TABLE of CONTENTS

THE SUICIDE SQUAD REPORTS FOR DEATH

THE SUICIDE SQUAD - DEAD OR ALIVE

THE SUICIDE SQUAD AND THE MURDER BUND

SUICIDE SQUAD - TARGETS FOR THE FLAMING ARROWS

First published in Ace G-Man Stories, July/August 1939

BLOOD MONEY FOR G-MEN

Johnny Kerrigan was not as drunk as he looked. Russ Kimber had bought him a lot of drinks. Johnny didn't seem to notice that the bartender was filling Kimber's glass nine-tenths with water, Johnny's was nine-tenths Scotch. But what Russ Kimber didn't know was that when Johnny Kerrigan really set his mind to it, he could handle more liquor than any man living—with the possible exception of Stephen Klaw and Dan Murdoch, his two sidekicks on the F.B.I. Suicide Squad.

Russ Kimber's small, fox-like eyes bored into Kerrigan's. His shill lips there twisted into an abortive attempt at a friendly smile.

"So you're not here officially as a G-man, Johnny?"

Johnny Kerrigan blinked at him owlishly. "Jus' as a private citizen, Kimber ol' boy. My friend Frank Robbins told me you eloped with his kid daughter, Selma. Now she found out what kind of guy you are, she wants to go home, but you won't let her. So I'm here to sort of convince you."

Kimber's little eyes were sharper than ever. "Take a tip from me. Kerrigan. Forget about the whole thing. Believe me, there's too much involved for me to give Selma up."

"Sure, sure. I know," Johnny said. "You figure to get Frank Robbins knocked off, so Selma will inherit the estate. Then you'll take it from her."

The other stared.

Johnny Kerrigan shook his head ponderously. "'Tisn' right, Kimber. I'm making you a friendly prop—proposition—let Selma come home with me. And give her a divorce."

A shrewd gleam came into Russ Kimber's eyes. He moved closer along the bar, and dropped his voice. "You don't make much salary with the F.B.I., Johnny. How can you live on the salary they pay you?"

Johnny seemed to think that over for a little while. Then he nodded ponderously. "'Swhat I always ask myself, Kimber ol' boy. How can I live on my salary?"

"Would you like to make some real dough?"

"How, much real dough?"

"Say, ten grand."

Johnny grinned fatuously. "What must I do?"

"Nothing much. Just walk out of here and go home," Kimber said. "You can tell Frank Robbins that he hasn't got a leg to stand on. I didn't violate any law when I married Selma. Tell him it's okay, and you make ten grand!"

"Nix," said Johnny Kerrigan. "I came here to find Selma and take her home. Won't go without her. I'll take this joint apart to find her."

Russ Kimber scowled. "Don't be a sap, Kerrigan. She's not here. I sent her away."

"Then—" Johnny grinned with the shrewdness of the true drunk —"why you wanna pay me ten grand to go away?"

"Because we don't want trouble with you," Kimber said. "You got a reputation. The boss doesn't want to tangle with you—if possible."

"What boss?"

"My boss."

"Who's your boss?" and now Johnny's eyes narrowed.

Kimber hesitated. He looked around the room. Kimber's Bar and Grill was well-filled tonight. There were thirty or forty people at the bar and tables, mostly men. Kimber exchanged glances with several of them. These were his plug-uglies, toughs he could rely on to see to it that Johnny Kerrigan never left this place alive if he learned too much. There were only two men whom Kimber didn't know. They were sitting at a corner table, drinking beer. One was dark-haired anal dark-eyed, slim and handsome. The other was smaller, wiry-looking, but hardly more than a kid—or so Kimber thought. If anything started, those two would have to be taken care of, too—so there'd be no witness to tell what had happened to the big drunken G-man.

Kimber grinned thinly, and turned back to Johnny. "You've heard of —the 'General'?"

Johnny Kerrigan whistled. "So you work for the General?"

"Yes. Now you know. The General offers you ten grand to step out of the picture right now. Lay off. Go home. It'll be healthier for you—and more profitable."

Johnny Kerrigan peered bleary-eyed at Kimber. "Ten grand is a lot of dough. That girl—Selma Robbins—must be here. Otherwise you wouldn't offer me all that dough."

"Okay," Kimber snarled. "Have it your way. Selma is here. She's upstairs, guarded by machine-guns. Neither you nor the whole F.B.I. could get to her. Now, do you take the ten grand and lay off? Or do we have to get tough with you?"

Suddenly Johnny Kerrigan started to laugh. He put out one huge paw and wrapped his fingers around Russ Kimber's neck.

"Get tough!" he said.

Kimber's face grew red as the circulation of blood was choked off by that terrible grip. He pawed at his shoulder holster and dragged out an automatic.

Johnny Kerrigan laughed again, and took his wrist in his left hand and bent it backward. Kimber's lips whitened with the new pain, and he let the automatic fall to the floor.

"Now," said Johnny, "you and I are going upstairs and find Selma Robbins!"

He pushed away from the bar, holding Kimber in the air effortlessly by the back of his neck. But he had not taken two steps, when the attack came. Half a dozen of the thugs seated at the nearest tables sprang to their feet and began to close in on him.

Johnny Kerrigan didn't even look at them. He just kept moving toward the rear.

One of the thugs reached over to the bar and picked up a half-full whiskey bottle. He raised it by the neck, started to bring it down in a smashing blow to Johnny's face. Johnny Kerrigan didn't try to duck the blow. He just kept going.

Somewhere in the room an automatic barked once. The thug remained standing with his hand in the air. The whiskey bottle slid from his grip. An expression of intense surprise was stamped on his face. Then blood spurted from a small hole in the center of his forehead, and he toppled right at Johnny Kerrigan's feet.

The other gunman turned around, startled.

The two men who had been sitting in the corner had kicked back their chairs and jumped on top of the table. It was the smaller of the two who had fired the single shot. He had two automatics, one in each hand. He was grinning wickedly, and there was a hard gleam in his slate-gray eyes.

"Everybody please stand still!" he said.

Johnny Kerrigan laughed his deep, booming laugh. "Not bad, Steve. I couldn't have shot straighter myself!"

He stepped over the dead thug, still carrying Kimber by the scruff of the neck. He straight—armed one of the astounded gunmen in his path, and made for the rear.

The bartender came up from behind the bar with a wide-mouthed .45, which he pointed at Johnny.

Steve Klaw, still grinning, fired once more. The bartender went crashing backward against his bottles, with a slug in his chest.

That seemed to be the signal for the paralyzed gunmen to swing into action. Guns flashed, feet slithered along the floor, as they spread out to take these imprudent intruders.

And for the first time the tall, dark-haired man beside Steve Klaw spoke... "Shoot me first, you lugs!" he drawled.

They stopped, struck dumb with the terror at sight of the thing he was holding up in the air.

It was a small hand grenade.

He had already drawn the pin. The only thing that kept the detonator from striking was his finger on the safety lever on the side of the grenade.

Dan Murdoch smiled very engagingly at the pallid crowd of thugs, and flipped the pin out among them.

"Observe," he said in his soft-spoken manner, "that if I should be shot, I would naturally drop the grenade. When I drop it, the lever is released. When the lever is released, the grenade goes—plop. And so does everybody in this room. Also, if you try to shoot either Steve Klaw or Johnny Kerrigan, I will certainly throw this little toy out among you. We'll all go to hell together!"

There was grim silence in the room for a second. Then a voice said sneeringly, "He'll never do it—"

Another voice, inspired by awe, broke in.

"He will! He will! That's Murdoch. And the little one is Killer Klaw. My Gawd, the whole damned Suicide Squad is here!"

"That's right," said Stephen Klaw. "The Suicide Squad. We're getting the Robbins girl. Who wants to stop us?"

At least a dozen of the gunmen had their weapons out. But nobody raised a gun. The reputation of the F.B.I. Suicide Squad was too terrible to be trifled with by these gutter-snipes.

Everybody in the underworld had heard of them—Kerrigan and Murdoch and Klaw. The three Black Sheep of the F.B.I.—three men who were never sent on a regular routine assignment, but who always rated the calls where death was almost a certainty. Not so long ago there had been five of them. Now there were only three. Tomorrow there might be only two—or one—or none But one thing was sure—those three devils wouldn't die easy. They weren't easy to kill. They'd take plenty of men to Hell with them when they died. And the gangsters in Kimber's Bar & Grill right now, didn't want to die.

So they stood still and tense while big Johnny Kerrigan moved his way across the room, and kicked open the door at the rear. He shook Russ Kimber like a rat, and set him on his feet.

"You first, pal!" He turned and waved to Murdoch and Klaw. "Keep the rats interested, boys. I'm going up." He gave Kimber a shove, sent him stumbling into the hallway. Then he snaked out his gun, followed him.

Almost at once, a door opened at the far end of the hall, and a man was framed there, with a sub-machine gun at his shoulder.

Kimber uttered a frightened squawk, and dropped to the poor Johnny Kerrigan fired five times fast at the machine-gunner, But the typewriter was already stuttering. It sent a hail of lead pouring into the hall. The slugs swept a little high, and by the time the gunner got his sights adjusted, blood was pouring from his body where Johnny's shots had hit him.

He stumbled forward, and a last burst escaped from the machine-gun. One shot nicked Johnny Kerrigan along the ribs, another caught him in the thigh. Then the rest of the hail swept down lower and riddled Russ Kimber, where he cowered on the floor.

Johnny Kerrigan was sent staggering sideways against the wall. He steadied his revolver against his elbow, and emptied it into the doorway, where a second man had appeared. This one dropped, and a third stepped into his place, also with a machine-gun. He raised it.

Johnny Kerrigan's gun was empty. He could not retreat, because of his injured leg. He could not charge, either. He shrugged.

"Okay, mug," he said. "I can take it!"

"Here it is, sucker!" said the machine—gunner, and reached for the trip...

DEATH ON ORDER

Out in the barroom, Stephen Klaw and Dan Murdoch listened to the sounds of the battle in the hallway. Dan held the grenade high in the air, grinning affably at the tense and watchful gunmen, who were crowded together against the bar. Steve Klaw held his two automatics ready, in case any of then should get up courage enough to rush them.

They heard the first burst from the machine—gun, then the second. They heard Johnny Kerrigan say, "Okay mug, I can take it!"

Steve Klaw's lips tightened. "I'm going after him, Dan!" he said, and leaped from the table.

He cleared the space in front of the cowering gunmen, and sprang through the doorway. He saw Johnny Kerrigan facing the machine-gun, saw the gunner ready to pull the trip.

Steve Klaw's two automatics began to roar in beautifully synchronized time. One, two—one, two—one...

The gunner never pulled the trip. He went hurtling backward, his arms flailing the air, the machine-gun dropping from nerveless fingers.

Steve Klaw jumped over the supine body of Russ Kimber. "Get out, Johnny," he shouted. "I'll get the Robbins girl for you!"

He raced down the hallway, and through the door. There was a steep flight of stairs here, and Steve took them two at a time, with his guns leading the way. Halfway up, he fired twice, to discourage anyone who might be waiting at the top.

Then he was on the landing. Nobody was there. He looked around, and saw Johnny Kerrigan painfully dragging himself up the stairs, one at a time. "Go back, Johnny," he called. "I can handle this."

"Nix," groaned Kerrigan. "Always—like to finish—what I start!" He kept coming up.

Steve Klaw shrugged. He started down the hall. There were doors on either side. He tried each in turn, flinging them open, peering inside. He looked in three rooms that way—found nothing. As he came to the fourth room, he heard a shuffling inside, and the quick sound of a scuffle. Then a girl's voice came clear and loud.

"Don't come in, Johnny. They're waiting for—" Her words were cut off suddenly.

Steve Klaw's eye glittered. He reached over, turned the knob and pushed the door open. As he did this, he stepped quickly to one side. At once a fusillade of shots burst through the open doorway. They spattered against the opposite wall, smashing away the plaster.

Steve Klaw dropped to his knees. At the far end of the hall he saw Johnny Kerrigan crawl up the top step, drag himself forward. He motioned to Kerrigan to lie still, then poked his gun and face around the edge of the open doorway, from which the shots were still coming. He was close to the floor. He saw two men in the room. One was holding the girl, Selma Robbins, around the waist covering her mouth with his other hand. The second man was shooting steadily with two heavy revolvers at the doorway.

Steve Klaw got only a quick glimpse of the interior of the room. The man holding Selma Robbins saw him, yelled a warning to his partner. But he yelled too late.

Steve fired twice. He got the two-gun man high in the stomach. His second shot, fired more carefully, caught the other man full in the face—over Selma's shoulder.

Steve Klaw came lithely to his feet and sprang into the room just in time to catch Selma Robbins as she swayed.

"Hold everything, kid," Steve told her. "This is no time to faint!"

Selma Robbins was a slim-waisted, chestnut-haired girl of nineteen or twenty. She stared at Steve, gulped. "You—you're not Johnny Kerrigan. I —I thought Johnny was coming for me."

"Johnny's here, all right. Come on. We have to get out of this!" He started to drag her toward the door—suddenly he stopped short.

The whole building was shaken by a tremendous concussion. The floors shook. Plaster fell from the walls and ceiling. Window panes were shattered.

"Dan Murdoch!" Steve exclaimed. "Those rats must have tried to rush him and he threw the grenade!" He rushed out into the hall with Selma, almost fell over Johnny Kerrigan, who had crawled up to the door.

Flames were already roaring up the stairs at the far end of the hall. They could not get out that way.

"God!" groaned Johnny Kerrigan. "Dan'll burn to death—if he's not dead already!"

He pushed himself up to his feet. "I'm going down there and see what's left of him."

"Like Hell you are!" said Steve Klaw. "You're shot up. You could never make it. Here, take one of my guns—and get Selma back in that room. You can go down the fire-escape with her."

He gave Johnny Kerrigan no chance to argue. He thrust the gun in his hand, dashed down the hall. When he got to the stairs, the flames were lancing up hungrily. He took off his coat, wrapped it around his head, and plunged down the stairs.

Kerrigan groaned. He swayed on his feet, and glared at Selma Robbins.

"Damn it," he said, "why did you have to get mixed up with Kimber? You've cost the lives of two of the best men living. You're not worth it!"

There were tears in her eyes. "I didn't know—" Kerrigan gave her no chance to finish. "Come on," he said gruffly.

He led her back into the room where the two men lay whom Steve had shot. He was swaying on his feet, and there was sweat on his face. Blood seeped through his coat on the right side, and also down his right trousers leg. But he held himself erect.

He knelt over one of the dead men, pulled back his coat. A small button was pinned to the man's vest. It was a cheap brass button, stamped out by machine. The stamped figure on the button represented a man in shirtsleeves, standing, and holding two swords, which were crossed over his breast. There was no lettering on the button.

Grimly, Johnny Kerrigan thrust the button into his pocket. Then he got painfully to his feet and motioned Selma Robbins to the window. He peered out past the fire-escape bars, and frowned.

The street below was filled with the gunmen who had been in the barroom with Dan Murdoch. They were thronging the sidewalk and the gutter, and some of then were looking up at the window.

As his head showed, they fired. Just in time, he ducked back. He looked blankly at Selma.

"I don't get it," he said. "I thought Dan Murdoch threw the grenade down there. I thought he killed all those rats—and himself as well. But they're out there—alive!"

He turned back to the window, and saw that a policeman had come running around the corner. The officer was tugging at his gun as he ran. But he got no chance to use it. A half-dozen shots took him full in the chest, and he went down.

Kerrigan snarled, and fired three times. Each shot was well-aimed, and three of the thugs fell. Johnny didn't know how many cartridges were left in the clip, but hoped there were at least a couple more.

"Get out on the fire-escape," he told Selma Robbins. "Climb down. I'll follow, and cover you. It's the only way out of this trap. The flames will reach us in about two minutes—and I doubt if the fire engines will get here in time."

Selma nodded wordlessly, and started for the window.

At that moment, a wide gun-barrel was suddenly thrust in at the window, and Johnny caught a glimpse of a man with a cap, leering at him. It was a tommy-gun. The man must have come down the fire-escape from an upper floor, to get him.

Johnny thrust Selma Robbins away, and fired at the same time. He pulled the trigger again and again, but only one shot was left. That single bullet was enough, however. It took the machine—gunner directly between the eyes. He fell forward, and lay half in, half out of the window.

Johnny Kerrigan's eyes were gleaming. He reached over now, seized the tommy-gun.

"Go ahead, Selma," he said.

He pushed her toward the window, and, at the same time, turned the tommy- gun down toward the street. He pulled the trip. Lead sprayed from it among the gathered gunmen below. It cut through them like a scythe, and they scattered in panic, leaving a dozen of their number in the gutter.

Selma Robbins was out on the fire-escape now, and climbing down. Kerrigan followed her, keeping the gun trained on the street. A couple of desultory shots came his way, but they were too far away to do any damage. In a moment he and Selma Robbins had reached the street.

The whole building was in flames. Fire was pouring from the street entrance.

Johnny Kerrigan looked toward the doorway, somberly. Steve Klaw and Dan Murdoch were in there. He was filled with a terrible, murderous desire to avenge them.

He forgot about Selma Robbins, crouching against the wall. He saw only the figures of the scattered gunmen—watching him, like vultures, from a distance. He felt dizzy. His two wounds were throbbing, sending fiery messages of pain to his brain. Another man would have been unconscious by this time, but Johnny Kerrigan was holding his feet by sheer brute, astounding strength.

He took a swaying step forward, aimed the machine-gun, and pulled the trip. He sprayed lead all the way down the street, and had the satisfaction of seeing two men fall before the rest of them could scamper to safety. The machine—gun drum was empty. He flung it from him, uttered a sobbing cry, and turned to go back into the flaming inferno of the building. He picked up a discarded gun that lay —fired a final shot at a lingering thug.

Fire-engine bells clanged in the distance, and a police patrol siren screamed.

Johnny Kerrigan heard none of those. He was out on his feet. Only one thought persisted in the subconscious part of his mind—to go in there and die with Steve and Dan. He took two staggering steps forward, then stopped. His mouth opened.

For a ghastly, flaming figure came marching out of the burning doorway. It was Steve Klaw. He walked with difficulty, because he had Dan Murdoch over his shoulder. Both his and Murdoch's clothes were on fire, and Stephen Klaw's face was blistered, burned. But he walked,—his gun still in his hand. He kept going until he got clear of the blaze. Then he keeled over, with the unconscious Dan Murdoch on top of him. Johnny Kerrigan uttered a queer, choked cry, and sprang forward. He pulled off his own coat, began to beat out the fire in Steve's and Dan's clothing. He kept up those mechanical slapping motions long after there was actually any need for them.

It was thus that the fire engines and the police emergency cars found him. As soon as they took the coat from his numb fingers, he closed his eyes and collapsed.

Selma Robbins, sobbing softly, took his head in her lap and stroked his face. She watched them carry Steve Klaw and Dan Murdoch into the ambulance, then return for Johnny Kerrigan.

"They did it all for me!" she said—and fainted.

THE ARMY OF DEATH

Sunlight was streaming in through the hospital window, and splashing across three beds. Steve Klaw lay in the first bed, his face all swathed in bandage, like a mummy. Only a narrow slit enabled his eyes to peer out.

Dan Murdoch lay in the next bed smoking a cigarette, with one eye on the door, lest the nurse come in and catch him.

Johnny Kerrigan was sitting up in the last bed, with a newspaper which he was reading to them. It was a four-day old newspaper, but Murdoch and Klaw listened avidly to the lead story on page one.

SUICIDE SQUAD DOES IT AGAIN FIVE KILLED, SEVEN WOUNDED BY KERRIGAN, MURDOCH AND KLAW IN SPECTACULAR GUN BATTLE

Last night, the three notorious desperadoes of tile F.B.I. staged an attack upon a peaceable place of business, without benefit of a search warrant. The fact that all their victims were criminals with long records not excuse the conduct of these notorious gunmen.

This paper has often wondered why these professional killers have not long ago been summarily dismissed from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. No doubt, their brilliant previous accomplishments have influenced the Director to keep then on the rolls. But the time has come...

Johnny Kerrigan stopped reading, groaned. "I dragged you two guys into this. It was a personal matter with me. And now we're all in Dutch. I can just imagine what the Director will have to say when he gets here."

Dan Murdoch grinned thinly. "Forget it, Johnny. It was a swell time while it lasted. If we're canned, we'll go to China. They'll make the three of us generals."

Suddenly, Johnny Kerrigan snapped his fingers. "Generals! That's it! I knew there was something I had to remember!"

He popped out of bed, and limped on his wounded leg to the closet. He fumbled in his coat pocket, came back with the small pin he had taken from one of the dead man in Kimber's Bar and Grill. He showed this to the other two.

Steve Klaw and Dan Murdoch were pretty well recovered from their burns, but they had asked the doctor to leave their bandages on in the hope that sympathy for their condition might restrain the Director from really going to town on them when he visited the hospital today.

They sat up without much difficulty, examining the pin.

Steve Klaw peered at it through his mummy bandages, whistled. "It's the badge of the Army of Death!"

Johnny Kerrigan nodded. "Kimber told me he was working for the General."

All three recalled whispers, which had been going the rounds for months, that a genius of criminal organization had arisen in the underworld, who called himself the 'Genera', and who aspired to build an army of criminals which would be powerful enough to checkmate the F.B.I.

Rumors said that the gang Ieaders of a dozen large cities had been bludgeoned into joining the Army of Death. Here was proof that Kimber's murderous outfit were already enrolled. Several times recently, Kerrigan and Murdoch and Klaw had begged the Director to assign them the job of tracking down the Army of Death. But the Director had steadfastly refused—for the reason that he was extremely reluctant to assign them to any job unless absolutely compelled. Kerrigan had once punched a senator's son in the nose. Murdoch had shot a croupier to death in a gun duel in a crooked gambling house —where he shouldn't have been at all. And Steve Klaw had told a Senate investigating committee to go to hell because he didn't like the tone in which he was questioned as to why he had shot to kill in a gunfight with three bandits instead of trying to capture them. Any other agents who had committed such heinous offenses, would have found themselves out of a job the next day. But Kerrigan and Murdoch and Klaw had records which few men could equal. The public would never have stood for their dismissal. So the Director, secretly glad of an excuse to the powers-that-be for not firing them, kept them on the payroll. But he used them only for those cases which he was reluctant to ask the other agents to undertake. And so Kerrigan, Murdoch and Klaw became the unofficial Suicide Squad of the F.B.I.

Johnny Kerrigan took back the button of the Army of Death from Steve Klaw, and proudly pinned it on his pajamas.

"It looks," Steve said through his bandages, "like we were up against a pretty tough outfit that night. We had no right to come out alive."

"Never mind about coming out alive," said Dan Murdoch. "What'll we tell the boss when he comes? We're guilty of everything on the book—even to using department grenades without authorization. I would never have thrown the damn thing, if they hadn't started to streak for the door. I let them go, figuring I'd be able to go up and give you two blokes a hand. But when they got out, they started to pepper me with slugs from the doorway. So I simply eased the grenade out among them."

Steve Klaw chuckled. "You looked awful funny, sitting under the table, with a mug of beer perched on your dome, and the flames licking at you." He stopped as the door knob rattled.

Dan Murdoch hurriedly stuck his cigarette under the blanket, and Johnny Kerrigan leaped into his bed.

It was only the nurse, with an envelope. She smiled at them.

"This is addressed to Messrs. Kerrigan, Murdoch and Klaw. Who wants it?"

Johnny Kerrigan put out his hand for it, and she gave it to him, left the room.

Klaw and Murdoch watched while he ripped open the envelope and extracted a large yellow sheet. He looked it over, whistled. Then he got out of bed and came over between Dan's and Steve's beds, and showed it to them.

At the top there was a printed emblem representing a man in shirt sleeves, with two swords crossed in front of him. Underneath was printed:

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF DEATH

Beneath the heading was a typewritten message:

General Order to All Division Commanders:
WHEREAS: The three F.B.I. Agents, Kerrigan, Murdoch and Klaw have willfully killed a member of this Army, to wit, Russ Kimber, together with several of his men, and
WHEREAS: All members of the Army of Death are entitled to full protection and vengeance,
NOW THEREFORE: It is ordered that a reward of fifty thousand dollars be placed upon the body of each of the aforesaid men, and that they shall each and severally be marked for death. Any member of the Army of Death who delivers to his District or Division Commander the body of Kerrigan, Murdoch or Klaw —dead or alive—shall receive a cash reward of fifty thousand dollars, and shall also be promoted to Sub—Commander.

Signed,

THE GENERAL

Underneath this startling notice there was a further typewritten postscript:

Kerrigan, Murdoch and Klaw:
Just as the F.B.I. posts "wanted" notices for so-called criminals, we are posting a reward for your bodies. Now you shall know what it means to be hunted men. Your hours of life are numbered. You shall serve as examples to all others who may wish to molest the members of the Army of Death!

"Great stuff," said Dan Murdoch dreamily. "I hope it isn't a practical joke. I bet it would be real fun to have a reward on our heads!"

They heard voices in the corridor outside, and Johnny Kerrigan leaped back into bed.

This time it wasn't a false alarm. The Director had arrived. He stood for a minute just inside the door, and looked the three of them over.

Johnny Kerrigan groaned realistically, as if in great pain. Dan Murdoch squirmed in his bed. Steve Klaw croaked a husky "Good morning, sir," through his bandages.

The Director's face was inscrutable. "A fine bunch of sissies you turned out to be!" he growled. "Suicide Squad—bah! Letting yourselves get invalided by a bunch of hoodlums!"

His scowl became fiercer. "If you men weren't so sick, I'd have plenty to say to you."

"What right did you have to go into Kimber's place like that? What right did you have to use a Bureau grenade? Do you realize that I'm being subjected to pressure to fire you all?"

Johnny Kerrigan groaned again. "It was all my fault, sir. Frank Robbins is a friend of mine. He begged me to do what I could for him."

"So you staged a minor war!" the Director snorted. "I suppose you men are too sick to report for duty?"

"Duty?" There was a gleam in the two eyes of Steve Klaw, which were all that was visible of his face. "Have you an assignment for us, sir?"

The Director shrugged "I was thinking of giving you a little job. Evidence has been piling up that this organization known as the Army of Death is more than a rumor. You've asked for permission to handle it. I assigned a detail of men last week, and all four of then have mysteriously disappeared. I thought maybe I'd let you three take it."

He sighed. "It's too bad you're all incapacitated. Well, I'll be down stairs in the superintendent's office for a few minutes. Take care of yourselves—so you'll be strong enough to take your medicine when you recover!"

He waved to them. There was a twinkle in his eyes as he turned and went out.

For a long minute after his departure utter silence filled the hospital room. Then anyone who looked in, might have witnessed a strange sight— the spectacle of two wounded men and one mummy scrambling out of bed and throwing on their clothes with furious speed.

Within six minutes, a strange procession was running—not walking —down the hospital corridor. Dan Murdoch and Johnny Kerrigan looked like stuffed kewpie dolls, due to the fact that they had put their clothing on over their voluminous bandages. Steve Klaw resembled some weird apparition out of an Egyptian nightmare, for he had not removed the mummy-wrappings from his head and face. Only his eyes showed.

The three of them trooped into the superintendent's office, and came to attention facing the Director.

Steve Klaw was the spokesman.

"Kerrigan and Murdoch and Klaw reporting for duty, sir!" he said.

SONS OF HELL

The offices of J. Augustus—Efficiency Expert, occupied the entire third and fourth floors of the old, out-moded Realty Building. The ground-floor store was tenanted by the Rialto Auctioneers, a flashy, blatant auction room where cheap jewelry and assorted job lots were sold to a credulous public at outrageously high prices. The second and fifth floors were vacant, and large "To Let" Signs were plastered over the windows, preventing anyone from looking inside from the nearby buildings.

The windows of J. Augustus, on the third and fourth floors, were all equipped with Venetian blinds, rendering it likewise impossible to see what went on in those sumptuous offices. And strangely enough, whenever a prospective tenant inquired about renting the vacant second or fifth floors, he was quoted such a high rental that he didn't even bother to go up and look.

Thus, complete privacy was assured for the operations of J. Augustus.

Anyone with an inquiring mind, however, who took the pains to check up, would have noticed that many people who entered the building never seemed to come out again. Further investigation would have revealed a secret exit from one of the offices on the third floor. This exit led out on to the roof of a two-story taxicab garage in back of the Realty Building, with an entrance on the next street.

There was something worthy of note about this taxicab garage, too. The sign on the front of the building read:

GOLD STAR TAXICAB FLEET

And though there were at least two hundred of their black-and-gold taxicabs on the streets, it was never possible for an outside applicant to obtain a job—not even as a relief driver. In fact, no one was ever admitted into the building. Two, men stood on guard day and night at the door, their sole purpose apparently to turn away applicants for jobs. And very often, when the black-and-gold cabs rolled out of the garage, it might have been noticed that their flags were already down, signifying that they were hired.

In fact, the Gold Star outfit was the envy of the other taxicab operators of the city, for they seemed to have a lot of private calls, and did not need to cruise the streets for patrons.

Whether by design or by accident, one of these black-and-gold taxicabs was waiting outside the Therapeutic Hospital on the very morning when Kerrigan and Murdoch and Klaw arose so precipitously from their beds to report for duty.

The flag was down, and the driver resolutely refused all passengers, declaring that he was waiting for a fare. This driver was a heavy-set, swarthy-faced individual, with a livid scar across his left cheek. Sitting at the wheel, he kept his gaze tensely fixed on the hospital entrance.

Suddenly he straightened in his seat, for he saw the lithe, boyish figure of Stephen Klaw emerge Steve's face was still swathed in the mummy-bandages, so that only the eyes showed.

For a moment, the cab driver's eyes expressed doubt. He seemed to be expecting that Steve would not be alone. But when he saw that no one else came out, he shrugged, put up the flag. Then he tooled the cab forward abreast of the hospital entrance, reached back and opened the door.

"Cab, sir?" he asked.

Stephen Klaw's bandage-swathed head nodded. He got in and said, "Fifty- two East Ninetieth Street"—giving the address of Frank Robbins. Then he settled back in the cab, oblivious of the stares of several passers-by, who wondered what a mummy might be doing in a taxicab.

The cab started, and Steve leaned back in his seat, hands in his coat pockets. His eyes behind the bandages darted to right and left, watchful and keen. He turned and glanced behind, through the back window.

Kerrigan and Murdoch were supposed to be following him in a Bureau car. But they were not there.

In the hospital, they had decided on a course of action typical of their bold and reckless natures. Since the General had marked them for death, they would give him a chance to try. One of them would stick his chin out for it. The other two would be in the background, ready to step in.

As always when there was a choice of dangers, they had tossed. And once again little Stephen Klaw had won. He was to be the spearhead...

Kerrigan and Murdoch watched him go down the hospital steps and get into the Black—and-Gold taxi. "The little shrimp always gets the breaks!" Dan Murdoch said sourly. "Come on, Johnny. Let's get on his tail, quick. We don't want anything to happen to that mummy!"

They hurried out to the side entrance, where the F.B.I. car was waiting for them, with a Bureau chauffeur. It would only be a matter of seconds to swing around the corner, and take up the trail of the black and gold cab.

They came running out of the building, and Johnny Kerrigan waved to the chauffeur. The chauffeur saw them coming and climbed quickly into the car, stepping on the starter.

Kerrigan and Murdoch were still twenty feet away.

A closed truck, which had been parked down the street, suddenly accelerated into motion. It roared past them. And as it passed, two peepholes in the side came open. A machine-gun barrel was thrust out of each. At once the whole street was filled with the deadly din and clatter of those two rapid-firers. Hot lead swept along the side of the Bureau car, and smashed it into the walls and windows of the hospital.

Kerrigan and Murdoch acted with the instantaneous reactions of trained fighting men. Even before the machine-guns began to chatter, they threw themselves prone on the sidewalk, under the shelter of the armored F.B.I. car.

The truck raced past with its vicious hail of death, and pulled up fifty feet away, with screaming brakes. The guns stopped hammering. Its driver maneuvered it around. It was clear that he intended to make a complete turn and come back for another broadside.

Kerrigan and Murdoch were already on their feet, firing steadily and methodically at the truck. But their bullets glanced harmlessly off the sides. It was armored.

The truck was halfway around.

"We can't stop him with bullets, Johnny!"

Murdoch shouted.

Kerrigan nodded.

Their driver was slumped at the wheel, blood spurting from his neck and head. His window had been open, and he had taken the fusillade full in the head.

Kerrigan's lips were tight, thin. He climbed in and pulled the driver over, got behind the wheel. Dan Murdoch stood on the running-board, swiftly reloading his gun.

In spite of his wounded leg, Johnny Kerrigan got the big F.B.I. car in motion before the truck was turned all the way around. He slipped it in first, and stepped all the way down on the gas.

The big car shot like an arrow, straight for the front part of the slowly turning truck.

The driver of the truck saw that catapult coming, and his mouth dropped open. Frantically he twisted at the wheel to avoid the collision. The truck shot forward at an angle across the street, climbed the curb, and crashed head-on into the building opposite.

Johnny Kerrigan, laughing deeply and bitterly, stepped hard on the brake as the F.B.I. car slipped past the tail of the truck, barely missing it.

The driver of the truck had been thrown forward, and his head had split against the windshield. But the two machine-gunners inside the truck were evidently more frightened than hurt.

The rear door came open precipitately, and they leaped out, still carrying their tommy-guns. They started to run, then saw that Murdoch and Kerrigan were already out of the Bureau car and racing toward them.

Snarling like cornered beasts, they turned now and raised their lethal 'typewriters'.

Johnny Kerrigan, whose gun was empty, kept on running toward them, his face hot with fury.

But Dan Murdoch stopped. Coolly, deliberately, he swung up his revolver. He fired once, twice. The two gunmen dropped. Murdoch's shooting was deadly accurate. They were dead before they hit the ground.

Kerrigan and Murdoch did not spare a glance at the two. They looked at each other.

"The rats killed our driver," said Johnny.

Dan nodded. "And they made us lose Steve. God knows now what the shrimp is up against!"

Stephen Klaw was already a block away in the black-and-gold taxicab. He distinctly heard the rat-tat-tat of the machine-guns, and the deeper thunder of Kerrigan's and Murdoch's thirty-eights.

He tapped on the partition glass.

"Turn back!" he ordered the driver.

The driver gave no acknowledgment of his order. Instead, he swung west at the next corner. Even if he had not heard he should be going east instead of west.

Stephen Klaw grew taut. He said nothing to the driver, but reached out, tried the door. It would not open. He moved over, grasped the left—hand door handle. It, too, was locked from the outside.

Klaw's eyes were two sparkling points in the recesses of the bandage. He bent forward and brought out one of his automatics from his coat pocket. He reversed it, struck a resounding blow with the butt against the partition glass in front. The glass did not break.

The driver slowed down to a crawl. He turned and looked over his shoulder. He was grinning as if over a huge joke.

Stephen Klaw raised his automatic and fired into the glass, straight at the driver's face. The glass splintered, but did not break. The lead slug glanced off it and ricocheted into the upholstery.

The driver laughed, and put a thumb to his nose. He brought the cab to a stop, and bent down and adjusted something alongside his seat, which Steve could not see. Then he climbed out.

He made a mocking salute, and calmly crossed the street. Then he turned around to watch.

Steve looked at him puzzled. They were parked a block from the river, alongside vacant lots. The driver across the street lit a cigarette and waved sardonically.

Steve Klaw got up and peered through the partition glass. He saw that there was a small phonograph on the floor alongside of the seat, and there was a record on the turntable.

It was that phonograph which the driver had adjusted before getting out. Steve also noticed, with dispassionate interest, that the driver had left the motor running.

Almost at once, a voice began speak. It was emanating from the radio in the cab, and he realized that the phonograph was connected with it.

"Attention, Mr. G-man—or men; I don't know how many of you my driver has trapped in the cab. But whether there are one, or two, or three of you—you have exactly sixty seconds to live. There is a time-bomb attached underneath the chassis of this car, hooked up to the battery, which you cannot reach. When my voice ceases speaking on this record, the timing apparatus of the bomb, which is connected to the fan of the motor, will be set in motion. Thirty seconds after I sign off the bomb will explode. It contains one pound of tri-nitro-toluene. Do you understand? One pound. I am giving you the extra thirty seconds to reflect upon your rashness in opposing the Army of Death. This, gentlemen, is the General—signing off!"

The voice ceased speaking.

Steve Klaw looked at his wrist watch, started watching the second- hand.

"Chalk up one for the General!" he said.

He raised his automatic and emptied it into the glass window. The gun thundered in the close confines of the cab, almost deafening him. The smell of burnt powder became thick and choking. But the laminated glass resisted the bullets. It cracked, and the cracks spread in a spider-web. But it did not break.

