“Ghost Who Walks, I remember now. They had airplanes,” Zak said.
For a moment, the Phantom wasn’t sure who he was talking about. “You mean the men who tied you up in the truck? The bad men?”
“Yes. Planes with boats for feet.”
The Phantom nodded. “Seaplanes.” And fighter planes with pontoons had forced the Pan Am Clipper into the water. No coincidence there, he thought.
He reined Hero around and galloped off into the jungle with Devil, the wolf, running at his side. “Hang on, Zak. We’ve got a long ride ahead.”
The last thing Diana remembered was being pistol-whipped by the woman from the fighter plane. Now, as she came awake, she was being lifted by rope up through the darkness. Her legs and wrists were bound and a wad of cloth was stuffed into her mouth. It smelled of dirt and oil. Her body slammed several times against the barnacle-encrusted piling as she was lifted to a dock. Then they dragged her along it for several yards.
“Stop right there, you idiot,” Sala yelled at whoever was pulling Diana.
Sala loosened the rope under Diana’s arms, slipped it over her head. Then she lifted Diana and carried her up a gangplank and onto the deck of an old freighter. From there she was dragged to an opening in the deck that led down into the belly of the ship.
As Sala let her go, Diana was suddenly afraid she was going to be shoved headfirst down the hole, and there was nothing she could do about it. She yelled into the gag, shook her head, and pulled her knees tightly into her chest.
“Take it easy. I’m not going to dump you.”
Sala descended several steps, then draped Diana over her shoulder as though she weighed nothing at all. Diana stared helplessly down into the dank hold of the ship as Sala continued on. The musty air seeped into her nostrils, nauseating her.
When they finally reached the bottom, Sala carried her a few more yards, then deposited her in a wooden chair.
A seedy, roughneck character strolled casually over to Sala, who looked as if she were about to collapse from the effort. “What’s your problem?”
“Thanks for all your help, Quill,” Sala snapped. “You might as well have stayed in town with your idiot friends.”
Quill laughed; his teeth looked as if they hadn’t been brushed in decades. “I’ve been getting a new image.” He turned his cheek toward her. “What do you think?”
A skull tattoo now decorated each of the man’s cheeks.
“You look just as ugly as the last time I saw you,” Sala said.
“No, look! Matching skulls.”
Sala fixed a hand to her waist and tilted sideways, stretching fatigued muscles. “What’s the occasion? Did you kill your mother?”
“I’ll never tell.” He abruptly turned to Diana. “So let’s see her mug.”
Sala untied the dirty rag used for a gag. Diana spit bits of it out of her mouth. “Sort of pretty, I guess,” Sala observed. “In a spoiled, rich girl kind of way. Definitely too classy for you.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Quill murmured, walking around her, eyeing her the way a butcher eyes a piece of prime beef. “You can never tell.”
Diana cleared her throat. Her mouth felt like cotton, but she tried to talk, anyway. “Who are you people? Are you crazy?” Her voice croaked, the words sputtered out of her. “Do you have any idea how many laws you’ve just broken? Disruption of international air transportation! Abduction! Piracy! Kidnapping!”
Sala laughed. “Little Miss Righteous. Not your type at all, Quill.”
Quill stepped closer to Diana and raised his arm, threatening to strike Diana. “Shut up! Just shut the hell up!”
But Diana wasn’t about to follow any orders from Tattoo Face. “If this is a kidnapping for money, you’re not going to get a cent! Not a red cent!”
Quill turned to Sala. “Do you want to shut her up, or should I do it?”
Sala went over to Diana to replace the gag, but Diana jerked her head to the side. “Get that out of here. That rag is filthy! You wanna gag me . . . get a clean rag! Is that too much to ask?”
Sala grabbed her by the jaw and finally jammed the rag back into her mouth.
“Somebody very important has a big interest in you, lady,” Quill said. “I’ve got to report in now. When I get back, maybe we can enjoy some time alone. Just you and me.” Quill pinched her cheek, then walked away. Sala laughed and followed him.
