"Doc Savage Adventure 1945-01 The Hate Genius" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doc Savage Collection)

Pat nodded. "All right, the thing is well prepared. That's a safe bet. Therefore they've got a tight, vicious little group which is prepared to do anything to put this over.

Ham began to get the drift of Pat's thinking. He said, "More than that, they can call on the whole German secret police service, the Gestapo and everything else, in an emergency."

"That's right"

Monk muttered gloomily, "Doc surely knows what he's doing. He thought of all that before he decided to pull them down on his head."

"That's right," Pat agreed. "But he should have consulted us about it"

"I don't see why -- "

"Look, fellows, I don't know how it hits you, but it strikes me that Doc shouldn't be taking that risk himself."

Ham admitted, "That worried me."

"Yes, and me, too. Let's not kid ourselves. Ham, you and Monk both are pretty good when you get mixed up in trouble, but I'm not trying to belittle you when I say that you're not as good as Doc."

Ham said, "Don't worry about hurting our feelings on that score." He gestured at the men who had been present at the meeting. "Do you think guys of that calibre would turn out in force to confer with 'is? Fat chance. They're here to meet Doc Savage. If you noticed carefully; You could see that every one of them was in awe of Doc."

Pouncing on that point, Pat said, "If Doc takes this risk of drawing an attack on himself, and loses, they'll kill him. And that would mean more than Doc losing his life. It would mean the Nazi leader will probably get away with this final, dirty trick."

Ham frowned. "What're you getting at?"

"Suppose we serve as the bait, not Doc," Pat said grimly.


IT took five minutes of sober-faced mumbling for them to decide to follow Pat's suggestion. The telling would have to be done later, because Doc was sure to veto the idea now. They would have to tell Doc, of course, and preferably before the Nazi group pounced on the "bait"

"When will we do this?" Monk asked.

"What's the matter with right now?" Pat demanded. They went into the inner room, looking innocent, where Doc Savage was seated at a desk going through Mr. Dilling's dossier on the case.

"Anything we can do to help?" Ham asked.

Doc shook his head. ""There seems to be a great deal of detail here, but it doesn't add anything to the basic fact that the Nazi chief has disappeared and left a double in his place, and the double is to be murdered in order to solidify the spirit of the Germans."

Doc separated several sheets from the dossier. "However, you will want to go over these," he added. "Here are descriptions of the Nazi agents involved intimately in the plot with the Fuehrer. You will want to memorize the data. You'll find photographs and fingerprints. I suggest you get off by yourselves and hold a memorizing session." Monk took the identification sheets, asked, "Any objections to our going back to the hotel to study these?"

"Better not," Doc said. "If that red-headed fellow passes the word around, they will be watching the hotel."

Pat said, "We'll go somewhere. We'll call you in an hour or so."

"All right," They left the building, Monk with the identification sheets in his pocket They found a cab.

Pat told the cab driver, "The Hotel Chiaro di Luna."

"Hey, Doc said not to go there," Monk exclaimed. "We didn't say we wouldn't," Pat reminded him.