Then a new voice came from the stairwell in the floor. “Richard?”
“Bernie?” I asked, but I wasn’t surprised.
“Ayuh, Bernie.”
“What in the world are you doing down there with those . . . those, characters?”
“It’s a story which will take some time telling. And time is something that none of us have at the moment.”
“Is Heike Fuerst with you?”
I heard a muffled woman’s voice reply from the depths below. I assumed it was Heike’s.
“She and I were brought here,” said Bernie betraying some trepidation.
“What are—”
“Richard, if these men don’t get what they want, I think they aim to—”
“Secure,” interrupted Luger, “our interests by any means possible.”
His thinly veiled threat was clearly understood, but was he bluffing? That was the ten thousand dollar question at the moment. How could he possibly succeed?
“Luger, it would not be very smart to harm anyone. Diplomatic privileges won’t help you if you do.”
“I would not be so sure of that if I were you.”
“The real question is,” I snapped back, “are you sure that they will?”
I waited several seconds for a response, but none came. Instead, the sounds of harsh whispers followed by a strange, dull, diminishing scraping noise emanated from the bowels of Uncle’s pantry.
“All of you,” I called, “throw your weapons up to us and come up the ladder . . . slowly.”
From out of the blue, Firmino punched me in the upper arm while he angrily whispered, “Stupido!”—or something to that effect—“You tell people to throw loaded guns at us?”
“Not at us. Throw the guns out to us,” I said.
“No sane person throws loaded guns into the air because when the guns hit the ground, they might go off and shoot someone.”
As Firmino’s lesson on gun safety sank into my brain, a man’s head poked out from the opening in the floor. Raising his arm, he flung at us what, in that instant, looked like a small handgun. The object flew in our direction sending, Firmino and myself to hit the deck. Luckily, the flying object missed us and made a soft landing. Unluckily, its initial landing was Kyle’s nether regions.
“Ooooh,” gasped my brother, hitting the ground. “Right in the family jewels.”
During our confusion, an arm emerged from the portal, grabbed hold of the hatch, and slammed it shut.
Muttering all sorts of improprieties, I ran to the hatch in the floor, tugged at its handle. “I can’t open it. Damn!”
“Too bad,” whined Kyle sitting on the ground. With his gun beside him and one hand between his legs, he held up the offending projectile for us to see.
“How are you?” I asked.
“I’m good . . . I think,” replied Kyle between gasps. “That jerk threw a rusty L-bracket at me.”
“Well, no real harm was done. Now get yourself up. We have to stop Luger and his friends.”
Easier said than done. Kyle’s discomfort had, momentarily, diminished his ability to leverage himself to his feet.
“You and Firmino go chase after them,” said Kyle, grabbing his gun. “I’ll stay here and guard this entrance.”
“Chase after them, how?” said Firmino, looking confused.
“It’s a tunnel. Meet up with Luger the other end,” snapped back Kyle.
“And I know where it is,” I said confidently.
“Don’t waste time gloating,” growled Kyle. “I’ll stay here at this end. I’ll be fine. I have my gun, and like Chester, I know how to use it. Besides, Uncle Raymond has some interesting snacks on these shelves to keep me company. Now go!”
And we did.
Firmino and I ran out of the house as if it were on fire and headed for the old mansion ruins. Along the way, the familiar whomp-whomp sound of the Luger’s helicopter made its presence known. It lifted off and was heading to the ruins, making better time than we were.
“Run on ahead,” I yelled to Firmino, who was fitter and younger than I. “Go straight for those trees in front of us. That is where Luger and his buddies will be coming out of the tunnel. It’s in an old mansion’s basement. Luger can’t leave with those papers.”
“Papers?”
“The Stoner Papers were in the safe. Now go!”
“They were?”
“Never mind. Just go?”
And off he went, leaving me behind.
I had to slow my pace to a walk to catch my breath. I cursed as I watched the copter go below the tree line. My lungs gulped for more air as Firmino dashed into the woodsy overgrowth and disappeared.
“Dear God, that bastard Luger is going to get away!” I grumbled.