Diana shuddered and closed her eyes. Think, and do it fast. You’ve got to get outta here.
Just before dawn, the Phantom and Zak reached the edge of the jungle and dismounted. They traveled a short distance on foot, Devil close behind them. Crouching behind a large rock, they looked out onto a cove as the first gray light of dawn spilled across the water.
A long wooden dock extended out from a cluster of shacks and small buildings. A truck was parked nearby along with some horses hitched to a tree. But the Phantom’s gaze was immediately drawn to the two seaplanes that bobbed in the water next to the dock. Beyond them, anchored near the end of the dock, was an old freighter like the ones he’d seen on occasion in the port of Zavia.
The Phantom touched Zak’s shoulder. “You did good, Zak. Real good. Any idea how long that ship’s been docked here?”
He shook his head. “I only saw it when the bad men took my father here.”
“You better go back to your people, and stay away from the bad guys.”
“What about my papa? Will you help him?” Zak’s eyes filled with the nakedness of his plea.
“I’ll do all I can, Zak. If I find him in there, I’ll get him out. But I’m looking for a woman, too.”
The Phantom called Devil, who loped over to his side. Kneeling down, the Phantom whispered in his ear. The wolf trotted over to the dock, then darted between the barrels and cargo boxes to avoid being seen. Finally he made a wild dash to the end of the dock, ran up the gangplank and onto the deck of the freighter.
“Good job,” the Phantom said, then dove into the cool water. He swam just below the surface, coming up only once for air before he reached the starboard side of the freighter.
Crew members were loitering on the deck as the Phantom climbed up the anchor chain. He was several feet below the deck when he slipped through an open porthole and tumbled into the ship. He landed on a bunk bed, one that was occupied.
“Hey, what’s going on here?” a bearded man grumbled as he sat up and found a dripping wet, purple-hooded masked man straddling him. The man’s eyes bulged. “What on earth are you?”
“I’m a who, not a what.”
“Spider Man?”
“Wrong.”
The Phantom grabbed the man’s head and slammed it against an iron pole at the corner of the bunk. “Sweet dreams.”
He placed the unconscious man’s head back on his pillow and crawled off the bed. He looked around the tight crew quarters. Sailors were sleeping in the other bunk beds, apparently undisturbed by the momentary ruckus.
The Phantom opened a door and entered a narrow corridor. He heard someone coming down a stairway to his immediate right. He turned left. A door swung open ten feet down the corridor. He reached back to the handle of the door he’d just closed.
Locked. He was trapped.
Then he saw another door across the hall. He reached for the handle, pulled, and it opened. He ducked inside just in time to avoid a confrontation in the corridor. He was in another section of crew quarters. It was empty.
He noticed a pair of flyer’s goggles and a leather cap hanging from a post of an empty bunk bed. Nearby, strewn on a couple of bunks, were flight suits and more goggles. The Phantom heard the slamming of locker doors and shower water running in an adjoining room. He moved soundlessly in that direction.
If the flyers who had captured Diana Palmer were here, the Phantom might persuade one of them to lead him to her. He pulled out one of his pistols, which was a greater persuader, and opened the door. He was met by a haze of steam.
“Okay, nobody move, gentlemahh . . .”
>
The Phantom didn’t finish the word. Five women in various stages of undress were in front of him. Several of them grabbed towels and covered themselves. The others just gaped for a few seconds, and so did the Phantom.
“Ah, sorry, ladies,” he said, breaking the stunned silence. He holstered his gun. “I hope you’ll pardon my error.”
One of the women pulled a revolver from her locker and took a shot at him. The bullet pinged off a water pipe next to his head. “I guess not.”
Before she got off another shot, the Phantom leaped feet first into a laundry chute and tumbled out onto a pile of clothing. “Interesting crew,” he muttered.
FOURTEEN
Zak wandered along the dock, a fishing pole over his shoulder. Villagers came here every day to fish and no one would pay any attention to another kid with apparently the same intent.
