Doc Savage: Empire of Doom

By Kenneth Robeson

It began with the hijacking of a destroyer from the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The stolen warship struck midtown Manhattan with its mightyguns, then vanished far out to sea.

Who were the strange men wearing the golden uniforms of no known power who pulled off the daring highjacking? And who was their mysterious leader, a being of seemingly supernatural abilities?

Doc Savage did not know. But The Shadow did! Combining forces, the Man of Bronze and the Dark Avenger follow the trail of a superfoe from The Shadow’s past.

But can they learn to trust one another?

From fog-shrouded New York to a futuristic underground kingdomin the heart of Asia, the battle sprawls––with the world’s fate at stake!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 8, 2017
• ISBN: 9781365743139

Book preview

Chapter I

RAIDERS IN GOLD

THE CHANGING OF the night shift at the Brooklyn Navy Yard is typically a somber affair. But not upon this night.

Welders, pipefitters, and other workmen filed out of the complex, inserting their punch cards into time clocks for stamping the end of their working day, while their replacements arrived to do the same.

The arrivals were obliged to show identification cards before being permitted entrance into the shipyard.

On an ordinary evening this was simply a matter of procedure.

This was no ordinary evening.

For one thing, it was Halloween. So it was understandable that the arriving workmen wore Halloween masks. Some were clowns, others hobos, scarecrows and other such things. There was a sprinkling of spooks, ghosts and other phantasms.

A few of these men were required to remove their masks, but others were not. All of them wore the faded work clothes of their respective trades.

The shift change occupied approximately thirty minutes, during which the weary day workers claimed their automobiles to drive home for a late evening meal while the new arrivals went directly to their lockers, changing from street clothes into denim overalls.

Despite the holiday, the swing-shift workers were somber and silent, and little in the way of greetings occasioned their arrival.

A fog had crept in earlier in the evening. In the beginning, it resembled thin gray cigarette smoke. Gradually, the cottony vapor thickened to become the consistency of milk. With surprising speed the murk became impenetrable beyond the reach of one’s arm. It was thick stuff, opaque and clammy. The way it swallowed everything in sight was a little uncanny.

The destroyer U.S.S. Bransfield was in dock for refitting, and aboard her a skeleton crew of naval seamen prowled. The vessel was an old model, and long since decommissioned. It was being overhauled before being handed over to the beleaguered British Navy, one of many such outmoded warships Washington was trading for the right to establish new naval bases in British waters.

This was the dogwatch, during which the skeleton crew was dining in the mess room.Two Marine guards stood watch on deck, one at the bow and the other by her stern, as the unearthly fog consumed the Bransfield’s pier lights, smothering their electric glow until they were wan electrical ghosts.

No excitement was expected, the holiday notwithstanding.

As the fresh workers began filtering out of the grimy building containing their lockers, they were uncommonly uncommunicative. All had doffed their Halloween attire. They dispersed themselves throughout the yard, seeming to go to work, but actually biding their time.

Gradually, they drifted toward the silent fog-shrouded destroyer, trudging like automatons.

A gangway was down at the stern, the gated fence unlocked, and they began mounting it, a few at a time, taking pains to look casual.

Since most of them were familiar faces and they wore the denim of their trades, the solitary guard at the gate passed them through with curt nods of recognition and the occasional hello.

Their responses were monosyllabic, and many of the men looked tired, complexions washed out, their eyes dull and without focus.

As they dispersed over the long ship’s steel deck, they picked up the tasks left unfinished by the previous shift.

Outwardly, there was nothing unusual about their activities. Working shifts usually begin slowly, as if the men involved are shaking off the rust of idleness.

Soon, the greater portion of the workmen had filed up to the destroyer’s smoky deck and their dull eyes made contact with one another, while others checked wristwatches, as if awaiting a certain hour.

When it came, the minute struck silently.

The Marine at the stern was staring toward the hazy electric glow that marked Manhattan to the west, when a thickset workman slipped up behind him and removed a strange dagger from a pocket. The thing’s blade was wavy as a viper, the workmanship Oriental.

Wrapping a strong forearm around the man’s Adam’s apple, the silent workman drove the other hand into the middle of the Marine’s back, inserting the long sharp blade up to the hilt.

