“Margo reporting. Come in Control Central. Agent Lane reporting from Federal Cybernetics.
Come in Chief.”
There was a faint sound.
The blue shadows seemed to swirl and darken.
The black-shrouded shape of The Shadow appeared as if from out of the light itself and glided in silence to a small, compact communications console that emerged from the hazy blue light.
The cloaked Avenger bent over the instrument, his piercing eyes fiery above his scythe-like nose.
The fire-opal girasol glowed blood-red on his long finger as he touched the controls of the console. His voice was low and strong.
“Report!”
The distant voice of Margo could have been in the blue room itself.
“All laboratory routine normal until some half an hour before work ended. At that time J. Wesley Bryan entered the office of Research Director Max Ernest. They talked, I could not tell exactly what about. By reading lips I gathered they discussed the failure of Full Moon; and the necessity to complete it as soon as possible. Bryan appears especially anxious to have Full Moon succeed. After they talked a few minutes, Bryan used a double key to enter a closet marked Storage. One of the keys was in Ernest’s safe, the other Bryan carried on his person. Bryan went into the closet and did not return for some time.”
The Shadow’s eyes snapped. “A closet? Could you determine what is actually behind that door?”
“No,” Margo’s voice said, “but from what I read on their lips I would guess that it is some kind of private laboratory.”
The Avenger was silent for a moment. “Bryan is a known scientific genius, it would be probable that he would have a private laboratory of his own. He would also probably keep it locked. In itself it means little, Margo. Still, we will have to investigate that secret room.
Proceed.”
Margo’s voice continued its calm report. “Soon after Bryan went through the door, Professor Stanley Farina visited Dr. Ernest. Again …”
The Shadow said, “Farina? Did you read their conversation?”
“Partly,” Margo said from the dim and silent locker room, her voice coming softly into the blue room where The Shadow listened. “They spoke mostly about the failure of the shot at Utah Base. Farina appears confused, he insists it is sabotage. Ernest is not sure. The discussed the possibility of Lamont Cranston being involved. Ernest appeared to know Cranston quite well.”
“Who suggested Cranston as a possible saboteur?” The Shadow asked.
“The first suggestion seemed to come from Dr. Ernest,” Margo said where she sat bent over her ring in the dim locker room.
“Go on,” The Shadow said.
“After a time Dr. Ernest suggested that he and Farina go to check the fuel control production line to be absolutely sure that all was well and functioning correctly. Farina agreed, and they left the office. By this time the entire laboratory had emptied and been shut for the night. I waited until the Women’s Locker Room had cleared, and then took up position at the door to observe the laboratory. After a short time, Bryan came out of the door marked Storage. He opened the safe and wrote in a book. He returned the book to the safe and left the office. He stopped to examine and adjust an experiment in the lab before he went out of the lab… .”
In the hazy blue silence of the hidden blue room high above the city, The Shadow listened closely to the report of his Number One agent. His eyes flashed as she described the appearance of the wiry scientist, and his searching actions. When she reached the part where he photographed the pages of the ledger, The Shadow interrupted again.
“He seemed excited?” The Avenger asked.
“Yes. Excited and a little puzzled. He seemed to feel that he had discovered something important but was not sure what it was.”
“Do you know who he is?”
“Only that his name is Otto Reigen, he is a senior scientist. His record shows that he made a recent trip to Germany. In fact he only returned a few days ago,” Margo reported.
“He photographed the pages but did nothing else?”
“Nothing else,” Margo reported.
“And you have examined the book and the pages he photographed?” The Shadow continued.
“Yes.”
“What did you find?”
There was a short silence from the distant locker room. Then Margo’s voice again entered the blue room of The Shadow. “The book seems to be a record of the materials used in some experiments by type and quantity, and a report of various shipments made from the Hempstead laboratory and plant. I have no idea why Reigen found them interesting or important. It seems that he picked pages more or less at random to photograph.”
“You have no idea what is so important about the ledger?” The Shadow asked grimly.
“No,” Margo said. “Except for one peculiar thing. Many of the shipment entries seemed to follow the receipt of materials for experiments by exactly a week.”
In the blue room The Shadow became silent for a time. His glowing eyes were bright with thought. His black-cloaked figure was motionless in the haze of blue. At last he bent over the communications console again.
“I must look at that book myself, Margo. Also, I would like to get into that locked storage closet. I will come to join you now. While I am on my way, try to find out if the storage closet can be entered without difficulty.”
“I’ll be waiting for… “
Margo’s voice stopped. In the blue room The Shadow adjusted the controls of the console.
But there was nothing wrong with the equipment. Margo’s voice came again almost at once. Her voice was suddenly low and urgent.
