The crackling and sizzling noise and yellow-green fog started just before noon.
One minute the Detroit River was quiet and placid.
In the next moment, the Steel Hammer struck!
The terrible crackling noise, like a piece of bacon the size of a Mack truck sizzling on the devil’s own griddle, filled the air. The very river itself seemed to be burning, and the yellow-green fog rose.
Dug in along the riverfront, two battalions of the Michigan National Guard quickly put on their gas masks. They maintained perfect discipline -- until the screaming started.
When the screaming sound began coming in off the river, several machine-guns cut loose. The effect was just as Doc had foreseen -- the air raid siren, with its unholy wail coming as such close quarters, caused panic, even in trained men who anticipated the event.
Corporals and sergeants ran up and down the line, stopping the wild firing.
“You know better!” an old First Sergeant, a Great War veteran, roared. “Hold your fire until you can see your target!”
“Sarge, we can’t see three feet in front of us,” protested a machine-gunner.
“Well, hang on until you can. Them’s orders!”
“But Sarge....”
“’But Sarge’ nothing! Just shut your yap, and hold your fire. Word is that we’ve got Doc Savage and his men helping out on this.”
“The Man of Bronze himself!”
“That’s right. He might even be out there on the river right now, fighting this thing. So hold your fire until you’ve got a definite target.”
“Will do, Sarge.”
AT THAT time, Doc Savage, still in his disguise as “Wheels”, was maneuvering the big Packard touring car down Holland Avenue.
Beside him, in the front seat, Seven-Eleven McSwain was checking the loads in his twin six-shooters. In the rear of the car, the six henchmen were readying their tommy-guns and burlap loot sacks.
“I’ve never seen you so blood-thirsty, Wheels,” McSwain said. “I had you picked as a top-notch driver, but I didn’t figure you for such an anxious gun-hand, especially to bump off a fed.”
“Yeah, well, you know...” Doc replied non-commitally. “There was this job once...”
“Back when you were running with the Barrow gang?” McSwain asked.
“Something like that,” Doc replied.
“I’d always heard that an undercover informer set you up for the Texarkana job. And you were the only one to get anyway on that one.”
Reasoning that nobody in the back of the car could contradict him, since Wheels had been the only one to escape, Doc spoke more freely, inventing a story of a federal undercover agent who had passed information about the gangs activities. His encyclopedic knowledge of criminal activity enabled him to recall reports of a Texarkana bank robbery with one presumed escaped robber some five years previously.
“... so I figured I was finishing up paying them back, bumping off that fed back at the apple farm,” he concluded violently.
When Blackie White had order the execution of the disguised Renny, Doc had volunteered to do the job.
As “Wheels”, he’d drug the bound figure of Renny down the long rows of apple trees to where Paulson, the hideout’s operator, stood beside a freshly dug grave.
Reaching the grave, he threw Renny violently into the hole.
“I don’t need to see nuthin’,” said Paulson, turning his back. “I ain’t witnessin’ nuthin.” He never heard Doc step up behind him, and never felt Doc squeeze the nerve cluster at the base of his neck, producing instant unconsciousness.
Doc quickly untied Renny, gave him hurried instructions, and fired a single shot into the now-empty grave. Then he headed back through the rows of apple trees, to drive the Steel Hammer gang to Detroit.
Now as the gang approached the central business district, Seven-Eleven McSwain gave final instructions.
“Get ready, ya muggs. Get you gas masks on.”
“I can’t see for nothing wearing this thing,” complained one of the bag-men, Rocko.
“You’d rather breathe poison gas?” chided McSwain.
“Ain’t supposed to be no poison gas anywhere near us!” shot back Nails.
“I know that and you know that,” said McSwain. “But nobody in Detroit knows that. They expect the yellow-green stuff to be poison, so we wear the masks, so that they don’t think any different, see?”
“Gotcha, Seven,” Nails said.
“Besides, we don’t know how good those mortarmen are. Are they really going to be able to hit where they’re supposed to?”
THE MORTARMEN were very good.
