The Phantom

by Rob MacGregor

  Fleming looked mildly surprised by the request. “I’m no expert on the microscopic world, you know.” Nonetheless, he moved over to the microscope. He removed his glasses and peered through the dual eyepieces. “What is it I’m supposed to be looking at? I don’t see anything.”

  “Turn the focus knob.”

  Drax knew that the word LIAR would be coming into focus, then Fleming would have one second before the spring was triggered. Fittingly, it would be the last thing Fleming ever saw.

  “Perhaps I should do it with my glasses on,” Fleming murmured, and reached for his glasses.

  Drax pushed them aside before he touched them. “You’ll be able to see better without them. Just adjust the focus knob.”

  A click.

  The spikes shot through the eyepieces, piercing Fleming’s pupils. He screamed, ripped the microscope away from his head, and covered his eyes with his hands. Blood poured through his fingers and he stumbled back, reeling in pain.

  “You won’t be needing these any longer.” Standing up, Drax snapped Fleming’s glasses in two pieces, then touched the intercom. “Alice, send the boys in, will you please? We have a little problem here.”

  The door opened and two beefy men in black suits and hats rushed into the room and took Fleming by the arms. He swung his head from side to side and kept shrieking, “Help me! Help me!”

  A third man of similar proportions to the other two hurried into the room and quickly wrapped a bandage around Fleming’s head, covering his eyes. Then he stuffed a gag into his mouth.

  “Good work,” Drax said. “Take care of him. You know what to do.”

  No one would see Fleming again. His disappearance would probably be a much discussed mystery in the Tribune, Drax thought, and smiled as he sat back down. He looked at the bloody spikes sticking through the top of the eyepieces. Maybe one day he’d tell Palmer what happened to him, before Palmer did his own disappearing act.

  TWELVE

  The Sea of Bangalla

  The flight from New York was long and tedious and was now stretching into its third day. Diana Palmer had switched planes twice and had stopped four times. Or was it five? She could no longer remember. It didn’t matter. She was almost to her destination now; another hour or so to go.

  In the early years of her travels, it had taken her days to recover from a trip of this duration. She had yearned for hot showers, a hot meal, a soft bed, creature comforts. But then she’d started traveling with Uncle Dave and such comforts had come to seem frivolous, beside the point. Now all she needed was a short nap to revive herself before they landed.

  She shifted to face the window and closed her eyes. She’d slept off and on, but never for more than three hours at a time.

  She was hoping that she would be able to deal quickly with her uncle’s business. She’d find out whatever she could about the spider-web symbol and try to discover exactly what Drax was up to.

  Uncle Dave had cautioned her not to get directly involved, but to simply gather information and get out as soon as possible. The more that they knew, the better Drax’s plans could be combated.

  Diana agreed, but she also wanted to take advantage of another opportunity that presented itself. She would be able to get close to some of the Bangalla tribes, which had never been subjugated by foreign colonists.

  Some of the mysterious tribes had gained considerable notoriety for their pirateering activities, especially in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In fact, the English had adapted the name Bangallamen, so that it no longer referred to native people as much as to creatures in the night that every child feared. She herself had grown up fearing the Bangallamen, having no idea of the source of the name.

  But she’d also heard that the Bangallans’ reputation was not exactly all that the history books described. They were known to attack foreign ships entering their territory and supposedly possessed unusual navigational skills. But that alone didn’t mean they were responsible for all of the vicious attacks through which they’d gained their notoriety. Diana hoped to learn the legends and the true history of the tribes before returning to the States.

  The plane suddenly jerked, nearly tossing her out of her seat. The wing outside her window dipped down, lifted, dipped again. What was going on? A chorus of startled shouts rose from the passengers.

  She peered out the window into the darkness and saw stars and the moon. As far as she knew, there had been no adverse weather conditions expected for the rest of the flight.

