The Adventures Of Indiana Jones

by Campbell Black

  “Your father did know. He knew everything except the city from which to start. He drew a map with no names. Here it is.”

  He set the diary on the table and opened it to a pencil-drawn map that covered two pages. Indy had looked at it briefly on the airplane, but since there were no names, it hadn’t meant anything to him.

  Brody’s fingers moved across it. “Henry probably pieced this together from a hundred different sources over the last forty years.”

  “What is it?” Indy asked, even though he had a fairly good idea.

  “It describes a course due east, away from the city, across the desert, to an oasis. Then turning south to a river which leads to a mountain range, here, and into a canyon. But because he had no names, he didn’t know what city. Or which desert. Or which river.”

  And now they knew, for all the good it would do his father.

  “I’m sure there’re enough details here to find it. Indy, I’m going after it.” Brody looked up at him, his spirits soaring after his discovery. “I hope you’ll come with me.”

  Indy shook his head and closed the Grail diary. “I’m going after Dad. I’m leaving first thing in the morning for Austria.”

  Brody nodded, understanding. “Of course. What was I thinking. I’d better . . .”

  “No. You go ahead, Marcus. I’ll . . . We’ll catch up to you.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  Brody was quiet a moment, as if he was wondering if he had made the right choice. Then he brightened. “Well, we’ve got a few more hours in Venice. Let’s make the most of it. I’d love to visit the Galleria dell’Accademia. It has the best collection of Venetian paintings in existence. Let’s go, okay?”

  “You sure you feel up to it?”

  Brody took the ice pack from his head. “I’m feeling fine. Do you know that collection has Giorgione’s Tempest, Carpaccio’s Saint Ursula Legend, and Titian’s Presentation of the Virgin? Everything is there,” Brody gushed, “from the first masters of the fourteenth century to the great pieces of the mid-eighteenth century.”

  Indy shrugged. “Let’s go. I’ll ask Elsa if she wants to join us.”

  Elsa couldn’t seem to make up her mind about joining them. It was as if she were suffering from delayed shock or something, the aftereffects of their tumultuous experiences. Or maybe it was depression, as if their survival were a letdown somehow.

  “I think I’ll skip the galleries,” she finally said. “I’m going out to buy a few groceries for dinner. I hope that’s okay.”

  “You want company?” He wouldn’t mind one bit spending the rest of the afternoon alone with her while Brody toured the museum. Hell, he’d even help make dinner.

  She shook her head. “You and Marcus go on. I’ll meet you back at the apartment.”

  So much for a romantic dinner, he thought, and went off to get dressed.

  After a five-minute walk from the apartment, Indy and Brody reached the Ponte dell’Accademia, a wooden bridge crossing the Grand Canal. There were four hundred bridges in Venice, but only three crossed the Grand Canal. The bridge had been built five years earlier, during the Depression, and supposedly was a temporary structure.

  They stopped at the summit to take in the view. On their left, they could see as far as Basilica di San Marco—a Byzantine monument from the eleventh century. The exterior of the church dated back to the thirteenth century and the sacking of Byzantium during the Fourth Crusade. On the right was the Palazzo Balbi, a palace with obelisks on its roof.

  “I’ve been thinking, Marcus. I don’t like the idea of you going off on your own.”

  “Indy, I’m sure your father would approve. If we wait any longer, those violent people from that strange brotherhood might find it, and who knows what would happen to the Grail Cup.”

  “I won’t stop you. But before you leave, contact Sallah. Have him meet you in Iskenderun.”

  Brody nodded in agreement. Sallah was an old friend of both men. When Indy had pursued the Ark of the Covenant in Egypt, Sallah had saved his life more than once. He would feel a lot better about Brody chasing after the Grail Cup if he knew that Sallah was with him.

  The two men spent the next hour wandering about the rooms of the Accademia. Brody was an enthusiastic and knowledgeable tour guide, pointing out the significance of one painting after another. He noted that the Renaissance for Venetians was something of a paradox. Unlike the rest of Italy, they had no Roman heritage. Founded on the cusp between East and West, antiquity and the Middle Ages, the city had preserved its traditions from the early Christian era. As a result, the Renaissance was more an adaptation of style and intention than a rebirth. Yet, Venice produced some of the best works of the Italian Renaissance.