But my bout of despair was broken. Another familiar sound began to fill the air. My heart skipped as the approaching drum beats battled for dominance over the whomp and whine of the slowing rotor blades.
“Peterson and his blue clad-friends must be close,” I muttered as I forced myself toward the nearby trees.
Then came the announcement.
“Attention helicopter pilot, passengers, and crew,” declared Peterson over his car’s loudspeaker. “In the name of the county sheriff’s department, I order you to turn off your engine and vacate your vehicle with your hands on your head.”
“Well, there goes the possibility of keeping this affair quiet,” I complained while stopping for breath. Try as I could, I still couldn’t see where Peterson and company were; the trees blocked my view. So again, I pushed forward. With an added sense of urgency, I entered the woods and quickly came out at the other side onto the field.
With no leaves or branches in the way, I could plainly see that a line of four cannons had formed about four hundred yards away. From behind gun battery’s flanks, emerging from the darkness of the distant pine forest, double lines of armed blue soldiers marched in rhythm to drum beats. I was mesmerized watching undulating lines of men move forward as their polished bayonets on their rifles intermittently flashed in the bright autumn sun.
“Wow . . . It looks like Captain Tuthill had met up with the Vermont Horse Artillery,” I said as my judgment snapped back to the reality at hand. “Kyle and I have a real nightmare of troubles now.”
The soldiers on the left side of the cannons were joined by a dozen or so horsemen. Except for one person, the horsemen were in historical garb similar to their foot-traveling companions. Each cavalryman held a saber to his shoulder with one hand while the other held the reins. To the far right of the artillery pieces and the lines of men and horses was Peterson’s patrol car. With its red, blue, and white lights spinning and flashing, the vehicle looked as if it were an escort vehicle at a Veteran’s Day parade.
“I repeat for the last time,” demanded the deputy, “Turn off your aircraft’s motor and vacate the vehicle with your hands on your heads . . . or your craft will be destroyed.”
What? Did Peterson really believe he could bluff Luger or his henchmen into surrendering? Before I could calculate the deputy’s chances for success, a flash came from one of the distant cannons, instantly followed by a plume of smoke and then a boom. The sequence ended within seconds with a loud, dull thud and a pillar of earth springing up from the ground, about eight feet from the helicopter.
Shock and wonderment came over me like a bucket of ice water. “Those idiots are using real ammunition. My God, someone could get—”
A second flash appeared with another cloud of gray smoke, followed by another boom. Then—
Crash!
The noise sent me flopping to the ground with an indecorous expletive on my lips.
Regaining my wits, I saw that the second cannon’s projectile had ripped off the copter’s rear rotor. Shards of metal and fiberglass landed about me in every which way. I was scared, earth-stained, but I survived unharmed. Getting to my feet, I saw that the pilot and his companion also survived—thank God.
Apparently, the two were rattled, a
s I was, and hurriedly abandoned the copter, waving their hands to the heavens. “Don’t shoot! I surrender!” they yelled.“Don’t shoot!” A few yards away from the wreck, the poor fellows fell to their knees and awaited capture.
They didn’t have long to wait.
The second cannon volley must also have been the signal for Peterson’s army to advance. The first to spring into action was the cavalry. With swords gleaming, men shouting, and bugles blaring, the horsemen dashed across the field. Over grass, ruts, and scraggy bushes, they traversed the distance between them and their objective with thunderous sped. Not to be outdone, Tuthill’s infantry joined the charge at a brisk walk. And faster than you can say Ulysses S. Grant—at least a dozen times, or so—the frightened pair and the broken airship were engulfed in a tide of blue.
Amid all this craziness of bugle calls, smoke, and shouts, I, unexpectedly, heard my name called.
#
CHAPTER 36
“Richard.”
“Morgana?” I said as I saw her, on a horse, coming towards me. “What are you doing here?” I said, not hiding my disapproval. “You were to stay with the Mapledale’s out of harm’s way.” I stared at the giant head that had stopped a few feet away. “And where did you get him from?” I asked, pointing.
