"Doc Savage Adventure 1933-07 The Pirate of the Pacific" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doc Savage Collection)

"They sure enough thought it was the sub they had bombed," grinned Johnny, the bony archaeologist. He adjusted the glasses he wore. These spectacles had an extremely thick left lens which was actually a powerful magnifying glass. Johnny, having practically lost the use of his left eye in the War, carried the magnifier there for handiness.

"Our contraption fooled them," Doc admitted. "But it might not have worked so well in daytime. A close look would have shown the thing was only a strip of canvas painted the color of steel, and some oil barrels, pulled along under the surface by a torpedo mechanism."

At the rear of the group, Monk stopped scowling at Ham long enough to ask: "You made that torpedo mechanism a couple of days ago - but how'd you know that early that something like this would happen?"

"I didn't know," Doc smiled faintly. "I only knew we were barging into trouble - and made preparations to meet it."

"If you was to ask me, we didn't have to barge into it," Monk grinned. "It came right out and grabbed us around the neck. Who were them guys who just tried to lay eggs on us?"

For answer, Doc Savage drew two radio messages from a pocket.

"You all saw the first one of these when it came," he said.


THE five men nodded. They had been far within the arctic regions when the first message had reached them by radio. It was very short, reading:


IN DESPERATE NEED OF YOUR HELP.

JUAN MINDORO.


Doc Savage had promptly turned the submarine southward. There was no need of lingering in the arctic, anyway. They had just completed the mission which had sent them into the polar regions - a desperate, adventurous quest for a fifty-million-dollar treasure aboard a derelict liner.

That treasure now reposed in the submarine - a hoard of wealth that had threatened to cost its weight in the blood of men.

Doc had not told his five men what meaning Juan Mindaro's mysterious message might have. They had not asked questions, knowing he would tell them in good time. Doc was sometimes as much of a mystery to his five friends as he was to the rest of the world.

They had guessed there was danger ahead, however. Several days ago, Doc had hailed a liner they chanced to pass, and had put aboard the vessel three persons who were passengers on the submarine. These three people - a famous violinist and his wife and daughter - were, with Doc and his five men, the only survivors of the grisly episode in the arctic through which they had just passed.

The radio commentator had not mentioned these three. He had not known of them. Nor would he ever know, for the polar episode was now a closed book.

The fact that Doc had transferred the three passengers to the safety of a liner showed he wanted them out of danger and told Doc's men they were headed for more trouble. They didn't mind. It was the thing they lived for. They went to the far corners of the earth to find it.

But they had not known Doc had received a second message from the same source.

Doc extended the missive. "I copied this myself a few days ago. Read it."

Crowding about, the five men read:


I HAVE BEEN FORCED TO GO INTO HIDING AT
THE HOME OF THE MAN WHO WAS WITH ME
WHEN I LAST SAW YOU. MEET ME THERE UPON
YOUR ARRIVAL. AND BE PREPARED FOR
ATTACKS ON YOUR LIFE.

JUAN MINDORO.