They hurried along and, when they reached the next floor, paused and looked both ways. A door stood ajar nearby; Indy heard voices from inside the room. He peeked through the crack; Nazis were busy examining works of art. Looted booty, he thought.
Hitler was interested in amassing as many of Europe’s works of art and primitive artifacts as he could, but not solely for the value of the ancient treasures. Indy was well aware that Hitler had a special interest in obtaining ancient mystical objects that he believed would enhance his power and thus expand his empire.
It was Nazis who had opposed Indy in his pursuit of the Ark of the Covenant. In fact, he had found the Ark only to discover the Führer’s goons waiting to take it away from him. He never understood Hitler’s motives until he experienced the power of the Ark, something he still couldn’t explain. Although he had finally succeeded in getting the Ark to the States, bureaucrats had confiscated the priceless and mysterious artifact. By now he figured it was stored away in a dusty warehouse somewhere, waiting.
He had also heard that Hitler was after the ancient spear that had pierced the side of Jesus Christ. And, no doubt, the leader of the Third Reich would also like to get his hands on the Grail Cup that had held the blood of Jesus. And that, he knew, was why his father was being held captive here.
He backed away from the crack, and he and Elsa moved silently down the corridor. At the end of it were three doors. Indy looked from one to the next, then jabbed his forefinger at the door on the left.
“This one.”
“How do you know?” Elsa whispered.
He pointed to an electrical wire. “Because this one’s wired. I’ll have to find another way in.” He stepped back, studied the situation a moment, then decided to try the adjoining door.
He turned the knob; the door was locked. He reached into the pouch on his belt and took out his lock-picking tool. It seemed a lifetime had passed since he had used it on the captain’s door to get to the safe with the Cross of Coronado. Yet, it had been less than two weeks ago. He slipped the long, slender tool into the lock, fiddled with it a moment, then turned the knob. The door creaked open.
The room was dimly lit and empty except for a bed and dresser. He closed the door again as soon as Elsa was inside.
“What was that?” she asked as he slipped his burglar’s tool back into his pouch.
“A trade secret.”
“Oh, you mean you don’t tell your students about it?” she asked in mock surprise.
“Only the advanced ones,” he said, and walked over to the window.
The rain pounded furiously against the pane. He raised the shade, then the window, and stuck his head out. It was almost dark. The rain splattered against his face, soaking his head. He blinked, clearing his vision. Beneath the window of the next room was a narrow ledge. It ended abruptly several feet away.
Indy pulled his head back into the room and loosened his bullwhip.
“What are you going to do?” Elsa asked.
“Take a shower.”
Elsa looked out the window a moment. “You can’t mean you’re going to . . .” She saw Indy uncoiling the bullwhip from his belt. “I don’t believe it.”
“Watch me. It’s a snap.”
He leaned out the window and flicked the bullwhip at the gargoyle that protruded from the castle wall above the adjoining window. It was a perfect shot; the whip wrapped around the gargoyle’s thick neck. He tugged hard, making sure it would hold his weight.
He swung his leg over the window frame and looked back through the window at Elsa. “Stay there. I won’t be long.”
“Indy, this is crazy. You can’t . . .”
He held up a hand. “Don’t worry. This is kid’s stuff. Be right back.”
Indy swung out from the window, his legs dangling in midair. He was right. It was an easy swing for him, but he hadn’t taken one thing into account. The rain had soaked the ledge, and his feet skidded on the slick surface as he landed. One slipped over the ledge, his knee bent, and he wobbled precariously for an instant. Then he pulled on the whip, and recovered his footing.
Next, he had to figure out a way to open the shutters, which were closed over the window. He jerked on them, but they held tight. He was about to try again when he heard a noise. He looked down and saw two Nazi guards prowling with their dogs and flashlights.
They found the butler.
One of the beams bounced along the castle wall, heading in his direction. He pressed himself into the recess of the window and stood perfectly still. The bullwhip. He should have loosened it, but it was too late now. The beam skipped over him. He waited, holding his breath. Then he heard the Nazis moving on. They had missed him and the whip.
