The Pirate of the Pacific

Chapter 8 A PIRATE OF TO-DAY

FOR once, the yellow faces of the Mongols were not inscrutable. They goggled like small boys seeing their first lion.

"Fools!" ripped their leader. "Kill this bronze devil!"

A man darted a hand to his sleeve and forked out a kris with a foot-long serpentine blade. He drew back his arm and flung the knife.

What happened next was almost black magic. The kris was suddenly protruding from the chest of the man who had thrown it! It was as though he had stabbed himself.

Not one present could believe the mighty bronze man had plucked the flashing blade out of mid-air and returned it so accurately and with such blinding speed. No one, except Renny, who had seen Doc perform such amazing feats before!

Even while the dead man sloped backward to the floor like a falling tree, Doc seized another Mongol. The fellow seemed to become light as a rag doll, and as helpless. His clubbed body bowled over a fifth Oriental.

Only three were now left. One of these drew a revolver, flung it up, fired rapidly. But he did nothing, except drive bullets into the body of his fellow as it came hurtling toward him. The next instant, he was smashed down, to lose his senses when his head smacked the wall.

The surviving pair spun and fled with grotesque leaps. They squawked in terror at each jump.

They dived through a door, but retained presence of mind enough to slam and lock the panel.

Doc struck it, found it was of armor plate, and did not waste more time.

Whirling back, he scooped up a knife and cut through the bonds of the captives.

Renny was hardly on his feet before Doc had entered the chimney.

The hundred feet to the top, Doc climbed in almost no time. He ran across the roof.

Down in the street, the Orientals were piling into a sedan. The machine hooted up the thoroughfare, skidded around a corner, and was gone.

Doc knew any attempt to follow would be fruitless. He descended the chimney, joining the others.

"How'd you find us?" Renny wanted to know.

"Through the police," Doc explained. "They had been telephoning me news of every suspicious incident, however unimportant, in this part of town. I got word of the reported screams and shots in the radio store, and came to investigate. I heard the two truck drivers receive orders to take their prisoner to their boss. It was a simple matter to follow them' here."

Doc now shook hands with Juan Mindoro.

DOC SAVAGE had once visited a number of islands in the Pacific, studying tropical fevers and their cures. It was on this trip that he had first met Juan Mindoro. The meeting had come about through a medical clinic which Mindoro maintained. Mindoro was extremely wealthy, expended tremendous sums on projects for the general benefit of humanity. The medical clinic, treating poor people without charge, was only one of the many philanthropies he indulged in.

Doc had been impressed with the high character of Juan Mindoro. So much so, indeed, that he had offered his services to Mindoro, should they ever be needed.

"It is hopeless for me to try to express my thanks to you with mere words," Juan Mindoro said, his orator's voice husky with emotion. "They would surely have killed me, those Mongol fiends."

Doc now turned to Scott S. Osborn. He was surprised when Osborn shrank away as if expecting a blow.

"You can't do anything to me!" Osborn shrieked hysterically. "I've got money! I'll fight you through every court in the land!"

Puzzled, Doc turned to Juan Mindoro. "What does he mean?"

Mindoro gave Osborn a scowl of scathing contempt.

"I came to this man, thinking he was my friend," he said. "He offered to hide me, and took me to his home. Then he went to my enemies. They paid him money to tell them where I was."

"But they captured him at the same time they took you," Doc pointed out. "And a moment ago, they were going to kill him."

Juan Mindoro's laugh was a dry rattle. "They doublecrossed him. He was a fool. He thought they could be trusted."

Osborn wiped his bubbly eyes. His weak mouth made a trembling sneer.

"You can't do anything to me for selling you out!" he said shrilly. "My money will see to that! I've still got the dough they paid me for telling where you were, Mindoro! Fifty thousand dollars! I'll spend every cent of it to fight you in court!"

Mindoro suddenly picked up a gun one of the Mongols had dropped. He fingered it slowly, gazing all the while at Osborn.

"I wish I were less of a civilized man!" be said coldly. "I would shoot this dog!"

Doc reached up and got the gun. Mindoro gave it up readily.

"Osborn has been punished," Doc said grimly. "He became involved with the Mongols through his own greed. They murdered his brother last night. Had he not gone to them, that would never have happened."

Osborn's fat little face went starkly white. "What's this — this about my brother?"

"He was murdered last night."

This was obviously Osborn's first knowledge of his brother's slaughter. It hit him hard. He turned whiter and whiter until his repulsive little head became like a thing of bleached marble. He seemed hardly to breathe. Tears oozed from his small eyes, chased each other down his puffy cheeks, and wetted his shirt front and necktie.

"My own brother — I just the same as murdered him!" he choked in a voice so low the others hardly heard.

