Lee Falk - [Story of the Phantom 12]

by The Vampires

  He quickly bound the wrists and ankles of Gerhart and Wolfgang, then did a similar job on the first guard he’d met in this chamber. The man was just starting to stir. (“When the Phantom hits, they stay hit,” —old sailor saying.) Then he turned on his flashlight and, at his order, Greta and the colonel entered the dark office. Two more men were lying there. At the Phantom’s direction, they carried one after the other into the crate room, where the Phantom bound them with wire. Next were the two who had been on ladders outside the office. They lay where the Phantom had left them. Greta and the colonel carried them back, one at a time.

  “This is not a woman’s work,” complained Greta, staggering under her share of the weight of these big men.

  “What are you complaining about? You’re barely helping,” said the colonel, gasping for breath. He was hauling the main weight, carrying the men by the shoulders.

  “Quite right, Greta,” said the Phantom as he tied up the last two. “Not a woman’s work at all. None of it. You might have thought of that before you came to Koqania.”

  Breathing hard from her efforts, she glared at him, and muttered obscenities under her breath.

  Binding these men had been a necessary precaution. All would start to stir soon. It was best to have them under control before this happened.

  “Now, your turn, Colonel. Turn around.”

  The colonel stood erect and indignant. “It is not necessary. You can trust me,” he said.

  “It is necessary. I cannot trust you,” said the Phantom as he bound the colonel’s wrists.

  Greta stood up and extended her arms. “Me, too?” she said angrily. “Not yet,” said the Phantom.

  “You trust me?” She smiled.

  “No. But if it is necessary, I will do it.” He bent over Gerhart and Wolfgang. “I didn’t mean to hit them so hard. They’ll be out for a while. Colonel, let’s get down to it. You tell me what they are looking for.”

  The colonel cleared his throat and began in a pompous manner. “Despite lack of definitive and substantive verification, but going upon fairly conclusive preliminary—”

  “Colonel,” said the Phantom sharply, “say it in one word.”

  “Oil,” said the colonel.

  Oil. It was as though a fog had suddenly lifted and the little town and valley tucked between mountain ranges were clearly visible once more.

  “Tell it to me simply,” said the Phantom.

  “As I said, I sent Gerhart here on a caretaker assignment.”

  “Caretaker for this?” asked the Phantom, glancing at the crates.

  The colonel nodded. “Gerhart had been a geologist. He worked for many large companies in Africa and the Middle east. Something about this terrain gave him the idea that oil existed in this area.”

  Now that the need to delay was over, the colonel spoke clearly and quickly in a precise manner that fit his military posture.

  “I don’t know how he came to this conclusion. You’ll have to ask him.”

  “They use sonar and radar and that sort of thing,” said Greta, tired of only listening.

  “Have there been oil wells drilled in this area?” said the Phantom.

  “No, that’s what got Gerhart so excited. Virgin territory,” said the colonel. “A term you’d have difficulty understanding,” he added dryly to Greta.

  She shook her head as if at a poor joke. “You really are a complete ass,” she said.

  “Go on,” said the Phantom.

  “It was their plan to buy the entire valley for as little as possible.”

  “They?”

  “All of them—Gerhart, Wolfgang, Hans, Malo, Gunda the tavern owner, the others.”

  “They all went wild over the idea of oil, all of them including him,” said Greta scornfully.

  “I beg your pardon,” said Hermann stiffly.

  “You pretended to be above it all, but I noticed when it came to deciding on shares, how to cut the pie, you got your part of it,” said Greta.

  “How about you?” snapped the colonel. “You demanded to cut in, too, or you wouldn’t play witch.”

  She shrugged. “Why not? Whatever the play was, I wanted to be in it. I gave up plenty for this operation.”

  The colonel laughed scornfully. “You gave up what? A tenth-rate career going nowhere?”

  That stung her more than anything that had been said. “Tenth-rate?” she blazed, jumping to her feet. “Did you read what they said about me in Cologne and Dusseldorf?” “Wait, let’s take it back,” said the Phantom. “You all apportioned shares among yourselves. Shares of what?” “Shares of hope that there might be oil,” said Greta.