He turned his attention back to the shutters. He slid his fingers into the opening between them and tugged as hard as he could. They still wouldn’t budge. He tried to use his shoulder, but he couldn’t get the proper leverage.
Okay, he thought. More drastic measures were in order. But his timing had to be perfect. He watched for a bolt of lightning and noted that the rain was not quite so hard. When he saw the flash, he counted the seconds until he heard the clap of thunder.
He waited until the next bolt lit the sky. He grasped the bullwhip with both hands, counted to himself, then pushed off from the castle wall. He added an extra number in his calculation, figuring the storm was starting to recede. He curled in his legs as he swung back, and crashed through the shutters with both feet. The impact was timed precisely with the thunder.
He tumbled into the room, falling on his hands and knees. Rain and cold air whipped into the room through the broken shutters. He rose to his feet, looked around to get his bearings. Just as he realized his father was nowhere in sight, something heavy crashed down on the back of his head and shattered.
Indy stumbled, sank to one knee. Stunned, his vision blurred, he looked up helplessly as someone stepped out from the shadows.
“Junior!”
“Yes, sir,” he said, responding with a reflex reaction left over from his childhood. He rubbed his head, focusing on his father.
“It’s you! Junior!”
Indy’s head cleared. Now he was annoyed. “Stop calling me that.”
“What the devil are you doing here?”
He wondered if the Nazis had done something to his father’s mind. “What do you think? I’ve come to get you out of here.”
Henry looked down at his hand, suddenly distracted and alarmed by what he saw. “Wait a minute.”
Indy sucked in his breath, tensed, glanced around. “What’s wrong?”
“Late fourteenth century, Ming dynasty,” he muttered to himself.
Indy frowned as he realized the fuss was about the broken vase his father was holding.
“It breaks the heart,” Henry exclaimed.
“Also the head,” Indy interrupted. “You hit me with it, Dad.”
Still looking at the vase, Henry continued. “I’ll never forgive myself.”
Indy misunderstood his father, who was still talking about the vase. “Forget it. I’m fine.”
“Thank God.”
Henry looked relieved as he examined the broken end of the vase. “It’s fake. You see, take a look, you can tell by the . . .”
“. . . cross sections,” Indy and Henry said simultaneously.
They looked at each other, and both of them grinned. “Sorry about your head,” Henry said, frowning a little, as if noticing his son for the first time. “I thought you were one of them.”
“They come in through the door,” Indy said. “They don’t need to use the window.”
“Good point, but better safe than sorry. This time I was wrong. But by God I was right when I mailed you the diary. I felt something was going to happen. Did you get it?”
Indy nodded. “I got it, and I used it. I found the entrance to the catacombs.”
Henry was suddenly excited. “Through the library. You found it?”
“That’s right.” Indy smiled
, pleased to see his father impressed with something he had done.
“I knew it.” He stabbed at the air with his fist. “I just knew it! And the tomb of Sir Richard?”
“Found it.”
Henry was breathless. “He was actually there. You saw him?”
“What was left of him.”
Henry’s voice fell to an excited whisper and trembled with expectation. “And the shield . . . the inscription on Sir Richard’s shield?”
Indy nodded again, paused a beat, then answered in one word. “Alexandretta.”
Henry’s mouth came unhinged. He stepped back, rubbing a hand over his beard, considering everything he’d just been told. Lost in thought, he mumbled to himself. “Alexandretta, of course. It was on the pilgrim trail from the Eastern Empire.” He turned back to Indy, a jubilant expression on his face. “Junior . . .”
Indy winced. He would have chided his father for calling him by his childhood name again, but he knew this wasn’t the moment.
Henry continued: “. . . You did it.”
“No, you did, Dad. Forty years of scholarship and research.”