The sound the stabbed Marine made was a choking gasp. For one lung had been pierced during the unfortunate man’s struggle to understand what had happened to him. A gripping hand seized his mouth and nose, squeezed tight while another man wielding a blackjack slipped up and used this to knock all sense out of the hapless guard.

This was accomplished in the growing darkness unseen by the Marine guard at the bow. He happened to be gazing out across the water contemplatively.

Coming up behind him, three men crept on silent feet until they got within striking distance.

Got a match, gyrene? one asked.

The Marine was in the act of turning toward the hail when the other two assailants fell upon him. One used his shoulders, slapping him backward to the steel deck, knocking the wind out of him.

An Asian dagger flashed in the light and cut his throat almost by magic. Red fluid bubbled from the slit that sprang open and the guard was lifted up by shoulders and feet and heaved over the bow to fall with a fog-muffled splash into the water, where he swiftly sank from sight.

Get the other one! the killer yelled out.

The other Marine was dragged to the rail and thrown into the water without ceremony.

That double act of treachery accomplished, the workmen began throwing off their denim overalls, revealing uniforms of no known power. Uniforms that were of dull gold cloth, and lacked all insignia of rank. On their shoulders was stitched black triangles framing horse heads of white. Nothing else.

Only by their strange cut could these garments be called uniforms.

Two of the men went to the rail facing the sprawl of the shipyard with its idle cranes and scattered buildings and machinery.

They waved their hands in signal. Up to the gate rolled a long town car, very polished and exceedingly black.

The guard at the gate knew nothing of what transpired on the destroyer’s gloomy deck, so when the town car pulled up, he thought it was a high-ranking naval officer, or some Washington official arriving to do a surprise inspection.

Approaching the vehicle, he respectfully tapped on the driver’s window. It soon rolled down.

I will need to see identification, he requested politely.

The driver appeared to be Chinese, or possibly Japanese. He wore a gray chauffeur’s uniform and cap. The cap’s visor dropped a shadow across the man’s eyes, making them vague. He reached down into his lap, as if to collect identification that he had already pulled out for that purpose.

Instead, a nickel-plated pistol lifted into view, and the guard froze when he realized he was looking down the fat barrel of the weapon. Surprise wired his jaws shut, and he took a halting step backward.

The weapon was fitted with a long silencer, so when the gun discharged, a flash of fire spurted out, but with no appreciable report.

The poor guard was knocked off his feet, and lay stunned as he shook and jittered his life away while a crimson pond gathered beneath him.

Stepping from the machine, the chauffeur walked over, looked down coldly, and fired a single round into the center of the man’s chest, extinguishing all remaining animation.

After dragging the body into the shadows, the driver got back behind the wheel and sent the purring town car through the gate and as close to the docked destroyer as the tool-cluttered space permitted.

Exiting again, he opened the rear door. Out stepped a tall figure dressed in muted golden robes.

IN the smothering fog of the great shipyard, the features of this individual could not be seen. Only the eyes. They were an intense green, and tigerish in their cold, steady regard.

He paused to speak, his words cold and commanding, his tones bell-like.

Come, Borland. The sublime hour has come.

A thickset man emerged from the elegant machine and joined the taller man. Silently, they moved in the direction of the gangway and floated up until the pair reached the fog-smothered deck.

The workmen in gold uniforms were there to greet the green-eyed figure.

It is done, Kha Khan, said one.

And the sailors?

Lower decks. Eating. Entirely oblivious.

Leave them to me. Let no one step on board.

With those confident words, the tall figure robed in gold floated in the direction of a hatch door and disappeared below.

No sounds drifted up from the open door. Several minutes passed.

Then, one by one, the officers and crew of the skeleton complement emerged. Their eyes were dully gazed in a way that mirrored those of the workmen who stood around awaiting developments.

Last to come topside was the tall figure in muted gold. He said, Man your stations and prepare to set sail. Do so at once!

Without a word in response, the skeleton crew dispersed, went to their stations, and as soon as practical, the ship’s powerful engines were throbbing as mooring lines were being cast off.

A few stragglers picketed about the Brooklyn Navy Yard came running up the gangplank when they saw this activity. There was no one to stop them.

They reached the deck, then threw off their clothes to reveal strange uniforms identical in hue to those of the robed individual.

These men, too, sought stations, and showed by their actions that they knew their way around the refurbished vessel.

Customarily, a vessel of this size is warped out of dock by tugboats. Those formalities were dispensed with upon this foggy night.

