THE SPIDER-City of Doom (19 page)

Up ahead, the gangsters would run into police whose weapons had not been weakened by the gas, but slamming along in force as they were, no ordinary squad would have strength enough to stop them. Wentworth spun another corner and yanked violently at the wheel, barely skating aside from the wreckage of a police auto. In his one swift glance, he saw that the wheels of the police car had gone to pieces, all four of them. His lips shut grimly. A new use for the steel-eater. The gangsters had trailed it behind them in their flight and it had wrecked the car of at least one pursuer.

Wentworth flung a look ahead, saw two more cars piled up. He nodded his head. It was clever strategy, but there was a way to beat it. Three blocks to the right of the line of chase Wentworth hurled his car, then paralleled it with the motor roaring wide open. The robbers' defense had a defect. If they were to protect themselves by the gas, the gangsters must flee in a straight line. Otherwise, they might well double back upon their own weapon and be defeated by it. Police probably would not realize the reason for their cars crashing until too late to profit by the knowledge.

The accelerator was pinned to the floor and Wentworth's car rocketed along at close to seventy. He jammed the horn in place with a pin and kept it blaring for right of way as he raced on. Traffic was already disrupted by the wails of sirens. It dodged aside, gave Wentworth and his four soldiers a clear path. It was possible to keep track of the chase by the sirens and the scattering bursts of shots from the gangster cars. Gradually those sounds came nearer and finally dropped behind and still Wentworth crushed the accelerator to the floor and burned the street northward.

Finally he swung left once more, toward the line of escape. His mind was racing with the swift roar of his engine. It would be a futile thing to dash these five lives into the path of the gangsters. Something more was needed than five automatics, for which they had no extra ammunition.

His car crossed Fourth Avenue in a bound and he stood on the brakes, jerked his head toward the soldiers on the rear seat.

"You and you," he picked two with his eyes, "commandeer trucks and block Fifth Avenue."

The two men sprang out instantly with their rifles and Wentworth sent his machine lurching on, crossed Fifth Avenue and hurtled Broadway, where he ordered the last two soldiers to block the street with cars and trucks. Then he raced on, circled two blocks back along the line of chase and found an interurban truck lumbering southward with a heavy trailer behind. Wentworth stopped it, flung to the driver's seat, rifle in hand.

"Out," he barked. "I'm taking the truck for police business."

The men stared at his haphazard uniform, started to argue and decided not to as Wentworth clambered up with the business end of the bayonet forward. The truckmen dropped off and he started the truck with a lurch, headed east toward Broadway. The sirens and shots were racing nearer. Then the siren stopped and Wentworth guessed that the last of the police cars had gone to pieces under the assault of the steel eater. He crouched low behind the steel front of the truck and waited, saw six cars sweep up Broadway in a close bunch. Then he started the truck lurching forward again, turned into their wake.

He heard the frantic squeal of brakes, and grim laughter bubbled up from his chest. Two trucks, traveling abreast, had swung out into Broadway and were trundling straight toward the gangster cars. A blasting fury of gun shots ripped out from the mob cars and one of the trucks swerved, locked wheels with the other and turned them both over in a splintering wreck upon the street. They blocked it from curb to curb, sloped up on the sidewalks. There was no escape for the gangster cars. The leader had almost rammed into the wrecked trucks. Now he began to back and whirl southward again.

Wentworth had reached the corner of the block in which they were trapped. He angled his huge truck and trailer across the street, set the truck running wild toward the gangster cars and dropped from the driver's seat. He had two guns and the rifle and he flung himself flat on the street and began firing beneath the body of his truck. The huge twenty-tonner wheeled on. The leading gangster's car halted and men scattered from it. An instant later the nose of the truck rammed the car, ground over the wreckage. From the debris, a faint, almost imperceptible gas filtered upward, then settled heavily toward the street. The street was completely blocked and gangsters scattered from the other cars also. A machine gun stuttered and bullets began to pock the asphalt beneath the truck. Suddenly, the machine gun stopped. It stopped with a blasting explosion that hurled its wielder bloodily to the ground. An automatic exploded in another man's hand and Wentworth laughed grimly as he pumped out his last bullets. The steel-eater had turned on its users. Their own guns were crippled now.