  Indy found them interesting but was less enthralled than Brody. He always told his students that there was an overlap between art and archaeology, but with the latter the remains of preserved feces could be as interesting and notable as painted ceramics or finely crafted gold.

  Near the end of the hour Indy could tell that Brody was tiring and reminded him that his head injury was still fresh and he had better take it easy.

  “I’m all right, Indy. Just a minor concussion and a bit of a headache. I’ll be fit in the morning.”

  But he agreed that it was time to leave.

  As they neared the apartment, Indy felt increasingly anxious. It was as if dozens of tiny needles were poking the back of his neck. Over the years he had learned to pay attention to that sensation. It was a sort of inbred warning signal, one that had given him a helpful edge more than once.

  As soon as they reached the apartment, he knew the intuitive sensation had proved itself again. The door was slightly ajar. He peered inside, then cautiously entered the apartment and looked around.

  “Elsa?” he called out tentatively.

  The silence threw his own voice back to him, an empty echo.

  “Elsa?” He raised his voice this time. Again there was no answer.

  Just like Dad. A chill sped down his spine.

  “I’ll check the kitchen,” Brody said.

  Indy rushed over to his bedroom and swung open the door. The room had been ransacked. The mattress was on the floor, and the drawers had been dumped.

  Oh, God. What happened to her?

  He hurried down the hall to Elsa’s room. He paused, took a breath, and slowly turned the doorknob. Someone had rifled through her room as well. The intruder had tossed things from her drawers, jerked clothes from the hangers, torn the sheets away from the mattress.

  But where the hell was she?

  He backed out of the room and heard a distant, muffled voice. He crept down the hallway. The voice grew louder, more distinct. It was a woman’s voice, singing, and coming from the bathroom.

  He opened the door a crack. “Elsa?”

  “Hello, Indy.”

  She was in a bathtub full of bubbles, smiling brightly at him. Bubbles encircled her throat like a necklace of translucent pearls. A smooth white shoulder lifted from the foam.

  “Listen, kid. People are trying to sleep.” He backed out, relieved she was okay. He’d let her enjoy her bath.

  “I’ll be right out,” she called after him.

  He returned to his room and looked over the mess. Whoever had rummaged through the place must have been hiding when Elsa returned from her shopping trip. The intruder probably fled when she went into the bathroom.

  He waited as he heard Elsa singing in the hallway en route to her room. He looked at his watch, estimating how long it would take her to change her tune.

  She shrieked, and he smiled. He waited for her to run to his room. He heard footsteps. She swung open his door. She was dressed in a bathrobe; her hair was still wet.

  Her jaw looked as though it had come unhinged. “Indy, my room . . .”

  “Yeah, mine, too.”

  She shook her head. “What were they looking for, anyway?”

  “This.”

  He took the Grail dia
ry out of his pocket and tossed it onto the table.

  “Your father’s Grail diary. You had it.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You didn’t tell me.” She shook her head. “You don’t trust me.”

  Over Elsa’s shoulder Indy saw Brody peeking into the room and signaled that everything was okay. Brody, sensing that matters were turning personal, quickly backed away, slipping out of sight.

  “I didn’t know you.” He looked into her soft blue eyes; his thumb ached to trace the pout on her mouth. Christ, but she was hard to resist. “Or maybe I wanted to know you better.”

  “It was the same for me.” Her voice was breathy now. “From the moment I saw you.”

  “Does this sort of thing happen to you all the time?”

  “No. Never. It’s a nice feeling.”

  He moved closer to her, touched her face. “Don’t trust it, Elsa.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Shared danger. Coming out of it alive. That’s what did it.”

  “Yeah?” She smiled coyly, and Indy moved toward her, touched her chin, lifting it, and kissed her gently. Her mouth tasted faintly of toothpaste. He loved the scent of soap on her skin. She moved up against him, and suddenly he was kissing her harder, and she responded passionately, letting herself go.

