In the late afternoon Idaho sun the security guards marched Colonel Derian across the open ground in front of the plant to a State Police car that waited just inside the open gate. Three troopers stepped out, took the prisoner inside the car, and one of them signed for the prisoner in full view of Bryan, Max Ernest and Professor Farina, not to mention many of the workers at the plant.
In the shadow of a bush set against the facade of the plant building. The Shadow watched. He saw J. Wesley Bryan and Farina looking around. Even at the distance he could read their lips clearly—they were wondering where Lamont Cranston was. But there was not time now for The Shadow to resume his alter-ego and still follow the State Police car.
The Shadow had to follow the state police—there was something very wrong about the police car.
The Shadow could not place what was wrong. In itself that puzzled the hidden Avenger—his powers and instant recall should have made him know what was wrong if something was wrong.
The only explanation was that there had been something that he had seen in a flash and that was gone too quickly for even The Shadow to have it permanently impinged on his memory. It was not the car itself, that was a completely authentic State Police car. It was not the uniforms or the manner of the three troopers who had hustled the Colonel into the car the instant he arrived, and climbed in themselves. Their actions and manner had been exactly as The Shadow would have expected.
But it was something that The Shadow had seen in a split second and then lost. The Avenger knew the powers of his mind, and if he had felt that something was not right, then he would follow the State Police car. And he had not an instant to waste. Already Rogers was leaning in to say some final words to the state troopers. The Shadow bent quickly over the small radio-ring on his left hand.
“Stanley, are you here?” The Shadow intoned in a low voice.
Instantly the soft voice of the chauffeur-bodyguard-agent answered. “Here, Chief. I followed your instructions and am now within sight of the plant in the hired car. I can see the State Police car.”
“Good, Stanley. Proceed on Plan One to a point three hundred yards to the right of the gate on the road. There is a large boulder there that comes to the road.”
“Roger,” Stanley said.
The radio ring on the left hand of The Shadow went silent. The Avenger watched the State Police car move off slowly to the gate. He turned, and, crouched low, made his way to the right in the shelter of the bushes along the wall of the plant. At the corner there was a hundred feet of open parking area before the beginning of a line of trees that bordered the high fence. The Avenger looked back and saw that everyone was watching the police car as it went out the gate and turned right toward Lewiston. With the speed of a shifting shadow he bounded across the open area and vanished into the rows of trees. No one saw the sudden black shape, and moments later he was over the high fence and at the boulder beside the highway.
The State Police car came past already driving fast.
Moments later, the police car barely out of sight around the first curve of the twisting highway, a small green car appeared from the same direction also driving fast. As it neared the boulder it slowed and the door on the right swung open. In a single bound The Shadow was in the car, the door was closed, and the car raced on after the State Police car.
“Faster, Stanley!” The Shadow commanded.
Stanley pressed down on the accelerator and guided the green car expertly around the tortuous curves of the highway that wound through the mountains and the deep pine forest. The chauffeur-agent of The Shadow was an expert driver, and the small green car clung to the curves like a racing car.
“They’re going awfully fast for a trooper car,” Stanley said.
“Yes, Stanley,” The Shadow said.
“There they are!” Stanley said as the police car came in sight ahead on a short straightaway.
“Drop back and do not let them guess we are after them,” The Shadow commanded.
Stanley eased the green car back and drove so as to have an occasional glimpse of the police car ahead as it vanished around the curves. In his seat The Shadow opened a map. It was a map of the area. The fiery eyes of the Avenger studied the open map closely.
‘There is no crossroad for ten miles, Stanley,” The Shadow said, his voice quiet and efficient now. “There is only one major crossroad between here and Lewiston. Where is Margo?”
“Probably on her way from Lewiston with Harry Vincent, Chief,” Stanley said. “Harry reported in that he found no private flights out of Salt Lake City, but he did locate the trail of the staff car. It was sighted on the road up toward Idaho. Harry lost the trail. When he reported in, Margo told him to meet her in Lewiston like you ordered.”
“Good,” The Shadow said.
The Avenger bent over his ring. In the glow of twilight and fading sun the black-garbed figure looked like some great ancient symbol of justice where he sat in the green car. His eyes burned intensely as he spoke into his ring radio.
“Come in, Margo!”
There was a silence, and then the calm voice of The Shadow’s number one agent. “Margo here, Chief.”
“Where are you?” The Shadow demanded.
“On the road from Lewiston with Harry Vincent,” the voice of the beautiful woman said.
The Shadow studied his map. His long finger with the glowing red fire-opal girasol on it traced a back road. “Margo, have you passed the small hamlet of Broken Cliff yet?”
“No, Chief.”
