And he fell, wrenching the knife hilt from Wade’s hand.
Simultaneously a shot cracked out. It struck Wade somewhere. He knew that, but he could not have told where. His whole body felt nervelessly numb. All he could see was the automatic that had fallen from Quester’s relaxing fingers. He dived for it, lead burning across his back as he did so.
The cool steel was ice against his palm. The familiar feel of the butt nestling in his hand was like finding a friend. As Wade turned, the gun coming up, he saw Duke Solent silhouetted against the sky at the head of the ravine.
The Eurasian stood motionless as a statue, rifle at hip. It barked. But Wade’s gun had spoken first.
Thunder Jim’s eyes seemed again to become pools of black ice. His face was hard and relentless as Lucifer’s. He waited, while Duke Solen lifted his hand in a half completed gesture toward the branded cross that had been on his forehead—but which was there no longer! Wade’s bullet had erased it forever.
Solent came down as a tree falls, crashing on his face, to roll over and over down the gulley. He lay still at last, staring up blindly.
The satanic, remorseless fury ceased to glow in Wade’s eyes. He turned and walked away, up the ravine. He seemed to have forgotten that Duke Solent ever existed.
Once again Thunder Jim Wade had kept a promise.
He stared out at Minos. Men were pouring out of the gap in the wall, spreading over the plain. The bulls were almost all gone now, and the few of the enemy who still remained were going down swiftly under arrows and bullets. Red Argyle and Dirk Marat were visible, and Wade hurried toward them.
“Find me a horse!” he shouted, and by the time he reached his companions a swift gray stallion waited beside them.
Red grinned through a thick coating of dirt and blood. Dirk had somehow managed to remain immaculate, save for a sleeve drenched with crimson.
“Going somewhere?” Red asked. “A mighty fine time to go riding.”
“Galbraith’s still a prisoner,” Wade told him. “I’ve got to—”
DIRK gripped his arm, holding him.
“Wait a bit! Cardoth’s already sent a troop up to the sacred valley to clean up things there. They’ll find the professor.”
Wade hesitated, watching a band of horsemen racing northward across the plain.
“Yeah—”
“You may not believe it, but you’re wounded,” Dirk said. “You couldn’t get to the valley before the soldiers, so what’s the use? Just relax.” He vaulted to the saddle. “I’ll go along with ’em and make sure things are okay. Where is the old goat?”
“In the Temple of Cnossos,” Wade said, and gasped with pain as he turned.
“See? Busted rib, probably. Adios!” Dirk spurred the horse away after the others.
Red started to yell in the little Greek he remembered.
“Come over here, you shavetails! Lend a hand! How the devil can I do any bandaging with a lame wing?”
“I’m okay,” Wade said. “Unless some bullets stopped inside my hide.”
They had not, as he found out hours later. The wounds were clean. One had passed through his arm, and another had broken a rib. But there was nothing serious. His last worry was removed when he learned that Professor Galbraith had been found and brought lack safely to Minos. The scientist was weak and feverish, but unharmed. He needed only rest. Wade felt that he could do with a little of that himself….
It was the next day when Wade, Galbraith, Red and Dirk gathered in Cardoth’s tower apartment. The little scientist was lucid, apparently completely recovered from his fever. He relaxed on a pile of cushions, fingering a small block of metal and a white, curious statuette.
“Yes,” he said, in response to Wade’s questions, “this is the secret of the valley—what Solent was after. The image.” He held it up, a delicately carved bull with a replica of his own head atop the massive shoulders. “You remember this, Jim. It was made for me by the priests when I first came here. I realized its value only lately, and made certain experiments. The statuette’s substance is extremely valuable. Solent posed as a financier who wanted to back me, got into my confidence, and insisted that I try to duplicate this alloy. I couldn’t. When Solent realized I’d failed, he asked me where I’d found the statuette in the first place. I couldn’t tell him that, because—”
Cardoth bowed his massive white head. “True. You swore never to reveal the existence of our valley to the outer world.”
“Solent kidnapped me—used truth-serum to find out what he wanted to know.”
