THE SHADOW: DESTINATION MOON Chapter 8

You can read the previous chapter HERE.

8

The laboratory of Federal Cybernetics was dark and empty. The shades had been drawn by the night watchman on his last round, the door locked, all the windows checked and locked.

Nothing moved, there was no sound except the bubbling of liquid in some all night experiments, the steady drip-drip-drip of liquid from a distillation column into a flask.

In the far corner away from the office of Dr. Max Ernest a complicated electronic experiment operated with flashing lights and the automatic click of timed switches. A read-out instrument steadily fed paper beneath a moving stylus that traced an undulant line on the graduations of the graph paper. The night watchman on his rounds checked the experiments each time, and looked at a paper he carried for instructions. With the paper in front of him the watchman could make minor adjustments and give the scientists a little sleep.

After the last visit of the watchman the laboratory was deserted for the night. The experiments continued on their automatic course. In the whole building there was now no sound. The cleaning women and floor polishers had finished their work and gone. A few late-working executives had called it a long day and driven off to well-earned nightcaps. There was no light and no sign of human life in the entire plant. Only the small island of light at the main gate where the two night guards sat in their glassed-in guard house and took turns watching and sleeping.

The awake guard watched the locked gate, but his train attention was given to an electronic annunciator panel that was the actual security of the plant. The panel showed small white squares that were condition-alarm flags for every danger point in the plant: the electrified fence; each gate; the exit and entrance to the parking lot; each and every door and window into all the buildings; every door inside the buildings; all vital production areas. When all was secure every small alarm flag on the annunciator was white. When anyone or anything touched any spot after the alarms were set, the flags on the annunciator showed red and there was a sharp, audible alarm.

This night the awake guard yawned as the hours passed and nothing at all happened. Once he stood up, just about midnight, and walked out to the gate. He breathed deeply in the silent night and turned to survey the plant. For a split second he froze. For that second he thought he had seen something, a shape, float up and over the fence far to his left. Just some thing: shapeless, a vague movement of the dark. He rubbed his eyes and peered into the night.

Nothing moved now.

He walked quickly into the glass cubicle of the guard house and looked at the annunciator. It showed all white. There had been no audible alarm. The guard smiled ruefully. His imagination was obviously playing tricks on him. It was impossible for anyone to climb the fence, or even fly over the fence without tripping the alarm. He went back to his seat without ever seeing the two fiery eyes that watched from the darkness at the base of the fence.

The Shadow, who had neutralized the electronic circuit with his powers and prevented it from breaking and so tripping the alarm annunciator, slipped away from the base of the fence and crossed the plant grounds toward the Main Laboratory Building. At the rear of the Laboratory Building he again concentrated to keep the alarm circuit closed, easily jimmied the window with the special tools he always carried under his cloak, and entered the building. He had chosen a corridor window, and now he crouched in the dark like part of the shadows themselves and listened. His keen hearing heard no sounds in the whole building except the faint noises of the all-night experiments still running up in the Main Laboratory on the second floor. The Avenger glided down the corridors, up the stairs, and toward the locked door of the main laboratory, making no sound at all, unseen, like the passing of a breath of wind along the corridors.

At the locked door into the laboratory the cloaked Avenger again concentrated his powers on the alarm circuit. Then he opened the door with his special tools and went inside. The door closed behind him. In the corridor all was quiet again, nothing stirred, the corridor was as deserted and silent as if no one had passed for hours. But The Shadow had passed, and inside the laboratory the Avenger made his swift and silent way across the lab, past the experiments still bubbling and flashing lights, into the glassed-in office of Dr. Max Ernest. There the great black shape paused and his eyes glinted in the dimness as he surveyed the office of the Chief of Research for Federal Cybernetics.

The fiery eyes of the Avenger studied the entire office of the Research Chief. He saw nothing unusual. He began to open the rows of filing cabinets that were filled with the reports of the work performed by the Main Laboratory. A trained chemist and physicist, The Shadow studied the reports one by one quickly, but could find nothing wrong or in any way unusual. The chemical experiments were primarily concerned with rocket fuels and ultra-cold cryogenic fluids. The physical work was mainly on control and valving systems in very small fluid flows—and there was nothing out of the usual in these reports. The Avenger was not surprised. He had had to check to be certain, but he was sure that if anything strange was going on in the laboratory the records would be kept in secret.

The Shadow turned his attention to the small safe.

His long, deft, steel-like fingers manipulated the dial as his great black-shrouded figure crouched low in front of the safe. His sharp ears listened to the fall of the tumblers. Moments later the safe was open. The Shadow removed the contents, quickly confirmed that there was nothing in the safe that Margo had not described, and returned all but the ledger-book. This he carried to the desk laid open. He sat down and lighted the miniature flashlight he had designed in his own secret laboratory. The tiny lamp cast an intense light on a minute area that could be seen for only a few feet away. The black Avenger slowly turned the pages of the ledgerlike book. His eyes glowed as he read the entries, reading slowly and carefully on each page until he had read the entire ledger. In the seat in the darkened office the black-shrouded figure sat back.

The Shadow now knew what had interested Vaslov, alias Reigen, in the ledger. His fiery eyes glowed in the dark as he considered the meaning of the entries.

From the reports he had read, and from his knowledge of chemistry and physics, The Shadow saw what Vaslov had seen—that many of the entries for materials received were much too large!

They were, in fact, according to a rapid mental calculation made by the Avenger, exactly double the necessary quantities for the recorded experiments! In addition, in the shipments Margo had noted that went out exactly a week after experimental material had come in, the shipment seemed to be about half the incoming material!

The eyes of The Shadow were intense: the meaning was clear. Some work was being done at Federal Cybernetics that was not being recorded in the official records of the company, was not being reported to NASA or any other Governmental agency. It was also clear that less material was being shipped than should have been. Not only was work being done that was not being reported, but it looked very much like shipments were being made to some unknown and unrecorded destination.

The Shadow thought about that single mislabeled shipment of material to the NASA Utah Base. A shipment that had been late because it had gone by mistake to some town in Idaho instead of Utah. The Shadow was well aware of one important fact—Federal Cybernetics had a small plant in Idaho! On the surface, then, it seemed like a simple clerical error: a shipment intended for the Utah Base had simply been mislabeled by some clerk for the Federal Cybernetics plant in Idaho. But was it a simple error? Material was being shipped somewhere in secret—why not the Idaho plant?