He had cut the pole from the bamboo thicket a short distance away. It looked like an ordinary fishing pole, except it didn’t have line with it. But then, Zak wasn’t going fishing, either.
As he strolled past the gangplank leading to the freighter, he looked around the deck. There were only two crew members in sight. They were talking to each other and had their backs to the gangplank. He stopped, checked the immediate area to make sure no one was watching, then tossed the pole aside and stole up the gangplank.
He raced across the deck to the bulwark, pressed his back up against it. His heart pounded, and his breath came in short, startled gasps. It would be bad enough if he were caught here, but worse if the bad guys recognized him. He had to help Ghost Who Walks find his father, though. If he did nothing else with his life, he would do this.
Zak had always believed in Ghost Who Walks. He’d heard stories all his life about the great things he did. How he helped people who were in trouble and how he’d been doing it since the olden times, long before anyone could remember.
His father assured him the stories were real, because his own father and grandfather remembered Ghost Who Walks, and Grandfather even said that his grandfather had once helped the Phantom fight off a dozen men who wanted to kill his daughter because they thought she was a witch.
When Zak had asked if the woman really was a witch, his grandfather had told him that she could see things in the future, and one of the things she saw was that Ghost Who Walks would be around for a long, long time.
Now he knew the witch was right and that Ghost Who Walks wasn’t just an old story. Ever since they had escaped from the falling bridge, he could hardly contain himself. He couldn’t wait to tell his friends how they had flown through the air as the bridge and truck disappeared into the gorge. Or how they had ridden on Hero, the white stallion who appeared out of nowhere every time the Phantom whistled for him.
He wanted to tell his friends everything. But he’d promised Ghost Who Walks that he would never say a word about being in Skull Cave. Besides, his friends would never believe him. Nobody went with Ghost Who Walks to Skull Cave.
Zak heard footsteps. Someone was coming his way. He slid along the bulwark, trying to stay out of sight. He slipped into a dark alcove and crouched down, pulling his knees in to his chest. He sniffed. Hot, stale breath.
Slowly he turned his head and saw large, glowing green eyes staring at him from less than a foot away. He sucked in his breath and stifled a cry as he saw the snout and long sharp teeth. Then, as his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he realized it was Devil, the Phantom’s huge wolf.
Two crew members walked by, passing within three feet of Zak. “What are you doing here, boy?” he whispered to the wolf. “You really scared me there.” The wolf nudged his arm with its nose. “I’m glad you’re on my side. I’ve got to find my papa. I think he’s here.”
Devil made a low growling sound, then took Zak’s hand lightly in his jaws.
“What are you saying, boy? You want to help?” He remembered his father’s kerchief and took it from his pocket. The wolf sniffed it, made a low whimpering sound, then scratched at the deck.
“Below deck? Let’s go. Lead the way.”
As the minutes ticked by in the dark hold of the freighter, Diana kept thinking about what might happen when Tattoo Face came back. She couldn’t think of anything worse than that creepy character pawing her, having his way with her. Think about something else.
It did no good to think about what might happen, or about the filthy gag in her mouth and the tightness of the ropes on her ankles and wrists. So she turned her thoughts to other tight fixes from which she’d escaped during her past forays in exotic locales.
When she was fifteen, she’d visited the Hopi Indian reservation, where she stayed at a missionary’s house. Reverend Tucker was a friend of her uncle, and he kept a close eye on her. But the only Hopis he knew were those who had been converted to Christianity, and their rituals weren’t exotic enough to interest Diana or satisfy her curiosity, and she kept looking for an opportunity to talk to “real Hopis,” as she thought of them.
Then one day she met a teenage boy, a few years older than she, who said he was the son of another missionary. He told her, in a conspiratorial tone, that if she met him that night outside the mission, he would take her to a Hopi elder who was teaching him about the kachinas.
She hesitated, but only a moment. She was leaving for home in the morning, and had just about given up hope of anything really exciting happening. But when she sneaked out, the boy was nowhere to be found.