  “Look after me, Indy,” she whispered, her breath warm against his ear.

  His hands worked at the belt of her robe. “You looked after yourself pretty well yesterday. For an art historian.”

  “You don’t know anything about art historians, Dr. Jones? Do you?”

  “I know what I like.”

  “I’m glad you do, Indiana Jones.”

  She grabbed the hair on the back of his head and pulled his face toward hers. She kissed him long and deep, holding him close to her. Her kiss was so hard that Indy cut his lip on his own tooth.

  He rubbed away a drop of blood with the back of his hand. “You’re dangerous.”

  “Maybe I am. Just like you.”

  Her eyes flashed. She was breathing hard, waiting for him to move. A smile changed the shape of her mouth. Her hair lifted gently in the evening breeze that blew through the open window. Outside, a gondolier was singing.

  “Ah, Venice,” Indy said half-aloud and closed the bedroom door.

  TWELVE

  The Brunwald Castle

  THE MERCEDES-BENZ Indy had rented glided smoothly around the sharp mountain curves of the Austrian Alps. When they started out, the sky had been crisp, clear, a smooth, even blue. But by late afternoon, as he and Elsa neared the German border and the grounds of the Brunwald Castle, storm clouds climbed the horizon, and thunder rumbled in the distance.

  A perfect day for a friendly visit, Indy thought, casting an eye toward Elsa.

  She was staring straight ahead along the curving road. Her blond hair was tied back, and the waning light struck the sharp promontories of her face—high cheekbones, that pouty mouth, a straight nose, which was, at the moment, pink at the tip from the cold. He thought back to their passionate lovemaking in Venice and reached out, touching the back of her neck. The skin was cool and dry, and she turned her head, smiling absently, as if she had a lot on her mind.

  When this was over, he thought, he and Elsa would . . . well, he didn’t know, he would think of something. She had asked him about the university, its archaeology and art history programs, and hinted that she might like to visit him—who knew what might happen.

  He pulled into the courtyard. The place loomed in the windshield, menacing and impregnable. The dark windows on the upper levels revealed nothing; the castle was as impregnable as a block of stone. He wondered which one was his father’s room. Did he even have a room? Maybe he was in chains in a dungeon. Maybe he wasn’t even alive.

  No. Bad thought.

  This wasn’t the time for bad thoughts. He had no idea how he was going to find out where his father was being held, much less how he was going to rescue him. Maybe he wasn’t even here. Maybe it had simply been a ploy by Kazim to turn him away from the trail of the Grail Cup.

  “Here we are,” he said quietly. He felt an all too familiar tingling on the back of his neck, alerting him to danger. Yes, his father was here. He was sure of it.

  “Imposing, isn’t it?” she said.

  “You know anything about the place?”

  “It’s been in the Brunwald family for generations. They’re very powerful in this region, but not particularly well liked.”

  He noticed a pond next to the castle; gliding across its surface was a solitary swan. Its long neck was gracefully arched, and its snowflake-white feathers seemed luminous against the pond’s dark waters. He was reminded of the swan in his father’s Grail diary. It represented one of the levels of awareness in the search for the Grail and meant something about overcoming weaknesses of the mind and heart.

  Elsa was his weakness. He had quenched his desires like a man who had found an oasis after days in the desert without water. He had taken her greedily, and she had fulfilled his every wish. Why would he, or anyone, want to overcome such pleasures?

  “What are you thinking?” she asked.

  “Oh, nothing.”

  “Yeah, I bet,” she said softly.

  He frowned, hating the idea that his feelings were so obvious.

  Elsa brought her hand up under her hair and flicked it off her collar. Indy sensed it was a dismissal of some sort or maybe a signal to just get on with things. He reached into the backseat for his bullwhip, focusing his thoughts on the matter at hand. He attached it to his belt as he got out of the car.

  “What’re you going to do?” she asked as they headed toward the castle.

  “I don’t know. I’ll think of something.”

