Ken Holt - Mystery Of Green Flame Part 18

Little Roberto gave a frightened gasp. The brick he had thrown had banged harmlessly against the wooden door, wide of its mark. Beyond the jagged hole, now nearly a foot wide, was Cosset's rage-contorted face. Ken, back at the convertible, paused to stoop down, grab up a brick, and hurl it with all his strength. Gos-set's face drew away as the missile flew toward him, but not quite in time. His howl of pain told Ken that the brick must at least have grazed his ear.

"You're doing fine, Roberto," Ken said. "Just keep throwing. I'll be back to help in a minute."

Then Ken pulled his torn sleeve, dripping now with fasoline, out of the tank of the red car. Cupping it in is palms he returned to the hearth, squeezed the inflammable liquid over the rubber, and tossed the soaked sleeve on top of the little pile. He wiped his hands swiftly on his s.h.i.+rt, fumbled in his pocket for a match, scratched it on the stone and tossed it as the flame flared.

The gasoline fumes ignited with a violent roar. A wave of searing red rose toward the ceiling, billowing outside the masonry hood and licking upward at the dry rafters and planks. Then the flames receded. But the rubber had already caught fire. A dense cloud of black choking smoke was eddying up the funnel-shaped chimney.

Ken raced back to Roberto's side. The boy stood poised and ready, part of a brick clutched in his fingers. No face was showing at the opening now. Al was ap- FIGHTING FIRE WITH FIRE 203.

parently trying to hack at the door from a position slightly to one side. Not all of his blows were effective, but further jagged splinters of wood had torn away.

"I'll take over, Roberto," Ken said. "Here's a knife. You go and cut more pieces of rubber from those old tires-see?-and throw them on the fire."

Roberto nodded in swift comprehension and trotted away.

Suddenly a plump white hand appeared in the opening. It was clutching a gun. Ken let fly. The gun went off, and once more a bullet crashed into the ceiling from a muzzle that had been knocked upward at the last moment. The hand that held the gun was dashed against the jagged edge of wood and Gosset's voice rose in a thin scream of agony. Slowly the hand holding the gun was withdrawn from sight.

"Chief!" Joe shouted. "There's smoke coming out of the chimneyl They've got a fire in there! The planes'!! see it and-I Chief, let's get in the helicopter and take off!"

The blows against the doors had ceased. "Joe's right, chief." Al, too, now sounded terrified. "Let's get out of here while we still can!"

"We'll leave when I say so and not before!" Pain had further increased the note of uncontrolled rage in Gosset's voice. "Get at that door!"

Gosset was obviously more of a menace than any threat of outside danger. The protests stopped abruptly and once again the ax beat its rhythmic thud against the wood.

"Good!" Gosset shrieked. "Faster! Faster!"

The car's loud-speaker spoke suddenly, the first words lost in the crackle of Sandy's steady signals, until Sandy realized what was happening and broke off.

204 .

"-see smoke! Both planes have reported sudden column of black smoke!" Montez was saying excitedly. "One plane is now almost directly above it and will dive low over the spot within fifteen seconds. Signal if you hear the dive! Send two dots for Yes if you hear the dive!"

Ken started to count. One-two-three- There was a throbbing overhead now. The throbbing grew louder. Suddenly it changed to the thunderous shaking roar of a power dive. Even the heavy stone walls of the building seemed to quiver.

The roar diminished quickly as the plane rose again. But already Sandy was sending out a series of paired dots, one after the other.

"Bueno!" Montez shouted over the radio. "Then we know your location. It is less than two miles from the police station. Phillips and Gonzalez are on their way to you now!"

Something sang past Ken's ear. An instant later he heard a bullet zing into the stone wall behind him. As he instinctively flung himself to the floor he took one last look at the hole. No face was in sight beyond it. Gosset, he realized, must be standing to one side of the hole and shooting through it at an angle.

