Thunder Jim Wade

by Henry Kuttner

  The chute carried Carnevan to the edge of the forest, dragged him as he bent his knees and tangled in the underbrush. As he rose painfully, wriggling free of the harness, he saw that an oddly shaped gun on the pill-box was swinging slowly in an arc, jolting occasionally as it fired. It was laying down a barrage of shells, which burst into mushrooming clouds of gas.

  THE draft from the gorge carried the vapors away, spreading them toward the forest. A whiff of the stuff choked Carnevan with its acrid odor. He jumped back and his wounded leg collapsed under him.

  He heard whispers from the forest all around. Dim, faint, scarcely recognizable, they were in no language that he knew. They spoke of fear and of menace. A drum began to beat with soft ominous warning.

  “Beware!” it muttered urgently. “Beware! Beware!”

  Carnevan found his gun in his hand. He stared around, completely at a loss. Were the men in the pill-box trying to kill him? If so, they were taking a complicated means of doing so. Besides, the gas would only make him retreat. He could outrun it easily.

  Or could he? He had no machete.

  The jungle was a labyrinth of vines, lianas, thorns and branches. He could not detect any trail. The gas was really the serious menace it was meant to be.

  He could no longer see the pill-box. The clouds were too thick, too black. Hesitating, he lifted his gun as a slim figure came out of the mists, growing from a dark shadow to something even more startling.

  It was a girl, wearing light tropical garments. Her face was invisible behind a modern gas-mask and she swung another from her left hand as she ran. In her right hand she carried an automatic. Shimmering waves of jet-black hair streamed out behind her. She blundered weakly into Carnevan, thrust the gas-mask at him.

  “Put it on!” Her voice was shrill and urgent through the mask. “Quick!”

  The drum beat louder, snarling with menace. Hurriedly Carnevan adjusted the mask. The girl’s hand seized his, urged him back into the clouds of gas. Without warning, a tiny, gleaming sliver sprouted from the canvas of the girl’s mask. Carnevan glanced over his shoulder. He could see nothing but the green tangle of the jungle.

  “Wait a minute!” he said. “What is this?”

  She dragged him on impatiently.

  “La gente del veneno—the Poison People! They will kill us if they are able. Come!”

  Into the heart of the cloudy blackness they plunged. Behind them the drum growled angrily. Across the plain they raced and found themselves at the mouth of the gorge, before the strange pill-box construction. A metal door swung open and the girl pulled Carnevan through the portal.

  It slammed behind them. They were in a bare, smooth-walled room, filled with gun-racks and armament. It looked like a small armory. A man was standing and waiting, his huge arms akimbo.

  He was grossly and abnormally fat, bulging out of his tropical whites. Sweat shone on his hairless head, dripped down his bulging, pink cheeks. His little eyes gleamed with anger. As he spoke, Carnevan noticed that his teeth were stained black, like those of a savage.

  “You little fool! What’s the idea, Astrid? Do you want to be killed?”

  ASTRID took off her mask, revealing a singularly lovely, ivory-cream face, with snapping, dark eyes.

  “Why not?” she asked bitterly. “That’s one way out, anyway, Dellera.”

  The annoyance was suddenly wiped from the fat man’s features. He laughed with soundless, quaking enjoyment.

  “You came back quickly enough, I notice. And we have a new guest.”

  Carnevan removed his mask.

  “Just what is this all about?” he inquired. “My name’s Rupert Carnevan. I’m an explorer. My plane crashed over the range—”

  “We saw it,” Dellera interrupted. “We were launching an attack on the savages. They were gathering to attack us, so we beat ’em to the punch. Astrid watched you land and went out after you.”

  THE fat giant popped something into his mouth—betel-nut, Carnevan saw. That explained the blackened teeth. Dellera negligently exhibited a gun.

  “You’re armed, eh, Carnevan? Let’s have your pistol.”

  “What’s the idea?” the explorer demanded.

  “Never mind. Astrid will explain later. Better let me have your gun, too, Astrid. You know you’re not allowed to carry one in the gorge.”

  Carnevan handed his revolver to Dellera. Sullenly, with angry defiance, the girl tossed her weapon at the fat man. He caught it deftly.

