There was case after case of these bombs, each fitted with a clocklike dial and supplied with two electrodes. There were time bombs that could be set to explode seconds or hours later. One of them could tear a six-foot gap in a brick building, could twist heavy armor plate, could destroy half a regiment. But the DOACs didn’t end with bombs.
“X” and Hobart went into a sub-chamber fitted with laboratory equipment. In test-tube racks were vials labeled with scientific names. Those vials swarmed with invisible germs, countless millions of them; germs of typhoid, of the deadly sleeping-sickness, of devastating tropical fevers, of infantile paralysis, and all the horrible ills that beset man. The DOACs were ready for the most fiendish of all modern war tactics — the use of bacteria!
Even guns, bombs, and bacteria did not complete the DOACs’ equipment for annihilation. In another sub-chamber, they found tanks of the wicked Lewisite gas, di-chlorethyl sulphide, or “mustard gas,” di-phosgene, and diphenyl chlorasine which could penetrate any respirator. Here also were huge metal containers and hoselike jets from which liquid fire could be sprayed. The DOACs had obtained equipment for the most modern and horrible type of warfare. Beneath the St. Clair house were enough deadly destructive agents to wreck a whole nation.
AGENT “X” shuddered. There were, he knew, other DOAC chapters scattered throughout the land. There were headquarters in every large city; but he doubted if there were anywhere else an arsenal as fearful as this. This was the center, the hub of DOAC activity. From it the Master was to issue the command which would loose the hooded hordes like a ravaging blight over the country. And who was the Master?
“X” did not know. But this he did know. With the Master killed or captured, and this fearful vipers’ nest of evil put out of commission, the country might yet be saved from the hideous wave of terror that was destined to engulf it. His eyes roved speculatively over the bombs, back to those containers of poison gas. His lips were a thin white line as he turned to Jim Hobart.
The lanky operative was shaken, too. His police work had given him knowledge of explosive and poisonous agents. The color had drained from his face so that his freckles stood out like livid, leprous spots.
“Geez, boss — there’s enough rough stuff there to croak a whole state. There’s enough—”
He did not finish, for “X” had turned toward the door. His own gas gun was clasped in white-knuckled, talon-like fingers. His eyes were blazing like living coals.
“Never mind the stuff now, Jim,” he said thickly. “We must find the girl first — and get her out of here. Then — later — I’ll attend to that.”
What Agent “X” expected to do, he did not say. He pushed the door into the main corridor open again. These underground chambers were built as massively as the rooms of some great railway terminal. They showed the thoroughness and efficiency of the DOAC organization. The Agent started to go through the door with Jim Hobart at his heels, then he paused.
A sound stirred faint echoes along the corridor. It whispered in the air above their heads, ghostlike, disturbing.
“Hear anything, Jim?”
“Yes!”
Hobart’s reply was hardly more than a husky croak. He was leaning forward, staring at “X” intently, listening. The sound came again and this time there was no mistaking it. It was the muffled scream of a girl, frightened with terror, speaking of starkly hideous things, and it came from somewhere on their right.
Agent “X,” lips working, leaped forward. He sped down the corridor on his silent, rubber-soled shoes with the quickness of a cat. Jim Hobart followed, but could not keep up.
There were several doorways here. But the scream was repeated a third time, and its wavering note directed him. It came from the third door on the Agent’s right. He reached the spot in an instant, thrust the door open, and his heart leaped within him.
An iron grating like that of an animal cage reached from floor to ceiling halfway across the room. There was a barred door in its center. This door was open now, and, in the small prison beyond, Betty Dale, her face wan as death, was cowering back against the farther wall as a hooded DOAC moved toward her.
As though the bars of the prison were not enough, small gleaming chains were fastened to Betty’s white wrists. She could not move far in either direction, and the DOAC had something in his hand. This was a smoking metal container with a turquoise blue alcohol flame beneath it — a pot of boiling lead! He set the pot down, leisurely approached the girl, and Betty screamed again. It appeared like a brutal act of intimidation.
“X” didn’t wait to see whether the hooded DOAC meant to pour lead on the girl’s skin or in her throat. The man was intent in his sadistic action. “X” plunged straight through the small barred door of the human cage.
His gas gun was in his hand, but he did not pull the trigger. Not often did Agent “X” strike to kill. He left that for cruder, less skillful investigators who made a habitual practice of violence. But red fury surged through his blood now. For a bare instant Agent “X” was the primitive, whose one thought is to strike down an enemy in the quickest possible way.
He brought the heavy metal muzzle of the gas gun down on the DOAC’s hooded head with all his might. There was a sickening crunch as bone gave way, and the man fell.
Betty Dale’s body seemed to sag. She looked on in dull-eyed amazement, almost doped with the terror that possessed her. Only when the Agent stepped over the fallen body of the hooded man and came close, did Betty’s expression change. Then her eyes became fixed on the face of the Agent. A great trembling seized her.
“Betty!” he said, and, almost as though it were the sign of the cross, he made the mark of X in the air close to her face. A torrent of words came to the girl’s deathly pale lips. The Agent checked them with a quickly made gesture.
“Not now, Betty,” he whispered. “I want to get you out of here first. That is all that counts.”
She made a sound like a moan then.
“These chains!”
The Agent clutched her slim wrist, looked down at the metal that circled it. Small, compact locks showed in the steel that formed a tight-fitting bracelet. The Agent had files and tools with him. He could pick the locks or cut through the chains — but that would take time — and time was precious.
He turned then to the man he had knocked out and perhaps killed. Quickly he bent down, went through the man’s pockets and drew out a key ring. His expert eye saw a key here that looked as though it would fit. But as he picked the key up, examined it, a hoarse voice spoke in a whisper from the doorway.
Agent “X” looked up. Jim Hobart had come into the room. His face was even whiter than before. There was a look in his eyes that “X” had never seen before — not fear so much as resignation. The lanky operative’s lips moved again.
“I guess it’s curtains, boss. They’re coming — the DOACs! There’s a bunch of them down the end of the long hall, now!”
Chapter XXI
THE Agent did not try to verify Hobart’s statement. He knew that the operative was telling the truth. “X” leaped to the blonde girl’s side, thrust the key he had found into the locks on her wrist, turned it and unsnapped them.
He poked his head out the door. The DOACs were running around the corner from the far end of the hallway. “X” pulled the girl out of the room, and shoved Jim Hobart after her.
“Hurry!” he cried frantically. “You can make it! You’ve got a clear field. Get her out of here, Jim. Take her away from Meadow Stream. I can hold these dogs. Don’t talk! Run!”