Doc Savage: The Miracle Menace (27 page)

“Who’s knockin’?”

“Missouri State Police,” a voice returned.

“Got identification?”

“We can hardly slip our badges under the door, now can we?” the voice returned matter-of-factly. That authoritative tone of voice by itself convinced Monk Mayfair that it was a contingent of state troopers in crash boats looking into the matter of a possible crippled aircraft. They had not obtained permission to land on water.

So when Monk hurled open the door, the bushel of rifle barrels pointing at his homely face took him immediately aback. These jutted up from several bobbing boatloads of armed men. They did not look gratified by the soaking they were getting from relentless rain.

“You are Doc Savage’s men?” a voice growled.

“Yeah. What of it?”

“You were expected.”

“Yeah? By who? We didn’t tell anyone we were comin’.”

“Nevertheless, we were informed in advance of your coming.”

“Who done that?”

“The individual’s initials are E. P.,” said the man. “Extrasensory perception to you.”

Monk made faces and attempted to discern the features and garb of the men. He saw no badges shining in the dark.

“You ain’t Highway Police,” Monk decided.

The other grinned in the manner of a skull—without warmth. “Perhaps you, too, possess extrasensory perception. No?”

“No,” squeaked Monk, giving the man a shove, and grabbing the door handle in an effort to slam it shut. It was a prudent move. The craft was bulletproof.

Bullets began snapping around his blunt skull, forcing the hairy chemist to duck and spring back, the hatch door unclosed.

The small flood of armed men sprang onto the pontoon and began shouldering into the pitching aircraft.

Ham Brooks had already set himself. He had his superfirer out and used to it hose the hatch, sending stricken men falling back into the water.

More gun muzzles poked in, commenced blatting. Rounds began spanking around the interior, ricocheting off the inner walls, which resisted slugs.

In that storm of wild lead, surrender made perfect sense.

Ham was the first to drop his weapon. He had emptied the drum anyway, so it was momentarily useless.

“If I had my cane, this would have ended differently,” he complained.

“But you don’t,” reminded Monk.

Johnny had the presence of mind to shove open a window and drop his machine pistol into the lake. It would not do to have it fall into criminal hands.

At the controls, Renny considered his options. If the engines were hot, he could gun them and throw everyone off balance. But they were not.

Reluctantly, monster hands upraised, the big-fisted engineer came out of the cockpit, long face almost smiling. Conversely, this meant Renny was miserable.

One by one, they clambered out onto the port wing, where they were searched and prodded into boats. They ranged from motor boats to a couple of lake canoes—all filled with shadowy, soaked-to-the-skin men.

Out on the wing, a thick-bodied man commanded the miserable flotilla. He took possession of Ham’s empty supermachine pistol and Renny’s unfired one, after the latter was ripped from the big-fisted engineer’s underarm holster at gunpoint.

“Where are we going?” Renny rumbled as the boat began making headway.

“You have heard of the Promised Land?”

“Who has not?” countered Ham in a supercilious tone.

“That is our destination this night.”

“Holy cow! I don’t like the sound of
that,
” boomed Renny mournfully.

Chapter XXVII

CONVICTION OF A SKEPTIC

AUTOMOBILES BEGAN ARRIVING in the Promised Land before sunfall. They continued to come in increasing numbers, parked along the road, and the occupants alighted and either entered the big meeting tent or roamed around gawking at the burlap-clad Silent Saints. The Saints in turn circulated in the crowd, selling books which set forth the doctrine of their true faith. These brought a dollar, and they sold quite a few.

Gulliver Greene, Spook Davis and Christopher Columbus decided it was safe to approach the Promised Land. And did so. Gull had inquired closely into the nature of the services to be held in the tent. He was intrigued. It appealed to his showman nature, and also aroused the natural desire which every magician seems to possess—the desire to prove that any supposedly genuine medium, spiritualist or clairvoyant is a fake.

They passed a parked car. A drunk slumbered in the machine. Gull grunted softly in the darkness, went back and shook the soak. The fellow only mumbled. He was about Gull’s height, but thicker.

