Read Online The Avenger 34 - The Glass Man by Kenneth Robeson - Free Book Online Page A

Justice, Inc., members joined him he said, “Car looks to be safe.”
    “You were expecting maybe a booby trap?” asked Smitty. He opened the car’s trunk and stowed his suitcase and then Josh’s.
    “I don’t have complete faith in the security setup in these parts.” Benson climbed in behind the wheel. “From what Nellie told me, too many people know too much.”
    “Puts them one up on me.” Smitty ducked into the back seat of the black sedan. “I don’t know enough about anything that’s going on around here.”
    Josh took a look around before getting in beside the giant. “Is Nellie’s hotel going to be our first stop?”
    Benson started the car and headed it for the highway. “Yes. I want to talk to her before we do any investigating.”
    “I still bet you Cole is off with that magazine babe somewheres,” said Smitty. “Because it has been my experience that whenever there’s a good-looking skirt around—”
    “What about the missing Dr. Dean?” reminded Josh. “Think he went along with them as a chaperone?”
    “Naw, he probably just went cuckoo. Scientists are always going nuts; you see it in the movies all the time.”
    “You’re something of a scientist,” said the Negro. “When do you figure to go cuckoo?”
    “I ain’t the big brain trust kind of scientist. Small fries like me keep their sanity. Although I got to admit that my Uncle Algernon don’t always act—”
    “Trouble up ahead,” said the Avenger.
    “Huh?”
    Two long sawhorses blocked the roadway. A sign announced that the road was closed.
    Near the side of the road rose a rocky mesa. As Benson brought the automobile to a stop a fat man appeared from among the rocks.
    “It ain’t road trouble,” said Smitty.
    Behind the fat Hugo came Fritzi. Each carried a submachine gun.
    Very casually Benson leaned across the front seat. “What seems to be wrong?” he called out the open window to the approaching men.
    “Everybody out,” ordered Hugo.
    The Avenger’s hand made an almost imperceptible flick. A small glass pellet went spinning through the air.
    It smashed in the gunmen’s path, nearly beneath their feet.
    In a matter of seconds Hugo and Fritzi were engulfed in a thick, billowing cloud of black. The pellet contained a special gas which spread an impenetrable pall of blackness when it came into contact with oxygen in the air.
    A burst of machine-gun slugs came sputtering out of the engulfing cloud.
    The Avenger had anticipated that. With lightning swiftness he’d left the car.
    When the slugs ripped across the front windshield he was far from the auto, racing a zigzag course for the black cloud which swirled at the side of the road.
    Smitty and Josh also had vacated the vehicle, and were approaching the blacked-out gunmen from two other angles.
    Benson dived into the blackness first.
    His unfailing instincts took him directly to the back of the fat Hugo. Swiftly he applied pressure to the big man’s neck.
    Hugo gave one surprised gasp before he and his machine gun dropped to the ground.
    “What’s—” Fritzi began to ask.
    Then giant hands ripped his weapon from his grasp and yanked him out into the daylight.
    “Aw, I only caught a little one,” complained Smitty. “Maybe I ought to toss him back.”

CHAPTER XVI

Last-Minute Change
    Cole Wilson made a final tug and brought his hands around in front of him. “Told you I was an escape artist,” he said. On hands and knees he made his way across the bouncing panel truck to where Jenny Keaton was tied.
    “I’ll do a glowing article on you,” said the redhead, “if we ever get completely free of these Nazis.”
    “Have no fear.” He went to work on the ropes which held her wrists behind her back. “I’m a firm believer in the philosophy that the good folks always win out in the end.”
    “Let’s hope Konrad and his chinless buddy also subscribe to that.”
    “They’re not very good at knots, whatever their philosophy may be.” He removed her