“You’ve seen,” he said, “how those who betray us, or go against our wishes die. The lead still boils. Talk, Danny Dugan. Tell us what you know about Secret Agent ‘X.’”
After the hideous things he had seen, it was difficult for the Agent to maintain the character of Danny Dugan. Anger seethed within him. He wanted to heap his hate upon the DOACs, to revile them with the words of fury that were crowding to his lips. But he had no choice. He could not step out of character.
He cried out again and again that he knew nothing of “X,” had never been introduced to him, and was totally ignorant of the mystery man’s doings. His outburst had a convincing ring. Finally the hooded men drew off to a dank, dark corner, and talked among themselves. The leader again addressed the Agent.
“You are going back to Agent ‘X,’” he stated. “You will inform him that we are allowing him eighteen hours’ grace. It is now eleven at night. At five tomorrow afternoon he must be on the same designated square in the Capitol’s rotunda. We will accept no proxy this time. He, Secret Agent ‘X,’ must come — or we will strike. Remind him that the lead still boils — and that we still have Betty Dale. If Agent ‘X’ does not come, she, too, will be given a leaden drink.”
The Agent’s neck was pricked suddenly by a needle coated with the powerful nam-nam essence. The paralyzing narcotic coursed through his bloodstream. In little time it reached the brain.
“X’s” head felt as though it was suspended in mid-air. The cold, gloomy catacomb recess began to whirl. The impression came to him that all he had witnessed had been the mental torment of a man ravaged by a drug. A great drowsiness smothered down upon him. He heard the old-young men cackling. The shrieks of the dying man still echoed in his ears. Then suddenly he was engulfed by a merciful void. The numbing nam-nam had delivered him to peace once more.
Chapter XIV
WHEN the Agent came to a second time, it was to feel a stinging sensation on the soles of his feet. He raised up. A cop was drumming his shoes with a nightstick. The Agent, still Danny Dugan, the policy racketeer, drew himself to a sitting position.
He was on a park bench. This was Marcy Square. The dew was on the grass. The air was fresh, crisp, invigorating, and the dawn was in the glory of its awakening. Birds chirped and twittered in the trees. Pigeons strutted about the walks and lawns, hunting for their morning’s victuals. Squirrels chattered saucily as they begged early pedestrians for handouts. It was a world entering a new day with zest and vitality — a world far removed from the poisonous atmosphere of the DOAC catacombs.
The Agent didn’t know where the subterranean den of evil was located, for his passage to and from it had occurred when he was unconscious. But he did remember the horrible events, remembered the vicious ultimatum delivered by the DOAC spokesman. He had much to do, and he had to hurry. He judged that it was seven now. Ten hours to be on that square in the Capitol rotunda again — ten hours to save Betty Dale from the hands of the fiends.
“Better be movin’ on, buddy,” advised the cop. “I don’t want to see anybody booked on a swell morning like this. But I got to protect myself. The captain already has jacked me up for lettin’ you bums snooze on these here benches. Scram!”
The Agent gladly took the advice, welcoming the fact that the nam-nam paralysis had worn off. He realized he had been brought by the DOACs to Marcy Square and dumped. For all he knew, DOAC spies were watching him, under orders to shadow him wherever he went.
“X” rode into town, sauntered about the streets for a time. Possibly he wasn’t being shadowed — but he had noticed a lanky, eagle-beaked man watching him at Marcy Square, and he saw the same man again twenty minutes later in town. There might be others.
As soon as the activity of the day began, he hurried into a big department store, brushed through the early morning mob of shoppers, went up in an elevator, down in another, then slid unobtrusively into a deserted men’s dressing room on the sixth floor.
When he emerged he had the sandy hair and inconspicuous features of A.J. Martin, newspaper man, and he wore clothes to match the character. He had achieved this transformation with his compact kit of pigments and plastic materials, and by turning his suit inside out, revealing a different fabric and pattern from the one that had served him as Danny Dugan.
Disguised as A.J. Martin, he descended to the first floor. There he passed the man with the beaklike nose, and the DOAC spy didn’t notice him. Even so, the. Agent changed taxis four times as he left the vicinity of the department store.
At a public telephone booth he put in a call to his Northern office, learning from Ralph Peters that his operative, Hobart, had tried to get in touch with him a few minutes before. The Agent had Hobart’s number. It was in the directory of South Bolton, a big industrial town nearly six hundred miles away. He called it at once and Hobart’s voice came excitedly over the wire.
“All hell’s broken loose, boss,” were Hobart’s first words. He was making no effort now to effect a verbal code. “The D’s are at work again. They’re behind a general strike scheduled to be pulled off in South Bolton. For all I know it may have started. The local unions didn’t cook it up. Everybody’s been working out here and satisfied for the past three months. But the DOACs have scared the bosses into calling a strike. When the lid pops off, it’s going to be nasty business.
“The D’s have planned carefully. No one here’s strong enough to prevent it. Back of it all is an extortion threat. The D’s have demanded that a dozen mill owners chip in and pile up a hundred-thousand-dollar pool. Then they promise to stop the strike. But the owners won’t cough up.”
The Agent felt a sudden gnawing in the pit of his stomach. South Bolton was a long way off, and even his Blue Comet couldn’t make it in less than three or four hours.
His fingers clenched the telephone receiver, pressing till his knuckles went white. His voice was a hoarse whisper as he answered Hobart.
“Can you do anything to stop it, Jim?”
“Me? No, boss, I’m sorry. I hate to think of all the poor guys that’s gonna get shot up and gassed. If the factory owners don’t change their minds and come through with the ante, the D’s are all set to wreck the mills. I heard ’em say so. Then the troops and police will be called out — and the workers and their families will get it in the neck. It’s gonna be tough as hell, but there’s nothing I can do, boss. I’ve been working with ’em, getting more and more dope. They’ve got me slated to help when the row starts.”
AGENT “X” cursed harshly into the receiver. His fingers shook. His scalp felt tight. Betty needed him here in the East — Betty already in the hands of this murderous organization. Yet the thousands who would be affected by this useless, senseless strike needed him, too. How could he serve both, with South Bolton so far away? Yet he must find a method!
“I’ll come out there, Jim,” he said hoarsely.
“What can you do, boss? The strike’s bound to go through — unless these factory owners cough up. And a hundred grand is a lot of dough.”
“Listen, Jim,” the Agent’s voice was hard and thin, “I’ll bring the money myself. I’ll get it somehow. We’ve got to stop this strike!”
He heard Jim Hobart’s gasp of surprise.
“A hundred grand, boss. I don’t see how you can do it!”
“I’ll try anyway.”
The Agent’s eyes were almost feverishly bright as he hung up. He licked lips that had become a thin straight line. The money angle didn’t bother him. He still had plenty in the bank, a vast sum at his disposal to combat crime. But it was the time element. He couldn’t just wire the money to South Bolton. The cash must seem to come from the factory owners themselves. His presence would be needed on the spot.