“When you reach the village you will see a mountain dirt road. Take this road and drive as fast as possible on it to where it intersects the highway south. Report to me when you reach that point.”
“Yes, Chief,” Margo said quietly, and the radio went silent.
The Shadow sat back and his eyes glowed as he rode in the grim and silent chase. Stanley guided the small green car in a steady chase of the police car ahead that appeared and vanished and appeared again as the two cars drove as fast as they could on the winding highway. The chase continued for the ten tortuous miles. Then there was a long straightaway before the Lewiston highway intersected the highway toward the south.
“Fall back!” The Shadow commanded.
Stanley slowed and let the police car draw away. The Shadow watched intently. If his suspicions were correct, the police car would not go straight on to Lewiston. He watched, his fiery eyes concentrating on the distant police car that moved through the rapidly fading mountain twilight. Then he suddenly leaned forward like a hawk about to pounce down from the sky.
The police car slowed—and turned onto the highway that led to the south!
“Go past, Stanley,” The Shadow commanded.
Stanley drove the green car past the intersection. Not fifty yards up the highway to the south the police car was parked! The Shadow smiled grimly as the green car drove past at full speed and was soon out of sight of the police car. They had, as he had expected they would, stopped to be sure that the green car was not following them. Now, with the green car speeding past without a hint of slackening its pace, they would not be suspicious.
“Stop now, Stanley.”
Stanley brought the green car to a silent halt.
“Turn back carefully and follow them along the south highway but out of sight.”
Stanley turned back and drove to the crossroad again. The police car was gone.
“Now fast!” The Shadow commanded.
Stanley nodded, and the green car leaped forward and raced along the southern road. The twilight grew ever more purple as Stanley and The Shadow raced on in pursuit. Some ten more minutes passed as The Shadow studied his map with growing concern. Then his ring radio suddenly spoke.
“We are at the highway now, Chief,” the voice of Margo said.
“Good!” The Shadow responded. “In about ten minutes a State Police car will come toward you, probably going very fast, with four men in it. Block its path and capture it if possible. Be careful, they are well-armed. You will probably need your weapons. You will find Colonel Derian in the car, Margo. He is on our side. Whatever you do, do not let them pass!”
“Yes, Chief,” Margo said.
The radio became silent again. The Shadow peered ahead. The chase went on. Then, suddenly, Stanley spoke. “There they are!”
The State Police car was driving fast. As the green car with The Shadow in it came into sight, the police car suddenly began to drive even faster!
“They’ve spotted us now,” Stanley said.
“Catch them!” The Shadow commanded.
Stanley pushed the accelerator to the floor and the green car tore ahead on the winding highway. It swayed and slewed as Stanley fought it around the curves. But they could not gain on the police car. The troopers drove as wildly and expertly as Stanley, and the police car held its lead. The Shadow’s fiery eyes were grim as he watched the chase. Minutes passed and still they did not gain.
“I wish I had our car, Chief” Stanley said. “We’d catch them then.”
“Keep trying, Stanley, but do not lose them in any event!” The Shadow ordered.
Stanley nodded and pushed the small green car as fast as it could go. Slowly, on the curves, they began to gain. But so slowly that it was hardly noticeable. Then both cars entered a long straight stretch with a deep ravine on the left of the highway. The police car began to pull away!
On the straight road it was faster than the green car. Stanley hung on. The police car went around a curve, swaying wide above the yawning abyss of the mountain ravine in the fading twilight.
The green car of The Shadow followed around the curve. Stanley gasped aloud.
“Chief!”
The sight that met the eyes of The Shadow seemed for a split second like a frozen tableau.
The police car hurtled down the road. The ravine yawned dark to the left. The light of day was fading in a purple mountain haze. And directly ahead of the police car as it hurtled forward was another car! Two people, a man and a woman, stood beside the third car with guns in their hands.
Perhaps it was the deepening twilight. Or just the speed of the police car. But it was obvious that the driver of the police car, perhaps watching The Shadow’s car behind him, did not see the third car or the armed man and woman until he was almost on it. Perhaps the driver of the police car simply misjudged his ability as a driver. Whatever the case, the police car, hurtling like a bullet along the narrow highway, sped straight at the third car that blocked the road, and did not turn until the last minute. It then turned a fraction and tried to drive past between the ravine and the blocking car. It did not make it.
The police car struck the front fender of the blocking car, slewed for a breathless instant, and went far out into the empty space above the yawning chasm of the ravine.
Faint above the roar of his own motor The Shadow heard the despairing screams of the men in the police car as it fell through the purple twilight into the dark night of the bottom of the rocky ravine. There was a rending, tearing, horrible crash.
Then silence.
A small explosion and a burst of flame at the bottom of the ravine.
