The Air Trust Part 38

The first intimation that Flint and Waldron had of any opposition to their plans, of any revolt, of any danger, was at quarter past three on the afternoon of October 8th, 1925. All that afternoon, busy with their final plans for the immediate extension of their system, they had been going over certain data with Herzog, receiving reports from branch managers and conferring with the Congressional committee that--together with Dillon Slade, their secret-service tool, now also President Supple's private secretary--they had peremptorily summoned from Washington to receive instructions.

In the more than four years that had pa.s.sed since they had put Gabriel behind bars--years fruitful in strikes and lockouts, in prost.i.tutions of justice, in sluggings and crude ma.s.sacres--both men had altered notably.

Though the National Censorship now no longer permitted any cartooning of a "seditious" nature, i.e., representing any of the Air Trust notables, old Flint's features tempted the artist's pencil more than ever. Save for a little white fringe of hair at the back of his head, he had become almost bald, thus adding greatly to his strong suggestion of a vulture.

His face was now more yellow and shrunken than ever, due to a rather heavier consumption of his favorite drug, morphine; his nose had hooked more strongly, and his one gold tooth of other days now had two more to bear it company. His eyes, too, behind his thick pince-nez, had grown more shifty, cold and cruelly calculating. If it be possible to conceive a fox, a buzzard and a jackal merged in one, old Isaac Flint today represented that unnatural and hideous hybrid.

Now, as he stood facing "Tiger" Waldron, in the inner and sancrosanct office of the Air Trust plant at Niagara--the office that even the President of these United States approached with deference and due humility--the snarl on his face revealed the beast-soul of the man.

"d.a.m.nation!" he was saying, as he shook a newly-received aerogram at his partner. "What's this, I'd like to know? What does this mean? All telegraphic communication west of Chicago has suddenly stopped, and from half a dozen points in the Southern States news is coming in that railway service is being interrupted! See here, Waldron, this won't do!

Your part of the business has always been to carry on the publicity end, the newspaper end, the moulding of public opinion and political thought, _and_ the maintenance of free, clear rail and aero communication everywhere, all over the world. But now, all at once, see here?"

Waldron raised red, bleared eyes at his irate partner. He, too, was more the beast than four years ago. No less the tiger, now, but more the pig.

High, evil living had done its work on him. An unhealthy purple suffused his heavily-jowled face. Beneath his eyes, sodden bags of flesh hung pendant. His lips, loose and lascivious, now sucked indolently at the costly cigar he was smoking as he sat leaning far back in his desk-chair. And so those two, angry accuser and indifferent accused, faced each other for a moment; while, incessant, dull, mighty, the thunders of the giant cataract mingled with the trembling diapason of the stupendous turbines in the rock-hewn caverns where old Niagara now toiled in fetters, to swell their power and fling gold into their bottomless coffers.

"See here!" Flint repeated angrily, once more shaking the dispatches at his mate. "Even our wireless system, all over the west and southwest, has quit working! And you sit there staring at me like--like--"

"That'll do, Flint!" the younger man retorted in a rough, hoa.r.s.e voice.

"If there's any trouble, I'll find it and repair it. Very well. But I'll not be talked to in any such way. d.a.m.n it, you can't speak to me Flint, as if I were one of the people! If you own half the earth, I'll have you understand I own the other half. So go easy, Flint--go d.a.m.ned easy!"

Malevolently he eyed the old man's beast-like face. The scorn and dislike he had conceived for Flint, years ago, when Flint had failed to win back Catherine to him, had long grown keener and more bitter.

Waldron took it as a personal affront that Flint, apparently so worn and feeble, could still hang on to life and brains enough to dominate the enterprise. A thousand times, if once, he had wished Flint well dead and buried and out of the way, so that he, Waldron, could grasp the whole circle of the stupendous Air Trust. This, his supreme ambition, had been constantly curbed by Flint's survival; and as the months and years had pa.s.sed, his hate had grown more deep, more ugly, more venomous.

"Why, curse it," Waldron often thought, "the old dope has taken enough morphine in his lifetime to have killed a hundred ordinary men! And yet he still clings on, and withers, and grows yellow like an old dead leaf that will not drop from the tree! When _will_ he drop? When _will_ Father Time pick the despicable antique? My G.o.d, is the man immortal?"

Such being the usual tenor of his thoughts, concerning Flint, small wonder that he took the old man's chiding with an ill grace, and warned him pointedly not to continue it. Now, facing the Billionaire, he fairly stared him out of countenance. An awkward silence followed. Both heard, with relief, a rapping at the office door.

"Come!" snapped Flint.

A clerk appeared, with a yellow envelope in hand.

"Another wireless, sir," said he.

Flint s.n.a.t.c.hed it from him.

"Send Herzog and Slade, at once," he commanded, as he ripped the envelope.

"Well, more trouble?" insolently drawled "Tiger" happy in the paling of the old man's face and the sudden look of apprehension there.

For all answer, Flint handed him the message. Waldron read:

Southern and Gulf States all seemingly cut off from every kind of communication this P.M. Can get no news. Is this according to your orders? If not, can you inform me probable cause? I ask instructions. "K."