  “It’s absurd,” said the colonel bitterly. “Here we sit on one hundred million dollars, and we argue about a few stinking oil wells that don’t even exist.”

  “One hundred million?” said the Phantom, glancing at the crates.

  “At least. Maybe two hundred million,” said Greta.

  “We’ll get to the crates in a moment,” said the Phantom. “If the stuff in them is that valuable, why worry about developing an oil field that might not even exist?”

  “Because they are lummoxes. I told you. They don’t have the breeding, the imagination, or the brains to know what we have here,” said the colonel. “Ignorant, low-born peasants.”

  “So that’s what you think, Herr Count,” said a rumbling voice. It was Gerhart. Lying on the floor, hands and wrists bound, his eyes were open. He strained at his bonds and struggled to a sitting position to see what held him. He shook his arms and legs angrily. The wire held. Then he saw the Phantom and his eyes widened.

  “Who the hell are you?” he said. “Greta, who is he?”

  “The mysterious stranger called the Phantom,” said Greta. “You see, I told you all about that. You thought it was—what did you call it—a fairy tale.”

  Gerhart’s thick lips hung loosely, his mouth open. “You mean with the old witch and all that?” he said.

  She nodded.

  “But it wasn’t real. We know it was just an old story,” he said slowly, staring as though seeing a ghost.

  “Ask him,” said Greta.

  Gerhart looked about and saw Wolfgang lying near him.

  “Where are all the others?”

  “There are no more others,” said the colonel.

  “Dead?”

  “Some. Some like you.”

  “How? Who did this?”

  The colonel glanced at the Phantom. Gerhart’s mouth still hung open.

  “You think there’s oil in this valley?” said the Phantom.

  Gerhart reacted in surprise and glared at Greta and the colonel.

  “You told him our secret?” he shouted.

  “When he’s got a gun pointed at you, what do you do?” said Greta.

  “Exactly. What did all those farmers do when you 126

  threatened to kill them, or scared them half to death unless they gave you their land?”

  “Gave? We buy,” snarled Gerhart.

  “Buy. With what you give them, you steal the land. You steal, and if you can’t, you kill.”

  “No proof of that,” said the colonel sharply.

  “Raimond, Piotr, how many others?” said the Phantom.

  “We know nothing about them,” said the colonel.

  “Nothing,” said Gerhart, suddenly a witness on trial.

  “That’s for the courts to decide,” said the Phantom. “Back to the oil. When you couldn’t buy the land for next to nothing, you used terror. Where did you get the idea of vampires?”

  Greta gestured at the colonel. “His bright thought.”

  “Actually, it was Malo. He spent years here. He knew all about this place. He told us. We couldn’t believe it. We talked to the ignorant peasants in the valley. Amazingly, they did believe in it. They do believe it still. The vampires and the witch.” In spite of the wires on his wrists, he laughed. “Understandable. They’re Slav, you know, a word akin to slave.”

  “My mother was b
om here,” said Greta sharply.

  Now Wolfgang muttered and coughed and opened his eyes. When he discovered the wires on his wrists and ankles, he went through the same contortions that Gerhart had tried. To no avail. The wires held. Struggling made them cut into the flesh, so one didn’t struggle long.

  “How much land have you stolen so far in this valley?” asked the Phantom.

  “Wolfgang’s the statistician,” said the colonel.

  The Phantom loomed over the newly awakened man. Devil walked over and stuck his long muzzle into the startled man’s face.

  “You heard my question. How much?”

  “How much what?” cried Wolfgang, certain his last moment had come.

  “How much land have you stolen in Koqania Valley?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Devil prodded him in the neck with his cold nose. Then lapped his cheek with the long tongue.

  “About half,” he cried.

  The other three men bound by the Phantom were regaining consciousness, moaning and muttering. When their eyes could focus properly, they stared at the masked man and the wolf.