“Someone is in the locker room with me! I can hear them!”
“Be careful, Margo!” The Shadow hissed softly. “Sign off and take cover. Now!”
“Right,” Margo whispered from the distant locker room. “I can hear them. I think … Too late! It’s …”
The console went silent.
In the blue room The Shadow waited.
The silence seemed to hover thick and deadly. There was no more sound from the console.
The Shadow touched a button on the communications unit. A new voice answered at once.
“Agent Shrevnitz.”
“Proceed at once to the Federal Cybernetics plant at Hempstead,” The Shadow commanded.
“You can be there in five minutes. Watch for Agent Lane disguised as a blonde woman of fifty.”
“On my way,” the new voice answered at once.
The console was silent again. For a long minute The Shadow remained motionless in the haze of the blue room, his fiery eyes glowing with anger and a certain worry. Then his great black-shrouded figure whirled and glided away across the room. The next instant the blue room was again silent and empty. The Shadow had vanished.
The highway that runs outside the fence of the Federal Cybernetics plant and laboratory in Hempstead is a dark concrete road lined on all side by thick trees and bushes. It runs straight east and west and is heavily traveled. Just after dark a New York city taxicab drove up toward the main gate, went past, and vanished from sight among the trees along the highway. As soon as it was out of sight from the gate, the taxi pulled off the road and stopped in the shadows of the tall trees. The driver got out and moved quickly toward the fence around the Federal Cybernetics plant.
The driver was a small, dark man who wore the work clothes, leather jacket, and peaked cap of the New York taxi driver. He reached a spot at the fence from where he could see the front and side doors of the main laboratory building. There he crouched hidden and waited, the plastic badge of his trade catching the faint rays of light in the night. He did not have long to wait.
Almost as soon as he crouched, a black car drove up to the side door of the main laboratory building. The car stopped. A man got out and opened the rear door. As if on signal two more men came out of the laboratory building’s side door. Between them they held the arms of a blonde older woman. The woman limped noticeably as she was walked toward the waiting car.
In the bushes outside the fence the taxi driver came alert. The woman was pushed into the rear seat and one of the two men got in with her and closed the door. The other two men got into the front seat of the black car. The car moved off toward the main gate. The taxi driver watched as the car stopped at the main gate. The guards approached the car. After a brief talk, a presentation of badges and passes, the guards waved the car through the gate. The taxi driver ran for his hidden cab.
The driver reached his taxi just as the black car came into sight on the highway heading west.
The driver jumped into his cab and, when the black car had passed far enough ahead, pulled out of the trees and fell in line behind the black car. The taxi driver was an expert at trailing—this was clear all the time during the long chase far out on Long Island to the east of New York.
Twice the black car abruptly changed direction, taking roads that brought it east and north toward the North Shore of the island. Each time the taxi maintained its contact without being seen. Once, the taxi driver saw the black car turn onto a cross-island highway and did not follow it at all! He continued on the highway to a second turn-off. There the driver turned and drove smiling until he reached a point where this road intersected another north-south road. He stopped his cab and waited. A few minutes later, as if on signal, the black car appeared and went past.
Grinning, the taxi driver again took up the chase. His detailed knowledge of the highways of Long Island had given him the certain knowledge that the black car had to pass the point where he waited. In this way, with the skills of the trained pursuer, the taxi driver followed his quarry through the night.
The black car continued to drive slowly and carefully so as not to attract any attention. It drove east and north until it reached a secondary highway that ran along the North Shore and the calm water of Long Island Sound shining in the rising moon. The taxi driver continued to follow, but fell back now and bent slightly to speak into his dashboard.
“Agent Shrevnitz reporting to Control Central.”
The crisp and neutral voice of Burbank answered from the blue light of the control room in the complex of hidden rooms high above Park Avenue. “Report, Agent Shrevnitz.”
“Picked up car with Margo in disguise at Federal Cybernetics. Three men. Now driving along coast road east of Oyster Bay in the direction of Port Jefferson. There is no major turn-off for ten miles.”
“Very good,” Burbank said simply.
The hidden radio went silent. The taxi driver, Shrevnitz, continued his careful pursuit. The black car went on at its sedate pace, attracting no attention, clearly unaware of the cab behind it.
The moon was higher now above the trees that lined the rocky coast of the North Shore, its light reaching across the placid water of the Sound like a glittering path of silver. They passed through a few small villages, and on all sides of the road there were lights in the houses were people went about their evening pleasures unaware of the silent chase going on along the road. At a point some two miles west of Port Jefferson the taxi driver suddenly cocked his head to listen and looked up into the moonlit sky. There was a noise—the sound of a helicopter engine high up. A shadow passed across the moon like a great black bird flying. Then it was gone. But the driver smiled again and nodded to himself. The chase continued through Port Jefferson. The helicopter was gone. A mile beyond Port Jefferson, on a dark and secluded section of the road where there was a deep dip and the black car ahead was, for an instant, out of sight, a tiny red light flashed once at the side of the road among a thick shadow of trees. The taxi driver slowed his cab. He passed the spot at ten miles an hour. There was a faint sound, a movement of the air inside the taxi.