The Shadow closed the ledger and returned it to the safe. The safe locked again, the Avenger turned to the door marked Storage. He was now more than interested in what was behind the innocent-seeming door. His burning eyes studied the double lock. He recognized its construction.

With his special lock-tools, the black-garbed Avenger went to work on the door. He had it open in seconds and stepped into the closet behind the door.

It was exactly what it was supposed to be—a storage closet. Papers and chemical materials were on all the shelves that lined all three walls. But The Shadow studied the walls and shelves with extreme care—J. Wesley Bryan had come into this closet and he had not come out for a long time. The Shadow did not think that the president of Federal Cybernetics had spent his time in a closet! No, there had to be some secret exit from this closet, and his glowing eyes studied every inch of the innocent-seeming walls. He found the tiny crevice just at the joint of the third shelf from the floor in the rear wall. A crevice so small no eyes but the eyes of The Shadow could have detected it. Once he had found the door it was the work of only moments to ascertain just where the controls were. The door was operated by a small hook at the edge of the shelf. The Avenger concentrated his powers to prevent any alarm circuit from breaking, and touched the hook.

Nothing happened.

The Shadow studied the controls more carefully. They were electronically highly sophisticated. They only operated when touched by a special electronic device that emitted a sound of exact pitch! Grimly, The Shadow focused his powers and his mind projected sounds of slowly rising pitch until he heard the faint click and the secret door in the closet wall began to open. The Avenger felt a great deal of respect for the brain that had conceived and developed the controls of the secret door. He did not think that anyone else in the world could have opened the secret door without knowing the precise method. But he had no time for admiration. He ducked low and went through the now open secret door.

He stood up, his great black shape like a heavy shadow in the dark, and his fiery eyes looked slowly around the room he now stood in. It was a long, narrow room. Not small, but very long and narrow, and the Avenger saw that it had been built so as to remain unsuspected between the walls of the building and the interior walls of the corridor. On one side of the room there was nothing at all. But the other side, the interior side, was a long low laboratory bench with all the facilities of a laboratory. It was both a chemical and electronic laboratory. Even a quick look told The Shadow that it was a highly advanced and complete small laboratory. And there was something strange about it. The Shadow’s eyes studied the entire room. There was something very strange—very odd—unusual. For another instant the Avenger could not place the strangeness. Then he saw—the long bench, the sinks, the hood, the cabinets, the entire facilities of the secret laboratory were built low, too low! Everything looked as if it had been built for a midget!

Or for a man in a wheel chair!

The small and hidden room was the private laboratory of J. Wesley Bryan.

But why was it so hidden? Why was it secret?

Or was it a secret? Perhaps Bryan simply liked privacy for his private work. The Shadow was aware of the fact that Bryan was a scientist and a good one. The accident that had put Bryan into his wheelchair was the result of a daring experiment with rocket fuels many, many years ago before anyone had really made successful rockets. The laboratory’s secret nature could be simply an eccentric scientist’s desire for privacy while he worked; the double locks and tricky electronic devices simply a scientist’s precautions against anyone accidentally and prematurely learning of his work. Or there could be a more sinister cause. The Shadow began to search the small laboratory, to study the work that J. Wesley Bryan was keeping so hidden.

He learned quickly that the work was intricate and highly advanced; that it was both chemical and electronic and delicately mechanical. He studied the secret records being kept by Bryan, and the details of the crippled company-president’s experiments. After almost an hour, the Avenger sat down on a small desk and his burning eyes glowed with the concentration of his thoughts.

What he had found was that J. Wesley Bryan seemed to be working on nothing unusual at all!

And that was the surprising thing. The explanation for the extra experimental material was clear—Bryan was working along parallel lines to his scientists out in the main laboratory. He was doing almost exactly the same work on rocket fuels and the electronic-mechanical fuel control that his company had developed and that had made the sudden leap in progress toward a manned landing on the Moon that had caused Project Full Moon to be created.

The Shadow considered the puzzling information. It was the new fuel control that had made NASA create Full Moon in secret to make their sudden leap to the Moon almost two years ahead of any schedule. Bryan, in his secret laboratory, was working on the exact fuel control system—and on the rocket fuel itself. The only difference that The Shadow could detect was that Bryan’s experiments seemed to be developing further improvements in both his control system and the fuel itself. In fact, the fuel control as Bryan was developing it now seemed to be a super version based on test results and operating experiences reported to Federal Cybernetics by NASA—and by some other sources. The records did not make clear where the other test data had come from, but it was clear that Bryan had been using the results of many tests on both fuel and control system, and not all had come from NASA.

The glowing eyes of The Shadow were strangely blank now as he let his thoughts turn inward. It was only normal that a scientist like Bryan should continually work and develop new improvements in his control system and his rocket fuels. Then why the secrecy? Why were only half shipments made to NASA Utah Base? Why was Bryan’s work in this hidden laboratory so much farther advanced than the work done out in the main laboratory for all to see? Was Bryan hiding, or was it simply the normal and well-known reluctance of a scientist to reveal his work before he was sure and ready? And where were the other shipments going, if anywhere? It looked very much like Federal Cybernetics was working with someone else as well as NASA! The Soviet? Was that the answer?

But how? How could Bryan ship to the Soviet Union? How could he work with them and get the data from them? And why? What would Bryan or Federal have to gain by working with the Soviets? The object was to get to the Moon, it did not require more than one project. And where did the sabotage fit in, if at all? Bryan would have no reason to sabotage his own project, his own scientific triumph. By all reason, Bryan should be one of the most eager to get Full Moon on its way and prove the genius of his fuel control system. No, nothing here tended to the idea that Federal had any hand in the sabotage after all. But if Bryan was advancing his ideas, and the Soviets had heard about it, then there was a strong explanation of the presence of Vaslov and Colonel Derian, and of their attempt to learn what was happening at Federal! The more The Shadow considered, the more the Soviets looked like the saboteurs, and yet…

The mind of The Shadow suddenly clicked off its train of thought and came instantly alert. He had heard the distant sound. A sound of voices as if from far off. But the Avenger knew that they were not from far away, they were only distant-sounding because they were in the office of the Research Director beyond the secret electronic door and through the closet door. His keen ears had heard the click of the light switch. He was not concerned with discovery yet, as he had closed and locked all doors behind him, but be glided across the laboratory to the wall nearest the office of Dr. Ernest and placed his ear against the wall to listen.