  A bell rang somewhere in the distance. A door opened and a man in flying helmet and goggles entered. He had a knifelike, aquiline face, with a pencil-thin mustache.

  “All ready,” he said. At the giant’s grunt, he smiled, went to a corner and picked up a small suitcase. “My profits.”

  “Penny ante stuff, Patek,” Dellera stated. “There’ll be plenty of dough for all of us pretty soon.”

  Patek flipped open the suitcase, revealing a number of dark, irregular spheres. He picked one up. It was the shrunken, mummified head of a native, incredibly reduced, with tattooing on its granular cheeks.

  “They’re good bait,” he said. “Are the savages gone yet?”

  “They’ll stay away from the gas for awhile,” Dellera replied. “You can take off.”

  Carrying the suitcase, Patek vanished. As though drawn by a magnet, the girl went to a circular port of a window. Carnevan followed behind her.

  Presently, from a concealed hangar, he saw a cabin plane roll into view and head down the bare slope. Its engines roared. The ship lurched forward, sped faster and took the air lightly. It curved out over the jungle and quickly vanished behind a mountain spur.

  Carnevan felt a hand seize his shoulder and yank him around. He stared into the fat, repulsive face of Dellera. Angrily the explorer pulled away.

  Dellera did not try to maintain his hold. Instead his great fist shot out like a giant battering-ram.

  Carnevan was lifted off his feet. He went down, spitting blood. Dazed, his head rocking, he tried to scramble erect. But Dellera was covering him with a pistol and shaking with huge, silent laughter.

  “Take him away, Astrid,” he managed to gasp at last. “Don’t try it, Carnevan. I shoot straight and I hit straight. Remember that when you’re in the gorge.” His blackened teeth bared in a cruel smile. “And remember, too, that there’s only one way out. But you won’t try that. Astrid will tell you about la gente del veneno—the Poison People!”

  Carnevan didn’t answer, but his eyes were narrowed. Dellera didn’t suspect that his uninvited guest was anything but what he seemed. Good! If the fat man ever guessed that Carnevan was actually a Government man, it would be just too bad.

  Somehow a message must be smuggled out. How often did Patek make these trips by plane? Finding out was vitally important.

  Carnevan learned the next day that Patek usually flew to Lima about once a week. On his second weekly trip after Carnevan arrived, Patek climbed into his plane, not suspecting that he carried with him a code message from the Government agent.

  Chapter II

  Via the Dead

  LIMA is the oldest Spanish capital in South America. James Gregg, a plump and wide-eyed tourist, spent several days there, drinking mainly Peruvian brandy. Then he rejoined his ship at Callao. On the first night out, southward bound, he invited a friend into his cabin to see a curio he had picked up. The friend was a young botanist, traveling for a museum. Though he preferred Gregg’s liquor to his company, he nevertheless showed a semblance of interest in the box Gregg took from the bottom of his steamer trunk.

  “Forty dollars it cost me, Doc,” said Gregg proudly. “A genuine shrunken head. It’ll be something to show the boys back in Terre Haute, eh?”

  “So it will,” Dr. Barden agreed. Putting down his highball glass, he scrutinized the tiny head, no larger than his fist. “It’s a native, all right.”

  “Nobody knows how it’s done, they say.”

  Barden eyed the tattooing on the dark cheeks.

  “T
hat so? I’ve heard they take out the skull and use hot stones in a sort of ironing process, inside and out—first a large stone, then a smaller, and so on down. The process can be completed in a day.”

  Gregg looked deflated.

  “Anyway, I had to smuggle it out,” he said. “It’s—What’s the matter?”

  Barden was staring closely at the tiny head.

  “I’m not sure. Got a magnifying glass, Gregg? Thanks.” He bent over to study the gruesome little sphere. “This tattooing looks funny, as though some of it was done only lately. I wonder—” He snapped his fingers sharply. “Does this remind you of anything?”

  Gregg examined the delicate lines of tattoo-work.

  “Can’t say that it does,” he admitted.

  “Dots and dashes. You wouldn’t notice it unless you were looking closely. Let’s go see Sparks, Gregg. He won’t tell the Customs at Valparaiso.”

