THE SPIDER-City of Doom (18 page)

The captain had heeded Briggs. While they stalled and parleyed with the yacht, powder from pistol bullets was rigged up into a weak bomb, the plane that hopped ashore with the mail from twelve hours at sea was hitched to the catapult and the pilot took off. At the same time the
Britannia
spun about and headed to windward of the yacht. There was a big yell from the yacht, then the mail pilot swooped over it and dropped his bomb. It was weak, so he didn't have to worry about being blown up while flying too close. He split a gas tank on the deck just as Briggs had recommended, and before he had got a hundred yards away, the yacht went to pieces.

"They got the full dose of their own gas," Blanton said. "The ship just broke up in pieces. Now, Mr. Wentworth, I've told all. How about putting me in touch with that somebody on the
Britannia!
"

Wentworth found that he had been standing so stiffly his muscles ached with the strain of it. He lifted a hand and plunked a fist against a palm. "That was splendidly done, by God," he said.

"How about that 'phone call to the
Britannia,
Wentworth?" Blanton insisted. Wentworth nodded, crossed to the desk. He picked up the 'phone.

"Commissioner," a voice said rapidly. "I was just calling. Here's something the cop on the beat thinks you ought to hear about. A man was found burned with acid near the Funsdall National Bank. He was in an auto and . . . ."

Wentworth said, "Wait a minute," turned to Kirkpatrick and repeated what he had been told. His eyes narrowed suddenly, his fist struck the desk. "By Heaven, Kirk, he said. "They're going to attack the Funsdall National with the steel-eater!"

Blanton spun and his coat flapped out from him. He went toward the door in a fast dive. Wentworth reached him in two long strides, caught him by the shoulder. The reporter came about with his fist swinging, but it skidded off Wentworth's forearm and he found himself held helpless.

"Not yet, Blanton," Wentworth said quietly. "This is the first chance we've had to be on the scene before they struck and you're not going to warn them off with your paper."

Behind them, Kirkpatrick was clipping out orders over the telephone with the rapid efficiency for organization that made him the most successful police commissioner New York had ever had. Blanton wriggled his shoulders, sighed and subsided.

Kirkpatrick heel-pounded across the office, and Wentworth pulled Blanton along with them. They entered Kirkpatrick's big sedan, and the driver whirled it on a dime and sent them roaring downtown.

Above the roaring din of the powerful motor, there came another more ominous sound. The scattered banging of pistols and the chattering fury of machine guns!

New power droned into the engine. The sedan leaped and quivered with the force, lunged forward with mounting speed. The siren began to moan, its note rising, swelling until its shriek burst through the streets in terrific volume. Wentworth coolly took his two guns from their holsters. He knew they were in perfect condition, but it was comfortable to feel their weight. He clicked back the bolt, saw the gleam of brass in each chamber and thrust the automatics back into their holster clips. He was conscious of Blanton's eyes upon him. The reporter's face was pale and he had a deprecating grin on his mouth.

"Gun noise always makes me nervous," he apologized.

Wentworth laughed sharply. He was excited. He had more in mind than merely battling these gangsters who would be looting the Funsdall Bank. For days he had been seeking a new contact with the Master and always it eluded him. He could not even discover through which mob he worked now. This was a new chance. Out of the roil of battle just ahead, victory might come, and a clue to Baldy. Wentworth was thinking warmly of Briggs. The dapper, animated little architect had played a game part. He owed Nita's life to him, he realized, for it was obvious that the pirates had intended to destroy the
Britannia
and all aboard once they had the loot under their own hatches.

His thoughts cut off and he braced himself with feet and thighs as the sedan skidded around a corner, straightened with its rear swinging, and swooped up a narrow cross-street between the cliffs of skyscrapers. There were gaps here and there in the rows, shattered windows presented blank eyes and the sedan dodged pits in the street. Once more a whipping turn, this time to the left, and a khaki of National Guardsmen showed. The brakes snagged and rubber whined; the sedan's rear seemed to rise with the suddenness of the stop. It slewed sidewise and Wentworth went out first, guns in his hands. Kirkpatrick was right behind him. A blue uniformed police officer, a lieutenant, puffed up at a run.