Screws turning, churning dirty water, the destroyer lurched out of her berth and began making her way down the East River, seeking open water.

Those who observed the great warship’s departure thought nothing more of it than the awe such a trim vessel of war inspires when underway.

Thus, no one realized that the United States destroyer had been stolen from the Brooklyn Navy Yard without challenge or suspicion.

Traveling at quarter speed, the Bransfield reached open water and swung north. Entering the Hudson River, it followed the waterway northward.

Reaching a point corresponding to midtown, her crew trained its four-inch guns on the fog-shrouded Manhattan skyline, which was now fully illuminated.

A gun crew in gold manned one powerful weapon, loaded it, and turned the various wheels and levers that aligned the lifting barrel with the skyline.

One building in particular was singled out. It could not be discerned through the pea-soup fog, but a roof beacon flashed yellowly.

When the chief of the gun crew reported, Target sighted, Kha Khan, the weird figure in gold intoned, You may fire.

Triggering of a lever was all that was required.

The great barrel coughed loudly. The foredeck was illuminated by gun-powder flames as the single shell arced off into the night.

The shell struck the building, detonating with an abrupt boom that could be heard across the water. It was reminiscent of throttled thunder. The fog seemed to possess a muffling quality. But the saffron beacon continued to rotate.

The gun crew watched the aftermath, saw devilish flames licking upward, and the tall figure said, Repeat the operation.

Again, the deck gun coughed another shell, and the building crumpled noticeably, sections of roof combing falling in clumps.

Enough, said the tall figure in gold. Let us see what our brothers can accomplish in the rubble of the headquarters of our greatest enemy.

The men in gold arrayed around the destroyer’s deck stared at the vaporous Manhattan skyline, rapt eyes almost uniform in their dull and glassy aspect.

Almost no expression showed on their faces. Only a passive expectation. Even that was vapid and listless.

Chapter II

AUDACIOUS ATTACK

THE FIRST EXPLOSIVE shell struck the Hotel Blackwell in the heart of Times Square.

It entered the west side façade on the twenty-fourth floor, demolishing some of the rooms and sending showers of glass and masonry to the street below.

The second shell arrived before anyone in the vicinity could grasp the nature of the initial attack. It, too, slammed into the twenty-fourth floor, doing so with such force that it blew out windows on the eastern side of the establishment.

The twenty-fourth floor had been all but obliterated, and scattered fires commenced burning.

The hotel was swiftly evacuated, while fire apparatus converged from all points on Manhattan Island.

Since no one understood that the destruction had been wrought by two naval-gun shells, it was naturally assumed there had been an explosion of some sort. Possibly a gas line had burst.

The twenty-fourth floor was near the top; consequently guests and staff flooded out from the floors below.

On the twenty-fourth floor and above, there were no survivors. Nor were there any strenuous attempts to reach them, spreading flames having consumed the entirety of the twenty-fourth floor, making all hope of rescue impossible.

During the course of the firefighting phase of the conflagration, a van truck lumbered around a corner and parked. Men came out of the cab and back of the van. These men were dressed in firemen slickers, wearing their oversized fire helmets pulled low to conceal their faces in the fog.

Mingling with the busy firemen congregating around the building, they shouldered their way into a side door, wielding axes, but instead of storming up through the stairs to search for survivors, they went to the northeastern corner of the building and descended to its basement.

There, they moved to a certain wall, and began applying their axes.

The blades bit deep. Swiftly, they excavated a hole in one wall large enough to push their way through.

Heavy duty flashlights came out, began throwing about questing illumination, and the men passed into a very black room that was in the nature of a study. It lacked any windows. On a midnight-black desk reposed a queer electric clock that told time by the revolutions of three calibrated concentric rings.

A light switch was discovered. This was snapped on. An overhead light shed strange illumination. The bulb was blue. Its rays did not appreciably dispel the morbid atmosphere of the place, so the intruders kept their flashlights going.

Together, they moved on into another room equally ebony in nature. This appeared to be a compact laboratory of some sort. As with the first room, walls, floor—even the ceilings—were sable.

Rummaging around, the group swiftly found another door, and opened it by force. The adjoining room appeared to be in a vault. A steel door enameled in black confronted them. There was no combination dial. Indeed, no lock or handle of any kind.

A long steel pole was brought up. It bore several handles running along the shaft and was topped by a blunt steel form. Men seized the handles and directed the heavy form against the black vault door, showing it to be a battering ram, man operated.

