Read Online The Avenger 17 - Nevlo by Kenneth Robeson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Kenneth Robeson
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ascending to locate the strange power line, then had hurried to the radio station without bothering to take it off. So he had it on now when the tower fell.
He didn’t, couldn’t, take the second necessary to remove his coat. So, as he plunged out into nothingness while the tower plunged beneath him, he simply spread his shoulders.
Not a big man. Not a bulky one. But the steel cables Dick had for muscles simply would not be confined when they were tensed and when his chest was expanded.
The coat ripped from tail to neck, and he pulled the ripcord. Had the tower been twenty feet lower he couldn’t have made it. As it was, there was just enough height to let the ’chute save him.
He glanced swiftly around. There was no sign of the man who had brought the tower down. There wouldn’t be, of course. With the first waver of the thing, he’d have raced off untraceably into the darkness.
With his eyes as calm as they were cold, and with almost no expression on his handsome face, Benson went to the nearest phone. If there was a single thought left in his brain about his narrow escape, it didn’t show in any of his actions.
He phoned various radio stations in California. He asked just one question. In the recent power failure, did the power tubes of that particular station blow out?
At Los Angeles he got the answer he’d been waiting for.
“Who are you?” snapped a voice when The Avenger had put that question. “Some reporter or something? We don’t want a lot of publicity on a power failure—”
“I’m not a reporter,” Dick said quietly. “This is Richard Benson talking. I can give you references from—”
“Mr. Benson!” The man’s voice was very, very different. “Say, you don’t have to give references. Yes, our tubes blew with the power failure. Funny, too. Why would a failure blow the tubes? Why didn’t a fuse blow first—or a transformer or something? I don’t get it at all.”
Benson didn’t bother to explain or tell why he had asked the question.
“Send a man at once to your radio tower,” he said. “Have him see if there is a peculiar, bluish hole at the base.”
Back came the answer:
“Yes, Mr. Benson, there is such a hole at the base. The hole’s in a northeast line from it. A curious round hole as if an oil drum had been buried there and then removed so carefully that it left its exact print in the hole. But how did you know—”
“Is your beacon light all right at the tip of the tower?”
“No, sir. That is completely gone, and its standard along with it. Looks as if it had been burned off.”
The Avenger hung up.
In Portland, Maine, a tall tower had been charred by a current mightier than radio ever uses. In Los Angeles, a similar tower had been similarly treated.
He called the Montreal meteorological station.
They reported a phenomenal increase in the intensity and brilliance of the aurora borealis during the time of the power failure. It flared up with it, then died down again when it had ended. So, no doubt, a vast electrical disturbance in the Heaviside layer of earth’s atmosphere, or beyond, had caused the trouble.
Benson didn’t bother to point out that perhaps it had been the other way around, that perhaps the trouble had caused the electrical storm.
There was a slight vibration at his waist, from the belt radio. One of his band wanted to talk to him.
From his vest pocket came an earphone hardly larger than a quarter. Smitty’s tense, low tone came to him as he put it to his ear.
“I trailed the man, chief. Nailed him at a green house with a double porch at the foot of Vermont Avenue. He’s in here now, with six or a dozen thugs around him. I’m at a basement window of the place, looking in. There’s more than the man here. They’ve got Janet Weems! I don’t know how they took her out of General, but she’s here now, tied and gagged. Still out of her mind, I think. Now there’s another person coming into the basement— For the love of
He didn’t, couldn’t, take the second necessary to remove his coat. So, as he plunged out into nothingness while the tower plunged beneath him, he simply spread his shoulders.
Not a big man. Not a bulky one. But the steel cables Dick had for muscles simply would not be confined when they were tensed and when his chest was expanded.
The coat ripped from tail to neck, and he pulled the ripcord. Had the tower been twenty feet lower he couldn’t have made it. As it was, there was just enough height to let the ’chute save him.
He glanced swiftly around. There was no sign of the man who had brought the tower down. There wouldn’t be, of course. With the first waver of the thing, he’d have raced off untraceably into the darkness.
With his eyes as calm as they were cold, and with almost no expression on his handsome face, Benson went to the nearest phone. If there was a single thought left in his brain about his narrow escape, it didn’t show in any of his actions.
He phoned various radio stations in California. He asked just one question. In the recent power failure, did the power tubes of that particular station blow out?
At Los Angeles he got the answer he’d been waiting for.
“Who are you?” snapped a voice when The Avenger had put that question. “Some reporter or something? We don’t want a lot of publicity on a power failure—”
“I’m not a reporter,” Dick said quietly. “This is Richard Benson talking. I can give you references from—”
“Mr. Benson!” The man’s voice was very, very different. “Say, you don’t have to give references. Yes, our tubes blew with the power failure. Funny, too. Why would a failure blow the tubes? Why didn’t a fuse blow first—or a transformer or something? I don’t get it at all.”
Benson didn’t bother to explain or tell why he had asked the question.
“Send a man at once to your radio tower,” he said. “Have him see if there is a peculiar, bluish hole at the base.”
Back came the answer:
“Yes, Mr. Benson, there is such a hole at the base. The hole’s in a northeast line from it. A curious round hole as if an oil drum had been buried there and then removed so carefully that it left its exact print in the hole. But how did you know—”
“Is your beacon light all right at the tip of the tower?”
“No, sir. That is completely gone, and its standard along with it. Looks as if it had been burned off.”
The Avenger hung up.
In Portland, Maine, a tall tower had been charred by a current mightier than radio ever uses. In Los Angeles, a similar tower had been similarly treated.
He called the Montreal meteorological station.
They reported a phenomenal increase in the intensity and brilliance of the aurora borealis during the time of the power failure. It flared up with it, then died down again when it had ended. So, no doubt, a vast electrical disturbance in the Heaviside layer of earth’s atmosphere, or beyond, had caused the trouble.
Benson didn’t bother to point out that perhaps it had been the other way around, that perhaps the trouble had caused the electrical storm.
There was a slight vibration at his waist, from the belt radio. One of his band wanted to talk to him.
From his vest pocket came an earphone hardly larger than a quarter. Smitty’s tense, low tone came to him as he put it to his ear.
“I trailed the man, chief. Nailed him at a green house with a double porch at the foot of Vermont Avenue. He’s in here now, with six or a dozen thugs around him. I’m at a basement window of the place, looking in. There’s more than the man here. They’ve got Janet Weems! I don’t know how they took her out of General, but she’s here now, tied and gagged. Still out of her mind, I think. Now there’s another person coming into the basement— For the love of
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