Doc Savage: The Ice Genius (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Book 12) (17 page)

Monitoring their radio frequency, Doc Savage listened intently.

The pilots were chattering among themselves, complaining that their engines were leaking oil. They did not understand this. As far as they were aware, the Doc Savage plane had not returned fire.

Yet with each passing minute, their windshields became smeared with greasy black tendrils of oil.

One Japanese pilot, perhaps brighter than the others, insisted, “It is a trick! Do not land. Do not turn back.”

Hearing this, Doc Savage called back to Monk Mayfair, “Add the neutralizer chemical.”

Grinning broadly, Monk turned another petcock on a different tank, and a fresh protracted hissing filled the cabin.

From concealed nozzles fitted into the rear empennage of the amphibian, a chemical vapor started shooting out under pressure. This was specially formulated to be drawn into the intakes of a modern airplane motor. It was heavy, greasy stuff, so it would not take long to gum up the main parts of the pursuing engines.

The pilots discovered this unpleasant fact when their motors started sputtering, spark plugs missing fire. That alarming cacophony convinced even the most suspicious of them that somehow, miraculously, their engines suffered from simultaneous oil leaks.

When one three-bladed propeller stopped spinning, followed by another, the pursuit pilots hastily sought safe landing spots.

Johnny called back to Monk, “Can you tell if your ‘discourager’ is working?”

Monk stood up, turned. “Not unless Doc turns this bus around to give us a look-see.”

The bronze man showed little interest in that. Owing to the prodigious size of the flying boat, there had limited visibility in the rear. Doc flew on for a time, until he was certain that no machine gun fire would pepper his craft, handling the plane carefully so as not to put any more stress on its complicated airframe.

Overflying the steppe, the bronze man saw the five Japanese planes dropping in for emergency landings. Only four made it. One had an accident. It stumbled in a rut, caught fire. The pilot could be seen fleeing the wreck.

Over the radio, excited Japanese pilots were communicating with their airbase somewhere to the south in Manchuria.

Listening to this, Johnny muttered, “Calling for reinforcements.”

Blocking his mighty fists, Renny rumbled, “This could get bad.”

Doc Savage nodded. “We cannot remain in this vicinity for very long.”

Eyes stricken, Johnny asked, “What about Timur?”

Again, Doc Savage declined reply. But he sent his plane circling back in the direction of the hill-banked Mongol encampment.

THEY were not long reaching the spot. As they flew over the camp, they saw a scattering of Mongols and horsemen on the hard, barren turf, unmoving.

Of the runaway equine with its unconscious rider, there was no sign.

Doc Savage flew back and forth several times without success. Steppeland in many spots was dry and dusty, but in other places was tufted with hard soil and drying grass. Try as he might, the bronze man could not locate the tracks of the appaloosa pony that had carried off Tamerlane in a wild direction.

The bronze man stayed with it, circling several times, as his men scoured the hills with binoculars, seeking any sign of Cadwiller Olden. But the wily midget had also vanished from view. There was no sign of him on any surrounding hill.

A sudden exchange of words over the radio disclosed that Japanese reinforcements were on the way.

Finally, reluctantly, the bronze man said, “We have no choice but to flee.”

Johnny started to protest, but Renny cut him off. “Simmer down, old Cyclops. If we land, we’ll be sitting ducks.”

That quelled Johnny’s expostulations. He took to polishing his monocle magnifier to cover his inner turmoil.

Climbing for altitude, Doc Savage pointed the monster aircraft north, slamming the throttles as far forward as he could. It might have been interpreted as a sign of the big fellow’s frustration with the escalating situation, but no one noticed the abrupt gesture.

The large plane responded like a thoroughbred horse, hammering along, eating up the empty air miles over the flat desolation below.

In the cabin, Doc’s men were silent. They were not psychologically adapted to retreat. Nor were they accustomed to being thwarted. It was a bitter pill they were swallowing. And if there was any remedy for the trouble lately encountered in Mongolia, the antidote seemed very remote in their minds.