Back and forth they ran the blunt instrument. The door proved exceedingly stubborn, the raiders much more so. They were mechanical in their determination. Unrelentingly, they hammered away.

Eventually, the door caved inward. No shouts of jubilation came from the attackers’ lips. They dropped the ram unceremoniously and shouldered the heavy portal aside.

Plundering the black, unlighted interior, they began wheeling out a complicated apparatus consisting of two metallic posts some ten feet tall, each surmounted by large copper spheres, which they took to the freight elevator and then up to the ground floor level, pushing the pilfered contraption out the back door, out of sight of the firefighting contingent.

One man whistled sharply, and the van truck suddenly backed into view. While another man threw open the rear, the others fell to hoisting the apparatus off the pavement and into the back of the truck.

Other items followed. These were crated. The last to be carried out was a long steel coffin of an affair. It was exceedingly heavy, and six men were required to convey it up to the street and load the thing onto the idling truck.

This accomplished, the truck was swiftly closed up, seats reclaimed and the vehicle trundled through Times Square’s congestion, working its way west toward the Hudson River.

WHEN it arrived at the shore, there was a water tender waiting.

The columnar apparatus was brought out first, carefully placed on board. After the crates and the coffin of steel were added, the strangely-silent men sent the motorboat howling out into the open water. They had by this time shucked off their fireman’s slickers, revealing military-style uniforms denoted by a horse-head shoulder patch. Their faces were uniformly expressionless. They looked as if all personality except essential animal vitality had somehow been siphoned from them.

The destroyer stood wreathed in the thick milky fog, all lights extinguished.

But the man piloting the tender found it without effort. It was as if something was guiding them, something that could not be seen or heard, but only felt.

The motorboat engine was throttled down, and it was worked alongside the waiting vessel that loomed high in the sheltering fog.

Lines were dropped from the stern, affixed to the complicated apparatus, which were quickly but carefully hauled on board. The smaller crates and coffin followed. When these were secured, the men clambered up knotted ropes until they reached the deck, leaving their tender to drift away, impelled by the tides.

Pry bars were used to attack one wooden crate. Once the splintered lid was off, its contents were revealed.

Wreathed in swirling fog that masked his physical attributes, the tall figure in dull golden robes inspected the piece of apparatus with oblique eyes the hue of imperial jade.

This was a complicated contraption dominated by a lens that was astoundingly black. Its purpose could not be immediately recognized.

There were other crates, but these were not opened.

Most disturbing of all was the coffin of unpolished steel. It measured longer than eight feet and was perhaps five feet wide. If it harbored a corpse, the body must have belonged to a giant. The weight of the coffin was prodigious, much heavier than it should be if it contained merely human remains, no matter how mammoth.

The tall man turned to the new arrivals, saying, You have done well, my slaves. His chime-like tones marked him as a foreigner.

The men nodded in acknowledgment, but displayed no particular emotions. Being called slaves did not appear to rankle them.

The figure in gold signaled to two men and pointed at one of the devices.

This was the imposing pair of metallic posts topped by copper globes.

Let us send a suitable farewell gesture to our hated enemy.

The wheeled apparatus was rolled toward the port rail, and a third man stepped forward to switch it on. He was a blocky individual with meaty features that revealed his middle age, the one who had shared the town car with the mysterious green-eyed leader.

The man in gold intoned, Marshall Borland, the hour of your usefulness to my cause has come. Switch on the device.

At once, Great Khan.

The fleshy-faced individual duly complied. He watched it warm up, examined the contrivance carefully until he was satisfied. The thing was facing the blazing monolith that was the Hotel Blackwell.

The weapon is ready to discharge, Great One, he announced in a subdued tone.

Do this.

A knife switch was engaged and strange crackling sounds emerged from the apparatus, building in intensity, until a tremendous display of electrical energy burst out.

A searing bolt of lightning sizzled across the water, vaporizing a swath in the fog, striking the Blackwell. It played briefly, and when it was done, the upper building flared up like a gigantic firebrand.

Watching this, the man in gold nodded silently.

Shall I fire again? asked Borland.

The weird figure in gold took his time in replying.

An amber finger lifted, then pointed toward an illuminated building that stood alone and above all others on the Manhattan skyline.

Yes. Point it at that spire.

