The New Adventures of Richard Knight Read online

  The Director of the Hostage Academy nodded agreement. “My researches indicate a bond of affection between you and this young lady, Mister Knight. It will be interesting to use that as a means of peeling each of your psyches apart. It makes both of you vulnerable. What will each of you do to save the other from pain, disfigurement, or death? A fascinating study.”

  Doyle looked around the skull-walled cavern. “What is this place? Where are we?”

  Nadalmetzger looked gratified to be asked the usual questions – then disappointed. Perhaps this Knight wasn’t the formidable adversary he’d been led to believe. “You are deep inside Mount Shasta, the White Mountain of the Cascades in southern California. The locals believe this place to be haunted. The old Umpqua Indians thought the gods were buried here. Even older tribes clearly used this place as a shrine.” The Director indicated the hundreds of bones lining the caves. “It seemed the perfect place to conceal light raider aircraft and operate my research facility in the United States.”

  Doyle had been hooded when the planes had used a concealed entrance but he’d felt the shifting air pressure and heard the echoes as they’d flown the tunnels.

  “How can you hope to conceal all this and get away with it?” challenged Benita.

  “You lived in a Lost Valley undiscovered for over a century,” Nadalmetzger pointed out. “And you did not even have obedient puppets in government obscuring your existence. Oh, my Academy is quite safe, now that Richard Knight has joined my Test Subjects.” He looked at Doyle as if slightly unsatisfied. “I shall leave the two of you for some touching last words. Then your destruction shall begin.”

  He gestured for the hooded guard holding Doyle to chain him next to Benita on the column beside the precipice. The Director left to prepare his conditioning room. Two guards took up position where they could see the shackled prisoners.

  Benita could whisper without them overhearing. “What’s going on?” she demanded. “Where’s Ricardo?”

  “We pulled a switch at the snatch site,” Doyle murmured back. “They took me thinking I was Knight. They hunted for the informer but he got away. They brought me and the Northrop back here for inspection. As for the big guy…”

  The taller of the masked guards swung round and clubbed the other in the side of his head. He pulled his mask off and smiled across at Benita. “Hola, querida!” said Richard Knight.

  ***

  As soon as Doyle was free he grabbed gun, robe, and mask from the downed goon. Benita hugged Knight and quickly explained everything she’d learned about the terrible Hostage Academy. “There are many people here, some broken and brainwashed. We must save them all, Ricardo!”

  “And we will,” promised the airman detective. “But first we need to get ‘em out of the way so we can deal with Nadalmetzger and his goons.” Knight thought fast. “Okay. Doyle, you escort Benita back to the cells. She knows the way. It’ll look like any guard leading any hostage back to her cage. Take down any of the Director’s thugs that you can. Then get everyone out and head to some room with only one way in, somewhere you can cover with a single gun. You have to keep the bad guys from getting any hostages while I take care of business.”

  “Gotcha!” the ex-Marine agreed, cracking his knuckles. “I been itching to get at these mugs since I first knew what they were doing.”

  “Be careful, Ricardo!” Benita called as Knight raced off in the direction that the mad doctor had departed.

  “Go get ‘em, buddy!” Doyle added. “It’s not like I didn’t warn ‘em fair and square!”

  ***

  Doctor Nadelmetzger looked over the various machines and instruments in his laboratory of pain. It was a serious business to plan a programme of re-education for a trained agent like the infamous Q. It would require all of the Director’s genius to peel away the layers of resistance, of honor, of loyalty and decency to create a craven quivering broken slave at the last. The psychologist was already thinking it could be his greatest achievement.

  He was annoyed to be interrupted by one of his masked minions. “What?” he snapped.

  Knight slipped off his mask. “You made a mistake, Doctor.”

  Nadalmetzger frowned. “What do you mean? Who are you? How did you…?” Then it all came to him. “You! You are Mister Knight!”

  “Yep. And you’re murdering, torturing, blackmailing scum whose time has come, buster.”

