Caleb Barter must have some weak spot in his insane armor, some way by which he could be reached and destroyed––and Bentley swore to himself that it would be he who would find that weak spot.
The limousine ahead was going at dangerous speed. The police chauffeur beside Bentley crouched low over the wheel as he drove. His eyes never left the speeding limousine. People on the sidewalks stared in astonishment as the two cars flashed downtown.
The leading car sped on, the driver obviously expecting ways to open in the last second before threatened collision. He passed cars on the left and the right. There were times when his wheels were up on the curb as he went through lanes between cars and sidewalks. He was determined to go through.
Only Bentley understood that the driver ahead was an automaton, a man whose brain did not know the meaning of fear. He knew that 44 from his hideout Caleb Barter was directing the flight of the escaping car. He could fancy the old man of the apple-red cheeks, sitting in a chair in his hideout, his hands in the air as though they gripped the wheel of a car, sweat breaking forth on his cheeks as he guided his puppet through the press of cars.
But by now in that uncanny way that sometimes happens the streets were being cleared as if by magic before the flight of one whom all observers must have thought a madman. Only Bentley knew that the driver ahead was not a madman.
His own car careened from side to side. Bentley wondered what the chauffeur would think if he knew he was driving a race against one of Barter’s supermen. He would perhaps have realized that no man could possibly follow with any degree of success. The police driver had succeeded so far only because, Bentley guessed, he felt that where any other man could drive, so could he.
Only Bentley knew that the driver up there was not a “man” in the normal meaning of the word. He wondered who “he” really was––not that it mattered greatly, for the entity required to make “him” a normal man had perhaps been destroyed, or had become part of some giant anthropoid to be used later in Barter’s ghastly experiments.
“I wonder if Tyler will send out calls for police cars in other parts of the city to try and cut off the runaway,” shouted Bentley above the shrieking of the motor and the wailing of the siren. “Are any police cars equipped with radio?”
“Several,” answered the police chauffeur. “And they are able to cut in on various public radio stations, too. By this time warnings are being heard on every blaring radio in Manhattan.”