The Twisted Cross (33 page)

"Look how the helicopters are piling in and out of here," Hunter said. "These guys don't all know each other. They're airmen -they don't mix with the ground help."

As if to emphasize his point, two Soviet-built Hinds roared over their heads, kicked up a storm of dust and landed side-by-side on the near lip of the blasted-out road. No sooner were they down when a larger and older Soviet-built Mil Mi-4 Hound took off and roared away to the south.

"They found something big time in that pyramid," Hunter said after observing the beehive-like activity around the cave entrance on the side of the Grand Uxmaluna Pyramid. "Maybe a big 'deep zone' gold find that Sandlake's daughter led them to."

" 'Gold robs the soul of life . . .' " Brother David said, quoting somebody.

"If that is the case," Hunter said. "If they did find a lot of gold, that means she's here with them. They're too dumb to do it on their own."

"They're certainly prepared," the mercenary monk said. "Isn't that a TV

satellite dish over there?"

"That it is," Hunter said, lifting his head the slightest bit to get a good look at the piece of broadcasting hardware. "They must have somehow found a satellite that was still working in space."

"They're advanced, Brother," David said. "They're very high-tech . . ."

"Yeah, but high-tech doesn't always mean 'smart'," Hunter replied, taking a quick shot of the dish with his handy video mini-cam. "I mean, you'd think these guys would have learned by now. They don't even have a defense perimeter set

up"

"They are all too busy with whatever is going on inside that cave," the monk said.

"And that's our 'in,' Brother," Hunter said. "They're just too busy . . . Are you ready? Any last minute prayers?"

"Ready, I am," the monk said taking a deep breath. "And I won't make any final peace with the Lord right now because, frankly, I don't want Him to know what I'm up to."

"Me neither," Hunter replied.

With that, they got down on their stomachs, and slowly crawled across the green, slimy ground, using the foot-high green, slimy underbrush as their cover. Hunter had never seen so many bugs in his life - some of them were the siz£ of his fist. But what concerned him was that wherever one found bugs in the jungle it usually meant that a well-fed, always-hungry snake was nearby.

It was if Brother David had read his mind.

"Do not worry about the snakes," the monk whispered to him as they slowly made their way closer to the edge of the camp. "My middle name is Patrick. St.

Pattie is my patron saint. You know what he was famous for?"

Hunter had to think. "Besides green beer?"

"He drove the snakes from Ireland," David told him, "There's not a one of the disgusting things in all of Eire. So don't worry here. He'll watch over us."

St. Patrick came through. Twenty minutes later they were hidden in the crown of a tree felled by the Nazis' scorched earth roadbuilding and there wasn't a fang mark on either of them.

"Okay, here comes a chopper," Hunter said. "Get ready . . ."

It was another Mi-4 Hound -the rugged yet antique aircraft that looked like something from a 1950s newsreel.

"Take a good look, Brother David," Hunter said. "That chopper is older than we are."

The Hound was just setting down, its open cargo door facing away from the encampment and toward Hunter and the monk.

"We're lucky," Hunter whispered, seeing that the only people aboard were the two pilots. "It's a ferry ship -no other crew members."

They waited for the pilots to shut down the chopper's en- • gine. "Okay,"

Hunter said finally. "Let's go . . ."

Within five seconds, Hunter had sprinted the 20 feet of clearing separating them from the copter and was climbing up into the open cargo bay.

The pilots didn't hear him come aboard, the noise of the engine winding down made sure of that.

"These guys are the lucky ones," he told himself. "All they'll get is a bump on the head."

The first thing he was able to grab was a huge lug wrench of the type used to tighten up and torque the chopper's power train. Two cracks later, he had two very unconscious Nazis on his hands. An extra added squirt from his chloroform water pistol insured the enemy chopper pilots would be out for at least five hours.

Brother David had arrived by that time.

"You take the big guy," Hunter said. "And hurry."

As quickly as they could, they stripped the uniforms from the pilots, including belts and helmet. Because these were one-piece Twisted Cross flight suits, the fit on the large-framed Brother David looked better than expected.

