“Oh, if he’s only alive!”
Turk’s eyes lifted from hers to Bekart’s and he was shocked. The former Army flyer’s face was dead white, the bones seeming to stand out tight and hard against the tautened skin. His eyes were narrowed and ugly.
Gently, Madden stepped away from the girl. Was Bekart so affected because the girl had grabbed him in her excitement? Or was he afraid that Captain Bob Doone might still be alive?
While the others were busy preparing for night, Ryan walked over to Turk. “What do you think of Bekart?” Madden asked him.
Sparrow Ryan kicked a stone. “Haven’t got him figured,” he said. “Like I told you in Hollywood before we left, the government checked him thoroughly. His war record is good. Before the war he was an advertising man, before that a number of things. He seems to like the company of wealthy women, but who doesn’t?”
“Notice his face when I mentioned the plane was intact?”
“Uh-huh, I did. That hit him right where he lives, Turk, and I’m wondering why. He flew the wingman for Doone, and nobody ever knew what happened but him.”
Could Bekart secretly be in the pay of the people who wanted the Pharo counter? Certainly, this improvement in the Geiger counter which had been the sole cargo of the missing plane was infinitely valuable to a number of countries.
* * *
MADDEN RECALLED RYAN’S words of a few days before. “It’s a new gadget. Yank flyer in India dreamed it up. He’d been working in a laboratory where they had to keep testing for radiation. The device for that’s a Geiger counter. This guy dreams up a new angle on it, a much more sensitive tube, just the sort of thing that would be ideal for locating secret atomic plants. The Geiger counter will register atomic disturbances over one thousand miles away, in some cases up to two thousand miles. This Pharo counter is much more sensitive and has a directional device so they can pin down the location of the disturbance within a matter of miles.
“This guy in India,” Ryan had said, “had access to the materiel and built a model, but then he was murdered. However, they put the gadget in this steel box and started it for the States over the Hump. They were flying it to Chungking, then Japan, then home. But the plane crashed.”
Had that been the reason for the crash? Madden doubted it, and so did the authorities in Washington. The crash had been in the wrong place, almost impossible of access. Three times, under cover of other excuses, the Army had tried to find the plane and failed. Then when they discovered that Raemy Doone, the film star, was financing her own expedition to search for her brother, who had piloted the ship, they had slipped their man, Ryan, into the personnel for the flight. Madden’s eyes searched the shadowy line of the hills, and beyond them the mighty, ice-capped peaks and shoulders of the mysterious Kuen-Luns and the towering majesty of the world’s mightiest mountain, Amne Machin.
Travis Bekart was utterly ruthless. He was the sort of man who got what he wanted, regardless of price. The cold, bleak fury in his eyes a few minutes ago had not been the look of a man in love and engaged to the beauteous Raemy Doone. It had been the expression of a man thwarted who meant to do something about it. The expression, perhaps, of a murderer.
Then Turk Madden stiffened. Sparrow Ryan, who had started toward him, stopped dead still, his mouth open.
For from the distance over the hills came the mutter of a rapidly approaching plane! A drone that mounted and mounted until suddenly, with a gasp of night air, it swept by, low over the hills! It was a single-engine fighter.
“Think he saw us?” Ryan speculated apprehensively.
“No telling. We’d better figure that he did. Get out that B.A.R. That Browning’s a good weapon. If he comes back and asks for it, he can get it.”
The plane did not return, and at daylight Turk Madden rolled from his blankets into a crisp, chill dawn. Gathering a few sticks he built a small fire against a stone wall.
The rest of them crawled from the plane, Sparrow with a gun on his hip, and Shan Bao with his ever-present rifle. Standing it nearby he began to prepare breakfast. Turk’s gun, as always, was in his shoulder holster.
Bekart’s face looked drawn and worried. “Madden!” he burst out suddenly. “I’ve come this far without complaint! But this is madness! Sheer, unadulterated madness! This place is ghastly, and who knows what horrors we may run into up close to that mountain? I’ve heard of the awful chamber of horrors in Samyas monastery in Tibet, and compared to these Ngoloks the people of Tibet are civilized! I insist we turn back!”