"Get close to the front wall!" Ken said swiftly to the others. As he spoke he leaped to his feet and ran, to flatten himself against the wall to the right of the doors -one of the two locations in the room which Gosset would have most difficulty in hitting with his wild shots. "Come here, Roberto!"

But Sandy had grabbed Roberto and was pressing the small body against the wall, beside his own, to the left of the doors.

"Keep that ax going!" Gosset's insane rage drove his FIGHTING FIRE WITH FIRE 205.

voice to a shriek. He fired again and this shot clanged noisily against the convertible. "I said to get that door down!"

Al's ax had been silent. He didn't use it again now. Instead he said, "But, chief, you heard that voice over the radio! You saw that plane! It means-!"

The panic-stricken plea was cut short by a maniacal scream from Gosset. "Use that ax! Or I'll-!"

He broke off his command as the metal blade struck the wood again. But this time the blow was lighter, as if Al were too concerned over the gun in Cosset's hand to give his strength to the task.

And now Gosset began to fire through the hole again, still from his safe position. The shots covered a wide arc of the room directly in front of Ken, to within a few feet of where he stood. Then, suddenly, the aim s.h.i.+fted. Gosset had moved to the other side of the hole and was firing from the opposite angle. Ken looked over the convertible's hood to where Sandy and Roberto stood. The bullets were slanting across in front of them, but there was a margin of safety between the deadly slugs and the two figures flat against the wall. The noise of their explosion was deafening in the enclosed place.

At any moment, Ken knew, Gosset would realize the futility of what he was doing. Then, too insane with fury to reckon his own danger, he would place himself in front of the hole and reach inside to take a true aim.

They would have to be ready. Ken moved quietly forward along the convertible, stopping on the way to pick up as many bricks as he could carry. He reached the red car's rear fender and moved on around to stand beyond the old Ford. There he dropped the bricks on the floor, keeping one in his right hand. By peering over the old car's hoodless engine, he could look past the converti- 206 .

ble's flank, directly at the widening gash in the door, now nearly two feet across.

Sandy had seen what Ken was doing. He jerked his head frantically to signal Ken back to his previous safe position. But Ken stayed where he was.

"Faster!" Gosset was chanting. "Faster!"

Twice more the ax thudded. But the second time it was not withdrawn from the wood.

"I can't," Al gasped. "I'm finished!"

T ill I"

I told you-!

"I don't care what you told me!" Al broke in, still fighting for air. "Use the ax yourself-or are you afraid of getting that close to the door?"

"Afraid!" The voice rose still higher and cracked. And suddenly Gosset appeared in the center of the gap, gun raised, pointed straightforward.

Ken's head, peering around the convertible, was directly in the line of fire. Instantly his arm flashed forward. All his strength, all his fear, all his anger was behind that throw. The jagged brick shot forward past the convertible and straight through the hole in the door.

Ken had intended to duck the moment the brick left his hand, but he found himself watching spellbound as his projectile flew toward its mark. It struck the gun, knocking it sideways, and crashed against Gosset's chest.

The small mouth in the round pink face opened foolishly. In that instant he looked as harmless as a stuffed doll. But Ken knew that as long as Gosset was alive he was as harmless as a cobra. He reached down for another brick.

He didn't throw it. Joe's stocky body suddenly appeared alongside Gosset. He clamped his hand over the FIGHTING FIRE WTTH FIRE 207.

gun Cosset still held and wrenched it free. Then his other arm went around Cosset's neck and the gun came down like a club on the silver-white hair.

Cosset's head fell forward. Joe released his hold. The plump body sagged.

"Come on, Al!" Joe yelled. "Start the helicopter!"

Joe lunged out of sight to the left of the gap in the door. Another pair of fleeing footsteps joined his.

Without knowing it, Ken had moved forward. He reached the door just as he heard the roar of a car's motor. An instant later a big black sedan swerved into view and skidded to a stop in a cloud of dust.

