The Avenger 30 - Black Chariots

THE GREATEST CRIME FIGHTER
OF THE FORTIES RETURNS!

IN THE ROARING HEART OF THE CRUCIBLE, STEEL IS MADE. IN THE RAGING FLAME OF PERSONAL TRAGEDY, MEN ARE SOMETIMES FORGED INTO SOMETHING MORE THAN HUMAN.

IT WAS SO WITH DICK BENSON. HE HAD BEEN A MAN. AFTER THE DREAD LOSS INFLICTED ON HIM BY AN INHUMAN CRIME RING, HE BECAME A MACHINE OF VENGEANCE DEDICATED TO THE EXTERMINATION OF ALL OTHER CRIME RINGS.

HE TURNED INTO THE PERSON WE KNOW NOW: A FIGURE OF ICE AND STEEL, MORE PITILESS THAN BOTH; A MECHANISM OF WHIPCORD AND FLAME; A SYMBOL TO CROOKS AND KILLERS; A TERRIBLE, ALMOST IMPERSONAL FORCE, MASKING CHILL GENIUS AND SUPER NORMAL POWER BEHIND A FACE AS WHITE AND DEAD AS A MASK FROM THE GRAVE. ONLY HIS PALE EYES, LIKE ICE IN A POLAR DAWN, HINT AT THE DEADLINESS OF THE SCOURGE THE UNDERWORLD HEEDLESSLY INVOKED AGAINST ITSELF WHEN CRIME’S GREED TURNED MILLIONAIRE ADVENTURER RICHARD BENSON INTO—THE AVENGER.

BLACK CHARIOTS

STRANGE DISC-LIKE OBJECTS HAVE BEEN SIGHTED HOVERING ABOVE THE DESERT. THE TOLL OF PLANE CRASHES HAS BEEN MOUNTING. ARE SABOTEURS AT WORK—OR ARE VISITORS FROM ANOTHER PLANET INVADING THE EARTH? CAN EVEN THE AVENGER COMBAT THIS UNIDENTIFIED MENACE IN THE SKIES?

“WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING?”

The chariot was round. A flat-seeming disc about thirty feet in diameter. Spurts of flame were shooting out of the rear end of it. There was a sound, too, an odd humming that the disc made.

The chariot continued to drop. It couldn’t be more than fifty feet from the ground now.

“He’s going to crash!”

Stevenson scrambled to his feet, abandoned his duffel bag and went running across the desert in the wake of the falling disc.

Smitty’s friend could not know he was running to his death. But it was a death that would not go unnoted. It would bring Justice Inc. into action to probe a danger worthy of the talents of THE AVENGER.

Also In This Series

By Kenneth Robeson

#1: J
USTICE
, I
NC
.
#2: T
HE
Y
ELLOW
H
OARD
#3: T
HE
S
KY
W
ALKER
#4: T
HE
D
EVIL
’
S
H
ORNS
#5: T
HE
F
ROSTED
D
EATH
#6: T
HE
B
LOOD
R
ING
#7: S
TOCKHOLDERS
IN
D
EATH
#8: T
HE
G
LASS
M
OUNTAIN
#9: T
UNED
FOR
M
URDER
#10: T
HE
S
MILING
D
OGS
#11: R
IVER
OF
I
CE
#12: T
HE
F
LAME
B
REATHERS
#13: M
URDER
ON
W
HEELS
#14: T
HREE
G
OLD
C
ROWNS
#15: H
OUSE
OF
D
EATH
#16: T
HE
H
ATE
M
ASTER
#17: N
EVLO
#18: D
EATH
IN
S
LOW
M
OTION
#19: P
ICTURES
OF
D
EATH
#20: T
HE
G
REEN
K
ILLER
#21: T
HE
H
APPY
K
ILLERS
#22: T
HE
B
LACK
D
EATH
#23: T
HE
W
ILDER
C
URSE
#24: M
IDNIGHT
M
URDER
#25: T
HE
M
AN
FROM
A
TLANTIS
#26: R
ED
M
OON
#27: T
HE
P
URPLE
Z
OMBIE
#28: D
R
. T
IME
#29: T
HE
N
IGHTWATCH
D
EVIL

WARNER PAPERBACK LIBRARY

WARNER PAPERBACK LIBRARY EDITION
F
IRST
P
RINTING
: N
OVEMBER
, 1974

C
OPYRIGHT
© 1974
BY
T
HE
C
ONDÉ
N
EST
P
UBLICATIONS
, I
NC
.
A
LL
R
IGHTS
R
ESERVED

T
HIS
W
ARNER
P
APERBACK
L
IBRARY
E
DITION
IS
P
UBLISHED
BY
A
RRANGEMENT WITH
T
HE
C
ONDÉ
N
EST
P
UBLICATIONS
. I
NC
.

