Thunder Jim Wade

by Henry Kuttner

  Peering down through the window, Wade saw a flower of flame suddenly blossom near the Thunderbug. But only a direct hit, he knew, could disable the craft, with its special alloy hull.

  Coyne did not try again. He winged toward the gathered chiefs and dropped another bomb, but he was unable to get close enough to do much damage. The mountain wall loomed dangerously near as the plane banked.

  “Try the gas,” Klett called, without turning his eyes from Wade.

  “I’m going to,” Coyne grunted.

  He pulled another lever. Torpedoes plummeted down from the plane’s undercarriage. Thick, whitish clouds spurted out from where they struck. The gas spread out swiftly, almost hemming in the little knot of chiefs. Again and again the plane dropped its deadly cargo.

  “What good will that do?” Wade asked quietly. “You can’t hope to—”

  Coyne barked harsh, triumphant laughter.

  “The valley isn’t big. We’ll fill it with gas!”

  “So what? They can get out through the pass.”

  “Exactly.” Coyne’s smile was cruel. “Then I can use my bombs.”

  Wade felt his stomach drop sickeningly. The chiefs, fleeing from the menace of poison gas, would make for the only exit from the valley—the pass. And once they were trapped in that narrow defile, a few bombs would smash them completely. Not one would be left to return to their tribes with the tale of the false mu’min.

  And Nesserdin was a captive! That meant the fake Jihad had not been wrecked, after all. If Coyne succeeded in killing all those who knew the truth, he could simply find a double for the mu’min and begin all over, this time with a better chance of succeeding.

  But Coyne had forgotten the Thunderbug, Wade thought. The streamlined craft was no longer a mobile tank. The black wings had sprouted again from the hull, the caterpillar treads retracted. Once more it was a plane, armored and fast, light and maneuverable. It came diving down on the tail of Coyne’s plane.

  It dived, but that was all. There was no sound of gunfire. Abruptly Wade knew why. Dirk and Red had glimpsed him. They knew that he and the Hadj were prisoners and were withholding their fire. They dared not shoot for fear of killing their friends.

  Coyne had expected that, counted on it! Laughing, he climbed swiftly, heading toward the pass. Beneath him the valley was filled with mushrooming, spreading white clouds. From the threat of the poison gas the chiefs, on horses and camels, were racing to safety.

  Safety? The pass would not save them. It would be a death-trap!

  THE Thunderbug dived, trying to force its opponent off its course, But Coyne did not bluff easily. He tripped his guns, sent lead spurting out at the other craft.

  “We’ll take care of your friends later,” Klett said, glowering at Wade. “And you, too.”

  His hand went up to touch the still-bleeding wound along his temple.

  Higher they climbed, the pursuing ship close behind. The Thunderbug was faster and better armed, but could make use of neither advantage. Beneath them the mountain range glowed like burnished metal under the noonday sun that glared down upon it. The Hills of Gold flamed inferno-bright.

  Into the pass the chiefs fled!

  At this height it was difficult to see them, save as a compact mass no larger than a fingernail. But Coyne, staring through binoculars, let out a grunt of satisfaction.

  “Now!” he breathed.

  He pushed the stick forward. The plane’s nose dipped. Both Coyne and Klett were wearing parachutes. The skipper involuntarily glanced at the plane’s door as the floor slanted down. Wade could guess the instinctive fear that flashed into his mind. Simultaneously he acted.

  His foot shot up, neatly kicking the gun from Klett’s hand. The weapon exploded, the bullet glancing off from the ceiling. Klett’s hand dived into his shirt, but Wade was too fast for him.

  His body crashed into Klett’s. The two men crashed down on the tilted floor, sliding forward as they grappled.

  From the corner of his eye Wade saw Coyne glance back from where he sat at the controls. The floor swayed back to level. The plane had pulled out of its dive.

  Klett’s snarling face was thrust up against Wade’s. His breath was hot on Thunder Jim’s throat. Wade got the heel of his hand under Klett’s chin and pushed hard. The skipper jerked away and they tangled in a writhing, slugging knot, rolling over and over in the narrow aisle.

  Wade saw Coyne rising from the pilot’s seat, after setting the controls to guide the ship automatically. It was climbing higher and higher above the Hills of Gold. Through a window Wade glimpsed the Thunderbug, helplessly following the other ship into the skies.