She hung around for a while but quickly tired of waiting and decided he must have changed his mind. Then she heard drumming coming from the village and decided to take a look for herself.
She didn’t realize, though, that a secret initiation ceremony, called the Astotokya, was taking place and that it was off-limits to everyone, except the participants. Even residents had to vacate the entire eastern half of the village.
She was caught by a guard before she’d entered the village and was taken to a small, windowless room. She was told that if she had crossed into the ceremonial area, all the initiates and priests would have been contaminated and none of them would have been allowed to live.
She apologized, but it didn’t do any good. The penalty for her transgression was death. She would be dismembered, and bits of her flesh carried in the four directions by priests and buried before sunrise.
At first she thought they were just trying to frighten her, but then she recalled what the minister had said. One of the things he admired about the Hopis was that they didn’t lie to him. Sometimes he didn’t like what they said, but they were truthful. That was when she figured she really was in trouble.
The only thing that had saved her was the craftiness of the boy she was supposed to meet. He’d arrived late but in time to see her get caught by the guards. He’d dug a hole under the wall of the house where she was being held, and helped her escape.
She left for New York on schedule the next morning, grateful that she was still alive. But the odd thing was that when she’d asked Reverend Tucker about the boy on their way to the airport, he’d said there was no other missionary with a teenage son on the reservation.
She’d survived that incident, but how was she going to get out of this one? There’d been no talk of ransom, and now she was fairly certain that Xander Drax was behind her capture. He didn’t need any money, but he might just want her dead.
She heard voices, then saw boots on the ladder as someone descended from the deck. She wiggled her arms and legs, trying to loosen the ties, but it was no use. Her skin was already burned raw.
Sala walked over to her, removed her gag. “So, how’re we getting along, Diana?”
“We need some water.”
Sala chuckled. “Yeah, I imagine you’re a bit thirsty by now.” She held up a canteen. “This what you’re looking for?”
“Please,” she whispered.
“Oh, I suppose.” She held the canteen to Diana’s lips; the water dribbled over her chin as she gulped. “Is that better?” She took a step back, crossed her arms
, and studied Diana. “You know, I can’t figure out what’s so important about you.”
“Then let me go.” Diana’s voice came back to her, and so did her feisty attitude. She disliked Quill, but Sala was the one who really annoyed her.
Sala laughed. “I’m afraid not. I actually kind of like you.”
“Then let’s get out of here.”
“So we can both be hunted? I don’t think so.” Sala paced back and forth and continued to scrutinize her. “So tell me what’s it like being so rich all the time. I’m real curious about that.”
“It’s great. Look how much fun I’m having right now.” Diana met Sala’s burning gaze. “What’s your story, anyhow?”
“Nothing like yours. I grew up fast and never slowed down.” She lowered her eyes. “Nice boots. Expensive, I’ll bet.”
“Not really.”
“C’mon. We can talk. It’s just us girls.” She bent down. “Mind if I try on your boots?”
“Yeah, I mind.”
“Too bad.”
She tried to take off one of the boots, but Diana struggled to keep it on. She’d picked the boot containing the envelope.
“Cut it out!” Sala said.
Sala pulled off the boot and the envelope fell to the floor. Diana moved her feet over it before Sala saw it.
“I knew I was right,” she said, glancing at the label inside the boot. “Fifth Avenue, New York City. My size, too. You don’t need them right now. If Quill has his way, you won’t ever be needing them again.” She reached for the other boot—and saw the envelope. “What do we have here, Diana Palmer?”
Diana’s stomach turned as Sala picked up the envelope, and read the name on the outside.
“Captain Philip Horton.” She smiled at Diana. “A love letter, perhaps?”
She was about to open it when the laundry chute door flew open and a big purple thing flopped on a pile of towels and clothing. A man. He stood up. He was wearing tights and a jerkin with a belt, a hood and a mask.
He looked over at them. “What is this, a ship full of women?”
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