"Ken! Sandy!" Phillips' voice shouted before Ken saw the stocky body tumble out of the car.

"We're here!" Ken called. "But we're all right!" He poked his head through the opening and looked in the direction he knew Joe and Al had fled. "Over there! Quick! They've got a helicopter!"

He didn't know Sandy had joined him until he heard his friend's voice, shouting above his own. "Don't worry about us! Just don't let them get away!"

Phillips swerved in his headlong run. Gonzalez and three uniformed figures were behind him.

"Senores," Roberto said in a small voice, "the police have found us, no?"

Ken reached back and pulled him close. "The police have found us, yes!" He felt Sandy's arm fall on top of his own, across Roberto's shoulders. "Everything's all right now, Roberto," he added. "The trouble's all over."

The big clock on the wall at police headquarters said two o'clock, and the bells of the cathedral were booming the same hour across the sunny plaza. Ten minutes earlier the cool, stone-floored room in the ancient mu- 208 .

nic.i.p.al palace had been crowded with Cosset and his a.s.sociates and the police officers and deputies to whom they had been handcuffed. But now the prisoners had all been locked in the half-dozen cells somewhere to the rear of the office, and the deputies and officers had been dismissed. Only the chief of police himself remained, together with young Pedro Montez. With the help of Phillips and Gonzalez they were still working on the prisoner admission forms spread out on the chiefs desk -more forms than the Rio Claro chief had ever been responsible for at any one time. He was still incredulous at the thought that his quiet peaceful town had harbored the headquarters of an important criminal ring.

Ken and Sandy were already at work on what they knew would be one of the biggest stories of their lives. Sandy was preparing captions for the rolls of film he had taken during the past hour and a half, and Ken was typing his copy on a borrowed typewriter.

The phone rang and Ken looked up expectantly. He knew that Phillips and Gonzalez had both placed several long-distance calls, some of which had still not been completed. But when Ken had placed a call to his,father, the police chief had told the switchboard operator to put it through the moment Richard Holt had been reached, even if it meant delaying one of the official communications.

A moment later Ken was taking the phone from the chief's hands and grinning into it. "Dad?" he said. He listened briefly to his father's warm voice coming over the wire and then he answered, "No, we're not in Mexico City-not yet. We-er-we got held up a little. We ran into quite a story here."

Five minutes went by and Ken was still talking. Phillips and Gonzalez had abandoned their work and were FIGHTING FIRE WITH FERE 209.

frankly listening, because there still were many details of the past several hours which they had not yet had time to learn from the boys. Some of the facts Ken told his father, however, was information that he and Sandy had not known until they returned to the police station.

Once Richard Holt interrupted to ask, "But where was this place where you and Sandy were being held?"

"There was a time," Ken told him, "when it looked as if we might not live to learn the answer to that question ourselves." Then he went on hurriedly, to forestall his father's comments of alarmed anger. "A ruined hacienda just over the hill from the hospital. There are several big stone buildings there, some of them partially destroyed. Gosset used one of them as a hangar for his helicopter. He sent Baron and all the rest of his gang over there as soon as he intercepted Sandy's message about the hospital, and if they'd taken off right then, they might have escaped. But Gosset obviously went completely crazy when things began to go wrong-so Phillips and Gonzalez were able to round up the whole lot of them. They recovered the money from Baron, too. Baron himself is in the hospital now. The others are all here in the munic.i.p.al jail temporarily."

When the whole story had been fully outlined, and Richard Holt had been a.s.sured that Ken and Sandy were both safe and unharmed, Ken added, "So will you send a flash on this to Granger, Dad? I've already started typing the yarn, and Sandy has some pictures." He grinned suddenly. "You might tell Granger, by the way, that Sandy is going to put in a bill for a lot of ruined extension wire."

Sandy leaned close to speak into the mouthpiece. "That's right. Tell Granger to brace himself. It's likely to cost him two dollars-maybe even three!"

210 .

