Time Travel Omnibus, page 291
The Rmoahal tried to smile to show his good-will but the effort brought nothing but a wolfish grin to his face. I didn’t in the least like the looks of that grin, but Garr didn’t seem to find cause for worry in it.
I still didn’t see what Garr was getting out of this. Of course the time machine would be a notable scientific achievement and a live Rmoahal in the present would no doubt provide the university professors with an almost inexhaustible source of information; but if I knew Garr, he had not co-operated with this Rmoahal in order to further the advance of scientific knowledge! Garr hated scientists because they doubted the theories of the occultists. He would not do anything to help them. Nor would he be interested in saving Zorn’s life. No! There had to be something in this set-up for him. What was it? The only things that interested him were money, and, I always suspected, power. They were his twin gods: money and power. His creed was how to win more of them. Fanatical, egotistical, slightly insane, he was of the stuff that Hitlers are made!
The instant the thought popped into my mind, I saw what Garr was seeking, what he hoped to get out of this Rmoahal! Zorn represented power! The Rmoahal, even if he did not possess the magical powers the occultists attributed to his race, certainly possessed a tremendous fund of scientific knowledge. He knew how to build a time machine! That meant a super-intelligence. And the weapon which he had used to kill Emerson, the gun that had produced the terrible twisting effect, was a potent thing. The man or the group of men who possessed a plentiful supply of those weapons would be powerful indeed.
Garr, with this Rmoahal to help him, planned to become a second Hitler! That was what he was getting out of this set-up! Power! If it seems impossible for a ratty occultist to dream of becoming another dictator, Hitler’s dreams seemed no less impossible before he began to realize them. Hitler was once a second-class house painter! But before he was smashed, he had painted the world with blood! And if you think that Hitler, conquered and dead and in hell, will never rise again, you are badly mistaken. Hitler was not the first man to dream of conquest; he won’t be the last. There will always be men who will try to imitate Hitler, if we give them the chance. Obscure fanatics, mystics, who slowly gather a following about them—Garr!
Garr already had a strong-arm squad that would serve as a party nucleus. Now, with the knowledge of this Rmoahal back of him, he would have power!
IN that air-conditioned office, I was suddenly wet with sweat. Garr had to be stopped, now! Tomorrow might be too late. He had to be destroyed, now! From an obscure astrologer, occultist, and black-mailer, he had suddenly been transformed into one of the most dangerous men on earth!
But how to stop him? I didn’t have a gun and I was certain Lucy didn’t either. Garr might not be armed but the odds were that his two strong-arm men were well supplied. One thing was certain: the Rmoahal had a weapon! It had never left his hand.
“We will begin plans immediately!” Garr exulted. “With you to help me, there is nothing I cannot do.”
He was pacing back and forth across his office, and, unless my eyes were lying to me, fine flecks of foam were on his lips.
“I will do everything I can to aid you,” Zorn said, the same wolf grin on his black face. “I would suggest that our first move is to return to the laboratory of this inventor who assisted in die construction of this pole of the time machine.”[5]
“Why should we go there?” Garr questioned.
“For several reasons,” the Rmoahal answered. “The laboratory is at present unguarded. Someone might enter and discover the time machine. It is important, is it not, that we conceal the existence of this machine? I am not completely familiar with your plans, of course. The telepathic rapport that brought our minds together was not perfect, which left me without complete knowledge of your world and of your intentions. But it seems to me to be important to conceal the time machine. Also there is the possibility that the body of the inventor might be found.”
“You are right,” Garr said. “We must hide that machine. Also, we must remove Emerson’s body, at once. We will go to the laboratory.”
“What shall we do with these two persons?” Zorn said, pointing to Lucy and me. “I needed them to bring me to you. Are we in further need of them?”
Garr laughed. “I can control the man,” he said. “If you think they might betray us, and are suggesting that we eliminate them, there is no need for that. They may be useful to us.”
