The Hydra Monster (15 page)

"I can tell you what I remember," she said, "but I don't think it's going to be much help in rounding up the rest of the Vultures." She brushed back her long hair. "They must have been watching me and they followed me from the house. I'd gone out to Golden Gate Park. It was a nice day and I wanted to spend part of it outdoors. In the park- near the tea garden, you know—a very presentable young man approached me. He identified himself as a government agent, told me he had something to tell me about you. I was concerned about you, but this man didn't strike me as quite right. For one thing, he was too anxious to get me into his

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car.

"Did he come down here with you?"

Diana said, "I really don't know, Kit. He gave me some kind of injection, did it right out in the open. There weren't any people nearby. He pretended I'd been taken ill. I'm sorry, I lost consciousness before I was even inside his car. So, outside of the nice young man, I have no recollection of seeing any others. When I woke up, I was in that room back there."

The masked man asked, "While you were in the citadel, who did you see?"

"Only V2. He came to talk to me several times, brought my meals."

"How about when they let you talk to me on the phone?"

"He brought the phone to me, on a long extension cord. Then took it away when he wanted me to stop talking."

"During the time you were there, he didn't say anything . . . anything at all which might tell us something about them?"

The girl shook her head. "He bragged a lot, about how they were always successful. And he knew you were the Phantom."

"We'd met before."

"Oh, he did mention ... at least I suppose it was a reference to this head man V," said Diana. "I asked him whether he had anyone over him, a boss or something like that. He answered that very few outranked him. That the head man was too busy basking in the sun to bother himself with petty details such as me."

"Basking in the sun?"

"Yes. Does that tell you anything?"

"Not at the moment," the masked man replied. "Good, it looks like we can get out of here."

The trees had thinned. Downhill a quarter of a mile away sat the airplane. It and the field had suffered no damage.

"I'm very pleased to see you are well, Senorita Palmer," said Captain Miranda. The ship was in the air. The Phantom, still wearing his costume, was taking a turn at piloting. The girl sat next to him, with Miranda in the rear seat. "I feared for the worst when the new quakes came."

"All things considered," said the girl, "I'm fine."

Miranda nodded. Taking another careful look at the Phantom, he said, "I can understand even better now why these Vultures do not care for you, senor. For you are more than merely Senor Walker, you are . . ."

"I'm someone who's dedicated to stopping them," cut in the Phantom.

"I've instructed the local police in Hondillo to go through the rains of the citadel," said the captain. "They won't be able to do that until tomorrow at the earliest. There is much else" to do in the aftermath of these quakes."

"What about the Escabar family?" asked the Phantom.

"I made a few local phone calls while I was enjoying the hospitality of the ranch owner, who has only three strapping sons, by the way. It seems the last of the Escabars left the citadel more than a year ago. The property has been leased for the past three months, according to the attorney in Hondillo who handles it for the family."

"What does he know about his tenants?"

"Nothing," replied Miranda. "Everything was done by mail and phone. He was not even aware they had actually moved into the place. They, of course . . ."

"Paid in cash," supplied the masked man.

"Exactly, yes." The captain sighed and leaned back, touching at his temple. He'd been so pre-

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occupied today he hadn't managed to check for grey hairs. "What do we try next, senor?"

"Next," the Phantom told him, "we try our imitation Gig Sumter."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The Phantom came running out of the hotel. He leaped into the borrowed Fiat. He swung the car away from the curb, went roaring down the street.

He was wearing dark glasses and a belted raincoat now. The day was fast fading, great streaks of orange and black were scrawled across the darkening sky, the tile roofs and the spired cathedrals of Lanza were tinted a glowing scarlet.

Expertly, he wove through the traffic, heading for the edge of the city. When he had asked for Gig Sumter at the bogus reporter's hotel, the desk clerk informed him Sumter had checked out moments before. The garage attendant who'd brought a black, rented Renault to the blond young man in front of the hotel had told the Phantom that Sumter drove off toward the north of the city.

"The airport's out that way," reflected the Phantom as he drove. "Sumter must have heard about

what happened out at the citadel. He's taking no chances."

Beyond the urban area of Lanza stretched miles of flat fields, with an orchard here and there. The Phantom clicked on the headlights, began passing the other cars on the broad roadway.

Ten minutes later, he sighted a black Renault up ahead of him. He pressed down on the gas pedal, pulling up beside the other car.

It was the spurious Sumter at the wheel.

"Pull over," ordered the Phantom, edging his car against the other man's.

Sumter gave him a startled look, before speeding up.

The Phantom accelerated, caught up and again nudged his Fiat against the Renault.

"Damn you!" shouted Sumter. "Leave me alone."

The Phantom kept his car against the other, pushing at it, forcing it finally off the road.

The blond young man yelled as the car jumped free of the highway entirely. The Renault bounced over a ditch and slammed into a rail fence, the motor coughing and quitting. Sumter jerked the door open and threw himself out of the vehicle.

The Phantom swung his car to a stop at the roadside and sprang to the road.

Two other cars squealed to a stop, headlight beams illuminating the running Phantom for an instant.

"
Q
UE PASA
F
'
called out the driver of the first car. "What's going on here?"