“Actually,” Morgana replied, ignoring my displeasure, “Shaftsbury is a she. And a very fine lady she is too. Aren’t you, my lovely?” Morgana bent forward and patted the animal on the side of its neck. “Yes, you are; yes, you are.”
“We’re not taking her home, are we?”
“No, I borrowed her, and I borrowed . . . this.” With a strange twinkle in her eye, Morgana pulled a saber from a scabbard strapped onto her hip. “What do you think?” she asked, poking the polished steel blade into the air with glee. “It’s real. Vintage 1863.”
“Yes, it’s a sword, very handsome. It must weigh a ton. Please, put it away.”
“Not as much as you would think,” said Morgana, obligingly sheathing the antique. “Trooper MacDowns was gracious enough to lend it to me as well as Shaftsbury. He unexpectedly needed to use the Mapledales,’ eh, facilities. The poor fellow’s IBS had succumbed to the authentic Civil War field rations. So with a bit of persuasion, I took his place.”
“You took his place . . . in Peterson’s traveling circus. Are you nuts? This is no place for you to play cowboys and cowgirls—”
“Well, I wasn’t going to let you get away with leaving me with the Mapledales. Don’t get me wrong. They are very nice people, but if I heard Doug Mapledale talk about his elusive catamount one more time, I would go crazy.”
“There may be more to his story than you think,” I muttered under my breath.
“You look like a mess. Are you okay? . . . Did you catch your bad guys?”
“I’m good,” I said, dusting myself off. “And no, we didn’t. But we did catch, with your new friends’ help, the bad guy’s helicopter.”
“I guess that’s something at least. You know, I was a little pissed about you disappearing. But Peterson filled me in about what had happened. He said that you and Kyle . . . Hey, where is Kyle?”
“The last I saw him, he was guarding Uncle’s pantry.” I started to feel a bit anxious.
“Why am I not surprised?” Morgan grimaced and shook her head.
“No, no, you’ve got it wrong. Kyle is making sure that Luger doesn’t get away through the hidden tunnel. I’m sorry, Love, but I—”
“Who is Luger?”
“Luger . . . the guy who had me kidnapped. The bad guy. Now, I really must go—”
“No, you don’t, Richard. You are not going off again and leaving me—”
“Hold that thought, Love.” I had just noticed that Peterson was out of his car and was talking to Captain Tuthill.
“—Peterson!” I called, waving.
Amid the swarm of men, horses, and a defunct helicopter, the deputy heard me. With an acknowledging wave back, the deputy abruptly left the captain and sprinted toward me with his patrol rifle in hand. “Dr. MacKenzie,” he hailed, “have you seen the Sheriff?”
“The last time I saw him, he was in my Uncle’s pantry.”
Peterson and Morgana rolled their eyes.
“Listen. Luger and company were in that old tunnel between my Uncle’s place and the old mansion ruins. I think that they were attempting to escape with the help of—”
“—the chopper.”
“Yes . . . I believe so.”
“And we fixed that, didn’t we?” Peterson said with glee.
“That you did and probably put us all into a bigger . . . fix. But that is a bridge to cross later. Right now, Kyle is guarding my Uncle’s end of the passage, and Firmino and I were on the way to the old mansion end. We may be able to trap them—”
“Richard!” interrupted Morgana. My wife’s attention was suddenly drawn to the direction of the ruins.
“What?”
“Listen, I think I heard someone scream.”
“A scream?”
And then we all heard a woman’s scream. It was quickly followed by an assortment of shouted expletives in English and what sounded like German, Italian, and Hungarian.
Asking no more questions, Morgana swiftly rode Shaftsbury straight to the bushes that surrounded the concrete pit that was the ruins of the old mansion. Peering through and over the wild green hedge, she yelled, “Your Vatican friend seems to be in trouble.”
Sprinting, Peterson and I soon caught up to her.
“How is he in trouble?” I asked, with no vantage point to view the commotion.
“I can’t see much, other than Bernie and Heike Fuerst are with him. They seem scared. Of what, I don’t know. I can’t see much through the leaves.”