Wade grinned. “I guessed that. It was the only way he could get anything out of you.”
Red turned to stare at him. “I’ve got a hunch you knew what Solent wanted all along.”
“I did. It was pretty obvious, wasn’t it? The goldleaf had flaked off the statue, and it was easy to see the thing had had rough handling. Yet it hadn’t broken. It didn’t break even when the professor threw it out of the window in Singapore. D’you know of anything that could stand that sort of handling?”
“Steel.”
“The statuette was light—very light. It looks like stone, but it’s metal. And I knew the secret of it long ago.”
GALBRAITH nodded.
“It’s the toughest metal alloy ever made on this planet. Tremendous lightness and tensile strength—much lighter than aluminum.”
Wade agreed. “It would have industrial uses, but that wasn’t what Solent was after. He wanted a weapon for warfare. Think of the cannon that could be made from this! Not to mention armor! The stuff’s so light that a tank as big as—well, a regular land battleship could carry it easily. And nothing but the highest explosive could penetrate it.”
“So that was why Solent wanted to get the statue?” Dirk put in.
“Sure. He was afraid somebody might manage to analyze it, and he wanted a monopoly on the secret, so he could sell the stuff to warring nations. And that would have meant a holocaust such as has never been known on earth. Size limitations would be almost removed from mobile offense units. Tanks, planes—gigantic.”
Red was scowling. “You said you’d known the secret all along.”
Wade’s eyes were twinkling. “Yeah! What do you suppose the Thunderbug’s made of?”
Red’s jaw dropped. “You don’t mean—”
“I built the Thunderbug a long time ago, for Cardoth had given me the secret of the alloy before I left Minos. Not even Professor Galbraith knew that. How do you suppose the Thunderbug can get off the ground? It isn’t made of aluminum. It’s tough, light, and strong.”
“I knew the hull was alloy,” Dirk put in, “but I never knew just what it was.”
“It came out of this valley—at least, the formula did. Solent didn’t realize what was right under his nose. If he’d guessed the secret of the Thunderbug, he could have found it out easily enough—given me truth-serum, when I was his prisoner, and made me talk. But he did it the hard way, instead.”
“I’m leaving the statuette here in Minos,” Galbraith said.
“Good.” Cardoth nodded. “We want no more outsiders here. Their ways are not ours.”
“You saw what happened when Solent came,” Wade said, and his eyes swept around the room. “We’re leaving tomorrow for Cairo. The Thunderbug’s in good repair now. Aside from us, no one knows Minos exists. No one shall!”
Dirk, Red, and Galbraith nodded their agreement. The scientist sighed, rubbing his wrinkled cheek.
“But that wasn’t all. There was another reason why Solent wanted the statue.”
“It was this, wasn’t it?” Wade said, and took a small roll of parchment from his pocket.
Galbraith’s jaw dropped. “How—” he began.
“I found out how to open the image,” Wade told him. “It was hollow. The lock was pretty intricate, but I finally managed to open it. And this treasure map was inside.”
Cardoth’s great head nodded. “That is true. When you and Professor Galbraith left Minos so many years ago, I
bestowed on each of you a gift. Yours was the secret of the alloy. I gave Professor Galbraith the chart of a treasure buried in the wastelands beyond these mountains, and asked him never to use it unless he had need. I feared that if men came to search for the treasure, they might also blunder upon our valley.”
HE touched the map with a lean finger.
“When we first came to Africa, from old Crete, we found the ruins of a great city on our way. It was dead when we arrived—had been, for ages. It might have been the home of King Solomon. There was much gold there, and jewels, for which we had no need. But we remembered, and it was my gift for Professor Galbraith—if the need ever came to him.”
“I never needed it,” Galbraith said. “I never opened the image or looked at the map. That was why Solent couldn’t find out the treasure’s location from me, even under truth-serum.”
