The Emperor of Death (5 page)
Outnumbered as they were, Hesterberg’s men put up a valiant defense. But slowly their forces were decimated. They had held their position for more than the two minutes ordered by the Russian. The order for the retreat was given.
Forming their lines again they amassed their machine-guns before them and began their death march to the rear. Their Thompsons held off the police; prevented the blue coats from closing in and surrounding them. But one by one the machine gunners were killed off. The retreat became a rout, the rout annihilation.
Of the two score men left behind him, only a handful escaped to report back to their respective stations. But in the Russian’s colossal scheme what mattered the sacrifice of a few dozen men?
THE MOMENT the Phantom had been waiting for since twelve o’clock came at last. Secure in the private sanctum of Hesterberg, with the door locked and guarded behind them, came the order to unmask. With a heart that was even and firm and a hand that was never more steady, Van unstrapped the buckles of his mask and flung the contraption onto a near-by table. So intent was he on the face of the Russian that was about to be revealed that he never gave a moment’s thought to the dire peril he would be in himself if his disguise broke down. Fortunately the room was dimly lit. The Phantom sensed more than saw the luxuriousness of his surroundings. And Hesterberg — Hesterberg was so elated with his accomplishments of the night that he became expansive, bombastic, off guard. The Phantom grinned to himself derisively as he anticipated the shock the Russian would receive in a few short minutes.
Hesterberg took his place at the head of a long mahogany table. By simple elimination the Phantom realized that his place was at the Master’s right. Insolently he kicked out his chair, felt in the pocket of the coat he had taken from the dead Number 8, found a packet of expensive cigarettes and lit up. His iron nerves were on edge, not from fear but from anticipatory excitement.
Through a hazy pall of blue smoke he scrutinized the sharp features of Hesterberg. A huge domed head, he saw, dominated by a pair of large, luminous eyes. The nose was high beaked and finely chiseled; the lips, thin, red and cruel. A handsome face in an arrogant, dominant way; a handsome face ruined by mad, fanatical eyes.
The mad red reached a long, claw-like hand inside his coat. The Phantom’s nerves tautened. The blow-up was to come sooner than he had expected. The hand came to light a moment later clutching the substituted packet.
Hesterberg laid the documents on the table before him and pounded them with an enthusiastic fist. He spoke and the crisis was delayed for a moment.
“Gentlemen,” he began in a ringing voice, “let me congratulate you. The work we have accomplished tonight is tremendous. These documents here” — and again he pounded the official documents before him — the official papers before him — “these documents here mean more to us than gold. They mean power!”
The vaulted room echoed somberly to the word. The mad light in Hesterberg’s eyes flared up more brightly. And it was then that the Phantom realized that the Russian’s strength lay in that word “power.” His strength and his weakness.
With an eloquent arm Hesterberg swept his Council of Five with an inclusive gesture.
“Gentlemen, with these papers here we have the world at Japan’s throat. They have merely been waiting for an excuse. And tomorrow I see Kemmel, the Andorran Ambassador.” He paused dramatically. “He either does as I order him to do — or dies. Yes, dies by his own hand. Phagh! This childish international tradition of honor plays right into our hands. It relieves us of the detail of executing these greedy pigs when they are discovered in their treachery.”
Though caution dictated that he keep his mouth shut, the Phantom could not resist the temptation to bring the little comedy he had precipitated to a climax. Flicking the ash nonchalantly from his cigarette, he inquired casually:
“Excellent, but just what are these papers?”
Hesterberg swept them up in greedy fingers.
“These papers mean more to us than the downfall of Japan. With them in our possession we have the torch to set the world on fire. These papers are the secret —” He glanced at the packet in his hand and his voice broke off abruptly. A tense, ominous stillness vibrated in the room for a moment.
Watching Hesterberg keenly through a cloud of smoke, the Phantom saw a score of frustrated passions race across the Russian’s face. He, the Phantom, was enjoying the situation immensely. He set himself for a jeering bellow of rage from the Mad Red. But the vocal storm was never delivered.
Instead, when Hesterberg spoke some few panicky seconds later, his voice was a dead calm monotone; a voice far more deadly and sinister than any bellow could have been.