  Indy knocked on the door and waited. Fingers of lightning blazed and sutured the sky. Thunder grumbled almost instantly, and it started to rain. The drops beaded on Elsa’s long, well-tailored coat and glistened.

  “Let me borrow your coat, okay?”

  “You’re cold?” she drolled.

  “Got an idea.”

  She shrugged off the coat, and he quickly draped it over his shoulders, covering his leather jacket and bullwhip, just as the heavy wooden door swung open.

  A uniformed butler said, “Yes?” in a voice that would have chilled Jell-O.

  Indy adopted the haughty manner of an upper-class English barrister and regarded the butler with a properly arrogant expression. “And not before time. Did you intend to leave us standing on the doorstep all day? We’re absolutely drenched.”

  As Indy spoke, he pushed his way past the startled butler, pulling Elsa with him. He sneezed. “Now look. I’ve caught a sniffle.”

  He dabbed at his nose with a handkerchief as Elsa looked on in amazement.

  “Are you expected?” The butler’s voice remained frosty and terse.

  “Don’t take that tone with me, my good man, just buttle off and tell Baron Brunwald that Lord Clarence Chumley and his assistant are here to view the tapestries.”

  “Tapestries?”

  Indy looked over at Elsa. “Dear me, the man is dense. Do you think he heard me?”

  He looked back at the butler and continued. “This is a castle, isn’t it? You have tapestries?”

  “This is a castle, yes. We have tapestries, and if you’re an English lord, I’m Jesse Owens.”

  “How dare you!” Indy responded in a stilted, English falsetto, and knocked the man cold with one powerful punch to the jaw.

  The butler crumpled to the stone floor like a windup toy that had suddenly run down. Indy brushed his hands together. “The nerve of it!” He was still chattering in his stilted English voice. “Did you hear him speaking to me like that, impugning my breeding, my honor, my gift for impression?”

  Elsa laughed and shook her head as she helped him drag the butler to a corner closet. “Unbelievable. Very convincing, my lord.”

  Indy dropped his pose, grabbed Elsa’s hand, and tugged her along toward a wide, vault
ed hallway. “Okay, let’s get down to business.” He slipped off her coat as they hurried across the foyer. She pulled it on and started to whisper something, but he touched a finger to his mouth.

  Voices.

  They stopped. He glanced around quickly, and they ducked into an alcove behind a large piece of statuary. They watched as a pair of uniformed Nazi soldiers walked by. One of them laughed loudly at something the other said, and his voice echoed down the hallway.

  “S.S., I should have known,” Indy whispered to Elsa as the men disappeared.

  They slipped out of their hiding place and continued down the hallway. “Now, where do you suppose they’re holding Dad?”

  “The dungeon?”

  “Very funny.” Just a little too close to what he’d been thinking.

  A servant appeared in the corridor, wheeling a large trolley that contained the remains of a feast. Indy and Elsa ducked behind a staircase and watched. They hadn’t eaten in a few hours, and their eyes widened at the extent of the leftovers. Indy placed a hand over his stomach to keep it from growling. He wondered if it had been his father’s dinner. He hoped so; at least he wouldn’t be starving in his captivity.

  They hid for a long time under the stairs. Indy wanted to get a feel for the place. He needed to have some idea of how many people were on the staff, what the routines were, or if there were any routines, and if so, how he might use them to his advantage.

  He heard thunder rumbling, and rain thrashed against a window above their heads.

  Elsa’s stomach growled with hunger.

  His own responded.

  They looked at each other and laughed silently.

  Footsteps on the stairs above them caught Indy’s attention. A servant, escorted by an armed German soldier, descended with a cheap tray. On it was a tin bowl with a metal spoon chained to the bowl. Dad’s lunch just sailed past.

  “Now that looked more like a prisoner’s meal,” he whispered as soon as the two were out of sight.

  “Yeah, I’m afraid so.”

  It was time to act. They stepped out from their hiding place and began to ascend the stairs. But just as they reached the first landing, more Nazis approached. This time they concealed themselves behind a massive pillar and waited until the sharp click of the soldiers’ boots faded away.