The Avenger 30 - Black Chariots (8 page)

“What else can I think?”

Cole was watching the ceiling. “I don’t detect any listening devices, but one can never be sure,” he said. “I think I’d better make our call right now, pixie.”

“Yes, do.”

“Call?” said Jennifer.

“When the heavy-handed minions of Danker frisked us,” explained Cole, “they fortunately neglected to find the two-way radio I carry in my belt. If you’ll excuse me.” He unbuttoned his jacket, and then undid his belt.

“Did you hear about the little moron who shot his father and mother so he—”

“Can it,” said Heinz. He and Moron were sharing a cell in the Manzana jail.

“Only merely trying to keep up morale,” said the little man. “Humor is a very important tool when—”

“Yes, yes, enough.” The fat man was sitting on his cot, head held in both hands.

“Still trying to remember, huh?”

Heinz said, “I know he used something on us.”

“Okay, but maybe it was only to knock us out.”

“The Avenger is trickier than that,” said the fat man. “No, I’m relatively certain he used something to make us talk.”

“I don’t remember nothing like that, Heinz.”

“You probably don’t even remember what you had for breakfast, so it hardly—”

“A bowl of Kellogg’s Pep, coffee, and a maple bar.”

Heinz, swatting the air with his hand, said, “Stop interrupting me, Moron. I . . . yes, I have the distinct impression of telling the Avenger things.”

The smaller man shrugged his left shoulder. “So what? It ain’t like you knew much.”

“I know a good deal more than either you or that nonentity Trumbull,” Heinz told him. “I know who hired me, who I was reporting to and getting orders from. It seems . . . I have the feeling I told him about that.”

“I keep wondering who the brains was. Who was it?”

“No, there’s no need for you to know.”

“What’s the diff now, Heinz? We’re both in the pokey, not likely to go breezing out until the duration plus six. So confide a little, huh?”

“If I did tell the Avenger, it was against my will. That’s the only way I’d betray a confidence.”

“The way you talk, it’s like we ain’t in the same business, you know.” Moron leaned against the adobe wall of their cell. “Okay, suppose you did tell this Avenger guy who the head cheese is . . . Is that so bad?”

“The people we’ve been working for, Moron, it isn’t wise to doublecross them,” said the fat man. “Although the man I dealt with was not actually the leader, he was rather a go-between.”

“Then it maybe don’t matter if the Avenger and his stooges grab the guy.”

Heinz sat up. “It occurs to me, Moron, that by now our employers will surely know of our capture.”

“Sure, bad news travels fast.”

Nodding to himself, the fat man continued, “And, being quite efficient, they’ll probably operate on the premise that I did talk.” He chuckled, nodding more. “Yes, that would be very nice.”

“What would?”

“The surprise the Avenger is going to get.”

Dipper Willet eased the hotel room door open. He scrutinized the hallway in all directions, then slipped out and walked rapidly to the back stairs.

Emerging in a night alley behind the hotel, Dipper hurried along it. A shaggy mutt dog was sleeping at its street end, but he only mumbled as Dipper passed.

In five minutes Dipper reached the small Mexican restaurant on one of Manzana’s rundown back streets. The place was dark, a tattered shade pulled down over the glass door. A plaster bull, about the size of that sleeping dog, was hanging on a chain up over the entrance.

Dipper took hold of the doorknob and turned it. The door swung silently inward. He crossed into the dark little café. There were four small booths along the righthand wall. The young man sat down in the third from the door.

“Something to eat?” asked Don Early, who was seated across the table from him.

“I don’t care much for Mexican chow.”

“No, this is a box of sandwiches I bought at a lunch counter uptown.”

“Thanks, no.”

“Job like mine, you never know when you’re going to eat,” said the government agent. “Well?”

“Smitty was back a while ago, very briefly,” said Dipper. “His friend, Benson, and most of the rest of the Justice, Inc., gang arrived today. You knew that, didn’t you?”

“Richard Henry Benson, Fergus MacMurdie, Nellie Gray, and Cole Wilson, yes. I knew.”

“Seems like the opposition knew, too. They tried to blow up Smitty’s car, which resulted in—”

“Know about that. Talked to Sheriff Brown a couple hours ago, running a check on those guys.”

“Smitty seems to think they’re only hired hands.”

“So do I,” said Early, reaching into the white box in front of him and taking out half a sandwich. “Where’s your friend now?”

Dipper shifted on his bench. “I wish you wouldn’t remind me that Smitty’s a good friend of mine. I feel like . . . some kind of Judas, talking to you.”

After taking a bite of his sandwich, Early said, “I’m not trying to entrap Smith, you know. We’re on the same side, far as I know. It’s just that . . . well, I’d like to solve at least one of these damn cases by myself. This one I really thought I could. Sure, I knew about Smitty coming West, but I was certain he didn’t know anything about the Stonebridge Project.”

“I don’t think he does, even now, Early.”

“Maybe not.” He ate the sandwich for a while, chewing thoughtfully. “Look, Willet, there’s no need for you to feel bad. You’re working on a top secret project for the government yourself. And you know how important the Stonebridge setup is. What they’re working on there . . . well, it might help us win the war years sooner. Think of the lives that—”

“You really must feel guilty, Early. I’ve never heard you go in for pep talks before,” said Willet in the dark. “Next thing I know you’ll bring in Kate Smith to sing ‘God Bless America.’ ”

“You’re too cynical, Willet.”

“If I was, I wouldn’t have agreed to keep you informed on the activities of Justice, Inc. I think the Stonebridge Project is important, too. It’s just that I hate to . . . well, forget it.”

