"032 (B032) - Dust of Death (1935-10) - Harold Davis" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

"Wait," he said.
The killer waited. It was all of five minutes. Then the other was back on the line.
"The Inca in Gray will direct this personally," he said. "This Long Tom will be disposed of."
"Good-by, son of an ox," the killer chuckled and hung up.
BACK AT the military flying field there was excitement. For the body of the knifed officer had been found. It was orderly excitement, grim. For these soldiers of Santa Amoza were well trainedЧand long trained, for the war had been going on for four years already.
"Long Tom" Roberts was in the office of the field commander, standing stark naked, for he had been stripped as they searched him. He looked more than ever like a man who was waiting for a coffin. But there was nothing moribund about the Spanish he spoke. It was good Spanish. He used plenty of it, pointedly, loudly.
"Call Seёor Junio Serrato, war minister of Santa Amoza," Long Tom bellowed. "He'll okay me. He knows I'm coming."
They finally did call Seёor Junio Serrato, war minister, and what he said must have been emphatic and plenty. For the flying field officials turned suddenly apologetic.
"My treatment of you is to be regretted greatly. But you must understand our country is at war," the field commander himself said. "And the mysterious murder of the officerЧ"
There was much shrugging, in the middle of which Long Tom Roberts left. He took a horse-drawn hack driven by an old woman who looked like the Yankee conception of a witch. All gasoline was commandeered for military use in Santa Amoza and all ablebodied men were in the army. Long Tom eventually got into town.
Alcala, after the fashion of South American cities, was a bright-colored town, made brighter by the flags which hung in profusion. Bright sunshine made the white houses whiter and filled the streets with heat waves. Tourists would have ecstasized over the place.
But there were no tourists. There was war!
It showed in something besides the numbers of uniformed men. There was a grimness, chill in the faces, a thing as distinct as the snow-capped Andes, which could be distinctly seen inland.
Long Tom surrendered his conveyance, because marching squads of soldiers frequently held him up and he could make better time walking.
The walking, Long Tom concluded in short order, was a mistake. There were beggars; war makes beggars. Tattered and filthy and pleading, they tagged at his heels. He tossed them coins, knowing that was a mistake, for it drew more of them like sugar in the midst of flies. He tossed more coins, but they grew bolder, more insistent. They scuttled alongside him, tugged his clothing.
The presence of the beggars was not strange, for tropical cities are commonly infested with mendicants.
But suddenly it was strange. It was sinister. It had a purpose.
One whining rogue, ragged and dirty as the rest, shuffled up, arms held loosely at his sides, bare feet scuffing the dust of the unpaved street. Then, unexpectedly, his long arms were wrapped around Long Tom's slight figure.
"Spy!" screamed the beggar. "He is a spy!"
The mob burst out in a roar. The suddenness with which it happened showed this all had been arranged. Unclean hands closed upon Long Tom. There seemed to be dozens of them.
"Spy!" they shrieked. "Kill him!"
"Kill him!" a score echoed.
Then Long TomЧhe who resembled an invalidЧpicked up the first beggar who had seized him. Using the victim as a club, Long Tom bowled over fully half a dozen others. It was a feat the burliest wrestler would not have blushed to recount.
In the next few seconds, Long Tom demonstrated some of the qualities which qualified him as an assistant to that man whose name was legend to the far corners of the earthЧDoc Savage. Long Tom used his fists at first, and they landed with noises only slightly less than pistol shots.
A ring opened around Long Tom, in it the bodies of those who had become senseless. The mob roared, circled the man whose mild appearance was so deceptive.
"Kill him!" it bawled. "A spy!"
Then they closed in, and many knives appeared. They tore a stoop from in front of a house, and hurled these sizable rock fragments. Long Tom got one in the chest and it put him down.
Lying there, gasping, he drove hands into his pockets. They came out with small glass bulbs. He broke these in the street, and they made wet splashes which vaporized away almost instantly. It was gas, odorless, producing quick unconsciousness if breathedЧa product of Doc Savage's inventive genius. Long Tom held his breath so as not to get any of it. He got up and ran.
Into a door, Long Tom dived, not knowing where it led. He was lucky. It admitted into a patio, and he climbed a palm tree to a roof, crossed that, got into another street, after which it was doubtful if a man in the mob could have kept up with him. He could hear them yelling.
"Spy!" they screamed. "Kill him!"
"Whoever hatched that murder scheme," Long Tom grumbled as he ran, "was clever."
Chapter 2. THE GRAY DEAD
ALCALA, CAPITAL of Santa Amoza, had the outward aspects of a backward city and a poor one. It was neither. Santa Amoza was a country rich in natural resourcesЧnitrates and oil among othersЧand before the war a flood of exports had poured out of Alcala, the seaport, and a flood of gold had poured in. Alcala had been a rich field for American salesmen.
The government hospital was a typical example of just how modern Alcala was. The building was huge, white and of fine stone. The interior was also white and sanitary, modern to the extreme.
Long Tom Roberts was following a stern-faced male nurse down a hall and into a big room, where a man lay on a white cot.
The man on the cot was a mummy in bandages, except for his hands and his face. He had an interesting face. At some time or other his nose had made forcible contact with an object harder than its tissue and bone. The nose gave the man a face remindful of the countenance of an English bulldog. Inside the bandages the man's frame was probably angular and capable.
The bandaged man did not see Long Tom at first.
Long Tom grinned and said: "All wrapped up for shipping."
The bandaged man turned over. His blue eyes all but came out of his head. He tried to bound out of the cot and fell on the floor.
"Long Tom!" he howled. "You old corpse, you old rascal, you sonuvagun!"
"Ace Jackson," Long Tom chuckled.
Long Tom helped him back on the cot, and they grinned and mauled each other a little, shouting things which did not make much sense.
"Ace Jackson," Long Tom chuckled. "Same old Kiwi. Haven't seen you since you were flying a Spad, back in the Great War."
"Same here," chortled "Ace" Jackson. "Swell of you to drop in to see me, you pint of dynamite."
"I was down in Argentina on a hydro-electric project," Long Tom explained. "Buzzed up here as soon I heard that you had tried to do a bit of flying without wings. What's the idea? Been flying so long you thought you had sprouted wings?"
Ace Jackson looked suddenly grim and did not answer.
Long Tom stepped back and eyed the bandaged aviator seriously.
"It must have taken some sky battler to bring you down," he said dryly. "Did they gang you? I'll swear no one man could outfly you."
"The Inca in Gray may not be a manЧI think sometimes," Ace Jackson said slowly and distinctly.
FOR THE first time, Long Tom became aware there was a girl in the room. She was tall, dark haired. And her complexion had the utter fairness of the pure Castilian. She came forward when she saw that Long Tom had perceived her.