Stanley brought the green car to a halt in front of the third car where Margo and Harry Vincent stood looking down into the ravine at the licking flames from the crushed police car.
Where the smashed. police car lay at the bottom of the ravine there was no sound but the faint noise of flames licking at metal. Small tendrils of fire crept from the car out into the brush of the rocky chasm. The car had hit, bounced twice, and come to rest leaning at a tortured angle against a giant boulder. Nothing moved in the glare of the fiery flames that burned the smashed and twisted metal. An arm hung out the front window. A body lay fifty feet away smashed against aboulder. Here, at the bottom of the deep abyss, there was only death and darkness and the licking flames that crackled with the intense heat.
Then the night itself moved.
A looming shadow passed across the lighter sky far above where the road was on the mountainside.
The Shadow stood beside the wreck.
He glided to the body that had been flung out. It was one of the troopers and he was dead. The Shadow returned to the flaming car. His powers resistant to the heat, he peered into the crushed interior. The trooper with his arm out was dead. The Shadow looked into the rear seat and saw Colonel Derian. The Russian had died the violent death he must have known would come to him someday—but Derian could never have guessed that he would die in a car crash on a lonely highway in Idaho!
The Shadow’s eyes suddenly glowed—the fourth man was not in the car.
The black-garbed Avenger began to search. His night vision gave him a clear view of the bottom of the ravine. He found the fourth man within minutes. The man, a trooper, had been flung out of the car at the first crash and lay fifty feet up the side of the rocky hollow. The Shadow floated swiftly to him. He bent over—The man was not dead! Dying, but not yet dead.
The man moved his lips weakly, his eyelids fluttered in pain.
The Shadow bent low, forcing his powers deep into the dying brain. The man moaned softly, squirmed as the cloud rolled into his bare consciousness. The Shadow had no choice. He must know who these troopers had really been.
Because he knew now what he had seen in a brief flash at the plant of Federal Cybernetics as the troopers took Derian away—it had been the face of this man on the ground!
A brief, split-second sight of the face of this man. A face his memory had known—the face of the phony Colonel described by Harry Vincent! This was one of the men who had been outside the Utah Base when the Moon rocket had failed! One of the men who had killed Major Oates in the grounds of the Soviet mansion!
That is what he had seen that had made him sense that something was not right about the supposed State Troopers! They were not troopers.
“Who are you?” The Shadow said as he bent low over the dying man.
“Who do you work for? What is your mission?” The Shadow demanded.
The dying man groaned.
“I command you to tell me who you are!”
The dying man’s eyes suddenly opened. Flat eyes, near death and clouded by the powers of The Shadow, but the disciplined eyes of a man who obeyed commands, and who had now been commanded. His lips moved, his body seemed to try to move to attention.
“Group … Group … . .” the man tried to force out, tried again. ” … Group Leader … Ten
… Leader Ten … CYPHER Command Base … Idaho … . .”
And the man was dead.
The Shadow stared down in the night. His fiery eyes blazed up in anger.
CYPHER!
Again CYPHER!
The eyes of The Shadow flashed in the dark of the ravine where the flickering flames of the burning wreck played across his hawk-like features. He stared down at the dead man.
CYPHER!
Then it had all been the evil organization that offered its services of death and destruction and violence to anyone who paid it. He should have guessed. The skill and efficiency of the actions, the coldly deadly performance. It was all clear now.
CYPHER.
Once more The Shadow was faced with the ruthless band of renegades from a hundred Armies; the bitter militants of a hundred countries, West and East, Communist and Capitalist, who had turned against every country; the secret Army that believed in only force and power, and sold its services to any bidder! Once more it was CYPHER the black Avenger must stop, and he turned now and vanished again into the night.
Behind him the four dead men lay silent, the flames licked at broken metal and flickered in the empty ravine.
Ahead of him there was CYPHER—and whoever had hired the evil organization.
Because CYPHER never worked for itself. Behind CYPHER there was someone who had hired the evil Army.
The eyes of The Shadow burned as he thought of whoever had hired CYPHER this time. As he moved slowly back up the side of the ravine he thought about the guards at the Federal Cybernetics plant—CYPHER men, of course. But who had hired them, and who knew that they were CYPHER? Who … “Chief! !”
The voice slashed through the night. Margo’s voice. From the ring radio on The Shadow’s hand.
“It’s CYPHER! They … “
Silence.
The Shadow listened, but there was nothing more. Up on the road where the last light of twilight was still visible there were sounds, the sound of many feet.
The Shadow began to climb swiftly up the side of the steep ravine toward the last light above.
To Be Continued Monday...Right Here at...HERO HISTORIESPlease Support Hero HistoriesVisit Amazon and Buy...by James Patterson and Brian Sitts
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