The driver staggered out and put up his hands. There was nothing else he could do.

The man in the bulletproof vest got to his feet. He held his gun and seemed inclined to fight.

Renny called, "Pal, I can shoot the pupils out of your eyes without touching the whites."

The statement was exaggerated, but Renny made it sound like gospel. The man in the bulletproof vest erected his arms.

That left only those in the van body. They were not going to be easy. There were slits in the body, apparently there for ventilating purposes. A gun came through one of these, a thorn of dark steel that suddenly became red-tipped and sent shot sound bang-thumping through the woods.

Everyone got under cover, except the two men who had surrendered. They stood there with their arms high, and their faces losing color.

Doc Savage borrowed Renny's hat, which was a new felt, and went away. He came back with the hat full of gasoline which he had drained from the tank of his car.

He threw the hatful of gasoline onto the laundry truck body.He put a match flame to a stick which he had dipped in the gasoline, and threw the blazing stick at the laundry truck. There was a sound like an elephant blowing air out through his trunk, and flame enveloped the truck.

For a while, the flames crawled over the truck like red flags.

Renny, chuckling, said, "That's the way they put tanks out of commission."

In the truck, a voice yelled, "Let us come out!"

"The guns first," Doc said.

The rear doors of the truck flew open, and two revolvers and an automatic shotgun landed on the ground. Then the men sprang out, three of them. They were frightened, and they turned and stared at the truck interior in horror. Some of the gasoline had gotten inside the truck, along with flames.

Doc Savage, moving swiftly, reached the doors of the truck. He looked inside. There was some fire, some cartons of ammunition, a coat someone had dropped, and a portable radio transmitter-receiver combination.

Doc wheeled, demanded, "What were you using the radio for?"

One of the men showed his teeth.

"What kind of fools do you take us for?" the fellow asked. "We've got pals, and we kept in touch with them, and they've practically got you surrounded right now."

"Surrounded?"

"That's my guess," the man said. He sounded confident.

RENNY said, "Holy cow! What a lying bluff!" and some one practically shot the coat off his back. The bullet which hit Renny had a freak effect. The big-fisted engineer was wearing a bulletproof undergarment of alloy chain mesh and the bullet was a soft-point which hit well to the side and mushroomed into a palm of lead and ripped harmlessly across, taking out a great patch of coat fabric. Renny fell down, helped by the impact, and got out of sight.

Doc also got under cover with the abruptness of experience. He grabbed Chet Farmer's leg, dragged him down.

"Ham!" the bronze man shouted.

From the direction of the cabin, Ham yelled, "What'll I do, Doc?"

The bronze man said to run for the river. He said it in the ancient Mayan language, a tongue which almost no one but himself and his a.s.sociates understood, and which they used for communication when they did not wish to be understood by outsiders.

"What about the pink man?" Ham demanded.

"Have to let them have him," Doc called. "We can't take him along."

The bronze man then signaled Renny, Monk, and Chet Farmer, and they crawled through the brush. Theundergrowth was very thick. Once they were intercepted, but a ripping blast from Renny's machine pistol drove their enemy to cover before he could fire on them.

"Run for it!" Doc said.

They leaped up, sprinted. The ground sloped downward sharply. Abruptly there was water ahead, like patches of mirror. A great deal of water. It was the Hudson River, Chet realized.

The ignominous flight suddenly became too much for Chet Farmer. He stopped.

"h.e.l.l, we had half of them licked!" he snarled. "And now we're laying down like whipped dogs."

Monk gave him a shove.

"Keep going," Monk said. "This ain't as dumb as it looks. It's still part of a plan."

There was, Chet discovered, a boat at the edge of the water. It was a motorboat, not a large or expensive one, but fast. They scrambled into the craft, which was moored to a makeshift wharf. Doc cast off the line. Renny got the engine going; it made much the same sound as an automobile. The boat lifted its bows and swung out onto the river.