"They're inside the bank, sir," he panted. "Wiped out every man in sight with machine guns before they went in."

The proof of his statement lay in the streets, scattered bodies in brown and blue. But the robbers were trapped. Behind barricades of autos, the khaki troops, reinforced by police, waited with leveled rifles, with ready machine guns. Wentworth ran an alert eye over the defenses, heard the lieutenant report that the bank was surrounded in just this way. Then a machine gun opened up from a window.

A soldier twenty yards away tilted up the muzzle of a Lewis gun, shoulders hunched to take its recoil, and squeezed on the trigger. The gun exploded in his hands. The bolt ripped through the side of his face, hurled him kicking to the ground. His helper, standing ready with a drum of ammunition, stared stupidly and a blast from the machine gun in the bank's window smashed his head to bits. Kirkpatrick cursed viciously, strode toward the lines, and a whistle shrilled. Soldiers threw up their rifles, aiming at that window of death. What was intended as a volley turned into a mass suicide. Every rifle of the twenty aimed at that window exploded in the hands of the soldiers.

Wentworth stared down at the automatic in his hand with twisted lips, then he plunged forward also.

"Cease firing!" he shouted, and his cry was a mockery. There wasn't a soldier at this barricade except the white-faced sergeant who had trilled the whistle. He, too, was staring stupidly at the automatic he held in his hand. Wentworth seized his arm.

"Where's the commanding officer?" he snapped.

The sergeant gestured toward a cigar store at the side of the street whose windows had long since been smashed by lead. Wentworth plunged toward it at a dead run, saw cement dust kick up in his path and wrenched aside, dived to the cover of the automobile barricade. Bullets drummed fiercely against it.

When firing stopped, he jumped to his feet, reached the store at a dead run, found the major in charge.

"They've turned the steel-eater loose on the guns," Wentworth barked. "They'll all explode. The bayonet is our only chance. They'll have to be used carefully or they'll crumble."

The Major stared at him a moment, then caught the drift of the words.

"You're Major Wentworth," he nodded. "I was in your company once, over there. Give me a hand, will you? I've lost three officers, and . . . ."

Wentworth cut him short with a jerk of his hand. "Couriers to order cease firing," he barked. "With your permission, Major, I'll organize a bayonet squad." His mouth twisted thinly. "I always had a theory I taught my own sergeants that two inches of the bayonet was plenty to kill. It will have to be today, and the thrusts will all have to be in the guts. Those blades, weakened by the steel eater, won't stand even a throat job today."

The major assented with a crisp nod, jerked off hat and coat and flung them at Wentworth. "That will give you authority," he said.

Wentworth hauled himself into the coat while machine guns drummed on. But the soldiers were not shooting now. The couriers had reached them with orders not to fire. Wentworth reached the sidedoor of the store in a stride, dived out and rolled to the cover of a barricade. Men in khaki were crouched there white-faced. They were not regular army men, just boys who loved military atmosphere and had signed up with the national guard. A few of their officers had seen overseas service; none of the boys had. They were clenching their bayoneted rifles but they had no confidence in them. They had ceased to be weapons for defense and attack and had become dangerous to the men who held them.

"Men," Wentworth pitched his voice above the chatter of the gangster guns, "your guns cannot be fired, but your bayonets are still good, if you use them right." Eyes turned to him, showed doubt at his strangely mixed garb. But his voice commanded obedience, his manner carried authority. "You need only two inches of the blade," Wentworth hammered on, "and that means two inches only. That will kill, will knock a man out cold on his feet the moment you pull the steel out of him. But remember, two inches only, and that here." He jabbed a finger into his abdomen below the parting of his ribs. "Right there and nowhere else!"