“I guessed as much,” Wade said. “But huge as that treasure may be, it would have been only a drop in the bucket compared to what Solent could have got out of the alloy. He knew that. But he also knew he’d need plenty of dough to finance his racket. That was why he wanted the gold and the jewels. They would have enabled him to set up a company, and probably guard or destroy Minos. He wouldn’t have wanted anyone else to find out his secret. Yeah, he needed the statuette, but even if he had it, he wouldn’t have found the map. I’d already taken that out, just in case!”
“THE treasure had best remain where it is,” Galbraith said. “Perhaps sometime the need may arise. But it hasn’t arisen yet. Keep the map, Cardoth.”
There was a glow of gratitude in the king-priest’s eyes as he obeyed.
“Minos will be safe now,” he murmured. “There is nothing to draw the vultures.”
The scientist nodded.
“I must get back to my Diocene fossils,” he said. “It will take weeks to get them catalogued.” He turned again to Cardoth. “But I want to talk to you about some unusual variations in the Cretan inscriptions, first. After all, I’m an archaeologist, and—”
He dragged out a notebook and pencil and began to question the king-priest.
Wade winked at the others and led the way out. They paused in the corridor beyond the door.
“It’s time to relax,” he told them.
“Relax!” Red’s lip pushed out. “Do I look sleepy?”
“Who said anything about sleep?” Thunder Jim asked. “They make darn good wine in Minos. Who wants a drink?”
At any rate, nobody refused….
END
Book II: The Hills of Gold
Over Sea and Sand the Thunderbug Storms to Battle a Sinister Conspiracy!
Chapter I
Holy War
CONTRABAND dynamite had already blasted down the outer wall of the fort. Under the hot sun of Transjordania, rifles from across the Arabian border sniped and snarled. A blast of furnace-like air blew continually from the desert, making the position of the defenders even less tenable. For the spring that should have supplied the fort with water had been poisoned. The ammunition was low and the natives grumbled.
“Jihad!”
Holy War!
“Allah il-allahu!”
The white-garbed figure of a mu’min sprang up on a mound of rubble as the shout thundered up above the crackle of gunfire. The priest’s savage, bearded face gleamed with sweat. His voice rose in a shrill scream. All about him Arabs paused to stare, for the mu’min dragged with him a native soldier, a member of the frontier force of Transjordania, captured during the battle. The man was almost unconscious with agony of a gaping wound in his side.
“Allahu Alim!” the mu’min yelled. A scimitar gleamed in the hot sunlight as he held the soldier up by the hair in a savage grasp. “Behold the unbelieving dog!”
A shout went up from the Arabs as their leader’s arm swung in a swift arc. The sharp steel bit deep. From the victim came a cry of horrible pain. Blood dripped from the scimitar. The mu’min let his prey fall and dived to safety as an Enfield cracked spitefully from the fort. He pointed in a peremptory gesture and the attackers surged forward.
“It will not be long! Then the Nasara—the Kafir Christian—will be ours to slay!”
The space between the fort and the outer wall was littered with corpses. Fallen native soldiers were tortured in view of their fellows, used as shields, mutilated in unspeakable ways.
The mu’min slipped swiftly among his men, encouraging them to attack.
“Ai! That is right, torture and maim! The infidels are soft-hearted fools. Such work may bring them out of the fort to rescue their friends, but it does not matter. They cannot last much longer.” His eyes glittered. “It will not be long!”
INSIDE the fort, Captain Harding cursed as his shot missed the dodging figure of the mu’min. The officer’s strained, twisted face was mask-like. Under a deep desert tan, he was deathly pale. Leaning on the embrasure, he took aim again, wincing with pain. A bullet had shattered his hip. His good leg was aching, but he fought down the weakness that surged all through his exhausted body.
The frontier force of Transjordania was small, officered largely by the British. Usually the men complained of the dullness of their duties, for there was little fighting to do. Four countries bordered on Transjordania—Palestine, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. But why should anyone invade a land that was mostly desert, save for a thirty-mile strip along the Jordan?
Harding’s gaze swung to the blood-stained, filthy figure at the next loophole, a gaunt man in Bedouin garments. Five hours ago the stranger had raced into the fort on a staggering, winded horse. He was seeking sanctuary from his pursuers, who had followed him from the desolate Nefud country across the border.