The device was jockeyed around and directed toward the tallest skyscraper in all of New York City. Again, the switch was engaged. The dynamo commenced climbing in pitch and intensity. All eyes squeezed shut as a ferocious bolt of blue-white lightning leapt across the distance like an unleashed tiger, striking the spire of the building in question.

The structure did not catch fire, nor did it show signs of acquiring damage. Instead, its illuminated windows winked out all at once and the structure ceased to be visible from the distant destroyer.

Almost immediately, the lights of the towering spire showed again through the pressing mist.

Marshall Borland looked to the man he called Khan. Again?

The strange figure shook his head. Cold words escaped his lips. No, that is sufficient. For now. A message has been sent. That is all that is necessary. We will turn our attention back to our foremost foe. I will signal when I am again ready to unleash my thunderbolts of wrath.

Chapter III

SURPRISE IN THE SHADOWS

DOC SAVAGE WAS in his elaborate scientific laboratory on the eighty-sixth floor of the tallest skyscraper in midtown Manhattan—in fact, in all of Manhattan—when the first shell hit the Hotel Blackwell.

The laboratory occupied the greater portion of the eighty-sixth floor. Its windows wrapped around three sides of the building. Unfortunately, Doc was not facing the side that overlooked Times Square, several blocks to the northwest.

Thus, when the first shell struck, Doc was oblivious to the dramatic event. The high windows happened to be soundproof, as well as bulletproof. The fog made looking out the windows pointless anyway.

The second shell likewise did not capture the bronze man’s attention. He was busy pouring chemicals into a small stone vat.

Physically, Doc Savage was a giant of a man. He towered alarmingly over six feet in height, and stripped of his white smock, he could have impersonated a statue of Atlas or Hercules or any of the mythological supermen of antiquity. Provided that image had been cast in bronze, that is. For Doc’s skin had been made metallic by exposure to a combination of Arctic suns and tropical solar rays. His very modern-looking hair lay close to his scalp, resembling a skullcap only a shade darker than his epidermis.

Adding to the suggestion of unreality were the bronze giant’s eyes. They, too, were seemingly composed of living metal. But these orbs were golden, not bronze. Uncannily like twin pools of golden flakes, they were. Always active, invariably in motion, they exerted a hypnotic effect on anyone who came under their eerie regard.

Newspapers around the world had hung many superlatives on the reputation of Doc Savage. A renowned scientist, he was most often called the Man of Bronze. But he was much more than a muscular titan possessed of a powerful brain. He was what future generations might aspire to in the next century—the ultimate symphony of brawn and brain in perfect harmony.

Assisting Doc was an individual who looked as if he stepped out of a comic strip. He was extraordinarily short and unusually wide and looked like a cross between a beetle-browed caveman and a closely-shaven bull gorilla.

The fellow with the pleasantly homely simian features watched Doc as he performed his chemical magic. An observer might have thought him some dull-witted assistant, hired to clean up afterward.

They could not have been more wrong. The apish fellow was Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Monk Mayfair, the leading industrial chemist in the world today.

Monk surrendered to no other man in his knowledge of chemical wizardry, except Doc Savage. The bronze giant was his superior, hands down. Yet the hairy chemist was watching Doc Savage with the expression of a child observing a magician performing a bit of sleight of hand.

Monk asked, So you think this is gonna work, huh? In repose, his voice was tiny, squeaking.

Doc replied in a well-modulated voice, If it does, it will be a boon to science.

Monk grunted, Boon? It’ll turn the aeronautical world upside down, practically.

There is no need to exaggerate, suggested the bronze man.

Monk said nothing. Doc Savage was an unusually modest individual but Monk, while boastful about his own accomplishments, was not feeling particularly boastful tonight.

Sealing his lips, the homely chemist watched as the steaming chemicals combined, and the bronze man lifted the vat as if it was weightless and carried it over to an electric furnace, which was glowing cherry red.

The weight of that vat was considerable, but the bronze giant handled it as if it were not much more than a Thanksgiving turkey on a carving plate.

Open the door please, Monk, requested Doc.

Monk obliged, putting on asbestos gloves and throwing open the heavy door. The glowing electric furnace interior practically baked the perspiration off his homely features the moment he opened it.

There you go, Doc.

The bronze man was already wearing protective gloves and shoved the vat into the furnace, swiftly sealing the door and locking it tightly.

