The body had not, contrary to the fevered imaginings of pulp writers, been picked clean by the birds. Though, from what Anthony could see, they’d tried their best. Where bone was visible beneath the ragged lumps of gristle and sun-poached muscle, he could make out the marks of beaks and talons. The victim had been tied to the roof of the shack he crouched on much like the more vocal—and still breathing—prisoner across the way, and left, likely for the two birds which were gliding down toward the latter. The man in the fur coat drew a vicious looking knife from somewhere about his person and held it up to catch the firelight. The bound man began to struggle and curse. Anthony knew he had to do something.
Below, one of the kidnappers stood up suddenly, bottle in hand. Anthony, startled, dropped into a crouch. The shack roof creaked and buckled loudly at the sudden movement. Anthony froze, still crouched over the mangled corpse. The tall man in the fur coat swept out his hand in a silent command. The others rose hurriedly, if unsteadily to their feet, bottles discarded in favour of pistols and clubs.
“Say fellows, mind if I take a pull off that bottle?” Gentry called out loudly from between two outbuildings on the other side of the fire. Men spun and, with much loud cursing, those who had pistols were emptying them with enthusiasm in the direction Gentry’s voice had come from. Anthony took advantage of the distraction. With practiced speed, he whipped his belt off and gave the buckle a twist, splitting it into two weighted sections. He whirled the makeshift bolos over his head and sent them spinning toward the man in the fur coat. His aim was perfect, and the tall man flew backwards as if he’d been snatched off the roof.
Anthony leapt down, amongst the still-distracted men below, and charged into the knot of them. For a moment, he became a human typhoon, striking out with fists and feet. Men were hurled to the ground, unconscious or stunned. But their surprise only lasted moments. As bullets snapped toward him, Anthony snatched a chunk of burning driftwood from the fire his opponents had been sitting around and whirled it about him like a weapon, driving back the closest of his attackers. As they stumbled and fell over each other in confusion, and their fellows snarled curses and tried to draw a bead on him, Anthony snatched up a second firebrand. With a flick of his wrist, he sent it skidding toward the miniature pyramid of badly stacked fuel drums.
The fire caught, but not as quickly as he’d hoped. Thinking quickly, Anthony hooked a dropped bottle of rotgut with his foot and kicked it into the air. He caught it and hurled it after the firebrand. Glass shattered and flames suddenly roared fully to life, consuming the shack. The fire began to spread quickly. As men shouted in alarm, Anthony moved toward the captive. Bullets plucked at the side of the shack as he darted behind it.
Anthony caught sight of Gentry squirming through the weeds nearby, covered in mud and sopping wet, and he allowed himself a moment of relief. He turned and grabbed hold of the side of the shack, boosting himself up toward the roof, where the prisoner was cursing virulently in Russian, as the eagles swooped at him. Anthony’s sudden appearance, burning torch in hand, drove the birds back and up into the air, where they circled, shrieking. He eyed them warily as he swiftly slit the bound man’s bonds. “Sergei Sirko?” he demanded. The man was old, with a scarred up lupine look to him that put Anthony in mind of sabre clashes and the rattle of rifle fire.
“Nyet, my name is Tornovsky. Who the devil are you?”
“Introductions later. Right now, go limp,” Anthony said. Before Tornovsky could protest, Anthony jabbed the torch down into the shack’s roof, grabbed him and rolled them both off of the roof and into the mud below. Anthony was on his feet a moment later, and he snatched the old man up and half-dragged him toward the rotting stretch of nearby dock. Without pause, he leapt into the water, pulling the old man with him. Tornovsky surfaced, sputtering. Anthony hauled him out into the water and toward the dock. He heard the boom of Gentry’s pistol, as his friend covered their departure. Anthony pulled Tornovsky beneath the sagging dock, trusting it to hide them from whoever was shooting. Anthony jammed his knife into one of the struts that held up the dock and forced Tornovsky to hold onto the hilt. “Stay here, hold tight, don’t move unless you absolutely have to.”
“Where are you going?” Tornovsky hissed.
“We need to get off this island. Stay here,” Anthony said. Then, without a backwards glance, he dove into the water and began to swim.
