The chutter of a helicopter became louder. They retreated under several bushes and stayed motionless while the craft circled around and around near them. Suddenly, a hawk flying at near top speed flew over them, turned, and shot back. But it had spied the dead hawk on the ground. It flew around and around until the chopper nudged it away and hovered over the spot.
“They know we’re close!” Pauncho said.
Doc did not reply. He had moved the box around and now had zeroed in on the hawk. He pressed a button, and the hawk, zigzagging crazily, flew off. But it returned a moment later on a straight course.
“I set up the circuit to trigger its fear center,” Doc said. “There isn’t any button on this particular instrument panel for that, but the circuits can be arranged to stimulate fear if the button is pushed.”
The hawk circled again, apparently again under control by the enemy. The copter moved toward them with rifle and heavy machine gun barrels sticking out of the ports. Doc pressed the button again, and the hawk wheeled swiftly and ran head-on into the nose of the craft. It bounced off and fell suddenly into a tree.
Doc spoke to Barney while still looking at the screen as he moved the box to try to pick up another bird. “Move slowly. Give me a grenade.”
Barney extracted a pressed-down grenade from a big pocket in his vest. It expanded to its tennis ball size as he opened his fist to hand it over. Caliban slowly squatted down, laid the box on the ground, and took the grenade. He waited for the chopper to come close enough so that the men in it could discern them under the bushes. Pauncho and Barney had readied their FNs. Doc Caliban said, “Save your ammunition unless I miss. We’ll need all we have if the other choppers come after us.”
But the chopper swung away westward. They got away as fast as they could at an angle down the mountainside. The roar of a chopper was suddenly on them, and then, a moment later, a wind struck the forest. It was the storm.
Lightning veined the dark eye of the sky. Thunder cannonaded. The chopper dipped as the first fist of the wind struck it. It went on over the two cars parked on the other side of the road, swung out over the valley, rose straight up, and then beat a path against the increasing wind back up the mountain slope.
The air whistled through the limbs of the trees, which thrashed like the arms of men trying to keep warm. Pauncho yelled, “Good thing that storm hit when it did! They must have known we were here when they saw those cars! Anyway, they would’ve landed and checked out the registration and then they wouldn’t have stopped till they found us!”
“Why always tell us the obvious?” Barney howled. He and Pauncho grinned at each other, happy because the storm had saved them.
Doc told the others they should wait until it got even darker or until rain came. Though the choppers were probably being tied down in the clearing by the house, men might have been sent up into a tree to survey the road. And if they saw the two cars driving away, they might send a chopper out after them, wind or no wind.
In ten minutes the rain came down half-frozen. The black asphalted road became grayish white with the first drops and then black as the drops melted. They left the woods and got into the cars. Doc ordered that they return to Gramzdorf, since that was the last thing that the enemy would expect them to do. Their rooms were still available, since they had not cancelled them.
Doc drove his own car with Carlos Cobbs and Barbara Villiers as passengers. He was silent for half the journey back and then he said, “Are you up to going with us tonight?”
“Where are you going?” Cobbs said.
“I intend to get into Iwaldi’s place again. I could find the place where you two fell in when you were digging, but it would be quicker if you pointed it out for me.”
“I’ll be glad to!” Cobbs said. He lit up an American cigarette. “I owe that insane goblin a debt. But I still don’t know why you don’t just call in the authorities.”
“They would just come in and look around and then depart without doing a thing,” Doc said. “Unless we had some evidence that they could not overlook. You can bet that Iwaldi has cleaned up the mess in the castle and buried the bodies someplace. And you can bet that he would bring pressure to bear in the highest political circles to keep the police out. What must be done will be done by us.”
“Or by this organization that von Zarndirl belongs to?”
“They may try again tonight, storm or no,” Doc said.
The car rocked with the wind’s buffets. The half-rain, half-snow splopped on the windshield and was carved away by the wipers. Doc was driving at about fifteen miles an hour because of the limited visibility and the wetness of the road.
“I don’t want to be left behind just because I’m a woman,” Barbara said.
“The invitation included you.”
He turned on the headlights.
She patted Caliban’s huge arm and said, “I like your trusting a frail vessel such as myself.”
Doc flicked a sidewise look at her but he did not reply. She had not shown the slightest sign of fear or hysteria, and outside the house she had picked up an automatic rifle and checked it out as if she were a veteran soldier.
He drove for several miles more in silence, wondering why they did not ask more questions. He was taking a chance by bringing them along if they were agents for the Nine. They might get an opportunity to trip him up. But if he left them at the village, he would not be able to keep his eye on them.
The storm continued for hours after they got back to the inn in Gramzdorf. Cobbs and Villiers went to their rooms. Barney immediately set up the radio in the bathroom. The contact man in Paris reported that no word from Lady Grandrith had been received. But he did have a message from Lord Grandrith. It had been sent by an operator for the Nine while Grandrith held a gun to his head.