Silence, a minute, then Waldron whistled, and began pulling at his thick lower lip, a sure sign of perturbation.

"By the Almighty, Flint" said he. "I--maybe I was wrong just now, to be so confoundedly touchy about--about what you said. This--certainly looks odd, doesn't it? It _can't_ be a series of coincidences! There must be something back of it, all. But--but _what_? Rebellion is out of the question, now, and has been for a long time. Revolution? The way we're organized, the very idea's an absurdity! But, if not these, what?"

Flint stared at him with drug-contracted eyes.

"Yes, that's the question," he rapped out. "What can it mean? Ah, perhaps Slade can tell us," he added, as the secret-service man quietly entered through a private door at the rear of the office.

"Tell you what, gentlemen?" asked Slade, smirking and rubbing his hands.

"The meaning of that, and that, and _that_!" snapped old Flint, thrusting the telegrams at the newcomer.

"Hm!" grunted the secret-service man, as he glanced them over. "That's d.a.m.ned odd! But it's of no real moment. If--if there's really any trouble, any outbreak or what not, of course it can't amount to anything. All you have to do is order the President to call out the troops, and--"

"Yes, I can order him, all right," snarled Flint, "but in case all our wires are down and all our wireless plants put out of commission, to say nothing of our transport service interrupted, what then? There's no doubt in _my_ mind, Slade, that another upheaval is upon us. The fact that we stamped out the 1918 and 1922 uprisings, and that rivers ran red and city streets were flushed with blood, apparently hasn't made any impression on the cattle! d.a.m.n it all, I say, _can't_ you keep things quiet? _Can't_ you?"

In a very frenzy he paced the office, his face twitching, his bony fingers snapping with the extremity of his agitation. Suddenly he faced Slade.

"See here, you!" he exclaimed. "This certainly means another uprising.

It can't mean anything else! And you've allowed it, you hear? No, no, don't deny the fact!" he cried, as the detective tried to oppose a word of self-defense. "It's your fault, at last a.n.a.lysis; and if anything happens, you and the President, Supple, have got to answer to me, personally, do you hear? You've got to pay!"

"Pay, and with devilish big interest, too!" growled "Tiger," fixing his bleared, savage eyes on Slade.

"What did I make that man President for, anyhow?" snarled Flint, "if not to do my bidding and keep things still? Why did I put you in as his private secretary, if not to have you watch him and see that he _did_ do my bidding? Why did I have Congress pa.s.s all those bills and things, except to give you the weapons and tools to hold the lid on?

"You've had a huge army and a conscripted militia given you; and hundreds of wireless plants, and military roads and war-equipment beyond all calculating. You've had thousands of spies organized and put under your control. At your suggestion I've had all political power taken away from the dogs--and everything done that you've asked for--and this, _this_ is the kind of work you do!"

Livid with rage, the old Billionaire stood there shaking by his desk, his face a fearful mask of pa.s.sions and evil l.u.s.ts for vengeance and power. Slade, recognizing his master, even as President Supple on more than one occasion had been forced in terrible personal interviews to recognize him, said no word; but in the secret-service man's eyes a brutal gleam flashed its message of hate and loathing. Foul as Slade was, he balked at times, in face of this man's cruel and naked savagery.

"I tell you," continued Flint, now having recovered his breath, "I tell you, you're worse than useless, you and your President, ha!

ha!--President Puppet, indeed! Take that great Smoky Mountain clue, for instance! On the rumor that the ring-leaders of the swine were up there, somewhere, in the North Carolina mountains, you sent your two best men.

And what's the latest news? What have you to tell me? _You_ know! Other airmen of yours have just reported that nothing can be found but ruins of the Socialist refuge, there--nothing but those, and the half-melted vanadium steel identification-tags of your best scouts! _And_ their machine is gone--and with it, the birds we wanted! Then, close on the heels of this, all wires go flat, all wireless breaks down, all rails are interrupted, and--and h.e.l.l's to pay!" Fair in Slade's face he shook his trembling first.

"Urrh! You devilish, impotent faker! You four-flusher! You toy detective! You and your President, too, aren't worth the liquid oxygen to blow you to Hades! See here, Slade, you get out on this job, now, and do it d.a.m.ned quick, you understand, or there'll be _some_ shake-up in your office and in the White House, too. When I buy and pay for tools, I insist that the tools work. If they don't--!"

He s.n.a.t.c.hed up a pencil from the desk, broke it in half and threw the pieces on the floor.

"Like that!" said he, and stamped on them.

Waldron nodded approval.

"Just like that," he echoed, "and then some!"

"Go, now!" Flint commanded, pointing at the door. "Inside an hour, I want some reports, and I want them to be satisfactory. If you and Supple can't get things open again, and start the troops and machine-guns before then, look out! That's all I've got to say. Now, _go_!"

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

"NOW COMES THE HOUR SUPREME."

Hardly had the secret-service man taken his leave, slinking away like a whipped cur, yet with an ugly snarl that presaged evil, when Herzog appeared.

"Come here," said Flint, curtly, heated with his burst of pa.s.sion.