  In the wireless room Sparks, without much difficulty, translated the message.

  “It’s Morse code, all right,” he agreed. “Just a few words, though. Three dots, three dashes, three dots—S.O.S., of course. ‘Thunder Jim Wade—find Patek—Lima—Carnevan.’ That’s all. No room for a longer message, I suppose.”

  “But what does it mean?” Gregg asked, noticing that Barden and Sparks were staring curiously at one another.

  “It’s a call for help,” the botanist replied. “Presumably whoever sent it guessed that this head would be shown to a lot of people and figured that some of them might know Morse.”

  “But who’s this Thunder Jim Wade?”

  “Sort of adventurer,” Sparks said slowly. “Soldier of fortune, more or less. Nobody knows much about him, except that he’s always turning up to help someone out of a jam. He straightened out a mess, over in Arabia not long ago, didn’t he?”

  Dr. Barden nodded. “He has representatives all over the world. They take messages for him, sort them out and forward the important ones to Wade in his headquarters.”

  “Where’s that?” Gregg wanted to know.

  “Only Wade knows that, he and his two sidekicks, Red Argyle and Dirk Marat. Sparks, isn’t there one of Wade’s representatives in Panama?”

  “Yeah. I think so.”

  “Send a message and charge it to me. Address it to Thunder Jim Wade, Panama, and his man will get it.”

  “Wow!” said Gregg happily. “Wait’ll I tell the boys back home about this!”

  THE message crackled across the ether. In Panama, a lean, old man with grizzled, gray hair narrowed his eyes and crushed out a cigarette. Presently he went to the back of his curio store, opened a concealed panel and descended into his cellar, where a curious radio was set up. The man pushed over a switch.

  He spoke into a microphone. A scrambler automatically distorted his words into unintelligibility. A narrow beam carried the message across the Pacific to a receiving set that was well hidden.

  “Calling Thunder Jim…. Calling Thunder Jim….”

  The next day Gregg and Dr. Barden stood at the rail. The botanist pointed upward sharply.

  “See that?” he breathed in awe.

  It was a curiously shaped plane, gleaming black against the blue sky, flying at a considerable altitude to the north of the ship. Its wings were unusually small.

  Gregg took out a pair of binoculars and focused them.

  “It says Thunderbug,” he replied uncomprehendingly.

  “That’s Wade’s ship. He got the message, all right. I wonder what’s going to happen in Lima—and who Patek is.”

  The black plane droned on toward the Peruvian coast and was lost in the distance.

  * * * * *

  From the air, Lima looks like a Valentine’s Day cake. The stucco houses are mostly pink and white and the sky is an incredible shade of blue. Lima is an oasis in the baked, arid coastal plain. As in all cases, there is plenty to drink. Up from Callao, the seaport, come sailors and beachcombers. They patronize such dives as El Lobo, where an imported American juke-box plays ancient popular songs. The low stucco building once housed an old Peruvian family, but now square-face gin and brandy are served across the bar, not three blocks from the cathedral where Pizarro’s bones rest under glass. Through the doorway of El Lobo, one can see the massive Cordilleras towering against the eastern sky.

  It was twilight. Men were settling down to the serious business of drinking. Footsteps thumped through the still dusk, above the clink of glasses. Two men walked into El Lobo. They stood motionless for a moment, blinking against the light.

  One was a burly, red-haired giant, with a craggy, massive face. From one hand swung a light, cheap, small leather suitcase. His white tropical linen suit was stained and badly in need of a pressing and his eyelids were red and inflamed, as though by a bout of hard drinking. Red pepper was responsible for that. The giant swayed a little and caught at his companion for support.

  “Steady on!” the smaller man grunted.

  He was dressed in whites, too, but there the similarity ended. Dirk Marat was a slim, slight figure, with a tight skull-cap of yellow hair and oddly thick, black eyebrows. He didn’t at all resemble the tough, dangerous fighter that he was.

  DIRK MARAT and Red Argyle, Wade’s two right-hand men, at that moment seemed to be merely a couple of sailors on a spree and rather down on their luck at that. No one paid any attention to the new arrivals. Almost imperceptibly, Dirk nodded toward a distant table.

