Priestess of the Floating Skull

by Edwin Benson

Von Holder smiled.

  “You might have rotted here longer if the Consul had not gone to great trouble to verify your story.”

  “Gone to great trouble to verify it . . .?”

  Vorosh swallowed. Into his eyes crept a puzzled look, which he hastily concealed.

  “It seems that I will have to go over and thank the gentleman,” he observed.

  “It would seem so,” agreed Von Holder. “If you wish to go now, I will have one of my men drive you over.”

  “Good,” said Vorosh cordially. “It will be a great favor. I’ve never been in Berlin, and I’m sure I’d be lost in ten minutes by myself.”

  Von Holder gave orders, and a short time later Vorosh found himself in a staff car, being driven to the American Consulate.

  He was ushered in immediately, and a grey-haired man with serious eyes rose to greet him.

  “Mr. Vorosh? I’m in charge here. The name’s Briggs. I’m very glad to see you.”

  “I imagine you are,” said Vorosh pointedly. “And I’m ten times as glad to see you!”

  He cast a glance around the room. “Are we alone?” he asked.

  Briggs lifted his eyebrows.

  “Alone? Why certainly. What do you expect, dictaphones?”

  Vorosh’s lips tightened grimly.

  “In Berlin, I expect anything! But sit down, Mr. Briggs. What I am about to tell you may be a shock.”

  Briggs sat down, picked up a cigar, and offered one to Vorosh. He refused.

  “Perhaps not so much of a shock as you expect. I’m rather used to shocks, concerning you.”

  Vorosh frowned.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Go on with your shock, Vorosh.”

  Vorosh considered a moment. “Perhaps I’d better say a few other things that are on my mind first. Von Holder told me you had checked my story with the United States, and had given me a clean bill of health. You know as well as I do that that isn’t true. If you really checked, you know I had no passport, that I’m not an airplane salesman for the P-40, and that I disappeared over Buffalo while testing one of Uncle Sam’s experimental P-40 ships with some secret instruments on her.”

  “Go on,” said Briggs quietly.

  “You also know how I claim to have gotten to Russia.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you believe it?”

  Briggs looked at him.

  “You were there. You could not have gotten there in any other way.”

  Vorosh’s jaw dropped.

  “Then, if you believe that, maybe you’ll believe all the rest I have to tell you. I’d better begin at the beginning and tell you the whole set-up.”

  VOROSH launched into an account of his experiences since landing in Russia and concluded with:

  “Briggs! The Japs intend to attack Pearl Harbor, Midway, Wake and other bases within two weeks! And the Nazis are in on it. They know all about it. The fact that we got the information from the mind of Rudolph Hess, a prisoner in England, proves it. This has been planned a long time.” Briggs stared at him quietly.

  “So Miss Nilchenko tells us.” Vorosh’s jaw dropped.

  “You mean . . .?”

  “Yes. She came to us immediately and told us the same story.”

  “Story!” Vorosh gasped. “You mean you don’t believe it. You mean you aren’t going to do anything about it?”

  “Certainly not!” Briggs snapped suddenly, leaned forward across his desk. “Vorosh, we’re preparing a passport for you. And my advice is for you to return to the states at once and go back to your job.”

  Vorosh leaped to his feet.

  “What!”

  Briggs stood too.

  “Frankly, Mr. Vorosh, this is preposterous. I can only conclude that you’ve been reading too many sensational novels in America. You have been taken in, at least by your imagination, and quite possibly by this Nilchenko woman. Reason will tell you that this mind-reading by radio telepathy is impossible. The things that have happened to you, incredible in themselves I will admit, have played tricks on you. You are believing anything. Has it not occurred to you that Russia might have some reason to embroil America in a war with Japan? In fact, every reason to occupy a potential and dangerous enemy with a war on the other side to prevent an attack on her eastern border?”

  “You mean . . .?”

  “I mean, by your own admission, this Vanja Nilchenko is a Russian spy. She is also a Communist. We would be fools not to recognize the facts.”

  “Facts!” Vorosh was pale. “I’m telling you facts! You say that telepathy thing doesn’t work. Dammit, man it worked on me, five thousand miles away!”