There were two voices. They were speaking quietly. One voice was more agitated than the other. Muffled as they were, the voices were not easily identifiable, and The Shadow could recognize neither of them until he heard a name—Dr. Ernest! It was the Research Director who had the agitated voice as if he was not pleased with his visitor.

“Then we are almost ready, eh Ernest?” the calmer voice said.

“With the project, yes, but I don’t like this about Oates,” Dr. Max Ernest said nervously.

“They’re all getting too close.”

“There are always risks, Dr. Ernest,” the calm voice said coldly. “Oates will not bother us any more.”

The Shadow strained to identify the voice. There was a certain familiarity to the voice, he was certain he had heard it somewhere, but even his perfect memory could not place the voice now.

The hidden laboratory was heavily soundproofed, there were two walls between the men outside and The Shadow, and the two men were speaking low. The super hearing of The Shadow could hear the words, but the tone and timbre of the voices were muffled and he could not recognize them.

“What about the others?” Dr. Ernest said out in the office beyond the two walls.

“The others will not stop us, Doctor!” the calm voice said harshly. “No one will stop us now.

We have bought time, my dear Max! Time is with us now. The last few details to be ironed out in the field and then it is time! We have done all there is to do here.”

There was a silence out in the office of the Research Chief. The Shadow, hidden in the inner laboratory, listened and tried to recognize the voice of the calm man. But it was no use. The Shadow would have to leave the hidden laboratory if he was to identify the speaker. That meant a risk of being seen prematurely himself, but it was a risk he would have to take. The Avenger glided to the door out of the hidden laboratory into the closet. As he did so, he heard Dr. Max Ernest speak again.

“Then we go to the Base now?” Ernest said.

“Yes,” the calm voice said. “It is time. We go at once.”

The Shadow listened at the door of the hidden laboratory. But neither voice spoke again. He heard the sound of the safe closing. Then footsteps. The Avenger activated the electronic door of the secret laboratory, ducked, and went out into the small storage closet. He let the door close behind him. Cautiously, he opened the door of the storage closet. His fiery eyes quickly scanned the scene in the office of the Research Chief—the office was empty!

They had gone.

The Shadow glided swiftly out of the office, across the Main Laboratory to the door, and peered out. The corridor was empty and silent. The Avenger listened, but he heard no sound at all now. Then the sound of a car motor starting in the parking lot. He raced along the corridor to the window at the front. A small black car was just passing out the main gate. It went through, turned, and vanished in the night toward New York. The eyes of The Shadow watched it fade and vanish.

His burning eyes flashed. He had missed this time. But he would not miss again.
 Federal Cybernetics was somehow involved in the failures of Project Full Moon. He now knew that much, but there was much more still to learn before he could solve the puzzle and bring the guilty to justice. It was time to take stock. The Avenger turned and floated down the stairs and out across the parking lot to the fence. He went over the fence, a wraith in the night, and reached the waiting taxi. Margo and Shrevvie watched their Chief.

“Back to New York, Shrevvie,” The Shadow said grimly. “We have much work to do.”

The taxi drove off toward New York.

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THE SHADOW: DESTINATION MOON Chapter 5

 You can read the previous chapter HERE!
5

In the spacious parklike grounds inside the wall nothing moved. The black car was parked silent at the rear of the big mansion that stood in the center of the walled park with a long gravel drive reaching up to it from the gate. The mansion was dark except for light in two windows at the right rear corner. On the grounds there was no one. There were only the dogs.

Four large dogs, Doberman Pinschers, that paced swiftly back and forth through the grounds as if on the trail of some prey. Each dog was alert and silent, its long jaws open and wet as it paced. They ranged wide through the dark grounds. Suddenly, all, four came alert. For a second each hesitated, its ears erect, listening. They sniffed the silent air. Then, all at once as if on signal, they began to run silently toward a dark area at the base of the high wall.

The dark area moved. A tall figure came out shrouded in long black.

The dogs stopped, began to mill around the black shape of The Shadow. The dogs whined as they paced restlessly, their red eyes fixed on The Shadow.

The Shadow spoke softly and his fiery eyes burned toward the milling dogs.

Slowly the savage pinschers stopped pacing and stood looking up at The Shadow and whining softly. Then, one by one, they lay down and watched the black shape before them with docile eyes.

The Shadow whispered. “Stay!”

The four dogs laid their heads between their paws and became silent. The Shadow moved past them and faded into the darkness.

The two lighted windows at the corner of the mansion were shaded by trees. Heavy bushes grew close to the windows along the wall of the house. One of the two windows was open in the night. The black shrouded shape of The Shadow suddenly appeared among the bushes in front of the opened window. His black figure was invisible in the night. His fiery eyes were grim as they observed the scene inside the room through the open window.

The room was more an office than a residential room. It was large, with a high ceiling and its corners were lost in shadow. There was a large desk and two smaller desks. Along the walls there were rows of filing cabinets. There was a large safe and four deep leather chairs. There was a long leather couch. On the walls there were two portraits. One was of Lenin and the other of Karl Marx. The flag of the Soviet Union stood in a stand behind the desk. On the wall behind the desk there were two more portraits of the present Soviet Party Secretary and Premier.

The eyes of The Shadow saw all this from where he stood hidden outside the window. He knew that this, then, was some official residence of members of the Soviet Government in the United States. But it was not the room that held his gaze, it was the people in it.

Margo, still disguised as the woman scientist with the limp, sat in a straight chair facing the large desk. Her hands were not tied. She was not restrained, but sat there facing the man who sat behind the desk.

The man behind the desk was a short, thick man whose heavy hands toyed nervously with a paper knife. He wore a good dark suit and the ribbon of some decoration in his lapel. His hair was close-cropped in the Russian style. He had all the earmarks of an official, and the desk was obviously his desk. The others in the room addressed him as “Excellency”, and it was clear that he was the titular leader of the men in the room.