  Then she glimpsed lights just above the aircraft and saw the outline of a fighter plane with pontoons. What was it doing so close to the plane? Her stomach lurched, she pressed her hands to the back of the seat in front of her and the plane’s nose suddenly plunged downward. The craft dropped hundreds of feet in a matter of seconds.

  Diana gasped for air, trying to catch her breath. Passengers cried out, someone shouted for help, a stewardess fell in the aisle. She managed to look out the window again, and this time she saw fighter planes sweep in formation past the Clipper.

  “We are experiencing some difficulties in our flight path,” the pilot said over the intercom. “Please make sure your seat belts are fastened properly and bear with us. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

  The fighter planes repeated their aggressive maneuvers, dipping down toward the plane, darting dangerously close to it as the Clipper continued to descend. There was no doubt in Diana’s mind that they were being forced to land. But she was fairly certain there was no airport, nor land of any kind, below them.

  Her first concern was her immediate survival. But other questions lingered in the back of her mind. Why, she wondered, were they being forced down, and could it somehow be related to her own mission? Did Drax have that kind of power? Would he take such a large risk?

  She had the feeling the answer was yes.

  The Phantom had been looking all over Skull Cave for Guran when he finally found him in the Radio Room. He wore a headset and was sitting in front of a vast array of radio equipment that was notched into the cave’s rock walls. Unaware that the Phantom had entered the room, Guran adjusted a couple of dials and hastily cranked the handle on the generator.

  “Guran?”

  The Phantom raised his voice above the buzzing and crackling of tubes and transistors, but Guran didn’t respond. Beside him, Zak, the native kid who the Phantom had saved from the track, looked around in awe at all the complicated equipment.

  The Phantom reached out and removed the headset. Startled, Guran spun around. “Oh, you!”

  “Who did you expect?”

  “You startled me.”

  “Sorry. Zak and I are leaving. He says the men who stole the skull came from a ship docked in a hidden cove on the other side of the jungle. He thinks he can find it. It’s worth a shot.” He held up the headset. “What are you listening to, ‘Junior G-Men’?”

  “I wish it was,” Guran said. “This is real. Go ahead, listen.”

  The Phantom put the headset to his ears and heard the sound of urgent voices. “I repeat: This is the Pan Am Clipper. We are under attack . . . under attack by three fighter planes. We are down about five miles off the Bangalla coast. We are taking on water.”

  Static disrupted the transmission and the Phantom lowered the headset. “The Pan Am Clipper has been forced down over the ocean.” He was quiet a moment, then turned to Zak. “Wait here with Guran. I’ll be back in a little while.”

  The Phantom moved out into the main chamber of the cave and sat down on the majestic Skull Throne. Raised above the floor and decorated with skull designs, the high-backed throne was hundreds of years old. It had been a gift to the Phantom from an Arab prince, but the story of what the Phantom had done to deserve the gift had been forgotten long ago. It was a part of his heritage that had never been recorded.

  He mounted the throne and relaxed. Closing his eyes, he willed himself to the site of the downed plane. Then he focused his attention on his breath and released his thoughts.r />
  Slowly he became more and more relaxed, until he was drifting on the border of sleep. Then his uncanny navigational skills, which he’d learned from his father, took effect. He didn’t know how he found his way to places with his mind, but the radio contact was all he needed to locate the Pan Am Clipper.

  The landscape below him blurred as he moved at lightning speed toward his objective. Then the jungle was gone and the ocean glistened in the moonlight below him. Ships came into view and vanished, and then he saw the airplane bobbing on the waves. A small fighter plane on pontoons was approaching the Clipper, water shooting out from behind it in a fine, moonlit spray.

  Inside the plane, stewardesses tried to calm the frightened passengers, but they were on the verge of panic themselves. The Phantom wished he could do something to help them, but he was powerless to act.