Their truck came rolling in to Wolverine park at 11:45. The mortar crews quickly carried their mortars to three firing positions, forming a triangle around the truck. Azimuths were checked with a compass, and direction stakes quickly pounded into the ground. Ammunition bearers stacked the supposed “Anti-Gas” shells and powder charges at each gun.
Mortar crews take their instructions from a Fire Direction Center. The firing chief, having successfully computed the required trigonometric functions for launching a bullet into the air and making it come down in a particular place, relays this information to his gun captains, who pass it to their crews.
Hank Morgan was the chief of the Fire Direction Center. “Gun Crews! Perform safety inspection!”
“Perform safety inspection!” echoed the gun captains. At all three mortars, gunners and their assistants inspected their weapons.”
“Gun One up!”
“Gun Two up!”
“Gun Three up!”
Satisfied, and marking the time by his wristwatch, Hank Morgan began calling out the various pieces of information required for the fire mission -- the precise direction of fire, how far the gun tubes should be elevated, how many charge bags of powder should be used, and finally, with particular pride, he called out, “Ammunition, ‘Anti-Gas’ Special!”
“Ammunition, ‘Anti-Gas’ Special!” the gun captains echoed. This was the moment they had come to savor. All the men were convinced that their actions were going to make a difference, were going to help Doc Savage, were going to save lives...
“Hang the first round!” Morgan ordered.
“Hanging!” At each gun, the loader held a mortar shell “hanging” over the end of the tube. On command, he would drop the shell, which would fall to the bottom of the mortar tube. There is would hit the firing pin, which would set off the primer, which in turn would ignite the seven charge bags of powder. This explosion would send the shell blasting out of the mortar, up into the air, on a long, rainbow-shaped parabola that would end twenty-eight seconds later with the shell impacting at the corner of Second and Holland.
Hank Morgan had his eyes glued to his watch. Everything was going exactly according to schedule. The shells were to land at exactly 11:58. Figuring a twenty-eight second flight time, that meant that the shells had to be fired at exactly 11:57 and thirty-two seconds. Per standard mortar operating procedure, the order to hand the first round was given ten seconds before firing.
Frank Morgan gazed intently at the second hand on his wristwatch, and opened his mouth to give the command, “Fire!”
But it never came.
Instead, Hank Morgan looked up to see his sister Sally in the company of a very tall, gaunt man wearing a monocle.
“Stop!” tall Johnny ordered, using the single syllable. “Stop! Cease and desist!”
“Hank, stop!” cried Sally.
Hank Morgan was beside himself.
On the one hand, he was confused and amazed at the presence of his sister, and the tall stranger, telling him to stop. But on the other hand, he was convinced that his duty was to launch the special “Anti-Gas” mortar shells to help Doc Savage thwart the plans of the Steel Hammer.
Duty won the day.
Hank Morgan cried, “Fire!”
AS “WHEELS”, Doc turned the car containing the Steel Hammer gang right off of Holland, and squealed to a stop in front of the Peninsula Bank and the corner of Tenth Street and Cass Avenue. The streets were clouded with the yellow-green fog, and the sizzling and screaming sounds from the river, some eleven blocks distant, were tremendously loud.
There were no people out on the street. All had taken cover immediately as soon as attack had begun.
“Right on the money,” Seven-Eleven McSwain said with satisfaction as he looked at his watch. “Keep the motor running, and be ready to zip out of here, Wheels.”
“Gotcha.” Doc replied.
“Set the time, Nails!” ordered McSwain.
“One minute, and mark time .... now!” replied Nails, pushing the button on a stop-watch.
“Let’s go!”
The three tommy-gunners entered the bank first. Seeing their gas-masked faces, the customers and employees fell to the floor. Most of them didn’t see the three gas-masked men with burlap sacks when they entered. And they didn’t see, but rather heard, Seven-Eleven McSwain when he entered, crying, “Hello, Detroit! The Steel Hammer is in the Motor City!”
Out in the getaway car, Doc was using a small radio transmitter he’d kept concealed on his person. He was trying to contact Johnny, Long Tom, or Monk, hoping that they had been able to stop the mortarmen from launching the poison gas attack. The radio set only was effective over relatively short distances, but if his aides had been able to stop the poison gas attack, they should be in range.
Again Doc tried to reach his friends.
But there was no answer.