The Pirate of the Pacific

Chapter 7 DEATH TRAIL

RENNY had been working as a structural steel man for half a day. He was operating a riveting gun on what would eventually be the tenth floor of the new building. In his monster hands the pneumatic gun was a toy.

None of the other workers knew why he was here, not even the job foreman. Renny had come with such excellent references that he had been given a job instantly. The quality of his work had already attracted favorable attention. The crew foreman was proud of his new recruit.

"Stick with us, buddy, and you'll get ahead," the foreman had told Renny confidentially. "We can use men like you. I'll see that you get a better job at the end of the week."

"That'll be fine!" Renny replied.

Not a muscle of Renny's sober, puritanical face changed during this conversation. The crew foreman would probably have fallen off the girder on which he was standing, had he known Renny had handled engineering jobs for which he had been paid a sum sufficient to buy a building such as this would be when finished.

At lunch hour, most of the workers went to near-by restaurants to eat. But Renny consumed a sandwich, remaining near where he had been working.

Renny didn't want to lose sight, even for a short time, of the office of the Dragon Oriental Goods Company. And it was during the lunch hour that his watch produced results.

A lemon-skinned fellow entered the tenth-floor office. His actions were unusual. Producing a rag from his clothing, the Oriental went over every object in the room which might have been handled, polishing it briskly.

"Making doubly sure no finger prints were left behind!" Renny told himself. "I'll just trail that bird."

Throwing away the wrapper of the sandwich he had consumed, Renny stretched lazily and remarked to another steel worker smoking near by: "Think I'll go get some hot coffee."

He descended.

Within ten minutes, the man who had been in the Dragon Oriental Goods Company office put in his appearance. A close look showed Renny he was one of the half-castes, an admixture of Mongol and some other race.

The fellow boarded one of the open street cars which ran down Broadway. This vehicle had no sides, only a roof. Passengers simply stepped aboard wherever was handiest.

Renny followed in a taxi. He slouched low in his seat, hoping his work-stained clothing and greasy cap would help him escape detection. Renny had wiped off the motor of his automobile with the garments, before going to his new job. This gave them the proper coating of grime.

The quarry alighted near Chinatown. He soon passed a shabby Celestial walking up and down the street with a sign on his chest and another on his back, advertising a chop-suey restaurant.

No sign of recognition did Renny's quarry and the sandwich man exchange, yet the sandwich man studied Renny most intently — and was very careful Renny did not notice.

The fellow then scuttled down a side street.

Renny continued his shadowing, unaware of this incident.

THE half-caste Mongol turned into a little shop which seemed to sell everything from edible bamboo shoots to cloisonne' vases. He purchased a small package of something, then came out. He began to chew some of the package contents.

He might have given a message to the shop proprietor, or received one. Renny could not tell.

The Mongol breed's next move was to enter — of all things — a radio store.

Renny sauntered past the front. No one was visible within the store; not even the proprietor. Renny hesitated, decided to take a chance, and entered.

There was a door in the back. Listening, Renny heard nothing. He opened and shut his enormous hands uneasily.

Finally, he shucked an unusual pistol from under one armpit.

This gun was only slightly larger than an ordinary automatic, but it was one of the most efficient killing machines ever invented. Doc had perfected the deadly weapon — an extremely compact machine gun. It fired sixty shots so rapidly it sounded like the bawl of a great bull fiddle, and it could be reloaded in the time required to snap a finger.

Renny shoved the rear door open. A gloomy passage yawned beyond. He stepped in.

The door wrenched out of his hand and shut with a bang, actuated by strong levers. The inner side of the door was plated with sheet steel.

Renny darted his machine gun at the panel, locked the trigger back, and flipped the muzzle in a quick circle. The gun made a deafening moan; empty cartridge cases rained to the floor by scores.

Renny snarled hoarsely. The bullets were barely burying themselves in the steel. It was armor plate.

Whirling, he plunged down the passage. Black murk lay before him. He shoved out the machine gun, threw a brief spray of lead. He was taking no chances.

Into another door, he crashed. It, too, had a skin of armor plate.

Renny carried a small waterproof cigarette lighter, although he did not smoke. It was handier than matches. He brushed this aflame with his thumb and held it high.

Walls and floor were solid timbers. The ceiling was pierced with slits. They were about two inches wide, and ran the entire passage length.