“How can you talk that way, Travis?” Raemy protested. “Why, would you want me to waste all I’ve spent? All my hopes and Madden’s time? I wouldn’t think of turning back!”
“I insist!” Bekart replied stiffly. “I love you and I can’t have the woman I love subjected to such risks! This journey was madness in the first place! With what we know now it is worse than madness!”
“You mean,” Ryan interrupted suddenly, “because we now know that Doone landed in one piece?”
Bekart’s face whitened and his eyes glittered, but he did not reply, only continued his tirade. “What kind of plane was that, that flew over us last night? I know every plane that flies, and I never saw such a ship before! What would a fighter be doing here, of all places? We’ve been warned about these people, and every step is nearer to awful death or slavery!”
Turk Madden glanced up. “You knew all that when you came,” he said coldly. “We all did. As it happens, neither you nor Miss Doone has anything to say about the further progress of this trip.
“It is true,” he added, smiling at Raemy’s surprised look, “that she financed this trip to find her brother. That’s still our purpose, but we have another. Ryan is a government man. We’re after a steel box that was Doone’s cargo in the lost plane. That box is of enormous importance to our government, so let’s hear no more about it. The trip continues.
“As for Bob Doone,” Madden added, “if he is alive, we’ll find him. If he is dead, we shall find his grave. Also”—he glanced up, his eyes bland—“I wish to examine Doone’s ship to see what happened to it.”
Travis Bekart’s eyes sparkled dangerously. “What are you implying?” he demanded.
“I?” Turk raised astonished brows. “Why, nothing! Only that’s the usual course when a crashed plane is found. We must find the cause of accidents to prevent future trouble. What else would I imply?”
Raemy Doone stared searchingly at Bekart, and there was a cold and curious light in her eyes. Raemy, Turk decided, was an astute young woman.
* * *
DARK WATER ROLLED back from the ship. Turk gunned the amphibian and it lifted, the water of the black lake dropping away below. He came back slowly on the stick, skimming over the ridge and lifting the ship toward the gray clouds. In the distance, its mighty granite shoulders lost in crowding gray cumulus, was the icy mass of Amne Machin, the mountain that was a god.
Turk glanced at the altimeter. “I’m going up,” he said. “We’ll just have a look.” They adjusted their oxygen masks and climbed. Clouds came and fell away. They skimmed an ugly ridge, soared past a glacier created peak, and climbed on. The towering peak of Amne Machin still hung over them.
“Going on up?” Ryan gestured with his thumb.
Madden shook his head affirmatively. Later, when they had descended to a lower level again, he glanced over at Ryan. “Want my guess? I’d say that peak wasn’t an inch under thirty-one thousand feet, about two thousand higher than Mount Everest! Joe Rock, one of the two white men who ever got within as near as seventy-five miles, estimated it to be over twent-eight thousand, but he was conservative. Some of the war flyers figured it to be over thirty-three thousand!”
“Gives me chills to look at it!” Ryan said. “Now where’s this plane we’re lookin’ for?”
“On a plateau. We should be there in a few minutes.” The Grumman slid down through scattered clouds and skimmed over a dark forest. Far below them something dark moved on the stone-covered f
ield and vanished under the trees with a queer, bobbing run.
“What was that?” Raemy demanded, over Madden’s shoulder.
He shrugged. “Nothing I ever saw before. There are rumors of queer animals we’ve never seen!”
“You mean that no white man ever saw?” Raemy was incredulous. “Not even in Hollywood?”
“We’re not speaking of varieties of wolves,” Turk said coldly. “But only in the last few months they have been finding animals in the Congo no white man had ever seen. A new type of rhino, a wild boar as big as a bull. Who knows what they’ll find up here.”
She gestured at the country below. “How much of this is unknown country?”
Madden shrugged. “Probably a chunk as big as Arizona. Tibet itself is just a shade less than the combined areas of Arizona, California, and Nevada. The population is estimated to be about the same as California’s.”
“Look, Turk!” Ryan exclaimed. “There’s the plane!”