Grandrith’s communications, as usual, were more than cut to the bone. They went all the way to the marrow. He had been met by a big party of men out to kill him, and he had eluded them so far. He would be going on, as planned, on foot. It was doubtful that Caliban would hear from him again for several months. Caliban wished that Grandrith had added more details. Then he smiled slightly. His half-brother was no more taciturn than he was. Both talked as little as possible. But his brother did so because he had been raised in the jungle with sentients who did not converse much after they became adults. And he had spent much time with himself during the formative years. Grandrith’s close-mouthedness was “natural.” Caliban’s was the result of his father’s training and was “artificial.” And also “neurotic.” There were times when it was clearly to everyone’s benefit to talk much, and he found it difficult to do so then. He did, however, talk vicariously through the pseudohateful banter of Barney and Pauncho, as he had done with their fathers. Though their insults sometimes irritated him, he needed the two men.
Von Zarndirl, having received another injection, slept on Doc’s bed. Pauncho brought up more food from the kitchen after observing its preparation. He grinned as he told about the curious looks that the chefs gave him and how he had pacified a waiter with a huge tip.
“They think we’re crazy, and of course they’re talking about us. Half the village must know we’re acting very peculiarly.”
“We’ll move out at nine o’clock,” Doc said. “According to Cobbs, the cave-in is only two miles from here, on the north side of the mountain and about 2,000 feet below the castle.”
At nine o’clock the storm had been dead for an hour. The wind was gentle but icy; the clouds were ragged, passing below the moon slowly as if they were battle-torn veterans on parade.
Von Zarndirl, taped and gagged, slept on the floor of the bathroom. The others, bundled up in climbing clothes, carrying alpenstocks and various boxes, went out a side door of the inn. They tromped through the slushy streets to where they had left the cars. After examining them for booby traps, they opened the doors and got out their rifles. They put on the caps with the blacklight projectors and their goggles and began tramping up the mountain
, Cobbs leading. Water fell on them as they passed under the low branches of trees or by bushes. The earth was often slippery under them, but they dug in with their stocks and slogged on up.
Cobbs stopped for a moment and said, “It’s about a quarter mile ahead.”
“We’ll go more cautiously now,” Doc Caliban said. “Iwaldi is no dummy. He’ll have backtracked after he caught you and either shut up the entrance or stationed a guard there.”
They started walking again. The moon came out. Doc, looking up, saw the first of the big winged shapes. The broad beam from the projector revealed lammergeiers, the eagles of the Alps. There seemed to be dozens, and all were heading toward them.
He said, “Look out above!” and shifted the metal box he had been carrying on a strap around his shoulder to a position on his chest. “Don’t fire!” he said. He pressed a button on the top of the box and held it there.
None of the humans could hear the noise that was broadcast from the box, but the eagles turned and flapped away swiftly to escape the eardrum-paining frequencies.
Immediately after, Barney said, “Doc! Wolves!”
Doc looked up and saw the first of the big beasts bounding over a bush to their left. But it was not a wolf. It was a large blackish German shepherd dog. Behind him came three more and behind them six big Doberman pinschers. Their mouths were open, revealing their sharp teeth, but they uttered no sounds.
A few minutes later, they turned and bounded away as if they had seen a pack of tigers.
Doc and his party climbed on toward the excavation, taking advantage of every bit of cover. The eagles and the dogs would undoubtedly be back. The noise had momentarily overcome the stimulus of the microcurrent in the hostility area of their brain. But once they were out of the influence of the supersonic frequencies, they would return.
“How can they see us, Doc?” Pauncho said. “I mean, how can the operators of the control boxes see much through the eyes of the animals in this dark?”
“I doubt they’re using TV tonight,” he said. “It’s too hard to keep the narrow beams locked in under these conditions. They probably are just transmitting the code that turns on the juice to the aggression areas of the brain and letting the animals attack whatever they come across.”
“I hope so, Doc,” Pauncho said. “If they can spot us through the eyes of the birds, we’re going to have a hard time.”
“Here they come again,” Caliban said. He had turned the sound generator off so that the animals would not be affected until they got close.
The eagles, their only noise the flapping of their wings, and the dogs, their only noise the brushing aside of the wet rain-covered plants, came in swiftly. They had but one intention: to tear apart these strangers in the dark.
Then Doc pressed the button, and the dogs whirled so fast they slipped in the mud and fell on their sides or scrabbled desperately to keep from sliding on down the slope. The eagles veered away and were swallowed by the night.
A minute later, the birds and the dogs were charging in again.
Thirty seconds later, they were frenziedly trying to get away from the invisible agony.
“How long’s this going on, Doc?”
“Until something—or somebody—breaks,” Caliban said.
Pauncho knew it was useless to ask him to elaborate.
The next time, the birds came in first and the dogs did not appear until the birds had been turned away.
“They’re catching on,” Barney muttered.
“And probably moving in on us,” Pauncho said.
“Isn’t it really too risky to stay in this one spot?” Cobbs said. “I think we should be moving about a bit.”
“That’s up to you,” Doc said. He pressed the button again as the first of the birds appeared. This time they kept on coming and had almost reached them, with Doc saying, “Hold your fire!” when they broke and flew upward.
