"Curtis Steele - Operator 5 - 3405 - The Invisible Empire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Steele Curtis)

Originally published in the May, 1934 issue of Operator 5TM
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Copyright у1934 by Popular Publications Inc. Copyright renewed (c) 1962 and assigned to Agrosy Communications, Inc.
All rights reserved. Licensed to Vintage New Media. Operator 5 is a trademark of Argosy Communications, Inc.
By CURTIS STEELE
Unseen, impregnable, the strange war engine of a foreign power hovered
over America, waiting the fatal moment to hurl death upon a thousand
cities and towns. Foredoomed to destruction and desolation before the
ravaging hordes of the Yellow Empire, bleak despair gripped the nation's
millions. And then men held their breath in agonizing hope-as Operator
5, single-handed, seized the last grim chance to save the United States!
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CHAPTER ONE
WARNING FROM THE SKY
At high noon on that steaming midsummer
day a strange cloud darkened the sky above the
spires of New York City. It came from nowhere
out of the clear heavens, a floating fog which
thickened rapidly beneath the sun, casting deep
shadow over the entire city, bringing sudden and
bewildering gloom. Thousands of eyes turned
upward from the chasms of Manhattan to watch
it-a stormy blackness slowly lowering.
As it settled it became a mass that fluttered
and sparkled and surged.
Snow! Snow-falling from a cloudless sky
on the hottest day of a sizzling summer? The
wonder of it brought millions to a standstill in the
streets. They watched it blanket down until the
peaks of the skyscrapers became misted and
disappeared, until the fluttering stuff began to
sprinkle into open windows and drift over the
pavements.
It was not snow, but countless leaflets of
papers blackened by heavy printing!
While the air cleared and the hot sunlight
beat again into the metropolis, millions of eyes
read the startling message which the leaflets
bore:
WAR!
War-or Peace?
Which do you choose? A futile fight
against a foe which will inevitably crush
defeat upon you? War which will kill all
your loved ones and bring you nothing but
indescribable suffering? Utter disaster to
all you hold dear? Or-peaceful
submission to your fate?
War or Peace?
Life or Death?