With a yell, he bounded to his feet, snatching up the bayoneted rifle which he had carried with him. His shout brought one soldier from the wreckage of the trucks and around the corner from Fifth Avenue two others pounded. In the hands of each, a bayoneted rifle was gripped. More than one of those bayonets was tipped with red.

"Their guns are useless, men!" Wentworth yelled. "Remember, two inches of steel in the guts!"

He hurtled forward at a dead run, his bayoneted gun at port across his body. Two more gangsters tried in their excitement to shoot and the weapons blew up and tore their hands with their explosions. The bolt smashed one man's face, then the whole group turned and ran. Thirty men turned and ran frenziedly from four. But they were weaponless, their morale had been shattered when their sure defense turned upon them and stripped them of guns. And the four attackers had long knives that would stab, two inches deep, into their guts. The underworld murderers turned and fled.

A soldier overtook Wentworth and the
Spider
snatched another grenade from the man, hurled it toward the fleeing gangsters. It smashed with the same oddly muffled blast, but flying fragments felled two men. The other soldier, charging from the opposite end of the block, snatched out a grenade and hurled it. Another gangster spun on his heels and went down. Then the leaders reached a subway kiosk.

"Down here!" one hood yelled. "They can't throw grenades down here!"

The gangsters funneled into the subway, rats scampering to cover. Wentworth caught a grenade from a soldier and whirled toward the kiosk on the opposite side of the street. Where the gangsters had entered, they could reach only downtown trains, trains that would shoot them back into the arms of the police from whom they fled. But, by climbing down and crossing the tracks, they could catch an uptown train. That was what Wentworth raced to prevent.

He darted down the stairs, sprang to the uptown platform as the gangsters streamed out on the opposite side. Wentworth trailed his bayoneted rifle in his left hand. In his right, he held the grenade. The leading gangster, plunging for the tracks, reeled back and his companions collided with him. Wentworth cursed viciously. The leader was McSwag! Somehow he had gathered a fresh mob and returned to the assault. The red
Spider
glimmered on his forehead and Wentworth had sworn to put a bullet on that spot the next time they met, yet he was helpless without arms; he raised the grenade.

"Surrender," he shouted, "or I'll blow the roof down on all of you."

McSwag's lips writhed, but what he said was drowned in the thunder of an approaching train. It was on the downtown side and it slid its steel sides between Wentworth and his prey. The gangsters streamed in as the doors opened and through the windows Wentworth saw the three soldiers charging toward the turnstiles with bayonets ready. He saw McSwag race toward the front car, knock the conductor aside and press the buttons that controlled the slide doors, operated by compressed air. The doors slid shut. The motorman, unaware that anything untoward had occurred, got the electric flash of the automatic signal indicating the doors were shut and the train slid forward. The soldiers hammered against the doors, too late. As the train gathered headway, Wentworth saw McSwag striding toward the motorman's cubicle in the first car.

He cursed, but lowered the grenade. There were a hundred innocent persons aboard that train. He could not wreck it, even to wipe out this gang of murderers. He felt the platform beneath him shaking to the vibration of the departing train, and suddenly his eyes flew wide. He swung about and slapped through the exit doors from the platform, yanked open the door of the station-agent's booth.

"Stop all trains," he shouted hoarsely.

The station agent gaped at him.

"Stop the trains, fool," Wentworth snarled at him. "The steel-eater has been spread all along the streets above the subway. The gas is heavy and will settle into the tubes; the vibration . . . ."

He choked, reeled, caught the side of the door and stood trembling while a rumbling, hollow concussion roared through the tunnel. The lights blinked out and for a moment, utter silence followed the echoes of the cave-in.

"Too late," Wentworth said hoarsely. "Too late!" He pushed himself away from the doors of the booth, made his way heavily up the steps to daylight. The soldiers boiled out of the opposite exit, stared down the street. Four blocks down Broadway, the pavement had dropped through. Thereafter, for five blocks, the street had become a great crater. The roof of the subway had fallen in.

The gangsters had carried another hundred persons with them to death, but it was a cosmic retribution that had been visited upon them.

The weapon that they had used against others had crushed them in turn!

WENTWORTH stood in the ruined street in his partial-uniform dress and rocked his knuckles across his forehead while the soldiers stood by with their bloody bayonets. McSwag! His presence here, his leadership of this new mob meant something, Wentworth knew, but what was it? The meaning was vital; he knew that from the sharp excitement that tingled through his veins.

