Daredevil
His luck had held--incredibly--but he had no leisure to waste on
applauding his good fortune. Quick as light, he slipped the
automatic from his pocket again and placed the knife in her hand; and
even as he did so he saw that the pent-up torrent was on the point of
breaking. The men were looking to the Apex, waiting tensely, keyed
up for the signal to let fly. Storm could almost see the squall
careering up to engulf him. Only a few seconds more--if that--but
Heaven grant him the respite of those few seconds!
"Big Triangle!" Arden's voice clipped out again, and this time he
glutted into it every fierce, rampaging demon of savage command he
could concentrate on the words. "You're my hostage. Freeze on to
that! It's no bluff this journey! The first man who makes a
threatening movement'll finish it after you're dead! I've got you
covered, and I never miss. Look!"
And then Storm diced everything on an even chance. Either his action
would win the few seconds' cowed stillness he needed, or it would be
as a spark to the over-dried tinder which was only waiting for its
opportunity to blaze up and wipe him off the earth.
He made the gamble without a flicker of an eye.
Two vicious little tongues of orange flame spat out of his
automatics, and the two shots rattled like the sharp rat-tat of a
drum.
And Storm was sidling towards the door with Susan following him. And
Ezra Surcon had sprung back a pace, clapping shaky hands to his ears,
for Storms' bullets had grazed under the lobes like two hot searing
irons scraped across the skin.
"That'll show you whether I've handled gats before!" Storm
challenged, frostily as a Siberian zephyr. "And next time it won't
be fancy shooting you'll see demonstrated. Now think again, all of
you, before you cut up crusty with me!"
Susan's hand was already on the door, and in the tingling silence
Storm heard her catch her breath. The next moment she was whispering
in his ear.
"There're men moving about outside--creeping around. I can hear
them."
"Hell!"
The word murmured almost inaudibly in Storm's throat. More mess!
When he had heard the Apex summon to that room all the men who were
in the house, he had naturally assumed that the order would be
obeyed. With the only exit he knew ruled out, they were in the most
ghastly blind alley two people could have strayed into. And once
again the effect of his arrogant threatening was wearing off--more
quickly than before, now that the men he was dealing with had grasped
their own danger as well as the precariousness of his position. They
would never let him get away if they could possibly prevent it, even
though they ran the risk of being shot down in the attack. Each one
of them would hope to be lucky and escape the few rounds Kit could
loose off before they reached him, and each would be aware of the
havoc which would be running amok once he got in touch with Scotland
Yard. The Apex most of all. Surcon's hands were coming slowly down
from his face, and a fiendish lustre burned in his pale blue eyes.
His voice rang out suddenly, breaking in on the sizzling intensity of
Storm's thought.
"Wait, Captain Arden!"
Surcon, too, could move like an arrow. And the shock of Susan's
discovery had taken that last, infinitesimal perfection of keenness
off Storm's alert brain--such an all but imperceptible blunting, yet
great enough to make an incalculable difference.
Ezra Surcon had flung up his hands and parted the hangings behind
him. They saw that screwed to the wall was a small switchboard of
porcelain from which protruded two six-inch levers of ebonite. And
the Apex had one of these firmly gripped in each of his upraised
hands.
"Now listen to me," he shouted. "Haven't forgotten Piccadilly
Circus, have you? Well, try to imagine twice that amount of NCl3
under--_Buckingham Palace_! Why else should I make my headquarters
here? There's a tunnel from the cellars--or was, before the
explosive was tamped in--and the Palace isn't far. The stuff's
packed in huge blocks of ice, but when I pull down this switch it'll
close a circuit, and this heat's a network of platinum wires among
the charge. Shoot me, and the weight of my body'll pull down the
switch. I'll prove to you I'm not bluffing, either. See the other
switch? That connects with a tiny tube of nitrogen trichloride
upstairs. Show you----"
He dragged down the second lever. From over their heads came a dull,
ear-numbing thud. The ceiling cracked, and little fragments of
plaster broke away and crumbled to the floor....
The explosion, small as Surcon had said the charge was, shook the
house. Came a hoarse exclamation outside the door, and someone
barked out two words ... then, the muffled patter of feet stumbling
up the stairs.... The Apex looked drawn and haggard suddenly, and an
almost childlike puzzlement crept into his eyes.
"What was that?"
"More of your friends, I expect," remarked Storm coolly, for he had
recognised the voice outside in the hall. "Susan, get the door
open--hustle!"
"It's locked!" screamed Surcon. A mad triumph shook him.
"Locked--locked--locked! No escape! Get after him, men! _Get
on--get on--what're you waiting for?_ Watch, Captain Arden!"
Storm saw the knuckles of Surcon's right hand whiten over the lever
they still held. Storm blazed away--carelessly, with one gun, into
the ugly surge of men who hurled themselves at him; accurately, with
the other, at Ezra Surcon. And Storm thanked all his pagan gods that
his boast had been a sound one--that he never missed. Three bullets
sped like three crashing thunderbolts into Surcon's right wrist,
smashing flesh and bone and sinew to a spurting crimson pulp.
