Dodge was momentarily dumbfounded. "I’m the target?"
"Not you specifically, but your name is attached to the plot. The villain is after something known only as ‘the Outpost.’ Does that mean anything to you?"
Dodge knew the federal agent would be watching for a reaction and knew also that there would be no fooling the other man. Oddly enough, the news didn’t really surprise him; it was the central piece that connected all the crazy jigsaw puzzle. "The Outpost is a secret of the highest order, Agent Fuller. I wish I could tell you more, but I’m sworn to secrecy."
Fuller regarded him with curious admiration. "Sworn by whom?"
"I can’t tell you that either and that should give you an idea of how important this is."
The G-man returned his attention to the roadway ahead. "Well Mr. Dalton, somebody spilled the beans because a foreign spy is looking for this Outpost and thinks you’re the key."
"Which explains the attempt on my life, but what does any of this have to do with the passengers of Flight 19? And why was King Donnelly working for these spies?"
"That’s something that I can’t tell you and not because of any promise of secrecy. However, given the mysterious nature of the flight’s reappearance and Inspector Winston’s evident demise, we’ve been keeping tabs on the passengers since releasing them from quarantine. It would be an understatement to say that they are all exhibiting strange behavior."
Dodge was about to ask for more information, but the sudden realization that there might be a veritable army of saboteurs running around New York awakened him to a new peril. "If they know about me, then they might know about the others."
"Others?"
"There are four of us who know the whole story. My friends Hurricane Hurley, Nathan Hobbs and Molly Rose Shannon. They might be in danger too!"
"They’re in the city?" Fuller looked over and caught Dodge’s nod. "Tell me where to go."
Dodge drummed his fingers nervously on the dashboard. "I got a telegram tonight, urging me to come to a meeting at the Natural History Museum. The arrangement among us has always been that anything concerning the Outpost should be discussed only with all of us present. I can only imagine they got the same invitation."
The sedan rolled down the incline and into downtown Manhattan. Fuller steered onto the main thoroughfare and expertly navigated toward uptown. "That seems like an odd place for a late rendezvous."
"Not really. Prof. Pendleton has an office there—"
Fuller abruptly stood on the brake, stopping the Studebaker in the middle of Broadway and turned to Dodge with a near frantic expression. "Augustus Pendleton?"
A surge of adrenaline left Dodge’s extremities numb. "Don’t tell me…"
"Pendleton just returned from an archaeological conference in Rio de Janeiro. He’s one of the passengers from Flight 19."
"I told you not to tell me."
Fuller nodded, then put the sedan in gear and resumed driving. "That telegram was a setup."
"Then why the bogus taxi ride? Why not just wait until I’m at the museum and take me there?"
"God only knows."
Dodge shook his head. "No, we’ve missed something here. Pendleton would have summoned all four of us — he would have brought us all together at the museum. If this was a plot to abduct us, that would have been the place to do it."
"Perhaps none of you were meant to arrive at the museum."
He pondered this for a moment, but then the awful truth flashed like a lightning bolt. "It’s a diversion."
"A diversion from what?"
"The one thing anyone wanting to find the Outpost would have to have." He leaned forward, holding Fuller’s gaze with the intensity of his stare so that there would be no question of his certainty. "We need to go to the Empire State Building."
They reached the world’s tallest building only a few minutes ahead of the police. The night desk operator was still fumbling with the lock to the main door to admit them when three patrol cars, casting a crimson light show into the fury of the downpour, screeched to a halt near Fuller’s parked sedan. To Dodge’s consternation, the blue-suited peace officers scrutinized Fuller’s credentials, evincing disdain at the presence of the G-man on their beat. He eventually drifted over to the man at the desk.
The young man’s shell-shocked expression spoke volumes, but Dodge wanted detail. "What happened?"
"Sammy…uh, the watchman heard something he said sounded like a bomb. Sure enough, one of the offices on the 78th floor blew up."
Dodge knew with sickening certainty which unit on that floor had been hit. "I’ve got to get up there."
"The elevators are turned off—"
"Then turn them on. This is urgent. I’m one of the administrators of that office."
The desk man’s jaw dropped. "Good heavens, I had completely forgotten."
Dodge fought the urge to grip the man’s shirtfront and demand a coherent comment. "Forgotten?"
"A priest… he was visiting that office just before the blast."
Hobbs! "Is he still up there?"
"I don’t…"
Dodge had heard enough. "Turn on the elevators. Now!"
The young man hesitated a moment longer, just long enough to get an approving nod from Fuller who had evidently resolved the jurisdictional quibbling and was now approaching with a trio of city cops in his wake.
"Do it! This is a matter vital to national security." He glanced at Dodge. "It is, right?"
"More than you can imagine." He waited for the receptionist to switch on the elevator system and then entered the express car. The flywheel speed control was fairly simple to use and he had become familiar with its operation over the course of several visits to the secret lab, but now he just couldn't make it go fast enough. An eternity seemed to pass as the floors ticked by.
The night watchman was waiting for them at the entrance to the office. "It's a mess in there, fellas."
Dodge pushed past him and threw open the door. "A mess" didn't begin to describe what he found; although the decorations had been spare to begin with, nothing recognizable remained. To make matters worse, a gale force wind was blasting through the office. Squinting, he braved the tempest and moved to the center of the room.
Despite the storm, a faint odor of gunpowder tickled his nostrils. "High explosives," shouted Fuller beside him. "Someone blasted out that window!"
Dodge nodded, but the destruction of the window was not his primary concern. He turned to the right-hand wall and saw the shattered wallboard that had once served to conceal the secret door. The explosion had completely removed the facade, but the passage through to the laboratory was nonetheless sealed; the steel security gate had dropped, probably jarred loose by the shockwave. Dodge groped for the crank handle mechanism — part of an elaborate system of gears and pulleys that was the only means of raising the guillotine-style barrier — and began the laborious task of winding in the cables. The door crept up by miniscule increments and after raising it slightly more than one foot above the threshold, he locked the crank in place and crawled underneath.
In the sparse light, it was difficult to discern the details of the room, but everything seemed to be in place. The laboratory had been spared the full force of the explosion, but a quick survey revealed that a much greater catastrophe had occurred; the artifact was gone. Dodge was still staring in disbelief when Fuller played the beam of his handheld flashlight on the display case.
"That's the work of a professional," observed the G-man, pointing at the strange contraption affixed to the glass container.
"Anyone you know?"
Fuller gave a terse nod. "Another one of the passengers on Flight 19 has long been suspected of being one of the world's leading cat burglars."