  “That’s our man.”

  The words were inaudible a foot away, but Argyle heard them. Growling inarticulately, he lurched forward, lumbering like a great bear among the tiny tables. He collapsed in a chair that screeched protestingly under his weight.

  As he put the suitcase between his legs, Marat found a seat opposite him.

  “Gin,” Argyle said thickly. “Gin. That’s what I want!”

  Marat waved for a waiter, who took their order. Presently the two were facing each other across a bottle of cheap trade gin.

  Argyle’s eyes flickered toward the man at the next table—a character with a knifelike, aquiline face and a pencil-thin mustache. The description checked. That was Patek, the fellow the code message had mentioned. It had taken hours of deft, careful questioning in the right places to find out who Patek was. Even now they knew little.

  A bartender had put them on the right track.

  “Sure, I know Patek. He shows up here ever so often. Dunno where he comes from. He just makes the rounds of all the bars in town. You’ll know him when you see him. A hatchet-face and a mustache with three hairs on each side.”

  USUALLY, they discovered, Patek stayed in Lima less than a week. Sometimes, though not often, he visited Callao. His chief purpose during these visits seemed to be that of striking up casual acquaintances with tramps, sailors from freighters and beachcombers. But this time Patek had bagged a larger game—Rupert Carnevan, writer-explorer and most important, U.S. undercover military intelligence officer.

  Thunder Jim Wade had friends in high Government circles. He had already suspected what a hasty cable to Washington confirmed. Carnevan was on ex-officio Government business of secret nature. Since he had vanished in Peru, the United States could do nothing, especially as Carnevan’s real position must be kept secret if his future usefulness were not to be destroyed.

  The Peruvian authorities would be glad to cooperate, but Thunder Jim Wade had offered his services to a certain official in Washington. Wade’s reputation was better known than the Peruvian authorities’.

  The bartender had given valuable information. Now he wanted some for himself.

  “What do you want to see Patek for?” he asked interestedly.

  “I heard he could sell me a head—one of those little native things, shrunk down,” Marat had insinuated.

  “Maybe so, but don’t let the Customs know you want one. They’re illegal.”

  Chapter III

  Being Kidnaped is Easy

  SITTING in El Lobo, gulping gin, Argyle pondered. Patek’s circle of acqua
intances appeared strangely limited to those whose disappearance wouldn’t be missed. That point was significant. That was why Argyle and Marat were now sitting one table away from Patek, arguing loudly.

  “Nuts,” the giant growled, pouring another drink. “We still got some dough left. We can head for Callao tomorrow.”

  Marat scowled. “How d’you know we can get a berth? We shouldn’t have jumped the Pacific Belle, I tell you.”

  “We were paid off, weren’t we? What’re you bellyaching about? Have some more gin and shut up.”

  Unwillingly Marat accepted the glass.

  “It’s easy to talk, but we don’t know anybody here. Suppose we can’t get a berth—”

  “Suppose your grandmother’d been a man,” Argyle inquired unpleasantly. “We got fifty bucks left—more’n three hundred soles, eh? I want to see Lima ’fore we weigh anchor. Wanta—wanta—” Argyle lit a cigarette. “Wanta pick up some souvenirs.”

  From the corner of his eye, Argyle saw that Patek was watching them intently. Abruptly the hatchet-faced man rose, tossing a few pesetas on the table. As he passed, he lurched against Marat, knocking the smaller man forward so that the gin bottle was upset. The liquor spurted out. Argyle fumbled to recapture it.

  “Hey!” the giant snarled. “What’s the idea? Where’d you learn your manners, yuh dirty, thieving, clumsy, ugly crook—spillin’ our drinks just so we’ll have to buy more!”

  Patek was all apologetic friendliness. He set up the bottle, bowed, pardoned himself and introduced himself, all in the same breath. Argyle glowered at him. Marat shrugged and sat back, waiting.

  “Sure, I suppose it was our fault!” the giant snarled.

  “My fault, senores!” Patek said insistently. “You must let me stand you to another bottle. Waiter!”

  He beckoned anxiously.

  “We can buy our own liquor,” Argyle snapped.