Ignoring him, Doc indicated the doorway into the chimney. "I suggest we get out of here."

They turned toward the chimney. Then Renny yelped excitedly and sprang for Osborn.

He was too late. Osborn, crazed by the grief of his brother's death, crumpled to the floor, his body falling upon the upturned blade held by one of the dead Mongols.

THE body of the fat little man executed a few spasmodic jerks before it became a spongy pile upon the floor.

Mindoro, gazing at the body religiously, said in solemn tones: "May I be forgiven for speaking to him so harshly. I did not know of his brother's murder."

"He had it coming!" grunted Renny, who was about as hard boiled as they came.

Doc Savage made no comment.

They climbed the chimney, crossed the roof tops, and descended to the street by the same route Renny had been carried into this room.

Doc telephoned the police a brief report of what had happened. He ended with the request: "Keep my connection with the affair secret from the newspapers."

"Of course, Mr. Savage!" said the police captain who was receiving the news. "But can you give us a description of the leader of this herd of Mongols and half-castes?"

Doc turned to Juan Mindoro. "Who is behind this mess?"

"A man known as Tom Too," replied Mindoro.

"Can you describe him?"

Mindoro shook his bead. "I have never seen the man. He did not show himself to me, even when I was held prisoner."

"No description," Doc told the police official.

They rode uptown in a taxi. Doc remained outside on the running board for the first few blocks. Then, as the machine slowed for a traffic light, he dropped off.

Even as Renny and Mindoro started to bark excited questions, the giant bronze man vanished — lost himself in the crowd that swarmed the walks of Broadway.

Mindoro wiped his high forehead in some bewilderment.

"A remarkable man," he muttered.

Renny grinned. "That ain't saying the half of it!"

A couple of blocks farther on, Renny sobered abruptly.

"Holy cow!" he ejaculated. "I forgot to tell Doc something! And I dang well know it's important!"

"What!"

"When the Mongols first got me, they were going to keep me alive as a hostage to make Doc behave. Then they suddenly decided to kill me, remarking that something had occurred which made it no longer necessary to keep me alive. I thought at the time that maybe they had gotten Doc. But that couldn't have been it."

"Well?"

Renny knotted his enormous hands. "I wonder what made them decide to kill me!"

IT was fully an hour later when Doc Savage appeared at his eighty-sixth-floor skyscraper retreat.

Ham, Renny, and Mindoro were waiting for him. They were perspiring and excited.

Waving his sword cane, Ham yelled: "Doc! They've got Monk, Johnny, and Long Tom!"

A stranger watching Doc would not have dreamed the shock this news conveyed. The bronze face remained as devoid of expression as metal. No change came into his eyes that were like pools of flake gold.

"When?" he asked. His strange voice, although not lifted to speak the single word, carried with the quality of a great drum beat.

"We were all going to meet here about noon," Ham explained. "I stopped for a manicure and was late. When I arrived, there was a lot of excitement. Several of the Mongols had just herded Long Tom, Johnny, and Monk out at the point of guns. They rode off in waiting cars. Nobody as much as got the license number of the cars."

Renny beat his big fists together savagely — the sound they made was like steel blocks colliding.

"Blast it, Doc!" he said sorrowfully. "I knew something was wrong when the devils decided so suddenly to croak me. But I forgot to tell you — "

"I heard their sudden change of intention," Doc replied.

Renny looked vastly relieved. He had thought that his forgetfulness was responsible for half an hour's delay in Doc getting On the trail of the captors of the trio.

"Did you guess they had captured our three pals?"

"The suspicion occurred to me," Doc admitted. "It became certain when I dropped off the taxi and called the manager of this building."

"Then you've been on their trail!" Renny grinned. "Find anything?"

"Nothing."

Renny's sober face set in disconsolate lines. With the others, he followed Doc back into the office.

From a drawer, Doc took a box containing cigars — cigars so expensive and carefully made that each was in an individual vacuum container. He offered these to the others, then held a light — Doc never smoked himself.

There was tranquility in the giant bronze man's manner, a sphinxlike calmness that had the effect of quieting Ham and Renny. Even Juan Mindoro was noticeably eased.

Doc's weird golden eyes came to rest on Juan Mindoro.

"The master of the Mongol horde is a man named Tom Too, and they are seeking to wipe out your secret political society in the Luzon Union," he said. "That is substantially all I know of this affair. Can you enlighten me further?"

"I certainly can!" Juan Mindoro clipped grimly. "This Tom Too is a plain pirate!"

"Pirate?"

"Exactly! A buccaneer compared to whom Captain Kidd, Blackbeard, and Sir Henry Morgan were petty thieves!"

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!"