Peterson and I painfully started to plow our way through the brambles and bushes. As thorns and spiky branches gave way to our persistent advance, we heard Firmino and Bernie Boxer arguing from a few yards off.
“Ladies, don’t move. Stay where you are! Don’t turn your back on it.” The tenseness of Firmino’s voice revealed a high degree of urgency. “If that thing believes that we mean it no harm, he may go away.”
“Really! You think so?” said Boxer in a hash stage whisper. “That thing just ripped a man’s throat open.”
When Peterson and I reached the edge of the mansion’s basement, we saw the reason for Firmino’s and Bernie’s concern. Standing amid the ruins below, on a mound of charred bricks and debris, two hundred pounds of extinction was lording over the corpse of one Luger’s cohorts. Who it was, I couldn’t tell. The unfortunate’s body was sprawled, face down, and covered in blood at his killer’s feet. The predator, not satiated with its kill, snarled belligerently while eyeing Firmino, Bernie, and Heike.
“My Lord,” gasped Peterson, “I had hoped that it was true. That really is a—”
“Catamount,” I blurted in amazement. “Mapledale was right.” I had suspected as much back at Pohl’s Table, but I never imagined creature would be the monstrous thing that stood a few yards away.
“Hello, Mister Deputy,” called Firmino from the concrete pit, “can you shoot the puma from where you are?”
“What was that?” answered Peterson, looking a bit startled.
“Can you get a good shot at the puma from where you are?”
“A good shot? Oh no, I can’t shoot it,” replied the deputy, quite apologetically. “No, no, no, it’s an endangered animal. It’s a state mascot of sorts. I can’t kill it. Maybe we can chase it away.”
“Peterson,” countered Bernie, who was standing next to Heike and behind Firmino, “that cat just killed a man. Just shoot the damn thing!”
Peterson stammered. He looked as lost and as a nun in a European sex shop. He looked to me for guidance; then, he looked back at the creature in the pit.
“Why don’t you shoot it?” I shouted to Firmino.
“Regretfully, I don’t have my gun.”
“Where’s your gun?” I said, keeping a watchful eye
on the great cat.
“As people say, that’s an interesting but embarrassing story.”
“His gun,” interjected Bernie, pointing to the lifeless body, “is somewhere under . . . him!”
At this time, the wild cat had taken exception to our conversation. It began to snarl and growl more loudly. The predator’s eyes were fixated on Firmino, Bernie, and Heike while it slowly crouched down on all fours. I feared an attack was imminent. Time had run out for a peaceful resolution.
“Damn it, Peterson,” I thundered.
The deputy froze, flummoxed.
Indecision was not going to rule the day if I could help it. I grabbed the M1 carbine from the deputy, and I took the shot.
Of course, being a person not practiced in the use of firearms, my shot went a little off its mark. The bullet ricocheted off a broken slab of concrete that protruded from beneath the catamount’s perch. The wayward slug then slammed through the remains of an old glass windowpane, shattering it into pieces, and ended its journey by banging into a half-buried washbasin. The sudden cacophony from the discarded objects and debris startled the menacing creature and sent it running in full retreat. In a blink of an eye, the wild cat escaped into the invisibility provided by the surrounding brush.
I let go a deep sigh, and I returned the gun to Peterson. With one problem taken care of, I turned my attention to those down in the mansion ruins.
“Are you three okay?” I asked.
They were. The trio may have been a bit unnerved, but they were unharmed.
“And Luger? Where is he?”
“Luger went back into the tunnel,” said Firmino as he moved toward the catamount’s victim. “He is returning to the house.”
With displeasure written on his face, Firmino rolled the body over onto its back with his foot. “Luger and his men ‘got the jump on me’ as you Americans say. This fellow took my gun. As our friends were making their escape to the helicopter, there suddenly was a loud boom. By the sound, Luger knew his craft was damaged. So, as he and his escort were taking us back into the tunnel, the puma leaped out from nowhere. Luckily, the cat attacked Luger’s friend and not me.” Firmino reached down and retrieved his weapon using only his fingertips.
The Hotspur Affair: A Richard & Morgana MacKenzie Mystery Page 32