An iron rod, more than an inch in diameter, delivered a terrific slashing blow through one of these cracks. Dodging, Renny barely got clear.

Crouched to one side, he heard the rod strike again and again. He changed his position, thinking furiously. He hosed bullets into the cracks.

A jeering cackle of laughter rattled through the slits.

"You allee same waste plenty bullet, do no good!" intoned an Oriental voice.

With silence and speed, Renny slid out of his coat. He bundled it about his right fist, making a thick pad. Guessing where the iron rod would strike next, he held out his fist to catch the blow. Three times, he failed. Then — thud!

The impact was terrific. He was slammed to the passage end. The coat pad saved bones in his enormous fist from breakage.

Slumping to the floor, Renny lay perfectly motionless.

REDDISH light spurted down through the cracks.

"The tiger sleeps," a man singsonged. "Seize him, my sons."

The rear passage door opened with little noise. A band of Mongols flung through and pounced upon Renny.

With an angry roar, Renny heaved up. He spun a complete circle, the machine-gun muzzle blowing a red flame from his big fist.

Yells, screams, gasps made a grisly bedlam. Bodies fell. Wounded men pitched about like beheaded chickens.

Renny hurtled out of the passage — and received a blow over the head from one of the iron rods. He sagged like a man stricken with deathly illness. He lost his gun.

He was buried by an avalanche of slant-eyed men. His wrists and ankles received numberless turns of wire-strong silk cord. A huge sponge was tamped between his jaws and cinched there with more silken line.

One man drove a toe into Renny's ribs.

"The tiger devil has slain three of our brothers!" he snarled. "For that, he should die slowly and in great pain. Perhaps with the death of a thousand cuts."

"You have not forgotten, oh lord, that the master wants this white man alive?" queried another.

"I have not forgotten. The master is wise. This man is friend to our great enemy, the bronze devil. Perhaps we can persuade the bronze one to bother us no more, lest we slay this friend."

These words were exchanged in their cackling lingo. Renny understood the language, and could speak it after a fashion. He was no little relieved. He had expected to be killed on the spot, probably with fiendish torture.

A large wooden packing case was now tumbled into the room. It was a shipping crate for a radio, and was marked with the name of an advertised set.

They shoved Renny into the box, packing excelsior around him tightly, so he could hardly stir. The lid was nailed on. Thin cracks admitted air enough for breathing.

At this point, a commotion arose out in front. A neighbor had heard the shots and screams of dying men, and had called a cop.

"Velly solly!" a half-caste Celestial told the officer smugly. "Ladio, him makee noises."

"A radio, huh?" grunted the policeman, not satisfied. "Reckon I'll take a look around, anyway."

In the rear of the establishment, Orientals worked swiftly. They removed the dead and wounded. They threw rugs over the bloodstained floor and hung draperies over the bulletmarked armor plate on the doors.

"Ladio makee noise," repeated the Oriental. "If you want takee look-see, all lightee."

The cop was conducted into the rear. He noted nothing peculiar about the passage — the slits in the ceiling had been closed. He saw two bland-looklng, moonfaced men loading a large radio case onto a truck behind the store. The truck already bore other crates.

"Me show how ladio makee lacket," said the Celestial.

He turned on one of several radio sets which stood about. Obviously, it was not working properly. Loud scratchings and roarings poured from it. The voice of a woman reading cooking recipes was a procession of deafening squawks.

The cop was satisfied.

"Reckon that's what the party who called me heard," he grunted. "After this, don't turn that thing on so loud, see! I ain't got no time to go chasm' down false alarms."

The officer departed.

The proprietor of the radio store made sure the policeman was out of sight, then he padded back to the truck.

"Take our prisoner to the master, my sons," he commanded.

THE truck rumbled away. It mingled with traffic that jammed the narrow streets of Chinatown. The two Orientals sat stolidly in the cab. They did not look back once.

Eventually, the truck rolled into a large warehouse. The packing cases were all unloaded and shoved on a freight elevator. The cage lifted several floors.

Renny was having difficulty breathing. The excelsior had worked up around his nostrils. It scratched his eyes.

He felt himself being tumbled end over end across floor. He could barely hear his captors talking.

"Go and tell the master we are here," one said, speaking their native tongue.

An Oriental padded off. In three or four minutes, he was back.

With swift rendings, the lid was torn off Renny's prison. They hauled him out and plucked the excelsior away.

