Indiana Jones and tyhe Sky Pirates

by Martin Caidin

  "Ah, our aliens. Yes, yes; but they will not be imaginary. They will be real—seen, heard, visible, and lethal. They will play with human lives as easily as do the winged messengers from Hades, but they will negotiate with the human race. After all, they will impose only discomforting rules, but to break them is to risk destruction. Fair enough! If the people of the world come to believe this is heaven-sent protection to avert the slaughters of future wars, they may well rally to the cause we set. Of course," Griffin grimaced, "they may do quite the opposite. But I believe if we plan carefully and execute precisely, we shall succeed."

  Griffin's disciples, three of them in the chateau with him, the other two listening by radio speaker, yielded more and more to his spellbinding oratory.

  John Scruggs—a terrible name for a wily Spaniard who was the dominant dealer in opium and narcotics in global trade—motioned for attention. Griffin nodded. Scruggs, with the cunning of an underworld figure who had amassed enormous power and influence, always cut to the heart of annoyances.

  "Several matters, Griffin." He smiled. "How long, my friend, do you believe the governments we deal against will accept the charade of aliens from space blasting their way around the world?"

  "The governments? As for the scientists, engineers, military men, leaders—not very long at all. Quite a few do not believe it now. They do not know what they face. They are baffled, angry, frustrated, but they have suffered these problems before and before too much time passes they will decide that the rest of this solar system remains uninhabitated." He locked his eyes on Scruggs. "But I tell you this. The masses will believe. They believe now, and we shall sustain that belief."

  Scruggs shook his head. "You stretch the truth too far. You offer a fairy tale and—"

  "Damn you," Griffin snapped. "Don't you ever observe what people really believe in? Chicken entrails and the tossing of bones to tell the future so they may know what to do, and when to do it. Do you trust your life to tarot cards, John? No? Well, then, how about crystal balls? Or the muttering of a gypsy reading tea leaves or your filthy palms! Do you wonder about the wheeling and juxtaposition of planets and moons that will foretell your ulcers or your love life? Anyone who believes in such things, in luck and charms and amulets and all that idiotic nonsense, can be led to believe in aliens! Especially in aliens, as you put it, blasting their way around the world. So far, I remind you, with spectacular effect and unstoppable fury which, I assure you, we will magnify a thousandfold for those superstitious wretches we must guide to their own future."

  "Another question, then, Master Griffin."

  Griffin ignored the surly tide. "Go on, go on."

  "Tell me why you have been unable to rid us of that pestilence in our plans."

  "I assume you mean the American, this Jones individual."

  "You assume correctly. You have tried, how many times now? Three, maybe four, to eliminate him? And failed?"

  "Twice, I remind you, with your hand-picked assassins," Griffin snapped.

  Scruggs smiled and bowed to acknowledge his own failure. "I submit. Then what keeps this person alive? And why are we so determined to kill him?"

  "Let me answer," broke in Marcia Mason. She explained the meetings she had attended, across the table from Professor Henry Jones, including her verbal entanglements with that insufferable man. "What bothers me is that I have not found it possible to identify so many of the people with whom he works. Certainly that doddering old fossil, Pencroft, from the London university, is hardly a person to coordinate the investigations under way. So there are others. I am convinced Filipo Castilano will sooner or later have to be eliminated. But the others," she clenched her fists in sudden fury, "we still do not know all of them. I am convinced they communicate by codes which we cannot break, and no one knows for certain the entire list of the top people involved."

  They turned as a long sigh came from Griffin. "There is more. I have learned of it only recently. Jones and his group crossed the Atlantic in a Ford airplane. A trimotor with very special modifications for range and performance."

  Scruggs was puzzled. "So?"

  "Jones and his group encountered our ship on the high seas."

  "So they saw the ship." Scruggs shrugged.

  "They did more than that. They dove out of the clouds and they flew right alongside our vessel, even lower than its decks, and from what the deck crew could tell, took many photographs. From those I believe they will be able to divine the nature of the vessel."