  The Director shook his head. “I think not.” He seized up a metal rod with twin forks and twisted a dial on the machine it was plugged in to. “This instrument is used for delivering punishment shocks to my subjects. At maximum intensity it is lethal. I have set it to nearly that. You will burn but you will not die – until I allow it.”

  Shots would bring guards running. Knight moved to close range.

  Nadalmetzger stabbed the lightning probe right at his face.

  Knight deflected the tines with his rifle’s wooden butt and slammed a thunderbolt left hook into the Director’s mush. Nadalmetzger was hammered back. He crashed into the mechanisms against the wall. Knight hooked up the rubberized cable supplying the probe with juice and coiled it round the psychologist’s neck.

  “You might want to think again,” Knight advised. “If you don’t want to learn a whole lot more about pain right here, right now.”

  Fear bloomed in the Director’s eyes. “I will… cooperate,” he promised, understanding for the first time what it was like on the receiving end of coercion.

  Knight jammed his face up close to the devil doctor. “Oh, you bet you’re going to cooperate,” he promised with a feral snarl.

  ***

  Doyle and Benita herded the captives into the shower block. Quarried out from the natural caves, it met Knight’s criteria for a secure single entrance space. It even had a water supply for a long siege. Some of the captives followed because they still yearned for escape. Others obeyed because one of their ebony masked masters commanded it. All slipped quickly and quietly into the enclosed protection of the washrooms.

  The speakers crackled, then spoke with the Director’s voice. “All staff will assemble in the hangar cave. Repeat, all staff to the hangar cave immediately. No exceptions.” Nadalmetzger’s voice sounded a little tense.

  “That’s gotta be Knight,” figured Doyle. “Keep ‘em moving, Benita.”

  “Where are we going?” Test Subject 109 asked, trembling. “Are we going to be killed?”

  “You’re being freed,” the Spanish girl promised her. “I told you my friends would come.”

  Doyle recognized the pale frightened hostage. “Hey, I’ve seen your pic. You’re Honey. Honey Hogan, Senator Alden’s grandkid!”

  109’s lips parted in surprise. “I’m… not Honey now. I’m not allowed a name.”

  Benita clutched her arm. “You can be whoever you want, Honey. You’re going to be free!”

  A trio of guards appeared from a side passage. “Hey, what’s going on?” they demanded of Doyle. “What’re you doing with those Hostages and Test Subjects? Didn’t you hear the Director’s orders?”

  “Yeah, about that,” Doyle replied. Then he opened fire with his rifle.

  The first shot took the captain down. The others dived for cover and unslung their rifles to return fire.

  “Into the washroom!” Benita urged the last of the captives. “Quickly!” She raced across the corridor and pushed the hesitating Honey over to Doyle.

  Bursts of rifleshot rattled down the passage. Doyle dragged Honey to cover at the doorway he was to hold. Benita had to duck the other way. Cut off from Doyle and the escaping prisoners she had no choice but to flee back toward the main cavern.

  Doyle swore and reloaded. He couldn’t follow her. He was pinned down and he had to hold the breach.

  Like Knight, Benita was on her own!

  CHAPTER VII

  THE FINAL LESSON

  Mason watched General Brett carefully. The first few days of any new hostage operation were the most critical – and Brett had a reputation for
not bowing to pressure. Mason’s job for Doctor Nadalmetzger was to make sure the General did exactly what he was told.

  Brett’s reputation for fairness and honesty worked in the blackmailers’ favor. Nobody asked why Brett had replaced his closest aide. When the General finally accepted his situation and ordered up whatever secret documents Mason demanded the files would be brought out no questions asked. All Mason had to do was keep his subject on a tight leash until Brett yielded to his situation.

  The spy sat across the desk flicking through the General’s calendar, making notes. “This is going to be a very productive relationship, General,” he smirked.

  Brett glowered across at Mason, knowing that the time was coming when he’d have to decide between his country and his ward. He dreaded the decision but he knew which had to come first. Even Benita would agree.