Chapter XXII

COMMON CAUSE

CADWILLER OLDEN WATCHED the Doc Savage plane retreat to the north.

Grinning tightly, he clambered down the dun-colored hill in the direction of the ground. He had laid out on his back and covered his compact body with dirt and his face with scrub so that he could see upward without being spotted from the air.

Now, he shook off his makeshift camouflage, and sat up to observe events.

One by one, the unmarked Japanese planes commenced descending upon the steppe. Their wheeled undercarriages withstood the ruts and clumps of tough grass over which they rolled as the pilots attempted to put down safely.

Only one aircraft failed to make it. It was a Nakajima Ki-43
Hayabusa
, and it struck a rabbit hole at high speed, pitching about, causing it to ground loop and fold one wing as it crumpled, spinning prop dashing itself into pieces.

The plane quickly caught fire, and after a moment there came a grunting detonation, followed by a larger explosion that cracked the cockpit open.

The pilot managed to scramble out of his seat safely, but he was trailing a comet of flame, apparently unaware of the fact. He ran and ran and finally collapsed, whereupon he rolled in the dirt and the grass, attempting to put out the bundle of flames that had enveloped him.

It was for nothing. After a while, the unfortunate pilot stopped rolling. The flames continued to eat him until it was clear that he had lost the battle for survival.

Cadwiller Olden observed very little of this, for he was trying to flee in the direction of the runaway appaloosa atop which the icy individual in iron armor had been strapped.

The equine, as the breed is wont to do, did not run away in a straight line but broke in zigzagging lines, so that it was soon circling the scrubby hills that sheltered the Mongol camp.

In this fashion, the pony packed the jittering body back toward camp.

Reaching the ground, the midget man rushed to meet the animal, small arms and legs pumping madly. His frantic breath whistled through clenched teeth.

There was considerable racing about, and some desperate grabbing for loose harness, but finally tiny fingers clutched the trailing rawhide reins.

The frantic operation did not go well at first. The horse was no longer galloping quite so swiftly as before, having tired, but it was still moving at a gait far more brisk than the diminutive man who was attempting to arrest it.

Cadwiller Olden found himself being dragged some distance, until he was forced to let go.

Then the crafty rascal rediscovered his innate cunning, and attempted to follow the horse until it reached a spot where it decided to simply stop. There was water at the spot, which explained the pony’s behavior.

While the appaloosa drank his fill, the little man crept up on it, then produced a short knife from somewhere on his person, which he had earlier pilfered from a Mongol tent.

Apparently, the midget was no lover of horses. For he simply stole up upon the twitching tail of the drinking pony and, without hesitation, severed its hind tendons, crippling the animal.

The appaloosa fell, screaming and kicking, and almost crushed its tied-down burden.

Racing around to one side, Olden seized the screaming pony by the reins, attempted to jerk the animal off his burden. In that, he succeeded only because the horse was frightened and confused.

Leaping over the horse, Olden reached the insensate Mongol and dragged him free of the rolling and pitching animal.

The man was out cold. And his body was wracked by rolling waves of shivers. Apparently, he had been so long encased in the ice that even unconscious, his muscles and nerves continued reacting to its long, frigid hibernation.

Olden fetched water in his cupped palms, poured it down the man’s throat.

This produced no alteration in either consciousness or spasmodic shivering. But the insensate one did swallow the water. At least a little of it.

By this time, the horse had settled down. Or it might be fairer to say that it had given up. It lay down on its side, head pillowed on the dirt, and a single tear rolled down its visible eye.

From time to time, snufflings and a weak series of snortings emerged from the appaloosa’s pulsing throat.

“Cut that out,” snarled the little man. “Or I’ll come over there and cut your throat.”

This dire threat appeared to have no effect on the horse’s pitiful cries, for it continued making them.

After a time, the Japanese pilots started filtering into the camp, lean-barreled pistols carried before them.

Noticing this, Cadwiller Olden did the only thing that made sense. He threw up his puny arms, bleating, “I surrender!”

He was immediately surrounded, and a half-dozen cold steel muzzles were pointing down at his quivering skull. The airmen wore leather jackets and matching helmets.