Through the distinct, unemotional enunciation of each syllable the words dripped with a deadly venom. A venom, as Van sensed, that made itself felt with terrible effect on the other four members of the Council of Five.
They were four simple words. Appallingly simple. But death was the answer to the question they propounded.
“Who is the traitor?”
Silence ensued; a foreboding silence that clutched at even the Phantom’s throat.
Hesterberg, in the same dead monotone, repeated his question. But the question now had become a flaming accusation.
“Who is the traitor?”
Then abruptly his nerveless calm was shattered. He exploded in a torrent of inflammatory denunciation. Shaking two claw-like fists in the air the packet of documents in his hand thudded to the glass top of the mahogany. Five heads bent over as one to read the laconic message penciled on the topmost sheet. The taunting words stared up at them:
Your second failure at the hands of — the Phantom!
A nervous voice from one of the Council of Five broke in on the Russian’s ravings. “The signature of the Phantom, but — but —”
“But there are no buts!” stormed Hesterberg. “These are not the papers I took from the strong box of the Japanese Embassy. These are some insignificant statistics on tariff duties. Phah! There has been a substitution, a trick!” His voice rose high on a storm of passion. “Fools! Madmen! Idiots! So there is one among you who would match his wits against Hesterberg. You are babes, children. Without me you are lost. Empires topple and crash at my machinations!”
“Mad, completely mad,” commented the Phantom to himself, as he lit a fresh cigarette. With cool eyes he surveyed the strained faces around the table. Though the others, too, might have had a suspicion of the Russian’s dementia, they feared him none the less. They looked questioningly, uncertainly, at one another.
Then as suddenly as the torrent had come, it abated. Hesterberg led off on another tack. His voice became wheedling, his words dripped honey — but the flame in his eyes never died. He essayed a laugh and the sound grated in the stillness of the room like the shattering of glass.
“Of course,” he began, spreading his hands deprecatingly, “if this little farce is someone’s idea of humor, I have a few tricks of my own I can play. Perhaps you have witnessed some of them, my friends?”
In the grim silence that followed the Phantom felt the shudder that raced around the council board. Despite his iron nerves and steady self-control, he was visited with a vague, momentary doubt as to the wisdom of the course he had pursued.
Then came the anxious voice of Number 4. “But what if it was the Phantom?”
“This farce has gone far enough,” grated Hesterberg. “There is treachery here. That packet of documents was purloined from me. And I suspect that one of the five here —” He broke off abruptly. His voice was jagged ice when he continued again. “Gentlemen, I am sorry to report that one of us here is a traitor to the cause. Those papers must be found. Now. We will have to search, gentlemen. We will have a very thorough search — and it will begin with me.”
He turned to the Phantom on his right and with a steady hand Van extinguished his cigarette in a hammered bronze tray.
“We will stand in a circle,” continued Hesterberg. “To show that there is no prejudice, you, Number 8, will begin the search by going over me.”
Van nodded his understanding and the council around the table arose as one man. They formed a tight circle. The Phantom was about to go through his role when suddenly the Mad Red wheeled on him. A strange glint was in his narrowed eyes.
“But it was you, Number 8, who reported to me that the Phantom was dead!” he grated.
The long deferred climax was at hand.
“Then I lied,” snapped Number 8. “The Phantom lives. I am the Phantom!”
The savage nozzle of his automatic was grinding at Hesterberg’s guts. In the sudden silence that descended on the room at his declaration, he heard the breath whistle sharply through Hesterberg’s nostrils.
The two men confronted each other, the demoniacal fury in Hesterberg’s eyes challenging the mocking glint in the Phantom’s.
“I am sorry to break up your little meeting this way,” continued the Phantom. “But it was unavoidable. My gun is an inch deep in Hesterberg’s flesh. One overt act from any of you, and I squeeze the trigger.”
His simple statement was met by silence from the Council of Five. With a supreme effort Hesterberg regained control of himself. His smile was an unpleasant thing to behold.
“So I meet the Phantom at last?”
“In person.”
“So?” continued Hesterberg. “What do you expect to achieve by these melodramatics?”
