by Dora Benley
Dora nodded. "We found the first body days ago at the Stone Tree House at the Petrified Forest and only yesterday afternoon at the Madison Campground we found the second one. Winston's first two agents were both stone cold dead."
Edward got out the first agent's wedding ring and his wallet, also some papers he had found in his pocket. Then he did the same for the second agent. He handed them over to Lindemann.
Lindemann concealed them inside a special pocket inside his suit jacket that reminded Dora of the seams and compartments that Edward had sewed into his uniforms and clothes to conceal the Lawrence maps. "Frankly I am not surprised," Lindemann began. "Winston warned me to expect almost anything. Originally Winston arranged what he thought was going to be a safe rendezvous with no strings attached. But some days ago he got information from another one of his agents in Germany that something big was brewing. The Chancellor was sending special secret letters to the von Wessels along with money. Apparently they had been ordered to follow your footsteps and never let you disappear. Winston even picked up word from one of his spies that the von Wessels had chosen a Professor Geisling to help them get the maps from you. Winston figured there was something underhanded and very technical and perhaps even scientific going on. That is why he sent me here. He thought you could use my specialized help," claimed the physics professor from Oxford.
"Could we ever use help!" Edward exclaimed, patting the Professor on the arm. "You are a godsend. The von Wessels and their crazy professor from Germany are about to dump a load of specially made TNT into the cone of the Old Faithful Geyser. The truck driver they hired has just gone off to pick up the load of dynamite at the East Entrance Drive right this very minute."
"And Herr von Wessel says that the specially made dynamite that he bought custom made is from Chicago. Gangsters use it!" Dora remembered. "They are trying blow Yellowstone sky high."
This man certainly did not look like Churchill's other agents! He was Churchill's best friend, boon companion, and associate in all matters pertaining to the Lawrence maps. Lindemann had heretofore been useful in inventing ways to copy and counterfeit the maps to fool the Germans. He had been involved in the plot almost from the beginning.
"I heard rumors about it long before this," Professor Lindemann confessed. "So I can't say I am surprised."
Dora and Edward exchanged astonished looks. Winston had told them nothing about it.
"Oh, Winston didn't know either!" Lindemann dismissed their surprise. "I had to inform him. I heard it by way of the scientific underground you could say."
Dora was even more amazed. Apparently the Prof was the only person Winston could have sent to deal with the situation.
"In fact, I have been working on a kind of antidote to their special dynamite for months now. And I have come here needing only to put the final touches on it. May I use your washroom?" He looked from Dora to Edward and back in a perfectly calm, matter of fact fashion.
"Be my guest!" Edward exclaimed. He escorted him a few steps over to the sink next to the beds. "The shower and toilet are in the other building. We share them with other guests. We are out in the woods in the wilderness, you know."
"Saw a grizzly bear munching on something on my way to your cabin from the parking lot!" the eccentric English physics professor chortled as if somehow the whole situation amused him.
The Professor took out a special vial from one of his many capacious pockets that were no doubt also custom made. He held it up to the pale room light as he stood in front of the sink. He took a glass that a maid had left sitting there on a stand next to the wash basin. "You do not need this for any other purpose?" he asked.
Dora and Edward shook their heads "no".
He poured the contents of the vial into the glass and held that up to the light. Carefully he mixed it with water, then a little more, and a little more.
"This should do the trick!" Lindemann announced with great assurance in his voice and perhaps more than a little bravado added to it.
"What is it?" Edward asked inquisitively. "I mean what exactly have you discovered or invented?"
"Oh, just a special compound that I have invented to neutralize the effects of explosives. It blunts them you might say. They fizzle and burn out. It would work not only with dynamite but with fireworks, too," he lectured Dora and Edward.
"Can't wait to try it out." Edward pushed back the curtains and peered out the window. "Look!" he pointed. The Professor and Dora both rushed over to peer over Edward's shoulder. The truck driver had now returned from his rendezvous point on the East Entrance Road. He was getting ready to dump the load of dynamite.
"Hurry up!" Edward beckoned with a broad arm gesture. "Follow me! Maybe we can stop the bastard before he does his worst."
Chapter 33: A Crime Against Nature
Lindemann fell in line eagerly behind Edward. Edward gripped his gun in his hand in case there was any trouble. Dora followed the men third in line. She did not want to stay in the cabin all by herself. That might be even more dangerous than accompanying Edward and Lindemann out to the geyser basin. She did not want to get kidnapped and held hostage or something dire like that.
Silently as possible the three of them crept up to where the truck driver was proceeding to back up to the very edge of the geyser. As soon as the men positioned the pickup truck just right, the trucker and his assistant paused to go get the von Wessels for final approval of what they were about to do. The site of the planned crime against nature became momentarily completely deserted as they wandered off into the night looking for the nefarious German couple.
"Perfect!" Lindemann trilled into Dora's and Edward's ear. "Just perfect!" He rubbed his hands together eagerly. "They have cleared the field for me. I could not wish for anything more perfect."