  “YOU were caught up in a strange storm which meteorologists confirm did occur. You were reported lost in that storm. You nearly died, experienced strange hallucinations, saw human skulls in the sky, heard weird voices. Obviously, at the tremendous heights to which you were thrown by the storm, you underwent perhaps the strangest, most disturbing experience that has ever occurred to an aviator. It is natural that you seek to find a real explanation for what happened to you. You told the Russians what had happened, and a clever espionage agent recognized how your credibility might be capitalized upon. By means of mental suggestion, this was heightened. And now, you come to me with an incredible and impossible story of a threatened attack on us by Japan.”

  “It’s truer Briggs ignored him.

  “For your information, Japan’s peace ambassadors, Kurusu and Nomara, are even now drawing up assurances of amicable relations between the nations, in Washington. Further, America’s bases are impregnable, and any attack across that tremendous distance, by either naval or air forces would be doomed to failure. Those water barriers are our best protection. America is alert, my friend, be sure of that.”

  “Why did you bother to get me out of this mess?” asked Vorosh in exasperation. “Why believe anything?”

  “Perhaps I don’t—or rather, perhaps I do, but others might not. I, myself, cannot conceive of any other way for you to have gotten there—and besides, I checked on the P-40. It was undeniably the same ship. But do you think I could have taken the risk of the situation that would have developed if I had admitted to the German government that you were a fugitive from the United States, that you were in Russia without a passport, and that you were consorting with Russian spies . . .”

  Vorosh paled. “Spies!” he said hoarsely. “Do the Nazis know Miss Nilchenko is a spy?”

  “Certainly not. In covering you, our actions provided a perfect cover for her. And after all, if we do not allow her actions to affect the American position in the war, why should we object to a Russian agent having a chance to act against the Nazis? It is perfectly obvious as to which nation we would like to see win on the eastern front.”

  “I see,” said Vorosh. “And I’m beginning to see something else. You probably won’t admit it, but you are bluffing when you tell me to return to my job in Buffalo. If I ever got to Buffalo! The minute I stepped out of the Reich, the FBI would have me. And innocent or not, I’d be held. While I am here, you dare not arrest me, or even cause the Nazis to deport me—because that would be an admission that I was not what you have already said I am.”

  “THAT was not a wise thing to say Mr. Vorosh,” said Briggs. “You are making one mistake. Under passport laws, you will be automatically shipped back to America by Germany when your visiting time is up. You see, I am not as helpless as you think.” Vorosh smiled tightly.

  “Mr. Briggs, I want to say one thing. I am an American citizen. I will fight for America to the death. Circumstance has thrown me into a strange situation. It seems that now, when war comes—and it will come in two weeks!—I will be unable to fight as an American. But I was born in Russia. Russia fights our common enemy. I’ll fight with Russia—as a Russian—if I must!”

  “You mean . . .?”

  “I’ll volunteer as a member of the Russian air force.”

  Briggs stared, then he stuck out his hand.

  “
Vorosh, I believe you! And you’ve hit on the only answer. As man to man, I urge you to do exactly that.”

  Vorosh took the extended hand with an abashed grin on his face.

  “You are a Yank!” he exclaimed. “For a time I was beginning to think you were a hard-headed Britisher. Well, maybe I won’t have to became a Russian airman, though, in two weeks—When Japan attacks Pearl Harbor! For crying out loud, man, can’t you at least warn them of that?”

  “A Consul must document his statements,” said Briggs. “Have I any documents?

  “However I think your worries are unfounded. No attack on us, even if it does come, will catch us unwary.”

  “I wonder,” said Vorosh. “I wonder . . .”

  CHAPTER VIII

  A Message from Hess

  OUTSIDE the American Consulate, Vorosh stood indecisively. Where to now? Obviously he must find Vanja. But where?

  “Twenty-nine Koenigstrasse.”

  Vorosh leaped as though he had been stung.

  “Vanja!” he gasped.

  Vanja’s voice was not repeated in his mind, and even though Vorosh shot out repeated questions, the silence remained.