Why? Harding did not know. His unexpected guest was a white man, but why was he disguised as a Moslem? That didn’t matter. It was enough that he was white and fleeing from marauding Arabs.
Harding sniffed at the acrid odor of smoke and the saltier smell of blood that tainted the hot air. His throat was dust-dry. But when an orderly touched his arm and proffered a canteen, he shook his head. There were wounded men who needed the water more than he.
If only the gunfire would let up for a moment! Its intermittent crackle rasped the nerves. Chips of baked clay flew into the captain’s eyes and he shook his head impatiently. That bullet had almost had his name on it.
A grunt of pain came from nearby. Harding glanced aside, to see the Arab-costumed white man double up with pain, clutching at his stomach. He straightened again, his face gray, and found the trigger of his rifle.
“Think there’s any chance, Captain?” he whispered.
“Don’t stop firing. Maybe.”
Maybe? There was not even the faintest possibility. Harding could chart the next hour as well as if it had already passed. One by one, the fort’s defenders would fall, Mohammedan and Arab Christian soldiers under the captain. The attackers would swarm in at last. Then there would be an orgy of torture….
There was little chance of aid. The wireless had been smashed by a grenade, though not before a single S.O.S. had been tapped out. But had that message been received in Amman, miles away to the north? If it had, planes might be on the way, for there was a British airdrome at Amman.
So a few grim, determined soldiers made their last stand in a smoke-filled, unbearably hot room, while outside a raving mob of killers screamed and shouted. Harding saw one of his soldiers, stripped naked, crucified on a door that had been ripped from its hinges. Natives were advancing under cover of their human shield, but the Arabs were too mad with blood-lust now to think of strategy. A bayonet plunged into the soldier’s heart. The seething, boiling mêlée surged forward.
The mu’min, holding a stolen automatic, urged them on. His voice rose, hoarse with excitement.
“Ya Allah! Kill! Kill!”
“More ammunition,” Captain Harding said. “Quick!”
His orderly handed him a clip.
“That’s the last, sir.”
An Arab atop the wall was yelli
ng something loudly, gesturing excitedly. Harding’s gray brows grew together. Over his face a look of astonishment spread.
“Listen!” he said sharply.
The gunfire lessened. A deep drone drifted down from the skies. Planes!
The wireless message had reached Amman after all!
Down toward the fort three planes roared, machine-guns stuttering a flaming chant of death. The mu’min stood stock-still, the automatic dangling from his hand. Around him his men were falling like toppling lead soldiers. The planes zoomed up, circled, swept down again. A bomb shot to earth, exploding in a geyser amid the Arabs.
Abruptly the mu’min cried a command. His men scattered, racing away toward their horses, which were tethered beyond the fallen outer wall. Within two minutes the compound was empty, save for motionless bodies. Mounted, the Arabs scattered to provide difficult targets for the pursuing planes, but all of them galloped south toward the Arabian border.
Captain Harding wiped bloody sweat from his face and cursed with soft intensity. He turned in time to catch the collapsing figure of the white man who had fled to the fort for refuge. The loose khalat was soaked with crimson, the turban hanging loose. Part of its length had been ripped off to make an improvised bandage about the man’s middle.
Harding barked a command to his orderly, who scurried away to get water. Judging by the sound, one of the planes was landing. The others were strafing the fleeing Arabs.
The captain wiped blood from the wounded man’s lips. “Hold on a bit longer, old boy,” he encouraged. “We’ve got those beggars on the run now.”
The pseudo-Arab breathed deeply, wincing with pain. His clouded eyes brightened suddenly.
“No,” he gasped. “I’m dying. Get this message through. To Alex Hilarion—Port Said. Eric Godoy—” His voice thickened. “Basra—man named Klett—”
That was all. He had waited too long to speak. Now death gripped him in inexorable talons and he fell back, his eyes glazing.
Slowly Harding lowered him. He scarcely heard the shouts of his men, or the sharp questions of an officer from one of the planes. The name “Alex Hilarion” had struck a familiar chord in his brain.
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