  Inside the fighter plane were three men dressed in coverall flight suits with parachutes strapped to their backs. They wore goggles and caps. One of them was armed with a machine gun, and another was talking on the radio to the captain of the Clipper. His message was clear: they were coming aboard, and if there was any resistance, the plane would be shot apart and sunk by the two other fighters still in the air. The captain of the Clipper replied that he was sorry, but the door was jammed. They couldn’t get it open.

  For an instant, the man looked up, frowning. Then he spoke to the captain again. “We’re coming aboard right now. Open that door or we’ll blow it off.”

  The Phantom blinked open his eyes. He felt the throne beneath him and looked around the skull chamber. He took in a deep breath, exhaled, and leaped down from the throne.

  Was there time? Could he make it to the Clipper before it was blown to smithereens? Maybe.

  He bolted out of the cave, Zak hurrying to catch up.

  The fighter plane was nestled right under the wing outside Diana’s window. It was linked to the Clipper by a rope, and now in the murky darkness, a raft was crossing the short span between the two planes.

  She pressed closer to the window, trying to see the occupants of the raft. She could only make out vague forms, but it was enough to leave her with a distinct sense of foreboding.

  Other passengers had also seen the raft, but in the confusion some of the passengers thought the fighter ship was there to rescue them from the sinking craft. A man in the row in front of her hailed a passing stewardess. “How are we all going to fit onto that raft? Aren’t there any ships in the area that can help?”

  The stewardess leaned toward him, her face pale, her expression betraying her fear despite her attempts to keep it masked from the passengers. “We’re doing all we can to deal with this situation, sir. Please put on your life vest. As soon as a ship arrives, we’ll all be taken aboard. There’s really nothing to worry about.”

  Sure, Diana thought. Things were bad and were going to get a lot worse.

  Suddenly the chatter of machine guns shredded the air. Passengers screamed and dived for cover. Diana quickly slipped the envelope containing the Sengh Brotherhood symbol from her pocket and pushed it down inside her boot.

  She smelled sea air seeping into the cabin. The door to the Clipper swung open, three men scrambled inside. One carried the machine gun that had just ripped apart the lock on the door. The other two brandished side arms. Their caps and goggles hid their faces.

  One of the men pointed at a cowering old man. “He’ll do.”

  A second flyer grabbed the man and aimed the machine gun at his chest. People screamed, blood drained from the old man’s face.

  “We want Diana Palmer,” said the first flyer, who apparently was the leader. “And we’re prepared to kill all of you, one by one, until she steps forward.”

  Panic spread through the cabin. The plane was rocking violently in the waves. “Who is she?” someone shouted.

  “We don’t know her.”

  “Maybe she’s not here.”

  “We didn’t do anything.”

  Diana stood up, her knees soft, a hole a mile wide tearing open in her stomach. “I’m Diana Palmer.”

  “So quickly? How disappointing,” the first flyer scoffed.

  “What do you want?” Diana asked.

  “The pleasure of your company.”

  “Who are you?”

  “That’s none of your . . .”

  Something about the voice and the look of the intruder roused her suspicion. Boldly, she reached out and yanked off the flyer’s cap and goggles. It was a young woman, an aviatrix who could pass for Amelia Earhart’s younger sister.

  “Happy now, Diana Palmer? Get a good look? I suppose you want my name, too?”

  “Sala,” one of the men yelled, inadvertently providing the name. “The plane’s going to sink. Let’s get out of here!”

  “One more thing,” Sala said.

  With that, she turned and struck Diana across the side of her head with the barrel of the pistol. She slumped to the floor. “Too bad. Now we’ve got to carry you out of here.”

  THIRTEEN

  Captain Philip Horton was ready to retire for the evening after a long day at the Jungle Patrol outpost. He looked into the radio control room where Corporal Weeks was stationed.

  “I’m going to turn in, Weeks. Wake me if there’s any news.”

  “Yes, sir. But it’s probably not going to be good news.”

  Horton agreed, but to Weeks he said, “Maybe our luck will turn.”

  “Maybe, Captain.”

