The girl gave “X” an appealing look. Whatever her impulse, she was ready to obey orders. Hobart grabbed her arm, hurried her down the hallway. The DOACs uttered shouts of rage, and cried for a halt. But the two kept on. The Agent followed closely behind. But instead of continuing, he darted suddenly into the arsenal.
He was out again before the DOACs could reach him. They came to an abrupt stop, cursing and fuming, then shrinking back in stark terror.
“X” had both hands raised overhead. In each hand was a mangling, destroying vacuum bomb. He came nearer to them, step by step. He made as though to hurl one of the containers of concentrated death. A DOAC shrieked.
By this time Jim Hobart and Betty Dale were out of the sub-cellar, on their way to fresh air and safety. That problem was cleared away. “X’s” job now was to prevent the fatal broadcast, to stop the Master from sending out the command that would usher in an era of tragedy and oppression.
Suddenly the DOACs turned and ran — far enough to get out of range of those terrible bombs. Then one hooded man swung around again, and opened up with an automatic. Leaden pellets of death screamed above “X.” The man was trying to make “X” surrender. His first shots were high, but any second the Agent knew he was liable to lower his aim, and shoot to kill. “X” dashed for the door of the arsenal.
The killers roared savagely, and came on. A fusillade of bullets spouted from flaming guns. “X” got half across the threshold of the arsenal when a slug nipped the back of his coat. He slammed the door and bolted it. DOACs were swarming in the corridor. They came up to the metal door of the arsenal, beat upon it. One, a sub-leader, spoke sneeringly to “X.”
“You’re through, stranger,” he said. “If you’re Agent ‘X,’ you’ve lost, and we are the victors. The Master is on his way. He’ll be here any minute. The DOACs are as good as rulers of the country already. Nothing you can do will stop us now. But surrender — and perhaps the Master will be lenient with you. The strong can afford to be lenient with the weak.”
The Agent didn’t answer. His mind was in a turmoil. How was he going to get by that mob of killers to the signal room? The fate of thousands depended on the next few minutes. It was nearly midnight. Possibly the Master was standing by the microphone now, ready to issue his orders. Because of that handful of murderers outside, was the whole nation to become a thieves’ paradise, a haven for homicidal maniacs?
He thought of hurling a bomb over the transom. That would slaughter the cluster of fiends. But would the explosion blow up the entire arsenal, and send this sinister house scattering to the skies? He was willing now even to sacrifice his own life. But the bomb might only demolish this section of the sub-cellar, killing those DOACs and himself, and leaving the signal room unharmed. That wasn’t the way. If he had to die, he wanted to go out knowing that the DOACs had been beaten.
Suddenly his keen ears detected a sound behind him. He spun around. A hooded figure was stealing down upon him. The DOAC held a gun. He didn’t fire for an obvious reason. “X” still clutched those bombs. The killer had come in by a rear entrance. The talk of the man outside had been a stall, to give this one a chance to sneak up from behind. “X” snarled and twisted his face in a threatening grimace.
The same instant he thumbed down the light switch on the wall by the door, plunging the room in darkness. The DOAC uttered curses, threatening to blow the Agent’s brains out. “X” took advantage of the outburst to place the bombs carefully on the floor against the wall. Then he cat-footed toward the killer, gas gun in hand. The man was still muttering and mouthing oaths.
“X” got to one side of him, fired, but the man ducked away from the cloud of vapor.
“X” lashed out with the gun muzzle then in the general location of the hooded man’s head. The blow landed on the killer’s skull, but the rubber hood cushioned it The smash on the head rocked him on his heels, but didn’t send him to the floor.
THE Agent closed in with the murderer. His hand groped in the darkness and clutched the automatic. He tried to wrench it from the hooded man’s hand, but the DOAC had an iron grip on the butt. Suddenly he got his other hand free and gouged “X” in the eye. It was a foul and brutal trick. The shock sent a shudder through the Agent.
He relaxed his hold on the man’s gun a little. The DOAC forced the weapon down. The barrel was close to “X’s” face. The killer didn’t know how close, and that was what saved the Agent. Exerting all his wrought-iron strength, he began prying the automatic away.
Then the DOAC tripped him. “X” fell backwards. The DOAC would land on top. The crashing weight of his body and the thump against the floor would stun “X,” give his foe a chance to shatter his skull with a bullet. But the Secret Agent was a skilled wrestler.
In mid-air he swung his body sidewise, got his arm around the back of the killer’s neck, his hand under the man’s chin. He gave a violent snap which shifted the DOAC’s body under him. At the same time he jerked the man’s gun hand away from his body. It was all done in a swift moment. The howling DOAC, suddenly terror-stricken, pressed the trigger of his automatic. The bullet went wild.
There was a terrific explosion, and the Agent himself gave a piercing scream. Then he fired his gas gun straight into the DOAC’s face.
The DOAC had been sure of victory when he’d tripped the Agent. Now he sank to the floor, inert. “X” scrambled to his feet. He clicked on the electric switch and showered the room with light.
“I got him! I got him!” he cried — for the benefit of those in the corridor. “I finished the Secret Agent — drilled him through the guts. He’s ready for sweet lilies and slow music, comrades!”
The Agent took off the DOAC’s hood, and concealed his own face with it. Beneath the blue fabric, his eyes were burning. He had a desperate plan, a plan that might prevent plagues and epidemics, a plan that might cost his own life.
He bounded across to an open case of time bombs. Quickly he set the detonating mechanism of one into operation, adjusted the clocklike dial. He contemplated his work for a moment, then glared in the direction of the DOACs on the other side of the locked door. Events were going to happen swiftly from now on. Those thieves, rats and murderers were going to be dealt with as they deserved, to save a nation from bloody catastrophe. These in Greta St. Clair’s house obviously formed the “inner circle.” They were vicious criminals all, in on the most sinister doings of the DOAC organization.
“Come on, comrade!” shouted a DOAC. “The Master has arrived!”
A thrill of excitement went through the Agent. He rushed to the door, threw back the bolt, went out. His face concealed by the hood, he joined the DOACs, who were filing toward the signal room.
Suddenly their hands were raised in a brisk, military gesture — the DOAC salute. From another door stepped a hooded man of stocky build. Across the forehead of his vivid blue hood was a mystic symbol — a clenched fist hurling a livid lightning bolt. This was etched in bright yellow. The man had an air of stern authority. His presence awed the DOACs into silence.
Even “X” felt some of the magnetism of this man, the enemy of peace, decency and happiness. The Master paused for a moment, his bearing rigid, his glittering eyes piercing through the slits in his blue hood. He did not speak. The DOACs bowed humbly before this iron dictator who was about to touch off the spark of revolution in America.
THE Master turned his back on them and entered the signal room. The DOACs stood motionless, as awed as peasants would be in the presence of an emperor. “X” waited a moment. He had to go into that signal room. Would the DOACs stop him?