  Puzzled, Vorosh walked swiftly toward the corner, rounded it, saw a cab parked about the middle of the block. He ran toward it, leaped in.

  “Twenty-nine Koenigstrasse,” he said to the driver.

  “Was?” asked the cab driver, puzzled.

  “Damn,” muttered Vorosh. He tried again.

  “Nine and swansig Koenigstrasse.”

  The cab driver grinned, nodded, sent the cab into motion.

  “Sind sie Amerikaner?”[1] he asked.

  Vorosh didn’t answer.

  Ten minutes later the cab came to a halt before the address. Vorosh leaped out.

  The cab driver leaned out of the window.

  “Heh, fünfsig pfennig für die fahrt, Herr!”[2]

  Automatically, Vorosh stuck his hand in his pocket, came up with a few American coins.

  “Nuts!” he said. Then motioned toward the doorway of the house.

  “Come inside; you’ll get your dough.”

  He ran up the steps, with the cabby in close pursuit. The door opened almost immediately, and Vanja appeared.

  “Come in, quick, she said.

  “Pay the man,” Vorosh motioned. “I haven’t any German money.”

  Vanja tossed the cabby a bill. He retreated. Vanja closed the door.

  “Follow me,” she said, and almost ran into an inner room.

  Vorosh followed, saw the skull atop a table. It was glowing.

  “Hess?” asked Vorosh quickly.

  “Yes! Listen . . .”

  VOROSH sat down at the table, and Vanja sat also. She turned up the volume a bit, faintly Vorosh could hear a man’s voice in his ears.

  “It’s German!” he burst out, disappointedly.[3]

  Vanja lifted a hand. Vorosh was silent. As he listened to the eerie voice speaking in his mind in German, it grew fainter. Finally it died out altogether.

  “What’d he say?”

  “Plans have been changed. The Japs don’t intend to attack America until later on. Just when isn’t decided.”

  “Changed? But how could Hess know that?” Vorosh burst out. “He is a prisoner in England.”

  “I don’t know how he knows, I only know he does know,” said Vanja quietly. “He has a contact with Hitler, somehow, and a very good one. I’m sure now that Hess didn’t go to England on any peace mission. He is there to mislead the British, and to act as a sort of super-spy. If he has contacts which enable him to get news from Berlin, then he has means of getting information and getting it back to Berlin!” She snapped off the radio and sat regarding Vorosh.

  “I heard all you told the Consul.” Vorosh nodded.

  “I had to tell him. It was the only way to convince him of the Jap menace. And I failed. Now, when the attack does not come in September, I’ll have not one chance in a million of convincing anybody. Not that it will matter. I can’t go back to America.”

  “You intend to join the Russian air force, as you said?”

  “Yes. Just as soon as my passport time is up, I’ll leave for Lisbon and fly from there to Moscow—or by any route open to me.”

  Vanja nodded.

  “Our work here should be finished by that time . . .”

  “Why didn’t you answer me, when I got your message to come here?”

  “It was all I could send you. I am afraid even Hess got that message. Any more would have gotten him off the subject he was thinking so deeply about. I couldn’t risk that. And I have no way at all of controlling my own broadcasted thoughts, except by turning the teleradio off and on.”

  “You mean Hess actually must have gotten that ‘twenty-nine Koenigstrasse’ you broadcast to me?”

  “Yes. And to him it must have seemed like those unrelated phrases and thoughts that often leap into mind out of nowhere. You’ve experienced them—little things that pop up, and are dismissed almost without conscious effort on your part?[4] If I were to have continued, it would have intruded on his mind, and destroyed his train of thought. Then I would not have gotten the news that I did.”

  VOROSH regarded the skull reflectively.

  “How is it that all your thoughts do not go out to my mind, and to Hess, and any others who may be attuned to that wavelength?”

  “I discovered the broadcast powers of the radio quite by accident, during one of my performances. It is necessary to have actual physical contact with the skull, or to be within inches. So I simply place my head very close, and think deeply, with conscious effort and concentration. It seems that a field of influence surrounds the coils of the radio to a very slight radius; perhaps only six inches or so. As for touching it with my hand, it would seem that the scientific theory that thinking is a process which operates all the nerves of the body as well as the brain has some basis in fact.”