  Klett was trying to get his hand into his pocket. Wade kept hold of the skipper’s wrist. But Coyne was approaching, his automatic aimed unwaveringly. He stepped in, too close.

  Wade, his powerful arm clutching Klett’s body, dragged the skipper’s struggling body entirely over him. Coyne’s shot went wide as Klett’s heavy frame crashed against his legs. The gaunt man stumbled, went hurtling back toward the rear of the plane. He fell, the gun flying from his hand.

  At the sudden weight on the tail, the plane dipped, swayed and began to climb at a steeper angle. Already they were so high that the air was thin and biting. It was becoming difficult to breathe.

  Wade knew he would have to end the fight quickly. Coyne was staggering back, his gaunt face twisted in murderous fury. He aimed a vicious kick at Thunder Jim’s head.

  WADE ducked under the blow, driving a short-arm jab at Klett’s jaw that made the bearded man go limp. But Coyne’s boot glanced off Wade’s temple. The shock sent weakness lancing through Thunder Jim. He saw Coyne snatching for the gun that had fallen from Klett’s hand.

  His own hand shot up to seize Coyne’s wrist. He succeeded, but the foul blow had taken its toll. Desperately Wade fought to keep his grip, yet he knew he was failing. Coyne crouched above him, murder blazing in his angry eyes.

  Slowly the gaping muzzle swiveled, till it stared directly at Wade. Coyne’s finger tightened on the trigger. At the same time Thunder Jim summoned his strength and twisted sharply. The gun crashed death.

  Coyne screamed. He tore free and stood up, clawing at his breast. Blood gushed through his fingers. He staggered forward, stumbled over Klett’s unconscious body, went charging blindly toward the nose of the plane. He crashed into the controls.

  The floor tilted. Briefly the plane hung in mid-air, far above the earth. Then it thundered down into a powerdive, straight for the Hills of Gold!

  Nesserdin’s unconscious form smashed against Wade, and he in turn struck Klett. All three slid forward. The terrible acceleration hammered at Wade’s chest, blinded him, caught at his breath. Helplessly he reached out, touched parachute straps, fumbled at them.

  Klett awakened and clawed himself free. Screaming with fear, he fought his way to the cabin door and thrust himself out. He vanished. Desperately Wade dragged the other parachute from the dead Coyne and buckled it about his own body.

  A gale blasted in through the open door, ripping it from its hinges. The Hills of Gold swung in mad, sickening arcs about the rocketing plane. The Thunderbug circled down in pursuit, watching without hope.

  Wade never knew how he managed the task. Somehow he adjusted the parachute, caught hold of Nesserdin, fought to the door. Though the wind was a tangible barrier pressing him back, he lurched out, legs clamped about the Hadj, and plummeted down.

  He pulled the rip-cord. The sudden, jolting strain almost tore him in two, but he kept his hold on Nesserdin. The parachute blossomed out, Wade and his burden swaying beneath it. Only then did he have time to look for the falling plane.

  It was crashing, but not alone. Klett had opened his ’chute too soon. The folds of silk were caught in the plane’s struts, like a white comet dragging Klett down to his death. The man’s body twisted and jerked, like a hooked fish, as it was pulled swiftly behind the doomed plane. Gleaming, shining like molten metal, the Hills of Gold swallowed the roaring monst
er in its death dive.

  Wade’s eyes were bleakly cold and deadly as he looked down, following the plane on its way to destruction. There was no mercy in them.

  “Allah pays his debts,” he thought.

  Flame spouted up from the Hills of Gold. The explosion crashed out deafeningly.

  The debt was paid….

  TWO hours later the Thunderbug was racing back over the desert toward Basra. Dirk was at the controls and Red was examining the bandages he had applied to Wade and the Hadj. In the back of the plane was a bound, unconscious figure.

  Ali Hassan had survived the battle and the poison gas by fleeing into the pass. The scattered remnants of the Tuaregs had vanished completely. The chiefs were safely on the homeward trail, no longer deluded by the false mu’min.

  Nesserdin’s wrinkled face was glowing with pleasure.