Storm saw the Apex drop his hand, and then Captain Christopher Arden,
trouble-hunter, was slap in the middle of as big a slice of trouble
as any Hotspur could desire. With two empty guns clenched in his
hands to add weight to his blows, he was battling for dear life
against a horde of raging maniacs who, fortunately for him, were too
closely packed to be able to use their weapons without risk of
killing each other, were hampered by their own numbers ... men who
used tooth and talon like wild beasts ... men, like animals,
thirsting for blood....
No giant of legend could have stood up to that terrible onslaught for
more than three minutes. Human muscle and nerve, however willing,
were physically incapable of sustaining the fearful pace of such a
fight. Storm slogged away with the powerful precision of the
fighting machine he had called himself, but he felt his strength
going and the _sog_ of his sledge-hammer blows into contorted faces
growing less potent with every punch. His fists catapulted out from
all angles--he still smiled, but grimly--and all the time he knew it
couldn't last. A red mist shot with eddying whirls of black and
silver swam before his eyes nauseatingly; his chest was a hive of
toiling agony; he wondered wearily how long it could last. But he
never let up. He knew he was going out, knew that his hour had
struck ... a great and worthy end to so wildly glorious a life. He
knew no fear--only a strange, primitive exaltation.
Battered, bruised, and torn, thereafter he fought on in silence. He
knew that he had been fighting for no more than half a minute, yet in
that short space he felt as if he had lived through an eternity. As
though separated from his body, his mind stood out clear as a crystal
globe in sunlight. He could think coldly, calmly, and work out
exactly how much longer he could keep going. Another half-minute,
perhaps, and then--_finis_....
And then a new voice broke into the tempest. A familiar voice,
preternaturally excited. Teal! How had Teal got in? Had he found
the secret entrance, or broken through the locked door? Funny,
that--Storm hadn't expected rescue. All the odds had been against
Teal getting in before it was too late. But it was Teal's booming
bass all right--no doubt about that--and Teal himself, ploughing like
a cruiser towards him.
"Hold on, Captain Arden! ... Hold on! ... Come on, boys!"
And Storm managed to cheer back:
"Atta baby, Teal! Give 'em Hell!"
CHAPTER XXIX
BREAK AWAY
They got him away. Somehow, after a second eternity of effort, he
was free of the swaying, cursing throng. Leaning against the wall,
panting, drawing a bleeding, aching hand across his filming eyes.
Susan clutching his hand, straining herself against him. Teal's arm
around his shoulders, supporting him.
Out of the Valley of the Shadow.... Homeric....
Men were still pouring through a door which had been knocked off its
hinges, struggling in scattered knots to overpower the last stand of
the Triangle. The Apex himself was not among them.
"The Big Triangle!" gasped Storm. "Teal--get him! Black mask ...
he's gone!"
"It's all right," soothed Teal clumsily, and Storm shook him off with
an impatient shrug.
"It's all wrong! You've got to get him! Tear down the hangings!
There must be another exit."
Teal obeyed, Storm helping as best he could. Other detectives were
at work immediately.
And so they saw that at the end of the room where the dais was, the
curtains hung three feet off the wall, leaving a hidden alley at the
end of which was a door. Teal was the first through, and when he saw
where he was he nearly choked, for it was the narrow passage where he
had caught Blaythwayt.
When they reached the hall they found it deserted, for every man on
the job was by then crowded into the throne room to help the fight.
In a sudden flash of intuition Teal raced for the cellar stairs, and,
as he opened the door, he distinctly heard the clatter of shoes on
stone slabs die away.
"Through the garage!"
They could be but a little way behind. Teal pounded down the steps,
with Storm hard on his heels. Even as they reached the cellar level,
they caught a glimpse of a tall figure sprinting down the gloom of
the short passage towards the now open panel in the tire cupboard.
Storm kept up with Teal in that hectic chase--how, he never knew. He
was tired unto death, but a superhuman will-power kept him going when
every fibre of his body shrieked for rest. And they were in the
tunnel when they heard the roar of a racing car's exhaust.
_An instant later a second exhaust stammered into life!_
Storm remembered the two silver racing cars he had seen when they
brought him into the garage in the taxi.
"Who in glory's that?" Teal's amazed ejaculation as he ran.
Then they burst into the garage itself. The first car was already in
the mews, and they were in time to see the tail of the second
disappear round the smashed door of the lock-up. There was no chance
of starting up another of the cars to follow in pursuit--even
assuming that one of those which were left would be capable of
overtaking either of the first two lean, speedy super-cars, which was
unlikely. Teal and Storm sprinted down the mews, Teal dragging his
revolver from his pocket as he went.
They saw the hinder car turn right as they entered the mews, and as
they reached the end they saw it skid round into Buckingham Gate,
with the driver hunched up over the wheel in an attitude of desperate
concentration.
Then they were in Buckingham Gate themselves, and, standing on the
kerb, they witnessed a play which might have been lifted from a
sensational movie scenario.
The first car had a lead of about fifty yards, and was increasing it.
And then they heard a hideous, clanking grind. The driver had missed
his gears. The racking, tortured noise went on, mingling with the
deafening drone of the racing engine, as the masked man strove
frenziedly to force the cogs to engage. And while he did so he