  The shrug had become a frown. "That is not good. Our ship can become a target. Even with the undersea boats for protection, it is vulnerable. This is most upsetting, Griffin." Scruggs thought deeply for a moment. "Why didn't you have the discs take care of them? You said their machine was a Ford? The discs are faster by hundreds of miles an hour. Why wasn't their machine destroyed? You also said it was over the ocean. What a perfect opportunity! They would have gone down at sea and been swallowed up in the vastness of the Atlantic."

  "The people flying that machine seemed able to anticipate what the discs would do, how they would fly, and what might be their limitations."

  "By the horned toads of my ancestors, how could they know this!"

  "I do not yet know. But Jones either knows or has deduced far more than what I thought was possible. Remember, he is allied with the keenest technical minds of England and America. But I believe it is his own marvelous grasp of the past and his proven ability to meld many small details into larger facts and conclusions that is so troublesome to us."

  "How can you find out what he knows? The woman has already said their most vital communications are in code."

  "That is simple enough. We will invite him to visit us here," said Griffin. "The time for games is behind us. We have consolidated our position just as we planned originally. So it is time to get rid of Jones, to break apart this group behind him."

  "I thought you were inviting him here," Scruggs said angrily.

  "I did. And we are."

  "If you kill him here it would be the worst mistake yet—"

  "He will not reach here," Griffin answered. "Jones is going to be at the university in London. We know that. We also know he plans a visit to Paris."

  "Which only means," Mason warned, "that if we know his plans, once again we are being allowed to know them."

  "Perhaps. Even likely. He will cross the channel by scheduled steamer. He will have some of his people with him. That ship will never reach France, and neither will Jones."

  15

  The passenger ferry Barclay eased from her slip at Portsmouth and moved along the northern coastline of the Isle of Wight, slowly gathering speed for the cross-channel run to Le Havre. The Barclay carried two hundred and nine passengers, thirty-eight crew members, and various vehicles as well as baggage, mail, and freight cargo. She was a solid vessel, well known on the run between England and France, and the late afternoon passage promised to be especially comfortable with a mild breeze and a sea surface unusually gentle for the English Channel.

  The passenger manifest included the names of Professor Henry Jones of the University of London, his secretary, Frances Smythe, and their servant, Jocko Kilarney, who hovered protectively about Jones and the woman. Anyone catching sight of the trio found it obvious that Jones suffered from a terrible cold, bundled as he was in a heavy overcoat and muffler, a warm hat pulled fully over his head and ears. He sneezed and coughed in a dreadful manner, keeping a large handkerchief by his mouth as he breathed fitfully. Considerate of the other passengers, Jones and his two traveling companions remained by the stern rail, using a protective curving wall to reduce the wind of passage.

  The Barclay was in midchannel when excited calls and shouts rang out through the ferry. Passengers rushed from the interior to the outside decks, pointing at the sky. In the late afternoon sun, glearning golden, reflecting light, cruised the mystery airship. The incredible giant seemed utterly silent against the rumble of the Barclay's engines, the wind from her speed, and the sou
nds of the channel surface against her hull.

  Frances Smythe watched with the others. "I do wish we'd sent up fighters to dispose of that thing," she said to the two men. "Rid ourselves once and for all. People are beginning to believe we can't touch it."

  Intense light flared beneath the golden machine so high above them. In the same instant, a beam of blinding light snapped into being, a pillar of eye-stabbing radiance from the airship directly to the Barclay. The passengers had never seen a light so incredibly bright. It lit up the ferry with the effect of a physical blow, bringing people to cover their eyes, crying out in alarm.

  The light was seen by dozens of other vessels, small and large, at that moment moving across the channel. It flared long enough to bring heads turning for many miles around, and then the onlookers stared in disbelief as a huge ball of flame erupted from the Barclay. From a distance there was yet no sound. Seconds later the force of an enormous explosion boomed across the channel. Moments later the boilers of the Barclay ripped the ferry in two, the secondary blasts claiming most of the people who'd survived the terrible initial explosion.

