Indiana Jones & the Sky Pirates

by Martin Caidin

  "What makes you so sure it was off-Earth?" Henshaw broke in.

  "We calculated distance and speed. It was moving with a velocity in excess of two thousand miles an hour."

  "So that leaves us with a memory," Indy said sourly, "and that's not much to go on."

  "Why do you say that?" Castilano protested. "Fourteen eyewitnesses are but a memory?"

  "That is all it is," Indy said with a nononsense tone. "It doesn't pin down anything but a sighting of something you cannot identify. Look, Filipo, if Will and Rene took up the Ford and did wild flying around this island and then flew away, and you had never before seen or heard of an airplane, and you had no pictures for later reference, what would you deduce from that sighting? I know, I know. Experienced, reliable observers are at hand. But when it's over, what do you have but a wild story? No matter if it's true."

  "Wait a moment," Henshaw said abruptly. "There is one thing that hasn't come up before. The Empress Kali incident. And that flat craft that hovered? I read in the report of one eyewitness that he said the edges of the ship, or disc, or whatever it was, weren't clearly defined. He didn't use that phrase. He said the edges seemed to waver, shift in and out of focus."

  Indy could hardly contain himself. It was exactly the kind of clue for which he'd been searching. He decided, at that very moment, to keep what he had just learned—what Henshaw's words had told him—to himself until later.

  "Does that mean something important?" Henshaw asked.

  "Sure," Indy said, feigning indifference. "Your witness has watery eyes." He rose to his feet, making eye contact with Henshaw, then spoke to the group. "That's it, everybody. We've gone over the ancient records and what we've come up with is that history is loaded with reports of unexplained things moving through the sky.

  None of which does us any real good except that we've followed the proper rules—examine everything possible. Be ready for takeoff tomorrow morning, please."

  "What time, Indy?" Cromwell asked.

  "Dawn."

  Cromwell groaned. "You're destroying my beauty sleep," he complained.

  Indy laughed. "Try a facelifting instead." Indy turned to Henshaw.

  "Let's go over the equipment list again, if you don't mind?"

  Henshaw picked up immediately on Indy's unspoken request. Meet together, just the two of them. "Got it. I'll get the papers and meet you back here in ten minutes."

  "Did it hit you about the same time?" Henshaw asked Indy.

  "It sure seems like it. I'm still not certain of the connection, but when you started talking about the edges of the disc seeming to waver, well, my first reaction was heat distortion."

  "You're picking it up quickly," Henshaw told him. "You're smack on target.

  Heat distortion; why didn't we put two and two together before!"

  "Harry, you came up with the clue," Indy said quickly.

  "You said this Coanda fellow was describing a blowtorch effect with an engine, right?"

  "Exactly. We've got to speak with Coanda directly, Indy. Face to face. You learn more that way than you ever will from any paperwork. So either one of us, or the both of us, must go to France, and keep that trip absolutely quiet.

  Otherwise we make targets of ourselves."

  Indy nodded. "Agreed. We'll work out the details later. Anything else?"

  "Yes, and I got the news only this morning. This time it's the paperwork that provides what may be a critical lead for us." Henshaw smiled with satisfaction. "The paperwork was buried in old archives in France. I've had a team there with a cover story about exchanging planes and equipment between our museums and theirs.

  Know what they found?

  Sorry. Of course you couldn't. An entry in the patent office back in 1914 in Paris. Someone had applied for a patent that year." Henshaw paused. "For a jet engine."

  Indy smiled. "A buck gets you ten the man's name was Coanda."

  "You win," Henshaw said.

  13

  At five o'clock the next morning the team gathered by the Ford and pushed the airplane onto the dew-wet grass.

  Henshaw and Castilano were there for brief final conversations. "Everything you need for your crossing will be waiting for you at Bangor," he told Indy. "And you're in luck. I've been getting the weather reports from Canada and the oceancrossing navigation ships at sea. There's a terrific high that will keep the skies clear most of the way and give you a dickens of a tailwind."

  "Great. Thanks, Harry." They shook hands, and the rest of the team boarded the airplane.

  Indy wondered if this whole idea of his was really as crazy as it sounded.

  Crossing the North Atlantic in an airplane that could cruise steadily at only 115 miles an hour sounded like lunacy when you envisioned the huge ocean area before them.

  "It's a duck walk, really," Cromwell had convinced him. "With our extra fuel—and we could even shut down the nose engine and fly on only two to stretch time and fuel— the trip will be a piece of cake. The longest stretch over water is only about eight hundred and fifty miles. Just one thing I don't fathom, Indy."

  "Which is?"

  "Why are you making a public spectacle of us? From what I've been hearing of this lot that's after you, I'd have thought you'd rather be out of sight as much as possible."

  Indy patted Will Cromwell on the back. "Got to flush them out. This is the best way. Doesn't it seem just a bit strange to you? If these people really are gathering so much military might, why has no one come after us with all that firepower?"

