Twisted Cross

by Maloney, Mack;

  Tyler took a long swig of the Mexican firewater. They had been arguing the same points over and over all night. Now the sun was coming up. “It’s more complicated than that,” he said. “They’re entrenched and the bulk of our forces are hundreds of miles from the Canal Zone. Whatever action takes place, there is undoubtedly going to be a heavy loss of life. Our top man, General Dave Jones, is the kind of guy who would do anything humanly possible to prevent unnecessary bloodshed.”

  “Does that include playing footsies with Nazis?” Burke asked sarcastically.

  Now it was Tyler’s turn to get angry. “You’re out of line, Lieutenant,” he told the man sternly. “You don’t know Jones. The fucking guy is George Washington, Abe Lincoln and FDR all rolled into one. You couldn’t have a better guy in your corner…”

  “Is that right?” Burke drunkenly spouted off again. “Then what about your famous Hawk Hunter? Where the hell is he during all this?”

  Tyler eyed his partner Crockett and shook his head slowly. “Like we told you, he’s on a very sensitive mission,” Tyler said finally. “We really can’t say anymore than that.”

  “This is bullshit!” Burke exploded. “I knew it was a big mistake listening to these guys.”

  “Hang on, Lieutenant,” Dantini interrupted. He then turned to Tyler.

  “You’ve got to remember that we were hired to do a job here,” he said. “We have people—landowners, businessmen—both in Panama and in Big Banana, who are laying a lot of money on us, for the sole purpose of us attacking the Nazis. What are we supposed to tell them? The Big Powers are negotiating, so it’s ‘fuck you?’”

  “No,” Crockett said. “You tell them to be patient. Hang on. See what happens…”

  “How long?” Dantini asked. “How long do we wait?”

  “Until we get the word from DC,” Tyler said. “Whatever it may be…”

  “Great,” Burke huffed. “So now we have to sit around for what another two weeks? Or two months? Or two years? Doing nothing?”

  “No one said anything about ‘doing nothing,’ Lieutenant,” Tyler told the man. “In fact, there are some very important things we have to do while these talks are going on.

  “In fact, that’s why we’re here…”

  Chapter 44

  ELIZABETH WAS AMAZED THAT she had actually been allowed to take a bath.

  Like Krupp, she too had been carried out of the caves on a stretcher, and given first aid by the camp doctor. Truth was, there was nothing really wrong with her as a result of being in the cavern for nearly 24 hours—many times in her school work, she’d stayed in caves up to four to five days at a time. But the doctor, who was actually a South African, was hard-pressed yet compelled by his profession to recommend something. So he prescribed that she should take a bath and be fed a hot meal.

  To this end, her guards somehow rustled up a plastic three-foot tub and set it up behind the doctor’s tent, which was right beside the Grand Pyramid at Uxmaluna. They even erected a hastily-built curtain and some sheets, then provided her with three, five-gallon drums filled with lukewarm water. When she lied to one of them and said that the doctor insisted she use soap, one man went off and returned five minutes later with a bar of strong laundry soap. She didn’t mind—at that point she would have bathed in pure lye.

  So she scrubbed herself over and over again until the water was cool and murky. Then she rinsed and dressed in the size-small uniform they had provided for her. Well-clothed and clean for the first time in weeks, she stepped out from behind the curtain, expecting her guards to be waiting with handcuffs and hood once again.

  But they weren’t…

  The guards had left her. They were gone, hoping to be closer to the activity near the entrance to the tunnel which led to the chamber full of gold.

  It was amazing what the fever could do to people, she thought.

  Before she had led the Nazis to the huge gold find, she was dirty, beaten, starved, always in handcuffs, always hooded and nearly raped on several occasions. It had been a group effort on their part. But now there was a new “crowd mentality” at work. Drying her hair, she walked, casually and unescorted, back to the truck that had been her prison. Guards and officers passed her, yet no one said a word. The tons of gold in the tunnel cavern deep beneath Grand Uxmaluna were all that mattered. It had become their whole world, their entire existence. For the moment at least, they didn’t even know she was there.