Henry’s eyes glazed; he stared at a spot just over Indy’s shoulder. “If I only could have been there.” His eyes flicked back to his son. “What was it like?”
“There were rats.”
“Rats?” He suddenly didn’t look so interested in hearing details of the adventure.
“Yeah. Big ones.”
“I see.”
“Speaking of rats . . . how have the Nazis treated you here?”
“Okay, so far. They’ve given me one more day to talk, then they get tough. But I wasn’t going to say a word, Junior. I figured if I died, you would take over the search. I knew I could count on you keeping that book as far away from the Nazis as possible.”
Indy’s hand twitched toward his pocket. His fingers traced the outline of the diary. Guess what, Dad. It’s not too far away.
“Yeah, I suppose.” He suddenly felt uneasy. “We’d better get out . . .”
A resounding thud silenced him. His head snapped toward the door just as it burst open, and three Nazis marched into the room. Two of them held machine guns aimed at them. The third was an S.S. officer.
“Dr. Jones!” the officer shouted.
“Yes.” Indy and Henry answered at the same time.
“I’ll take that book now.”
“What book?” they both said simultaneously.
The officer turned to Indy and sneered. “You have the diary in your pocket.”
Henry’s laugh was straight from the belly, and Indy thought, Aw, God, I’m going to be sick.
“You dolt! Do you really think that my son would be stupid enough to bring the diary all the way back to the very place from where . . .”
Henry stopped and slowly turned to Indy. “You didn’t, did you, Junior?”
Indy smiled uneasily. “Uh . . . well.”
“Did you?” Henry thundered.
“The thing is . . .”
“You did! My God.”
“Can we discuss this later, Dad? I don’t think that right now is . . .”
“I should have mailed it to the Marx Brothers,” he fumed.
Indy held up a hand, patted the air. “Dad, please, take it easy.”
“Why do you think I sent it home in the first place?” He pointed toward the Nazis. “To keep it out of their hands!”
“I came here to save you,” Indy said lamely, then glanced at the machine guns.
“And who is coming to save you, Junior!” Henry roared, his face turning red.
What happened next took place so fast that when it was over, Indy hardly believed what he’d done. His eyes blazed; his nostrils flared with anger. He looked as if he was about to punch his father and was so convincing, Henry drew back, anticipating the blow. But instead, Indy’s arm shot out and ripped one of the machine guns from a startled guard. With a quick kick, he knocked the barrel of the second machine gun in the air. Bullets sprayed the ceiling.
An instant later Indy’s finger squeezed the trigger of the machine gun. “I told you before,” he yelled as the three Nazis stumbled back under the impact and crumpled to the floor, “don’t call me Junior.”
Henry stared in disbelief as the three Nazis bled and died. He was shocked and horrified. “Look what you did! You killed them!”
Indy grabbed him by the arm and pulled him out of the room. He placed his hand on the knob of the adjoining room, where Elsa was waiting, and turned it.
“I can’t believe what you did,” Henry whispered hoarsely, his eyes wide with astonishment. “You killed those men!”
Indy paused in the doorway. “What the hell do you think they were going to do to us?”
His father frowned, as if he was trying to justify his son’s violence in his mind.
Indy swung the door open and raised his hand to signal Elsa that it was time to flee. His hand froze. He was staring into the face of a Nazi. One of the man’s muscular arms was coiled around Elsa’s waist like a thick snake. His other hand held a Luger, its muzzle pressed behind her ear.
“That’s far enough, Dr. Jones.”
A big man. A colonel. Lantern jaw, small, dark eyes, an insect’s eyes. He redefined the word brute, no doubt about it.
“Put down the gun. Right now,” the colonel ordered, his accent thick, but not awkward. “Unless you want to see your lady friend die.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Henry said.
“Drop it now,” the colonel demanded.
“No,” Henry shouted. “She’s with them.”
“Indy, please,” Elsa pleaded, her eyes wide with fear.
“She’s a Nazi!” Henry countered.