"What do you plan to do?" Edward asked very low.
"Just watch!" Lindemann exclaimed as he started forward over the geyser field with special leather hiking boots to assist him. He moved very quickly as if he knew exactly what to do.
Edward aimed his gun at the truck to provide cover for Lindemann in case the truckers showed up unexpectedly with or without the von Wessels.
This gave Professor Lindemann, whom Churchill had fondly nicknamed the Prof, a chance to advance on the TNT, still hanging out of the back of the truck. He sprinkled it deftly with the special compound he had invented to neutralize its explosive capacities. Afterwards Lindemann swiftly retreated.
"Are you sure this will work?" Edward asked as soon as Lindemann rejoined them.
Lindemann nodded. "I am as positive as I can be. Believe it or not, I even tested it on ordinary dynamite before I left Oxford."
Dora raised her eyebrows. She had a hard time imagining explosives going off around Oxford University. But then maybe they were accustomed to the eccentric, wayward Professor and his habits.
"I assume the truck driver can't detect the powder?" Edward pressed.
Lindemann shook his head. "Absolutely not! Especially not in the dark. Believe me," he looked around, "it is as dark as I have ever seen it at night. No lights anywhere except the cabins and the lodge. It certainly does not remind me of Oxford!"
The three of them retreated swiftly back to the cabin and locked the door behind them. Dora wished they could have bolted it, too.
"Edward, common sense dictates we get out of here!" Dora hissed at them both.
"The little lady has more brains than both of us combined!" the Prof nodded at Dora.
"One more thing!" Edward told them. "Follow me over to the Old Faithful Inn. I saw a few park rangers head in there late last night. I did not see them emerge again. I think that is where they still must be. I want to alert them about the von Wessels. They can arrest them and haul them off."
"But we cannot let them in on the map plot!" Lindemann reminded Edward.
"We do not have to let them in on it. We can just warn
them that crazies are dumping something into the geyser basin and let them take it from there," Edward said.
"Your brain works like Churchill's," the Prof smiled. "He is minding my office back at Oxford right now so nobody knows I am gone. He is turning on and off lights and making my study look inhabited."
So that was why Clementine had responded to their telegram!
They crept across the lawn. They asked the night clerk where the park rangers were staying. They marched upstairs in the building designed to mimic a forest inside with all sorts of planks and wooden beams going every which way on the ceiling.
Edward knocked on the first ranger's door. A man answered rubbing his eyes and yawning. "There are malefactors outside right now dumping things into the geyser."
"What!" the ranger exclaimed.
"My wife and I could not sleep. Neither could our neighbor here," Edward introduced Lindemann who smiled amiably and waved. "We tried to take a walk to get sleepy and ran smack into them."
"Just a minute. Let me get dressed!" the ranger exclaimed. He hurried into his clothes and then went knocking on the doors of the other rangers. He quickly explained to them what was apparently going on.
Edward added some spice to his initial description to speed up the rangers while they, too, were getting dressed. "A pickup truck was parked as close as you could get to Old Faithful without running into the top of the vent. The driver was talking about raising the back of the truck up in the air and dumping something into the geyser basin. I swear to God I heard him," he sounded as alarmed as possible. The man said, 'I've got a load here specially ordered for this baby.'"
Dora nodded eagerly in agreement at Edward's expressive and alarming description. The Professor did nothing except smile this evening. In fact Dora could swear he was grinning from ear to ear.
The park rangers fell into their clothes and followed Dora, Edward, and the Prof. Edward held up his hand dramatically and stopped them all cold at the front door to the Old Faithful Inn. He pointed out a window at the malefactors. They had just completed their dump. Sticks of TNT were lying in a pile at the base of the geyser. The bad guys were obviously trying to ignite the TNT from a distance by throwing flaming torches at the sticks. But the sticks of TNT were only smoking a little and going out. The Prof's formula must have worked!
"Stand back!" the head ranger exclaimed to Dora, Edward, and the Prof as he took charge.
The rangers threw open the doors to the Old Faithful Inn.
"Hey, what do you think you are doing there?" the head ranger shouted at Herr von Wessel's hirelings. The group of rangers en masse approached and shouted at them.
Dora thought at first that the pickup truck workers were just going to flee. What choice did they have? But then she caught sight of Herr and Frau von Wessel standing beside the pickup truck. Herr von Wessel got out his pistol and fired at the rangers. His wife joined him with her own deadly aim. The truck driver helped out. He must have been armed ahead of time and instructed what to do if they met any opposition.
The rangers took refuge behind some parked cars. Apparently they, too, were armed. They started to fire back.
The von Wessels returned gunfire. The rangers fired back again and again. A gun battle ensued as Dora, Edward, and the Prof watched from just inside the Old Faithful Inn.
Suddenly there was a big flash. The von Wessels had just struck a car and made it blow up. The rangers fell back farther into the vast parking lot beside the inn.
"That must be a high powered rifle!" Professor Lindemann commented in amazement. "I don't know what else could do that. And they had to strike the engine in just the right place."
