THE SPIDER-City of Doom (56 page)

Bill whispered, "
Spider?
Hey,
Spider!
"

He went down on his knees and the cold bilge made his bones ache. He leaned close to the
Spider.
Yes, he was still breathing.

Fumblingly, Bill took up the oars again and bent his back. He rowed slowly, steadily. The back of his neck ached. For a long while he saw nothing.

It was an explosion that pierced his trance. Bill felt the vibration beat against him. He stopped rowing, and turned his head. He was aware now of the great blob of red against the northern sky. That was fire. But the explosion had come from somewhere on his left.

He stared toward the profile of lower Manhattan. There was another explosion. He saw streamers of fire, fragile as sunbeams, lance out of the base of one of those solid-seeming spires. Moments later, flame broke out above the dark low line of tenements nearer the river.

Bill straightened his stiffened back and tried to make sense out of what was happening. They had been attacking way up north on the island at first. Now they were down here. Down in the financial section of Manhattan, where all the big banks were located.

Suddenly, Bill cried out. He knew now. Those were guns. And that singing . . . those damned fool old pension marchers . . . and those explosions like at the bank.

Bill found himself on his knees. He was calling the
Spider's
name over and over, shaking him, pleading with him. He took a cupped handful of water and flung it in that gaunt, sharp face.

"
Spider! Spider!
"

Suddenly, Bill Sanders caught the glitter of opened eyes, and a voice answered him thickly. He began pouring out words. He babbled about the fire and about the ambulance and the boat.

Wentworth heard Bill's voice as from a great distance. He had been aware of many things dimly for a long time and his brain felt abnormally clear and acute. He didn't know why it was his own voice was so thick and labored. He could see the dim sky vaguely. He still could not move. But his ears absorbed eagerly the things that Bill was telling him. Nita . . . dead, or captured? The lower city ablaze. Guns. Singing . . . . "Those loony pension marchers . . . ."

The
Spider's
lipless mouth became a straight and bitter line. He was helpless . . . and the city was being looted, destroyed . . . and
Nita.
Helpless? The faint echo of harsh laughter formed in Wentworth's throat. He had his brain, and his will! It was his will that he called on now, the will of the Master of Men!

Perspiration sprang out on his forehead. A twitching ran through the muscles of his face. There were small spasmodic jerks of his arms and legs.

It was terrible to watch him. His eyes stared straight up in seeming blindness. The cords made steel ridges in his throat.

"Flask, Bill!" he cried hoarsely. "Flask . . . my pocket!"

The rolling of his head, the jerks became more strenuous. The boat was rocking wildly now. Bill braced a hand against each gunwale, and stared. He could not stop staring. If only the
Spider
would stop
trying.

"
Flask!
"

Bill was shaking as he moved toward the
Spider.
A convulsive foot struck his shin. The hands jerked. Bill couldn't see very well. He didn't know he was crying. He didn't hear himself say, "It's all right,
Spider.
It's all right. Don't try so hard. Don't . . . ."

He found the flask, and tried to pour brandy into the
Spider's
mouth. It dribbled out. His larynx moved stiffly once, again. He twisted his head away, lay panting. The twitching stopped. Then Bill felt the
Spider's
hand gripping his shoulder. It was like iron, yet it fumbled as if the fingers were without feeling.

The
Spider
sat up.

"To shore!" he whispered.

Bill retreated. "They'll kill you," he said wildly. "They'll kill you! You—"

"To shore!" Wentworth repeated.

Bill started to row. The
Spider
sat like a man of stone in the stern-sheets. The twitching was starting again, but now the movements had direction. The
Spider
lifted his right hand in a series of jerks against an intolerable weight. He lowered it and raised it again. While he drove his will to the task of physical resuscitation, his brain already raced ahead to the task before him.

How great that task was, even the
Spider
had not realized. The mass of flames stretched across the city and the feeble multiple voices of the aged lifted in thin chants. A multitude, lying flat on their backs, and singing. They formed an incredible human barrier against the few police reserves available. And below that line, which against the police was a more effective barrier than barbed-wire, the killers were looting!