“What?” Indy shook his head, confused. He didn’t know what to do. He looked at Elsa, then back to his father. Everyone was yelling at once.
“Trust me,” Henry shouted.
“Indy, no,” Elsa begged.
“I’ll kill the Fräulein,” the colonel spat through clenched teeth.
“Go ahead,” Henry told him.
“Don’t shoot her,” Indy yelled.
“He won’t,” Henry answered.
“Indy, please!” Elsa implored. “Please do what he says.”
“For God’s sake, do not listen to her!” Henry roared at his son.
“Enough. She dies.” The colonel jammed the barrel of his Luger into Elsa’s neck.
She screamed in pain.
“Wait.” Indy dropped the machine gun to the floor and kicked it away.
Henry groaned.
The colonel released his grip on Elsa and shoved her toward Indy. He caught her in his arms, and he held her tightly as she buried her face in his chest.
“I’m sorry, Indy.”
He comforted her. “It’s okay.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Her hand slipped into his coat pocket and removed the Grail diary.
She smiled sadly at him. “But you should have listened to your father.”
“He never did,” Henry uttered in an exasperated tone. “He never did.”
THIRTEEN
Betrayed
ELSA MOVED AWAY from him and over to the Nazi colonel. Indy just stood there, stunned, speechless, hating the smirk on the Nazi’s face and the sweet innocence in Elsa’s eyes. He wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her until she explained everything to him. He had to know why.
But the colonel raised his Luger threateningly, and Indy stayed where he was and simply stared. How could you do this to me? he thought at her.
She smiled a little, almost as if she had heard the thought. Indy finally averted his eyes and glanced at his father.
He wished he hadn’t.
The expression on Henry’s face could have turned stone to dust. No wonder he still calls me Junior. Indy was as astonished by the shift of events as his father had been a few minutes earlier when Indy decimated the opposition in the adjoining room.
“You two better
come along with Colonel Vogel and me. Now.”
Elsa’s voice was hard and cold, the voice of a woman he didn’t know. Even her face looked different now, not as he remembered it. Her jaw seemed more square, more stubborn, her skin whiter, bloodless, like china, and her eyes were cubes of ice that would never melt.
The colonel stabbed at the air with his weapon, and Indy said, “Yeah, I guess we better.”
“Like we have a choice,” muttered his father, his voice laced with blame.
As they were marched through the castle at gunpoint, Indy could feel his father’s disgust. It radiated from him like heat or an odor, strong enough to track. It didn’t diminish until they entered a large baronial room at the other end of the same floor.
Here the walls were decorated with ancient tapestries and suits of armor. A fire crackled and hissed in an enormous fireplace, casting shadows that eddied across the walls and ceiling. He caught a whiff of Elsa’s skin as she fluttered past, making way for the two Nazi guards who joined them.
The guards tied their hands behind their backs. They definitely meant business, Indy thought, wincing as the ropes cut painfully into his wrists. While the guards worked on the ropes and Elsa conferred quietly with Vogel, Indy looked around furtively. There were several windows, but they were on the third floor. Besides, as long as their hands were bound and the goons were guarding them, their chances of escaping were minimal. Still, he thought, it never hurt to exercise the imagination.
When he ran out of ideas, he thought about Elsa and what he’d like to do to her if he got free. He watched her as she crossed the room toward a high-backed chair that faced the fireplace. She stopped next to the chair and held out the Grail diary. As a hand reached for it, Indy realized the chair was occupied. His eyes slid over to Henry, and he edged closer to him.
“How did you know she was a Nazi?” he asked in a whisper.
“She talks in her sleep.”
“What?” His head snapped toward his father. “You mean you—you and that, that woman—were . . .”
“Silence!” Vogel bellowed.
Elsa and my old man . . .
The pieces fell into place. Elsa had ransacked his room in Venice, looking for the diary, then had torn through her own room, making it look as though someone had broken into the apartment.
The Adventures Of Indiana Jones Page 45