"Where are they going?" Dora asked.
The von Wessels seemed to be quickly leaving the scene of the crime as the truck drivers took off down the road without dumping the rest of their loads next to the geyser. The von Wessels were retreating rapidly towards what looked like a dark cave in the calcite-covered hill some distance behind the geyser basin.
The Prof tried to study carefully exactly what they were doing. He shrugged, "Looks like they are trying to hide in a cave." Even the Oxford physicist seemed puzzled. "Perhaps it leads back into the hill and comes out somewhere else in the woods, and they plan to flee from there."
"We can't let them get away scott free like that. We have to see where they are going. Churchill will want to know," Edward exclaimed.
The Prof followed Edward out of the Inn. Dora trekked along behind trying to keep up with the men.
Edward stopped and ordered her, "Go back to the cabin. Stay there and wait for me. This is too dangerous for you."
Dora wanted to say, And what about you? But she knew that Edward was prone to take chances, big chances. That was how he had built his reputation as Churchill's righthand man over the years as well as his reputation as a Colonel in His Majesty's armed forces.
She could not resist suggesting, "Maybe we should all leave right now. And I mean get in the car and drive away from here at night. The von Wessels don't look like they're coming back here. Why do we care where they are going after this?"
"First of all I have to determine they are leaving the park. Until they do, there's too much danger they might blow up something," Edward replied.
She kissed Edward. But she could not hold onto him for long. He dashed off after the Prof. She raced back to the cabin. She locked the door and plopped down in the middle of the bed with the light on. She leaped up and stared out the window. The geyser seemed to be erupting. She could not tell if Edward and the Prof were there to see it or not.
Her eyelids began to close. She forced them open. But she was losing the battle. After all, it was the middle of the night and she had been awake most of the time. She kept on fighting against herself, standing up, pacing back and forth, and even drinking coffee from the coffee maker in their cabin as sleep overtook her.
Her eyelids finally closed for the final time that night.
Chapter 34: Nazi Time Tunnel
Suddenly an explosion seemed to rock Dora's cabin near the Old Faithful Geyser. Dora tried to leap up from the bed and flee, but her arms and legs were frozen in place in an inexplicable fashion just as in a nightmare. Things like this did not happen in real life, did they? She thrashed from one side of the bed to the other, but she could not move an inch.
The explosions seemed to grow louder and louder. Not only was Old Faithful erupting. All the geysers around it were following suit, all erupting at once. What had the von Wessels done? Had they planted dynamite everywhere at the same time? Giant clouds of hot mist were shooting fifty, no, one hundred feet into the air. They were blotting out the moon and the stars. They formed a pall over the park.
The geysers themselves exploded. Instead of just mist, they threw dirt and hot ash hundreds and then thousands of feet away. Dora kicked and screamed while her Old Faithful Lodge frontier cabin was buried under piles of ash. She felt as if she were being boiled and baked alive. Nor could she escape. All she did was thrash about endlessly as if in the grip of a nightmare that would not end.
She heard the biggest boom she could ever imagine. She felt the earth move underneath her bed. Was she going to fall through a pit in the earth? She clutched onto the mattress to hold herself in place as if it were her magic carpet, her last chance to save her own life.
The entire park, hundreds of miles in each direction, exploded all at once, rising into the air and taking Dora with it. It spewed her out. She flew through the air for she did not know how long until she came down again. She did not know where her cabin landed. Was it back home in Pittsburgh, thousands of miles away from Yellowstone? Was it in the land of Aladin? She had no idea and felt like Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz being set down in a strange kingdom.
The ash from the exploded park threw itself all over the United States just as Herr von Wessel and his wife had diabolically planned. It fell
coast to coast. Some of it landed in the Pacific and some even in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. The rain of hot ash and mud reached even as far as Alaska and the far off Arctic Ocean. Hitler was destroying all of North America before it could join in a war against him — just as he and the von Wessels had threatened if Dora and Edward did not hand over the Lawrence maps.
"Edward, help!" Dora cried aloud into the falling ash all around her. "Help! Help! Help!"
No answer. She appeared to be wandering around in the darkness with no guide or direction. She thought she must be outside by now. But she was not sure of much of anything.
A dark tunnel seemed to open up straight ahead of wherever Dora found herself. Suddenly she remembered that dark hole, that cave in the hillside, behind Old Faithful Geyser. She heard voices. She saw Edward — and Frau von Wessel. Edward had caught up to that creature only yards ahead of where Dora was standing. He grabbed the witch by the arms and shook her. Dora tried to advance up to both of them but somehow she could not get there in time. Something was holding her back.
Frau von Wessel gloated as her eyes spit fire just like the geyser. "Hitler's plans work well, don't they? Not only has he succeeded in destroying America by blowing up its super volcano in Yellowstone. Now he is going to have us change history itself."
"What are you talking about?" Edward exclaimed. "You sound like a raving madwoman."
The secret agent cackled, "Oh, do I? I won't sound like a madwoman once we reach the next volcano on the schedule for tonight."