Richard Holt's chuckle drifted over the wire. Sandy backed away from the phone, to make room for Ken again, and Phillips asked curiously, "Who's Granger?"

"Manager of the New York office of Global News," Sandy told him. He grinned. "Wish I could see his face when he gets my bill. He'll start yelling his head off. He used to scare Ken and me to death, until we learned that he did it on purpose, to cover up the fact that he'd give us the s.h.i.+rt off his back if he thought we needed it."

Ken was reading into the phone from his notes now, giving his father a brief run-down on Gosset and his most important a.s.sociates.

"No," he said, "Gosset has no previous criminal record. But Roland Spander, the doctor, has-two years ago he served time for doing plastic surgery on criminals. And George Toby-that's the man with the green-flamed lighter, who first talked to us at the border-is wanted in the United States for counterfeiting. He's, too, had his face changed. And so have two of the others-Anthony Talburt and Gerald Burke-who are wanted for that Greystone Bank robbery in New York last year."

"Hmmm." Ken could hear his father's pencil racing over paper, nearly four hundred miles away in Mexico City. "Quite a haul. And, as you said, quite a story. But if I can't let you two out of my sight for a single day, without your running into-"

"Dad," Ken interrupted hastily, "I can't stay on the phone much longer. Phillips and Gonzalez both have calls coming through."

"I see," Richard Holt said dryly. "When I'm on the point of making a paternal remark about the trouble you get into, then suddenly it's time for you to hang up.

FIGHTING FIRE WITH FIRE 211.

Very well. But I'll finish this speech when I see you. When will that be, by the way?"

"We'll phone you again tonight," Ken promised him, "when things get settled here. But you should have Sandy's pictures and my story pretty soon. Captain Gonzalez is going to put them on a plane for us and they should reach you in-" he looked at Gonzalez, who held up two stubby fingers-"in about two hours, Dad."

"Good. I'll put it right on the wire to Granger. And when I see you two, I'll put you-Well, never mind," Richard Holt concluded. "Just try to take care of yourselves until tonight, will you?"

"Yes, Dad."

Phillips shook his head. "It must be a strain, being the father of one of you two. I've nearly turned gray in the last six hours, worrying about you. At the end of a year-"

"But everything worked out all right," Sandy reminded him. "Except," he added thoughtfully, "that we haven't had any lunch and I'm likely to die of starva- * * .

tion.

Gonzalez was getting to his feet. "Mort," he said with mock solemnity, "I see we must rescue these young men again. I, personally, will undertake the mission, as a small gesture of grat.i.tude for services rendered by Holt and Allen. I will buy them the finest arroz con polio available in Rio Claro." He glanced at the chief. "Is there a good restaurant in town-a really good one?"

His answer came unexpectedly from a bench in the corner, where Roberto had been curled up, contentedly sucking at a new stick of sugar cane presented to him by young Pedro Montez.

"Si, sefior," Roberto said eagerly, scrambling off the 212 .

bench. "There is a most good restaurant. I will take you there." He turned to Ken and Sandy, "I am still your guide, no?"

Ken and Sandy, grinning proudly and affectionately at the little boy who had so bravely shared their grim ordeal, answered him in a single voice, "You are still our guide, yes!"

The warmth of the bright sun chased away the last grim memories of the vicious, half-crazed Gosset, as they all walked lightheartedly across the plaza in the wake of a happily chattering Roberto.

"It'll be a relief to sit down to a meal and have all the time we need to enjoy it," Sandy said.

"Time," Gonzales pointed out, "is the most precious thing in the world, especially when you do not have any."

Ken and Sandy grinned at him cheerfully, aware of the vacation leisure stretching out before them. But they would remember his words in a very different mood, at a moment in the near future, when time was the one thing they didn't have-when they were perilously involved in the adventure that would become famous as The Mystery of the Grinning Tiger.

THE END.

A KEN HOLT MYSTERY, No. 10 By Bruce Campbell