  “There will be no Jihad,” he said, puffing on the cigarette Wade had given him. “Ai! The chiefs are good men, and they will carry the word back to their people.”

  “Well, we’re heading for Basra first,” Thunder Jim Wade said practically. “Ali Hassan has a confession to make. Eric Godoy is still in jail for the murder he committed.”

  “He’ll confess,” Red grunted. “He’s scared stiff.”

  There was silence as the Thunderbug droned on. The Hadj was staring about him with amazed interest.

  “This is a wonderful thing,” he said at last. “This plane—Allah!” Almost reverently he fingered an electric lighter set in the wall panel beside him. “It—it has everything a Rajah’s palace might contain!”

  Wade scratched himself thoughtfully.

  “Not quite,” he remarked. “I forgot to install a shower. The desert’s a wonderful place, but it has its disadvantages.”

  “Such as?” Red asked.

  “Sand-fleas,” Thunder Jim said sadly. “Let’s hurry up and get to Basra. I want a bath!”

  END

  Book III: The Poison People

  Follow Thunder Jim Wade as He Tracks Down Missing Men and Uncovers a Modern Fortress in the Jungle!

  Chapter I

  Gas in the Wilds

  THE whole trouble started when the Humboldt Current, cold from its birthplace in the Antarctic, met El Nino at the wrong place off the Peruvian coast. This happens about once every thirty-four years.

  El Nino—the Little One—is a warm deep-sea current from the north, sweeping down across the Equator. When the Little One comes too far and stays too long, the crops suffer.This, however, didn’t interest Rupert Carnevan, the famous explorer and writer, who was preparing to fly across South America the hard way and then write a book about it.

  Carnevan should have been pleased rather than otherwise, for the unseasonal storm season El Nino brought would make a dramatic introduction to his book. The author of “I Found Madagascar,” “The Man-eaters of Tanganyika,” and other best-sellers, knew quite well the value of a punch opening. He was, in fact, an adventurer rather than an explorer. There’s a difference.

  It was just another of Carnevan’s reckless, daredevil exploits—on the surface. He was flying from Lima to the mouths of the Amazon, but he wasn’t following any of the regular routes. From the air, he was going to photograph vast unknown stretches of the jungle where no white men had ever survived.

  Carnevan actually was an expert on South America. He had spent his life probing into distant and unusual places, picking up a vast store of unusual information. That was why no one suspected that this adventure was anything but what it seemed.

  For almost a year, Rupert Carnevan had been an undercover military intelligence officer for the United States Army. With war shaking the world, Japan looking across the Pacific with hungry eyes, the Nazis ruthlessly rolling over Europe, men like Carnevan were intensely valuable to America.

  The writer-explorer was able to keep on traveling, presumably gathering material for his books, and no suspicion would be aroused. But Carnevan managed to send plenty of information to Washington.

  It was a grapevine rumor that had brought him to South America now, on the trail of something that might or might not be vitally important. The real trouble didn’t begin till his plane had crossed the Andes, leaving behind it towering Huascan, the fourth highest peak in the Western Hemisphere. Lima and the Cordillera Range lay hours behind.

  MEANTIME, in her nest atop a steep mountain crag, a huge, gray-headed Peruvian condor was having the jitters. Young condors are unprepossessing in appearance. Nevertheless buzzards, no beauties themselves, consider them tasty morsels. For some hours a half-dozen of them had been circling warily, having been driven from their prey only by the timely arrival of the parent condor.

  A storm swept down from the north. El Nino had started it.

  Rupert Carnevan didn’t think of the cause as his plane was swept from its course and sent hurtling in the grip of the gale. The pilot battled frantically to climb above the storm, but he was almost at ceiling already. The winds of the Andes were devilish in their fury. Rupert narrowed his eyes and made himself ready to take over the dual controls at a moment’s notice.

  They were across the back of the Andean chain by now, on the rocky, tremendous slope that sweeps down to the Amazon basin. Naturally they were considerably south of their advertised route, yet Carnevan seemed oddly pleased at that.

  He studied a map marked with code notations.

  Luckily the storm did not last long. It had not damaged the plane, but it had one consequence that was to prove serious. Carnevan’s pilot had wrenched a muscle in his right arm. It stopped hurting after awhile and he forgot about it.

