"Well?"

Renny knotted his enormous hands. "I wonder what made them decide to kill me!"

IT was fully an hour later when Doc Savage appeared at his eighty-sixth-floor skyscraper retreat.

Ham, Renny, and Mindoro were waiting for him. They were perspiring and excited.

Waving his sword cane, Ham yelled: "Doc! They've got Monk, Johnny, and Long Tom!"

A stranger watching Doc would not have dreamed the shock this news conveyed. The bronze face remained as devoid of expression as metal. No change came into his eyes that were like pools of flake gold.

"When?" he asked. His strange voice, although not lifted to speak the single word, carried with the quality of a great drum beat.

"We were all going to meet here about noon," Ham explained. "I stopped for a manicure and was late. When I arrived, there was a lot of excitement. Several of the Mongols had just herded Long Tom, Johnny, and Monk out at the point of guns. They rode off in waiting cars. Nobody as much as got the license number of the cars."

Renny beat his big fists together savagely — the sound they made was like steel blocks colliding.

"Blast it, Doc!" he said sorrowfully. "I knew something was wrong when the devils decided so suddenly to croak me. But I forgot to tell you — "

"I heard their sudden change of intention," Doc replied.

Renny looked vastly relieved. He had thought that his forgetfulness was responsible for half an hour's delay in Doc getting On the trail of the captors of the trio.

"Did you guess they had captured our three pals?"

"The suspicion occurred to me," Doc admitted. "It became certain when I dropped off the taxi and called the manager of this building."

"Then you've been on their trail!" Renny grinned. "Find anything?"

"Nothing."

Renny's sober face set in disconsolate lines. With the others, he followed Doc back into the office.

From a drawer, Doc took a box containing cigars — cigars so expensive and carefully made that each was in an individual vacuum container. He offered these to the others, then held a light — Doc never smoked himself.

There was tranquility in the giant bronze man's manner, a sphinxlike calmness that had the effect of quieting Ham and Renny. Even Juan Mindoro was noticeably eased.

Doc's weird golden eyes came to rest on Juan Mindoro.

"The master of the Mongol horde is a man named Tom Too, and they are seeking to wipe out your secret political society in the Luzon Union," he said. "That is substantially all I know of this affair. Can you enlighten me further?"

"I certainly can!" Juan Mindoro clipped grimly. "This Tom Too is a plain pirate!"

"Pirate?"

"Exactly! A buccaneer compared to whom Captain Kidd, Blackbeard, and Sir Henry Morgan were petty thieves!"

DOC, Renny and Ham digested this. Renny had taken one of the cigars, although he rarely smoked. The weed looked like a brown toothpick in his enormous fist. Ham was leaning forward in an attitude of intense concentration, the sword cane supporting his hands under his jaw, his eyes staring at Mindoro.

"Tom Too got his start with the pirates of the China seaboard," Mindoro continued. "As you know, the China coast is the only part of the world where piracy still flourishes to any extent."

"Sure," Renny put in. "The steamers along the coast and on the rivers carry soldiers and machine guns. Even then, two to three hundred craft a year are looted."

"Tom Too became a power among the corsairs," Mindoro went on. "A year or two ago, he moved inland. He intended to set up an empire in the interior of China. He established himself as a war lord.

"But the armies of the Chinese republic drove him out. He moved into Manchuria and sought to seize territory and cities. But the Japanese were too much for him."

Renny twirled the cigar absently in his gigantic fingers. "This sounds a little fantastic."

"It is not fantastic — for the Orient," Doc Savage put in. "Many of the so-called war lords of the Far East are little better than pirates."

"Tom Too is the worst of the lot!" Mindoro interjected. "He is considered a devil incarnate, even in the Orient, where human life is held so very cheaply."

"You said you had never seen Tom Too," Doc suggested. "Yet you know a great deal concerning his career."

"What I am telling you is merely the talk of the cafes. It is common knowledge. Concrete facts about Tom Too are scarce. He keeps himself in the background. Yet his followers number into the hundreds of thousands."

"Huh?" Renny ejaculated.

"I told you the pirates of the Spanish Main were petty crooks compared to Tom Tool" Mindoro rapped. "It is certain no buccaneer of history ever contemplated a coup such as Tom Too plans. He is moving to seize the entire Luzon Union!"

"How much has he accomplished?" Doc asked sharply.

"A great deal. He has moved thousands of his men into the Luzon Union."

At this, Renny grunted explosively. "The newspapers have carried no word of such an invasion!"

"It has not been an armed invasion," Mindoro said grimly. "Tom Too is too smart for that. He knows foreign warships would take a hand.

"Tom Too's plan is much more subtle. He is placing his followers in the army and navy of the Luzon Union, in the police force, and elsewhere. Thousands of them are masquerading as merchants and laborers. When the time comes, they will seize power suddenly. There will be what the newspapers call a bloodless revolution.

"Tom Too will establish what will seem to the rest of the world to be a legitimate government. But every governmental position will be held by his men. Systematic looting will follow. They will take over the banks of the Union, the sugar plantations — the entire wealth of the republic."

"Where do you come in on this?" Renny wanted to know.

Mindoro made a savage gesture. "Myself and my secret political organization are all that stands in the way of Tom Too!"

Chapter 9

HIS ARM FELL OFF

HAM had said nothing throughout the discussion. He maintained his attitude of intense concentration. Ham was a good listener on occasions such as this. His keen brain had a remarkable capacity for grasping details and formulating courses of action.

"Have you taken this matter up with the larger nations?" Ham asked now.

Mindoro nodded. "That was my first move."

"Didn't you get any action?"

"A lot of vague diplomatic talk was all!" Mindoro replied. "They told me in so many words that they thought I exaggerated the situation."

"Then no one will interfere, even if Tom Too seizes power with this bloodless revolution he plans," Doc said. His words were a statement of fact.

Tilting back in his char, Doc drew his sleeve off his left wrist.

Mindoro stared curiously at the contrivance that looked like an overgrown wrist watch. He did not know the thing was the scanning lens of Doc's amazingly compact television receiver. He seemed about to ask what it was, but the gravity of his own troubles dissuaded him temporarily.

"I will describe my secret political organization briefly, and show how we are fighting Tom Too," Mindoro stated. "In the secret group are most of the prominent men of the Luzon Union, including the president, his cabinet and the more important officials. We have money and power. We control the newspapers. We have the confidence of the people.

"Most important of all, we are sufficient in number to take up arms and offer Tom Too very stiff opposition. We already have the very latest in machine guns and airplanes. We stand ready to fight the instant Tom Too comes into the open.

"Tom Too has learned this. That alone is forcing him to postpone his coup. He is seeking to learn our identity. He captured me here in New York and tried to force me to reveal the names of the secret society members. Once in possession of those names, he will remove every man. Then he will seize power."