But some among them are not content to wait…
* * * *
IN MOONLESS, misty darkness two figures paced the lightless margin of Long Island Sound. High above them the vault of a great bridge sprang in a soaring arch, behind them gigantic cylindrical tanks loomed ominously. Squat buildings leered at them from red-glowing windows, seeming somehow diabolical in the murk. But those were only the huge containers for illuminating gas that supply New York, the fires that encarnadined those windows only distilled that gas in long iron retorts of heated coal. Why then are blue-barreled rifles slanting across the shoulders of these slow-moving sentries; why should the men peer so tensely into the low-lying river haze? Why are soldiers on sentry go with loaded guns in a land at peace with all the world?
“Gees, Sarge,” one of the guards voiced this very question. “I’m gettin’ the gimmicks watchin’ for somethin’—I don’t know what. What’s the big idea, haulin’ the battalion off Governor’s Island an’ shippin’ us over here? Labor trouble?”
“No. No-o-o.” The free hand of the other rasped the graying bristles on his square jaw. “I dunno as I ought to tell you, but if you can keep your lips buttoned mebbe I will. You should ought to know what you’re looking for. Know what you’re guardin’, Jenkins?”
“I’m askin’ you.”
The sergeant’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “Gas-masks—six million gas-masks!”
“Yeah! What would we do with six million gas-masks? Hell, that’s enough for every man, woman an’ child in Noo Yawk.”
“That’s just who they’re for.”
The private chuckled. “Good stuff! But I ain’t a rookie. C’m on, what’s th’ straight dope?”
“I jest give it to yuh.”
“But what th’ hell would we want to be puttin’ masks on civvies for? Women an’ kids ain’t goin’ to do no fightin’!… ”
“But they’re goin’ to git gassed in the next war. Judas Priest, wake up! Don’t yuh read the papers?”
“Aw, those tabloids is all guff!”
“You’d know if you’d been on guard at staff meetings, like me. I’m tellin’ yuh the next war is goin’ to see whole cities wiped out by gas before we get a chance to shoot off a rifle. But Uncle Sam ain’t asleep. We’ve got gas-mask plants an’ warehouses all along both seaboards, an’ at the first sign of trouble the masks gets put out to everybody, damn quick. This Plant B’s the biggest. Maybe they got a tip-off that it’s goin’ to be blown up or somethin’ tonight. That’s why we’re here. Orders is take any suspicious characters alive so that we can find out what country’s trying the stunt.”
Jenkins was convinced. “Hell,” he spat. “Any country pulls anything like that, we’re going to hop all over ’em. We ain’t goin’ to take any more Black Toms layin’ down!”
“Put my name on that detail too. I—Hell! What’s that?”
The sergeant whirled, his rifle barrel slapping into his left palm, its butt jerking to his shoulder. “Who is there?” he challenged, the sharpness of his voice flatting at the river-mist.
The private was taut, his gun also at the ready. “Whatja hear?” he muttered from the corner of his mouth.
“Sounded like an oar. But I don’t see nothin’. Guess mebbe it was a water rat… ”
“Or some sailor heaving garbage overboard from that Eyetalian tramp over there by Ward’s Island. Wonder to me they let her stay there.”
“We can’t tip our hand by shyin’ every boat away from here. That would be a dead giveaway. Now, as I was sayin’…G-gaw… ”
The sergeant choked suddenly; the rifle dropped; his hands came up to claw at his throat, were reddened by a gush of blood from a gaping hole where an instant before his neck had been. He slumped to the gravel, the private’s lifeless form thudded atop him. And gray mist rolled over two twisted, gory corpses; a hazy mist-shroud that hid them with a softness more merciful than that of the men who had done this thing.
For an instant the night held its breath in shocked silence, then stone grated against wood. The shadowy keel of a rowboat dug into the gravelly beach. It rocked a bit, and two stocky figures came over the gunwale, waded ashore. One slithered to the entangled bodies, bent swiftly to them, rose as swiftly. “Both dead. That was fine shooting, Dominic.”
“And the silencer worked beautifully; the alarm has not been given.” The other hesitated a moment, then went on. “But I do not like it, Angelo. I tell you I do not like it. There is no war between our country and theirs. I am befouled with the murder of two brave soldiers.”
“Dominic!” Angelo’s voice was sharp. “You forget yourself. It is not for us to question orders, for us only to obey. Our leader, the all-wise, has set this task for us. But hurry! We have ten minutes to get our bombs from the boat, plant them and return to the Santa Maria.”
Dominic still temporised. “There were two sentries, not one as we were told. Perhaps there has been a leak, and the plant itself is also more thoroughly guarded.”
“Bah! If I had known that you were such a coward I should have come alone. One of these is a sergeant, he but chanced to be here at the crucial moment. Come.”
The two saboteurs returned to grope in the dark bulk of their boat. They straightened, each lifting a shadowy bag. And froze as cold, hard words vibrated behind them.
“Stay just that way, you two.” That sudden voice was keen-edged with the threat of sudden death. “Put those bags down in the boat, gently, and your guns beside them.”
The prowlers dipped to obey, lifted again. “Now turn, slowly.” Oddly the speaker seemed as anxious to avoid being heard as they themselves had been, to judge from the repression of his tone, pitched so as to reach them and be heard no further. They came around stiffly till they faced their captor.
* * * *
He seemed at first a part of the swirling fog, so blurred were his outlines. A shapeless gray felt was pulled low over his forehead, a gray mask covered his face so that only the glint of narrowed eyes were visible through its slits. His figure was formless in a black cloak that fell from his shoulders to the ground. But that which tightened the spies’ scalps and bristled the short hairs at the base of their skulls with superstitious fear was the steady hand that held a revolver point-blank at their heads.
It was black, that hand, black-gloved except for the long finger that curled around the weapon’s trigger. That was scarlet; even in the misty dark they could see that glaring scarlet as if it had been dipped in fresh blood. And a name dripped like blood from Angelo’s bloodless lips. “Red Finger!”
The mask head nodded, and it seemed almost as if the hidden mouth smiled humorlessly. “Red Finger,” it assented, savoring the dread that name inspired among all who moved in the murky underworld of international intrigue.
A second’s silence intervened, accentuated by the greasy lap of water along the rowboat’s keel and the far-off melancholy hoot of a ferry. Then, “Who gave you the orders for—this?”
“Capit—”