Gull began undressing him.

He took off his own coarse garments and put on those of the inebriate.

“What’s the idea?” Spook muttered.

“I’m going to test out this mind-reading stuff,” Gull said grimly.

“That is very foolish!” Columbus warned. “It is only delaying our search for Cass and my adopted daughter.”

“I may spot Cass inside,” Gull said.

He finished dressing in the borrowed garments, and applied a match to the cork out of the liquor bottle, crouching inside the car. He had Spook Davis apply the burnt-cork blacking to his spectacular cotton-colored hair. This took some time—they finally had to empty grease cups on the car front wheels and mix grease with their improvised blacking. The coloring of the hair was finally completed, and Gull left Spook and Columbus.

He warned them to remain in the trailer, which belonged to the Silent Saints, if not Ivan Cass himself, lest their presence arouse curiosity.

Gull sauntered into the great white temple-like revival tent and found himself a seat.

At least two thousand persons were present. A large crowd for this part of Missouri. It was not long before he began to understand what drew them.

A Silent Saint took the rostrum, and the tent was darkened, except for where he stood. He began talking in a rather solemn voice. “Welcome all who seek the truth. By truth, I do not mean the humble truths of life, but the hidden truths of the unknown, which men have formerly called the unknowable. Through diligent efforts, we of the Silent Saints have seized this hazy veil that has long obscured mankind’s combined vision, sweeping it away as ye would cast aside a dirty old cobweb.”

Gull realized he was subtly setting the mood of the crowd for what was to come.

The speaker understood crowds. In short order, he had done an excellent job of driving home the point he was trying to make—he sold them on the idea that there might actually be supernatural powers which men do not understand.

Next, he convinced them—he
was
convincing them, Gull could tell from the faces around him—that such supernatural powers might be bestowed by a supreme force upon those who believed strongly enough in that force. It was the belief of the jungle native that his witch doctor could perform miracles, dressed up in a new guise for an audience who considered themselves civilized.

The man was explaining about the Silent Saints—they numbered thousands, and were to be found in all parts of the nation, spreading their particular philosophy.

That interested Gulliver.

“Five years ago, brethren, this great philosophy of the Silent Saints was inspired,” declared the speaker. “The founder was a woman, that amazing leader who has come to be known as Saint Pete.”

Electricity, or whatever nervous shock was composed of, turned Gull Greene over inside. It stopped his breathing.

Saint Pete—the Silent Saints’ leader! The entrancing young woman whom Gull considered the maximum in desirability. He was stunned, but with the next thought told himself there was no reason why he should be so flabbergasted—at no time had Pete seemed an ordinary girl. She frankly hadn’t told him the truth about herself, although it was a tribute to her honesty that she had advised him in so many words that she wasn’t telling him anything. A strange girl, yes.

The speaker grew more feverish, more convincing. Then he announced that he would proceed to prove that the faith of peace and docility of the Silent Saints actually gave his followers something in spiritual power which others did not have. He called for a volunteer.

GULLIVER GREENE had waited for this. So had the crowd. And both got their money’s worth.

Three minutes later, Gull had left his back seat and sidled up front, the better to see. He was baffled. The subject—a well-dressed man—was told, as preliminary, his name, his address, his wife’s name, the names of his parents. All old mind-reader stuff. But what followed was not. The subject was told what he had in his pockets. He was told the make of his watch, where he had bought it, and what he had paid for it. He was informed that, long before leaving his seat, he had agreed with his wife to think of the movie he had liked best during the last year. He was told its name. He was told the joke he liked and remembered from the movie. He was told other things.

He looked dazed when he sat down.

The speaker called for another skeptic.

Gull advanced. He did not believe he was taking a chance, because the main lights were out, and there was only faint illumination on the speaker.

A moment of tension, while the Silent Saint looked at Gull. The fellow closed his eyes, seemed to muse.

“My brother, your last initial occurs near the center of the alphabet,” he said.

“Huh?” Gull said, sounding surprised deliberately. This was an old gag.

