The Twisted Cross (34 page)

Hunter shrugged and said: "You know, until we tug on it. You'll feel it -three times real hard."

With that, he and the monk departed the chamber.

They were about halfway out of the tunnel when they saw a group of Twisted Cross soldiers running toward them.

"I don't like the looks of this," Hunter said as he and Brother David immediately started fiddling with the cable they had laid in the tunnel.

The soldiers -two officers and three sergeants - reached them.

"What are you guys doing here?" one of the officers, a captain, asked.

It seemed to be the most asked question of the day.

"We're working on the TV uplink," Hunter said. "Running cable down to the chamber."

"Forget that," the officer quickly commanded. "Did you come in a chopper?"

"Yes, sir," Hunter said with the right amount of reverence in his voice.

"Then get your asses up topside!" the officer said. "We've got an emergency and we need all the chopper pilots we can get up there now!"

Hunter and Brother David quickly saluted and started running up the tunnel.

"Wait!" the other officer said.

Hunter stopped in his tracks and spun around. "Yes sir?"

"We're looking for Hen Strauberg," he said. "Did you see him down in the chamber?"

Hunter had to think quick. "Not sure," he said. "What's he look like?"

The officer glared at him strangely. Instantly Hunter knew that this Strauberg was known to everyone in the Nazi

camp.

One of the sergeants piped up. "You know, the smelly little guy . . ." he said loudly.

Hunter just shrugged. "I don't know," he said. "There are a lot of people down in the chamber right now and they all smell pretty bad."

For some reason, the Nazis accepted the rather puzzling explanation and continued back down toward the chamber.

"That was close, kee-mo-sabe . . ." Hunter said to Brother David. "Let's get going before they reach that chump holding the wire back in the chamber."

It was odd how it happened, but the first thing Hunter noticed upon reaching the surface was a woman's bra.

It was hanging rather haphazardly on a tree next to the camp's mess tent which happened to be close by the entrance to the cave. On the tree next to it was a pair of women's underpants and a skirt. A soiled blouse was on the ground nearby.

"Jesus, what did they do? Eat her?" Hunter said, pointing out the articles of clothing to Brother David.

"Well at least we know she is here," the monk said. "Or was here."

They ran to the center of the camp and saw that just about every helicopter but "theirs" was warmed up and ready to take off.

A man ran by them. Hunter reached out and caught him by the shoulder.

"What's going on?" he asked, the soldier, a lieutenant.

"Are you guys pilots?" he asked in return.

Hunter nodded. "We just got in from Panama . . ."

"Okay, you'd better get back to your ship," the man said excitedly. "A couple of guys killed the top dog here. Murdered him. They found him slashed up in that truck over there. Whoever did it, took the 'blitz' helicopter and split."

"Wow," Brother David said involuntarily.

"More than just 'wow,' " the man said, obviously caught up in the excitement of the event. "They got away with a bunch

of gold, too."

"Wow," Hunter said this time. Then, without planning it, he took a big chance and popped out another question: "What about the woman?"

The man had already resumed running to the helicopters. "She's missing too!"

he called over his shoulder. "The brass think she went with them."

It was a strange aerial formation that formed up over Uxmaluna and headed south.

Eighteen helicopters - mostly Soviet-built Hind gunships - set off after the missing Hook "blitz copter." It was only because one of the TV technicians had seen the big Hook take off and head south, did the Twisted Cross officers even know what direction the missing chopper had taken.

It had been the two archaeologists who put the whole thing together. Seeing Udet's body, they quickly discovered that Krupp, the woman, Strauberg and the seven marked gold ingots were all missing. To them, it added up to a classic murder-robbery, with the Hook providing the getaway vehicle for the thieves.

"That pig Strauberg orchestrated this," one of the archaeologists told the other. "He's the only one of the three smart enough to pull it off."

So the dozen and a half choppers - including the Hound being piloted by Hunter-were dispatched in pursuit.