Abruptly, a hoarse cry sounded in his throat, low and muffled, a hoarse cry that meant discovery and triumph. He broke into a headlong sprint, finally found a taxi. "Police headquarters,
fast!
" he barked.

The taxi driver took him literally, doing a fandango of speed among the pits in the streets, the blocks of roped-off debris. Wentworth sat on the edge of his seat with his fists clenched on his knees, his head thrust alertly forward. His body swayed to the jerks of the bucking cab. His face was white and eager. He knew now where to find the Master—not who he was, but where to find him! There would be around two thousand other persons at the same place, but there was a way to pick him out!

The
Spider
and the police had burned down gang after gang, only to have the terror of the Master rise phoenix-like from the ashes. Once more that feat would be performed, once more death and destruction would be scattered broadcast over the land. The Master was insatiable. There would be no end of peril until he died. Wentworth flung from the cab, tossing money at the driver, and went up the steps of the Centre Street station in giant bounds. The Master should die!

Wentworth punched open the door into Kirkpatrick's sanctum without announcement, sprang to the telephone and got hold of the hangar where his seaplane was kept.

"Bring it to the Battery dock at once," he ordered. "What the hell has rough water got to do with it? At once, I said!"

He slammed up, got hold of Professor Brownlee. "My weapon, is it ready?"

He nodded in satisfaction at the news that a courier was on the way with it, ordered a radio 'phone call for Nita on the
Britannia,
then straightened, barking words at the staring Kirkpatrick.

"The Master is aboard the
Britannia!
" he snapped. "I'm flying out. There'll be room for you if you want to go."

"If I want to?" Kirkpatrick was on his feet at once, striding to the wardrobe in the corner. "The murderer is still at work. An elevated train went through its tracks a half hour ago and killed more than twenty people."

Not curses, but savage laughter rose to Wentworth's lips. "He shall pay!" He went out the door with pounding heels and Kirkpatrick crowded behind him. His heavy sedan rocketed southward through the streets, passing rows of hearses and ambulances carrying the dead and injured from the scenes of the Master's latest atrocities, past the strewn bodies where the soldiers had fallen, past the cavern where the subway victims lay dead. But all that was a blurred picture of speed.

"How do you know the Master is on the
Britannia?
" Kirkpatrick demanded as the two of them swayed jerkily to the howling speed of the car.

"McSwag was the leader of the bank mob," Wentworth told him, his eyes fixed ahead, subconsciously picking the path for the car through the traffic. He nodded, turned his head. "Your driver is almost as good as my Jackson," he said.

Kirkpatrick swore. "What the hell has McSwag leading that mob got to do with the Master being on the
Britannia?
"

"It means that since the
Spider
wiped out McSwag's mob in Brooklyn, the night the bridge fell, Baldy has made no fresh contact with the gangsters." There was a curious smile on Wentworth's mouth. "If you will recall, none of your stoolies, nor all your police have been able to catch so much as a hint of Baldy being seen—Baldy is a conspicuous figure with his bald head and his cast eye!"

"But Baldy and the Master are two different men," said Kirkpatrick doggedly, "and I'd like to know before I risk my life in this crazy flight just what is behind your deductions."

The Sedan braked roughly to a halt, its locked rear wheels dribbling over the concrete. Wentworth flung out and slammed into a dock house, grabbed a pay 'phone. "That call to the
Britannia?
" he demanded. He got the connection, got Nita.

"Darling," he said rapidly, "for the next six or seven hours I want you to become garrulous. I want you to tell everybody that your fiancé is in with the police and that he has found out the Master of the wreckers is abroad the
Britannia.
Also that he has a clue that will identify the Master definitely. You may go even farther, darling, and tell them your fiance's exact words: that he said he had the 'key to the situation.' Yes, darling, I know you don't know what I'm talking about, but the Master does. And here's something else to do. Have Anse organize the crew, with the captain's help, and keep watch on every American on board. You watch Butterworth yourself. What am I expecting? Why, the key to the situation will show itself. Honest, dearest, it's not a riddle. Not a word to anyone but Anse now, beautiful, or it might leak out to the Master before we're ready. First Anse, sweetheart, then turn gossip. And we'll see you soon. Yes, we're flying out."