The Avenger 20 - The Green Killer (12 page)

The Avenger drew a bit of paper from his pocket. It was cheap yellow paper, frayed at the edges, dirty, finger-marked, covered with wiggly lines.

“We don’t need Heber any more,” he said quietly. “His inside pocket yielded this very interesting document last night while he was unconscious. I went over him to see if he had weapons of any kind with which he might catch us off guard. I wish I’d thought to take his matches, too.”

“Gosh, a map!” said Smitty, staring at the paper. “Negro River. Manaos. Line through the jungle, east and a little north. A big X. That’s where Stahl must be.”

Marge’s face was full of hope again. But Mac went on:

“All right. Ye have a map. But how can ye get to the spot except by air? In a hurry, that is.”

“We
will
go by air,” Dick said.

He looked around to make sure they were alone.

“A lot of people know of the army planes at Martinique which were ordered by the French Government before France fell. They know the planes have been rusting there ever since, because no one knows where to ship them or what to do with them. Not so many people know that there are fourteen similar planes, in exactly that same situation, here at a field near Cayenne.”

It was another instance of the vast fund of knowledge possessed by the man with the coal-black hair and the pale, infallible eyes. He seemed to know everything.

“They are at a little-known airfield about four miles from here. We will take two of those planes.”

That was a small statement, but The Avenger’s aides instantly knew, even if Marge Stahl didn’t, what a colossal feat it represented.

Those planes must be rigidly watched and interned. The United States didn’t want France to get them for fear they’d be turned over to the enemy. France didn’t want the United States to get them back for fear they’d be used eventually to bomb France. The enemy didn’t want either nation to get them.

All three would probably have guards near, if not actually in evidence.

In addition, the planes would be in no shape to fly. They’d be coated with grease, rusted where not coated, empty of fuel and gas, perhaps not even fully assembled.

But The Avenger talked calmly of taking two of them and flying off over the jungle!

“He’ll do it, too,” said Nellie in a low tone to the wondering Marge. “It’s impossible—but he’ll do it.”

The Avenger, meanwhile, had walked back down the wharf, to the wharf’s owner, his friend. He came back in a moment, colorless eyes calm and chill.

“A Frenchman is in charge of the field. A German ‘tourist’ is with him constantly. Every evening, a young fellow from the American consul’s office drops around just for a ‘chat.’ But the few mechanics and attendants marking time at the field are all French.”

Mac was still deeply pessimistic.

“Even if ye get two planes, Heber has a long start. The mon’ll no doubt be able to contact his gang. They’ll have the transport fixed up by now, and they’ll surely be ahead of us in the jungle and give us a hot reception.”

“It’s quite possible,” said Benson evenly. “You and Nellie and Miss Stahl stay here, Mac. Smitty, you and I will get the planes.”

He looked at his watch. It was six o’clock in the morning, although it seemed as if it ought to be late afternoon, so much had happened since they’d landed at dawn.

“At three o’clock, join us at the airfield,” Benson told them. Then he and the gigantic Smitty set off for the field.

Mac stared glumly at Nellie.

“Those will be military planes—
if
he can get them. Military planes have a small cruisin’ range. There’ll be barely enough fuel capacity to take us to where we’re goin’, with no chance of gettin’ gas at that end for a return trip. Also, they’ll not have pontoons, and there’s no place for wheels to roll in a jungle. So how can we land? And if we crash-land, how can we take off again?”

“Maybe we can grow wings,” said Nellie. “Like angels. You’d make a bee-yootiful angel, Mac.”

“ ’Tis no time for levity,” said the Scot severely. “Another thing. This Heber skurlie went off with the antitoxin. His gang’ll have it; we won’t. So we’ll get sick and be turned into monkeys, while Heber and his unholy crew will get off scot-free.”

“Are Scots ever free?” murmured Nellie, playing on the fact that Mac would almost sooner part with a toe than a dime.

“Ye jest,” retorted Mac. “But our trrroubles are just startin’. Ye’ll see.”

Marge Stahl spoke.

“With a man like Mr. Benson to follow, I wouldn’t care how bleak the future looked. I’d be sure everything would come out right. Though I’ll admit that right now the future looks very,
very
bleak!”

The airfield made no pretension at being secret, but it wasn’t right out in plain sight, either. A person would have to live around Cayenne to know that it was there, six miles off. All around it was thick tropical growth, not the impenetrable stuff of the jungle proper, such as was found south of here, but plenty thick enough.

The field was fairly good, leveled off, covered with crushed shell and fine gravel. Probably, it was the result of convict labor. Enclosing the field and a large space all around it was a high fence. A couple of birds lying near it told of electrically charged wires.

There was a gate, and at the gate sat two men. They were big fellows, sloppily dressed, with guns at hand. They looked mean.

The Avenger took a large wallet out of his pocket.

That wallet contained a great many fascinating things.

Smitty had seen some of them. But not even the aides of The Avenger knew all that was in there. Sufficient to say that in many a tight situation it had yielded helpful cards and documents.