Steve shrugged, threw the gull away. Then he waved airily to the driver, who was watching him from the opposite side.

The driver grinned, and gave him an ironic bow. He was waiting there to watch the end of Stephen Klaw.

Steve looked at his wrist watch. Eight seconds to go,

"This is a hell of a way to die!" he muttered, and started to strip the bandages from his face.

DEATH TO THE F.B.I.

On the third door of the old Realty Building, twelve men were gathered in a large office. They were seated around a directors' table, with cigars and cocktails at their disposal.

The heart of any law-enforcement officer in the land might have stirred with foreboding at sight of those twelve. For they were the kingpins of crime in widely separated parts of the country.

From Chicago, Big Mike Pellucci had come in a chartered private car. Jake Cadman, thin and vinegary, and vicious as a cobra, had driven to this meeting from Milwaukee in an armored sedan. Lou Sorgum, bald-headed and calculating, had flown from Frisco in his own plane. From Miami and Pittsburgh and Duluth and Baltimore, the others had come to gather here at this hour.

They had all come in through the Gold Star Garage in-the back street, and had been conducted to this room. And in spite of the fact that each was armed; that each had bodyguards waiting near by; in spite of the liquor and cigars provided them, all felt ill at ease.

When the door at the far end of the room opened without warning, they jerked nervously. Then a sigh escaped from them, as if in chorus.

A tall man stood in the doorway. He was powerfully built. His bearing bespoke self—assurance.

It was his face, however, that attracted all their eyes, like a magnet. That face was lined and creased. The lips were thin, hard, cruel. And in the depths of his eyes those twelve men read a capacity for evil to which even they had never dared.

All recognized him.

"Gus Jarger!" gasped Lou Sorgum.

The man by the doorway inclined his lead. A faint smile of contempt flicked at his lips. "Augustus Jarger—in person, gentlemen. Now doing business as J. Augustus!"

Who in that room did not know Augustus Jarger! Ten years ago he had ruled a stupendous empire of crime, with ramifications in dozens of cities. At his word, men had died under machine—gun bullets, or encased in concrete at the river bottom. But, where local law had failed, the F. B. I had caught up with him. He had gone to Alcatraz for ten years. He was eligible for parole in seven, but had viciously refused such clemency.

"I'll owe nothing to anybody!" he had snarled to his lawyer, and would not sign the parole application. "I've learned my lesson. When I come out, they'll hear from me. I'll laugh in their faces. I'll make the F.B.I. pay for these ten years—in blood. And no living man will be able to lay a finger on me!"

So they said that Gus Jarger was going crazy in stir. They said that he had softening of the brain. When Jarger's time was up, he walked out of jail and disappeared. They thought that was the end of him.

It was not...

Now his faintly contemptuous glance rested, in turn, on each of those twelve nervous men.

"You are here today because you have no choice," he said. "You found your rackets going to hell in each city that you control. Your gorillas were killed in mysterious fashion, your hideouts bombed."

He stopped talking, came slowly up to the table. Then he leaned slightly forward.

"Gentlemen, I did all that to you. From now on, not one of you will operate independently. I am the General. You are subordinates in the Army of Death. I already have fifty cities in line. Your twelve cities are the last of the larger ones. With you twelve as part of the Army of Death, we will have an organization greater than anything in the world. We will have a gross annual income of four billion dollars. We will be able to smash everything in our path —including the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We will be able to elect mayors and governors and congressmen. Who knows—maybe even the President!"

When he paused, a ripple of gasps went round the table.

"W-what do we get for joining up?" Jake Cadman asked.

J. Augustus fixed his eyes on Cadman. "What do you get? Ask rather what I will give you. I will dispense all the rewards. I will divide the income. In return, you will be assured that no one can molest you. You will carry out my orders in each of your cities, without opposition. Anyone who stands in your way will be removed at once. You heard how Kerrigan, Murdoch and Klaw shot up Russ Kimber's outfit. Well, those three G-men are living on borrowed time from this moment on. There's a price on their heads. I aim to make the Army of Death as feared by law officers as the F.B.I. has been feared by criminals. And all of you will enjoy the protection of the Army of Death!" They stirred uneasily. In their vicious and venomous hearts they were enthralled by the picture of power which J. Augustus had painted. They would have been willing to acknowledge him as their overlord—provided they were certain he could deliver. But they still remembered those rumors that Gus Jarger had gone nuts in stir.

Mike Pellucci voiced the secret sentiment. "You're loco, Jarger. Nobody can do what you claim. You can't buck the whole United States government—"

"You are mistaken, Pellucci. It can be done," was the answer. "Up to the present, the F.B.I. has had little opposition worthy of its mettle. Hoodlums, illiterates like most of you—who work without real plan or organization —are easily licked. We will see what the much vaunted F.B.I. can do when it is opposed by a real efficiency expert of crime—plus an ability to organize along military lines. We can't fail, Pellucci."

"I still think you're nuts!" Mike Pellucci said stubbornly.

"It doesn't matter what you think. You must join the Army of Death. You have no choice."

"And what if I refuse?"

"I advise you not to refuse."

"To hell with you!" said Big Mike. "I'll run my own town in my own way. Now I know who's been throwing the monkey wrench in the works, I'll put a quick stop to it—"

J. Augustus raised a hand. "I'm sorry, Pellucci. There's no room for you any more. You must be liquidated." He nodded once, as if in signal. There was a popping sound from one side of the room, and a puff of smoke. Big Mike threw his arms out in a dreadful, frantic gesture. His mouth dropped open in frightful ludicrous fashion. Blood spurted from a wound in his heart. Slowly he crumpled and fell across the table. From an opening in the paneled wall, a rifle barrel protruded, with a silencer screwed on the end. Little wisps of smoke spiraled up from the muzzle. The eleven men at the table stared at that rifle in stunned silence.

J. Augustus smiled thinly. "Is there any one else," he asked silkily, "who wishes to raise objections?" Each one shook his head violently in the negative.

"Excellent," said J. Augustus. "If some one will please push Pellucci's body off the table, we can make our final arrangements. You must all return to your home cities at once. Tomorrow at noontime is the zero hour. At zero hour we shall launch our campaign throughout the country. You will all have instructions. The first blow will be to smash the F.B.I. Then we take over the country!"

SPECIAL AGENTS FOR MURDER

Eight seconds are not much in the lifetime of a man. Yet many things can happen in that short span. In the Argentine, a baby is born; in Shantung a sentry is shot by a sniper; in Kwangsi a warplane is shattered by shrapnel high in the air; in Madrid a man standing blindfolded before a wall is riddled by the bullets of an execution squad. In the same eight seconds of time, men are born and die in all parts of the earth.

Yet it is too short a time for one man to make his peace with God.

But a man can have a thought in a fraction of a second. For a thought is not a thing, or even a word; but a flash—a God-given spark which can course through the convolutions of the mind with the speed of light. It is execution of the thought which takes the time. Eight seconds are hardly enough to convert thought into action.

Stephen Klaw understood this.

So when the thought came to hall—how he could save himself from the trinitro bomb under the taxicab, he did nothing for a precious fraction of a second.

But because he was one of those who by nature must keep on fighting while there remained any chance at all, he swung swiftly into action. The bomb might go off while he was trying. But he couldn't ignore the chance.

He stopped stripping the bandages from his face.

And then, with hands which did not hurry too much, but which wasted no single motion, he raised his automatic and smashed out the glass covering the dome light in the roof of the cab. Then with swift fingers he unscrewed the small bulb and let it drop to the floor.

At the same time, his other hand was fishing a penny out of his pocket —a precious copper penny which was going to stand between himself and extermination... if there was time.

He thrust the penny up into the empty bulb socket, pressing it against the two terminals.

His wrist watch showed the eighth second. There was a flash. But it was not the explosion. It was the flash caused by the short-circuiting of the current through the penny. The ignition died. The motor jerked, and ceased to throb.

Stephen Klaw stood there with the penny in the socket, and waited. If the fan-belt continued a full revolution after the motor stopped, it would still acuate the timing-mechanism, and cause the bomb to explode. A half-second, a quarter—second, would tell the story.

Nothing happened.

Stephen Klaw let the penny drop out of the socket. He sighed through his bandages.

"Boy!" he whispered. "This is the second birth of Stephen Klaw!"

He turned around and looked across the street, where the driver with the scar on his face was beginning to look worried. Steve put a thumb to his nose in an expressive gesture. The man realized that the motor had stopped running. He knew now, that the bomb would not explode. His mouth twisted into a vicious line. A gun came out of his pocket. He dropped to one knee, and fired.

The shot clanged against metal somewhere under the car.

Steve Klaw understood. The man was aiming at the bomb. He was going to explode it with a shot. His eyes, through tile bandage slit, showed nothing of what he felt. He merely rested elbow on the window ledge, and his chin on his palm. He watched the driver's marksmanship with calm detachment.

The man aimed more carefully for the second shot. He was grinning as he aimed.

It was apparent from his look of confidence that he couldn't miss this time...

But he didn't fire the second shot, because a siren started to scream down at the corner. The driver turned to look.

Steve Klaw followed his glance. Steve's eyes sparkled. It was the F.B.I. car. He couldn't see who was driving it, but he saw Dan Murdoch on the running-board. He needed only one guess as to who was behind the wheel.

The car came careening down the street, and Dan Murdoch opened up with his revolver. The scar-faced driver yelled in panic and turned to run. The F.B.I. car raced past Steve's taxi, and caught the running driver, easily. Johnny Kerrigan, at the wheel, slowed down, kept abreast of him, and honked.

The driver turned around, snarling, and began to shoot. Dan Murdoch, with no trace of expression on his face, shot him in the head.

Then Johnny Kerrigan brought the car to a stop, and they ran back to the taxicab. They stopped alongside it, and Johnny tried the door handle. It opened. The lock had been reversed, so that it locked from the outside instead of the inside.

Steve Klaw came out, still swathed in his mummy-bandages.

"Hiyah, Shrimp?" said Dan Murdoch.

"Hiyah, Shrimp?" echoed Johnny Kerrigan.

"Okay, Mopes," said Stephen Klaw.

Steve Klaw didn't give Kerrigan and Murdoch a chance to ask any questions. He ran around to the front of the cab and lifted off the record from the phonograph.

Kerrigan grinned. "What's that, Shrimp—a souvenir?"

"It's only made of wax," Steve told him. "But it'll hang somebody pretty soon!"

He looked swiftly up and down the street. Nobody was in sight yet.

"Come on, guys!" he ordered, and raced to the Bureau car. "Pile in," he said. "And take the wheel, Johnny!"

So accustomed were these three to working together, that no one asked questions. Kerrigan got behind the wheel, and Murdoch took the record from Steve, climbed in the back Steve dropped to one knee, and took the automatic from his pocket. He squinted at the taxicab, saw the dark bulk of the tri-nitro bomb that was slung underneath.

"Hold your hats, boys!" he yelled, and fired once.

The bark of his shot was drowned by the thunderous detonation which blew up the taxicab. The street literally rocked under them, and they were deafened by the blast. The cab was dissolved into a million pieces of hurtling steel, upholstery and motor parts.

Shredded metal shot up into the air as if from a geyser, and then began to rain down upon them! Echoes of the terrific explosion rolled back from the river like the thunder of distant artillery.

Stephen Klaw hopped into the Bureau car. "Let's go, Johnny!"

Johnny Kerrigan sent the sedan flashing down the street, turned the corner and drove south along the river front for a half-dozen blocks. Then he pulled up. He glared at Steve Klaw, who was sitting innocently beside him.

"What's the gag, Shrimp? Why'd you blow that thing up? It was evidence."

Steve grinned. "I'm officially dead now. Your story will be that you got on the scene just one minute too late. You shot that driver, and then the cab exploded—with me in it."

Johnny Kerrigan nodded with dawning understanding. "So the General will think he's one up on us!"

"Right—and two to go. He'll concentrate on you two mopes. He won't be looking for me in the background."

"Not bad," said Murdoch. "Where do we go from here?"

"To the garage where that hack came from," Steve told him. "We'll see what makes the black—and-gold cabs go round!"

Johnny Kerrigan's eyes glittered. "Let's go!"

FIGHTING IS MADE FOR FEDS

An hour later, when the big Bureau car pulled up in front of the Gold Star Garage, only two men were to be seen in it. Johnny Kerrigan was at the wheel, and Dan Murdoch sat beside him. However, if the guard at the garage door had taken the trouble to look in the rear, he would have seen a suspiciously bulky object on the floor, covered by an auto robe.

Kerrigan swung the car right up on the ramp, and stopped with its nose touching the heavy chain slung across the entrance. Two guards who stood at the doorway, came around to the car, hands hovering close to their shoulders.

One was hard-faced, with a low forehead and bushy eyebrows. The other had thin, pinched features, a pointed chin.

"What do you want here?" Bushy-eyebrows demanded,

Johnny Kerrigan did not move from behind the wheel, but his hand dropped to the service revolver in his lap. "You take it from here, Dan," he said.

Dan Murdoch opened the door on his side, and got out. "We want in," he said.

Bushy-eyebrows scowled. "No strangers allowed, mister. Scram."

"Did you ever see one of these?" Murdoch asked mildly. He slowed his F.B.I. badge.

Bushy-eyebrows grew taut. He threw a quick glance at Pointy-chin, then turned back to Dan. "So what, mister? You still can't come in—without a search warrant."

"My friend in the car has the search warrant," Murdoch said. "Show them the search warrant, Johnny."

Johnny Kerrigan smiled broadly. He lifted up his service revolver, held it carelessly pointing at the two guards. "How do you like this for a search warrant, lugs? Want to put up an argument?"

In the moment that the two men turned to stare at the big muzzle of Johnny's gun, Dan Murdoch drew his own. He stepped behind the two men.

"An hour ago," he said, an odd, frosty deadliness in his voice, "one of your cabs picked up a friend of ours by the name of Stephen Klaw. It was blown to bits. It had a bomb planted in it. If you think I wouldn't' shoot you down like a couple of rats, you're crazy."

Bushy-eyebrows began to shake. "Y-youse guys must be Kerrigan and Murdoch."

"That's right, friend. Steve Klaw was our partner."

"W-what do you want?"

"We're going in and ask a few questions of the manager. You can try to stop us—or not. It's all the same to us."

"We ain't stopping you, mister."

Dan Murdoch sighed almost regretfully He stepped back, unhooked the chain, and nodded to Johnny Kerrigan, who drove the Bureau car into the garage. Then Dan motioned to the two guards. They marched inside under the muzzle of his gun.

Johnny tooled the car over into a dark corner at the rear of the garage, and climbed out. He left it facing out, with the motor running. Then he walked over to where Dan stood with Bushy-eyebrows and Pointy-chin "Take us to the manager's office!"

The two gunmen were licked, scared stiff. Meekly they led the way to a staircase. "It's up at the head of the stairs," said Pointy-chin.

"What's the manager's name?" Murdoch asked.

"Lemson—Tony Lemson."

Dan Murdoch raised his eyebrows.

"I've heard of the guy. He used to be the boss of the taxicab rackets in Chicago. Then he was indicted, and got the case quashed—but he had to leave Chicago. I heard he was dead broke. Where'd he get the dough to go in this business?"

Bushy-eyebrows shrugged. "I wouldn't know."

Dan grinned. "Lemson wouldn't be financed by—say, the General, would he?"

He watched the two men carefully as he said it, and caught a tremor in the face of Pointy-chin.

"We wouldn't know," said Pointy-chin.

Johnny Kerrigan sighed. "I think we should work these two guys over a little, Dan, before we go up. Kind of shake up their memory."

Half a dozen cab drivers had moved over near them, watching with ill- concealed animosity. Dan Murdoch had pinned his F.B.I. badge on his coat lapel, so they all knew that these men were law officers. Besides, the efficient manner in which Johnny and Dan handled their artillery, would have been enough to discourage them anyway. It was easy to see, though, that these drivers were more than mere hackmen. Their faces were hardbitten, vicious.

But as vicious and dangerous as they were, they had no urge to face the two cold-eyed men who covered them. For word had somehow spread around the garage that Kerrigan and Murdoch were here—on the kill, to avenge their partner, Stephen Klaw.

JUST then a hard, uncompromising voice spoke harshly from the head of the stairs. "What's going on here?" Tony Lemson, the manager, had come out of the office, and was standing at the top, close to the banister, gun in hand.

Johnny Kerrigan seen him walk out of the office up there, but said nothing. He had merely moved over a bit, so that he had a clear shot up the stairs in case of trouble.

"Here's the guy we want, Dan!" he said, and started up the stairs.

Dan Murdoch nodded. He leaned back negligently against the wall, eyeing the ugly-faced drivers. "Make it short and snappy, Johnny," he called up to his partner.

Tony Lemson scowled down at the ascending Kerrigan. He raised his gun a little. "Stop where you are!" he ordered. "You got no right in here. Take another step up, and I'll shoot you. I'm within my rights!"

Johnny Kerrigan grinned happily, and kept advancing. "Looks like some real opposition, for a change. You think you can shoot to kill, Lemson? It'll be too bad, if you miss."

He said it genially, like some one giving brotherly advice. But Tony Lemson, looking down at him, met his cold eyes, and gulped. He licked his lips.

"I don't want no trouble with you guys. You got no right coming in here without a warrant. I'll call the cops."

That was as far as he got, because Johnny Kerrigan was already at the top step. The big G—man just reached out with the flat of his hand and pushed Lemson in the face. The manager staggered backward, through the open door of his office. Johnny came after him, and caught a bunch of his coat in one huge paw. He shook the man like a rat.

"Use that gun," he said coolly, "or drop it!"

Lemson let the gun fall.

"That's better," said Johnny, and released his grip on the manager's coat.

Lemson was gasping for breath. "You damn gorilla! You can't come in here and use strong—arm stuff. I'll have you fired."

Johnny holstered his service revolver, and hit Lemson with his fist. He hit him in the mouth, sending him smashing into the desk.

Lemson's lip started to bleed. He put up a hand to ward off another blow. His voice lost all its bluster. "Lay off me!" he whined. "I'm clean, so help me!"

Johnny Kerrigan laughed harshly. "Clean? It was one of your cabs that exploded an hour ago. Stephen Klaw was in that cab. A bomb was rigged in it. It wasn't your fault that you didn't get all three of us."

"I swear I don't know what you're talking about!" Lemson gasped. "I —I heard about the cab being blown up. But I don't know about no bomb. Somebody musta thrown it."

"Nobody threw it. It was planted in the cab. It was your cab. You know who planted that bomb. You're going to tell me—now."

Lemson licked his lips. He looked at Johnny Kerrigan's solid bulk, shivered. He was as big as Johnny—but he wasn't thinking of putting up a fight.

"I swear I had nothing to do with it. Maybe the driver did it on his own."

"Come on," said Johnny. "I'm taking you in—as a material winless. You'll talk before tonight!" He took Lemson by the arm, dragged him roughly out to the stairhead.

Down below, Bushy-eyebrows and Pointy—chin were standing in a huddle with the rest of the tough drivers, watching Dan Murdoch, sharply.

Johnny grinned down at Dan. "What—no action yet?"

Murdoch shrugged. "The rats won't start anything."

Kerrigan nudged Tony Lemson down the stairs to the garage floor. "We're taking Lemson in as a material witness," he announced. "Anybody want to stop us?"

"What the hell!" exclaimed Bushy-eyebrows. "We can take these two guys."

"Shut up, Marko!" Tony Lesson spat through his bleeding lips. "Don't you see these guys are on the kill? They're just looking for an excuse!"

Dan Murdoch laughed. "That's right, Marko," he said softly. "Just an excuse. Any little excuse will do!"

The bushy-browed Marko shrank within himself as he saw the look in Dan Murdoch's face.

Kerrigan snapped handcuffs on Lemson, pushed him out to the street. Dan Murdoch backed out after him. Marko and the others followed slowly, watching for a possible opening. Murdoch gave them none. He kept facing them while Kerrigan cuffed Tony Lemson to the coat rack behind the front seat, got behind the wheel.

"Okay, Dan," he said calmly.

Murdoch backed into the sedan, constantly facing the crew of drivers in the doorway.

SO absorbed were Marko and the cab drivers, that they did not notice what was going on inside the garage, behind their backs.

The suspicious-looking bundle in the rear of the Bureau car had suddenly come to life. The rug which covered it was shucked off, and a man climbed out of the car. This man's face had four long scars on it, apparently caused by severe burns which had not completely healed as yet. One was across the forehead, two on the right cheek, and one along the right side of the jaw. They did not look very pretty, but they served a very useful purpose, for they made the face of Stephen Klaw unrecognizable to anybody not expecting to see him —for instance, anybody who might have thought him dead.

Taking advantage of the fact that all the men in the garage were at the door watching Kerrigan and Murdoch, Steve Klaw slipped along the wall, then upstairs. He grinned as he noted that Johnny and Dan were taking their time about pulling away with their prisoner. They were giving him as much opportunity as possible to get up the stairs without being observed.

The whole idea of invading the garage had been solely to get Steve Klaw planted in there. They had known in advance, that, if the garage was really headquarters for a gang working under the directions of the General, it would be impossible to make any of the men talk. Much more could be accomplished, they hoped by getting inside, unobserved.

Steve Klaw saw the open door of Lemson's office, but did not go in. He moved down the hall, with his hands in his coat pockets, wary lest there be any more gunmen up here. He heard the Bureau car accelerating as it drove away. Then came the voices of Marko and the others, returning inside. There was a grinding, rasping noise... The rolling doors of the garage were being shut, to keep out any other possible intruders. These men did not intend to be caught napping a second time.

Stephen Klaw stopped in the hall and listened, to see if any of the men might be coming up. But at the moment they were apparently too busy conversing in excited voices.

Steve smiled. Kerrigan and Murdoch had put the fear of God in them. He'd have a few minutes to investigate.

There were four more doors along this hall, after the open door of Lemson's office. Then there was an iron ladder leading up to a skylight in the roof. Past the ladder was a big iron fire—door. Steve inched this open, saw that it led to the second-floor storage space of the garage. There were thirty or forty black-and-gold taxicabs up here, and in the front of the building was a repair shop where several mechanics worked on cars.

Steve closed the fire-door carefully, making no noise. Then he turned his attention to the other doors along the hall.

The first door was locked, and key on the outside. Steve's eyes glittered. He turned the key carefully, pushed the door open. Then he stopped stock-still on the threshold, his eyes narrowed to mere slits.

DIE—AND BE DAMNED!

There was an army cot in the room, up against one wall. A man lay on the cot. He wore only an undershirt and trousers There was a crude bandage around his head, another across his stomach. The undershirt had been pulled up on his chest to make room for the bandage, and had not been pulled down again. Blood was on both bandages.

It was not that which held Stephen Klaw's attention, however. It was the face of the semiconscious man. His features had been battered almost to a pulp. Both eyes were closed and swollen, the nose broken. His lips were split, and there were long gashes down both of his checks, from which blood was now seeping.

As the man heard Steve step into the room, he groaned. Then feeble words came from his bleeding mouth.

"To hell with you all. You can beat me to death. I won't make the phone call..."

Stephen Klaw closed the door softly behind him, and came up to the cot. There was a terrible look of cold fury in his slate-gray eyes. He knew this man. "What have they been doing to you, Daly?" he asked.

The man tried to raise himself on his elbow. "Damn you," he croaked, "I tell you I won't make the call I won't trap my brother officers. You can kill me by inches..."

"Take it easy, Daly," said Steve Klaw. "Nobody's going to kill you. Nobody's going to hurt you—not any more!"

Daly was one of the four Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation who had first been assigned to investigate the Army of Death —then, like the other three, had disappeared without leaving a clue. Where the other three were, it was easy to guess. And the fiends had been working on Daly, trying to force him to make a phone call. Steve could also guess what kind of phone call they had wanted him to make.

He dropped to his knees beside the cot. "This is Steve Klaw. Take it easy, and you'll be all right. I'll get you out of here."

Daly's blackened eyes and bleeding face were expressive of the tortures he had undergone. He was done for. Steve knew, looking at him, that he would never live. But he tried to make himself sound cheerful.

"I'll get you to a hospital."

Daly's voice, strangled and gasping, interrupted him. "No use, Klaw. I'm... through. That General... look out for him. A devil. His name is Gus... Augustus..."

Special Agent Daly's voice trailed off into a hacking rattle. Blood gushed from his mouth. He grew limp, and his mouth fell open. He was not dead yet, but death was probably only a short distance away.

"I promise you I'll get the General!" Steve said grimly.

He held on to Daly's land for almost five minutes. He was aware of motion outside in the hall, of voices and footsteps. There was always danger now of some one noticing that the key had disappeared frown outside the door. Men might come.

But Stephen Klaw was oblivious of everything. He knelt beside Gregg Daly, held his hand until the final spasm of death contracted the unfortunate man's body. Then he slowly and reverently crossed his hands on his chest, pulled a sheet over him.

He stood up, came to attention before the body. His eyes were hard, lips grim.

"Gregg Daly," he said, "I'll square accounts for you. I'll get the General!"

He turned and made for the door. He was about to open it, when he heard voices on the other side. Marko and Pointy-chin were talking. "I've got to go over and ask the Boss what to do," Marko was saying.

"The boss is in conference," Pointy-chin replied. "Those twelve guys ain't gone yet. He won't like to be disturbed."

"For this he won't mind being disturbed," Marko said. "We can't stay closed up forever. There'll be cabs coming back. We got to let them in. And we got to get Lemson sprung before Kerrigan and Murdoch tear him to pieces."

Steve Klaw's eyes were glittering, as he listened.

"Okay," Pointy-chin agreed. "Go ahead. I'll go in and see if that G-man is dead yet. If he ain't, maybe I can work him over a little. He can't stand a whole lot more. Maybe he'll weaken and make that phone call."

Stephen Klaw heard Marko's heavy footsteps receding. He listened carefully, but did not hear the opening of the fire door at the end of the hall. Instead, he thought he detected the scraping of shoes against iron —moving upward.

Then he heard Marko's voice from somewhere above in the hall, speaking to Pointy—chin, "Don't use the sap on him no more, Smiley. You'll kill him for sure. Try burning his toes."

"Okay," chuckled the pointy-chinned Smiley.

Stephen Klaw stood tautly behind the door. He heard Marko's heavy feet scraping on iron. He knew now where Marko was going—up the that ladder. That was the way to the Boss. What was it Daly had said with his dying breath —Gus... Augustus. Had he given the General's full name, or had he been trying to utter a last name when he died?

Steve had no more time for speculation, because he saw the knob turn, as Smiley started to come in. Then he saw the knob stop turning, heard a muttered ejaculation on the other side of the door. Smiley must have discovered that the key was missing.

Stephen Klaw yanked the door open. He grinned into Smiley's startled face, took one of the automatics out of a pocket. "Come in, Smiley," he said softly. "Come right in!"

Smiley's pointed chin dropped as his mouth fell open. His face turned a ghastly green. Klaw reached out and caught him by the coat, pulled hard. Smiley came tumbling into the room and Steve let go of him and sent him sprawling on the floor. Then he closed the door, locked it. When he turned around, Smiley was on his knees, dragging a gun out of a shoulder holster.

Green fire flashed in Steve Klaw's eyes. He took a quick step forward, and kicked hard at Smiley's hand. There was a sharp snap as the wrist-bone broke.

Smiley yelled with pain, and fell on his face, hugging his shattered wrist. The gun fell to the floor.

Steve kicked the gun out of the way. "Get up!" he said tonelessly.

Smiley yelled again, raising his voice so that the men downstairs could hear him. "Hey, guys—"

It was all he was able to get out, because Steve Klaw bent down, wrapped fingers around his throat and squeezed the wind out of him. Steve held the throat until Smiley's face began to grow purple. Then he let go.

"Get up!" he said.

Smiley whimpered with pain, but got to his feet. "Gawd! My hand—"

Steve grinned evilly, thrust him forward until he was standing close to the cot upon which lay the dead body of Gregg Daly. "So you were going to work him over some more, eh? You used a sap on his face, didn't you? You beat his face to a pulp, trying to force him to make a phone call. And now you were going to burn his toes, weren't you?"

He smashed a fist to Smiley's face, sending him to the floor.

"Take off your shoes and socks!" he ordered.

"W-what you gonna do?"

"Give you the same treatment you were going to give poor Daly. Burn your toes off. Like the idea?"

"Gawd, no! Give us a break—"

"Sure. Sure," Klaw said. "I'll give you the same kind of break you gave Daly. I'll leave you here to die—after I finish with you!"

"Gawd, mister, I'll do anything. Anything. Only give me a break. I got a weak heart. I'll die!"

"Not too soon, I hope," Klaw said. "Take off your shoes and socks— or I'll tie you up and take them off myself."

Smiley's trembling hands began to fumble with his shoe laces.

"Maybe," Steve said thoughtfully, "I'll lay off you—if you sing a nice song."

The thug's pointed chin actually wiggled in excitement. "Yes, mister. I'll sing. I'll talk. Anything. Anything you wanta know!"

"All right. Start talking. Who's the General?"

"Gawd, mister, I don't know. Only the big shots in the outfit know. Marko knows—and the guys who run the other cities."

"How do you get to the General?" Klaw demanded.

"Over the roof."

There was a queer, cunning look in Smiley's eyes. "You cross over to the old building in back. It's the old Realty Building. You press a button, and a door opens in the wall. After that I don't know what you do. I never went through that door."

Steve didn't seem to notice Smiley's look of cunning. He pressed on with his questions. "What kind of a phone call were you trying to force Daly to make?"

"We were gonna have him call the F.B.I. office and ask for Kerrigan or Murdoch," was the answer. "He was to say that he was a prisoner in a cellar down the street, under the Greek restaurant near the corner. The cellar is wired with a couple of bombs. When Kerrigan and Murdoch open a door or window, they get blown to pieces."

"I see," said Stephen Klaw. He motioned to Smiley. "Take off your belt."

He used Smiley's belt to strap his arms to his sides. Then he took the sheet off Daly's body, and tore it in half. He put half back on the dead man. The other half he tore into strips. He used these to tie Smiley's wrists and ankles and gag him cruelly.

Smiley fainted—with the pain when he tied strips on his wrists, but Klaw went right ahead. When he had him well trussed up, he left him on the floor and went out, taking the key. He locked the door on the outside, but put the key in his pocket instead of leaving it in the door.

There was nobody in the hall. He looked up, and saw that Marko had left a trapdoor open in the roof. It was through that trapdoor that he had climbed out, and the fact that he left it open indicated that he intended to return soon.

Stephen Klaw went back to the open door of Lemson's office. Standing in front of it, he could look down onto the main floor of the garage. He saw that the drivers were grouped together, talking in whispers, near the front. Two of them had tommy-guns, and one of their number was looking out into the street through a peephole in the big rolling doors. It would be impossible to get out that way. There were at least twenty of the drivers, and there was no doubt that they were all armed. They were preparing, in case Kerrigan and Murdoch came back. It was evident that they intended to put up a fight here, if necessary, and then retreat through the secret exit over the roof.

Steve's lips were tight. He turned and went into Lemson's office and picked up the telephone. But instead of getting the outside operator, he heard the low growl of a man's voice, "What number you wanna get?"

There must be a switchboard somewhere, through which all the phones in the building cleared.

"Who's this?" the man's voice demanded. "What number do you wanna get?"

Steve smiled wryly. "Rector two-three-fivetwo-o," he said.

There was a second's silence, then, "What the hell! That's the F.B.I.!"

"Sure," said Steve, sharpening his voice a bit. "This is Smiley. I got that G-man eatin outta my hand. He's gonna make the phone call."

"Are you nuts, Smiley? You can't phone from here. The G-men will trace the call. You got to take that guy around to the cellar."

"He can't be moved," said Steve. "He'll die."

"Well, I'll connect you with the General. He's in conference, but I'll put you through. Ask him—"

"Never mind," Steve broke in hastily. "I'll wait till Marko comes back." He hung up and went out of the office. He went down the hall, and climbed the ladder up to the skylight. Then he took out one of his automatics, climbed up on to the roof.

Almost at once he saw the reason for the cunning light in Smiley's eyes when he had told about this exit.

The Realty Building abutted against the rear of the garage, and loomed four floors above it. There was a door in the high wall and a button alongside it, just as Smiley had said.

But what the thug had not mentioned, was the fact that there was a small peephole about three feet away from the door. If anyone rang that bell, there was certainly a guard who would look through the peephole. And if he saw a stranger, he would certainly shoot him down.

That must have been what Smiley counted on.

Stephen Klaw crossed the roof, stood close to the door. He touched it, and felt cold steel. It would be impossible to break it down without a torch. Almost at the same instant, he heard a grating of metal as the peephole alongside the door started to open.

Steve dropped to his stomach on the floor, hugging the wall. He heard a man inside say, "Okay, Marko. All clear."

The big steel door began to open, and Steve heard Marko's voice, "Be ready to open the door again, Pete. All the boys are coming across. The General says we got to evacuate the garage. It's no good now that Kerrigan and Murdoch know about it."

"How the hell," Pete's sharp voice demanded; "did they get wise? That cab was blown to bits."

"It gets me," Marko replied. "Those babies are devils. They can guess what's in your mind—unless Klaw came back from the dead and told them."

Marko had the door open now, and was stepping out on to the roof.

That was the moment which Stephen Klaw chose to rise up from where he was crouching.

He stuck an automatic in Marko's stomach, and grinned.

"You called it, Marko," he said cheerfully. "Here I am—back from the grave!"

Marko let out a screech, fell back. Steve Klaw came in after him.

They were in a sort of closet, probably a secret room on this floor. It was bare, except for a single chair upon which sat the man, Pete.

PETE had a short-muzzled shotgun under his arm. He was alert, sharp-eyed. He swung the shotgun up to cover Steve and Marko. Steve knew what he was going to do. He was going to shoot, even if he had to hit Marko as well.

Stephen Klaw didn't give him a chance to get the gun all the way up.

He gave Marko a shove, sent him hurtling into Pete. Pete pushed his chair back to get out of the way. Steve came right after Marko, with his right arm pushed out stiffly in front of him, and with the automatic gripped in his fist.

The automatic struck flush into Pete's face, smashing his nose, ripping his cheek.

Pete screamed with agony, dropped the shotgun and raised both hands to his face.

Marko recovered his balance, and clawed for a gun.

Steve grinned thinly and hit him on the side of the jaw with his left- hand automatic. Bone cracked in Marko's jaw, and the big man went down, unconscious.

Klaw swung around, reversing his automatic, and brought the butt down hard against the side of Pete's skull. Pete's scream died in his throat, and he folded over and slid off the chair alongside of Marko.

The G-man stood there for a moment, hefting his automatics, and looking down at the two badly battered and unconscious men.

"Part payment for Gregg Daly!" he murmured softly,

He turned around and closed the big steel door to the roof, then pushed home the two heavy bolts that locked it. He grinned crookedly. Those men in the garage wouldn't be able to evacuate it for a while. If Kerrigan and Murdoch did come back with a raiding party, they'd find a nice nest of rats waiting down there to be smoked out.

He stepped over the body of Marko, to a door in the opposite wall of the closet. It opened under his touch.

He peered out into a small room. There was a switchboard here, and a beefy-jowled man sitting in front of it, manipulating the plugs. This must be the man who had answered him when he picked up the phone in Lemson's office.

The beefy switchboard operator was facing the door through which Steve entered. He sprang up from the board and snatched a gun which had been lying close to his hand.

He swung the gun up, and Steve shot him through the heart.

The man spun backward, threw his arms in the air, and hit the wall behind him, then slid down the wall to the floor.

Steve waited, holding his breath, listening. The bark of his .32 must have been heard elsewhere on the floor. But it could very well have been mistaken for backfire.

A minute passed, and no one came in.

Steve went over to the switchboard and picked up one of the terminals and plugged it in.

"Rector two-three-five-two-o," he said to the operator.

In a moment he had the F.B.I. Field Office, and was talking to the Agent in charge. "I'm on the inside," he reported, "and getting close to the General. Where are Kerrigan and Murdoch?"

"They've taken a raiding party to the Gold Star Garage," the agent at the other end told him. "Lemson refused to talk, saying that he had pull, and would be free in an hour. But we found one of the badges of the Army of Death pinned inside his vest, so we used that as evidence to get a Federal judge to sign a search warrant. Kerrigan and Murdoch are on the way to the garage now."

"Okay," said Steve. "Better send some men to cover the block. There's a secret connection with the Realty Building, in back of the garage. I'm in here now. I think it's the third floor. Don't come in. Just cover the entrance, and stop everybody going out. Kerrigan and Murdoch and I will smoke out these rats."

He pulled out the plug, started to turn, and felt something hard jabbing into his back.

