The Hydra Monster (3 page)

"Well," said Diana, putting a hand over his, "I hope you'll be able to spend a few days here at least. Your life has been pretty hectic lately."

He smiled. "My life is always hectic."

On the back seat Devil, the Phantom's trained wolf, gave a yawning bark and sat up.

"He knows we're almost there." The Phantom guided the car off the roadway and into a small, natural cave in the side of the earth-colored hillside. "Nobody will notice the car in here."

"I doubt anybody but some grizzled, old prospector will be passing by."

The Phantom got out, came around to open the girl's door. He nodded upward. "Airplanes do fly

over."

"Oh, that's right. Hadn't occurred to me."

The wolf gave a pleased anticipatory yelp as he jumped out of the vehicle.

The Phantom lifted a box of supplies out of the car. Then he went outside the cave and began running his fingertips over a stretch of rocky cliff- side. "Yes, here we are." He pressed at a section of deep, brown rock and a foot-square doorway popped open.

"I remember now," said Diana as she watched him. "The trip up to the Eyrie is an experience in itself."

There was a winch handle in the hollowed-out place in the rock. The Phantom began cranking it. "Nobody had invented elevators back when my ancestor did his roaming."

"Here it comes." Diana shaded her eyes with one hand and pointed up into the bright blue sky.

A length of rope was slowly unreeling down toward them. "Looks like my machinery is still in working order." When the tail end of the thick rope was five feet above his head, he stopped cranking. "Okay, Diana, you and Devil wait here and 111 send down for you in a minute."

The Phantom leaped and caught the rope. Pulling with his powerful arms, he made his way up the sheer rock wall. Rapidly, hand over hand, he

climbed the rope and reached the rock plateau three hundred feet above the ground.

He waved at Diana, then located the large basket which would carry the girl and the wolf and the supplies up. It was connected to a large windlass, the whole contraption concealed by camouflaging brush. The Phantom lowered it.

Down on the ground, Diana lifted the box of groceries and sundries into the huge, wicker basket. She climbed in, followed by Devil.

Moments later, she was beside the Phantom on the plateau. "That's some ride up here!" she said.

"Bumpy?"

"Well, not the smoothest ascent I've ever made."

Across the plateau stood a great mound of rock, looking something like an Indian cliff dweller's home. Devil was already trotting toward an opening in the structure.

"Welcome to the Eyrie!" the Phantom told Diana.

"Eagle's nest is right." With hands on her hips she looked around. Red, gold and brown country stretched away in all directions. "You can see for miles."

The Phantom picked up the supply box. "Come on in," he invited as he walked toward the jagged entrance Devil had used.

The big wolf was sitting before what appeared to be a stone wall at the end of a short passageway through the rock.

The Phantom touched two spots on the stone wall. After a few seconds, it slid away.

Beyond , was a large comfortable-looking living room, complete with stereo setup and television. Lights in the ceiling came on as they crossed the threshold. "That's right," said the girl. "You've got your own generator up here."

"I made a few modern improvements," said the Phantom. He took off his raincoat, dropped it over a chair.

Smiling, Diana picked up the coat. "Closet's over here as I remember." She opened a white door, hung up his coat and her cardigan. "Now, if the kitchen is still in the same place, I'll fix us some lunch."

Devil barked once.

"Better let him have that steak we got for him first," said the Phantom.

The dark-haired girl beckoned to the wolf. "Let's go, boy. Give me some help in the kitchen."

The Phantom shed his civilian clothes. He felt more comfortable in his tight-fitting costume. Adjusting his mask, he sat on a low, leather sofa. There were several things going on in the world that he wanted to keep up with. While Diana was in the kitchen, he'd catch the news on the radio.

The big radio hummed a while before it began talking. "... in the wake of the latest cholera epidemic in this little Mideastern country has come a wave of looting. Government officials have called up the army and instituted martial law. And in San Francisco, the police believe the so-called 'Hydra' murder may be linked with the Underworld. That story in a moment."

The Phantom jumped from the sofa, went back

to the radio. He squatted in front of it, one hand

resting on the cabinet, waiting out the people who were singing about potato chips.

You have a choice of either . . said Diana from the doorway of the kitchen.

"Quiet a minute," the masked man told her.

"San Francisco police announced this morning that they believe the informer slain last night on a waterfront street was the victim of underworld bullets," said the deep-voiced announcer. "When asked to explain the murdered man's last words— which consisted of the single name, 'Hydra'—the detectives in charge of the case said it was probably only the babbling of a dying man. They attach no importance to it."

"They're wrong," said the Phantom.

"Lt. Gores, speaking for the department, promises an early arrest."

The masked man clicked the radio off, stood up. "I thought they'd been wiped out," he said, mostly to himself.

Diana watched his face. "We're not going to be able to stay here, are we?"

"What?" he glanced in her direction.

"I said, this is something important, isn't it? So we won't be able to stay here."

"Yes, it is important," replied the Phantom. "If the Hydra is back in operation it means ... it means some very big trouble."

CHAPTER THREE

Lt. Gores looked up from his desk as Sgt. Pron- zini walked into the office with his forefinger stuck between the pages of a thick, blue book. Gores was a stocky man in his forties, grey flecking his crewcut, dark hair. There was a pair of barbells resting on the floor beside his desk. "You usually read paperbacks?" he said.

Pronzini was a tall dark man of thirty, his hair moderately long. "I had another idea on that Estling kill," he said. He stepped over another set of weights and slumped into a chair. "You still weight lifting?"