  “Remember the man in the tavern I told you about, the one who beat up Gunda?” said the colonel to Greta. She nodded. “This is the one.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Those marks on the jaw. Gunda had one. So did Malo.”

  They were suddenly silent. Gunda, the tavernkeeper. The Phantom could almost hear their thoughts. Two of their number were still at large. Gunda, the tavernkeeper, and the other one he’d left in the torture chamber. The colonel and Greta exchanged glances. Those two, Gunda and the other one, might come at any time. They were armed. All hope was not lost. Both showed sudden renewed arrogance.

  “I believe I’ve heard enough of the land and oil story. A lot more detail is to come out, but the courts can handle that. Now, let’s talk about the crates,” said the Phantom.

  The colonel and Greta remained unresponsive.

  “Maybe they’re tired of talking. Gerhart, what about the crates?”

  “He doesn’t have to know any more,” said the colonel quickly.

  “I don’t know nothing about that stuff,” said Gerhart. “If you ask me, it’s a lot of junk.”

  “Gerhart!” said the colonel angrily.

  “Junk,” repeated Gerhart. “Waste of time. If I told you once, I told you a thousand times we’re going to make it in oil.”

  “Forget the oil. Get to the crater,” said the Phantom.

  The colonel and Greta glanced at each other. Gunda might come.

  The Phantom took the crate from beside the air conditioner.

  “DV-1,” he read on the side of the crate. “I’ve waited a long time to see what this is.”

  “No, not yet,” said the colonel.

  “Wait,” said Greta hurriedly. “That crate’s not important. There’s a lot more you should know about us.”

  “Not important? You all gave me the impression it was worth a fortune,” said the Phantom.

  “Just a ploy to keep you from the real valuables,” said the colonel slyly. And he exchanged shrewd glances with Greta and the men on the floor.

  “Give me the screwdriver. I want to get this open now,” said the Phantom.

  “Believe me, a waste of time. Nothing in it, really,” said the colonel. “He’s right,” said Greta. “The real things are stored down the hall. Gerhart, what did you say about all these crates?”

  “Junk,” said Gerhart, the Neanderthal.

  “Junk,” said Greta.

  “Junk,” echoed the colonel.

  “By the way,” said the Phantom, as he began to loosen the first screw, “if you’re waiting for Gunda and that other man, don’t hold your breath until they come. I left them unconscious in that delightful torture chamber. Chief Peta was also with them. By now, they’re safely behind bars in his jail.”

  They stared at each other, Greta at the colonel, at Wolfgang and Gerhart, their sudden arrogance deflating like a punctured inner tube, then at the Phantom as he worked on the crate.

  “Be careful with that,” screamed the colonel, his voice turning almost falsetto. “It’s priceless!”

  Chapter 21

  As everyone in the chamber watched tensely, he unpacked the crate. Inside the wooden box was a thick layer of styrofoam, a soft porous insulating material. Beneath that a cover of fine white linen. He carefully lifted the cloth and its contents from the crate, then unwrapped it. It had an elaborately carved gold frame. It was a painting, the portrait of a proud young man with long black hair, wearing a rich green-velvet jacket. Around his neck was a heavy glittering necklace of gold and jewels. The Phantom looked at it for a long moment. There was perfection about this painting, like a rare jewel.

  “Is it damaged at all?” asked the colonel in a strained voice. The Phantom faced the painting toward him so he could see it. The colonel stared at it.

  “Not a scratch. Perfect!” he said excitedly.

  The Phantom had no great knowledge of art, but through the years he’d had an occasional opportunity to visit the great museums of the world—the Louvre in Paris, the Pitti and Uffizi palaces in Florence, the Metropolitan in New York among others. He had never seen this painting, but he knew something about it. It was one of the most famous portraits on earth, and it had been lost for over thirty years. It was Leonardo da Vinci’s Portrait of Lorenzo di Medici as a Young Man. To call it priceless was probably not overstating it. Every painting has a price, however fabulous, if it is put up for sale. It is doubtful that the Dutch Museum from which it had been “requisitioned” would ever have sold it, any more than the Louvre would be apt to sell a sister masterpiece, The Mona Lisa. Da Vinci... DV-1.