The two men who stood in the shadows against the wall spoke to the Excellency with deference and respect.

The small, dark-haired, wiry man of middle age who had the position of a Senior Scientist at Federal Cybernetics also spoke to the Excellency with respect. The scientist was seated in one of the leather chairs to the right of Margo. As The Shadow listened and watched, this small scientist was just completing his explanation of how he had observed Margo in the laboratory and had decided to capture her to find out what she was doing and who had sent her. He had spoken in Russian.

The fifth man in the room did not treat the Excellency with respect. He was a tall, slender figure who stood in the shadows with his face hidden. His hands were long and sinuous, like small snakes moving in rays of light from the single light on the large desk. His thin body was as supple and erect as steel. His movements were like the motion of a coiled spring. When he spoke there was a cold sneer in his voice, a sharp and arrogant tone no matter who he spoke to. When he spoke no one looked at him, or answered with respect—they answered with a tone of fear, and their eyes were uneasy as they looked at the tall man.

“So you succeeded in your work, but were apparently observed by this woman,” this tall, cold man said in a voice of ice. He spoke in clear, precise Russian!

“So it seems, Colonel,” the scientist said uneasily, also in Russian.

“That was careless, wasn’t it Vaslov?” the thin man who had been called Colonel said softly, but his voice showed that he considered carelessness a major crime. The Shadow, who understood Russian perfectly as he did ten other languages, watched the tall, half-hidden Colonel, and he watched the scientist who Margo had called Otto Reigen, but the Colonel called Vaslov.

Reigen, or Vaslov, protested. “There was no way I could have suspected her until I saw her checking my work! Until today she seemed a plain scientist!”

“Late,” Colonel Derian sneered. “But perhaps not too late.”

The official at the desk was impatient. “I see no value in personality clashes, Derian! Let us get to the point.”

The tall Colonel’s half-hidden body turned slowly. “My dear Comrade Misygyn, I’m afraid that you see the value of very little. You are a hack, like all the men in our foreign service! The matter of personalities is of the utmost importance in my work! But, for now I agree, let us get to the point by all means. Would you care to take charge, Excellency?”

Outside the window The Shadow smiled as he heard the tone of contempt in the voice of Colonel Derian when he called the official, whose name seemed to be Misygyn, Excellency! For a moment the two Russians stared at each other. The scientist, Reigen, or Vaslov, sat uneasily.

The two guards stood silent. It was clear that they all liked Misygyn better, and would have preferred him to be in charge. It was equally clear that the real power was Col. Derian. Misygyn waved his thick hand.

“It is your work, Derian. I don’t have the stomach for it.”

“Too bad,” Colonel Derian said. “You wish to keep your fine diplomatic hands clean, eh?

Yes, that is why the Secret Cell must exist even inside the Secret Police. We must do the dirty work, eh Excellency?”

“If you call secret spying on our own spies work, yes!” Misygyn snapped. “But get on with it!”

The Colonel bowed, his face still hidden. There was a long silence as the position of the Colonel’s body showed that he was now staring at the silent Margo. All this time she had sat there in her disguise listening and watching. Now her eyes turned toward the hidden face of Colonel Derian. She was aware that he was staring hard at her. When he spoke again his voice was colder than any voice The Shadow had ever heard. He spoke in English—as clear and precise as his Russian.

“So, Miss Talent, or should I say Dr. Talent, you find the activities of my friend Vaslov interesting, eh?”

Margo said nothing. Only her eyes watched the tall Colonel sharply where he stood lounging against the wall in the shadows. She showed nothing at all on her face. But The Shadow, lurking silently just beyond the open window, was glad to hear that so far the Russians had not pierced Margo’s disguise. They still addressed her by the name of the woman she had replaced for the Federal Cybernetics assignment: Dr. Freda Talent.

“Come, come, Doctor, you have brains. You see that we have you. Vaslov reports that you were very interested in the book he photographed. He reports that when he observed you in the Locker Room you were obviously trying to interpret your notes from that book,” Colonel Derian said quietly and coldly. Then, as sudden as a whiplash, “Who sent you!”

Margo jumped visibly. For an instant the sharp and sudden attack almost worked. Caught by surprise, Margo almost answered from reflex. But the Number One agent of The Shadow was too well trained to be caught even by such an expert technique of interrogation.

“I work for Federal Cybernetics,” the disguised Margo said. “I was working late. I saw Dr.

Reigen, who you call Vaslov. I wanted to know what secrets he was attempting to steal.”

There was a silence inside the room of the mansion. The tall, rigid figure of Colonel Derian seemed frozen where he stood in the shadows. The diplomat, Misygyn, shook his head slowly as if in a kind of sympathy with Margo. Vaslov, or Reigen, watched her. The two almost totally unseen guards stood motionless. Outside in the bushes The Shadow had one more point to be glad about—they had not observed Margo in communication with him! His burning eyes watched the scene as the silence continued in the office of the mansion.

“You think we are fools, Dr. Talent?” the cold voice of Derian said.

“I think you are spies!” Margo snapped.

“Does that interest you?” Derian said.

“The way rats interest me,” Margo said.

Vaslov swore.

“Quiet!” Colonel Derian said. “So, Doctor, bravado? Really, I am disappointed. Perhaps you are not so important after all. Unfortunate. You see, you will die whether you are a spy or some misguided eavesdropper!”

Margo, as the supposed Dr. Freda Talent, shrugged. “We all must die, Colonel Derian. Even you should know that.”

The tall, thin figure of the Colonel hidden in the shadows of the room suddenly began to shake. The Shadow watched the tall man and realized that Colonel Derian was laughing—

laughing hard. Everyone in the silent office watched the laughing secret police agent.

“Even I should know that we all die? Yes, Doctor, I know very well that we all die! I have helped many on their inevitable way. Oh, indeed I know about death, Doctor Talent! I am an expert of death! I live for death! Do you know what they call me, Doctor? They call me The Technician of Death! Yes, The Technician! You know you will die, do you? Yes, Doctor, but how? That is the question? How will you die, eh? I can tell you so many ways, so very many ways to die!”