  The storm had died now. Carnevan picked up the communicator.

  “Want me to take over, Ed?”

  “What for?” the pilot demanded airily. “I feel fine. Forget it!”

  “Well, I want to take a few photos. Head south, will you?”

  Carnevan gave the new course, his eyes glowing with anticipation. Ed was a good pilot, but a rest at the controls wouldn’t hurt him. After the pictures had been snapped, Carnevan thought, he’d take over. Those pictures were more important than the health of either of them, though. They were the real reason Carnevan had come to South America.

  The storm had helped rather than hindered them. Within twenty minutes they were at their destination. Carnevan wiped his goggles, leaned out of the cockpit and peered down.

  Jungle lay to the east, a green wilderness that clung to the edge of the mountain chain. A river-gorge slashed deep into the heart of the peaks below, its course marked by a ribbon of frothy whiteness.

  Abruptly a swerving, huge shape swept into view. It was the condor, a flying machine with a ten-foot wing-spread, looking like metal with its steel-hued plumage. The monster dived toward the plane, tried to turn out of the way in sudden fright.

  The pilot tugged at the controls and the strained muscle in his arm sent a twinge of agony through him. His hand jerked convulsively. Only a moment’s error, but it was enough. The plane smashed into the condor. The propeller yelled with a scream of tortured metal. Glass shattered. A cloud of flying feathers streamed back.

  The pilot had not even a chance to cry out before he died, a sliver of steel embedded deep in his brain. He slumped forward over the stick as the plane’s nose tilted down.

  Rupert Carnevan fought against the pressure that held him in his seat. The engine was dead. No, it caught again, with a hopeless sputter. But fuel was spattering from a broken feed line. Worse than that, a tongue of red flame licked out, trailing the crashing plane like a comet’s tail.

  CARNEVAN managed to grip the pilot’s shoulder. The blood-smeared face rolled into view. It was obvious that the man was dead.

  Already the plane had lost considerable altitude. With painful difficulty, Carnevan unsnapped his safety belt, squirmed out of the cockpit and jumped. The sudden rush of air blinded and deafened him. He counted ten and pulled the ripcord. The parachute billowed out. He was almost wrenched in two. A wind sent him slanting toward the
green jungle to the east. He saw the plane crash at the edge of the gorge. It hesitated, swayed, then toppled into the depths. White water swallowed it.

  Carnevan gulped. That river, he figured, ran for perhaps a thousand miles before it touched civilization. The wreckage of the plane might never be found. Even if it were, a searching party would have not the slightest clue to the lost explorer’s whereabouts. There was no time to follow up this chain of thought.

  A shadow darkened the sun momentarily. The condor’s mate dived to the attack. The bird was as large as the other and quite as vicious. That steel beak and those dangerous talons would kill a man or slash the chute.

  Carnevan hurriedly fumbled for his revolver, hoping his marksmanship would not desert him now. The condor swooped in, talons reaching like clawed and gauntleted hands. Swaying back and forth like a pendulum, Carnevan fired and missed. A ripping agony slashed along his leg—a flesh wound, but painful enough.

  The condor came back. This time Carnevan waited till the last possible moment. His bullet went true to its mark. The giant bird smashed into the man, claws tearing at him in a death agony. Almost instantly it fell away, to vanish into the depths of the gorge.

  Carnevan replaced his gun, fearing he would drop it in the sudden surge of weakness that raced through him. He could feel the warm stickiness of blood inside his shredded clothing.

  Abruptly he forgot about it. He was coming down toward a fort!

  His eyes widened in astonishment at sight of the bizarre structure below. It was built at the mouth of the gorge, which emerged from between two steep cliffs. It seemed an extraordinary combination of two types of architecture, Incan and modern. Glass glittered in the sunlight. Cement shone white and metal gleamed. It looked, Carnevan thought, as though some modern builder had tried to construct a house atop an ancient Incan ruin.

  But it wasn’t entirely a house. It was a tiny citadel, like a Maginot Line pill-box. It could not be easily seen from the air, for it huddled under the frowning overhang of a cliff, guarding the entrance to the gorge. A level, bare plain stretched from it down to the edge of the green jungle, a few hundred feet away. Out of the gorge, black clouds rolled.