The Japanese pilots appeared to speak no English. Wooden-faced, they simply trained their weapons on their prisoner, without indicating their intentions.

One man went over to the prone individual who continued to shiver in the sun. He examined the shivering one for some time. Others joined him. Their excited exchanges seemed to concentrate on the unusual clothing and all that adorned the quaking form.

Another man went over to the horse, took immediate stock of the situation and without asking permission, shot the equine in the right eye, silencing its pitiful complaints. The horse gave a convulsive jerk and collapsed into silence.

Cadwiller Olden squeezed his eyes shut, for he firmly believed that he was next.

Instead, the nervous midget was made to sit on the ground, with his tiny hands clasped over the top of his skull, while one pilot guarded him.

A search of the camp produced very little of interest, according to the frozen features of the returning Japanese pilots.

They ranged outside of the camp, and soon enough came upon the sleeping Mongols who had been overcome by Doc Savage’s anesthetic gas bombs.

Olden was dragged toward the profusion of Mongol horsemen and felled steeds, and made to sit down again with his shaking hands held high over his head.

NOTHING much transpired for several hours as the Mongols and their horses continued to sleep. The Japanese aviators stood guard over the captives and their own planes. From time to time, their leader went to his plane and apparently communicated with someone by radio.

It was nearing sunset when a large transport plane circled the area once and then put down rather roughly. Due to its size, the aircraft managed a respectable landing and came to a stop, apparently undamaged.

Big props ceased their mad spinning as the door was thrown open, and an officer stepped out.

This man had a very hard sandstone-colored face, and looked to be about forty years of age. A squad of Japanese marines trailed in his wake.

When the hard-faced officer strode up to the Mongol pile, all the other Japanese pilots saluted him crisply. The salute was returned sharply and a conversation ensued.

Cadwiller Olden could follow none of it. He started feeling very cold inside.

After some twenty minutes of incomprehensible conversation, the Japanese
Kaigun Daisa,
or
Navy Captain
—for that was what his uniform insignia indicated his rank to be–stormed over to Cadwiller Olden and began interrogating him in one language after the other.

“O namaye wa nan’ to moshi-masu?”

Olden cleared his throat a few times, uncertain whether or not to volunteer his American identity.

The Japanese captain grew frustrated and kicked once. That was enough.

“I speak English,” squeaked Olden. “Only English. Savvy?”

A strange gleam came into the Japanese officer’s narrowed eyes.

“Are you British, or American?” demanded the hard-faced captain in a harder tone of voice.

Olden hesitated, unsure what the safest answer was. So the Japanese kicked him again.

“American! I’m American!” bleated the rattled midget.

Hearing that, the officer kicked Cadwiller Olden for the third time, but that seemed to satisfy him, for his hard boot withdrew.

“Name?”

“Monzingo Baldwin,” Olden told him.

“What is an American doing in Mongolia?”

“I came with the Doc Savage expedition,” Olden returned quickly.

The strange glint in the Japanese captain’s dark eyes became even stranger.

“Doc Savage is here?”

Olden nodded vigorously. “His transport plane flew north about three hours ago.”

“Bound for what destination?”

“Honest, I don’t know. He abandoned me.”

“Why would he do this?” asked the officer sharply.

To the end of his days, Cadwiller Olden did not understand why he volunteered the next morsel of information. But he did.

“Because we are enemies,” he said simply.

“I see,” hissed the Japanese. “What was Savage-
san
doing in Mongolia in the first place?”

Olden hesitated only briefly. He looked up into the man’s dark eyes and stated, “Doc Savage dug a man out of an ice cave nearby. This man is very important. He had been entombed for hundreds of years, and now he lives again.”

This appeared to bewilder the Japanese officer. He seemed to be reviewing the little man’s words as if trying to make sense of them.

At last, he demanded, “Who is this important individual?”

Cadwiller Olden gulped, “History knows him as Timur
il-Lenk,
Timur the Lame, but the West calls him Tamerlane.”

This seem to take a long time to sink in. There was a great silence.