DOC, Renny and Ham digested this. Renny had taken one of the cigars, although he rarely smoked. The weed looked like a brown toothpick in his enormous fist. Ham was leaning forward in an attitude of intense concentration, the sword cane supporting his hands under his jaw, his eyes staring at Mindoro.
"Tom Too got his start with the pirates of the China seaboard," Mindoro continued. "As you know, the China coast is the only part of the world where piracy still flourishes to any extent."
"Sure," Renny put in. "The steamers along the coast and on the rivers carry soldiers and machine guns. Even then, two to three hundred craft a year are looted."
"Tom Too became a power among the corsairs," Mindoro went on. "A year or two ago, he moved inland. He intended to set up an empire in the interior of China. He established himself as a war lord.
"But the armies of the Chinese republic drove him out. He moved into Manchuria and sought to seize territory and cities. But the Japanese were too much for him."
Renny twirled the cigar absently in his gigantic fingers. "This sounds a little fantastic."
"It is not fantastic for the Orient," Doc Savage put in. "Many of the so-called war lords of the Far East are little better than pirates."
"Tom Too is the worst of the lot!" Mindoro interjected. "He is considered a devil incarnate, even in the Orient, where human life is held so very cheaply."
"You said you had never seen Tom Too," Doc suggested. "Yet you know a great deal concerning his career."
"What I am telling you is merely the talk of the cafes. It is common knowledge. Concrete facts about Tom Too are scarce. He keeps himself in the background. Yet his followers number into the hundreds of thousands."
"Huh?" Renny ejaculated.
"I told you the pirates of the Spanish Main were petty crooks compared to Tom Tool" Mindoro rapped. "It is certain no buccaneer of history ever contemplated a coup such as Tom Too plans. He is moving to seize the entire Luzon Union!"
"How much has he accomplished?" Doc asked sharply.
"A great deal. He has moved thousands of his men into the Luzon Union."
At this, Renny grunted explosively. "The newspapers have carried no word of such an invasion!"
"It has not been an armed invasion," Mindoro said grimly. "Tom Too is too smart for that. He knows foreign warships would take a hand.
"Tom Too's plan is much more subtle. He is placing his followers in the army and navy of the Luzon Union, in the police force, and elsewhere. Thousands of them are masquerading as merchants and laborers. When the time comes, they will seize power suddenly. There will be what the newspapers call a bloodless revolution.
"Tom Too will establish what will seem to the rest of the world to be a legitimate government. But every governmental position will be held by his men. Systematic looting will follow. They will take over the banks of the Union, the sugar plantations the entire wealth of the republic."
"Where do you come in on this?" Renny wanted to know.
Mindoro made a savage gesture. "Myself and my secret political organization are all that stands in the way of Tom Too!"
Chapter 9
HIS ARM FELL OFF
HAM had said nothing throughout the discussion. He maintained his attitude of intense concentration. Ham was a good listener on occasions such as this. His keen brain had a remarkable capacity for grasping details and formulating courses of action.
"Have you taken this matter up with the larger nations?" Ham asked now.
Mindoro nodded. "That was my first move."
"Didn't you get any action?"
"A lot of vague diplomatic talk was all!" Mindoro replied. "They told me in so many words that they thought I exaggerated the situation."
"Then no one will interfere, even if Tom Too seizes power with this bloodless revolution he plans," Doc said. His words were a statement of fact.
Tilting back in his char, Doc drew his sleeve off his left wrist.
Mindoro stared curiously at the contrivance that looked like an overgrown wrist watch. He did not know the thing was the scanning lens of Doc's amazingly compact television receiver. He seemed about to ask what it was, but the gravity of his own troubles dissuaded him temporarily.
"I will describe my secret political organization briefly, and show how we are fighting Tom Too," Mindoro stated. "In the secret group are most of the prominent men of the Luzon Union, including the president, his cabinet and the more important officials. We have money and power. We control the newspapers. We have the confidence of the people.
"Most important of all, we are sufficient in number to take up arms and offer Tom Too very stiff opposition. We already have the very latest in machine guns and airplanes. We stand ready to fight the instant Tom Too comes into the open.
"Tom Too has learned this. That alone is forcing him to postpone his coup. He is seeking to learn our identity. He captured me here in New York and tried to force me to reveal the names of the secret society members. Once in possession of those names, he will remove every man. Then he will seize power."
Doc put a hand inside his coat, where he wore the receiving apparatus of his television receptor. A faint click sounded. He glanced at his wrist.
A molten glow came into his golden eyes, a strange, hot luminance.
"Isn't there something you can do toward rescuing your three friends?" Mindoro asked Doc.
"I'm doing it now," Doc told him.
Mindoro was puzzled. "I don't understand."
"Come here and look." Doc indicated the disk on his wrist.
The others leaped to his side.
"Holy cow!" Renny shouted out, "Why, there's Long Tom, Monk, and Johnny!"
FLICKERING on the crystal-like lens of the telewatch was the somewhat vague image of a dingy office interior, The place held a pair of desks, filing cabinets, and worn chairs.
On three of the chairs sat Long Tom, Monk, and Johnny. They were bound hand and foot, tied to the chairs, and gagged.
"I know that place," Renny ejaculated. "It's the office of the Dragon Oriental Goods Company, across the street from the skyscraper under construction."
"Our friends were just brought in," said Doc.
Mindoro made bewildered gestures.
"That is a television instrument, of course," he muttered. "But I did not know they were made that small."
"They re not, usually," Doc explained. "But this one is not radically different from the larger sets. It is merely reduced in size. Being so small, it is effective for only a few miles."
"Where is the transmitter?" Renny questioned, "In the Dragonboat?"
"In the adjoining office. I installed it after leaving you and Mindoro in the taxi. Other transmitters, operating on slightly different wave lengths, are at the radio store and at the spot where Tom Too so nearly finished you. This one got results first."
Ham ran into the laboratory. He came out bearing several of the compact little machine guns which were Doc's own invention, gas masks, gas bombs, and bullet-proof vests.
Riding down in the high-speed elevator, Ham, Renny, and Mindoro donned the vests, belted on the machine guns, and stuffed their pockets with bombs.
Mindoro, who was unfamiliar with Doc's workin" methods, showed astonishment that the mighty bronze man did not follow their example.
"Aren't you going to carry at least one of these guns?" he queried.
Doc's bronze head shook a negative. "Rarely use them."
"But why?"
Doc was slow answering. He didn't like to talk about himself or his way of operating.
"The reasons I don't use a gun are largely psychological," he said. "Put a gun in a man's hand, and he will use it. Let him carry one and he comes to depend upon it. Take it away from him, and he is lost seized with a feeling of helpless-ness. Therefore, since I carry no firearms, none can be taken from me to leave the resultant feeling of helplessness."