When the young man’s mother had gone into the kitchen Agent “X” spoke quickly.
“How are things going, Jim?”
“Not so good, Mr. Martin. No job. I was cut out to be a dick, I guess. I don’t seem to fit in anywhere else.”
“You wouldn’t turn down a job then, I take it?”
“A job — say! I’d turn handsprings from here to Kalamazoo to get one!”
“Supposing it was dangerous?”
Hobart laughed with a tinge of bitterness. “Remember I was a police dick once, Mr. Martin. I used to get into some tough spots. For two bits right now I’d play dentist to a lion with the toothache. That’s how bad I need a job.”
“I’ve got one for you,” said the Agent quietly, “that may make a lion with a toothache look like child’s play. Want it?”
“Do I want it! When do I start?”
“Seven o’clock tomorrow. I’ll stop by for you on the way to the field.”
“Field?”
“Yes, we’re going to fly out to Chi in the morning.”
THE Agent’s Blue Comet was still in a hangar on the Boston airport. It was the other of his two ships that the mechanic wheeled out the next morning. This was a trim swift cabin monoplane that would comfortably seat four people. Gas could be stored in the extra place if the necessity arose. It was capable of long-distance cross-country hops. Streamlined outside, the interior was as luxurious as a limousine. The Agent had use for both types of ship in his varied and dangerous work.
Jim Hobart’s eyes popped when he saw the plane, and realized for the first time that Agent “X” was going to fly it.
“I didn’t know you were a pilot, Mr. Martin — and I didn’t know you owned a bus like this.”
“Live and learn,” said Agent “X” quietly.
The ex-dick’s eyes were shining. Agent “X” smiled. He hadn’t done wrong in picking Jim Hobart. Here was a fellow who was ready for anything.
The plane took off from the field with the swift grace of a bird. This ship was orange and black. Agent “X” called it the Oriole. It was almost as speedy as the Blue Comet. Its cowled radial motor developed a maximum four hundred and fifty horsepower. The cabin fuselage contained numerous gadgets not apparent to the casual eye and not possible in an open-type ship. There were oxygen tanks for extremely high altitudes, a heater to make the cabin comfortable in winter cold, a special compartment in the rear for a gyroscopic stabilizer and an elaborate radio sending and receiving set.
There had been no other ships on the field as he took off. But, fifteen miles out of the city, “X” looked down and saw another swift plane rising from what appeared to be a bit of pasture land below. It climbed swiftly, displaying speed and power, stayed parallel for a short space; then struck off at a tangent. In ten minutes it was a mere speck on the horizon. A moment later it had gone.
Mile after mile reeled off below them. He swung over to the silver ribbon of the Hudson, followed it up to Albany, cut across toward Syracuse. The swift ship seemed to devour space. He knew he would be in Chicago long ahead of the passenger liner bearing Van Camp. He intended to be at the airport when the commercial plane landed.
Hobart sat alertly beside the Agent, asking an occasional question regarding the operation of the ship. Once Agent “X” demonstrated how his gyroscopic stabilizer could fly the plane level with no hands on the controls. Hobart nodded appreciatively as the swift ship flew itself. Agent “X” switched off the stabilizer, sank back into the luxurious leather-padded seat in front of the instrument board.
Then, out of the sunlit morning sky, the shadow of death came quickly, riding like some evil-visaged vulture of doom.
Something struck the cabin of the Oriole as if lightning had forked from that serene blue sky. A crackling, smashing lance of destruction passed through the swift plane’s roof. Splinters of metal, fabric, rained upon the shoulders and heads of Agent “X” and Hobart. The lightning-like lance, thrust by death’s quick hand, smashed on down through the ship’s rubber carpeted floor, making unsightly holes.
It was the Agent’s deft touch on the controls that saved them in that first perilous moment.
He thrust the rubber-knobbed stick sidewise, kicked the rudder pedal as far as it would go, threw the plane into a wingover that almost snapped Hobart’s head off his neck. The monoplane corkscrewed through the air. As it did so, fiery tracer bullets probed for it. In the sky above, a dark-winged biplane dived at them and, on the biplane’s nose, behind the whistling propeller arc, a brace of synchronized machine guns chattered and danced with the insane, ghoulish cackle of a destroying idiot.
Chapter XIV
HOBART swore fiercely, shouting a question. There was no time for Agent “X” to answer. The vicious cackle of the flying lead had stirred old memories in his mind. He’d been a youngster in the grim red days of the World War; but a youngster who had ridden the flaming skies, tramped through shell-torn trenches, played at death in a hundred different ways, pursuing the desperate missions of the Intelligence Service.
Agent “X” side-slipped. The bright orange monoplane seemed to drop toward earth on one wing. He pulled it out of the slip, dropped its nose for a moment, picked up roaring speed in a short power dive. But again the feathery lines of the tracers came dangerously close.
He suddenly drew the stick back into his lap and sent the nose of the monoplane hurtling almost straight up to the clouds. Hobart, unused to aerial acrobatics clutched the sides of the seat with all his might. But the sheer speed of the plane seemed to counterbalance gravity.
Agent “X” let the ship mount till it was on its back at the top of a loop. Then he did a sudden wing-over again, straightening out at a higher level, headed in the opposite direction.
Now he got a glimpse of the attacking ship. It was a dark-winged biplane, rakish, sinister. There were two cockpits; but it seemed as fast and maneuverable as a pursuit ship. There were machine guns in the rear pit, too, and he could dimly see two heads, faces hidden by goggles. Here was more evidence of efficiency and organization. This plane was equipped solely and obviously for the bloody business of murder.
It came thundering straight down out of the sky again. The Oriole was unarmed. The men in this dark ship meant to destroy it. “X” had only the mechanical perfection of his own plane and his skill and wits to depend on.
For a brief second he looked up. There were sweeping cirrus clouds far above him. Those clouds would afford protection if he could reach them. But the men in the other plane seemed to divine his thought. They laid a barrage of deathly steel-jacketed bullets across the sky. The attacking ship still had the advantage of altitude.
Agent “X” was too wise in the methods of air combat to try to escape by diving. That stubby-winged biplane looked as though it would have an edge over him in a drop. He’d seen many a novice during the war go to a flaming death trying to dive away from an enemy.
Agent “X” headed toward the other plane, bored steadily forward till the lines of the tracers came dangerously close.
The two planes were rocketing toward each other with cometlike speed. Bullets lashed the tip of the Oriole’s right wing. Once again “X” side-slipped away; then screamed down and up in an outside loop that threatened to tear the wings from the ship. When he was level again he continued to climb, the throttle pushed forward to the quadrant stop.