Read Online The Avenger 18 - Death in Slow Motion by Kenneth Robeson - Free Book Online
Authors: Kenneth Robeson
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crackling more loudly. No natural fire could spread like that. Thermite must have been used.
From his waist, The Avenger took a coil of rope. Rather, the coil looked less like rope than like thick catgut. It was made of the same stuff as the bulletproof garments, celluglass. An eighth-inch strand of the stuff would hold five hundred pounds.
Benson went to the window and looked down. Flame was shooting out the window below. No help that way. He stared upward.
The roof of the next house showed through smoke, a story above this window. There was a parapet, and on the parapet were ornamental knobs at regular intervals.
With flying fingers, he fashioned a noose. The noose rose lightly upward, seeming to have intelligence of its own. It found a knob and clung.
“When I get up there, tie the cord under the sick man’s arms,” said The Avenger.
The doctor nodded. Benson went up the rope.
Few men could have gone hand-over-hand up so small a cord, even slowly. Such was the steely strength in Dick Benson’s average-sized fingers that he went up almost as fast as if it had been a full-inch cable.
“Now!” he cried, over the roar of the fire.
The doctor carried the sick man to the window and put the cord around his body under the arms. Benson hauled him up.
Then the doctor held on himself.
He was hauled up to the adjoining roof as if he weighed no more than a baby. And he found Dick Benson not even breathing hard as he stood with him on the roof.
“Now it’s easy,” Benson said, calmly.
They went to the edge of this roof, away from the burning building, and the ground showed clear. Men and women in a growing crowd saw them and yelled; but the cries died as they saw Dick lower a limp figure, wrapped in bed-clothes. It was obvious that the situation was well in hand.
The crowd received the sick man, and then the doctor, when he was lowered. And with a final blare the red car of the fire chief arrived from one direction and a small chemical truck from the other.
Men attached the one reel of hose to the nearest hydrant, as The Avenger slid down the rope himself. Then they raced toward Benson as he was twitching to get his cord up and over the parapet knob so that it would fall into his hands.
Benson turned, but not very warily. There didn’t seem any reason to be wary.
Even off guard, he almost got sufficient warning. But not quite.
He saw that the suit of the fireman nearest him, who was running with the hose, fitted him so badly that it was almost comical; and in that instant Dick knew that these were no firemen but part of the very gang that had started the fire.
He knew that—and was caught!
With a swiftness and dexterity almost worthy of The Avenger himself, the man twitched a loop of the flattened fire hose around Dick’s leaping body.
And down the line, the man at the hydrant turned the water on.
The crushing force of ordinary water! The immense incompressible energy of it! No human being could have torn free from the inescapable grasp of that fire hose, as it filled with a rush from the fire hydrant.
Benson tore at it as one would at a great snake. But even his steely fingers could not loosen it.
He felt his chest contract, his ribs tighten inward. He fought for breath and couldn’t get it. He lashed out with his fist at the man holding the end of the hose and could not reach him.
Crowds, roaring blaze, everything faded before his blackening sight. He fell!
The crowds had gaped at the fast attack where no attack would be dreamed. They began to roar as the fire chief’s car and the small chemical truck pulled the fantastic trick of suddenly racing away from a fire, with sirens screaming and bells clanging—and with The Avenger on the floor of the red car.
But Benson did not know these things. He didn’t know anything for quite a few minutes. Then consciousness returned, though he did not yet open his pale, deadly eyes.
In the first place, he wanted to overhear anything his captors might say,
From his waist, The Avenger took a coil of rope. Rather, the coil looked less like rope than like thick catgut. It was made of the same stuff as the bulletproof garments, celluglass. An eighth-inch strand of the stuff would hold five hundred pounds.
Benson went to the window and looked down. Flame was shooting out the window below. No help that way. He stared upward.
The roof of the next house showed through smoke, a story above this window. There was a parapet, and on the parapet were ornamental knobs at regular intervals.
With flying fingers, he fashioned a noose. The noose rose lightly upward, seeming to have intelligence of its own. It found a knob and clung.
“When I get up there, tie the cord under the sick man’s arms,” said The Avenger.
The doctor nodded. Benson went up the rope.
Few men could have gone hand-over-hand up so small a cord, even slowly. Such was the steely strength in Dick Benson’s average-sized fingers that he went up almost as fast as if it had been a full-inch cable.
“Now!” he cried, over the roar of the fire.
The doctor carried the sick man to the window and put the cord around his body under the arms. Benson hauled him up.
Then the doctor held on himself.
He was hauled up to the adjoining roof as if he weighed no more than a baby. And he found Dick Benson not even breathing hard as he stood with him on the roof.
“Now it’s easy,” Benson said, calmly.
They went to the edge of this roof, away from the burning building, and the ground showed clear. Men and women in a growing crowd saw them and yelled; but the cries died as they saw Dick lower a limp figure, wrapped in bed-clothes. It was obvious that the situation was well in hand.
The crowd received the sick man, and then the doctor, when he was lowered. And with a final blare the red car of the fire chief arrived from one direction and a small chemical truck from the other.
Men attached the one reel of hose to the nearest hydrant, as The Avenger slid down the rope himself. Then they raced toward Benson as he was twitching to get his cord up and over the parapet knob so that it would fall into his hands.
Benson turned, but not very warily. There didn’t seem any reason to be wary.
Even off guard, he almost got sufficient warning. But not quite.
He saw that the suit of the fireman nearest him, who was running with the hose, fitted him so badly that it was almost comical; and in that instant Dick knew that these were no firemen but part of the very gang that had started the fire.
He knew that—and was caught!
With a swiftness and dexterity almost worthy of The Avenger himself, the man twitched a loop of the flattened fire hose around Dick’s leaping body.
And down the line, the man at the hydrant turned the water on.
The crushing force of ordinary water! The immense incompressible energy of it! No human being could have torn free from the inescapable grasp of that fire hose, as it filled with a rush from the fire hydrant.
Benson tore at it as one would at a great snake. But even his steely fingers could not loosen it.
He felt his chest contract, his ribs tighten inward. He fought for breath and couldn’t get it. He lashed out with his fist at the man holding the end of the hose and could not reach him.
Crowds, roaring blaze, everything faded before his blackening sight. He fell!
The crowds had gaped at the fast attack where no attack would be dreamed. They began to roar as the fire chief’s car and the small chemical truck pulled the fantastic trick of suddenly racing away from a fire, with sirens screaming and bells clanging—and with The Avenger on the floor of the red car.
But Benson did not know these things. He didn’t know anything for quite a few minutes. Then consciousness returned, though he did not yet open his pale, deadly eyes.
In the first place, he wanted to overhear anything his captors might say,
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