The Avenger 13 - Murder on Wheels by Kenneth Robeson Read Free Book Online Page A

must still be several miles from here. I’ll try to raise him.”
    The Scot worked the little belt set, and to his infinite relief got a quick answer.
    “Yeah, it’s me. Smitty,” came the tiny voice from the set. “You on your way here alone?”
    “No, Muster Benson is with me.”
    Smitty’s voice was sheepish.
    “Hey, that’s too bad. It seems I squawked before it was necessary. I got loose without any trouble at all and got away from the hangar before anybody showed up. Then the gang came back, and they dusted around for me plenty. But didn’t find me; so there’s no need of you going any farther.”
    “Are ye sure?” asked Mac anxiously. He kidded the life out of the big fellow when everything was all right. For one thing, he was one of the few men alive who could call Smitty by his true name, Algernon Heathcote Smith, and escape alive. But when trouble threatened, he sprang to the giant’s aid like a frightened mother.
    “Sure I’m sure,” said Smitty. “I’m O.K., Mac. But I want to do a little looking around here. I’ll be back to headquarters before the night is over.”
    “Fine,” said Mac. “We’ll be there, too. We’ve got a couple of unwillin’ guests that might be persuaded to answer a few questions.”
    When Smitty had said he was O.K., he meant just that. He had walked openly around the field near the hangar and seen no one. He was serenely convinced that he was alone and all right.
    So he clicked off his little set, put the tiny earphone into his pocket, turned—and gaped into the muzzle of a gun!
    It was held by a man who had seemingly risen from the ground beside Smitty, so well had he been hidden in the tall grass. And at the sight of this man, Smitty’s blood ran cold.
    He was surely a maniac! That was the giant’s immediate thought.
    He was tall, old enough to have iron-gray hair that hung down like a wig, and straggly, iron-gray whiskers. He had a wild light in his eyes. He looked, altogether, like an elderly violin player, even more in need of a haircut than such characters are traditionally supposed to be.
    And in his veined hand this wild-eyed maniac held a large revolver.
    “You thief!” he squealed. “You dirty thief! You’re going to die, right now!”
    And the revolver jerked straight in his hand with its muzzle almost in Smitty’s face! Lead and thin flame lanced from it!

    Unfortunately, Mac and The Avenger had no way of knowing what had been done to the giant, less than two minutes after he had told Mac he was all right.
    And they were too intent on working over their prisoners to speculate about it.
    A truck had brought them to New York again after Benson had stopped the driver and exhibited a badge of the United States Secret Service—of which The Avenger was an honorary member—in front of the man’s startled eyes. The truck had delivered Mac and Benson and their prisoners clear to the Bleek Street entrance; and the driver would take nothing but thanks for it. He had heard of this man with the granite face and the pale, cold eyes.
    Up in the vast top-floor room, The Avenger’s icy eyes drilled into the sullen faces of their three captives.
    Benson had several chemical aids to the extraction of truth from unwilling guests; serums such as even the big city police departments didn’t even know existed. But he had one way that was superior to all the others, and that was a natural way. Natural to him, at least.
    The Avenger’s deadly, glittering eyes had hypnotic power to an almost unprecedented degree; so as he searched the faces of these three thugs, he looked for the weakest will.
    The possessor of that, as often happens, was the biggest man physically. He had a jaw like a snow plow, beetle brows drawn in a terrific scowl and a mouth that looked like a slash cut in stone.
    But in his shifty eyes, Benson read paralyzing fear, and not very much will power.
    His gaze remained on the shifty eyes. Mac, without any words being necessary, led the two other men