The Avenger 1 - Justice, Inc. Read Online Free PDF

have.
    The man was of average height, but seemed short because his shoulders were so broad and he was so stocky. He wore a flat-brimmed hat with a slightly Western look. His face was flat and broad, with deep, weather-bitten lines. He moved slowly, and looked almost sleepy, with his narrowed, expressionless eyes.
    The eyes were very light gray, almost colorless.
    “We don’t usually charter planes for so long, or to go such distances, Mr. Conroy,” the agent said. “You want it for work in Nevada, you say? Why don’t you get a plane from a Western company?”
    “I told you,” said the man. “This work is to be kept secret. I’d rather have a pilot from two thousand miles away than do business with a local firm.”
    He shifted slightly bowed legs under him as though lonesome for the feel of a horse on the open range.
    “Like I said, I’m a prospector. I located this claim in a place where only prospectors and mountain goats can go. No chance of getting in machinery by burro. So I want a plane to drop a little light machinery by parachute. And I understand you have a plane with a trapdoor, which would be just the ticket.”
    The agent hesitated quite a long time. Then he said:
    “I’m afraid your information is incorrect. We have no planes with trapdoors.”
    The man’s narrowed gray eyes expressed disappointment. His face remained dead-pan, expressed nothing at all.
    “Oh. I understood you had such a plane. I’m sorry I bothered you. I’ll have to go somewhere else.”
    He nodded and left the office.
    It was dark, by now. Late dusk. Lights flooded the field, of course; but his figure could only dimly be seen as he went to the gate and the cab there. He got into the cab.

    The broad shoulders were caused by rubber pads, that could be inflated, over the shoulder caps. Benson deflated them. The Western-looking hat held that shape because in brim and crown fine wire was laced in the felt, unseen.
    Benson altered the hat till it was Homburg style. He prodded his face. It had been broad and rather flat, deeply lined. It now became subtly leaner, smooth and extra full around the lips. He slipped his spring topcoat off and put it on inside out. It had been gray, checked. Now it was solid brown with a narrow, formal velvet collar.
    It had only taken thirty seconds to make the change, but that was enough for the cab driver, sitting stolidly in front and waiting for orders, to get impatient.
    “Where to, boss?” he said over his shoulder, not bothering to look around.
    “Ely Hotel,” said Benson.
    And he slipped out the side of the cab opposite the airport gate. The cab drove off, empty. Benson went back into the field.
    He was slim, dapper, younger-looking than his years. He no more resembled the “prospector from Nevada” than Jack Dempsey resembles Tom Thumb.
    He went directly to the biggest hangar, in which the large airliners were kept. He walked with that curious air of authority which some men can acquire, and which causes people instinctively to let them pass even though sometimes ordinary mortals are not allowed to. Several mechanics and field men stared at him as he entered the hangar, but after a hesitation, did not offer to bar his way.
    In the huge shed were two liners. One had the figures H61 on its bulging nose. And the other was numbered—S402.
    S402! It was S404 that MacMurdie said that had the opening in the bottom. Benson stared at the figures with eyes that glittered disappointment, even though his face never moved in line.
    Then those quick, pale eyes of his, trained in a hundred deadly ventures to see things normal eyes did not observe, noticed something.
    The gray paint on the airliner’s fuselage was well-kept but not new.
    The paint of the figures themselves did seem new.
    The nose loomed far above him. But, standing under it and staring up with eyes like a hawk’s in their telescopic-microscopic powers, he made sure of it. The figures had been painted on that ship later than the