Early brought the remains of the sandwich half up near his eyes. “I ordered meat loaf and one egg salad. This isn’t either.” Shaking his head, he asked, “Where’s Smith now?”

“Following up a lead.”

“Okay, but where?”

“I don’t know, out in the desert someplace.”

“Didn’t he say?”

“Nope, he came in to change clothes.”

“What’d he put on?”

“I didn’t pay much attention. Not a dress suit, if that’s what you mean. Dark clothes, I think. A black pullover and dark slacks.”

“Going to sneak up on somebody, maybe.”

“I don’t know.”

Early said, “When he comes back, try to find out where he went. Okay?”

Willet sat in the darkness for a moment, quiet. At last he said, “Okay.”

Smitty inserted two huge fingers under the collar of his dark turtleneck sweater and blew out his breath over his upper lip. “Pitch dark,” he observed, nodding in the direction of the desert castle of Old Man Guptill.

“The old gent must be ta home,” said MacMurdie, who was crouched beside Smitty on the rocky hillside above the fenced-in castle grounds. “ ’Twas my impression recluses nae did much traveling.”

“It may be,” said the Avenger, “that they’re expecting a visit.”

“From us guys?” asked Smitty.

“From someone. By now they certainly know those three underlings are in custody.” Benson pointed at the wire fence. “Take care of that, Smitty. Mac, you and I will go over the south side of the fence, down that way. Smitty, you come in from the north. We’ll circle the place, come at the castle from the backside.”

“Got you.” The giant fished a pancake-size black disk out of his pants pocket. Bobbing his head up and down once, he left them.

Despite his bulk, Smitty could move quietly. He climbed down the steep hillside without disturbing so much as a pebble. Head hunched, he moved along the edge of the roadway.

“If they’re in there,” he said to himself, “we got maybe five minutes before they catch wise to what I’m going to do.”

Smitty scanned the dark area beyond the fence. The sky was overcast tonight; there was no moon. He saw no sign of any guards.

Way off somewhere, a night bird made a fluting sound. Everything else was still.

“Too quiet,” thought Smitty. “Like everybody was waiting for something to happen.”

He slowed his pace as he drew nearer to the fence.

Only silence, darkness. No one else around, no one watching him.

He made an adjustment on the face of the disk he was carrying. Then, sucking one cheek in, he went running straight for the wire fence. He slammed the disk against the wire, with a pie-in-the-face shove. Then he pivoted and dropped back.

The fence made, for long seconds, a sizzling crackling sound.

“Well, she was electrified. And now, thanks to that little gadget, she’s shorted out good.”

The giant looked around him. Silence on all sides. He began to trot parallel to the fence, heading north.

Mac and the Avenger reached the top of the fence at the same instant, let go, and dropped to the ground.

“Ma bones dinna feel quite right, Richard,” said the Scot as they began cutting across the sandy acres. “Perhaps I’m jaded, but I’m suspicious of things what are too easy.”

“It’s possible the castle has been abandoned.”

The castle rose up a quarter of a mile to their right, a vast deep black shape against the black night. There was not one light showing on this side of the castle, either.

Large cactus trees grew in jagged rows across the ground the Avenger and Mac were covering. It made the area look like a surrealistic cemetery.

“Whoosh!” exclaimed Mac suddenly. “There’s . . . no, I was mistaken.”

“See something?”

“ ’Tis not but one of those skurlie cactuses. I thought I saw one of its arms swing around with a gun in it.”

They were now about a hundred yards from the side of the castle.

Benson stopped, looking up at it.

Mac halted, too. “There’s nae a soul inside there,” he said, shaking his head.

“I don’t think so . . . and yet.”

MacMurdie laughed quietly. “Wha’s the matter wi’ us, Richard? We’re letting this pile of masonry spook us.”

Benson resumed his approach of Old Man Guptill’s castle. His eyes glowed in that peculiar way they did at times.

When they neared the rear of the place, Mac said, “There comes Smitty, from over thata way.”

The giant was moving stealthily toward the back of the silent castle. His big feet touched the stones of a pathway that twisted toward a rear staircase. High cactus and joshua trees lined the path. Smitty could approach quite close to the castle and still stay in the shelter of the trees and their shadows.

“I do believe the lad’s going to walk right in.”

“Smitty knows better, he’ll wait outside.”

They saw the big man take three more steps forward. Then he was hidden from them by a huge cactus.

An instant later, there was a tremendous explosion on the path. Orange fire erupted up into the black of the night as shattered rock spun away.

“Smitty,” said Mac, starting to run.

The walls were filled with large oil paintings, fairly good copies of 19th-century Impressionist works. With a glass of brandy in his hand, Danker seated himself in a velvet chair. “I would like to see Dr. Hamblin,” he said.

The other man in the large underground room was young, a very fair blond in a very tight white suit. “I’ll fetch him for you, Herr Danker.”

“Stop using those old-country words, Kurt.”

Kurt blushed. “I thought, Herr . . . I mean, when we are alone, I thought—”

“There is absolutely no need for you to think, Kurt,” Danker told him. “Follow orders well, that’s all you must worry about.”

“Yes, Herr . . . yes, sir.” He clicked his heels and bowed out of the room.

“Idiots,” murmured Danker as he sniffed and then sipped his brandy. “A mission so important, and they burden me, for the most part, with idiots. Oh, and those fools I hired, my auxilliary troops. Captured by the Avenger, dragged to jail. It’s a wonder . . . Ah, good evening, Dr. Hamblin.”