Free Emperor Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer Page A

eighty.”
    Dr. Fu-Manchu took a pinch of snuff from a box on the desk. He began to speak, slowly, incisively.
    “I have learned since my return to China that Dr. von Wehrner is the chief research scientist employed here by the Soviet. I know his work. Within his limitations, he is brilliant. But the fools who employ him will destroy the world—and all my plans—unless I can unmask and foil their schemes. Von Wehrner is the acknowledged authority on pneumonic plague. This is dangerously easy to disseminate. Its use could nearly depopulate the globe. For instance, I have a perfected preparation in my laboratory now, a mere milligram of which could end human life in Szechuan in a week.”
    “This is not war,” General Huan said angrily. “It is mass assassination.”
    Fu-Manchu made a slight gesture with one long, sensitive hand. “It must never be. For several years I have had an impalpable powder which can be spread in many ways—by the winds, by individual deposits. A single shell charged with it and exploded over an area hundreds of miles in extent, would bring the whole of its human inhabitants nearly instant death.”
    “But you will never use it?”
    “It would reduce the area to an uninhabitable desert. No living creature could exist there. What purpose would this serve? How could you, General, with all your military genius, occupy this territory?”
    Huan Tsung-Chao spread his palms in a helpless gesture. “I have lived too long, Master. This is not a soldier’s world. Let them close all their military academies. The future belongs to the chemists.”
    Dr. Fu-Manchu smiled his terrible smile.
    “The experiments of those gropers who seek not to improve man’s welfare, but to blot out the human race, are primitive, barbaric, childish. I have obtained complete control of one of the most powerful forces in the universe. Sound. With sound I can throw an impenetrable net over a whole city, or, if I wish, over only a part of it. No known form of aerial attack could penetrate this net. With sound I could blot out every human being in Peiping, Moscow, London, Paris or Washington, or in selected areas of those cities. For there are sounds inaudible to human ears which can destroy. I have learned to produce these lethal sounds.”
    Old General Huan bowed his head. “I salute the world’s master mind. I know of this discovery. Its merit lies in the simple fact that such an attack would be confined to the target area and would not create a plague to spread general disaster.”
    “Also,” Dr. Fu-Manchu added, “it would enable your troops to occupy the area immediately.”
    * * *
    The sampan seemed like sanctuary when Tony and Yueh Hua reached it. But they knew it wasn’t.
    “We dare not stay here until sunset, Chi Foh. They are almost sure to search the canal.”
    She lay beside him, her head nestled against his shoulder. He stroked her hair. Tony knew he had betrayed himself when he had called out in his mad happiness, “Moon Flower”—in English. But, if Yueh Hua had noticed, she had given no sign. Perhaps, in her excitement, she had not heard the revealing words.
    “I know,” he said. “I expect they are looking for us now. But what can we do?”
    “If we could reach Lung Chang we should be safe,” she spoke dreamily. “It is not far to Lung Chang.”
    He nodded. Oddly enough, Nayland Smith’s instructions had been for him to abandon his boat and hurry overland to Lung Chang. He was to report there to a certain Lao Tse-Mung, a contact of Sir Denis’s and a man of influence.
    “What I think we should do, Chi Foh, is to go on up this canal and away from the river. They are not likely to search in that direction. If we can find a place to hide until nightfall, then we could start for Lung Chang, which is only a few miles inland.”
    Tony considered this plan. He laughed and kissed Yueh Hua. This new happiness, with fear of a dreadful death hanging over them, astonished him.
    “What should I do