Garr was happy. The things he wanted, money and power, he held within his grasp. That was enough to make him happy.
We started to leave through the back exit. The two thugs went first, then Lucy and me. Garr and the Rmoahal brought up the rear, the latter with the weapon ready in his hand. As we started to leave a knock sounded on the front door.
“Who’s there?” Garr excitedly demanded.
“The police,” the answer came. “Open up before we knock this door down.”
CHAPTER IV
The Escape from Garr
“COPS!” Garr exclaimed. He glanced angrily at me. “Damn you, Kelsey—”
“Hell, Garr, use your head,” I snapped. “I didn’t call the police and you know it. You can’t blame this on me.”
I was his favorite goat. If anything went wrong, he automatically blamed me for it.
“Police?” the Rmoahal said. He hefted his weapon.
“Don’t start shooting!” said Garr quickly. “If you kill one of them, you will have to fight a thousand more. We don’t want any trouble. Out the back way, men. By the time they break the door down, we’ll be gone.”
The two thugs were already slipping out the back. Garr shoved Lucy and me after them. The back exit led to a winding stairway that circled the elevators. Before he started down the stairs, the scar-faced thug went directly to a window and looked out. One glance and he dodged away from the window.
“Cops outside, too, boss,” he said to Garr. “Four or five of ’em waitin’ in the street.”
Zorn went to the window and looked out. Without a second’s hesitation, he raised that Buck Rogers pistol.
Garr jerked his arm aside.
“You fool! Didn’t I tell you not to shoot?”
Zorn shrugged. “What are the lives of a few police?”
“It isn’t their lives that matter, it’s the fact that if you shoot one of them you will have to fight the whole force!”
“So what?” the Rmoahal questioned. “We must reach that time machine. Delay is dangerous.” For some reason, he was in a big hurry to get back to Emerson’s laboratory. And he was not willing to argue about the matter. “Either show me how to evade those police or I’ll shoot my way through them.”
He wasn’t boasting or bragging. His manner showed that in his opinion he was stating a simple fact. Zorn was certain he could destroy all the cops that barred his way.
“I’ve got it!” Garr exclaimed. “We’ll take the freight elevator down and go out through the sub-basement. They won’t be watching for us there.”
Under Chicago, and under every other large city, is a world about which most people know nothing. There is a maze of connecting tunnels, steam lines, tunnels for cable and telephone lines, all supplying the skyscrapers. And the foundations of the buildings themselves go deep into the ground. It was through these tunnels that Garr proposed we escape.
The freight elevator took us to the basement. Once there, Garr seemed to know his way perfectly. If he didn’t, his scar-faced henchman did. We went through two sub-basements, then through a small door that opened into a tunnel that was unlighted but which was apparently used to provide a passage for steam pipes. I know there were pipes in the tunnel because I bumped my head on one. The passage was big enough for a man to walk if he bent over. It wasn’t big enough for Zorn. He had to crawl. As I fumbled my way forward, I could hear him scuffling along behind us. He wasn’t a good crawler. He wasn’t keeping up with us.
I didn’t really plan to escape. I had no hope of getting away, until my hand, reaching for the wall on my left, suddenly touched nothing. I couldn’t see it but I knew what it was—a tunnel branching off. To step into that tunnel, and to guide Lucy into it after me, took only a second. There wasn’t a ray of light in the place. Garr and Zorn would think we were still ahead of them. The two thugs who were leading the way would think we were behind them. They wouldn’t know we weren’t with them until they emerged into the light and could count noses. I pressed myself against the wall of the branching tunnel and held my breath. I could feel Lucy trembling as she stood close beside me. My heart was jumping as if it would tear itself out of my chest.
Would Zorn and Garr discover that we were missing? Or would they pass on by?
“DAMN it!” I heard Garr swear as he bumped his head against a steam pipe.
“Foul business, this crawling like a worm,” Zorn grumbled.
Lucy was clinging to me, her fingers digging into my arm.