Once dressed, Hunter and the monk quickly went through the supplies that were stocked in the Hound's cargo bay. Once again, they were lucky.

"This is great," Hunter said. "These are extra supplies for the satellite dish. Extra wire, some diodes, a generator booster. Just what we need."

They dumped the knocked-out Nazis into the dense underbrush. Then Hunter loaded up Brother David with the awkward-shaped generator booster-a kind of supercharger for diesel-fueled generators. It's odd shaped served to hide that portion of Brother David's face not covered by his purloined helicopter helmet.

Hunter then took three rolls of standard TV cable and put one around each shoulder, and another around his neck. This one he had snapped off the bindings and held the loose end in his hand.

"Okay, Brother," he said, turning toward the monk. "Are thee ready?"

"Thee is," the monk replied. "I think . . ."

"Why not say a prayer to the patron saint in charge of kicking Nazi butt?"

Hunter suggested. "And remember. We're TV technicians. We've got to act like they do ..."

"And how is that?" the monk asked.

Hunter shook his head. It was too involved to explain. "Just watch me," he said.

He took a deep breath, patted his breast pocket and then went into action.

First he tied the end of the cable wire to the frame of the chopper's cargo door. Then, taking long, bold strides, he literally flew around the end of the helicopter and walked briskly right into the center of the encampment, all the while unreeling the length of wire. Brother David had no choice but to follow close behind, holding the booster as high to his face as possible.

"Hey watch it, there . . ." Hunter said to a pair of Nazi soldiers who dared to cross his path. "Watch it, hot stuff here . . "

The two men, sergeants both, obediently hopped over the wire and quickly made way for Brother David. Hunter was already at the dish and down on one knee fiddling with something by the time the two soldiers had turned and started walking away.

"You're a brazen lad, Hunter," David told him, setting the booster next to the dish.

"Yeah, sure," Hunter replied as he meticulously did nothing to the dish's central control receiver.

They hung there for about a minute, Hunter getting the lay of the place. Above all, he was looking for any evidence of Elizabeth. But at the moment, he saw none.

What he did see was a bivouac for about 250 people, maybe 300 if they really crowded in. This was close to his previous guesstimate. There was no less than 25 choppers scattered about the place, and 27 trucks of all types and sizes.

But the important thing was that, aside from a handful of fifty caliber machineguns attached to the Hind gunships, there were no major weapons installed in the camp. No artil- , lery, no mortars, no SAMs.

"Okay," Hunter said. "Time for chapter two . . ."

Having attached the end of the loose wire onto something important-looking underneath the dish, Hunter once again started walking away like the guy who owned the place. The two rolls of cable still on his shoulders, he continued to purposefully unfurl the third one. A slight chill went through Brother David when he realized Hunter was heading right for the cave entrance.

The monk looked up at the magnificent excavated Mayan temple and wished he knew more about the Mayan's form of religion. Then he swore for the first time in two years. "If you're the same God," he said, looking to the various ornaments decorating the top of the pyramid. "Please save this crazy fucker.

And me along with him . . ."

Once inside the cave entrance, Hunter went about his work charade like a TV

repairman working overtime. That was, as slowly as possible.

Hunter helped David drop the booster at the cave entrance, then he handed him a roll of wire. It was just barely illuminated inside the tunnel - someone had strung what looked like a long string of white Christmas tree bulbs along the cave wall. As the tunnel ran nearly straight and down at a slight incline for several hundred feet, it looked like the lights stretched on for an eternity.

Carefully, Hunter and the monk started playing out the roll of wire. They passed guards, Twisted Cross officers, even other TV men.

Yet no one stopped to challenge them. No one even said a word to them.

One hour and fifteen minutes later, they were standing at the entrance to the gold chamber.

Colonel Krupp's aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Boshe, was getting worried.

He hadn't seen the officer around for quite some time. This in itself was not that unusual - Krupp would frequently lock himself inside his command truck for hours at a time, usually to sulk. But even on those occasions, Boshe was able to rouse the commanding officer with three sharp raps on the command truck door.