It didn’t take him long to reach the boat. He cranked it and cut through the water back toward where he’d left Tornovsky. Gunshots still punctured the night, but the fire was spreading, making a hash of any attempt by the kidnappers to rally. Fuel drums burst, careening into the sky only to tumble down into the mud. Outbuildings burned merrily as abandoned buckets of dried paint, bundles of rotting sail cloth, and piles of driftwood added fuel to the growing conflagration. As he eased the boat toward the dock, he could see the shadowy shapes of men running through the smoke, and he could hear them calling out to one another. He retrieved Tornovsky and his knife as Gentry splashed out to meet him, pistol in hand. The old man started violently, hands clenched and arms raised as if to defend himself, as Gentry clambered into the boat, but subsided when Anthony didn’t react. Anthony turned the boat toward the bay, and they quickly left Shooter’s Island behind.
“Introductions now, I think,” Tornovsky said, rubbing his wrists.
“You’re welcome, by the way,” Gentry said.
Tornovsky ignored him. “Who sent you?” he demanded. “Are you one of Comrade Stalin’s hunting hounds?”
“Not even close,” Anthony said, turning over control of the boat to Gentry. “My name is Jim Anthony. You may have heard of me,” he continued, without any trace of boastfulness. Tornovsky’s eyes widened slightly. Anthony nodded in satisfaction. “I came here on the trail of Sergei Sirko. You didn’t happen to see him, did you?”
“He’s dead,” Tornovsky spat.
Anthony flashed back to the mutilated corpse he’d found. “You’re sure?” he asked, hoping his instincts were wrong.
Tornovsky nodded and looked away. “The devil Koschei showed me what was left of him, to frighten me. But Cossacks do not frighten,” he said harshly.
“Koschei,” Anthony repeated. “That was the man in the coat?”
Tornovsky looked at him and nodded. “He will come after me.”
“Then we’ll need to make sure he can’t find you.”
“We going back to the Waldorf-Anthony?” Gentry asked.
“No, the Teepee,” Anthony said, referring to the hidden complex in the Catskills that Anthony occasionally retreated to for solitude, or, in some cases, for safety. The Teepee, and its southwestern cousin, the Pueblo, had started off as simple residences but over the course of Anthony’s career as a detective, had transmogrified into bastions from which Anthony could direct his agents and investigations. The former was reachable only from the air, or via numerous underground rail lines, known only to Anthony and his closest aides. As such, it was one of the safest places on the planet. “I’m taking no chances. I have a feeling we’ve stumbled onto something bigger than a simple kidnapping, and infinitely more deadly.”
7.
Somewhere over the Catskill Mountains
“Circle twice and then head for the hidden runway,” Anthony said, leaning over the back of the pilot’s seat as the Thunderbird II carved through the early morning air over the Catskills Mountains of southeastern New York toward the hidden refuge known as the Teepee. There was a runway approximately five miles from their current location, its reinforced length covered in a thin scrum of rock and soil in order to make it look like nothing more than another little-used mountain trail. Once down, the plane’s weight would activate the hydraulics beneath the end of the runway. A stiff curtain of camouflaged netting mounted on a slim whip frame would rise from either side of the plane and cover it in a loose ‘hangar’, which would hide it from prying eyes.
Gentry waved him away. “I know,” he said.
“The runway lig
hts should come on automatically. If they don’t, just hit the button,” Anthony said, motioning to the control panel of the plane.
“I know, I installed them, Jimmy,” Gentry said.
“The truck should be gassed up. Park it in one of the outbuildings, when you arrive at the Teepee,” Anthony said as he straightened. There was a small one vehicle underground garage hidden near the runway. It was just big enough to hold the sturdy little truck that Anthony employed to carry monthly supplies from the plane to the Teepee.
“I got it,” Gentry said. He twisted in his seat. “I’ve done this before. Would you just go already? We’re almost over the drop zone. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, you’re like a mother hen sometimes.”
Chastened, Anthony held up his hands in a gesture of surrender and backed out of the cockpit. Tornovsky, sitting in the cabin, looked up. “Where are you taking me?” he demanded. “I am not your prisoner! I thought you were rescuing me!” The old man hadn’t spoken much since they’d left the city, and what he had said had been mostly demands of one sort or another. He was a tough old bird, and had a casual arrogance that grated on Anthony’s nerves. Tornovsky, he judged, was a man used to command.