  She was fascinated at the flip-flop in group dynamics. Testing the theory, she walked, again unescorted, to the mess tent, and simply told the cooks that the doctor had prescribed a hot meal for her. To her amazement, they not only rustled her up a plate of scrambled eggs and a pot of black coffee, one of them even carried it back to her truck for her! She dismissed the man with as much authority as she could muster. Then closing the curtains on the back of the vehicle herself, she dove into the meal with giddy abandon.

  Ever since she had been taken out of the cave, the camp had been a beehive of activity. Helicopters carrying Party bigwigs were shuttling in and out. A TV video crew had arrived and were trying to figure out how much cable they would need to get a direct feed from the chamber to the satellite dish they had brought in on a giant Soviet-made Hook helicopter. From there, the video signal would be bounced back to Panama City and presumably, to the High Commander’s personal set.

  She had briefly considered bolting into the woods and escaping, but in the same instant knew that even the thought of it was foolhardy. She wouldn’t have made it a mile before she would have been caught—not by the Nazi guards but by the mortal dangers of the jungle itself. If some poisonous snake or spider didn’t get her, then the deep underbrush, with its many opportunities for breaking arms or legs, or for ripping flesh, would have. Once lame or bleeding, a larger animal would seek her out. Once thirsty, only disease-bearing water could be drunk. Once hungry, nothing could be eaten.

  So she had to stay—but not only to survive. There was a cloud of an idea forming in the dark recesses of her mind. Didn’t some measure of retribution have to be delivered here? Had the tables so turned? Something had happened to her down in that cave with Krupp, something she could feel but not describe. It had started with a noise. Something went snap! deep within her brain. She had heard it—clearly, distinctly—in between the time Krupp passed out and when she had been able to revive the failing lantern. She had sat in the complete darkness all that time, reliving the horrible hours that they had forced her to stay in the caves, tied and blindfolded.

  But this time, she heard something go snap! And she was never the same after that…

  Suddenly it all made sense. Together, both she and Krupp became a little madder than they had been before. It was how they reacted to it that made the difference. When plunged into total darkness, the Nazi officer had started hallucinating. Then he had tried to scratch his eyes out.

  Accustomed to the inky black, she had started plotting…

  Having finished her meal, Elizabeth sat on the tailgate of her truck and watched the strange show around the entrance to the cave. It looked just like a beehive, people flitting in and out, each one with the mask of joyful determination on his face. What was it? Did the guards and the underlings think The Twisted Cross was going to split the booty evenly among them? Did any of them actually think they would get even a nugget of the gold? She didn’t know. She just sat and watched.

  Ten minutes went by when she saw a very curious, almost humorous sight. It was another person being brought out of the cave on a stretcher. A closer look revealed that the person was the smelly little man named Strauberg. She would learn later that upon seeing the tons of gold in the chamber, the man had fainted dead away.

  Also coming out of the cave entrance were two Party members who were obviously well-schooled in archaeology. She knew this because they were the only ones to go down to the chamber dressed in the right apparel and carrying the right equipment. Now these two men were approaching her, accompanied by a pair of gu
ards who were carrying two of the gold bowl-like ingots.

  “We need your advice,” one of the men said, even pausing to tip his hat to her. “These ingots were found at the top of the first two stacks along the far wall. You can see there are inscriptions on both of them. We believe the top ingot in each pile is marked this way. But these are glyphs we cannot possibly hope to read.”

  She took the first ingot and set it down on the tailgate. Sure enough, there were several lines of glyphs imprinted into the gold. The second ingot had identical writing.

  “Can you read them?” the second officer asked.

  “I’m not sure,” she lied, running her finger over the animal-like figure writing. Actually she could read the Pre-Classic Mayan language almost as easily as she could read English. Still she said: “I will need some time with them… alone.”