"I'm going to start again at any moment." Gores rubbed at his slight paunch. "I'm going to get back the shape I had when I was your age."

Resting one foot on the bar of the weight, Pronzini flipped the volume of the encyclopedia open to the page his finger had been marking. "Suppose that was all he really did say?"

"What was all?"

"Well, you had the notion what this cab driver heard was only part of a word," said the sergeant. "That maybe Estling was trying to say hydrophobia or hydrochloric, something like that."

"I said maybe', since Hydra' by itself didn't start any chimes ringing inside my head," said the stocky lieutenant. "Or in the computers."

"There's quite a history to the word," said Pron- zini. "I looked it up here and . . ."

Gores' phone buzzed. "Yeah?"

"Call for you, Lieutenant, from a David Palmer in Santa Barbara."

"Dave Palmer?" said Gores into the phone. "That's right, he is vacationing down there. I guess you can go any place once you retire. Put him on."

Dave Palmer was Diana Palmer's uncle. Before retiring a few years before, he had been a police commissioner in the East. His reputation, a good one, was still known in most of the country. "Hello, Joseph," said Uncle Dave. "Still lifting those weights?"

"Going to start again any day now, Dave," replied Gores. "What can I do for you? No trouble, I hope."

"No, everything is serene with me at the moment," answered Uncle Dave. "I just had a call from a friend of mine. He's up in your neck of the woods. He'd like to drop in and talk with you."

"What about, Dave?"

"He'll explain that. The point is, I want you to know that I think a great deal of him. I'd appreciate any help you can give him."

Gores nodded. "Well, sure, if you vouch for the guy . . . he's not a reporter for some underground paper is he? I had one of those guys here last year and his story made me look like . . ."

"No," laughed Uncle Dave, "he's not a reporter. But he is a very good friend of mine. His name is Walker."

"Okay, Dave. I'll be happy to see the guy." They talked a few more minutes before the lieutenant hung up. "I wonder what this is going to be about."

"What?"

"Friend of Dave Palmers wants to come and see me," explained Gores. "Well, get back to what you were saying."

Pronzini cleared his throat. "'The Hydra, according to Greek mythology was a sea serpent with nine heads. When one of the heads was cut off, two new ones grew to replace it,'" he read. " 'Hercules, as one of his twelve labors, had to slay the Lernaen Hydra. Accompanied by his servant lolaus, he ...'"

"Okay, okay," came in Gores. "So what's this got to do with a stool pigeon getting himself knocked off on the waterfront?"

Slapping the thick book shut, Pronzini said, "Maybe nothing. I only thought it was an interesting sidelight to the case. Since the guy probably said 'Hydra'."

"Maybe it was a sea serpent that killed him," said the lieutenant. "Or maybe Estling has a sweet little old aunt back in Greece named 'Hydra', or maybe . . ."

"It's an organization calling itself 'Hydra' that you want," said the man who stepped into the office. "At least that's a good possibility."

Lt. Gores came half up out of his swivel chair,

staring at the man in dark glasses and trench coat. "How the hell did you get in here?"

"Nobody outside stopped me," answered the Phantom. "My name is Walker."

"Well see about . . ." Gores shot a hand toward his desk phone. "Walker, you say?"

"Yes, Dave Palmer was going to get in touch with you." Far off in the Phantom's native Ban- galla, the peoples of the jungle called him the Ghost Who Walks. When he moved among more civilized men and needed a name, he called himself Walker.

The lieutenant let go of the phone. "Yeah, I just got off the horn with him," he said. "Next time you come visiting though, Walker, have yourself announced. This is Sgt. Pronzini."

The Phantom held out a gloved hand. "Glad to meet you."

Gores asked, "Who are you working for, Walker? Dave didn't..."

Smiling at the stocky policeman, the Phantom replied, "You might say I am an amateur criminologist, Lieutenant."

"And exactly what did you want to talk to me about?"

"I wanted to discuss the Hydra murder."

"That's something the papers made up, Walker," said Gores. "All we really have is another killing between crooks of one kind or another."

The Phantom glanced at the sergeant. "The last thing the dying man said was 'Hydra', wasn't it?"

"We think so," said Pronzini.

He turned again to Gores. "According to the

news accounts, this man Estling was an informer."

he gave us tips now and then, yeah," answered gores. "Nothing very important ever."

"But this time, he knew something," said the Phantom. "Something important enough to get killed for."

The lieutenant laughed. "Unlike you, Walker, I'm a
PROFESSIONAL
criminologist," he told the Phantom. "People get killed for very unimportant reasons most of the time, especially people on the level of Estling."

"Wait a second," said the sergeant. "You acted like you'd heard of this Hydra thing before, Walker. What's that all about?"

"Over three hundred years ago," said the Phantom, "there grew up in Europe a secret society calling itself the 'Hydra'. They took the mythological name because they had many branches and it was their boast they could never be stopped. For generations, the Hydra grew, infesting all of Europe, then North Africa and even parts of Asia. They engaged in every sort of crime, from the meanest to the most complex and lucrative."

"Like the Mafia," said Pronzini.

"Much more powerful than that at the height of their fame," said the Phantom. "And even more vicious, much more fanatic. The Hydra had almost a mystical dedication to crime. They took incredible risks. Even when plagues raged, the Hydra was there, looting and pillaging."

"Hey," said Pronzini, "I was reading in the
E
XAMINER
the other day about looters hitting some Mideast country after a cholera . . ."