“The two things aren’t mutually exclusive,” Anthony said. He examined Tornovsky. “From what little I know, you did some very bad things, Mr. Tornovsky. An old wolf is still a wolf, despite the silver in his muzzle. Too, you’re my only lead as to what’s going on, and why Sergei Sirko died. So forgive me if I’m a bit cautious.” He reached up and grabbed one of the straps hanging from the reinforced rails running the length of the cabin and shoved it toward Tornovsky. “Here, hold this.”
Tornovsky made a face as Anthony turned from him and opened the cabin door and a howling wind suddenly filled the compartment. “What are you doing?” the old man bellowed, holding on to the safety strap Anthony had handed him for dear life. The wind plucked at his clothes and hair. “Are you mad?”
“Clinically or otherwise?” Anthony shouted back. He turned and stood in the doorway, arms outstretched, allowing the wind to wash over him. He closed his eyes, luxuriating in the moment. The cabin had pressurized quickly, and he was in no danger of being sucked out into the void. Below him the ragged escarpments of the mountains spread out like an eroded dome. The Catskills consisted of many round peaks, thickly forested and terminally rocky, thrusting up like the edges of jagged cracks in a once flat region.
He turned away from the vista reluctantly and snatched up two parachutes. “Have you ever used one of these before?” he asked. Tornovsky nodded. Anthony tossed him one. “Put it on,” he said.
“What? Where are we?” the old man demanded. He held the parachute as if it were a snake that he was worried might strike him. His wrinkled features were gray and drawn, and for a moment, Anthony wondered if the old man were about to succumb to a heretofore unmentioned aortic ailment.
“Someplace safe, provided you don’t stick the landing. Now put it on,” Anthony said.
Tornovsky did as Anthony bade, muttering under his breath throughout. When he had fastened the last strap, Anthony grabbed him and jerked him toward the open door. The old man balked. “Is this absolutely necessary?” he asked, somewhat plaintively.
“Yes,” Anthony said, before hurling him out into the void.
He followed Tornovsky a moment later. Anthony had made the dive many times, and it never failed to touch some primal well within him. He pressed his arms to his sides and cut through the roaring air like a knife. The horizon spread out around him with panoptical radiance, engulfing him in beauty and wonder. The ground and the sky spun crazily, joining and blending as he spiralled downwards. He could not restrain a bellow of laughter.
Tornovsky wasn’t enjoying himself as much as Anthony was. He squalled curses as he flailed through the air. Nonetheless, when Anthony signalled him, he readily pulled the parachute’s cord. Anthony did the same, and they drifted down toward the landing stage below. From above, the latter looked like nothing more than a grove of trees. In reality, it was an immense mesh of wires, covered in foliage. Anthony had gotten the idea from the high wire nets used by circus acrobats.
After they’d landed, Anthony hauled Tornovsky down out of the net, and hastened the man down the concealed iron ladder that led to the forest floor below. As they removed and bundled their parachutes, Anthony took a moment to inhale the air of the Catskills.
He paused. The cold air carried a familiar tangle of scents—peyote, animal fat, and tobacco. Anthony let out a breath and relaxed. “Hello, Grandfather. Out for your evening constitutional?” he asked as he turned to examine the weird figure which had detached itself from the trees and trotted silently toward them.
“No,” the wizened skeleton of a man said. Clad in trail worn buckskins, with his ice colored hair held out of his hatchet face by a snakeskin band, the old man was as dark as baked clay and as thin as straw, though his wiry limbs possessed an evident strength. He stalked forward and prodded Anthony with the barrel of the Winchester he carried. “Surprised you, eh? Snuck right up on you, like you didn’t know nothing,” he spat in obvious disgust. His eyes swept past Anthony and pinned Tornovsky, who flinched back from them and muttered a curse. “Who’s he?” Mephito asked.
“Someone we need to get under cover quickly.”
“You were followed?” Mephito’s disdain vanished, replaced by wariness.
“Not that I’m aware of,” Anthony said.