Doc said, "Get smoke grenades ready."

Ham Brooks produced two objects which resembled condensed milk cans, said, "All set."

Doc waited. A man dashed out on the river beach. He stared at them. Renny, aiming his machine pistol deliberately, knocked up dirt around the feet of the man, and cut loose a shower of leaves over his head.

The man howled and bounced out of sight.

Doc said, "The smoke!"

Ham tossed one of the cans, after twisting a key. It hit the water and became the source of a great worm of smoke that crawled over the surface of the river. Heavy smoke that hung low, concealing the boat from those on sh.o.r.e.

Doc dug into his vest of gadgets and brought out a device consisting of a mouthpiece, nasal clips, and a compact respiration tank-a self-contained breath supply which would enable him to stay under water for some time.

He said, "Get to headquarters and wait there."

They nodded.

Doc went overboard. He went over, concealed from the men on sh.o.r.e by the smoke, and without commotion which would reveal what he had done.

The boat went on, and Chet Farmer stared at Monk, Ham and Renny in bewilderment. "What on earth is the idea?" he demanded.

"This whole thing," Monk told him, "is part of a plan to find out what is behind this business about pink people."

A rifle bullet made a hissing and popping noise, utterly nasty, past the speedboat.

Renny said, "Holy cow! Unless you guys think you're bulletproof, you better lay down in the bottom ofthe boat."

Chapter VI. THE PLAN.

HAVING entered the river, Doc Savage swam down into the depths. The water was around fourteen or sixteen feet at that point, and it was cool and fairly dark on the bottom. An elastic band held the respiration cylinder to his chest, and his teeth gripped the mouthpiece. Truthfully, it was not a very efficient self-contained diving unit, since one had to watch the respiration, breathing rapidly and in small quant.i.ties, for a huge breath would exhaust the capacity of the cylinder, and also give an overdose of oxygen which might cause an effect similar to drunkenness.

The bottom was rocky. Doc felt around, searching for a boulder of the right size and weight to keep him on the bottom. It was difficult to find, but eventually he located one. He sat down on the bottom and put the boulder on his lap to hold him there.

He waited. The diving gadget did not give off air bubbles, but there was bound to be some air trapped in his clothing that would arise and make bubbles. To avoid as much of that danger as possible, he squeezed various parts of his clothing to chase out the air.

He kept his eyes open, and the pupils became accustomed, in time, to the gloom at that depth. Enough, at least, that he could discern the hand of the waterproof compa.s.s on his wrist when he held it very close.

The bank of the river should be approximately northeast. He headed northwest, which was approximately right angles to that direction, and which would take him upstream. He did not go far-he judged the distance was a hundred feet-before he turned insh.o.r.e. The rock, tucked under one arm, kept him on the bottom.

The lighter color of the water told him it was getting shallow. He got out a periscope device, pencil-sized, waterproof, which would telescope out to more than a yard of length. He examined the sh.o.r.e.

Two men were lying p.r.o.ne on the bank, using rifles. After a moment one of them got up and made exasperated gestures with one hand, and kicked the ground. The second rifleman fired again, then shrugged.

Apparently, Monk, Ham, Renny, and Chet Farmer were getting away successfully in the speedboat.

A man, apparently the man in charge of the raiders, appeared. He said something, jerking an arm impatiently. The riflemen got up and followed him into the brush.

Concluding that a retreat had been ordered, Doc Savage came out of the water. He came rapidly, yet using caution, in case someone should be watching. No one was. At least, there was no alarm. He reached the bushes that matted the sh.o.r.e.

His trip to the vicinity of the cabin was fast.

The men were examining the blown-out tires on their laundry truck and cursing.

"Take Doc Savage's machine," one of them said finally. "We can't kill time repairing those blowouts.

Haven't got a tire pump anyway."

"Savage has two machines here-a delivery truck and a pa.s.senger car," a man reported. "Which one do you want?" "What became of the taxicab?"