"This is a gat, mister," some one said behind him.

SUICIDE SQUAD SHOWDOWN

"Glad to hear it!" said Steve Klaw. He swiveled on his left heel, jamming his elbow into the midsection of the man behind him. Steve felt the man's gun slide crosswise along his back, just as it exploded. The slug scorched his ribs, sending a hot lance of fire up his side.

He had put down one of his automatics when he was making the phone call. But always, from force of habit, he kept one hand in a pocket, gripping one of his automatics. He shot now, through the pocket... The slug smashed into the man's stomach.

Stephen Klaw was drenched with the blood spurting from that wound. The man gurgled hoarsely, doubled over, bleeding like a stuck pig. He fell face down on the floor, rendered unconscious by the shock of the shot fired at such close quarters.

Steve picked up his other automatic, walked around the body, and went out of the switchboard room.

What he beheld caused him to halt in amazement. He found himself in a huge office, almost half a floor in size. There were perhaps fifty desks here, all occupied by typists and stenographers, busily working at their machines. At the far end was a glassed-in row of offices where sat busy executives. Along the near wall was another row of offices, but these were not glassed-in. They boasted solid oak doors, with gold lettering.

One bore the legend, Office of the President. Next to it there was another door with the lettering, Director's Room. Glancing across to the corridor door in the opposite wall, Steve made out the name on the glass, reading backward, J. Augustus, Inc., Efficiency Experts.

Many of the girls had stopped typing, and were staring at Steve's bloody clothes and scarred face. Near the door, two guards in uniform got up and started to stroll casually across tile room toward him. They were wearing Sam Browne belts with holstered revolvers.

Stephen Klaw blandly disregarded them, as well as the stares of the typists. He walked over to the nearest girl's desk, and looked at what she had in the typewriter. It was circular letter to a brewery in Milwaukee, offering the services of J. Augustus, Inc. to put their business on a more efficient basis.

The girl shrank away from him.

Steve smiled down at her, and showed her his badge. "You don't have to be afraid of me, sister. But I guess your job is about over. Tell me, why do they need armed guards in a place like this?"

"B-because we handle a lot of collections for c-clients," the girl stammered.

He turned around slowly, just as the two guards came up to the desk. He pinned the badge to his coat lapel, and then thrust both hands into his pockets. He faced the guards.

"The F.B.I. is taking over here," he said tonelessly, his slate-gray eyes moving from one to the other of the two men. "Resistance will make you liable to prosecution to the full extent of the law." He started toward the door of the directors' room.

One of the guards stepped in his path, barring the way. He was sliding the gun out of his holster. He was a big fellow.

"I represent the United States of America," Steve said mildly. "I warn you—don't draw that gun."

The other guard already had his gun out. The one with the thick lips was just clearing the gun out of his holster.

There was no flicker of emotion in Stephen Klaw's face. He fired both automatics from his pockets.

Cauliflower-ear took the slug in his stomach. The other one got it over the heart.

Immediately pandemonium broke loose in the busy office. Girls began to shriek. Men shouted, and typewriters fell off their movable stands as the typists sprung up in panic. It was clear that all these people working in the outer office had no inkling of the sinister inside set-up of the firm by which they were employed.

Stephen Klaw stooped, picked up the revolvers of the two guards and thrust them into his breast pockets. Then, with his hands still in his outside coat pockets, he strode across the room, through the milling, panicky crowd of girls. He pushed open the door of the Directors' Room.

Twelve men stared at him from around the Directors' table. They were already on their feet, alarmed by the shooting.

Steve Klaw kicked the door shut behind him, and stood with his back to it.

"Hello, Jarger," he said. "So you're the General!"

Jarger began to laugh. His gnarled fingers were on the table. They were touching a row of buttons. "I'll make a deal with you, Klaw."

"You can't make any deal with me, Jarger. I saw what you did to Daly."

"Don't be too sure, Klaw. Do you hear that shooting? It's in the garage."

Steve Klaw had heard it. There was the quick rat-tat-tat of sub-machine guns, and the booming thunder of .38's.

"I hear it," said Steve. "That's my partners, Kerrigan and Murdoch. They're taking over your rats in the garage."

"Exactly, Klaw."

Jarger leaned forward over the table. For a moment his eyes nicked toward the wall at his left, where a little peephole yawned open. Steve caught that glance.

Jarger went on, "Observe where my fingers are, Klaw. I'm touching two buttons. These two buttons are wired to the same kind of bomb that was rigged in your taxicab. Only these bombs contain ten pounds each of tri-nitro-toluene. They are planted in the garage."

Steve's glittering eyes swung around the circle of taut men who were watching him. Lou Sorgum, Jake Cadman, and the others, had not dared to move since he entered. But as they heard Jarger's confident voice, they seemed to take on new hope.

"You understand, Klaw?" asked Jarger. "That's why I ordered the garage evacuated. I knew Kerrigan and Murdoch would come back. I can blow it up now with a touch of my finger Suppose fifteen or twenty of my own men go with it? It's worth the exchange. Kerrigan and Murdoch must have as many F.B.I. men with them."

He stopped, then added triumphantly, "You see, Klaw, a good general always has a trick in reserve. I'll trade you—the lives of your partners for the lives of everybody in this room. We walk out of here, and you guarantee that we won't be touched."

"I can't guarantee that," Steve told him tonelessly. "The building is covered. You'll be stopped."

"You needn't worry, Klaw. I have another way out of here. I have offices on the same floors in the next two buildings. The third building is the Paravox Theater on the corner. We'll slide in there, and slip out with the crowds."

"You're telling me too much," Steve said. "You wouldn't trust me to know that much."

"Of course not," Jarger said, smiling. "Part of the bargain is that you don't leave here alive. I know you and your friends. You'll gladly give up your life for Kerrigan and Murdoch, won't you?"

"Yes," said Steve Klaw. "Gladly."

"Then put your guns down on the floor."

Steve grinned. "How do I know you won't push those buttons anyway?"

Jarger threw a quick glance toward the peephole in the wall. He let out a sigh of relief, then chuckled. "I knew all along that we couldn't make a deal, Klaw. I was just stalling for time—till my bodyguard came back. Now it won't be necessary to make any deal. You are to be liquidated."

He nodded once, in a sort of signal.

Steve Klaw's eyes were on the peephole. He saw the silenced rifle poke out.

He fired six times with his left-hand gun, straight into the peephole, alongside the rifle barrel. The rifle sagged aside, and a man screamed behind that peephole, his scream almost drowned by the thunderous reverberations of Steve's guns.

His right-hand gun was spitting flame, too. Six times it barked, in perfect synchronized time with the other one. And all six slugs smashed into Augustus Jarger's chest with the force of battering-rams, hurling him back from the table, and away from the deadly row of buttons.

Roll of thunder and stench of cordite assailed ears and nose. The room shook with the din of gunfire.

The eleven men at the table were galvanized into action.

"His guns are empty!" yelled Lou Sorgum.

They all started to go for weapons.

Stephen Klaw laughed harshly. His hands darted in and out of his breast pockets, and appeared with the two revolvers he had taken from the uniformed guards. At the same time the door was violently thrust open. Steve, whose back had been to the door, was sent sprawling.

In the doorway appeared two wild and terrifying figures.

Johnny Kerrigan and Dan Murdoch, each with a tommy-gun, standing shoulder to shoulder.

Eleven men raised their hands precipitately in the air, letting their weapons clatter to the floor. Almost as if in chorus they yelled, "Don't shoot!"

Stephen Klaw got up from the floor dusted his trousers.

Johnny Kerrigan heaved a sigh of relief. "I thought they got the Shrimp!"

"Hi, Shrimp!" said Dan Murdoch.

Steve Klaw grinned. "Hi, Mopes!" he said. "Pretty good going— What're you say?"

THE END

First published in Ace G-Man Stories, April 1940

1. THE CITY OF TERROR

ON OCTOBER 1, John Stafford, mayor of Hill City, was shot and instantly killed by a dope—crazed assassin named Dill.

The next in line for the mayoral job was Lawrence Hall, president of the City Council. But, for some unaccountable reason, Hall refused the honor. In order to avoid becoming mayor, he resigned from the City Council and left at once for Florida, taking his wife and son with him.

It now became the duty of Judge Samuel Rotherwell, chief justice of the Superior Court, to appoint someone to fill the unexpired term of the mayoralty until the next election. There were a number of substantial business men and civic leaders in Hill City whom Justice Rotherwell might have chosen. But to the amazement and consternation of everyone, he named—Hugo Bledd.

That was how the Era of Terror came to Hill City.

Hugo Bledd owned the Hill City Race Track. He was a disbarred lawyer who had dipped his fingers in almost every form of shady activity. He had been disbarred for conspiracy to help a notorious racketeer client defraud the government of two million dollars in income taxes. And when his racketeer client went to jail, Bledd had continued to manage the vast sub rosa enterprises of the Big Shot. Disbarment meant nothing to him, as long as he was able to keep out of jail... And this was the man whom Justice Rotherwell appointed to be mayor of Hill City!

Naturally, there was a good deal of criticism. The editor of the morning Journal announced that he would ask the Governor to look into it. But that night, the editor of the Journal was accosted by a group of thugs, who beat him with a lead pipe and left him unconscious in the street. The same night, there where a dozen other assaults upon citizens who might have been expected to oppose the appointment.

Hugo Bledd was sworn in the next day. He demanded the immediate resignation of the police commissioner, as well as of all the other commissioners who had been appointed by the preceding mayor.

He also discharged a great number of the older policemen and detectives, claiming that the police department needed revamping.

Then there began an influx of strange and ugly looking men into Hill City. From all parts of the country they came—men with tight lips and killers' eyes, men with guns bulging under their armpits, men who had done time in all the major prisons. Before the city awoke to its peril, it was in the grip of as vicious a mob of storm troopers as had ever taken possession of a European land.

One of these new arrivals, a man named Rory Fenn, was appointed police commissioner. Fenn immediately swore in a hundred of the newly-arrived thugs as policemen and detectives, raising some of them to captains' and inspectors rank over the heads of the old-timers on the force.

The next day, at the meeting of the City Council, a contingent of these uniformed thugs was present in the meeting room. Significantly also, seven of the thirty-nine councilmen were absent. Two of the seven were dead. The other five were in the hospital, so badly injured that they would not be able to leave their beds for weeks.

Little wonder, then, that those councilmen present quickly voted to pass all the measures submitted by Mayor Hugo Bledd. A tax was imposed on all business transactions in the city, as well as on all pay checks. The money derived from this tax was to be placed in a relief fund, to be administered by the Mayor. In addition, Mayor Bledd was given the power to create five hundred new appointive positions on the police force and in other city departments, the salaries to be fixed by himself.

By the time the Council meeting was over, absolute dictatorial powers had been voted to Hugo Bledd. His thugs, wearing their brand new police uniforms, began making the rounds of all the retail stores in the city, selling tickets for a mythical police ball, at ten dollars each. No one refused to buy.

As if by magic, gambling houses opened over night. Slot machines appeared in every store and hotel lobby. Bookmakers began to transact business openly. Night clubs advertised obscene burlesque entertainment. Beady-eyed, slick- haired men began to peddle marijuana cigarettes near the public schools.

A fortune began to pour into the private coffers of Hugo Bledd and Associates.

SOME few citizens still dared to voice an objection. Among these was Norton Gregg, district attorney of Hill County, who was not an appointee of the mayor, but was an elected State official. He drew up an indictment to present to the grand jury, but Judge Rotherwell refused to allow him to present it. He was blocked.

Angrily, he Ieft Judge Rotherwell's chambers and hurried to his office. He put through a long—distance call to Governor Daniel Elsing at the State capitol.

"Dan," he exclaimed hotly, "you've got to do something. It—it's fantastic, unbelievable. Bledd and his crew are looting the city. They're making it the crime headquarters of the whole country. You've got to stop it!"

"What do you want me to do, Norton?" Governor Elsing asked.

"Declare martial law in Hill City!" District Attorney Gregg exploded. "Send in the troops—"

"You know I can't do that," the governor interrupted, "unless the request comes from the mayor."

"Well—well—" Gregg fumbled for ideas—"call a special session of the Legislature to appoint an investigating committee."

"Sorry, Norton, I can't do that either. You forget that this State has home rule. The demand for a special session has to come from the local authorities."

District Attorney Gregg gripped the phone blindly. He ran his free hand through his fast—graying hair. "Good Lord, Dan, there must be something we can do. The law is being violated every minute. And Rotherwell—I don't know what's come over him. He's as honest a judge as I've known, yet he blocks my every move!"

"Why don't you call the F. B. I.?" Governor Elsing suggested. "Perhaps they can find a way."

District Attorney Gregg's hands were trembling as he hung up. For a long time he sat staring blankly into space. Then he picked up the phone once more and said harshly, "National—5303!"

In a moment, he was talking with the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, of the United States Department of Justice.

He talked for twenty-five minutes. At the end of that time he sighed and said, "Then there's no legal way in which you can send Federal agents here to break this up?"

"I'm sorry," he heard the director say. "There is no evidence of violation of a federal law. But wait. There's one thing I may be able to do. I have three men in the department who work independently, on a roving assignment. I'll ask them if they'd be willing to accept a furlough and go into Hill City as private individuals. I'm almost sure they'd accept—they're that kind..."

District Attorney Gregg interrupted: "Good Lord, are you mad? Three men! What can three men do—"

He stopped as he heard the director's voice in bleak amusement. "You don't know these, three men, Gregg. If they accept, they'll arrive in Hill City tomorrow, and contact you. Their names? Kerrigan, Murdoch and Klaw!"

SLIGHTLY bewildered, Attorney Gregg put down the phone. He didn't know what to think. The names the F. B. I. director had mentioned meant nothing to him. He felt tired, beaten, let down. There was no place he could turn for help. Still, he'd keep on fighting....

The door of his office was thrust violently open, and four men entered. Their leader was a big, bull-necked man with a flat nose and a pair of mean and vicious eyes which looked out from under bushy, unkempt eyebrows. Gregg recognized him as Rory Fenn, the new police Commissioner. The other three were in plain clothes, but they were wearing new badges pinned to the lapels of their coats. They were no more prepossessing than their commissioner. They were three of the thugs who had been appointed to police posts—Hugo Bledd's storm troopers.

None of the four said a word. But there was something ominous in the way they stared at District Attorney Gregg.

Slowly, Rory Fenn crossed the room to the desk. One of his men remained at the door. The other two came around the desk and stationed themselves on either side of Gregg's chair.

A little line of perspiration appeared upon Gregg's forehead.

"What do you want?" he asked hoarsely, looking up across the desk at Rory Fenn.

Fenn didn't reply at once. He glanced around the office, then his gaze returned to the gray—haired district attorney.

"Get up!" he said.

"See here, Fenn," Norton Gregg exclaimed indignantly, "you have no right to come in here with your bullies—"

Fenn said, "Shut up!"

He leaned across the desk, and a big, hairy hand came up in a swift, open- handed blow to the side of Gregg's face The slap sounded like the crack of a whip.

Gregg was thrown sideways, almost off his chair, but the two thugs standing alongside him caught him under the arms and hauled him to his feet. They dragged him to the middle of the room, facing Fenn.

"You've been making a nuisance of yourself, Gregg," Fenn told him, in that cold, toneless voice of his. "Your switchboard operator just tipped us off that you called the boss G-man in Washington. Now we'll show you what we do with guys who make trouble for us."

He drove his fist into District Attorney Gregg's face. All the power of his beefy body was packed behind the blow.

Gregg's breath escaped in a rush as his head was snapped back. His nose began to bleed. He would have sagged to the floor but for the support of the two thugs.

Fenn reached out and took a grip on Gregg's gray hair with one hand, pulling his head up, then drove his fist once more into the hapless man's face. This time he split both the upper and the lower lip.

Gregg squirmed, trying to break loose from the two ruffians who held him, but he was like a child in their hands. They laughed at his feeble efforts, and held him up while Rory Fenn smashed blow after blow into his face, gashing his cheek, lacerating his lips, loosening teeth, flattening his nose. Soon, Gregg's face was unrecognizable, bloody and battered. Twice they stopped and threw water on him to revive him, then continued.

At last, Rory Fenn's lips twisted in a smile of satisfaction. Gregg was hanging limp between the two gunmen, and blood was dripping over his clothes, down to the floor. He was moaning feebly.

"All right," said Rory Fenn.

The two thugs dragged their victim back behind the desk, and plumped him into the chair. Fenn got more water from the cooler, and splashed it across his face.

GREGG raised his head groggily. His eyes were puffed. "You devils!" he muttered. "You'll go to jail for this!"

Fenn laughed. "What jail, Gregg? We run the jail—like we run the rest of the town. Nobody goes in that we don't put in. Get wise to yourself. You can't buck Hugo Bledd. What you just got is only a sample. You play ball with us, or we'll really go to work on you."

"Never!" exclaimed Gregg, through swollen lips. "You'd better kill me now. Because if you don't, I swear I'll get every one of you—"

Fenn's laughter shook the room. "You got a daughter, haven't you, Gregg?"

The district attorney's pain-wracked body stiffened.

"Susan! What—what about her?"

"How'd you like her to get a dose of what you just got?"

"No! God, no! You couldn't—"

"She's in jail, Gregg. We had her picked up on a charge of reckless driving. There's two of my boys outside her cell right now. All I have to do is pick up the phone and say one word—and they go to work on her!"

"You devil!" Gregg shouted, and sprang up.

Fenn laughed and, with an open-handed blow, smashed him beck into the chair. Grinning, Fenn reached for the phone.

"Wait!" Gregg screamed.

Fenn stopped, with his hand on the phone. "Well?"

The district attorney's face was ghastly, clotted with blood, and torn with anguish. "Don't—don't hurt her. I—I'll do anything you ask."

"That's better!" grunted Fenn. "You'll write an article for the paper, saying that you had no right to draw up that indictment. You'll say that Hugo Bledd is a fine mayor for Hill City, and you'll urge everybody to get behind him and support him. You'll say that hereafter, as district attorney, you will vigorously prosecute anyone who attempts to oppose Mayor Bledd... And you'll write it now."

Slowly, with trembling hands, District Attorney Norton Gregg took paper and pen and began to write. He was a beaten and broken man.

"You—you'll not hurt Susan?" he begged.

"Not if you do what you're told," Fenn assured him.

When Gregg had finished, Fenn took the paper and put it in his pocket.

"Now," he said, "pick up that phone and call the F. B. I. Tell 'em to forget the whole thing. Tell 'em you were talking through your hat."

Gregg obeyed. In a moment he was talking once more with the director of the F. B. I. He spoke for only a short while, and then he hung up, lifting a battered face to Fenn.

"It's too late," he said. "Those three men have just left. They took the train for Hill City. They'll arrive at 7:40 tonight."

"Three men?" Fenn asked, puzzled.

"Yes. They're coming unofficially."

"Ah, so!" said Fenn, his eyes glittering under the thick brows. "And their names?"

"Kerrigan, Murdoch and Klaw."

Fenn repeated the names thoughtfully. "Kerrigan and Murdoch and Klaw, eh? Well, we'll handle them. They shouldn't be any trouble at all. As for you, Gregg, go home and stay there till your face gets better. And watch your step!"

"My daughter—"

"Your daughter stays in jail. We'll cook up a couple more charges to hold her on. And in case we should become dissatisfied with the way you work for us, why—" to emphasize what he meant, he smashed his right fist into the palm of his left hand—"whack!" He winked. "Get the idea, Gregg?"

He turned and motioned to the gunman at the door. "You stay with Mister Gregg, Patsy. Go home with him. You'll be a sort of—er— bodyguard for him, in case he gets any notions. I'll send someone to relieve you at night."

Patsy grinned. "A pleasure, Mister Commissioner!" he said.

Rory Fenn went out, followed by the other two thugs.

"Kerrigan, Murdoch and Klaw!" he was saying amusingly at he walked down the hall. "Three guys who think they can work wonders! Well, well! We'll have to give them a little idea of what it's all about!"

2. OPEN UP—FOR THE SUICIDE SQUAD!

WHEN the Washington train arrived at Hill City at 7:40, Stephen Klaw emerged frown it alone. As he made his way from the train platform to the vast concourse of the brilliantly lighted Union Station, his hands were dug deep in his coat pockets. He walked with an easy, swinging stride.

Stephen Klaw was so slim and wiry that one might have taken him, at first glance, for a kid just out of college. One good look at his cold, slate— gray eyes, though, would have told anyone that here was no callow youth, but a trained fighting man.

He appeared to be lost in thought as he made his way across the station toward the row of telephone booths. Yet he did not fail to notice the four hard-faced men standing near the information booth in the center of the station. The dominant figure in the group was a huge brute of a chap, with a flat nose and black, vicious eyes under heavy, bushy brows. Two of the others looked like thugs, but there was the flash of shields under their carelessly opened coats The fourth was a small, pinch-faced man with frightened eyes. Klaw knew that one. It was Neddy Teek, who had once done time in Leavenworth for impersonating a Federal officer. Klaw had arrested him. He guessed that Teek was here for the sole purpose of identifying him.

On the way to the phone booths, Klaw allowed his glance to swing around the entire area of the spacious concourse. He spotted a big, blond, narrow- waisted man with the shoulders of a stevedore, sitting on a bench and reading a newspaper. Another man, dark and handsome, with the lithe grace of a jungle beast, was standing at the magazine stand, talking with the sales girl.

Both those men gave Stephen Klaw a quick, almost imperceptible nod. Klaw went on as if he had not seen them, and entered one of the phone booths in the row against the east wall.

He inserted a nickel in the phone, and dialed a number. Watching out of the corner of his eye, he saw the four men at the information desk walking over toward the booth. The little, pinch—faced informer turned and made for the street exit, as if he wanted no part of what was to follow. The big fellow with the flat nose hurried over and stepped into the booth next to Klaw's, while the other two loitered just outside, their right hands fidgeting up near their neckties.

Stephen Klaw smiled. He waited till he got his connection, and then spoke in a very loud voice, so that the man in the next booth would have no trouble hearing.

"Hello. Is this District Attorney Gregg?"

A thin, faltering voice came back to him over the wire: "Yes. This is Gregg."

"This is Stephen Klaw. I've just arrived at Union Station, and I'm contacting you according to instructions. Where can I meet you?"

There was a moment's silence. Then Gregg said, "I'm very sorry, Mr. Klaw, but the situation has changed since I spoke to your director. There is really nothing you can do here in Hill City. I—I'm afraid I was laboring under a misapprehension. Mayor Bledd has done nothing illegal. Please forget the whole matter."

KLAW'S: eyes narrowed. He lowered his voice. "Did they get to you, Mr. Gregg? Did they put the screws on you?"

"Y-yes." "Can you talk freely now?" "No." "Is someone there with you?" "Yes." "How many?" "Only one." "Can you answer my questions?" "Well— yes." "All right. Do you still want to go on with this thing?"

"Yes!"

"Have they got something on you?"

"Well, not exactly."

"All right," said Steve. "Don't go away. I'll be over to talk to you."

"No, no!" Gregg exclaimed. "You mustn't. You must leave Hill City by the next train, and go back to Washington. You must drop the whole thing—"

"Sure," said Stephen Klaw, raising his voice once more. "I'll drop it after I've cleaned it up! Good-bye, Mr. Gregg."

He hung up, pushed open the door of the booth, and stepped out.

At the same time, the flat-nosed man came out of the next booth. He signaled to the two thugs, and they moved in swiftly, arranging themselves on either side of Klaw. The one on the left grinned and pulled back his coat, showing a badge. In his right hard he held a gun.

"This is an arrest, mister," he said.

Steve smiled pleasantly. "How nice! What's the charge?"

Fenn pushes around in front of him. "You'll hear the charge soon enough, Mister Klaw!" he said. "Come on!"

He turned and led the way, not to the street, but toward the south end of the building, where the executive offices of the railroad station were located. The two thugs seized Klaw's arms, and propelled him after Fenn.

Steve allowed himself to be led across the station. Several people turned to stare at the group, eyeing the naked guns in the hands of the two thugs. But no one dared to interfere or to ask questions, for the city had already been given a taste of the brutality of Mayor Bledd.

Rory Fenn led the way up a flight of stairs, and pushed open the door marked, "Public Relations Manager."

He grinned and said, "I got the railroad to lend me an office for this little interview. I'm sure you'll like it, Mister Klaw."

He waited until the two gunmen had brought Klaw inside, then he closed and locked the door.

"If this is an arrest," Steve suggested mildly, "you ought to take me to a station house."

Fenn looked him over thoughtfully. "When we get through with you, Mister Klaw," he said, "you won't care where you're taken." He motioned to the two thugs, "Grab him!"

Each of them seized one of Klaw's arms, holding him tight.

Fenn, grinning wickedly, raised his right fist, bunched in a hard knot. He smashed a blow at Steve's face.

Stephen Klaw's body did not move in the grip of the two gunmen. But his head jerked an inch or two to the right, and Fenn's huge fist whistled harmlessly past his ear. At the same time, Klaw's left foot kicked out in a lightning movement, catching Fenn squared in the shin.

The big bruiser uttered a yell of pain and began to dance around. The two gorillas held on to Steve.

Rory Fenn burst into a string of profanity and came lunging at Steve, with his big fist swinging viciously.

Someone began to pound on the door, and Fenn's fist stopped in midair.

"Who is it?" he growled.

"It's me—Neddy Teek!" the informer's whining voice came from the corridor. "Lemme in, quick, Rory!"

Fenn scowled and went to the door. He unlocked it and yanked it open. "What the hell do you want?"

The stumbling figure of Neddy Teek came hurtling into the room, propelled by a violent shove from behind.

And then, following Neddy, two men came into the room like thunderbolts, shoulder to shoulder, with guns in their hands and cold, set smiles on their lips. They were the big, blond man and the dark, handsome man who had exchanged nods with Klaw out in the station concourse. They were Johnny Kerrigan and Dan Murdoch—the other two-thirds of the Suicide Squad.

In one swift glance, Kerrigan and Murdoch sized up the situation in the room. They did not have to exchange a single word with Klaw. These three men had worked together so long that they operated like clockwork. They constituted the smoothest-running fighting machine that had ever come to grips with the overlords of crime. And their team-work was half the reason.

For instance, when they had left Washington that day, Klaw had taken the train, while Kerrigan and Murdoch had hopped the late plane, arriving an hour earlier. And Klaw had known, with supreme confidence, that his two sidekicks would be in the Union Station waiting for him, ready to back up any play he might make.

All three of them should have been dead long ago. It was a legend in the underworld that they went out seeking death deliberately—but that the Grim Reaper always appeared to be ducking them.

Unofficially, they were known as the Suicide Squad, the Three Black Sheep of the F. B. I. Johnny Kerrigan had once punched a Senator's son in the nose. Dan Murdoch hat shot a croupier to death in a crooked gambling house, when the croupier thought he had the drop on Murdoch. And Stephen Klaw had once told a Congressional Investigating Committee to go to hell when it tried to reprimand him for shooting to kill in a fight with gangsters.

Any other three men guilty of such high misdemeanors would have been summarily dismissed from the service. But the personal reputations and accomplishments of Kerrigan and Murdoch and Klaw was such that public opinion would have been aroused to fury if they had been discharged. So the director of the F. B. I. had seized upon the excuse to retain than in the service. But as a sop to the powers that be, he had promised that they would not be assigned to any routine jobs in which they might give offense to people in high places. He had agreed that they would he used only for undertakings so dangerous that volunteers had to be asked for.

And that was the way Kerrigan and Murdoch and Klaw wanted it. No routine bank embezzlements or investment trust frauds for then. They lived dangerously, and they lived fast, and for them tomorrow was a day which might never come.

As they stood now in this room, Rory Fenn and those others must have felt something of the dynamic fearlessness and the challenge to life which these three breathed. Certainly the cringing Neddy Teek felt it.

He had fallen to the floor at Rory Fenn's feet, and he was whining, "I couldn't help it, Rory. I hadda trick you to open the door. These two guys are Kerrigan and Murdoch. I never saw then in the station, because I was watching the train gate. They grabbed me just now, and made me call out to you. If I hadn't done it, they'd have killed me."

Rory Fenn ripped out an oath, and went for his gun. At the sane time, the two gorillas who were holding Steve Klaw let go of him and swung their own weapons to shoot at Kerrigan and Murdoch.

Dan Murdoch, with that grim smile still upon his dark and handsome face, fired once. The big gun jumped in his hand, and the hoodlum on Stephen Klaw's right was hurled backward as if he had been struck by a ten-ton sledgehammer. Simultaneously, an automatic appeared in Klaw's right hand, and somehow its muzzle was up and belching flame at the second thug. The shot caught the man in the left shoulder and spun him around like a weather-vane, with his arms outstretched. He went sliding across the floor and ended up against a desk, huddled on the carpet, and moaning. Klaw's gun and Murdoch's had barked almost in unison.

A split-second later, Johnny Kerrigan reached Rory Fenn in a flying leap. Fenn had his gun out of its holster. Johnny smashed down with his revolver, struck Fenn's wrist. The big bruiser let go of the gun, uttering a cry of pain. He stood disarmed, staring vindictively at Kerrigan.

Johnny chuckled, kicked the fallen gun over toward a corner. Then he looked at Klaw and said, "Hello, Shrimp. Looks like these lads aren't so tough after all."

3. DEAD OR ALIVE

DAN MURDOCH was blowing smoke out of his gun barrel. "What happened before we got here, Shrimp?" he asked.

"Nothing much," said Steve "Just that this nice men was telling me a few things. The interview was beginning to get interesting when you Mopes barged in."

He looked over at Fenn. "You can go on with that lecture you were giving me," he said amiably.

Rory Fenn glared at him. "You and your two pals are cooked," he rasped. He glanced over at his two gunmen, who were groaning on the floor and trying to stop the flow of blood from their wounds. "You can't get out of this station. I got police all around. There'll be a charge of assault with intent to kill. You three birds will go in the can—where we have ways of breaking tough guys!"

A crowd of people were running toward the room from all directions in the station, and among them were half a dozen uniformed patrolmen, as well as a couple of plain clothes men with riot guns.

Johnny Kerrigan closed the door in the faces of the mob and locked it. Then he turned around, grinning.

"Let's hear all about this jail of yours, mister," he said, and advanced ominously upon Fenn, putting his gun away. There was a hard glint in his eye.

Rory Fenn backed up. "Hey! What're you gonna do?"

"Why, as long as you're going to be so tough with us in your jail," Johnny said silkily, "I figure we might as well take it out on you in advance."

He feinted with his left; and Fenn blocked awkwardly. Johnny stepped in and smashed a right to Fenn's heart. It staggered him. The man was big, but he wasn't in condition. He began to gasp for breath from that single blow. All the weight of those powerful stevedore shoulders of Kerrigan's had been behind the punch.

Johnny stepped in after him, his big fists hammering like riveting machines—one, two—one; two—one, two. He bore the burly Rory Fenn backward until he ended up against the wall, trying ineffectually to cover himself. Johnny landed a sweet one on the button, and Fenn folded forward and sank to the floor, his eyes rolling.

Johnny massaged his knuckles, turned his back on the motionless figure of Fenn. He grinned.

Stephen Klaw nodded. "Very nice work, Mope. Only I would have enjoyed the privilege myself. Now—let's see about getting out of here."

The clamor outside the locked door had become terrific. Someone was shouting, "Open up! Open up or we'll shoot the lock out!"

ONE of the two wounded thugs was groaning, writhing on the floor in pain. The other had fainted. Rory Fenn did not move. But the pinch-faced Neddy Teek scrambled to his feet.

Dan Murdoch, who was nearest Teek, grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, and lifted him off the floor.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Lemme go with you!" Neddy Teek gasped. "Rory Fenn will never forgive me for tricking him into opening the door. When he comes to, he—he'll beat my skull in!"

Murdoch let him down to the floor. "So you want to come with us?" He laughed harshly, and jerked his head toward the door, where they could hear the mob yelling.

"Hear that? When we go out of here, we go out shooting. You still want to come along?"

A sly look came into Teek's face. "You don't have to go out that way," he said.

Kerrigan, Murdoch and Klaw looked quickly at one another.

Neddy pointed to a closet door in the left wall of the office. "That ain't no closet. Rory looked over the layout here before figuring the play. He figured if the three of you came off the train together, he'd want some back way to get extra men in here, if necessary. That's why he picked this room. That door leads into a storeroom. There's another door there that takes you out to the Dispatcher's Room."

"Well!" said Murdoch. "In that case, what are we waiting for?"

A voice outside was bellowing. "Okay, turn that riot gun on the lock. Everybody stand back. Look out for ricochets!"

"Listen," said Johnny Kerrigan rebelliously. "Should we run away from a gang of yellow—bellies like those out there? I vote we go out the front way."

"Well," Murdoch said, with a speculative gleam in his eye, "you've got something there. Johnny. I believe we could account for a nice batch of those birds before they got us all—"

"No, no!" yelled Neddy Teek. "For God's sake, don't be fools. What's the use of getting yourselves killed? It'll leave me up in the air. Come on out the side way!"

Murdoch's eyes had an anticipatory look in them, which the others knew only too well. It was the familiar gleam that came when he began to smell a good fight. "What do you say, Shrimp?" he asked Klaw.

Neddy Teek whirled around to Steve. "Don't let them go out there, Mr. Klaw. For Gawd's sake, don't. How can you help anybody in this town if you're all dead?"

"I think he's right, Mopes," Klaw said to Kerrigan and Murdoch. "We owe it to Gregg, and the others in Hill City who need help, to stay alive. We go out the back way."

Johnny Kerrigan sighed regretfully.

"Okay, then. The back why it is."

An authoritative voice outside was calling, "You in there! We got a riot gun trained on the lock. We give you one minute to come out with your hands in the air—if you don't, we come in with guns blasting!"

Murdoch led Neddy Teek out through the storeroom door, going none too willingly. Klaw waited for Johnny, to make sure he didn't yield to one of his sudden, rash impulses. But Johnny was thinking of something else which had just occurred to him.

"Wait a second," he said.

He was stooping over the unconscious body of Rory Fenn, and going through the man's pockets. He came up with a bunch of keys.

"These may come in handy," he grinned. "Maybe one of them is the key to the jail. And who knows—we may yet need to get out of a jail in this town!"

The first burst of gunfire thundered outside, smashing into the lock, as Kerrigan and Murdoch and Klaw, with Neddy Teek in tow, passed into the storeroom. They threaded their way, in darkness, among piles of baled circulars, to a door at the other side.

Kerrigan went first, with drawn gun. But apparently the crowd hadn't thought of blocking this back way. The Dispatching Room was quiet.

The group of scared clerks offered no opposition, and the four men hurried through into the great, vaulted sheds behind the station. Inside, the sound of gunfire had ceased, but now there was a concentrated blowing of police whistles and a wailing of sirens.

Murdoch half carried, half dragged, Neddy Teek through the train sheds and out into a back street. It was dark here, and deserted, except for a couple of trucks that were backed up to the loading platforms. But around the corner there was noise and commotion, and it was drawing closer.

"Well, Mopes," Stephen Klaw said grimly, "it looks like the fun is about to begin."

"We could hop a freight train," Neddy Teek offered, "and scram outta town."

He stopped. They were paying no attention to him. Standing there in the dark street, with the hue and cry rising all about them, those three men were coolly laying their plan of campaign.

"We've got to get a headquarters," Klaw was saying. "Some place where we can hide Neddy Teek here, in safety—and a place from which we can operate. If they've got Gregg stymied, we can't depend on him."

"We better find a place in a hurry," said Murdoch. "Here comes a squad car around the corner."

"Okay, Mopes," Klaw decided. "There's no better place for us than the station. Back we go."

"Not a bad idea," said Johnny Kerrigan.

He seized Teek by the shoulder, pushed him along in the shadow of the station to an unused loading platform. Stephen Klaw led the way inside. Murdoch brought up the rear, facing backward with drawn gun, in case the occupants of the approaching police car should spot them. Just as Murdoch backed into the protection of the huge sliding door of the loading platform, the clerks from the dispatcher's office, together with the police from inside, came tearing out onto the street. They sighted the squad car.

"Those guys came out this way!" someone shouted.

"Okay," yelled a cop from the police car. "They must have gone down toward the river. We'll get 'em easy!"

The car shot away, with two additional policemen on the running boards. Guns were in their hands.

Murdoch grinned in the darkness. "This station," he said over his shoulder, to Klaw and Kerrigan, "is the last place in the world they'll think of looking for us!"

The four men felt their way through the dark and empty shed, to a small door at the far side. It opened onto a runway. On the other side of the runway was a luggage desk, and alongside the baggage desk was a door marked "Night Traffic Superintendent."