Mephito snorted. “I’ll check after you go down.” He prodded Anthony again with the Winchester. “Good to see you, Grandson.”
“And you, old man,” Anthony said. Mephito rarely visited the city, preferring the solitude of the Teepee, or the stark Southwestern isolation of the Pueblo. When he was staying at either, it was his habit to roam the wilds, like an untiring sentry. Mephito claimed that such wanderings were necessary to commune with the spirits of the world, the weather, and the wood. Anthony, while trained in the scientific method, had experienced Mephito’s frankly frightening extra-sensory abilities more than once and as yet had no explanation for them. Even Harry Houdini would have been hard pressed to explain away Mephito’s ‘spirits’.
They moved through the trees toward the entrance to the Teepee. The Teepee consisted of a thousand acres of prime Catskills real estate. Once, there had been a number of farms on those acres, and the sagging remnants of almost a dozen farmhouses and outbuildings still remained, slowly being reclaimed by nature. The Teepee, as it now stood, could only be reached by entering one of three of the aforementioned ruins, and descending into the root cellars, where an access hatch had been installed.
Anthony had considered simply knocking the three ruins down and building something more appropriate in their place, but was loath to do so until it was absolutely necessary. To do otherwise might endanger his privacy—something he valued more than all the wealth in the world. He had constructed the complex in absolute secrecy, flying in the materials or trucking them in by night, working with contractors who either could be trusted to keep mum or owed Anthony a debt. That said, when the ruins finally collapsed, he had a set of plans for a one story hunting lodge constructed from pine and maple knocking around his penthouse. While construction and structural design were not among those subjects he had mastered, Anthony was an enthusiastic amateur architect.
The cellar entry hatches were code-sealed, with a complex tumbler mechanism of Anthony’s own devising, and only one of the three could be unlocked per day. Which one depended on the seasons, the month, the year, and the day of the week, in a complex, ever-rotating cycle that only Anthony himself and his closest confidants were privy to.
Anthony motioned for Tornovsky to wait outside, under Mephito’s watchful eye, and entered one of the tottering houses. He passed through the kitchen, pausing only a moment to muse on what the family who had once occupied it were now doing—Brown, that had been their name. They had upped stakes not long after he’d bought his first fifty acres. The soil wasn’t good for crops.
He descended into the cellar and pulled aside a camouflaged tarpaulin, which hid the steel hatch. It resembled the door to a bank vault and rose from the dirt floor like a bubble of dark chrome.
Swiftly, he manipulated the tumbler lock, and then stepped back as the airtight seals deflated and a wash of cool air was released. He hauled the hatch open, and then went to get Tornovsky. He found the old man sitting on his haunches with his back to the wall of the farmhouse and his eyes locked on Mephito, who squatted nearby. The latter returned the other man’s glare placidly as his thin fingers stroked the barrel of his Winchester. “He tried to run,” he said, in reply to Anthony’s silent glance.
“I did not try to run,” Tornovsky barked angrily.
Mephito rose to his feet. He looked at Anthony and nodded once, gravely, and then turned and padded into the forest, vanishing as silently and completely as a ghost. Anthony knew without asking that Mephito would wait for Gentry and make sure that they hadn’t been followed. “Savage,” Tornovsky spat.
“My grandfather, actually,” Anthony said. Tornovsky looked at him.
“You are a savage too,” he said.
“Well, at least you’re consistent,” Anthony said. He grabbed Tornovsky’s arm. “Come on, let’s get you underground. We have a lot to talk about.”
Below the hatch in the cellar was an underground mansion the size of which would stun any casual visitor. It had taken him three years to carve it out of the rock and loam, and another two to complete construction on what Gentry, in a less than charitable moment, had described as an oversized bunker. The hatch concealed a tube of metal occupied by an iron ladder. At the bottom of the ladder was the entrance hall.
The entrance hall was constructed from flat, solid sheets of reinforced plastic set into a steel frame. Soil, rock, and the thick, powerful roots of the trees above could be seen on either side, above and below. It was an imposing sight, and one that more than a few visitors had allowed as making them feel as if they had been buried alive.
The New Adventures of Jim Anthony, Super-Detective Page 5