“Stop!” The voice was cold and deadly calm. “Fly back to the lake where we stopped last night, and start right now!”
Rigid, Turk Madden looked up. Travis Bekart, a .45 Colt in his hand, was crouching behind them. “Put this ship down,” he said, “and I’ll kill you!”
Madden’s eyes were quiet, calculating swiftly. His quick glance had assured him that Bekart had slipped into a chute harness. If he shot, he would bail out immediately.
“Why, sure!” Turk said. “If you feel that way!” Then, instantly, he snapped into a vertical bank. Hurled from his position, Bekart’s head slammed into the corner of a seat and he collapsed.
Turk glanced at him and watched Shan take the gun from the fellow’s hand, then bind them securely. Raemy watched, her eyes wide and strange.
“What got into him?” Sparrow asked, speaking to nobody in particular.
“I think,” Turk said as he skimmed back over the plane below, “that he would rather we didn’t see this ship! It makes me kind of curious!”
He banked slightly and studied the plateau thoughtfully. “What do you think, Ryan?”
“I think she looks okay. Put her down. After all, Columbus took a chance!”
“Cross your fingers then!” Turk swung around into the wind and came in for a landing. He knew he wasn’t going to like it, but here they were.
As they swooped down, Ryan suddenly touched him on the shoulder. “Pick her up,” he said, “there’s a lake in that hollow!”
Turk shot past the plateau and circled wide over the valley. Sparrow was right. There was another black lake, almost identical with the one seen previously, and here, too, there were ruined buildings, but here they surrounded the lake on three sides. The lake was scarcely more than a mile from the plane on the plateau.
* * *
TURK MADDEN SLID down toward the lake, leveled off, and came in fast, skimming the water lightly. He brushed the low waves, brushed them lightly again, and then the ship took the water smoothly and he taxied in toward another lonely, lost, and ruined town.
“This country,” Ryan said, “must have been quite a place at one time!”
Madden nodded. “Hear about that pyramid they found in Shensi? Over fifteen hundred feet high. The biggest one in Egypt is only a third of that height, and about a third of the base line. Nobody knows anything about it. Hell, they’ll find there was civilization in China six thousand years ago before they are through!
“There’s been almost no excavation there, and none in Shensi. All we know of Chinese civilization is what we can see and read, and that’s old enough. Somebody should do some excavating in Central Asia, and in extreme western China.
“Nobody knows much about Tibet above ground, or Sinkiang, or Turkestan, so how can they figure on the ancient history?”
When the ship was anchored, Turk got out on a pier and took a rifle with him. “I’ll take Shan Bao and Miss Doone,” he said. “Stick with the ship, Sparrow. Later, we’ll leave Shan an’ you an’ me will have a look see. Okay?”
Ryan nodded. Bekart was coming out of it. “Lie still, sweetheart,” Ryan said, “or that slap you got on the noggin will seem like a love tap.” He looked up at Turk. “Think I’ll interrogate this guy. Maybe he’ll talk.”
“Better wait until we see this ship,” Madden advised. “I’ve got an idea.”
He paused when they reached the shore. Rows of ancient buildings of time-blackened stones lined the water’s edge. Here, too, some of them were built on stone pilings over the water, evidently as a means of defense. But the city had outgrown what was evidently merely a beginning and had gone ashore, and crawled slowly around the lake. Two mountain streams flowed into the lake, which had only a very narrow visible outlet to the south.
The sky was gray and unbroken by any rift in the clouds. The air was damp, and there was a faint, musty smell. Their footsteps echoed hollowly so Turk was glad when they emerged from the age-blackened walls and started up the scarred slope of the hill.
The bomber lay on its belly some fifty yards away, a dark spot on the white snow. No landing gear was down, but wings and prop were intact. Turk glanced at Raemy. “I’d better look first,” he suggested.
Her eyes flickered, frightened. “Please. Would you?”
His feet crunched on the thin snow. Here and there the wind had revealed the black rock and gravel surface of the plateau. No vegetation could be seen. The ship looked lost and alone, and his heart began to pound as he drew near. He turned as his hand touched the door and glanced back.
