"Doc Savage Adventure 1943-05 The Talking Devil" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doc Savage Collection)

He went away and came back. "All set," he explained. He took over the controls, started the motor and warmed it, checked both magnetos, then swung the tail around, got out on the runway and fed it the gun when he got the 0. K. from the control tower.

The plane was soon slanting up into the sky.

Rotary Harrison turned to their captive.

"I didn't include you in my cargo when I checked out," he said. "You know what that means?"

The man got white.

"That's right," Rotary told him. "I can't have you along when we land." He turned to his daughter. "Sis, plot a course that will take us over one of the Great Lakes. And haven't we got a fishing tool back in the cabin that will do as a sinker for this hombre's body?"



Chapter VI

DEATH IN THE SKY


THEY flew north, left the Missouri River behind, climbed until the concrete ribbon of Highway 69 was a vague thread below and behind. Rotary turned the controls over to Sis, whispering, "Don't get excited, but you can act as if you are. I'm fooling about killing this bird."

"I knew you were," Sis said.

Rotary went back. He stood looking at the prisoner, who was sprawled in a seat and gripping the seat arms.

"Got a name?" Rotary asked.

"Smith," the man said.

"John Smith?" asked Rotary.

"Yeah."

Rotary hit him, drove two quick blows like lightning. The man lifted up in the seat, then flopped back. He turned slightly blue and his tongue stuck out and he breathed noisily.

"That's for John Smithing me," said Rotary. "I don't guess there's any need of fooling with you.

Rotary then fell upon the man, yanked him into the aisle, hit him again. That blow produced unconsciousness, but it was brief.

When the man awakened it was in time to find Rotary just finishing tying his ankles to his wrists, and both of these to an oil-well fishing tool, a piece of steel which weighed possibly forty pounds.

Rotary noted the man was awake. He made a gesture as if to hit him again, then changed his mind.

"What the hell," Rotary said. "What yelling you do on the way down won't hurt anything."

Rotary dragged him to the plane door and forced the door open against the propeller wash.

"See, we're over the Missouri River," Rotary pointed out. "changed our minds about the Great Lakes. Too far away.

Rotary then picked the man up, and - the fellow struggled horribly but ineffectively - heaved him out of the plane door.