished in the blast, but one hardy survivor managed to spray uninterrupted illumination. It was now askew, but it gave them something to focus upon.

Sweeping the disturbed terrain below, Captain Kan and Cadwiller Olden searched, desperate for any sign of the large man who had descended by parachute.

“I do not see him,” said Kan.

“Blown to bits!” crowed Olden, shaking a tiny fist up at the Doc Savage plane. It was fleeing the scene. “Hah! It was too much for them to stomach!”

“That is not good. We want the other
Amerika-jin
, too,” snapped Kan, jumping to his feet and shaking dirt from his black naval uniform.

“Doc Savage is the important one. Without their leader, his men are nothing but a disorganized bunch of clowns.”

Suddenly, Cadwiller Olden’s voice choked off. He commenced coughing violently.

The Captain reached for his canteen to offer water, but Olden batted the container away.

“Look!” choked the midget.

Captain Kan lifted his field glasses and tried to make out what the little man was pointing at.

In the fringe of the surviving floodlight glow, a head could be seen. It was no longer attached to a body. It rolled along, coming to a rest against a rock. The disordered hair was a metallic bronze and the skin of the face was a lighter hue of the same color.

The eyes could not be clearly seen, for dark goggles masked them. But one lens was missing, evidently having been blown off. It was difficult to say at such a distance and in this stark light, but it appeared that only a gaping hole existed where the eyeball should have been.

“He’s dead,” whispered Cadwiller Olden. “Doc Savage is dead.”

“It appears so,” said Kensa Kan. “My Emperor will be deeply pleased.”

Again, the spine of the Japanese captain stiffened when he spoke the worshipful word, Emperor. It was his way of snapping to attention.

Cadwiller Olden ignored it, having gotten used to the strange reaction over the last few days. But it bothered him, for it meant that the Captain was a blind worshipper of his ruler and would do anything he was commanded to do.

Inwardly, Olden cringed. He did not like men who did not think for themselves.

“This is a great day in the history of the world,” said the midget, his tiny smile almost as wide as his face.

The Captain did not respond.

Olden said, “Better radio your fighter pilots to chase after the Doc Savage plane and shoot it down. Smash any chance they’ll turn back, looking for revenge.”

Cadwiller Olden’s eyes were still resting on the severed bronze head. He was grinning at the sight, licking his thin lips like a cat eyeing an unwary robin.

When Olden failed to receive a reply, he lowered his glasses and gazed upward.

The Captain stood rooted, eyes wide and staring and as rigid as a day-old corpse. The look in his open orbs was stark, terrible. A man looking up at a looming Grim Reaper might possess such a fixed expression.

Thinking that Kan had spotted something awful, the midget asked, “What do you see?”

The Captain continued to stare off into space.

Peering in that direction, Cadwiller Olden attempted to discover what had seemingly terrified the Japanese officer. But he failed to spy anything in the settling haze.

“I don’t see any—”

A metallic voice sounded from somewhere close by and Cadwiller Olden’s blood ran cold in his minuscule veins.

“That is because there is nothing to see,” stated the unmistakable voice of Doc Savage.

Chapter XXXIII

DEVELOPMENT UNEXPECTED

CADWILLER OLDEN STOOD without moving. His mouth went dry and he looked as if he wanted to cry.

Out of the side of his miniature mouth, he growled, “You had better be a ghost.”

“No ghost,” returned the metallic tones of Doc Savage.

“But you were just blown to bone chips!”

“A dummy, painted bronze and wearing goggles to conceal eyes that are insufficiently lifelike,” explained the grim voice.

Reluctantly, the tiny man turned, and beheld Doc Savage standing behind the Captain. The Japanese continued to stare off into space. His eyes jerked about in his head as if that was the only portion of his anatomy that was under the control of his brain.

Olden said, more calmly than he felt, “You did something to him.”

Doc Savage said, “There are nerve centers in the spine which, properly manipulated, produce an unnerving paralysis in the subject.”

“He can hear us?”

“Clearly. He simply cannot move a muscle.”

Cadwiller Olden curled his upper lip and said, “You’re in the middle of Japanese-held Manchuria. You’ll never get away with this, bronze guy.”

“I have not done all that badly so far,” Doc pointed out.

Doc Savage calmly gathered up Captain Kan under one gigantic arm as if he were but a department store package.

Olden backed away, throwing up tiny hands timidly. “Wh-what are you going to do with us?” he stammered.

Doc Savage did not reply, but a bronze hand reached out, ensnared Olden by his shirt front. The next he knew, the little man was tucked under Doc Savage’s other arm. The moving muscles felt like bands of steel.

Turning, the bronze Hercules descended the hill. Being carried by Doc Savage was like being toted by a warm machine. Olden attempted to kick, bite, and scratch, but nothing seemed to phase the metallic giant.

Soon, they were on level ground, moving through a dusky haze that made breathing difficult. It also concealed the movements of the giant bronze man from any observers.

Because he was otherwise hopeless, Cadwiller Olden started hollering for help. He had picked up a little Japanese during his incarceration and he was trying it out now.

“Goran nasai!”
the midget bayed out.
“Kochira ye oide nasai!”

If anyone heard him, they did not respond. In order to lay their trap, Captain Kan had not briefed any of his men, nor assembled them anywhere in the vicinity, lest they be injured in the dynamite blast, which was quite massive.

Doc Savage moved through the growing darkness, and out of the zone of dirty air. He seemed to be bound for a definite spot. He traveled with a kind of gliding stride that ate up the miles. The bronze man appeared to be tireless. He avoided hamlets, and kept away from roads.

It was some considerable time before they came to an open field where the big plane waited, engines still turning.

When the aircraft was in sight, Doc picked up his pace and ran rapidly. The bronze man emitted a strange sound deep in his throat. It might have been the call of hidden night birds suddenly bursting into song. The sound carried remarkably.

A few bars of this, and the hatch door popped open. Out thrust the bullet head of Monk Mayfair. A hairy paw waved him forward.

Doc Savage put on speed, and leapt into the open hatch. The door clanged shut. Doc pressed his two charges into separate seats.

“Take off!” rapped Doc

From the control cockpit, Renny Renwick’s voice boomed out, “Taking off!”

The plane began gathering itself for take-off, the brakes released, and it slowly rumbled forward over uneven ground, gaining speed.

The big ship leapt eagerly into the sky, knocking high branches off a stand of willow trees before clearing the last obstruction.