Margo did not flinch. “I’m sure you can, Colonel, but you cannot tell me one way for you to learn what you want to know!”

The half-hidden Colonel continued to shake where he stood—but now the shaking was the shake of anger. The other men in the room moved uneasily as the cold voice of the secret police officer attacked like a machine gun.

“What were you looking for?”

“I observed your man Vas… .”

“No!” Derian thundered from the shadows. “No, you were there for a purpose! You saw Vaslov, yes, but you were there! You were after something! Perhaps the same thing Vaslov was after?”

“I don’t know what Vaslov was after,” Margo said.

“You were observing Federal Cybernetics! Why?”

“I work there.”

“No! We are not fools. What did you go there to learn?”

Margo was silent.

“Why are you watching Federal Cybernetics?”

Margo said nothing.

“Who sent you?”

“No one sent me.”

“The CIA perhaps?”

“Perhaps.”

“No, you are not official, not a typical agent. The Army possibly? Or NASA?”

“Which one would you like?” Margo said.

“What is suspicious about Federal Cybernetics?”

Margo shrugged.

“What do you think you know? What did you hope to find? Why did that ledger interest you?”

The cold voice of the half-hidden Colonel hammered on. The words were like the lashes of a whip, the steady pounding of a hammer, the relentless drip of water in some ancient Chinese torture. Margo never blinked. Her eyes stared steadily toward where the Colonel stood.

“What have you learned, Doctor?” Derian persisted.

“That the Russians are involved with Federal Cybernetics,” Margo said.

“What do you know about that closet, that secret room?”

“What secret room?”

“You will tell us!”

“Tell me what to tell.”

“Who sent you?”

“I forget.”

“You will remember.”

“How? Will you kill me? Dead people have poor memories,” Margo sneered.

The sneer in her voice seemed to act like a blow in the face to the half-hidden Colonel. The other men in the room all looked toward Derian. They seemed afraid.

“You will not die that soon, Doctor,” the tall, thin Secret Police Colonel said coldly. “I must know what you know, who you are working for.”

There was a movement. Outside the window The Shadow’s eyes glowed as he saw the movement in the dark of the room. The tall Colonel walked slowly from the darkness into the circle of light cast by the single lamp on the desk of Misygyn. He stood tall and very thin over the seated Margo.

“You will tell me what you know, Doctor Talent. I will learn all you know.”

The Shadow, at the window, saw the face of the tall Colonel. It was a long, thin face. The face of a cobra! The cold eyes were narrow and slanted like the eyes of the snake; flat and deadly with the small pupils of the snake. His nose was long and sharp like the head of a snake ready to strike. His hair was close-cropped, his mouth was wide and thin and when he spoke his teeth were sharp like pointed fangs. His neck was long and held rigid, ready to strike. His whole taut body was like the swaying body of a snake poised for attack.

“I will know, Doctor Talent.”

Margo shivered but she did not quail. Her voice was low but clear and steady.

“No,” Margo said.

“Yes,” the Colonel said. “One way or another. It is vital that I know all that you can tell me.

When a thing is vital to the Secret Cell, it is revealed to us. Below this room there is another room. It is small and there are no windows. No sound can escape that room. Down there we will be alone, you and 1. The room is not known to the world, there can be no help there. Whoever sent you to Federal cannot find you there. It is very quiet down in that room, very still and silent.

Nothing moves. There will be only you and I. Then you will tell me what I must know.”

In the room the other men seemed to shiver as the tall, cobra-like Colonel spoke. Vaslov, the scientist, seemed to be seeing that deserted room below. Misygyn stared at the floor as if he did not want to hear, did not want to think about that room down there below his office, did not want to know what went on beneath the surface of his smooth life out in the polite world of talk and negotiation. The two silent men on guard in the shadows acted as if they simply did not want to know what their superiors did. They were men who did what they were told to do, what they were paid to do, what they had been taught they should do, and asked no questions as to why or what. Only Margo, still in her disguise as Doctor Freda Talent, looked at Colonel Derian.

“No,” she said.

Derian smiled. It was the thin, lipless, fanged smile of the cobra mesmerizing its helpless prey.

The Colonel nodded his head a fraction of an inch.

The two armed guardsmen stepped up to Margo.

Derian nodded again toward the side door of the office.

The two armed men touched Margo’s shoulder.

Misygyn spoke. “Is it that vital, Derian?”

The Colonel did not even turn. ” Colonel Derian, Excellency. And yes it is that vital. I must know exactly what she was doing, why, and for whom.”

The Colonel nodded again to the guards. They took hold of Margo’s shoulder to raise her. She shrugged off their hands and stood up by herself. She looked straight at Derian. The Colonel showed neither surprise nor admiration. He was not a man who cared one way or the other about his victims. He was—The Technician.

At the window The Shadow prepared to move. The instant they took Margo out was the time.

That would leave only Misygyn and Vaslov. The Shadow would handle them, and then deal with Derian and the two armed guards. One by one he would handle them and so free… In the dark night his fire-opal girasol ring began to glow brighter. The Avenger bent over his radio-ring.

“Report, Shrevvie!”

“A car just drove up. It’s parked near the gate. Two men got out under cover. They’re keeping out of sight in the trees and watching the place.”

“Watch them!” The Shadow ordered.

He looked into the room again and saw that something had happened in the office also. They were all suddenly alert. Misygyn was standing at his desk and listening to his intercom. Colonel Derian was watching Misygyn for the first time with a certain sense of admission that the diplomat might have a job to do also. Vaslov looked scared.

“Who could it be!” Vaslov cried.

“Shut up!” Misygyn snapped. He listened to his intercom. “An official-looking car. No one seems to have gotten out yet. A driver and one man in the rear. The car is just sitting in the shadows.” Misygyn snapped off his intercom. “Some kind of official call, Colonel, I must be ready to receive whoever it may be. Take the woman and Vaslov into the next room! Until I know just what it’s about, I will see whoever it is alone.”

 

The others left the office. Misygyn sat alone at his desk. The Shadow vanished from the window and faded into the night.