Stephen Klaw peered out, and saw there was no one in the runway. The baggage clerk must have left his post to see what the shooting was about.

"Wait here," Steve told the others. "I'll go in the Super's office and see if I can locate a blueprint of the station. There must be at least one nice quiet spot where we can leave Teek."

Neddy Teek was shivering with terror. "I tell you, there's no place in the whole town to hide. Hugo Bledd will find us. And if Rory Fenn ever gets his hands on me—"

"Stow it!" Kerrigan said grimly. Then, to Steve, "Go ahead, Shrimp!"

Klaw slipped out and darted across the runway. He turned the knob of the traffic superintendent's door and pushed it open. He stepped into the office.

There was no one inside but a girl. She was red-headed, slim and pretty. She was seated at a typewriter desk, facing the door. On one end of the desk stood a small portable radio receiving set. It was tuned into the short-wave band on police calls, and a raucous voice was coming out of the receiver. It was apparently one of the cops in the radio car, talking on a two-way circuit. He was saying:

"Men escaped toward river. Car 14 in pursuit. Send more cars into river- front territory to help bottle them up!"

Another voice, apparently speaking from police headquarters, acknowledged the report, then barked:

"Orders! All cars converge on riverfront section. Block all streets from Twenty-third north to Fortieth along the river. Let no one through without proper identification. If necessary, search every house where these three men might be taking refuge, They are dangerous and desperate. Shoot to kill! These are my personal orders. Any police officer who kills or captures one, or all of these men will receive a bonus of a year's pay, plus immediate promotion to a captaincy. Remember, I want them dead or alive! I repeat: All cars converge..."

Stephen Klaw heard that much over the radio as he came into the office. Then the red-headed girl stood up behind her desk. With her left hand she shut off the radio, breaking the speaker's voice in the middle of a word. With her right hand she picked up an automatic pistol from alongside the typewriter, and slipped off the safety catch She pointed it at Klaw. Her eyes were flashing.

"Stand still and raise your hands to the air," she ordered, "or I'll shoot you to death!"

4. BLUE COATS FOR G-MEN

Stephen Klaw gave the girl a bleak grin. He had his right hand in his coat pocket. He did not take it out, and he did not raise his hands above his head.

Instead, he came slowly toward the desk. "Go ahead and shoot, sister," he said softly. Her eyes never left him. She was standing stiffly, one hand at her breast, the other gripping the pistol tightly, pointing it straight at his heart. Her fingers curled around the trigger. She was biting her lower lip.

Stephen Klaw came up within three feet of the desk. He faced her directly across it. "Well," he asked, "why don't you shoot?" She kept the gun steady. He noticed that her hand did not shake. But she was breathing fast. "You— you don't look like a thug," she said doubtfully. "Thank you." He smiled. "Are you afraid of thugs—here in the heart of the railroad station?"

"I'm not afraid of anyone!" she flashed. "I—I can take care of myself—with this gun. None of Hugo Bledd's murderous thugs will get in here."

"I'm glad to hear you say that," Steve told her. "I'm not one of Bledd's thugs. I'm one of the men they're hunting."

There was a look of doubt in her eyes. But there was also an expression that seemed to indicate she would like to believe him.

"Can you prove that?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Suppose I were one of Bledd's gunmen. I would have shot you by this time."

Her lip curled. "With what?"

"With this!" He took his hand out of the right hand coat pocket. It was gripping a black .25 caliber gunmetal automatic.

Her eyes widened. For a moment she was off guard.

Steve reached over in a lightning motion with his left kind and gripped the butt of her pistol, curling his fingers around the trigger guard and turning the muzzle away from his heart. She began to struggle, saw it was useless. She let go of the gun, and slumped.

"Well," she said, "you fooled me. For a minute I thought you were an honest man. Well—what are you going to do to me?"

"Nothing," said Stephen Klaw. He put his own gun away, and laid her pistol on the desk.

"Pick it up!" he ordered.

She stared at him, unable to comprehend.

"Pick it up!" he repeated.

Sourly, she obeyed.

"Go ahead," he said. "You can shoot me now if you want to."

Her lower lip began to tremble. "I—I don't understand."

"I'm Stephen Klaw," he told her harshly. "Special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. My two partners, Johnny Kerrigan and Dan Murdoch, are outside. We're being hunted all over town by Mayor Bledd's men. If you've been putting on an act for me, claiming you're an enemy of Bledd's, now's your chance to earn a big reward, by shooting me. But I think I've sized you up right, and I'm taking a chance on you."

"Oh!" was all she said. A bit of moisture appeared in her eyes. She slumped back into her chair, put the pistol down, and began to cry.

"Cut it!" said Steve. "This is no time for hysterics. What are you crying about?"

She raised her eyes to his. Bravely, she wiped the tears away. "You don't understand. I—I've been waiting for five days—waiting for them to come and kill me. I—I thought you were their executioner!"

"What are you talking about?" Steve demanded.

"I'm Elsie Hope. My father, John Hope, was night traffic superintendent. He—he was also a city councilman. When Hugo Bledd became mayor, my father was one of the councilmen who were killed. They—they beat him to death! I saw it from the window of our home. I—I recognized the men who did it. But when I went to the police station, they told me I'd better forget about it if I wanted to stay alive. I tried Judge Rotherwell, too, but he wouldn't listen to me. Ever since father's death, I've been coming down here to the office. I know the work, because I acted as father's secretary. I'm keeping things running till the railroad appoints another night traffic superintendent."

"I see," Steve said softly.

SHE rose impulsively. "I'm sure they intend to kill me. They know I'll try every means possible to avenge father. And they know, if there's ever a real investigation, I'll be able to identify his killers. That's why I've been waiting every day, with a loaded gun."

Steve came around the desk and put a hand on her shoulder.

"Keep your chin up, Elsie," he said. "My partners and I are here to clean up this town. We'll pay off for your dad."

Her eyes were shining. "I'll do anything to help you!"

"All right. What I want is a blueprint of the layout of this station. There must be some spot in here that we can use for headquarters."

"You don't need a blueprint!" she exclaimed. "I know just the place. There's a private car sidetracked in the shed. It used to belong to Nick Torlona, the gangster Hugo Bledd worked for. When Torlona went to jail, the rent was never paid to the railroad, and we had to seize it. It's never been used since. It's equipped with a generator for independent light, and it has a radio and an electric kitchen..."

Steve seized her hand. "Enough said. It's made to order. Come on!"

He barely gave her a chance to get her hat and coat and purse, and fairly thrust her out of the office.

They got out onto the runway, and stopped short. Kerrigan was standing in the open, with a gun in each hand, covering two uniformed policemen—one a patrolman and the other a sergeant. Both cops had their hands in the air and looked shame-faced and uncomfortable. Behind Kerrigan, Steve Klaw could see Murdoch and Neddy Teek peering out from the interior of the loading room.

Steve chuckled. "Bag something, Mope?"

Johnny Kerrigan grinned. "These two gents have a radio car outside. They got the notion they ought to look in here for us. They made the mistake of not seeing us first."

"Well," said Steve, "I guess we'll have to take them along. Follow us, Mopes. We're going to live on the fat of the land—with the help of Elsie, here."

Ten minutes later, they were installed in a luxurious private car named "HONEY."

It was a long and spacious car, with four private bedrooms, a lounging room, a kitchenette, toilet and bath and an observation platform.

"Not bad," Johnny Kerrigan said admiringly. "But what happens if someone spots the lights in here?"

"Nothing happens," Elsie Hope said with a smile. "There are half a dozen private cars in this shed, and very often the owners occupy them the night before starting on a trip. When their time of departure arrives, the brakemen get the traveling orders and simply couple them onto the train, without even waking up the occupants. So until a traveling order comes through, no one will disturb us."

Neddy Teek was prowling around nervously, peering out past the edges of the drawn blinds, and sweating profusely.

"I'll never feel safe," he muttered, "till I'm about a million miles from Rory Fenn."

They had tied up their two policeman prisoners, and put them in one of the private bedrooms. Now Kerrigan and Murdoch and Klaw got in a huddle and whispered for five minutes. When they came out of the huddle they were grinning.

"We're leaving you for a while, Elsie," Steve announced. "Put out the lights and sit tight. Well be back soon. But first, we have to make a little quick change."

KLAW and Kerrigan went into the bedroom with the two prisoners. In a few minutes they came out, and Murdoch started to laugh. Elsie Hope and Neddy Teek just stared. Steve and Johnny were wearing the captured men's uniforms. Johnny made a very handsome looking sergeant, but Steve Klaw's uniform was just a bit too large for him.

Neddy Teek groaned. "My Gawd! Are you guys going into town?"

"Uh-huh!" said Johnny. "Okay, Dan, grab him."

Dan Murdoch, who was standing nearest to Neddy, seized his arms, and lifted him off the floor.

"Hey!" yelled Teek. "What you gonna do?"

"Sorry, Neddy," Stephen Klaw told him. "But we have to make sure we can trust you. The three of us are leaving for a while, and we don't want you getting any ideas."

They fixed up a nice gag for him, and tied his hands and feet with towels, and put him in another, larger bedroom. "I guess you'll be safe for a while," Steve said to Elsie.

She showed him her gun.

Steve nodded. "You'd make a nice addition to the F. B. I., kid!" The three of them climbed out of the private car, and Elsie locked the door.

"Okay, Mopes," said Steve,

They made their way through the shed and out to the runway. There were people here now, and the baggage clerk had come back on the job. A police detective was standing at the door of the night traffic superintendent's office.

He saw the three of them, and waved his hand. "Come here, will you?"

They went over, Dan Murdoch in the middle, and Klaw and Kerrigan on either side. The detective scowled.

"You guys know where the girl is that works, in this office?"

"Ain't she in there?" Johnny asked.

"Naw. I got a warrant for her. Were you inside the station just now?"

"Yeah," said Johnny. "But we didn't see her."

"Who's this?" the detective asked, jerking his thumb at Dan.

"Aw, just a bum we picked up."

"Listen," said the detective. "I never seen you two guys before."

"So what?" said Johnny. "We never seen you before, either. Come to think of it, maybe you're one of those three guys that's on the lam."

The detective grunted. "You're crazy. Here's my shied!"

He flashed the badge in the palm of his hand It was gold, and it said, "Lieutenant."

"There's lots of new guys on the force these days." He grinned.

"Hmm," said Johnny Kerrigan. He turned and looked at Murdoch. "Like it, Dan?"

Dan nodded. "It'll do. I always wanted to be a lieutenant."

"Right," said Johnny. He stepped up and took the lieutenant by the arm. "Come with us, please."

"Hey! Are you nuts?"

Stephen Klaw stepped up and took his other arm in a grip of iron. "Naughty, naughty," he said. "You mustn't call my partner nuts."

"What the hell is this?" demanded the detective.

He tried to yank himself free, but couldn't budge their grip. Between them, Steve and Johnny hustled him down the runway, with Dan trailing along.

There were several people on the platform now. They stared.

The struggling lieutenant yelled, "Help! Help me, someone! These guys are kidnapping me! I'm Lieutenant Lemson! Them guys are impostors!"

But behind them, Dan was smiling, and motioning to the passers-by.

"Drunk!" he said to one of them.

They took their man through the shed and back to the "HONEY."

"Open up, Elsie!" Murdoch called.

In a moment they had Lieutenant Lemson inside, and proceeded to treat him like the other prisoners, while Elsie watched. Dan took his badge, gun, handcuffs and identification papers, and stowed them in his own pockets.

"It looks like they weren't going to kill you right off, Elsie," Steve told her "They were arresting you first. Here's the warrant."

It was signed by Judge Rotherwell, and it specified no criminal charge, but ordered her arrest as a material witness in the investigation of her father's death.

Elsie's face was white. "It's the same as killing me. Terrible things happen to people in the Hill City jail, now that Bledd's toughs are in charge. Men and women are tortured and beaten. The police make arrests on the flimsiest charges. Only today they arrested the daughter of District Attorney Norton Gregg, on a complaint of reckless driving. I—I'm wondering what's happening to poor Susan."

Steve gripped her shoulder. "You're sure Susan Gregg was arrested today?"

"Yes. Susan and I went to school together. I called the house this morning, and Mrs. Gregg told me."

Steve gave Dan and Johnny a significant look. "That explains about Gregg!"

They left without further explanation.

Once more they made their way out of the shed, and this time they went into the street behind the loading platform. There, at the curb, was the radio car they had captured.

Johnny Kerrigan took the wheel.

"First stop, Hill City Daily News, Johnny!" said Steve.

Dan grinned as they pulled away. "And don't forget, you punks, to give me the respect due to a lieutenant of police."

Johnny's answer was a loud and eloquent raspberry.

5. "REMAIN AT EASE!"

The streets were full of police. The hue and cry for the Suicide Squad was in full swing.

Johnny turned on the radio, and they caught the police orders, which were issuing from headquarters with staccato speed:

"Confidential to all police cars. It is Mayor Bledd's personal wish that the three men known as Kerrigan and Murdoch and Klaw be captured or killed before midnight. There is a rumor going around town that these men are agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This is untrue. These men are criminals, posing as Federal Agents. No police officer need feel any fear about shooting to kill. Mayor Bledd promises full protection to any officer who does so. Treat these men like mad dogs..."

"That's us," said Johnny. "Now we're mad dogs. Wow! Let's go up and take a bite out of Hugo Bledd's pants!"

"Not yet," Steve said grimly. "Well, we better do it quick," said Johnny, "before they get the dog catchers after us. What about phoning the Chief in Washington?" "Nix," said Steve. "How would we sound, telling him we just got here and they've got us on the run already?" He was interrupted by the police announcer over the radio once more:

"Car 41, why don't you report? Car 41, where are you? Why don't you report? Car 41, call in at once. Standing by..."

Murdoch frowned. "Car 41. Could that be us?"

Steve opened the window at his side and leaned out and looked at the number painted on the door.

"It's us all right," he said. "Precinct 18 Car 41. I guess we ought to report in." He flipped over the switch of the two way radio, and spoke into the transmitter: "Car 41 reporting. What the hell do you want?" "Sergeant Gumber!" exclaimed the voice of the police announcer. "What the hell do you mean by talking like that? Where are you?" "This ain't Sergeant Gumber," Steve said. "Gumber is driving. This is Patrolman Nuggin." He was using the name of the man whose clothes he had usurped. "What's the matter with you, Nuggin?" the announcer asked. "Why is Gumber driving?" "I hurt my arm."

"All right, all right, why didn't you call back before? Did you meet Lieutenant Lemson at the Union Station? Did you arrest that girl yet?"

"Yeah," said Steve. "We got her."

"Okay, you and Gumber know your orders. You know what to do with her."

"Sure. We'll bring her in."

"No, no, you fool."

"You mean you want her knocked off?"

"Listen, Nuggin," said the announcer. "If you're gonna start being a wise- guy, it ain't going to be healthy for you around this town. You know what you were told to do. Let her try to escape, and then put a bullet in her back. Do it in a busy part of town, where people will see she was trying to get away. Just give her a chance, and she'll grab it. She's a spitfire. Did you have any trouble?"

"No," said Steve, his blood boiling.

"All right, then," the announcer hurried on. "Get through with it, and rush over to the riverfront. We need every car to round up those three mugs."

"Okay," said Steve.

He shut off the radio, and threw a side glance at Johnny and Dan.

"Boy," said Johnny, "If I had known what that Lieutenant Lemson and those two guys were up to, I'd have—!"

He was guiding the car through the busiest section of the city, and it was readily apparent that the town was in a turmoil. People were congregated at corners, talking and gesticulating.

But the excitement over the river-front manhunt did not interfere with the nightly pleasure—pursuits of the city. The streets were well-filled with throngs on their way to the theatre or to the many gambling and vice dens which had sprung up within the few days of Mayor Bledd's administration.

Johnny swung into a side street and pulled up at the curb in front of the rambling building of the Hill City Daily News. The building was a beehive.

There was a crowd here, too, all craning their necks to see the bulletins which were being posted outside the first floor windows. These bulletins were printed in big, foot-high letters, and two floodlights streamed down upon them so that it was easy to read the news. One bulletin said:

BOGUS G-MEN TRAPPED IN RIVER FRONT DISTRICT!
SWIFT CAPTURE EXPECTED.
CITY COUNCIL VOTES MAYOR BLEDD UNLIMITED POWER TO DEAL WITH DISORDER AND CRIME

The one next to it read:

DISTRICT ATTORNEY GREGG PRAISES MAYOR BLEDD FOR EFFORTS TO SECURE ORDER. GREGG STATES THAT ALL TROUBLE IS BEING FOMENTED BY POLITICAL ENEMIES OF MAYOR BLEDD.

A man was out on the platform up there, tacking up a third notice:

F.B.I. CHIEF DENIES SENDING G-MEN! DIRECTOR SAYS THREE MEN WHO ATTACKED COMMISSIONER RORY FENN AND SHOT TWO DETECTIVES IN UNION STATION ARE NOT SPECIAL AGENTS. THEY ARE BELIEVED TO BE GUNMEN BROUGHT IN FROM OTHER CITIES TO DISCREDIT MAYOR BLEDD'S ADMINISTRATION.

Stephen KIaw got out of the police car, straightening his ill-fitting uniform. Dan Murdoch and Johnny Kerrigan followed.

Steve gestured up toward the bulletins. "Nice propaganda," he said bitterly "They'll have us eating babies next."

The three of them pushed their way through to the doorway.

A uniformed policeman was standing on guard at the entrance. He touched his cap, at sight of the sergeant's stripes on Johnny's uniform, and let them through.

They went up in the elevator to the second floor, and walked through the hall, being elbowed about by hurrying copy boys and reporters. They entered the news room, and Johnny stopped a sweating man in shirt-sleeves.

"Where'll we find the owner?"

The man pushed Johnny out of the way. "Don't bother me!" he growled. "We go to press in fifteen minutes!"

Johnny grabbed his arm. "It'll only take you a fifth of a minute to be polite, mister."

The man stopped short, took a look at his uniform, and gulped. "I— I'm sorry, Sergeant. I thought you were another one of those discharged cops coming in here to belly-ache about being canned off the force without pension. I guess you're one of Mayor Bledd's new men."

"Yeah," said Johnny. "We're new men. Where's the owner's office?"

"There's Mr. Rick's office, over at the back of the news room. He's the managing editor—"

"Not the managing editor," Kerrigan said. "The owner."

"Oh. You mean Watson Blount." The man grinned. "He don't count any more. He's got nothing to say. You better do your business with Mr. Rick."

Kerrigan sighed. "Look," he said patiently. "We don't want advice. We just want to know where to find Watson Blount."

The man shrugged. "Okay, okay. Go out that side door and up one flight of stairs. His office is at the top."

"Thanks," said Johnny, and let the fellow go. Then the three of them went through the news room and up the stairs to Blount's office.

"Okay, Steve," said Johnny. "You take it from here."

Steve nodded. He put his hand on the door knob, and pushed the door open without knocking. He stepped inside with Kerrigan and Murdoch.

A gray-haired man was sitting at his desk, with his face in his hands. Over at one side, in a chair, with his feet on the window-sill, was a very hard-faced mug.

"Remain at ease, mister!" Stephen Klaw said pleasantly, producing an automatic.

The mug put his feet down on the floor, opened his mouth in surprise, but did not go for a gun.

Smiling affably, Dan Murdoch went over to him, took the revolver out of his holster, fanned him for other weapons, and then stepped back.

The gray-haired man at the desk had raised his head. He was watching the proceedings dully.

"What do you want from me now?" he asked. "Hasn't Bledd done enough to me already?"

Stephen Klaw came over to the desk. "What do you mean, Mr. Blount?"

"What do I mean?" Blount exploded. "I'll tell you what I mean! Bledd has taken my newspaper away from me! He's put his own man in as managing editor, and a dozen discredited newspaper men from all over the country are in here now, assisting Rick. They've replaced my old employees. Rick runs the paper —my paper, that I spent forty years building up—and I have to sit here with a thug guarding me, and sign everything that's put in front of me. I have to okay the publication of lying stories about my friends, and I have to sit by while Rick writes editorials praising Bledd's murderous activities. That's what I mean!"

Steve threw a side glance at Kerrigan, who nodded. "Tell him," Johnny said softly.

"Okay!" Steve nodded. "Mr. Blount, you've got your paper back from now on, it's your paper again."

Watson Blount stared at him, then swiveled his glance to Johnny Kerrigan's uniform. "I—I don't understand. You—you're new men on the force. You must be Bledd's men..."

Steve laughed. "We're new, all right. But we've not exactly working for the mayor. This—" he indicated Johnny—"is Kerrigan, temporarily a sergeant in the Hill City police force. Over there," he waved toward Dan —"is Murdoch, temporarily a lieutenant. And I—" he bowed gravely—"am Klaw, a humble patrolman."

Watson Blount's eyes widened. "Kerrigan, Murdoch and Klaw! The men they're hunting for all over town!"

"Exactly," said Steve. "And we're giving your paper back to you— lock, stock and barrel!"

Blount came out of his chair. "You don't know what you're talking about, Klaw. You can't do it. You don't realize what you're up against. This man," he motioned toward the mug, who was looking very deflated without his gun, and a little scared at discovering he was in the hands of the Suicide Squad— "this man is only one of a number of armed thugs in charge of the building. They have one of their men at each door, preventing my friends from entering. There are armed hoodlums in the press room, and in the editorial office. I don't dare make a move, because Bledd threatens to destroy the whole building if I don't play ball with him."

"That's fine, Mr. Blount," Steve told him. "We like it tough. Now— are you willing to take a chance with us, or not? Make up your mind quickly. We haven't much time. If you don't want to risk your hide, if you'd rather sit here and watch your paper run by gunmen and murderers, all right, we'll go elsewhere..."

"Wait!" said Watson Blount. His shoulders were suddenly straight, and his head was up. "I'm with you! I don't know what you're going to do, or how you're going to do it. But give me a gun!"

Dan Murdoch grinned, gave him the guard's gun.

"Let's go," said Johnny Kerrigan.

He took the mug by the shoulder and pushed him out the door. "Start something," he begged. "Just start something."

"I ain't starting a thing, Mister Kerrigan," the fellow blubbered.

6. CITIZENS, ARISE!

They went down the stairs and along a corridor, avoiding the busy editorial room. Blount led them to the back door of Rick's office.

Steve pushed the door open, took Blount by the arm, and walked in.

Chauncey Rick was at the desk, drinking rye whisky with three yeggs.

Rick was saying. "Five minutes before press time, and they haven't caught those three guys yet. What the hell, we'll announce their capture anyway." He was writing a headline as he spoke. "I'll say all three were killed resisting arrest. Rory Fenn will never let them get to headquarters alive—"

He stopped, with his mouth open, his pen poised in the air, looking at the group that had come barging in.

"What the hell is the matter now?" he demanded. "Can't you knock?"

Kerrigan, Murdoch and Klaw had guns in their hands.

"Anyone who wants to make something of this," Stephen Klaw said softly, "is welcome to try!"

The three thugs put their drinks down gently. They didn't make any unnecessary or sudden motions.

"What the hell is this?" demanded Rick. "Are you guys nuts?"

One of the thugs said huskily, "Lay off, Rick. These ain't our guys. They —they're the Suicide Squad!"

Stephen Klaw's eyes never left Rick. "Get out of that chair," he ordered.

Rick swallowed hard, and tried to bluster. "You can't get away with—"

Stephen Klaw came around the desk and stood alongside his chair. "Do you want it the hard way?" he asked softly.

"Wait!" blurted Rick. He got out of the chair.

Dan Murdoch smiled affably at him and the three gunmen. "Now, if you gentlemen will all line up, with your faces to the wall, I'd by greatly obliged."

They obeyed quickly. Murdoch's courtesy was like the iron hand in the silk glove. He didn't threaten, but they knew he meant business.

Johnny Kerrigan stepped from one to the other, and relieved them of their guns. "In all this artillery that we're gathering," he said pleasantly, "I wouldn't be surprised if we find the cannon that killed Elsie Hope's father."

He watched them keenly, and saw one of the gunmen shift uneasily. He grabbed the man by the shoulder and swung him around. It was the man who had identified them for Rick.

"I seem to know you," said Johnny, who never forgot a face. "Weren't you one of Nick Torlona's hoods in the old days, before he went to Alcatraz? We picked you up once in an automobile racket, but you squeezed out of it. You're name is Gildey, isn't it?"

Gildey avoided Kerrigan's eyes. "I want a lawyer," he said. "You got no right to arrest me. I ain't broke no federal laws."

"You're wrong there," Kerrigan said softly. "We find you here, intimidating a newspaper owner. The Hill City Daily News goes through the mail. That makes it interstate commerce, which puts it in our jurisdiction!"

Stephen Klaw pushed Watson Blount into the seat vacated by Chaunecy Rick.

"Go to it," he said. "Do your stuff!"

BLOUNT'S eyes were glittering. He snatched up the phone. "Press room!" he snapped. "Break up page one. Hold for new plates!" He listened a moment, then said, "Hold it, Pete!"

He looked up at Stephen Klaw. "Pete, my press foreman, says there's a man with a sawed—off rifle down there, who won't let him take orders from anyone but Rick."

"Ah, so!" said Steve. He looked over at Rick, who was grinning smugly.

"I told you so," said Rick. "You can't pull this and get away with—"

He didn't have to finish, because at a signal from Steve, Dan Murdoch took Rick by the hair and dragged him over to the desk and pushed his face down to the phone.

"Tell that mug with the sawed-off rifle to come right up here!" Dan ordered. "And if you say one word we don't like. I'll chuck you out the window!"

"Damn you," Rick gasped, "let go of me! Gildey, Lobb, Flick! Help—"

Gildey, Lobb and Flick didn't make a move, because Johnny Kerrigan was standing very close to them, with a gun in his hand. He was grinning.

Dan Murdoch sighed. He pulled Rick away from the phone by the hair. "I see you have to be convinced, my friend." He dragged him over to the window and started to push his head through.

"No, no!" Rick screamed. "Don't—"

Murdoch said nothing. He got a grip on the seat of Rick's pants.

"Stop!" gasped Rick. "Stop. I'll—I'll do whatever you say!"

"All right," said Murdoch.

He dragged the man back to the phone. Rick gasped into it, "Put Harris on the phone."

He waited a moment, then said, "Harris, this is Rick. Come right up here. I've got to see you."

Murdoch took him away from the phone. Blount was writing busily. They waited three minutes, and then Harris came into the office through the front door. He was carrying his sawed off rifle under his arm, and scowling.

Just as he stepped into the room, Stephen Klaw, who had been waiting behind the door, stepped out behind him and poked a gun in his ribs.

"You can drop that rifle or not—just as you choose," Steve said indifferently.

Harris stood frozen for an instant, looking at his pals lined up against the wall and at Murdoch and Kerrigan.

"I quit," said Harris. He bent down, and carefully put the rifle on the floor.

Steve pushed him over to the wall to join the others.

WATSON BLOUNT waved the sheet he had completed. "Man!" he exclaimed. "This will explode a bomb under Bledd!"

He scribbled a note to the composing room designating the use of huge, block-lettered type that would cover the entire front page. The sheet read:

CITIZENS OF HILL CITY, AWAKE! ARISE! THROW OFF THE DICTATORSHIP OF GUNMEN AND GANGSTERS! MASS MEETING TONIGHT AT ELEVEN P.M. CITY HALL SQUARE. ALL COME. LEAVE YOUR WOMEN AT HOME!

"Nice stuff," said Steve. "Shoot it."

Blount pressed a button, and a copyboy appeared. "Down to the prep room!" Blount ordered. "Tell Pete to break up page two for the story. Hold the presses till I write it, even if the paper is late!"

When the boy was gone, Blount swung to Steve. "I'll give them the whole story on page two. But I need proof. The only man who has proof is Norton Gregg."

"Go ahead with the story," Steve ordered. "We'll get the proof."

"But wait," Blount protested. "You three can't go away. The minute you leave, these thugs will take over."

Steve was at the bookshelf in the corner, pulling down a fat volume. It was the City Service list of Hill City, giving the name and address of every man on the police force, the fire department and the other city services.

"How many of the old men have been fired off the force by Mayor Bledd?"

"About eight hundred," Blount said.

"Fine," said Steve.

He took the book and went out into the front office. Murdoch came with him. Kerrigan stayed with the thugs.

When Steve appeared, the editorial room became silent at sight of the guns in his and in Murdoch's hands.

"Attention, everybody!" Steve thundered. "Mr. Blount has once more resumed active management of this paper. All those who want to work with him stand up!"

Almost everybody got up.

Steve went from desk to desk, tearing a half dozen pages from the directory at a time, and handing them to each person with a phone at his desk.

"Get on those phones!" he ordered. "Call every cop and fireman in the list. Tell them if they want their old jobs back, and are willing to fight for them, to come right down here and report in Mr. Blount's office."

When he was through distributing the pages, he and Murdoch returned to Blount's office. Already, the clerks, reporters and re-write men were busy.

Inside the office, Johnny Kerrigan had done a nice piece of work. He found that most of the prisoners, having been appointed policemen by Bledd, were equipped with handcuffs. So he used their ours handcuffs to link them together in a long chain, with the end men on the line cuffed to the two radiators in the room.

It was less than fifteen minutes before the first of the discharged policemen and firemen began to appear at the News Building, thirsting for a chance to fight back at the racketeer administration which had deprived them of their livelihood.

Murdoch organized them into squads, placing each squad in a strategic position in the building, and disarming the thugs who were posted there. In a short time the entire plant was in their hands, and the presses were turning swiftly, with Blount's black headlines filling page one, and the story of corruption and murder on page two.

"All right, Mopes," said Klaw. "Let's go." The faces of Kerrigan, Murdoch and Klaw were like granite.

They shook hands with Watson Blount, who had a rejuvenated look in his eyes, and went out into the street. The crowd out there had been augmented considerably, for the rumour had spread that big things were doing at the News Building. A group of a hundred and fifty old-timers on the police force was drawn up in military formation, with an ex-captain of police at their head, all dressed in their uniform, with guns belted at their hips.

A lusty cheer rose when they saw Kerrigan and Murdoch and Klaw.

And then they saw a white-haired man with a haggard face pushing through the crowd.

Someone said, "Gregg! That's District Attorney Norton Gregg!"

District Attorney Gregg looked like a man who has endured the tortures of hell. His face was swollen and discolored from the beating he had received at the hands of Rory Fenn, and his white hair was disheveled and matted.

He came straight toward Steve Klaw, and gripped his sleeve.

"Good God!" he exclaimed "you've got to call this off. You can't go on. They've got my daughter, Susan, in jail. They'll beat her to death if you don't stop. Rory Fenn is ready to go to work on her. Bledd himself phoned me— told me to come here! He told me to stop you, or they'll send me Susan's broken body!"

7. THE BATTLE OF SUICIDE SQUARE

"LET'S march on the jail!" someone shouted. "We'll take it apart!"

"No, no!" Gregg cried in an agonized voice, "They'd kill Susan!"

Stephen Klaw put a hand on his shoulder. "Gregg," he said gruffly, "have you got the proof to back up your indictments of Bledd and his crowd?"

Gregg's stance met Steve's squarely. "Yes, I have it. But I'm not turning it over while Susan is in their power."

"No," Steve said thoughtfully. "I can't blame you." Suddenly he looked up. "If your daughter were out of there—"

"I'd go the limit!" Gregg exclaimed. "By God, I'd give you enough to put Bledd in jail for a thousand years!"

"All right, then." Steve looked inquiringly at Murdoch and Kerrigan. Both nodded.

As soon as they nodded, Stephen Klaw raised his hands and shouted to the yelling men in the street. "Quiet, everybody! You heard what Gregg told us. Marching on the jail will mean his daughter's death. I ask you all to remain right here. Do nothing until you hear from us. Will you do that?"

There was grumbling among the uniformed men. But in a moment it subsided. The captain at their head said, "We leave everything in your hands. You three men started this, and you can do it your own way—so long as you give us your word you won't quit on us."

"We won't quit!" Steve told them.

He motioned to Gregg to go inside the News Building. The uniformed men remained , with the mob growing denser every minute.

Steve drew the captain aside "Spread your men out in the Square," he said "and tell them to keep order, just as if they were on duty. Keep the mob in hand till you hear from us."

The captain nodded acquiescence, and Kerrigan, Murdoch and Klaw climbed into the radio car they had left at the curb.

"To the jail," Stephen Klaw said.

As Johnny drove, Murdoch switched on the short-wave radio. He caught the announcer's voice on the police broadcasting station just finishing an order, and saying, "I will repeat..."

The man went on, "All cars give up hunt for Kerrigan, Murdoch and Klaw. They are in the News Building, and have control of the paper. All cars and all police appointed by Mayor Bledd are ordered to report at once to the City Jail. It is possible that an attack will be made on the jail. Report at once!"

Grimly, silently, the three men sat in the car as it sped across town to the City Jail. When they were within half a dozen blocks of it, they saw straggling men hurrying in the sane direction on foot.

"It looks like Bledd is going to hold the jail," Steve said. "We could have got there with those old-timers in time to capture it."

"Yeah," said Johnny. "But what about Susan Gregg?"

"Well," said Steve, "we'll have to go in and get Susan ourselves."

They left the car a block from the jail, and walked. At the main entrance, a crowd of men was going in, but each one who entered had to pass inspection. In the courtyard, two submachine guns were trained on the entrance, and half a dozen men with riot guns were on watch.

Johnny Kerrigan looked glum. "What do we do?" he asked. "Go right through?"

"Not a chance," said Murdoch. "The idea right now is not to get ourselves killed, but to get inside."

"What about those keys you took from Rory Fenn?" Steve asked of Kerrigan.

Johnny pulled them out. There was a thoughtful look in his eyed "You think maybe it'll work?"

Steve shrugged. "We can try."

The three of them faded around the corner, and walked down the side street, close to the jail wall. The prison building was an old structure, massive and weather-beaten, occupying a square block, with the County Court House directly behind it. Like many of the old jails of the period in which it had been built, it had a main entrance at the front, and a side entrance on each of the side streets. At the rear it was connected, by an overhead, enclosed bridge, with the County Court House.

Kerrigan wanted to try his keys in the door of the side entrance, but there wasn't a chance, for a man with a sawed-off shotgun stood on guard just inside. They passed by nonchalantly, then hurried down the street and across to the County Court House.

The Court House was closed for business, of course, but the front door was open, and they went right in. No one was around, except a couple of cleaning women who paid no attention to them.

They climbed the stairs to the first floor, and Kerrigan silently indicated the passage leading to the overhead bridge. Halfway along the bridge, there was a steel door.

Klaw and Murdoch took their guns out, while Johnny tried key after key from Fenn's bunch, in the keyhole.

Suddenly he said, "This is it!"

The key turned, and the lock squeaked. Kerrigan pushed the door in, and Murdoch and Klaw slipped past him, with their guns pointing ahead. There was no one in the corridor on the other side of the door.

They could hear a lot of noise, and the sounds of the movements of many men, and voices raised in command. Coming out of the corridor, they found themselves in the jail mezzanine, looking down into the lobby below, which was thronged with the men who had been admitted at the front gate. Weapons were being handed out from racks by Rory Fenn.

"Remember, you mugs," Fenn was saying, "this is different from any racket you've ever been in. You ain't working for any outlaw racketeer now. You've got the law on your side. Your boss is the mayor of this town, and everything you do is legal. You can go out there and shoot the guts out of those suckers, and they can't do a thing to you. The only ones we got to worry about are the Federal guys. And we've got them stopped, because there ain't a Federal offense that can bring them legally into this town. So shoot to kill, an' kill plenty of the suckers!"

Johnny Kerrigan was scowling. He took a quick step forward and lifted his gun. Steve Klaw grabbed his arm.

"Hold it, Johnny."

Kerrigan nodded. "Okay. But I want Mr. Rory Fenn for myself when the time comes."

The three of them made their way along the mezzanine, and turned into the cell block. The prisoners were all quiet tonight.

Kerrigan led the way into the cell block, and he almost ran head-on into a jailer with a gun holstered at his side.

The jailer sprang back when he saw Kerrigan, but relaxed at sight of the uniform. "What you doing up here?" he demanded. "Get downstairs."

"Not yet!" Johnny said softly.

He stepped closer to the man, who jumped back in sudden alarm. But he almost fell into the arms of Dan Murdoch, who had sidled in beside him. Murdoch clipped him behind the ear.

Steve Klaw stooped, took a small Yale key from the man's belt, and went down to the other end of the cell block, where there was a locked electric switch-box. He used the key to open the box, and then pulled over the lever. Immediately, the electrical connection opened the locks on the long double row of cell doors.

Murdoch went down the line, talking in a low voice, telling the prisoners that they were free, and to file quietly out through the overhead bridge.