Three Cross officers, with a squad of armed soldiers, sat in the cargo hold of the Hound while Hunter steered the craft and Brother David pretended to play copilot. A constant wave of chatter was coming over the radio, most of it emanating from the lead Hinds, which were carrying the bulk of Nazi superior officers.

Early on in the flight, these officers decided to split their force.

Theorizing that the blitz copter could only head for one of three possible refueling stations in the south, the officers ordered six choppers to Punta Gorda in the old country of Belize and six more to La Ceiba in Honduras.

The final six, Hunter's aircraft included, were ordered to head for Guatemala City.

They were just about out of fuel by the time Hunter and the other pilots landed the six helicopters on the edge of the dilapidated airfield/aircraft refueling station which was about a half mile from Guatemala City itself. As usual, the Canal Nazis had flown in unannounced, not bothering to call ahead for landing clearance or any such trivialities.

But no sooner had he turned off his aircraft's engine when Hunter knew something was wrong.

These refueling stations were-notorious for their wild drinking, wild whoring, anything-for-a-price reputations. Yet this place was unusually serene. There was a control tower, a handful of hangars at the far end of the runway and maybe a dozen buildings in between. The runway lights were on, burning a deep yellow, as were all the lights in the control tower and in the buildings nearby. Yet despite all this, Hunter didn't see a soul.

Three minutes later, he and Brother David joined the other Twisted Cross soldiers as they burst into the small control tower that doubled as the refueling station's business headquarters. And although the Nazis kicked in every door they found locked, there were no people to be seen anywhere. The place was dead empty.

"Spread out!" the Cross commander yelled, he too, feeling something was amiss.

"Check every building on this base."

Hunter and Brother David saw this as an opportunity to separate from the rest of the group. As soon as the commander had yelled out the order, the monk and the

Wingman were running down the small airstrip to the hangars farthest away from the deserted tower.

Impressed by the enthusiasm of at least two of his men, the Nazi officer lambasted his other troopers, screaming at them to hustle "like those guys . .

."

In actuality, all Hunter and David wanted was a safe place where they could figure out just what the hell to do next.

The last building on the strip was a small shack, painted in wide, red-and-white barber pole stripes. Once inside, Hunter and the monk stopped and took a minute to catch their breath.

"I fear we are trapped, Brother Hunter," David told him, taking large gulps of air.

"Maybe," Hunter said, looking around. "Maybe not."

Brother David shook his head. "But could that large Hook helicopter make it this far? Even our aircraft just barely had enough fuel to make it here."

"I know," Hunter said. Then he closed his eyes and concentrated. "Sounds crazy, but I really feel like they were here. The woman anyway . . . Plus, something isn't right at this place. I mean, where is everyone? An operation like this needs a couple dozen people to keep it running."

"At least," the monk said. "But that's beside the point. Eventually, these Nazis will realize who we are -or rather, who we are not. At that point, they'll forget about who they are chasing. At least until they kill us ..."

"Faith, Brother," Hunter said, peeking out the shack's doorway. Directly across from them was a lone airplane hangar, separated from the rest. One of its doors was ajar.

Hunter took a sniff of air, then said: "Let's check out that place."

Seconds later, they were both sprinting across the taxiway, toward the hangar.

A quick look down the row of buildings told Hunter that the rest of the Nazis were still far away, searching each building with typical thoroughness.

He and Brother David reached the hangar and slipped inside. Right away, they both had the chills.

It was pitch black inside, yet Hunter picked out two distinctive smells. One was the unmistakable odor of airplane

engine exhaust.

The other was the smell of blood . . .

He reached up for the light switch. "I'm almost afraid to do this," he told Brother David.

Then he flipped on the light.

The first thing they saw was the pile of bodies. There was at least ten of them - it was hard to put an exact number on it as they were sickeningly sprawled on each other, oozing blood everywhere. Judging by their clothes, the victims were technicians and control tower people. Each one looked as if they had taken two bullets in the back of the head.