“How much farther do we have to go?” the Rmoahal muttered.
“Not much farther,” Garr answered. “Damn those steam pipes to hell! I bumped my head again.”
I heard him shuffle past the opening. Then Zorn, cursing under his breath, went crawling by. The sounds they made died away into the distance, and I dared to breathe! We had given them the slip!
“Come on,” I whispered to Lucy.
It was the work of seconds to return to the main tunnel and go back the way we had come. Escaping from Garr and Zorn was as simple as that! Lucy seemed to think it was more than that.
“That was fast thinking, Don,” she whispered breathlessly.
“Any idiot could have crossed them up in the dark,” I answered.
“But only one person in a thousand would have had the courage to try it,” she answered. “What if they had caught you trying to escape?”
I shuddered. When you stick your neck out and gamble with your life, it is only afterward that you think of the risk you have run. “We’re not out yet,” I said.
But we were out. Not five minutes later, after climbing up through the subbasements, we reached the first floor—and ran straight into two cops. Never before in my life had a blue uniform looked so good to me. But apparently we didn’t look so good to the cops. They stared suspiciously at us.
“What are you doing here, buddy?”
“Where did you come from anyhow?”
“What were you two doing down in that basement?”
They fired questions at us and we tried to answer them, but without any noticeable success. We would probably have been arguing yet with those cops if the front door hadn’t opened. A familiar figure entered. It was Doug Rommer. He took the cops off us and the way he did it made me start asking questions.
“Doug—these police—they arrived at a mighty handy time. Did you have anything to do with it?”
“Well, yes,” he grinned. “When you didn’t come out of that lab as soon as I thought you should, I went gum-shoeing around. When that black devil herded you and Lucy—I mean Miss Trent—out the back way, I followed along. It looked like an abduction to me, and while I wasn’t worried about you, I was concerned about Miss Trent. So I called the police. Don,” his eyes dug mercilessly into me, “what makes here? Who is that black giant? What’s Garr up to now? Make with the information, my friend, and don’t try to tell me you can’t talk! You have to talk.”
His voice was grim and hard, but that was not the reason I talked. Garr didn’t know it but he no longer had his hold on me. Even if he had, now that I knew what he was trying to do, I would have talked.
Rommer listened quietly. When I told him about the Rmoahal and the time machine, he obviously didn’t believe me. But Lucy backed up my story and Rommer eventually quit shaking his head and began to nod agreement. When I told him where Garr and Rommer could be found, he stopped nodding and started acting. Within the space of an hour we were back on the quiet side street where Emerson’s laboratory was located.
IN the darkness around us, forming a complete cordon circling the whole block and cutting off escape in every direction, were at least two hundred police. Rommer was having an argument with a police captain by the name of Kelly.
“I’ll go in and tell them we have the place surrounded and all they can do is surrender,” Rommer was saying.
“You will do nothing of the kind,” Captain Kelly answered. “May I remind you, sir, that although you are a private detective, you are also a private citizen?”
“So what?”
“So you are staying here. Requesting the surrender of the men in that laboratory is the duty of the police force.”
“But, damn it, sir—”
“There is no argument, Mr. Rommer. If I let you attempt to arrest these men and you get yourself killed, I shall have to answer to the commissioner, the newspapers, and my own conscience. This is my job, Mr. Rommer. You have done your duty in calling it to my attention.”
I liked Captain Kelly. I liked the way he walked when he started down the passage that led beside the old house and to the lab at the rear. I liked the way several dark figures tried to follow him and the way he told them to get under cover and stay under cover. I learned later that Kelly had been a marine. He lived up to the finest traditions of that service when he walked up to the lab door, rapped on it, and called on Garr and Zorn to surrender. He had no choice but to ask them to surrender. Legally, they were not convicted criminals, and while Zorn would certainly be charged with Emerson’s murder, the police as yet had no evidence to prove him guilty of it.