Among all these prisoners there was not a single genuine criminal. Men and women had been thrust indiscriminately in the cells, without bothering to separate them. Some were wives and daughters of city officials; some were small business men who had refused to pay tribute to Bledd's thugs. Among them was a twelve-year-old boy, the son of Judge Rotherwell, who had appointed Bledd to the mayoralty. That explained the jurist's acquiescence in the reign of terror.

Klaw went among the prisoners as they filed out, asking for Susan Gregg. He was told that she had been taken to the mayor's office half an hour ago.

"All right," said Steve. "We'll get her, too." They aided the prisoners to leave, waiting until the last one had passed across the bridge. "Get over to the News Building," Steve told them. "Tell the cops there to march down to the jail and wait, a block away, till they hear fireworks and then to come in shooting!"

As soon as the last of the prisoners was gone, the three G-men made their way around the mezzanine toward the other side of the jail, where the warden's office was located. Below, in the lobby, they could see the crowd of men receiving their weapons.

Steve turned the knob silently, then eased the door gently open, a fraction of an inch, enough to peer in.

Two people were in there, a man and a girl. The man was tall, muscular, with a high, clever forehead and thin lips. He was holding the girl, whose arm he had twisted behind her in a painful grip. He was holding her with hand, pushing her imprisoned arm up almost to her shoulder blades, where a little additional pressure would snap it. With his other hand he was holding the telephone.

"It's up to you, Gregg," he was saying into the mouthpiece, "in what shape you want your daughter back. You heard her talk to you. You know we've got the jail covered. You and those cops could never get in here. And while you were trying, your daughter would be screaming—like I made her scream a little while ago, only worse. You can't win, Gregg. You—"

Stephen Klaw's hand tightened on the knob. "Okay, Mopes," he said over his shoulder.

He pushed the door violently, and stepped inside.

Bledd jumped up from the desk, dropping the phone and reaching for a gun which lay in front of him. At the same time his hand pushed Susan Gregg's arm further up against her shoulder blade.

Susan gasped, and fainted.

Stephen Klaw stood in the doorway and waited for Bledd to pick up the gun. Then, when Bledd had the weapon pointed at him, Steve raised the muzzle of his automatic, and fired once.

The slug caught Bledd in the stomach, doubling him over onto the desk.

Kerrigan and Murdoch, coming in behind Klaw, looked at Bledd.

"Nice wound," said Murdoch. "He'll live to fry in the chair."

Kerrigan said, "That was lousy shooting, Shrimp. You could have got him in the shoulder just as well."

"Yes," said Steve, "come to think of it, I could have."

Kerrigan picked up the unconscious body of Susan Gregg.

Steve went to the phone and picked it up. He heard Norton Gregg's anxiety torn voice pounding into the receiver: "Bledd! For God's sake, answer me! What are you doing to Susan?"

"He's doing nothing to Susan," Steve said with a grin. "Come and get her!"

Already there was a rush of feet on the stairs outside, as some of Rory Fenn's men came storming up the stairs.

Out on the mezzanine, Dan Murdoch was coolly picking them off.

Johnny Kerrigan, with the girl over one shoulder, was keeping her body in behind the door of the office while he shot with his free hand.

Stephen Klaw looked around the office, and smiled when he saw what he wanted—a rack of grenades.

He went over and took one. Then he stepped around Bledd's writhing body and went to the door beside Kerrigan.

"Okay," he said. "Let's go!"

Johnny stepped out onto the mezzanine with Steve, and the two of them came up alongside Dan Murdoch, who had just emptied his revolvers. Steve and Johnny kept shooting while Murdoch reloaded. The thugs were coming up the stairs.

Shoulder to shoulder, they advanced to the mezzanine rail, where they could look down on the massed mob of gunmen below. Rory Fenn was raging.

Kerrigan yelled down, "Hey, Fenn!"

Fenn stopped storming at his men, and they all looked up, weapons raised to shoot. But they let their mouths drop open when Stephen Klaw showed them what he was holding.

"If I pull the pin and drop this down there," he taunted, "you boys know how many of you will be alive one minute after it explodes."

"To hell with him!" shouted Fenn. "He'll never throw it. The explosion would kill them, too. It would wreck the building. He's only bluffing. Shoot! Shoot to kill!"

He raised his own gun, and Johnny Kerrigan, who had been waiting expectantly for that moment, snapped a shot down at him. The steel-jacketed .45 caliber slug tore off most of Fenn's head.

On the heels of the thunderous explosion, Steve Klaw leaned over the railing, with his hand on the grenade pin.

"Throw down your weapons!" he ordered. "Your mayor is our prisoner, and Fenn is dead. You have nothing to gain but death if you resist. Surrender, and you may escape with jail terms if you are not implicated in murder!"

Some half dozen of the men down there began to shout defiance. They were the ones who had committed murder in Bledd's service, and would face death anyway. They wanted to fight it out.

But the other men swiftly over-powered them. In a moment, weapons were dropping to the floor. "We surrender!"

No one moved while Stephen Klaw went down among there, with the grenade still in his hand. They opened a wide lane for him. He went out into the yard and unlocked the main gate to the first of the old-time cops, who were just approaching, led by Norton Gregg.

Gregg tenderly took his daughter from Kerrigan. There were tears in his eyes.

"We're going to re-name City Hall Square after you," he told them. "We're calling it Suicide Square."

"Thanks," said Steve. "You can handle things now. We'll be going. See you soon."

"Where—where are you going?"

Klaw winked at Kerrigan and Murdoch. Then he grinned at Gregg.

"We're going to have a little private celebration with a red-headed girl —in a private rail road car!"

THE END

1. A WOMAN DIES

A keen October wind was cutting across the Drive from the Hudson when Stephen Klaw came out of the side street. He stopped in the lee of the corner apartment building, and lit a cigarette. He did not at once put out the match, but held it cupped in front of his face so that his clean-cut though rugged features were illuminated.

Almost at once, a woman came darting from the shadows of the park across the street. She was dressed in a black rain coat, and wore no hat. Her dark hair streamed out behind her as she ran, in zig-zag fashion, as if wounded. And the great spreading stain of crimson upon the black background of the raincoat, just underneath the heart, testified to the wound.

Under her right arm she was clutching a small black leather brief case, which seemed to be more precious to her than the life blood which was pouring from her body.

Before she had taken half a dozen steps across the wide expanse of Riverside Drive toward Stephen Klaw, a man's voice rose in a triumphant shout, hoarse and vindictive: "There she is!"

The man came tearing out from the park, a little farther down the block. At the same time, two other men broke from cover, at other points along the Drive. They had evidently been combing the park for her. All three of them converged upon her. They had peculiar weapons—the stocks resembled those of Thompson sub-machine guns, but the barrels were sawed-off so that they were only about six inches long.

Stephen Klaw's lips pursed tightly when he saw those guns in the hands of the three men. He spat the cigarette from his lips, and thrust his hands down into his jacket pockets. They emerged almost at once, each gripping an automatic.

The first of those three pursuing men dropped to one knee, and aimed his sawed-off machine gun, while the other two raised their weapons to their shoulders to fire as they ran. All three muzzles were concentrated upon the back of the staggering woman. Either they had not seen the slim, almost boyish figure of Stephen Klaw, or else they did not connect him with their quarry.

Klaw's eyes were cold and hard as he fired both automatics from the hip. The men on the extreme right and left of the running woman fell as those two automatics began their spiteful, deadly barking. They never even fired their weapons.

But the third, directly behind the woman, was shielded from Klaw by her staggering body.

The fellow saw his advantage at once, and dropped flat on the ground, raising his sawed-off machine gun and pulling the trip at the same time. A burst of scattering lead belched from the mouth of the vicious weapon, spreading over a radius of twenty feet, something like the buckshot from a small gauge shotgun.

Stephen Klaw had anticipated this tactic. There was only one thing he could do, and he did it without reflection or hesitation. Almost before his two automatics had ceased thundering, he launched himself in a flying tackle, straight at the running woman. He reached her a split instant before the sawed-off machine gun belched forth its lead.

Klaw's shoulder struck the woman's legs and she fell over him, landing so that his body was between her and the machine-gunner. The spray of lead whistled through the air, just above their heads. The man had fired high, evidently hoping to riddle the woman's body from the waist up. Only a few of the pellets arced low enough to strike Klaw, and he barely felt them as he fired his right-hand automatic from his prone position on the ground. His slug took the machine-gunner square in the forehead, and the man just relaxed and lay still.

Stephen sprang to one knee and knelt beside the dark-haired woman. She was trying feebly to stir. A moan escaped from her lips. The wound in her breast was bleeding profusely, and though she had escaped the leaden hail from the machine gun, Klaw could see at a glance that she had not long to live. She raised a haggard face to his.

"Did—did they get you—too?"

He put a hand on her shoulder. "No. Only a few little nicks. I'll be able to pluck them out, easily."

"Thank... God... you're safe. I knew... they were looking... for me ... in the park. But I had to... keep the appointment with you. They got me ... with a lucky shot when I escaped with the brief case. I wouldn't have lasted... much longer..."

"I got the three of them," Stephen Klaw said grimly. "If that's any consolation. Now, I'm going to call an ambulance—"

"No, no. I'm... through—done for. Take the brief case. It contains the list... I promised to get for you. All the names of the Executive Council... of... Skull and Swastika Corps!"

Klaw took the black leather case. He did not open it. He bent low over the dying woman.

"You've done a great service for your country, Mary Watson—"

"No, no. It's only... small part. You... must do the... rest. I got all names except the... leader's. His name was... Franz Trebizond... in Germany. I don't know... what name he uses in this country. That is for you ... to find..."

The blood was pumping out of her body at an appalling rate. She should have been dead, but she was clinging to life by a terrible effort of naked will power.

"Look out for... Franz Trebizond. He is clever, ruthless—a blond beast without mercy or heart. And watch for the woman, Lisa Monterey. She is ... bad as he..."

Mary Watson gasped, and a spasm went through her body. But she held on to life for another moment, with a grim purposeful effort.

"You must promise me... one thing more..."

"Anything you ask," Steve said.

"Promise to look after my daughter, Sue. They—the Skull and Swastika Corps—will try to hurt her because of what I did to them." She shuddered, and pressed a hand against her breast as if to stem the tide of spilling blood for one instant more. "I—I can't bear to think of Sue in the hands of those monsters. They... know dreadful tortures... they know where to find every living nerve in a girl's body. They would keep her in agony for days and days—"

"No, they won't," Stephen Klaw said grimly. He took a deep breath. "I give you my word, Mary Watson," he said solemnly, "and I give you the word of Kerrigan and Murdoch too. The three of us will see to it that nothing happens to Sue Watson—while we're alive!"

A look of ineffable happiness came into the swiftly-dimming eyes of Mary Watson, erasing the mask of pain from her features. Her body relaxed, giving way at last to the sweet, blank nothingness of death.

She lay still....

2. CODE FOR KILLERS

Stephen Klaw put a finger upon the artery in her throat. There was no pulse, no life. Slowly, he picked up the brief case, and rose to his feet. As he looked down upon the still body of Mary Watson, there was a tight gray bleakness in his face, which had not been there before.

Sounds arose about him, in the quiet night air. Fifty heads were poked out of apartment house windows, and voices called out in fright and in execration.

"There's the murderer... He killed the woman... It's the Skull and Swastika again—I recognize those machine guns! Call the police! Catch him! Catch the murderer!"

Men were running out of the corner house, others were coming from up and down the street. From a ground floor window a man's voice came clearly, high- pitched and keen: "Operator! Operator! Get police headquarters! It's a killing! The Skull and Swastika..."

Stephen Klaw paid no attention to the shouts, to the people who stared out of the window, or to those who were . His lips moved faintly as he stood over the body of the dark-haired woman.

"I don't like leaving you here, Mary Watson, dead in the gutter. But you were a brave woman. You would understand."

Instinctively, his right hand, holding the still-hot automatic, rose to his forehead in mute salute. Then, with the brief-case under his left arm, and an automatic in each hand, he turned and strode away down the same side-street from which he had come. He looked neither to the right nor to the left, walking as if all those shouting, gesticulating, threatening people did not even exist.

They kept their distance, too, for the sight of those dead bodies on the ground, and of the automatics in his hands, was enough to deter the boldest of them from attempting to stop him.

But they yelled and they screamed, and they blasphemed against him.

"Dammed Nazi," he heard. And, "He's a Skull and Swastika gunman. Get the yellow rat!"

A grim smile of irony tugged at Stephen Klaw's lips, at the thought that be should be reviled as a member of the vicious Fifth Column organization which he was fighting to the death. But he couldn't stop and explain to these people that he was an agent of the F. B. I., acting sub rosa, and without official commission. That was a secret between himself and his Chief. Yet he liked the sound of those epithets which were flung at him, because it reflected the temper of the American people. Americans were not ones to accept the activities of such an organization, as people of other countries had done, to their own cost.

These were the men and the descendants of men who had made America great and strong. These were men who had fought in the last world war, and who wanted only peace for this generation of their sons. Yet they were ready and willing to hurl themselves unarmed, against an armed enemy who was boring from within to destroy their cherished institutions and their cherished liberty.

Klaw smiled, like a fond elder brother. He fired twice into the air, then turned and took to his heels. It was the first time in recorded history that Stephen Klaw had run from danger!

As police sirens shrilled in the distance, the pursuing crowd raised a great shout. They had their man trapped. Steve knew well enough, that once he were caught now, even those blue coats in the police car would not be able to keep him from being battered to a pulp by the fierce revengeful fists of his pursuers. There had been too many hideous tortures and wanton killings in recent weeks on the part of the Skull and Swastika Corps, and the citizens were out for blood. He must escape quickly. He must reach the place where he had left his car in the next side street.

Steve swung into an open lot, as he had previously planned. But before he was halfway across the lot, a bullet whined past his head, followed by another and another. The stentorian voice of one of the blue coats in the police car bellowed after him. "Stop! Or we'll shoot to kill!"

Stephen Klaw kept on running. He bent low from the waist, holding tight to the brief case which Mary Watson had bequeathed to him. He heard the police officer curse behind him, and shout, "All right, you asked for it!"

Only then did Klaw throw himself forward at full length on the ground. The policeman's gun bellowed, and a bullet screamed through the air, followed by another and another in quick succession.

"He's down!" some one shouted. "You got him—"

"Naw!" yelled the cop. "He dropped before I fired."

Klaw jumped up, and started to run once more. He was almost into the mouth of the alley now, with only a low fence intervening. He hurdled the fence on the run, just as the cop fired again. He almost felt the tug of that bullet against his coat as he went over the fence into the alley beyond.

Now he raced through the alley out into the street beyond, with the hue and cry rising behind him to a shrilling crescendo of fury. His margin of safety was small, but it was enough for him. He was in his car, and had it started before the first of the pursuing throng came out into the street after him.

Without putting on his lights, he sent the car roaring away, and turned the far corner on two wheels. A couple of desultory shots followed him, but they were ineffective. In a moment he was away from all pursuit.

He switched on his radio, and drove south on Broadway, listening to the short wave alarms which were being broadcast for him. The police were still under the impression that he was an operative of the Skull and Swastika Corps, and they were instituting a thorough man-hunt. But they didn't have the license of his car, nor the make, for it had been too dark back there on that side street. Neither did they have a good description of him.

Grimly he opened the briefcase as he drove. He was surprised to find that it contained only a single sheet of paper, with a series of hieroglyphics written in vertical columns, as the Chinese write.

There were nine of these vertical lines, each containing from fifteen to thirty characters. Glancing at it swiftly as he drove, Klaw was unable to decide whether the characters were Chinese, or some less known alphabet of Indo-China or Malaysia. But there was no time to waste in deciphering this puzzle now. Mary Watson had said that this paper contained the names of the Executive Council of the Skull and Swastika, but not the present identity of Franz Trebizond, which Klaw wanted more than anything else. But first, there was one other thing which he must make sure of—a thing for which he had pledged his word, and the word of his two partners, Kerrigan and Murdoch.

When he reached the Eighties, he turned off and drove half way down the block until he reached a small apartment house set between a garage and a public playground. The playground was dark and deserted now, but the garage was busy.

Klaw did not stop in front of the apartment house. He merely glanced at it as he drove past, and swung his car into the garage. A sign on the outside said: "PARKING—50 cents."

He left his car here, paid the fee and got a parking ticket. Then he walked out, stood at the curb for a moment while he lit a cigarette. He glanced up at the facade of the apartment house next door, fixing his glance for an instant on the first-floor window nearest the garage. There was a light in that window. He waited at the curb, smoking the cigarette slowly. A minute passed. Then the light was suddenly extinguished. It remained out for another full minute, then went on again.

Steve threw away his cigarette, and entered the apartment house. He avoided the elevator and went up the single flight of stairs to the first floor. At the door of Apartment IA he pressed the button three times quickly, then twice, then once. The door was opened immediately, and he stepped inside.

The girl who met him in the foyer was so breathtakingly lovely that anyone who saw her once could never forget her. She was little more than nineteen. The white oval of her face was set off by dark, silky soft hair. And her resemblance to Mary Watson was so marked that there could be no doubt she was the daughter of the woman who had died on Riverside Drive a few minutes ago.

Sue Watson said nothing as she closed the door behind Stephen Klaw. She just stood in the foyer, her slim and graceful body taut, her lower lip trembling. Her eyes bored deep into Steve's, as if she would delve into his very soul.

Suddenly, she closed her eyes, and a little moan escaped from her lips.

"Dead?" she asked. She opened her eyes and waited for the answer.

Stephen Klaw gulped, and bowed his head.

Sue Watson did not burst into tears. Her face became white, and her bands clenched at her sides. She swayed just a little, and Steve put forth a hand, then quickly withdrew it.

Silently, Sue Watson turned and led him into the living room. She went to the window, pulled the blind all the way down. Then she came and seated herself in a straight-backed chair facing Klaw.

"Tell me all about it, Steve," she said in a tight little voice. "I want to know how she died."

"She was a very brave woman, Sue," he told her. "She was mortally wounded, yet she managed to make her way to the place where she was to meet me. She brought the list of names—all but Trebizond's. We still don't know what name Trebizond adopted since coming to the United States."

Sue Watson's eyes widened. "Then—then she threw away her life. She died in vain?"

"No!" Steve told her grimly. "Your mother did not die in vain. We'll use that list to bring Trebizond out in the open. As soon as Kerrigan and Murdoch get here, we'll go into action. Have they called yet?"

"Yes. They called fifteen minutes ago from the airport. They'll be here any minute. But—but how can just the three of you fight the whole Skull and Swastika Corps? Won't the government help you at all?"

"No. We're on our own. We're acting as private citizens. Whatever we do is outside the law. There would be very little chance of getting enough evidence against the S. S. Corps to convict them in court. And even if we did, we couldn't afford to reveal our methods and our information at a public trial."

"I see," she said slowly. "So you three are going to stick your heads in the jackal's mouth—as usual!"

Klaw shrugged. "Your mother did it."

Twenty years ago, Mary Watson had been married to Franz Trebizond, who had even then been a member of the Nazi minority party in Germany. They had been divorced within a year, and Mary Watson had married again, and forgotten that nightmare year, during which she had learned just how much of a beast a man can be. When her second husband was killed in an airplane accident, Mary Watson had devoted her life to her two daughters, Sue and Eve. She had relegated Franz Trebizond to the limbo of forgotten things, had made a full life for herself in the busy duties of a mother.

But Franz Trebizond was not so easily disposed. In the intervening years he had risen to power with the Nazi party, and had become chief of the Bureau of Foreign Activity, directing Nazi spies and saboteurs from his headquarters in Berlin. Unfortunately, Mary Watson had not kept track of him. She had permitted Sue's elder sister, Eve, to make a vacation trip across Europe, just before the war broke out. Eve's itinerary had carried her through Berlin. And there, Eve had disappeared.

A WEEK later, Eve's body was found in the Danube River. Mary Watson, desperate with grief, began to pull wires and to seek information from friends in Europe. Little by little, she learned the story. Franz Trebizond had never forgotten her, never forgiven her for marrying another man and having two beautiful daughters by that other man. He had waited, and bided his time. It was he who had ordered Eve Watson's murder. And he had made sure that Mary Watson would hear of the circumstances.

There was nothing that Mary could do about it, until a few weeks ago. She learned that Franz Trebizond, who had directed Fifth Column activities in Holland, Belgium and South America, had come at last to the United States to take over the active direction of the Skull and Swastika Corps. She remembered that Trebizond had owned an old house in New York, and guessed that he might use it as headquarters. She had phoned Stephen Klaw, who was an old friend, that she would make an attempt to enter that house and obtain evidence. She had insisted, in spite of Steve's protests, that she wanted to do the job alone —as a gesture of vengeance for the murder of her daughter, Eve. And she had made the appointment to meet him at the spot where she had died tonight.

Now, looking at Sue Watson sitting straight and taut, Stephen Klaw remembered his promise to see that no harm came to this beautiful girl. There would be a double reason why the Skull and Swastika should go after her. The S. S. Corps was known for its ruthless acts of vengeance, even unto the second generation. And besides, the vindictiveness of Franz Trebizond would never be satisfied until he had wiped out the entire family of Mary Watson.

"You're sure," he asked her, "that this house is not being watched?"

"Quite sure," she told him, bitterly. "I've learned how to check on things like that. I wouldn't have given you the signal with the light if there had been any doubt. Mother and I have moved many times in the last years —always a little ahead of Trebizond. We cover our tracks."

Steve nodded. "Good. Then we can make our headquarters here—if you don't mind."

"If I don't mind!" Her eyes flashed. "Of course I don't! I want to help in the fight!" her voice broke—"for Eve's and Mother's sake!"

The telephone rang, and she sprang up to answer it. She spoke for a moment, then hung up and turned to Klaw.

"It's Johnny Kerrigan and Dan Murdoch. They're in the drug store around the corner. They're coming right up."

In less than five minutes, the bell rang, with the same signal that Klaw had used. Sue Watson went to the door and admitted Kerrigan and Murdoch.

They stepped swiftly inside, and grinned at Klaw. Klaw grinned back at them.

"Hello, mopes," he said. "Hello, Shrimp," said Johnny Kerrigan. "Hiya, Shrimp?" said Dan Murdoch. These three had worked together for so long that they could almost read each other's minds. Long ago, they had found that they had one thing in common—a deliberate, willful, daredevil recklessness which made them always seek the longest odds and the most dangerous tasks. As Special Agents of the F. B. I., they were never assigned to routine jobs, but got only those assignments from which there was little chance of returning alive.

Stephen Klaw had once told the chairman of a senate investigating committee to go to hell when he had been asked why he shot to kill in a battle with a criminal gang. Johnny Kerrigan had once punched a senator's son in the nose. And Dan Murdoch had shot a crooked croupier to death in a gambling dive.

For such acts, any other agents would have been summarily dismissed from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. But the records of those three were so outstanding that they were allowed to retain their jobs—with this proviso: that they were never to be assigned to ordinary duty where there might be a risk of offending the powers-that-be. They were kept in reserve for the undertakings for which the Chief of the F. B. I. would hesitate to order a man.

THAT was the way Kerrigan and Murdoch and Klaw wanted it. They were known as the Suicide Squad. Originally, there had been five of them. Then four. Now there were but three, and tomorrow there might be only two, one—or none. Only one thing was certain. If the Suicide Squad died, they would die fighting to the last gasp.

"You get all the breaks, Shrimp!" Johnny Kerrigan growled. "Dan and I were tied up in Washington, working on a secret code book that was found on a dead guy last week, while you had the excitement."

"How do you know I had excitement?" Steve demanded.

"I can see it in your eyes. And there are holes in your coat. They weren't made by moths!"

"Nice work," said Steve. "Keep at it, and you'll make a first-class detective some day."

Dan Murdoch came around and examined the holes in Steve's coat. Some of them were darkly flecked with congealed blood.

"Buckshot!" said Murdoch. "Take off your coat, Shrimp. We'll take out the pieces, and cauterize the holes. Do you want to get tetanus?"

Kerrigan chuckled. "The buckshot is more likely to get tetanus, if you ask me!"

Steve stripped off his coat and shirt and Sue Watson went into the kitchen and boiled up a pot of water for sterilizing, and brought in gauze and scissors and a knife.

There were seven pellets in Klaw's body, and it was painful work removing them and cauterizing the small wounds. Kerrigan, for all his bulk, had marvelously sensitive fingers. It was he who did the work of extracting the lead, while Murdoch cauterized and bandaged.

While they labored over him, Steve told them swiftly what had happened on Riverside Drive, never even stopping to gasp when Dan applied a red-hot knife to the wounds.

He finished his story, and showed them the paper he had taken from Mary Watson's brief-case.

"If we could only work out this code," he said. "We'd have the names of the Executive Council. It wouldn't give us Trebizond by a long shot, because I'm sure that even the Executive Council doesn't know the identity he's working under. But we could make use of those names—"

He stopped, seeing Kerrigan and Murdoch grinning at each other.

"What's the joke, mopes?"

"Oh, nothing," said Murdoch. He took the paper and went to a desk in the corner, turned on the light, and took a small notebook from his pocket. He began working with pencil and paper while Kerrigan finished up dressing Klaw's wounds.

In five minutes, Murdoch got up from the desk and came over with a sheet of paper upon which he had written nine names.

"Johnny told you we were working on a code book, didn't he? Well, we couldn't figure out which espionage organization was using that code. Now we know. The characters on this paper you got, are the same as the code book. It's the Skull and Swastika Code Book, and here's the list of names of their Executive Council!"

Steve took the paper eagerly. Kerrigan looked at the names over his shoulder, and whistled.

"Good Lord! They've got themselves in—solid!"

TWO of the names were those of political bosses who controlled a large foreign vote. Four were city and state officials. The other three were fairly well known business men of foreign extraction.

"We could arrest them all, tonight!" exclaimed Kerrigan.

"Sure!" Stephen Klaw barked. "And they'd be released in the morning for lack of evidence. This list wouldn't convict them in court. We'd only be putting Trebizond on guard!"

"Also," Murdoch added, "it is to be remembered that we are acting as private citizens, and not as Federal Agents." He grimaced. "No, my dear Mr. Kerrigan, your idea is putrid!"

"How'll we handle it then?" Johnny growled.

Stephen Klaw put his shirt and coat on, over his bandages.

"Watch me, mopes," he said. He turned to

Sue Watson. "Is your phone on the dial system?"

She nodded. "Yes. Why—"

"Then they won't be able to trace the call back here."

He ran his finger down the list of names, and stopped at that of Sylvester Gröner.

"I've heard of him," Murdoch said. "He runs a travel bureau. Used to book personally conducted tours through Germany before the war."

"He'll do!" said Klaw. He went over to the telephone stand, looked up Gröner's home phone number, then dialed it.

Sue Watson looked blank and uncomprehending. But Kerrigan and Murdoch, after glancing at each other, nodded approval.

"Maybe you've got something there, Shrimp!" Dan Murdoch said.

Just then, Klaw got his connection. "Let me talk to Mr. Gröner, please," he said. "My name? Just tell him it's Mr. Black—Mr. James Black... No, Mr. Gröner doesn't know me. But he'll certainly be glad to talk to me."

Steve held the phone for a moment, winking at the others. Then he nodded as Sylvester Gröner's voice came over the wire.

"Yes?" they heard faintly. "What can I do for you?"

"Mr. Gröner," Steve said swiftly, "I know where to lay my hands on a certain list of names which was stolen from a certain place tonight. The government would give a handsome reward for that list, but I figure it's worth more to you. Say, a hundred thousand dollars."

There was a moment's silence, and they thought that Gröner had hung up. But then his voice was heard once more.

"Who are you?"

"You may call me Mr. Black. You can see I'm not bluffing, when I tell you that your name is number seven on the list."

"I don't know what you're talking about—"

"Suit yourself, Mr. Gröner. I'd just as soon turn the list over to the Government unless I can make some money out of it. If you won't pay, why I'll just say good-by—"

"Wait!"

Steve held the wire, while there was another long pause. Then, "Just who are you, Mr. Black?"

"Let us say," Steve said into the phone, "that I represent an independent syndicate."

"International spies, eh?"

"Perhaps. Does it matter? Do you want to do business with me or not?"

"You say you have this list in your possession?"

"No. But I will get it tomorrow afternoon. I must know now whether you want to buy it. Otherwise, I will make other arrangements."

Gröner's voice was hesitant. "I must consult someone else. Give me an hour. Where can I get in touch with you?"

"You can't. But tomorrow, at exactly three-thirty in the afternoon, I'll register at the Groton Hotel. You can contact me there."

"You'll have the list with you?"

"No. But I'll be able to lay my hands on it, if you're ready to do business. And now—good-by, Mr. Gröner!"

He hung up swiftly, and turned to face the others. "Think he'll nibble, mopes?"

"Boy!" said Kerrigan. "I can just imagine how Gröner is burning up the wires right now, to get in touch with Franz Trebizond! Too bad we can't tap his wire!"

"Naughty, naughty!" said Dan Murdoch; "Mustn't do anything against the law!"

3. ALIASES CAN'T FOOL DEATH

AT EXACTLY three-twenty the next afternoon, Stephen Klaw entered the lobby of the Groton Hotel. He had no baggage.

The lobby was busy, with people moving in and out of the cocktail lounge at the left. Klaw paid no attention to those who watched him as he passed. To all outward appearance, he might have been totally unaware that his every move was observed from the moment he stepped inside the door.

At the desk, he handed the clerk a ten dollar bill.

"Bath or shower, sir?" asked the clerk.

"Shower," said Steve. "And I want a room on an upper floor. Anything from the fifteenth up."

"So you can enjoy the view of Central Park, sir?"

"No," Steve told him. "I may have to throw someone out the window. I want him to have a long fall."

"Ha, ha," the clerk said nervously. "That's a good joke, sir." He took a key from the rack. "I can give you Room one-nine-one-o—"

"Okay." Klaw picked up the pen, and signed the register: "James Black, Washington, D.C."

While he was doing this, a woman in a black cloth coat with a chinchilla collar came over to the desk and idly picked a travel folder from the rack. She was a beautiful woman, with features so sharp and perfect that they might have been chiseled from Carrara marble by a master sculptor. Her gleaming yellow hair was arranged in a halo around her head, beneath a small chinchilla hat which matched the coat collar.

As she took the travel folder, her eyes darted across to the register, and rested for a fleeting instant upon the name which Stephen Klaw had signed. Then they flicked to the room number stamped upon the key, which the clerk was handing to a bellhop.

A faint smile, tinged with irony, tugged at her full red lips. She turned away from the desk and looked across the lobby, toward two men who were standing near the elevator. Her fingers appeared to be toying idly with the pearl necklace at her throat. In reality, they were moving in the swift gestures of the deaf-and-dumb sign language.

Stephen Klaw, alias Mr. James Black, seemed to be busy lighting a cigarette. But he did not miss the woman's actions, nor did he fail to take note of the two men to whom she was signaling. His face remained expressionless. Except for the sudden flicker of his slate-gray eyes, he gave no sign that he had noticed anything. But he saw those two men hurry into the elevator.

Without haste, he got his cigarette lit, accepted his change from the clerk, and then proceeded to compare his wrist watch with the electric clock over the desk. All this took only a couple of minutes. But it was long enough for the elevator cage containing those two men to reach its destination. Glancing at the indicator Steve saw that it had stopped at nineteen. The woman with the chinchilla collar moved across the lobby to the row of telephone booths alongside the entrance to the cocktail lounge. She entered one of them, and dialed a number, turning frequently to look back toward Steve.

Steve grinned. He glanced at the bellhop, who was waiting impatiently to take him upstairs.

"Just a minute, sonny," Steve said, and took the key out of the boy's hand. He put it down on the desk. "I've changed my mind," he told the clerk. "The nineteenth floor is a little too high. Have you got anything on the eighteenth?"

The clerk sighed. "Well, sir, there's nothing wrong with the nineteenth, but if you insist—" he replaced the key, and took another from the rack —"here's the corresponding room on the eighteenth floor.

"That's much better," Steve approved. Now he followed the boy over to the elevators. The cage which had taken the two men up was already descending, but there was another one waiting, and they entered it. As the operator slid the door shut, Steve got a quick, fleeting glimpse of the woman in the chinchilla-collared coat. She was hurrying out of the phone booth, and making a bee line for the desk, evidently in great excitement. She had left the telephone receiver dangling by the cord in the booth, indicating that she had not yet finished her conversation with whomever she had called. She must have sensed that Stephen Klaw had pulled a fast one at the desk, and she was losing no time in checking up.

KLAW chuckled. He saw the bellhop watching him, and he winked. The boy grinned, and winked back. Stephen Klaw was not the type to inspire fear or respect at first glance. He was so slim and wiry that he looked hardly older than the bellboy. It was only when one saw the cold glint in those slate-gray eyes of his that one must instantly realize he was no kid.

The elevator reached the eighteenth floor, and Klaw followed the uniformed lad down the carpeted hallway to 1810. The boy opened the door, and they went in. Klaw took out a five dollar bill and gave it to the lad.

"Gee, thanks, mister!" the kid gulped.

Klaw smiled. "This is just to show you who's your friend, sonny. Now scram. Things will be getting hot here pretty soon."

He fairly thrust the lad out of the room, and shut the door. But he was careful not to lock it.

He glanced at his wrist watch, and saw that it was exactly three o'clock. Almost at once, the telephone rang. He went to the night table and picked it up.

"James Black speaking," He said.

A familiar voice answered. "Hello, Mr. Black. This is Mr. White."

Steve grinned. Nobody who had ever heard that deep, stentorian voice of big Johnny Kerrigan could ever mistake it again for another. Kerrigan was the second of that triumvirate of daredevils who had come to be known in the F. B. I. as the Suicide Squad. The third was Dan Murdoch. Where one of them appeared, the other two were sure to be somewhere in the offing. They worked together like the well-oiled mechanism of a precision machine. The combination of Kerrigan, Murdoch and Klaw was one which the mightiest of felons had grown to fear.

Stephen Klaw chuckled into the phone. "How are you doing, Mr. White?"

"Not so bad, Mr. Black. I was behind that newspaper in the corner of the lobby when you came in. I watched the dame go in to phone. When she came dashing out, I stepped into the next booth, and traced the call. So now I know to whom she is reporting."

"Excellent work, Mr. White. Anything else?"

"Yeah. She scrammed back into her booth and finished up her conversation in a hurry, and then she phoned up to Room One-nine-one-o. She was so excited that I could hear what she said. She told the two bozos in there that you had switched rooms, and that they should go to Room Eighteen-ten and tackle you at once. They must be on the way down right now."

"Thanks, Mr. White. I've left my door unlocked for them."

"Watch yourself, Shrimp—"

"Nuts to you, Mr. White. Hang up, please. I expect a call from Mr. Green."

"Okay, Shrimp. Good-by."

Klaw put the phone down, glanced at his wrist watch, and waited at the telephone stand, with his back to the door. He kept his right hand dug deep down in his coat pocket, and his left was on the phone. His wrist watch showed four minutes after three.

He heard his doorknob creak slightly as it was tried from outside, but he did not turn around. He kept his eyes on the second-hand of his watch. When it had made a complete revolution, bringing the time to three-five, the phone rang once more. He picked it up and said, "Mr. Black speaking."

"Hello, Mr. Black," came Dan Murdoch's voice. "This is Mr. Green. I have those papers for you. Will you meet me at the usual place?"

"Louder," said Stephen Klaw.

He knew that the door was opening behind him, because he was standing in such a way that he could see the dresser mirror out of the corner of his eye. He glimpsed a long thin face, with a small moustache. It was the face of one of the two men who had been in the lobby and who had hurried up to Room 1910. The man was pushing the door carefully, squeezing his body through the opening. He had a small Smith & Wesson automatic pistol in his hand.

Steve took no notice. He held the French phone at his ear, and repeated, "Louder, Mr. Green."

Over the wire, Dan Murdoch's voice whispered, "Did they rise to the bait, Shrimp?"

"Yes."

"Are they in the room?"

"Yes."

"Okay, Shrimp, here goes." Murdoch raised his voice.

"THIS IS MR. GREEN," he shouted. "I HAVE THOSE PAPERS FOR YOU. IF YOU WILL MEET ME AT THE USUAL PLACE, I'LL DELIVER THEM TO YOU!"

"All right, Mr. Green. I'll meet you there in fifteen minutes. Good- by."

Stephen Klaw put the phone down, still with his right hand in his coat pocket. As if casually, he put his left hand in his other pocket. He turned around and faced the two men who had come into the room. Neither of them looked dangerous, except for the weapons in their hands. The first, with his small, well-kept moustache and thin, almost aristocratic face, might have been a banker or a director of a large corporation. The second was soft, and a bit paunchy, with a round, good-natured face, and could have passed for a genial neighborhood doctor.