HE WHIRLED, plucked a rifle from a soldier beside him and gripped it with light and ready hands. "These men we are going against have killed thousands," he said, "but they are cowards. They have killed by pushing buildings down on innocent men and women. We are the first who have had a chance to even that score." He looked about him and saw grimness creeping into the faces of these boys, their hands tensing on their rifles. "Remember, two inches of steel in the guts." He paused, drew a deep breath. "
Follow me!
"

With the word, he sprang to the hood of an automobile, vaulted clear and charged toward the bank. He had chosen his point of attack well. He was out of range of the window where the machine gun stammered, out of the line of the door. Yells rang out from all sides. An excited policeman leaped to the top of an automobile and threw down on the window with a submachine gun. It blasted to pieces in his hands, blew his stomach in so that he doubled over the shattered weapon. The ludicrous surprise on his face was instantly erased by the sponge of death.

Wentworth swung around the corner and a gangster with a machine gun at his hip gaped at him. He lifted the muzzle and Wentworth's rifle thrust out as lightly as a foil. The bayonet slid in over the machine gun, prodded through the man's clothing and was whipped out. The man's eyes closed and he slumped down. Blood welled out and spread over the steps in a widening pool.

Wentworth was flat against the wall behind one of the polished columns now, soldiers behind him and opposite him behind the other column.

The glass of the doors smashed to the stone floor and two soldiers against the opposite wall pitched to the steps across their guns. One bayonet struck point-on and shattered. Inside, a machine gun racketed. The hallway was a sounding chamber. The blasts were thunderous. Wentworth turned his head. "Grenade," he said crisply.

A heavy rough piece of iron was thrust into his hand. Wentworth yanked the pin and tossed the bomb through the shattered doors. The grenade's blast was oddly muffled and Wentworth nodded. The steel-eater had weakened the casing so that the force of the explosion was greatly reduced, but it still should do heavy damage. The machine gun had stopped. Wentworth sprang toward the doors.

There were cheers behind him now, cheers of men who saw hope for the first time. They went through the glassless doors in a resolute swift wave, bayonets thrusting ahead. They penetrated the inner door and a close group of men wheeled from a bank entrance on their left. Wentworth sprang close, his bayonet point snaking out. A man flung up his hands and went down screaming. Wentworth reached past him as he fell, but he could not get at the stomach of the next gangster and the man's pistol was coming up. He ran him through the throat and the steel snapped off short.

Wentworth had no time to snatch a fallen gun, no time even to think. There were five gangsters left. A pistol blasted and a soldier screamed. Falling, his head struck Wentworth's calves. He sagged slightly, pitched forward with the butt of his rifle sweeping upward. It crunched into the groin of another gangster and the man squealed, doubled over. The butt swept on, the rifle coming up over Wentworth's shoulder, and he grabbed it, thrust forward with all his weight behind the butt. It smashed a man's face.

On his right, a soldier ran his bayonet its full length into another gangster's stomach. A man behind the hood fired almost in the trooper's face and even as his bloodied head jerked back between his shoulder blades, a companion's bayonet slipped into the throat of the gangster. The hallway was cleared for the moment.

"Take their pistols," he barked over his shoulder, and stooped to scoop up two himself. There were only four soldiers behind him now. They were white-faced and alert. He nodded encouragement and slipped into the lobby of the bank. There were bodies scattered over the floor, steel cashier's cages were smashed and the vault-door was wrecked, but there was not a gangster in sight. Wentworth and his shattered squad raced the length of the long room, spotted an open door on the side and darted toward it.

Wentworth checked for a moment in that doorway, his face gone gray. Death confronted him. Death in a half-hundred scattered corpses of blue and khaki. He plunged on, darting toward the auto barricade. He lifted the body of a policeman from the fender of one of the cars, flung himself into the driver's seat and kicked the starter.

"Get five rifles with bayonets," he ordered.

He was frowning heavily as he flung the car about, as the four men who remained piled in. In some way, the gangsters had rendered their own guns immune to the gas. Either that, or the steel-eater had hovered so close to the ground that by raising themselves to the height of the bank's floor, they had been above the level that would affect guns. What wind there had been had blown from the East, and if the gas had been released so as to affect all the troops and police about the bank, it would have had to affect their own weapons, too.

Wentworth sent the car hurtling ahead, swung around a corner. Blocks away he could hear the shriek of sirens that betokened the chase. He flung on in pursuit, forehead still corrugated in thought.