  When the phone rang Mason picked it up just as any ordinary aide would do. “General Brett’s office.” He passed the cradle over to Brett with a tiny sneer. “Your wife. Sir.”

  Brett accepted the receiver. It wasn’t uncommon for his wife to call him when he worked this late.

  “Hello,” the General said.

  His wife cut him short. “John, listen! A wire's just arrived here at home, from Richard Knight. He says that Benita’s alive, but a hostage. That you’re being… forced to co-operate to keep her alive.”

  Brett’s face betrayed nothing to Mason. His new keeper was hovering at his elbow. He kept the earpiece pressed tight to his head and answered casually. “About another hour or so, I’m afraid, darling. Paperwork. I'm working late with Mason.” Secretly his heart leaped. So Knight had worked it out! His best man was on the job!” Richard's going after her, to save her,” the General’s wife told him. “He wired me some numbers for you, John. Radio frequencies. They've put a tracker on his Northrop - but you could track it too!”

  ”Sure, I can pick a few things up when I'm finally done.” The General uncapped his pen. “Give me the list.”

  As he wrote, Brett studied Mason out of the corner of his eye. Mason in turn strained to see what the General scrawled down on his blotter. As the spy recognized the radio frequency his face shifted through shock to anger and finally to panic.

  When Brett wrote the final numbers, Mason’s hand reached for the firearm in his jacket. “General…” Mason began to warn, just before the General tossed the contents of his inkwell into the spy’s eyes.

  Mason staggered back, blinded. His hand closed on the trigger of his sub-nosed gun but the shot went wild. Brett decked him with a powerhouse right.

  “Get in here, Sergeant!” Brett yelled at the top of his voice for his watch NCO. “Scramble, scramble, scramble!”

  ***

  The chamber where the Sparrowhawks landed was huge, a lower ledge of the great cavern inside Mount Shasta. Eight more of the tiny maneuverable biplanes were lined up on the artificial floor beside the larger bulk of Knight’s custom Northrop.

  Knight kept the scalpel he’d taken pressed into Dr Nadalmetzger’s side as he led the Director through the crowd of gathering Academy staff toward his plane.

  “You cannot escape, Knight. Your resistance is futile!” the psychologist told him.

  “Resistance is never futile,” the agent replied. “Time your Hostage Academy learned that.”

  He’d reached the Northrop. He unlatched one of the side hatches and found the canister he was looking for.

  It was the momentary distraction the Director was looking for. He wrenched himself away from the pilot and shouted, “It is an intruder! This man is Knight! Take him!”

  Knight pulled the nozzle off the tear gas canister in the Northrop’s hull. The pressurized ethyl bromoacetate burst out in a choking cloud upon the gathered minions. Knight closed his eyes, held his breath, and hauled himself into the Northrop’s cockpit. His hands found the gas mask in its familiar place and strapped it on.

  There was chaos on the landing floor. A few people got random shots off but in the gassy fog nobody could see to aim.

  Knight hit the auto-starter. The monoplane’s propeller would disperse the gas but it gave him time to taxi away and drop over the ledge into the darkness below.

  The plane barreled toward the precipice. Knight knew that the Sparrowhawks must launch this way, but they were smaller, designed to be dropped from a larger craft in mid-air. The Northrop had twice their wingspan. He had to count on its improved engines and his own experience to survive.

  The darkness of the abyss was absolute. The Northrop’s floodlights were lost in the vast depths. Knight had no idea how much space he had to maneuver or what warning he might have of a lethal cavern wall. He pitched the plane and pulled it round as quickly as he could.

  Behind him three Sparrowhawk pilots managed to reach their craft and launch after him.

  Knight rose from the pit with feet to spare on the rear wall. As his plane came into view a few of the warders took potshots. Knight responded by loosing the automatic .50s. Their rapid fire spray wreaked havoc amongst the guards, shredding through the assembled Academy staff and the unlaunched biplanes. One hot round found the big fuel tanks at the other side of the platform.