The dogs bounded down the slope again, just as the birds turned away. Doc said, “Hold your fire on these, too, unless you can stick your guns down their throats.”
“The whites of their eyes, heh, only closer yet?” Pauncho said.
Some of the dogs slipped in the mud and slid into them. The others turned away just before the final leaps and went crashing into or over the bushes and down the hill.
Three dogs hurtled in, sidewise or fangs first, and Pauncho and Barney slammed one each over the head or the back and then kicked them on down the hill. Cobbs and Villiers hit a dog at the same time with the barrel of their rifles, breaking its ribs.
Doc said, “It ought to be over soon, one way or the other.”
“What makes them voiceless?” Pauncho said. “I looked in the neck of a bird with its throat cut open back at the house on the mountain, and its vocal cords were all there.”
“I saw you,” Doc said. “But I supposed you’d guessed the answer. There are a number of electrodes at various areas of the brain. During the time that the animal is released for attack, its voice centers are inhibited.”
“I wondered about that,” Cobbs said. “But things have been happening so fast, I didn’t have time to ask about it.”
“I just supposed their vocal cords had been cut,” Barbara said.
The others did not comment. Pauncho had asked Doc about the lack of voice after the attack by the wolves in the castle and Doc had given his opinion. But after the attack of the birds at the house on the mountain, he had told his colleagues not to mention anything about the characteristics of the animals. He had wanted to determine if the English couple would be curious about the strange lack of cries from the animals. If they did not comment, they might refrain because they knew the reason.
On the other hand, it was true that events had come one after the other and might have distracted them. But Barbara seemed to be a very stable and self-possessed person, and Cobbs, though he showed some apprehension, was far from hysterical.
The birds came first and the surviving dogs, going much slower because they had to climb uphill in muddy earth, attacked simultaneously. This time the wings of the eagles beat so close that the tips of some touched their faces. But the birds swerved again and shot back overhead. The dogs turned tail when they were still a few feet from closing with the party.
“I’d think they’d go crazy,” Barney said. “They’re being pulled apart by the opposing drives.”
“They may yet,” Doc answered.
About two minutes later the birds came in again, and this time Caliban turned off the sound generator for a few seconds after they had wheeled around to go in the other direction. The dogs then had nothing to stop them except the weapons of the party. While the others knocked the dogs on the head as they struggled uphill to get at them, Doc Caliban pressed a button on the other box, which had been on the ground by him. He had rearranged its circuits so that the aggressive areas of the brains would be stimulated.
The others did not notice what he was doing since they were concentrating on smashing in the dogs’ skulls or backbones and doing a good job of it. He had not told them his plan, since he never confided to anyone unless he needed cooperation.
There were yells and screams to the right up the mountain, and then rifles and pistols banged away. Doc indulged himself with a broad smile. The others had their backs turned and would not be able to see him.
He switched off the aggression transmitter and turned on the sound generator. The two surviving dogs leaped backward down the hill as if they had stepped on a red-hot plate. One turned over and kept on sliding. The other regained his feet and fled.
“What’s going on, Doc?” Pauncho said, jerking a thumb in the direction of the gunfire.
“As soon as the birds were deflected again, and presumably heading back toward the men who’d launched them, I switched off the noise generator and turned the aggression stimulation on. The birds, of course, attacked the first living things they saw, which were our enemies.”
“Fabulous!” Pauncho rumbled. “I wish I had one of t
hose hemispheres stuck on Barney’s head. Then I could keep him from making a monkey of himself.”
“Since when does a monkey’s uncle know anything about proper behavior?” Barney said.
“The conflict of noise generator versus aggression stimulation might have driven them mad, anyway,” Doc said. He led the way toward the groanings and whimperings drifting ghostily through the bushes. Approaching cautiously, they found six men on the ground, all alive but three totally unconscious and the others semiconscious. The birds were all dead, since they had not ceased to attack until killed. The onslaught had been so unexpected that none of the men had had time, or opportunity, to turn off the aggression stimulator. The birds had tried for the face and the throat and had blinded four. One man died of a ripped jugular vein while Doc was examining him.
After giving the survivors a shot to ensure that they would be unconscious for a long time, the party picked up some more magazines for their rifles and stuffed them in their capacious pockets. Pauncho and Barney threw the extra rifles down the mountain, and they continued climbing. They did not have far to go. Cobbs stopped suddenly, grunted, and said, “There it is.”
In the blacklight of their projectors they could see the trenches that the two archaeologists had dug.
“Where’s the cave-in?” Pauncho said.
“It’s not there any more,” Barbara Villiers said.
Doc began to poke his alpenstock into the bottoms of the trenches but stopped. He had heard the far-off chutter of helicopter vanes. He resumed probing and then said, “It’s been walled up.”
“Where’d those men come from?” Villiers said.
Doc did not reply. He took from a side pocket of his vest a tiny instrument and, holding it in his hand, began to walk back and forth for twenty yards each way. He worked his way up the mountain while she wondered aloud what he was doing. Since neither of his colleagues were sure, they did not answer her.
The Mad Goblin_Secrets of the Nine Page 9