"Doc Savage Adventure 1942-07 The Man Who Fell Up" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doc Savage Collection)

THE MAN WHO FELL UP

A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson

(Originally published in "Doc Savage Magazine" for July 1942. Bantam Books #112 reprint June 1982.)

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BACK COVER

A sinister plot to destroy America is unleashed when a man is killed outside a New York skyscraper-by falling up! Doc Savage blasts into action, only to discover that two of his trusted aides have vanished! To save them and the nation, Doc alone must risk his life in a horrifying arena of torture, blood and murder!
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Chapter 1

THE ONE WHO FELL


THE word "concerned," says the dictionary, means to be affected, disturbed, troubled or anxious.

One of the men was concerned.

The other man was just grim. So grim that his cheek muscles stood out in hard knots in front of his ears, making him look like a large gopher with two walnuts in its mouth.

They stood on a street corner. The city was New York. There was nothing distinguished about the street, except that George Washington had once stayed in a house in the next block. The street looked as if nothing in the way of upkeep had been done to it since.

The green building had been built since the days of George Washington, of course, because it was a skyscraper of sorts. Sixteen stories and a water-tank high. It still had most of its windows, except for the first three floors above the ground. Three stories was about as high as the brats in the neighborhood could pitch a stone. They were not very strong brats in this neighborhood. A surprising percentage of them ended up in tuberculosis sanitariums, and some of the survivors graduated to the stone walls at Dannemora or Sing Sing. One had even gotten as far as the little island in San Francisco Bay. It was neither a healthy nor a wealthy neighborhood.

The concerned man and the grim man were gazing at the tall green building.

"You will go to your death!" said the concerned man.

The concerned man had lean strength and power and range. Timbre in his voice. Character in his face. Muscles on the backs of his hands and in his neck. His suit was blue and good, and his face was shaved, his hair cut.

There was, however, something hard and sharp about him. Not a criminal look. Just hard and sharp. Like a gleaming knife that had cut, and could cut again, and still be polished.

"I cannot help it, Strand," said the grim man. "There is nothing else to do. Nothing."

The grim man was small and compact with the look of a bull pup. And his attitude toward the other was somehow that of a well-trained bull pup toward its master. Master and servant, perhaps. Certainly, at least, employer and servant.

"There may be some other way, Rod," said Strand.

"Name it."

Strand could not name it. He was silent, baffled, uncomfortable and worried.

"I'm going in there," Rod said.

Strand pulled a deep breath. "I order you not to," he said. Rod looked at him strangely. Rod was thinking of something to say and wondering whether he should say it. Finally he did say it.