“Catch them, Shrevvie,” a deep voice said.
The taxi driver, Shrevvie, did not look around but stepped on his accelerator and drove fast up over the crest and out of the low spot in the road. For a time he drove with no thought but to make sure the black car did not escape. He did not look at the figure that now sat in the back seat of the cab—the black-garbed shape of The Shadow.
“There they are, Chief,” Moe Shrevnitz said.
“Good,” The Shadow said. “Continue to follow carefully.”
Shrevvie now looked back. “You made it fast. I heard the chopper go over.”
The Shadow’s eyes blazed. “I was standing by at the helicopter, Shrevvie. Margo is in danger, and I do not yet know why or who has her.”
“There was three of them, Chief. Foreign-looking types. They got out of the Federal Cybernetics place with no trouble, so they all must be known there.”
“It seems that way, Shrevvie,” The Shadow said grimly. “The question now is are they associated with Federal Cybernetics, or are they some outside unit that has infiltrated the company? From their actions it would seem that they are not part of the company. It would be more logical for members of the company to keep Margo at the plant.”
Shrevvie nodded. “Yeh, that would figure, Chief. Do you figure it’s good or bad?”
The Shadow’s eyes flashed. “If they are outside spies of some kind, it might be a break in the problem we face. It could be a good lead for us to the saboteurs. They are at Federal Cybernetics for some reason, Shrevvie.”
“Yeh, and they looked mighty anxious to get Margo out. The way I figure… .”
The Shadow’s voice was low and quick. “They are turning off, Shrevvie!”
Shrevvie immediately returned his attention to the road. The black car had turned into a narrow side road. It vanished among thick trees that lined the narrow macadam road. Shrevvie turned the taxi after the car. The small agent of The Shadow drove skillfully and carefully along the side road among the thick trees. He reached down now and pulled a small lever under the dashboard of the taxi. Instantly the sound of his engine fell almost to nothing—a faint purr that was muffled in the night and could not be heard for more than fifty yards. Even when it was heard it sounded more like the sound of wind in trees than the sound of a car engine. The taxi crept on along the narrow road.
“There, Chief,” Shrevvie said softly, and nodded ahead.
The black-top road straightened suddenly and led past a long and high stone wall. A tall iron-work gate was set in the wall. The gate opened and the black car went through.
“Stop now!” The Shadow snapped.
Shrevvie stopped.
“Drive off the road and out of sight,” The Shadow commanded.
Shrevvie drove off the road and the taxi faded into the trees and shadows. Ahead the tall gate had closed again. The Shadow, in the back seat of the taxi, concentrated his powers. He listened.
He smelled the air. His keen night sight studied the wall. His burning eyes stared ahead toward the gate.
“There are no guards on the gate,” The Shadow said softly. “It must be operated from the house. I can see the gables of a large mansion behind the wall. It is some kind of estate. There are dogs loose on the grounds, I can both hear and smell them. Otherwise all seems quiet. The car we have been trailing just parked at the rear of the mansion. They got out and have taken Margo into the house. They were expected, the door was opened for them.”
Shrevvie listened to all that his Chief could see and hear and smell while he, Shrevvie, could hear and see and smell nothing, and marveled again at the powers of the secret black-garbed Avenger. There was nothing that could escape The Shadow when he concentrated his powers.
“What do we do, Chief?”
“You remain here on guard, Shrevvie,” The Shadow said. “You can observe the road in both directions, and you can watch the gate at the same time from this spot.”
“And you?” Shrevvie asked.
The eyes of The Shadow flashed fire. “I am going over the wall, Shrevvie. I will release Margo and learn who these men are and what they are up to!”
“What about the dogs?” the small taxi driver said.
The laugh of The Shadow was low. “Dogs will not stop The Shadow, Shrevvie. Not animal dogs, nor human dogs!” The low laugh echoed in the dark night and the next instant Shrevvie was alone in the silent taxi parked among the trees outside the wall.
The Shadow was gone.
Something seemed to move in the night at the top of the wall. A vague shifting of light no one could have seen unless they were looking for it, and even then it seemed no more than a motion of the shadows of the night.
To Be Continued on Tuesday, at...Please Support Hero HistoriesVisit Amazon and Buy...by James Patterson and Brian Sitts
