Agent “X” spoke slowly, dramatically, a strange smile on his face as he put up a desperate bluff.
“I wouldn’t explode them if I were you, Sutton! You may remember that one of the bombs was found. I brought that bomb to the yacht with me. If the others go up — you and your yacht will be blown to hell!”
Sutton turned incredulous eyes on the Agent. He came close and shook a finger in “X’s” face. “A lie — another lie! You don’t know anything about that bomb! The man who found it is dead. You never saw it. You couldn’t even describe it if your life depended on it.”
“No?” His eyes fixed on Sutton, the strange smile still twitching his lips, Agent “X” told calmly of the finding of the bomb. He gave a description of the radio mechanism, told in detail how the bomb looked and how it worked. And when he finished, Monte Sutton was white and shaken. He gave another fierce order to an officer who was standing by.
“You hear what this man says? Look all over the ship — find that bomb!” As he spoke, the windows of the saloon were raised. Sailors standing on the deck outside shoved gun muzzles through, covering every man and woman in the cabin.
“You’re all my prisoners,” said Sutton. “You, too, Foster, head of your damned police — as well as this spy you sent here. If he’s not lying we’ll find that bomb — and then—”
“You won’t get away with it!” Foster shouted. “You’ll go to the chair for this, Sutton!”
Sutton, laughing like a demon, walked up and struck the commissioner in the face. Then he turned to Agent “X.”
“You will die,” he said gloatingly, “but not until you’ve watched the city go up. It won’t be a pretty sight — but it will be something to remember — the grandest fireworks you’ll ever see. I—”
He paused suddenly, whirled toward a window. As the yacht moved ahead, something sounded in the darkness outside. It was a moaning wail, like the voice of the night protesting. It rose in pitch — became identifiable as the siren of a boat. Other sirens took up the cry abruptly. They were all around on the black water. The harbor patrol had arrived.
Monte Sutton staggered back. The commissioner of police gave a cry of amazement mixed with intense satisfaction.
At that instant “X” saw the man who called himself the Terror leap toward the wall and press a button that plunged the saloon in darkness. He saw Sutton turn and dash toward the passage at the cabin’s end. And he got a glimpse of the man’s face in a stabbing searchlight from one of the patrol craft sweeping up. Sutton’s features were convulsed. He was in the grip of stark emotion, a raging, unholy devil of a man, lips skinned back from his teeth, fingers clenched.
And in that instant Agent “X” divined Sutton’s intent. A cry of horror came from his own lips. Sutton had been defeated in his plot. Yet there was one last coup he could make — a coup that brought beads of sweat to the Secret Agent’s forehead. If this happened, his own efforts, his desperate struggles, would have been futile.
He sprang across the cabin after the black shadow of Sutton. All about him was confusion. Men and women were crying in excitement. The sirens of the police boats wailed. The sound of shots as Sutton’s criminal crew tried to fight off the law. But in the Agent’s mind was no confusion — only cold purpose.
He reached the door of the passageway through which the ship’s officers had shoved him a few minutes before. He saw Sutton’s figure ahead, a furious streak at the end of the passage. The corridor curved, following the deck line of the boat. “X” lost sight of Sutton for an instant. When he rounded the bend, the man ahead had just hurled himself through the radio-room door.
AGENT “X” after him. The door slammed in his face. He beat against it. Bullets, fired by the human demon inside, ripped through the wood, plucked at the Agent’s coat.
Ignoring them, risking his own life that horror might not come to thousands, Agent “X” flung his full weight against the door. It crashed inward; but Sutton was already bent over the instruments in the covered cabinet. A motor-generator was whirring somewhere. Sutton had the metal grille unlocked.
He was reaching for a button inside, fingers taut as talons, eyes gleaming. The man was going to blow up the city anyway, risk the explosion of the bomb that Agent “X” claimed to have brought with him — and commit suicide rather than give himself up to the law.
A gun in Sutton’s left hand streaked up. Agent “X” dodged aside as the muzzle lanced flame. Sutton screamed a curse at him, tried to press the gun against his body. Agent “X” battered the gun down and clamped viselike fingers over Sutton’s right hand, snatching it away from the radio signal button. Then he crashed into Sutton, knocked the man to the floor.
Sutton was a kicking, clawing, biting fury. His frenzy gave him amazing strength. He tried to sink his teeth into the Agent’s arm, reached up with gouging fingers to press out his eyes. The Agent struck with desperate, sledge-hammer blows. His knuckles found Sutton’s chin, snapped the man’s head back. With a sigh and a groan Sutton relaxed, and flopped back on the floor.
But Agent “X” was taking no chances of his coming to before the police found him. He stooped for an instant, pressed a small hypo needle into the man’s arm. That would keep him in a stupor for several hours.
Then “X” went expertly through the man’s pockets. In one he found a small-scale city map. His eyes gleamed at this. Red marks showed on it — a dozen of them. Here were the locations of the hidden bombs. One of the marks, at the block of the Montmorency Club, was proof of that. Now the police bomb squad could find them. Harrigan would tell them how to handle the NP bombs. The Agent’s work was done.
He stooped down, pinned the map to the front of Sutton’s coat, left it on the inert figure. And with it, he left brief penciled instructions to the police, urging that they round up Sanzoni and Sanzoni’s gang for the part they’d played in the crime wave. He listed the mobsters’ names, added the names of several witnesses. Bugs Gary had done nothing and could go free when he recovered consciousness. But “X” would dump Sanzoni on a certain street corner where the law would find him.
The Agent went to the door then, listened, and stepped out into the corridor. The sounds of shots were diminishing now. The police had overcome criminal resistance. They were boarding the yacht. Soon Sutton’s criminals, and Sutton’s share of the loot, would be in the hands of the law, too.
No one saw the human shadow that moved out on the yacht’s side deck. Crouched and silent in his rubber-soled shoes, Agent “X” slunk across the deck, and down the side of the craft as he had come. The dark and drifting kayak in the water had escaped attention. It looked more like a floating log than a boat.
Agent “X” paused a moment as he stepped into it. Commissioner Foster had come out of the saloon. He was talking to a grizzled captain of the harbor patrol who had boarded the yacht. The captain spoke harshly.
“It’s lucky we got your orders, commissioner! This tub’s speedy. It would have been out of the harbor in another twenty minutes.”
“Orders!” said Foster in amazement.
“Yeah. They telephoned down to our dock from headquarters — said you’d sent a radio out from the yacht here. We got here as fast as we could. Now let’s find that loot.”
Commissioner Foster did not answer. His face was a mask of wonder and surprise that he took pains to hide. But the Agent’s kayak slipped away silently, moved across the black river — and then out of the darkness came a strange whistle. It was eerie, melodious, like the call of some wild night bird — the strange, unforgettable whistle of Secret Agent “X”—man of Mystery and Destiny.