The Hydra Monster Page 5

"You cannot escape," droned the mechanical voice. "You will be destroyed."

  "So you mentioned."

  Nearly six feet up the wall, at the masked man's eye level, was the speaker. It was small, mounted in the wall and covered with a circle of fine, mesh wire. An empty light socket and switch was placed just above it.

  "You cannot defy us and live. We are all powerful," the voice told him. "Destroy one branch, two will take its place."

  "That's Hydra all right."

  "Now," announced the voice, "the hour of reckoning has come. You must die."

  Th Phantom became aware of whirring sliding noises all around him. The now bright moonlight showed him what was happening. Panels were sliding back in various parts of the walls and ceilings. Gun barrels moved out of the openings. The whole sequence, the spoken messages and the guns, must be part of a cycle set off when he entered the warehouse.

  "Machine guns planted all over the place," said the Phantom. "Rigged to start shooting automatically."

  "You cannot escape," repeated the voice.

  The guns in the ceiling began firing first. Short, choppy bursts, which missed the Phantom in his position against the wall.

  He plucked a nail out of the tool chest which he had set down beside him. Reaching up, he placed it in the light socket with one gloved hand. He clicked the light switch, then rammed the metal nail into the socket with the wooden handle of a hammer. "The guns must work electrically," he said. "So . . ."

  Guns along the far wall commenced shooting.

  "Maybe the switch was already on." He clicked it the opposite way. Blue light sizzled in the socket for an instant. There was a loud, clumping sound.

  All the guns fell silent. The Phantom had succeeded in shorting out the electrical system.

  "Now to get on with the tour."

  In the front office of the warehouse, he discovered the control room. It, too, was abandoned.

  One wall contained a dozen television monitoring screens. These had been smashed. Below them ran an intricate control panel, which was now a ruin of twisted metal and tangled wires.

  "They probably,'*' reflected the masked man, "have other quarters around the area. All kept under surveillance from their so-called control tower here. I wonder if I can find out, from what's left here, where their other hangouts are."

  After opening the door to the outside and whistling to the waiting Devil, the Phantom made a methodical search of the Hydra control center. Nothing had been left behind to tell him where the Hydra men had gone.

  After an hour, he picked up the phone, which was the only instrument still working in the ruined office, and made a call across the Bay to Lt. Gores of the San Francisco police.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  "Yeah, they found him," said Lt. Gores in his early morning office. "Right where you said he'd be, Walker."

  The Phantom sensed something was wrong.

  "But?"

  "Cisco was dead," said the policeman, tilling hack in his swivel chair. "Somebody'd cut his throat."

  In the chair opposite, the Phantom nodded. He was dressed again in trenchcoat and dark glasses. "A very effective way of keeping him from talking."

  The lieutenant rubbed at his grizzled, close- cropped hair. "You wouldn't know anything about who might have done that to this Cisco guy?"

  "I know Hydra did it," replied the Phantom. "They're willing to destroy anything, property, or people, to keep anyone from learning about them."

  "Maybe," said Gores. "Or maybe we just got us a simple war among hoods, and you're trying to make it look fancy."

  The Phantom said, "Everyday hoods don't usually have a three story house full of implements of torture, plus their own electric chair and gas chamber."

  "No, that's not usual," admitted Gores. "And from what the sheriff's office over there tells me, they're finding the remains of some pretty oddball stuff in the place that burned down last night."

  "Do you know yet who rented the house?"

  "Sure," answered the police lieutenant, picking up a yellow memo. "It was taken on a year's lease by a Mr. Johnathan Smith. A little fancier than John Smith, but no easier to trace. Security deposit, first and last month's rent all paid for in cash. And the real estate agent remembers Johna- than as being an average-looking, middle-aged man."

  "They had to move all that equipment in," said the Phantom. "Anything there?"

  "It's being looked into. So far, no mover's been located who hauled any iron maidens or electric chairs to Tiburon." He let the memo drop back to his desk top. "It's awful easy to rent a van, you know. It'll be checked out, but I'm willing to bet the most we'll find out is that Johnathan Smith rented himself a truck a few months back."

  "What about the factory set up in Sausalito?"

  "That's a little more complicated." The lieutenant consulted a sheet of blue paper. "According to a preliminary check by the Sausalito authorities, that factory is supposed to be abandoned. The realtor who handles it claims he hasn't even had a query on it this year."

  "Difficult to use it as a Hydra control center without someone knowing it," said the Phantom.

  "Further inquiries are being made," said Gores. "I got a hunch we'll draw another blank. These guys are real good at covering their tracks. Even that tape you say you heard is blank."

  "Fixed to erase, once it played," said the Phantom.

  "Could be."