Kelly died in the finest traditions of marine service, too. He rapped on the door. Lights were burning in the lab and I could see shadows moving against the windows. When Kelly rapped, the shadows stopped moving. Abruptly the lights went out.
“Open up!” Kelly said.
There was a moment of silence. It was broken by a fluttering whisper that came from within the lab. It was a sibilant, hush-hush-hush sound. Zorn’s Buck Rogers pistol!
A street light cast a wan illumination back through the passageway to the lab door. When the hush-hush-hush whisper started, the door seemed to leap from its hinges. I couldn’t see exactly what happened but I had the impression the door was jumping in one direction and then, suddenly reversing itself, was jumping in the other direction. It seemed to be shaking back and forth in a furious vibration.
Kelly tried to draw his gun. He didn’t get it out of its holster. The vibration hit him too.
His body suddenly took on weird, crazy extensions. It vibrated, like the door. It seemed to expand and shrink, and bulge out like a suddenly inflated balloon, then collapse like a balloon that has been punctured.
Kelly screamed. He tried to drag himself to one side, he tried to shoot. The scream went into sudden silence. Like a tin can hurled along the ground by successive hits from the gun of an expert marksman, he was flung backward. The whole narrow passageway was alive with the vibrations of the power force spurting from Zorn’s weapon. Rommer leaped back and I jerked Lucy out of range. Across the street, in the line of fire, a concrete post supporting a street light was vibrating. It went down with a crash. The wall of the building across the street began the same horrible jerking, then exploded outward in a rain of falling brick. I don’t know how much farther the vibration would have gone if Zorn had not turned off his weapon. The soft fluttery hush-hush-hush died out!
IN the heavy silence that fell, you could feel anger rising. There were at least two hundred cops in this area. I could hear them start talking to each other, in short, jerky sentences.
“Got Kelly!
“The cap got his!
“Captain Kelly is dead.”
In the darkness, they were passing the word along.
“Kelly’s dead!”
“Blasted him without giving him a chance!”
“What kind of a gun did they use on him anyhow? What was that hush-hush-hush noise? I never heard any gun that made a sound like that.”
“What the hell difference does it make what kind of a gun they used? Kelly is dead!”
I do not know whether Zorn thought the effect of his weapon would frighten the police away. He might have thought it would have this effect. Possibly, if no one had been killed, the police would have hesitated a long time before they went into action. But a police officer had died. Angry men were growling in the darkness.
They didn’t growl long. They acted. The first shot smashed a pane of glass in the window of the laboratory. Within seconds a dozen pistols were firing into the building.
“Well, I guess that’s that,” Rommer said. “Personally I would have liked to take that giant alive.”
“I suppose you wanted him for a pet,” I said.
“Well, hardly,” Rommer grinned. “But what a story he could tell, if we could get him to talk!”
“He isn’t dead yet,” I answered. The fluttery hush-hush-husk sound was coming from the lab. Zorn was fighting back!
There was power in that gun of his, power to burn![6] Apparently he turned it on full force. A thousand pound bomb would not have caused more destruction. On the left was a vacant building. Two cops were shooting from the second story down into the lab. Zorn turned the gun on the building. Ten seconds later it was a pile of rubbish. It was literally wrenched to bits. The terrible vibration seemed to tear every brick from its resting place.
Somewhere in that pile of rubbish one of the cops was screaming. The gun fluttered again. The scream went into silence.
The cordon of police drew back then. We drew back with them. We didn’t go away and neither did the police. But we pulled back out of danger. I remember hearing a burly captain talking over the radio in one of the squad cars.
“I want the riot squad,” he was saying. “I want the reserves. I want every available man on the force. I want machine guns, tear gas bombs. I want you to call the army and get permission to open up one of their warehouses. Pick up three or four trench mortars, with ammunition, and get them down here in no more than thirty minutes. What’s that? We don’t know how to operate trench mortars? You damned fool, don’t you think any of the boys were in the army? I want men and guns and I want them right now!”