The stout man pushed the door shut behind him with a poke of his elbow, while the one with the moustache bowed from the hips.

"Mr. Black," he said, in faultless, painstaking English which betrayed the fact that he was a foreigner of excellent education. "I must beg your pardon for this unceremonious entrance. But the urgency of our business with you must serve as an excuse. In our profession—" he jerked his head toward his stout companion, who beamed—"and in yours, there is a motto to the effect that the end justifies the means."

"I see," Stephen Klaw said dryly. "And what is it you want?"

"I am so glad to see that you are a reasonable man, Mr. Black. Permit me to introduce myself. I am—Mr. Smith. And this—" nodding in the direction of the stout man—"is Mr. Jones."

"Very interesting," said Steve.

Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones both kept their automatics carefully pointed at Klaw's stomach.

"We just heard you making an appointment over the phone with a certain Mr. Green. You are going to meet him, and he is going to turn over to you a certain list of names. Not so?"

"You're doing the talking," Steve said noncommittally.

Mr. Smith shrugged. "Please do not make it hard for us. We know that your name is not Black, and that your friend's name is not Green, just as you know that our names are not Smith and Jones. Let us not beat around the bush. Mr. Jones and I are members of the S. S. Corps. You know, naturally, what the S. S. Corps represents?"

"Never heard of it," Steve lied, with a straight face.

Mr. Smith sighed. He looked sideways at Mr. Jones, taking care not to let his gun muzzle waver from Stephen Klaw's stomach.

"Show him just who we are, Mr. Jones."

The stout Mr. Jones showed all his teeth in a hearty, genial smile. "It will be a pleasure, indeed!"

Keeping his gun trained on Steve, he used his left hand to turn back the lapel of his coat. A glittering button was fastened to it.

"You will recognize this emblem, Mr. Black," he said, and moved up closer, thrusting the lapel out to bring the button nearer to Steve's eyes.

It was about the size of a quarter, and made of some sort of black, polished onyx. Upon its surface was carved a gleaming silver skull, and super imposed upon the skull there was a golden swastika.

"Ah," said Steve, acting as if a great light had just dawned upon him. "S. S.—Skull and Swastika. I recognize it now!"

"Exactly!" beamed Mr. Jones.

MR. SMITH stepped forward so that he was alongside of Mr. Jones. He pushed the muzzle of his gun up against Steve's diaphragm.

"It will do you no good to pretend ignorance, Mr. Black. We of the Skull and Swastika Corps are not fools. We know that you belong to the government, and that your real name is Stephen Klaw. We know that you have come here to contact a certain Mr. Green, whose real name is Murdoch. He is to turn over to you a list of the Executive Council of the S. S. Corps. We just heard you making an appointment to meet him."

Stephen Klaw kept his hands in his pockets, and gazed bleakly at those two.

"You're pretty well-informed, aren't you?"

"Extremely so. And we might as well tell you that we are prepared to go to any lengths to keep that list of names from falling into the hands of the United States Government."

"How far?"

Mr. Smith wiggled his gun, and shrugged. "Murder and further!"

Steve raised his eyebrows. "What's further than murder?"

Mr. Smith gestured impatiently with his automatic. "Please don't waste time. Surely you remember the newspaper stories of the girl who was found last week with her tongue cut out, and—"

"I remember," Steve said hastily. There was a queer, flickering light in his eyes "That was Estelle Frazer. She had just come back from Germany, and she was scheduled to appear before a Senate Investigating Committee, to tell certain secrets she had learned there."

"Quite so," said Mr. Smith. "But she never talked. She begged to be killed quickly, Mr. Black. There have been others, too."

Stephen Klaw's eyes were no longer flickering. They were cold and hard. His hands, still dug deep in his pockets, were motionless. He asked quietly —almost too quietly: "So it was you two gentlemen who tortured her, and then left her mutilated body to be found?"

Mr. Jones beamed. "Exactly, exactly. It served as an example of the power of the Skull and Swastika Corps. Now you, Mr. Klaw, can save yourself a great deal of bodily pain by disclosing to us the place where you were to meet Mr. Green. We will go instead, and relieve him of the list."

"And what happens to me?" Klaw asked.

"As soon as we have the list safe," Mr. Jones promised unctuously, "we will let you go."

"You lie," said Stephen Klaw. "You've just confessed to me that you tortured and murdered Estelle Frazer. You can't afford to let me live."

Mr. Jones was about to protest, but Mr. Smith stopped him. He nodded sympathetically at Steve.

"That is true. The best we can promise you is a quick death. Speak now, and tell us where you are to meet Murdoch, and we will kill you mercifully with a bullet. If you refuse, we will have to—ah—make your last hours on earth a nightmare of agony. Do not doubt that we can do it. We have already told you about Estelle Frazer. There have been others. We have men downstairs in the lobby, whom we can bring up. They have all the necessary paraphernalia. We will hang out a 'Do Not Disturb' sign, and proceed to work on you at our leisure."

"That," said Stephen Klaw, "is all I wanted to know!"

"What do you mean?" demanded Mr. Smith. "Do you mean that you will talk—"

"No," said Steve. "I mean that I will shoot!"

He fired both automatics in his coat pockets, without removing them. He merely thrust the muzzles up as far as they would go, and pulled the triggers. The bullets scorched the cloth of his coat. The explosions were low, muffled. The slugs—one from each gun—struck Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones as accurately as if he had aimed carefully and painstakingly. He got each of them in the right arm, just above the elbow.

And then, a very curious thing happened. Steve had aimed deliberately at the gun arm of both men, because he knew that they would pull the triggers of their own weapons, even if only by reflex action. He had hoped that the driving force of his own shots would swing them around, so that he would not be hit.

In this he was correct. But Mr. Smith who was standing at the right of Mr. Jones, was whirled around in such fashion that his back was turned to the stout and genial Mr. Jones.

Both guns went off at almost the same instant, echoing Steve's two shots. Mr. Smith's shot went harmlessly into the wall, but Mr. Jones's slug smashed squarely into Mr. Smith's back.

Mr. Smith toppled forward, blood gushing from his mouth. He fell against the wall, then slid to the floor, and remained there, motionless.

Mr. Jones gazed at his dead confrere, as if spellbound. His right arm hung limp at his side, and the automatic which had driven and killed Smith fell from his numbed hand. He uttered a choked cry of rage, and stopped to pick up the gun with his left hand.

Stephen Klaw sighed, and hit him once behind the ear with the butt of his reversed automatic.

The stout Mr. Jones fell across the body of Mr. Smith.

Steve bent and pulled the unconscious Jones off the body of Smith, and maneuvered around till he got the man's coat off. Jones's arm was bleeding profusely. Steve didn't bother to stop and examine it. He went to the bed and yanked a sheet off, tore it into strips, and tied it as tightly as he could around Jones's arm, above the wound, in the form of a rough tourniquet. Then, to make sure that Mr. Jones would not wake up and go away from there, Steve handcuffed him to the bed.

He went methodically through the pockets of both men, removing everything he found, including the black-lacquered Skull-and-Swastika buttons. He had just about finished, when the telephone rang again. He picked it up, and was greeted by Johnny Kerrigan's voice.

"Hello, Mr. Black, how you doing?"

"I'm doing all right, Mr. White. I had two visitors."

"How do they feel now?"

"One of them is past all feeling. The other isn't interested. I have two of the buttons."

"Very nice work, Mr. Black. Come on down. The lady with the yellow hair and the chinchilla collar is getting restless. I can see her from the phone booth here, and she's biting her fingernails."

"Is she alone?"

"Not much. There's at least half a dozen bozos in here that are taking orders from her. Those two you interviewed upstairs were only a scouting force."

Steve grinned. "I'll be right down!"

He hung up and hurried out of the room. On the way he picked up the "Do Not Disturb" sign, and hung it on the knob. He made sure the door was locked and went down the hall to the elevator. Once more he slipped both hands into his coat pockets...

4. BROKEN PROMISE

The lobby was just as busy as it had been ten minutes ago, but with this difference—there was an air of tense expectancy which somehow seemed to charge the atmosphere with latent dynamite.

Stepping out of the elevator, Stephen Klaw threw a swift, comprehensive glance around, seeking to orientate himself to all the focal points of danger. He spotted Johnny Kerrigan, still in the telephone booth, engrossed in a mythical conversation over the wire. Johnny had his lips close to the mouthpiece, with the receiver at his ear, and was going through all the motions of talking, but he was in reality keeping a sharp weather eye out on the occupants of the lobby.

Johnny nodded almost imperceptibly in the direction of the cocktail lounge, and Steve looked in that direction and saw the tall, slender figure of Dan Murdoch, seated at the bar in there and sipping his inevitable Scotch-and-soda. From where Murdoch sat he had a clear view of the lobby, and there was nothing between him and the hotel foyer to obstruct the possible line of fire in the event of trouble.

Murdoch winked over his highball glass, but Steve Klaw did not return the wink.

Steve got that much of the picture as he stepped out of the elevator cage. Next, he switched to the lobby itself.

The yellow-haired woman with the chinchilla collar was seated in an easy chair, with her long silk-stockinged legs crossed, smoking a cigarette through a thin ivory holder. When she saw Steve, she almost dropped the holder. She started to get up. Then she let herself sink back into the chair as she saw Stephen Klaw coming straight across the lobby toward her.

Steve had his hands in his pockets. He was walking slowly, deliberately. He had spotted at least a half dozen men in the lobby, who looked as if they might be the ones to whom Kerrigan had referred when he said that the woman had more help at hand. There were two near the cigar counter, two at the desk, and one apiece at the elevator doors and at the street entrance. Whether or not there were more, he could not tell. But after the first quick glance of reconnaissance, he did not look again in the direction of those men. His whole attention was centered upon the woman, for he was sure that nothing would happen here until she gave the signal.

He stopped squarely in front of her and looked down, smiling. For a brief, fleeting moment, he glimpsed a flicker of emotion in her eyes. Whether it was fear, hate or consternation, he could not tell. Then she dropped long-lashed lids to veil her eyes. She returned his smile. She took a long puff of the cigarette through the ivory holder, and allowed the smoke to trickle out through pursed lips.

"How do you do, Mr.—er—Black?" she said in a low, throaty voice.

"Good afternoon, Lisa Monterey," Stephen Klaw said Ievelly.

A quick spasm of surprise passed across her cameo features. The long fingers on the ivory cigarette holder tautened.

"You know my name?"

"Of course. We've known for a long time that you were an agent of the Skull and Swastika Corps. In fact, the F. B. I. knows almost as much about you as you do, yourself. For instance, we know that you worked for two years in the Balkans as an agent of the Nazis, under the notorious Franz Trebizond. Then, when Trebizond went to South America, you accompanied him. Now that Trebizond has been ordered to the United States to direct Fifth Column activities, you are his chief lieutenant. We even have a list of all the aliases you've used. In Rumania, you were Dora Caminescu. In Holland, you were Maria Nordlung. In Paraguay, you were Lisa Monterey. You kept that last name when you came here, because it was too difficult to get another passport."

She was leaning forward in her chair now, staring at him. "Do you know the name my chief is using in America?"

"Franz Trebizond? No. We don't know yet. But give us a little more time. We've just started to work on the Skull and Swastika Corps."

Her lips curled scornfully. "You are a fool for telling me all this, Mr. —er—Black. If I am really in the employ of Franz Trebizond, as you imply, what is to prevent me from warning him at once?"

"Nothing," Steve told her grimly. "In fact, I want you to warn him. I want you to give him a message from me—Stephen Klaw."

SLOWLY, she arose from the chair. Standing, she was almost regal in carriage and manner. But there was a certain nervous tension about her which Steve detected from the rapid heaving of her breast.

"I admit nothing. You are only talking for the purpose of trapping me into an admission. Then you would arrest me."

"On the contrary," Steve said, grinning. "I could arrest you now, upon the evidence I have. It was you who sent those two pleasant gentlemen up to interview me in Room Eighteen-ten. That's enough to hold you on. But it isn't you I want. It's Franz Trebizond. Go and tell him that Stephen Klaw gives him twenty four hours to get out of the country!"

Lisa Monterey laughed. "You talk very big, Mr. Stephen Klaw. But what can you do? You don't even know where Franz Trebizond is to be found. You don't know what name he uses in this country."

"I'll know all that before midnight," he told her. "One of the two kind gentlemen who visited me upstairs, is still alive. He told me how he intended to make me talk. I'll use the same method with him. And it will work!"

The woman's eyes flashed. "You are wrong, Mr. Stephen Klaw," she murmured. "Oh, you are very wrong. You will make no one talk. You are practically a dead man now!"

As she finished talking, she sprang away from Klaw, and began to run toward the street entrance. At the same time she did something with her finger to the ivory cigarette holder, and then applied it to her lips. She blew a great gust of breath into it, and the shrill note of a whistle emanated from the holder.

That whistle was the signal for which her men had been waiting. As if magically, guns appeared in their hands, the muzzles swinging with murderous certainty to center upon the slim figure of Stephen Klaw.

He did not turn to run, neither did he seek cover.

There was a faint smile upon his lips as both his hands came out of the jacket pockets, the two automatics barking in a rhythmic melody of doom. He held them close to his hips, firing from that position. He did not shoot with frantic speed or with jerky desperation, as a man might be expected to do when he is attacked by superior numbers. Instead, he fired each shot deliberately, carefully, never missing. He swiveled slowly, as lead whined past his head. His first two shots caught the two men at the desk, and then he turned his fire on those at the cigar counter. He paid no attention to the one at the street entrance or to the one at the elevator doors.

He had no need to, for they were being well taken care of by Dan Murdoch, who had come out of the cocktail lounge with both his heavy revolvers spitting and roaring.

The hotel lobby reverberated to the thunder of deadly gunfire, and the rolling clouds of sound echoed back from the walls and ceiling with the shattering force of a volcanic eruption.

Screams of frightened women, and the hoarse shouts of frantic men formed a ghastly chorus to the deep-throated roar of the guns. Patrons ran about blindly, seeking safety from the whistling, shrieking leaden bolts of death. A man, nicked in the ear by a stray bullet, clapped both hands to his head and shouted that he was dying.

In a matter of moments, the bustling, peaceful lobby was transformed into an inferno of terror and panic. Those six gunmen of the Skull and Swastika Corps lay dead on the floor. The shooting was over, but the panic grew. A milling, seething throng of men and women fought to gain the exits.

Stephen Klaw remained standing for a moment in the middle of the lobby, watchful for the appearance of other gunmen. Dan Murdoch, tall and lithe, stood poised in the doorway of the cocktail lounge, a smoking revolver in each hand. The two of them glanced across at each other, and they both nodded. The battle was over. Murdoch sheathed his revolvers; Klaw slipped his hot automatics back into his coat pockets. They both turned to look for Kerrigan.

In that shouting, stampeding throng, they could not find him. He was no longer in the telephone booth. There was no sign of him anywhere.

Neither was there any sign of Lisa Monterey!

POLICE whistles were keening shrilly, outside. A siren was shrieking somewhere, and rapidly approaching.

Klaw slid through the throng, and reached Murdoch's side.

"Let's go, mope," he said. "We don't want to answer any police questions now!" "What about Johnny?" Murdoch asked.

"He must have tailed the Monterey woman out of here. That was his end of the job. Let's move fast. We have a little job of our own to attend to upstairs!" Dan Murdoch followed him through the lobby to the rear, then down a flight of stairs to the service basement. They found an elevator here, deserted by its operator who had no doubt left his post to see the excitement upstairs.

Klaw and Murdoch got into it, and Steve sent the cage scooting up to the eighteenth floor. He unlocked the door of 1810, and pointed silently to the prostrate form of the stout Mr. Jones, who was just recovering consciousness from the blow on the head. Jones was still groggy, and hardly knew what was happening to him as Klaw unlocked the handcuffs fastening him to the bed.

It was mute testimony to the efficiency with which the Suicide Squad worked together, that no word of explanation or instruction was necessary between Klaw and Murdoch now. Murdoch knelt and slung the stout man over his shoulder, and then followed Steve out of the room. Steve closed the door once more, leaving the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the knob, so that the body of Mr. Smith would not be found for a while. Then they made their way down the corridor back to the service elevator.

Down in the basement, Klaw went out first, reconnoitering the lay of the land. There was no one down here, but they could hear the shouts of the police up above, trying to quiet the panic-stricken crowd in the lobby, and find out just what had happened.

Steve whistled for Murdoch to follow him, and made his way to the back of the basement where there was a loading platform for trunks and baggage. Outside the platform stood a hotel station wagon, empty.

Murdoch dumped the stout Mr. Jones into the rear, and cuffed him to the doorframe. Then he and Klaw climbed into the cab, with Klaw behind the wheel. The key was in the switch, ready for the next trip, and Klaw grinned as he turned it on.

"It's nice of the Hotel Groton to provide an easy getaway like this for us!"

"Lay off the jabber and get going, Shrimp," Dan Murdoch growled. "The police will be around here in a minute." Klaw nodded and stepped on the starter. He gave her the gas, and they rolled out of the alley into the street.

A great crowd was collected fifty feet up the block, in front of the hotel entrance. No one even noticed the station wagon as it turned left to the corner and swung north on Broadway.

Klaw drove slowly, without making any effort to throw off possible pursuit.

"The bird in back," he told Murdoch, "gave the name of Jones. He's an agent of the Skull and Swastika Corps, and he's one of the devils who tortured poor Estelle Frazer before they killed her."

"Ah!" said Dan Murdoch.

"Our job," Klaw went on, "is to get the Skull and Swastika Corps to come out in the open. So far, we've done pretty good. They fell hook, line and sinker, for the story that I was to pick up a list of the names of their executive council. But this is only the beginning. If we can't bring Franz Trebizond out into the open, we fail. I figure that by holding on to Mr. Jones, we can do it."

Murdoch nodded. "Trebizond will be afraid that Jones may talk. And he'll try to get him out of our hands."

"Or knock him off. Either way, it's Trebizond's move next."

"Unless my eyesight fails me," Dan Murdoch said, looking to the left, past Steve, "Trebizond is making his next move already!"

Steve glanced out of his window, and saw what Murdoch meant.

A long, two-toned town car had drawn abreast of them. The lower part of the body was black, the upper, maroon. A uniformed chauffeur was at the wheel, and a second man in uniform sat beside him. In the rear of the car were two more men, and a woman.

A SINGLE glance was enough to tell Steve Klaw that the woman was Lisa Monterey. Though he was not able to distinguish her features in the interior of the car, he spotted the light chinchilla collar and the silver chinchilla hat. She was sitting on the far side of the seat. One of the men was seated beside her, and the other occupied a folding seat just in front of her. This latter one was holding a small, sawed-off sub-machine gun, with the foreshortened muzzle poking out of the window straight at Klaw. His face was down low, sighting along the barrel, and his finger was on the trip.

Those particular weapons had never been used in the United States until introduced by the Skull and Swastika Corps. The infernal Franz Trebizond had brought them over with him, and they proved a most effective means of terrorization. Anyone who was inclined to inform against the Skull and Swastika was sure to change his mind when he read how the victims of those sawed-off shotguns lived for two or three days, enduring the most agonizing of torture from the multitudinous wounds, and then dying.

The second man, seated beside Lisa Monterey, had another of the vicious weapons, which he was aiming from inside the car. The careful planning which had gone into this attack was evident—for the two machine-gunners were so placed that it was almost impossible to shoot them both at the same time. If, by some miracle, Klaw or Murdoch should succeed in hitting one of them, the other could pull the trigger of his machine gun, riddling them both with the same burst.

Klaw took in the situation at a glance as Murdoch whispered fiercely, "They've got us cold, Shrimp. But Johnny's supposed to be tailing that dame."

Klaw nodded, gripping the wheel. The limousine was swiftly pulling ahead of them, bringing the two machine-gunners directly abreast of Klaw and Murdoch. In another moment, they would be in position to fire.

Stephen Klaw stepped all the way down on the gas, and the station wagon spurted forward. Luckily, there wasn't much traffic on Broadway at this time of the afternoon, and there was a clear lane ahead. But the chauffeur of the limousine had been watching for just such a move, and he matched Steve's effort. The limousine thrust forward, and started to gain on the station wagon. The two cars sped up Broadway with roaring exhausts, in a death-race. There was hardly twelve inches of space between them as the long snout of the limousine began to edge out in front of the station wagon, bringing the machine-gunners slowly and surely into firing position. Ahead glowed a red traffic light, and a police officer at the corner was madly waving a hand to them to stop, while he tugged his revolver out with the other.

Dan Murdoch had a gun in each hand now, but he couldn't get in position to fire past Steve at the machine-gunners. Everything depended now on whether Klaw could keep the station wagon from falling another foot behind the limousine. He was keeping his eyes fixed on the street ahead, driving with every faculty alert and feeding her every ounce of gas that she would take. They flashed past the corner, and the cop jumped out of the way just in the nick of time. Then the two cars were racing up toward Columbus Circle, neck-and-neck, but with the limousine gaining by inches—and inches were all it needed.

Murdoch's dark and handsome face was set and grim. He swung around in the seat, and leaned far back, stretching his left arm out behind Steve's head to aim at one of the machine-gunners. But the wooden paneling of the station wagon was so high that it shut off his view of those two. There was no way for him to get at them until they came up abreast of the cab, and by then it would be too late.

Quietly he said, "I'm stymied, Shrimp. You'll have to crash them."

IT WAS typical of the utter confidence they had in each other, that Klaw asked no further questions, taking it for granted that what Murdoch said was so. Crashing that other car was the last thing in the world they wanted. It would mean surrendering their prisoner to the police, for they could never hope to spirit him away from an accident on Broadway, as they had from the Groton Hotel.

Their orders from Washington had been strict. They must operate as an independent army of three, a sort of private Blitzkrieg against the Skull and Swastika Corps. They must not seek the help of the local police, or of the local FBI office. Nothing they did could be official, for the diplomatic repercussions would be beyond calculation.

Besides, the Skull and Swastika Corps was known to have tentacles reaching into many key posts in the police and judiciary. Not so long ago, an important public servant had felt impelled to go on the radio to deny rumors that he was sympathetic to the S. S. Corps. As a matter of fact, that official was a loyal American of French extraction, who hated the Skull and Swastika, and everything it stood for. But he had a father, mother, two sisters and a brother in occupied France, and he knew that if he did not obey orders from Franz Trebizond, his relatives would be tortured mercilessly. So, once the stout Mr. Jones fell into the hands of the police, there was a good chance that Trebizond might get him out of custody.

That was why the Suicide Squad had been assigned to this job. If they came to grief on this assignment, there would be no support for them from the Department of Justice. They would be disowned, and they would swear up and down that they had been acting in a private capacity, and not as agents of the United States Government.

All this was in the mind of Stephen Klaw as he twisted the wheel to crash the station wagon into the limousine. And he knew that it was also in the mind of Dan Murdoch. But he knew too, that Murdoch would never have ordered it unless it were supremely necessary. Therefore, he complied without question.

The two cars met with a crashing, rending sound of tearing metal as the left front fender of the station wagon tore into the right fender of the limousine. Both cars swerved out over to the southbound lane, but neither stopped. The chauffeur of the limousine was pouring gas into his motor, just as Stephen Klaw was doing, each making a supreme effort to pull ahead of the other The purpose of the limousine was to bring those sawed-off machine guns abreast of Klaw and Murdoch, while Steve's purpose was to get as far ahead as possible, to be out of range of the vicious weapons, and to give Murdoch a chance to use his revolvers.

The Broadway crowd, rendered blasé by years of stunt attractions calculated to pry it loose from its money, was treated to the free spectacle of a tug-of-war between two automobiles, with death as the prize for the loser.

The cars were locked together inextricably by their fenders, and it became evident in a moment that neither could pull ahead of the other. Klaw and Murdoch realized this at the same moment as the killers in the limousine. The yellow-haired Lisa Monterey screamed to her two gunners to shoot, and the men thrust their murderous machine guns far out of the window, with their fingers on the trips. They were going to blast through the partition of the station wagon.

Dan Murdoch smashed the glass behind the driver's seat, and literally leaped through into the tonneau, landing on hands and knees. Then he was up in a split-second, both his revolvers thundering.

He fired six times swiftly with each gun at point-blank range into the faces of the two machine-gunners, at the same time that Steve Klaw, abandoning the wheel leaned far out of his window and began to pump both his automatics.

It is doubtful whose slugs killed those machine-gunners first. Klaw had inserted new clips in his automatics, and he emptied nine shots from each into the killers, while Murdoch fired twelve times with his two revolvers. And neither of them missed with a single shot.

The faces of the two machine-gunners disintegrated under that blasting barrage. And at the same time, Lisa Monterey opened the far door of the limousine and stepped out into the street. She lifted up her dress and dashed away. Her chauffeur and footman also took to their heels.

Klaw and Murdoch saw her go, but they were unable to stop her. Their guns were empty, and by the time they could get out of the station wagon and take after her, she would have plenty of time to disappear in the crowd. Lisa Monterey was making good her escape!

But now, another factor entered the picture. The big, hulking figure of Johnny Kerrigan came leaping out of a taxicab fifty feet behind, and made after the yellow-haired woman. He overtook her in a half dozen strides.

That was all Klaw and Murdoch had a chance to see. Their own position was precarious. The traffic cop was running up from the corner, and a crowd was beginning to form, which would cut off all escape for them. The prisoner could no longer be kept. They must leave him to the police.

"I say we scram out of here, Shrimp!" Murdoch yelled, above the clamor of the throng and the eddying echo of the gunfire.

Steve nodded. They both leaped out of the station wagon, and ran headlong into the gathering crowd, away from the approaching cop.

The crowd melted away from them at sight of their guns. Klaw and Murdoch were the only ones who knew that those guns were empty.

They reached the opposite sidewalk with the cop shouting behind them, and afraid to shoot lest he hit an innocent bystander.

"Down there!" shouted Steve, pointing to the subway kiosk at the corner.

They both dived down the stairs as the thunderous rumble of a local subway train sounded, rolling into the station below. Klaw, in the lead, hurdled the turnstiles without paying his nickel, and Dan Murdoch followed at his heels. They made the train by a half second, and heard the door slam shut behind them. The train started to move, and they turned and looked out at the sweating, cursing cop who came tearing into the station after them.

At the next local station they got out and raced up the stairs to the street, hailing a taxicab and pulling away only a moment before the siren of an approaching police car sounded, a block away. The alarm had gone out fast, but they had beaten it by the margin of a matter of seconds.

They left their cab after riding it three or four blocks, and took another. They changed cabs three times before they ventured to approach the neighborhood of Sue Watson's apartment house. In the last cab they reloaded their guns, then dismissed the taxi two blocks away and walked the rest of the distance.

The light was on in the first floor window, and the blind was down.

Steve nudged Dan Murdoch, and they kept on walking past the house, without displaying any interest.

"I don't like it, Dan," Steve Klaw said.

"She's supposed to keep her shade up—except when one of us is up there."

"We better snap it up then!" Murdoch barked.

They turned into the garage next door, and Steve waved the attendant away.

"I just want to get something out of my car," he said. They went all the way to the rear of the garage, found the back exit, and stepped out into the concrete yard. From there they made their way into the yard of the apartment house, and went down to the basement.

They took the back stairs up to the first floor, and Murdoch tried the door while Stephen Klaw waited, pressing his body against the corridor wall.

The door opened under Murdoch's touch, revealing the foyer. A man with a sawed-off machine gun was standing in the foyer, with the muzzle of the deadly weapon trained upon the doorway.

"Good afternoon!" the man said to Murdoch, leering over the muzzle of the machine gun. "We thought that some of the girl's friends would be coming to visit her. Put your hands up, and come right in!"

Dan Murdoch stood stiffly in the doorway, without moving. Steve Klaw was almost at his elbow, but was standing in such a way that he was not visible to the man with the gun. Murdoch smiled genially, but did not raise his hands. For the benefit of Klaw, he described the situation as best he could.

"So you're a Skull and Swastika man, eh? Waiting to shoot me down, eh? What did you do with Sue Watson?"

"She's been taken away, my friend," the gunman said. "She'll be well taken care of. As for you, come right in. We want to talk to you."

A second gunman appeared from the interior of the apartment, at the first one's elbow.

"See what I have caught, Hans!" the first one said over his shoulder to the second. "A nice big fish for our net!"

That was all he said. Stephen Klaw, at the first hint of trouble, had dropped to his knees and drawn both his automatics. He swung around on his knees, in front of the doorway, and peered up at the two gunmen in the foyer from between Murdoch's legs.

"You guys talk too much!" he said disgustedly.

The gunmen, startled, glanced down, swinging the muzzles of their machine guns down to bear upon Klaw.

And Klaw fired from the ground, once with each automatic. He shot at an upward angle of about thirty degrees, but his aim was just as good as in level shooting. His slugs got both killers square in the throat, and sent them crashing back into the apartment with their machine guns unfired.

The two explosions of his automatics sounded more like the backfire of an automobile than like pistol shots.

"Nice work, Shrimp!" Murdoch said, and sprang forward into the apartment, drawing both his revolvers. He leaped over the still-thrashing bodies of the gun-men, into the living room. A third man was in there methodically searching the place with all the thoroughness of the Gestapo. The sofa had been ripped apart, the disemboweled cushions lay on the floor. The drawers of the desk had been pulled out and ransacked.

The man uttered a guttural curse and yanked out a pistol. Murdoch coolly shot him through the heart. Then he turned and looked at Stephen Klaw.

"Well, Shrimp," he said. "It looks like we didn't keep your promise to Mary Watson!"

Stephen Klaw's face was white. He gripped those two automatics tightly, as if he wished to beat someone's brains out with them.

"We've got to find her, Dan," he whispered. "We've got to find her —before they go to work on her!"

"Let's get out then," said Murdoch. "We'll never find her here!"

5. THE LAIR OF TREBIZOND

STIFFLY, they walked out of the apartment, never looking at the dead men they left behind. They walked down the stairs and out into the street, like two automatons. They were both thinking of Sue Watson in the hands of Franz Trebizond. And they were remembering the things that had been done to Estelle Frazer, and to others who had fallen into those hands.

"Maybe," Dan Murdoch said hopefully, "maybe they left other men outside, to watch for us. Maybe they'll try to get us—

"We've got to take the next one alive," Steve murmured. "We've got to make him tell us where to find Sue!"

He stopped as an automobile horn sounded across the street.

Both of them swiveled to face that sound, going for their guns. But they didn't draw them.

Murdoch said, "Ah!" and Klaw exhaled a great gust of breath.

It was a taxicab horn which was being blown across the street. The driver was using it to signal them, at the order of one of the occupants.

The occupants were Johnny Kerrigan and Lisa Monterey.

Swiftly they crossed the street and climbed into the cab.

Lisa Monterey's wrists were handcuffed behind her. She was sitting silent and sullen, next to Kerrigan, who was grinning. The taxicab driver turned around and winked as Murdoch and Klaw got in.

"Boys," said Kerrigan, nodding in the direction of the driver, "I want you to meet Sam Meyers, who hates the Skull and Swastika Corps as much as we do. I caught up with Miss Monterey here, and gave her the choice of coming along with me, or of being turned in to the police on a murder rap. P.S! she preferred to come with me. Then I explained to Sam what it was all about, and he offered the use of his cab. So here we are."

"That's right, gents," Sam Meyers said eagerly. "Anything I can do to keep the Nazis outta this country—I'll do it. And I ain't afraid o' no fast action, neither. I was a corp'ral in the last war, an' seen plenty o' action—an' mud!"

"Glad to know you, Sam," said Dan Murdoch.

Steve Klaw turned to Kerrigan and said flatly, "Johnny, the skunks have got Sue!"

Kerrigan scowled, and nodded. "I thought so, when we drove up and saw the shade down."

Lisa Monterey smiled thinly. "You three men are fools. You can never beat the Skull and Swastika. Franz Trebizond will get you, as he has gotten all of the enemies of our Fuehrer."

Steve Klaw, sitting backward on one of the folding chairs next to Murdoch, looked at her speculatively.

"You could tell us where they've got Sue Watson, couldn't you?"

She threw him a glance of vicious spite. "I will tell you nothing!"

Steve looked at Kerrigan. "When this dame phoned in to her headquarters from the lobby of the Hotel Groton, Johnny, you checked on the call?"

"I did," said Johnny. "I got the number, and traced the address through the telephone company. But it was a blind lead, Steve. That address is the home of Judge Hinchley. There must be some mistake. Judge Hinchley was a Congressman before he was appointed Judge, and he introduced a bill in Congress to force the deportation of every alien member of the Skull and Swastika Corps."

"I see," Steve said thoughtfully. He had been watching Lisa Monterey keenly as Johnny spoke, and he saw the sudden involuntary jerk of her shoulders at the mention of Judge Hinchley. Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly, and then were immediately veiled.

"Suppose we go see Judge Hinchley," he said. "Perhaps some servant in the Judge's home is acting as intermediary for Trebizond. The servant may be a clearing house for messages between agents of the Skull and Swastika."

"Let's go!" said Johnny Kerrigan.

The Judge's home was a low, rambling Colonial, built on a large, landscaped plot of ground in Riverdale, just within the city limits. It was a good forty minute drive from where they started, but Sam Meyer made it in twenty minutes flat.

They parked a hundred feet away, and left Lisa Monterey handcuffed to the door-frame of the cab, in charge of Sam Meyer.

Stephen Klaw went up the flower-bordered walk to the front door, while Kerrigan and Murdoch faded into the shrubbery surrounding the house.

A burly manservant answered the bell, and scowled at Steve.

"May I see Judge Hinchley?" Steve asked mildly.

The manservant filled the doorway, towering above Klaw.

"I'm sorry," he said gruffly. "Judge Hinchley has been ill with a heart attack, for the past month. He can see no one."

"I'm sure he'll want to see me," Steve said, "if you'll take my name in to him. The name is—Black."

He watched the man's face, but caught no reaction. He went on swiftly, stabbing in the dark. "It's all right, you can take me in to the Chief. I was sent here by Lisa Monterey."

Now he saw the man's eyes flicker. But he recovered his stolid pose at once. "I don't know that name. But step in. I'll tell Mr. Belding, the Judge's secretary."

The man moved aside, and Steve stepped inside, sliding his hands into his coat pockets.

The servant led him into a waiting room at the side of the foyer, and left him there. Steve did not sit down. He stood with his back to the window, and tapped gently upon the pane with his fingernail. An answering tap sounded from outside. It was either Johnny Kerrigan or Dan Murdoch.

Steve ran his fingertips along the window sash and found the wire of a burglar alarm system. Swiftly he felt along the wire, until he came to a spot where the wire had been spliced into the main burglar alarm line. He twisted at the tape, ripped it off, and separated the two wires. He tapped once again on the pane, and stepped away from the window just as the door opened and a stocky, bald-headed man entered the room.

"I am Mr. Belding," said the bald-headed man. "Judge Hinchley's secretary. What can I do for you?"

Steve's hands were back in his pockets. "I've got to see the Judge," Steve said. "I have reason to believe that someone in this house is connected with the Skull and Swastika Corps."

Belding almost jumped under the sudden impact of that bleak statement.

"Impossible!" he exclaimed. "We are all loyal Americans in this house!"

"Nevertheless," Steve persisted, "there is at least one Skull and Swastika member here. Maybe more. I insist on seeing the Judge."

Belding looked at him queerly. "You said something to the butler about having been sent here by a woman named Lisa Monterey?"

"Yes."

"Who is this woman?"

"I'll tell the Judge when I see him." Belding smiled thinly. "I'm sure you will. Follow me."

He turned and opened the door by which he had entered, and led the way through into the next room. Stephen Klaw entered, and stopped short on the threshold. His eyes widened momentarily.

This room was a library. But it was immense. The ceiling had been removed, making the room the height of the house, with a balcony running around all four sides. There were bookshelves both below and above the balcony. And hanging from the opposite was a great purple banner with the ghastly insignia of the Skull and Swastika. Standing up there on the balcony, in front of the banner, were four men in the natty uniform of the S. S. Corps. Each of them had a sawed-off machine gun, which was trained upon Klaw. Steve gave them only one glance, then centered his attention upon the long table at the other end of the room.

Sue Watson was seated at that table. Her wrists were handcuffed to the chair. A few feet away, there was another chair, in which was seated Judge Hinchley. Steve recognized him at once, but was startled by the change in the man. The Judge's face was haggard and pinched, and his eyes were deep-sunken wells of misery and shame. He sat half slumped in the chair in an attitude which bespoke utter hopelessness.

Behind the chair in which Sue Watson was handcuffed, stood Franz Trebizond.