  "What about Cisco?"

  "He's got no local criminal record, and Sacramento doesn't have anything on him," replied Gores. "They rolled prints off the body soon after they found him in the field where you left him,

  Walker. We're waiting to hear if Washington has something."

  The door opened and Sgt. Pronzini came in. "Good morning, Walker." He had a morning paper, open at an inside page, folded under his arm. "Seen today's EXAMINER?"

  "Haven't had a chance yet," replied the Phantom.

  Pronzini cleared a space on the lieutenant's desk and spread out the newspaper. "Story here about the big earthquake yesterday down in Santa Florenza, South America. It says here . . ."

  "Wait, wait." Gores raised his hand in a stop gesture. "Is this going to be some new, nutty theory?"

  "Walker's theory wasn't nutty," reminded Pronzini. "He found that Hydra layout over in Tibu- ron, didn't he? And the factory where . . ."

  "He found a house," cut in Gores. "A house with some funny stuff in it. That doesn't prove there's any such thing as an outfit called Hydra."

  The Phantom asked Pronzini, "What's in that story that's got you excited, Sergeant?"

  "Well, maybe it's nothing," answered the young policeman. "But I remember when you said how Hydra, in times past, went in for crimes like looting and such,"

  "They were very good scavengers, yes."

  "So here in this story about what's happening In the little country of Santa Florenza after the quake," continued Pronzini, "there's a mention of looters."

  "Every time you have a disaster," said Gores. "You get looting."

  "These looters are sort of different. They're described as wearing black clothes and hats, and they seem to show up right after the trouble hits. I mean, they don't worry about risks. They come right in and start taking."

  "Can't the police and the troops stop them?" asked the lieutenant.

  "Right after a major quake, with half your capital city in ruins, cops and soldiers are busy elsewhere," said Pronzini. "Besides, these looters are armed and well-organized. Almost like commandos, or guerrilla fighters." He pointed to another paragraph in the newspaper account. "Says, so far, they've caught only one of them. Before they could question him, though, the guy took some kind of poison. When they examined him, and this is sort of weird, they found out he was wearing a wig. And tatooed on his bald head was the letter 'V'."

  "What?" The Phantom came over to look down at the paper.

  "Right here," said the sergeant. "The guy had a V on his head. Now, I don't know if this ties in ..

  "A 'V'," repeated the Phantom,
mostly to himself. That memo he'd found in the factory last night, and the fragment of a letter . . . both had alluded to someone, or something, designated by a V.

  "Don't tell me," asked the lieutenant, "this rigmarole means something to you, Walker?"

  "I wonder," said the Phantom. "I think I'd bet

  icr Rnd out." He moved to the door. Til keep in iouch with you about developments here in the Hay Area."

  "Where are you going?" Gores wanted to know. The Phantom grinned and left them. ' Where's he going?" said the lieutenant again. "I'd guess," said Pronzini, "he's heading for Santa Florenza."

  •J ''--F

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Diana asked, "How long will you be gone?"

  Setting his single suitcase down in the center of the living room of the borrowed house, the masked man answered, "I'm not certain, Diana."

  She crossed to the bay window and stood watching the clear afternoon outside. "I'd like to come along," she said.

  Joining her, he placed his hands on her shoulders. "I know you're capable of taking care of yourself in some pretty tough situations," he told her. "But I don't think you'd be safe in Santa Florenza. The devastation, the damage done by the quake, is massive. There's no way of telling whether or not there'll be other earthquakes."

  "I know," the girl said out toward the afternoon. "I know."

  "After a calamity of this size, with so many people killed and so many more uprooted, you've got the danger of disease and plague," he said. "Granted there are some precautions which can be taken, shots and such, but still . . ."

  ''It's not only the danger of quakes and illness." j Diana turned to face him. "You think Hydra may try to kill me if I go along to South America with ■;! you."

  "They're a merciless bunch," he said. "With no ! more morals or ethics than the mythical monster ; they take their name from. In the few days I've ■ been on their trail, they've killed at least three men."

  "And they've tried to kill you twice, Kit," Diana | said. "That's what concerns me. I don't know, I feel if I could be with you ... no, you're right. It's not safe, and I might get in your way, to boot."

  The Phantom said, "I had to pull quite a few strings to get the powers that be to allow me to go into the quake zone by myself. I don't know if I could take you along even if I wanted to, Diana."

  After a second, she said, "Is everything set for your chartered plane?"

  "Yes, Devil and I are due out at San Francisco International Airport in two hours. The plane will set us down across the border of Santa Florenza. Then tomorrow morning, hopefully, a copter will come to take us to the temporary capital."

  The dark-haired girl left the window, walked slowly toward the sofa, trailing her right hand along a lamp table as she passed it. "You really believe Hydra is operating down there?"