To Be Continued on Wednesday at...
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics
Visit Amazon and Buy...
The Shadow
Circle of Death
by James Patterson and Brian Sitts

THE SHADOW: DESTINATION MOON Chapter 2

2
You can read the previous chapter HERE!

Cranston walked quietly to his chair and sat down. In the thick silence his hooded eyes continued to study the men in the room. He ran them down in his mind. First the giant man in the uniform of a Major General. Cranston knew him well: Major General George Broyard, commandant of the NASA Utah Base for Special Project Full Moon. The General was a famed soldier, a well-known man of science, and a capable administrator.

The tall civilian to the right of General Broyard was known to Cranston by sight: Doctor J. P. Cassill, Senior NASA Scientist at the Utah Base. Cassill was a nervous man, quick to jump to conclusions outside his field of science. But the Senior Scientist was a first rate man of science and a fair administrator.

The lantern-jawed man with the grey and cold eyes Cranston had met twice before. Dressed now in civilian clothes as befitted his work, he was nevertheless an Army Major—Major John Oates of the Central Intelligence Agency, assigned to the problems at the Utah Base. A man who now had his hands full and did not seem to have had much sleep in recent weeks. Cranston could well understand that. Oates was still watching the socialite. The CIA man was now seeing saboteurs under every rock.

The tall man in Air Force blue was Brigadier General Calvin Rogers. Cranston knew Rogers only slightly—a soldier who had made a hard record in his early flying days in the Korean War, later in Viet Nam, but who was a poor administrator and something of a fish out of water as a General. Rogers owed his present position to one accidental fact, he was a crony of the President ever since Korean days. Now he was a special military assistant, and was at the Utah Base as the personal representative of the President. Cranston did not like Rogers. The General had a way of calling for immediate action when thought was really needed.

Finally, not including Commissioner Weston and Cranston himself, there was the civilian who had first used the word—sabotage. A small, heavy man with deep-set eyes, this was Professor Stanley Farina the world-famed American rocket expert. It was Farina who had mothered the entire rocket project, and the Professor was not about to admit that there could be anything wrong with his baby, hence it had to be sabotage.

That was the company in the locked and guarded room of the Utah Base, with Weston and Cranston himself, and now they all sat in the grim silence that had settled on the room after the blunt speech of General Broyard. It was Professor Farina who first found his voice.

“Why, I can’t guess, General,” the small, heavy Professor said, “but I do know that it must be sabotage of some kind. I have tested every piece of equipment, there could be no failure of a type to cause the rocket to abort so completely.”

“Security was total, absolute,” Major Oates said. “This time there could have been no sabotage on the Base.”

“There had to be,” Farina said.

“No,” Oates said.

Broyard growled. The General seemed ready to explode as he listened to the bickering. But General Rogers beat him to it.

“Yeh? What about that guy in black? I saw him, I chased him with Colonel Ames. He got on the Base,” Rogers said.

“Maybe,” Oates said, “but not near the rocket.”

“Hell, how do you know? What are you, a computer? I say security was lax and all we have to do is tighten up!” Rogers said belligerently.

Cassill soothed. “Now, now, gentlemen. The question is not who was lax, if anyone, but what happened and how do we stop it! This is the fourth failure! And this time… .”

The Senior Scientist stopped. Everyone was silent. General Broyard said the tragic words.

“This time we lost three men.” The General’s eyes flashed in his giant frame. “We should not have sent men knowing there had been trouble. Yet we had to! We must be first on the Moon, and we know, too well that the Reds are close to us. We can’t wait! Wait! We must know what happened out there today, and what happened the other three times we failed!”

“Security was total,” Major Oates said.

“The rocket was perfect,” Professor Farina said.

“The Base personnel are above suspicion,” Dr. Cassill said. “Checked and triple checked.”

General Broyard roared. “Something happened, damn it!”

They all looked like small boys caught in some forbidden act. This was the fourth time. What could they say? Even the confident General Rogers had nothing to say now. He chewed on a long, thin cigar and looked uncomfortable. Cassill sighed sadly. Professor Farina was red-faced, his beloved rockets had failed him somehow. Major Oates showed nothing, but the corners of his steely grey eyes twitched faintly. The Major clearly knew that he was the one under principal attack; he was Security. Commissioner Weston, who had taken no part in the talk, looked at Cranston. Behind his impassive eyes Cranston was thinking.

“What puzzled me,” Cranston said slowly, “is that I was under the impression that the Moon landing was still at least three years away. You all seem to be very imperative about the need for speed.”

Cassill looked at Broyard. Major Oates narrowed his nostrils. Only Professor Farina seemed pleased. Broyard nodded to Cassill.

“Tell him, we got him here,” the General snapped.

Cassill faced Cranston. “The Moon landing was at least two years away—until six months ago.” The Senior Scientist of the Full Moon Project leaned forward, his eyes bright. “Then, six months ago, we got a remarkable new fuel control system. It was just developed, it’s top secret. I can’t reveal any details, you understand, but it advanced us by two years or more! That was why we shifted to this Base and started the Special Project Full Moon. As you know, the regular project is still going down at Cape Kennedy. We wanted Full Moon to be absolutely secret, a little surprise for our Soviet friends and the world.”

Cassill stopped, looked around, sighed. “All went well at first. We thought we were ready.

We launched our first unmanned shot—it failed. We tried two more unmanned, all failed. But everything was ready and seemed perfect. So we took a gamble and today was to have been the actual first landing on the Moon by men. And… .”

“It failed,” Cranston said quietly. Cassill nodded.

“And now?” Cranston said.

There was a silence again. Broyard was grim.

“Now we try again,” the General said. “We have to.”

General Rogers snorted. “After this? You’ll try without knowing what happened? I say we hold off until we know more. I’m going to advise the President just that way.”

Cranston said quietly, “What do we know about the four failures so far?”

“Nothing,” General Broyard said.

“The rockets were totally destroyed,” Professor Farina said. “I am still trying to trace the failure of the last three.”

“The theory checks out absolutely perfectly,” Dr. Cassill said.

Cranston looked at Major Oates.

“Security was impenetrable the last two times, Cranston,” the CIA Major said. “There is only one possibility—sabotage at one of our suppliers. As you know, I’m checking that out with a fine-toothed comb.”