Benson now took a large card from it. The card had the official German seal in the corner.

“You speak German, Smitty, don’t you?”

The giant nodded. “I have an accent, though.”

“I’ll do the talking,” Benson nodded. He seemed to speak all major languages without an accent. “This card was given me several years ago by a German military attaché in Chile. We’ll see if it has any effect on the gate guards. They’re French. I doubt if they know much German.”

The Avenger straightened his shoulders so they slanted almost backward. From another pocket he took a monocle, which he thrust into his right eye socket. Smitty marveled.

With these few changes, The Avenger had become a Prussian officer.

Benson marched rigidly to the gate. Smitty came behind, ramrod-straight, too, but not doing the impersonation The Avenger was. Benson stopped with a heel click at the gate. One of the two guards got up and came over.

The Avenger thrust the card arrogantly through the wire mesh, staring meanwhile through the monocle as though the guard were some peculiarly low form of insect.

“I desire to see Herr Wassmuller immediately,” he said. “You will open the gate, please.”

“We have orders not to—” began the man.

“Open the gate, please.”

“I’ll take your card in—”

The man quailed under the monocle’s icy glare. He meekly opened the gate, and Smitty and Benson walked in.

“Stay here on guard. Let no one in after us.” The orders clicked from Benson’s lips in Germanic French. He went toward the shabby little shack that obviously served as an administration building.

Behind them, the two guards still looked doubtful.

They approached the shack openly. And now they could see the planes, a long line of them, with canvas covers lashed over the cowls and motors, and most of them with wings off.

Also, through the window, they caught a glimpse of two men. One was lean, string-straight, with grim, thin lips and eyes almost as light as Benson’s. The other was heavy-set, lolling, gloomy-looking. The thin man sprang erect and snapped to the door as he heard steps.

He opened the door with his hand in his pocket. And more than just his hand bulked under the material. He was carefully dressed in civilian clothes, but wore them like a uniform.

“You are Herr Wassmuller?” said The Avenger in the man’s own tongue. “I am Ober . . . I mean Herr Drach. I would like to speak to you alone.”

Suspicion shone in the man’s eyes. But he was very sure of his ability to take care of himself in any situation. He started promptly for a small and disreputable-looking flat building that held shop equipment and spare parts.

Smitty looked at Benson’s right hand. The little finger was partly curled in the palm and the thumb stuck out. That meant: “Take care of the other one.”

The giant walked nonchalantly into the office and approached the seated heavy-set man as the latter stared in gloomy question at him.

The Avenger entered the shop with the thin man.

“I have been sent here on an important mission, Herr Wassmuller,” said Benson. With the last few words, his voice took on a curious monotone. And his pale eyes grew like diamond drills as they probed into the other man’s eyes.

“Yes?” said Wassmuller, still suspicious.

“I have been attached to the Chilean legation for some time.” The Avenger’s voice was as even as a slow-moving river. The pupils of his colorless eyes began to look enormous. “I have recently received a secret communication from home that sent me here to French Guiana and to you.”

“Y-yes?”

“It is in regard to two of these fourteen planes. There are plans for them.”

“Plans . . . for . . . them?”

Any pair of eyes that is unique has some hypnotic power, because any object that is unusual and draws a stare of deep interest relaxes the conscious will. The Avenger’s pale, terrible eyes, into which a person was sure to stare enthralled, were supreme examples of this. He was a hypnotist of rare ability.

“I have been ordered to condition two of the planes at once,” Benson said. “I have been instructed to go with them immediately to Paramaribo where four men from a U-boat are to be picked up tonight.”

“Orders to condition them at once,” the man said.

“You will please give such orders to the foreman here.”

“I will give such orders.”

Wassmuller went to the door. Benson hoped the foreman was not an observant man. The look of a person in a hypnotic trance is a giveaway to anyone in the least suspicious.

Wassmuller called, and from a door at the far end of the administration building a man came to them.

“You will prepare two of the planes for instant flight,” Wassmuller said.

“B-but . . .” the man stammered. “The orders! We have orders from everyone that they are not to be touched. And you are not my commanding officer.”

“At once!” repeated Wassmuller. “Select two that have least to be done to them.”

The man looked at him, and at Benson, who stood so straight and stared so icily through the monocle. He nodded and turned away. They heard his voice raised in rapid French as he called two men and told them what was to be done.

“You will stay here,” Benson said to Wassmuller.

Wassmuller just looked at him, vacantly, docilely. And Benson went to the administration building again. Inside, the giant Smitty sat grinning at the desk the heavy-set man had used.

At The Avenger’s look of inquiry, Smitty jerked a vast thumb toward a door.

“There’s a supply closet behind that. Our friend is in the closet. Somehow, I have an idea he wouldn’t care if every plane here was taken off and junked, just so his pal Wassmuller didn’t eventually get hold of them. But I didn’t take any chances. I taped him up like a mummy and gagged him.”

The Avenger nodded and went back to Wassmuller. A loud noise or some other unexpected happening could snap him out of his convenient trance. It was best not to leave him too long alone.