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

Monk looked up from the missive and demanded: "This means we charge right down there, don't it?"
"It does," Doc agreed.
Ham asked, "Do we go by plane?"
"We will try the new statrosphere dirigible," Doc told him. "On a flight as long as this, it will probably be faster than our big plane."
Chapter 5. FIRING SQUAD
AT ABOUT that moment, Long Tom Roberts, some thousands of miles south of New York, lay on his back and wished that Doc Savage were not quite so far distant. He also wondered where he was, what had been done to him.
He got around to trying to move and found his arms and legs tied. A bit later, it dawned on him that he was jammed in a cramped compartment, small for his scrawny frame. He tried to shift his position a little.
Instantly, ripping swear words in Espaёol crackled above him. He was kicked twice, very hard, in the side. Then a pair of heavy, booted feet pressed down on his middle and remained there, effectually discouraging further movement on his part.
Long Tom lay still and organized his thoughts. He was in a plane, an open cockpit type ship.
A riveting machine seemed to open up, almost over his head. The terrific din of it made such a pain in Long Tom's head that he gasped and shut his eyes tightly. The plane in which he was riding must be engaged in a fight.
There was a sound not unlike two cats having a violent fight in the rear of the fuselage somewhere. The plane's framework trembled perceptibly. Long Tom had been through enough aыrial fighting to know what the sound meant. Machine gun bullets hitting their ship.
Long Tom's ears began to distinguish other sounds, which resembled firecrackers letting go in a well. That would be artillery. There was an occasional much closer woof! some of which cause the plane to sway, pitch. Archies.
Long Tom lay back and shut his eyes. He was not scared, not by the war anyway. He had been through too many of those. He did some reflecting.
Let's see. He had been knocked out in the Alcala hotel. Now he had awakened over the front lines of a war which, judging from the sounds, was no opera.
Long Tom, who frequently went out of his way to hunt trouble, seemed to have done very well in the present case.
The war front sounds were dropping behind. There was no more machine gunning, no more anti-aircraft. The plane flew quietly for some time.
Then arms caught Long Tom under the shoulder, yanked him up. Sunlight hit him in the eyes so blindingly that he was hardly able to see. He felt the ropes being ripped from his feet. A knife slashed the cords that bound his arms.
Instantly, Long Tom turned, tried to get a grip on his captor; but the confinement had made the pallid electrical expert very clumsy. He fared very badly in the fight which he started.
Powerful arms caught him about the middle, lifted him up. He was held over the side of the cockpit, the whole thing happening so quickly that he was distinctly astonished to find himself plunging like a rock toward a mass of very green jungle some thousands of feet below!
LONG TOM'S next actions were pure instinct. He reached for a parachute rip cord ring. When he did that, truth was, he did not even know whether he wore a chute. The head blows had left him very hazy. But the chute rip cord ring was there. He yanked it.
With a suddenness that wrenched his aching muscles, his downward plunge was halted by a billowing spread of silk that snapped out over his head. The parachute had opened, checking his fall.
Long Tom, however, failed to experience the feeling of relief which this happening should have induced. The shock of parachute opening had been too much for his shaky condition. It had knocked him out. He hung, quite senseless, in the parachute harness.
Long Tom, being unconscious, missed the excitement which his descent caused. The jungle land below was not far behind the front lines, and, it was infested correspondingly by soldiers.
Naturally, no one shot at the figure in the parachute; but there was a wild rush for the spot where the silk lobe was going to drop.
Long Tom hit hard, but did not know it. He was also dragged a few yards until the silken bulb of the parachute caught itself on a small tree and spilled its air.
When Long Tom revived a few seconds later, he was out of the parachute harness and being held erect by several men. There were other men standing about, holding rifles. All of the men wore uniforms.
Suddenly Long Tom peered at the uniforms more closely. They were not like the uniforms he had seen in Alcala. They were entirely different, in fact. He realized what the difference meant.
"Blazes!" Long Tom gulped feebly
He must be across the line in Santa Amoza's enemy country, Delezon
The soldiers who had seized him were looking him over. The officer in charge wore a design on his sleeve which meant, if
Long Tom guessed correctly, that he was a corporal.
"Norte Americano," said the corporal.
"Si, si," Long Tom said in Spanish. "I'm an American. Where am I?"
The corporal laughed; it was not a nice laugh.
"Search him," directed the corporal.
The soldiers plunged hands into his pockets, turning them inside out, bringing to light everything in his possession. The possessions were a distinct surprise to Long Tom. He was, he discovered, carrying things he had never seen before.
There was, for instance, a small bottle with a poison label. There was a tiny camera with a very fast lens. There was a fountain pen which held, as the corporal in charge of the soldiers demonstrated, invisible ink.
"Boy, oh boy," Long Tom mumbled thickly. "Somebody has sure done carpenter work on me."
"What you ees mean, seёor?" asked the corporal, who seemed to understand a little English.
"I've been framed," Long Tom said.
The corporal emitted another loud laugh even more ugly, if that were possible, than the first one.
"Eet ees plain you are spy, seёor," he said.
"I've been framed," Long Tom repeated.
"You need more better story than that," said the corporal. "Mebbe yo ees t'ink of better one as we take yo to thees Seёor General Fernanez Vigo."
"General Vigo, dictator general of Delezon?" Long Tom grunted.
"Si, si, seёor," agreed the corporal. "General Vigo, he ees like talk to spy."
GENERAL FERNANEZ Vigo proved to be in a dugout rather close to the thundery, crashing front line trenches than a general might be expected to keep himself.
General Vigo was the biggest and ugliest man Long Tom could recall having seen in a long time. General Vigo's inconspicuous khaki garb only accentuated his gargantuan aspect. No chevrons or insignia showed on his uniform. As a matter of fact, Long Tom reflected, such marks of rank would not be needed. For any one who had ever heard of General Vigo would recognize him on sight.
General Vigo's laugh was also interesting. It sounded as if a turkey gobbler were gobbling.
The gobble was very loud and very amused as General Vigo listened to Long Tom's attempt to explain that the spy paraphernalia found in his pockets had been planted there without his knowledge, and that he had not jumped from the plane but had been thrown.