The Avenger 30 - Black Chariots by Kenneth Robeson Read Free Book Online

Dunes.
    Cole knocked on the girl’s door.
    In a moment Nellie looked out. “Was that you bellowing next door?”
    “Yes, pixie, I always tend to bellow when I have a momentous insight.”
    “You’ve had one?”
    “I remembered who that waiter I spied at the Oasis is,” he told her. “Let’s get over there.”
    “Now?” It was after 10 P.M.
    “The chap happens to be a suspected foreign agent,” explained Cole. “I saw his mug in a collection of dossiers an FBI chum of mine let me peruse a couple months back. His name is Franz Bernhardt, age 59.”
    Nellie asked, “You’re sure?”
    Tapping his forefinger beneath his left eye, Cole said, “They don’t call me Hawkeye for nothing. Of course I’m sure. Let’s go.”
    Backing away from the door and collecting her purse, Nellie said, “You planning to walk right into the place and drop a net over Franz?”
    “I don’t have my entire strategy worked out. Right now, we can simply pop into the Oasis cocktail lounge and see how the land lies.”
    “They didn’t give me the impression,” she said as she joined him in the corridor, “that they took too kindly to strangers.”
    “I’m not looking for acceptance and affection. I only want to have a little chat with Herr Bernhardt.”
    “Maybe the Oasis people don’t know who he is.” They started for the stairs. “But on the other hand, maybe they do.”

CHAPTER XII

On The Trail
    Earlier that day, at the tag end of the hot afternoon, the area sheriff was sitting in a wicker chair in front of his white-washed adobe Manzana office. He was attempting, once again, to roll his own cigarette.
    “Now, darn!” muttered Sheriff Brown. “I ought to be able to do this. It would sure come in handy, too, what with ready-mades so hard to get. Darn.” Half the tobacco slid out of the cigarette paper and down his sleeve.
    A car came to a stop in front of the office. A huge man got out on the sidewalk side, wiped his forehead with the back of his fist, and said, “How you doing, sheriff?”
    Brown, a chunky weatherbeaten man of fifty, stood up, spilling the rest of the tobacco out of his uncompleted smoke.
    “Pretty fair, Mr. Smith. Help you any?”
    Smitty held up a hand in a wait-a-minute gesture. “We got some bozos for you.” He went around to the rear of the car, unlocked the trunk, and hauled out the unconscious Moron. Depositing him on the sidewalk, Smitty shut the trunk and moved to the back door of the car. From the back seat and floor he dragged two more unconscious men, Heinz and Trumbull. “These are the guys who tried to kill me the other day.”
    Flinging away the now empty cigarette paper, the sheriff hustled down to the curb. “How’d you happen to run across them?”
    “They tried it again,” explained Smitty.
    Sheriff Brown noticed two men sitting in the front seat. He touched the brim of his cowboy-style hat. “Afternoon, gents,” he said. “Would you mind coming inside and making some kind of statement?”
    “Not at all,” said Benson. He and Mac got out of the machine. “I’m Richard Henry Benson.”
    The name the sheriff recognized. He’d made a check on Smitty when the giant had brought in the dead ambusher. “Well, sir, the Avenger.” He held out a hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
    “This is my associate, Fergus MacMurdie.”
    “Where shall I dump these guys, sheriff?” Smitty inquired.
    “They’re all alive, aren’t they?”
    “They’ve been rendered unconscious by an otherwise harmless gas,” said Benson, not adding that the gas had also enabled him to question each of the men.
    “Guess we better stick them into cells.”
    “Here, mon,” Mac said to the giant, “I’ll lend ye a hand.”
    “Take the little one,” suggested Smitty as he picked up the other two, one under each arm.

    The twilight thinned, and darkness began to drop down.
    MacMurdie reached out and clicked on the floor lamp. A circle of light fell on the map Dick Benson had spread out on their