Read Online The Avenger 22 - The Black Death by Kenneth Robeson - Free Book Online Page A

Benson stayed upright, swaying a little. The injury, it seemed, was to his mind. His body worked fairly well. Smitty went out of the garden house first, with Benson next and then Cole, helping The Avenger keep his feet. Finally Nellie came out.
    Cole saw that a rear driveway came almost to the door of the little building. Beyond that was the rear of the house and the laboratory. He saw these things because an outside light was on; otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to see at all. It was full night now, and a very dark one.
    In the driveway was one of the biggest limousines he had ever seen. Around this was a group of men. And with the fellow who had opened the garden-house door were four or five men. All had guns in their hands.
    “Into that car,” snapped one of these. “Step on it!”
    The Avenger seemed not to have heard. He was staring vacantly around, at the rear of the house, up at the eaves, at the chimneys. Smitty looked, too. He couldn’t see anything that might have attracted the pale eyes. The eaves were just eaves, the chimneys just chimneys, with the usual lightning rods clamped to their sides.
    “You heard me,” rasped the man again. “Into the car.”
    There is a time for obedience. People who live dangerously, whose profession is peril know this. Smitty got into the back of the big limousine. With all those guns pointed at their heads—not their bodies, safely sheathed with bulletproof fabric of The Avenger’s invention—it would have been suicide not to. Maybe it would be suicide to obey too; but at least that way they’d live a little longer.
    So the giant got into the car. So did Nellie. The Avenger, helped by Cole, put his foot up on the running board.
    Then Benson staggered a little, lost his balance, fell sideways and forward so that his head almost grazed the end of the front bumper. One of the gunmen cursed and started a kick at the prone man.
    Cole Wilson went berserk at this.
    Roaring, he leaped at the man and knocked him a dozen feet away. From him he turned to two more, and though they got him to his knees finally, their faces were both smashed to pulp first. After that, half a dozen cursing men surrounded him and methodically beat him down.
    But there was, strangely, no gunplay.
    “Throw that clown inside,” somebody said.
    They threw Wilson into the rear of the car. And then there was a commotion!
    “Hey!” yelled a voice. “That guy— Benson! Where the hell—”
    “He’s gone!” another screamed.
    Smitty and Nellie looked at each other with dawning comprehension.
    “An act,” breathed Nellie. “The chief was putting on an act. And it fooled them—”
    “In that tree!” came a yell. “Get around it; Don’t let him get away. But don’t shoot unless you absolutely have to!”
    Nellie and Smitty sagged back in the seat. So The Avenger hadn’t gotten away. He’d made a fine try at it, but now was surrounded. They tried to look out and see which tree, but the roof of the car cut off vision upward.
    Smitty saw that between front and rear compartments of the big car was heavy glass. Nonshatterable, of course. And when the men closed the car door on them they did something to the handle.
    Too late, Smitty realized what was happening. His great hand snapped to the door, but he couldn’t budge the handle. They were locked in here from outside. They were as helpless as they’d been in the little fortlike stone garden house.
    A man got behind the wheel, grinning evilly.
    “Take ’em to the river,” said the one who’d opened the garden-house door. “You know the place—where it’s good and deep. Run ’em over the edge, car and all, then report back here.”
    “O.K.,” said the man at the wheel. He looked as if the order was a very enjoyable one.
    The car smoothly and soundlessly followed the drive around the side of the house and swung down toward the gate. At one point, half a dozen men were tense in a circle around a big tree. Two more were cautiously climbing