The
Spider
saw that picture in his mind. His right hand moved like a quivering derrick, beam across his chest to reach his gun. He lifted it and lowered it, lifted it again. There was a faint tingling in his hand, but no other sensation. His old skill in throwing bullets without aim, by balance and super-practiced reflex was gone. He would have to aim each shot, slowly . . . .

"Row!" he whispered. "Row fast!" The
Spider
could not swerve . . . .

In the mayor's office at City Hall, a frantic clerk tried to answer the ever-ringing telephone. The Mayor had gone up to the scene of the trouble in the northern part of the city. Commissioner Littlejohn was up there with the fire department's controlling staff, and . . . .

"Mayor's office!"

"Listen!" The voice came through quickly. "Can't talk much. My throat . . . is bad . . . . This is the Mayor."

"Yes, sir!"

"Put me through the office exchange to Governors' Island!"

The clerk jittered, and put through the call. He listened in with fright, heard that heavy, slow, labored voice go through the struggle of reaching the commandant of Governors' Island. Finally, the connection went through.

"Mayor Gogan speaking," he said hoarsely. "For God's sake, send troops! There is a battalion of crooks looting the financial district of Manhattan. They've set half the city on fire. We can't get through to them. They're bombing police boats. Got cannons somehow. National Guard would take too long to organize. You must strike at once! I'll take all responsibility!"

The wire went dead.

The police labored to remove the prostrate men and women from the streets so that fire fighting equipment could go through, what there was of it. The aged ones lay flat on their backs, singing with cracked voice their interminable hallelujahs. They didn't fight, but nothing would make them move. Some of them had died from the heat of the flames. Others seemed drugged.

Commissioner Littlejohn had phoned that he was rushing south. It was to take him twenty minutes or half an hour. By that time . . . .

Suddenly, a metallic voice came crisply from the radio loudspeaker circuit. It was harsh with authority, and it spoke very slowly.

"This is Kirkpatrick. The Mayor has asked me to take charge here. Men, soldiers from Governors' Island will attack the looters from the rear—the waterfront. Leave your cars. Go through on foot. Carry sub-machine guns, shot guns, pistols. Carry hand grenades! Forget the tear gas. Go through in squads, but keep scattered. Start moving forward at once! Firemen, get dynamite! Forget your useless equipment. Go through on foot and blast out the fires! Blow down buildings in the path of the fires! March! Go forward at once!"

Behind the line of fire, the crooks heard that hoarse voice, too. Gannuck's men, secure in their armored cars, grinned at each other. They began to patrol the inner face of the fire line. Machine guns quested for the first of the police who should drive through.

Soldiers from Governors' Island? They laughed.

A gaunt figure strode out of the shadows among the looted buildings. Gannuck, in a cannon-armed truck, saw the man and swore.

"Moulin!" he gasped. "God, I never expected to see him in the flesh!"

Moulin was pale with a yellowness that was corpselike. There seemed to be no blood in him. His head bulged baldly up from thin, colorless eyebrows. He wore the long black robe of the Council of Evil.

"Gannuck!" His voice came harshly. "Hold out for half an hour. That's all we need. And don't worry about the soldiers from Governors' Island. We'll wait until they're all at sea and then sink them. That's what those two planes are for. The boats are ready at the pier. Most of the gold is already aboard. And our escape craft is on the way. A half hour, Gannuck!"

Gannuck swallowed thickly. "Right you are, Moulin! The signals?"

"Three explosions at intervals of fifteen seconds," Moulin said. He turned back into the shadows.

From the darkness, a single gun cracked. Gannuck whipped his head that way, peering through the narrow vision slit of the truck. There was no further shot.

In the darkness where the gun had spat, a gaunt figure in a black cape lifted itself. Beside him was a boy, and the man's hand rested heavily on the boy's shoulder.

"Missed!" the man whispered. "I was only fifty feet away, and I missed."

The
Spider
moved like an automaton with a slow swinging of his legs that involved a tremendous strain of his entire body.