C
OVER
I
LLUSTRATION
BY
G
EORGE
G
ROSS

W
ARNER
P
APERBACK
L
IBRARY
IS A
D
IVISION
OF
W
ARNER
B
OOKS
, I
NC
.
75 R
OCKERFELLER
P
LAZA
, N.Y. 10019.

A Warner Communications Company
ISBN: 0-446-75720-9

Printed in the United States of America

BLACK
CHARIOTS

Ten people had seen the chariots in the night sky that week.

The eleventh person to see one died.

That was because of two breakdowns. Just one of those things, both breakdowns happening at the same time. Only a coincidence, but it killed Lieutenant Ralph Stevenson.

There was a hot wind blowing across the Southern California desert that night. The kind of rasping wind that took all of the moisture out of you, made you feel as though you were part of the desert itself, dry and gritty.

The car, a 1933 coupé he’d borrowed from a cousin in Glendale, didn’t like the wind, either. It rattled, gasped, and wheezed as it moved along the straight flat night road.

The shadowy desert stretched away, perfectly flat, on all sides of Lieutenant Stevenson. Standing off there in the desert were the shaggy Joshua trees, all spiky elbows they seemed.

“What is it, must be five years,” Stevenson, a big bony young man of twenty-six, was saying to himself as he drove toward his destination. “Sure, it must be five years since I’ve been out this way. I was at Cal Tech then; a bunch of us drove out for the weekend. Yeah, and I met that crazy blonde who said she’d come out to Hollywood, to be an ice skater in the movies, like Sonja Henie.”

That made him think of another girl, a more recent part of his life. He’d thought he would be spending this leave with her. But then that letter had—

The old coupé gave a long, mournful sigh and ceased to function. It rolled, ever slower, to a stop, shivering.

“Hey,” Stevenson said aloud, “we’re due in Manzana tonight, Old Paint. Let’s keep ’em rolling.” He clicked the ignition off, turned it on, and tried to get the old machine to start.

Nothing happened.

Stevenson fiddled with the choke and tried the starter once more.

The car remained dead.

“Well, let’s put some of my vast technical knowledge to work.” He stretched out of the car and hoisted up one side of the hood.

There was no other traffic on the road. It was a little after 10
P.M.
, according to the lieutenant’s watch.

“Very smart, Loot,” he said to himself, nodding at the smoking, hissing radiator. “Damn thing sprang a leak and I didn’t even notice.”

The car might be fixed, but not by him. Not with the simple tools in the tin box under the seat, not on this side road twenty-six miles from the town of Manzana and, so it appeared to him, a thousand miles from anything else.

“Well, I’m still in uniform. Maybe I can thumb a ride. Most people are pretty good about that,” he reflected. “But what people?”

No lights showed anywhere. No house lights, not one approaching car in either direction.

“Twenty-six miles to the town.” Stevenson sat on the running board. “I could walk it in . . . maybe three hours or so. There’s bound to be somebody going my way in that time.”

Standing, he took the keys out of the car, and his duffel bag. He had some civilian clothes in that. He was intending, during the week he’d be at the Manzana Lodge, to get a lot of use out of those clothes.

“Nothing like a little cross-country march to limber you up.” He slung the bag over his shoulder.

He was looking forward to this week at the desert resort. Not the way he’d been looking forward to getting together with . . . well, no use dwelling on that. Two of his best friends had managed to shift their schedules around so they could all rally here at the same time. Dipper Willet, whom he’d known since high school, and Smitty. Smitty’d been a friend of his ever since they’d met in New York before the war. Funny thing about Smitty. He looked big and dumb, like maybe a circus strongman, but he was really an exceptionally bright guy. Maybe even something of a genius in his field of radio electronics.

Stevenson was smiling over his use of the word genius when the chariot flew over.

At this point in time, although nearly a dozen people had seen the chariots and over half had reported it, there had been almost nothing in the newspapers or on the radio about them. There was, as we’ll see, good reason for that.