"It got away. There's another road out behind the shack that leads over to the highway. The taxi driver cleared out over that when the excitement started, I guess."

"Take the pa.s.senger car, then."

The man ran away. Before long, he was back, swearing. "I can't get it started. Can't even get in the car.

The d.a.m.ned thing has got bulletproof gla.s.s and I don't know what else."

"Take the delivery truck, then," the leader snarled. "And load that pink man into it."

Three men went into the shack. They came out with a figure, the figure of a man who was extremely pink.

The leader stared at the pink man. "Is he still unconscious?"

"Yes."

"What ails him?"

"I don't know. He's alive. He just fainted, I guess. Or maybe Doc Savage's men had been beating him, trying to make him talk, and he had pa.s.sed out."

The leader continued to stare at the pink man for a while.

"Did any of you guys ever see this fellow before?" he asked.

They shook their heads.

"He's a complete stranger," a man said.

The pink man was thin and emaciated. He looked as if he had undergone a great deal of suffering, or had been ill for a long time. They carried him by his arms and legs, and, as they moved him about, the outlines of his bones were like sticks, and his tendons were like thin bundles of wires. His eyes were closed. He had been stripped to the waist, and, when his body was held still for a moment, the beating of his heart against his diaphragm could be distinguished. He was not a tall man.

They left in the delivery truck which bore the legend of a tailoring concern.

WHEN their departing sound had died away, Doc Savage went to the pa.s.senger car. It was one of his own machines, which Ham and Renny had used. He tapped the door handle three times rapidly, paused, gave it another tap, then twisted sharply in the direction opposite to normal, and the door opened, The lock was a combination one, operated by shock.

The car was equipped with a radio. Doc threw an auxiliary switch which altered the receiver circuit slightly, making it highly directional. He plugged a loop aerial into a receptacle in the car top made for that purpose.

He picked up a series of staggered dashes, a signal that was strongest in the direction which the tailoring truck had gone.

Doc put the car in motion, left the shack and the patch of thick woods. The place was an old summer one purchased by Monk Mayfair once when he'd gotten the idea he wanted rural solitude for somechemical experiments. It had not been used for a long time, but it had served its purpose today.

Doc drove carefully, keeping the radio direction-finder in operation, and also keeping his mental fingers crossed, hoping that the men in the delivery truck would not discover that the radio transmitter in their machine was switched on. Particularly that they would not discover the concealed switch which it was necessary to throw in order to actually cut the transmitter, with its little thermostatic switch which sent out a miscellaneous series of dashes, off the air.

THE sign over the gate said Mammoth Shipyards, Inc. The paint was peeling; one end of the sign was a yard lower than the other. The place was not very mammoth. It did look dilapidated. A wooden fence surrounded the yard, and boards had been spiked across gaps where the fence planks had rotted and fallen out. There was a tree-it looked to be three or four years old-growing up in the middle of the "in"

driveway.

Doc Savage drove on past, keeping his head down, and turned away. The radio direction finder showed him that the truck had turned into the place.

He went half a mile, and around a bend, then drove off the road. There was no driveway, but there was no grader ditch either, and he wanted the protection of a thicket of brush.

He used pliers to cut two strands of a barbed-wire fence and drove into the brush. Then he went back and carefully straightened up the bushes, weeds, and gra.s.s he had mashed down, and with his feet scuffed out the tracks where his car had left the road.

He ran toward the abandoned shipyard, keeping away from the road. Soon there was no longer brush, but the weeds were tall. He kept down among them.

The fact that the men had used radio for communication had shown him that they were inclined toward scientific methods. So, reaching the fence, he was careful. He examined it carefully for wires.

Particularly, he searched the fence for wires that might be a common type of burglar alarm-an alarm of the capacity type, one which registered the near approach of any figure the size of a man. One did not have to actually touch the wires of such an alarm to be betrayed.

He found none.