"Follow Moulin!" Wentworth whispered. "Keep out of sight, but follow him. Then come back here for me!"

The boy hesitated. "Are you all right,
Spider?
"

The
Spider
laughed. The sound was ghastly. Bill Sanders shivered a little. He turned and ran off into the darkness. In the black shadow of the doorway where he stood, Wentworth did not move for a long minute. He had been sure Moulin was dead, that this appearance in the glass pane at the Council of Evil was a trick. But the man walked, lived.

Wentworth pushed out a slow oath. Apparently, the killers had a way of preventing the Governors' Island troops from getting through. Everything depended on the police. Wentworth turned his head heavily about. There was a motionless car at the curb. His lips twisted. It was a ten minute job to reach the car. He spent another five minutes unlocking the ignition and starting the engine.

Gannuck's cannon truck was still there a half block away in the shadows, lying in wait for the police. Already a dozen blue-clad bodies lay there in the edge of the fire zone.

Wentworth ripped off the sleeve of his shirt and dipped it into the gasoline tank. He closed the tank and attached the sleeve to its outside, set it afire. Then he started the car rolling down the street in low gear. It gathered speed slowly. Wentworth let himself fall in the street and got his gun leveled with painful slowness. When the car had almost reached Gannuck's truck, he fired one bullet.

For a long moment nothing happened.

The car swerved and sideswiped the armored truck. It teetered around, ground to a halt. The flame on the gas tank seemed a little larger. It dripped small flames to the pavement. Suddenly, there was a stream of fire there. It spread a lake upon the ground. Then there was a roaring concussion.

Gannuck's truck heeled over on its side. The flame began to lick at the gun-slits! The
Spider
lay where he had fallen. He had his gun leveled again, his finger tight on the trigger. He waited. When they burst out, he might get one of them. He must save his bullet for Gannuck.

The doors in the upper side of the overturned truck were thrown open and men climbed out laboriously. Wentworth smiled thinly. Perhaps he could shoot twice!

Painfully, he sighted along the barrel and willed his finger to pull the trigger. He could feel only a slight tingling still. The gun leaped wildly in his hand. The man screamed and dived into the pool of flame! Wentworth's right hand was trembling violently. With tremendous effort, he pulled it back in line and sighted at the door. One man had escaped meantime, but another was showing himself. Wentworth waited until he was fully exposed, then squeezed the trigger again.

It was maddening to have to shoot like this. Gone was his old facility for pumping bullets with both hands, without conscious aiming, but with a deliberate certainty that each bullet would find the intended mark. The gun kicked out of Wentworth's hand. He got his man, but he was still groping for the weapon when Gannuck popped out and fled into the darkness.

Three policemen ran through the smoky fringes of the fire zone and ranged forward with machine guns at their hips. Wentworth lay motionless, and they threw him no more than a glance as they went past. When they were gone, he began his weighted, slow march. Impossible now to wait for Bill Sanders to come to him. The police had made their breakthrough, thanks to his attack behind the criminal lines. They would be pouring through the gap—and the
Spider
could move only at a crawl.

The
Spider
moved toward the wrecked truck!

The gasoline was burning itself out, and there would be items in that truck which he could use. If he could find three grenades . . . . He had no means of reckoning the length of time it took him to enter the truck. He gained time by letting himself fall through the door. He found the grenades, a half dozen of them.

Then he threw one, blindly, out into space. He kept his eye on his watch. Exactly fifteen seconds later he threw a second, and then, at the same interval, a third! It was the signal.

With intolerable effort, Wentworth lifted himself from the doorway of the truck and rolled to the ground. He levered himself to his feet, and turned his face in the direction Moulin had taken. He could hear, faintly, the roar of many motors. Apparently, for this part of the line, his signal had worked. But the gold was ready to load in the craft which they would use to escape. He must find that place quickly. But if he could find Moulin first . . . .

Through the choking smoke that swept low over the financial district, through the black shadows, the
Spider
lurched in his methodical automaton's walk. There was some feeling now in his legs. His hand began to feel the gun a little more. If the battle lasted an hour longer, he might be able to fight well!