  Vorosh settled back in his chair.

  “Well, what’s on the schedule? I’ve been held for two weeks, during which time you never even tried to contact me. I’m spoiling for action now.”

  She looked at him reproachfully.

  “How could I contact you? By teleradio was too risky. And Von Holder blocked every other attempt. That man is the world’s most careful individual!”

  “What are your plans?” persisted Vorosh.

  Vanja looked serious.

  “Tonight,” she said, “I am going to hypnotize Hess.”

  Vorosh sat bolt erect.

  “Hypnotize him!”

  “Yes. Right on the stage of the theater, in the presence of Der Fuehrer himself.”

  “What?”

  Vanja’s eyes grew intent.

  “Perhaps that contact Hess has with Hitler will turn out to be a contact Hitler never dreamed of!”

  “Where do I fit in?” asked Vorosh. Vanja smiled.

  “You’ll see—tonight. You will be my assistant . . .”

  CHAPTER IX

  Performance for Hitler

  REHEARSAL was over. Pete Vorosh knew now what he was to do on the stage. And a curious thrill swept over him. He stepped to the curtain and peered through. The great auditorium was empty. But even as he looked the first guest appeared, walked down and took a seat. Others followed rapidly. Guest was the proper word; each one of these persons would be attending this performance only by the grace of an invitation—more, a command—from the gestapo chief. And each one would be a rigidly examined Nazi, proven and loyal.

  Herr Hitler took no chances when he appeared in public!

  The theater was almost filled when a rustle of excitement ran through the audience, and from a side entrance a group of Elite guards brushed into the aisle. Following came Hitler, several of his aides. Goebbels was there, and Himmler. And Vorosh noted with a start of surprise, Von Holder. A roaring “Heil!” swept through the theater.

  Vorosh stiffened in hate, glared through the curtains at the scene.

  He felt a light touc
h on his shoulder.

  “Be careful,” warned Vanja softly in his ear. “If anyone saw you glaring like that, you would be shipped out of Germany instantly.”

  Vorosh turned to her as Hitler seated himself in his box.

  “There are some things you can’t hide,” he said bitterly.

  She nodded.

  “But you must hide them now. After a few preliminary acts we go on the stage. Then you will have to keep a straight face. And I will communicate with you directly via the telepathic radio whenever I want to tell you something. I can’t contact Hitler’s mind, but I am going to try to reach it through Hess.”

  Vorosh laid a hand on her arm.

  “I think you are taking a desperate chance,” he said. “You realize, of course, that you are going to go on that stage and apparently read Hitler’s mind, or rather, convey to him a message only he should know?”

  She smiled.

  “Perhaps it will not be half as dangerous to me as to Hess, and many other good Germans, when Hitler learns what I can read!”

  Vorosh found himself uncomfortably hot and nervous. He turned back to the curtain to watch the audience, and to stare once more at the man who had murdered more human beings than any other since Genghis Khan.

  THE time for their act came almost too soon for Vorosh. He discovered suddenly that he was capable of stage fright as the great curtain swept aside, revealing the dimly-lighted scene that always characterized the opening of Vanja’s mystic performance.

  Out in the audience Vorosh was aware that there was but one face—that of Hitler. It was only by the greatest effort of will that he managed to keep his eyes from turning toward the box where the Nazi ruler sat.

  Music came up, low and mysterious. Vorosh stood with the skull held out on his uplifted palms, motionless, impassive. Vanja appeared in the dull greenish light, undulating slowly toward him. Her body seemed clad only in mist, so filmy was the garment that she wore. The skin of her body gleamed softly through the dress like old ivory, green with age or mellowed by the application of exotic oils.

  Vorosh was fascinated. Here was a Vanja he had never seen before. He realized with a thrill that he had no need to fear that she would not accomplish her dangerous purpose. She was all allure—all fascination—all mysticism. She affected the brain like a drug. She was almost the physical embodiment of hypnosis itself.