Sumter was huffing over the fence around the 135

orchard, which lay just off the road. He got over, went running in among the dark, apple trees.

Swiftly, carefully, the Phantom pursued him. His hearing was such that he heard Sumter click off the safety of a gun. The Phantom dropped behind a tree as the first shot flashed out.

He began working his way from tree to tree. He hadn't needed the flare of the gun to tell him where Sumter had stopped to make his stand. He could hear the young man's labored breathing in the darkening twilight.

Sumter was standing there, with his gun pointing toward the roadway, when the Phantom dropped down on him from the branches of the tree above him.

"Nothing to say." Sumter was slouched in his favorite chair in Captain Miranda's office.

The captain, sipping a cup of coffee, watched him. "Very well," he said, getting up from behind his desk. "It is out of my hands." He went to the door, opened it and stepped into the corridor. The door closed.

There were only two lights on in the long room, both of them small lamps shining on Sumter. There was deep darkness around the edges of the office.

Out of the darkness stepped the Phantom. He was in his costume, one hand resting on his gun- belt. As he neared the young man, the lamplight flashed on the skull sign on the wide belt. "Do you know who I am?"

"Walker dressed up in a trick suit. So?"

"You know better than that."

"Okay, you're probably the Phantom."

"Yes, I am the Phantom. And I think you know enough of the history of Hydra to know there has been a war between the Phantom and Hydra for centuries."

"You must be tired. Why not take some time off?"

The Phantom leaned, placed his hands on the arms of Sumter's chair. "I won't rest until I destroy Hydra for good and all."

"Maybe so." Sumter licked his dry hps. "But one thing you won't do, Phantom, you won't work me over to make me talk. You don't believe in that, neither you nor Miranda."

The Phantom smiled. Not a pleasant smile. "If you don't tell us what we want to know," he said slowly and evenly, "we're going to let you go."

"Huh?" The young man blinked. "What do you . . . ?"

"We'll let you go, turn you loose."

"Doubt that. What good would it do you?"

"It's what it would do to you that's important," the Phantom told him. "Because we'd give out the word you've talked."

Shifting in his chair, the young man said, "You think I'm afraid of dying? It's a basic part of the code of Hydra, to die for the cause if need be. All those guys you've got in the dungeon would gladly have killed themselves if I hadn't given them the word we were going to spring them. A Vulture will never allow himself to . . ."

"Is that why you were running away?"

"I wasn't exactly ..."

"You were on your way to the airport, to get away ... to save yourself," reminded the Phantom. "Maybe you would have made it, but now you've lost whatever head start you might have had. They must know we have you, know you didn't take the approved suicide way out. Know you broke and ran. Once you step out of here . .."

"Listen," began Sumter, "you're trying to . . ."

"I'm telling you what you know is true."

The bogus reporter went slack in his chair. "What kind of deal are you offering?"

"Captain Miranda will see you stay alive."

"A light sentence?"

"Tell me what you know," said the Phantom, promising nothing further. "I want V. I want to go to where he's basking in the sun and grab him."

Sumter sat up. "How ... I mean, what makes you think I know where he is?"

"You're fairly high up in the organization," said the Phantom. "For your sake, you'd better know where V is. Otherwise, it's out on the street for you."

After letting out a long sigh, Sumter said, "Okay, here's where you can find V."

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Captain Miranda unscrewed the lid of the thermos, paused to check his reflection in the chrome lip of the bottle, and poured himself a second cup of coffee. He bent over the small camp table he'd set up in the back of the minibus. "Here* you have the beach area known as Rayo del Sol," he told the Phantom. "A very exclusive locale, quite expensive." The coffee splashed against the side of the cup as the bus went around a curve on the night road.

The masked man was holding a small flashlight, shielded with one palm, over the map which the Police Captain had spread out. "The profits from the Vulture and Hydra operations must be considerable, more than enough to pay for a villa or two for V."

"This is the villa Sumter told you about." Miranda tapped a spot on the map. "It's called the Casa del Sol."

"House of the Sun," said the Phantom. "That's what V2 meant about V basking in the sun."

"Much like the late, lamented citadel," the captain went on, "the villa has only one obvious entry. It's a private road which runs through roughly ten acres of villa property."

Tapping the map, the Phantom said, "The house is close to the beach at this point, isn't it?"

"Yes, but it is several hundred feet above the beach, senor. The house sits on a cliff, high above the sand."

"The cliff can be climbed."

"I don't . . . yes, I suppose it can." He looked back at the headlights of the other police vehicles which were following this one. "Let me suggest once again, senor, that the simplest course this time would be an all-out assault. From what I've been able to learn, V has, approximately, two dozen guards and servants, plus a half dozen dogs. We should be able to overcome them quite easily."

"You've forgotten the code of each Hydra member, Captain."

"Senor Sumter didn't abide by the suicide role," reminded Miranda. "He chose to stay alive and well."

"It's not likely V will," said the Phantom. "I want that man alive, and I want the records, which our imitation
N
EWS
reporter says, V keeps there. If you lead an all-out raid, it's going to alert V, alert him long before anyone can get near him and his villa."