How long is this gonna take? asked Monk.

An hour possibly. No more.

Doc began removing his gloves as well as a laboratory smock when his remarkable flake-gold eyes happened to capture a smoldering flicker through the long bank of windows facing north.

Moving swiftly, Doc went to the windows, Monk following behind. On a clear day, the spectacular view took in southern New England as far north as Massachusetts. But this was night, and the city was smothered in cottony fog.

Gotta be a fire, grunted Monk, squinting.

Doc nodded. Times Square from the look of things.

There was a teletype in one corner of the room, which Doc used to monitor wire-service news reports and police activity. It began rattling.

Monk was closest, so he ambled over, waited for the mechanical rattling to cease and tore off a sheet of paper. He brought this over to the bronze man.

Doc took it and read the lines of teletype swiftly.

Two explosions have been reported at the Hotel Blackwell, he said.

That must be it, said Monk. His tiny eyes went back to the bundle of incandescence that showed fitfully through the milky fog.

Then something astounding happened.

A bolt of lightning etched a blue-white artery across the expanse of fog. It had the remarkable effect of vaporizing a great swath of the rolling fog blanketing New York City.

Blazes! squeaked Monk. Didja see that? The homely Monk’s method of slaughtering the English language did not indicate he had graduated from some of the greatest universities.

Doc Savage said nothing. His aureate eyes were intent. More clearly than the apish chemist, he saw where the bolt had struck.

That was no ordinary bolt of lightning, Monk, Doc rapped out.

As if to emphasize that point, the atmosphere around the skyscraper suddenly exploded in a blue-white flash of electrical fire. Simultaneously, a resounding crack of a sound detonated. The laboratory lights went out.

Ye-e-e-o-w! squawled Monk, shielding his eyes. "What the heck was that?"

Flashing to a section of wall, the bronze giant manipulated complex controls, restoring the electricity.

Another bolt appears to have struck this building, advised Doc, knocking out the lights. I have engaged the emergency generator.

Lightning shouldn’t have done that! Monk howled. What happened to the superconducting lightnin’ rod you installed up top?

Grimly, Doc said, Exactly my thought. We will investigate this phenomenon.

The two men rushed through the rest of the laboratory, which was one of the largest in existence, passed into an equally impressive library of scientific volumes, and then into a reception room.

In the suite, they went to a special elevator and took this to the sub-basement garage. The elevator was a private one accessible only to Doc Savage and his associates. It dropped to the sub-basement with breathtaking speed. Monk was almost thrown off his bandy legs, but the bronze man simply bent his knees slightly and so absorbed the violent landing.

The sub-basement garage was filled with an assortment of vehicles. Doc Savage claimed a black sedan that was quietly impressive without being ostentatious. They climbed in, Doc taking the wheel.

Sending the machine up a concrete ramp, Doc touched a dashboard button, actuating a radio signal that caused a door in the skyscraper side to lift upward mechanically. His machine was soon rolling off the ramp onto the street and melting into traffic.

The thick fog had already regathered, and the air was filled with the nerve-wracking wail of sirens and fire engines rushing to the scene of the blaze.

Why do you think that lightnin’ was out of the ordinary? Monk asked, holding on as Doc jockeyed the machine expertly through traffic, engaging a hidden siren and colored lights which gave his sedan the appearance of an official police machine.

Typically, lightning strikes downward, declared the bronze man. There are instances where a bolt may erupt between two thunderstorm clouds, but that first thunderbolt struck the exact spot where the Blackwell stands.

Monk whistled. That would be a heck of a big coincidence—if it was a coincidence, that is.

A lightning bolt traveling in a horizontal manner striking the scene of an explosion could be no coincidence.

What about the thunderbolt that hit our headquarters?

Coincidences, unlike lightning bolts, do not often strike twice.

Having given that opinion, the bronze man went quiet as he pushed his caterwauling machine through the foggy streets of midtown Manhattan.

NEARING Times Square, it became impossible to progress.

Police vehicles stood canted across the approach streets, creating roadblocks. Bluecoats were setting up sawhorses to obstruct the sidewalks.

Motorcars and pedestrians alike were being turned away from the scene, but humanity being the curious species it was pressed forward, rubbernecking.

The Hotel Blackwell lay in ruins. The heat of the fire consuming the upper floors appeared to be drying the moist fog in a visible radius of several hundred yards around the roof.