  He didn’t sound any more convinced than Horton was. They didn’t need just luck; they needed a miracle.

  Horton left the building and plodded back to his office. It doubled as his sleeping quarters and was hardly the picture of comfort. But hell, it was home.

  He climbed the steps to the porch, stretched his arms and yawned. He and Weeks had been monitoring dramatic events at sea for the last several hours. The radio transmissions about the forced landing and its mysterious perpetrators were definitely the most startling transmission they’d received in months.

  There was nothing more he could do. The passengers had all been rescued, except one woman, and Horton was particularly concerned about her, since she had been on her way to see him. Now he wondered if he would ever meet her.

  Following the reports also took his mind off the local matter of the destroyed bridge and the missing witness who swore that the Phantom had fallen into the gorge with the truck. But there was no trace of the Phantom, as he’d suspected would be the case, and the witness, unfortunately, had not yet been found and probably never would be.

  Once inside his office, Horton took off his gunbelt and unbuttoned his shirt. He splashed water on his face from a wash bowl, rubbed his hands vigorously over his face, and wondered what the hell he was going to do about the situation with the Clipper. As he reached for a towel, he glanced in the mirror and glimpsed movement. Horton spun around and sucked in his breath. His eyes locked with the Phantom’s.

  “Hey, can’t you ever come in through the front door?” Horton snapped.

  “Too obvious. I prefer the window.”

  Horton smiled and shook hands with the Phantom. “It’s good to see you, Ghost Who Walks. I was getting worried when I found out about the bridge collapsing. I heard you were in that truck.”

  “Oh, that.” He touched his side, which was nearly healed from the stab wound. “It’s not the reason I came here.”

  “Let me guess.” If there was trouble anywhere near Bangalla, the Phantom often found his way into the mess. “We’ve had some trouble tonight offshore.”

  “I know. I picked up the distress call on the radio. Any word?”

  “The passengers were picked up by a Portuguese fishing boat,” Horton said. “Everyone’s safe . . . except a young woman abducted off the Clipper.”

  “Who?”

  Horton’s shoulders slumped. “She was on her way to meet me, oddly enough. Her name is Diana Palmer.”

  The Phantom reacted to the name. “Diana Palmer of New York? Her un
cle owns the Tribune.”

  “Yeah, that’s right.” The Phantom obviously got away from the jungle from time to time. “How did you know her, if I may ask?”

  The Phantom shrugged. “Maybe I heard the name somewhere, sounded familiar.”

  “First those grave robbers, and now this,” Horton said. “Do you think the Sengh Brotherhood is involved in this airplane matter?”

  “Good question. But why would they kidnap a young woman from New York?”

  “I haven’t a clue. I just hope we can get her back,” Horton said.

  “I’ll see what I can do.” The Phantom eyed the door as though he were about to leave.

  But Horton wasn’t ready for him to leave yet. “Your father had a theory about all this, you know.”

  Mention of his father caught the Phantom’s attention, just as Horton had known it would. “What do you mean?”

  Horton paced across the room. “He was certain the Sengh Brotherhood had a secret stronghold where they’ve been hiding for centuries.”

  “I know.”

  “He was never able to find it,” Horton continued as if the Phantom didn’t already know. “He thought they had some kind of power to block him.”

  “Yeah. But he was getting close. When they realized it, they turned on him and he died.” The Phantom reached for the doorknob. “I better get going.”

  Horton grabbed his arm. “Wait. Don’t use the door. Go out the way you came in. I have enough trouble pretending you’re not real as it is.”

  The Phantom looked amused. “Captain Horton and his double life.” Then he climbed through the window and disappeared into the darkness.

  The Phantom slipped away from the Jungle Patrol outpost and into the forest. Zak was patiently waiting for him, holding Hero’s reins in one hand and his father’s red and blue kerchief in the other. Nearby, Devil paced anxiously about, wary about being so near the outpost. The Phantom swung his leg over the white steed, then pulled Zak up behind him.