"123 (B113a) - The Talking Devil (1943-05) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

He yanked open the cabin windows. Motor thunder and inrushing wind was a roar.
"Careful of the propeller!" Sis warned.
The plane ahead was coming at them straight-on now. The pilot must know they couldn't shoot through the propeller, and was keeping ahead of it.
Sis said, "I'll do a flat skid to the right. Be ready."
She sent the plane into the skid, presenting Rotary with the other ship as a target. But the plane ahead was ready for that. It skidded also.
Rotary's rifle banged. Then there was a terrific racket, thudding jars, as machine-gun bullets stormed into their ship.The metal framing was hit at least a dozen times. Bullets slashed their fuel tank. The tank was located between the cockpit and the engine, and suddenly high-octane gas was flooding back into the cockpit and cabin.
The planes thundered past each other and apart.
Rotary growled, "Must be losin' my eye." He hadn't, as far as he could tell, hit anything effectively.
"See if you can keep them back," Sis said. She hauled the hand throttle as far open as it would go.
Rotary nodded. He climbed back into the cabin, noting that their prisoner was white-faced, but apparently unhurt as yet. "Your pals!" Rotary told him. "Maybe you'd been better off if I had tossed you overboard."
He leaned out of the cabin window from time to time, aiming carefully with his rifle and firing. He was not a particularly good shot. Not expert as modern marksmen go, although he could hold his own with any man on a quail hunt, or shooting jackrabbits from a moving car. He emptied the clip. He had no idea a plane would be so hard to bring down.
The other ship gained on them rapidly and flew below and behind so that it was almost impossible for him to hit it or even catch sight of it. Time seemed to go swiftly. But actually only twenty minutes had passed.
Because the Mississippi River, broad and darkly turgid in the afternoon sun, was below them when they caught fire. The leaking gas tank did it, of course. They were tempting providence to try to fly. But there had been no place where they could land, and still protect themselves after they were down. And, suddenly, Sis screamed, and the plane was full of bundling flames.
They were low, trying to get the plane behind them out of the blind spot. The river was snaking below no more than two hundred feet.
"We'll have to take to the water," Sis said. She had cut the motor and her voice was astonishingly loud.
They hit almost at once. There was not much of it. Not much more roughness than a seaplane landing.
Rotary slashed their prisoner loose. Then he went out through the plane cabin door. Sis was ahead of him. Water was pouring in, their ship beginning to stand on its nose as it sank.
Rotary and Sis swam clear. The water was fairly cold. Fifty yards away, low and glistening in the sun, was a sandbar. It was more than half 'a mile long, looked smooth, and was completely bare of vegetation. The plane which had brought them down was floating in for a landing on the sandbar. Everywhere else, it seemed to them, there was water.
"They got us," Rotary Harrison said.

Chapter VII. MIDWEST TRAIL

THE telegram had just come. Doc Savage gave it a second reading.
"Renny," Doc said.
Renny Renwick appeared.
Doc handed him the telegram, explaining, "It just came."
Renny examined the message, then turned it thoughtfully in his big hands. "I telephoned to Kirksville, Missouri, from a place called Millard, Missouri, where there is an airways radio station," he said gravely. "Operator of the airways radio says a plane flew over, apparently with engine trouble, and dropped a message to be telegraphed to you."
"Notice the content of the message," Doc said.
"'You are being framed to take the rap in scheme involving murder and no telling what else. Coming to give you story.' And it's signed by Rotary Harrison. Do you know a Rotary Harrison?"
"The name is not familiar," Doc admitted. "Get copies of national business directories and Who's Who, and see if we find anything."
Renny's search got results.
"Holy cow!" he said, his great, rumbling voice fully impressed. "Rotary Harrison is an oil man. Got a financial record like a jack-in-the-box. Up and down. Right now, seems to be up, but in a shaky way. Like a man sitting on a stack of packing cases."
Doc Savage said, "Check on this plane Rotary Harrison was flying. Get Monk and Ham to help you, and Long Tom. Keep track of the ship, once you find it."
Renny got on a telephone.
Ham Brooks came in, said, "Doc, this thing isn't shaping up so good from a legal angle."
"You mean that Montague Ogden is still threatening to sue me because of the error in operating on Sam Joseph?"
"He's more than threatening. He's filed suit." Ham spread his hands. "Ogden claims that he has lost the services of Sam Joseph and is therefore entitled to damages."
"That is a fragile basis for a lawsuit."
Ham shrugged. "Ordinarily, yes. But the letter of the written law is not always the law that prevails. Other connected circumstances are usually taken into consideration, whether they should be or not."
"You mean, Ham, that the unpleasant publicity we are getting in the newspapers will weight the scales against us?"
"That," Ham said, "is what I mean."
"I see."
"And, furthermore, I think somebody is behind that publicity; campaign against you."
"Our investigation has not turned up a deliberate plot," Doc reminded.
"They're too slick. Too smooth to be caught."
Doc said, "Montague Ogden is certainly doing all he can to discredit me. But you can say one thing about Ogden - he stands right out in the open and beats his drum."
Ham admitted, "He does that," grudgingly. "But the thing is spreading like wildfire. I don't see how one man could stir up all that stink."
Renny came in to report on the results of his search for the plane of Rotary' Harrison.
"The ship is down somewhere," Renny said. "Here's a report from a place called Keokak, on the Mississippi River right at the border of Missouri and Iowa. A plane answering the description of Rotary Harrison's ship passed over that town closely pursued by another plane about two hours ago. That would make it right after the telegram was sent from Millard."
Doc Savage nodded. "Are you getting one of our planes ready?"