  “I suppose there is no question that it’s genuine,” said the Phantom. The colonel shook with anger.

  “It’s authenticity is beyond doubt. We have the papers for it, all the way back to William of Orange, that purchase being made for him in Rome by none other than Peter Paul Rubens,” said the colonel, as though auctioning it off.

  The Phantom walked among the racks holding the crates. He chose three more and brought them back beneath the pale overhead light.

  “No time to look at them all now, but I did notice these and I want to have a look at them. MA-1, R-2, and FH-4.”

  Each painting was similarly crated in styrofoam and linen, and all appeared to be in perfect condition.

  MA-1 was a striking oil of a regal old man in flowing robes reaching out to touch the forefinger of a languorous, beautiful nude young man. Any of the millions of pilgrims and tourists who have visited the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican and strained their necks and eyes to stare at the mighty ceiling would recognize this as The Creation of Adam by the Hand of God. Among those millions had been the Phantom.

  “I never knew Michelangelo did a small painting of that scene,” he said.

  “Not many did. He painted it especially for the bedroom of Pope Julian. It later passed into the hands of the Hapsburg emperors, where it remained until we—” the colonel stumbled on the word and stopped guiltily, having said too much.

  “I want to know more about ‘we’ in a moment,” said the Phantom. “After I have opened these other two.”

  One of the “other two” was R-2. It was immediately recognizable. One of that long series of self-portraits by Rembrandt. Unlike the later self-portraits, marked by age and sadness, this was a happy, bright young face.

  “One of his earliest, said to be his personal favorite for he never sold it in his lifetime, even in his most difficult times,” said the colonel, sounding like a museum guide. FH-4 was a ruddy, mischievous girl by the Dutch master Franz Hals. The Phantom looked over the rows of crates. If the paintings were all of this quality, one hundred million dollars was not an exaggeration.

  “Are they all like this?”

  “You picked several of the choice items, but there are others equal and almost equal,” said the colonel tensely. “This masked man, this hijac
ker, is going to loot our treasures and there’s nothing, nothing we can do,” he finished almost in tears.

  “Is that why you came here?” asked Greta. The Phantom did not reply.

  “Why else?” asked the colonel shrilly. “What else would he do?”

  “I know what else he can do,” said Greta. “He can kill all of us. And who would know?”

  The chamber was deathly still as the men stared at the masked figure.

  “Is that what you expect?” he said.

  “I’ve learned to face facts,” she said flatly..

  “If you were in my place, it’s what you would do,” he said.

  She lowered her head. “Don’t listen to her. She’s crazy,” said the colonel. “You said you wanted a deal? You said you wanted Greta. Take her and half the paintings.”

  “You swine,” shouted Greta. She leaped to her feet and rushed at the colonel, her long red nails aimed at his face. He was helpless to defend himself. The Phantom reached her first and pulled her back. She leaned against him, and surprisingly, began to weep softly.

  “Did you hear that swine? He’s ready to sell me, anything to save his filthy hide,” she sobbed.

  “Don’t be taken in by her. She can cry at the drop of a hat. She does her best acting offstage,” said the colonel viciously. She turned to go at him again with her sharp nails, but the Phantom held her arm.

  “Sit down there. I don’t have time for all this.” She sat, staring at him with wide tear-filled eyes. The tears ran down her cheeks, smudging her mascara.

  “Colonel, where did all this come from?”

  The colonel sighed. “It’s a long story.”

  “Then make it short.”

  “It is difficult. Where shall I start?”

  “At the beginning. Start with your real name.”

  “I am Count Hermann Adolphus von der Kotthausen, colonel retired of the Imperial German Army,” he began proudly. “My uncle was General Karl Maximus von der—”

  “It’s not necessary to discuss your uncle” said the Phantom.

  “As you will see, it is most necessary,” replied the colonel. “He was Deputy Commander under Field Marshal Hermann Goering, a name you may know.” The Phantom nodded.