He was in a large storeroom. A few boxes of merchandise were scattered about. Judging from the tags, most of it was from the Orient. In addition to the elevator and a stairway door, there was an opening to the right.

A man grunting under the weight of Renny's shoulders, another bearing his feet, they passed through the opening. A flight of creaking stairs was ascended. A trapdoor lifted, letting them out on a tarred roof.

An unusually high wall concealed them from other buildings near by. Renny was carried over and flung across a narrow gap to the roof of the adjacent building. Next, he was carried to a large chimney.

Reaching into the flue, an Oriental brought out a rope. This was tied under Renny's arms. They lowered him. He saw the interior of the chimney was quite clean, fitted with a steel ladder.

He was handed down all of a hundred feet. Then half a dozen clawlike hands seized him and yanked him through an aperture in the chimney.

Renny gazed about in surprise.

His surroundings were luxurious. Expensive tapestries draped the walls; rugs, many more than an inch thick, strewed the floor. A low tabouret near one wall bore a steaming teapot, tiny cups and containers of melon seeds and other delicacies of the Far East.

Mongols and half-caste Chinese stood about. Each one was dressed neatly and might have been an American business man, except for their inscrutable faces and the hate blazing in their dark eyes. Renny counted seven of them.

Suddenly an eighth man appeared. He made a startling announcement.

"The master has received important news!" he singsonged. "News which makes it no longer necessary that we refrain from taking the life of this one who has hands the size of four ordinary men. He is to pay for slaying our fellows."

RENNY felt as if he had been shoved into a refrigerator. The Oriental's statement amounted to a pronouncement of death.

But it was more than that. It told Renny something terrible had happened. They had intended to hold him as a hostage to force Doc Savage to leave them alone. Now they no longer needed him for that Had they succeeded in slaying Doc?

"This man is to be administered the death of many cuts," continued the slant-eyed man. "Four of you bring the other two prisoners here."

Obeying the order, four men departed. They came back almost at once bearing two bound and gagged figures.

Renny had no trouble guessing who they were.

Juan Mindoro and Scott S. Osborn!

Juan Mindoro was a slender, dynamic man. His high forehead and clear eyes gave him a distinctive look. Gray peppered his dark hair. A gray mustache bristled over his gag.

Scott S. Osborn, the sugar importer, was a guinea-pig fat man. Ordinarily, his hair was stuck down with grease, but now it was disarrayed and hung in thin strings. His eyes were bubbly and running tears.

The spokesman of the yellow horde slanted an arm at Scott S. Osborn. He spoke in snarling English.

Scott S. Osborn's fat body convulsed. Tears fairly squirted from his little, fat-encircled eyes. His scream of terror was a shrill whinny through his nostrils.

The Mongol wheeled on Mindoro.

"You will watch!" he grated. "As you watch, you will do well to think deeply, my fliend!"

Juan Mindoro only glowered back at his tormentor. No quiver of fear rippled his distinctive features.

"You have lefused to give us the names of the men in the seclet political society of the Luzon Union, which you head," continued the Mongol, only a few "R's" turned into "L's" marring his pronunciation of the English words. "We need those names."

Dropping to a knee, the slant-eyed man hastily removed Juan Mindoro's gag. "Maybe so, you give us the names now. In such case, we would see fit not to halm these two men."

"I am not fool enough to trust you!" Juan Mindoro said fiercely, speaking crisp, Americanized English. "You want the names of my friends in the secret political society so you can slay them and get them out of the way. They would all be assassinated."

"But, no," smirked the Mongol. "We would only lemove them fol a sholt time. Kidnap them, pelhaps."

"Kill them, you mean!" snapped Mindoro. "You won't get their names from me. That's final!" Then, looking at Renny, he added, as though to explain his action, "The information they want would mean the death of hundreds of innocent men. The decision I must make is a horrible one, for it means my death as well as your own. I think they will tell me within a few hours."

Renny shrugged — the only reply he could make.

Snarling, the Mongol pointed at Renny. "Begin! Cut out his eyes to stalt!"

A yellow man flashed a needle-bladed knife. He dropped on Renny, put his knee on Renny's chest, grasped the big man's hair with his left fist.

The knife lifted. Every eye in the room watched it.

A Mongol over by the entrance to the chimney shrieked. He shot like a living cannon ball across the room. He struck the knifeman with a shock that knocked them both unconscious.

Wild stares centered on the chimney entrance.

A giant man of bronze stood there!