  The light from the airship was gone, as if a switch had been thrown. There was still unexpected light on the surface of the channel as the flaming remnants of the Barclay began to slip beneath the water, taking more than two hundred men and women with her.

  Pencroft's secretary crossed Dr. Pencroft's office to his private telephone on a side table. On the third ring she picked up the handset. "Yes?"

  Then she turned to the group and nodded to Thomas Treadwell. "Sir? It's your office."

  Treadwell went quickly to the phone. Watching him, Indy, Gale, and Pencroft remained silent as Treadwell listened to the caller for several minutes, interrupting only with terse questions. Henshaw, who had arrived in England by ocean liner only that morning, paced nervously. Foulois and Cromwell were occupied at the aerodrome nearby.

  Finally Treadwell said, "Right. I'll be at this number for a while. Call me immediately with anything new."

  He slowly replaced the telephone on its stand. A subdued click was followed by a tired exhalation. "That ruddy well does it," he said, his face reflecting inner anguish. "It's the Barclay. She was blown apart by that airship. No ghost that. Sent down some kind of light beam, extraordinarily intense from the initial reports, and the Barclay was torn in half. Took most of her people with her."

  Sir William Pencroft trembled from age, fatigue, and the blow of the news. He looked from Treadwell to Colonel Harry Henshaw. His eyes traveled to Gale Parker, whose impassive look concealed her own feelings. Her eyes were like deep glass marbles, and she sat like a stone.

  Treadwell turned to his side. "You're dead, you know," he said to Professor Henry Jones.

  Indy didn't answer for the moment. He knew the minuscule odds of Frances Smythe and Jocko Kilarney surviving the ghastly explosion and swift sinking of the Barclay. Indy shook off the pall of death hanging in the room.

  "Any word? I mean, about our people?" he asked finally.

  "Your double is confirmed," Treadwell said, forcing himself to remain distant from personal loss. "He was one of our best men. One of the ships that picked up some of the survivors found his body. With your identification, of course."

  "Frances?"

  "No word. I'm sorry, Indy. As soon as we hear anything—"

  Gale Parker emerged from the self-induced isolation that she used to finally subdue her emotions. "Jocko. Has anybody had any news about Jocko? He'd be impossible to miss, and—"

  "Miss Parker, we have every available person and search team out there right now," Treadwell said carefully. "Many of the people aboard the ferry were, well, they were—"

  "I'm well acquainted with death, sir," Gale said stiffly. "You're trying to tell us that many of the people were blown apart, or incinerated, or were trapped in the wreckage, and they're at the bottom of the channel."

  "Yes," Treadwell said. There was no need to elaborate.

  Indy turned to Treadwell. "A great many people died this afternoon because this insane group is after me," he said, painfully aware of the grievous loss. "If they didn't believe I was on that ferry, they would never have blown up that ship."

  "You're wrong, Professor," Treadwell said quickly.

  "How?" Indy demanded. "You know they set me up with that invitation to meet with their top people. Why, I don't know, but we all agreed to go ahead anyway." Deep furrows lined his brow. "But why would they destroy the ferry? They didn't need to kill all those people. And I could just as well be one of the survivors." He looked from Treadwell to Henshaw for answers, then returned his gaze to the British intelligence agent.

  "The attack this afternoon had a double purpose," Treadwell said. "We've been aware that this group has been setting up a very public demonstration of their power—"

  Pencroft coughed for attention, trying to speak, but his throat emitted only a feeble rattle. Immediately someone held a glass of water to his lips. Gale rested her hand on that of the elderly man. "May I?" she said. Pencroft nodded.

  "I've stayed out of most conversations," Gale said stiffly. "But now it's time for a question. I've heard you discussing the how and why and the means these people use when they strike at us. And Indy—Professor Jones—has more than once made it clear that one of the flaws in their operations has been that they use the same weapons we use. Until now, that is."

  Pencroft had found his voice. "What do you mean by that?"