  The two officers looked at each other and shrugged. “Study them, please,” the man who tipped his hat to her said. Then he nodded to the guards and all four men left.

  “And you’ll call us when you have something?” the other officer asked as they walked away.

  “Of course, I will,” she answered with a smile.

  Time passed and a ominous dark thunderstorm blew up. The wind whipped through the trees surrounding the grand pyramid, and the rain came down without mercy. The entrance to the cave seemed to be the shelter of choice for many of those at the camp. So few people if any took notice when Elizabeth left her truck and walked over to the one belonging to Colonel Krupp.

  Reading the glyphs had been easy, as she knew it would be. Interpreting them was another matter. But in the course of twenty minutes she was sure she had it figured out. And the truth be known, she had made one of the most earth-shattering discoveries in the realm of Ancient American studies.

  But this was hardly foremost in her mind at the moment. Self-preservation, or more accurately a return to self-realization, was more important. She was prepared to go to great lengths just to prove to herself that she was a person again. Any lengths. Her thinking was twisted, there was no denying that. But it was nothing new. The spiral had started during her three years of living with her father on the isolated ranch near El Paso. That would knock the flowers off anyone’s wall. Being kidnapped by the Nazis, accumulating all those days bound and gagged, a hood around her head, sitting in damp caves, certain that death would be preferable, was all very traumatic. But, in the end, it had only drawn her closer to a madness she already considered an acquaintance.

  “I don’t want to die here,” she kept telling herself. And she wasn’t so delusional not to recognize that it was just a matter of time before one of the Twisted Cross high officials realized that she was still around and now very expendable. That’s when things would revert back, she whispered to herself. And when it happened, she had little doubt she’d be led out to the woods and, like her father, shot twice in the back of the head.

  And it was this that she vowed would not happen…

  There was no guard at Krupp’s truck.

  She knocked three times hard on the door. There was no reply. Three more times, she heard stirring inside, but still nothing. A third series of knocks and she heard Krupp’s whiny voice call out: “What is it, guard?”

  “It’s me,” she said simply. Calling out her name wasn’t necessary; she was the only woman in camp.

  The door opened a crack and Krupp peeked out.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, obviously flabbergasted to see her.

  “We have to talk… now,” she whispered. “While there is still time…”

  She would really never know exactly why Krupp decided to let her in. Under the circumstances, it seemed like a very foolish thing to do.

  Yet she stepped inside and took a good, long look at him.

  She knew he was almost gone—like her, almost over the brink. She would have to move fast.

  “Did you hear that they found some writing on some of the ingots?” she asked him.

  Surprised that she would talk to him in a civil tone, he stumbled to find words and couldn’t. Finally he just shook his head no.

  “Well, it’s true,” she said. “And you want to know some thing? I’m the only one here who knows what the writing means.” He was sweating, his eyes were dilated and there was still a hint of the foamy drool running from the sides of his mouth. In all, he looked disgusting. But she couldn’t let that deter her.

  “The writing actually tells where more gold is hidden,” she began. “More than we found today.”

  “That’s impossible,” he said in a weakened voice.

  “No, it’s true,” she said. “I know where there is more. Much more. And I want you to take me there.”

  She stunned him—it was all over his face. What was going on here? his eyes said. Didn’t she hate him? Hate him enough to kill him?

  “Take you there?” he asked. “Why would I want to do that? What benefit would it be for me?”

  It was the question she had been waiting for.

  She reached up and slowly began unbuttoning her shirt.

  “What… what are you doing?” he asked, choking on his words.

  She didn’t answer him. She just watched his eyes go wide with her action. And when the floppy uniform was open, she slowly pulled it back to reveal her lovely, well-formed breasts.

  “This is what you’ve wanted all along, Colonel,” she told him. “So now take it…”

  Chapter 45

  THE KINGFISHER HAD JUST ridden out a violent thunderstorm when Hunter noticed the two blips on his radar screen.

  “Damn!” he whispered. “I have a feeling this ain’t going to be good.”