“The name,” said the Saint, “is an old American name.”

That was safe enough; this country was full of old American names. “Right,” Gull said loudly.

Without moving his lips, the Saint whispered, “Don’t spoil the show, buddy. Give me your name. Whisper it and collect five bucks after the show.”

“Johnson,” Gull said, secretly elated. “Jim Johnson.”

The Silent Saint announced the name loudly.

They got along very well after that. Gulliver whispered imaginary facts and the Silent Saint announced them loudly. The first subject, Gull thought, had been a stooge for the house. It had been arranged in advance.

The Saint dismissed Gull and he went back and sat down, turning his attention to looking for Ivan Cass.

THE SAINT who had been speaking now announced that one of his brothers would take over the show. He left the rostrum, quitted the temple by the rear door, crept through the darkness and tapped on a trailer door, then entered.

Ivan Cass, his stony-featured face looking more grim than usual, sat in the trailer. He compressed his lipless mouth expectantly at the Silent Saint. Beside Cass, standing, but so short he seemed seated, was the little man with the big voice, Cass’ broken-nosed first assistant.

“What’s wrong?” Cass asked.

“Gulliver Greene is in the audience,” said the late speaker. “He came up to test my ability of extrasensory perception. I gave him a stall, made him think it was a fake.”

Ivan Cass jammed his fists in his pockets and swore feelingly, then began to glower thoughtfully.

The Saint added, “Spook Davis and Christopher Columbus are probably with Greene, but waiting outside somewhere. It’s a sure bet that they are in your missing trailer. And not very far from here, either.”

Cass leered. “Good!”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Get our boys together,” Cass said. “Take these three troublemakers. Take them quietly if you can. We don’t want anything to happen around the Promised Land that might draw the law’s attention.”

“There is nothing here in case the place is searched?”

“Only some, ah—tools,” Cass said, “I’ll take that stuff away later. Everything else is up on the island. We’ll take the prisoners there—along with the girl—and dispose of them.”

The Silent Saint nodded and left the trailer.

Cass grinned at the midget. “It looks like we’re coming out of this all right after all, little stupid.”

The small man scowled darkly. “It’s about time, big brain.”

“You should be happy, small-and-dumb.”

They left the trailer arm-in-arm, smiling in the friendliest fashion at each other.

SPOOK DAVIS stood beside the trailer containing Christopher Columbus. He had come outside to watch, lest someone approach. Spook had become a little uneasy in the darkness. Once he whirled—he knew very well nothing was behind him, that his mind only created fear, and he gave way to the impulse to spin, for it was in his makeup, to obey impulse. He had been trying to figure out what Cass was engaged in doing. He felt confused. As Spook himself freely admitted, he was easily upset. His was a delicate sensitiveness where trouble was concerned. He much preferred peace, and he must have felt at the present moment a strong return of an idea he had entertained off and on during the last day or two, the idea being: Why didn’t they chuck this whole thing and skip the country?

When again came the thought that something was behind him—he refused to whirl. Nothing! Just his mind creating….

This time he was wrong. Hands took hold of him, several of them, so he knew he was wrong after it was too late. His mouth opened to free a yell. Cloth crushed against his lips, was shoved in his mouth, stopping the noise.

A voice growled, “Silence is golden, brother.”

“Let not the evil beast of thy rage urge thy flesh into rash motion,” added another.

Possibly good advice, but not taken. Spook kicked. Arms banded his feet. He was heaved off the ground. Absence of that solid surface made him feel grotesquely helpless. The assailants were too many for him, anyway, and it had been done silently.

The burlap-suited attackers entered the trailer and took Christopher Columbus. He cried out once, but not loudly enough to get attention.

Ivan Cass came up, trailed by the little man with the much-battered features.

“Take both of them to the trailer,” Cass grated. “We’ll get Greene next. Then we’ll bring him and the girl to the island.”

GULLIVER GREENE seized his first opportunity to get out of the temple-like great tent. He could find no trace of Ivan Cass inside. He had convinced himself there was nothing to the mind-reading, and he was anxious to be about his other business.