Doc Savage: The Miracle Menace Read Online Free Page B

needed doing, and wickedness punished, it was best to right the wrong rather than to wait to see how it all came out—which is how the average citizen often regarded trouble not his or her own.
    Doc Savage came fully equipped to right wrongs and punish evildoers. He had been raised from the cradle for such a noble purpose.
    TWO hours later, they came to the wilderness section of upstate New York. The area was utterly devoid of habitation for miles around.
    Below, they spied a cluster of grim graystone buildings set at the base of a mountainous area. This was surrounded by several zones bounded by high woven-wire fences. The outer fence was topped by razor wire. Six feet separated it from the next fence in the concentrated series of fences. There were traps in these zones. The final fence, the innermost one, was electrified.
    The traps and the electricity were controlled by persons in a hunting-style log lodge which sat off in one corner.
    There were other defenses. Sections of earthen loam were mounted on rolling tracks. When withdrawn, they disclosed concrete pits housing anti-aircraft batteries.
    The public knew nothing of these devices. No one was able to enter who was not authorized to do so. The place was a secret.
    Any hunter who chanced to stray close to the arrangement of buildings would understand why it was so well-protected. For on the outer fence were posted large signs, several facing each point of the compass. These read:
WARNING
GERM RESEARCH INSTITUTION
—YOU MAY CATCH A DISEASE—
KEEP OUT
    The signs looked new and freshly painted. They were. All of the institution was. For this was Doc Savage’s Crime College. Although it had been in operation for several years now, formerly it had been concealed behind the false front of the hillside, and was entirely a subterranean affair.
    But the fantastic progress of the secret enterprise had forced Doc Savage to move it out into the open, under the guise of a scientific research laboratory. Which it was, actually.
    It was here that Doc Savage consigned malefactors whom he captured in the course of his adventures. In these austere confines, they were submitted to a singular course of rehabilitation.
    First, their brains were operated upon by surgeons trained in the delicate process. This accomplished two things. It wiped out all memory of their past criminal lives, eradicating their memories even going back to earliest childhood. In the course of this, a gland Doc had discovered to be defective in those who were criminally disposed was operated upon and corrected.
    This, too, served to eradicate all tendencies toward crime.
    Once the prisoners recovered from this process, they were given new names and set upon a course of reeducation, which included good moral reinforcement, and taught a new trade. After that, they were released back into society to take their rightful place.
    This would be the fate of the captured swindler they were now conveying to the institution.
    There was a small airfield. This and the frequent visitations by private ambulances carrying the prisoners to the secret place were among the reasons for the recent renovations.
    “There is no mooring tower,” Ham noticed.
    “Let me take over,” squeaked Monk, shouldering the dapper lawyer aside. “Doc taught me how to moor this pocket Zeppelin when there ain’t no tower at hand.”
    Reversing the engines with a smack of the throttle, the hairy chemist brought the airship to a shuddering stop. It began drifting.
    Releasing ballast in the form of a heavy gas, Monk dropped the craft. It settled quietly. To any distant observer, it would look like an Army blimp on maneuvers.
    Paying out the grappling hook, Monk snagged trees, then pulled on the guy-wire control, bringing the ship to a bobbing halt.
    Ham looked out the windshield and side inspection ports, frowned.
    “How the deuce do we get down?” he wondered.
    “Ropes,” said Monk, kicking open the hatch and throwing out heavy lines suitable for