“I have achieved much already,” replied the Phantom blandly.
Hesterberg’s lips curled with scorn.
“Fool! Riddle me this: How are you going to get out of this building alive? Though your automatic is pointing at me, it is you who are in the trap — not I.”
“I have been in traps before.”
“But never in any of mine,” replied Hesterberg triumphantly. “I have just pressed a button at the foot of my desk. By now every door, window and exit is guarded. My men have orders that no one is to enter or leave this building until further orders from me.”
“Fine,” replied the Phantom. “I see you have a Call-o-phone there. What is to prevent you from countermanding your order? Nothing! If you refuse —”
He emphasized the implied meaning in his unfinished words by ramming the nozzle of his gun another half inch into the Russian’s stomach.
“You are right, Hesterberg,” he continued. “I have been in traps before. But I have gotten out of them — with lead.” The bland note abruptly left his voice. It became hard, bitter, dominating. “You will pick up that Call-o-phone and order your men to —”
For a brief second, a flash of cunning glinted in Hesterberg’s eye. He shrugged his shoulders in a gesture of defeat.
“The trick is yours,” he said simply.
The Phantom’s lips curled in scorn. “I am no fool, Hesterberg. Your scheme is to rescind the order, permit me to leave the room — and then countermand it again. No — no, my, dear colleague. Nothing quite so simple.” His voice spat out in staccato orders. “Hesterberg, I will give you five seconds to pick up that Call-o-phone and tell your men that both
you
and I — that both you and Number 8 are going to leave the room.
“You understand? My gun will be grinding at your ribs. Like the perfect host you are, you are going to escort me personally to the door.”
A mask of livid hate descended on the Russian’s face. His eyes challenged the Phantom’s, but all he read in the other’s — was death.
The calm voice of the Phantom burst like a bomb in the tense silence of the room.
“One!”
Hesterberg did not move, but a thin yellowish froth collected on his twitching lips.
“Two!”
Silence in the room save the whistling breath escaping from the Russian’s distended nostrils.
“Three!” There was death in every syllable. The Phantom’s finger tightened on the trigger. Hesterberg read the signs aright. With a convulsive movement, like an automaton on strings, he jerked over to the Call-o-phone.
“Hesterberg speaking,” he croaked into the transmitter. “Number 8 and myself are going to leave the council room. The preceding order is rescinded.”
Though the Phantom’s lips curled at the words, his finger never relaxed on the trigger of his gun.
“You are a wise man, Hesterberg,” he said. “We will leave at once. I don’t need to remind your men that if anything should interrupt our progress, you will be the first to go.”
He half bowed ironically to the Russian, prodded him with the gun and indicated the door.
Their progress across the room was a death march. The Phantom had to risk turning his back to the remaining members of the Council of Five. An icy chill raced down his spine in anticipation of a barrage of lead from the rear. But of one thing he was determined; if he took the long journey that night, he would not go alone. Hesterberg would be there to keep him company in Hell.
The door opened before their advance. Out of the council room, they traversed a long, broad hall. Eyes alert, nerves on edge, the Phantom was surprised and slightly worried at seeing absolutely no one along the way. Some psychic instinct warned him that Hesterberg hadn’t yet played his last trump. Things were progressing too smoothly. The door to the street beyond was a short ten feet ahead, flanked on either side by narrow stained glass windows.
Then — like the stroke of doom — appalling darkness!
The broad hail was thrown into stygian gloom. The Phantom was momentarily thrown off guard and Hesterberg was quick to take advantage of that second. He dropped to the floor, avoiding the slug of lead that tore from the Phantom’s automatic.
Something smote Van on the back of the head. He staggered; struggled with a lean hand that clutched at the papers in his pocket. He felt them wrench and tear; felt the packet part, half remaining in his possession and half in the hands of the Russian.
Then the engulfing blackness was shattered by flashes of scarlet flame. The Russian’s men were going into action at last. The Phantom had to get out to the street beyond. The door was one way but a barrage of avid lead blocked that means of exit.
So much the better. The Phantom smiled to himself bitterly and held his fire. He side-stepped quickly to the left, judged the distance to a nicety, took two long strides, then leaped.