"God help us!" Brother David said in a shocked whisper/ He immediately fell to one knee and made the sign of the cross.

But already Hunter's attention was drawn to something else inside the hangar: the large helicopter sitting at the far end of the barn.

It was a Soviet-made Hook.

"Bingo!" Hunter said.

They quickly walked over to the aircraft and inspected its insides.

"This has got to be the one," Hunter said, feeling the roof of the aircraft.

It was still warm. "And it's been here for only a few hours, if that . . ."

"If they were here," Brother David said, turning back to the grisly pile of bodies, "then they must have been responsible for this . . ."

"Yeah," Hunter said, "They blew in and out, and they didn't want to leave any witnesses."

Hunter walked over to the empty space in front of the hangar's second door, reached down and dabbed his finger in a small pool of liquid on the hangar floor.

"JP-six," he said, sniffing the fuel. "Still fresh . . ."

"And that means?" Brother David asked.

"It means they're probably in another aircraft," he said. "Prop job. One that was stored in here. It's a medium size plane and I'd bet they took off less than an hour ago."

"But where did they go?" the monk asked.

Hunter looked at the big Hook, and then back at the bodies. "Now that's a really good question . . ." he said.

And it was the Nazis who answered it.

Hunter and David were leaving the hangar just as the rest of the search party reached the door. Bringing up the rear were two Nazi soldiers half-dragging a man between them.

"We found the Hook, sir." Hunter told the commander. "It's in there with a bunch of bodies. Pretty gruesome."

The commander waved the rest of his men into the hangar with him.

Hunter walked up to the two sergeants holding the prisoner.

"Who's this?"

"Found him hiding in one of the buildings," one of the guards answered. "The commander recognized him as the blitz copter pilot."

Hunter looked the man straight in the eye. "Is that true?" he asked.

The man, who looked beaten and was bleeding in several places, coughed once and said: "Fuck you . . ."

One of the guards slammed his rifle butt into the man's kidney as punishment for the comment.

"Why the rough treatment?" Hunter asked the guard.

The soldier shrugged. "The commander believes this man was in on the murder and the gold theft. He's about to execute him."

"Execute him?" Hunter was mildly flabbergasted. "Here?"

"Here and now," the guard said. "He's organizing a firing squad."

With that the guards hustled the man away.

"That's just like the Nazis," Brother David said. "They're about to shoot the only person who could tell them where those people went."

"Maybe he already has," Hunter replied.

Down the end of the runway, he could see that several other Nazis had commandeered a fuel truck and were in the process of refueling the half dozen choppers.

"Check that out," Hunter said, pointing out the refueling operation to the monk. "Looks like they're planning on moving soon."

At that moment, the rest of the search party came out of the hangar, more than a few pale shocked faces in their ranks.

"Are you looking for volunteers for the firing squad?" Hunter suddenly asked the commander, causing Brother David to think that he was hearing things.

The commander looked around at some of his weak-stomached troopers. "You guys got experience?" he asked Hunter.

"A little," Hunter lied, wondering just how much training one would need to shoot an unarmed, bound and gagged man.

"Good," the commander said. "Follow me."

The commander of the search party marched the hapless prisoner past the control tower and up to a stone wall out of sight of the rest of the search party.

As Hunter predicted, the man was bound and gagged, but not blindfolded.

"Ready . . ." the commander called out to the 12 men in the firing squad.

"Aim . . ."

Hunter eyed Brother David, standing beside him in the firing line with a fully-loaded AK-47 in his hands. They hadn't had any time to verbalize their plan. Hunter was just hoping the soldier monk would know what to do.

"Fire!"

A furious barrage of gunfire followed. When the smoke cleared, the commander and the ten Nazis in the firing squad all lay dead.

The prisoner couldn't believe it.

"Who are you guys?" the man asked in astonishment a; Hunter undid his leg bindings.

"Never mind," the Wingman told him harshly. "You jus bought yourself a few extra minutes, that's all."

Both Hunter and Brother David roughly sat the mai down next to the wall.