  Knight angled his plane up in a clockwise spiral. The tanks detonated, clearing the floor of any living person, painting the upper cave with a hellfire glow. The intense heat washed over Knight. He fought the shockwave to keep his Northrop off the jagged cavern wall.

  A burst of bullets spanged through his port wing. The three remaining Sparrowhawks were below him, climbing fast. He was outnumbered and exposed.

  By instinct rather than planning he made for one of the side caverns. He had no idea if he could fit the Northrop down the dwindling diameter of the tunnel, only that any other action would see him dead in seconds. He gunned his plane into the narrow twisting tunnel, piloting by reflex.

  The walls closed nearer. Sometimes they came within a yard of the Northrop’s 47 foot 8½ inch span. Knight had one consolation: the tunnels were lit with ribbons of light bulbs, which meant the Sparrowhawks must use them sometime too.

  The first enemy plane closed. It was better able to maneuver in these twisting rock channels. Knight unfolded his twin short muzzled guns rear and let loose both full belts of 250 shots at the pursuing flier.

  The first biplane was shredded by the hail of lead. It bounced off the wall and catapulted into the Sparrowhawk behind it, sending both of them tumbling in flames into the unfathomable crevasse below.

  The final hunter closed in and returned fire at Knight.

  Knight jinked as best he could in the confined space. He selected a right turn at the fork ahead, hoping it would loop him round to the main cavern once more. The Sparrowhawk was right behind him, unshakeable, peppering the Northrop. Knight felt his plane splutter. It had taken a hit.

  Knight knew he couldn’t escape the enemy. Instead he throttled back, slowing his plane suddenly. The Sparrowhawk reacted slowly, realizing too late he was about to crash into the quarry he chased. The pilot instinctively twisted his stick to avoid the collision – and scraped into the cavern wall instead!

  Knight rode the Northrop out of the explosion. His engine guttered and failed, then caught again at the last moment. The plane emerged from the tunnel out into the flame-washed main cavern. Alive!

  ***

  Benita found her way back to the main parapet over the chasm. This was the viewing point where Dr Nadalmetzger liked to make his captives stare into the dark void; except now that void was lit with the blazing ruin of the landing deck and the fiery destruction of the Director’s project.

  Benita knew that Knight was responsible for the devastation. Justice had come to the Hostage Academy.

  “Ah. The fair Benita. How fortunate!”

  The Spanish girl whirled round. The Director himself was there, clutching a suitcase full of money and a satchel with his research notes. The gaunt sallow scholar’s lab coat was singed from his escape from immolation below. Now his thin lips curled into a
cruel sneer.

  “You’re beaten,” Benita told him. “Your victims are free. Your plans are at an end. Your power is broken!”

  “For now,” admitted the psychologist. “But my work will continue. I know too much. I will vanish then start again.” He dropped the suitcase and produced a revolver. “And you will be my first subject. You will not be seen again until your brainwashed future self emerges to gun down Richard Knight!”

  “I’d rather die!” spat Benita, backing toward the chasm’s edge.

  “A less fitting revenge for my enemy, but a revenge all the same,” Nadalmetzger judged. “Long lonely nights regretting words not spoken, a future torn away. Yes, that might do until I devise something better for him.”

  More explosions and gunfire came from below. Knight hadn’t merely left the radio tracker planted in the Northrop intact – he’d sent the frequency to General Brett. Now Brett had detained the traitorous Mason and brought his men to clear out this viper’s nest.

  “Wherever you go, Ricardo will find you and end you,” Benita declared to the Director with absolute certainty.

  Whatever reply Nadalmetzger might have made was drowned by the hum of a Pratt & Whitney engine. Knight swooped his Northrop over the ridge, saw Benita’s danger, and loosed a single shot from his Colt Peacemaker through the Director’s skull.

  Dr Nadalmetzger fell backwards over the precipice.

  “I told you as much,” Benita said as the Director’s corpse vanished into the blazing depths of the chasm.

  ***

  “I don’t know how to thank you,” Honey told Knight, Doyle, and Benita. “I was in hell. Now I’m alive again.”