But now he had been knocking at the officer's door for five full minutes with no reply.

Perhaps Krupp got drunk again and was deep in an inebriated slumber, Boshe wondered. He had looked very peaked when they pulled him out of the tunnel.

Then another thought crossed his mind. He, like the rest of the men in camp, knew that Krupp had brought the woman to his truck several nights before and had engaged in some rather bizarre sexual behavior. On that night, one of the soldiers had found Krupp drunk, barely conscious, half-hanging out of his truck door, his nose smashed in, the woman tied up and various examples of S&M

paraphernalia lying about the floor of the vehicle. Although the soldier had been sworn to silence by Krupp in return for a promotion, word about the incident nevertheless quickly spread around the camp to the delight of the troops on the recovery mission, most of whom considered Krupp to be a weak-kneed nincompoop.

But now Boshe noticed that both Krupp and the woman were not around. If the strange officer was trying once again to "kink it up" with the woman, he had certainly picked an

odd time to do it - the Uxjnaluna site was crawling with high level officers of The Twisted Cross and The Party.

Even Major General Udet was around, somewhere . . .

As Boshe was contemplating all this, he was approached by the two Twisted Cross archaeologists who had found the first set of marked gold ingots. Having just returned from the woman's truck and not finding her, or their unusual fifty-pound gold pieces, they decided to check with Krupp.

"Something doesn't feel right here," one of the archaeologists said after Boshe explained to him he hadn't seen Krupp or the woman in a while. "Where are the guards for the woman? There was no one at her truck at all."

For a moment Boshe considered telling the two about Krupp's "thing" for the woman, but decided against it. It would be safer to break into the command truck.

Boshe hit the door with his shoulder twice -and nothing happened. He kicked it three times, and still nothing budged.

"Wait a minute," one of the archaeologists said. "It opens from the inside out

. . ."

He went off and soon returned with a crowbar-like digging tool. Two minutes later, they had the door pried open.

Boshe was the first one in. Everything looked in place in the cramped living compartment - the bed was folded up against the wall, the small all-purpose table was covered with various documents, but neat and clean nevertheless.

Even Krupp's five pairs of muddy boots were lined up in one neat row.

Instinctively, Boshe tried to open the lavatory door. It was locked. He hadn't considered that the colonel might simply be on the pot all this time. He knocked politely. No answer. Once again. Still no answer.

"Kick the fucking thing in," one of the archaeologists commanded.

Boshe shrugged and kicked the flimsy door twice. It splintered, enough for Boshe to look in.

Staring back at him, eyes open, face utterly devoid of color, was the corpse of Major General Udet.

"What are you doing here?" the voice bellowed around the gold cavern.

But Hunter and Brother David didn't hear it. They were too busy pinching themselves.

They had strung the cable as far as the gold chamber entrance, waited for an opportunity, then walked into the chamber itself. Now they had spent the last five minutes gawking at the tons of gold, as a squad of Nazi troopers scurried around the chamber taking inventory before the operation to move the gold out began in earnest.

"I said 'what the hell are you guys doing here?' " the voice asked again.

Hunter heard it this time. He spun around and instantly assumed his game face.

"Stringing cable for the TV link-up," he said in a voice oozing confidence.

Hunter saw right away the man he was addressing was no more than a lowly Twisted Cross lieutenant; he wouldn't be hard to handle.

"In fact, give us a hand, will you?" he brazenly asked the man. "We've got to get a beam up and back to Panama within the hour . . ."

A look of pained acceptance came over the officer. "Christ," he said. "What do you want me to do?"

Hunter handed him the very end of the long roll of cable wire. "Hold this here," he said. "We've got to go up the line and make sure there are no snags."

With that, Hunter whipped out the pocket-sized mini-video camera and took two quick sweeps of the place.

"Got to get the light level," he mumbled expertly while panning the chamber.

Then he and Brother David turned to leave.

"Wait a minute," the Cross officer said. "How long do I have to hold this thing?"