Stephen Klaw had never seen the man, but he had gotten a good description from Mary Watson. Even without the description, however, he would have known that this was Trebizond.

The man was lean and gaunt, like the carcass of Death itself. His lips were so thin and bloodless that his mouth seemed to be nothing but a straight line drawn in crayon across his face. His eyes were coal-black, and protruded so far that they seemed about to leap out and strike at one. He was standing in such a way that most of his cadaverous body was protected by the chair. He had one of Sue's ears gripped between two of his bony, bloodless fingers. In his other hand a handle to which was affixed a razor blade. He was holding the blade idly in the air above Sue's head.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Klaw," he said. "Let us do away with all pretense. I know that you are Stephen Klaw, one of those three devils who are called the Suicide Squad. And you know that I am Franz Trebizond. I am the one for whom you have been searching. You have found me only because I wanted you to find me. I expected that you would come here to investigate, when I learned that Lisa Monterey had phoned this number from the Groton Hotel. You see, I did not underestimate you."

"Thank you," said Stephen Klaw, bowing graciously. He still had his hands in his pockets.

"You see," Trebizond went on smoothly, "I have been using the home of my good friend, Judge Hinchley, who was once such a violent enemy of the Skull and Swastika. I enjoy converting my enemies into friends—and servants. The Fuehrer gave us an example when he converted France into a servant of his purposes. Just so, I have done with Judge Hinchley... and others."

Judge Hinchley stirred in his seat. "Damn you!" he grated in a hoarse voice. "Damn you for the devil himself!"

Trebizond laughed. "You see, Mr. Klaw, how my friends love me? Judge Hinchley will do whatever I ask of him, because his nineteen year old son volunteered to fight in Loyalist Spain, and escaped in France after the collapse of the Spanish Republican Army. The boy was interned. But when the armies of our glorious Fuehrer conquered France, young Hinchley became our prisoner. Now, the good judge must serve us well, for we have his son as our hostage."

"I see," said Stephen Klaw. His eyes were on the razor blade Trebizond held in one hand, and on the pink ear of Sue Watson which he held with the other. "And now you expect to convert me into the same kind of 'friend'."

"Exactly. First, let me warn you that at the least suspicious move you make, my bodyguard on the balcony will let fire with four guns, and turn your body into a sieve. For instance, if you should attempt to draw those two automatics you are holding in your pockets, my guards would shoot before you could draw."

A twisted smile tugged at Steve's lips. "I thank you for the warning. Let's hear what you have to say."

"What I have to say is easily understood. This girl—Sue Watson —is a very beautiful and delicate creature, whom it would be a pity to disfigure. I understand you are interested in her. I, too, am interested in her. Because I hated her mother, I should like to dismember her, bit by bit. You see how easily I could slice off her ear. There is so much I could do to her—and enjoy it. Yet I am willing to forego this pleasure—in exchange for a very small favor which you can do for me."

Steve nodded. "I know what you want—the list of the Executive Council of the Skull and Swastika."

"Exactly. You will give up the list. And you will give up your persecution of the S. S. Corps. You will turn your talents to other endeavors. So long as you do not molest us, Mr. Klaw, Sue Watson will remain unharmed."

Sue's face was white and tense. "No, no, Steve!" she cried out. "Don't give him the list. I don't care what he does to me!"

Trebizond yanked hard at her ear, so that she gasped and bit her lip with pain.

"I want your answer now, Klaw. Or else you will see this girl die slowly!"

"I haven't got the list with me," Steve said huskily.

"Perhaps one of your partners has it then? Kerrigan or Murdoch? They came along with you, I'm sure. No doubt they are trying to get into the house by a window or a back door. I must tell you that it would be very regrettable if they broke in. My burglar alarm system is not the ordinary kind. It doesn't ring a bell. Instead, it releases a flood of deadly gas which kills the intruder as soon as he puts his head inside the window—"

He was interrupted by a voice from the balcony, directly across from where the four guards stood with the machine guns.

"My, my!" said the voice. "You certainly are very thorough, Mr. Trebizond! It was a good thing that Steve Klaw unhooked the burglar alarm for us!"

Steve threw a quick glance up at the balcony, and grinned. Kerrigan and Murdoch had come out of a doorway up there. They must have climbed in through the window in the waiting room, and made their way up through the house. The guards had certainly seen them come out on the balcony, but must have thought at first that they were members of the household, not dreaming that anyone could enter from the outside.

Kerrigan and Murdoch were standing shoulder to shoulder up there, guns in hand, and facing those four machine guns at the opposite side of the room.

"Shoot! Shoot!" screamed Trebizond.

But it was Kerrigan and Murdoch who started shooting first. Their four heavy revolvers began to blast in a synchronized, thrumming fandango of death. The slugs from their heavy revolvers smashed at the machine-gunners before those killers could recover sufficiently from their surprise to raise their sights from Stephen Klaw on the floor below. The bodies of those gunmen were smashed back against the wall.

And at the same time, Stephen Klaw began to fire his two automatics from his pockets, through the cloth. His left hand gun lanced three shots quickly at the bald-headed Belding, who had been standing over to one side. With his right hand gun he fired up at the balcony, to help Kerrigan and Murdoch. He dared not shoot at Trebizond, who, ducking down behind Sue Watson's chair, had drawn a gun.

Klaw leaped forward, across the vast floor toward the chair where Sue sat handcuffed, and behind which Trebizond had taken refuge. He had his automatics out now, but held his fire. He raced forward, hoping to reach Trebizond before the spy-master could harm Sue.

But Trebizond had forgotten about the girl. Snarling with rage, he thrust out his revolver.

Steve saw the muzzle, but kept on coming in at a run. The gun rose, the black hole of the muzzle staring him in the face. In another fraction of a second Trebizond would fire, at almost point blank range, into Klaw's face... And then, a hurtling body threw itself headlong into the line of fire just as Trebizond's gun exploded!

It was Judge Hinchley!

The Judge had leaped out of his chair with a hoarse cry, and virtually flung himself upon the bullet earmarked for Steve!

Hinchley fell, the blood gushing from a wound in his chest. And in that instant Stephen Klaw leaped over the desk and sprang around behind the chair. Trebizond uttered a squeal of fright, and raised his revolver.

Stephen Klaw's gray eyes flickered for a moment, and his lips were tight and grim. He thrust his automatic out at arm's length into Trebizond's face, and pulled the trigger.

The blasting of gunfire was echoing and re-echoing from every nook and cranny of the great old house. Kerrigan and Murdoch leaped down from the balcony to join Steve Klaw on the main floor. Klaw went swiftly through the pockets of the dead Trebizond and found the keys to the handcuffs which bound Sue's wrists to the chair. He freed her, and raised her to her feet.

The Judge was dying fast. But that look of utter hopelessness which Klaw had seen in his eyes before was no longer there. And his lips were smiling. Klaw bent low over him, thinking as he did so of that moment last night when he had bent low over a dying woman. She had given up her life, too.

"I've... paid my... debt. Not ashamed... any more! My son— they'll kill him now..."

Stephen Klaw clasped the old man's hand tightly. "I'm sure your son would rather have it this way, Judge."

"Yes... yes. Thank God I had... the courage... " A gush of blood filled the old man's throat, and he died.

Stephen Klaw got to his feet, and put an arm around the shoulders of Sue Watson, who was sobbing quietly. He looked over at the grim, bleak faces of Kerrigan and Murdoch. The three of them were thinking of the same thing— of the hard days ahead, when they would have to round up all the hundreds of members of the Skull and Swastika—many of them honest Americans like Judge Hinchley, who had come against their will, under the thumb of the merciless organization. They were thinking of the heartbreak and the sorrow that would come to many American homes where a son or a daughter or a father had been led into disloyalty by the vile tenets of the S.S. Corps. But they were also thinking that the heartbreak and the sorrow would be a small price to pay to keep America free!

THE END

First published in Ace G-Man Stories, December 1942

1. THE SUPREME PLAN

On the seventeenth of August, a furtive Rumanian walked into the United States Consulate in Berne, Switzerland, and whispered that he had information to sell.

Closeted with one of the attachés, he put on a mysterious air, and said that he could tell about the plans of the Flaming Arrow to wreck the United States war effort.

The attaché frowned. "The Flaming Arrow? What are you talking about?"

The Rumanian became more mysterious, and at the same time more furtive and frightened.

"It is the name of the one who can win the war for the Axis. He has been in America now for three years. But only three men in all the world know who the Flaming Arrow really is. Those three are Hitler, Himmler, and Tojo, of Japan. The Axis has paid ten million dollars over to the account of the Flaming Arrow, and there are ninety millions more in banks in every neutral country which he can call upon. For that sum, the Flaming Arrow has agreed to destroy American war power completely."

"You're mad!" said the attaché.

"Mad? You think perhaps that I dream this? Let me tell you: There is a school not far from Berlin, where the Nazis train the youngsters who are smuggled into America to enter the ranks of the Flaming Arrow!"

The little Rumanian became eager, almost voluble. "But that is not all. In Formosa, there is a small island, in the middle of a large lake. None dares go near that island, for it is under the special protection of the Emperor. On that island other men are trained, men of a strange, vicious, mountain race. They are little, wiry men, taken from Korea as children, and dedicated to the service of the Flaming Arrow. These men, too, have been smuggled into America. All are ready for the day when the Supreme Plan of the Flaming Arrow is ready for execution. On that day the Flaming Arrow will wreck America!"

The attaché was annoyed. "Look here, my man, you've been smoking opium!"

"But no! I swear to you that this is all true. I alone have stumbled upon the clue, and I will sell it to you. Cable your government. Ask them. They know of the Flaming Arrow. Ask them how much you may pay me for information that will save your country!"

"All right," the attaché agreed reluctantly. "Come back tomorrow morning at ten o'clock."

So a cable in code went off to the State Department: "What do you know about Axis agent named Flaming Arrow? Am offered information in re above but believe it of no value. Are you interested?"

Then the attaché promptly forgot all about it. But he was awakened at two o'clock in the morning by an urgent radio message in reply: "Get all information possible. Urgent. Flaming Arrow greater menace than fifty divisions!"

Thoroughly aroused, the attaché dressed hurriedly and went to the address which the Rumanian had left with him.

He was five minutes too late. The squalid room in which the informer lived was a mass of flames. Firemen forced their way in, and came out bearing the body of the Rumanian. There was still a bit of flickering life left in him as they laid him , with a two-foot arrow protruding from his chest.

The attaché thought of the name of the Axis agent whom this informer had wished to betray: The Flaming Arrow!

The shaft of the arrow was metal, charred and blackened from end to end. The Rumanian's clothes were burned away from his body.

The Swiss fire chief exclaimed, "The arrow must have burst into flames when it struck him!"

And someone in the crowd whispered, "It is the mark of the Flaming Arrow!"

The word spread quickly. In a moment, the crowd had faded away. Even the firemen and police looked a bit fearful.

The attaché was unaware of all this as he bent over the dying Rumanian, listening to the gurgle of sound which trickled from the informer's lips. Only a word or two was he able to distinguish:

"My brother... in America... find him..."

Then the man was dead.

Nine days later, a man sat in an office on the sixth floor of the Scanda Building, in Stockholm, Sweden. There were papers on his desk, and half a dozen photographs, as well as a roll of developed film. The photographs were weird things, showing a group of small and wiry men, all attired in similar fashion, with short leather jerkins, and metal helmets. Their faces were Mongolian, with such small eyes that they might have belonged to some species of reptile. Their hands were encased in leather gloves, and on their backs they carried a long bow and a quiver of arrows.

One of the pictures showed a group of these men marching down to a ship. The picture had been taken at night, apparently with a flashlight bulb, and it was remarkably clear.

The man who sat at the desk with these photographs before him jiggled the hook of his telephone and barked impatiently, "You must put me through to America at once. I want Washington!"

"This is the transatlantic operator, sir. Your connection is being completed. We will have Mr. Hedges in the State Department in a moment."

"Good!"

Whatever the stocky man might have been about to say, he never said it.

The arrow thrummed its deadly hum of doom, winging through the open window. It thudded into his chest, carrying him backward in his chair, crashing to the floor.

His frantic grip knocked the telephone with him. He lay on his back on the floor, his knees in the air, folded over the chair seat, and the arrow protruding almost three feet from his chest. His body twitched in the throes of death.

From the receiver came an impatient voice: "Bardo! I say there, Bardo! This is Hedges of the State Department!"

There was a jiggling sound, then Hedges's voice again: "Operator! There's nobody on here. What happened to that call?"

The dying Bardo's face became contorted with a strange and fearful effort as he struggled to bring his bloody lips close to the mouthpiece of the phone.

"Hedges!" he gasped. "Hedges, listen! This is Bardo..." He was silent for a second, then his voice erupted once more in a weird and frightful gurgle. "The Flaming Arrow... got me. Look out for the little... bowmen. They're smuggling... thousands of them... planning something big... for September first..."

It was then that a strange phenomenon occurred; the arrow which was quivering in his chest, burst into bright and incandescent flame.

It was like the all-consuming fire of an incendiary bomb, unbearably hot, sizzlingly brilliant, hissing with the sound of burning magnesium. The flame raced down the shaft of the arrow, as if it had been greased with wax. In a moment, the man's body was completely enveloped by the flaming holocaust, which had already spread to the rug, licking out hungrily at the rest of the room....

2. TRAP...?

"What's this I hear about a flaming arrow?" Stephen Klaw demanded, the moment he got into Dan Murdoch's room at the Berkshire Hotel.

Dan Murdoch was in shirt sleeves. The window was open, but he had the blind pulled all the way down. He was examining a charred stick of metal, about three feet long. There was an arrowhead point on it, and that, too, was blackened as if from a bath of fire.

Murdoch grinned, and exhibited the stick.

Klaw took it, and turned it around curiously in his hands. "A steel arrow!" he exclaimed. "Where did you get it?"

Murdoch chuckled. "It came to me out of the blue!"

"You mean someone shot at you?"

"Nothing else but!"

Klaw's eyes began to glitter. "I take it we're on a case?"

"You bet!" He picked up his coat from the bed, exhibited a rent in the left sleeve. "That's how close it came. It grazed me and hit a brick wall. The next second it burst into flames. There was a small magnesium pencil bomb fitted in the shaft. It burned like the devil for about thirty seconds, and that's all that's left!"

Stephen Klaw said thoughtfully, "If it had hit you, there'd be nothing left of you but blackened bones and a few teeth!"

They were interrupted by a knock at the door. The knock was immediately repeated, three times in quick succession, then three times slow.

"That'll be Johnny!" said Murdoch.

He went over and unlocked the door.

Big, red-headed Johnny Kerrigan entered. "What's all this about?" he growled. "Why this hocus-pocus about meeting in secret, Dan? You registered under a phony name!"

"Take it easy, Johnny," said Murdoch. "It's by order of the State Department. We're going after the Flaming Arrow!"

"Ah!" said Kerrigan. "Now you're talking! When do we start?"

"Don't get ants in your pants," said Murdoch. "We're waiting for the Chief. He's coming here with Under-secretary Hedges of the State Department. This is no pushover, guys. The Flaming Arrow is 'way over the class of anything we've ever handled. Take a look at this arrow, for instance. It was shot at me, less than an hour after I had talked with the Chief over long distance, and he had assigned me to the case."

Hedges was nervous and jumpy. "You'll have to excuse me, boys," he said after he had been introduced. "I've been on edge for ten days. And so has everybody in Washington. Twice in the last ten days we've come within an ace of getting valuable information on the Flaming Arrow; and twice, it was snatched from under our noses by the Flaming Arrow agents, once in Berne, and once in Stockholm. Yesterday, our most valuable man in Europe was killed by a flaming arrow before he could transmit details to us. The arrow that killed him burst into flames and destroyed everything in his room. The only new thing we learned from him was that the grand coup of the Flaming Arrow is planned for September first. This is the twenty—seventh. That gives us only four days."

Hedges looked at Murdoch, and the arrow in his hand. "As for you, there's nothing you can do. It's quite apparent that you are known to the Flaming Arrow. The fact that he made this attempt on your life is sufficient to impair your usefulness. As for you two!" he nodded to Kerrigan and Klaw, "I'm afraid that in asking you to undertake this job, I'm giving you a suicide assignment. But your Director here tells me that it's just such assignments you welcome." He permitted himself a faint smile. "I understand that you are known in the F.B.I. as the Suicide Squad."

Neither Kerrigan nor Murdoch nor Klaw made any reply. Though it was perfectly true that they were called the Suicide Squad, they took no special pride in it. Theirs was a devil-may-care philosophy of life, based on the theory that all three of them had long ago forfeited any right to expect to enjoy old age, ripe or otherwise.

Johnny Kerrigan had once punched a senator's son in the nose; Dan Murdoch had once shot a croupier to death in a crooked gambling joint; and Stephen Klaw had once told the chairman of a Senate investigation committee to go to hell when he had been asked why he had shot to kill in a fight with a band of gunmen.

Any other three federal agents would have been dismissed for these offenses. But the records of Kerrigan, Murdoch and Klaw were such that even a Senatorial indignation would not have stood against popular demand The Chief of the F.B.I. had taken advantage of their records to effect a compromise. He had arranged for them to be placed on special duty, where they would never be in danger of coming in contact with anyone whose feelings were likely to be hurt. From that time on, the Director had made it a practice to assign them to such cases as would ordinarily have demanded a call for volunteers.

Thus had been formed the Suicide Squad. Together with a couple of other wild and irreconcilable hellions, they had made a blazing swath of gunfire through the underworld. There had been five of them at the start; then only four; then three; Kerrigan and Murdoch and Klaw. Tomorrow there might be only two, or one, or none....

But one thing was certain: if the Suicide Squad was wiped out, it would not be without bloody cost to the party of the other part.

Now, here in this room in the Berkshire Hotel, they were being offered the kind of assignment they lived for; and they were eager to get their teeth into it. Especially since the arrow had been launched at Murdoch.

"Let's get down to cases, Mr. Hedges," Stephen Klaw said impatiently. "If there's only a matter of four days between us and the end of the country, let's not waste any more time talking!"

Under-secretary Hedges nodded. "All right," he said curtly, "I'll give it to you straight. The United States Government wants the Flaming Arrow within four days. We don't know who he is, and we don't know his plan for September first. But we do know that the Flaming Arrow is responsible for the three disasters which occurred on the same day last month, one in Oregon, one in Texas and one in Maryland."

Hedges paused, looking from one to the other of them. "And we are further convinced that those three pieces of sabotage were just rehearsals for the big coup four days from now."

"So all you want us to do," Johnny Kerrigan said, "is to lay this Flaming Arrow by the heels, without knowing who or what he is!"

Hedges spread his hands helplessly. "I can't tell you very much more, I confess. We have learned only fragments. We know that the Flaming Arrow is smuggling two groups into this country for his big show. One of those groups consists of specially trained Nazi youths; the other group consists of a wild and savage tribe of men recruited by the Japanese in Korea, and raised on a secret island in Formosa, where they have been educated for years, solely for the purpose of enrollment with the Flaming Arrow. The ramifications of the Flaming Arrow's spy organization must go pretty deep, for he was able to learn apparently, that you, Murdoch, had been assigned to the case. So there is every reason to believe that you three men will be walking to your deaths. Yet I must ask you to dig around, to use your connections in the underworld, to use anything and everything that may come to your hand, in one supreme effort to smoke out the Flaming Arrow within four days..."

Hedges was interrupted by the quick, sharp ring of the telephone on the night table.

Dan Murdoch frowned. "It may be for you sir," he said to the Director of the F.B.I. "Nobody knows that I'm here!"

The Director shook his head. "Nobody knows Hedges and I are here, either. We didn't tell a soul where we were going!"

Murdoch shrugged, and picked up the phone. "Yes?"

The voice at the other end was that of a woman.

"Please don't ask any questions, and don't waste time," the woman said hurriedly. "Listen to me closely if you want to save your country."

"Go on!" Murdoch said, suddenly tense. He had caught the note of urgency in her voice.

"I dare not take the time to explain anything now. But if you want to pick up some information about that certain party whose arrow you have, then be at the Dardanelles Restaurant tonight at six sharp. Come alone. Promise?"

"I promise," said Dan Murdoch solemnly.

"I accept your word. If you break it, you will only bring death to yourself as well as to me. Good-bye!"

There was a tight smile on Murdoch's dark and handsome face as he laid the receiver gently down in its cradle.

"A break!" he whispered. "An unexpected break!"

Swiftly, he told them what the woman had said.

"You lucky stiff!" Kerrigan exclaimed.

But Under-secretary Hedges was not so enthusiastic. "It may be a trap, Murdoch!" he warned. "In fact, it must be a trap. Don't you see? The Flaming Arrow tried for you once and failed. Now he's using this woman to lure you to your death!"

"I certainly hope so!" Murdoch said fervently.

Hedges threw up his hands in disgust. "What kind of men are you three?" He turned appealingly to the Director of the F.B.I. "Look here, you've got to forbid Murdoch to go there. Do you understand? Tell him now that he's not to go near the Dardanelles Restaurant!"

The Director smiled grimly. "Sorry, Hedges. You've given them their assignment. I've given them carte blanche. I make it a rule never to interfere with the Suicide Squad once they've started on a job. It's like trying to take a bone away from a bulldog!"

3. INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCE

At six o'clock sharp Dan Murdoch entered a greasy, foul-smelling Turkish restaurant on Allen Street, down on the lower East Side.

The sign outside read:

DARDANELLES RESTAURANT
Native Turkish Cooking - C. Foolhabi, Prop.

The proprietor was a short, moon-faced man with a pair of thick black eyebrows, and a heavy, drooping mustache. He got up from a table where he was playing checkers, bowed to Murdoch, and conducted him wordlessly to a table.

There were four or five checker games going each game had one or two kibitzers. A radio was playing somewhere in the rear, and a waitress was clattering dishes, and discussions were going on in several languages at some of the other tables.

The whole atmosphere was noisy and unrestful, not in the least adapted to a quiet game of checkers.

Almost every one in the place was drinking thick, black Turkish coffee, without cream, and a few of them were eating sandwiches.

The proprietor didn't waste any time on Murdoch. He dropped a greasy menu in front of him, and went back to his checker game.

Murdoch looked around for the woman who had phoned him. There were half a dozen women in the busy place, and any of them might have been the one he sought. She hadn't given him any clue to her appearance. He could only sit and wait for her to make herself known to him.

He had so maneuvered to get a chair against the wall. He could see all of the restaurant, and at least no one here would be able to put a knife in his back without his seeing it first. Of course, an arrow might be launched from the kitchen, or a gun might be fired from there. But he had to chance that.

When the waitress came over to him, he ordered coffee. He had been watching her serve several of the other customers, and he was trying to guess how she fitted into this place, among these swarthy, dark-complexioned people. For she was distinctly a northern type, tall and fair-skinned, with golden-yellow hair braided high on her head, and clear blue eyes. Dan Murdoch got a distinct shock when he glimpsed the tautness of her lips, the tinge of fright in her eyes.

"Yes, sir," she said. "Coffee. Anything else?"

Murdoch stiffened as he recognized the voice. She was the one who had spoken to him over the phone.

He gave no sign of recognition. He merely said, "That's all."

She bent over the table, wiping an imaginary spot, and she spoke very low. "You kept your word? You came alone?"

"Yes."

"That's good. Watch the man with the wart on the side of his nose, the one who is playing checkers with the man with the thin hands. The man with the wart is the one you are to follow, but the one with the thin hands is the dangerous one. He can move like a magician, and before you know it, there is a knife in your throat!"

Murdoch wanted to ask her a question, but she turned and hurried away.

He let his gaze stray to the table where the two men were playing checkers. The one with the wart on the side of his nose was a stocky, swarthy —skinned fellow, with a shock of black unkempt hair that came down over his eyes. He had thick, sensual lips, and a bull-like neck. He looked like a cutthroat from the waterside of any one of a dozen European cities.

It seemed incongruous that he should be playing checkers with the man with the thin hands. That one was an ascetic man, whose age was difficult to determine. He was carefully dressed in black, with a white shirt and a black tie. His hands were thin and long.

The waitress came back with a cup of the thick, black coffee, and placed it before Murdoch. As she bent over him, her lips moved: "The man with the wart is Dagomar. It is he who guides the Flaming Arrow's recruits in to shore at night. The other one is Gallieni, whose duties I do not know. Finish your coffee quickly and go out and wait. Dagomar leaves every night at seven o'clock. Follow him and you will find where the recruits land."

"Who are you?" Murdoch demanded. "Why are you doing this?"

She smiled faintly. "Don't forget to drink your coffee," she whispered. "It would look suspicious if you left without drinking it. They know who you are. If they thought I was helping you, they would kill me."

She wrote out a check for the coffee, and hurried away to attend to other customers.

Murdoch sat for a moment, looking down into the thick, muddy liquid. She had urged him to drink it. He had no way of knowing, at this moment, whether she was a friend or a foe. Undersecretary Hedges had been convinced that this was a trap. It wouldn't have been difficult for her to slip a lethal dose of poison into the coffee.

Murdoch raised his eyes, and saw that Gallieni, the man with the thin hands, was watching him. Gallieni swiftly shifted his glance back to the checker-board, and said something to Dagomar. But the man with the wart on his nose did not turn.

Murdoch shrugged. It was easy enough to find out if his coffee was poisoned. All he had to do was drink it.

He raised the cup to his lips. His hand was steady.

Just then someone screamed, back in the kitchen.

It was a dreadful scream, fraught with mortal terror and pain, stiffening the patrons in their chairs as if they had been shocked by a high-voltage current.

Murdoch was on his feet in a split-second. A single glance told him that the blonde waitress was not out here. She must be in the kitchen.

Foolhabi, the proprietor, sat frozen in his seat, his mouth open and his eyes wide. Gallieni had stopped in the act of making a move. Dagomar was half-crouched in his chair, as if ready to spring out of it.

But it was Dan Murdoch who reached the kitchen first, with his revolver in his hand.

It was the blonde waitress who had screamed. She was lying on the floor, on her back, with a long, feathered arrow quivering in her shoulder. The Turkish cook stood in a far corner, blubbering with terror. As Murdoch entered, he pointed with a shaking hand to the open back door, indicating the direction from which the arrow had come.

Murdoch dropped to his feet beside the waitress, but just as he did so the arrow burst into bright, fierce flame that drove him back by its very fierceness.

Murdoch saw the fire had started in the feathered part of the arrow. It raced down the length of the shaft, licking at the waitress's dress.

Murdoch's face was grim. He reached out and seized the shaft. It seared skin and hand unmercifully, but he yanked hard, tearing the arrow out of the wound. It came easily, for the tip was not deeply embedded. The wound wasn't fatal, but the fire would have finished what the arrow had begun.

Dan flung the arrow through the open door, into the back yard, where it burned itself out on the concrete.

In that moment of bright light, Murdoch caught a glimpse of two small, wiry figures, so strange and horrid that it was almost incredible. They were like some savage beings from another planet, moving in long and sinuous strides that were altogether out of proportion to their small bodies. They were both clad exactly alike, in some kind of leather jerkins, and their heads were tightly encased in metal helmets. Beneath the helmets their yellowish faces gleamed evilly.

Each of those small but monstrous figures had a long bow in his hand, and a quiver on his back. In the moment that Murdoch glimpsed them, they were fitting arrows into the bows. Then the light went out, and the yard outside was plunged in darkness. But the kitchen was brightly illuminated, and Murdoch knew that the bowmen of the Flaming Arrow were intent upon finishing their job.

He threw himself flat on the floor. His right hand throbbed unmercifully with the pain of the burn, but he carried two guns, and, like the other members of the Suicide Squad, he was proficient with both hands. He drew his right-hand gun with his left hand, and sent a fast barrage out into the night.

He had the satisfaction of hearing one scream, pitched high above the blast of the gunfire. But the second of the two must have gone unscathed, for a moment later an arrow hummed through the air and bit into the floor, barely an inch from where he lay.

Murdoch sprang to his feet and raced out into the yard. His right hand hung useless, but he had his other gun out. For a moment, when he emerged into the night, he could see nothing. But he kept running blindly, and almost tripped over the body of one of the Korean bowmen. He recovered his balance, but it was that near-fall which saved him, for a second arrow whined past him and buried itself in the framework of the building. The arrow in the kitchen had already burst into flames, and the cook and several others were fighting the spreading fire. Murdoch paid no attention to that. He had spotted the second bowman, over near a corner of the yard, crouching, fitting a third arrow to his bow.

Grimly, Murdoch threw down his gun and pulled the trigger. The Korean uttered a high—pitched screech, and fell forward on top of his bow and arrow.

The arrow burst into fire, and the leatherjerkined killer's body was enveloped in a sheet of flame.

A police whistle was shrilling somewhere out . Someone was screaming for the fire engines. A single glance told Murdoch that the fire in the kitchen was beyond control. He rushed back, remembering the waitress, but the kitchen was deserted. She must either have been carried out by the cook, or else she had recovered consciousness and had made her way out alone.

Murdoch swung away, and raced to the alley at the side of the yard. The agony of his seared hand was becoming almost unbearable. He ran out into the street, emerging at the mouth of the alley just in time to see the mob of patrons emerging from the restaurant. Among them he glimpsed the blonde waitress, leaning on the arm of Foolhabi, the frightened proprietor.

He gave her only a single glance, then he searched for Dagomar and Gallieni. He spotted them on the fringe of the crowd, whispering hurriedly. Then they separated, Gallieni going east, and Dagomar west, past the dark mouth of the alley where Murdoch stood.

Murdoch stepped out in Dagomar's wake, followed him for half a dozen paces, then saw the slim, wiry figure of Stephen Klaw directly across the street. Farther up the block he spotted the big, powerful form of Johnny Kerrigan.

They were both running swiftly toward the fire, and Murdoch smiled. True to his promise, he had gone alone to the Dardanelles Restaurant. But there was nothing in his agreement to prevent Kerrigan and Klaw from covering the outside, and they had done just that, remained about a block away.

With a quick lift of his good hand, he indicated the figure of the hurrying Dagomar. Stephen Klaw got the signal, and nodded. It was all he needed. These three men had worked together for so long, that they knew each other's thoughts and intentions almost subconsciously. Anyone else might have wondered just what Murdoch wanted done about Dagomar, whether he wanted him stopped, or followed. But Stephen Klaw knew very well that if Murdoch had wanted to stop the man, he'd have done it himself. Therefore, he wanted him followed.

Klaw turned and signaled to Kerrigan, who swiftly turned and hurried back to the car which he had left parked. Klaw waved to Murdoch, and headed back in the direction he had been going, keeping abreast of Dagomar, on the other side of the street.

Murdoch waited only another moment, to make sure that Klaw and Kerrigan were on the trail. Then he made his way through the crowd in front of the restaurant to the ambulance which had come clanging to the scene with the fire engines.

"Fix this hand, will you?" he said to the ambulance attendant. His face was white with pain.

Due to the shortage of doctors, there was only an attendant on the ambulance instead of the usual intern, but the young fellow was competent, and did a good job on the burned hand, using tannic acid.

"Boy," he said, "you sure got it good."

"I say he got it goot!" said a hearty voice at his elbow.

Murdoch turned, and saw the stout round—faced proprietor of the burning restaurant.

Dan's eyes narrowed. "Where's that waitress?"

Foolhabi spread his hands helplessly. "She gone fast. After doctor fix her oop, she scr-ram."

Murdoch glanced at the ambulance attendant. "Was the wound serious?"

"No. Only a flesh wound."

"You haff save her!" Foolhabi exclaimed, patting Murdoch on the back. "I haff see you pool out dose burning arrow. If not for you, poof, she is only ashes!"

"But where did she go?"

Foolhabi shrugged his shoulders. "Whom could tell!"

He was interrupted by an angry, anxious voice. "Where's my niece? What's happened to Hildegarde? Where is she?"

They saw a tall, stoop-shouldered gentleman, with a pair of spectacles sitting perilously low on his nose, who had pushed his way through the crowd.

Foolhabi uttered a groan. "Dose iss the oncle off the waitress. Professor Swenson. He comes effery night to taking her home."

The elderly professor pushed through to the ambulance, saw Foolhabi, and collared him.

"What have you done with my niece?" He gestured toward the raging inferno which the restaurant had become. "Is she safe?"

"Yess, yess, Professor!" Foolhabi exclaimed. "She iss safe. She was shot by a flaming arrow, but this gentleman haff saved her. I haff seen with my own eyes how he haff pulled the burning arrow out. But for him she would be dead."

"Yes, yes," exclaimed the impatient professor. "But where is she now?"

Foolhabi shrugged. "While I do not look, she haff went away. Per'aps home, eh?"

Professor Swenson drew a deep breath, half of relief, half of doubt. He looked at Murdoch. "I'm sorry, sir. I should thank you for saving Hildegarde's life. But—but I'm so nervous these days. Please accept my expression of deepest gratitude. If there is ever anything I can do for you! I am Professor Ernst Swenson, Professor of Applied Chemistry at Corbin University."

"Glad to know you, sir," Dan said. "I'm Daniel Murdoch. I'd like to talk to you about your niece."

"It will be a pleasure. Will you come home with me? Hildegarde is no doubt home by this time! I hope!"

Murdoch stayed a few minutes longer to talk to the police. He showed them his F.B.I. identification, but didn't tell them what had brought him here. He merely said he had been having coffee in the restaurant when the leather- jerkined bowmen had attacked. He watched the charred remains of the one Korean, and the dead body of the other being removed in the morgue wagon, and he promised the police captain in charge to be down at headquarters later that evening. Then he went with Professor Swenson.

They took a cab uptown. On the way Professor Swenson told Murdoch how worried he had been of late about Hildegarde.

"I'm sure she's been mixing in some kind of dangerous business where a girl like her doesn't belong. Naturally, she feels she must do something to help the country. We came here as refugees from the Nazi tyranny, escaping with barely our lives. Hildegarde's mother and father died in the terror of 1933, and she has only me and her young brother, who is crippled. I manage to support them on my small salary as professor, but I am developing certain war inventions which should be of great service. I keep telling Hildegarde that she should not expose herself to danger, but she does not listen. For instance, she has taken the job as waitress in the Dardanelles Restaurant, in order to spy upon a certain Axis agent, the Flaming Arrow. This is too dangerous work for a girl. You see what happened tonight!"

They had reached Corbin University, and Professor Swenson led Murdoch across the campus to Carlyle Hall, where he lived.

"I have my laboratory and study here, and I lecture in the chemistry building across the way. It is very convenient."

He led the way down the corridor of Carlyle Hall, and stopped before Apartment Nine. "These are my quarters." He peered at Murdoch over his glasses and said, "You know, I have an idea that you are more than you seem. You were not there in the Dardanelles by accident, eh?"

Murdoch stepped inside, and at once knew that he was in a trap. Half a dozen little yellow men, clad in leather jerkins and helmets, swarmed over him, pinning his one good arm to his side, wrapping their octopus-like arms around him.

"Indeed, my dear Murdoch," Professor Swenson said ironically, "it is a pleasure to entertain you here!" He had taken off his glasses, and now his eyes shone malevolently, with a fiercely burning flame of hatred. "Your search for the Flaming Arrow is over, Murdoch! I am the Flaming Arrow!"

Murdoch stood helpless in the grip of the wiry little Koreans. He glanced across the room, and saw Hildegarde, the blonde waitress, sitting tensely upright in a chair, her hands in her lap, her face wracked by fear and anxiety. Her clothes were torn, but she sat erect, not daring to move, for one of the little brown Koreans was standing directly behind her, holding a keen-bladed knife near her throat.

Murdoch's gaze swung back to the elderly, stoop-shouldered figure of Professor Ernst Swenson.

"So you're the Flaming Arrow," he said. "You're the fabulous guy who's going to wreck America's war power on September first!"

Swenson was watching him with bright eyes. "Quite so, Murdoch. I see you have learned a good deal about my plans. Perhaps you can tell me how much more you have learned? You went to the Dardanelles Restaurant to meet my niece, didn't you?"

"Of course not," Murdoch lied gallantly. "I went there for a cup of Turkish coffee."

"You must excuse me for doubting you," Swenson said with a twisted smile. "At a time like this, with the fate of your country dependent upon your checkmating me, you'd hardly have gone looking for Turkish coffee."

"That's the way I am," Murdoch told him. "Whenever things get tense, I need Turkish coffee."

Swenson snapped his fingers impatiently. "Let's be done with pretense. You're going to talk, Murdoch. I want to know where those two partners of yours are. I'm sure that my niece, here, betrayed me to you in some manner. I don't know exactly how. She swears she didn't, and I hesitate to use drastic measures with her, for I still need her services!"

"Don't tell me she's working for you?"

"She is, indeed, Murdoch!"