Cranston nodded. “I know, my plants are riddled with CIA men. So far nothing?”

Oates shook his head. “Nothing except one little oddity. We checked back on everything.

Absolutely nothing is out of order except for one small mistake that was corrected.”

“A mistake?” Weston said quickly. The Commissioner was a trained law officer, he knew the value of any deviation from normal no matter how small.

“Just a slip, Commissioner,” Oates explained. “One shipment of control parts from Federal Cybernetics, Inc. came late. It had been mislabeled for some town in Idaho. It had not been opened or tampered with in any way.”

“Federal Cybernetics?” Cranston said. “That’s Wesley Bryan’s company.”

“Do you know him, Cranston?” Cassill said.

“I’ve met him. Once, before his accident,” Cranston said.

“A genius,” Cassill said.

Cranston nodded. “Yes, a genius. Is his material very vital?”

“Some of it,” Professor Farina said.

“The mislabeled shipment was routine though,” Oates said. “Still, I’m checking it closely. So far it seems to be a simple clerical error.”

Cranston nodded. But behind his impassive eyes his brain was working with the speed of the mind of The Shadow. He, too, knew the importance of the smallest deviation.

General Calvin Rogers was not a man who cared about small deviations. The tall Air Force Brigadier and friend of the President waved his thin cigar like some weapon.

“Clerical errors! Damn it, man, we’ve got to get to the Moon! And we won’t do a damned bit of good sitting here chewing our cud! I’m going to report to the President and we’ll throw a whole division around this base if we have to. That man in black, there’s our villain! Why search for the needle when it’s all as clear as the nose on your face? We saw an intruder, the rocket failed. Just add them up, two and two, and you’ve got your answer.”

Rogers glared around at all the others. There was another silence. General Broyard stood up.

“It’s possible that General Rogers is right this time. Perhaps we are making the simple complicated. In any event, we are doing no good here. I suggest we get down to our respective jobs at once. Meanwhile, I’ll personally start a full search for that man in black.”

There was general agreement. Even Weston nodded approval. Cranston sat impassively, but his mind was busy. Knowing, as the others did not, that the man in black was himself, he did not have to think about the man in black. But something had sabotaged the Moon rocket.

Cranston wondered what Harry Vincent had learned on the highway.

Harry Vincent drove slowly all through Salt Lake City. He did not find the trailer truck. It had come to him in a single flash exactly what had happened. The staff car could not have had time to escape. It had not turned off the highway. It could not vanish into thin air. Therefore it had to be still there on the highway—but disguised somehow. And he remembered the trailer truck.

Harry felt angry with himself. It had stared him in the face. The first truck had blocked him and given the staff car time to drive into the trailer of the trailer truck!

And Harry had missed it.

The whole thing had been planned—which meant two things to Harry. That the staff car occupants had spotted him. And that whatever they had been doing outside the gates of the NASA Base had been something they did not want known. They were almost certainly not a Colonel and two Sergeants, but imposters there for some specific purpose.

The question was—what purpose outside the gates?

Harry could not answer that question, and he could not find the trailer truck. He had really known that it was hopeless, but he felt so guilty at letting the staff car outwit him that he had decided to look before reporting. Now he had to report. He drove to a secluded part of the city and parked the delivery truck out of sight. He bent over his small two-way radio disguised as a part of the dashboard. The small replica of The Shadow’s fire-opal girasol glowed on his finger as he passed it over the unit.

“Come in Chief. Agent Harry Vincent reporting. Come in Chief.”

There was a faint click and a voice entered the cab of the delivery truck.

“Stanley here, Harry. The Chief is just coming out of the conference. Stand-by.”

In the silence of his truck, Harry Vincent waited to make his report to The Shadow.

Lamont Cranston sat in the back seat of the Rolls-Royce as it drove out of the gate of the Utah Base. He smiled at the guards. Stanley drove with eyes straight ahead as befitted a good chauffeur. But he watched his special rearview mirror to be sure that no one followed the Rolls.

When they were clear of the gate and driving down the highway, Cranston touched his tiny two-way radio set in the back seat.

“All right, Harry, report now,” Cranston said quietly.

The voice of Harry Vincent explained all that had happened. Cranston listened. His impassive face showed no expression or emotion, but as Harry got to the incident of the truck that had blocked him, the eyes of the socialite flashed once with the fire of The Shadow.

“An obvious prearranged plan,” Cranston snapped.

Harry was contrite. “I know, Chief, I was stupid. When I got around the curve the staff car was gone. It was in that trailer truck, I’m sure of it.”

“So am I,” Cranston said. “Which means that they spotted you, that they were up to something outside the Base, and that they have an efficient organization! I think we’re getting somewhere.

At least we now know that there are some strangers involved, they have exposed themselves that far.”

“But I lost them, Chief,” Harry’s voice said sadly.

Cranston was grim. “We’ll find them again, Harry. At the moment we have made the first step—we know that someone is aware of these failures, they are not accidents! Now, Harry, I want you to describe the men in that staff car.”

Harry described the men.

“Good,” Cranston said. “Remain in Salt Lake City. Check all airports, buses, trains. Check the hotels. See if you can locate any trace of them.”

“Yes, Chief,” Harry said.

Cranston clicked off and sat back thoughtfully in the back seat of the Rolls-Royce. Stanley had already reported that he had found nothing suspicious whatsoever on the Base. So far, the only faint clues were the mysterious staff car and the mislabeled shipment from Federal 15

Cybernetics, Inc. It was not much, but it was a start. Something had destroyed the rocket shots.

One big question refused to leave the mind of the socialite and alter-ego of The Shadow.

“Why, Stanley?” Cranston said as the big car raced on along the highway. “Why would anyone want to sabotage the Full Moon Project? Who gains?”

“The Russians?” Stanley said without turning around.

Cranston nodded. “It almost has to be. And yet … ? What would they really gain? Think of the risk. They were very concerned with world opinion. And, again, how could they do it? We have a fairly good watch on the Russians. The CIA would be alert. Still, I suppose they could do it if it were important enough.”

“First on the Moon,” Stanley said from the front seat. “Maybe they heard about the new fuel control and figured they were licked unless they sabotaged Full Moon.”

