The chuckle came again.
“I am being frank with you, because I expect you to be frank with us. Your history is intriguing. Just who is employing you? For what particular cause are you working?”
The voice had become almost matter-of-fact now. It was as though “X’s” answers were foregone conclusions. But he was silent. The voice behind the hood changed again. It had a steely, imperious note in it.
“You will give us all this information, Agent ‘X.’ It is necessary for us to know. There may be an effort made to replace you when—” The voice trailed off with sinister implication.
“Yes, death for you is inevitable. You are aware of that yourself. You are aware that you cannot leave this place alive. But we can give you a choice of two deaths — one quick, painless; the other so lingering, so horrible, so pregnant with agony that you will cease to be a man and will become a blind, babbling creature, a death so unthinkable that you would choose to die a thousand ordinary deaths.”
Still the Agent was silent, standing stiffly erect, staring straight before him. Momentarily his will seemed suspended. Momentarily he could only wait and listen. The voice droned on.
“You have seen the faces of men who have been dead many days. Your face will be like that while you are still alive; the flesh eaten away, the eye sockets empty, the teeth skull-like.”
Sweat broke out on the Secret Agent’s forehead. It was not so much fear as fury against these men — a fury so terrible that it left him white and shaking. Then he grew calm again.
“What would you ask me to do?” he said.
“A small thing. We will provide you with pen and paper and a place to write. You will give us a report of all your activities. You will name your hide-outs, your methods, tell us exactly who you are and who is behind you. We know you work alone. We know that no one shares your secrets; but you are supplied with money. That is evident. There have been whispers that the government is backing you.”
“Ask the police,” said the Agent coldly.
“The police hunt you, too. They regard you as an enemy, a criminal — that is part of your game. But you will tell us — everything.”
There was silence again, and the Agent could feel the eyes of the ravenlike pair before him boring into his own.
“What’s your answer?” came a voice at last.
The Agent held himself more erect. His lips remained closed. He stared calmly, silently at his questioners.
“You will not speak! We are not surprised. You are clever in your disguises. You are confident of your ability. But there are things which will penetrate and destroy any disguise. There are acids hungry for the flesh of men. We will give you a small taste of what hell is like — then we will leave you poised on the brink of hell, and — who knows — you may be willing to talk — to avoid the last terrible plunge!”
Chapter XIII
THE hooded man’s hands moved in the air before him. His fingers made quick motions, delivering imperious orders. Four of the gray-clad mutes stepped forward and grasped the Agent’s arms. The fifth man held the gun at his back. He was marched out of the room.
He had no plan of action. He saw at the moment no way of escape. He waited for that small, brief opportunity which might checkmate the awful fate ahead of him. He couldn’t do what had been asked of him — betray the secrets that he guarded so jealously. Yet to keep them guarded he would have to submit to more than human flesh could endure. Would it be better, he wondered, to make a break now and invite a bullet in his back?
But he pictured himself lying wounded, helpless, with flesh-eating acid being poured into his face. There was nothing that these men would stop at.
He walked quietly downstairs and through the corridors. They had not blindfolded him — a tribute to his cleverness, to the knowledge that no blindfolds could keep him from knowing where he was. And it was evidence of the certainty that he was to die.
They came at last to the door of the torture chamber. The four men holding him redoubled the force of their grip on his arms. The man with the gun stepped forward, unlocking the door. He pressed a switch and light came from inside.
For the moment this fifth man with the gun was dead ahead, silhouetted against the light behind him. There would never be another opportunity. Within the next minute Agent “X” would be in the chair with the steel cuffs snapped over his legs and ankles — cuffs that no human strength or will could break. It was now or never.
His four captors didn’t notice the motion of his foot, or if they did they mistook it for a shrinking back in fear. He lifted his toe, swayed his body sideways, bringing his full weight down on the right heel, pressing the rubber and flattening it so that the metal stud inside that was the trigger of the tiny air gun was pushed home.
They did not hear the faint hiss that came from the end of the minute tube concealed in the thick sole of his shoe.
The man in the door of the torture chamber, the man with the gun, gave a throaty, inarticulate cry. His face registered intense surprise. He turned, slowly, stood swaying on his feet, and, just as slowly, his face changed. The masklike look came again. The face muscles sagged, knotted, and sagged again. The man’s gun fell from his inert fingers and clattered to the stone floor. The man’s knees buckled under him and he collapsed.
The four mutes holding Agent “X” stiffened with amazement. Their lusterless eyes showed utter incomprehension. Their grip on his arms relaxed for the fraction of a second. And, in that fraction of time, he put all the strength of his muscles into one mighty heave. He wrenched himself loose and leaped backwards.
He heard the pounding of feet behind him, saw lights flash again as a secret signal system was put into operation. The gray-clad men were swift runners, too. They sensed now that the collapse of the man with the gun had been a trick of the Agent’s. Their fury was animal-like. He could hear their babbling, incoherent cries — the cries of mutes trying to give expression to inhuman rage.
He passed an open passageway and saw two more figures running toward him. He flashed past; but something streaked out, burning his leg so that for a moment the pain almost paralyzed him and forced him to slow down. A splash of acid hurled by one of the men in the corridor had struck his ankle. He ran on, his face contorted.
He had the feeling now that flitting gray shapes were everywhere, that another spray of acid might come out of any dark corner. But he could not see his way. He turned on the pencil-thin beam of his flash for an instant. Directly ahead was the corridor leading through the jumble of buildings in the warehouse’s rear. Beyond it was the street.
He reached the street with flying figures close behind him. He burst out the door into the cold night air. But Betty had taken his car as he had told her to. Death was close at his heels.
WINCING with pain, limping, he plunged along the street. Looking back he saw gray shapes moving behind him like wolves in the night. The “Torture Trust’s” horrible horde was close behind. The street seemed to harbor death.
He put on a burst of speed that pumped blood into the burned spot on his ankle, increasing the pain until it was as though a hot rivet had been driven into his flesh.
He turned a corner, ran on with the pursuers gaining. It was late, the streets were deserted. Even if there were a cop in sight he would be of no aid. He would only meet a hideous death, too.