Hildegarde Swenson burst out passionately, "He forces me to do it, Mr. Murdoch. If it weren't for my little brother!" She gasped and lapsed into silence as the little brown Korean, at a signal from Swenson, brought his knife closer to her throat.

"Quiet, my dear," said Swenson. He turned back to Murdoch. "One of my Koreans shot her with a flaming arrow. The man is dead, so I can't question him. I don't know whether it was a mistake, or whether he detected her in an act of treachery. But it doesn't matter. You, my dear Murdoch, are going to talk. You are going to tell me just where your two partners are at this moment, and what they are doing!"

Murdoch smiled serenely. "Go to hell!"

Swenson's eyes flickered. He issued an order in a strange, weird tongue, and the little brown men leaped to obey. They dragged Murdoch across the room, into the laboratory beyond. Here, among test tubes and retorts, there was a trap-door in the floor. It was open, and one of the Koreans descended a few rungs of the ladder which led down into the dark cavern below.

It took five of them to handle Murdoch, even with his one hand useless. But they managed to get him down the ladder, partly by throwing him down the last half-dozen rungs. As Murdoch hit the cement floor below, he heard Swenson calling down to him softly, "Very soon, you shall be ready to talk freely. For the time being, I must leave you in the care of my Koreans."

The last thing Murdoch heard before the soundproof trap-door slammed shut above him was the girl's hysterical cry.

"You beast!" she was screaming at her uncle.

One of the Koreans snapped on an electric torch, and they pushed and dragged Murdoch over to a barred cell. He saw now that there were half a dozen such cells down here, and that one other was occupied by a boy of about thirteen. The child looked sick and emaciated in the quick glimpse that Murdoch got of him before his cell door clanged shut and the flashlight went out.

The Koreans moved about in the darkness outside the cell, apparently quite at home in the absence of light.

Murdoch called softly. "What do you say, sonny? How you doing?"

For a moment there was silence, then the thin voice of the boy, "Who —who are you?"

"Dan Murdoch, Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation."

"Did uncle get you, too?"

"Looks like it, sonny," Murdoch chuckled. "What the devil's he keeping you here for?"

"He makes Hildegarde, my sister, do his dirty work for him. He tells her that if she won't do what he says, he'll beat me to death. He's got this whole place wired with explosive, and she knows if she ever sent the F.B.I. here, uncle would make the whole place blow up, with me in it. So she doesn't dare refuse to do what he asks."

"I see," Murdoch said softly. "What's your name, sonny?"

"Holgar."

"Holgar, eh? That's a noble name. Norwegian?"

"That's right," the boy said eagerly. "We're Norwegian, Hildegarde and I. And Swenson isn't really our uncle. My real name is Holgar Thornwald. Our father and mother were killed when Norway was invaded. Swenson, he's the Flaming Arrow, came in with the invading army, and Hildegarde and I were captured. At first Swenson was going to have us killed, then he decided to take us to America. He said we'd make a good front for him."

"How come you speak such good English?"

"Our mother was American!" Holgar said proudly.

4. BEACH PARTY

It was fortunate that Kerrigan and Klaw had a car with them when they undertook the job of tailing Dagomar, for he rounded the corner and got into a sedan which was waiting there.

Kerrigan kept on the tail of that sedan, winding a tortuous way through the crowded east side streets, then up the East River Drive, and across the Queensboro Bridge into Long Island.

Under the new dim-out regulations, speed within the city boundaries was limited to twenty miles an hour, and their quarry apparently had no desire to become entangled with local law, for they adhered closely to that limit.

Johnny Kerrigan kept a half block behind them all the time, skillfully holding the sedan in sight.

"Dan must have had a nice time back there in the Dardanelles Restaurant," Kerrigan said gloomily. "Did you hear the shooting? Those were his guns. And what a fire!"

"I think Dan was hurt," Steve Klaw said. "He was holding his right hand away from him, high up. But I don't think it could have been bad."

The sedan ahead increased its speed as they hit out into the open country, heading toward the south shore.

"Hey!" said Kerrigan. "This gets interesting. Wonder who we're tailing."

Klaw shrugged. "I hope it's the Flaming Arrow."

They swung into the Merric Road, and here the traffic regulations were even more close to the coast line, and headlights were dangerous. Cars were scarce. Reflector signs at frequent intervals announced that only shielded parking lights might be used, and that speed must not exceed twelve miles an hour. Any motorist who was able to do so chose some other road, and as a result, the two G—men and their quarry had the highway almost entirely to themselves. Kerrigan doused his lights entirely....

The speedometer showed that they had covered almost sixty miles.

Klaw said, "I wonder where those birds get the gas. Honest citizens couldn't make a trip like this."

"They'll make one trip too many!" Johnny grumbled. "It begins to look as if Dan really put us on to something good. Those eggs look like they're heading for monkey business. There they go, turning off on that side road! I know this country like a book. That road leads down to the Mullhaven Estate!"

Stephen Klaw's eyes glittered. "Mullhaven! That's the guy who took a trip around the world in his private yacht in 1936, and got a medal from Hitler! He never gave the medal back, either!"

Kerrigan swung the car off the road, and parked it in a little culvert.

"We'll take it on foot from here!" he said.

The sedan ahead had turned off into the side road, and its tail lights had disappeared. Kerrigan and Klaw stalked it, moving cautiously down the side road.

Up ahead, they saw the lights of the Mullhaven Estate, and they were so close to the sea that they could hear the roar of the breakers. The Mullhaven house stood on a slight rise, and from where Kerrigan and Klaw were they could see it clearly through the trees; but they did not see the car which they had been following. It had not pulled up to the house.

They stopped for a moment, perplexed, and then Klaw tugged silently at Kerrigan's sleeve. He pointed in the opposite direction, down near the shore.

The car was there, close to the beach, parked without lights. They were just able to discern its bulk, and the figures of three or four men moving about it. There had been only two men in the car they had followed, which meant that other men had been down there on the beach to meet them.

As they watched, they heard a slight sound and turned to see the doors of the garage behind the Mullhaven house opening. A moment later, a station wagon drove out, with no lights showing.

Kerrigan and Klaw pulled back into the shadows of a maple tree, thinking that the station wagon would come down the road toward the highway. But instead, it turned toward the beach, and pulled up alongside the other car. Shadowy figures moved around the two vehicles, and Kerrigan and Klaw were able to discern the shapes of sub-machine guns under the arms of several of them.

Silently, Johnny and Steve moved down toward the beach. But they had hardly taken half a dozen steps when Klaw tapped Kerrigan warningly on the shoulder. They both stopped.

Ten paces away, a sentry was standing guard at the side of the road, almost invisible except for the gleam of the metal barrel of the sub-machine gun which was cradled under his arm. He was facing the beach, with his back partly turned to Johnny and Steve. Apparently he was quite sure that he would hear anyone approaching along the road.

Steve looked at Johnny, and tapped his own chest with his thumb, and Johnny nodded reluctantly. Immediately, Steve dropped down on all fours, and inched his way alone into the heavy underbrush.

A minute passed, and then a second and a third, while Johnny kept his eye on the sentry. The fellow was small and compactly built. He wore the same leather jerkin and helmet as those two bowmen who Dan Murdoch had killed at the Dardanelles. Slung across his back was a bow and a quiver of long arrows, as well as the sub—machine gun.

Suddenly, there was a slight noise in the underbrush, several feet behind the sentry. Kerrigan frowned. Steve must have stepped on a dry twig.

The sentry swung around, instantly alert. His gun pushed forward, finger on the trip, his eyes peering intently toward the spot whence the noise had come.

Johnny Kerrigan frowned. While the man was alert like that, Steve wouldn't have a chance.

Swiftly, Johnny bent and picked up a pebble, flipped it with his thumb. The pebble skimmed through the air and landed in the middle of the road, a couple of feet behind the sentry, with a little crunching sound. The fellow spun around, shifting his gun, and in that moment Stephen Klaw leaped at him from out the underbrush. Steve hit him with a flying jump, and threw one arm forward, then swung sideways with it so that the heel of his thumb struck the fellow in the side of the neck. At the same time, Steve drove his left fist into the small of his back.

The fellow uttered a gurgling grunt as the neck blow partly paralyzed him, at the same time that the blow in the back threw him off balance. In that instant, Klaw threw his right arm around his throat and yanked him backward, driving the toe of his right shoe into the back of the fellow's knees. The man came tumbling backward, his arms flailing the air, and Steve put his left hand, with a handkerchief in it, into the sentry's open mouth.

Johnny Kerrigan jumped in and clamped a big hand around the fellow's trigger finger, preventing him from shooting off the sub-machine gun and warning his companions down on the beach.

A moment later they had the jerkined sentry efficiently gagged and bound.

They left him there, and Johnny picked up the sub-machine gun, while Steve took the bow and the quiver of arrows. Shoulder to shoulder they followed the road down to the beach.

They halted where the underbrush ceased, perhaps twenty yards from the station wagon and the car. They saw now that the armed men with sub-machine guns were leather-jerkined and helmeted like the sentry they had surprised. The only white men were the two they had followed in the sedan, and a third who had driven the station wagon down from the garage. This one was speaking heatedly to the one whom they had followed.

"I tell you, Dagomar," he was saying, "we can't afford to take another batch in tonight. There are still fourteen men from the last batch who have yet to report to the Flaming Arrow. If we take another bunch in tonight, and leave them loose in the city, they may be captured. It's better to postpone it. Signal the sub to come back tomorrow."

Dagomar grunted unwilling assent. "All right, Mullhaven. But I don't think the Flaming Arrow will like it. He'll want every man set and ready for September first, and if we wait till tomorrow with this last batch, it'll only give him three days to issue instructions to them."

"Nevertheless," Mullhaven said smoothly, "I think it should be done this way. It's too bad neither of us knows where to contact the Flaming Arrow, but since we don't, it's up to us to use our best judgment."

"Well, maybe you're right," said Dagomar. "In view of the fact that the damned Suicide Squad has been assigned to us, we better be careful. Those rumors about them must be true, all right."

"What do you mean? What rumors?"

"The rumors that they have charmed lives. Twice now we tried to get one of them, that Murdoch, the tall, handsome one. Twice the arrows missed him. And I think he killed two of the Koreans tonight."

Mullhaven cursed in a low, intense voice. "That damned Suicide Squad! We must get rid of them somehow. I wrote that in my last memo to the Flaming Arrow, but he told me to mind my own business. I hope he knows what he is doing."

"Don't worry about the Suicide Squad," said Dagomar. "The Flaming Arrow will take care of them. He knows one of them already, and as soon as we find out what the other two look like, we'll get them all, charmed lives or not!"

"Well," said Mullhaven, "let's not waste time. Signal the submarine, and get through with it."

"Okay. One arrow means come back at the same time tomorrow night, doesn't it?"

"Right," said Mullhaven. "And two arrows means come right in, the coast is clear."

Dagomar turned to one of the Korean bowmen and spoke to him swiftly in that queer, staccato tongue of theirs.

The Korean fitted an arrow to his bow, aimed it toward the sky and let fly.

The arrow winged high in the night, becoming almost lost to sight. Then suddenly it took fire, high in the air, and formed a brilliant, flaming arc out over the ocean.

Johnny Kerrigan and Stephen Klaw, crouching in the underbrush, glanced at each other.

"One arrow means come back tomorrow," Johnny repeated softly. "Two arrows means come on in, the coast is clear!"

A slow smile spread on the faces of each of them.

"Go to it, shrimp," said Johnny. "If it works, it's a honey. You do your end, and I'll do mine!"

"Here goes!" said Stephen Klaw.

He took an arrow out of the quiver he had captured from the sentry, and swiftly fitted it to the bow. He got to his feet, and drew the arrow far back. Then he released the shaft, sent it swinging high up into the night.

The twang of the bow was loud and startling in the darkness. And the next moment the arrow burst into fire in the sky, and arced down into the sea.

Almost immediately, a babble of angry and excited voices broke out from the men around the station wagon.

"Who did that?" Mullhaven demanded angrily. "It was one of your damned Koreans, Dagomar! What the hell are we going to do about it?"

Dagomar faced toward the spot from which Klaw had shot the arrow, and a spew of strange words in that foreign tongue burst from his lips. He evidently thought that one of his Koreans had fired the arrow, and was bawling him out in his native language.

In the moment of surprise which the second arrow had caused, Johnny Kerrigan slipped away in the darkness, leaving Klaw alone. Steve stepped out from his place of concealment in the underbrush, carrying the bow and arrow ostentatiously in one hand. In his other hand he gripped one of his automatics, holding it behind him, hidden from the view of Dagomar and the others.

"I wish you'd talk to me in English," he said.

They all stared at him, open-mouthed, as if he were an apparition.

Steve stood there very quietly, grinning. He did not move even when Mullhaven clicked on a flashlight and turned it full on him.

"Who the devil are you?" Mullhaven demanded. The man's surprise had given way to anger now.

"Stephen Klaw, Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, at your service," Klaw said.

"Klaw!" exclaimed Dagomar. "One of the Suicide Squad!"

"Pardon me for intruding," Steve said politely. "But you gentlemen are all under arrest!"

"Arrest!" Dagomar shouted. "There are ten of us here. Are you trying to commit suicide?"

"Ten of you?" Klaw said. "You'd better surrender. Put down your guns and raise your hands in the air!"

"You're mad!" Mullhaven exclaimed, keeping the flashlight centered on Steve's face. "How did you get past our sentry? There can't be anybody else with you!"

"Only the Army, the Navy, and the Marines," Klaw told him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Johnny Kerrigan climb up into the station wagon, and get behind the wheel. He grinned, and brought the automatic out from behind his back. He fired practically from the hip, straight into the blinding cone of Mullhaven's flashlight.

The light disintegrated, to the accompaniment of a cry of anguish from Mullhaven. And at the same time, Kerrigan snapped on the bright headlights of the station wagon, flooding the beach with light, and silhouetting the group of men.

Dagomar uttered a curse, and then shouted a swift, vicious order in that foreign tongue to his Korean bowmen. They crouched low, raising their sub- machine guns as they swung toward the station wagon.

But they were blinded by the powerful headlights, and could see nothing. Dagomar lifted a revolver, with the intention of shooting out the headlights, but Stephen Klaw snapped a single shot at him, smashing his wrist. Then Johnny Kerrigan swung out on the running-board of the station wagon and sent one burst from his sub—machine gun ploughing into the sand at the feet of the massed Koreans.

Klaw threw away the bow and arrows, and came in charging at them like a half-back taking the ball through the line. He rammed viciously into one of the Koreans, sent the men sprawling, and snatched up the fellow's sub-machine gun. Gripping the weapon, he kept going right through the crowd until he emerged on the other side, clear of them.

Kerrigan had held his fire after the first burst, and now one or two of the Koreans began pulling the trips of their quick-firers. They smashed one of the headlights, but by that time Kerrigan and Klaw had opened up with their sub-machine guns, Kerrigan giving it to them from in front, and Klaw taking them in the flank. They sent two bursts into the Koreans, cutting down almost half of them, and then suddenly the remainder of the bowmen threw down their guns in panic and raised their hands in the air. The spirit was knocked out of them by the sight of their leaders. Dagomar and Mullhaven, lying dead on the ground, together with half their companions.

Kerrigan and Klaw rounded them all up, then herded them up to the house on the hill, making them carry their dead and wounded. The house was deserted. Evidently the full complement of armed men had been down at the beach.

The two G-men forced their captives to tie each other up, and then made the rounds to be sure the bonds were secure. Kerrigan went to the phone and called the F.B.I. Field Office, and ordered a couple of cars out on the double quick to pick up the prisoners.

"Better send a doctor, too," he said. "A couple of these birds need medical care." He paused a moment, then said, "Now get this. There'll be a submarine pulling in close to the shore here in a few minutes. Get a patrol of bombers in the air to take care of the baby, but not till after it has unloaded."

"How many men do you expect the submarine to unload?" the agent at the field office asked.

"I don't know," Kerrigan told him. "But we'll take a census for you. Phone the nearest Coast Guard barracks and have them send over a detail of men. We want to capture as many of the Nazis alive as we can. Klaw and I have an idea."

"Okay," said the agent.

"What about Dan Murdoch?" Kerrigan asked.

"Not a word from him, Johnny," the agent said. "We don't know what happened to him."

Kerrigan hung up glumly. He went back into the room where Klaw was guarding the prisoners.

"They haven't heard from Dan yet," he announced.

Steve received the news in silence. By unspoken agreement, these three never indulged in any sort of worrying about each other, out loud. They knew that when fate finally caught up with them, there was nothing to do about it but accept it philosophically. They knew that if Murdoch hadn't contacted the field office by this time, something must have happened to him. They would have preferred, of course, to have it happen when they were all together, so they could go down fighting, shoulder to shoulder, and check out in each other's company. But if this was the way it had to be, then they could take it, with the resolve to make the enemy pay dearly.

The Coast Guard contingent arrived in twelve minutes, with a huge searchlight truck and two jeeps. They were none too soon, for lights blinked out at sea, and a few moments later they discerned a boat pulling for shore. It turned out to contain nine Nazis in civilian clothes, who meekly raised their hands in the air when they were suddenly confronted by the Coast Guard.

A few minutes later they were all treated to the impressive sight of two squadrons of medium bombers roaring out over the sea, and dropping flares over a half-mile-square area of water. The black hulk of the submarine became visible, a mile off shore. It was caught in the act of crash-diving, and the depth-charges rocked the coast as that under-sea craft was blasted into oblivion.

Inside the house, where a squad of F.B.I. men had taken charge, Stephen Klaw and Johnny Kerrigan sat in the library with the Director and one of the Nazis, a young fellow of about Klaw's general build. They had picked him out of the group of captured saboteurs as the most likely prospect. A half hour in a private room with Johnny Kerrigan had been enough to take the starch out of him, and he was ready to cooperate fully with the authorities, in the hope that his life would be spared.

Just as in the case of other groups of saboteurs who had been caught, the government had difficulty in keeping them all from offering to squeal on their pals in order to escape the rope. Though they had been well-trained for their deadly work, they had learned nothing in their Nazi schools about honor.

This particular Nazi's name was Helmut Goermann, and he spilled his guts to save his life.

"We came here to serve the Flaming Arrow," he said. His English was good, for he had been brought to this country as a child, afforded an American education, then had been taken back to Nazi-land to top it off with an education in mass murder.

"What we are to do for the Flaming Arrow, we do not know, nor do we know where he hides. But I can tell you how we are supposed to contact him. See, we are each given an identity disc with a Flaming Arrow on it. We must go at certain appointed times for each of us to a music store on Fourteenth Street. There we give a password and our number, and we receive instructions."

Kerrigan and Klaw exchanged glances. Then they looked over at the table where the possessions of Helmut Goermann were laid out. He had been well equipped for his work, with typical Nazi thoroughness. He had a small box of nitroglycerine tablets, a dagger, several pencil bombs, and a Luger.

Klaw looked at the Director. "It's a shame, sir," he said, "that Helmut Goermann should fail to report at that music store. They'll be disappointed if he doesn't show up."

The Director's eyes twinkled. "You want to go in his place, of course?"

"Now wait a minute!" Johnny Kerrigan. "Why should he go? There's a couple of big strapping Nazis in this bunch. I could impersonate one of them!"

"Nix," said Steve. "I thought of it first!"

5. THE DECISION

Stephen Klaw walked slowly across Fourteenth Street, carrying a brief case. It was exactly nine o'clock when he came to Moncore's Radio and Phonograph Shop.

A dark-haired, white-faced girl was playing records on a phonograph just inside. Klaw stopped and joined the half-dozen persons who were standing outside, listening. He waited till the record was finished, then went into the store. It was quite a large store, well equipped, with several salesmen waiting on customers. Along the walls there were racks holding thousands of phonograph records. At the rear, there were several soundproof booths where one might listen to selections before buying them.

Klaw stopped beside the dark-haired girl.

"Yes, sir," she said. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Why yes. I would like to buy the Toreador Song from Carmen."

Her eyes flickered suddenly, as he mentioned the song. "You—you wouldn't know offhand what number it is in the catalogue, would you?"

"Certainly," said Steve Klaw. "It's number 79."

"That's an expensive record."

"Nothing is too expensive for our purpose," Steve said. He took a disc from his pocket. On one side of it was pasted a bit of paper upon which was drawn a picture of an arrow. The arrow was drawn in blue pencil, and there were flames rising from its tip, drawn in red.

"You see," he said, "I can pay for it."

He turned the disc over. On the other side was another bit of paper. Attached to the paper was a small snapshot of Stephen Klaw, and underneath it the number, 79.

The girl nodded swiftly. "I have just what you want," she said. "Follow me, please!"

She went to one of the racks, and took a record from the back of the pile. No one in the store paid them any attention as they went toward the rear.

"You may take it into Booth One and play it," she said.

Klaw took the record from her, entered the booth, and carefully closed the door behind him. He took the record from the container, placed it on the phonograph turntable, and started it.

Immediately, a voice began to come from the speaker. It was a low voice, but brittle and clear, with a clipped, authoritative tone:

"Orders for Number Seventy-nine. You have been sent here at great expense from the Fatherland to perform a specific task for me, the Flaming Arrow. The nature of that task has been kept secret from you until now, so that if you were captured immediately after being landed from the U-boat, you would have nothing to reveal. But now I shall tell you what you are to do. You will find instructions on the reverse side of this record. When you have memorized the instructions, destroy the record. If you should, by any chance, be arrested with this disc in your possession, let it drop to the floor. It is made of especially brittle material, and will immediately crumble into a thousand bits. Remember, Number Seventy-nine, that you are on probation until you have accomplished this first task. If you succeed, you shall be given a chance to participate in the Grand Campaign for which you were really sent here, the campaign which will destroy American war power entirely. But if you should be captured in the performance of this first assignment, remember you could attain no greater honor than to lay down your life for the Fuehrer. Heil Hitler!"

The voice ceased speaking, and the needle scratched along the record for a moment until the phonograph stopped automatically.

Klaw's eyes were glittering. He turned the record over, and started the phonograph going.

This time, another voice emerged from speaker. It was a woman's voice, soft and cultured, with a distinct English accent:

"Number Seventy-nine. Your first task will be the assassination of a man. It should not be difficult to accomplish, as this man does not expect attack, and is easy to reach. His name is Professor Ernst Swenson. He is a teacher of applied chemistry at Corbin University. This man fled from Europe at the time that our Fuehrer took power. He has since devoted himself to perfecting several inventions which will be dangerous to the Reich if placed in American hands. He must die, tonight. You will go to his laboratory in Carlyle Hall at the college, and say that you are an inventor in need of advice. He is always willing to help young inventors, and he will take you into his study. Once there, you will stab him in death, between the shoulder blades. He has a safe in his study. Use your nitroglycerin tablets to blow the safe, and take therefrom the plans which you will find. Have no fear of interruption, for we will have other men on the outside to protect you."

"When you leave the university, go out by the side door. A car will be waiting there, with a woman at the wheel. Throw the plans into the car, which will at once drive away. Make your escape, and come here tomorrow night for further instructions. Remember, you are now working for the Flaming Arrow. He brooks no failure, no excuses. We expect those plans tonight, before midnight. Memorize these instructions, and destroy this record. Heil Hitler!"

The glitter was gone from Stephen Klaw's eyes as the woman's voice concluded the instructions. In its place there was a cold, bleak light. He took the record off the turntable, and placed it carefully in his brief-case. Out of the briefcase he took another phonograph record. This one he deliberately dropped to the floor.

He opened the door of the booth, and saw that the dark-haired girl was standing just outside, together with a stocky man who was apparently the manager.

Klaw said, "I'm so sorry. I dropped your record, and broke it."

He took out a five dollar bill, and offered it to the girl. She looked at the manager, who waved the bill aside.

"Do not think of it, my dear sir. It was an accident. I regret that we do not have another record of the same song to sell you. Perhaps you will come tomorrow night? We shall try to have another record for you."

"Thank you," said Klaw. "I will be here tomorrow evening, if all goes well."

Klaw nodded to both of them, and hurried from the store.

Outside, he saw a taxicab cruising at the curb. He cast only a single glance at it, and hopped in.

The driver of the cab was a big, red-headed fellow. He nodded, and swung the cab away from the curb, fed her gas, and raced east, then swung north. After a couple of blocks he slowed down.

"We're being tailed," he said.

Klaw nodded. "I expected it, Johnny. It looks like I've been given my first assignment. Guess what."

Johnny Kerrigan shrugged. "Nothing less than murder, I'd say."

"Right on the nose, mope. I'm supposed to stab Professor Ernst Swenson to death, and rifle his safe. It's a sort of test assignment. If I make good, they'll let me in on the Grand Campaign.

"Ouch!" said Kerrigan. "And you've got to make good, or else all our spade-work goes for nothing!"

For several minutes they drove in silence, while Kerrigan made several turns, working north toward Corbin. Klaw glanced two cars which were tailing them. One was a small paneled truck, the other a black coupe.

Klaw sighed. "They're going to watch every step I make from now on, Johnny. If I don't kill Professor Swenson, I'll never get in on the Grand Campaign!"

"Maybe you could go in to Swenson's and talk to him, and explain just why you have to stab him. Maybe Swenson would agree to let you stick a knife a couple of inches into him, just to make it look real."

"Nix," said Steve. "That dame who spoke on the record said that the Flaming Arrow would accept no excuses or alibis. It has to be the real thing, Johnny. Either I kill Professor Swenson, or I give up any hope of working my way into the Flaming Arrow's organization!"

"That's a tough decision to have to make, Steve," said Johnny Kerrigan. "I don't envy you. No, I don't envy you at all!"

6. BLOOD AND FLAME

Carlyle Hall was the northermost building on the Corbin University Campus. Kerrigan pulled to a stop, and Klaw got out. He saw that the small truck had already stopped, about a hundred feet back, and the coupe had passed them, but was making a U turn up at the end of the street.

Klaw went through the motions of paying the cab fare. "Watch that brief- case I left in the back. It has the record in it. Better get it down to the F.B.I. office fast, and have copies made of it on a recorder. Some day we may be able to convict the Flaming Arrow by his voice." "If we catch him!" Kerrigan growled. Then he added, "Watch yourself, shrimp, I smell something phony in the whole setup. I wish Dan Murdoch was here to keep an eye on you, but he won't get in till tomorrow morning. So watch your own back."

"What the devil will I do about Professor Swenson?" Steve demanded, while he ostensibly waited for Kerrigan to count out change. "I can't kill the old man in cold blood. And if I don't, I lose my 'in' with the Flaming Arrow."

"Don't worry about it," Kerrigan said. "You'll think of something when you get in there. And I'll be around to lend you moral support. I'll hide the brief-case under my seat, and pull the cab around in back. I'll stick around till you come out."

"A great help you are!" Klaw grumbled. He took his change and left the cab, going into Carlyle Hall.

The long corridor within was dim and cool. On either side there were numbered laboratories, each the sanctum of one of the science professors. The bulletin board said that Professor Swenson occupied Number Nine, and Steve went down the hall until he reached that door.

Klaw's mind was a miasma of indecision as he pressed the bell and waited for the door to be opened. He had a long wicked knife in a sheath under his coat. But it was unthinkable that he should use the knife on the defenseless old professor of chemistry.

On the other hand, his duty was clear and sharp. This was war, total war, with civilians and soldiers alike under the constant threat of death. No one man's life, whether civilian or soldier, must be allowed to stand in the way of the country's safety.

Klaw shuddered. It was a dreadful decision to make. A Jap or a Nazi wouldn't have hesitated. But Stephen Klaw was a civilized man; and as he heard the footsteps within approaching the door in answer to his ring, he felt his blood growing cold.

Abruptly, the door was opened.

For a moment he stared at the tall, gorgeously beautiful girl who appeared there. He had expected to see a stoop-shoulder, elderly man. Instead, he was greeted by this blonde goddess.

"Good evening," he said. "I-I was looking for Professor Swenson."

The girl didn't smile. There was a strange, tight glint in her blue eyes, and she was holding herself taut, as if laboring under some great emotional strain.

"I'm Hildegarde Swenson," she said. "The Professor's niece. Come in, please. He's in the laboratory. He'll see you in a moment."

She escorted him across the study, and knocked at the door of the laboratory. A voice bade him enter.

"So you are an inventor, eh?" the Professor said, after Steve had introduced himself, giving a fictitious name. "And what can I do for you, young man?"

Steve was about to reply, but he frowned as he heard a tapping sound from somewhere underneath the floor.

"It is some men working on the basement," Swenson said. "Pay no attention to it."

He turned his back on Steve for a moment, and stooped over his desk, reaching for a cigarette. It was as if he were deliberately inviting the knife in the back.

"Look here, Professor," Steve said suddenly. "I'm not an inventor at all. I've got to talk to you."

Swenson turned to look at him quizzically. "So?"

"I've been sent here to murder you, Professor. Don't be alarmed, I'm not going to do it. I'm a G—man. I need your cooperation to lay a devilish Nazi spy by the heels. I'm going to ask you to play dead. Will you do it?"

For a moment, Swenson was silent, studying Steve. And in that silence, the tapping from underneath continued....

Steve put both hands in his coat pockets.

The Professor smiled. "What is your real name, young man?

"Stephen Klaw."

"Ah! You are one of the famous Suicide Squad."

"Well, that's what they call us."

"Tell me, Mr. Klaw, how did you come to discover all this about this —er—Flaming Arrow?"

"We caught a whole covey of nazis out on Long Island," Steve explained. "And we sank a submarine. But wait till we tie into the Flaming Arrow himself!"

"I am sure that will be interesting!" Professor Swenson murmured.

As he spoke, he reached to the desk, and his finger moved toward a red button there.

Klaw took an automatic out of his right hand coat pocket.

"Don't push that button, Mr. Flaming Arrow!" he ordered.

Swenson froze. He stood like that for a moment, staring at Klaw. "What makes you think I am the Flaming Arrow?"

Steve smiled. "That tapping we hear is Morse code. You've got Murdoch down under this trap door, and he's been telling me about you!"

Swenson's finger still hovered over the button. "So the Suicide Squad thinks it has bested the Flaming Arrow, eh? I've tested every one of my new agents by ordering them to come here and attempt to kill me. If they go through with it, I know they're the right material. You see, I wear a bulletproof vest."

Klaw grinned. "That's why the orders are to stab you between the shoulder- blades!"

"Exactly. And now, my dear Klaw, the jig may be up with me, personally. But my grand coup will go through on September first, anyway!"

"How so?"

"Because everything is set. Perhaps I will be dead, but the orders are all issued. My men are spread everywhere in the country, and on September first they will all act at a given moment. Water-power, utility plants, bomber factories, mines, all will be destroyed in a moment of time. And there's nothing you can do to stop it. Every name of every agent is in this building. And this building is going up in a terrific blast within thirty seconds!"

Klaw grinned. "Murdoch has been tapping the story up to me. The building won't be exploded unless you press that red button. And you're not going to press it!"

Swenson thrust his hand down at the button....

Stephen Klaw fired three times fast, and every shot smashed into Swenson's arm, driving it back from the button, so that when his hand landed on the desk it was almost six inches from the danger spot. Swenson's face became twisted into a mask of ghastly hate. He fell, screaming something in a foreign language. And whether it was in response to those screamed orders, or as a result of the shots, a panel in the laboratory wall swung open, and a group of the vicious Korean knife-men erupted into the room.

Klaw's other gun came out of his pocket, and he smashed ten shots so swiftly into the massed knife-men that they all sounded like one continuous explosion. The room thundered with the reverberating gunfire as the Koreans were driven back, leaving the floor littered with dead and wounded. But others were pressing in from behind.

Klaw reached over and yanked at the wire along the desk, connecting with the red button. At least now the explosive could not be detonated by remote control. He stooped and yanked at the trapdoor in the middle of the floor. It opened, revealing the ladder which led into the darkness below.

He heard the sounds of a battle going on down there, of men fighting desperately in the dark, and then he was overwhelmed by a second rush of the Koreans. There were many more of them now and their gleaming knives slashed at Steve as their weight carried him over the edge of the trapdoor opening.

They landed in a heap, and Steve pushed up to his feet. For a moment he was free of his clinging enemies in the darkness, but others were dropping down after him, and he heard gunfire far down at the other end.

Then a voice was raised in a centurion shout:

"This way, shrimp!"

Steve's eyes widened. That voice was Johnny Kerrigan's!

But he didn't bother to wonder how Johnny had got in there. He raced through the darkness toward the voice.

Suddenly an arrow hummed through the darkness, struck a wall, and burst into flame. By its light, Steve saw the doors which he had passed. They were open, and the cells untenanted. But at the far end of the cellar, he saw Kerrigan and Murdoch. Ammunition cases were piled high all around them, and Murdoch was firing at a small group of bowmen all the way over to the right, while Kerrigan was trying to boost a boy up through a high, narrow window.

Kerrigan got the boy through just as Steve Klaw joined them. Arrows were humming past his head, thudding into the ammunition cases and bursting into flame. Kerrigan stepped past him and brought his two revolvers into play at Murdoch's side, firing into the bowmen who were now almost invisible, for they had retreated beyond the area of light from the burning arrows.

Klaw swiftly inserted new clips in his automatics, then hurried around to the cases, striking off the flaming arrows with the butts of his guns. Then, when Murdoch emptied his guns, he was relieved by Klaw, who took his place at Kerrigan's side while Dan reloaded.

Kerrigan took his turn at fighting the arrows, and shouted to Klaw, "I heard Dan's Morse code out in back, shrimp, so I shot the grating away from this window and broke in. It looks like it'll be tough to break out, though!"

"They've got to run out of those damned arrows some time!" Murdoch yelled.

Just then they heard a grunt from Johnny Kerrigan, and then a yell. They turned around for just a fraction of a second, and saw Johnny locked in a death struggle with one of the Koreans who had slipped in through the high window. The fellow had a gleaming knife, with which he was trying to drive an upward stab at Johnny's stomach.

Kerrigan caught the fellow's wrist, yanked him forward, caught him by one foot, and still holding on to the hand he began spinning around. The Korean shrieked as he went whirling through the air, held by one wrist and one ankle. Klaw and Murdoch dropped flat on the floor, and Kerrigan let go of the fellow. He went sailing out into the darkness where his fellow bowmen were, and an arrow struck him, then burst into flames. The unfortunate Korean thudded to the floor.

The floor illuminated the rest of the cellar, showing the G-men what a shambles the place had become. Dead Koreans lay all over. The Suicide Squad's shooting had been pretty effective, but they hadn't been able to see the result. Now they saw that barely a half-dozen of the Koreans were still in the fight. And when the Koreans saw that their numbers had been so terribly depleted, they quit cold and went scrambling up the ladder to safety.

But they had waited just a little too long. The police and the fire department were outside in force to welcome them.

Not a single one of them escaped.

Twenty minutes later the fire in the cellar was under control, and the ammunition boxes had been sufficiently wetted down so they wouldn't explode.

Professor Swenson, alias the Flaming Arrow, was in custody, with one shattered arm. All the records in the building were being examined by a hastily convened staff of F.B.I. men.

That night, raids took place in every city where an agent of the Flaming Arrow was located. All the next day a dreary procession of surprised and bewildered Nazis were marched into federal courts for arraignment and promise of a speedy trial and execution.

It was almost six o'clock before Kerrigan and Murdoch and Klaw got through signing complaints and affidavits in the various courts having jurisdiction.

Murdoch's hand was still bandaged, so he was spared the writing, but Steve and Johnny had to do that much extra, while Dan sat on the edge of a desk, watching them with a sardonic smile.

"All right, mope," Steve said, tossing down his pen. "We're all through. Let's go!"

They hurried out the side way of the Supreme Court, in order to avoid the reporters and photographers. Hildegarde and Holgar were waiting for them there.

"Let's snap it up," said Steve. "There's a bus leaving in twenty minutes for Virginia Beach. We can hire a boat tomorrow morning, and go deep-sea fishing. We got a two-day leave."

Hildegarde's face was flushed, and her eyes were at peace for the first time. Little Holgar was capering excitedly.

But just then a Capitol messenger came hurrying down the street after them.

"Mr. Kerrigan!"

Frowning, Johnny stopped. The messenger said breathlessly, "They sent me after you. Congress is voting you three men a medal, and they want you to come right over for the ceremony!"

"Aw, gee," said Holgar. "No fishing!"

But Kerrigan and Murdoch and Klaw stood looking at each other for a moment. Kerrigan was the first to nod. Then Murdoch nodded. Steve Klaw grinned.

"So be it, mopes!" he said.

Then the three of them got hold of Hildegarde's and Holgar's arms, and began walking swiftly, not toward the Hall of Congress, but in the direction of the bus for the fishing trip!

"What good's a medal?" said Murdoch. "You can't take it with you!"

THE END