“Yes, that has to be it,” Cranston said. “The question is how are they doing it? To stop them we have to know how they are sabotaging the program without anyone being on the Base.”

“Federal Cybernetics?” Stanley said.

Cranston’s hooded eyes narrowed where he sat in the back seat of the speeding Rolls-Royce.

The passive eyes flashed suddenly. Then Cranston bent toward his small, disguised two-way radio. “Yes, Stanley, we will start with Federal Cybernetics.”

The socialite alter-ego of The Shadow touched a switch and waited. A cold, precise voice seemed to be in the back seat.

“Burbank,” the cold voice announced. It was the voice of the Communications Agent of The Shadow, a voice that spoke from the hidden blue-lighted room high above Park Avenue in New York City that was the communications heart of the Avenger’s work—a blue room that Burbank never left while on duty.

Cranston spoke sharply. “Instructions follow.”

There was a faint click as the automatic tape machine in the distant blue room went on to make a permanent record of the instructions of The Shadow.

“Ready, Chief,” Burbank’s voice said.

Cranston began to talk as the big car raced on along the highway in the blazing Utah sun.

To Be Continued on Wednesday at...
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics
Visit Amazon and Buy...
The Shadow
Circle of Death
by James Patterson and Brian Sitts

Monday Madness RIOT "The Shadower"

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?"

Not this guy...

...as demonstrated in this never-reprinted tale from Atlas Comics' MAD clone, Riot #1 (1954)!

Though the writer of this satire of The Shadow radio show is unknown, odds are it was Stan Lee, who was writing almost everything at this point.

The illustrator is extremely well-known...Gene Colan!

This was not the first time The Shadow had been spoofed, since EC's MAD ran their own take on the character in #4 (1953) as shown HERE.

(It was even the cover feature!)

You'll note in this tale "The Shadower" doesn't have the usual cloak, slouch hat, and aquiline nose we associate with the character...

Art by Frank Robbins

In fact, he looks a lot like the Archie Comics version from a decade later...1964...

Art by John Rosenberger

...who, at least initially, was primarily-based on the radio show, but updated to the spy-oriented Sixties!

BTW, if you want more The Shadow stuff, have a look at our current Summer RetroBlog Blogathon participants...

CRIME & PUNISHMENT

...where we're re-presenting the Dark Avenger's never-reprinted 1970s-created, but 1940s-set adventures featuring art by Frank Robbins and E R Cruz.

AND

HERO HISTORIES

...where we began the re-presentation of the never-reprinted, final "Maxwell Grant" Shadow novel from the Swinging Sixties!

What is the Startling, Sinister Secret of THE SHADOW: DESTINATION MOON?

Only You Know Who Knows!

Here's a tantalizing taste of what's to come...

Begin the never-reprinted Swinging (and spy-filled) Sixties Adventure...

TODAY

at

HERO HISTORIES!

And
Witness the final, never-reprinted chapter of The Shadow's 1970s adventures by Golden/Silver/Bronze Age great Frank Robbins on Monday at...

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT!
Plus:

Also on Monday, a never-reprinted tale of

BRUCE LEE

...in a world where he lived to the present-day, at...

POP ART MARTIAL ARTS!

Now is this a Summer Blogathon, or what???

RetroBlogs' Summer Blogathon Welcomes...the Memory of Bruce Lee!

With the 50th Anniversary of Bruce Lee's passing last week...

...we began a re-presentation of an almost half-century old graphic novel about his life!

And that story continues, tomorrow, at...

POP ART MARTIAL ARTS!

Meanwhile, the never-reprinted Silver Age tales of The Shadow continue with our last contribution to the re-presentation of his blue/green spandex adventures at

HERO HISTORIES

...followed by another never-reprinted tale of the Bronze Age stories of the classic Pulp/radio version at

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

There's no summer break for our RetroBlogs Summer Blogathon!

Double Your Summer Fun with Double The Shadows!

What's better than an adventure of The Shadow unseen for half a century?

How about TWO adventures?

First, the guy with the gadgets and blue/green spandex faces off against the evil descendants of both Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun on Monday at

HERO HISTORIES

...then, the "classic" 1940s pulp/radio version faces off against a bootlegger mob led by an an acrobatic, athletic mastermind in a fight to the death over Niagara Falls on Thursday in

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

The heat is on for crime this summer!

The RetroBlog Summer Blogathon Continues with TWICE the Shadows in ONE Week!

First, the campy costumed crusader from the Swinging Sixties..

...takes on a glowing goniff (that's Yidddish for "criminal") Monday thru Wednesday at

HERO HISTORIES!

Then, on Thursday and Friday...

...the cloaked crimebuster from the Film Noir Forties take on a family of homicidal lunatics at

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT!

Dare you miss such unbridled excitement???

The RetroBlog Summer Blogathon Begins with Tales of TWO Shadows!

When You Think of The Shadow...

...this is how you envision him, right?

Well, in the 1960s, Jerry (Superman) Siegel re-envisioned him for Archie Comics!

Oddly enough, this was a year before the campy Batman TV series debuted, so it wasn't done in response to the ensuing "Bat-Mania", as many today believe!

And, for heavens sake, who came up with the blue/purple and green color scheme?

Note: the first two issues of the comic...

...written by Robert Bernstein and illustrated by John Rosenberger, hewed much closer to the then-new Shadow paperback novels put out by Belmont Books which the guys who owned Archie Comics also owned (talk about "corporate synergy")...

...and put him squarely in the world of secret agents/spies popularized by James Bond books and movies!
But the book took an abrupt turnabout with the third issue, as Jerry Siegel and artist Paul Reinman took over the title for the remainder of the run!
Note: Siegel and Reinman also assumed creative duties on the entire Archie superhero line which included Adventures of the Fly/Fly-Man/Mighty Comics and Mighty Crusaders!
Join us tomorrow at...

Hero Histories

...as we begin our weekly re-presentation of these never-reprinted comic (and comical) curiosities!

But wait!

There's more!
Each week, the day after the conclusion of the 1960s Shadow story, go to...
Crime and Punishment
...to see never-reprinted tales from The Shadow's 1970s DC run!

Compare and contrast, True Believer!