  "Tonight they used some kind of radiation beam!" Gale said with a burst of anger. "I've listened to the reports Mr. Treadwell repeated for us. That airship, whatever it is, still races about the sky without a sign of any engines. But with the ferry, the airship aimed some kind of ray, a beam of energy, I don't know," she said, exasperated, "and it blew up the Barclay!" She was pleading for an answer. "We don't have anything even remotely like that!"

  "We know what it was, Gale," Henshaw said quietly, bringing surprise to the group. Henshaw turned to Treadwell. "This is your ball game, Tom. Sorry."

  Treadwell nodded. "The only energy in that beam, that so-called ray-gun apparatus as some of the press are already describing it," he said, "was ordinary light. Oh, it was boosted to a rather extraordinary intensity, but that was all. Strictly for effect."

  Gale was taken aback. She looked to Indy, but he was paying close attention to every word Treadwell was saying. "We had sufficient observation of the event today," the Englishman explained. "The Barclay was torn up by a huge amount of explosives that had been placed in the engine compartment. It was rigged to be set off by a discreet radio signal. Today was their big show, so to speak. They picked a time with good visibility, so that what happened would be seen by a great many people. They turned on their beam—consider it an extraordinarily powerful searchlight—and focused as tightly as possible, and when that light attracted enough attention, they transmitted their radio signal to detonate the explosive charges."

  He leaned back in his seat. "A ghastly sort of demonstration, I admit, but that is all it was. Forgive me for being seemingly uncaring. I'm not. But my job is to discover just what happened. What I've told you is what happened. Oh, we'll have confirmation. We immediately sent an aircraft—we've kept several ready to go at a moment's notice—into the smoke from the blast, and I'm quite sure when we do a particulate study, spectrographic and all that, that we'll find quite ordinary remnants of common explosives. Now," he pulled himself upright in his seat, "do let me go on."

  He looked to Indy. "This charade has worked very well, Indy."

  Gale couldn't help a bitter interruption. "Charade?"

  "Let me," Indy told Treadwell. "I don't want even a hint of mistaken credit here." He turned to Gale and Pencroft. "You see, for a great deal of what's been going on, I was way over my head. I'm not a pilot, but," he smiled thinly, "you already know that, Gale. Everything I've done has been calculated to mislead this group we're after. The more we could get them to concentrate on us—you, me, Cromwell, and Foulois, and for
a while, Tarkiz—the more they were led to believe I was the kingpin in all this. Figuring out what was going on, confirming that this idea of alien spacecraft was so much baloney—"

  "Rubbish, all right," muttered Pencroft.

  "Exactly like the artifacts. The cube and the pyramids," Indy stressed. "Actually, we had a bunch of them to be used if we needed them, but the trap worked right from the beginning. In fact, the cube with those South African diamonds had nothing to do with this group flying the zeppelin and those discs, because we didn't even know about them at the time. But Treadwell has also worked with the De Beers outfit and others, just like I have. That, in fact, is how we first got together."

  Treadwell nodded affirmation and picked up Indy's thread of explanation. "So we also made certain that the people we were after, even if we could not yet identify them, would know of the existence of one Professor Henry Jones and his great skills in deciphering cuneiform inscriptions. That meant they must go after Indy, and, in doing so, might well reveal themselves to us. At first, of course, they would want him alive and cooperative. But once they found out we'd slipped them the old Mickey and were playing a bit on the dirty side, why, then they were sure to try to eliminate our good friend, here."

  "You all seemed very fast and easy with his life!" Gale said angrily.

  "That was my choice, Gale," Indy emphasized. "Nobody went into this wearing a blindfold. Besides," he grinned, "I had you along to protect me, right?"

  "The point, Miss Parker," Treadwell followed hastily, "is that Indy's cooperation was really our only quick way to get this crowd to show some cracks in their anonymity."

  "Ah," Pencroft said pleasantly, more and more pleased with what he judged to be his own role in the affair. "That's one of the reasons behind our arranging that trimotor machine. On the record, you see, the university, as well as our museum, accepted the cost for that aircraft. It, too, was bait. You can hardly hide a corrugated clanker like that when it traverses the Atlantic! Pack of fools, too, I say. That's what I told them when they laid bare their schemes."