  66

  "I've been trying to remember something all morning," said the masked man. "Ever since I read the newspaper story about the quake looters. I even called a friend of mine with the local office of one of the wire services for more background on the scavengers."

  "Have you succeeded in remembering?"

  "Yes," he said. "It's something else from the Phantom chronicles. I wish I had them here to look for more details."

  "You remembered reading about this particular kind of looter before?"

  "They formed a special branch of Hydra, a cadre, an elite corps. One of my ancestors believed they might even be the controlling head, the central brain, of the entire Hydra monster."

  "They wore black uniforms and had this V mark?"

  The Phantom tapped the front of his scalp. "Each member of this particular Hydra faction shaved his head and had the V inscribed, permanently, there."

  "What did the V stand for?"

  "I recalled that on the way over here," he said. "It stood for Vulture."

  "That's an appropriate name for looters," Diana said. Sitting on the edge of the sofa, she asked, "Do you think they're all coming back to life again . . . Hydra, all its branches, the Vultures?"

  "I don't know, Diana. I hope to find out in Santa Florenza," he said. "Whoever's behind it, and for whatever reasons it's been revived, I have to crush Hydra."

  "It has to be someone, or some group of people, with as detailed a knowledge of this particular branch of history as you have."

  The masked man grinned. "I am something of an expert on the history of crime, now that you mention it."

  "The piece of a letter you found in the factory last evening was signed with a V, didn't you say?"

  "Right, and the memo made mention of V."

  "Do you think V could be a single person, the one who heads this Vulture wing of Hydra?"

  "A single individual, or a committee of them."

  "How did they operate in the past?"

  "According to the records left by previous Phantoms, there was always one man at the top."

  "Perhaps, then, the same thing will turn out to be the case this time."

  "It well could be." The masked man began to get into his covering civilian clothes.

  "Maybe," said the girl.

  "Maybe what?"

  "Maybe when you return from Santa Florenza, we can have the vacation we're supposed to be taking."

  "I guarantee it," the Phantom promised.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Santa Florenza is a country of some six million people. Its shape, on a map, resembles the lion in u box of animal crackers and it has an area of roughly 120,000 square miles. The little country lies on the Pacific side of the South American continent, between the equally small Ecuador and the considerably larger Peru. The capital city, liard hit by the recent quake, is Calavera, which bad a population of slightly over a million and a half. Santa Florenza's chief agricultural exports are coffee, cocoa and sugar. Little cattle raising is done, but some hogs and goats are produced. There is also some oil refining and, chiefly in the North, a flourishing textile industry.

  Now that Calavera, the capital, is so extensively damaged, the offices of the central government have been temporarily moved to Lanza. This city of a half million is west of the capital, on the coast, and suffered much less damage. Half-way between Calavera and Lanza is the city of La Planta. La Planta houses the world-famous National Museum of Art. Over twenty five percent of its buildings were leveled by the quakes and nearly five thousand people died.

  A jagged crack, several feet wide, runs down the principal street leading into La Planta from the hills beyond. The paving cobblestones are strewn everywhere, as though some huge beast erupted from below and tossed them every which way. A hospital stood at this end of the city and now, at dusk, men with cloth masks protecting their faces are still at work searching for bodies in the rubble.

  A few brightly-colored birds, yellow, scarlet and green, are perched in the splintered, leafless trees which line the ruined street. From the direction of the hills comes a rumbling sound. The birds take flight, flapping up into the twilight.

  The rumbling grows louder. Three heavy trucks, led by a dusty landrover, are rolling into the devastated city. They stop near the pole of debris which was once the hospital.

  From the back of each truck climb men. It seems as though the same man is dropping down from the truck to the cobblestones over and over again. Because each man looks very much alike. Each is dressed in black . . . black riding pants, black boots, black tunic and high-crowned black sombrero. And each man has a similar expression on his face, a cold, detached look. They wear gun belts, with a revolver holstered on the right hip and a hunting knife on the left.

  Every third man carries a submachine gun.

  A dozen of the black-clad men wait at the trucks. The rest, thirty or more, move down the street.

  A young man, working at the hospital ruins,

  in dungarees and undershirt, lowers the cloth from his. mouth. "Look," he shouts. "Look, it's them!

  The scavengers."

  Three machine guns sound and he is cut down

  dead.
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  The scavengers continue their march.

  The National Museum of Art is in the next

  block. Four members of the Federal Police, all that can be spared at the moment, stand guard in front of the cracked, marble steps. Two local policemen are inside.

  Only one of the soldiers is able to draw his pistol before they are all gunned down by the machine gun fire of the advancing scavengers.