  "I hadn't thought about it, I confess."

  "Confession's good for the soul, Will. You and Rene fly, I'll take care of the fun and games."

  "As you say, Guv."

  They climbed out into the sun breaking the horizon. Indy slipped on his headset and mike intercom to talk to the cockpit. "Frenchy, before we reach the Connecticut coast, hold an easterly heading until I call you back. You'll feel the upper hatch open for a few moments. I'll call you when it's closed."

  "Right."

  Indy felt the gentle bank and saw they were headed directly into the fiery disc clearing the horizon. He walked back to a storage locker, withdrew a mahogany box, and returned to the upper hatch where the machine-gun mount could be raised. He pushed open the hatch, picked up the box, and then stood on the gun mount so that his head and shoulders extended into the airstream. For a moment he struggled with the mahogany box.

  Gale started from her seat to assist Indy, but Jocko placed his hand on her arm to restrain her. "This is for him alone," he said. The look on his face more than his words brought Gale back into her seat.

  Standing in the airblast, facing backwards, Indy brought the box above the gun mount coaming, opened the lid, and began to scatter the ashes of Tarkiz Belem over the waters of Long Island Sound. In the wild turbulence, the ashes flew about in a swirling cloud against his face and into his nostrils; most of the ash cloud hurtled backward and flashed out of sight. Several banging sounds drifted to them.

  "Those are small pieces of bone striking the tail," Jocko told Gale. "Not even cremation turns it all to ashes."

  Gale shuddered, remembering the big, crude man who had twice saved her life. She remained silent as Indy completed his task and then hurled the mahogany box from the plane. He slid back into the cabin, closed the hatch, and went to the water basin to soak his handkerchief to wipe the ashes of Tarkiz from his face and hands. He sank into a seat across from Gale and Jocko. "Tell Will to pick up his course," he asked Gale.

  The Ford set its nose for Bangor.

  Gale took sandwiches and coffee to the cockpit as they flew across New England, the sky spotted with puffy clouds.

  She returned to her seat to join Indy and Jocko in a conversation she'd wanted for days to hear.

  "Let's have it out on the table, Jocko," Indy was saying. "I need to know as much as I can about my people.

  Otherwise I'm liable to miss opportunities when they arise."

  "You mean this isn't a job interview?" Jo
cko smiled.

  "I thought you worked for the museum," Gale said between bites of her sandwich.

  "I do. But I'm on this airplane because I was instructed to go along with what the professor needs. Or wants," he added as an afterthought.

  "What's your background, Jocko?"

  "Tell me what you know already, Boss. It will be easier to fill in the blanks, perhaps."

  "For starters, you're a hell of a lot smarter than you show with that Jamaican jingo you present to the world."

  "That real kind of you, mon," Jocko mimicked his singsong tone.

  "But why do you do that?" Gale asked.

  "You can hide that you are a witch, Miss Parker—"

  "Gale, please."

  "Thank you. As I say, you easily conceal that you are a witch. You even change your name. There is Arab blood in you. I see it in the bone structure of your face, the small differences in your skin—well, call it shading instead of color." Jocko smiled with tolerance born of severe experience. "How long can you hide your family tree if you are as black as me?"

  Gale studied the big man before her, beginning to understand his true depth.

  "Not long at all," she admitted.

  "Why do you hide yours?"

  Gale shrugged. "It unnerves people. Upsets them. Even frightens some. So I changed to a name with which people are more comfortable."

  "It is much easier to change your name than it is for me to change my ebony appearance," Jocko offered. "Being black, and being intelligent, is acceptable only under certain conditions. And only with certain people."

  "You have that much trouble?" Indy asked.

  "Being a smart black man in certain places means a very short lifespan. I know." He leaned back and smiled, but with little humor. "Let me explain. It is not just the black that matters. It is the difference in color. It is even the difference in the black. Those blacks of African descent, or from the islands, or anywhere, for that matter, if they are light-skinned, they hate people like me. Because I am so different from them. It is foolish. It is even stupid. But it is the real world."

  "You have your degree in geology from the university in Caracas," Indy slipped into the exchange.

  "Yes," Jocko said, offering no further information.

  "And you took marine biology at the University of Miami."

  "I did not obtain my degree there."

  "How many did you get?" Indy asked.

  "You know many things, Professor," Jocko said without smiling.

  "You don't need to tell us, Jocko. But the more I know the stronger we all are."

  "Four," Jocko said.

  "Four white men," Indy answered for him.

  Jocko shook his head, but he seemed glad this was in the open. "They had a meeting. I guess it was the Klan. Got all liquored up. My teacher, Veronica Green, she was white. She wanted to talk to me about underwater work in the Caribbean—"

  "He's a qualified skin diver and deep-sea diver," Indy interrupted. "Searches for old wrecks for the museum. Their treasures are more than gold and silver.