Raemy stood on the snow, a silent, lonely figure. She was tall and stood well up to him when they were together, but now she looked forlorn and very small. “Look!” Shan pointed.
Turk’s eyes followed the gloved finger. The cowl of the nearest engine was bullet-riddled. He felt his scalp tighten, and his eyes swept the fallen ship. Left motor shot out, tail assembly shot to shreds. The guy had performed a minor miracle to get down in one piece.
He pulled the door open. It came so easily he almost lost his balance. He peered within. It was dark and empty, with the chill of something long lifeless.
It had been looted of everything portable. If the crew had been alive when they landed, they were gone now. Perhaps to death or captivity. The steel box was missing, and there were dark stains on the instrument panel, the altimeter smashed by a bullet.
Raemy was walking toward the ship. Madden shook his head at her. “No sign of anybody, but the ship was shot down.”
“Shot down?” Her eyes questioned him. “By the Japanese?”
“There were no Japanese in this area. It must have been someone else.”
Her face looked old and tired. She kicked her toe into the crusted snow. “Travis?” she asked. “He flew as fighter escort—”
“Who knows? He acted strange, but it could be something else.”
“Are…any of them—”
“No.” He took her by the arm. “Want to look? I think the copilot was hurt. There’s some blood.”
* * *
SHAN BAO MUTTERED, and Turk turned. Shan was pointing at a crude cairn of stones. Raemy stumbled toward it, and they followed. Turk’s face was somber, yet when he saw the name he felt a wave of relief go over him. Scratched crudely on a stone slab atop the cairn were the words:
WILLIAM A. LYTE, LIEUT., A.A.F.
Killed October 9, 19
The date was incomplete. “Interrupted,” Turk said, “by somebody, or something. Lyte was the copilot.”
“I should be sorry,” Raemy said, “but somehow I can only be glad it isn’t Bob.”
When they returned to the lake Ryan was waiting. “Found a building that’s intact,” he said, “a good hideout.”
“We’ll make this our base,” Madden said, “from here on we work on the ground all we can. Save gas and attract less attention. Shan can remain with the ship. We’ll go, Ryan.”
“And I,” Raemy told him.
Madden hesitated. Then he shrugged, smiling at her. “All right, but you’re invit
ing the risk and will have to take the consequences. From here on it will be very dangerous.”
“I know.”
She spoke quietly and seriously, and Turk looked at her again and was convinced. Ryan walked back inside, and Raemy stood there beside Madden, staring out over the lake.
“Madden,” she asked suddenly, “how do you suppose he was shot down?”
Turk hesitated. “There’s no answer to that. We’ve seen one or maybe more planes. Bekart said he couldn’t identify the one he saw. Well, I couldn’t either. They may have shot your brother down.”
Raemy looked at him. “If you think anything else, tell me.”
“It’s only a hunch, and I’ve no motive to ascribe.”
“You mean Travis?” She looked at Turk seriously.
“Well, it does seem strange, I think, that he should do everything to keep us from landing. Almost as if he knew what we would find.”
“Yes, I thought of that. But why would he do it?”
That made Turk hesitate. Raemy and her brother were both wealthy. With Bob Doone dead, all the wealth was hers. Then, if she should marry, and if after awhile she died…
“I’ve no idea,” Turk replied.
* * *
DAWN FOUND THEM, each carrying a rucksack and rifle, heading down the vague and ancient trail that led through the ruined city. Turk walked in the lead, followed by Raemy. Behind her was Sparrow Ryan.
The light was cold and gray, and the path mounted, skirting the side of the mountain, weaving along through canyons and up steep mountainsides. With every mile the way became steeper and the terrain more rugged. Once they heard a plane and hid, waiting until the sound died away. It was below the clouds from the sound, but it did not fly over them.
Ahead of them the canyon ended suddenly in a wide pool enclosed by a grove of willows and poplar. Beyond the grove green grass waved in a wide field!
They halted under the trees. Before them lay a long and very deep canyon at the end of which loomed the massive towers of an ancient monastery, or what appeared to be such. Nearby, several men worked over an irrigation ditch.
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