Doc Savage wild 20: Empire of Doom by Kenneth Robeson

Author:Kenneth Robeson
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Action and Adventure
Publisher: Altus Press
Published: 2017-01-06T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter XXVIII

TALE OF XANADU

NOTHING WAS HEARD of the Shiwan Khan mystery plane—or for that matter from The Shadow—for several weeks.

During that period, Doc Savage kept his worldwide network of secret operatives busy combing newspapers, magazines, radio news reports and other avenues for the unusual.

A number of oddities popped up.

A steamship had gone missing in the Caribbean. Her name was Doranic. A former Atlantic passenger liner, since the outbreak of war in Europe she specialized in the coastwise trade, carrying tourists from Manhattan to Rio de Janeiro, and points in between. The Doranic had vanished utterly. No one could explain it. Fears mounted that she had fallen victim to a German submarine attack. This further inflamed war jitters.

Another German U-boat was discovered adrift, and no one could explain that, either. Her captain and crew were missing. During a search of the derelict submersible, pools of blood were discovered, along with index fingers that had been severed by something very sharp.

Ham and Monk were poring over these reports with Doc Savage in the bronze man’s reception room of his skyscraper headquarters.

“What do you make of this?” Ham asked Doc.

“The disappearance of Shiwan Khan and the group he has gathered around him has been puzzling. A single aircraft, no matter how large, is not likely to have carried them all away. We must consider the possibility that, having acquired a large group of followers, Khan waylaid the steamship and placed the greater portion of them aboard. While he and his inner circle flew west over Mexico in the strange plane that has now been seen on three occasions.”

“So where is the Doranic?” wondered Ham.

“Either it is somewhere in South America, or possibly she transited via the Panama Canal to the Pacific Ocean.”

“How could Khan manage that? The canal authorities would not pass a ship without proper papers and authorization.”

Doc Savage said, “Shiwan Khan has shown himself to be a mental giant. Perhaps he used his hypnotic abilities to befuddle the canal authorities into letting him pass through to the Pacific Ocean.”

Monk looked sheepish. He had not yet gotten over his missed attempt to assassinate Doc Savage. The bronze man had said little about this incident after Monk returned to normal and had everything explained to him.

Ham commented, “That sounds like more than hypnosis.”

“It is,” replied Doc. “Shiwan Khan seems to possess the ability to hypnotize at a distance, to operate in a strange manner that is telepathic as well as mesmeric.”

“Don’t remind me,” grunted Monk, his sheepish expression sinking into one of shame-based embarrassment.

Just then, Renny Renwick came bursting in from the big scientific library, waving a heavy tome in his oversized paw.

“I got it!” he exclaimed in his bear-in-a-cave booming voice. “I figured it out.”

Monk and Ham looked at him with ill-disguised bafflement. Ham asked, “Figured what out?”

“The scientific principle by which a plane equipped with rotating barrels can fly, even though it doesn’t have any wings.”

Monk and Ham looked to the big-fisted engineer expectantly.

Renny explained, “It’s the same principle that gives a tennis ball its spin and causes it to veer and fly around crazily.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.