  Artifacts from an age long gone."

  "That's what this woman wanted to talk about. She taught in a classroom, I lived in the world she dreamed about.

  But we made a mistake. We had hamburgers together at a beachfront joint in Miami Beach. These whites came in, drunk, angry, filled with hate. They said not one word, but suddenly they were coming at me with knives and brass knuckles. They were no problem for me—"

  "Four against one and it's no problem?" Gale couldn't hold back the question.

  Again Indy answered for him. "He'd never tell you this himself, but Jocko is a martial arts master. Judo, jujitsu, karate, to say nothing of a year he spent in India with the Ghurkas."

  Jocko showed his surprise. "How did you know that?"

  Indy ignored the question. "Finish what happened in Miami."

  Jocko shook his head with sadness. "The woman stood before me, as if she were a barrier they could not cross. The man before her buried his knife in her stomach. I—I never have been certain just what I did."

  "He killed that man," Indy said for him. "Not the others, though. Once the woman went down they tried to run.

  Jocko broke their legs, and their arms and I understand he did some heavy damage to livers and spleens and—"

  "That's enough, Indy. It's not important."

  "All right."

  "But what happened after that?" Gale demanded.

  "I did what any black man with half a mind would do. I got out of Miami just as fast as I could. I had a deep-sea fishing boat and I took off in that. I knew there would be a search, so I doubled back. That night I painted the hull and changed the name, hid in a small island off the Keys, and went back to Jamaica. It was Dr. Franck who straightened it all out."

  "And assigned you to this little jaunt," Indy appended.

  "I go wherever Dr. Franck asks. I owe the man my life," Jocko said sternly.

  "Let me ask you something, Boss Man."

  "Shoot."

  "Just where are we going?"

  "Paris. Eventually, that is. It's quite a trip."

  "Across the ocean in this?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Couldn't we just take an ocean liner?"

  "We could, but we'd miss the attention I want this way. After that, we'll see.

  Now you two go talk all you want.

  Later I want to brief you on this camera. For now, it's nap time."

  They watched as he slumped in his seat, patted his seat belt, shoved his wide-brimmed hat over his eyes, and clasped his hands across his midriff.

  "Can he just drop right off like that?" Jocko asked Gale.

  "Jocko, he's already asleep. I'm going forward to see if they need a break up there."

  Jocko looked doubtful. "Drive carefully."

  "Just like you in your cab," she smiled.

  "The Great One protect us," he murmured.

  The flight, expected to be long, battering to the ears, and less than comfortable, kept its promise. Every landing was a blessing as they walked away from three thundering sets of propellers and engines vibrating the corrugated box of the Ford fuselage. "When they named this thing the Tin Goose," complained Foulois, "they were short of their mark. It should have been called the Horrendous Honk."

  "Or the Boiler Factory," added Cromwell. He looked at the operations shack on Bangor Field. "Now, if we had just remembered to bring along ear plugs . . . Oh, well, we just might luck out here. I'd stuff a pomengrate in my ears if it would help."

  They were in luck; spongy ear protectors to screen out the higher frequencies were plentiful, and they accepted them eagerly. They filled their large insulated cans with hot coffee, loading up on high-energy food bars, fresh sandwiches, and other lastminute items to be carried aboard the airplane. They also spent as much time as possible walking about to improve body circulation.

  Another takeoff, another opportunity to monitor closely every gauge and mechanical operation of the airplane systems, and a landing at Moncton in New Brunswick, Canada. They topped off the fuel tanks, filled the oil tanks, and headed north for Goose Bay, a remote Royal Canadian Air Force field in Newfoundland. Will and Rene brought the Ford down through buffeting winds in a mildly exciting night landing. Indy and Gale were fast asleep in their seats, but Jocko was in the cockpit, watching every move the pilots made with awe-widened eyes.

  "It looks like flying down a tunnel," he told them. "Except for those pitiful little lights. How can you people see where the devil you are going and when it is time to land?"

  Cromwell half turned. "It works this way, laddie," he said with a straight face.

  "I set the machine on final approach, like we are now, descending like the good fairy coming down a moonbeam. Then I close my eyes real tight and—"

  "You fly down to land with your eyes closed?"

  "Absolutely."

  "But how do you know when to level out, to land!"

  "That's Frenchy's job, you see. He watches t
he runway coming up at us. Just before we're about to smash into the ground, he always—never fails, believe me—sucks in his breath and sort of screams. More like a strangled gurgle, really.

  When I hear him do that, why, I chop the power and ease back on the yoke and we land just as smooth as a mug of ale."

  Jocko left without saying another word.

  Goose Bay was on the edge of nowhere. Before them lay a run of eight hundred and thirty miles, give or take another thirty because of the unreliability of charts. With full tanks and the underwing tanks they could fly sixteen hundred miles in still air. One of those "piece of cake" jaunts to which Cromwell referred so often.