  The commodore crawled up beside him and also saw the radar blips.

  “They come our way?” he asked.

  Hunter did a couple of quick adjustments to the radar set, but he really didn’t have to. His brain was buzzing in afterburner. The aircraft were coming their way—and fast. He could feel it in his bones. And his sixth sense was telling him that they weren’t friendly.

  “Strap in, Brother David,” Hunter said, arming all the airplane’s weapons. “We’re in for a fight.”

  “Commodore!” the monk cried out. “Come back and help me load this gun.”

  Hunter switched on his ECM package and started emitting right away. But he knew it was too late to fool the oncoming jets.

  “Christ,” he murmured as he looked out on the southwestern horizon. “There they are.”

  Three seconds after he said it, two unmistakable shapes appeared over the horizon. The turned-up wings, the reverse-V tail section, the dirty brown exhaust. “And they’re Goddamn Phantoms.”

  He put the Kingfisher into a dive—not a steep one, more slow and “routine.” Within 30 seconds he was cruising just 50 feet above the jungle’s treetops.

  But this didn’t discourage the Phantoms—nor had he thought it would.

  Both F-4s spotted him at the beginning of his descent and now they peeled off and streaked down toward him.

  “Brother David? You got a handle on that gun back there?” Hunter yelled back.

  “I have!” came the reply.

  “He has,” the commodore added.

  “Okay, here’s the plan,” Hunter told them. “They’re going to come down for a look-see before they decide to blast us. Let’s just play innocent until I give the word.”

  Sure enough, within ten seconds the two Phantoms had slowed and pulled up about a quarter mile in back of the World War II-vintage floatplane.

  Hunter continued to fly straight ahead, pretending not to notice. “Get ready,” he called back to David and the commodore. “Play dumb…”

  The two F-4s moved up a little closer. “Are they Skinheads?” Hunter called back to the monk.

  “No,” came the answer. “These airplanes bear the emblem of The Twisted Cross. The Skinheads fly unmarked aircraft.”

  That was a valuable piece of information, Hunter thought, lowering his altitude even further. By th
is time both of the fighter-bombers were right up on them.

  “Steady, boys,” Hunter cautioned. “When I give you the word, Brother, open up on the nose of the nearest airplane.”

  “On the nose?” came the question.

  “That’s right,” Hunter answered. “Make it quick and don’t let up until you have to, okay?”

  “Yes,” came the stoic reply.

  For Hunter’s part he was just hoping that he could give Brother David the word to fire before the Phantom pilots noticed that his flying antique was carrying a Vulcan cannon, a few racks of air-to-surface missiles, a 50-caliber machine gun sticking out its back, two mini-Sidewinders on its wingtips and a bristle of radio, infra-red and advanced-seek radar antennas poking out at various points on the wings and fuselage.

  Although he was flying low, he had the Kingfisher’s throttle opened all the way. Still the Phantoms were now almost even with him. Soon they would realize that the strange black object sticking out the top of the fuselage’s midsection was really a deadly 50-caliber machine gun. But even when Brother David opened up on them, they would still have to back off or peel away completely in order to get a shot back at the old airplane. And that would take time. Hunter planned to use every second of it to his advantage.

  “Get ready, Brother…” he called out. “Steady… steady… Now!”

  Instantly the noise of the big fifty going off inside the compartment nearly deafened them all. His ears ringing, Hunter immediately yanked back on the control stick and put the Kingfisher into a rivet-popping climb. All the while, Brother David was pouring fire into the lead Phantom. Before its pilot could pull away, the big fifty’s bullets had luckily found the F-4’s nosecone—the home for the airplane’s radar and the brains of its weapons control system.

  The wounded F-4 finally pulled up and away, for a second streaking right by the also-climbing Kingfisher. As Hunter hoped, the second F-4 started to climb also, slower than his companion so as to get a clean shot at the seaplane. That’s when Hunter knew he had to play his ace card.