Then suddenly Agent “X” hunched forward over the wheel. A hundred feet ahead, out of the mouth of an intervening street, another car plunged. Its speed indicated it had left the boulevard at the same time as the sedan, driven along a parallel way, and deliberately cut in at this point. The rear curtains were down. “X” could not see inside. But he had caught a glimpse of several heads as the car made the turn.
THE sedan in front suddenly speeded up and “X” saw in that instant that the bigger car was giving chase. Fury possessed him, fury and a sense that he was fighting some vast ruthless force. For there was maddening efficiency in the way the other car behaved. Those in it had been lurking somewhere along the boulevard. They had seen the signals the sedan had flashed, seen and given chase. They had waited till the sedan was well away from the lighted boulevard before coming close. What were their intentions?
The next few minutes developed into a roaring, rocketing chase. Stark fear seemed to possess the man in the sedan. He was driving ahead like a madman, driving so fast that in the first moments of the chase he drew away from the limousine, and from Agent “X” following.
Then the limousine speeded up, too. In a moment the Agent heard the crackling tattoo of machine gun fire. The men in the limousine were shooting at the fleeing sedan. “X” pressed the accelerator of his own car nearly to the floor boards. It leaped ahead dangerously through the dark street. Lights were appearing in windows along the way. The quest of the writer of the ciphergram had plunged “X” into a fierce turmoil of action. Its culmination came quickly.
As he drew close to the limousine, the rear curtain moved aside. Something was shoved through an opening. A winking eye of flame appeared. Spidery crossed lines showed on the shatter-proof glass of the windshield of “X’s” car. The snap and crack of bullets sounded.
“X” lifted a bullet-proof metal panel which rose nearly to his eyes. Lead struck against this.
Then the men in the car lowered the snout of their weapon. A front tire on “X’s” car blew with a ripping explosion. A giant’s hand seemed trying to wrench the wheel from his grip.
The next second became a fight with death, a fight to see that his coupé did not leave the street, plunge across the sidewalk and wreck itself against the side of a house. Muscles in his arms and shoulders stood out. He held the wheel steady.
So fast had he been traveling, so torn by bullets was the tire, that it flapped around the rim of the wheel, beating against the fender. And, as the plunging car slowed, it came off the wheel entirely, and the coupé jounced along on one metal rim.
Agent “X” brought the car to a standstill, leaped out. His eyes were livid pools of light. The muscles of his face were set into masklike rigidity. The chase was far ahead now, nearly two blocks beyond the point where he had been shot at. He could still hear the popping of bullets.
A cruising taxi, attracted by the noise, came whirling out of a side street. Agent “X” leaped to the running board. The taxi driver, seeing the Agent’s bullet-ravaged car tilted against the curb, seemed to regret his haste in coming to the scene so soon. A tight-lipped command from “X” jerked him into action.
“Follow that car ahead. Step on it!” the Agent ordered.
The taxi driver’s reactions were almost automatic. The dynamic light in the Agent’s eyes, the snapping tones of his voice, left no other alternative. The taxi plunged ahead.
Far behind in the night the thin wail of a siren sounded. Some one had telephoned. The police were coming. But “X” feared what might happen to the man in the sedan before they arrived.
STRAINING his eyes over the taxi driver’s hunched shoulders, he saw the sedan forced to the curb. He saw the limousine stop, saw men swarm out, but could not make out clearly what happened. Those other figures which had come out of the limousine appeared to be lifting the driver of the sedan across the street bodily.
They thrust him inside. The limousine leaped forward again while the taxi was still a block behind.
In a burst of speed it passed the parked sedan, empty now. “X” saw that it, too, had been raked with bullets. Both rear tires were riddled into ribbons. The rear window was smashed. So were two of the side windows. He wondered if the man were still alive. If so, what would those others do to him?
The hideous answer to that came quickly. They had left the residential district behind. They tore through a section of small stores, then the street cut between open building lots. The taxi driver was swearing.
“I can’t catch ’em, boss. This bus is too slow, I’ll burn ’er out.”
Agent “X” didn’t answer. The driver was obviously doing his best. The clattering whine of the straining motor told that. But he had seen what the driver of the cab had not. The car ahead had pulled up to the curb beside one of the vacant lots. The door opened and something was heaved out — something that lurched and tottered on its feet for a moment then pitched forward, falling.
The limousine roared on into the night; the taxi after it. But Agent “X,” seeing the hopelessness of trying to overtake that speeding car in this cab, issued another sharp command to the driver.
“Stop on the next block.”
The taxi drew into the curb close to the spot where the car ahead had halted. Before it had ceased to roll forward, Agent “X” yanked the door open and flung himself out
The man he had seen fall was not on the sidewalk. He was a dark, seemingly shapeless blob on the other side of it, face pressed downward against the earth.
Agent “X” leaped forward and turned him over. A gasp of sheer horror fell from his lips. For the man was dead, his features screwed into distorted agony. His lips were wide apart in what appeared at first a hideous grin. But a clot of lead, once molten, now hardened into terrible solidity, thrust from his mouth. It hung down over his chin like a grotesque untrimmed beard. The man’s tongue had been silenced forever.
Chapter III
THE taxi driver left his cab, followed “X” and stared down at the dead man, eyes wide, voice a hoarse rasp.
“Jeez — who is it? What did they do to that guy?”
The Agent made no reply. He did not know himself who the man was. He stooped quickly, thrust a hand into the man’s coat pocket. His fingers encountered a worn wallet and a few letters which he drew out, clicking on a small flashlight.
“Gordon Ridley, Twenty-four Warner Avenue,” was the name on the letters and on the name card in the wallet.
Agent “X” put both into his own coat, and searched the man’s other pockets to see if there was anything else to identify him. Nothing but a bunch of keys, which “X” pocketed, also.
“Who is he?” the taxi man repeated. “Those guys took him for a ride.”
Agent “X” nodded, then swivelled his head suddenly. The note of a police siren was sounding down the block. Headlights of a swift car appeared. Other sirens yelped thinly, blocks away, like hounds giving tongue.
“The cops,” breathed the taxi driver.
Agent “X” drew a couple of dollars from his own wallet, put them into the dazed taxi man’s hands, enough to cover his fare. He turned then and strode swiftly across the big vacant lot.
“Hey!” the taxi man yelled after him. “Wait!”
“X” paid no attention, moving on into the shadows, breaking into a run at the last as he heard the brakes of the first radio patrol car screech to a halt. He did not want the delay of endless questions. The police would want to know what he knew about the dead man. They would hold him as a material witness, perhaps try to implicate him in the crime.