On the flat roof, a flashing beacon rotated, throwing a yellow beam about.

That beacon is a new feature, commented Doc.

What a night for this to happen! exclaimed Monk, stepping out of the sedan, his pugnacious jaw dropping open in surprise.

Exiting the vehicle, Doc Savage shouldered forward, soon coming to the street on which the hotel fronted.

Firemen rushed back and forth, hooking up their hoses to fire plugs, opening the water mains with heavy wrenches, and attempting to spray water skyward. But even the hydraulic force of the New York water system was insufficient to touch the blaze.

Monk, Doc directed. Drive to the warehouse. This conflagration will require special attention.

I catch you, squeaked Monk. Diving back, he reclaimed the sedan.

Soon, the homely chemist was backing up and heading toward the Hudson River, where the bronze man maintained a combination warehouse and aircraft hangar. There was stored Doc’s amazing fleet of aircraft, fast boats, and even an experimental submarine.

Flake-gold eyes scanning the worried faces of the firefighters, Doc sought and found New York’s fire commissioner, whom he expected to be on the scene, owing to the magnitude of the disaster.

Such was the status of Doc Savage in New York City that he held multiple honorary commissions, including a New York police inspector’s badge as well as a fire marshal’s certification.

Noticing the towering bronze man, the commissioner broke off from his excited huddle with his fire chiefs and sought the bronze man’s counsel.

This is as bad a fire as I’ve ever seen, he said tersely.

What was the nature of the explosions? asked Doc.

We don’t know. Yet. We’re hearing some mighty wild tales. Some people heard a whistling before each detonation. But nobody saw anything because of this blasted pea soup.

Doc Savage said, I would like to enter the building if you feel it is safe to do so.

The fire is confined to the upper floors, but if we can’t figure out a way to put it out, the whole place will go up. The old dump could coming crashing down any time now.

I am willing to take that chance, advised Doc.

Then go ahead, and good luck.

Thank you, said Doc, moving toward the entrance. Fire hoses were snaking in and out of the place, and some brave firemen were attempting to haul lines up the main stairs in an effort, possibly futile, to protect the lower floors.

The area was dark, for the electricity had gone off.

From one pocket, Doc produced a small flashlight which he wound by means of a tiny crank in the handle. This was a spring-generator flashlight. It would produce limited voltage until rewound.

Thumbing the button produced illumination that aided the bronze giant in stepping around the fire hoses. Charging firemen noticed him, shone their flashlights upon his Herculean frame, then left him alone. Almost everyone in New York recognized the famous Doc Savage.

The elevators of course were not working, so Doc went to the main staircase, down which were coming anxious guests, some with smoke-smeared faces—the last stragglers who had been rescued by the firemen who were guiding them downward.

Amid these huddled groups was a solitary individual Doc Savage immediately recognized.

It was a gaunt man with a hollow face, who walked with a cane. He was somewhat stooped in a way that suggested that in his prime he had been quite tall. His thin face was the coppery hue of a man whose bronzed tan had faded.

He appeared to be assisting an elderly woman down the staircase. The woman was noticeably frightened.

Struck by something, Doc watched the man step out into the lobby. Instead of following the frightened guests out the main entrance to safety, he handed the nervous woman off to a fireman, then slipped furtively around a corner and vanished from view.

Making almost no sound, Doc Savage followed him.

Around the corner led to the kitchen area and a set of double steel doors marked: No Admittance.

The doors stood still as if they had not recently opened, but there was no other way the man could have gone, so Doc pushed through the doors, into the service area and employed his flashlight to seek any sign of where the furtive fellow had vanished.

There was none.

Taking a turn around the entire service area, including the abandoned kitchen, Doc swiftly determined that the place was uninhabited. There was a back door, but it was locked from inside.

Another door apparently led to the basement.

Dousing his flashlight, the bronze man carefully opened the door and crept down the stairs, his sensitive nostrils alert for any signs that an individual had come this way recently.

Many men wear colognes or aftershaves that are distinctive, but Doc smelled nothing of the kind. Nor did his acute ears pick up the sounds of footsteps when he paused to listen.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, the bronze man found himself in utter darkness. Having no choice in the matter, he thumbed on his flashlight again. It popped out a thin ray of illumination which he swiftly widened by turning a ring around the lens end.

The basement area was surprisingly empty, as if it was rarely used. There were a